Snake Bite (18 page)

‘Possible, but not likely. We might be better off trying to find those spider pictures you talked about. They might tell us more.’

‘All right,’ Sherlock said. ‘Let’s do it.’

The two boys stared at each other for a moment, each one hoping that the other one was going to move first. Eventually Cameron broke the stalemate.

‘Come on then,’ he said brusquely. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

As they walked away, Sherlock wondered if he would ever see Wu Fung-Yi or his mother again. Would he remember even their faces in a year or two, or would it be just their names? It seemed such a
waste, to have fragments of memories like that floating around inside his head, disconnected from anything real or important. He wished that he could remember perfectly everything that he had ever
seen, read or heard, or that he had the ability to erase memories that he didn’t need any more. As it was, he still remembered the nicknames and faces of the boys he had studied with at
Deepdene School, and he wasn’t likely ever to need those memories again.

The two of them made their way back to the Mackenzie family home through the by-now familiar streets of Shanghai. It was mid-afternoon, and the sun was shining down from an enamel-blue sky.
Cameron stopped abruptly at one point as they passed a stall selling noodles. He threw a few coins at the stallholder and came away with two woven bamboo baskets of noodles mixed in with fragments
of meat and covered with a sauce. ‘Here,’ he said, handing one over. ‘Eat this. It’s been a long time since breakfast.’

‘I suppose it has,’ Sherlock said, suddenly realizing that he was ravenous. He took one bamboo container, which came with two wooden sticks, and he used the sticks to shovel noodles
into his mouth as they walked. The sauce was sweet and spicy, and the whole thing tasted wonderful. Why was food in England so bland? he wondered.

By the time they reached Cameron’s house they had finished the noodles. Cameron threw the baskets away. ‘Mother doesn’t like me eating in the street,’ he said
apologetically. ‘She thinks I’ll catch some terrible disease.’

‘Maybe you’re protecting yourself from disease, by eating the local food and playing with the local kids,’ Sherlock suggested. ‘Maybe the people who stay indoors all the
time and isolate themselves from everything are the ones who catch the first disease they encounter, rather than shrug it off.’

Cameron stared at him. ‘You know you think too much, don’t you?’

When they went inside, there was nobody around. The door to Mr Mackenzie’s study was closed – possibly he was inside, doing the important work that he had been talking about at
breakfast. Did it involve those spider diagrams? Sherlock wondered. Mrs Mackenzie wasn’t anywhere obvious in the house, but Cameron said that she would often go and lie down for a while.

Neither of the boys wanted to open the door to Malcolm Mackenzie’s study so that they could try to find the spider diagrams. Instead they gravitated towards Cameron’s room. While
Cameron flung himself down on his bed and lay there, an arm across his eyes, Sherlock found a notebook and sketched what he could remember of the snake bite on Wu Chung’s back. There was
something about that snake bite that still bothered him. As best he could, he drew out the two different fang marks – the one that looked like an ordinary bite mark and the ragged one that
looked as if it had been made by a broken fang. He also tried to get the spacing between the marks correct. He wasn’t sure why it was important that he kept a record, but he wanted to make
sure that he had it to hand if he needed it.

Just as he had got the sketch the way he wanted it, recording accurately the wound he had seen on Wu Chung’s back, he suddenly heard a gong being rung somewhere outside.

‘That’s the signal for afternoon tea,’ Cameron said, taking his arm off his face. ‘I guess we missed our chance to go and search Father’s study.’

‘That was bravado talking,’ Sherlock said. ‘I don’t think either of us really thought we were going to do it.’

Quickly they washed their faces and hands, and changed into fresh shirts. Cameron led the way across the rock and sand garden and towards the main areas of the house.

Mrs Mackenzie was already in the sitting room, where pots of tea and coffee, and a host of small cakes, had been set out. She smiled at the boys. ‘Did you have a nice day?’

Cameron shrugged, but Sherlock smiled at her. He liked Mrs Mackenzie. ‘Yes, thank you. Cameron’s a great guide to the area.’

She reached out and ruffled Cameron’s hair. He pulled away, embarrassed. ‘Yes, he’s great at so many things,’ she said proudly. She glanced towards the door.
‘Malcolm’s going to miss out on all the cakes if he doesn’t hurry up. Cameron – be a dear and fetch your father.’

Cameron grabbed a plate and a cake and, despite his mother’s disapproving look, walked out of the dining room holding the one and eating the other. Sherlock wandered across to the table.
‘Would you like me to pour you a cup of tea?’ he asked.

‘That would be lovely,’ Mrs Mackenzie said.

Outside, across the corridor, Sherlock heard Cameron knocking on the door.

‘Father? You’re missing out on cakes and tea!’

There was obviously no answer, because Cameron knocked again. ‘Father? Are you in there?’

Sherlock became aware that Mrs Mackenzie was sitting perfectly still, listening to what was going on with a concerned expression on her face.

‘Father?’ Cameron knocked again. Moments later, Sherlock heard the sound of a door being pushed open.

The next thing he heard was a cry of pure anguish – ‘Father!’ – and the sound of a plate smashing on the floor.

Sherlock and Mrs Mackenzie both looked at the doorway, startled, then glanced at each other. Mrs Mackenzie’s face was anxious and surprised. Sherlock knew that his own
face must have looked the same.

He rushed for the door. Mrs Mackenzie was only moments behind him, her hands already up over her heart as if trying to stop it from bursting out of her chest.

Malcolm Mackenzie’s study was down the corridor and around a corner from the sitting room. As he hurtled around the corner Sherlock saw Cameron standing in the doorway. He seemed to be
frozen in place. He was gripping the door frame so hard that Sherlock could see the bones of his knuckles shining white beneath the stretched skin. A smashed plate and a squashed cake lay on the
floor by his feet.

Servants appeared at both ends of the corridors: Chinese and Western faces all sharing the same shocked expressions.

Sherlock got to his friend and skidded to a halt. He stared at Cameron’s face for a moment, then his gaze followed Cameron’s inside the room. The scene he saw there would remain with
him for the rest of his life.

The study itself reminded him of his brother Mycroft’s office. Bookshelves covered the walls, lined with leather-clad volumes in various colours. An ornate frame supported a large globe of
the world in one corner. A desk sat towards the back of the room: a big slab of some dark native wood set on thick legs. Off to one side was a comfortably stuffed armchair with a small side table
next to it. A book was opened, upside down, on the table. It sat beside a half-drunk glass of some amber-coloured liquid: probably whisky and soda, judging by the slight smoky odour that Sherlock
could detect in the air.

Behind the desk was a wooden chair, and behind the chair was a wide window that looked out on to the interior garden. The window was closed and the glass was intact – no breath of air
disturbed the curtains that hung in front of it.

In the chair behind the desk sat Malcolm Mackenzie. His hands were both in front of him on the desk, as if clawing at the papers that were scattered over it. His face was contorted into a mask
of absolute horror: eyes wide and mouth open. His hair appeared to be sticking up in shock.

He wasn’t moving. His eyes weren’t looking at Sherlock, or Cameron, or anything in the study. They were focused on an empty area of space off to one side of the door. Sherlock
deliberately followed his gaze, trying to see what he was looking at, but nothing was there. Nothing at all.

Sherlock’s heart already felt like it had moved too high in his chest and was in danger of blocking his throat and stopping him from breathing, but the next thing that he saw threatened to
stop it beating entirely.

Malcolm Mackenzie’s arms were extended so far to the desk that the sleeves of his shirt and jacket were pulled halfway up his forearms. On his right forearm was a mark that Sherlock
thought for a moment was a tattoo, but as his eyes lingered on it he realized the horrible truth. It was a bite mark: two holes punched into the skin with a smear of blood across them.

‘Father?’ Cameron said again.

Sherlock pushed past him just as Mrs Mackenzie got to the door. She gasped, hand raised to her mouth. His paralysis broken, Cameron rushed to the desk. He and Sherlock got to Malcolm Mackenzie
at the same time. Sherlock reached out to touch one of his hands while Cameron put out a hand towards his face. Mackenzie’s skin was cold, and he did not react to the contact.

Sherlock slipped his fingers beneath Mr Mackenzie’s wrist and raised it off the desk, checking for a pulse. There was nothing. No blood was flowing through his veins, and his arm was as
unresponsive as the branch of a tree. When Sherlock let it go, his hand landed with a dull
thud
.

‘I’m afraid,’ Sherlock said, his voice cracking, ‘that he’s dead.’

Mrs Mackenzie let out a cry. A few moments later Sherlock heard a second
thud
as she passed out and fell to the floor.

‘Take her to somewhere comfortable to lie down,’ Sherlock snapped at the servants who had begun to appear in the doorway. He saw the face of the butler, Harris, behind the others. He
was looking white and shocked. ‘Harris!’ he called. ‘Look after your mistress! Get the maids to take her to her room!’ When the butler didn’t move, Sherlock clicked
his fingers loudly. ‘Quickly! And send someone for a doctor. Not a local healer, but a real doctor – a European. There must be one somewhere in Shanghai!’

‘There is,’ Cameron muttered. ‘Dr Forbes. He lives about five minutes away.’

Sherlock glared at the butler until the man suddenly seemed to get a grip on himself and started issuing orders to the staff. Sherlock patted Cameron on the shoulder, then crossed to the door
and closed it. He knew that Malcolm Mackenzie was beyond any need for privacy now, but even so he felt that the man ought to be respected, and not gawped at. Besides, if the snake was still in the
room he didn’t want to give it a chance to escape. He wanted it dead.

As the door closed he turned back to look at Cameron. His friend was staring at his father’s twisted face. ‘What happened, Sherlock? What
happened
to him?’

‘He was bitten by a snake, by the looks of it,’ Sherlock said. He moved closer and indicated the bite on Malcolm Mackenzie’s arm. ‘There’s obviously a lot of it
about.’

‘But what are the chances of two snake bites happening in one day while we are around?’ Cameron asked dazedly.

‘A more interesting question,’ Sherlock mused, gazing closer at the bite, ‘is what are the chances of the
same
snake biting two different people in different places
while we are around?’

Cameron frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Sherlock indicated the bite. ‘Look – one of the fang marks is larger than the other.’ He took from his pocket the sketch he had made earlier, based on his memories of the bite
on Wu Chung’s shoulder. He held the sketch beside the real bite. ‘They’re exactly the same size, exactly the same distance apart, but one of the marks looks like the fang that
made it is broken.’

Cameron glanced around the room, his face twisted into a scowl. ‘It might still be here, mightn’t it?’

‘The window is closed. Was the door closed when you got here?’

‘It was.’

‘And someone would have spotted a snake leaving in the past few minutes, there were so many people around. It
must
still be here.’ Sherlock’s eyes quickly catalogued all
the shadowy hiding places around the room – beneath the furniture, on top of the books, hidden in the curtains.

‘We’re going to have to search for it.’

Cameron pulled open a drawer of his father’s desk. From inside he removed a revolver. ‘My father taught me to use this,’ he said quietly.

Sherlock grabbed a walking stick that was propped up against the door frame, on the basis that it was better than nothing.

For the next ten minutes the boys made their way carefully around the room looking for the snake. Sherlock would use the walking stick to poke, prod and investigate any likely hiding place,
while Cameron would stand back ready to shoot if anything lashed out. Sherlock had no idea how fast snakes might move. His only previous experience of reptiles was with the giant lizards that Duke
Balthassar had kept as evil pets. They had been very slow and deliberate in their movements, but he suspected that snakes might be faster. Every time he came to somewhere dark and hidden – a
gap between two books, or a cushion propped up on a chair with a space behind it – he was careful to stand well back when he used his stick to poke around. His heart was racing and he could
feel sweat breaking out over his chest. The thought that, at any second, a venomous snake might come hurtling through the air towards his face made him feel more scared than he had been in a long
time.

Every once in a while he would glance over at Mr Mackenzie. The man just sat there as if he might suddenly turn around and ask them what they were doing, but Sherlock’s heart ached when he
remembered, each time, that Malcolm Mackenzie wasn’t going to do anything any more. Sherlock had liked him. More than that, he had
respected
him. And Cameron had obviously loved
him.

Eventually they had to accept that there was no snake in the room. All the possible hiding places had been investigated. Sherlock had even swept his stick along the top of the curtains in case
the snake had somehow climbed up there, but nothing came falling down. It had gone.