There was a highly suspicious clue. In the months I was abroad, a series of articles appeared in The Morning Post newspaper under the pseudonym G.E. ‘China’ Morrison. ‘In the interests of British trade,’ one article concluded, ‘the sole remedy is for His Majesty’s Government to establish a protectorate over the whole of China south of the Great Wall’.
‘Morrison’ employed descriptions which eerily echoed information I had sent back. For instance, only one week after one of my own transmissions Morrison wrote in near-identical words in The Morning Post, ‘There is a growing seething unrest throughout China, especially in the southern cities of Amoy and Canton. It may already be impossible indefinitely to avert a serious outbreak. The New Army could well do with the presence of a mobile column of British troops at Weihaiwei in Shantung, or Hongkong, to give prompt support if a crisis arises’.
A few days later he recommended the Empress Dowager should, ‘by the threat of renewed force if necessary, be obliged to authorise the construction of a railway to connect British Burmah with the Upper Valley of the Yangtze’.
I too had suggested much the same, though without employing the phrase ‘by the threat of renewed force’.
Evidently these Old China Hands would stop at nothing. I recalled a remark of Mycroft’s which I thought at the time merely philosophical. ‘Great Empires,’ he opined, ‘are like the universe. The Persian Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate, even the Holy Roman Empire faltered and collapsed the moment they ceased expansion.’
Mycroft had had the bare-faced cheek to warn me of the Chinese inclination to circumlocution and deception! A change in Britain’s Government, the return to power of an expansionist-minded Prime Minister - Balfour replacing Campbell-Bannerman - and a take-over of China could easily ensue, helped immensely by the notes I compiled. My journey had commenced as an emissary, even an Ambassador of goodwill, for Sir Edward Grey. Mycroft had effectively turned me into a spy. He may well have contrived prior sight of my observations of China’s military capacity for that one reason - behind the back of his political masters, even that of his brother Sherlock, he and fellow members of the Diogenes Club intended to make England the non-pareil Power in the entire Extreme Orient, to gulp up vast swathes of China to add to our Indian Possessions. Their justification would be to thwart the ambitions of the Kaiser and the Berlin War Party.
My reports covered the New Army’s operational and movement orders, strength returns and locations, which mountain passes remained open during the winter (and their fortifications), directions and height of river flows etc. I had been at least the equal and possibly the superior in value to the established line of secret intelligence agents - so-called archaeologists (that well-known cover for espionage) or Moslem traders and native servants on the payroll of the Indian government whose work it was to keep the ‘Political And Secret’ files in the India Office Library up to date. Think of the value to Germany, the China Hands would say, if she gained control over China’s rich and widespread resources, essential war-time needs - wheat and cotton. Hard coal. Tin. Tungsten. Mercury.
I had provided a feasibility study of the weakness of the Hexi Corridor against an invasion by irregular forces. I described in detail physical obstacles, useful buildings and weak points in the Chinese defences such as the North Taku Fort, illustrating the plan and section, how the guns were covered with wooden sheds which concealed them and protected them from the weather.
I reflected on my options. There were none. Mycroft Holmes, the great spider at the centre of a Whitehall web, had deceived me once before, in the case of ‘the Sword of Osman’. Given Sherlock Holmes’s idolisation of his older brother there was nothing I could do. He would fix me with those steely eyes: ‘Evidence! Evidence! Evidence! Watson. You can’t make bricks without clay!’
Bringing the matter to my old comrade’s attention might lead to a serious and perhaps long-lasting breach between us which I determined to avoid, at any cost.
The Aerocar had arrived at the Liverpool Docks from America but would not clear customs for a further week. A familiar train took me to Eastbourne where a coach and pair awaited for the onward leg to Holmes’s bee-farm. The air had the sharp pinch of winter. I presented Holmes with a watercolour painting commissioned from Harris Bret. The artist had used my notes and his imagination to paint the Mongolia as she cleared the Shanghai customs and began to thread her way through American three- and four-masted sailing vessels and fine steamers of the Messageries Maritimes. Gaily painted native boats darted about like dragon-flies, local steamers, sampans, gunboats painted white. The White Ensign floated in a mild breeze from a modern man-of-war lying off the Consulate door.
Soon Holmes and I were seated in front of a blazing fire, like the old friends we were, reminiscing about our recent adventure.
Soon after the sun set over the ancient landscape Holmes pointed towards the kitchen.
‘Now, Watson, I insist you allow me to prepare a meal for us here. The lady that ‘does’ for me has consumed all the birds’ nests you gifted me on our return - or says she has - but I have consulted my Ledger of the Imperial Kitchens. I can commend a recipe for Swallow’s Nest soup. If it pleases the Imperial palate it may well please yours. There are a few dozen swallows’ nests in my barn. Their owners have vacated them. Alternatively,’ he added, seemingly unaware of my horrified expression, ‘I could try my hand at Cold Fish Maw Wrapped in Egg Skin. There’s some sort of fish in the ice-box. The hens have left a few eggs under the hedges. What do you think?’
I had been obliged to try the soup in Peking, along with sea-slugs. Interwoven strands of salivary cement of white-nest swiftlets dissolve in water and give the liquid a gelatinous texture. I was not keen on a second go. Nor did the thought of Cold Fish Maw wrapped in Egg Skin whet the appetite.
I fretted, ‘I don’t recall you acquiring any culinary skills during our many years in Baker Street. While I appreciate Swallow’s Nest soup is highly nutritious - calcium and iron and potassium and magnesium - and as for the Cold Fish Maw, it sounds quite delicious - I wonder if...’ I pointed my nose southward, ‘for the sake of Auld Lang Syne we should patronise our friends at the Tiger Inn instead? I’m very keen on their deep fried Whitebait...’
Arms linked, we went out into the courtyard. Releasing me Holmes clapped his hands. From out of the shade of tall bushes a brougham came rolling towards us. It was the carriage formerly owned by the Earl of Arundel.
‘Holmes!’ I exclaimed, chortling, ‘you anticipated my response all along!’
Even as we clambered into the carriage an urgent communication from Scotland Yard was winging its way to Holmes’s farmstead.
We returned on foot by starlight, the celestial bodies illuminating the grassy hills once covered by self-sown native broadleaves felled and coppiced by short, swarthy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, long-skulled Ancient Britons, the island’s earliest inhabitants, long before Julius Caesar and his cohorts came to conquer and enslave them.
The housekeeper was waiting for us, an open envelope clutched in her trembling hand. ‘Our lives are in mortal danger!’ she cried, thrusting a page at us.