Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Christmas Tree Body Problem

Although this case was over-shadowed at the time by the revolting revelations surrounding the bohemian Prince, the billionaire beast and the Pizza Express, it remains one of Holmes’ most intriguing adventures. Holmes himself has urged its careful documentation as both a grim warning to the general public and to inform an educated and rational approach to such matters in the future, as and when they arise, which in the light of current events, seems in many ways inevitable.

The adventure, many would say crisis, began late one bitterly cold December evening. Mrs Hudson, as I recall, was abroad in the city, taking another of her advanced yoga tutorials, and Holmes was involved in mopping up some of the more sordid details of the royal farrago previously mentioned. As I let myself in to our modest quarters at 221B Baker Street, I expected to find the house empty, which would allow me to gift-wrap the last of my Christmas presents in peace. To my surprise and alarm, however, I found the front door unlocked and the hallway lamp brightly ablaze. Sensing that something was not quite right, I quietly pulled and cocked an old but effective service revolver from a secret compartment in the hallway cupboard. Holmes had placed it there some months earlier, to deal with some of the more unorthodox callers we regularly receive, including those gentlemen of the tabloid press, who are so often over-eager in their enquiries when the scent of Royal blood is in the air.

Armed forthwith, I ventured cautiously up the stairway, prepared at any moment to be rushed by a baying pack of Murdoch’s scoundrels, mindlessly searching for their latest ‘scoop.’ Removing my boots, I advanced carefully in my sock soles, mindful to avoid the stair treads which Holmes had loosened deliberately in order to give us an audible warning when an uninvited visitor was on the prowl. At the top of the stairway, I examined the landing carefully, but nothing seemed amiss, so I ventured forward carefully and approached the doorway. Throwing the door open, I pounced inside, pistol brandished and ready to fire. Surveying the room, I noticed that everything seemed in place save for — and I still shudder now at the recollection — the scene of absolute horror centred at the base of our Christmas tree. There lay the body of a poor wretch, face still twisted in his hideous death agony, among the incongruous surroundings of our brightly wrapped trinkets and baubles. Sensing that it was already too late, I set the revolver to one side and attempted to give the poor chap what medical assistance I could. As I suspected from the unnatural positioning of the body, there were no signs of life, neither pulse or breathing, while his flesh already felt clammy and cold. Any attempt at resuscitation seemed futile, and so it proved. With nothing more I could do, I telephoned Scotland Yard to report what seemed undoubtedly a death by foul play; and then made arrangements for an autopsy.

The victim, as I detailed in my initial report, was a man of Eastern appearance, approximately fifty-five years old, dressed in a stylish yet comfortable fashion. The dark rimmed glasses that he wore and his high forehead gave him the aura of a bookish or well educated man. Were it not for the pitiful misalignment of his features in terror, I would have identified him as a scholar or University Professor, perhaps in one of the Eastern philosophies that have taken such a hold of the public imagination recently. It looked, from my brief primary examination, like a case of poisoning of the most hideous kind. However, I had Holmes’ advice uppermost in my mind — not to jump to conclusions — when the great detective himself arrived on the scene.

“Hello?” offered Holmes, “whatever do we have here, Watson?”

“It’s a case of murder, Holmes, and I’m jolly glad you’ve arrived…”

“Murder?”

Unflappable as always, Holmes removed his overcoat and carefully surveyed the scene before making any further comment.

“Yes, murder, Holmes, and it looks like a case of poisoning from the ghastly expression on the poor wretch’s face, don’t you think?”

“Indeed,” muttered Holmes, noting the position of the body, from a variety of angles. “Any identification on his person, any documents or papers?”

“Nothing that I can make head nor tail of Holmes, it’s all foreign to me…”

I passed on to Holmes the papers I had found in the man’s pockets and he considered them carefully. Then, with a look of great concern, he turned his attention to the prone victim.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “By all the moons of Neptune! If this is who I think it is…”

Holmes bent forward to study in greater detail the features of the unfortunate individual.

“Quick Watson, get your medicine bag at once and a needle… Prepare a strong stimulant.”

“Now, Holmes, I thought we’d agreed…”

“Oh stop your blabbering and get on with it, man,” snapped Holmes, severely. “This man, I do believe is Liu Cixin, the acclaimed futurist and the world’s foremost expert on cosmic sociology!”

“Cosmic what?”

“Do get on with it, Watson. Move yourself!”

“He has evidently put himself in a state of deep hibernation,” continued Holmes, “perhaps to save himself from some clear and imminent danger. He’s here to seek our help — and here we are lolling around while his enemies are up to goodness knows what devilment…”

It was just at this point that the authorities, in the guise of Inspector Lestrade of the Yard, arrived.

Accompanying Lestrade was a tall gentleman in an expensively cut velvet-collared coat. The man viewed Holmes and myself with some disdain and then pointed at the stricken figure in our midst.

“That’s him, Lestrade, that’s the one you want,” he said, in a monotone transatlantic accent.

Holmes moved to shield the victim from the pair and glowered at the Scotland Yard detective and his accomplice.

“Ah now, Mister Holmes,” whimpered Lestrade, his beady eyes glinting from that cunning rat-like face. “If you’ll be so good to step aside, sir, as we’ve got some business to attend to with that there Chinese gentleman you’ve got a-lying on your carpet.”

“I see,” nodded Holmes nonchalantly, remaining firmly where he was.

“Allow me to introduce Mister Brent Krude,” continued Lestrade, unctuously, “the well-known social media mogul, technical entrepreneur and philanthropist. Mister Krude, this here is the famous Sherlock Holmes and his friend, Doctor Watson.”

“Krude?” queried Holmes. “The same Krude that recently gave such shocking evidence of wholesale disregard for democracy and the rule of law at the Royal Commission? The same Krude who has built a vast financial empire based on reckless profiteering, and the widespread promotion of extremist filth? The same Krude who now controls the foremost advertising platform on planet Earth, responsible for the pervasive invasion of both our private and public spaces?”

“This is a matter of national security,” snapped Krude, moving forward bullishly, “and frankly none of your business. We’ve had just about enough of your meddling, Holmes. I want you to move forward, Lestrade, and arrest that man.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind, Lestrade, if you know what’s good for you,” cautioned Holmes, severely. “Stand back and let the good doctor get to work. This man’s life is in danger and there’ll be hell to pay, I assure you, if you attempt to interfere. Now, come ahead, Watson.”

I moved forward with my equipment and immediately got to work. While I administered as strong a dose of stimulant as I dared, Krude glowered darkly, while Lestrade continued to mutter and whine.

“But Mister Holmes, sir, we’re talking about illegal aliens here,” he pleaded. “You’re going to get yourself and the good Doctor Watson in a whole heap of hot water. These type of people need to be kept in isolation… I demand that you release this fellow into my custody. And I’ll see to it that he’ll be well treated in one of our camps…”

To my great surprise, the stimulant had an almost immediate effect, and the prone figure on the floor began to show signs of recovery. The chest began to rise and fall and patches of colour became visible on that fine intellectual face. After a moment, the eyes blinked and the expression changed from that of terror to one of puzzlement. And it was a mark of the man that the very first words that he spoke were of concern for the safety and security of others.

“Dr Watson? Mister Holmes?” he lisped weakly, “thank you for your kindness. I do hope that I have not brought danger into your home. I apologise for the intrusion.”

“Not a bit of it,” countered Holmes. “You are our esteemed guest. It is indeed a privilege to have the great Liu Cixin within these walls. We are at your service, sir. Now, how can we help?”

“The entire world is in peril, it’s nothing less than that,” gasped Liu. “I’m afraid that we’ve set in train a set of events which could end in the destruction of our entire ecosystem!”

“You mean an attack by the Trisolarans?” enquired Holmes gravely.

“Ah, so you know about the Red Coast Base project?”

“I have my sources, let’s say, and I do know of some of the amazing work that you and your team have accomplished. Our first contact with another civilization.”

“What on Earth…?” I exclaimed, as I myself was completely unaware at the time of the nature of Liu’s work.

“No, not on Earth, Watson,” smiled Holmes, wisely, “but abroad in the depths of the cosmos. Liu Cixin and his team were the first to discover that they could use the power of the sun to amplify messages sent into space. Using this method they were the first to establish contact with another planet — Trisolaris. They sent a message into space and quite amazingly, the Trisolarans replied.”

“Upon my word!” I gasped, shocked at the enormity of the revelation.

“Mister Holmes is essentially correct,” agreed Liu, “but unfortunately there’s more to this story, much more…”

“Am I correct in my assumption, that your efforts, which were essentially benign, an attempt to establish friendly contact to the mutual benefit of both parties, were then corrupted for more nefarious ends?”

“That is correct, Mister Holmes,” nodded Liu. “To the horror of myself and my team our broadcasting equipment was sabotaged and hacked. Instead of sending non-invasive and pacific messages into space, our sun-based amplification technique was used to blast a torrent of hideous advertorials and fake news around the cosmos. The Trisolarans, a peaceful and meditative race, who strive for calm over chaos, were completely overwhelmed by transmitted waves of digital garbage: kitten videos; celebrity gossip; fad food diets; hate speech; cheap ads for cut-price loans, treatments for baldness, tattoo removals…”

“And of course, the Trisolarans were completely unable to stomach such an assault?”

“So it would seem, Mister Holmes,” agreed Liu, miserably. “Our orbiting sensors tell us that they have sent their great space fleet on a mission towards Earth… and I can only imagine that their intent is to destroy the source of their torment.”

“Indeed,” nodded Holmes, gravely. “That would indeed seem to be the case. And have they tried to communicate with you in any way?”

“That’s one of the reasons why you find me here today, Mister Holmes. Night and day, day and night I have been tortured by messages which appear in my field of vision at every moment.”

“Sophons?”

“Precisely. I believe the Trisolarans are using sophons to transmit the messages. However, try as I may, I cannot decode their message.”

At this point, Liu pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket upon which was written a cryptic comment.

Lestrade, who had been following the conversation closely, became uneasy at this turn of events.

“Sophons? What on earth is he on about? I don’t want him talking foreign. Make him talk in the Queen’s English if you please, Mister Holmes. I won’t have any foreign.”

“Be quiet Lestrade, you oaf,” ordered Holmes. “Sophons are particles from the realm of quantum entanglement, not that I expect you to understand that. To grossly simplify, these particles can be in two places at the same time, even though these places may be light years apart… They can therefore be used for communication in real time across vast distances.”

“Blimey!” muttered Lestrade, removing his hat and scratching at his misshapen head. “In two places at the same time, you say… even though they’re vast distances apart! Well now, maybe that might be able to explain away how our young middle-aged Prince was able to be in a Californian bordello and in the Pizza Express in Woking in the same instance! Quite clever that. Might save us from a Royal scandal yet…”

“No, I’m very much afraid it won’t — and you can forget that idea you have of grovelling for a knighthood, Lestrade. Now, if you don’t mind, let us return to the much more serious matters at hand.”

Holmes gently removed the paper from Liu’s hand and studied it intently. A master in the dark arts of ciphers and cryptography, he focused on the figures with a ferocious intensity.

“And this is exactly what you see in your field of vision, Liu, is that correct? In this format?”

Liu nodded forlornly.

“What do you make of it Watson?”

The figures, as I saw them, made little sense to me. They made a cube like structure in the centre of the paper, while there was pencilled evidence of the many attempts Liu had made to solve the riddle in the smudged margins.

! L A I

MKNU

JON#

“Dash it Watson, don’t you see?” exclaimed Holmes excitedly.

Rather taken aback, I had to ruefully admit that the cipher was still beyond me.

“Well, I…”

“Our poor Mister Liu, genius that he is, couldn’t see it and it was literally in front of his eyes!”

“Backwards!” moaned Liu, “but of course, it’s just written backwards! #NOJUNKMAIL! No junk mail! That’s what they wanted to tell us!”

“And now we must reply and let them know that we understand,” continued Liu excitedly. “We must stop the solar transmission of all commercials at once and return the cosmos to its dark serenity! We must get the Trisolarans to turn their fleet around. We may have a chance to save humanity, Mister Holmes! We may have a slim chance!”

While Holmes and I had focused our attention on the cipher and the recovering futurist, Krude had moved forward ominously. He pulled back the sleeve of his coat to reveal a black watch-like device strapped to his wrist.

“Damn your eyes, Holmes,” he hissed. “I’m not going to let you ruin one of the best opportunities for establishing market dominance in the entire universe. Those targeted personal recommendations will not stop. Those endless titbits of clickbait will not cease. I’m going to see to it that our customer-centric, value-added racist hate memes will never cease.”

“He’s right, sir, it’s inevitable,” added Lestrade, smirking. “You can’t stop progress. You can’t interfere with the inevitable triumph of free enterprise. You can’t stifle innovation. Freedom, that’s what it is, Mister Holmes.”

“And what’s more,” grinned Krude, manically, “once we have acquired the technology of the sophons, our featured content will scroll inside the consciousness of every being in the cosmos, in real time. Nothing or nobody will be able to escape or avoid it. So, how do you like that for a newsfeed, gentlemen?”

“We’ve got to stop him, Mister Holmes,” pleaded Liu, “the sanity of every conscious being in the universe is at stake!”

“You’ll not stop me,” glowered Krude. “With this little black box strapped to my arm I shall now transmit a signal to our servers to pulse out a whole range of new messages which will be amplified by the sun… and with the unwitting help of the Trisolarans, these messages will then bounced forward and be triply amplified by the three suns of the Trisolaran system… they’ll spread deeper and wider into space than ever before… and all those billions of virgin worlds will be swamped by unavoidable streams of our own specially curated content…”

“No! Stop him Mister Holmes!” screamed Liu, struggling to rise to his feet.

Holmes, however, was already in action; he dived across the room and grabbed the service revolver from where I had left it on the table and with one swift, fluid, action he coolly cocked the pistol, aimed and fired. The heavy bullet from the Webley .455 hit Krude’s hideous wrist-mounted device plumb in the centre and the thing disintegrated into plastic and glass shards, while the impact catapulted Krude off his feet and sent him flying back into a crumpled and unconscious heap in the corner.

Lestrade cowered back in alarm, while Holmes cocked the Webley again, ready for action.

“Now Mister Holmes, sir,” whimpered Lestrade, “I was only followin’ orders…”

I checked on Krude, finding him only bruised and shaken. Holmes and Liu, meanwhile, set to work at once in a flurry of activity, attempting to marshal the forces they would need to regain control of Red Coast Base and the solar transmissions which had been hijacked by Krude and his gangsters. According to Liu it was absolutely imperative to organise communication with the Trisolarans as soon as possible and reassure them that from now on there would be NO JUNK MAIL.

“At least my vision is now clear,” offered Liu, “I have no more messages in my head. Perhaps the sophons have moved on, and that’s a huge relief… but I’m afraid we may be too late, Mister Holmes, I’m afraid we may be too late! Krude is the head of an enormously powerful transnational tax-dodging corporation with tentacles in every corner of the globe! They have lobbyists with enough dollars to buy the democracy out of every state! They have their devices embedded in the palm of the hands of every teenager on the planet! How can we ever hope to counter their enormous influence??”

At that point my ministrations to the wretched Krude bore fruit and he groggily shook himself back into consciousness. Holmes continued to cover him with the revolver, as he sat up.

“Waughh,” he moaned, “what the devil…?” Krude rubbed his eyes and blinked and then rubbed at his eyes again, this time more feverishly. “Oh no, oh my good Lord!” he groaned, and a look of panic spread across his reddening face. “Stop them! Oh please God, stop them, please!”

“Steady on, Krude,” said I, “you weren’t even wounded. Hardly a scratch. Nothing to get so excited about.”

“Get them out of me!” screamed Krude. “Get them to stop it! I beg you! I’ll do anything!”

“What is it, Krude, what are you on about?” asked a timid Lestrade. “What’s wrong?”

“Darn messages,” screeched Krude, “in my head. And I can’t get them to stop.”

As we looked at Krude with growing alarm, terror growing on his face by the moment, our new Chinese friend moved across to where the American mogul lay.

“It’s the sophons, isn’t it?” asked Liu. “The Trisolarans have switched their sophon communications to your head… And now they’re playing back your own messages at you?”

“Get them to stop…” Krude held his head in his hands and sobbed.

“Perhaps I can help you, Krude. If you’ll switch off your systems and turn control of Red Coast Base back to us … I may be able to get the Trisolarans to recall the sophons and leave you in peace.”

“I’ll do anything, anything,” whined the social media billionaire. “Just call them off, please.”

Liu was as good as his word. With his oversight, Red Coast Base was reprogrammed and calming messages of reassurance sent. Within two days, Holmes had received word that far space sensors had detected that the Trisolarans had turned their space fleet around. Peace, quiet, and tranquillity returned to furthest and the darkest regions of the cosmos.

There was just one small problem, which caused me some slight embarrassment. The bullet from Holmes magnificent shot at Krude’s devilish wrist device had not only shattered that awful object, but unknown to us, had careered further across the room and destroyed the Christmas gift which I had earlier purchased for my companion. The gift, a clever digital device called a Ceiling Cat™, was designed to be a ‘smart’ Holmes companion which would listen for and act upon his vocal commands, and link up with a plethora of other digital devices.

As Holmes unwrapped the gift on Christmas morning, while I excitedly watched, he discovered that the device had suffered a direct hit which rendered it useless. Noticing my dismay, Holmes did his best to console me.

“Never mind, old chap, it’s the thought that counts, eh? And it was really sweet of you to get me such a thoughtful gift, Watson…”

“Dashed shame, though,” said I, rather saddened.

“Although…”

“What is it Holmes? Would you have preferred a new pair of slippers instead?”

“No… it’s just that we may have enough smart listening devices already.”

“What? We’ve already got one?”

“Yes, that one that Lestrade left so carelessly behind when he took Krude off to the hospital… Isn’t that right, Lestrade?”

“What the devil? You mean…”

Holmes went over and spoke loudly to a nondescript tin of Turkish tobacco which had been left sitting casually on the bookcase.

“Oh yes. I SAID ISN’T THAT RIGHT LESTRADE? … LESTRADE??”

Holmes tapped loudly on the tin with his pipe.

“LESTRADE??”

The tin crackled and gurgled, and as if from a distance, a faint and tinny voice emerged.

“Now, Mister Holmes,” it crackled, “It’s like I always say — them that has nothing to hide has nothing to fear. We is just doing our duty to keep the public and yourself and the good Doctor Watson safe…Total surveillance is freedom, that’s what it is…”

“Indeed,” nodded Holmes, picking up the tin and carrying it through into the bathroom. “So very kind of you, Lestrade. And we’ll certainly put you right where you belong.”

There was the sound of repeated flushing, some tinny gurgling, and finally silence.