by David Marcum
“What is that?”
“That the Whittles were followed here earlier.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I myself am now being followed. I observed the same man in three different places. I have no idea who he is, but he was clearly watching my every move.”
“What will you do?”
“I think I shall run down to Norfolk and look into matters there. There are local papers there which may contain reports which did not reach the London Press. Perhaps I shall find some suggestive fact there. Unfortunately,” he continued, with a glance at the clock, “although I could get down to Norwich this evening, it would be too late to do anything by the time I got there. I am thus obliged to sit here doing nothing until tomorrow, and I hate wasting time in this way.”
I laughed, and my friend turned to me with a raised eyebrow. “I know what you are thinking, Watson,” said he, “that you have never known a man waste time in as thorough-going a fashion as I do on occasion. It is true. I do not deny it. If a national championship in time-wasting were to be held, I should probably set a new all-comers record. But that is when I have no case to engage my brain. When I am on a case, it is a different matter, and it is infuriating not to be able to get on as quickly as I would wish.”
“You could go down to Norwich this evening, anyway,” I suggested after a moment. “You could lodge for the night somewhere in the city centre, and make an early start in the morning.”
“Of course, you are quite right, old man. That is the sensible course of action. It is only tiredness and irritation that prevented my seeing it. I will take your advice, Watson, on one condition.”
“What is that?”
“That you accompany me.”
“I should be delighted to do so. I was thinking only the other day that it would be pleasant to get away from London for a day or two before the nights start closing in.”
“Then it is settled,” said he, putting his pipe down and springing from his chair with a renewed vigour, “although I can’t promise that you will find our expedition the holiday you have been looking forward to, Watson.” He pulled open the top drawer of his desk, and, taking out his revolver, began to examine the chambers, then he glanced my way. “Pack a bag, then, old fellow, and let us be off!”
We caught the early evening train, reached Norwich just before nine o’clock, and put up at a small hotel near the station. In the morning we rose early, took breakfast at the hotel, and were in the office of the local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press, soon after it opened. There we learned that as well as the daily newspaper, several weekly papers were also published, containing news specific to particular parts of the county. Holmes selected the daily papers of late May and early June, while I looked through the weeklies. Most of the news was trivial, or of purely local interest, and I was beginning to doubt we should find anything even remotely relevant, when my companion abruptly stopped his rapid page-turning.
“Hello!” said he. “Here is something, Watson!”
I leaned over to see what had caught his eye, and read the following:
CROWN PRINCE VISITS SHOE FACTORY
Prince Otto von Stamm, crown prince of Waldenstein, has this week visited a shoe factory in Norwich, where he was conducted round the premises in the company of the Lord Mayor, and was said to be greatly impressed by the modernity and efficiency he saw displayed there. Waldenstein has long been a notable producer of hides, but most are simply exported, and Prince Otto is keen to establish a leather-working industry within the principality to help alleviate the problem of unemployment.
“That sounds harmless and banal enough,” I remarked.
“Yes, Watson, but it gives us, if not a German, then a German-speaker at least, in the county of Norfolk at the relevant time. Do you know anything of Prince Otto von Stamm?”
“He appears in the Society pages of the Morning Post fairly regularly,” I replied. “I have frequently read such references as ‘Prince Otto seems to prefer London to his homeland’, and ‘We hear that Prince Otto has got himself into trouble again’. It is the usual sort of thing: a young foreign nobleman with more in his pockets than in his head. For some reason, London seems to act like a magnet to such people. I think he leads a fairly harum-scarum existence: visiting a shoe factory is the first sensible thing I’ve ever heard that he’s done.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really. I know he’s fairly young - perhaps eight-and-twenty - but I know nothing else about him - and I know nothing whatever about Waldenstein, wherever that is.”
“Waldenstein is one of those curiosities of European history,” said Holmes. “It is one of the very few central European principalities which has not been swept up into the German Empire. It is very small - the population is probably not much greater than that of the town we are now in - and of no significance in itself. But its geographical position is a strategic one, lying adjacent as it does to both Germany and Austria. Its very existence creates a rivalry between the two great powers, both of which attempt to exercise an influence over it, and both of which would probably like to subsume it into their respective empires. Let us see if we can find anything else in these papers about Prince Otto’s visit to Norfolk.”
Our search for further reports on the young nobleman proved fruitless, but just as we were about to put the papers back in order, something caught my eye in one of the weeklies from the second week of June.
“This is a remarkable coincidence,” I said.
“More on Prince Otto?”
“No, but a fellow-countryman of his, surprisingly enough.” I folded the page over and read aloud the following report:
FOREIGN VISITOR PRESUMED LOST AT SEA
Franz Krankl, a visitor to Norfolk from the principality of Waldenstein, is missing, feared drowned, after a boat in which he had rowed out to sea on an angling expedition was found washed up on a beach near Sheringham. The owner of the boat, inn-keeper and part-time fisherman, Albert Trunch of Welborne, says he had warned Krankl of the dangerous currents off the north coast of Norfolk, but Krankl had insisted he was very experienced in small boats. Herr Krankl holds a senior position in the government of Waldenstein, but was apparently here alone on a private holiday, and had been out of touch with his relatives for some time. A statement issued by the coast guard makes the point that all visitors must be made aware that there is a very great difference between conditions on inland waters and those encountered at sea.
“That is it!” cried Holmes. “It must be! Whittle informed us that the landlord of The Wild Goose was called Trunch, and now here is Trunch again, connected to a mysterious disappearance.”
“It is certainly a striking coincidence.”
Holmes shook his head. “It cannot simply be coincidence, Watson. The odds against it are enormous. Rather, these separate events are all links in a long chain of cause and effect, which will lead us to the truth. Trunch is clearly a link, so is this man Krankl, and so, I believe, is Prince Otto von Stamm, for I feel certain that he was the younger of the two men that the Whittles saw at the inn. It is to conceal his presence there, I believe, that the register has been altered.”
“But if you are right,” I said as we left the newspaper offices, “and it is Prince Otto’s presence at The Wild Goose that someone is trying to conceal, why should the warning note to the Whittles have come from the German embassy?”
“As I understand it,” Holmes replied, “Waldenstein does not have its own diplomatic representation in London. I believe that the German embassy acts on Waldenstein’s behalf when necessary, in an informal sort of way. But someone at the German embassy may also, of course, have his own reasons for keeping the truth concealed. Don’t look now, old fellow, but I think we are being followed.”
“Is it the same man you saw in London?”
“I believe so.
Anyhow, I observed this one - a man with a large moustache - outside our hotel this morning, and now he is outside the newspaper office. Evidently he - or a confederate - followed us to the railway station in London yesterday evening.”
“What shall we do?”
“Nothing - or, at least, nothing other than what we were going to do anyway, which is to catch a train to Cromer, and make our way along the coast to the Welborne Marsh. It will be interesting to see if he comes with us.”
The short branch train was already standing at the platform when we entered the station. We took seats in the compartment nearest to the front of the train, and Holmes positioned himself by the window, so that he could see anyone that came onto the platform. For almost ten minutes, he had nothing to report, then, just as the guard walked past our carriage after a consultation with the engine driver, and it was evident he was returning to his position at the rear of the train to give the signal to start, Holmes gave the “view-holloa”.
“There he is!” cried he. “He has just broken cover, run onto the platform carrying a large leather bag, and climbed into the last compartment! He is following us to the coast!”
We reached Cromer in a little over fifty minutes, and hurried from the train to make sure we secured the station fly. Of the man apparently following us, there was no sign.
“He is lying low in his compartment,” said Holmes under his breath, as we rattled off along the road by the station. “I saw the crown of his hat through the window. He evidently has no idea we have seen him.”
Our journey took us at first through undulating countryside, but presently descended to low-lying, marshy terrain, where the narrow road meandered like a snake past rivulets and creeks, never far from the mud-flats and the sea. From time to time we heard the sound of distant gunshots, and saw the little puffs of smoke rising up from the hollows where the wild-fowlers crouched, waiting for the birds to fly their way. At length, after about half-an-hour, we reached a small, isolated village, which I saw from a sign was Welborne. The wind was blowing sharply off the sea now, the clouds overhead were dark grey, and there were a few spots of rain in the air. Our driver did not pause, but passed right through the village and on towards the sea. Half-a-mile further on, we at last reached The Wild Goose. It was a low, spreading building, with grimy lime-washed walls and a weathered-looking thatched roof, and appeared as ancient as the ground upon which it stood.
“We don’t yet have all the threads in our hands,” said Holmes to me, when we had paid off our driver and stood before the weather-beaten front door of the inn, above which a painted sign depicting a flying goose swung and creaked in the wind. “We shall therefore have to approach the matter in an oblique way. If in doubt, just follow my lead.”
He pushed open the door, and I followed him into the dark interior. After a moment, a young woman in an apron appeared through a doorway, but when Holmes asked if we might speak to the landlord, she informed us that he was out, and would not be back for another hour. We decided then to leave our bags at the inn and take a walk across the marsh towards the sea.
It was a wild, tempestuous day now, and the nearer we approached the sea, the stronger the wind became, and the more the gusts seemed to veer and shift about us. At length we surmounted a steep shingle bank, and there before us lay the broad, heaving expanse of ocean, the breakers pounding the shore with a boom and a crash, sending mountains of spray into the air which the sharp wind whipped into our faces. I opened my mouth to speak, but abandoned the attempt almost at once: the thunderous noise of the sea blotted out all other sounds. After we had stood shivering for a few minutes by this deafening maelstrom, Holmes plucked my sleeve and indicated that we should retire behind the shelter of the shingle bank.
“The sea is very rough today,” said he as we crouched down in the lee of the bank. “I suppose you were reflecting on the conditions the unfortunate Herr Krankl may have encountered.”
“Among other things, yes.”
“I should not trouble yourself with that thought, Watson. As I read the matter, Krankl was never in a boat at all. I strongly suspect he lost his life at The Wild Goose, on the evening the Whittles heard a quarrel there.”
“You believe he was the third man, the tall man who arrived one evening, but was nowhere to be seen the following morning?”
“That does seem to me the likeliest explanation. But, come, let us get back to the inn, and see if Trunch has returned yet.”
At The Wild Goose, in answer to our query, Trunch himself appeared after a moment from some back room. He was an absolute giant of a man, a good six-foot-four if he was an inch, with a chest like an ox. For a moment he stood looking down upon us with an expression of disdain.
“Well?” said he at length.
“A friend of mine stayed here not long ago,” Holmes began.
“What of it?”
“When he came again more recently, he found that his name had been removed from the register.”
“Oh, him! A snivelling trouble-maker from London! If you’re on the same errand, you can sling your hook!”
He made to turn away, but Holmes persisted:
“It is, of course, a criminal offence to fraudulently alter books used for accounting purposes. The authorities take a dim view of that sort of thing.”
“Oh, do they? What is that to you, Mr. Know-all? Are you one of those blood-sucking tax-collectors yourself? No? Then listen, friend, and I’ll tell you what my father told me when I was a young man. ‘Mark my words, son,’ he said to me: ‘there’s always some swine wanting money, and the best way of dealing with them is to tell them to go to Hell.’”
Sherlock Holmes remained unmoved. “Something else you may not be aware of is that to attempt to conceal something criminal is itself a crime. In attempting such concealment you also lay yourself open to being charged as an accessory to the original crime, even if you had nothing directly to do with it.”
“Just what are you saying?” demanded Trunch. His voice was still loud and scornful, but there was a note in it now, too, of apprehension, and it was clear that Holmes’s remarks had had an effect. Holmes himself evidently perceived this, for he quickly pressed home his advantage.
“We know that Prince Otto von Stamm was here, and the other men.”
“What if they were?” said Trunch defiantly, but the tone of bluster in his voice was rapidly ebbing away, and it was clear he was on the defensive.
“Whatever occurred here, you, as landlord, will be held responsible-”
“What humbug!”
“-especially as you helped conceal the truth by fraudulently altering the register.”
“Someone else pulled out the page. I had to re-write it from memory. There’s no crime in that. What else could I do?”
“But you didn’t put all the names in again, did you? You deliberately omitted some.”
Trunch’s bullying manner had quite disappeared now. It is difficult to say what might have happened next, but we were interrupted by the re-appearance of the young serving-woman. She whispered something to the landlord and he nodded his head. “Come this way,” he said to us, “and I’ll tell you what happened.”
We followed him through the doorway, along a corridor and into a back room. As we entered, I saw a large leather bag lying open on a side-table. Holmes evidently saw it, too, for I saw him glance that way and stop. But it was too late, the door slammed shut behind us. We turned, to see a man with a large, straggling moustache, who had been concealed behind the open door. In his hands was a large double-barrelled shotgun, which he pointed at us.
“Leave them to me, Trunch,” he said in a strong, guttural accent. “I’ll deal with them.” He yanked open a back door and indicated we should go out that way.
“Now,” said he, when we were outside in a small backyard, the cold wind whistling about our ears, “start wa
lking.” All about us as we left the yard, the Welborne Marsh stretched away as far as the eye could see.
“Don’t be a fool,” said Holmes over his shoulder, as we followed a muddy, winding track. “If it’s your intention to murder us here on the marsh, you’ll never get away with it.”
“You forget, Mr. Busybody, that the wild-fowling season has now begun,” returned our captor from behind me. Even as he spoke there came the sound of gunshots - one, two, three - from all about us on the marsh. “Your deaths will be ascribed to an unfortunate sporting accident. Sadly, such things do happen.”
“You murdering swine,” I cried. “Don’t think we don’t know about Krankl! Soon everyone will know the truth!”
For an instant he was silent, but it was only for an instant. “So,” he cried, in a voice full of venom. “If you’re so interested in Krankl, I can show you where he is lying, and then you can join him there! Keep walking!” he snarled, thrusting the shotgun sharply into my back. My mind reeled. There must be something we could do - we could not simply walk quietly to our deaths - but panic had seized me, and I could think of nothing.
Ahead of me, Holmes walked on steadily, his shoulders hunched against the cold wind, his hands thrust into his coat pockets, as we made our way deeper into the wilderness of the marsh. “Slippery path, this one, Watson,” said he over his shoulder. “Mind you don’t lose your footing!”
For a brief moment, I confess I was surprised that, in our desperate situation, Holmes should make such a banal remark. Next moment, I realized that he was telling me he wished me to slip and fall to the ground, perhaps as a distraction. How that would help us, I could not imagine, but if that was what he wanted me to do, then that is what I would do.
A short distance further on, as the path breasted a small rise and dropped away into a shallow dip, I saw my opportunity. I deliberately let my left foot slide away in the mud, and, with a loud cry, tumbled to the ground. At once our captor lowered his shotgun and pointed it at me, but in the same instant there came the sharp crack of a pistol-shot. Holmes’s hands were still in his pockets, and I realized he had turned and fired his revolver through the fabric of his overcoat. There came a cry of pain from our captor, as the shot caught him on the left arm, and he raised the shotgun towards Holmes. With every ounce of energy in my body, I sprang up and threw myself upon him, forcing the barrels of his gun upwards and to the side. The movement evidently jerked his finger against the triggers, and both barrels discharged with a deafening roar into the open sky above us, then, with a force I would not have believed myself capable of, I swung my fist up and struck him on the chin with the most perfect uppercut I have ever delivered, sending him sprawling backwards into the mud. I quickly picked up the gun which he had dropped as he fell, as Holmes covered him, his revolver held rock-steady in his hand.