Sherlock Holmes in Orbit Read online

  I do not have Watson’s experience in making literature from the dry bones of fact. However, I do have my journals, which I began to keep on first going up to Cambridge. Every aspect of this affair was examined and interpreted for me by Holmes himself during the days of our imprisonment beneath the Palace of the Opal Moon, within the inner Forbidden City of Peiping. I entered those events in my journal upon my return to Sussex almost exactly fifty-two years ago; yet each word, each image resounds again in my mind as clearly today as when I was a young man, not yet of a legal age but already tempered by the trials and terrors I had undergone.

  It all began simply enough. Holmes, who, like myself, belonged to Caius college but lodged in the town, was told by his landlord that he had received a message during the day. Holmes took the notepaper and studied it. The words were written in a careful, precise, yet distinctly odd handwriting. “It was a Chinaman brought it,” said Holmes’s landlord. “I didn’t mind taking the message, sir, but I’ll thank you for not inviting them into your room. I’ll not have the likes of them in my house.”

  “Indeed,” said Holmes absently. He handed me the note, and I read it as we climbed the stairs to his quarters. The note said:

  My Dear Mr. Holmes—

  There has been a certain amount of talk among the underclassmen concerning your abilities of observation and deduction. Your success with some small problems brought to you for solution has led me to believe that you may be able to provide me with similar assistance.

  I assure you that my difficulty is of great importance to me, but will not likely cause you a great deal of inconvenience. I am quite willing to compensate you according to whatever you consider fair and equitable for your time. I will look forward to meeting you at my lodgings tonight, or at whatever time you find more suitable.

  Ch’ing Chuan-Fu

  The note gave Ch’ing’s address in Jesus Lane. Holmes frowned and folded the paper, putting it inside the front cover of a book he was carrying. As we paused while he unlocked his door, he said, “I’ve seen this Ch’ing once or twice about the town and heard various stories about the man. He had tried to be admitted to Cambridge on two occasions but had been denied admittance because each prospective student must belong to a college, and none of the Cambridge colleges would accept an Oriental student. Ch’ing matriculated instead at Heidelberg, where he studied medicine.”

  The door opened, and I preceded Holmes inside. “Yet he continued to apply to Cambridge for admission?” I asked.

  Holmes nodded. “Just a few years ago, Cambridge changed its policy and began to admit young men without college affiliations. Ch’ing made another application, and this time he was accepted. I have heard that in his native land he had a certain amount of influence, but none of that was enough to break down some of the centuries-old English university barriers.”

  If I did not know it already, I was soon to learn that Holmes himself was as free from preconceived notions and prejudice as any man alive. “Prejudice is but the soot from an untrimmed wick,” he once told me. “The lantern may be brilliant inside, but if the glass is blackened, the flame illuminates nothing.”

  Later, after dinner, Holmes and I left his flat in Lensfield Road and walked up Regent Street in the direction of the River Cam. In those days Holmes was not as comfortably well-off as he was to be at the time of his association with Dr. Watson. Although Holmes never spoke of his family and background, I often had the impression that they were less agreeably situated than, for instance, my own family. I know that Holmes was able to enjoy his college years without anything like the style of the wealthier lads. Some of these would think nothing of hiring a cab for any occasion, but Holmes often said that he preferred to walk. From Lensfield Road to Jesus Lane is a pleasant half hour’s exercise, and the weather was fine.

  The house in which Ch’ing resided was large, but divided up into many small flats. It was quite some distance from the university proper. It was owned by a Mrs. Richmond, who proved to be an elderly, gaunt woman with a permanently suspicious expression and an equally disapproving tone of voice. These were the campaign ribbons she had won over the years, battling with the underclassmen. “Yes?” she said, answering Holmes’s knock.

  “I received an invitation to call on Mr. Ch’ing this evening,” Holmes said. He regarded the woman with quiet interest.

  “Mr. Ch’ing,’’ she said absently. She studied Holmes silently for a moment “Come in, then, Mr.—”

  “Holmes, madam. Sherlock Holmes. And this is my friend, Reginald Musgrave.”

  “Yes. Mr. Holmes. Make yourself comfortable in the parlor, gentlemen, and I’ll— No. Why don’t you just go up to his rooms? Second floor, first on the left.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Richmond,” said Holmes. We followed her directions and Holmes rapped on Ch’ing’s door.

  It was opened almost immediately. “Yes?”

  “My name is Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Ch’ing. And this is my companion, Reginald Musgrave.”

  “Ah, yes. Please come in. I am so glad that you accepted my invitation. Please, sit there. Would you care for some tea?” Ch’ing permitted himself a quiet smile. “I have English and Chinese.”

  “Whatever you have prepared,” I said, and Holmes nodded in agreement. We each sat in a comfortable armchair and looked about the room. I saw that it was furnished in precisely the same fashion as most other undergraduate rooms I’d visited. There was the same clutter and jumble of books, papers, notebooks. The room was lit by an oil lamp, which shed a soft light on the dark paneling of the walls and the bare wooden floor. There were few objects in the room that were not absolutely essential to the daily life of a university student.

  “Perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you expected to see Chinese scrolls on the wall and possibly a Ming vase and a T’ang horse,” Ch’ing said, as he served us Chinese tea in chipped teacups.

  “I had no expectations at all,” Holmes said.

  “You wished to keep an open mind about me?” Ch’ing sat in a chair much less comfortable than the ones he had offered to us. He sipped from his cup of tea.

  “Mrs. Richmond hesitated to have you meet me in her parlor, where anyone might see that you roomed in her house. You must certainly be weary of such bigotry.”

  Ch’ing shrugged. “Do you like the tea?” He seemed to have quite forgotten that I was present.

  Holmes tasted the tea. “Very good.” He waited, perhaps expecting that the other man would launch immediately into his problem, but Ch’ing seemed content to sit and drink his tea, gazing reflectively over the simple white china cup, saying nothing at all. A few minutes passed in uneasy silence— uneasy, at least, for this young Westerner unused to the Chinese way of doing things.

  “Tell me,” Ch’ing said at last, “now that you’ve observed me for a short time, tell me what you can about myself.”

  “I am not a mystic, Mr. Ch’ing,” Holmes said, “nor am I some kind of theatrical mind reader. I am developing a system of observation and deduction, which already has been of some practical use to myself and others. If there is nothing to observe, there is nothing to deduce.”

  “I hope you do not wish me to believe that you observe nothing.”

  Holmes shook his head. “Quite the contrary. I thought only that I should make myself plain to you at the beginning, Mr. Ch’ing. If you expect some kind of magical solution to your problem, you may be disappointed.”

  “Not at all. And, please, you need not call me Mr. Ch’ing. It is a false construction based upon the European system of naming individuals. I would much prefer it if you would address me by the name I use in my homeland—Dr. Fu Manchu.”

  Holmes gave a slight nod.

  Fu Manchu continued. “I had been afraid that you might have claimed some kind of supernatural power beyond the understanding of science. You must realize that I am a friend of science.”

  “As am I,” Holmes said.

  The two men regarded each other once again. Fu Manchu shrugged. “Still you hesitate t
o speak,” he said in his low, sibilant voice.

  Holmes took a deep breath and let it out. “Very well, then. From what I know of you, I can say that you are from China, but I have never heard from which province or city. I have heard also that you are the hereditary possessor of some influence or position in your country, but I judge that, as in England, that does not mean that you also inherited wealth. This rooming house is quite some distance from the university, and consequently the rents Mrs. Richmond can charge for her flats must be lower than at a more conveniently situated house. Further, I perceive that beneath your academic robe you wear a suit of good material but inferior cut, as though you had little experience in dealing with tailors, either here or in China. You are still wearing your robe but not your cap, which indicates that you hurried back to your lodgings in the hope that we would make our visit this evening. You made a pot of tea but have not yet removed your robe. All tutorials today would have been concluded before the dinner hour, and I don’t believe you would have made later appointments if you expected to meet me tonight. I suspect that you have some kind of extracurricular employment to help defray the cost of your education. Because of the common attitudes toward members of your race, I expect such employment would have to be menial, despite your previous education. No doubt you accepted this employment in some part of town remote from the university, so that you would not be discovered by your fellows while you were engaged in such an occupation. I observe also that the inside of your right forefinger is noticeably callused in an unusual way, as from some tool or implement. Beyond these things I can say no more. The contents of your room say little, other than that you are at great pains to adopt the ways and manners of your hosts.”

  Fu Manchu sipped the last of the tea in his cup and closed his eyes for a moment. “I am most interested, Mr. Holmes. Most interested. Your system is admirable. It is rare, even in a place of learning as venerable as this, to meet one such as you who seeks to know truth. Because truth is so important to you, Mr. Holmes, I must say I feel compelled to tell you that you are mistaken in almost every particular.”

  I saw that Holmes felt some discomfort on hearing this, but he said nothing to Fu Manchu. He waited to hear the man’s story. Weeks later, while Holmes and I were both chained to an ancient subterranean wall in Peiping, Holmes would recall this moment with bitter humor.

  Fu Manchu favored us with a joyless smile, an expression Holmes and I would get to know well. It is something the Chinese call “making teeth,” and is used to disguise a wide range of emotions, from embarrassment to contempt to murderous rage. When this particular Oriental smiled in that way, it never failed to make me cold with fear. “You are correct, Mr. Holmes, in that I have only just arrived. I thought first of the luxury of tea, but I retained the robe so that this meeting might begin as a conversation between fellow students at a great academic institution, rather than as yet another tedious meeting between East and West. As to your estimations of my financial position, you have been betrayed by your own system. Permit me to say where I feel you fall into error. Your observations themselves are quite amazing. You are by far the most perceptive man I have come to know in the European countries I have visited. It is your deductions that are faulty.”

  Holmes was not visibly upset by his apparent failure. He was fascinated by this encounter, and he wanted to learn as much as possible. If Fu Manchu could correct a flaw in Holmes’s as-yet-incomplete science of detection, Holmes would listen with all the attention and interest he gave his collegiate lecturers.

  Fu Manchu went on. “These rooms,” and the Chinese gestured about himself disdainfully, “are by no means the best I could afford. Had I the desire, I could purchase outright any house in the town. Such a thing would, of course, cause resentment and attract unpleasant attention. I have much to accomplish, much to learn here at Cambridge. I cannot afford the time to fend off the petty annoyances of your English entêtement.”

  Holmes started to speak, but Fu Manchu held up a hand and continued. “I suppose you were given a nice speech by your own landlord about entertaining ‘Chinamen’ in your rooms. He tried it out on me first. So you must appreciate then how difficult it must have been for me to rent rooms at any more convenient location. Mrs. Richmond has no such scruples against a gentleman of my race—I doubt if Mrs.

  Richmond has very many scruples at all if it comes to that. She does exact from me a good deal more than from anyone else in this palace of Occidental pleasures. As to my clothing, Mr. Holmes, you are further correct in stating that it is of the best material. I appreciate fine quality, sir, and when given the liberty I surround myself with the finest of everything. As to the cut of my clothes, I must say that this particular suit was made for me by an English tailor in my employ in Peiping, a man who has not seen England for some ten years. I understand that a suit tailored for me in London would look more pleasing to you and your companion, but this one satisfied my desire to seem unassuming and somewhat poverty-stricken. The poor man who tailored it had no idea of the recent changes in style, and my own motives were more important to me than appearing a dandy among—” He used a Chinese expression here. Fu Manchu noticed Holmes’s frown. “I’m sorry for lapsing into Mandarin. That was a phrase my people use when referring to your people.”

  “I would hazard a guess,” Holmes said, “that much about the relations of our countries could be learned if you were to translate it.”

  Once more Fu Manchu gave a short smile. “It means ‘blue-eyed devils,’ Mr. Holmes.”

  I was taken aback, but Holmes laughed. “And the callus?” he asked.

  Fu Manchu shrugged. “No menial labor, sir, no endless toil with some strange Oriental implement. In Peiping I entertain myself with the illusion that I am something of a calligrapher and an artist. The manner and techniques of Chinese painting are quite different from the European.” Holmes finished his tea. “Ah,” he said, “I seem to have made quite a complete ass of myself.”

  Fu Manchu made an airy gesture with one hand. “Not at all, Mr. Holmes, not at all. As I have said, your observations were keen, but the deductions to which they led were inaccurate. You must remember that two plus two always equals four here in your comfortable British Empire, but in the ancient lands of the East two plus two may equal whatever seems appropriate at the time.”

  “I must thank you, then,” Holmes said, “for a lesson I shall never forget.”

  At that point, Fu Manchu elaborated upon the reason he had summoned Holmes and myself to his room. Evidently someone had stolen a brass and enamel box, worthless but for its sentimental value to our host “You are no doubt aware that the term is coming to an end soon,” Holmes said. “I cannot take leave of my studies at this time.”

  Fu Manchu nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. I rather expected you to say just that. Perhaps you will do me the very great pleasure of calling on me in my most humble apartments in London, during the long vacation.”

  Holmes glanced at me, and I merely pursed my lips a little. “That would be convenient to us,” he said.

  Just that simply began our globe-spanning series of adventures: the dreadful partnership of the League of Dragons, between this very same Dr. Fu Manchu and Professor James Moriarty; the long, harsh trek across Europe to Fu Manchu’s fortress stronghold within the Forbidden City itself; our escape, our rescue, and our mad voyage aboard the submarine Nautilus; our meeting with the maniacal Dr. Moreau and his giant rat of Sumatra, which John H. Watson transformed into the “hound” of the Baskervilles; the murders that Holmes solved in San Francisco, and the frenzied, failed journey to rescue General George Armstrong Custer from his own murderous officers—the recording of all these things and more will have to wait until another day. I pray that my wits remain nimble and my body sound, so that I can faithfully set down all that I saw and heard. I am quite sure that it will astound the nation.

  It was a time of great horror, of cruelty and savagery; and for some of us, a time of love and tenderness. I came to know
Sherlock Holmes as a good and true friend. That he never made notes on this case or, if he did, never permitted Watson to write them up, indicates that Holmes regarded these happenings with particular loathing. I hope I do his memory no injustice by telling of the adventure now. I leave this history as a legacy and a warning to my sons and their children, and to my yet-unborn great-grandchildren. I pray that they may grow to live in peace beyond the shadow of Dr. Fu Manchu.

  Reginald Musgrave Hurlstone, Western Sussex October 14, 1927

  THE CASE OF THE DETECTIVE’S SMILEby Mark Bourne

  “The mundane bores me, Watson.”

  These were the first words Sherlock Holmes had spoken all morning—a gray, frigid January morning of 1898. His statement so startled me that my coffee was jostled from its cup, speckling the morning Times spread out before me.

  He lounged listlessly in his armchair before the fire, a hodgepodge of books and monographs littering the floor about his feet. My friend languidly waved his pipe before his face, watching the fragrant smoke rise in ever-changing patterns that veiled his features.

  “And good morning to you, Holmes,” I retorted, dabbing up the coffee spill. I offered him a scone from Mrs. Hudson’s breakfast tray, but he refused with a directed wave of his hand. Smoke swirled in graceful curls about his solemn face. By this stage in our long association, I had learned his moods well, and I had seen this one before.

  “Surely, Holmes,” I began, “you cannot have already forgotten that frightful episode of the princess and the bloody marionettes.”

  Holmes shrugged. “Trifles, Watson, trifles.”

  “Or the case of the spotted diplomat?”

  “Hardly worthy of my unique talents, you must agree.”