But what bothered Kaempffer even more was the choice of words. Woermann was intelligent and precise. He knew his message would pass through a number of hands along the transcription and decoding route and must have been trying to get something across to the High Command without going into detail. But what? The word "murder" implied a purposeful human agent. Why then had he preceded it with "something"? A thing – an animal, a disease, a natural disaster – could kill, but it could not murder.
