‘What crime?’ I demanded.
‘What crime?’ Holmes expostulated, striding towards the house. ‘The greatest crime of our life together!’
At the veranda, he stopped to allow me to catch up. ‘Those Sungazer devils, Watson. I should have realised it would not end at the slam of a Lanchester’s door. I fear they mock us yet. In the night this piece of newsprint was pushed beneath this very door by person or persons unknown, though I can guess from where the commission came.’
‘Were there no clues as to the sender?’
‘None, Watson. Would you expect a seal of red wax stamped with a crouching lion? No. You will observe the cutting is pasted to ordinary cream-laid paper without watermark.’
I followed him into the house, Holmes continuing to hold the cutting high, like a tour guide waving a coloured umbrella at the British Museum. Despite the warmth of the air outside, the fire was already burning up, crackling merrily, and sending spurts of blue, pungent smoke into the room, overcoming the perfume from the vases of sweet peas and roses Mrs. Keppell had placed everywhere. Within two hours of leaving London it was as though we were once more back in our old rooms in Baker Street.
‘Watson, this clipping torn from the Rheinische Merkur contains the answer to the riddle at Scotney Castle. It is turning out to be a greater riddle than either you or I thought. You will shortly agree nothing in our long career as allies in the fight against crime has had such implications.’
Holmes could on occasion resort to exaggeration though never with me, or at least not in private, even in the terrifying case of the Parsee Solicitor. Once inside the low-beamed room, I placed my coat upon a peg. As of old, while I waited for Holmes to settle, I shuffled through the pile of correspondence threatening to tumble from the overmantle. One piece, several months old, began ‘Rumour abounds in Titel that Albert Einstein ordered the mercy-killing of his daughter Lieserl...’
I put aside a handsome mahogany Seneca view camera and took its place on a rickety chair. Over the years of regular occupation, white-painted shelves of deal had sprung up on every wall, purchased from a late fellow at Oriel College. One shelf was loaded with modern text-books, another with works of reference, including the much-thumbed Dictionary of London by Charles Dickens’ eponymous son, with its guide to Ah Sing’s opium den and much other information required of a Consulting Detective. Old friends lined the upper shelves, transported from our rooms in Baker Street. In addition to a two-year-old Baedeker, I spied British Birds, the Dictionary of National Biography, the Origin Of Tree Worship, Poe’s The Mystery of Marie Roget, Catullus, Winwood Reade’s Martyrdom of Man, several of my favourite sea stories by Clark Russell, The Holy War and, less to the fore, The Physiognomical System of Drs. Gall & Spurzheim with its instruction on reading the faces of Chinamen. A few of the works had accompanied him from far-away University days - Hafiz and Horace, Flaubert and Goethe, Twelfth Night, a copy of E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, and the pocket Petrarch.
More volumes lay open on the bear-skin hearthrug, signs of wide contacts among authors, printers and publishers. A French admirer had presented him with a stuffed icterine warbler in a small glass cage. In another glass cage was a human skull the size of a coconut, with an iron-stained mandible. An inscription stated, ‘To My Partner In Crime, Sherlock Holmes, the culmination of my work. Chas. Dawson F.S.A’.
One wall was bullet-pocked with the patriotic monogram V.R., the old Queen’s initials. My former companion had continued his habit of pistol-practice in the sitting-room, his formidable marksmanship learned from many visits early in life to a range on the sand-dunes in the neighbourhood of Calais, a whole day’s shooting for one pièce de cent sous. Though he had undergone no military training as far as I ever ascertained, he was at least my equal with a pistol though less so with something heavier.
‘Watson, my dear friend,’ came Holmes’ voice, interrupting my inspection. ‘For just a moment I shall keep you in suspense over this newspaper clipping. Please, first take up the Continental gazetteer and read me the entry for Carl von Hofmeyer. Then we shall indulge ourselves in a cup of Mrs. Keppell’s tea.’
He threw himself into his old arm-chair, drawing up his knees until his fingers clasped round his long, thin shins. With a gesture at a box on a low table, he said, ‘Try one of Lord Cantlemere’s cigars. He dropped them off on his way to the Continent the other day. They are less poisonous than one would expect.’
‘Ulrich von Hofmeyer,’ I repeated to be certain I had caught the name. ‘Who might that be?’
‘We shall discover that together if you do as I ask, Watson,’ Holmes responded, the old sarcasm evident in the words softened by a slight smile.
I turned the pages to ‘H’ and came to von Hofmeyer.
‘Count Ulrich von Hofmeyer (1856- )
Ranked among Germany’s most prominent imperialists.
1881 1st Life Guard Hussar Regiment
1888, Founder of Deutsch-Ostafrika, considered the pearl of Germany’s overseas possessions.
1891 appointed Imperial Commissioner in German East Africa.
Such is his enterprise and energy, by 1889 he was seen as rival to Henry Stanley.’
Holmes broke in, impatiently, ‘The Informal, Watson, the informal!’
He was puffing on a familiar old pipe, the smoke curling up more thickly to emphasise each curious element in the Gazetteer’s tale.
I moved my finger down the page.
‘Apostle of ruthless imperialism. Devoted agent of the Kaiser. Of all the conquistadores in the Scramble for Africa, von Hofmeyer is considered the most pugnacious, his line of march through Africa marked by blackened villages and dead warriors.
Uncomplimentary reports on his activities in Africa have appeared in the British Press (especially the Manchester Guardian).
Said to model himself on Nietzsche’s Superman.’
I stopped reading to comment, ‘Nasty piece of work, Holmes!’
‘Who became a rising statesman at the Kaiser’s Court. Read on, Watson, then we’ll talk.’
I continued:
‘Regarded by Bismarck as a ‘flag-waving, buccaneering freebooter’.
Describing Africans he is said to have expressed the view ‘the only thing that would make an impression on these wild sons of the steppe was a bullet from a repeater’.
Among those he is accused of murdering is Swahili sugar-plantation owner Abushiri ibn Salim al-Harthi, chief supporter of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
In 1889 he engaged in a mêlée with Galla tribesmen, killing a sultan and six of his leading men, then pushed on into the Wadsagga country.’
I looked up. ‘That’s all,’ I said. ‘But tell me, Holmes, why the interest in this unpleasant fellow?’
‘’Of all the conquistadores in the Scramble for Africa’...’ He turned to me and repeated, ‘‘Of all the conquistadores in the Scramble for Africa.’ Watson, what do you make of that?’
‘I make nothing of it, Holmes. What should I be making of this murdering ... this...’ I looked back at the page. ‘...flag-waving buccaneering freebooter’?’
Holmes put away the pipe. He pulled a silver cigarette-case from a pocket and pointed with it to the pile of books scattered across the floor.
‘As you can see, I am expanding my knowledge as you so often urged. It now strikes me had I not been a consulting detective - or a Naturalist ...’ his eyes gave a momentary twinkle, ‘I might have become an historian. There are many similarities in our quest for answers.’
He extracted an Alexandrian cigarette and after lighting it resumed. ‘I doubt if your gazetteer yet contains the name of another Prussian, Bernhard Dernburg?’