by John Hall
‘Perhaps they don’t want a fuss within the palace itself ?’ I suggested. ‘These dungeons were probably part of the old palace, and have very likely witnessed more than their share of torture, and very possibly more than one discreet execution.’
‘I hope you are wrong, Watson – ah!’ Holmes sat up, alert, gazing at the door.
For a moment I could hear nothing, but then I detected a heavy footstep, a man striding along in boots, by the sound of it. Then a rattle as the key was inserted into the lock of the door.
Holmes and I struggled to our feet as the door opened, and a man dressed in an elaborate military uniform walked in. ‘Mr Holmes? Doctor Watson?’ He cursed softly. ‘Is there no lamp in this damned place?’
A second man, whom I recognized as the footman who had decoyed us here, scurried into the cell and lit the lamp.
‘Ah, that is better.’ He bowed, and clicked his heels. ‘Bertram von Gratz, gentlemen, at your service.’
Von Gratz! This, then, was that good friend of the king, and of the erstwhile Miss Adler, who had taken the famous photograph which had caused so much trouble, first to the king, then to Mrs Norton herself, and now looked likely to inconvenience the king for a second time, unless Holmes and I were able to prevent it. Von Gratz was a handsome enough man, the sort of man who looks younger than the calendar would convey, tall and broad-shouldered, with dark curly hair and black eyes which regarded us keenly.
‘I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is Doctor Watson.’
‘An honour, sir.’ Von Gratz stepped further into the cell, and told the footman, ‘Leave us.’
‘Very good, Herr Oberst-Baron.’ He went out, closing the door but leaving it unlocked.
Von Gratz smiled without humour. ‘I should tell you that there are two armed guards outside,’ he said in an offhand manner. ‘Now, Mr Holmes, I must ask you what is this nonsense about the king and Miss Adler? Or Mrs Norton, as I understand she is now?’
Holmes frowned. ‘The king has told you nothing?’
‘About what?’
‘I understood you were a good friend of His Majesty?’
Von Gratz put a hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘I have that honour, sir,’ he said stiffly.
‘H’mm. His Majesty would tell you if there had been any threat?’
‘What sort of threat?’
In a few words, Holmes outlined the situation as we knew it. When he mentioned the photograph, von Gratz’s stern expression softened, only to grow thunderous when Holmes mentioned Karl, the king’s illegitimate half-brother. And when Holmes explained that Karl had stolen the Adler papers and proposed to use them to force the king’s abdication, von Gratz made fluent use of the lower sort of German expressions, employing some words and phrases which were entirely new to me, but which I mentally noted for future use. When he had exhausted his extensive vocabulary, he struck the table top with his open hand. ‘But there has been no threat of any sort, not up to now,’ he told us. ‘I can swear to that.’
‘Mrs Norton did think that Karl and his confederate, Gottfried, would keep the photograph back until the last minute,’ I reminded Holmes.
Von Gratz nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense. If they were to show their hand too soon, then we – the king, I mean, and his loyal friends – could make plans accordingly.’ He glanced around the room, as if seeing it for the first time, and roared with laughter. ‘I should have apologized for these sordid surroundings, gentlemen, but when I was told who you were, and heard something of why you were here, I thought that perhaps –’ and he broke off in evident embarrassment.
‘You thought that perhaps we proposed a little blackmail on our own account?’ suggested Holmes.
‘No! That is – well, Mr Holmes, I knew that you were privy to the king’s most secret business, and I knew nothing of Mrs Norton’s troubles, Karl’s theft of the photograph, and so forth. So I naturally thought that discretion was indicated. And now you have confirmed that I was right. I may have misjudged you, gentlemen, but I can at least claim some small credit for spotting the danger to the king.’ He laughed, then grew serious. ‘If I might prevail upon you to remain here just a short while more? I shall not lock you in this time, I assure you, but the fewer people who know you are here, the better. I must tell His Majesty what you have told me, then the four of us can meet in more select surroundings and make our plans together.’ He clicked his heels, bowed, and left. We heard him shouting orders in the corridor, and a moment later our old friend the footman rushed in, followed by a half dozen of his fellows, with chairs, a huge candelabrum, and a box of fine cigars.
We smoked in silence for a time, then I heard the heavy footsteps of von Gratz in the corridor. Holmes and I stood up as the door opened.
‘Gentlemen, my apologies for keeping you here,’ said von Gratz. ‘If you would follow me?’ and he led us into the corridor, stopping at the same concealed door by which we had originally come here. ‘A hackneyed device, I fear,’ he said with a laugh, ‘but useful enough under the circumstances.’ He lit a lamp, and led us up the stairs, along a maze of narrow passages, dusty and cobwebby, to what I took to be another secret door. He touched the latch, and we stepped out into a large, well-lit room, blinking as the light struck our eyes, which had grown accustomed to the dimness of the nether regions.
As we stepped through the concealed door, a tall man rose from the desk at which he had been seated, and held out a hand to us. ‘Mr Holmes! Doctor! Please sit down, and have a cigar.’
And I found myself shaking the hand of His Majesty Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, Count and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Grand Master of the Order of Saint Wenceslas and of the Order of Saint Hugh of Grenoble, and hereditary King of Bohemia.
FOUR
The king lit a cigar, stared at it in silence for a while, then threw it away with an exclamation of disgust. He then made some remarks, addressed to no-one in particular, and neither temperate nor brief in duration, regarding the villainous Karl.
When the king eventually paused for breath, Holmes said, ‘All that Your Majesty says concerning your half-brother may well be true –’
‘Particularly regarding his parentage!’ I muttered.
‘– but it hardly gets us anywhere,’ Holmes went on.
The king smiled. ‘You are right, of course, Mr Holmes, but I could not have given my full attention to the problem until I had got that off my chest, as they say. I assure you that there will be no further outburst of that sort.’
‘I am glad to hear Your Majesty say so.’ Holmes frowned. ‘You say that Karl and Gottfried have not yet shown their hand?’
The king shook his head. ‘There have been no threats, or anything of that kind.’
‘It occurs to me,’ I put in, ‘that we may have been precipitate in coming here at all. Possibly Karl is still in Paris, and the photograph with him?’
Holmes was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Your Majesty?’
The king shrugged his shoulders. ‘Bertie?’
Von Gratz said, ‘I imagine that Karl will want to seek the protection of Gottfried’s schloss as soon as possible. Paris is too dangerous, the criminal underworld holds men who, for a very few francs, would slit Karl’s throat for us. For anyone who would pay them, that is,’ he added, with a grim smile. ‘And another point is that Gottfried would wish for Karl, and the photograph, to be where he – Gottfried, I mean – can keep an eye on them.’
‘Oh?’ said Holmes quickly. ‘Is there some difference there, then? If so, might we not make use of that?’
‘It is what in English you would call “six of one and half a dozen of the other”, I think,’ said von Gratz. ‘They need one another, for Karl can hope for nothing on his own account; it is Gottfried who has some claim to the throne –’
Here the king snorted loudly, as if to dispute the last statement.
‘In his own opinion, sire,’ said von Gratz rather hastily.
‘Just so,’ said
the king, mollified.
‘You were saying –?’ said Holmes, with a touch of impatience.
‘Ah, yes. Karl, I say, needs Gottfried,’ von Gratz went on, ‘but then Gottfried is no hardened villain, no man of action. He needs Karl to do his dirty work for him. An uneasy truce, as you might say.’
I asked, ‘Could Your Majesty not simply arrest Karl? I understood that he had undertaken to leave Bohemia, never to return?’
The king frowned. ‘That arrangement was purely informal, between Karl and my late father,’ said he. ‘There is nothing in writing, nothing a judge would act upon, and Karl has, to outward appearance at least, committed no crime.’
‘And we do not even know for certain that he is here. Would there be any way of determining whether Karl has in fact entered Bohemia?’ asked Holmes, with no real conviction in his voice that such would prove to be the case. ‘You have police, customs officials?’
Von Gratz shook his head. ‘The customs examination, as doubtless you know at first hand, is concerned with tobacco and spirits only. There is no need for visitors to show a passport, and even if there were any enquiry, Karl is quite capable of producing forged papers. Unless he were to use his real name, we cannot hope to tell if he is here in the country or not.’
‘I see,’ said Holmes.
There was a silence, broken only by the king’s saying, half to himself, ‘I could almost sympathize with Karl. He is my half-brother, when all is said and done. My father made him a generous allowance, did you know that? I only found out months after my father’s death, when the allowance had ceased, of course. I tried to contact Karl, to make some amends, perhaps offer to continue the payments. Extend the hand of friendship at the very least. But my agents could not trace him, he had moved house. He has, perhaps, reason to be angry. The merest accident of birth –’ and he shrugged his shoulders and relapsed into a moody silence.
I could see what he meant, to some extent. Only the absence of a wedding ring, a certificate, prevented Karl from being king. On the other hand, I had seen many a man – and woman, too – in the poorer districts of London, who had not even those advantages which Karl had inherited, and who had made their way honestly, without railing at their parents, or at fate, because they had not been born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths.
The king broke the silence again. ‘I must apologize for your offhand treatment,’ he told us, ‘but I could not be sure that your intentions were honourable. You are aware of the situation, yes? Then you will understand that just at the moment I am perhaps a trifle susceptible to fears and fancies. Again, I apologize for my unworthy suspicions of you.’
‘Fears, fancies and suspicions not altogether without foundation, I must say,’ said Holmes, ‘though Your Majesty failed to identify the true source of those fears, et cetera.’
The king managed a smile. ‘True, and I should have known from which quarter the threat would come.’
Holmes nodded. ‘To sum it up, then, we think that Karl will have entered Bohemia undetected, unsuspected, and that he is now in Gottfried’s castle?’
The king and von Gratz nodded agreement.
‘And the photograph?’ Holmes continued. ‘Will that be in the castle, or elsewhere?’
‘The castle,’ said von Gratz. ‘They would wish to know that it was where they can lay hands on it instantly.’
‘I agree,’ said the king.
‘Very well,’ said Holmes. ‘The problem thus resolves itself into how to enter the castle and recover the photograph.’
Von Gratz laughed aloud, and even the king permitted a smile to enliven his dour features. ‘You put it simply, Mr Holmes,’ said von Gratz, ‘but it will not be quite so easy as you make it sound. Schloss Württemburg is well-nigh impregnable, proof against all but a prolonged siege.’
‘And moreover,’ added the king, ‘we – I – dare not be seen using the army against Gottfried. For one thing, questions, awkward questions, would be asked. And for another, Gottfried’s supporters would very likely take up arms on his behalf.’
Holmes frowned. ‘I was given to understand that the army is loyal to Your Majesty?’
‘It is,’ said the king. ‘But the army, however loyal, is only small. Excellent fellows, every one of them, and they would fight to the death for me, for Bohemia, or for the honour of their regiments, but loyalty and bravery cannot replace sheer force of numbers. Faced with the armies of our neighbours, Prussia, let us say, or our cousin the Tsar’s Cossacks – well! As I said, it would be to the death, no doubt of that; but equally there is no doubt as to who the victors would be.’
‘Even so,’ said Holmes, ‘what forces could Gottfried field against a loyal and determined army, even if its numbers are not great?’
‘The business classes,’ said the king. ‘Gottfried has led a blameless life – unlike myself ! You must understand that the political situation in my country is a very delicate balance of power between internal factions. The army depends for its funds upon taxes, that is to say upon the merchant class, who in turn rely upon the army for protection from covetous neighbouring powers. Gottfried appeals strongly to the merchants and lawyers, who see his outlook as mirroring their own. If those men were to witness what would seem to be military action against a Bohemian nobleman who had committed no crime, and a nobleman with whom they so closely sympathize, they would be very inclined to be troublesome. Possibly they would even invite one of our neighbouring countries to send its armies into Bohemia to “restore order”, as the convenient diplomatic phrase has it. An invitation which some of our neighbours would not hesitate to accept, I might add.’
‘And as a further consideration,’ added von Gratz, ‘if there were any unrest, we might expect some trouble from those anarchists and nihilists who have recently been active across Europe.’
‘And here?’ asked Holmes quickly.
Von Gratz shook his head. ‘Nothing to speak of as yet, thank Heaven! We arrested one misguided young man, a student at the university here in Dopzhe, who attacked the Prime Minister with a knife three months ago. And a workman threw a bomb at the royal carriage last year, but without doing any harm, the bomb failed to go off and the anarchist was shot by the guards. But there have been pamphlets, posters on the walls of public buildings, the customary prelude to civil unrest.’
‘H’mm. I had not realized that the political situation was quite so complex,’ said Holmes.
Personally, I thought this something of an understatement. If Holmes and I were to tackle not only the king’s half-brother, and Duke Gottfried, and the massed shopkeepers of Bohemia, but also sundry anarchists wielding knives and bombs, and we could not even rely upon the support of the army, then it rather looked as if we should have our work cut out! Pointless saying as much, of course, so I tried to look as wise as I might under the circumstances.
Holmes thought in silence for a moment, all eyes upon him. Then he slapped his hands down on his knees, as if he had come to a decision, and stood up. ‘If it is not to be by force of arms, then it must be by stealth,’ he told us. ‘I confess that I am not altogether unhappy at the prospect, for I always think that I work better alone, and best of all with Watson by my side. I shall, however, need someone with local knowledge, were that possible.’
‘Bertie?’ said the king.
Von Gratz stood up and clicked his heels. ‘It will be an honour to work with the celebrated Sherlock Holmes,’ said he. ‘I have known the area well, since I was a boy.’
‘And you may rely upon me in all respects,’ said the king. ‘All, that is, save one. I cannot appear in this matter at all. The cavalier treatment meted out to you just now, the delicate situation I have outlined – one was a symptom, the other the cause, of my distress.’ He put a hand to his brow. ‘I dare not be seen to be employing an agent, much less a foreign agent. I dare not be seen to be acting against my own cousin, much less my half-brother. Above all, I must avoid any suspicion, any breath of scandal, at least for the next year u
ntil the treaty is signed with the King of Scandinavia.’
‘I understand perfectly, Your Majesty,’ said Holmes with a bow.
So did I. All the oft-repeated apologies, all the detailed explanations, boiled down to the plain fact that we were on our own. If we failed, we should take the blame for the ruin of the king, and Bohemia along with him, while if we succeeded, we should get no praise. And if we were discovered, the king would throw us to the wolves! I bowed in my turn, took the prescribed three steps backwards, and started to follow Holmes to the door.
‘A moment, gentlemen,’ said von Gratz. ‘With your permission, sire?’ And he sought the secret panel, opened it, and took the lamp from its hook just inside the concealed passage. ‘A necessary precaution,’ he told us with a smile, before bowing to the king and leading the way through the opening in the wall.
We followed him through the maze of corridors, until he opened another door and we emerged into a plainly furnished sitting room. ‘My own humble quarters,’ von Gratz told us. He waved us to chairs and handed us his cigar case. ‘A brandy and soda? No? In that case, we had best get down to business. Mr Holmes, you said that we must effect an entrance to Schloss Württemburg by stealth, rather than direct attack, and we all agree as to that. I must now ask, have you formed any plan of campaign?’
‘Not as yet,’ Holmes was forced to admit. ‘I was hoping that you could tell me something more of Gottfried and his castle, some information that might perhaps be of use to us?’
Von Gratz considered the end of his cigar carefully. ‘Where to start?’ he mused.
‘Start with the name,’ I suggested. ‘I had thought that Württemburg was much further west, in Germany?’
‘Ah, you are thinking of the province of Baden-Württemburg, perhaps?’ said von Gratz. ‘No connection at all, Doctor. Our historians have postulated that there may have been some historical link between the two places, and I believe that the university here has awarded several doctorates to internationally noted scholars for research on the matter, but no real conclusion has ever been reached.’
