Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle

by Tim Symonds

  Like a dashing foxhound drawing a cover, he sped on. ‘This murder is not the work of a tinder-box imagination. It has been most cleverly designed. Thanks to your Codex, we most definitely have them! I reverse my recent charge - it will be you who places the hangman’s noose around their necks. I took you and your Codex to be a most powerful ally in their favour but it has now turned King’s Evidence. It will be you, not I, who will be their Nemesis.’

  With an eager look he questioned, ‘Your Codex provides proof of this, from taking the most exacting measurements on bodies in both the warm and cold?’

  ‘I assure you it does, Holmes,’ I responded, my dread returning.

  ‘Based on...?’

  ‘Based on my scientific study on many tens of Timurid warriors’ corpses.’

  ‘Then if you please, give me further instruction. There is some haste - as you remind me, we shall be at Crick’s End soon!’

  I began, ‘For many months I recorded the times of onset in great detail. You say ‘on bodies’ but my investigation was not conducted on Timurids’ bodies in the sense you would assume.’

  ‘On what, then?’ my companion demanded.

  ‘On their toes,’ I replied.

  Holmes’ eyes opened wide. My friend has so often astonished me in the course of our adventures that it was with a sense of exultation that I realised how completely the situation was reversed. Except for the intense but fleeting look he gave me at the very start of our acquaintance a quarter-century before, when young Stamford brought us together so fatefully, I do not believe Holmes had ever stared at me so hard, and never in such wonderment or grave suspicion as at that moment.

  ‘Watson,’ he exclaimed, ‘on Timurids’ toes? You surpass my own experiment beating corpses with blackthorn cudgels to ascertain if bruising can occur post-mortem! Surely you tease? If you are entirely serious I am more astonished by your words than if a Barbary ape clad in morning coat, waistcoat, and striped trousers forced his way through the windows of this carriage, settling on your knee and speaking in good English! On Timurids’ toes? Rather tell me you concerned yourself with the major limbs - the legs and arms?’

  ‘For many years that was the practice of my profession,’ I acknowledged, ‘but after many close and careful calculations during several engagements in the Khyber Pass I realised development of rigor mortis in the larger muscles can be dangerously unreliable.’

  ‘Compared to toes?’

  ‘Compared to toes.’

  Holmes clapped his hands in admiration. ‘Watson, Watson!’ he exclaimed, ‘instruct me further. What were your results? I might tell you, my dear, dear friend, I do not recall another instance where so much depends on your medical knowledge,’ adding, ‘Would your measurements remain the same in England’s clime as those taken from corpses in tongas in the far-off reaches of South Asia?’

  ‘They would,’ I acknowledged. ‘Temperature is temperature.’

  ‘And the human body is the human body, well said! Come, Watson, I rely completely on your expertise. In your hands alone lies our entire case.’

  Despite the deepest worry over Holmes’ accusations against the Kipling League, a surge of pleasure rose within me. It is a rare occasion when he expresses such a need of me.

  ‘In cooler temperatures, onset of rigor mortis can be more than two hours longer whereas...’

  ‘More than two hours longer?’ Holmes broke in. ‘As you say, how that flies in the face of intuition!’

  He fell silent as though engaged in some calculation and then resumed, ‘Two hours longer in the cold...my heavens, and you sat all the while with dead Timurid warriors, tweaking their toes? Presumably the toes were still attached to their former owners? Bravo, Watson!’

  After a pause he added, ‘Think of all those flies!’ Then, mysteriously, ‘Had we caught the three-ten train they would have left him in the moat.’

  Clearly restored in spirit (the complete reversal of mine), my companion sat grinning at me. Fields of dark Sussex Reds passed us by.

  Holmes leaned over to pinch my arm with affection. ‘Watson, do you by chance have your Codex with you in your medical collection? So precise is the timing of these events...’

  ‘It has become a talisman, I go nowhere without it,’ I replied.

  Holmes seized the leather-bound tome almost before it cleared the Gladstone bag. After a brief scrutiny he looked up, remarking with some admiration, ‘These are pages of the most complex and impressive calculations!’ A further period of examination ensued. He looked up. ‘Watson, I failed in my duty as a Consulting Detective - I should have read this magnum opus most thoroughly when you offered it to me more than twenty years ago.’

  A moment later a frown flickered across his face. ‘These summer temperatures, they seem remarkably low. How can that be?’

  ‘Holmes, you must surely recall from your Great Hiatus in the East,’ I replied, smiling at his bewilderment. ‘This Codex was commissioned by the Russians. Muscovites calculate temperature in Centigrade. ’

  Holmes looked back at a table. ‘So if I want to turn 50 degrees in our language into Russian, what then?’

  ‘You must subtract 32 and multiply the result by 5 and divide by 9.’

  ‘So I must... which would be?’

  ’In Centigrade, 10 degrees.’

  His forefinger slid down the page and came again to a stop.

  ‘10 Centigrade,’ he murmured. ‘Onset 10 hours 23 minutes.’

  He stared at me across the jolting cab in great surprise. ‘Ten hours 23 minutes, Watson,’ he repeated. ‘You surprise me.’

  At this, he returned to the Codex tables. ‘And for a warmer temperature, shall we say at 70 degrees in English? Come, Watson, I rely on your addition and subtraction. What is 70 in this foreign tongue?’

  ‘Around 21,’ I responded.

  Again his finger travelled down the columns.

  ‘Eight hours 32 minutes.’ He looked up. ‘Almost two hours shorter. There is clearly much chemistry in rigor mortis. One day we must pursue it together.’ He paused, looking hard at me. ‘Watson, I admit I am amazed. I shared the constable’s perception that stiffening takes place far faster.’

  ‘There is the common view that if you come across a body where the arms still flop, its heart must have stopped beating within the hour - even doctors cling to that assumption.’

  ‘But the reality...?’

  ‘I can assure you, Holmes, the truth is very different - as you see from my experiments.’

  ‘Then I must rely entirely on this rarest of expertise. If we had caught the three-ten as they expected, our talk would have taken place at six this evening...and the corpse discovered by seven. Take away ten hours twenty-three minutes...’ His fingers fell one by one on his knees as he subtracted. ‘According to your tables they must have killed the Boer shortly after breakfast and dropped him in the moat soon after.’

  ‘Holmes,’ I began, ‘I watch you engage in such calculations with a mixture of concern and mirth. Perhaps before we arrive at their door and end our careers in detection...’

  ‘... why yes, you should be enlightened - but first let me ask you, in the mill-attic...the canvas on the easel, the copy of the Constable. Did nothing about it disturb you?’

  ‘Nothing, Holmes,’ I responded, puzzled at this switch. ‘What was there to disturb me? It portrayed a rustic scene, no more.’

  ‘A very rustic scene, and cleverly done. A set-piece for Lady Fusey, a reminder of her early years on the Stour. Of the pair, would you say it was the principal commission?’

  ‘Certainly it is the larger and more impressive.’

  ‘Then we agree. Tell me, why did Pevensey rush to complete it? Why the sudden acceleration this afternoon? What was it that made him put on such a burst of speed?’

  ‘I was not awar
e that he had.’

  ‘Well, I can answer for it, Watson, that it was so.’

  ‘Then perhaps you will tell me how you make that judgment?’ I requested with a distinct edge of panic.

  ‘Think back to our encounter with Pevensey in the mill-attic. At my questioning, did he not agree most artists in oil first sketch the outlines on a grid?

  I nodded, unsure to which far and dangerous territory the pied piper in the carriage was leading me, while certain it was in a direction I had no wish to go.

  ‘... and after completing the background items - hills and distant farmsteads, shall we say - he would return to the central elements and with the finest brush, in the most careful detail, paint the very essence of the commission?’

  ‘He did, yes.’

  ‘In Constable’s Flatford Mill those elements were...?’ Holmes pursued.

  ‘The wagoner and cart - and the dog, though as Siviter explained, where Constable painted a dog, he asked Pevensey to staff the painting with a figure....’

  ‘A figure in a flamboyant hat. So he did, my friend. And added very late in the painting’s construction. It was that figure he painted in last of all.’

  ‘What makes you so certain, Holmes?’ I demanded.

  ‘Because the sheen was on that figure and on that figure alone. Do you not consider that quite peculiar?’

  ‘I might, Holmes, if I had any idea what you are talking about,’ I replied. ‘What of the sheen?’

  Holmes pointed at the valise clutched by my side.

  ‘Retrieve the Gazetteer and turn to the page on Pevensey. Read it to me.’

  I seized the Gazetteer and flicked speedily through the pages.

  ‘Is this what you mean, Holmes?’ I demanded. ‘‘Pevensey prides himself on his acquaintance with the qualities and hues of different pigments in their dry state, to judge the ‘goodness or deficiency’ of them when ground in oil’?’

  ‘Exactly that, Watson. Note how he ‘prides himself on his acquaintance...’ Yet Pevensey used boiled linseed as the medium for the passing stranger. We know from his admission the glazing was not achieved by scumbling, a fact I had already noted. He would need a hog-hair brush. He did not have a brush of that description with him. I ask you once more, does this not strike you as peculiar when he agreed the important details are left to last precisely to be completed with the greater care? Why did Pevensey turn to boiled linseed oil for the final touch - the figure of a man in pride of place? It is completely out of character.’

  He cocked his eye at me to see if I had followed his reasoning.

  I had not. ‘You have lost me, Holmes,’ I answered. ‘However great my reluctance - and great it is - if I am to play any part in your charge against the Kipling League, I insist you enlighten me while there is still time. What does it mean, using boiled rather than any other state of linseed oil?’

  ‘Boiled linseed leaves a tell-tale sheen. Worse, it has a tendency to crack.’

  ‘Then why...?’

  ‘Because Pevensey needed the paint to dry much faster. With boiled linseed oil you do not tip-toe across the canvas, you race.’

  He continued with a most enquiring look, ‘I ask you again, Watson, what was it this very day which drove Pevensey to complete the canvas by over-painting the dog with that figure at such break-neck speed? He is not an artist who turns readily to boiled linseed oil - certainly not for such a commission. It could only have been from the most unconscionable constraint.’

  I stared in astonishment at my companion. ‘Holmes, on so flimsy an edifice of chemistry you believe you can build a case for murder against the Kipling League?’

  ‘Not of itself, my good friend, we need more, yet why did boiled linseed oil spring to mind when I heard the cry ‘Dead body at Scotney Castle’? Such oddities are as telling as the curried mutton in Silver Blaze.’

  By now his face had regained a determined expression. ‘Watson, there are matters to be pursued. Please obey my injunctions to the letter. Immediately on our arrival you must push through their door and sweep the staircase to the parlour - that would be a servant’s task early on the morrow so we are in good time.’

  I digested his words. I was to push past Siviter, offer the household servants my greetings, and with a little delicacy and finesse begin to brush the stairs? And with what? Or should I force a side-window and throw in a plumber’s smoke-rocket to create an alarm of fire? If so, did Holmes have such rockets in the Poshteen Long Coat’s capacious pockets?

  ‘I must tell you, Holmes,’ I gasped in reply. ‘I am starting to find this lightly comic. Brush the stairs for what?’

  ‘You remember when Sir Julius and Weit arrived - the condition of their shoes? We would want to examine such particles as fell when they hurried up the stairs. I wager this coat against a light breakfast at the Kit-Kat Café that an examination of those geological particles by the trained and forensic eye will point straight to Scotney Castle. The particles will prove to be the off-spring of the soil of Kent and not the Jurassic clay of the Dudwell Valley.’

  The Return Journey To Crick’s End Continues

  I sat in uneasy and perplexed disquiet, keen beyond all measure to discover a flaw in my companion’s argument before we got to Crick’s End. It seemed we were about to fling ourselves into a shark-infested ocean.

  Holmes’ passing reference to the Kit-Kat Café revived a memory. One Christmas he and I sat for an unconscionable time on the café’s stoop with its fine views of Camber Sands, waiting to pounce on the evil Gustav von Seyffertitz. We had reason to believe he was staying at the Green Owl nearby, awaiting the arrival of a boat from Honfleur packed to the gunnels with his men. We ate oyster soufflé prepared in a Charlotte mould at 3d. a serving. Late that moonlit night we hired a horse-drawn bathing machine and rattled into the shallows in the leaky contraption as though setting sail for the open sea, fully-clothed, revolvers and heavy sticks to hand, ready to leap out on unsuspecting myrmidons who never came.

  Our carriage slowed as it took a leftward curve up the incline to Burrish’s ancient church. We were on the final stretch. Holmes tapped on the wood. The coachman’s head appeared.

  ‘If there is a quieter route to our destination, please take it.’

  My spirits sank further. Not far ahead loomed the prospect of a confrontation with Van Beers and Siviter and two astute and well-placed Gold Bugs and their millions was looming. Despite his appearance of a completely collected mind, Holmes’ assumptions seemed so absurd I wondered if I should make some desperate effort to forestall a most terrible public humiliation. Should I should fling my comrade from the carriage and bind him like a common footpad hand and foot with the agricultural twine I always kept to hand? If so, would the cabman help me in this endeavour - or, given my comrade’s fame among workmen and millionaire alike, attack me from behind?

  With little hope of reprieve, pushed near to madness by my unwillingness to confront our recent hosts with a pocketful of nonsense, I yelped, ‘Holmes, enough! We are nearly there. I beg you, consider where we are with this matter! You have failed to convince me this death is the result of murder rather than accidental or self-inflicted, or if murder whether committed by proxy and by whom its planning was effected, Siviter in a criminal conspiracy with Van Beers, Sir Julius and Weit. Or was it Dudeney acting alone, or under instruction? Or Lord and Lady Fusey - or woodman Webster fed up with tramps rampaging through his master’s property? And if not by stabbing or bludgeoning or soft-nosed bullets or poison, then what?’

  I paused, struggling awkwardly to get to my feet in the jolting carriage.

  ‘Imagine,’ I began, half-bent over my companion, ‘this carriage is the Old Bailey, you the chief and only witness for the prosecution, I in frock coat as King’s Counsel for the defence. ‘Mr. Sherlock Holmes,’ I ask, ‘Murder, you proclaim? You must show the court Means, Motivatio
n and Opportunity. Let us quickly dispense with the matter of means. There is no question the men you accuse of dastardly murder have the means - they enjoy great privilege, power and position. Gentlemen of the jury, that I accept. One among the accused can command a thousand well-armed men. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, what method do you say they employed for such misadventure as took place at Scotney Castle? Stabbing or garrotting? Blunderbuss or cosh? Titters from onlookers at the back of the Court. Neither constable nor Coroner reports a single mark upon the body, is it not so - just the bronzing of the skin? Gentlemen of the jury, did my clients murder him by too much English sun? Mr. Sherlock Holmes, take time to reflect upon your answer to that question and allow me to proceed to the second of the holy trinity - what of motive? Who has most to gain from the victim’s death? Did this vagrant leave sacks of diamonds or bars of bullion buried at Scotney Castle whose whereabouts are exposed in a Last Will and Testament jutting from a pocket - or are dark glasses a great deal more costly than I had supposed? Loud laughter from the back of the Court. You suggest my clients wished to foment a Third South African War...sprinkle of incredulous laughter... by murdering a tramp... laughter... in Kent? Roar of laughter.

  Finally to opportunity - Gentlemen of the jury, as the Court has heard, my clients express themselves whole-souled in one desire, that England should remain prosperous, happy and committed to our Empire, an Empire larger than the Roman, built peace-meal across the Centuries by the valour and intellect of such men as have appeared before you all this week. The Lord Fusey and the President of the Royal Academy have sworn on oath the victim of drowning was alive at the approach of three o’ clock. Why must we disbelieve them? At three o’clock Mr. Sherlock Holmes was lecturing my clients on the life of an unofficial Consulting Detective more than fifteen miles away. You have heard Dr. Watson affirm that is so - under oath. Where, I ask, is the trail of bloody footprints? Gentlemen of the Jury, I beg you, let this unfortunate soul rest in peace. Why not the simple drowning the constable presumed? What possible reason would cause these eminent men to conspire at so heinous and contrived a crime as the murder they are accused of by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and he alone? Why can we not assume this corpse found naked in a pond, clothes and hat piled neatly nearby, is simply the tragic victim of an accidental drowning or a hapless suicide? I raise my arms to Heaven and ask - where is the evidence to the contrary?’