Your American Cousin Jenny
"Uhmstein?" Holmes said. "Where is Uhmstein?"
"Who is Jenny?"
"Jenny Vernet," Holmes explained. "She is an opera singer. Contralto. Quite good. Related to me on my mother's side. Grew up in the United States. She was born in San Francisco, where her father had made his fortune selling supplies to gold miners. When she was quite young the family moved back East to Boston, then on to London when she was in her teens."
"What is she doing in Europe? And, more to the point, what on earth is she doing writing you a secret message?" Watson asked. "How does she know you're here? How does she know about any plot?"
"I know no more than you do," Holmes told him. "But if I had to guess—Mycroft."
"Your brother? What does he have to do with it?"
Holmes shrugged. "He knows I'm here, and what I'm doing. If some new information came to his attention, he is quite capable of acting on his own initiative and sending someone to investigate."
"And sending a woman? Your cousin? Really, Holmes!"
"Mycroft has little patience for the customary distinctions between the sexes. He often employs women as his agents. He finds them more reliable, more quick-witted, and less prone to make careless errors. I am quoting him, I'm not sure I disagree."
"Well this relative of yours seems to be a plucky young woman," Watson said.
"She always had amazing courage and initiative," Holmes agreed. "If she'd been born a male, she'd probably be an explorer or something equally as adventurous. As it is her singing gives her all the independence she craves and the ability to travel about the world."
"It sounds like her independence is a bit limited at the moment," Watson commented. "What shall we do, Holmes?"
"Pack!" Holmes said. "We're going to Uhmstein—wherever that may be."
CHAPTER NINETEEN — A CASTLE IN UHMSTEIN
One should not bewail the death of hope until it has been buried.
— Alma Schindler
Schloss Uhm, the castle on the von Linsz estate, was not large as castles go, but it was still impressive against the skyline. A triangular structure some eighty feet high, with a tower that went up another three stories in each corner, it had a crenellated outer wall ten feet thick and twenty-two feet high. It was one of a chain of fortresses built in the twelfth century by the Order of the Knights of Wotan to defend the Holy Roman Empire against invaders from the east. The east eventually stopped trying to invade, and the eighteenth century counts of Linsz enlarged the arrow-slits into windows, filled in the moat, and did what they could to convert their dank and drafty fortress into an elegant and graceful chateau. But, with the curtain wall surrounding it, and the high stone towers, it always looked more foreboding than inviting.
When Sigfried Karl Maria von Linsz inherited the title and estate in 1878, he put bars on the windows, re-installed the portcullis, and did what he could to restore Schloss Uhm to its primal state as a medieval fortress. It was the stony obstinance of the original that he admired. As a child, the graf had cultivated a secret belief that he was a reincarnation of the original Sigfried, king of the Nibelungers, chief of the god Wotan's hero race, hero of the German people. And surely King Sigfried should live in a castle.
Graf von Linsz trotted up the stone stairway in the castle he called home and stood aside while a burly man in the black leather uniform of his personal guard unlocked a heavy wooden door and pulled it open. He waved the guard aside and entered the room, stooping slightly to pass under the five-foot-three-inch high doorway. The room was a small one, furnished with a bed, a chair, a cupboard, a wash basin, a small, square table, and a small bookshelf holding a history of Hungary in Hungarian, a railroad timetable in German, and a dozen or so ancient hymnals in old church Slavonic. One tiny barred window high up on one wall admitted the room's only natural light, which was supplemented by an oil lamp on the table. Benjamin Barnett sat on the bed reading a two-week-old copy of the London Times, and Cecily was in the chair sewing a button on a blouse. They both looked up as von Linsz entered, but said nothing.
Von Linsz stood just inside the doorway and spread his arms expressively. "Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Barnett, I have come up to see how you are doing. What a fine domestic picture you make. I apologize for having neglected you recently, but I have been busy, quite busy. I do hope you forgive me."
Barnett put down his paper and glared up at the graf. "How long is this farce going to continue?" he demanded.
Von Linsz shrugged. "It is out of my hands now, I assure you," he said. "Certainly you see that we cannot let you go at the moment. There is no way that we could insure your silence about your, ah, visit to my home. And, while I'm confident that we could handle the situation, what with accusations and counter-accusations, right now we cannot afford the attention that would be directed toward us. You must not think harshly of us, we are doing the best we can in a difficult situation."
"Harshly!" Barnett carefully folded his newspaper and stood up to face von Linsz eye-to-eye. "You have kept us captive here for the past two weeks, with the nonsensical notion that we can tell you Professor Moriarty's plans, about which we know nothing, or the even more ridiculous assumption that we care about your plans, whatever they may be. You have questioned us together and separately, and learned nothing, since we have nothing to tell.
You've made us the victims of what can most kindly be described as a horrible mistake, and the best way to remedy it would be to let us go—now!"
Von Linsz shook his head sadly. "You must blame your Professor Moriarty for your situation, and not us," he said. "We, with good cause, believed you to be his agents. Indeed some of us are still not convinced that you are not. If so, you can see that it was in our interest to eliminate you. And we could have done it in a much, ah, harsher manner."
Cecily looked up from her sewing and favored the graf with a pitying smile. "I have noticed that every lawbreaker blames others for his own actions," she said. "It seems to be one of the common aspects of the criminal mind. 'If only he'd just given me the money I wouldn't have had to hit him over the head!' 'If only they'd told me what I want to know I wouldn't have had to kidnap them and hold them prisoner.' "
"Yes, yes," von Linsz said. "All that would be very convincing, if only your Professor Moriarty had not disappeared from sight something over a week ago."
"Disappeared?"
"Yes, disappeared." Von Linsz stalked further into the room. "Having been forewarned that he is the head of your Secret Service, and has a large band of agents among the criminal classes all over Europe, we have naturally been keeping an eye on him. We managed at the last minute to intercept one informant, a teacher of something-or-other who had discovered our suspicions regarding yet another agent. We were successful in preventing this teacher from speaking with Professor Moriarty at his home in London, but Moriarty is no longer there. He has eluded our watchers."
"Who is this 'us' you keep talking about?" Barnett asked. "So far we have seen only you."
"There is no reason why you should not know. I speak for the New Order of the Knights of Wotan," von Linsz said. "Our presence is not yet widely felt, but assuredly it soon will be."
"And it's this order that is so concerned with the movements of Professor Moriarty?"
"Well put," von Linsz agreed. "It is, indeed, his movements that concern us. A week ago he left his house, and he has not returned. It is believed that he was on the evening paddle-steamer from Newhaven to Dieppe, but after that he vanished from sight. How do you explain that if he is not trying to thwart our plans?"
"He's gone on holiday," Barnett suggested.
"Bah!" von Linsz said. "He's gone on a holiday like you were on a holiday—artfully timed to get you to Vienna just at the right moment."
"The right moment for what?" Barnett asked, the exasperation showing in his voice. "As I've been telling you for two weeks now, we don't know what you're talking about!"
"It's no use dear," Cecily said. "You can't convi
nce him that we don't have the information he wants. And besides, by now we do know too much about his—their—affairs for him to let us go. We may not know what his gang is planning, but we know something is going to happen, and that is too much knowledge."
Von Linsz bowed toward Cecily. "Very true, madam. Unfortunate, but true." He bent over and backed out of the room. "The Festival of St. Simon begins in two days," he said, pausing in the doorway. "Celebrating one of our greatest victories. The traditional festival is held in the meadow in front of the castle over this weekend, and we must prepare. I have much to do."
-
The mummer perched himself on a table by the window and carefully drew the roller blind down the last quarter-inch. "This Thursday," he said, "that is, the day after tomorrow, there is to be a great festival here. It's the anniversary of the battle of Uhm in, I think it were, 1164, in which the Turks were beat back for an inch or two. They give thanks to St. Simon, who must have had something to do with it, I suppose. The festival goes from Thursday to Saturday, and then the locals spend all day Sunday in church. Or so I've been told. The grounds in front of the castle are being set up now with tents and the like."
Moriarty nodded. "Fortuitous," he said. "I think we can use that to our advantage."
They were gathered at one end of Prince Ariste's private rail-road parlor-car. The special train had arrived at the rail yard outside the town of Uhmstein late the night before, and the prince's four cars were now detached from the engine and sitting in a corner of the yard. The dozen volunteers that Prince Ariste had brought along from his regiment were outside their car, exercising. Even in civilian clothes, it was hard for them not to look like what they were: highly trained soldiers from an elite unit.
"What are we to do?" Prince Ariste asked.
Moriarty stood, his hands clasped behind his back, his head jutting forward like a great hawk. "For the moment our time is best spent in gathering information," he said. He looked at the mummer. "Just where is the window to the Barnett's cell?"
"It ain't rightly a 'cell,' " Tolliver said, "just a room up on the fourth level. But, with its big, heavy oak door and the bars on the one window, which is real high up, I suppose the result's the same. It's on the left-hand side, second window in. I can point it out to you."
"Could you take one of us up there tonight?"
Tolliver thought it over. "Not likely," he said finally, " Mess the one of you we're speaking of ain't much bigger than what I am. First he'd have to get through the grating where this 'ere stream comes through the outer wall. And I has trouble passing through the bars, minuscule as I am. Then he'd have to climb the wall of the castle proper, which I does by utilizing the vines which grow up the side of the wall. They hold my weight—seven stone about—but I don't think they'd hold much more. And they get mighty thin and sparse around the fourth floor, where the window is, so even I has to be a might careful and precise. It's a matter of stature, you see. The builders of this here castle didn't figure on being invaded by midgets."
"Then you must remain our emissary, Tolliver," the professor said. "Are the Barnetts in good spirits, would you say?"
"I think as how they'll be in much better spirits when I tells them you're here, and you're plotting to get them out."
"Then by all means, tell them that we're here, and that we're plotting to get them out," Moriarty said. He turned to the others. "I think perhaps Madame Verlaine and I should make our way to the meadow where the people are preparing for these festivities. It may be time for Alexandre Sandarel to demonstrate some of his mystical powers."
"And what should we do?" Prince Ariste asked.
"Perhaps you should send word to Schloss Uhm that you're here," Moriarty suggested. "Nobility speaks to nobility, I understand. You've stopped over to see the fete on your way to Vienna. With any luck von Linsz will invite you to join him. Then keep your eyes and ears open, and learn what you can."
Ariste nodded. "I will send a footman to tell Graf von Linsz that we're here, and invite him to come over and have a drink with us in my private railroad car. He will certainly suggest that we come to the castle instead, and I will do him the great favor of acquiescing. He is, after all, merely a count while I am a prince."
"And a very princely one you are, my dear," Princess Diane told him, patting him on the shoulder.
"And I can have my men go down and seek casual employment as roustabouts or day laborers," Ariste suggested. "Perhaps they, also, can contribute to our pool of information."
"Excellent!" Moriarty agreed. "Keep someone trustworthy here, in this car, to gather and pass on information. If you are invited to stay in the castle overnight, find some pretext to refuse and return to your sleeping car here."
"My medication," Princess Diane suggested. "I am in delicate health, you know."
"All this is in aid of getting Barnett and the missus out of their captive environment?" the mummer asked. "I ain't complaining, mind you, I'm just curious."
"The dual purpose of arranging to get them out and finding out just why they're being held in the first place," Moriarty said.
"I told you that Barnett says that they want to know about you, Professor," the mummer said, "what you're doing and where you're doing it and why."
"Yes," Moriarty said. "And I need to know just what misapprehensions these people have that causes them to be so curious about my movements; and it might not be a bad idea to get some idea of just who 'they' are and just what they're up to."
-
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson arrived in Uhmstein on the 11:14 day train from Vienna and stood on the station platform, traveling bags in hand, and allowed the wave of humanity that had emerged from the train with them to wash on by them and out of the station. Holmes, following Jenny Vernet's suggestion that he "go in disguise," had acquired a sharply pointed beard and a trim mustache, as well as dark blue trousers, a gray jacket with sloped shoulders and cord trim, and a Tyrolean hat with a carefully curled brim. That, along with a measured stride and a manner of barking out orders to all around him as though he expected them to be unquestionably obeyed, marked him as a military officer in mufti.
Watson, who was encumbered by a face that mirrored the bluff honesty of the English gentleman, and a native inability to dissemble, was not disguised so much as rendered so obvious as to be unobtrusive. From the collar of his narrow-labeled tweed suit to the soles of his thick oxford walking shoes he was every inch the British tourist, Baedeker in hand, on a European tour.
"I suppose the first thing is to find the local inn and get a room," Watson suggested.
"We can try," Holmes said, "but I fancy the local inns are all filled with revelers and those who hope to revel. Every burgher with a spare bed, and every farmer who can tuck a straw mattress in the hay loft, is probably going to have guests tonight. We may find ourselves sleeping under the stars. Still, it won't be the first time, eh, Watson?"
"That's true, Holmes," Watson acknowledged.
"No, I think the first order of business is to discover the whereabouts of Miss Jenny Vernet and what sort of trouble she has gotten herself into. For that, of course, we must visit the local inn. As I believe I've mentioned to you from time to time in the past, my dear friend, pubs and inns are invariably the best source for local gossip. And perhaps we'll be in luck and the innkeeper will know of a spare couple of beds, even if he can't supply them himself. Come, Watson." And with that, shoulders back, chin high, stick held before him like a saber, Sherlock Holmes departed the train station and strode into Uhmstein.
CHAPTER TWENTY — BILLET REAPING
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
— Charles Darwin
For the past few days powerful men had been arriving at Schloss Uhm. The carriages that pulled up to the portcullis were large and ornate and smelled of fresh paint, and they were drawn by matched quartets
of spirited horses. Some had the dust of the road thick on them, as they had come from a great distance. Several had canvas panels on the doors where coats of arms or other devices had been covered to keep them from the eyes of the hoi polloi. The men who arrived by train came in their own private cars, and were met by a closed carriage from the castle.
The appearance of these important men went largely unnoticed among the arrival of so many for the fete. This was, after all, the Festival of St. Simon, and rich as well as poor enjoyed a good festival. Friday had dawned bright and warm, with just enough breeze to make the crowd feel alert and truly festive. The meadow in front of the castle held over six score tents as well as entertainment areas and spaces for the vendors of St. Simon medals, Turkish warrior dolls, and other bright and shiny objects. Close to two thousand people were on hand this first day—and it wasn't even the weekend yet. This year's festival promised to be a good one. The mountebanks were clever, the jugglers and acrobats were agile, the food was tasty, the beer was thick, rich and foamy, the little St. Simon twists—a crescent-shaped pastry filled with whipped cream, made locally just for this festival—were a special treat.
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