If you would impress a man with your insight, tell him that you sense that he is worried about a relationship, about his finances, or about his health. Better, tell him that he fears-justly-that he is often misunderstood, and that his work is not appreciated. If you would impress a civic official, tell him that you share his concern about the town’s water supply, its sewage, or its garbage. Within the first ten minutes of our conversation, Herr Pindl and I had been friends for years. But the smiling giant was not as simple as he appeared. “Tell me,” he said, holding his schnapps daintily in two chubby fingers, “what does the ministry really want to know? You’re not just here to see if the water is coming out of the faucets.”
I beamed at him as a professor beams at his best pupil. “You’re very astute,” I said, leaning toward him. “And you look like a man who can keep a secret…”
“Oh, I am,” he assured me, his nose twitching like that of a stout bird dog on the scent of a blutwurst sausage.
Extracting my very special document from an inner pocket, I unfolded it before him. Crowded with official- looking seals and imperial eagles, the paper identified Otto Stuhl as an officer in the Nachrichtendienst, the Kaiser’s Military Intelligence Service, holding the rank of Oberst, and further declared:
His Imperial Most-High Excellency Kaiser Wilhelm II requests and demands all loyal German subjects to give the bearer of this document whatever assistance he requires at all times.
“Ah!” said Burgermeister Pindl, nodding ponderously. “I have heard of such things.”
Thank God, I thought, that you’ve never seen one before, since I have no idea what a real one looks like.
“Well, Herr Oberst Stuhl,” Pindl asked, “what can the Burgermeister of Lindau do for you?”
I took a sip of schnapps. It had a strong, peppery taste. “Word has come,” I said, “of certain unusual activities in this area. I have been sent to investigate.”
“Unusual?”
I nodded. “Out of the ordinary.”
A look of panic came into his eyes. “I assure you, Herr Oberst, that we have done nothing-”
“No, no,” I assured him, wondering what illicit activity he and his kameraden had been indulging in. Another time it might have been interesting to find out. “We of the Nachrichtendienst, care not what petty offenses local officials may be indulging in-short of treason.” I chuckled. “You don’t indulge in treason, do you?”
We shared a good laugh together about that, although the worried look did not completely vanish from his eyes.
“No, it’s strangers I’m concerned with” I told him. “Outsiders.”
“Outsiders.”
“Just so. We have received reports from our agents that suspicious activities have been happening in this area.”
“What sort of suspicious activities?”
“Ah!” I waggled my finger at him. “That’s what I was hoping you would tell me.”
He got up and went over to the window. “It must be those verdammter Englanders,” he said, slapping his large hand against his even larger thigh.
“English?” I asked. “You are, perhaps, infested with Englishmen?”
“We have people coming from all the world,” he told me. “We are a resort. We are on the Bodensee. But recently a group of Englanders has attracted our attention.”
“How?”
“By trying not to attract our attention, if you see what I mean. First, they come separately and pretend not to know each other. But they are seen talking-whispering-together by the twos and threes.”
“Ah!” I said. “Whispering. That is most interesting.”
“And then they all go boating,” the Burgermeister said.
“Boating?”
“Yes. Separately, by ones and twos, they rent or borrow boats and row, paddle, or sail out onto the Bodensee. Sometimes they come home in the evening, sometimes they don’t.”
“Where do they go?”
“I don’t know,” Pindl said. “We haven’t followed them.”
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“Off and on, for about a year,” he said. “They go away for a while, and then they come back. Which is another reason we noticed them. The same collection of Englanders who don’t know each other appearing at the same time every few months. Really!”
“How many of them would you say there were?” I asked.
“Perhaps two dozen,” he said. “Perhaps more.”
I thought this over for a minute. “Is there anything else you can tell me about them?” I asked.
He shrugged. “All ages, all sizes,” he said. “All men, as far as I know. Some of them speak perfect German. Some, I’ve been told, speak fluent French. They all speak English.”
I stood up. “Thank you,” I said. “The Nachrichtendienst will not forget the help you have been.”
I had dinner at a small waterfront restaurant, and watched the shadows grow across the lake as the sun sank behind the mountains. After dinner I returned to my room, where Holmes joined me about an hour later.
I related my experiences of the day, and he nodded thoughtfully and went “hmmm” twice. “Englanders,” he said. “Interesting. I think the game’s afoot.”
“What game are we stalking, Holmes?” I asked.
“I have seen some of your ‘Englanders,’” he told me. “In the Ludwig Hof shortly after lunch. I was enjoying a cassis and being expansively French when three men walked in and sat near me. They tried to engage me in conversation in English and German and, when I effected not to understand, bad French. We exchanged a few pleasantries and they tipped their hats and began speaking among themselves in English, which, incidently, is not as good as their German.”
“Ah!” I said.
“They insulted me several times in English, commenting with little imagination on my appearance and my probable parentage, and when I didn’t respond they became convinced that I couldn’t understand and thereafter spoke freely.”
“Saying?”
“Well, one thing that will interest you, is that Holmes and Moriarty are dead.”
“Really? And how did they die?”
“There was this great fight at Reichenbach Falls, and they both plunged in. Their correspondent saw it happen himself. There could be no mistake.”
I stared out the window at the snow covering a distant mountain peak. “Oscar Wilde says that people who are said to be dead often turn up later in San Francisco,” I said. “I’ve never been to San Francisco.”
Holmes stared intently down his long nose at me. “I don’t know what to make of you,” he said. “I never have.”
“So, now that we’re officially dead,” I said, “what do we do next?”
“When the faux Englishmen left the room,” Holmes continued. “I followed them. They went to the waterfront.”
“I trust you were not seen,” I said.
Holmes fastened a withering glare on the painting of an alpine meadow on the far wall. “When I don’t wish to be seen,” he stated, ‘I am not seen.”
“Silly of me,” I said. “What did you observe?”
“They entered a large warehouse next to a pier jutting into the lake. Attached to a short line by the warehouse door-”
“Three clothespins,” I ventured.
“Three white clothespins,” he corrected.
“Well,” I said. “Now we know where.”
“Not quite,” Holmes said. “I observed several more people entering the warehouse over the next hour. And then a door opened on the water side of the building, and the men boarded a steam launch named the Isolde, which was tied up to the pier next to the building. It then chuffed out onto the lake and away. I investigated and
