Then I returned to the embroidery, why the lack of embroidery other than the sigils on the back. Why was this beizi so different from her others? The answer had to be the crow was trained to fly to that particular patch - but how was it able to identify the sigils? Everything about the plot was ingenious. It could well have defeated us completely. However, it was the necessity for the Emperor to wear the beizi which trapped her on the horns of a dilemma.’
‘Which was?’ I asked, pencil poised.
‘The cape had to fit the Emperor yet she couldn’t betray she had tailored and embroidered it specially for him. Otherwise, like footsteps on wet cement, the crow attack might be traced straight back to the Summer Palace. If the beizi had really been hers, it would have been tailored for her small size, in which case the Emperor would struggle to pull it on over his ceremonial clothing. He might cast it aside in favour of a shipboard feng ling. She pretended the coat was hers but there was another reason even apart from its size that contradicted this. Yellow is the colour of the Imperial Dynasty. It’s well-known it doesn’t suit her complexion. None of the clothing she wears exposes so much yellow - but to avoid confusing the crow the rest of the cloak had to remain free of any other adornment - ribbons, jewels and so on. It was a risk she had to take.’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about that patch, Holmes,’ I said. ‘What brought it so forcibly to your attention? Can a crow be trained to fly to a cloak bearing a circle containing nine rather than eight dragons?’
‘It was trained to fly at that particular sigil, yes, but not for the reason you may suppose. It wasn’t the fact the sigils were dragons and represented chaos magic or that there were nine of them which attracted the bird.’
‘Then what, Holmes?’
A slight smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. He pointed to my note-book.
‘Did you write up our conversation about jewel-beetle elytra and ultra-violet light?’
I flipped back through the pages.
‘Yes, and what mumbo-jumbo it was!’ I remarked.
By now the train was going at speed. Holmes reached into a pocket for a briar. He began to thumb tobacco into it. Soon the blue smoke was curling upwards, making a sudden dart to the open window as it was sucked away.
‘I am quite pleased with myself over this, Watson,’ he continued. ‘Earlier this year I chanced across an article by Hajime Matsubara, an ornithologist connected with the Japanese Bird Research Association. Matsubara put forward the proposition that a crow’s kinetic vision is highly developed, to the point the bird can be trained to identify a particular object by UV signal - for example someone wearing jewel-beetle ornamentation which reflects UV strongly. If Matsubara’s work is well known in Japan, it would most likely be well-known to the E-D’s bird experts here in China.’
‘My prophetic soul,’ I breathed. ‘That was quite astonishingly clever of you, Holmes.’
‘I thought so too,’ came the not altogether self-mocking reply.
‘One last thing,’ I said. ‘You took two very considerable risks in settling this affair to your satisfaction, Holmes. The first I accept was forced on you. You had to convince General Yuán we had a stack of copies of the events Kou filmed or we might be dead by now.’
‘The second?’
‘You told Yuán point-blank he had purchased a book of Britain’s poisonous plants. That was a shot in the dark. You knew nothing of the sort. It paid off but it could as easily have wrecked...’
‘Not such a shot in the dark as you might suppose, Watson,’ came the reply. ‘The plan to kill the Emperor was well in hand even before Yuán was in Brighton preparing to continue on to Sherborne. He must have been deliberating over whether the Emperor’s death at the order of the Old Buddha and the Obstructionists would have the result they intended. Murdering the Emperor entailed severe personal risk. It might trigger an uprising among the Modernists and cause the overthrow of the Old Buddha instead - himself along with her.
At that stage the plot was more straight-forward. They planned to use an explosive powerful enough to blow the Emperor’s head off and sink the Shishaquita. They could announce the boiler exploded, taking the Emperor and Kou to the bottom of the lake, but the Emperor was known to take a particular interest in the river-boat. Servicing and checking the boiler and engine would be a very high priority. Suddenly, there before the General, on the Pavilion Pier in Brighton, in the opening moments of Hamlet, the idea for a whole new plan fell into place. King Hamlet’s brother, the murderer, had faced exactly the same dilemma - how to make the victim’s death look due to unhappy but natural causes? Shakespeare supplied the answer. By the use of a slow-acting but deadly plant toxin.
Yuán would need to check whether pouring a poison into the ear would do its work, but a high-ranking officer has access to the finest medical science. He would be told the eardrum had first to be shattered. Shakespeare spoke of ‘cursed hebenon’ so there must be deadly plants in England, but how could Yuán identify them? In the event it was easy enough. China is a literate society par excellence. He is a literate man. The obvious answer was to hurry to the best book-shop in town. Lo and behold, at your suggestion he was going to visit Blackwell’s anyway, to purchase Wisden’s Almanack for his sons.’
Chapter XV
Holmes Unfolds the Last Piece of the Jigsaw
Our train halted for lunch conveniently by a wayside tavern. The dish of roe deer was accompanied by small root vegetables, bamboo shoots, lily, Chinese yam, and mountain pears. Over a dessert Holmes mused, ‘You may have noted over the years I’m not a whole-souled admirer of womankind but I must at least modify that statement. It’s no longer entirely true.’
‘Might you be referring to the E-D by any chance?’ I asked impishly.
He nodded.
‘She has many of the pleasing traits of the Manchu,’ Holmes continued, ‘yet if you become virtual ruler of the Middle Kingdom at the age of twenty-four how should you learn to put away the hideous barbarities of the Forbidden City’s ways? She was trained early in life in the traditions of a court where human life counts for little.’
For a long while I sat in silence, my spirit troubled. Finally, a sigh burst from me. It caught my comrade’s attention.
‘My dear fellow,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’re not nostalgic already for the open sewers of the Purple City...’
‘Not in the slightest, Holmes,’ I answered brusquely. ‘I’m troubled because we suffered a defeat. We return to England and the Emperor may die at any time. What do we tell Sir Edward Grey? And Haldane? That we abandoned the Emperor to the kindness of the E-D’s heart, the woman whose pitiless and brutal capacities you have just described so well?’
I reiterated emphatically, ‘Failed. Utterly. Sir Edward asked you to ensure the Emperor survives two years at least, until matters between us and a certain lunatic in Berlin become clearer, or the Empress Cixi herself passes away.’
I pointed back towards the Forbidden City.
‘Yet here we are, running away, tails between our legs. By now the Mutoscope cards are smoke, the Aeroscope dashed to pieces. We have abandoned the Emperor to a desperate end, conceivably within days, at most weeks of our departure.’
My companion’s eyebrows lifted an eloquent half-inch. He perused me without the slightest expression of dismay. With what struck me as unseemly playfulness he said, ‘Failed, Watson? Nonsense. Did I forget to tell you about my arrangements with General Yuán?’