Again, to my frustration, Holmes fell silent.
‘What do you think now?’ I urged.
‘Surely if what we hold to be von Hofmeyer’s reason for visiting Crick’s End is true, murdering him would go counter to the interests of the League, yet these are men of the most extraordinary intelligence and experience.’
‘So why...?’ I commenced.
‘The clipping from the Rheinische Merkur,’ he replied. ‘I am certain the Kipling League ordered its delivery to my door, but why so? Why these seven years on? Do we take it they mock us still? What would be the point?’
Once more I turned these facts over in my mind. As I did so, I became aware of a change taking place in my comrade’s demeanour. He pulled himself to his feet and strode past me to a window, staring out as though he could see Crick’s End on the horizon, like the sinister Spectre of the Brocken we watched in awe during a trip to the Harz Mountains many years ago. A minute passed before he tore his gaze away from the landscape.
‘Watson!’ he demanded, ‘what has taken place out there during our seven years of separation? Quick, tell me!’
Taken by surprise by his intensity, I stammered, ‘Why, I have been mostly engaged in my medical practice...’
‘Not in your world, Watson! You are a doctor, for heaven’s sake. You dispense potions. I mean in the outside world! What of the imminence of war with Germany? The newspapers are filled with it.’
His expressive face had now taken on the agonised look of a man whose heart was collapsing. I was half-way to my feet to retrieve my medical bag from the veranda when he waved me back with an impatient gesture.
‘Of course! That was their intention! Watson - once again you have worked a miracle as my sounding-board. This clipping from the Rheinische Merkur, I ask you again, what was its purpose?’
‘Because they wish to torment us, Holmes?’
‘No, I no longer hold to that assumption. That cannot be the League’s intention. They have placed the riddle of the sands before us. It is as though Siviter seeks to justify their crime. These Sungazers had this clipping delivered precisely because it provides the answer.’
He stabbed a thin finger towards the sounds of Mrs. Keppell and Tallulah engaging in chit-chat with each other through a back window. ‘Come, Watson, let us continue talking in the front-yard.’
At times like this Holmes’ finely-cut face glowed with something more than human. He led me out, pausing to pull from the pile of books the newly-published edition of The History of Nineteenth Century Britain. Galvanised by his excitement, I sprang to my feet, the unstable chair tumbling to one side.
‘What is the answer?’ I called after him as he strode on without a backward glance, like Orpheus leading Eurydice from the Underworld. With all his old verve recovered he crossed the veranda at speed to an open space beyond.
‘Holmes,’ I called out again from several yards behind. ‘What have the Sungazers offered us with this piece from the Merkur?’
‘The very answer we have been seeking!’ came his reply. ‘We have been more stupid than we have ever been! What has become of any brains God gave us? I shall never forgive myself, never! Count von Hofmeyer could not have come with menaces in his pocket. Nations have other ways to display their keenness to fight - grandiose military parades, dreadnoughts at Cowes and other huff and puff. Had he arrived with threats of war he would be alive today.’
‘If this Hun did not come with threats of war,’ I cried, ‘why did they kill him and throw him in a wagon pond?’
‘My dear friend, I shall not keep you in suspense much longer.’
He opened the tome he was carrying at a well-thumbed page.
‘...listen to these words of Viscount Van Beers on his role in the eruption of the late South African War. These, I repeat, are Van Beers’ own words.’
I stood listening at Holmes’ side as he read aloud. ‘‘Convinced of the Justice and Necessity of the struggle, I precipitated the Anglo-Boer War, which was inevitable, before it was too late...before the forces ranged against England grew too strong. It is not a very agreeable, and in many minds, not a very creditable piece of business to be largely instrumental in bringing about a big war. In my defence it should be recalled Protestantism in England took root only when Thomas Cromwell had the head of More struck off.’
We walked on past high Rhododendron bushes. Beyond them, at the courtyard edge, well away from the house, we arrived at Mrs. Keppell’s miniature herb garden filled with candytuft and lavender. Here Holmes commenced smoking hard, brows drawn down over his keen eyes, head thrust forward in the eager way so characteristic of the man I remembered with such affection from our years together as partners against crime.
‘Holmes,’ I interjected, baffled. ‘What has this to do with murder?’
‘Let us look at the facts from a different angle, Watson. We now know von Hofmeyer came on a particular mission to Crick’s End, what else? It could hardly be a social visit. We can assume he was murdered and we know the murder was a savage riposte to the Chancellery in Berlin. But what if von Hofmeyer did not come to Crick’s End with bellicose intent? What then?’
‘Holmes, you have lost me. Why otherwise would the Sungazers kill him?’
‘We are assuming the Count was a harbinger of war, a Prussian emissary in search of humiliating concessions... but what if...?’
‘...if not to menace England, why else would he come with such stealth?’
‘What if he brought an offer of a peaceful resolution to our differences?’
‘Holmes,’ I responded, laughing incredulously. ‘A secret offer of peace! If so, why should he be murdered for his pains? What on Earth would make you jump to such a conclusion?’
‘Von Hofmeyer was aware that England’s hostility to Germany was growing by the day but he knew the German Kriegsmarine was not ready to take on the greatest Naval Power in history. Ships alone, regardless of their 12-inch guns or speed, are not enough. You must train the men. More time was needed. Remember, this was 1904. An offer of an amicable settlement of differences might appeal to an English public averse to war after expenditure of a thousand millions and such loss of men in South Africa. Who better to bring that offer than the poacher adopting a gamekeeper’s mask? Yet think how the Sungazers - Van Beers in particular - would respond. With the utmost horror! Such a proposition could slow a build-up of our forces...’
He broke off, encouraging me to supply the ending to his sentence.
‘...until it was too late?’ I hazarded.
‘Quite so. That would be the Sungazers’ thinking.’
After a long pause digesting this, I said, ‘And that is why they murdered him... not to forestall an outbreak of enmity between Germany and Great Britain but to prevent an outbreak of amity between our two great countries.’
‘They kept von Hofmeyer within those high hedges at Crick’s End on whichever pretext they invented, lulling him into thinking his mission of peace was being hotly debated in Downing Street and would succeed, while all the while they were devising which way to murder him. That is the only deduction which fits all the facts. They had to make their response indelible. Van Beers and both Gold Bugs were brought up as Germans. They may rightly feel they have special insight into the blood and iron of the Prussian soul. In Van Beer’s opinion as a military expert, a war with Germany was and remains unavoidable. Therefore the sooner the better before Germany completes her armaments and hones her gunnery skills. If the Kaiser’s emissary had huffed and puffed on Berlin’s behalf, if he had arrived with a pocketful of menaces - halt our Dreadnought programme, hand over half our African colonies, internationalise the Suez Canal, stay silent and quiescent over Germany’s expansion into the Balkans, or else! - Van Beers would have sent him packing on the instant. The Count would be alive to-day. When he came with an offer of a settlement of differences, he was doomed. The coterie at Crick’s End saw it as a ruse to gain time. Already Germany produces a hundred million tons of steel a year to our sixty, second only to America. To the Sungazers, acceptance would mean disaster.’