Sherlock Holmes and the Dead Boer at Scotney Castle

We Journey Home To Baker Street

The greys clattered at a long trot through a lane so narrow it would have been reckless at a busier time of day. The carriage’s side-lights blazed, brushing against the hedges as the carriage swayed and jolted. I listened for the sound of a motorised barouche roaring behind us. We came to the small bridge over the Dudwell River. The horses pulled left and began the steep climb to the ridge on which Burrish’s ancient church stood. The atmosphere in the cab was dark beyond all measure. Twice I tried to question my companion but he remained silent, lost in unhappy reflection. The quiet air of command, the incisive voice pitched like the string of a high-strung violin, the subtle, sly, dry humour, all were for the moment vanquished.

‘Holmes,’ I asked, hoping to lighten his mood. ‘What do you say - a year in Pentonville for burning down a mill listed in the Domesday Book? Six months’ hard labour for each canvas painted by the President of the Royal Academy?’

Again he made no reply. He was sunk in profound thought, and hardly opened his mouth except to emit a succession of deep sighs. The horses, blowing hard, climbed the last of the steep slope to the village. Once upon the ridge they set off at a goodly clatter round the curve towards the Straight Mile, as eager as I to be home.

After several minutes I determined by insistent interrogation to make my companion break the oppressive silence.

‘Holmes,’ I both begged and invited, ‘I am at a loss on several parts of these most extraordinary events. I would be most grateful if you would answer my questions if, as I believe, we are safely away.’

At last Holmes lifted a hand. ‘I see from your determined expression you will brook no denial. Ask on,’ he replied gloomily.

Before he could sink back into the state of intense and silent thought from which he had emerged, I said, ‘As your Boswell, I implore you, my dear friend, to commence at the very beginning - from the moment you chose to purchase the Evening London Standard at the railway station, an act which in itself I found unusual.’

‘I shall do as you wish, Watson, although I shall require you to put your pencil down. I do not want it in writing that we have had to flee in such ignominy.’

This was followed with the despairing words, ‘Could the fates be turning their faces against me, Watson?’

Once he began to speak, to my intense relief my friend composed himself and commenced a most extraordinary speculation.

‘You assume I purchased the newspaper on a whim. Not so. It was one more link in a chain which lengthened throughout the day. From the moment of my return from the Poplar Dock this morning there was a disturbance in the air. A labourer fresh from the countryside with eyes that harked of Hades, standing on the paving within constant sight of our door, purporting to sell hares but refusing would-be clients. The reply-paid telegram from the President of the Kipling League with its imperious tone, delivered by special messenger like a lettre de cachet. The importance they placed on getting me aboard the three-ten train this same afternoon - the further inducement of a hamper and a bottle of fine wine ordered for delivery to a Pullman car. The light rain which we were told was keeping his guests indoors...’

At this Holmes laughed scornfully. ‘Would such top guns from many an elephant or tiger-hunting expedition in the Monsoon seasons be so shy of an English mist? The post-script on Pevensey, the reluctant way he was referred to... What was the precise wording, Watson, do you recall?’

I pulled the telegram from my pocket. ‘‘And Pevensey hopes to introduce himself’.’

I looked up at Holmes. ‘Why mention him at all if by then, as you insist, he had such a major part to play in the plot you ascribe to them?’

‘There was always a chance we might encounter him. Failing to mention a guest of his standing would have been questionable. It was not Pevensey but his paintings they needed. They were the first line of defence in their alibi. In any case, I believe his presence was sheer serendipity. Siviter may have commissioned the painting of a Constable some weeks ago, anticipating the coming of summer. I am certain he had no second oil in mind at the time.’

I itched to use my pencil.

‘The Boer arrived a few days ago,’ Holmes went on. ‘The Sungazers heard him out and determined on his murder. An alibi was needed. The finest alibis are forged utilising whatever tools lie naturally to hand. Pevensey was already present, painting the wagon pond at Scotney Castle. Without his knowledge or consent, this President of the Royal Academy became central to the scheme the Sungazers swiftly put together. Staffing a painting with a passing stranger projecting a shadow as of a given o’ clock would persuade even you the victim was alive and well at the very hour the Kipling League assembled at Crick’s End, a dozen miles away. Siviter showed true genius. He is a long-admired if distant neighbour of the Fuseys - he would know the Scotney Castle estate almost as intimately as his own, certainly the ruined castle and the moat. He gave Pevensey an extra commission - paint the moat - suggest it would look at its best as the evening-sun began to set, shall we say around six.’

‘To include a figure in a flamboyant hat on its bank.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And all this while their would-be victim was still alive?’

‘For just the time it took Pevensey to ready a second canvas.’

Holmes paused. ‘Then they attended to the other contrivance - how to prove the plotters were assembled at Crick’s End when the so-called drowning took place? What would give them the greatest alibi in all the world? Someone with a sense of theatre, quite possibly Sir Julius, said ‘Let’s summon down that Baker Street fellow this afternoon’, a plan of such impudence it takes the breath away. Hence the telegram you hold in your hand, inviting me to take the three-ten train.’

My companion gave a harsh laugh. ‘Imagine Pevensey at the wagon pond after lunch today, intending to return to the moat towards six this evening, ready to complete the canvas with a figure wearing Sir Julius’ hat, brushes poised like Pistoian daggers. There he stood, still at the wagon pond, putting the final touches to Constable’s dog, when his nightmare commences. Prompted by the news we were on the earlier train, Van Beers and Siviter consulted the Watson Codex. Your tables gave them the information they needed, no longer to prolong the onset but how to hasten rigor mortis. Nothing but an hour or two simmering in warm water would do it. They had no other option but to deposit the body to its very neck in the wagon pond, just the head above the water, the one hand jutting out to offer up the dark glasses. The phantom figure was no longer wanted in the painting of the moat but in the Constable. The length of shadow should show the man alive at three. No wonder Pevensey’s nerves were stretched and raw. Our encounter in the mill-attic must have deepened his anxiety a hundred-fold. Worming your way to the Presidency of the Royal Academy is quite different from holding your nerve when you find you are an accomplice to murder. That is why he and that rogue Siviter followed my enquiries so closely. What of my interest in scumbling and hog’s-hair brushes? What had I in mind? And the sheen, what was the real purpose of my enquiry? When I asked, why the use of boiled linseed oil, they asked, why this concern from Sherlock Holmes? By now I could hardly discuss the weather or England’s chances against Australia without them looking under the covers for a double-meaning.’

He stopped for a moment, staring at me wildly. ‘Watson, I could tear my hair in rage. I was merely parading my wares! No thought of a crime entered my head. How could it? On our departure, Siviter and Pevensey hastened back and made careful inspection of both pieces. One or other noted the Boer’s shadow and reflection still lay by the moat as of six this evening, awaiting its human figure. At once, Siviter made Pevensey take up his brush and paint out the emanations of a man who was never there.’

‘Using the only medium Pevensey had to hand other than boiled linseed oil.’

‘Poppyseed oil, yes.’

Suited to our deep depression, from out in the darkening landscape came a land-rail’s repetitive harsh cry.

Holmes continued. ‘I am certain there was no question of a second painting until this unexpected visitor turns up at their door. When we viewed it in the mill-attic, far from making a pair with to the Constable, the second painting was a distraction - but for what purpose escaped me completely. Now I know the second painting would provide the defence they needed. The deep moat at Scotney Castle, a spot known to every vagrant on his way from Canterbury to Camden Town, was the natural body of water for a tramp to take a wash and drown - and distant enough from Crick’s End not to draw attention to the Kipling League. All was on course until we forced a hasty change of plan. It was when the Evening London Standard told us a body had been found in the wagon pond despite the propinquity of the moat I knew something was afoot - but what? Our ruse to escape their watchman’s eye by catching the eleven-fifty meant Siviter had no further knowledge of our movements until our telegram arrived from Tunbridge Wells less than half an hour away.’

‘Three hours earlier than expected.’

‘Yes.’

Observing my expression, Holmes continued, ‘Watson, you still look dubious. Let us consider the mathematics of this case, so central and so precise it required the most exact administration. According to your Codex, if a body is kept cool there should be a stretch of eight hours ten minutes before rigor mortis takes its grip. Anticipating we would take the three-ten train they dispatched the Boer this morning, the body taken at once and deposited in the moat. That done, all they needed to do was wait. All would go like clockwork. We were to give our talk at six. The woodman would stumble across the corpse at seven, his attention directed to the pile of clothing and the hat. At once the village constable would be summoned. He in turn would assume the victim, arms and legs still limber, might well have died within the hour, a time to be consolidated both by Fusey’s sighting and by Pevensey’s painting of the phantom stranger showing him alive at six. But think, Watson, what must they do on receiving our telegram informing Siviter we had taken the earlier train? Imagine their agitation! We would be on our feet and speaking not at six but three. Now, rather than retarding the onset of rigor mortis, they need to speed it up for fear the body would stay limber much too long - long enough to lose them Holmes as their alibi. But how does one speed up the natural process? Simple! Refer once more to a famous work on rigor mortis. I am certain from their remedy those who masterminded this crime are well acquainted with the Watson Codex, as Van Beers and Siviter would surely be. They are veterans of many violent engagements where medical men would swarm. Taking their cue from your tables, they rushed back to fish the corpse up from the moat, recover the clothes from a nearby bush, and hurry the body to the wagon pond where the warmth of shallow water even in our early summer would work its wonders.’

He paused, smiling at me grimly. ‘Watson, without the scientific information in your Codex the Sungazers could have made a very dangerous blunder.’

I shook my head in wonder. ‘You construct a most ingenious theory, Holmes, quite the equal of The Murders in the Rue Morgue. If what you say is true... they should have hidden or destroyed the second painting the moment they heard we were on the earlier train.’

‘Except that Siviter had no idea that Pevensey, anticipating a change of weather, sketched in the shadow and reflection yesterday, in the evening sunlight, leaving just the figure to brush in today.’

Holmes’ mood returned to black despair. He flung his face in his hands. ‘Damnably, had I not recounted The Adventure of Silver Blaze I believe we could have got them. They were attentive to my recitation solely to discover which gaps might lie in their violent undertaking. Such fiends! They used my vanity against me. To think how I flattered their confounded League by expressing my obligation to their patron.’

When the excess of emotion had drained, Holmes leant forward and looked at me with an accusing expression. His outstretched fingers twiddled before my face in curious fashion, as rhythmic and hypnotic as the antennae of a mantis.

‘Watson, after this, your plans for my retirement must change. Were I ever to stand before another audience, I would be asking myself which among these keen and attentive faces is totting up my words for clues to get away with murder - are we once more to be the assassin’s alibi!’

‘Holmes,’ I interpolated, ‘we are not done with the day’s events. Why would they empty the dead man’s pockets of all possessions? It was that which added to your suspicions.’

‘He was a foreigner. All such indication would have to be removed in case an overheated constable declared it was the corpse of an enemy agent en route to Downing Street or the Palace. Inspector Gregory would have been called down at once. The League wanted no such intrusion.’

‘But Holmes, again I ask, why did they have to disrobe the unhappy man?’

‘Fully clad, just his hands and face would have been apparent. In the countryside ruddy face and wind-burnt hands are the norm, even among gentlefolk who could afford this sort of apparel. Undressing him sent a signal to someone in particular, almost certainly in Pretoria, someone who would recognise the clues on offer. Dark glasses, chest and legs burned by Tropical suns from above the calf to just below the knee. And that most brilliant touch, the substitution of the fedora with a hat designed for Tropical climes.’

‘Surely, Holmes,’ I broke in, ‘a Boer, if such he was, would own...’

‘... such a hat? Why not! But I tell you, Watson, that was never the dead man’s hat. It would prove to be a half-size too large if we could measure his skull. Indubitably it was Sir Julius’s. Do you remember in the parlour when I remarked how he had so recently worn a hat a half-size too small? Did you not note the change in his expression at what was at most an inconsequential remark? A man of such standing and wealth would have his own skilled hatter. He would never resort to an off-the-shelf fedora. The report in the Standard - the mention of the weathering between calf and knee, the V-shaped sunburn of the chest, the dark glasses especially, even the location so near to Crick’s End - would merely tell the recipient of this news their man is dead. Without that hat tossed atop the pile of clothing it might well have been the accidental or self-inflicted drowning asserted by the constable which the newspaper in your pocket reports almost as a fact - a conclusion you yourself are still inclined to, despite my every effort. To someone who knows this Boer, the description of that hat will signal murder. His close acquaintances would know he never owned a hat with such a band. And who else but someone in the Transvaal would recognise the reptile referred to in the newspaper report? In the outside world, how many are familiar with this mud-coloured lizard’s skin? No, Watson, certainly ‘gentlemen of the road’ do steal or are given gentlemen’s clothing as hand-me-downs to replace their tattered attire. Think of the watchman in the bowler hat. But when the intended recipient of this news reads the pile of clothes was topped by a crimson hat, ‘a yellow and brown spiny snake’ for the band, they will know that this was murder.’

At this, my companion knocked out the dottle from his pipe and refilled it with fresh tobacco. I watched with impatience. Unable to restrain myself longer, I broke in, ‘Holmes, do go on! What could be the aim of such a killing?’

‘It can only be designed....’ Holmes responded, puffing hard at his pipe, ‘...to engineer a third South African war.’

I stared at him in the greatest astonishment.

‘Watson, I see you are incredulous. I ask you, who was there to-day?’

‘Van Beers for one.’

‘South Africa.’

‘Wernher...’

‘South Africa.’

‘Weit.’

‘South Africa.’

After a further pause, he continued, ‘A lot remains unsettled and at stake from the recent war, not least the Transvaal, bristling with guns and gold, the most opulent state in Africa.’

‘Then let me ask again about Pevensey - why did he go along with them and play his part? He has no connection with South Africa. He is not a man known for his commitment to the Empire.’

‘Yes...Pevensey,’ my companion replied, frowning. ‘It is hard to believe he could have been elected to the presidency of the Royal Academy without the Kipling League’s most earnest interventions. These men’s millions carry weight. He may not be a member of the Kipling League, I suggest he is not, his nerves are too ragged, but he is no doubt much beholden to them. Until the corpse was thrown into the wagon pond and the clothing assembled before him he may not have known the role he was playing. Indeed, I am inclined to think he did not.’

Holmes puffed on his long pipe, a slight crack in the ill-fitting carriage-door drawing the smoke away. ‘Watson, had we used him as our principal witness against them, it is not too far fetched to think his life too may have been in danger.’

The gleam of the occasional street-lamp along the ridge road flashed on his features. ‘Such hatreds, Watson. Africa is a volcano from Cape to Cairo. I am certain somewhere in this lurks another war.’

While I digested this, Holmes continued, ‘Lust for gold could lie behind this. Greed is a human pandemic worse than enteric fever. But if you add pursuit of power ... I am still a child in international affairs and must learn more ... how does one State come out on top? Why are alliances made and broken? Do they aim to unite Natal and Cape Colony with the Boer republics under an English flag - under Van Beers’ control?’

The carriage took a bend, straightened and increased in pace down a slight slope. Holmes shook his head. I spied a hint of admiration in his eye.

‘Watson, most such plans would go awry with an assembly as large as that which orchestrated today’s events. If their victim was an emissary from the Boer High Command, their hate for him would be pretty black.’

After a further few minutes, I said cautiously, ‘Holmes, you have built a mighty edifice from to-day’s events.’

‘That is true, my loyal friend,’ he replied.

‘Assuming all you say is true, by what means were we so utterly defeated?’

‘By tactics I have never before encountered. Never has anyone laid out wares before us in such a clever and understated way - as if each item were entirely inconsequential, like Siviter’s medlar jelly tea.’

‘They were not ignoble foes,’ I offered in consolation.

‘They were not. They have overthrown my maxim the only safe plotter is he who plots alone. Even though we nearly had them, their safety was recovered by a few simple strokes of Poppyseed oil.’

I watched as Holmes again shook his head in reluctant admiration. ‘For all his pretty-pretties, Siviter is more deadly than the Gaboon viper.’

Expecting a mocking answer to a rhetorical question, I teased, ‘Nevertheless, surely not the equal of the late and unlamented Moriarty, Holmes?’

I was staggered to hear Holmes’ response. ‘Siviter is his better,’ he replied, quietly. ‘I would back him 5 to 4.’

‘Have we heard the last of them, do you suppose?’

‘They are supremely able instruments. There are curs to do the smaller work but these are wolf-hounds in leash. I wager they’ll be on the prowl for a long time yet. ’

The fresh country air was beginning to press in on me. The gulp of brandy taken from my hip-flask was helping. A pleasant lassitude descended.

‘Holmes,’ I said in consolation, my now-weary eyes closing. ‘Lessons learned will be of great benefit to us.’

The dancing shadows of the flaming mill were far behind us. Crick’s End and my memory of it were dissolving into mist. With a tap of a finger I checked the collection of large bank-notes from our day’s work tucked safely in an inner pocket. Noting the slight pat of my hand on my wallet-pocket, I heard Holmes say with sudden warmth, ‘Was it up to your expectations?’

It was my old friend back to normality.

Above and behind, I could hear the sound of the cabman’s voice communing with his greys, for the first time using their names ‘Christmas’ and ‘Easter’. Lulled by the rhythmical throb of the carriage at speed on a decent surface, I settled back for the briefest of naps.

‘It was, Holmes. A princely sum,’ I replied in satisfaction.

‘Then how much?’

‘Three hundred Guineas!’ I murmured.

‘My Heavens,’ Holmes responded, in genuine surprise. ‘In bars of gold - or a pouch of diamonds?’

‘In English Five Pound notes.’

‘My Heavens,’ he repeated. ‘Though not quite five shillings the word, there is money in public speaking! And what of my wager over Marco Polo? Did he forget the fifty guineas?’

‘I have them too,’ I replied, smiling.

Soon we would be at the railway station. The violence of Holmes’ present emotions would fade. Crick’s End would become but a remembrance of things past. At any moment I expected Holmes to say ‘Watson, take a wire down, like a good fellow.’

In the event I was utterly wrong to believe Holmes and I were to remain in our companionable state, so deep and lasting was his embarrassment at his defeat. Unbeknown to me, after some weeks of intense reflection, he informed the editor of The Strand he would refuse outright to have my chronicle ever see the light of day. No Editor would take it. For Holmes the débâcle became the subject of a tabu. He raised no objection when I told him I planned to resume my medical practice. I found fresh premises and we parted. It was clear our long friendship was at its end. Want of capital excluded me from setting up in the Harley Street district of Westminster, famed for the members of my profession who catered for the wealthiest patients. I settled for a ground floor in Paddington. Even then, to raise the money I was obliged to sell my cherished painting of General ‘Chinese’ Gordon.