Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle

Holmes Insists A Murder Has Taken Place

The light carriage pulled by a fine pair of greys came clip-clopping around the bend from the village, the cabman high astride the raised seat at the rear. He was attired in a blue surtout rather the worse for wear, tipped at the collar with red, and leather breeches and brown top boots. The reins ran through the harness of the collar and up at a steep angle into his hands. At the rear, attached by a slight chain, trotted a carriage-dog, a brown-spotted Dalmatian. The young newspaper vendor clutched anxiously at the cabman’s side like a noviciate postilion. We watched the cab’s pair of handsome greys begin to turn in a slow circle, the young vendor beckoning us with excited gestures. At that same moment, to my despair, with a snort of its long black nostril, the train for London steamed alongside the platform.

‘Holmes,’ I cried, ‘I implore you. Let me pay the boy his ninepence and give the cabman a florin and send him home, and we shall be on our way to London.’

My companion paid no attention to my urgent appeal. Beckoning me to follow, he strode across to the carriage, looked up at the coachman and demanded, ‘Do you know Crick’s End?’

‘Everyone do, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,’ came the response.

‘So you know me, my good man?’

‘Everyone do, Sir,’ the coachman replied. ‘We heard you was at the manor.’

‘Then hasten there at your fastest pace,’ Holmes ordered. ‘How long do you estimate?’

‘Half an hour should do it.’

‘Half a sovereign if you do it in twenty minutes.’

Holmes clambered in the cab before me and looked back through the open door with a quelling expression. ‘Come in and seat yourself comfortably, Watson, we still have some time before we confront them at their door. Now,’ he added, once I had joined him with a hang-dog look, ‘bring out the gazetteer. Let us have the facts. Take up where you ended on our downward journey. Please select the most important elements concerning the Transvaal from events preceding the South African War.’

Not since The Five Orange Pips had I seen Holmes riven by such barely-contained excitement. Soon we should be grotesquely insulting four of the first brains of the greatest, wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen. My spirits drifted ever-downward. I retrieved the gazetteer, and began, ‘The Transvaal is central to the strategic map of Africa.’

‘Yes!’ Holmes breathed. ‘Go on! Do go on!’

Main towns: Potchefstroom and Pretoria.

Republic founded in 1840 by dissident descendants of the Dutch settlers in Cape Colony and Natal.

Annexed in 1877 by Cape government on spurious grounds of ‘disorder’.’

‘Once Bismarck made his unexpected lunge at Angra Pequena, the Cape had a new German colony on its north-western border. If the Transvaal, at a second attempt, could take Bechuanaland, it would join hands with Germany and snap its fingers at British paramountcy.’

I looked up. ‘Holmes here is a mention of Viscount Van Beers.’

‘Good! Excellent, in fact!’ Holmes cried. ‘Read on.’

‘1897 Van Beers sent to Cape Town to pick up the pieces after the Jameson Raid. He returned to London in 1897 ‘to stamp on Chamberlain’s ‘rose-coloured illusions’ about South Africa. Kruger re-elected for a fourth term as President of the Transvaal. Kruger believed Van Beers’ aim was to humiliate the Volk, divide them from their fellow Boers of the Orange Free State and the Afrikaners of Cape Colony. Kruger purchasing large quantities of guns from Germany. The gold-rush to the Transvaal turned South Africa on its head: the new political centre was Johannesburg, not Cape Town. The Transvaal Boers could unite the whole of South Africa in a republic and Britain would lose both Natal and the Cape.’

On I read. ‘’If war was to ensue, it needed a crisis. It is now known Van Beers forged a secret alliance with the two richest ‘gold bugs’ of the Rand, Alfred Weit and Sir Julius Wernher. In 1899 they and Van Beers paid for an anti-Kruger press campaign in Johannesburg, a significant destabilising factor in the path to the outbreak of war. Weit and Wernher among other of the Randlords believed to have joined with Van Beers in a secret plan to settle the newly-annexed Transvaal and Orange River Colony with Anglo-Saxon emigrants.’

Holmes muttered, ‘Secret alliances... the Jameson Raid... why, the unscrupulous, unprincipled adventurers!’

My heart was turning leaden. ‘Holmes,’ I protested, putting the gazetteer to one side, my eyes on the paved road unravelling beneath us, ‘these leaps of yours are most entertaining but they remain mere will-o’-the wisps of your imagination. I can hardly bear the thought of standing at your side as you confront the members of the Kipling League. I do not judge Van Beers to be of a particularly forgiving disposition. We are recklessly to accuse four - throw in Lord Fusey, five - of the richest, most masterful men in England - six if we add the President of the Royal Academy - with the murder of a stranger, perhaps a Boer, more likely a tramp in stolen attire, with not a jot or tittle of proof! One does not need to be a toady or a sycophant to recognise the power and eminence of the Kipling League. They are men of the utmost wealth and consideration. Why, Holmes, the four in the parlour were in King Edward’s grouse-shooting parties when he was heir to the throne!’

Despite my heated protestations, Holmes’ demeanour remained as resolute and collected as ever I had seen.

‘For fear of being overheard, Watson,’ he replied, pointing upwards to the cabman’s perch, ‘let us henceforth refer to these members of the Kipling League as the Sungazer Gang. I tell you, notwithstanding you deem them the greatest subjects of the Crown, they have the edge over all the crooks and loafers we have ever encountered in all the underworlds of Liverpool or London.’

‘By the by,’ I returned, ‘though I do not suppose it to be of the slightest importance - certainly you appear to consider it entirely inconsequential to your case - you have not yet answered how you intend to attribute opportunity to the Kipling League when, as you admit, all four were in our presence in the parlour at three this afternoon, the very hour this crime, if crime it is, is purported to have happened quite some miles away.’

Mistaking my companion’s failure to retort at once as discomfit at my reminder, I took a risky step and added a provocation. ‘Surely that is fatal to your theory?’

Rather than answering with the angry words I anticipated, Holmes responded with a heightened amiability which served only to increase my agitation. ‘Watson, of course that is fatal to my theory - of course we were with them at that time.’

‘But Holmes,’ I floundered, ‘if we were with them ... how can they be...?’

‘Perhaps I should put it another way,’ Holmes went on. ‘Of course we were with them at three o’ clock, the very time the coroner will rule the time of death. That was their intention. Watson, don’t you see, that’s the infernal genius of this ... this Sungazer Gang. They will call us - you and me - as principal witnesses before a jury of honest foremen and clerks from the stores. I contend you and I are the planet-wheel in a most cunning scheme. Do you not see,’ he repeated, voice dropping low, ‘that is why we received their urgent summons. We are to be their alibi if needed.’

‘Alibi!’ I exclaimed. I gave an incredulous laugh. ‘My dear fellow, surely...’

‘Surely you say! I say surely you see the similarity to the Foxy Ferdinand matter?’ Holmes retorted.

This was a reference to the case of the Prince Regnant of Bulgaria four years earlier, a matter of the most profound international importance. My account in manuscript form lies in the tin box under our landlady’s supervision, never to see the light of day until the Prince’s death or exile.

Holmes shook his head.

‘Vanity, Watson! Vanity as vast as their power and wealth. I say they retained this Boer as their guest behind those high Yew hedges until this morning, kept alive like a chicken for a voodoo ceremony in Port-au-Prince - until they were assured I was back at Baker Street fresh from my peregrinations around the docks. Hence the watchman with the amber eyes who never sold a hare. Once they were assured their telegram had found its mark, they killed the Boer and cast him in the moat.’

‘Moat, Holmes?’ I exclaimed in great surprise. ‘You are mistaken. The body was discovered in the wagon pond.’

‘Indeed - an inexplicable fact for which I do not as yet have an answer.’

My heart leapt with disloyal hope as he went on.

‘Watson, I agree I must do some pondering on that inconvenient matter. We are lost if an answer to the conundrum is not soon forthcoming. As to motive... it is surely connected to the recent South African War. There remain many unresolved hatreds. Boers’ wives and children by the thousand died from enteric fever in our concentration camps. Or a more venal reason. You yourself have recounted tales of the maelstroms that lay around the reefs of gold in Australia - why not around South Africa’s Rand?’

‘Holmes,’ I argued, ‘Weit and Van Beers and Sir Julius comprise Randlord and Gold Bugs, but what about our host? Siviter’s life is the sub-Continent, not South Africa. I estimate he possesses more than five hundred volumes on India.’

‘What drives Siviter is more than India. He is a true adherent of his literary Master. Recall, Watson, Kipling’s poem The Mary Gloster - hard work, duty, self-sacrifice and resilience. These Sungazers are hardly red republicans. They are men of Empire and the White Man’s burden.’

He was silent for a moment, followed by, ‘But what of India?’

‘Populous?’ I ventured, edging towards firmer ground.

‘Very populous.’

‘Colourful?’

‘Yes, colourful.’

’Large?’

Holmes frowned impatiently.

‘Yes, Watson, yes, it is a sub-continent, very large, very populous, but politically?’

‘Why, in ferment,’ I replied.

‘Indeed, Watson, there you have it. To a medical man like you, India is the geographic expression of mosquitoes and fevers. India and Afghanistan left you with a shattered leg and shoulder, a half-pay surgeon on a pension of eleven shillings and sixpence a day. But what of salted Anglo-Indians like Siviter? For him it is the great pilgrimage to Hurdwar on the holy Ganges. The ‘wind of March against the lattice blowing’.’

Stirred at this unexpected poetry coming from my friend. I joined in, a chorus to his verse. ‘‘Tamarisk-trees white with the dust of rainless days’.’

‘The road from Jugdullack to Butkhak! What of the festival of lights at Chiragan? The Levées at Government House. The Carabiniers... the drink called peg. The Squadrons - think, old warrior that you are, of the Punjab Cavalry!’

Tears sprang to my eyes for the second time that day. ‘The day-long rolling thunder among the Khyber hills. The 14th Bengal Lancers,’ I added.

Holmes leaned forward. He continued in a low and serious voice, ‘To them it is love and longing of a mystical kind. Yes, Watson, you are right. Rail as he might against the tide of unclean humanity amid the seething, stinking bustees of the presidency cities, when Siviter dies we will not discover ‘Crick’s End’ lying on his heart but Lahore or Simla, the Abode of the Little Tin Gods. In short, he adores being Heaven-born, white stranger within the gates of Hindoos, Mohammedans and the Sikh, set apart in a vast, anonymous multitude, scion of an empire which contains only Milords Anglais, soldiers, shipowners, magnates, famous barristers and explorers.’

He paused dramatically. ‘Now, however, England’s rule is being ripped asunder by agitating natives. You heard his references to lascars - ‘caste-ridden, venal and incompetent’, and ‘hybrid, University-trained mules’. Even if Siviter has not yet cast his topee into the waters of Port Said en route to Blighty, India is saying good-bye and he must turn with urgency elsewhere.’

As he spoke, the coachman called out ‘whoa!’. The horses halted. The tinkle of a thin chain from the rear told us the brown-spotted carriage-dog was being released and led away.

Holmes continued insistently. ‘As India loosens from Siviter’s grasp, what then? You read his words in the gazetteer. England is ‘slipping down the broad, easy decline to our extinction as a Great Power with an influence to exert on the side of the angels, with a civilising tradition to plant all the world over’. Where better to cast the fly of the White Man’s burden next than on the sweated backs of Zulus and poor devils in Matabeleland?’

With a jerk our journey recommenced. The promise of a half-sovereign in mind, our driver whipped up the greys. We sped at a flat run, the vehicle whirling along the ridge. Holmes resumed his discourse. ‘I have enough to beard them in their lair, though mark my words, before we pass this to Scotland Yard it might take seclusion and a seven-percent solution, or an ounce of shag from Bradley’s before we meet them in a Court of Law.’

He wiped the condensation from the cab window and continued, ‘Take the corpse. It is clear the local constabulary has no thought of suspicious death, itself no small achievement by the Kipling League.’

‘Holmes,’ I broke in, ‘if death was not by drowning, what then?’

‘As yet that too I cannot tell you. Certainly death was not by poison à l’anglais. The muscular contortions strychnine causes would leap out even to a local bobby’s untutored eye.’

Holmes fell silent. I stared at him most dismally. After a pause I ventured, ‘Why naked, Holmes? Can you explain that to my satisfaction? Was this perverted and insulting act solely to expose the weathering of the skin, and if so, why?’

‘The matter of disrobing is extremely clever. Without doubt one aim was to open up the body to reveal the sun-scorched skin. While possibly it was to insult - we shall return to that - I do not believe it was with a perverted intent.’

‘You say ‘one aim’ was to open up the body, Holmes. And what of another?’

‘If I am right in my deduction, it was a signal.’

‘A signal?’ I exclaimed.

‘A signal,’ Holmes confirmed. ‘Through the fact a sun so violent is clearly indicative of a Tropical clime.’

‘And at whom is this signal aimed, I pray?’

‘At whom, indeed. It behoves us to discover.’

Holmes paused again.

‘Then, the perfect crime in their grasp, the assassins’ luck ran out,’ Holmes went on, his words jerking with the jolting of the carriage, ‘by sheer chance - an uncalculated delay resulting from your intense satisfaction in consuming Imam Bayildi - we were caught by the clamour of the newspaper boy. A half-hour sooner we might have concluded our journey to London by the earlier train. We would never have heard him singing his song ‘Late Extra! Dead body at Scotney Castle’.’

‘Holmes,’ I expostulated. ‘You try to insult and divert me all at once but I see why. I know we share a love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life but are facts not of some importance if this is a case of murder as you assert? As yet I cannot see anything save vague indications.’ I added cuttingly, ‘So far you are able to deduce neither opportunity nor motive! It seems quite feasible the victim died sometime this afternoon when we were in camera with Siviter and his companions, a matter you refuse to address despite my persistent questioning. You assert the body was thrown in the moat. How you come to that conclusion mystifies me completely. The corpse was discovered in the wagon pond. As to its nakedness, that was, you say, a semaphore, but you have not the faintest idea at whom the signal is directed.’ I added, smiling grimly, ‘Otherwise, Holmes, you are as right as you have ever been. We have most truly got these murderous Sungazers on the run. As it is so critical to your case against the Kipling League, I repeat, what of the timing? Were they seated in front of us at Crick End at three o’ clock or not? You impute contrivance and precision to these events. It is incumbent on you to enlighten me. Otherwise, turn this carriage around and let us emulate the Grand Old Duke Of York and beat a path back down the hill to Etchingham and let the Pullman car carry us home to Baker Street.’

To my intense frustration, rather than answer my query, he continued as though speaking to himself. ‘Yet what am I to make of...?’, though to which point he was referring he did not elaborate.

He continued to stare out through the cab window, repeating over and over, ‘It makes no sense.’

Unwisely, I determined to force my opinion on him. I took a firm grip on his arm, as with an errant schoolchild’s ear. He wrenched his arm away. In a savage voice shouted, ‘Watson! You fidget me beyond endurance. I beg you, cease all questioning - and at this instant! I must ask you to remain completely silent. Keep your concerns to yourself. Do not inflict them on me any longer or we are utterly lost.’

Astonished by his ferocity I did as I was bid. He slumped back with a disconsolate look.

‘Watson, this Kipling League has set me an equation of the utmost complexity. There are no clues hidden in a tobacco jar. Each one seems to slip through my fingers. Except the matter is beyond humanity - which like Siviter’s tale of his ghostly monks I do not believe it to be - there should be no combination of events for which the wit of man cannot conceive the explanation, yet I admit I am stretched beyond anything we have so far confronted. If I cannot solve it, they will defeat us.’

He reflected gloomily for a while, then, ‘Watson, remind me of the words carved on the Hung League’s north temple gate. I believe you committed them to memory at the time?’

‘At the sign of Yin-kui the water is deep and difficult to cross, but in Yun-nan and Sze-Chuen there is a road by which you can travel’.’

After a short pause my companion continued in a sombre voice, ‘We must find the road to Yun-nan and Sze-Chuen. If this Kipling League defeats us, such would be my humiliation I assure you I would have no choice but to consider immediate retirement to farm my bees. In short, your chronicles will draw to an end.’

So alarmed was I by this threatening proclamation I ceased all speaking. Moments passed. My comrade-in-arms turned his head towards me with a most quizzical look.

‘Watson, I admit we build on quicksand. When I hear you put the pieces together - and with such a dubious expression - they point to the constable’s conclusion, a suicide or an accidental drowning in a wagon pond, perhaps of a tramp who stole a gentleman’s clothing and unwisely retained the pair of shiny dark glasses.’

He followed this with a shake of his head. ‘No, Watson, my every bone and instinct tells me it is foul play. When I listen to your objections, they do not hang together. If you will believe me, these Sungazers... I am certain they have committed a heinous crime yet I cannot give an answer to the two most puzzling riddles they have set us.’

‘Why the corpse lay in the wagon pond and not the moat?’

‘That is the one,’ Holmes nodded.

And why the pair of paintings?’

‘I see at least you follow, Watson, despite your trepidation, well done.’

He lapsed into a deep silence.

‘Holmes,’ I began, keenly aware the distance between us and Crick’s End was narrowing like the shadow of a great Himalayan mountain rushing towards us at the setting of the sun behind it, ‘you must follow your famed dictum, ‘no matter what....’.’

As if he had no inkling I had spoken, my companion continued juggling with an equation, his words low and troubled. ‘Surely the moat is where a drowning purporting to be a suicide or an accident would best take place...? This was followed by, ‘A second canvas so recently ordered... why? Why would Siviter gild the lily?’

Perhaps it was a trick of the light but I was sure I discerned a shade of anxiety starting in my companion’s heavy-lidded eyes which was spreading out to his expressive face. His head had dropped, like a bull’s awaiting the torero’s estocada.

Finally Holmes spoke. ‘Watson, you may be right. Perhaps I have leapt to the wrong conclusion. Nevertheless we must risk bearding them in their den, and soon, while the traces of crime might still be there.’

We had covered the length of the Straight Mile. Scarcely fifteen minutes remained before we would reach our destination. My companion’s fingers drummed on his knees.

He spoke again. ‘If I am right and the corpse was first dropped in the moat, why did Sir Julius and Weit hurry back to Scotney Castle to haul it from such deep water and place it in a pond not more than eighteen inches deep? What triggered this urgent and inexplicable act? It cannot be beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation.’

‘Sir Julius and Weit?’ I gasped in the greatest disbelief. ‘Holmes, I beg of you most sincerely, furnish such an explanation in the next few minutes. We shall soon be at their portico.’

More moments passed. He turned back to me. ‘Watson, you recall the lesson from A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four. We were compelled to reason backward from effects to causes. We must start with the unequivocal, such matters which even you in your disputatious mood cannot challenge. At three o’ clock exactly Sir Julius and Weit made their hasty entrance to the parlour...’

I interrupted, frowning. ‘Holmes, why do you impute haste in the pair’s arrival? They seemed quite calm and orderly. Weit even asked me...’

‘...about his health? Yes, he did, and you promised him the span, but how do you explain their shoes and spats splattered with chalk and clay? It would have taken a mere moment to get the servants to wipe them clean. And why would Sir Julius arrive among us in a parlour still clutching a hat? He must have pushed into the house before your Botticelli house-maid could meet him at the door to wrest it from him. No, Watson. They had an urgent need to be seated before us at three this afternoon precisely.’

His fingers continued drumming.

Suddenly he asked, ‘How far did Siviter say it was to Scotney Castle?’

‘Some twelve miles - as the crow flies,’ I responded.

‘By Dudeney’s conveyance, what time would it take to get there by road, do you suppose?’

‘Not more than half an hour each way.’

‘Then to fish up the corpse from the moat and take it with its pile of clothing to the wagon pond...’ Holmes mused. ‘They would want to hurry such an assignment. Ten minutes at most ...’

He darted a look at me. ‘Watson, the telegram we sent from Tunbridge Wells to announce our arrival, at what o’ clock did you hand it to the station porter?’

‘Your gold watch showed 1.15.’

‘And the telegram would have reached its destination at Crick’s End when, do you suppose?’

‘I would say some twenty minutes later.’

‘Hum! Let’s say not much after half past the hour...’

Again his voice fell to a murmur. ‘But if Dudeney was at the Etchingham Railway Station to meet us... I am certain when we arrived at Crick’s End both Weit and Sir Julius were there, but hidden. Transport by motor-car would be the only method. Only so could they have reached Scotney Castle and returned to Crick’s End by three. But why....’

His eyebrows lifted in triumph. ‘Watson, I have it!’

‘Namely?’

‘The unexpected arrival of our telegram, what else? The moment they heard we would be at Crick’s End three hours earlier than expected, a rush ensued to remove the body from the moat and take it to the wagon pond.’

His face took on a most perplexed look. ‘But, Watson, why?’ And again, ‘It makes no sense!’

Holmes gestured at the newspaper jutting from my coat.

‘Watson, please take the newspaper and pass it to me.’

He reached forward and took the Standard from my outstretched hand, flattening it out upon his knee.

‘‘A body lying mostly submerged ...’ Watson, ‘Mostly submerged’, what would that mean?’

‘That it would be largely under the water, surely, Holmes?’

‘Indeed it would mean that exactly, Watson. And therefore...?’

‘Mostly wet?’ I answered, bewildered.

‘Mostly wet, yes, Watson, you improve all the time - and as a consequence, what of its temperature?’

‘Why, the part above the surface would be affected by the temperature of the air, and similarly...’

‘... the greater part of the body, lying mostly submerged,’ Holmes broke in, ‘would be affected by the temperature of the pond. Precisely, Watson, well deduced - as befits a medical man.’

As from nowhere my companion asked with a slight smile, ‘Watson, I am struggling to remember... for some reason it has sprung to mind. If my memory still serves me, are you not the author of the Watson Codex? A monograph upon obscure nervous lesions - the pathology of catalepsy, I believe?’

I frowned. ‘I am, Holmes, the author of the Watson Codex, but as to nervous lesions you believe wrongly. That is Dr. Percy Trevelyan.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Holmes replied unapologetically. ‘Then, my dear fellow, what?’

Before I could elucidate, his grey eyes turned to slits. Unaccountably a scowl began to cross his face. ‘No! Now I do recall. Your Codex is an acclaimed work on stiffening of the limbs upon death, is it not? From the great expertise you gained by examining many a corpse in the cholera epidemics of the 1870s?’

‘I am the author of such a report, Holmes, yes,’ I plumed, though uncertain why such medical experience should merit his accusatory tone. As a young and impoverished medical student I had fought hard to obtain fresh corpses against the larger pockets of the Burkers and their dissector clients. ‘I began my examinations in the cholera epidemics you describe, and brought my Codex to a conclusion in Afghanistan and the Forgone Valley. Those regions possess a treacherous clime, full of fever, and a population of hostile... ’

In addition to almost daily random deaths from disease and general hardship, I had added to my store of knowledge of rigor mortis from certain military events. After my release in 1880 from attachment as Assistant Surgeon to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers on account of wounds to leg and shoulder, I spent seven weeks recuperating in the Russian Hospital for Officers, near London’s Grosvenor Square. It was here I was recruited for secondment to a Russian regiment fighting Sufi rebels. I took the opportunity to conduct measured tests in the field on how quickly muscle lengthens or shortens after death. From such reports I later published my work Estimation Of The Time Of Death By Examination of Rigor Mortis In Subjects In The Forgone Valley.

Holmes’ expression had turned ugly as though his rediscovery of my expertise in rigor mortis was inflicting on him some significant harm. This was confirmed when, to my astonishment, he said, ‘So, Watson, you will be my Nemesis, not theirs.’

At this caustic rejoinder he thrust the newspaper back at me and fell into an icy silence. I stared back at him reproachfully. A furlong passed while Holmes continued to consider me without uttering a word. Seldom had my fellow lodger examined me for more than five seconds and even fewer the occasions accompanied by such a discomfiting look.

‘How do you mean, Holmes?’ I spluttered.

‘It is you the Sungazers will call to the witness stand on their behalf. The Watson Codex will be the principal weapon in their armoury. It is you who shall defeat me.’

Before I could protest my undying loyalty, he went on, ‘Remind me, what was the question which most vexed you - the fatal flaw in my supposition, I believe you called it?

‘The time of the death, Holmes. If it took place around three o’ clock today, between Lord Fusey’s sighting - corroborated by Pevensey’s painting - and the woodman finding the corpse one hour later, all four Sungazers...’

‘... were seated in rapt attention before us?’

‘Quite so,’ I responded.

He continued with his injured expression. ‘And you are prepared to state that in open Court as evidence in their favour?’

‘Under oath?’ I enquired.

‘Under oath,’ Holmes confirmed, eying me keenly.

‘I would have to.’

‘Even if it destroys our case against them?’

‘Even if, Holmes, though I wish...’

‘Do you not see it as the blackest treachery?’

‘Holmes,’ I cried, ‘I am a member of the medical profession!’

‘As you say, Watson,’ Holmes retorted with a further sullen glance, ‘I understand completely. You must do so. You might save them from the gallows on that fact alone. You shall be their hero.’

He went on, ‘Remind me, Watson, what was it your Codex contributed to the study of rigor mortis?’

‘The precise effect of the prevailing conditions on the body when death occurs.’

‘In brief?’

‘That rigor mortis does not set in at a standard rate...’

‘But varies according to...?’

‘The ambient temperature.’

Holmes threw me a puzzled look. ‘Watson, it comes back to me. I now recall your Codex won the Order of Merit for Comparative Pathology from the Karolinska Institute and a thousand kroner. Why would so unexceptional a conclusion gain you so prestigious an award? Surely you state the obvious? Even with little knowledge of the stiffening process, would not everyone anticipate a variation in onset according to the heat or cold?’

‘It would be so expected,’ I responded calmly, ‘but clearly you did not subject the tables containing my conclusions to a detailed examination.’

‘These conclusions being... ?’

It was not often I could lecture Holmes with my greater knowledge of a subject.

‘Even in the dead one might suppose the colder the surroundings the quicker muscle contraction would occur, as when we shiver....’

‘One might indeed so suppose, Watson - indeed I myself so suppose.’ A keen look had now appeared on my companion’s face. The ugly expression was dissipating with each passing second. ‘Watson, I repeat, indeed one would, whereas...?’

‘My findings showed results quite contrary to intuition.’

‘Which are?’

The opposite is true. Cold slows the onset of rigor mortis...’

‘And therefore warmth...?’

‘... causes the body to stiffen faster.’

The very instant he absorbed these words, my companion’s sullen mood was lifted.

With a loud cry he shouted, ‘Worshipper of Minerva! Watson, I rank you among the demi-gods of medicine! Of course! That’s it!’ He clapped his hand in delight. ‘That’s why they fished him from the moat and plopped him in the wagon pond!’

He leaned back with a series of loud ejaculations of interest and excitement. It was as if a set of clues was falling into place like the wafers of a Bramah lock. I started to enquire what all this meant but he clapped his hands together and exclaimed in an excited tone, ‘Watson, you have done it!’ This was followed by ‘By Jove we have them in the dock!’

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 aware 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.’