‘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.