Sherlock Holmes and The Nine-Dragon Sigil

Chapter XIII A Matter of Which Poison

I returned to Holmes’s make-shift laboratory after my morning stint at the surgery to find him examining a toadstool. He had tested the pulverised toad and found it lacking in any toxin. Wang had now secretly purchased examples of China’s most toxic plants, including our old friend Amanita phalloides, the Deathcap. The fatality rate for Amanitin poisoning was about 50%. A single ounce or half a cap was enough to kill. No matter on which Continent it’s found, the infamous Deathcap is the most poisonous fungus known to Man. The all-white version in Holmes’s hand was known as the ‘East Asian Destroying Angel’.

Holmes held it up.

‘As you well know, Watson, the mycotoxins in this have been involved in the majority of human deaths from mushroom poisoning, possibly including the deaths of Roman Emperor Claudius and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.’

Holmes took a vial from the bench.

‘This vial contains a sample of my own blood.’

He cut away a portion of the cotton swab retrieved from the Emperor’s ear, dropping a small piece into the test-tube and shook it gently, holding it up to the light. The three of us watched intently. If the poison was from the deadly fungus, the fresh blood would almost at once turn into a clear, transparent liquid.

‘Watson, you will have done this a hundred times in India, no doubt,’ Holmes murmured.

I nodded assent. As a medical officer in India alongside Surgeon-Major Alexander Francis Preston I grew skilled at performing post-mortems when poisoning was suspected.

Five seconds went by. Again Holmes shook the vial. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. The blood stayed bright red.

‘Nothing!’ I exclaimed.

Holmes put the vial down. He muttered with an air almost of satisfaction, ‘They are as diabolically clever as I thought. I didn’t expect them to use the Deathcap. The toxin is so powerful the Emperor could be found dead even before the assassins had time to return to their lairs. If they’re as cunning as I believe them to be, they would want a poison to take several days to do its deadly work. Otherwise why merely shatter an eardrum in the first place? Their plan would work best if the Emperor’s manifestations were indistinguishable from symptoms of natural illness.’

We still lacked the one detail we required to prove our case. Where could the poison have come from? To see Holmes baffled was a novelty. His knowledge of pharmacology was immense. When the Royal Society of Chemists welcomed him into their ranks he entertained the audience by remarking wryly, ‘We English are especially famed for our love of churchyards and country gardens, habitats rich in snowdrops, monkshood and foxgloves, plants whose neurotoxins and cell toxins are so utterly deadly they are known in the criminal world as the impecunious assassin’s heart-stoppers. I have on occasion made a very good living from their improper use, though not by me, of course. You may enjoy reading my friend Dr. Watson’s chronicle on the Camberwell Poisoning Case.’

Holmes pointed at a book lying open on a chair. ‘I’ve been going through Instructions to Coroners written by Song Ci. Our friend Wang here has translated it for us. Song Ci has a way with words. You would learn something for crafting your chronicles from the first sentence alone. Will you, please, Watson?’

I read out, ‘For those who die of poisoning, their orifices open, their face turns greenish black or green, their lips go purplish green, their nails appear dark green, and blood spews out of their mouth, eyes, ears, and nose.’

Frowning, I asked Wang, ‘When was Instructions To Coroners published - recently?’

‘Not so recent, Dr. Watson,’ he replied. ‘About seven centuries ago.’

‘Have a look at the section on the ‘three-laugh death powder’,’ Holmes said. ‘It’s rumoured to be undetectable. There’s just the one symptom - the victim dies after giving an eerie, sardonic grin three times. My other favourite is titled ‘Meets blood and seals throat’. The toxin from the antiaris toxicaria tree is found mostly in the provinces of Yunnan and Hainan. Once you’re infected with the poison you can only take seven steps forward or eight steps back before death.’

Holmes placed a vial on the Bunsen burner.

‘We’ll be in difficulty if we can’t discover which toxin they used. We won’t be able to pin the assassination attempt on a specific person.’

He reached out to a small handful of fragrant, fleshy, pale-pink, tubular flowers.

‘Winter Daphne. I’ve already tested it. None of these other native plants matches the toxin on the cotton plug either.’

With something approaching despair in his voice, he said, ‘Have we at last been defeated, Watson? If so, it will be very hard to bear.’

It was late evening. I was again deep into The Mystery of the Ocean Star. Out there, alone in the ocean, lay a mysterious ship, apparently abandoned.

‘She was rolling to the run of the swell, and the swinging of the canvas flung a hurry of shadowing over her... what was to be made of the mystery of a vessel that exhibited the most certain signs imaginable of human life being aboard, and that was yet as tenantless as a newly dug grave? There was the galley fire burning, there had been the saucepan bubbling and the fowl boiling, and the slush-lamp in the forecastle flaming.’

Holmes burst into my rooms. There was a palpable air of excitement about him, a striking contrast with his subdued expression a few hours earlier.

‘Watson,’ he cried, ‘Do you still have the reply from Mycroft - in which the General’s chauffeur detailed the journey between Brighton and the sons’ school - Buckler’s Hard and so on?’

I struggled up.

‘Look Holmes,’ I groused, ‘I read it out to you yesterday, word for word.’

‘Answer my question, please, Watson,’ came the reply.

Reluctantly I pointed to the hat-rack.

‘You’ll find the telegram in the inside pocket of my coat.’

He retrieved the piece of paper and brought it close to the lantern. His body went rigid.

‘Watson,’ he cried. ‘We have him! I believe we have him!’

He held up the piece of paper accusingly.

‘You failed to read out the most important information of all!’

I cudgelled my brains to find some possible fact he was referring to.

I protested, ‘I’m sure I gave you anything which could in any way be relevant to your case.’

In a veritable frenzy of excitement my comrade shook the piece of paper at me.

‘Yuán’s stroll in the New Forest! You didn’t mention Yuán’s stroll in the New Forest! It says, ‘At Buckler’s Hard he went for a quick stroll in the nearby woods’. Really, Watson, if we are to continue working together you must...’

Angrily I interrupted, ‘For Heaven’s sake, Holmes, of course I didn’t bother to read that out. ‘He went for a quick stroll in the nearby woods’ - so what? I thought it could embarrass the General. The New Forest is quite some way from Brighton. There were no lavatories around. I doubt if they carried a jordan in the vehicle. He’s not a young man. I assumed by then he needed to relieve himself.’

‘Well, well, no matter,’ my comrade exulted, ‘things are turning a little in our direction at last. We are almost ready to invite the General to the première of your Aeroscope Productions.’

I scrutinized the dancing figure before me.

‘Holmes, someone deciding to take a stroll in the woods before continuing a lengthy drive to Sherborne hardly merits this bee-dance you’re performing - let alone all this telegraphic traffic between China and England?’

‘Not ‘someone’, Watson. General Yuán. General Yuán took the stroll into the forest. And yes, ‘all this telegraphic traffic’ was worth it - precisely because of his stroll. Now we can spring the trap!’

And with that, with not a word of explanation, he was gone.

I picked up The Ocean Star from the floor but the time to read was past. My thoughts kept straying to the tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole of Holmes’s ‘plot’ had become.

I was not looking forward to a confrontation. I would do as Holmes counselled and come with the top-breaker pistol after slipping in the safety catch. The .476 calibre bullet could stop a charging boar in its tracks. I retained considerable feelings of warmth towards the General despite the ruthless way he dominated his officers and men. I liked his engaging candour. I felt the camaraderie military men develop for each other. He had treated my report with professional respect. Yet there was the incontrovertible evidence of the Aeroscope, albeit countered by the fact we had as yet failed to identify the liquid soaking through the cotton earplug.

To steady my nerves I opened my wardrobe. I could choose the Morning dress, my last purchase before embarking on my long journey, or if the confrontation was delayed into the evening, the more formal frock-coat. I settled on the single-breasted cheviot Morning coat. My tailor had urged an elegant shade of iron-grey to go with the striped spongebag trousers, the waistcoat slightly lighter in colour. And a grey silk Ascot and tie tack.

General Yuán arrived at the suggested time. He came alone. Holmes invited him to take a seat on a tall stool at the Mutoscope. Smiling broadly the General told us he was quite conversant with these machines. He had spent an hour on the Palace Pier at Brighton putting coppers into coin-in-the-slot peep-shows. Especially, he said, eyes twinkling, ‘What The Butler Saw’.

To which Holmes replied, ‘General, I think you will find this show almost as entertaining.’

In jovial mood our guest bent over the device. At the turn of the handle, the flicker-cards began a rapid click. Appreciative noises accompanied the first sequences - the Camel’s-Back Bridge, the Marble Boat with the Empress Dowager waving from the upper deck, holding a then-living Shadza. The clicking of the wheel slowed. Holmes murmured sotto voce, ‘He’s arrived at the orchard scene with the Emperor asleep under the pipa tree.’

As though presenting a Magic Lantern travelogue, Holmes commented aloud, ‘Next, General, you see Chief Eunuch Li coming into view. Note the little jar in his hand. Is that someone coming into view behind him? So it is - it’s Her Imperial Majesty stepping cautiously through the pomegranate trees. And behind her? Why, no-one in the whole of China would have any trouble recognising him - it’s General Yuán.’

Holmes’s voice changed to fake alarm.

‘Now Li is creeping up to the sleeping Emperor. What in Heaven’s name is Li doing? He’s lifting up the bandages. He looks back at Her Imperial Majesty. She beckons him to go ahead. He’s dripping the contents of the jar into the Son of Heaven’s ear. Now Li pats the bandage back in place. He rejoins the General and the Empress Dowager. You congratulate him, General. The Empress Dowager is giving one last backward look at the sleeping Emperor. All three of you make your stealthy exit.’

My comrade ended on a poetic note:

‘Once more the Emperor is alone with his dreams and the birds.’

The clicking of the cards stopped. The stool crashed backwards. Our guest straightened up. His eyes narrowed. He stared from Holmes to me and back as if at alarming apparitions. The atmosphere had turned ugly.

‘Gentlemen, what’s all this about?’

Holmes responded, ‘General, isn’t it remarkable how similar this sequence is to a scene in a certain William Shakespeare play? The Tragedy of Hamlet. Act 1, scene 5. As the King lay sleeping in an orchard, the murderer poured poison into his ear. Wouldn’t you agree the mastermind of this assassination plot must be conversant with the great Bard’s play?’

Holmes added as though in an aside to me, ‘But how could this be, Watson? No-one in China could be familiar with the plot in Hamlet. Plays showing the murder of a monarch, fictitious or not, are strictly forbidden in the Chinese Empire.’

Yuán stepped away from the Mutoscope, his face twisted into a scowl.

‘Gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘very clever. Very clever indeed! Sir Sherlock, you have lived up to your reputation. I had thought... but that can wait.’

The scowl disappeared to be replaced by a seductive grin.

‘I’m sure we can come to an arrangement!’

I heard Holmes ask, ‘First of all, General, is it too late to save the Kuang-hsü Emperor?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ came the reply. ‘Even as we speak his organs are being destroyed. Two or three days and he will be no more.’

He placed a hand on top of the Mutoscope. A sly look had come into his eyes.

‘Sir Sherlock, you could have passed this to the Reformists in Shanghai. You haven’t done so. Perhaps you and Dr. Watson have something else in mind? If it’s wealth you want, I can make you the richest men in England. Richer than your King. Simply hand me this flicker-book and go home. Forget all about it. Name your price and camel-loads of treasures from the Emperor’s Palace will be yours for the taking - blood-red rubies from Burmah, Indian sapphires, rings and bracelets of Imperial Jade, 3,000-year-old artefacts from Sanxingdui of gold, bronze, ivory...’

‘My dear General,’ Holmes interrupted, ‘we wouldn’t dream of allowing you to loot the Emperor’s treasures. The Emperor might well object.’

‘If so, he won’t object for long!’ came the almost triumphant reply. ‘Her Imperial Majesty is already ordering altars to be set up all across the Empire for people to pray for the Emperor’s health and full recovery but he’s as good as...’

Holmes interrupted, ‘...dead? So you say. But is he?’

‘How do you mean?’ Yuán replied, tapping the Mutoscope. ‘You saw Li pour the poison into his ear! Within minutes it would have seeped through the broken...’

‘General,’ I intervened, ‘cast your mind back. Did Li pour the contents of the jug into the right or the left ear?’

The General replied impatiently, ‘The damaged one, of course.’

‘Which was?’ I asked.

The General laughed.

‘His left ear, of course!’

He pointed at me.

‘You should know! The one covered by your bandages. We didn’t have to be a second Sir Sherlock to...’’

‘My comrade bandaged an ear, certainly,’ Holmes interrupted again, ‘but that’s where your plot unravels. It was perfectly reasonable to take it for granted the firecracker shattered the ear beneath the bandage. In fact it was a little trap of ours. The bandage was placed over the good ear, not the one damaged by the blast. There was no way the poison could trickle into your victim’s gullet and do its work.’

The General was now confronting us like an animal at bay. The veins stood out like whipcord in his sinewy neck. His face glistened with sweaty moisture, as though freshly raised from a water-basin.

‘A trap?’ he snarled. ‘Nevertheless you can’t prove what the jar contained. I was just joking about poison. I can assure you it was a balm to help speed...’

‘Wrong again,’ Holmes broke in.

My comrade reached into a pocket and brought out the glass tube containing the small wad of cotton. He spoke in the quietest and most matter-of-fact tone.

‘This was retrieved from the Emperor’s left ear, the one Li poured your ‘balm’ into. Enough of the liquid soaked into it for investigation. I have made an analysis of its chemistry. The tubers, stems, and leaves of the plant the plotters used contain one of the most deadly toxins ever created by Nature.’

‘Even so,’ snapped the General, stabbing a finger at the cotton wad, ‘unless you can connect that plant to anyone, you have no evidence to prove I had anything...’

Holmes riposted, ‘But my dear General, we can trace it to someone...’

‘...and we have,’ I interposed.

At my words our guest’s face flushed and darkened. I expected him to say ‘Et tu, Brute?’. I reached a hand nervously into my pocket and fiddled with the pistol’s safety-catch.

Yuán blustered, ‘Confirm the regicide behind this fiendish plot, the one who switched the balm for the poison, and I assure you he’ll get the punishment he...’ at which he paused as though testing out his defence before continuing dramatically, ‘Was it Li himself, do you suppose? He has reason to fear the Emperor’s retribution when the Old Buddha dies. Did he switch the balm for a poison and ...’

My comrade broke in.

‘General, let’s see if between us we can discover the brain behind this ingenious plot. First it’s reasonable to deduce it must be someone who took note of the unusual murder technique in a particular Shakespearean play. The culprit must have dreamed up the plot after hearing the bitter words of King Hamlet’s ghost.’

‘Which were, Sir Sherlock?’ came the evasive response.

At which Holmes almost sang out the words:

For a few moments there was silence. I intervened with, ‘We also deduce the principal assassin had access to two particular pieces of scientific knowledge.’

The General asked, ‘Why do you assume that?’

I replied, ‘The mastermind knew a fact unknown three centuries ago when Shakespeare wrote that play. Poison dripped into an ear can certainly drain down the auditory tube to the throat and into the stomach but with one crucial proviso - the eardrum must be freshly broken. Liquid cannot pass through an intact tympanic membrane.’

‘And the other piece of scientific knowledge?’ the General asked, breathing heavily.

‘Black powder,’ Holmes replied. ‘This Machiavellian mind possessed another distinction vital to the plot - a thorough knowledge of explosives. The sort of knowledge a man with a military background might possess. Act One called for a broken eardrum but not the death of the victim. The firecracker was loaded with black powder, deliberately. It accomplished its purpose admirably.’

The General’s brow darkened. Beads of sweat began to drip from his forehead.

‘Continue with this fiction if you must, Gentlemen,’ he responded, slapping the side of the Mutoscope. ‘Out of interest - so I can pass this amusing tale on to my sons - Sir Sherlock, you say you can trace the poison to an individual? By which means?’

‘We tracked down the source,’ Holmes replied. ‘It was a remarkably clever plan. More than clever, General–it was brilliant. I tested for the most toxic plants indigenous to High Asia.’

‘And?’

‘Not one of them was the culprit.’

‘So there you have it!’ the General exclaimed, a look of relief crossing his face. Almost beseechingly he turned his gaze on me.

‘Dr. Watson, you see, it could only have been a foreigner who...’

‘I’m afraid not, General,’ Holmes’s retorted. ‘The poison came from a plant commonly known to natives of its region as Fool’s Parsley, described in detail in a well-known book on poisonous plants. The question is, General, where can Fool’s Parsley be found? You shake your head but you know the answer.’

Holmes continued smoothly, ‘The botanical name for the infamous Fool’s Parsley is the Hemlock Water Dropwort. The bulbous roots look like harmless garden turnips or radishes yet one root will kill a cow. In all of Nature, only in two marine creatures is a poison of this potency to be found– the blue-ringed octopus and the puffer fish. It’s the most-likely candidate for the ‘sardonic herb’ used for the ritual killing of elderly people in Phoenician Sardinia.’

‘How would I know that?’ came the General’s retort.

Holmes gestured in my direction.

‘Because Dr. Watson here telegraphed a well-known bookshop in Brighton. I’m sure you are acquainted with the name Blackwell’s? Where you went to purchase a copy of Wisden’s cricketing almanack for your sons, at my friend Watson’s suggestion? Blackwell’s remembers selling a copy of ‘Britain’s Most Poisonous Plants’ to an affable foreigner of Chinese extraction, a remarkably well-dressed man in a striped blazer and fine Panama hat. Their records showed the sale was on the very date you set off for your journey to Sherborne.’

The General’s eyes opened wide in surprise. My breath exhaled slowly. Holmes had taken a huge gamble. I had had no contact whatsoever with the bookshop.

Holmes reached into a pocket and withdrew a slim volume.

‘As it happens I have a copy myself, purchased at that very shop. I go nowhere without it. The plants are beautifully illustrated. Black Bryony. Dog’s Mercury. What is it about Fool’s Parsley that catches the eye, I wonder? Ah, here. ‘Poisoning with this plant results in abdominal pain, excitation, confusion, blurred vision, inflammation of the mouth and throat, duodenal congestion and skeletal paralysis’.’

Holmes closed the book.

‘And death. Irreversible and inevitable.’

‘Even so,’ Yuán replied, with a low guttural sound of hostility, ‘there’s no way I could have got hold of this plant which you say...’

His right hand had fallen to waist level.

‘I’m afraid that’s not true, General,’ Holmes interrupted. ‘Where is Fool’s Parsley plentiful? Watson, would you be kind enough to remind the General.’

‘The New Forest,’ I replied.

‘Just so,’ Holmes exclaimed heartily. ‘Where our friend here stretched his legs on his way to Sherborne.’

Holmes turned back to the General.

‘Equipped with ‘Britain’s Most Poisonous Plants’ you would easily have found the Dropwort around Buckley’s Hard. It thrives in every ditch and damp meadow and on every riverbank.’

As he spoke, I sensed something had changed about Holmes. I looked carefully. There was nothing unusual about his dress. It was not his clothing, but what?

Suddenly it came to me - the pipe clutched in his right hand. I had never seen Holmes smoking a briar with an aluminium magnesium alloy stem, though without doubt the harsh tobaccos he enjoyed called for almost super-human cooling. The pipe was new, judging by the sheen. And he was holding it with the bowl facing downwards, the stem pointed unwaveringly at the man before us.

The General’s face had convulsed into a wrathful scowl. He pulled out a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead. He blustered, ‘If someone wanted to poison His Majesty he wouldn’t have to go to the far reaches of the earth. Why not dose his food with arsenic or prussic acid? Or a local plant? We have monkshood here. Four-hundredths of a grain of aconitine in a bowl of yoghurt would have done it.’

‘Except that within the hour the victim’s skin, lungs, kidneys, and liver would immediately point to murder,’ Holmes responded. ‘Too soon for the plotters to disperse into their customary world. No, General. I congratulate you on your impressive knowledge of pharmacology but aconitine is best employed to achieve an instant death, as in a man likely to struggle and raise the alarm. This murder required a plant of similar extreme toxicity - after all, death was the goal - but whose deadly effects would take time, and above all be quite unknown in China. Fool’s Parsley served your needs to a tee.’

‘Sir Sherlock,’ Yuán hissed, ‘you come here as our guest and...’ he crashed a hand down on the Mutoscope ‘... yet you return our hospitality with this gross intrusion on our internal affairs! My instincts should have warned me–you have formed a secret alliance with the Emperor to trap me! He has always wanted me to mount the Dragon-chariot. I took you for a junzi - a gentleman - but I now see you are nothing of the sort.

Enough of this! Take my offer! I mean it. You have my word. Accept it. Become richer than ever your Empress Queen Victoria was. Hand over the flicker-book without further ado or...’ at which he broke into a smile more threatening than any dark look I had ever observed, ‘... there could be a most unfortunate accident. Two foreigners, two Englishmen, drowned at a water picnic on the K’un Ming Lake.

The question would then arise,’ he added slyly, ‘what would these Englishmen want me to do with their corpses? Burial together with full honours in the vicinity of the Eastern Ch’ing Tombs, overlooking the graves of our great Ancestral Emperors? What a setting! The Changrui Mountain, Jinxing Mountain, Huanghua Mountain, and Yingfei Daoyang Mountain. In the fullness of time the people would revere them as gods. Like your fellow Englishman, the famed explorer of Africa, Dr. David Livingstone.’

‘Scotsman!’ I corrected hotly.

The General looked puzzled.

‘Scotsman,’ I repeated. ‘Dr. David Livingstone was Scottish, not English.’

‘Scotsman it is,’ the general replied evenly. ‘What do you say? Hand this evidence over now and we’ll say nothing further, indeed we have costly goods to heap upon you, or ...’

He drew a hand swiftly across his throat.

‘...would you prefer to become a couple of Shui gui.’

The Empress Dowager had described such spirits at the jade cistern, the unhappy water-ghosts of those who drown.

It was a display of pitiless power. I would recall to the end of my days the ruthless look, the set of the shoulders. Yuán was reputed to be the finest exponent of the Eighteen Arms of Wushu in the whole of China, with particular expertise in three of the weapons - the double-edged sword, the axe, the dagger halberd. Except for the presence of the pistol under my coat he could kill us with his bare hands.

Staring mesmerized at the General I was transported thirteen years into the past, to when Holmes and I last encountered the odious Sebastian Moran. I described the Colonel in The Adventure of the Empty House. The scene was a dark empty property in London. A captive stood before us. He was firmly held by two Scotland Yard police officers:

‘It was a tremendously virile and yet sinister face which was turned towards us. With the brow of a philosopher above and the jaw of a sensualist below, the man must have started with great capacities for good or for evil. But one could not look upon his cruel blue eyes, with their drooping, cynical lids, or upon the fierce, aggressive nose and the threatening, deep-lined brow, without reading Nature’s plainest danger-signals. He took no heed of any of us, but his eyes were fixed upon Holmes’s face with an expression in which hatred and amazement were equally blended.

‘You fiend!’ he kept on muttering. ‘You clever, clever fiend!’’

I returned abruptly to the present. I was about to grab for my pistol and blurt out ‘Do your worst, General!’ when Holmes intervened. The unruffled manner and stony calm of his face were vastly more impressive, more fateful, than the most passionate denunciation.

‘General,’ he began with a most pleasant expression, ‘burial among the Ch’ing emperors with the prospect of becoming gods is an attractive and generous thought. It is an offer Dr. Watson and I may take up one day, but not yet.’

He pointed at the Mutoscope.

‘You may most certainly take the reel. Please do! I am sure Her Imperial Majesty will find it of the utmost...’

‘Holmes!’ I blurted out vehemently, ‘if you...’

Swiftly my comrade broke back in.

‘My dear Watson, where is your courtesy? The General is our host! Who are we to begrudge him a copy? After all, he is a principal actor alongside Her Imperial Majesty and the Chief Eunuch. Of course the starring part was Li’s, dripping the poison into the Emperor’s ear not knowing it was the good ear - but did you observe the General’s performance clapping Li on the back as they tiptoed away through the fig-trees? Masterly! General, certainly you may take the Mutoscope to show Her Majesty.’

Our guest moved to pick up the machine. Holmes’s hand holding the upside-down pipe shot forward.

‘But not for the moment. First let me divert a little. Remind me, please, your meeting in London with Sir Edward Grey and our War Minister - I believe you put them fully into the picture regarding China’s enemies, isn’t that so?’

‘I did, yes,’ came the General’s puzzled reply. ‘After all, at your recommendation Dr. Watson would soon...’

‘...be in the very thick of it,’ Holmes interrupted. ‘Quite right of you to do so. I believe you mentioned eight Great Powers in particular? Predatory Powers, you dubbed them.’

In a theatrical aside Holmes asked, ‘Isn’t that so, Watson?’

‘That’s true,’ I replied, as baffled as the General by the line of questioning.

‘And,’ Holmes continued, ‘didn’t our guest here describe his country as a hay cart, with everyone eager to take what they want from it?’

‘He did,’ I agreed.

Holmes turned back to the General.

‘You even described which particular mouthfuls of hay these Predatory Powers wanted, I believe?’

‘Look, Sir Sherlock,’ Yuán responded uncomfortably, gesturing at the Mutoscope, ‘what’s all this talk to do with our present situation?’

‘Everything,’ Holmes said. ‘Everything, my dear General. I believe you said the Germans hold Kiaochow region and have their eye on Shantung?’

‘I did mention that, yes,’ the General replied. ‘But again, I don’t see...’

Holmes continued, ‘The French want Yunnan? And the Belgians Tianjin?’

A further ‘Yes’ seeped from the General’s lips.

‘You also disclosed the Russian Bear has a force of 150,000 troops ready to occupy Manchuria. Within days their brigades could march towards Peking from Khiva, Bukhara and Kok. Nor can we overlook Japan, ‘The Land of Dwarfs’, I believe you called them. Was it Fuhkien they hanker after? Wouldn’t the death of the Emperor from other than natural causes spur an invasion - he and the Modernists are vastly preferable to the outside world than the Empress Dowager and the Obstructionists. A smash-and-grab raid by the Great Powers wouldn’t leave much for Her Imperial Majesty, would it? It wouldn’t be our corpses interred overlooking the tomb of the Emperor Shunzhi. It would be hers, together with yours - or at least the trunk of your corpse. Your head might be left behind on a spike on the walls of Peking. I believe any such posthumous decapitation is a grievous disgrace.’

The General’s tongue swept across his lips like a rattlesnake snake tasting the breeze. The air of menace which had radiated from him, at first terrifying, was slipping away into confusion and bewilderment.

Holmes pressed on.

‘Am I also right in saying every one of these tigers, dwarfs and vultures have embassies here in Peking?’

Yuán’s eyes darted swiftly from Holmes’s to mine and back.

‘And your point, Sir Sherlock? It is well known many Powers have representatives here in Peking.’

I too remained in the dark on where my comrade was taking us. I could only hope it was further and further from the prospect of being held down in a canal in an hour or two, after opting to have my heart buried in the Hindu Kush.

‘Well, Watson,’ my companion said, ‘tell the General - how many other reels did you make before your chemicals ran out?’

Alarmed, I croaked, ‘Holmes, you know perfectly well we...’

‘...made eight, you confirm!’ Holmes returned loudly, as though repeating my words. ‘Yes, a lucky nine in total, General,’ he went on. ‘Dr. Watson has lodged the original and eight copies with His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador. The container can only be destroyed on my authority. Inside it each copy has been labelled ‘For The Immediate Attention Of...’ the various legates and Ambassadors. I’m sure they too would find the Orchard scene of immense interest! It’s they who press reforms on your country. It’s they who most wish the Emperor to survive. His Excellency the Ambassador’s instructions are to keep the package sealed and under armed guard until further notice. As a safeguard the seal can be broken and the package opened in the event of Dr. Watson’s and my untimely death. An accidental drowning in the canal would most definitely trigger the release of the pictures.’

No one spoke. It was my turn to stare from Holmes to the General and back. How would Yuán react? Could he tell Holmes was bluffing? If so, we should prepare ourselves for death.

The seconds ticked past. Finally, Yuán broke into a smile. With an expansive gesture he said, ‘Gentlemen, we are forgetting our friendship! If not half the wealth of the world, what quid pro quo do you demand for keeping the copies locked away sine die in your Ambassador’s safe, destroying them even?’

After a glance at our door, Holmes went to Yuán’s side and whispered something into his ear. The General placed a hand on the Mutoscope.

‘Understood,’ he returned aloud. ‘With your permission I shall have this magic lantern taken to the Old Buddha at once. I’ll return when we have discussed your request.’

He reached for his long silk coat and with the other hand picked up the Mutoscope with impressive ease. Although it had been modified to sit on a counter by the removal of the original cast iron base, but it was by no means light. I walked alongside him to the door in an uncomfortable silence.

Outside he asked, ‘The samples of our native poisonous plants, who supplied them to you? The Emperor’s eunuch Kou - or Wang Feng?’

‘Not Kou,’ I stonewalled, quickly continuing, ‘General, out of my professional interest as a medical man, what did you plan to say the Emperor died from?’

‘Uraemia of the blood,’ Yuán replied. ‘The symptoms are similar to dying from poisoning by Fool’s Parsley, wouldn’t you agree?’

I had seen this deadly affliction with the progressive loss of kidney function all too often.

‘Combined with the Emperor’s existing ailments, good enough,’ I replied. ‘Diurnal somnolence. Affection of the peripheral nervous system such as restless legs. Memory and concentration disorders. Asthenia. Confusion. Seizures. Coma and...’

‘...death in four or five days. Precisely, Doctor,’ came the reply. ‘On Day One - that would be today - he was to be considered in no danger. The sages would predict it auspicious for you and Sir Sherlock to depart Peking on your journey home. In three or four days’ time His Majesty’s condition would worsen. By Day Five you and Sir Sherlock would be on the High Seas just as the Emperor would mount the Dragon-chariot on the start of his own long journey.

As for you, Doctor, I wanted to make you believe it was the Son of Heaven himself trying to trigger an uprising against the Old Buddha. If you’d become convinced of that, we could have declared the Emperor guilty of treason. The penalty would be the forfeiture of his life. We were convinced Sir Sherlock would fall for it. After all, you are both laowài - outsiders. Who would expect anyone from Europe to make head or tail of anything in our impenetrable and unfathomable Forbidden City? Tell me,’ he continued, ‘who or what was it which gave our plan away?’

‘You did, General. When you and I were talking in the Emperor’s Palace you used the words ‘method’ and ‘madness’. I passed them on verbatim to Sir Sherlock. He recognised Polonius’s words in Hamlet. Holmes was aware that no play with a regicide plot could have been performed in China. Someone must have seen the play performed elsewhere.’

‘On Brighton’s Pavilion Pier, for example,’ the General replied, smiling wryly.

He patted the Mutoscope.

‘Well, I must mount my own chariot to the Summer Palace, Doctor. I don’t look forward to it. Pit me against five divisions of Boxers and their Eight Symbol Religion any time.’

I was about to bid him goodnight when he opened his jacket. From a holster on a heavy leather belt he took out the finest side-arm I had ever seen and said,

‘You know, Doctor, for future reference, I can be dangerous when I’m taken by surprise, especially when my amour propre is compromised, as it was...’ he pointed back to the room, ‘in there.’

‘I understand, General,’ I exclaimed, awed by the pistol’s menace. ‘What make is it?’

He handed it to me.

‘The new Colt. The M1907. Self-loading. One of only sixty-four prototypes.’

‘Muzzle velocity?’

‘830 feet per second. Heavy enough to drop even the most drugged attacker.’

‘Ah,’ I said admiringly.

‘You and Sir Sherlock were lucky,’ he continued. ‘I nearly shot you both. It’s so new that you and he would have been the first humans to die by this weapon. Messy, but preferable to drowning.’

‘I commend your restraint, General,’ I replied with feeling. ‘Was it fear of Great Britain’s retribution? After all, Sir Sher...’

The General burst into laughter.

‘Restraint and Great Britain nothing, Dr. Watson! It was Sir Sherlock’s pipe that held me back. He had it trained rock-steady at me. What calibre was it, .22?’

‘.25 probably,’ I answered. ‘I expect I’ll see a few spent cartridges lying around his bee-farm.’

‘Nasty enough, though!’ the General said. ‘Through the heart!’

He gestured at my waist.

‘And the one tucked under your morning coat?’

‘A top-breaker pistol.’

‘.476 calibre bullet?’

I nodded. Each of us guffawed. I handed back the Colt pistol. We parted with a friendly shake of the hand.