Snake Bite (12 page)

‘You would probably just get stomach ache,’ Sherlock replied. ‘And that’s if you are lucky.’

He watched as Arrhenius and Mrs Mackenzie approached Cameron’s father. Mrs Mackenzie briefly introduced them, and then moved away to speak to someone else. Sherlock found his gaze fixed on
Malcolm Mackenzie and Mr Arrhenius. They didn’t look like men who had been introduced moments beforehand. They looked, in fact, like men who already knew each other – or, at least,
already knew something about each other.

As Sherlock watched, Mr Arrhenius reached into his uniform jacket and took out a package. He passed it over to Mr Mackenzie, who immediately stowed it away in an inside pocket of his own jacket.
It was a perfectly innocent transaction, but there was something about the way both men tried to minimize the time that the packet was visible, and the way they both looked around afterwards to see
if anyone was watching, that made Sherlock wonder what exactly was in the packet.

The two men talked for a moment or two. There was wariness there, and Sherlock detected anger as well – especially in the way that Mr Arrhenius was standing. Mr Mackenzie seemed defensive,
but Mr Arrhenius was definitely losing his temper.

‘Come on,’ Sherlock said abruptly. ‘Show me the garden. I don’t want to stand here much longer. Someone else might try to talk to us, just out of politeness, and I hate
making small talk.’

Cameron nodded, and led the way along one of the paths that snaked across the well-manicured garden. Eventually he found a pair of large rocks set into a patch of sand near each other. The sand
had been carefully raked into a series of concentric circles rippling out from where the rocks sat. Regardless of the careful arrangement, which struck Sherlock as rather artistic but also rather
pointless, Cameron walked across the sand and sat on one of the rocks. Being rather more careful, but still leaving footprints, Sherlock sat on the other.

‘You were going to tell me about America,’ Cameron said.

‘I was,’ Sherlock replied, ‘but I wanted to ask you something first. You mentioned the war between Britain and China earlier on, and your father mentioned it again just now.
What actually happened? I don’t remember hearing anything about it at the time, or being taught about it at school, and school was usually very good at making us learn about wars.’

Cameron shrugged. ‘There were actually two wars,’ he said. ‘Both of them quite short. The Chinese call them the Opium Wars.’

‘Opium Wars?’ Sherlock asked, feeling a slight chill. Opium was some kind of drug – he knew that from having been knocked out on several occasions by agents of the Paradol
Chamber. They had used a solution of opium in alcohol that was called laudanum. It had made Sherlock unconscious in a few seconds, and given him some very strange dreams.

‘Opium is something that is made from poppies,’ Cameron said. ‘It can be smoked in a pipe, apparently. It makes people feel peaceful, and makes them forget all their problems,
at least for a while. You Brits were getting natives in India to grow the poppies and extract the opium, then your ships were bringing it to China and selling it in exchange for silks and other
stuff.’

‘But that’s the definition of trade. You sell things and you buy things, and you try to make a profit.’

‘Opium is addictive,’ Cameron pointed out. ‘Once you’ve tried it, you want to keep on trying it. You can’t help yourself. From what I’ve heard, and from what
I’ve seen, a lot of the local traders and farmers and even the civil servants spent more and more of their time smoking opium. Crops were left rotting in the fields, and there was less and
less food available to buy in the markets. It got to the stage where the streets were empty most of the time, because people were in their houses smoking opium.’

‘That’s obviously a bad thing,’ Sherlock observed.

‘The Manchu rulers agreed. They passed a law forbidding the sale or the use of opium.’

‘Ah,’ Sherlock said as he realized the implications of what Cameron was saying. ‘And then the bottom dropped out of the market for the British importers. They were still
bringing the opium over from India, but they couldn’t sell it.’

Cameron nodded his head. ‘From what my father says, the whole British economy was dependent on the income from the sale of opium.’

‘A bit like the Chinese traders and farmers were dependent on smoking it.’ Sherlock paused. ‘So we went to war so that we could keep selling this drug in China, even though
people were getting addicted to it and it was having a bad effect.’

Cameron shrugged. ‘Wars don’t just happen for good reasons,’ he pointed out. ‘They happen for bad reasons as well, although your government dressed it up as the Chinese
Emperor trying to stifle free trade and the noble Brits doing their best to make sure that their traders could make a decent living. Not much mention of opium there.’

‘But still – it’s wrong! We shouldn’t have been selling this drug, and we certainly shouldn’t have gone to war so that we could keep on selling it!’

‘I agree,’ Cameron said. ‘But what do I know? You won the war. Smoking opium isn’t illegal in England, so the traders claimed that they weren’t doing anything wrong
in the first place, and the Emperor was overreacting.’

‘Maybe we shouldn’t have won the war,’ Sherlock muttered darkly. He couldn’t help but wonder how much his brother Mycroft knew about this. Mycroft worked for the Foreign
Office, and had something to do with international relations. Had he been involved in these Opium Wars? Had he advised against them, or had he been in favour of them? Sherlock made a mental note to
ask Mycroft the next time he saw him. Assuming he ever did see him again.

Thoughts of Mycroft and of opium made him think once more of the times he had been drugged by the Paradol Chamber, and that swimmy, weightless feeling that he had experienced. He shuddered.
Horrible though it had been, there was something strangely and dangerously seductive about that feeling. He never wanted to experience it again, and yet a little bit of him missed the way it made
him feel. The way it had made him forget about everything that was worrying him.

‘So,’ Cameron prompted. ‘America?’

Sherlock started to tell him about his experiences of New York, and the train journey across the American wilderness, but it turned into more of an account of the adventures he, Matty and
Virginia had had. Cameron listened, wide-eyed. Every now and then he would question a detail or make a comment, but mostly he let Sherlock talk.

After twenty minutes or so a gong sounded, letting everyone know that it was time for dinner. Cameron and Sherlock headed together to the dining room, where everyone was gathering. Fortunately,
the two of them had been seated together, and even more fortunately, the guests sitting beside and across from them at the long table spent all their time talking to each other and ignoring the
boys. When Sherlock had finished his story, and Cameron had finished asking questions, they moved on to other subjects – Cameron’s experiences in China, and Sherlock’s adventures
back in England.

Every now and then Sherlock heard some fragment of the conversations going on around him – Captain Bryan or the other officers from the USS
Monocacy
talking about their voyages, Mr
Mackenzie talking about China, or the other businessmen telling stories about the strange places they had been and the odd people they had traded with. At one point he heard Malcolm Mackenzie ask
Captain Bryan, ‘Will you be received by the Governor while you are here?’

Captain Bryan shrugged. ‘I must admit,’ he said, ‘to being confused by the various ranks of the dignitaries in China. I had anticipated sending my credentials to the person who
rules Shanghai, but my translator tells me that he is of low rank, and not worth dealing with.’

‘That’s true,’ Mackenzie confirmed. ‘Although Shanghai is a major town from our point of view, it is ruled by a Prefect. He is subservient to the Governor of Jiangsu
Province, whose palace is located at Nanjing – a little way inland.’

‘Ah,’ Captain Bryan said, ‘I believe that we are meeting with the Governor of Jiangsu somewhere upriver, at a special ceremony.’

Sherlock’s interest in the conversation – not high to begin with – waned as the food arrived. It was quite amazing: shreds of succulent duck served with a dipping sauce made
out of plums, followed by slices of peppery lamb with a mixture of crunchy vegetables, and then topped off with steaming dumplings filled with fruit. The food was washed down with sweet white wine.
Sherlock ate as much as he could. The tastes and textures put him in mind, strangely, of Wu Chung. He wondered how Wu’s reunion with his family had gone, and he decided to go looking for the
cook as soon as he could the next day.

When the last course had been cleared away, Mr Mackenzie suggested that the men withdraw for port and cigars. Mrs Mackenzie ushered the two boys from the dining room. ‘They’ll be
talking for hours,’ she said, ‘and it won’t be anything worth listening to. The room will be so filled with cigar smoke that you’d be able to cut the air with a knife. I
suggest that you two head for bed. Sherlock – I’ve had the maid make up a separate bed in Cameron’s room for you.’ She yawned suddenly, and covered her mouth. ‘Oh my.
I think I’ll turn in as well. It’s been an exhausting day.’

By now Sherlock knew the way across the interior garden to Cameron’s room. He led the way in silence along one of the paved paths that crossed the grass, past the bushes and past the sandy
area where they had sat earlier. The sky above them was black and cloudless, speckled with stars. A thin sliver of moon cast a silvery light over everything, reminding Sherlock of Mr Arrhenius and
his grey-blue skin.

A dark shape moved between two bushes. Sherlock stopped abruptly.

‘What’s the matter?’ Cameron asked, nearly bumping into Sherlock’s back.

‘I thought I saw an animal.’

Cameron opened his mouth to say something, but Sherlock gestured at him to shut up. He stood motionless, trying to make out the sounds of movement, or breathing, but there was nothing.

He stepped towards the bush that the dark shape had made for. Was it an animal – a cat, or a dog perhaps? Presumably they had cats and dogs in China?

Another step. Still nothing. Had he been mistaken?

He took another step, ready to turn back and head for bed. He let out the breath that he hadn’t even realized he was holding. He had probably mistaken a night bird for something more
substantial. Tiredness, and the stress of being in a strange country, were making him nervous.

A stone flew out of the middle of the bush. If it hadn’t glanced off a branch on the way out it would have hit him in the centre of his forehead. As it was it caught him on his cheek and
ricocheted away. He flinched, shocked. He could feel something warm and wet on his skin: blood. The stone had cut him!

‘Hey!’ he shouted, outraged. Before Cameron could answer, Sherlock had launched himself at the bush, but another stone spun towards his right eye. He ducked, and the stone sailed
overhead, brushing his hair as it passed.

Suddenly a dark shadow broke away from the bush and headed across the grass. The meagre light from the moon wasn’t sufficient for Sherlock to make out any details – all he could see
was something about half his size moving away from him fast. He wasn’t even sure if it was running, floating, flying or rolling. Before he could focus on the shape, it had disappeared into
the darkness.

Leaving Cameron standing, Sherlock gave chase. Branches clawed at his face as he ran through the bushes. Petals and leaves exploded away from him, littering the ground. He crashed into a clear
area. Ahead of him he could make out the dark shape scrambling up the grey trunk of a tree that twisted from the ground like a plume of smoke from a fire. Sherlock raced across the ground
separating him from the tree, only realizing as he ran that he was leaving crater-like footprints in the smoothly raked sand of another rock garden. He leaped across a smooth boulder that blocked
his path. The tree trunk was a few feet ahead of him now, and without slowing down he jumped, fingers clutching for the lowest branches with both hands while his feet scrabbled for purchase on the
silvery-grey trunk. Seconds later he was pulling himself up the tree’s slippery bark. It was like climbing the rigging of the
Gloria Scott
. Ahead of him he could see a black shadow
wriggling through the higher branches. Leaves lashed at his face, catching at the cut left by the stone. Blood trickled down his cheek.

He emerged into clear moonlight, head above the foliage like a swimmer emerging from a rough ocean. Beyond the edge of the leaves he could see the roof of the Mackenzie house – red tiles
sloping gently away from him. Some of the tiles were disturbed, knocked out of place. That was the only sign left by whatever it was he had been chasing. It had vanished over the rooftop and
presumably jumped to the street. He would never catch it now.

He made his way back to the garden. His muscles were complaining at the unexpected action, and his cheek throbbed where the stone had hit it. He also suspected that he had small cuts and grazes
all over his face where twigs and leaves had caught the skin.

‘You,’ Cameron exclaimed when he saw Sherlock, ‘look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’

‘Very funny,’ Sherlock growled.

‘What happened?’

‘What did you see?’

Cameron shrugged. ‘Some things came out of the bushes at you. I wasn’t sure if they were birds, or what.’

‘They weren’t birds – they were stones.’

‘All right – they were stones. You ran off. I followed, but by the time I got here you were halfway up the tree. Then you came down again. If this was some kind of game then I guess
you won, but you need to tell me the rules for next time.’

‘I think you had an uninvited guest,’ Sherlock said, trying to keep his voice as calm and as level as possible. His heart, however, was still racing.

‘What kind of uninvited guest? You mean a
burglar
?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘I couldn’t see. It might have been an animal, or it might have been a person.’ He frowned, trying to picture the thing that he had half glimpsed. ‘A
very small person, perhaps.’