‘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.’
The Return Journey To Crick’s End Continues
I sat in uneasy and perplexed disquiet, keen beyond all measure to discover a flaw in my companion’s argument before we got to Crick’s End. It seemed we were about to fling ourselves into a shark-infested ocean.
Holmes’ passing reference to the Kit-Kat Café revived a memory. One Christmas he and I sat for an unconscionable time on the café’s stoop with its fine views of Camber Sands, waiting to pounce on the evil Gustav von Seyffertitz. We had reason to believe he was staying at the Green Owl nearby, awaiting the arrival of a boat from Honfleur packed to the gunnels with his men. We ate oyster soufflé prepared in a Charlotte mould at 3d. a serving. Late that moonlit night we hired a horse-drawn bathing machine and rattled into the shallows in the leaky contraption as though setting sail for the open sea, fully-clothed, revolvers and heavy sticks to hand, ready to leap out on unsuspecting myrmidons who never came.
Our carriage slowed as it took a leftward curve up the incline to Burrish’s ancient church. We were on the final stretch. Holmes tapped on the wood. The coachman’s head appeared.
‘If there is a quieter route to our destination, please take it.’
My spirits sank further. Not far ahead loomed the prospect of a confrontation with Van Beers and Siviter and two astute and well-placed Gold Bugs and their millions was looming. Despite his appearance of a completely collected mind, Holmes’ assumptions seemed so absurd I wondered if I should make some desperate effort to forestall a most terrible public humiliation. Should I should fling my comrade from the carriage and bind him like a common footpad hand and foot with the agricultural twine I always kept to hand? If so, would the cabman help me in this endeavour - or, given my comrade’s fame among workmen and millionaire alike, attack me from behind?
With little hope of reprieve, pushed near to madness by my unwillingness to confront our recent hosts with a pocketful of nonsense, I yelped, ‘Holmes, enough! We are nearly there. I beg you, consider where we are with this matter! You have failed to convince me this death is the result of murder rather than accidental or self-inflicted, or if murder whether committed by proxy and by whom its planning was effected, Siviter in a criminal conspiracy with Van Beers, Sir Julius and Weit. Or was it Dudeney acting alone, or under instruction? Or Lord and Lady Fusey - or woodman Webster fed up with tramps rampaging through his master’s property? And if not by stabbing or bludgeoning or soft-nosed bullets or poison, then what?’
I paused, struggling awkwardly to get to my feet in the jolting carriage.
‘Imagine,’ I began, half-bent over my companion, ‘this carriage is the Old Bailey, you the chief and only witness for the prosecution, I in frock coat as King’s Counsel for the defence. ‘Mr. Sherlock Holmes,’ I ask, ‘Murder, you proclaim? You must show the court Means, Motivation and Opportunity. Let us quickly dispense with the matter of means. There is no question the men you accuse of dastardly murder have the means - they enjoy great privilege, power and position. Gentlemen of the jury, that I accept. One among the accused can command a thousand well-armed men. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, what method do you say they employed for such misadventure as took place at Scotney Castle? Stabbing or garrotting? Blunderbuss or cosh? Titters from onlookers at the back of the Court. Neither constable nor Coroner reports a single mark upon the body, is it not so - just the bronzing of the skin? Gentlemen of the jury, did my clients murder him by too much English sun? Mr. Sherlock Holmes, take time to reflect upon your answer to that question and allow me to proceed to the second of the holy trinity - what of motive? Who has most to gain from the victim’s death? Did this vagrant leave sacks of diamonds or bars of bullion buried at Scotney Castle whose whereabouts are exposed in a Last Will and Testament jutting from a pocket - or are dark glasses a great deal more costly than I had supposed? Loud laughter from the back of the Court. You suggest my clients wished to foment a Third South African War...sprinkle of incredulous laughter... by murdering a tramp... laughter... in Kent? Roar of laughter.
Finally to opportunity - Gentlemen of the jury, as the Court has heard, my clients express themselves whole-souled in one desire, that England should remain prosperous, happy and committed to our Empire, an Empire larger than the Roman, built peace-meal across the Centuries by the valour and intellect of such men as have appeared before you all this week. The Lord Fusey and the President of the Royal Academy have sworn on oath the victim of drowning was alive at the approach of three o’ clock. Why must we disbelieve them? At three o’clock Mr. Sherlock Holmes was lecturing my clients on the life of an unofficial Consulting Detective more than fifteen miles away. You have heard Dr. Watson affirm that is so - under oath. Where, I ask, is the trail of bloody footprints? Gentlemen of the Jury, I beg you, let this unfortunate soul rest in peace. Why not the simple drowning the constable presumed? What possible reason would cause these eminent men to conspire at so heinous and contrived a crime as the murder they are accused of by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and he alone? Why can we not assume this corpse found naked in a pond, clothes and hat piled neatly nearby, is simply the tragic victim of an accidental drowning or a hapless suicide? I raise my arms to Heaven and ask - where is the evidence to the contrary?’