The two teams next met at Adelaide. The tactic of fast bowling to a battery of leg-side fieldsmen had the consequences which were an inevitable risk of their implementation. One Australian player was hit over the heart and another had his skull broken. It was also noticeable how ineffective Grimmett had been throughout the series to date, and although the fourth Test post-dates the main events of this story, he was not selected for either of the last two Tests of the rubber. England won the Adelaide match by over three hundred runs to take the lead in the series and Bradman scored sixty-six and eight to leave his average over the two Tests to date at fifty-nine.
I confess that my interest in the cricket reports on England’s cricketing success in Australia rather overshadowed my interest in world events. I was consequently baffled when on the nineteenth of January 1933, I received a message in a sealed and highly embossed envelope, delivered by a dispatch rider, which demanded that I to report to the Foreign Office as soon as possible. I could only assume that such a summons must be the result of my connection with Sherlock Holmes, but I had no idea what new adventure I might be embarking on. When I arrived at the Foreign Office, I was asked into an ante room where Holmes was waiting.
“The Foreign Office asked me to come in on a matter of the utmost delicacy and I am reluctant to undertake something which might be of historical moment without my chronicler.”
“And what is the matter on which they wish to consult you?”
“I have not yet been informed, but we are due to see the Foreign Secretary in a few minutes and doubtless all will be made clear.”
Shortly afterwards, we were shown into a long conference room full of polished wood, silver and crystal. The suave figure of the Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, sat at the end of the table with two red boxes open in front of him. He closed them both as he rose to greet us.
We went through the process of making introductions. Sir John, I was aware, had a reputation for social gaucheness, but I was still surprised by a look of puzzlement which came come across his face as we sat down, and for several seconds he stared at us across the table. Finally, he reached into the red box nearest him, pulled out some papers and started to set out the issue on which he required our help.
“The matter I am going to set before you now, is of supreme importance,” he eventually began. “You will recall how last year, the German President, Paul von Hindenburg, dissolved the German Parliament and called elections. There were two elections during the year - in July and September - in both of which the National Socialist German Workers’ Party or NSDAP, led by Herr Adolf Hitler, received a significant plurality although their share of the vote fell from thirty-seven per cent to thirty-three per cent between the two elections. As they are still the largest party, there remains a significant danger of the National Socialist Party forming the major party in a German government.”
“And what would be the likely outcome of a National Socialist administration?”
“The National Socialist party is revanchist in the extreme. They take seriously the legend of the stab in the back against the German army on their western front in November 1918. They would almost certainly look to overturn the terms of the Versailles Treaty and to reverse the territorial changes that resulted from it, whether by use of direct force or by negotiations backed up by threats of military intervention in the newly established countries that border them. The consequences of such politics are unpredictable, but they are unlikely to be attractive.”
“And has Hindenburg no other parliamentary options for forming a government?”
“The Chancellor, Schleicher, has used presidential decrees from Hindenburg to get legislation through the German Parliament and there have been numerous attempts at building an anti-Hitler coalition between what we would regard as more mainstream parties, but these have all been unavailing. There seem to be two constitutional options open to Hindenburg as the present impasse is not sustainable in a country whose economy is imploding. He can call for a third set of elections under which the National Socialists may well recover the votes they lost in November as people vent their anger at the exclusion from government of the largest party. They may even get a share of the vote above what they got in July. This would make the National Socialists’ bargaining power even greater. Or he can permit a coalition with the present constellation of parties in the Parliament. This would either exclude Hitler’s party from government, which would be a strange fate for the largest party in Parliament, or he could ask Hitler to form a government and seek to muzzle his powers by obtaining undertakings from him as to what he will do and not do. Hitler, of course, may or may not abide by any deal to which he agreed.”
“But Germany was disarmed at the end of the Great War. Severe limitations have been put on its military capacity in any of the army, navy or air force and it is barred from having any troops on the west bank of the Rhine. We have within recent memory seen French and Belgian troops occupy parts of Germany. Is there no scope for military intervention from the West to impose a government of a more reasonable hue?”
“The French refuse to take the threat of Hitler seriously,” said Simon in a sombre tone. “And this morning, I spoke to Viscount Hailsham, the Secretary of State for War. This country’s military planning assumes no major hostilities for the next ten years and we are not in a position to send troops for what would be a major operation. Furthermore, our research into British public opinion indicates that there is no stomach for such an undertaking. The British public merely wishes to see potential German aggression contained. It does not wish to see the British army deployed to impose a government. There is no understanding in this country that failure to impose a moderate government may in fact lead to renewed German aggression at a later date.”
“Could Hindenburg not use the remnants of the army to declare martial law and seize power himself?”
“There are a number of complicating factors preventing that. In the first case, Hindenburg is now well over eighty years old and his mental state is, at best, fragile. It may well be that he would be unwilling to do something of that nature against his own countrymen, or that he would be unable to survive the stress of doing so. Secondly, the National Socialist party has its own militia and its men are armed with all manner of irregularly obtained weapons. The German army is small, ill-equipped and demoralised. It is by no means clear that its members would prevail in a military action against the National Socialists, let alone that regular troops would show much heart for such a battle.”
“So what is it you wish me to do?” asked Holmes at last.
“The Foreign Office,” and Sir John paused to stare at us in apparent puzzlement for a second time, “was highly impressed by the speed and skill you showed in identifying the killer of Horst Wessel in Berlin three years ago. (Editor’s note: covered in “The German Interpreter”). We have the gravest concerns about the consequences of what a government in Germany dominated by the National Socialists might mean. As a German speaker, you are an ideal candidate to travel to Germany and to investigate Hitler. We need to find out some tawdry personal scandal which could be used to undermine him, should word of it get out.”
“What sort of thing did you have in mind?” asked Holmes.
“Let us take Oswald Mosley as a comparison,” said Simon. “He has flitted from one political party to another and has risen to the top of each. He is a brilliant orator, and has a keen and cunning mind. These qualities make him one of the most dangerous men in the country. His present leadership of the British Union of Fascists is regarded as a serious threat to this country’s safety. Our security services were sufficiently alarmed by him that they conducted a thorough investigation into his finances, as he has no obvious means of support. They found that much of his money comes from a most unlikely source.”
“And that is?”
“He is the proprietor of a shop selling hosiery and designs many of
its bestselling lines himself.”
I glanced across at Holmes after this stunning revelation and could see surprise written over even his normally imperturbable countenance.
“Should the danger Mosley poses become too great,” continued Sir John calmly but with an unmistakable hint of menace, “we are in a position to leak word of this to his followers who, we believe, would then seek to replace him as their leader. He is not aware of our knowledge of this, but we regard it as a key weapon against him, should the need arise.”
“So,” said Holmes, “may I summarise your brief? You wish me to travel to Germany and to uncover some hitherto unknown discreditable item of information about Hitler. Are the secret services not better equipped than I to deliver on this line of attack?”
“We need someone, Mr Holmes,” and Sir John’s eyes continued to look narrowly at Holmes, “on whom we can rely and who has a command of the language. We are not confident that there is anyone else who fits the bill.”
“I am aware,” said Holmes at length, “of rumours about Hitler’s sexuality and of his ancestry. And a woman who was a relative of his was found dead in his Munich flat just over a year ago. I will be surprised indeed if there is nothing I can uncover about him which would make him unacceptable to his supporters or to the German population at large. Sir John, I relish this commission and would be happy to undertake an investigation of the type that you propose.”
Our interview took not many more minutes before it was agreed that Holmes and I should travel together to Germany as soon as possible to see what could be found out. As we headed downstairs to the entrance of the Foreign Office I could see excitement etched on Holmes’s face:
“I regard this as a chance to do some good for our country and for Germany!” he exclaimed. “Another conflagration is not in the interests of either of our nations and finding a way to undermine the bellicose Hitler is a good way to prevent it. I play the game for its own sake, but I cannot remember being so eager to fulfil a commission since I was asked to act as a double agent before the Great War.”
We had just got to the top of the stairs leading down to the street of the Foreign Office when we were accosted by a uniformed messenger who had dashed after us:
“Sir John needs to speak to you again urgently,” he panted between breaths.
We returned to the door of the conference room where we had just left Sir John. We were ushered in and without any formality or explanation Sir John asked: “Were you sitting in the second row of the top tier of the pavilion at the last Test match at the Oval in 1930?”
When Holmes said that he had been, Sir John said in no friendly tone “I was puzzling throughout our meeting to recall where I had seen you before. I summoned you to resolve a problem for me and I now realise you are the cause of another. As well as being Secretary of State for War, Lord Hailsham is the current President of the MCC. He was here this morning with a telegram he had received from the Australian Cricket Board.”
Sir John reached into his second red box, picked out the telegram and read out to us: “‘Bodyline bowling has assumed such proportions as to menace the best interests of the game, making protection of the body by the batsman the main consideration. This is causing intensely bitter feeling between the players, as well as injury. In our opinion it is unsportsmanlike. Unless stopped at once, it is likely to upset the friendly relations existing between Australia and England.’”
The Foreign Secretary put down the telegram and fixed us with a stare. “I overheard Jardine and someone I did not recognise discussing potential tactics for Australia,” he finally said. “I now realise that the person who planted the seed in Jardine’s head of aiming at the batsman’s person rather than at the wicket and who has created an incident which threatens to split the Empire is you.”
I could see Holmes was unsure how to respond to Sir John’s remarks. Finally, my friend asked “So do you wish me to find a way to soothe Australian feelings rather than to travel to Germany to find out something discreditable about Hitler?”
“Thank you, Mr Holmes, I do not wish you to undertake any work for the Foreign Office at all. As I indicated to you, Foreign Office work requires people whose judgement may be relied upon and your intrigue with Jardine has shown that your judgement is not to be relied upon. I wish you a good day.” Sir John touched a bell to summon a member of Foreign Office staff, who then escorted us from the building.
And so it was that a major opportunity to prevent Hitler’s seizure of power was missed. He was sworn in as Chancellor on the thirtieth of January 1933. Meanwhile England went on to win the series against Australia by four matches to one at the expense of significant odium in Australia. Bradman’s average for the series was fifty-six, or as Holmes might have put it had he shown any renewed interest in cricket, exactly three standard deviations from the mean. This is normally the outermost limit of what a human can achieve over any statistically meaningful period of time, but definitely a level of performance of normal mortals rather than that of a man operating beyond the bounds of normal statistical performance.
Before Holmes, no one else had been able to stop Bradman. I would like tentatively to suggest that if anyone could have stopped Hitler, who seemed to have a sixth sense for danger and dodged numerous attempts to assassinate him, it might have been my friend. As it was, Hitler had been voted dictatorial powers by the German electorate by the end of the following year with all the consequences that followed and the chance to use Holmes’s preternatural abilities to stop him was gone.
At the same time, Anglo-Australian relations had recovered sufficiently that Australia returned to England’s shores in 1934. Jardine had stood down as captain while Larwood and Voce were not selected.
Events in the series followed a similar pattern to 1930 with Australia winning a deciding Test at the Oval after Bradman had made another huge score. I have always wondered whether, in a bid to improve Anglo-Australian relations at a difficult time, Sir John Simon, having recalled our discussions with Jardine, tipped the Australians off that England had spotted how Grimmett signalled his intentions to Oldfield of the direction in which he planned to spin the ball. In any event, the Australian spinner’s fortunes were restored in 1934 and he took twenty-five wickets in the series, including seven in England’s second innings at the Oval.
The Trial of Joseph Carr
“‘Someone must have been slandering Joseph Carr,’” read our visitor, Miss Brusher, from a bulky document she had hauled out of her bag, “‘as one morning, although he had not done anything wrong, he was arrested. The cook of his landlady, Mrs Gruber, who normally brought him his breakfast at eight a.m., did not appear. This had never happened before.’”
Miss Brusher had said she had come to consult about her fellow lodger’s writings, which she found disturbing. She paused after her extraordinary opening, but was about to continue when Holmes broke in abruptly.
“Miss Brusher, have you really come here just to express concern about these writings of your neighbour? I can see no reason whatever why I, for whom time is of some value, should investigate something like this. Why, if you ask my fellow lodger, Dr Watson here, he will confirm that when I talk to him at all, it is mainly to point out his literary shortcomings. But that does not mean I propose to become a literary critic, and I see no point in adding your fellow lodger to the list of people whose writings I find wanting in true intellectual rigour.”
“But, Mr Holmes,” she countered. “If you will allow me to read you more of Mr Carr’s writings, I can assure you that you will find them intriguing and grotesque.”
My friend started at the word “grotesque”. “Watson!” he exclaimed. “That word again - for me it always carries an underlying suggestion of the tragic or terrible.”
Miss Brusher’s choice of words had made Holmes prepared to give her a longer audience. He laid down the Bunsen burner he had taken into his han
d, reached for his pipe and sat back in his armchair with his eyes half-closed. “Pray tell me a little about yourself before you resume reading,” he requested.
“My name is Violet Brusher. I am a professional typist and live in lodgings at Prague Square. One of my fellow lodgers, Mr Joseph Carr, works in banking. Over the last few weeks he has taken to reading me what he claims is a book he is writing about his life. He has indeed become quite invasive in his attempts to read this work to me and has gone so far as to foist typescript onto me. While I am a woman who can look after herself, I find his writings so outlandish that I felt I should raise their content with someone in authority, but I am uncertain with whom. I then thought of you.”
She started reading again. The document she read from described the arrest and investigation of Joseph Carr. It was clear that Carr had been released although was still the subject of a process. Yet the narrative never stated any offence that he had committed or been accused of. It introduced characters such as Miss Brusher herself, other neighbours of Carr and figures associated with the arresting authority. Miss Brusher was reading a passage in which one of these was quoted as saying “The authorities, as far as I am aware - and I admit I am only a very minor cog in their machine - do not seek guilt in the population; rather they are attracted by guilt in the population and they have to send out us security staff,” when Holmes stopped her again.
“Miss Brusher, are you saying that some authority arrested your neighbour and that he has told you about this but that he has not told you on what charge, or by whom?”
“Mr Carr has told me nothing, sir, about why he was arrested or the authorities that arrested him beyond what is in this text.”
“This is very singular. We live in a country governed by a legal system and yet a man is arrested without charge by authorities whom he knows nothing about and yet still remains at liberty. It is almost as if these authorities are toying with him.”
The Redacted Sherlock Holmes, Volume 3 Page 14