Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Dying Emperor

by Thomas A. Turley

  18 The German physician who made this diagnosis, Dr. Moritz Schmidt, saw fit to include it in a public lecture on the case, to the Crown Prince’s consternation. For the events Sir Henry Ponsonby describes, see Mackenzie, pp. 67–79.

  19 Prince Alexander of Battenberg (1857–1893) was the second son of the Prince of Hesse by a morganatic marriage. His uncle, Tsar Alexander II, secured the throne of Bulgaria for him in 1879, after that country achieved autonomy from the Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Berlin. When the Prince proved ineffective, two Russian generals were dispatched to rule on his behalf. In 1883, however, Alexander restored Bulgaria’s constitution and began to champion his people’s aspirations. His annexation of (largely Bulgarian) Eastern Roumelia in 1885 set off a war with Serbia; but Alexander’s army, even deprived of Russian officers, defeated the forces of King Milan (whom Watson revealed as the “King of Bohemia” in his story “A Scandal in Serbia”) at the Battle of Slivnitsa. Unfortunately, the Prince’s rejection of Russian domination angered Tsar Alexander III, who had his cousin kidnapped and forced to abdicate in 1886. Even though Sandro’s betrothal to Princess Viktoria of Germany (called “Moretta” by her family) had been rumored throughout the 1880’s, he eventually married an actress, settled in Austria, and died at 36. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_of_Battenberg.

  20 Sir Frederick Ponsonby covers the “Sandro” crisis, and Queen Victoria’s eventual visit to Charlottenburg, on pp. 293–304. See also Longford, pp. 505–506, and Röhl, pp. 800–808.

  21 Dr. James Reid succeeded Jenner as Queen Victoria’s physician-in-ordinary in 1889, having served at the palace for eight years. The Queen had sought a Scots physician fluent in German to treat the visiting German members of her extended family. Reid’s candor, tact, and humor quickly earned Her Majesty’s trust. Given a baronetcy in 1898, Reid remained Victoria’s primary physician until her death. The Queen “would open her heart to him in conversations varying from whether dogs had souls and an after-life to her hatred of Gladstone ...” He died in 1923. See “Sir James Reid and the Death of Queen Victoria: An Early Model for End-of-Life Care,” by Robert C. Abrams, M.D.” The Gerontologist, Volume 55, Issue 6 (1 December 2015), pp. 943–950, online at: https://academic.oup.com/gerontologist/article/55/6/943/2605449.

  Chapter 2: An Evening in Charlottenburg

  Early on the afternoon of April 10, Sherlock Holmes and I were comfortably ensconced inside a spacious, velvet-lined compartment, while our express rolled over what my friend unkindly called “the featureless north German plain.” Having enjoyed a delicious and satisfying luncheon, and noting that we were on schedule for Berlin, I could not fail to be impressed by the luxury and efficiency of German railways. I saw, on consulting my Baedeker[22], that we were approaching Magdeburg - once a stronghold of Reformation Lutheranism, now the headquarters of an army corps. I pointed out to Holmes the great citadel built upon an island in the middle of the Elbe, with bridges extended to both banks and bastions advanced to fortify the town in all directions. The very symbol of German military might!

  My companion only grunted. Although this journey was my first lengthy one with Sherlock Holmes, I was aware that he valued rail travel chiefly as an opportunity for undistracted thought. He had said little since departing Hanover, engrossed in the voluminous materials provided by his contact in Whitehall. As always, he had rebuffed my efforts to discuss our mission before he had fully mastered all the facts.

  Finally, Holmes abandoned his papers with a sigh, smiling ruefully at the desiccated contents of his luncheon tray, delivered from the dining car but soon forgotten.

  “What are you reading, Watson?”

  I handed him my book: Melville Landon’s The Franco-Prussian War in a Nutshell, purchased several years before in San Francisco. “I had not remembered,” I remarked as he ruffled through its pages, “that Frederick, as crown prince, played so heroic a role in the Wars of German Unification. His army’s arrival at Königgrätz saved the battle for the Prussians, and later he won several victories against the French.”

  My friend shook his head. “Alas, Watson, his wartime service may prove to be the Emperor’s only lasting legacy. It seems ironic that a man of his temperament should win fame as a soldier. For all his valour, Frederick had hoped to unite Germany by peaceful means. He and his wife opposed Bismarck’s policy of ‘Blood and Iron.’”

  “He has had a long wait for the throne.”

  “Yes, it is sad to see the years of a man’s prime wasted. Our own Albert Edward is hardly an example of patience in adversity.”

  I laughed, recalling Holmes’ disdain for the Prince of Wales. “But Crown Prince William seems more impatient still.”

  “Indeed. I had an interesting conversation in Whitehall on Sunday concerning that young man - if nine-and-twenty can really be considered ‘young.’”

  “I wondered where you’d gone. Mrs. Hudson was not pleased that you missed luncheon, especially after you evicted our visitors before she could serve tea.”

  “Tea, so soon after breakfast?” My friend had little time for the travails of our good landlady. “Doctor, do you know a surgeon named John Erichsen?”

  “Only by reputation, Holmes. He is past president of the Royal College of Surgeons and has an appointment to the palace. We seldom move in the same circles! An elderly man now, I believe, originally Danish.[23] Was he the person whom you met in Whitehall?”

  “No, my informant was in government. However, he showed me some notes that Erichsen had written, recording the results of a long-distance consultation last year with Prince William’s surgeons. One was von Bergmann, the chief opponent of Mackenzie. Erichsen’s memorandum outlined possible mental effects of the chronic inner ear infections William has suffered since his youth. I have a copy of it here.”

  I read the document with growing horror. “Good heavens, Holmes! It says here that the Prince ‘is not, and never will be, a normal man!’ That ‘when angry, he will be incapable of forming a reasoned or temperate judgement.’ That ‘some of his actions will probably be those of a man not wholly sane!’ Has the German government been apprised of this report?”

  “Not entirely, Watson. Erichsen felt it prudent not to communicate his concern for William’s sanity, so he restricted himself to a purely medical diagnosis of the case. His conclusion was that should the purulent discharge from the diseased ears ever cease, the infection could attack Prince William’s brain - in which case he would be in grave peril not only of his mind but of his life.[24] Do you think that outcome likely?”

  “I would hardly set my judgement against that of an expert in the field. But if there is even a chance that Erichsen is right, then William’s accession would be a danger to all Europe!”

  “The Prime Minister agrees. His private secretary has instructed me to deliver this document to Bismarck when we reach Berlin. Perhaps it will convince him that the devil he knows - Frederick III, that is to say - is preferable to the one who would succeed him. I am to moot the idea of setting the Crown Prince aside and passing the succession to his brother Henry, either directly or as regent for William’s little son.”[25]

  “Let us hope the Chancellor sees the wisdom of that course.” It was I who sat silent as we rode through Brandenburg, the ancient seat of Hohenzollern power. All too soon, I feared, that royal house and its great empire would be ruled by a potential madman.

  “What a dull-looking town,” sighed Sherlock Holmes. “What is that monstrosity?”

  “The Rathaus,” I replied, glancing at my guide-book. “It dates from the fourteenth century, but - as even Baedeker admits - was ‘disfigured’ by its modernisation in the eighteenth.”

  My friend gave one of his sardonic barks. “How much longer, Doctor, before we arrive in Berlin?”

  “About an hour.” Typically, Holmes had been too absorbed in his research to cons
ult anything so mundane as a timetable.

  “Time enough to tell you of my second interview on Sunday. It was with another laryngologist, Dr. Felix Semon.[26] I was able to see him just prior to his departure for the Isle of Wight.” In response to his glance of enquiry, I could only shake my head.

  “Dr. Semon is a German Jew, who has lived in England since the middle ‘Seventies. He is still a young man and was once Mackenzie’s protégé, but he described his mentor’s character in most demeaning terms. In Semon’s view, Sir Morell is ‘a money-grubbing charlatan!’ Realising from his first examination that Frederick was doomed, he sent the dying man from Germany to Britain, then to the Alps and Riviera, merely to increase his travel fees and the scenic beauty of their periodic consultations. Mackenzie also, Semon said, colluded with Empress Victoria to hide the nature of her husband’s illness until it could no longer be denied.”

  “Surely, all that is preposterous, Holmes!”

  “Is it? Well, Watson, I should normally discount the opinion of a rival, for Semon admitted that he had hoped to treat the Emperor himself last year in London. He is also a childhood friend of Herbert Bismarck, the Chancellor’s son, and regularly primes him with information to use against Mackenzie. Yet, however venomous, Dr. Semon remains a leading laryngologist; and he confirmed the German doctors on the one essential point.”

  “Which is?”

  “That the removal of his larynx - despite its probability of killing Frederick or reducing him what Semon called ‘a deplorable, even suicidal mental state’ - was nonetheless the only possibility of saving him. Now, even with his tracheotomy, the Emperor will survive two years at best, in what Semon described as ‘ever-increasing agony.’ If that is the prognosis, it places the actions of Prince William in a rather different light.”

  “How so? He tried to force an exceedingly dangerous operation on his father, and when that failed, usurped his position as putative regent. Given what we now know of the young man’s mental state, such actions to me seem quite in character.”

  “As for ‘usurping the regency,’ Watson, how could Frederick have exercised the powers of a regent from San Remo? Whatever her motives, the fact that the Crown Princess kept the heir to the throne out of Berlin for nine full months, while his aged father slid slowly towards the grave, created a political vacuum. It was not unreasonable, given the circumstances, that Bismarck proposed the old Emperor’s grandson as the best option to take his father’s place.”

  “From that perspective, I suppose you have a point.”

  Holmes glanced fleetingly outside our window, where a tower commemorated the Brandenburgers killed in Bismarck’s wars. “Remember, Doctor,” he reminded me, “that we have received conflicting information from many different sources, all of whom have interests of their own. We must weigh this information without prejudice, and draw our own conclusions when we reach Berlin.”

  By this time, the environs of that great city could be seen on the horizon. We arrived at its western terminal at sunset and, after retrieving our baggage, hired a diligence for the short drive into Charlottenburg. Our route took us through the Thiergarten, Berlin’s most famous public park. Had I been less weary, I might have been receptive to its beauties. As matters stood, the overhanging trees seemed ominous in twilight, and the well-wrought statues of Prussian kings and poets vaguely threatening. Holmes, to my relief, was as hungry as I was when we reached the town. A fine dinner of pork knuckles and sauerkraut, washed down with a tankard of beer, soon dispelled my gloomy thoughts. Departing the café, we traversed a gracefully arched bridge over the canal, with the lights from Schloss Charlottenburg reflected in the darkening water.

  The Schloss itself was a study in rococo elegance.[27] Designed two centuries before, it was built of yellow stone, with two front wings in opposition to its central portion, which was crowned by a rather outsized dome. Unlike the Gothic fantasies of Bavaria’s mad king, the impression Charlottenburg conveyed was of serenity and grace, qualities that seemed appropriate for the enlightened ruler we had come to meet.

  Yet, all was not serene when we arrived. A crowd had gathered in the well-lit street outside the gates, where a large man in clerical garb was delivering a stentorian address. With a sharp word to the driver, Holmes halted our equipage and proposed that we proceed on foot.

  “That is Adolf Stoecker,”[28] he informed me, “a right-wing politician and notorious anti-Semite. The former emperor appointed him court chaplain.” He restrained me from approaching any closer. “Let us stop and hear whatever poison he is spewing.”

  My German was too poor to follow the harangue; but my interpreter reported that Pastor Stoecker was roundly denouncing the English, the doctors, and the Jews - who in his exposition all seemed intermixed. We heard encouraging shouts from his audience of: “Nieder mit den Juden!”, “Nieder mit den Englisch!”, and “Nieder mit Moritz Markovicz!” At this last bit of invective, Sherlock Holmes broke into a hearty laugh.

  “It appears, Watson, that the Berlin newspapers - along with the venerable man of God before us - have just learned that the English doctor attending their emperor is actually a Jew! His real name is now asserted to be ‘Moritz Markovicz.’”

  “But that is nonsense, Holmes!”

  “Of course it is.” Momentarily distracted, he looked beyond Stoecker towards the palace gates, where the Gardes du Corps had remained stolidly oblivious to the uproar in the street. Now the guards were letting through a young, clean-shaven man who set out in our direction. Having his back to the crowd, he failed to attract either their attention or the orator’s.

  “Dr. Watson?” With a pleasant smile, this harbinger - who was obviously British - looked uncertainly between myself and my companion. I nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Mark Hovell,” he informed us. “I am assistant surgeon to Sir Morell Mackenzie.”

  “How do you do, Dr. Hovell? May I introduce Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Delighted, Mr. Holmes,” he said, “but I am likewise ‘mister’ - a humble M.R.C.S.[29] Welcome to Charlottenburg! Sir Morell has asked me to offer his regrets. We weren’t quite sure when to expect you, and he has an audience with the Emperor this evening.”

  “An audience, you say?” my friend enquired, “rather than a consultation?”

  “In this instance, it was not a medical matter, but a private one.” Our new acquaintance seemed slightly ill at ease. “Shall we go in? I presume that cab is yours.”

  Holmes did not reply, and I noticed that the booming voice in the background had now fallen silent. I turned to find Stoecker and his flock regarding the three of us with undisguised hostility.

  “Also, Herr Hovell,” intoned the formidable cleric in heavily accented English. “You bring more Englishmen into the Schloss? More Jews to assist Moritz Markovicz in murdering our Kaiser?”

  Hovell remained admirably calm, despite the angry murmurs. “You know perfectly well, Parson Stoecker, that Sir Morell Mackenzie is not a Jew. Nor are these gentlemen. And, yes, I am bringing them into the palace.”

  “Are you?” jeered the Parson, his porcine face creased into an evil smile. “Well, now, perhaps we will not permit it. Perhaps, when Kronprinz Wilhelm comes into his own, you Englishmen and Jews will all be dealt with!”

  “Perhaps so,” Hovell steadily replied, “but you may rest assured that Sir Morell and I are working to postpone that day as long as possible.”

  “Ja, we know what you and Moritz Markovicz are working for!” the cleric snarled. “But tonight, so Gott will, we will keep you here with us!” He gestured briefly; and his followers (most of whom were burly, ill-dressed Aryans of military age) quickly dispersed to block us from the palace gates.

  “I think not,” said Mark Hovell. Taking from his pocket a small whistle, he blew three long blasts. Instantly, we heard orders being shouted from the courtyard of Charlottenburg, and a squa
dron of the Gardes du Corps (with their eagle-crested helmets, glittering cuirasses, and drawn swords[30]) came marching at the double-time. Opening the gates, they pushed through Stoecker’s mob and cordoned off our diligence, while their officer respectfully - but firmly - kept the livid clergyman from interfering. Hovell, Holmes, and I quickly climbed into the cab; and a moment later we found ourselves before the entrance to the Emperor Frederick’s palace.

  Its imposing doors had been thrown open; and a balding, bearded man, of wary and distrustful mien, stood waiting in the outer hall to greet us. “Good evening, gentlemen!” he called out cordially, bowing and clicking his heels in a parody of Teutonic salutation. “I am Count Radolinsky, the Kaiser’s Hof-Marschall.

  “I am also,” he confided, when Holmes and I had entered the hall and introduced ourselves, “the resident spy for Prince Bismarck, just as you gentlemen” - with a genial nod, he included Hovell - “are the resident spies for Queen Victoria. Jawohl, Herr Holmes, we have heard of you in Germany! Why else would a noted detective travel to Charlottenburg, mere days before his sovereign is scheduled to arrive? My apologies for that disturbance in the street - although, I must confess, I had some part in organising it.”

  My friend smiled but did not bother to reply, for it was clear, as we passed through the baroque splendour of several drawing rooms, that the Count was in full flow and did not require an answer. Holmes, I knew, was mentally recording every detail of his chatter. Only once was Radolinski distracted: when we came into a beautifully frescoed room that was filled with shelves and cabinets of blue-and-white ceramic pottery (“Ah, the Porcelain Chamber!”). Many of its finest pieces were Chinese and might, a few years hence, have aroused the acquisitive urges of our future adversary Baron Gruner. Others (Radolinski told us) were locally produced at the royal porcelain factory nearby.[31]