Holmes and Watson (31 page)

In addition, Holmes had worked for the French Government on a ‘matter of supreme importance’ during the winter of 1890 and the early part of 1891, not long before the Final Problem, and, during the Great Hiatus, had travelled to the Sudan where he had visited the Khalifa, reporting the results of that interview to the Foreign Office in London. His credentials were therefore impeccable.

The decision to recruit Holmes in 1912 for the task of infiltrating the German espionage-ring and identifying its spy-master may have originated with Mycroft. The two brothers must have kept in touch during Holmes’ retirement and may have met on occasions either in Sussex or in London. Although Mycroft may have himself officially retired by 1912, by which date he was sixty-five, it is unlikely that his connections with the British Government had been entirely severed and he would almost certainly have gone on meeting his former ministerial colleagues at the Diogenes Club or elsewhere in the capital. Mycroft may even have approached Holmes himself with the suggestion that he came out of retirement to serve his country for the last time.

But whoever made the initial move, Holmes was at first reluctant to agree even when the Foreign Minister intervened. His hesitation is understandable. He was fifty-eight, happily retired for the past nine years and fully
occupied with his own interests and activities. Although strongly patriotic, he had no wish to sacrifice all of these hard-won advantages and return to active practice. He may also have been aware after the Lion’s Mane inquiry that his old expertise had rusted through lack of use, a realisation to which he himself would never admit but which nevertheless may have played a part in his decision to refuse the mission. It was only when the Prime Minister
*
himself made the journey from London to visit him in his Sussex house and plead with him personally that Holmes finally relented.

Holmes has given no details of that extraordinary and unprecedented interview apart from referring to the ‘strong pressure’ which was brought to bear on him. But one may imagine what that pressure comprised: the appeals to his sense of patriotism, the emphasis on the dangers facing his country, the declaration that there was no one else who possessed the necessary skill and experience to undertake such an important mission. Holmes had always been susceptible to flattery and if this last appeal was made to his ego, it may well have persuaded him at last to accept the challenge.

The idea of infiltrating him into the German spy network as an American supporter of the Irish Republican movement was a brilliant ploy and may have come from Holmes himself. Although he had had no direct contact
with the Republicans during his professional career, he cannot have remained in ignorance of Irish politics nor the attempts by the more radical supporters of Catholic emancipation to free themselves from British domination.

The Irish Problem, as it was euphemistically called, had its roots far back in history. Alarmed by the existence of a Catholic country so close to Protestant England which could be used as a base for attack by Spain, Elizabeth I had tried but failed to control it four hundred years earlier. Similar fears during the French Revolution that Ireland might become a centre for this new and terrifying form of radicalism had led to the abolition of the Irish Government and the passing of the Act of Union in 1801 which made Ireland part of the United Kingdom, governed from Westminster. The struggle of the Catholic Irish to free themselves from British rule intensified, exacerbated by the potato famines of the 1840s in which over a million Irish, mostly impoverished Catholic tenants of Protestant landowners, died of starvation. Another two million emigrated to America.

It was to these disaffected emigrants and their descendants that the Republican movement in Ireland, dedicated to Catholic emancipation and the repeal of the Act of Union, looked for advice and support. As the international situation grew worse, the old British nightmare recurred. If war with Germany became inevitable, Ireland might become a German base, especially for submarines, operating against the British fleet in the North Sea and the Atlantic. The Irish-American
community was also seen as a potential recruiting ground for German spies.

It was this cover which Holmes was to adopt. It was an inspired choice. Holmes, with his ability to assume a variety of different personalities, would have no difficulty in taking on the identity of an Irish-American with strong anti-British feelings. The part needed no elaborate disguise, while the accent was not difficult to imitate. In addition, Holmes already had useful contacts in the States, although there is no evidence that he called on their services. Nevertheless, should he have needed them, he was already acquainted with Leverton, an agent from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency whom Holmes had helped in the Red Circle case in the late 1890s. He also knew Wilson Hargreave of the New York Police Bureau. Holmes had cabled him for information about Abe Stanley during the Dancing Men investigation. In turn, Hargreave had made use of Holmes’ knowledge of London crime on more than one occasion.

Holmes’ quick ear for languages was another advantage. Once in the States, he picked up both the accent and the slang so convincingly that he was able to pass himself off as an Irish-American with no difficulty, although such terms as ‘sucker’, ‘mutt’ and ‘nitsky’ sound strange coming from his lips.

It is not known precisely when in 1912 Holmes set sail for America on what was probably his first visit to that country, although, as we have seen, some commentators have suggested he was there in the 1870s, touring with
the Sasanoff Shakespearean Company and, more recently, in 1893 during the Great Hiatus when it is claimed he assisted the Falls River police in the investigation of the Borden murders.

He was probably there for just over a year. The whole mission took two years to complete or, as Holmes expresses it, ‘It has cost me two years,’ a remark which suggests that, although he was totally committed to the undertaking, some lingering resentment at the loss of time, which might have been spent more agreeably in Sussex, still remained.

He went first to Chicago, where presumably he laid low, learning the accent and perfecting his cover as Altamont. It was while he was there that he may also have grown the goatee beard, which was part of his disguise and which gave him a striking resemblance to Uncle Sam. This was a nice touch, typical of Holmes’ impish sense of humour.

From Chicago he moved on to Buffalo, where he joined an Irish secret society which may itself have sent him to Skibbareen, a town on the south coast of Ireland, in order that Holmes could play a more active role in the Republican movement. The fact that he clashed with the Irish Constabulary suggests that he was involved in overt political action. As intended, this brought him to the notice of one of Von Bork’s subordinate agents, who recruited him into the German spy-ring and sent him on to England. Here, Holmes was introduced to Von Bork, who was so impressed by this ‘tall, gaunt man of sixty’ with his Irish-American antecedents and his experience in
the Republican movement, motivated by his bitter hatred for the British, that he took Holmes into his confidence. Holmes, however, was clever enough not to appear too idealistic in his role as Altamont. He expected to be paid, and paid well. And, under his disguise, he preserved some of his old qualities – his love of good wine and his enjoyment of a cigar – to add authentic details to his assumed identity. In his guise as one of Von Bork’s agents, he adopted yet another cover, that of a ‘motor expert’, using such words as ‘sparking-plugs’ and ‘oil-pumps’ as part of a code with which to communicate with Von Bork.

Holmes had already had connections with two members of Von Bork’s family. Von Bork’s cousin Heinrich was imperial envoy in 1889 when Holmes investigated the Scandal in Bohemia case, in which Irene Adler and the King of Bohemia were so intimately associated. Holmes had also saved the life of Von Bork’s uncle, Count Von und Zu Grafenstein, his mother’s elder brother, when the Nihilist Klopman attempted to murder him. Had Von Bork known Altamont’s real identity, his new agent’s name and reputation would have been familiar to him.

At this stage, Holmes had successfully completed the first part of his mission. Not only had he identified the man at the centre of the German espionage network but he had penetrated the actual spy-ring.

Once this had been achieved, the mission took on the qualities of a subtle and dangerous game played on four different levels. Holmes was able to feed Von Bork
disinformation, a counter-intelligence ploy which is still used today. So, for example, he passed on to him false plans of the location of mine-fields in the Solent as well as incorrect reports on the speed of British cruisers and the size of naval guns. Holmes was also able to warn the British authorities about the information Von Bork and his agents had already gathered so that counter-measures could be put into operation. Steps were taken to change the codes once the Admiralty were told of Von Bork’s knowledge of naval signals. Holmes was also responsible for the arrest and imprisonment of all five of Von Bork’s agents. Lastly, he introduced his own agent, Martha, the elderly housekeeper, into Von Bork’s household. Her task was to report to Holmes on Von Bork’s visitors and to take note of the letters he sent and received.

Time, however, was not on Holmes’ side. International events were moving swiftly and war was imminent.

On 28th June 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian Emperor, the elderly Francis Joseph, was on an official visit to Sarajevo, a town in Bosnia which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was driving with his wife towards the town hall when a bomb was thrown at their car by a young Bosnian Serb who hated the Hapsburg domination of his country. Although the bomb missed and the Archduke and his wife escaped injury, a second assassination attempt made not long afterwards was successful when another young Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, mounted the running-board of their car and shot them both dead at close range.

In reprisal, Austria sent an ultimatum to the Serbian Government, which it accused of complicity in the assassination, making some of the demands so harsh that the Serbs refused to agree. Using this as an excuse, Austria, with Germany’s support, declared war on Serbia on 28th July. Determined to maintain its position in the Balkans and to protect the Serbs, Russia in turn began to mobilise its forces, refusing to comply when Germany demanded it should put a halt to these preparations. Consequently, on 1st August, Germany declared war on Russia, following two days later with a declaration of war against France, Russia’s ally. On the same day, 3rd August, on its way to attack Paris, the German army invaded Belgium, having been refused free passage through that country. The next day, 4th August, the British Parliament, which had guaranteed Belgium’s neutrality, declared war on Germany. The First World War, which was to last four years and cost ten million lives, had begun. As Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Minister, was to write: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’

On 2nd August, two days before Britain’s declaration of war against Germany, Von Bork was making hurried preparations to leave England. His wife and members of his household, with the exception of Martha, had already left for Flushing, taking some of his less important papers with them. He, too, was planning to leave as part of the personal suite of Baron Von Herling, the Chief Secretary to the German Legation in London. As such, both he and
his baggage containing his more important documents would have had diplomatic immunity. In fact, Von Herling had driven down from London to Von Bork’s house in Harwich on the evening of the 2nd August to discuss with him the final arrangements for Von Bork’s arrival at the German legation the following morning. In a few hours, he would be immune from arrest.

Holmes’ plans, however, were in place. He himself had telegraphed Von Bork, arranging to meet him that same evening and to hand over to him the new naval codes. Martha had been instructed to signal the departure of Von Herling by extinguishing her lamp. Holmes had also wired Watson, asking him to meet him in Harwich with his car, an invitation which Watson eagerly accepted. He was now sixty-one or two, an ‘elderly man’ who had put on weight and whose hair had turned grey. But his devotion to Holmes and his love of adventure had not diminished. Indeed, some of that enduring spirit of youth prompted Holmes to comment that Watson was ‘the same blithe boy as ever’.

Apart from the ‘horrible goatee’, Watson found Holmes little changed physically, although it was several years since they had last met. He would also have recognised some of the quirks in Holmes’ character which had not changed either with the passage of time: his sense of humour, for example. Instead of handing over to Von Bork the expected naval codes, he gave him a copy of his own book,
Practical Handbook on Bee Culture
. He was also still prepared to act outside the law. Having chloroformed
Von Bork and bound his arms and legs, Holmes removed the documents from his safe and then, with Watson’s help, bundled him into his old friend’s small car to drive him back to London to be questioned at Scotland Yard.
*

Before setting off, the two friends lingered for a few minutes on the terrace, looking out over the moonlit sea. Holmes was in a thoughtful mood.

‘There’s an east wind coming, Watson,’ he remarked.

Watson, with characteristic obtuseness, failed to take the point.

‘I think not, Holmes. It is very warm.’

There is affectionate amusement in Holmes’ reply.

‘Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age.’

Holmes was right in his prediction. Within a month, the Germans had swept through Belgium and invaded France, where they met the French army and a small British expeditionary force at the battle of the Marne in September 1914. The lamps were indeed beginning to go out, extinguished by that cold east wind which would sweep across Europe from Germany, just as Holmes had foreseen when he and Watson stood side by side on that warm evening of 2nd August, gazing out towards the harbour lights of Harwich.