Holmes explained what he was hoping for. He described the document they had found in the fireplace, and its possible meanings (leaving aside the potential interpretation that implicated Charles Russell as the author of blackmail—undue complications were not for the moment) and then pulled up the stack of Mrs Russell's journals, one for each year, to show Dr Ming the drawings they contained. He presented his theory that Charles Russell, most likely with the knowledge of his wife but certainly with the assistance of the gardener Long, had concealed something of considerable importance in his garden before he had died: the garden that, as Dr Ming could see, was now so hugely overgrown as to be unreadable, and very nearly impenetrable.

When he had explained all this, he asked his question: Knowing that the man in charge of the garden, Tom Long's father, was devoted to the precepts of feng shui, and knowing that Mr Long would have wished to help conceal and protect this important article, could a comparative study of the garden before and after 1906 suggest to Dr Ming where precisely the item might have been buried?

Dr Ming asked, “Is this an item of importance, or one of value?”

“It could be either, although I suspect to Charles Russell, its importance would not have lain strictly in its monetary value. He was a wealthy man.”

Dr Ming tucked his hands into their invisible sleeves and meditated on the open journal before him, that with the date of March 1906. He meditated for so long, and sitting so still, that Hammett began to think the old fellow had drifted into a nap, and Russell found herself wondering if, despite his earlier fluency, he actually understood English as well as he had seemed to.

Finally he took his hands apart and looked into Holmes' eyes. “It may be possible,” he pronounced. He turned to Long to suggest that another pot of tea be assembled, began to unpack a collection of papers and writing implements, and asked the room in general, “I shall need the precise time of birth of the owner of the garden.”

Fortunately, Holmes had come across just such a document in his search through the family papers, or all might well have been lost before it began. The aged scholar merely accepted the information as if such knowledge was a given, and pulled the first of the garden journals towards him.

After an hour of studying the sketches and journals, he began to transfer certain pieces of information to the sheets of paper he had brought, using as reference a drawing that looked like a highly complex cross between a compass and maze. He murmured from time to time in his own language. Long sat on the edge of his chair, unwilling to relax in the great man's presence. Little else happened.