Sherlock Holmes and the Chinese Junk Affair and Other Stories (8 page)

The Prime Minister held out his hand once again, shook hands with Holmes, and then with me. ‘Perhaps Mr Holmes and you, Dr Watson, will have dinner at No. 10 tomorrow, and afterwards, behind closed doors, my Cabinet colleagues and I might be given the facts of how you solved, what I must confess, appeared to be the unsolvable.’ He put one foot on the step of the four-wheeler and turned towards Holmes. ‘You and I, Mr Holmes, should exchange jobs.’ He paused. ‘But perhaps not; I would make a poor detective.’ With a smile still lighting his face, he entered the four-wheeler followed by his ministers.

The policemen had that puzzled look still upon their faces, unable to understand what had been going on. They, of course, had been outside the building, guarding the entrance against any intruders, and were still not privy to anything. The few local people were puzzled too, no doubt, at the sight of the four-wheelers drawn up outside those old empty workshops being guarded by a posse of large hefty policemen. Had they known the Prime Minister was inside the building, a crowd would soon have gathered.

That evening Holmes and I discussed the events of the day, but not how he had achieved what had seemed the impossible. I was content to await the following evening when Holmes, in his inimitable manner, would, like a surgeon before a group of students, dissect a body step by step, the mysteries and functions of each organ explained in a logical and lucid manner.

*

We arrived at No. 10 the following evening and enjoyed a superb dinner in the most congenial surroundings, the glassware and silver picking up the light from the magnificent chandeliers. The walls were hung with wonderful paintings by the great artists of the past. Altogether a most memorable occasion, a reminder of the grand dinners held in the regimental mess I had attended in the past.

I knew, though, the best was yet to come. After the port was passed around, we retired to a comfortable room with sofas and easy chairs.

Lord Bellinger spoke first. ‘I am sure we are all waiting with bated breath for you to reveal, Mr Holmes, how you brought this case, which let us not forget appeared such a threat, to a most successful conclusion.’ He sank back into his chair displaying every indication of looking forward to hearing what Holmes had to reveal.

Holmes leaned forward, his eyes swiftly looking from face to face at his expectant audience, then began.

‘When Dr Watson and I started the investigation, we went to Halam Hall, spending the day examining the ballroom, the Hall itself and then the grounds. As my old friend Inspector Lestrade of the Yard would say, it was as clean as a whistle. There was hardly a sign of what had taken place there, not one single clue remained which might have led us on to another.

‘Rodger Hardy had made good use of the time to clean up the place between that weekend, when he put on his superb demonstration for Sir Simon, and the time we began our investigation. Two weeks in fact had passed.

‘The following days I decided to try and trace the Chinese junk. After all a Chinese junk on the River Thames is not exactly an everyday sight. Again I drew a blank. I was to learn later from my Chinese friends that they had hidden it during the daylight hours after Sir Simon’s inspection and, during that night, had sailed it laden with heavy stone ballast, out to sea and sank her. They returned to shore in a small rowing boat.

‘I should like to point out that I had been without the invaluable help given me on most of my cases by Dr Watson. He had been called away to Brighton to attend an old patient. I can assure you he was sorely missed.’

They acknowledged this statement by looking towards me for a moment, before turning once again to listen to Holmes. I felt a great warmth towards my old friend and have to acknowledge a smarting in my eyes.

‘I made enquiries then from electrical engineering firms from whom Rodger Hardy might have obtained his electrical apparatus. Here I was more fortunate. It seemed to confirm Rodger Hardy’s account of his work on developing the “Transposer” with the scientists in China.

‘Over the past years the firms had despatched electrical goods to him in China, and over the last few months had delivered similar equipment to Halam Hall.

‘I reasoned, then, that the Chinese junk and her crew may have been on the high seas on their way back to China. However, I decided that if they were not, then the most obvious place they might be found was here in London’s Chinatown.

‘As Dr Watson is aware, I have a great many friends in that oriental part of London, so I had them put the word about. Results were spectacular. I found my ten Chinamen; they were the key to enable me to unlock the whole mystery. Posing as an intimate friend of Rodger Hardy, and using the subterfuge of wanting to win a bet against my friends, I was to discover all I wanted to know.

‘As we are all aware, the Chinese are great gamblers and I explained that I had bet my friends that I could also perform the magic trick of making a vessel vanish and reappear again. With the lure of gold sovereigns, I was able to learn unobtrusively how Rodger Hardy had worked his confidence trick which, I think we all must admit, was a piece of sheer brilliance.’

The Cabinet ministers nodded agreement and the Prime Minister added his approval too.

‘I felt on learning all the facts that it wouldn’t be sufficient to be able to explain the confidence trick in words; much better and more effective to put on a demonstration. However, I reasoned it would need to be on a smaller scale, both size of the vessel, reduced, and the time taken to construct them. I say them, because I had decided to have two identical cardboard vessels made. More of that later.

‘The story I obtained from the Chinamen over many cups of tea and numerous visits was as follows. Rodger Hardy had bought the newly built junk in China. He had hired five experienced seamen to sail the craft across the world to Britain. The other five Chinamen were craftsmen in the art of making objects of everyday use such as a bed, table, chair, desk, rickshaws and even small houses; all made from paper and cardboard, to be burned at the funerals of rich Chinese.

The models are life sized and so realistic that, it is said, they are impossible to distinguish from the real thing. Burning these objects at a funeral is thought to enable the deceased to arrive in the afterlife with essential goods to begin again. To cut a long story very short, Rodger Hardy, with the lure of much gold, and the promise of more when the job was done, persuaded the ten Chinamen to leave their homeland and sail to the land of the “long-nosed devils” as white men are called in China.

‘The five craftsmen would labour on the journey to help sail the craft under the direction of the experienced seamen, cooking the meals, pulling on the ropes and in general making themselves useful.

‘Of course the roles were reversed when they reached Halam Hall. The craftsmen set about making a copy of the junk whilst the seamen made themselves useful, cooking and helping in any way they could.

‘The Chinamen knew nothing, of course, of the real reason why the strange long-nosed Englishman should want to do this unusual thing to win a bet, but you must remember stories about the strange ways of Europeans, especially the British, had filtered for years back to China.

‘So the Chinese junk duly arrived at the mouth of the Thames and was met by a river pilot, who had been handsomely paid by Rodger Hardy, to be on the lookout for just such an arrival. Suitably disguised, with mast and rattan sail hidden under tarpaulins, she was towed to a preselected covered-in boathouse. There to await her brief appearance when Sir Simon would inspect her, then down to the sea and sunk, a few months later.’

Holmes reached out, took up his glass and sipped slowly. I looked at his attentive audience, rather like children being told a story, spellbound and waiting to hear more, I thought. Holmes put down his glass and continued.

‘We must remember, Halam Hall is rather isolated and the only staff was a cook and her daughter, both of whom lived in the village, and an elderly gardener who came daily, also from the village. Plus a young stable boy. The young lad lived over the stable and looked after the horse and drove the dogcart; he helped the gardener too. On a later visit to Halam Hall, I spoke to them all in turn except the stable lad, who had by then joined the Army. They all remarked that the Chinamen kept very much to themselves and confirmed what I had already gathered, that Rodger Hardy was a fine gentleman, considerate and generous. When he closed the Hall and put it up for sale, he gave them all a handsome present of money as a way of showing his appreciation of them.

‘The village people told of loads of wood and strange objects being delivered by steam traction lorries from time to time, passing through the village on the way up to the Hall.

‘From my Chinese friends I found out that when Rodger Hardy first showed Sir Simon the keel and ribs of the junk, they were of genuine wood. But the heavy baulks of timber which you saw, Sir Simon, making up the keel, were in fact only thin planks, made to appear like thick heavy oak timbers.

‘On your second visit a month later, and you again inspected the progress which had been made of the building of the junk, again you could touch and see it was definitely wood. The sawdust, offcuts of wood and shavings, all went to confirm this. However, between that second visit and third visit, the keel and wooden ribs of the vessel had been taken away and the cardboard and paper construction replaced it.

‘They obstructed, with timber and tools, the foot of the stairs leading into the ballroom, making it difficult for you to inspect the hull closely. The lighting was not good either; several of the lamps were unlit. Rodger Hardy had made the excuse that he was having trouble with them, I believe.’ Holmes looked at Sir Simon who nodded agreement.

Holmes continued. ‘Rodger Hardy had chosen you, his witness, very well.’ He again looked towards Sir Simon and said, ‘Sir Simon, like many, no doubt, of the Cabinet, is not remotely aware of the ways men work wood with axe, saw and plane. The shavings, sawdust, wood and tools lying around were enough to give the impression and create the illusion that what you were seeing was a vessel made of solid English oak, and having been given a brief view of the month’s progress, there your interest ended.

‘Now had you, Sir Simon, been a carpenter, or a craftsman of any kind, you would have been sufficiently interested in another’s craftsmanship to observe it closer and perhaps ask questions about its construction.’

Holmes uncrossed his long legs again, took another sip from his glass and continued. ‘Rodger Hardy relied upon this very fact. He might have chosen a friend or acquaintance from the civil service, the admiralty, or parliament, to be a witness, but when he heard that his old university friend was now a member of the Cabinet he concluded he could find no better person.

‘Relying upon Sir Simon’s lack of curiosity and interest in all things of a technical nature, he was able to impress him with a glimpse of electric cables, dials and switches. To add further authenticity to the occasion, he rigged up a simple mechanical device which, when turned by hand, by one of the Chinamen in this case, gave a humming sound easily mistaken for an electrical generator. The driving power for the generators was supposed to be provided by two hired steam tractors, but only their noise, and the hiss of steam, was really needed to create the illusion.

‘Of course, Rodger Hardy was aware that any investigating team coming to Halam Hall would want to know how the generators were powered. The two steam-tractor drivers made great play of obtaining water from the village pond, both on the day before the demonstration, and on their departure next day. Thus the village people would provide ample verification of how steam tractors were seen to have been used at the Hall on the evening in question.

‘The posts and strands of copper wire around the vessel were intended to both impress Sir Simon that it was essential to the transposition process, and to prevent him, after being warned of the danger, from reaching between them and touching the vessel, perhaps to admire the smoothness of the paintwork, thus discovering it was constructed only of paper and card. All part of the elaborate deception.

‘After Sir Simon had walked around the vessel and had withdrawn with Rodger Hardy to partake of dinner, the same frantic activity took place you witnessed yesterday in the workshops. This time, of course, the Chinese junk was much, much larger and the time allowed for dismantling it had to be greater.

‘Dinner was an ideal length of time to execute the dismantling of the vessel. After about two hours and following a good meal and suitably good wines Rodger Hardy was ready to spring his ingenious confidence trick.

‘Just before the estimated time when he was to take Sir Simon back to the ballroom, he excused himself for a few minutes. This would be to make sure all was well and there were no last-minute hitches.

‘The Chinamen had taken the paper and debris to one of the unused rooms nearby. Most probably the withdrawing-room. They disposed of it permanently the following day, after Sir Simon had returned to London.’

Holmes turned to me and said, ‘The reason why Dr Watson and I never found a trace of anything was because in the kitchen garden there was a disused well. Everything was thrown down it, and the top covered with wooden boards and earth. As a final touch, plants were carefully taken from other parts of the garden and replanted over the disturbed earth as camouflage.’

Holmes smiled when Lord Bellinger said, ‘It is an incredible story of deception, Holmes, almost unbelievable,’ shaking his head from side to side.