Sherlock Holmes and The Nine-Dragon Sigil

Chapter IX I am Shown the Giant Jade Seismograph

The Empress Dowager arrived precisely on time. She had changed her headdress. It was an exquisite example of Chinese decoration, the small phoenixes emerging from the surface representing Royalty while countless pearls and gemstones marked her as the highest-ranking woman in Chinese society.

We entered the Hall of Martial Valour complex and were led by the Empress Dowager’s jaunty new favourite Pekingese ‘Hailo’ past a bronze seated figure of Zhenwu, the Supreme Emperor of the Dark Heaven, into the Hall of Bathed Virtue. The room was tiled, with the well, boiler and pipes of a Turkish-style bathing facility, lit by enormous candles of walrus fat and owl-shaped lamps containing sufficient oil of dolphins to keep the wick alight for two hundred years. Wrought enamelled vases held bouquets of jewelled flowers. Sculpted images were scattered around the room, some in straw capes and bamboo hats, others in full armour. One wore the garb of a Confucian student. Disconcertingly one of a row of nine medium-sized grey parrots on a long perch just inside the entrance blinked at me. I had assumed from their rigidity and silence they were made of clay.

I was brought to a glass-fronted cupboard filled with objects accumulated over several Dynasties. ‘The Cabinet of Resurrectionism,’ the Empress Dowager told me. The upper shelf held a Short Snouted Seahorse tooth, a Woolly mammoth thoracic vertebra, a large coprolite of a carnivorous dinosaur discovered by a Professor Xu Xing, purportedly from the recently-named Tyrannosaurus rex, and a Chinese bronze astronomical mirror, cast around the centre with 12 shallow discs surrounded by an eight-pointed circle representing the periods of the solar year.

The Empress Dowager pointed to the far end of the Hall, at an immense block of ornamental rock about five feet in height. The elaborately carved circumference depicted jade being transported from its native mountains.

‘That’s what I’ve brought you here to show you,’ she said, inviting me forward. ‘The eunuchs call it the Magic Mirror.’

The ‘magic mirror’ was a cistern full to the brim with water, with a golden cup and chain attached. She waved her hand over the placid surface, alarming some dozen golden fish expecting to be fed.

‘Nobody except me dares enter here,’ she remarked. ‘Not because I have so commanded but because of this water-bowl.’

A six-inch long fingernail tapped at the jade sides.

‘The people say it is the haunt of Erlang Shen,’ she continued, ‘the god with a truth-seeing eye in the middle of his forehead. The people say I only have to oblige someone to drink the Water of Truth and he cannot help confessing. Even the threat of being brought here has elicited confessions. Others believe it is watched over by a ghost we call Yuán gui, the spirit of a person who died a wrongful death. They say the Emperor Xianfeng, my deceased husband whose bowl this was, was held face-down in the water and drowned. Such ghosts roam the world of the living as depressed and restless spirits, constantly seeking to have their grievances redressed.’

She dipped the gold drinking vessel into the water and handed it to me.

‘I see by your silence this must be nonsense to you. You in the West are losing your belief in spirits. What do you suppose I really use it for?’

I had seen similar though far less ornate water-tanks in India, made from simple sheets of lead.

‘To cool the hall in summer?’ I offered.

‘You were present at the Battle of Maiwand, isn’t that so?’ she asked,

‘I was, yes,’ I replied.

I was surprised the Empress Dowager had heard of the battle. It took place in the summer of 1880 to the west of Kandahar. The wound I received from a muzzle-loading Jezail bullet at that terrible event forced a monumental change in my life.

‘How many cavalry did your enemy possess?’ the Empress Dowager pursued.

I replied, ‘Three thousand.’

‘And the ground shook long before they were upon you?’ my host continued.

I nodded.

‘Yes. The ground shook as though a great earthquake was taking place right under the mountains around us.’

Her finger dipped into the still water in the jade cistern. Tiny circles radiated from it.

‘For my birthday celebrations five years ago,’ she continued, ‘I had ten thousand Manchu horsemen conduct a mock battle against each other at the West Gate. The vibration of the water in the Magic Mirror informed me within seconds of the start. At that same moment an outrider was dispatched to inform me. Even by the most direct route, at full tilt, it took him twenty minutes.’

She went on, ‘Just before that an enemy invaded the city. I had to flee this Palace. I was lucky not to have been killed. A look-alike was designated to sit on my throne ready to commit suicide to confuse the attackers, dressed in clothes and jewellery identical to mine. She had no time to do so. That twenty minutes would have given her time to swallow the opium and me adequate time to make my get-away.’

We had known in Europe for some years that horizontal pendulums can detect waves from large earthquakes halfway around the world within 12 to 17 seconds. Far from being the well-spring of mysterious voices from the Other World or the lair of a Truth god, the jade cistern was a gigantic seismograph.

She held up her hands, fingers up stretched.

‘The Imperial Bodyguard was composed of the Regiment of the Divine Mechanism, and the Tiger Spirit Regiment - both Manchu Regiments - but I knew neither was likely to make a stand against a determined enemy. I cut off my long nails. I fled without most of my jewels. My soothsayers tell me one day another enemy will return to the outskirts of the city in the night, ready to charge the moment the sun comes up. I come here to feed the fish and study the Magic Mirror’s surface every day at dawn, the time an attack would start. The vibrations will give me just enough warning to get away.’

I put the golden cup back on the cistern.

‘Now tell me, Dr Watson,’ the Empress Dowager asked, pointing at the water, ‘has Sir Sherlock found any sign of a plot against me? You have drunk from the pool of Erlang Shen. You are compelled to tell the truth!’

‘I can tell you without peradventure, Madame,’ I replied, with a slight bow, ‘neither Sir Sherlock nor I have found any sign whatsoever of a plot against Your Imperial Majesty.’

‘What about the Emperor?’

‘Nor against the Emperor, I assure you,’ I replied. ‘In fact, with your permission we plan to leave your country soon. Sir Sherlock becomes easily bored when he doesn’t have a gripping case in hand. He thinks it’s time he returned to tend to his bees.’

We were turning to leave when a dust-covered apparatus to one side of the hall came to my attention, a cast-iron penny arcade machine.

‘I say,’ I burst out at the familiar object, ‘isn’t that a ...’

‘It’s a...’. The Empress Dowager hesitated, forming the unusual word carefully. ‘Mu-to-scope.’

I was familiar with the Mutoscope from youthful visits to seaside piers. Drop a penny in the slot and spin a handle which turned a wheel carrying up to 680 photographic prints in a flip-book. Each photograph was in full view until it was pushed forward by the force of the flicker-cards compressed behind it.

With a noticeable frisson she added, ‘We call it the lantern of fright. It can make people appear or disappear. It projects spooky images that look like apparitions. That’s why it has been left here. No-one dares go near it, not even to destroy it.’

She continued, ‘It’s said that in evil hands it can make Dynasties fall and create new ones to take their place. In the hands of bad people...’ again, with a shudder, she spelt out the syllables carefully, ‘...Mu-to-scopes can bring the spirits of people long dead back to life. It tortures them by obliging them to repeat again and again and again, in exact detail, actions they undertook in life.’

She pointed to a pile of flicker-books on a small table at the Mutoscope’s side.

‘Those boxes. If you don’t believe me,’ she said imperiously, ‘take a look for yourself!’

I took one and placed it in the machine. Our late great Queen Victoria and other dignitaries were drawing up in a carriage outside a grand building. A young woman came down the steps to present the Empress of India with a bouquet of flowers.

‘You see why people fear that contraption!’ exclaimed the Empress Dowager. ‘The bouquet of flowers - is alive! Yet we know they must long since have lost their bloom and returned to the earth. Your Queen - alive! But you and I know she died six years ago. She would now be mere bones yet that box has captured her soul. It can make her draw up in that carriage again and again, for ever. How can she go to the after-life when her soul has been trapped in this infernal machine!’

‘Madame,’ I replied, sensing an opportunity to relieve the tedium of the remaining evenings, ‘Sir Sherlock and I would appreciate the opportunity to view the rest of these boxes. Is there a chance...?’

‘The contraption will be delivered to your rooms,’ came the response, ‘together with a hammer. When you have finished destroy it. No one in all Peking dares to raise a hand against it - even at my command.’

At the exit, as though recognising we were speaking English, the nine parrots opened their black bills and in unison - in English - squawked ‘Hear And Obey!’

Back at my rooms I picked up the copy of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and flipped through the pages. Mycroft Holmes had underlined several of the Red Queen’s dramatic exclamations to a startled Alice.

The first was, ‘In the wrong hands, you’d be surprised what magic can do.’

This was followed by ‘How would you like to have your head hacked off?’

And lastly, ‘There’s no use trying,’ Alice said; ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’

The following morning my medical services were called upon in a most unexpected way, not at the make-shift clinic among the clocks but at the Emperor’s Palace. I dropped in on Holmes to tell him about it. Although it was by now mid-day my comrade was still in his purple dressing-gown, seated cross-legged on a hard, flat cushion covering a kang, a long rectangular fireproof brick structure the height of a bed. A small writing-table had appeared, equipped with ‘the Four Treasures’: a bamboo-and-sheep-hair brush-pen, a compact black ink-stick, a pile of white blotting-paper and an ink-stone. Ancient Egypt was engaging his interest. Not content with learning the six fiendishly difficult types of Chinese logographs, the book he held indicated he was now deep into the Coptic script.

A hand appeared from one side of the book waving me to a sofa.

‘I trust your morning has been of interest?’ I ventured.

He continued to attend to matters Coptic.

With a soupçon of self-importance I said, ‘Certainly mine has been of great interest. I have just returned from treating a patient.’

‘Indeed?’ came the muffled reply. ‘How unusual for a medical doctor. Did you know that Coptic and Demotic Egyptian are grammatically closely related to Late Egyptian?’

‘A rather important patient,’ I retaliated.

I waited a moment or two.

‘My patient,’ I added, ‘was the ninth Ch’ing emperor to rule over China.’

My comrade managed another ‘Indeed?’ without a sideways or downward movement of the book.

‘Yes, the Kuang-hsü Emperor himself,’ I continued.

The book moved sideways a fraction.

‘I deduce,’ Holmes responded, ‘you intend to throw aside all concern for your Royal patient’s confidentiality. Given the undeniable truth of the Watson family byword, that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, I shall ask for what ailment?’

‘A broken eardrum,’ I replied. ‘Suffered only this morning. Aboard his steam launch. Luckily my otoscope survived the long journey here. I’ve patched up the ear with cotton-wool and a bandage and told him to rest for a few days.’

I related how a young eunuch wearing the crystal button and feather of the fourth rank had arrived at the end of my morning surgery. The Emperor needed me at once. A covered litter waited in a nearby alley to take me incognito to his Palace. Secrecy was enhanced by a long, heavy, white silk Chinese gown to cover my European clothes and a hat with an attached false pigtail.

‘I felt like a Jesuit,’ I joked.

I described how I had worried that if the Son of Heaven’s sudden affliction meant he was beyond remedy, western medicine would be held to blame if he passed on to the Nine Springs on my watch. Instead, I had found the slight and elegant, if dishevelled figure lying on a splendid couch inlaid with cloisonné, both hands cupped around an ear. The young eunuch was winding the royal pig-tail around the Emperor’s head to keep his hair out of the way for my inspection. When his master turned his head completely around I saw the whole of one side of the face was scorched. Small pieces of black feathers had attached themselves to skin and hair.

‘Holmes,’ I continued, ‘you’d never guess in a thousand years how his ear came to be ruptured.’

My old comrade had a clutch of ways to pull down the house curtain when he wished to be left alone. He murmured, ‘Good of you to warn me, Watson. I doubt if I shall live that long. You have saved me that much time trying to think up the answer.’

The book on Coptic script moved back into place.

I eased myself forward from the comfortable sofa and stood up. With Holmes in such a non-communicative mood there was nothing else for it but to return to my own quarters and continue writing up my Nature notes for Sir Edward Grey. I wouldn’t need to see the Emperor for a day or two. The bandage should help keep the eardrum dry and ward off infection. At most he would suffer hearing loss in the damaged ear until the membrane re-sealed.

At the door I mused aloud, ‘The Emperor suffering a broken eardrum is quite a coincidence. He’s the second such patient in as many days. I’ve never attended two patients for this affliction so close together, other than in battle.’

The book fell forward.

‘A second person?’ Holmes asked. ‘Tut, tut, Watson! Why didn’t you tell me this immediately?’

‘No more than an odd coincidence,’ I protested.

‘Odd coincidences should be noted with special attention,’ came the instant reply. ‘Tell me more.’

The sudden interest took me aback. Was this Holmes at his sardonic worst?

Warily I repeated, ‘Two in as many days. Yesterday I treate done of the small eunuchs for exactly the same trauma.’

‘How did it come about?’ Holmes asked, with a keen look. ‘The eunuch’s injury.’

‘A sharp cuff for misbehaving. People don’t realize how easy it is to...’

‘And the Emperor?’ Holmes interrupted. ‘How was his eardrum broken?’

‘He was attacked by a crow.’

Holmes brow furrowed.

‘How exactly would a crow... I presume the fellow didn’t let a crow sit on his shoulder and peck through an eardrum?’

‘An exploding crow. No doubt launched by misguided youths. For amusement the young eunuchs trap crows and attach exploding bamboos to the birds’ legs,’ I explained. ‘‘Exploding bamboos’ is their name for firecrackers. The fuse is lit and the crow released. The wretched animal thinks it’s free and flies straight up into the air. When it gets to about sixty yards into the sky the firecracker detonates, blowing it to pieces. It crashes to the ground, followed by a shower of black feathers. I saw one dispatched this way the other day.’

‘If the crow flies straight up...’ Holmes began, ‘...how did the one which attacked...?’

‘In the Emperor’s case it didn’t fly upwards. It flew straight to him and landed on his shoulder at the very moment the firecracker went off.’

As I spoke the words ‘the firecracker went off’ Holmes’s lips tightened. His nostrils quivered.

‘And you say the eunuch’s eardrum was broken by a hard cuffing. Do you know who administered it?’

‘The E-D’s Chief Eunuch Li Lien-ying.’

Like a spring uncoiling Holmes leapt off the kang. He snatched his outdoor cape from the hat-stand.

‘Watson,’ he shouted, ‘take me to the Emperor - at once!’

I snorted.

‘My dear fellow, ‘I told him, ‘I realize you’ve been hanging around a lot, waiting for something to happen, but for heaven’s sake don’t start clutching at straws. If the crow was meant to kill the Son of Heaven, I can tell you in two words why it would have to be a plot devized by the most incompetent assassins in all history!’

‘And those two words?’

‘Black powder. The firework was filled with black powder. That alone militates against an assassination plot. Most of China’s assassins have been trained by Russian anarchistsin Białystok bomb laboratories. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of explosives knows black powder creates a powerful blast of air - enough to break an eardrum - but it would never have sufficient explosive force to kill.’

‘Watson,’ came the sharp reply, ‘by now you should know there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. If I can question the Emperor we may hit upon other ‘obvious facts’ which may by no means have been evident to you.’

At this he swept out of the door.

I called out, ‘Aren’t you a little quick in forming your conclusions? And shouldn’t you change your clothing? That dressing-gown is sticking out from under your cape.’

The words came back, ‘I repeat, Watson, take me to the Emperor - into your coat and come!’ followed by ‘I need to hear the man’s own account of the matter.’

With excitement in his voice, those familiar ever-wonderful words came floating back: ‘Methinks at last the game’s afoot!’