by Tim Symonds
The ‘Hottentot’ Election of 1907. ‘Parties of Order’ gained a solid majority. Arrival in the Reichstag of hardliners such as Count Bernhard von Bülow. Bülow picked a new kind of Hercules to sweep out the Augean Stables (the German Colonial Department), ‘a plump young banker with a light brown beard and smiling eyes’, as one German newspaper described him, named as Bernhard Dernburg. His message is visionary - economic imperialism is the answer. Germany’s African colonies could become jewels in the Kaiser’s crown through which the Reich could exploit cheap and secure sources of those raw materials most needed for a strong Defence of the Fatherland - oil, cotton and the rubber, vital to its ‘destiny’ as the world’s second greatest steel power.’
‘By strong Defence we must take it Sykes means war,’ Holmes remarked.
My companion then moved to a mysterious matter alluded to in his telegram earlier in the day: ‘Watson, are you à la page with the Kiel Canal?’
I replied I was not. At his quizzical look I added I had come across reports from correspondents in the Morning Chronicle and the London Times but such matters remained at the far margins of my interest.
Holmes nodded. ‘I see. My dear Watson, I am about to enlighten you about an unexpected turn of events. As you are seated, if precariously - I must get Mrs. Keppell’s husband to deal with that chair - let us examine this newspaper cutting pushed beneath my door. You may not know it from the photograph but the cutting refers to the man I first asked to you to look up in the Gazetteer.’
‘The conquistadore in the scramble for Africa?’
He passed me the original cutting. ‘Count von Hofmeyer, yes. I have had it translated.’
I looked at the cutting from the Rheinische Merkur. It showed a police-type photograph of an unsmiling man wearing dark glasses. Printed by it were several lines in a Teutonic type.
Holmes began to read out the translation.
‘‘Graf von Hofmeyer Declared Legally Dead’’, he began. ‘‘No Solution To The Mystery. It is seven years since Ulrich von Hofmeyer disappeared after departing the French coast at Dieppe by packet-boat for Newhaven on the coast of Sussex on the 24th of May 1904. Nothing has been heard from him since. At the request of his wife the Authorities have declared him legally dead. A figure widely identifiable in Eastern Africa because of his attachment to dark glasses and uncompromising approach to the natives, von Hofmeyer had only recently taken up new, undisclosed diplomatic duties in Berlin after disposing of extensive personal assets in Tanganyika, including three tanzanite mines at Arusha.’’
At his words I burst out in a strangulated voice, ‘the Boer at Scotney Castle...’
‘Precisely, Watson, the dead Boer...’
‘... was a Boche!’
‘You have it,’ Holmes replied, observing me quietly.
A grey mist swirled before my eyes. Everything which had seemed real threatened to tumble around my buzzing head. I felt I would swoon for only the second time in a life not absent of desperate surprises. The first occasion was when Holmes unveiled himself after years during which I thought him dead, though it was a close-run thing during my early weeks in India when a brother officer at my side in the Mess-tent, seemingly at the end of his tether, drew a khukuri and stabbed himself thrice just above the knee with the utmost savagery, screaming the while like a Banshee spirit. After some seconds of this curious display, when no artery was severed and no spurt of blood forthcoming, I realised he had a wooden leg. On both occasions it took me a while to recover.
After several moments I spoke.
‘Holmes, the article is so close to an obituary, like you I am certain the corpse was von Hofmeyer’s. He may have come intent on discussions on a matter of some moment, but still I say, to be murdered and stripped naked... surely that goes too far?’
‘Do you recall how the Sultan Saif Al-Din Qutuz and his generals treated the four emissaries of the Mongol prince Hulegu Khan when they brought a letter demanding instant capitulation?’ Holmes asked.
‘Why, no, I do not recall,’ I responded.
‘At Qutuz’ command the ambassadors were cut in half at the waist, decapitated and their heads placed on Cairo’s great Zuwila Gate.’
‘So killing the Boche and stripping off his clothing...’
‘Would it not make a considerable point, if short of being halved?’
‘It would, Holmes,’ I agreed, ‘but if he was murdered - and under the circumstance I am obliged to accept it was not suicide or death from accidental drowning - why has no effort been made, as far as we can see, by our Foreign Office or the Imperial German Embassy in London to put two and two together? We know the finding of the corpse was reported in the Standard. Particular mention was made of the presence of dark shiny spectacles - they are so much the dead man’s signature the Rheinische Merkur refers to them in this clipping.’
‘I telephoned Brother Mycroft this morning. It transpires His Majesty’s Government was fully aware of the Count’s journey to Sussex from the moment he left Berlin. Furthermore, von Hofmeyer sent a letter from Crick’s End to the Chancellery on the morning of his death using the German Naval code. His letter was intercepted at the Burrish Post-Office. It took Mycroft a mere six hours to decipher.’
‘And it said...?’
‘’Proposals well received. Anticipate arrival of eminent personages from Downing Street within hours’.’
‘Why did your brother not let you know of this at the time?’
‘The Official Secrets Act 1889 Section 2, ‘Breach of Official Trust’, that’s why. I had no idea Mycroft could be so pedantic. He insisted on reading the entire wretched Act over the telephone like the Sermon on the Mount.’
Holmes threw me a serious look. ‘Watson, I had my suspicions even then that the murder was - if not officially sanctioned - at the very least condoned by a bellicose faction inside the Government. Once von Hofmeyer left Dieppe for Crick’s End, followed all the while, he had one chance on life to a hundred chances on death.’
‘A bellicose faction inside the Government?’ I exclaimed. ‘Led by whom?’
‘Why, the Blenheim spaniel, Winston Churchill, who else? Mycroft has informed me your friend Marsh was forbidden to tell you on pain of his knighthood.’
‘But even Winston Churchill could hardly command events at Downing Street,’ I protested. ‘Ambitious he may be to a fault, but he is not yet Prime Minister. He is not even Foreign Secretary.’
‘My dear Watson,’ Holmes replied, chuckling. ‘Surely you remember our one visit to Downing Street? The labyrinthine layout, the innumerable baroque state rooms, the poky passageways, the hidden courtyards, the secluded offices. It is a wonder we ever found our way out. It only lacks a few suits of armour, oriental robes, curved swords, Ottoman miniatures, Islamic calligraphic manuscripts, murals and a ghost or two for it to be mistaken for the Topkapi Palace. Those are not the corridors of power but mediaeval courts run from broom cupboards, one of which is reserved for Mycroft Holmes but another must bear the label ‘Winston Churchill’.’
So it was that for the next fifteen minutes, swiftly by degrees, Holmes took me on a most unexpected tour d’horizon. He launched into his narrative, as strange a story as he had ever laid before me.
‘I have given this great thought while awaiting your arrival,’ Holmes continued. ‘I believe - as would the sender of this newspaper cutting - we are now far too late if we hope to prevent the catastrophe that lies not far beyond the horizon. The Kipling League achieved a triumphant finis to their record in England. Van Beers and Sir Julius are safely abroad. Weit, as you must know, is dead. I can only make sense of this by assuming Count von Hofmeyer came to a conclusion Africa was a blind canyon. His great hope and natural ally, the Boers, suffered a rout and mostly inhabit the bush beyond the Orange River. The boundaries of the Continent, so carelessly drawn, are a shaming legacy of the Scrambl
e for Africa, the mere by-product of some European explorer’s wanderings or statesman’s puffed-up pride. Take a particular absurdity, the Caprivi panhandle named after the German foreign minister from his mad idea of building a railway from South-West Africa to Portuguese Mozambique - without ever having learned the terrain is most unsuitable. No, Watson. Opportunity for a man as ambitious as the Count no longer lay in Africa.’
‘What of this man Dernburg?’ I asked. ‘What of his concern with Africa?’
‘A deliberate diversion, contrived by von Hofmeyer to put England off the track. Dernburg was groomed to replace him, a device to convince us Africa rested at the epicentre of the German Chancellery’s ambitions. In that way it would take our eye off the widening of the Kiel Canal while encouraging our War Department to prepare as they always do for the wrong kind of war, a third engagement against the unrequited Boer in Southern Africa.’
‘If this contrivance freed von Hofmeyer from Africa, to what aim....?’
‘Weltpolitik, my friend! Do you not see, he returns to Berlin, the Capital of the most powerful kingdom of Middle Europe, in time for the widening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal at Kiel? I would not have asked you to bone up on the Canal if it was not of the utmost importance to our present discussion. In the past year they have widened it at the cost of 242 million marks, wide enough to take the greatest German battleships. The Canal crosses the Cimbrian Peninsular and connects the Baltic with the North Sea. Prussians would not spend that sum for pleasure yachts on their way to Cowes or Cannes. It saves a ship - a Dreadnought perhaps - 250 miles through the dangerous waters of the Skagerrak.’
Incredulous that this should be a principal topic of conversation, I demanded, ‘Holmes, is it simply to inform me of these statistics you send me a telegram which nearly gives Mrs. Hudson a heart-attack with worry, in which you order me to leap aboard a train with more than all due speed - and by a circuitous route - just short of telling me to bring my service revolver and a dozen soft-nosed bullets?’
‘Soon the tumblers will fall in place, I assure you, Watson. Von Hofmeyer could see the strategic possibilities for a mighty German Navy. The immense ship canal is the rival of the Suez. The Germans are now free to move from safe and secret Baltic bases to the whole of the world’s seas - except for what, Watson...?’
My mind returned to a conversation with Edward Marsh at The Athenaeum where I had repaired one evening for a good cigar and intriguing gossip.
‘...that the Royal Navy lies in the way?’ I hazarded.
‘Indeed.’
In his detached and entertaining way Marsh had related how Britain’s First Sea Lord and First Lord of the Admiralty grew panic-stricken as Germany’s naval challenge proceeded. Major British forces were withdrawn from far-distant routes to India. Fleets were reorganised based on Malta, Gibraltar and the home ports. Planning began for a new all-big-gun battleship together with the Invincible class of battle-cruiser. The new fleet was to give Great Britain such an intimidating lead Germany would give up all competitive activity from cost alone, let alone a failure of ambition. Instead, Holmes was informing me, far from containment or intimidation, the race for sovereignty of the seas had become sterner.
Holmes continued, ‘Count von Hofmeyer knew of Van Beers and Siviter from his years in Africa. He knew they would have the Prime Minister’s ear. They in turn would be well aware of his blood-thirsty history.’
‘So he was sent to Crick’s End to oblige a humiliating submission? You suggest by murdering this Hun, leaving him stripped of clothing in the wagon pond, the Kipling League sent a signal of the utmost defiance to Berlin?’ I paused. ‘If that is so, shall we agree what they did in killing this fellow would not be so damnable - there might be honour in the matter?’
‘That is the message Siviter would have conveyed to Fusey - and Pevensey - and to the staff at Crick’s End and Scotney Castle, several of whom were needed in the running of events, especially the woodman and Dudeney and his motor.’
I stared at my companion.
‘You say ‘the message Siviter would have conveyed,’ Holmes. How otherwise could it be?’
He sat in silence, brow furrowed, without responding to my question.
I went on, ‘The Holmes, I beg you at least to put an end to my curiosity on one singular point which has engaged my mind throughout my journey here today and well before...’
‘Ask on, Watson,’ my companion assented in a most amiable way. ‘Up to today I have been entirely unwilling to engage with you on any aspect of this matter but I am the more ready to do so now. Which singular point do you...?’
‘I have often stood at your side at the start of the chase but never where you came so swiftly to your conclusion or stayed with it to such a bitter end. When Dudeney returned us to Etchingham Railway Station, you heard the newspaper vendor calling out. I recall to this day the speed with which you concluded something grave was afoot. Your exact words were...’
‘‘...the very second I adopted the hypothesis everything seems to fit - or at least nothing seems to contradict it’?’ he interrupted.
‘Indeed,’ I replied. ‘I have read and reread that report in the newspaper a dozen times. I have it framed on a wall. What was it which brought you so swiftly to such a conclusion?’
‘The first ‘scumbling’ to catch my eye was the local constable’s determination to report the corpse as the former temple of a passing tramp. What could possibly have brought the village bobby to that conclusion?’
‘May I let you answer that?’ I returned.
‘Because Lord Fusey indicated it was so, how else? The evidence itself, right in front of the constable’s own eyes, pointed in quite another direction.’
‘So why did Fusey offer this opinion?’
‘Because it removed all concern for murder - tramps are valued even less than hobos in the countryside.’
‘You said it could not be the body of a tramp because the evidence pointed in quite another direction - what in particular, Holmes?’
‘Were you not struck forcibly by the appearance of the corpse? Remember, it had been stripped of clothing.’
‘Which opened to view the scorching of the skin by a Tropical sun... what else was there of interest?’
‘The fearful bruising of the body.’
I looked at Holmes sharply.
‘The bruising?’ I exclaimed. ‘Who said there was bruising? Holmes, there were no bruises reported in the Standard. It simply said the victim’s skin was seared in a particular pattern.’
‘Then what of the broken bones?’
I stared at him aghast.
‘Holmes, you know full well there was no mention of broken bones.’
‘But what of the terrible cut across the nape as from a cutlass, a violent slash which so nearly beheaded him?’ Holmes asked, smiling.
‘Holmes, you know perfectly well such a wound would have been...’
I stopped abruptly, casting him a rueful smile. This was not an example of Holmes’ Socratic method. He was up to his old and familiar trick, scrambling my brain like Mrs. Hudson’s Sunday eggs.
‘Precisely, Watson!’ Holmes continued. ‘No cuts, no bruises, no broken bones? How can it be? Why not a brutal slash across the throat to divide the carotid artery?’
I waited in impatient silence while he exchanged the cigarette case in turn for a favourite pipe. He resumed, ‘What then, I ask again, what of our cadaver at Scotney Castle? There was no report of any such disfigurement. Did that not arouse your suspicion? Siviter and his cohorts made a serious blunder in prompting Fusey to declare it was a vagabond who killed himself or took a bath in the wagon pond and drowned. That it was a suicide or a chance drowning was not impossible. It was impossible it was the suicide or chance drowning of a tramp.’
He looked at me, the grey eyes narrowing. ‘What should t
hat have told you, Watson?’
‘I confess I have no answer to your question, Holmes.’
‘It proves the act of murder was not long in the soak. Where a crime is coolly planned, then the means of covering it up are coolly premeditated too. Rather than passing it off as a suicide or accidental drowning, they would have thrown me off the scent if they had made it clear it was murder. Siviter should have employed that cut-throat Venucci from Saffron Hill or a murder-gang, or a Smithfields garrotter - or even after the heart ceased beating a bludgeonman with a vigorous arm to crush in the face with three heavy blows of a sand-bag. The Boche should have been deposited in the wagon pond ill-kempt, a half-quartern of gin neat in his pocket, his body covered with contusions or the head horribly mutilated - have I made my point? - why, I might not have given the report a second glance, even with the dark glasses held up from the water like Excalibur.’
‘So their scheme was endangered because...’
‘They were too fastidious? Perhaps.’
‘Or?’
‘Or they had reached the limit of their ingenuity.’
He paused. ‘Then there was the peculiar matter of Dudeney’s response.’
‘The peculiar matter of Dudeney’s response!’ I parroted. ‘What of Dudeney? His response to what?’
‘Cast your mind back to our journey to Crick’s End in the Lanchester. Do you recall informing him you had read Siviter’s cat-and-rat fable?’
‘I did tell him that, what of it?’
‘Just when we came through Etchingham and entered the Straight Mile?’
‘It was about then I spoke those words, yes.’
‘And that you looked forward to viewing Crick’s End’s electricity at work?’
‘That was what I told him, yes.’
‘And he responded with?’
‘He said the mill-pond was low, too low to generate sufficient electricity until replenished by the leat.’ I stared across at Holmes with a perplexed smile. ‘You considered that to be important?’
