by Tim Symonds
I related how a young eunuch wearing the crystal button and feather of the fourth rank had arrived at the end of my morning surgery. The Emperor needed me at once. A covered litter waited in a nearby alley to take me incognito to his Palace. Secrecy was enhanced by a long, heavy, white silk Chinese gown to cover my European clothes and a hat with an attached false pigtail.
‘I felt like a Jesuit,’ I joked.
I described how I had worried that if the Son of Heaven’s sudden affliction meant he was beyond remedy, western medicine would be held to blame if he passed on to the Nine Springs on my watch. Instead, I had found the slight and elegant, if dishevelled figure lying on a splendid couch inlaid with cloisonné, both hands cupped around an ear. The young eunuch was winding the royal pig-tail around the Emperor’s head to keep his hair out of the way for my inspection. When his master turned his head completely around I saw the whole of one side of the face was scorched. Small pieces of black feathers had attached themselves to skin and hair.
‘Holmes,’ I continued, ‘you’d never guess in a thousand years how his ear came to be ruptured.’
My old comrade had a clutch of ways to pull down the house curtain when he wished to be left alone. He murmured, ‘Good of you to warn me, Watson. I doubt if I shall live that long. You have saved me that much time trying to think up the answer.’
The book on Coptic script moved back into place.
I eased myself forward from the comfortable sofa and stood up. With Holmes in such a non-communicative mood there was nothing else for it but to return to my own quarters and continue writing up my Nature notes for Sir Edward Grey. I wouldn’t need to see the Emperor for a day or two. The bandage should help keep the eardrum dry and ward off infection. At most he would suffer hearing loss in the damaged ear until the membrane re-sealed.
At the door I mused aloud, ‘The Emperor suffering a broken eardrum is quite a coincidence. He’s the second such patient in as many days. I’ve never attended two patients for this affliction so close together, other than in battle.’
The book fell forward.
‘A second person?’ Holmes asked. ‘Tut, tut, Watson! Why didn’t you tell me this immediately?’
‘No more than an odd coincidence,’ I protested.
‘Odd coincidences should be noted with special attention,’ came the instant reply. ‘Tell me more.’
The sudden interest took me aback. Was this Holmes at his sardonic worst?
Warily I repeated, ‘Two in as many days. Yesterday I treate done of the small eunuchs for exactly the same trauma.’
‘How did it come about?’ Holmes asked, with a keen look. ‘The eunuch’s injury.’
‘A sharp cuff for misbehaving. People don’t realize how easy it is to...’
‘And the Emperor?’ Holmes interrupted. ‘How was his eardrum broken?’
‘He was attacked by a crow.’
Holmes brow furrowed.
‘How exactly would a crow... I presume the fellow didn’t let a crow sit on his shoulder and peck through an eardrum?’
‘An exploding crow. No doubt launched by misguided youths. For amusement the young eunuchs trap crows and attach exploding bamboos to the birds’ legs,’ I explained. ‘‘Exploding bamboos’ is their name for firecrackers. The fuse is lit and the crow released. The wretched animal thinks it’s free and flies straight up into the air. When it gets to about sixty yards into the sky the firecracker detonates, blowing it to pieces. It crashes to the ground, followed by a shower of black feathers. I saw one dispatched this way the other day.’
‘If the crow flies straight up...’ Holmes began, ‘...how did the one which attacked...?’
‘In the Emperor’s case it didn’t fly upwards. It flew straight to him and landed on his shoulder at the very moment the firecracker went off.’
As I spoke the words ‘the firecracker went off’ Holmes’s lips tightened. His nostrils quivered.
‘And you say the eunuch’s eardrum was broken by a hard cuffing. Do you know who administered it?’
‘The E-D’s Chief Eunuch Li Lien-ying.’
Like a spring uncoiling Holmes leapt off the kang. He snatched his outdoor cape from the hat-stand.
‘Watson,’ he shouted, ‘take me to the Emperor - at once!’
I snorted.
‘My dear fellow, ‘I told him, ‘I realize you’ve been hanging around a lot, waiting for something to happen, but for heaven’s sake don’t start clutching at straws. If the crow was meant to kill the Son of Heaven, I can tell you in two words why it would have to be a plot devized by the most incompetent assassins in all history!’
‘And those two words?’
‘Black powder. The firework was filled with black powder. That alone militates against an assassination plot. Most of China’s assassins have been trained by Russian anarchistsin Białystok bomb laboratories. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of explosives knows black powder creates a powerful blast of air - enough to break an eardrum - but it would never have sufficient explosive force to kill.’
‘Watson,’ came the sharp reply, ‘by now you should know there is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. If I can question the Emperor we may hit upon other ‘obvious facts’ which may by no means have been evident to you.’
At this he swept out of the door.
I called out, ‘Aren’t you a little quick in forming your conclusions? And shouldn’t you change your clothing? That dressing-gown is sticking out from under your cape.’
The words came back, ‘I repeat, Watson, take me to the Emperor - into your coat and come!’ followed by ‘I need to hear the man’s own account of the matter.’
With excitement in his voice, those familiar ever-wonderful words came floating back: ‘Methinks at last the game’s afoot!’
Chapter X
The Emperor Tells Us of the Crow Attack
Kou Liancai, the young eunuch I encountered earlier, was waiting at the great door to usher us in. He was the last of his master’s once-numerous eunuchs-of-the-presence. The Kuang-hsü Emperor was still in open air dress. The Emperor’s long hair had been brushed, the front edge of the scalp and whiskers freshly shaved in accordance with Manchu custom. Immutable tradition didn’t allow any man under forty, even a Son of Heaven, to sport whiskers or a moustache. A large umbrella and a hat with a plain red silk button lay at his feet. One hand was scraping at remnants of feathers and black powder on the right sleeve of the yellow cloak. His face brightened at our arrival.
It was my comrade’s first close encounter with the Emperor. Holmes stood momentarily silent, as though studying a wax effigy at Madame Tussauds, taking in my patient’s outdoor mantle and the articulated belt formed from panels of emeralds and dangling pearls, on down to the white velvet socks peeking out from black boots edged with green satin.
Little darting glances showed me the interest Holmes took in our out-of-the-ordinary companion. Our many years’ association enabled me to detect subtle shades of expression perceptible to no-one else.
‘Your Majesty,’ Holmes exhorted in Mandarin, précised for my benefit in quick asides in English, ‘for your own safety, kindly allow me to question you as if you were a mortal. We must eliminate any chance the damage you received to your head was not an accident, nor merely the outcome of a jape gone awry. I must know exactly what happened. Please start from the beginning.’
The Emperor gave his assent. His voice was small, like the buzzing of a fly.
He had spent the previous night in the Purifying Palace in the Great Park of the Nature Temples in preparation for the day’s sacrifice ceremony. The routine began at 5am. He washed, dressed, had his queue plaited, had a smoke and a quick breakfast. A sedan-chair and eight porters carried him to the Palace to confer with the Empress Dowager. It was her express intention to join him aboard the Imperial steam
-launch, the Shishaquita, for the short journey to the Wanshou Temple, the Temple of Imperial Longevity.
After he performed the nine prostrations and other proper acts of obeisance to Her Majesty in the presence of the Court she reminded him the hour was arriving to sacrifice. From the Palace he was taken on the customary ride to the dock in a heated palanquin borne by four eunuchs. A further eight eunuchs marched in front carrying lanterns and a large gold spittoon. The route took him out of the Forbidden City by the West Flourishing Gate to the West Garden Gate leading towards the Lake Palaces, and then around the southern shore of the lake. As usual he dismissed his entourage, ordering them to return in three hours.
He waited at the gang plank for the Empress Dowager to join him. At this point a note arrived saying there was a change of plan. A soothsayer had revealed the day was especially propitious for the Great Ancestress to travel to the Eastern Ch’ing Tombs, some distance to the south-west. She would travel there under the protection of General Yuán. The Emperor was therefore urged to continue on his journey to the Temple alone.
‘It was obligatory,’ he explained. ‘The Emperor is not only the High Priest and Son of Heaven but the expiator for all the afflictions Heaven visits upon his people.’
No, he saw nothing untoward in the Empress-Dowager’s change of plan. He was fully sympathetic. Ancestor worship, he explained, requires rulers to make regular supplication at the tombs of their forebears to beg their protection. When her time on earth was up, his aunt would be interred near the sepulchre of her imperial lord, the Xianfeng Emperor. Today’s journey might be as much a search for a propitious site for ten thousand years for herself, near Mount Putuo, one of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, as offering supplication at the forebears’ tombs.
With a slight smile he speculated, ‘Now she is more than seventy years of age she might be anticipating her own encounter with King Yan, the God of Death.’
‘So you went ahead with your duties without Her Majesty?’ Holmes prompted.
‘Deferral of my duties was not an option. The day, the hour, are determined by the Abbot of the Temple.’
‘Did anyone accompany you aboard the Royal launch?’
‘No-one.’
‘You were utterly alone aboard the Shishaquita?’ Holmes queried with an odd look.
‘Except for this eunuch at the engine, yes,’ the Emperor confirmed.
He explained it was the fixed custom of the Praetorian guards to wait for him at the Paifang, a traditional Chinese archway, where the Shishaquita was moored. The guards failed to turn up. The flat boats which follow the steam-launch at a respectful distance carrying portable stoves and the necessary arrangements for making tea also failed to materialise. More surprisingly, so had the musicians who would play the Imperial Hymn on completion of his prayers.
‘A passer-by told me they were waiting there and then they left.’
‘How do you explain that?’ Holmes asked.
‘They must all have been needed by Her Majesty and General Yuán.’
Despite the pain from the shattered eardrum, he managed another smile as though some affectionate thought had touched him.
‘I could tell ‘the Old Buddha’ felt embarrassed at leaving me to journey alone.’
Holmes leaned forward. His eyes had the hard, dry glitter which shot from them when he was keenly interested.
‘How?’ I gathered he was asking.
My patient’s wrist bent back, his fingers motioning at his cloak.
‘We call this a beizi,’ he explained. ‘It’s my aunt’s, the Empress’s. It arrived at the dock in a box with the note.’
The note implored him to don it on the launch, ‘knowing how damp the air can be’.
‘I did as she wished,’ the Emperor added. ‘The engine started. We pushed off.’
His hand rose to the bandaged ear.
‘The Shishaquita was halfway to the Temple when I heard a wooshing sound. I felt an evil spectre brush against this side of my face. I saw black glittering eyes. A large crow was settling on my shoulder. We believe a crow flying low across one’s path when one is on an important errand is an omen, good or bad depending on the direction it crosses. From left to right is good.’
‘And the direction of this crow?’ Holmes continued.
‘It came across the water from the right. From right to left is very disadvantageous. I turned away, fearing it would peck out my eyes. Before I could sweep it off my shoulder there was a terrible bang and the smell of gunpowder. For a moment I could see nothing through a black cloud. I realized the crow must have had a cannon cracker tied to its leg.’
He pointed at the eunuch.
‘That’s what some of these young people do. That’s how they amuse themselves. At first I felt nothing. Then a sharp pain told me the explosion had damaged my right ear. I could only hear the sound of the engine with my left ear.’
He continued, ‘I was so distraught I believe I would’ve had some sort of fit if blood had not gushed from my nose and relieved me.’
To my consternation Holmes chose this charged moment to ask a most inconsequential question. He pointed at the cloak.
‘You say Her Royal Highness sent you a beizi. This outdoor garment you’re wearing, can we confirm this is the one she sent you?’
‘It is,’ came the assurance.
‘Wouldn’t you keep a feng ling on the Shishaquita?’
‘A windproof cape,’ Holmes explained in a quick aside.
‘More than one,’ the Emperor agreed, ‘but coming with the note from Her Imperial Majesty, wearing the beizi was the equivalent of an order.’
‘The crow,’ Holmes pursued, ‘were you known to it?’
A look of disgust crossed my patient’s face. He burst out, ‘Known to it? Not at all! I won’t let crows anywhere near me. I find them very disturbing.’
I smiled sympathetically. Even in England we say ‘A crow on the thatch, soon death lifts the latch’, the superstition a lone crow over a house foretells a death within.
‘So you cannot explain why a crow should fly at you and land on your shoulder?’ my companion asked.
‘I cannot,’ came the reply.
At that moment the Emperor’s faithful eunuch raised his hand. He was glued to a tiny window in the great door. He called something back in a hurried whisper.
‘The Empress Dowager and General Yuán,’ Holmes translated. ‘They have returned early.’
‘Perhaps news got to them of the accident,’ I hazarded.
‘Perhaps,’ Holmes replied. ‘Whatever we do, we must give the impression we consider this exactly that, an accident. If it was not, if it was a deliberate attack, the plotters must be kept confident of their safety while we gather up the clues. Are you quite, quite clear on this, Watson?’
‘Yes, Holmes,’ I said, smiling broadly, ‘I shall have no difficulty in that. We don’t seem to have so very much to conceal. I’ve no doubt at all it was an accident.’
‘If you say so, Watson,’ my comrade exclaimed, his tone heavy with irony, ‘but if villainy is at work, we shall want to lay our hands on the knaves, not frighten them off.’
He turned back to the unfortunate Emperor. In a whisper, he asked, ‘Your Highness, is there anywhere in this Palace where you can rest up for a few days, somewhere no-one, not even Her Imperial Majesty, can come upon you unobserved?’
The figure before us looked taken aback but pointed upwards.
He switched to perfectly comprehensible English.
‘Up there. A bolt-hole. It can be reached unnoticed by a hidden staircase. On special occasions I ask lama priests to hold services. No-one else has ever entered it. I plan to hide there if ever the Forbidden City comes under sudden attack.’
‘And this young person,’ Holmes asked, pointing at th
e eunuch. ‘Kou Liancai. How certain are you of his loyalty?’
‘He’s the only eunuch in the whole of the Purple City who isn’t a spy in the pay of the Old Buddha. I would trust him with my life,’ the Emperor confirmed.
‘Then you shall. He and he alone must be empowered to bring your food to you and taste it. No-one else. He must allow no-one in, no-one at all. Have your meals left with Kou at the foot of the staircase. Draw shut every curtain. After they leave you today, not even Her Imperial Majesty or General Yuán must be allowed to see you until,’ he pointed at the black powder residue on the Emperor’s face, ‘that has completely rubbed away.’
A further call came from the eunuch, the tone rising in urgency. Swiftly Holmes turned to me and issued the most dumbfounding - and on the face of it utterly irresponsible - command.
‘Watson, quickly!’ he gesticulated. ‘Remove the bandaging from the Emperor’s damaged ear and apply it to the other ear. Cover as much of the blackened side of his face with bandages as you can. Then Kou must turn down all the lamps surrounding your patient.’
To the Emperor he said, ‘Your Majesty, when my friend has adjusted the bandages lie back with the blackened side of your face to the wall. Keep it hidden from anyone entering the room.’
He added, ‘Most important of all, no matter who is about to come in, you must have your hands clasped to the ear the Doctor is about to bandage, your good ear. Do you understand? Hold your hands to it as though it’s that ear causing great pain, not the other.’
I protested, ‘Holmes, may I remind you of my Hippocratic oath. Asking me to switch the bandages to a perfectly good ear - how absurd can you get? If infection sets in he could lose some of the hearing in that ear. And besides, it’s no ordinary people approaching the door, it’s the Empress Dowager and General Yuán!’
Holmes’s years in retirement with his bees had not smoothed his impatience. His face blazed with anger.
‘Your Hippocratic oath be damned!’ he barked. ‘The risk of any loss of hearing in one ear may be the trade-off for saving His Majesty’s life! I repeat, do as I ask - immediately! If this has been an assassination attempt it’s far too soon to rule anyone in, but equally...’, he paused, looking towards the door, ‘it’s far too soon to rule out anyone. I repeat, anyone.’