Snake Bite (17 page)

Eventually there was only one building ahead – a massive, sprawling construction on the top of the hill with walls so white they dazzled the eye. Its roof was made of yellow tiles and it
was surrounded by cherry trees. Guards, dressed similarly to those outside the city gate, stood beside the various doorways, and at the corners of the building. Sherlock decided that it had to be
the residence of someone important – perhaps the Prefect that Captain Bryan had mentioned.

The crowd had thinned out as well, so that the only people around were those going to the building – the Residence, as Sherlock decided to think of it – and coming away from it.

From the top of the hill the whole of Shanghai spread out below Sherlock. He could see the twisty streets and the broad thoroughfares that crossed them. He could see the square houses with their
hidden gardens forming splashes of green in their centre. He could see the walls of the town, holding everything inside in a tight embrace. Beyond the walls he could see the blue waters of the
South China Seas glittering in the sunshine. Several ships were lined up along the quayside – including the
Gloria Scott
, which he recognized from the masts and the rigging with which
he had become so familiar over the past few months. He could also see the long grey bulk of the USS
Monocacy
. Her steam-driven wheels were turning, and white steam was emerging from her
funnels. She was preparing to leave the dock and head up the Yangtze River.

Turning his attention back to the buildings, Sherlock saw Mr Mackenzie heading directly for the Residence’s main entrance, but whatever was following him seemed to have vanished. The main
entrance was a formidable double-gate made of thick wood and studded with metal bolts. It had four guards standing on either side of it. A Chinese official stood directly in front of the gates. He
wore a long embroidered robe with big sleeves, and a small black brimless hat on his head. People were going up to him and talking for a moment, and he would either let them in through the gates or
send them away. Most people were sent away, with only a trickle heading in. Sherlock noticed that at least some of the people who got in handed across a purse of coins to the gatekeeper. The
transactions were quick and well hidden by the official’s long sleeves. Bribes? Perhaps.

As well as the arriving and departing townsfolk, some people had stalls from which they were selling drinks, snacks and hats to keep off the sun. Sherlock walked past the official in front of
the main entrance and found a space near enough to listen to what was being said without being observed. He crouched down and kept his hat low over his face, hoping anyone who did notice him would
take him for a beggar.

Malcolm Mackenzie was third from the front of the queue. He kept twitching and moving as if there was something bothering him.

Sherlock glanced around as surreptitiously as he could. He was looking for the mysterious follower. Surely it couldn’t have disappeared? Eventually he saw it – or at least he saw
something that he thought was it – in a cherry tree overlooking the Residence. Foliage and blossom concealed it, but Sherlock could see the branch bending under its weight, and while there
were birds in all the other trees this one was empty of wildlife. They had obviously been scared off.

‘My name is Malcolm Mackenzie,’ Cameron’s father said in Cantonese when he finally reached the official. ‘I need to speak to Prefect Chen urgently.’

‘Have you applied for an appointment?’ the official asked calmly.

‘No. As I said – this is urgent.’

‘Ah.’ The official took his hands from his sleeves and spread them wide in a shrug. ‘All business is urgent to those who have it, but what is urgent to one man may be trivial
to another.’

‘I promise you, this is an emergency,’ Mackenzie said with obvious frustration.

‘Nobody ever comes to the Prefect saying, “I have a small matter which has no real importance and can wait”,’ the official pointed out imperturbably.

Mackenzie looked ready to swear, but instead he pushed a hand into his pocket and came out with a handful of coins. ‘Will this make my business more urgent?’ he snapped, thrusting
the coins under the official’s nose.

The official looked pained. ‘Regrettably,’ he said, ‘it will not.’ Sherlock suspected it was the aggressiveness with which the bribe had been offered, rather than the
size, that was the problem. Or perhaps only Chinese people could bribe Chinese officials.

‘May I know when an appointment can be made?’ Mackenzie asked through clenched teeth.

‘For that, you will need to speak to the Prefect’s appointments secretary.’ The official inclined his head. ‘He is at the Gate of Celestial Blessings, which is on the
other side of the Residence.’

Mackenzie’s hands were clenching and unclenching. ‘Could I perhaps leave a message for the Prefect?’

‘You may leave a message, and I will ensure that it is passed to the Prefect’s correspondence secretary. If he decides that it is important enough then he will pass it on.’

‘Do you,’ Mackenzie said, ‘have a brush, ink and paper?’

‘There will undoubtedly be someone around here selling those items,’ the official said smoothly. ‘And for an additional sum he will surely be able to phrase the message in a
way that will catch the Prefect’s ear.’

Mackenzie nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he snapped, although it was clear that he would have liked to say something else.

Sherlock watched as Mackenzie turned away and looked for someone who could write a message for him, or provide the means with which he could write his own message. A stall near to the corner of
the Residence seemed to have what he wanted. He headed for it. Unfortunately, few other people were down at that end of the wall, and Sherlock suspected that if he tried to follow he would be seen
by Cameron’s father, disguise or no disguise.

Sherlock turned his head to look at the cherry tree. The branch that had been bowed down earlier was now at its normal height, and there were birds perching on the higher twigs. The mysterious
follower had moved tree, or had left altogether.

When Sherlock looked back towards the letter-writer’s stall, the stallholder was rolling a paper up and sealing it shut with a blob of red wax. He handed it across to Mackenzie with a
flourish. Cameron’s father snatched it away and virtually ran across to the official in front of the main gates, bypassing the queue of Chinese townspeople who were already there. He tried to
hand the scroll to the man directly, but the official shook his head with a sorrowful expression on his face.

‘Please – join the queue at the back,’ he said. ‘I will take it from you in due course.’

‘This really is urgent!’ Mackenzie protested.

‘What is urgent today is of passing interest tomorrow,’ the official said as if he was quoting something. ‘Clouds pass in front of the sun and then are gone.’

Mackenzie stared at him for a long moment, then grudgingly went to the end of the queue, which by this time consisted of about ten people. Impatiently, he waited as they were dealt with one by
one, tapping the scroll against his leg. Eventually he was in front of the official again.

‘Yes?’ the official asked.

Mackenzie looked at him in disbelief. ‘I need the Prefect to see this,’ he said. ‘Is there a way to get it to him?’

The official took the scroll. ‘I will pass it to the Prefect’s correspondence secretary. After that, the matter is in the hands of the gods.’ Slipping the scroll into one of
his voluminous sleeves, he clapped his hands together twice. A younger official, also in robes, ran through the gates from inside the Residence. The official passed the scroll to him with a flurry
of instructions in a language that Sherlock didn’t recognize. Was that the Mandarin language that he had heard about – the language reserved for officials and for the Manchu rulers? The
younger man ran off, disappearing inside the Residence again.

‘It is done,’ the official said to Malcolm Mackenzie, bowing. ‘May blessings rain down on you like blossom from the cherry tree.’

‘And may your honour and wealth increase steadily, like a trickle that becomes a stream and then a river,’ Mackenzie replied. It was obviously a rote response: something that was
expected in conversation with high-class Chinese. He stared at the official for a long moment, obviously debating whether or not to add something else, but eventually he turned and walked away,
hands clenched by his sides. Passing on the message obviously hadn’t relieved his worries.

Sherlock gave him a few minutes’ head start, then he gathered up his buckets and his bamboo pole and headed downhill. With the mysterious follower gone, or hidden, there was no point in
hanging around, and Cameron’s father was almost certainly heading back home, disappointed, so there was no point in following him.

His sense of direction had always been pretty good, and he quickly found his way back to a cross-street that he knew would take him back to the Wu family house on East Renmin Street.

Within ten minutes he was outside the house. The street was empty apart from a handful of passers-by. Leaving his bamboo pole and buckets at the side of the road, Sherlock gingerly walked up to
the door and knocked on the door frame.

Cameron appeared in the opening. He looked tired, drained.

‘What’s been happening?’ Sherlock asked him.

Rather than answer, Cameron slipped out of the house and joined Sherlock. ‘Some friends and relatives have come round,’ he said. ‘They’re speaking so fast I can hardly
keep up. A Taoist priest is here, and the body is being prepared for burial.’

Sherlock nodded. ‘How are Tsi Huen and Wu Fung-Yi?’

‘What’s the phrase? “As well as can be expected”.’ He shrugged. ‘This is the tropics. People die all the time here. It’s . . . expected. Or at least,
it’s not unusual.’

‘This is,’ Sherlock muttered.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I just don’t believe that a snake could have made its way to Wu Chung’s bedroom and out again without help and without being seen. The distance was too far, and there were no
windows, and Wu Fung-Yi was positive that he’d stopped up any holes in the walls or the floor.’

‘What are you saying?’ Cameron’s face was a picture of curiosity.

Sherlock’s voice was grim. ‘I’m saying that the snake was introduced deliberately. I think Wu Chung was murdered!’

‘But why?’ Cameron asked, obviously stunned.

Sherlock shrugged. ‘Maybe it was something to do with the fact that he’d just got back. Maybe there was someone here who hated him enough to kill him.’ He paused, sorting
through the possibilities. ‘Or maybe people resented the fact that he’d got a job with the Americans and wanted to punish him. There’s obviously a lot of local
discontent.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, but he was a cook. An
assistant
cook.’

‘He was a cook, yes, but with a job on an American military ship,’ Sherlock said. The words suddenly triggered a memory. ‘Captain Bryan told me that the Head Cook on the
Monocacy
had died after being bitten by a snake. That can’t be a coincidence, can it?’

‘It’s an intriguing theory,’ Cameron said, cocking his head to one side and staring at Sherlock. ‘But there’s no evidence. All you have is a story that fits the
facts, but I could come up with a story just as plausible.’

‘Like what?’

‘Give me a minute and I’ll think of one.’

Sherlock hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to say the next words or not. ‘Look, Cameron – I saw your father earlier, when I was coming back from the quay. He was heading up
to the Prefect’s Residence, and he was in a hurry. He wanted an audience. He didn’t get in, so he wrote a message and got an official to take it in for him. He stressed that it was
urgent. Cameron – I think
he
knows what’s going on. That thing from the garden last night – it was following him!’

‘You followed my father,’ Cameron said quietly. His tone was quiet and level. Sherlock couldn’t tell whether he was angry, surprised or intrigued. Or perhaps he was a mixture
of all three.

‘Yes,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I did. You would have done the same thing if you had seen him.’

Cameron stared at Sherlock for a long moment. ‘Actually, you’re right,’ he said eventually. ‘I probably would have done.’ He sighed, and looked away.
‘He’s been acting strangely recently: irritable, argumentative and easily distracted. You saw what he was like at breakfast this morning. Even Mother is worried about him. I think
something is wrong.’ His mouth twisted suddenly, and Sherlock realized with surprise how worried Cameron was about his father, and how hard he was trying to hide it.

‘I really think he knows what’s going on,’ Sherlock repeated. ‘Or at least, he has an idea.’ He felt his pulse pounding as the excitement of putting facts together
to form a brick wall of evidence started to get to him. ‘Did you see, in the garden last night, Mr Arrhenius gave your father a package? I think I know what it was. I saw a set of pictures in
his cabin, on the
Gloria Scott
. They looked like spider’s webs. I think that’s what Mr Arrhenius delivered to your father.’ He suddenly remembered the pirate attack.
‘And I think there are people trying to get hold of those pictures. Pirates attacked the
Gloria Scott
and one of them sneaked into Mr Arrhenius’s cabin, looking for something.
Then there’s that thing from the garden last night – I think it might be looking for the pictures too.’

Cameron’s eyes flickered with interest. ‘What was it? Did you see?’

‘It moved too quickly,’ Sherlock said. ‘And it kept hiding in shadows. I couldn’t get a clear line of sight.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ Cameron sighed. ‘We think there’s some kind of plot afoot involving the USS
Monocacy
but we don’t know what it is. We think my
father is involved, but we don’t know how. We think these spider pictures are important, but we don’t know why. Is that a fair summary?’

‘Pretty much.’ Sherlock scratched his head. ‘I suppose we could always ask your father what’s going on. He might tell us.’