The Redacted Sherlock Holmes, Volume 2

by Orlando Pearson

  It is striking how accurately Holmes’s forebodings about Germany were realised.

  The basic history will, of course, be fresh in the memory of my readers, but they may be curious to know some detail of subsequent events and the fates of some of the less-well-known individuals whose activities I have described above.

  In the election in September 1930, the NSDAP secured nearly twenty per cent of the vote and became the second-largest party while the Communists got thirteen per cent and became the third-largest party. By the end of 1933, Adolf Hitler was German Chancellor and the Communist Party had been banned. In a referendum in 1934, Hitler was voted the power to rule by decree. Although his majority was suspiciously high at over ninety per cent, no one seriously doubted that the result reflected the will of the great majority of Germans.

  From the funeral onwards, the NSDAP promoted a cult of Wessel as a national hero with huge success. Once they came to power, they used the increased resources at their disposal to raise it to a still-higher level. They changed the name of the district of Friedrichshain to Horst Wessel, commissioned a film in his memory, and the Navy named a ship after him. The song for which Wessel had written the words was renamed “The Horst Wessel Lied” and became, alongside “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!”, the national song of Germany. Hitler himself gave instructions on how it should be played. It became compulsory to raise the right arm in the Nazi salute during the playing of the first verse while any attempt to mock the song was made a specific criminal offence.

  Ali Höhler had been convicted of manslaughter in September 1930 and was sentenced to six years and one month in prison. If he had been found guilty of murder, he might have been beheaded under the laws of the Weimar Republic. As it was, when the National Socialists came to power, they re-opened the case and, with fresh investigations still continuing, Höhler was summarily executed.

  Ernst Thälmann was imprisoned by the National Socialists when they came to power and his death was announced in 1944.

  Sir Horace Rumbold remained as Britain’s ambassador to Berlin until middle of 1933 when he retired as a diplomat. He died in 1941.

  Paul-Otto Schmidt continued his career as an interpreter although he had less and less interpreting to do over the years that followed as Germany switched from diplomacy to naked aggression to achieve its aims. He was taken prisoner by the Americans at the end of recently ended Second German War, but has also testified for the prosecution in some of the recent war-crimes trials.

  And Germany, with its cities shattered from the Western Allies’ bombing raids, has been deprived of great tracts of its traditional lands in the east. This expropriation of territory has been backed up by mass expulsions of Germans, who flock in their millions from the east to the devastated rump of the country. It will be many years, if at all, before the cleaner, better, stronger land foreseen by Holmes arises from the ruins.

  The Adventure of the Fourth Messenger

  In the beginning of April 1894, less than three weeks after Holmes’s return from his apparent death at the Reichenbach Falls, I dropped into Baker Street from my quarters in Kensington. I found Holmes pacing our old living-room, complaining that his caseload seemed to be going through a lull since the capture of Colonel Moran. I attempted to calm him with remarks that it would take some time for him to return to his previous levels of activities. My soothing comments seemed to have some effect, but it was nevertheless a surprise when he suggested that we go for a ramble through London.

  We set off from Baker Street and, following no particular route, headed through shoppers’ London in Oxford Street, down through Soho, along Piccadilly and then into Green Park. It was a perfect day for a walk with daffodils freshly sprouted and fleecy little clouds scudding across a sun-filled sky. We then turned north across Hyde Park and came to Speakers’ Corner, where a number of speakers were engaged in expressing their opinions. One in particular caught our attention. An elderly man with a flowing beard, dressed in a long, white gown and looking rather out of place on what was, in spite of the sunshine, a chilly day, was sounding off forcibly.

  “I know that I have a Redeemer and I was loved and remain loved by him!” he intoned in an accent I could not place “And you!” He gestured with his arm at the crowd of listeners though his eyes seem to focus on Holmes and me, “You are following false gods! Some of you even seek to make a living out of peddling books on false beliefs like tree worship.” His oration rambled on further, but Holmes and I had heard enough and we continued on via a circuitous route back to Baker Street.

  When we arrived, the buttons advised us that there was a visitor for us in our sitting room. Holmes rubbed his hands together keenly as we headed up the stairs. “A case at last, Watson!” he said. “How fortunate our client should have waited for us!” When we entered, we were astonished to find the preacher we had seen at Hyde Park.

  “I recognised you at Speakers’ Corner, Mr Holmes!” he said. “And I didn’t want you to think I singled you out for trying to augment your earnings out of selling books about pagan religions.”

  “What makes you think that I make a living by selling books about pagan religions?” asked Holmes, looking perplexed.

  “Mr Holmes,” said our visitor. “Your friend here may not have been able to see through your disguise as a hunch-backed book-seller outside 427 Park Lane when you were investigating the case of Robert Adair, but I knew at once that it was you and I saw that you were seeking to make money out a volume called ‘The Origin of Tree Worship’. I inferred that you must indeed have fallen on hard times if you needed to resort to that.”

  “I did not observe you watching me at 427 Park Lane last month,” said Holmes. “And I had good reason to pay attention to the people around me.”

  “When I observe people, Mr Holmes, it is customary that they are not aware that I am doing so.”

  I expected Holmes to be offended by our visitor’s arch remarks but, after a short silence, he instead turned to me and let out a cry of somewhat mirthless laughter. “Watson!” he exclaimed “He is here at last! A man who can see, observe and infer!” And turning back to our client, he said “My practice is building up again, though you are certainly right to deduce that my burden is light at present. And when did you arrive here from the Middle East?” he asked. “That manner of weaving clothes in one piece without a seam is much more common there than anywhere else. Though I note from the frequent repairs you have made to it, that your garment has been in your possession for some time and, from the nature of the thread used to make the repairs, that they were carried out in England.”

  “I feel a feint and strike as expert as mine. Indeed your powers are in line with your reputation and are almost without parallel among those I have known,” responded our visitor, clearly impressed by Holmes’s own inference. “This robe is the last thing I acquired before I left the Middle East and that was indeed many years ago.”

  “And what brings you here?” asked Holmes. “You surely have not taken the trouble to come here just to demonstrate your powers of observation and deduction, however unusual they are. Why do you want to consult with me?”

  “I am an old man,” said our visitor. “When I was young, I became a devotee of a man of religion whom I followed until he was taken prisoner, put on trial and executed in the most gruesome fashion imaginable. I was one of his twelve followers. The other eleven of these have all been put to death in the years that followed the execution of our leader and I am the only one left.”

  “I believe I recall the man you are referring to,” said Holmes, furrowing his brow in thought. “Indeed I have read accounts of his life from three of his followers - I believe their first names were Matthew, Mark and Luke though I was never aware of their family names. It is indeed unusual to have as many as three witnesses who write in such detail on the same events. Their accounts have a striking unity especially since they appear to have
been written down some time after the events that they describe. Mark has the shortest tale to tell and it is clear that the other two writers draw heavily on his writings for their own works although they do have a quantum of their own sources as well. There was a mystery, if I remember correctly, about what happened to your leader’s remains after his execution?”

  “Mathew and Mark were the leader’s close followers and Luke was a historian and doctor who became involved in our movement after our leader had departed. You are right to say their versions of events after our leader’s death are confusing. It is rather ironic that since their accounts of our leader’s life were published, they have come to be known as synoptic though this is probably because they give the same views and not because they offer any particular insights. None of them even claim to have been present during the events that took place before, during and after our leader’s death, and they disagree on important details of what happened. Matthew mentions an earthquake, but the others don’t. They don’t even agree on how many people went to the tomb or who they were.”

  “So what do you know about what happened that they do not?”

  “I ... was ... there,” intoned our curious visitor proudly, raising himself to his full height and drawing the words out in his excitement. “My name is John and I was the man closest to our leader. I was there when he was executed, I was there when his tomb was found empty, and I was there when he reappeared.”

  “Perhaps then,” said Holmes “you might explain why you are not mentioned in the accounts left behind by the so-called synoptic writers of the events you mention.”

  “What has already been written by the synoptic writers is written and cannot be changed. But the elimination of my name from the records is something I am about to remedy. Our leader told us to go out into the whole world and preach his teachings. Since then, I have travelled the world, preaching about our leader and his works, as I thought that was the best way to follow his instruction. As this is not something I can do for much longer, I have now decided it is time to write down my recollections of events. These writings,” and here he held up an unprepossessing notebook, “set out those recollections.”

  “So why do you wish to consult with me?” asked Holmes again.

  “You and your friend have just gone through an experience that has paralleled mine. You, Dr Watson,” he said, addressing me, “lost your best friend, and he has returned to life in a story you called ‘The Empty House’. My leader came back to life and left an empty tomb. I want to describe the events relating to my leader’s return to life in a way that is as convincing as ‘The Empty House’.”

  My friend and I were completely taken aback by this suggestion, but Holmes was the first to compose himself.

  “You want us to go through your notebook and advise you on your account of the life and death of your leader, and of the events after his death?”

  “That is so,” said John, and handed the notebook to Holmes.

  “Before we start,” said Holmes. “I shall require some information from you. Is there anyone else who can substantiate what you say?”

  “As I said, Sir, I am the last of the twelve followers and, as far as I am aware, the only person still alive who knew our leader. His other close followers, I may say, died in a manner as gruesome as our leader, as did many others who came later. This notebook holds all my memories, and there is no other copy of its contents.”

  “And what language is your work written in?”

  “In the part of the world where the events took place, Greek was the lingua franca so this is written in Greek, but I have also provided a line-by-line English version,” said our strange visitor.

  “I have little Latin and less Greek - a remark that also applies to Dr Watson here - so I am not sure how long we will require for this,” said Holmes after a long pause. “I suggest you return here at about the same hour in two days’ time and we can discuss further. Could I ask you to give us an address where I can contact you in the event of us having any questions in the meantime?”

  John gave us an address in Warren Street and took his leave. At Holmes’s request, he was to be the first to read John’s notebook, so I returned to my quarters in Kensington having agreed to come back to Baker Street the following day and to read from it myself.

  When I returned, I was unsurprised to find Holmes sitting at what had been our old dining table, poring over the document. I could see he was already contemplating whether to get in touch with John as the preacher’s address was on a slip of paper next to the notebook.

  “So, how do you find it?” I asked.

  “It is a strange document in that it is written in the third person by the closest confidant of the leader of this sect. The name of the writer is never mentioned although I assume it is our friend John. Its contents are commonplace in part. Just as kings used to claim to be able to heal scrofula or ‘King’s evil’ by touching sufferers of the disease, so this leader demonstrates his powers in a series of miracles where he heals the sick, the lame and the blind. At one point he even appears to raise someone from the dead which is certainly remarkable, though there are, I recall a couple of similar cases in the version of events by Luke.”

  I would point out to the reader that Holmes said these words before the bizarre events involving Jonas Oldacre, which I have subsequently chronicled under the title ‘The Norwood Builder’.

  “Slightly more unusual,” continued Holmes, “is his opening miracle where he turns water into wine. It is not unlike the very first case I was involved in, where in my presence, a Justice of the Peace turned to drink. Rather more extraordinary, perhaps, is that John’s leader shows true skills as a detective in that he identifies from the marks of rings on her finger that a woman he encounters has five husbands. Before yesterday, I had never been aware of anyone else using the sort of deductive skills I have perfected over time though I note that our friend John applied similar skills of observation and deduction when he was here, so maybe this is one of the things he got from his leader. However, there is certainly nothing of that kind in the synoptic account of events.”

  “And what do you make of the events after the death of John’s leader?” I asked.

  “I will read to you what John has written,” said Holmes. “It is certainly quite remarkable.”

  And with that, he began to read out from John’s notebook.

  Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom the leader loved, and said to them: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not know the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them: “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Saying this, she turned around and saw the leader standing, but she did not know that it was he. He said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom do you seek?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” He said to her:
“Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew: “Rab-bo’ni!” (which means “teacher”). He then said to her: “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them: ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and said to the disciples: “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

  “What an extraordinary text!” I exclaimed. “Is there an account of an investigation by the local authorities into the events?”

  “The local authorities were, in my view, extremely remiss in not carrying out a thorough investigation. I would certainly have been interested in seeing how the footprints left by the various people in and around the tomb substantiate this account - superimposition of footprints and the story you can read from it, you will recall from our first adventure together, is a particular speciality of mine.”

  “So was there no local investigation at all?”

  “Matthew’s account - I have cross-referenced John’s text against the other three writers - refers to guards being bribed to say that the body had been stolen, but this incident is not in John’s account and not in any other of the accounts of events. But that is all. There is no suggestion of any corpse having been found at a later date and no explanation of what might have happened to it.”

  “So the only accounts we have are the three synoptic accounts and that of John, which is substantially at variance from the other three?”

  “In some cases the differences between the synoptic accounts and John’s can be reconciled and in other instances not. For example, the three synoptic accounts refer to more than one woman going to the tomb whereas John only has Mary Magdalene. But it is noticeable that in John’s account, when Mary speaks, she talks in the first person plural in both the Greek and the English which suggests that there was in fact more than one woman there. But the biggest discrepancy is in those who were present when the empty tomb was discovered. The three synoptic gospels are united in listing only women at the tomb, whereas John has himself and another man called Peter present when the empty tomb was discovered.”