Nicholas Meyer (18 page)

"They returned to Europe on the cutter
Alicia
* sometime in mid-March," Freud resumed, "and went straight to the Baron's villa in Bavaria—a virtually inaccessible retreat, I am told—where the Baron died some three weeks ago."

* By an odd coincidence it was the inexplicable disappearance of this same ship some years later that Watson lists among Holmes's unsolved cases.

"A little more than two months," Holmes pondered. Then, opening his eyes, he asked: "Were you able to determine the cause of death?"

Freud shook his head. "He was no longer young, as I have said."

"But in good health?"

"So far as I was able to learn."

"That is interesting."

"But hardly conclusive," I interposed. "After all, when an elderly man—even one enjoying the benefits of good health—takes a wife less than half his age—"

"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

pigeonhole 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 jewelry 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 may truly be said to have 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
forte
."

Forte
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 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.

* The opera would appear to have been
Siegfried
, though Watson's memory seems to play him false when he attributes the dragon's demise to the first act.

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 patronized 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 dandy 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.

* 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 these two artists were to overwhelm the world with
Der Rosenkavalier
.

"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 here 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 champagne 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 Von 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 recognized 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 Von 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 sleeve, 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 chiseled, immobile

companion whose emeralds gleamed in the dark from where she sat as the curtain rose on the second act.

*12*—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 Hofmannsthal'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 problem. 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 mournfully.

"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."