Holmes and Watson

by June Thomson

  One detail of Watson’s private life is, however, recorded for this period. He learnt to drive, a useful accomplishment for a busy GP. In the past, he had either walked or taken a cab when visiting his patients. But he was now in his fifties, no longer a young man, and the convenience of driving himself round his practice, especially in bad weather, must have made life a great deal easier for him. It is also a tribute to Watson’s adaptability and continuing sense of adventure that he was willing to learn this new skill at a relatively late age. The car he owned was a modest Ford and he evidently became a capable driver, for during the Von Bork inquiry it was only his expertise which prevented a collision with Von Herling’s larger and more powerful limousine. Apparently, Holmes never learnt to drive but with his simple Sussex life-style he would have had less need of transport.

  But at some time in 1912, Holmes’ quiet way of life was to be disrupted as the international situation worsened and he was called out of retirement to serve his country for the last time.

  The strained relations between Germany and Great Britain have already been commented on (pp. 291-92 and 395-98) in relation to the Second Stain case in which, as we have seen, Great Britain, alarmed by the growing power of the Triple Alliance, formed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, patched up its old differences with France and signed the Entente in 1904. This was followed three years later by the Anglo-Russian agreement, thus forming the Triple Entente to counterbalance the Triple Alliance.

  Great Britain also reorganised and rearmed its fleet, the supremacy of which had been challenged by Germany’s expansion of its own navy in the late 1890s under Bismarck. In 1907 the first of the new ‘Dreadnought’ class of battleships was launched, followed by eighteen more between 1909 and 1911. Weighing 17,900 tons and capable of 21 knots, these Dreadnought battleships, armed with ten 12-inch guns, were the largest and best equipped in the world. The British army was also reorganised, a Territorial Force set up and Officer Training Corps (OTCs) established in all public and secondary schools in order to prepare a young officer class should relations with Germany worsen and war break out.

  It was because of this heightening of tension that in 1910 Germany decided to send one of its most experienced spies, Von Bork, to England in order to gather information and to assess Great Britain’s state of war-readiness. Von Bork was an ideal choice for the task. A young and wealthy aristocrat who spoke excellent English, he was also a sportsman. His prowess on the polo and hunting fields and skill at yachting and driving a four-in-hand* guaranteed him entry to English upper-class society, from which were drawn top-grade officials in the diplomatic corps and Foreign Office as well as higher-ranking army and naval personnel. He even boxed with some of the younger officers. These social contacts would have provided him with the opportunity to listen to conversations between these members of the Establishment. Such conversations could be ‘amazingly indiscreet’, as Baron Von Herling, Chief Secretary to the German Legation in London, with whom Von Bork was working in close liaison, discovered for himself during a weekend spent at a cabinet minister’s country house where Von Bork had also been a guest.

  Through his own contacts, Von Herling was able to assure Von Bork that, as far as he could ascertain, Great Britain was quite unprepared for war. It was a situation similar to that of 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War when, compared to Germany’s state of military rearmament under Hitler, Great Britain was ill-equipped to take part in a major conflict.

  Von Bork owned his own country residence, a large mansion in Essex overlooking Harwich harbour where he played the part of the country squire. He also adopted another personality, that of the ‘hard-drinking, night-club, knock-about-town, devil-may-care young fellow’ which would have endeared him to the raffish circle of friends with which the pleasure-loving Edward VII surrounded himself. So good was his cover that Von Bork was confident that no one suspected him of espionage.

  ‘They are not hard to deceive, these Englanders,’ he was to tell Von Herling. ‘A more simple, docile folk could not be imagined.’

  In coming to this conclusion, Von Bork had seriously misread the signals, assuming Great Britain would be unwilling to declare war, a mistake Hitler was to make when in 1933 the Oxford Union, the university debating society, passed the motion: ‘That this country refuses in any circumstances to fight for King and Country’ by 275 votes to 153. Six years later some of those young men would be fighting in France.

  In his information gathering, Von Bork paid special attention to naval installations, harbours and the movement of shipping, particularly after 1912 when the British navy was transferred from the Mediterranean to patrol the North Sea, the Atlantic and the English Channel as a precaution against possible German aggression. During his time in England, Von Bork also built up a highly successful spy-ring which, by 1914, consisted of at least five active agents, including Steiner and Hollis and an American citizen, Jack James.

  By 1912 fighting had already broken out in Eastern Europe in an area which today is still politically unstable. In 1908 Austria-Hungary, encouraged by the disintegration of the Turkish empire, had taken the opportunity to seize Bosnia and Herzogovenia, former Turkish possessions. This had led to the first Balkan war of 1912 in which the inhabitants of other parts of the area, in particular the Serbs, rose against the Turks, whom they defeated. The following year, they rebelled again in an attempt to free Bosnia from Austrian domination. An event which occurred in Bosnia on 28th June 1914, as we shall see later in the chapter, was to trigger the outbreak of the First World War.

  Holmes must have been aware of the tense international situation which preceded this event. Although it is not known if he possessed a wireless set, he had always been an avid reader of newspapers and, while he may not have scanned them quite so eagerly as in the past for reports on crime, he cannot have failed to notice at least the headlines as the crisis deepened.

  In 1912 the British Government decided to ask for his help when it was realised by those same men with whom Von Bork had gone drinking, hunting and sailing that a spy-ring was operating virtually under their noses, although they apparently were not yet aware of the identity of the man who was controlling it. Holmes had already served his country on at least three occasions in the past: the inquiry into the missing Naval Treaty in 1889 which was not connected with international espionage and, more importantly, with two further investigations in the 1890s, the Bruce-Partington Plans affair and the Second Stain investigation. Both of these had involved foreign agents: the first Hugo Oberstein, almost certainly German, and the second Eduardo Lucas, probably of Italian origin. In both cases, Holmes had been specifically asked to undertake the investigations either by Mycroft Holmes, acting on behalf of the British Government in the Bruce-Partington affair, or, more directly in the Second Stain inquiry, by the Prime Minister and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. As we have seen, Holmes was offered a place, which he refused, in the honours list for the part he played in the Bruce-Partington case. He had also been offered a knighthood which he had again refused. Readers are referred back to Chapter Fourteen and to Appendix One for more detailed accounts of these two inquiries and the part Holmes played in their successful conclusion.

  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 ha
d 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.