Holmes and I stepped through the foundry door and we found ourselves in a small square yard. It was a dingy place and, in order to reveal more, we searched and found gas lamps on the walls which we duly lit. Around us were several large moulds for bells and we found a stock of copper and tin bars, stacked by a small furnace, in one corner of the yard.
An overhead, travelling crane, its chains drooping as though in sadness, had been pushed to the far end of the yard. Hunting through the moulds and some finished bells, their owners names marked in chalk upon them, revealed no clues.
Finding nothing of interest, our attention then turned to a brick built, two storey building at the rear of the yard. On examination, the ground floor seemed to be devoted solely to storage. The upper floor, reached by somewhat rickety stairs, appeared to be an office having windows that overlooked the yard.
Holmes found an oil lamp and, on lighting it, he proceeded to investigate the piles of materials strewn on the floor of the store. It was not long before he made a curious discovery. “Hello, what’s this?”
I walked over to where he was standing, complaining loudly as I barked my shins on the piles of metal detritus. Holmes was holding the lamp close to a large, glass carboy packed in straw and protected by a basket shaped metal cage. Carefully removing the stopper, Holmes gently wafted his hand over the neck of the carboy and carefully sniffed. Recoiling sharply, he cried, “Acid!”
I was immediately concerned for my friend and reached out towards him. Holmes waved me away, his eyes still watering. “No, no. I’m quite alright, Watson. I was just not expecting anything so pungent.”
I was quite at a loss to understand why acid should be present in the foundry. “Is acid part of the process of producing the bells, Holmes?”
Holmes shook his head. “No, but it is used to help produce a patina on bronze so as to make it appear ancient! Acid, together sometimes with urine and a good amount of soil can give an object the appearance of age which will deceive anyone not expecting it to have been faked. Given its provenance, the ransomed Zhou bell was accepted at face value without question.”
I nodded but was still troubled that we had not yet found the original bell. For that matter, we had not determined the significance of the words, “five bells” and why the man uttering this had been so brutally killed.
Finding nothing of further interest in the store, we climbed the stairs to the office. This we found to be somewhat in disarray, bearing witness to the spirited struggles of the Chinese whilst resisting arrest. Holmes held up the oil lamp to give better illumination and, by this means, we located gas lights on the office wall and lit them.
Chairs had been violently tossed to one side, papers and cardboard folders had spilled from desks and shelves onto the floor. It was as though a whirlwind had briefly stopped to wreak havoc. Straightening the chairs as we went, we worked our way through the debris, looking about us as our eyes became adjusted to the glare of the gas lights.
Holmes bent down and began to tug at the corner of a piece of hessian in the far corner of the room. “Ah, this may be of interest!” said he with a tinge of triumph in his voice.
Lifting clear the hessian, Holmes reached down and then placed a small bell on one of the desks. The oil lamp was still lit and as he moved it closer to the bell, it revealed what appeared to be the twin of the one at the museum.
Holmes lifted the bell and with a twinkle of mischief in his eye said “And now, the acid test!” With the silver cap of his cane, he gently struck the bell. Immediately, the office was filled with a delicate, musical chime. Holmes dampened the vibration by touching the bell with his finger and he replaced the bell on the desk.
To my amazement, he reached down and produced three more identical bells! I was staggered! I flopped down into one the chairs, dumbfounded. For a few seconds I found myself sitting there unable to speak and then finally blurted out, “Of course! Five bells!”
“Precisely, Watson. But which is the real Zhou bell?” He teasingly left that question hanging for a few moments before striking each bell in turn. It was the fourth and final bell that produced a singularly dull tone, but, in Holmes, it produced a cry of triumph. “Ha! We have it, Watson!” Holmes looked around and discovered a length of cloth that seemingly had been used to clean the bells. Wrapping the Zhou bell carefully, we retraced our steps, passing a constable who had been tasked to guard the foundry.
Once more on Raven Row, we were fortunate only to have waited but a few minutes before being able to hail a passing cab. I clambered swiftly in followed by Holmes who nestled the wrapped bell in his lap. Although only some ten inches tall, the bell was a considerable weight. Holmes shouted up to the cabbie. “Victoria and Albert museum as swiftly as you like, cabbie. There’s a florin in it for you!” Hearing this, there was a crack of the cabbie's whip and we were both pitched backwards as the horse took off at a pace.
In but a few minutes we were again mounting the museum steps with our precious cargo shrouded from view. Walking swiftly to the Department of Asia, we requested the presence of the curator who, under the menaces of the Official Secrets Act, was the only other person to know the truth.
The bells were swiftly exchanged and Holmes dashed off a telegram to Mycroft before returning to Baker Street with the replica bell safely out of view, swathed, as it was, by Holmes’ coat.