Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle

by Tim Symonds

  Holmes returned to the fireplace and took up a stance, feet apart, straddling two Dutch copper milk pails. He began again: ‘I shall try to offer by a few examples an explanation of sorts of the deductive skills by which Watson and I make our way in life. Wholly due to the literary skill of my amiable and long-suffering friend who sits before you, I have gained a reputation I sometimes feel approaches myth, but which myth-building I earnestly encourage.’

  Polite laughter and ‘hear hear’ came from the audience.

  ‘I have watched him writing up his notes in a room full of people talking at the top of their voices, or in a train with the hum of conversation around him, or in a cricket pavilion during a match while waiting for the rain to stop. Before Watson’s heaven-sent arrival as my faithful friend and biographer I was alone, attempting to create... at least a decade before I had done sufficient work required for fame... the sort of reputation I felt could best be used to serve the purpose of fighting criminality. I was indeed a Dr. Johnson without a Boswell in sight.’

  Again the audience responded with a laugh.

  ‘And,’ my comrade-in-arms continued, ‘his flattering introduction is but a small instance of the friendship for which I am grateful. If he predeceases me, I shall have Semper Fideles inscribed upon his tomb. He has a high and noble love of the right and hatred of the wrong. In all his brochures, epitomes, pamphlets, articles, burlesques or other writings, there is scarcely one word of jealousy or coldness to humanity to leave the smallest smudge upon the mind or soul of any reader.’

  Rather than rebuking me for my panic-stricken and over-lengthy introduction, Holmes paid me this generous public compliment. It warmed and cheered my heart. Never before had I heard him speak of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. Leaving aside his many a hurtful and sardonic ‘Well done, Watson!’ or ‘Watson, you coruscate today!’, or ‘Watson, your reflection, though profound, had already crossed my mind - last week, I believe’, heretofore his sincerest praise had been ‘Watson, you handled it fairly well’. More often I was the recipient of his particular humour. ‘Watson, perhaps it is your eyes we should examine, not your mind? Shall we say a myopia of four dioptres?’ though he knew my eyesight to be the equal of the hawk’s, able to spot a puff of gun-smoke at half a mile, or I would have taken the long-arm Jezzail’s bullet head-on. I much prefer it when he turns his self-indulgence on the official police, as in The Sign of the Four - ‘When Tobias Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelney Jones are out of their depths - which, by the way, is their normal state... ’

  Few are privy to his greatest secret, his great reliance on cranioscopy. He was brought to this science from reading A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, by the redoubtable Isabella Bird, and Wunderbare Geschichte von Bogs, dem Uhrmacher, by Brentano and Görres (in the original). He swears this practice enabled him to deduce Moriarty stole the Gainsborough Duchess in ’76. Tucked behind his make-up table, amid a clutter of waxes, creams and pastes bought from a theatrical costumier, or sometimes hidden in his cupboard of disguises, he keeps a porcelain bust titled ‘Phrenology’, manufactured by L.N. Fowler, with an accompanying index headed ‘Names, Numbers, and Location Of The Organs’. In private, Holmes’ talk is redolent with phrenological asides such as ‘Ideality’ and ‘suavity’ which I keep from my epitomes for fear his secret would be laid bare or even that he might be open to ridicule. Or, worse, taken for a spiritualist.

  Such mumbo-jumbo runs in concert with Holmes’ practical bent. Over the years he has obliged me to conduct several sections of cadavers’ faces (provided and watched closely by Inspector Gregson) designed to help in his personations. Once he asked whether it could be possible to transplant a cadaver’s cold grey face whole, as the criminal’s ultimate disguise, or confuse the official police by building in bits of latissimus dorsi.

  A further mention my name broke me from my reverie.

  ‘One secret I must reveal about my great friend Watson...’ Holmes went on. ‘He makes weekly treks to the Stoppard Lending Library and imports to our lodgings books on heraldry, falconry and armour. I am sure he will invest his characters with the chivalry of Sir Lancelot, the heroism and sagacity of King Arthur, the fidelity of Leander.’

  Overwhelmed by this public display of friendship, I bowed my head to cover the tears rising to my eyes.

  The pro forma applause stopped and I could turn my attention to our small audience. All four stared intently at the speaker as in the company of some strange animal recently imported. There was fascination and interest in their eye, and the touch of caution commensurate with the speed and strike of a predator’s claw.

  Holmes now launched into his subject.

  ‘In The Book of Life, in an article I myself wrote,’ he commenced, ‘I avowed that from a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, I could deduce the innermost thoughts of any man, though in reality the science of Deduction and Analysis is one which acquired only by long and patient study. An involved method is not indicative of a profound technique but a confused one. I merely follow La règle du jeu. I find the clues I need and assemble them in order. Never do I spring to a conclusion without possession of a sufficiency of necessary and credible facts. Such success as I have had will point to some small knowledge of the sciences. It is not impossible for a man to possess all knowledge likely to be useful to him in his work. Equally essential to my work is knowledge of the history of crime. Misdeeds bear a family resemblance. If you have the details of a thousand at your finger’s end, it is odd if you are unable to unravel the thousand and first. If every official detective shut himself up for three months and read twelve hours a day at the annals of crime, Watson and I would find ourselves redundant.’

  Holmes paused, placing his long fingers together.

  ‘Since your invitation arrived this morning I have given thought how best, within the hour allotted...’ (Holmes waved the back of his hand across the room as though giving a Papal blessing or removing a fly from before his face) ... to select from a list of our cases which stretch from that glorious residence of the Pope to the moors of Devonshire. The accursed and terrible history of the Baskervilles is a case from which I can extract the very nub of my art. The key lies in gaining a sufficiency of facts. I confess the events which confronted us in Devon still have the ability to keep me awake at night. When we set off by train for Exeter I had speculated on some South African connection where voodoo reigns - as some among you know, Sir Charles restored the depleted Baskerville fortune by South African speculation, but upon my questioning his medical attendant Dr Mortimer, Sir Charles was described as a shrewd, practical and notably unimaginative man. Nevertheless, I have long understood people may hold contradictory thoughts side by side. It was the sworn word of this same old Doctor, regular companion to Sir Charles, that his patient took the legend of The Hound of the Baskervilles seriously. I have been much struck by the power of voodoo. I recommend you read Eckermann’s Voodooism And The Negroid Religions. To return to the fearful fate of Sir Charles Baskerville, what did we have, what facts were made available to us at the start? Every evening before retiring to bed, all seasons alike, Sir Charles went out from the Hall and walked down the famous yew alley, taking the opportunity to smoke a cigar. One night, at twelve o’ clock, on the last round of the day, the butler Barrymore found an outside door left ajar. By that hour all but he should have been a-bed. He lit a lantern and went in search of his master. Footmarks were clearly to be seen between the trees of yew alley. Half-way along the walk a gate led out on to the moor. From fresh cigar ash on the mud, it was clear the smoker had whiled away some time at this spot. Not far along the butler found the body of his employer. Now I can proceed apace. There were no marks on the body, no signs of violence. However, the face was so contorted his old friend the doctor at first completely failed to recognise the corpse. This was explained by the coroner for the benefit of the reporter from the Western Morning News as not unusual in
the case of death from cardiac exhaustion and dyspnoea. The Coroner came to his finding with unusual celerity, much influenced by the post-mortem examination revealing the deceased suffered from long-standing organic disease.’

  Holmes looked around the room. ‘So there we were. On the face of it, a case hardly opened, then slammed shut by the desire of the coroner to put an end to ugly whispers of voodoo and black magic in this location on a desolate Moor, as sparsely-inhabited as the Norfolk fens. There it could have rested until a further murder might have taken place ... as I am certain was on the cards... except I noticed a most curious remark in the butler’s statement. In seeking his master in the night-time mist, he placed the lantern low while following foot-marks along the damp ground of Yew Alley. For the first part, the footmarks were those of a man proceeding at a stroll, but from the moment Sir Charles left the gate, the observant Barrymore said his master seemed to be ‘walking upon his toes’. These are hardly blood-curdling words yet on reading this remark, I asked myself, ‘Why would a man walk upon his toes? There was no high fence or hedge to look beyond. And why the grotesque distortion of the corpse’s face? As so often happens, when evidence pointing unerringly in one direction is viewed from a slightly altered perspective, it may admit of a very different interpretation. The answer was plain. Sir Charles was not tip-toeing at all. This elderly and infirm man had, suddenly, like a rusty spring uncoiling, begun to run, to run desperately, to run for his life, to run until under this great stress his weakened heart burst and he fell dead upon his contorted face. The direction in which he ran was especially curious. It was away from the Hall, not toward it. What was it which terrified him enough to make him flee - so utterly he lost all his wits? From there we were able to contrive a trap which brought before our pistols the fearsome, diabolical hound given a hellish appearance by means of phosphorus which had frightened Sir Charles to death.’

  Sir Julius looked at Holmes quizzically. ‘Holmes, if you will excuse my temerity, you were handed the principal clue on a plate - an account of boot-marks of a man which indicated he was running for his life.’

  ‘Gentlemen, then let me inflict upon you one more case, The Adventure of Silver Blaze. It concerned the disappearance of a horse owned by a Colonel Ross, recognisable by the white forehead and mottled off-foreleg. One night this valuable animal was led away in secret from its stable. A stranger named Fitzroy Simpson was known to be in the vicinity seeking betting information. He was arrested and accused. When this account was brought to me in Baker Street I cautioned Watson to keep an open mind on the grounds of my dictum the obvious culprit is most likely to be innocent. Nevertheless, we arrived at the training stables carrying with us the expectation the culprit must indeed have come from the outside, as logic and experience would dictate. Theft of important horses in not unknown in that semi-criminal world but why would an owner or member of the stable staff steal the very thing on which their income depended? However, two clues came to my attention, both considered too small to be of interest to the official police. First let

  me tell you the lads taking the watch over Silver Blaze were brought their meals in the stable and what do you suppose they ate that night?’

  No-one ventured a guess.

  ‘Curry,’ Holmes announced.

  Siviter spoke up with a surprised look. ‘Holmes, I must admit I had no idea this dish has reached as far as Devon, but why would that gain your attention?’

  ‘Curry was the first link in my chain of reasoning. It was clear the stable lads heard nothing in the night, indicating they were in a deep and unnatural sleep. Powdered opium is by no means tasteless. The flavour is not disagreeable but it is perceptible. Were it mixed with any ordinary dish the eater would undoubtedly detect it and would probably eat no more. A mutton curry was exactly the medium which would disguise this taste. But by no possible supposition could the stranger Fitzroy Simpson have caused curry to be served in the trainer’s family that night. Once I discerned it required knowledge improbably available to a stranger, it immediately circumscribed the culprit to within the stables. One deduction often sparks another. I spotted the further clue which fully amplified my suspicion and enabled me to point to the individual who perpetrated this crime. And there we had it.’

  ‘My dear Holmes,’ Weit’s high laugh broke in. ‘Surely you are not to leave us twisting in the wind! What, pray, was the second clue?’

  ‘Simply the dog that didn’t bark loudly in the night.’

  Holmes reached into a pocket for the small brier-root pipe. He looked down into the bowl tar-coated from habitual use of the strongest black tobacco.

  ‘Inspector Gregory asked me, is there any point to which I wished to bring his attention? I replied, ‘To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’ The Inspector responded, ‘Holmes, the dog did nothing in the night-time’. That was the curious incident, I told him. A farm dog was kept in the very stables from which this horse had been led away, and yet, though someone had fetched out the horse, the dog had not barked sufficiently to arouse the farm. It was clear the midnight visitor was someone the dog knew well. From there it was quite simple, confirmed when later we were to find the culprit, the trainer John Straker, dead, killed by the hoofs of the horse he was trying to nobble at the instance of a criminal betting syndicate. As my panegyrist Watson says, my observation, referred to as ‘the dog that didn’t bark in the night’, has become as well known as the maxim I propounded in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I should tell you the stable dog benefited greatly from my deduction. So angry had her owner been at her apparent dereliction of duty that had I not intervened with my explanation he would shortly have put this blameless dog down.’

  He studied the faces before him thoughtfully. ‘I must assume you have read the adventures of Marco Polo?’

  The five of us nodded emphatically.

  ‘Of course,’ Holmes continued. ‘Who among us with a disposition for adventure has not? What do we know about him? Born in Venice some six centuries ago. Went with his father on a Papal mission to the territories of the Grand Khan, to return to Venice after an absence of twenty-four years. Imprisoned by the Genoese. At a loss for money he wrote his fanciful tales.’ Holmes paused. ‘You are convinced from his descriptions he did indeed reach the Middle Kingdom?’

  Siviter’s finger darted upward. ‘I might say I have some knowledge of the East,’ he intervened. ‘I wager you fifty guineas if you convince us otherwise!’

  ‘Then,’ Holmes continued, ‘let me ask you, when I say ‘China’, what springs to mind?’

  ‘The Great Wall,’ Siviter responded.

  ‘Good. The Great Wall would undoubtedly be visible from the moon. What else?’

  ‘Chop sticks,’ added Weit.

  ’Excellent. No Chinaman eats without them.’

  ‘The barbarous practice of binding female children’s feet,’ I chimed in.

  ‘A very barbarous and wide-spread practice indeed,’ Holmes nodded. ‘And like the Great Wall and the use of chop-sticks no doubt highly visible to anyone visiting the Middle Kingdom?’

  ‘Indisputably,’ we all agreed.

  Holmes paused for dramatic effect.

  ‘Then is it not curious that in all his writings about his many years in that faraway and magic place, Marco Polo never mentions chopsticks? Nor does he mention the Great Wall, nor refer to the widespread and barbarous practice of the binding of female babies’ feet. Why not? Is it likely when you seek to attain the greatest sale of your pamphlet, where you must entice by the rare and exotic nature of your experience, you would omit such extraordinary things? If I were to publish an account of my two years in Tibet, would it ring true if I left out the giant black mastiffs of the Grand Lama? Or from my visit to Khartoum and Omdurman fail to mention the Khalifa - or the Suez Canal?’
/>
  Siviter’s mouth fell open in delight. ‘Why, Holmes,’ he burst out. ‘You have convinced me. If what you say is true, he could not possibly have been in China.’

  Holmes gave a final, slightly ironic bow.

  The small assembly stood up and clapped. Our host was smiling and nodding. I too clapped.

  Privately I was chagrined by Siviter’s reference to me (picked up by Holmes) as panegyrist - a jibe which seemed designed to denigrate my profession.

  As to his use of Ruth to Naomi!

  We Meet Pevensey

  We had an hour before the Lanchester would transport us to Etchingham for the early-evening train to Charing Cross where a brougham would be waiting to transport us to Baker Street courtesy of our host. The artist Pevensey had not been mentioned again. Ever-keen to add to my knowledge of pictorial art I asked whether our host would permit us to view the commission. After a moment of calculation, Siviter accepted this request. Holmes, the terriers and retrievers and I followed in his wake and once more crossed the chamomile lawn and the Wild Garden to Park Mill.

  Leaving the excitable dogs outside, Siviter led us inside. Along the inside walls Watteau garden statues of shepherdesses and Boucher nymphs leaned against each other, jumbled up with stone images of Pan and Adonis. Siviter had collected up and removed the figures from the gardens upon purchasing the estate, together with marble figures of Cupid and Psyche. The centre of the floor was crammed with rococo chairs, fountains, fishing tackle, a chaise-longue, a cornucopia of Ceres, a carriage umbrella, and bicycles for the housemaids and footmen. It was as though at midnight of a full moon, every object would come alive and prance to the music of a hundred Pans.