“That is a point which I have considered,” Holmes replied coldly, then turned again to Freud. “And what has become of the widow?”
Freud hesitated.
“I have been unable to learn. Though she appears to be living here in Vienna, she is apparently even more of a recluse than her late husband.”
“Which means she may not be here at all,” I suggested.
There was a silence as Holmes contemplated this information, docketing it in the appropriate pigeon-hole of his brain.
“Perhaps,” he conceded, “though such a seclusion is of course understandable. She is in mourning, knows few people in this country—unless she has been here before—and she speaks little or no German. Certainly she has not spent any time in Vienna.”
He rose and looked at his watch.
“Doctor, is your wife prepared to join us? I believe you said the curtain was at half-past eight?”
Too much has been written about the fabled Vienna Opera House—and by more eloquent pens than mine—for me to attempt a description of that fabulous theatre. Yet I, visiting it in the heyday of its elegance, and at the zenith of Vienna’s opulence, had never beheld such concentrated magnificence as was exhibited that night. The sparkling chandeliers were only to be compared with the jewellery worn by the gorgeously apparelled ladies in the audience. How I wish Mary could have seen the sight ! Diamonds shone on brocade, on velvet, and on silken skin, so that the spectators, it may truly be said, rivalled the spectacle.
The opera being given that night was something or other of Wagner’s, but I cannot remember for the life of me just what it was. Holmes adored Wagner; he said it helped him to introspect, though I cannot see how this was possible. I loathed that music with a passion. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open and my ears closed as I endeavoured to get through that interminable evening. Holmes, seated on my right, was utterly enrapt with the music from the moment it commenced. He spoke only once, and that was to point out the great Vitelli, a short fellow with an atrocious blond hairpiece and chubby legs, who was engaged in the central part. I can state with certainty that his legs were chubby, because his bearskin costume allowed for a generous view of them. He was indeed past his prime.
“In any case, he should not attempt Wagner,” Holmes remarked afterwards. “It is not his genre “
Genre, or not, prime or not, Holmes was in another world for two solid hours; his eyes were closed much of the time and his hands waved unobtrusively in his lap to the music, whilst my eyes roved restlessly about the theatre, seeking a respite from the enveloping boredom.
If any person in that place was more wearied by the opera than I, it was Freud. His eyes were closed, not in concentration but in sleep, for which I envied him. Every now and again he would begin to snore, but Frau Freud would nudge him on these occasions and he would awaken with a startled expression, looking about in confusion. Waltzes, and little else besides, were the extent of his feeling for music. Holmes’s desire to attend the opera had prompted his invitation. No doubt he wished to encourage the first sign of interest in the outside world on the part of his patient. Once here, however, Freud was unable to respond to either the singing or the stage effects, some of which were quite beguiling. He watched dully when a dragon, cleverly simulated by a most complex piece of machinery, appeared at one point and the great Vitelli prepared to slay‡ it. The dragon, however, began to sing, and that soon sent Freud off to sleep again. It must have had the same effect on me. The next thing I knew the gas was up and people were rising from their seats.
During this first interval I gave my arm to Frau Freud and we four sauntered to the vestibule in search of champagne. As we drew near the overhanging boxes of the first tier, Holmes stopped and looked up at them.
“If Baron Von Leinsdorf patronised the theatre,” said he quietly, amidst the throng, “then perhaps he also maintained a box at the opera.” He indicated the boxes with a flicker of his eyelids, but did not incline his head.
“Surely,” agreed Freud, suppressing a yawn. “But I obtained no definite information on the subject.”
“Let us make an effort to find out,” Holmes suggested, and moved towards the foyer.
Those aristocratic or wealthy families so fortunate as to possess a box had no need to stand in the press seeking refreshment; liveried attendants kept a special supply on hand for them and brought it right to the box. For the rest of us, it required a combination of ingenuity and daring (as at the old Criterion Bar) to squeeze one’s way past an outer circle of ladies and through an inner congregation of gentlemen, all pounding the bar for service.
Leaving Freud and his wife to chat, Holmes and I volunteered to run this gauntlet, and shortly returned victorious, though indeed I had spilt most of my own glass when I swerved too late from the path of an energetic young man coming in the opposite direction.
We found Freud talking with a very tall and dandified gentleman who looked younger at first glance than at the second. Fastidiously dressed, he peered at the world through the thickest-lensed pince-nez I think I have ever seen. His features were handsome and regular and exceedingly earnest, though he smiled slightly when Freud introduced us.
“May I present Hugo Von Hofmannsthal. My wife you know, I believe, and these gentlemen are my guests, Herr Holmes and Dr. Watson.”
Von Hofmannsthal was obviously surprised.
“Not Herr Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson?” he demanded. “This is indeed an honour!”
“No less for ourselves,” Holmes responded smoothly, with an inclination of his head, “if we are addressing the author of Gestern.”
The grave, middle-aged man bowed and blushed to the roots of his hair, a reaction of pleased embarrassment I should not have associated with his demeanour. I did not know what this Gestern Holmes referred to might be, and so kept tactfully silent.
For some moments we stood in a small knot, idly drinking champagne, whilst Holmes engaged Von Hofmannsthal in an animated discussion of his operas and quizzed him about his collaborator, someone named Richard Strauss, who was, however, no relation that I could determine to the Strauss of waltz fame.§ Our new acquaintance replied as best he could in halting English, and, turning aside Holmes’s more complex questions about which poetic metre he preferred to use in comedy, asked about our presence in Vienna.
“Is it that you on a Case are here?” he wondered, his eyes bright as a schoolboy’s with eagerness.
“Yes and no,” Holmes responded. “Tell me,” he went on, before the other could pursue the new topic of conversation, “does the new Baron Von Leinsdorf take the same interest in the opera that his father did?”
The question was such an unexpected one that Von Hofmannsthal quite forgot himself for a moment and simply stared at my companion. I understood the logic behind it, however; if Von Hofmannsthal was part of the operatic scene in Vienna, his knowledge of its patrons would almost certainly be intimate.
“It is strange that you should ask,” the poet replied slowly, twirling the stem of his glass absently as he spoke.
“Why strange?” asked Freud, who had been following the exchange with keen interest.
“Because until tonight my answer would have been no.” Von Hofmannsthal spoke in rapid but clearly enunciated German. “I have never known him to take any interest in opera at all, and, to be candid, I feared that music in Vienna had lost a powerful benefactor when the old Baron died.”
“And now?” Holmes asked.
“And now,” returned the poet in English, “he comes to the opera.”
“He is here tonight?”
Von Hofmannsthal, mystified, and partially convinced that Holmes’s question was directly connected with the progress of a case, nodded excitedly.
“Come. I show him to you.”
People were now wandering back into the theatre in response to the chimes which announced that the piece was about to resume. Von Hofmannsthal—though he was not sitting in the stalls (and had in fact been fetching ch
ampagne for someone who never received it when Freud encountered him)—led us down towards our seats. He then turned and pretended to be looking for someone he knew in the balconies and nudged Holmes gently with his elbow.
“There. Third from the centre on the left.”
We looked where he indicated and beheld a box with two figures sitting in it. First glance revealed a sumptuously attired lady with emeralds flashing in her intricately coiffed dark hair. She was seated motionless next to a handsome gentleman who was restlessly surveying the theatre throng with his opera glasses. Beneath them a well-trimmed beard adorned a strong chin and framed thin, sensual lips. Something was disturbingly familiar about that bearded chin, and I fancied for an instant that its owner was looking at us, so ostentatious was Hofmannsthal’s attempt to be discreet. He was a dramatist, of course, and believed that he was rendering Holmes a service in a criminal investigation (which in fact he was). Yet he allowed himself, I think, to be carried away by the melodramatic properties of the moment, although no doubt he meant well.
Suddenly, the gentleman in the box lowered his opera glasses and Freud and I gasped in chorus. It was the young villain with the scar whom Freud had trounced on the tennis courts at the Maumberg. If the Baron saw or recognised either of us, he gave no sign, and if Sherlock Holmes was aware of our reactions he too did not change his attitude.
“Who is the lady?” Holmes enquired behind me.
“Ah, that is his step-mother, I believe,” said Hofmannsthal, “the American heiress Nancy Osborn Slater Von Leinsdorf.”
I was still watching that frozen beauty as the house-lights went down, and I felt Holmes tugging at my sleeves, urging me to resume my seat. I did as directed, but reluctantly, and could not resist turning once more to gaze at that strange couple—the handsome young Baron and his chiselled, immobile companion whose emeralds gleamed in the dark from where she sat as the curtain rose on the second act.
* * *
* Holmes, in my opinion, was not forgetting his grammar, as Watson suggests, but rather quoting from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. Watson was obviously unfamiliar with the book (he preferred sea stories) or else had forgotten it. N.M.
† By an odd coincidence it was the inexplicable disappearance of this same ship some years later than Watson lists among Holmes’s unsolved cases. N.M.
‡ The opera would appear to have been Sigfried. N.M.
§ Holmes’s interest in Von Hofmannsthal and familiarity concerning his association with Strauss shows him to have been au courant regarding innovative artistic endeavour. Some decades hence the two artists were to overwhelm the world with Der Rosenkevalier. N.M.
CHAPTER XII
Revelations
IT NEED HARDLY BE SAID that whatever interest the second half of the opera held for me, the performance was utterly exploded by Hugo Von Hofmannsthar’s identification of the woman in Baron Von Leinsdorf’s box as his widow! My whirling brain endeavoured to grasp the information and make sense of it. Holmes was of no use at all; I tried to whisper to him during the prelude, but he silenced me with a demure finger on his lips and surrendered himself to the music, leaving me to my own excited speculations.
Here was another set of possibilities. Either the woman was in fact the fabulous widow of the munitions king, or she was an impostor. If she was whom she claimed—and I had certainly to own she looked the part—then who on earth was our client that she should be provided with such intimate information, and as a consequence (no doubt) have been abducted?
I stole a glance at Freud and saw that he, too, was pondering the problems. At first glance he appeared to be interesting himself in the plight of the man in the bearskin, but a flicker of his eyelids betrayed his errant thoughts.
In the landau, as we rode home afterwards, Holmes was of no help, refusing to discuss the matter and confining himself to comments about the performance.
When we had safely settled in the study at Bergasse 19, Freud bade his wife good night and offered us brandy and cigars. I accepted both, but Holmes contented himself with a lump of sugar plucked from the white china bowl in the kitchen. We were settled in our chairs and prepared to discuss our next move when Holmes mumbled an excuse and said he would return in a moment. Freud frowned as he left the room, pursed his lips and eyed me unhappily.
“Would you excuse me, too, Doctor? Or perhaps you had best come along.”
Mystified, I followed him as he strode rapidly out of the study and fairly raced up the stairs. Without knocking, he burst open the door of Holmes’s room. We found him staring at a syringe and a bottle of what I knew to be cocaine, sitting upon the top of the bureau. He did not seem surprised to see us, but I was so startled to discover him in this attitude that I simply gaped at the sight. Freud remained motionless as well. He and Holmes appeared to be holding some form of silent communion. At last, with a short rueful smile, the detective broke the silence.
“I was just considering it,” said he, slowly and a trifle mournful.
“So your lump of sugar informed me,” Freud told him. “Some of your methods are not unrelated to medical observations, you know. At any rate, you must ponder well: you cannot be of service to us or to the lady you undertook to help this morning at the hospital if you revert to this practice now.”
“I know it.”
He stared again at the bottle on the dresser, his chin propped up in his palms. The cocaine and the syringe took on the bizarre aspect of offerings at an altar. I shuddered to think how many wretched folk were forced by their compulsion to view narcotics as a religion and a God, but I knew before Holmes rose and turned away from them that he was no longer of their number.
He scooped up the vial and needle and casually handed them to Freud (I never did learn how or where he had procured them) and, picking up his black briar, followed us out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Returning to our chairs in the study, Freud chose not to allude to the incident. Instead, he related our encounter with the young Baron at the Maumberg, a recital to which the detective listened without comment, except to remark, “No backhand? That is interesting. How was his service?”
I interrupted this curious line of enquiry to ask if Holmes had arrived at any conclusions regarding the case.
“Only the obvious ones,” he returned, “and they must remain provisional, subject to further data and subsequently to proof.”
“How are they distinguished?” Freud demanded.
“In a court of law, I am afraid. We may come to all the conclusions we please, but unless we can prove them we might just as well have remained in bed.” He chuckled, and helped himself to the brandy he had declined earlier. “They have been very clever: deuced clever. And where their cleverness has not availed, nature has come to their rescue by presenting us with awitness whose testimony is not only limited but would undoubtedly be suspect if not totally invalid in court.”
He sat in silent thought, puffing at his briar while we watched, neither of us daring to break in upon his reflections.
“I am afraid my grasp of European politics is not particularly profound,” he sighed at last. “Dr. Freud, could you assist me?”
“In what way?”
“Oh, just a little general information. Prince Otto Von Bismarck is alive, is he not?”
“I believe so.”
“But he is no longer Germany’s chancellor?”
Freud stared at him, bewildered.
“Certainly not; not for nearly a year.”
“Ah.” He lapsed into profound silence once more as Freud and I exchanged mystified glances.
“But look here, Herr Holmes, what has Von Bismarck to do with—?”
“Is it possible that you do not see?” Holmes sprang to his feet and began pacing the room. “No, no, I suppose not.” Then, returning to his chair he said, “A European war is brewing, that much is evident.”
We looked at him, thunderstruck.
“A European war?” I gasped.
&n
bsp; He nodded and looked about for another match.
“Of monstrous proportions, if I read the signs aright.”
“But how can you infer this from what you have seen today?” Freud’s tone indicated his gathering doubt concerning the detective’s state of mind.
“From the rapport between Baroness Von Leinsdorf and her step-son.”
“But I did not observe any particular rapport,” I struck in, my own tones echoing those of our host.
“That is because there was none.”
He set down his glass and looked at us keenly with his grey eyes.
“Doctor Freud, is there an office of registry in Vienna where wills are on file?”
“Wills? Why, yes, of course.”
“Then I should be obliged if you would have the goodness to spend some time there tomorrow morning and tell me who controls the bulk of Baron Von Leinsdorf’s estate.”
“I have a patient at ten,” the doctor protested automatically, but Holmes smiled grimly and held up a hand.
“Will you believe me when I tell you that not one but millions of lives are at stake?”
“Very well. I shall do as you ask. And what will you do?”
“With the help of Doctor Watson I will search for a chink in the armour of our enemies,” Holmes responded, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “Can our client travel tomorrow, do you think?”
“Travel? How far?”
“Oh, only within the city. I should like her to meet someone.”
Freud considered this for some moments.
“I don’t see why not,” he answered dubiously. “She appears in perfect health aside from her condition and the feebleness imposed by an inadequate diet, and that should be somewhat remedied already.”
Holmes rose and yawned, tapping his mouth lightly with the back of his hand. “Our day has been long,” he observed, “and as the succeeding ones promise to be still longer, I think it time to retire.”
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution Page 14
