Snake Bite

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes. It’s very clear.’

Sherlock quickly ran his fingers from circle to circle again. Cameron was right. ‘Hand me another sheet.’

Cameron passed the next one over. Sherlock matched it to the top left-hand corner of the map, but this time the circles only occasionally overlapped with any letters in the place names. He frowned, thought for a moment, then he slid the sheet sideways until the top right-hand corner fitted the top right-hand corner of the map. Quickly he checked the circles. They all had letters inside.

‘Clever,’ he said. ‘It’s a way of working out the order of the sheets. Start top left, then top right, then presumably bottom right and bottom left.’

‘What does the message say?’

Sherlock let his finger slide along the lines. Each time he got to a circle he called out the letter. He tried to hold them all in his mind, but after five or six he lost track.

As he got to the last circle, he called out, ‘Right — what have we got?’

‘Nothing that makes any sense.’

Sherlock considered for a moment. ‘Reverse it,’ he said. ‘Maybe we accidentally started with the last circle, not the first one, this time.’

Cameron scribbled down a reversed version of the message beneath the one he had already written. ‘Explosion is going to be blamed on innocent Taiping rebels,’ he read breathlessly.

‘The Taiping rebels? Aren’t they the Han Chinese? Didn’t your father say that they wanted to overthrow the Manchu rulers?’ Sherlock asked.

Cameron nodded. ‘That’s right — they make the occasional small attack on a town, or take over a village for a while. They’re more of a nuisance than anything else. They don’t have any real power.’

‘But if people think that they have suddenly blown up an American military vessel, they will take them seriously,’ Sherlock pointed out.

‘But why would they want to blow up an American military vessel? I mean, why would people believe that they wanted to blow up an American military vessel when everyone knows that their aim is to drive the Manchus from the country?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘Maybe they so desperately want China to be for the Chinese that they resent any outside influence whatsoever. Maybe they think that the Manchu rulers are corruptly accepting bribes from the American Government. But the reasons don’t matter — the Taiping rebels are a convenient scapegoat for whoever is behind the attack. The Chinese Emperor would send the army in to hunt them down like dogs. He would have to.’

‘Worse than that.’ Cameron looked grim. ‘I can’t see the American Government standing for it. They’d send in the Navy.’

‘It could lead to war!’ Sherlock said, appalled.

‘And where there’s a war, there are trade opportunities.’

Sherlock stared at Cameron. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that, as the ruling class, the Manchu officials have currently got a stranglehold on all the trade in China. It all flows through their hands — they can dictate prices, and they get to decide what is bought and sold. It makes my father furious. He wants there to be complete freedom for the Western traders to buy and sell anything, and to undercut each other if they want to, without having to pay bribes to the Manchu officials. A free market. But if there’s a whole American fleet standing off the coast, and if the Emperor is kow-towing to the American ambassador to stop a war starting, then the American traders have got the upper hand. America will end up annexing this whole area and turning it into a thirty-eighth state.’

‘Are the trade opportunities that important?’ Sherlock asked, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

‘The silk and the silver that come out of China could make every Western trader a millionaire,’ Cameron said sombrely. ‘And every Chinese peasant is a potential customer for Western goods — you Brits found that out with the opium trade. The US wants as big a part of that as possible.’

Sherlock looked at the remaining two spider diagrams. ‘We need to find out what those last two messages are,’ he said grimly.

By now the two boys had the process off pat. It only took a few minutes to decode the third message. It read: ‘Explosion will take place at Snake Bite Hill on Yangtze River. Avoid area at all costs. Do not travel on USS Monocacy if invited.’

Cameron stared at Sherlock. ‘Whoever sent this message to my father is talking about mass murder as if it’s another tactic for making money,’ he breathed. ‘He doesn’t seem to care that people are going to die! They’re talking about sacrificing the entire crew of the Monocacy and any Chinese who get caught in the blast too.’

Sherlock nodded. ‘I guess they think it’s a small price to pay for the trade benefits that will follow. The only thing that will cause the US Navy to blockade Chinese ports and go to war with the Emperor would be the death of a group of Americans.’

‘What do you think is in the last message?’ Cameron asked.

‘I think I can guess,’ Sherlock muttered.

This one took even less time: ‘Prepare to take advantage of political and economic chaos to make best deals you can, for benefit of US companies. We are relying on you.’

‘I can’t believe my father was involved in this,’ Cameron whispered. His face had drained of colour and his voice was hoarse.

‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he wanted to go along with it,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘I don’t think he was going along with it.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Well, we know he was expecting the message, but judging by the way he acted at breakfast this morning he really didn’t like the contents. We know that he went to the Prefect’s Residence with an urgent message. I think he decided that he couldn’t go through with it, and wanted to warn the authorities.’

‘And then he died.’ Cameron glanced up at Sherlock, and his eyes were red with sorrow — and anger. ‘Was his death an accident, Sherlock?’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘It would be a huge coincidence if it was. No, I think he was killed so that he wouldn’t be able to warn anyone.’ He reached out and squeezed Cameron’s arm. ‘I’m… sorry.’

‘But he’d already warned the Prefect,’ Cameron wailed. ‘There was no point in killing him!’

Sherlock shook his head. ‘I think the message was intercepted by that… thing… that was following him, whatever it was. I think it saw the message being taken in by the official and so it somehow got into the Residence and retrieved it. I know it stopped following your father as soon as he passed that message on. The chances are it stopped following him and started following the message instead.’

‘The message could have been taken and hidden by someone inside the Residence — someone who had been bribed.’

‘A friend of mine once told me that the simplest explanation is usually the best. In this case, we already know that something was following your father. It makes more sense to assume that the thing then got hold of the message rather than invent a bribed official to do the same job.’

‘But how do we know the message was actually intercepted before it got to the Prefect?’

‘Because,’ Sherlock said grimly, ‘if it had got to the Prefect, you would have a house full of Chinese officials right now — and, of course, there would have been no point in killing your father.’

‘So — so you think my father was trying to do the right thing?’

‘I do. More than that — I think he was punished for it.’

‘By whom?’

‘That,’ Sherlock said, ‘is something we need to find out in a hurry.’

‘But who was it that actually sent the messages?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘Who did your father work for?’

‘He didn’t work for anyone,’ Cameron said. ‘I mean, he had agreements with various companies back in the USA that he would represent their goods here in China, and take a commission on sales, but he didn’t actually report to anyone.’

‘I suspect that someone from one of those companies contacted him and told him that they had a plan that would increase the value of their goods a hundred times over. I suspect that they strung him along, not quite telling him what was going to happen. By the time he realized the truth, it was too late. He was in it up to his neck.’

Cameron suddenly looked confused. ‘But what does this have to do with your cook friend — Wu Chung? Why was he killed?’

‘I’ve been wondering about that. I still think it’s because he accidentally got a job as a cook’s assistant on the USS Monocacy.’ Sherlock thought for a moment. ‘I think that Wu Chung found something out on board the ship that would have revealed their plans, and they had to kill him for it.’

‘Do you remember what he said?’ Cameron asked slowly. ‘He said that he’d been on the Monocacy and he’d noticed that the Head Cook had over-ordered on barrels of water. He told them that the ship was going up a freshwater river, and they could get water any time they wanted, so why had they ordered so much?’

‘You think there is something else in those barrels?’ Sherlock frowned. ‘You think there are explosives in those barrels?’

Cameron shrugged. ‘It would take a lot of explosives to blow up a ship the size of the Monocacy. There were a lot of barrels. Wu Chung said so.’

‘I suppose the conspirators could do something to the steam engines instead,’ Sherlock mused. ‘You know — increase the pressure or something until they blow up.’

‘But there would be engineers and other people all around the engines. Getting to them, fiddling with the controls and then letting the pressure gradually increase would take a lot of time, and someone would have been bound to notice. No, the most obvious solution would be to bring a whole lot of explosives in.’

‘Disguised as water barrels,’ Sherlock agreed, nodding. ‘It makes sense.’

‘So what do we do about it?’

Sherlock gazed at Cameron. Cameron gazed back.

‘We could tell the authorities here in Shanghai,’ Sherlock suggested.

‘But my father tried that, and clearly failed. Even if we could tell someone, they wouldn’t believe two kids with a wild story like this.’

‘We could get a message to the Captain of the USS Monocacy.’

‘But we wouldn’t know for sure whether the message ever got to him or not. Even if it did, why would he believe an anonymous message that told him his ship was going to explode? He’d just screw it up and throw it away.’

‘So…’

‘So… the only thing we can do,’ Cameron said, ‘is to head upriver after the Monocacy, get on board and somehow tell the Captain ourselves. You’ve met him, and he met my father. He would listen to us when he might not listen to someone he doesn’t know.’

Sherlock nodded slowly. ‘I can’t see any other option. It has to be us.’

Cameron breathed out slowly. ‘It’s going to be an interesting journey. I’ve been up the Yangtze before, but not very far. My father took me fishing a couple of times.’

‘How do we travel?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Horseback?’

‘Too slow,’ Cameron said, shaking his head. ‘The ground is marshy along the banks of the river. To get to solid ground we would have to go a long way around. The Monocacy would make better time along the river than we would by road. No, the best thing would be boat. There are small sailboats that head up and down the river. They make pretty good speed. The Monocacy is limited by its weight. I think we can catch up with it.’

‘Then we’d better start straight away.’ Sherlock hesitated. ‘What about your mother — what are you going to tell her?’

Cameron’s gaze flickered towards Sherlock, then away. There was a sad expression on his face. ‘The doctor has sedated her. He said she’ll be asleep for hours. Days, maybe.’ There was a glint of tears in his eyes. ‘She loved my father desperately. Each time she wakes up and realizes once more that he’s dead, the doctor says he may have to sedate her again…’

There was silence for a long time.

‘And what about you?’ Sherlock asked eventually. ‘How long will it take for you to come to terms with it?’

‘My father is dead. I know that, Sherlock. He’s not coming back. Staying here isn’t going to achieve anything. I want to do something! I want to catch the people who killed him! I want to make a difference!’

‘I understand,’ Sherlock said.

‘You don’t,’ Cameron replied softly. ‘With the greatest respect, Sherlock, I’m not sure you ever will. You’re not like ordinary people. You don’t care in the same way. But thank you for being here anyway, and thank you for listening to me… Now, are we going to head up the Yangtze River and stop that ship from exploding, or are we going to stand here and talk?’

‘There’s one more thing we need,’ Sherlock pointed out.

‘What’s that?’

‘Wu Chung’s son — Wu Fung-Yi.’

Cameron stared back at him blankly. ‘What?’

‘We need someone local, someone who knows the river. By the time we locate and hire a boatman or whatever, it will be too late. The only person we know who can help is Wu Fung-Yi.’ Sherlock paused. ‘And remember — they killed his father as well. He has as much of a vested interest as we do.’

‘That’s a point,’ Cameron said. ‘How exactly did they get a snake into my father’s study and make it bite him? How did they get the same snake into Wu Chung’s bedroom and make it bite him? That strikes me as a really chancy thing to do. There must be better ways of murdering someone.’

‘But they didn’t want it to be obvious that your father was murdered,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘And they certainly didn’t want it to be obvious that Wu Chung was murdered. That would make people suspicious straight away, and there might have been an investigation. They had to make both murders look like accidents — and, from what I can gather, in a country like this, snake bites are a normal, everyday risk.’ He frowned. ‘I doubt that it was even a real snake. You’re right — that would be too chancy. Snakes are unpredictable things, I believe. They couldn’t guarantee that it would cooperate. No, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that someone used some kind of device that injected poison. They stuck it into Wu Chung’s back while he was asleep, and they stuck it into your father’s arm while he was distracted. It probably contained real venom that had been taken from a snake some time earlier, but it was a more manageable weapon. Like a hypodermic syringe or something.’

‘That would explain how they got into the bedroom and the study,’ Cameron said thoughtfully, ‘but even so, it’s a bit of a risk, isn’t it? I mean, sneaking around people’s houses?’

‘That depends on who is doing the sneaking. If it’s some hefty six-foot dock worker then yes, that might be noticed, but if it was someone smaller…’

‘Like that thing you saw in the garden, and then you saw following my father?’

Sherlock nodded. ‘Whatever that was, it was just the right size to slip into someone’s house and inject them while they weren’t looking.’ He clenched his fist. ‘If only I could work out what it is.’

‘But what about the differences in the times it took Wu Chung and my father to die?’ Cameron asked. ‘If the same device was being used to inject poison, then it should have worked in the same way.’

‘There could have been any number of differences. We don’t know.’ Sherlock shrugged. ‘Maybe the poison they used on Wu Chung was an old batch, but they managed to get some newer poison to use on your father. Maybe it was a different snake with more powerful venom. We just don’t know — not yet, anyway.’

‘Are they going to try to stop us?’ Cameron’s face was determined. ‘I hope they are. I want to meet them.’

‘I think they’re probably watching us,’ Sherlock confirmed. ‘So we need to be on our guard.’

Cameron hefted his father’s revolver. ‘I’m ready for them.’

‘Let’s be sure we’ve got the right people first.’ Sherlock looked around the study. ‘Let’s take the messages and the map with us. We might need to use them to convince Captain Bryan. Do you need to tell anyone where you’re going?’

‘I’ll leave a message,’ Cameron said. ‘I’ll say that I need some time to myself. People will understand. It will be chaos around here for a while, anyway. I’d be surprised if anyone noticed I had gone.’

Ten minutes later, the two boys were leaving the house. The evening sun was dipping down towards the horizon. Stallholders were beginning to pack up their wares ready to go home. Sherlock realized that he was hungry. He would have to make sure that he and Cameron got something to eat. He suspected that Cameron wasn’t feeling hungry, but he had to keep his friend’s energy up.

Cameron grabbed Sherlock’s arm as they crossed the road. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Look over there.’

Sherlock followed Cameron’s pointing finger. Standing in plain sight a few yards away was the small, dark-haired figure of Wu Fung-Yi. He was watching them. Once he saw that they had seen him, he walked over. He nodded to Cameron. ‘I heard your bad news,’ he said sombrely. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

‘Thanks. And… and I understand your loss now in a way that I didn’t before.’

‘Something is going on,’ Wu Fung-Yi said, smiling sadly. ‘Something strange. You already know about it. My father knew it, and I know it now.’

‘Is that why you’re here?’ Sherlock asked.

‘I wondered who I could talk to.’ Wu Fung-Yi shrugged awkwardly. ‘Not my mother. She believes that my father was killed by a snake, but I remember the things you said about how difficult it would have been for a snake to get into the house. I know how hard I worked to fill up all the holes in the walls.’ His gaze flickered from Sherlock to Cameron and back again. It was as if he wanted to trust them with something but he wasn’t sure how to phrase it. ‘I saw something, that night,’ he said, more quietly. ‘I didn’t tell you earlier, because I thought that you might think I was mad. I didn’t tell my mother either.’ He took a deep breath, forcing himself to continue. ‘I was sleeping, but I got woken up by a noise. I thought perhaps it was my father wandering around. I was not used to having him in the house — he snored, and turned over in his sleep, and made all kinds of new sounds. I remember looking over to the doorway of my room, and…’ He hesitated. ‘And there was something there. A shadow. It was too small to be my mother or my father, and too still to be a cat or a dog or a monkey. I couldn’t see its eyes, but I knew it was watching me, so I kept very still. After a while, it was not there any more.’ He shivered. ‘There was something evil about it. I could feel its gaze on me, like hot coals. I thought it might be an evil spirit, but now I know that it was the thing that killed my father.’

‘We’ve seen it too,’ Sherlock confirmed. ‘We don’t know what it is, but it has something to do with what’s going on.’ Sherlock glanced at Cameron, then back at Wu Fung-Yi. ‘Let’s talk while we move,’ he suggested. ‘We need to get hold of a boat, and we need to head upriver. Can you help?’

‘Will it help explain my father’s death?’

Sherlock nodded. ‘It will.’

‘Then talk.’

On the way through the town Sherlock and Cameron jointly explained to Wu Fung-Yi exactly what they thought was going on. As they walked, Sherlock realized that they were heading out of Shanghai in a direction that he hadn’t been before.

‘I thought we were going to the harbour,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that where the Yangtze starts off? I mean, the river must flow into the sea, mustn’t it?’

‘That’s true,’ Wu Fung-Yi said over his shoulder. ‘But the river widens out considerably there, and the currents are treacherous. If you want to head upriver then it makes more sense to cut across and meet it a little further up. Trust me, I know what I am doing.’

After a while Sherlock noticed that they were approaching the town wall. There was another gate here, but this one was guarded by only one soldier, and he was simply waving people in and out. Presumably the risk of foreigners being around this side of the city was less than at the harbourside.

‘This is the “Gate of the Virtuous Phoenix”,’ Cameron said quietly as they approached. ‘If we get separated for any reason we’ll meet back here.’

They exited with no problems. Beyond the town a wide dirt road led away into the hilly Chinese countryside. The three boys started out towards the Yangtze River.

‘What’s the plan?’ Sherlock asked as they walked.

‘My uncle has several sailboats,’ Wu Fung-Yi said. ‘I’m sure he will lend one to us, if I ask.’ He sighed. ‘The news about my father will not have got to him yet. I will have to tell him.’

The landscape outside the town wall was hilly, making it difficult to see very far. The road meandered, but Sherlock detected that as they got further and further away from Shanghai it led gradually downhill. It was broad, and used by many people. Carts were heading in both directions — to the town and away from it. The carts were laden with hay, vegetables, wood and all manner of things, including some that Sherlock didn’t recognize. There were other things on the road that took Sherlock by surprise. Some local farmers were pushing wheelbarrows, with a single wheel at the front, but at the back of the wheelbarrow a mast rose up into the air, and on the mast was a red canvas sail. The farmers were taking advantage of the strong breezes that blew across the countryside to help them push the wheelbarrows along. It was such an obvious idea that Sherlock couldn’t figure out why nobody in England had done it.

As they walked, the ground underfoot became soggier. The fields that lined the roads were planted with large grasses that grew to the height of a man. The soil was waterlogged, and Sherlock could see arrangements of bamboo pipes bringing water from the river to the fields, and gates that could be opened and closed to flood them.

‘What’s growing here?’ he asked Wu Fung-Yi.

‘Rice,’ the boy said. ‘These are called “paddy fields”. We keep them flooded and grow more rice than anything else. It is what we eat the most.’

‘Like potatoes in England,’ Sherlock murmured.

Finally the road then curved around the side of one last hill, and there before them was a wide expanse of blue water flecked with white wave crests.

‘The Yangtze River,’ Wu Fung-Yi said. ‘Now the hard work really starts.’