by David Marcum
“So you see, Mr. Holmes,” Count Vukčić added firmly, “It would profit my Prince little to invent false plots against the King of Serbia. You have my word of honour that ‘this so-called conspiracy’ to murder him exists.”
My friend seemed less pleased than flummoxed by this resolution of his doubts. Before he could reply to Vukčić, I took the opportunity to create a diversion.
“Pardon me, Your Excellency, but there is one important question still to be discussed. How are Holmes and I to obtain an audience with King Alexander?”
“Why, Doctor, that is all arranged,” cried Irene Adler merrily, “and we have you to thank for it! Queen Draga,” she went on, “has informed me that His Majesty is a great admirer of your works. She bought The Hound of the Baskervilles for him the moment it was published,[19] and it is now his favourite book! The King has invited you both to the Konak (that is what they call the palace) to autograph his copy personally. Your audience will be on Thursday at eleven.”
There was a pause, as Miss Adler smiled at me with gratitude and Count Vukčić gazed benignly on his wife. In some confusion, I turned to Sherlock Holmes. He met my eyes, the tension broke, and we all four burst into a roar of laughter.
The morning fog outside my window half-convinced me I was back in London. Warm Adriatic breezes, combined with the cool mountain air, had veiled the valley in a shroud of mist. I dressed hurriedly and packed up my belongings, for Sherlock Holmes and I were departing for Cattaro. Because our outward journey had taken longer than expected, the exigencies of our itinerary left no time for delay. Much to Holmes’s annoyance, no rail line ran from Montenegro into Serbia, requiring us to steam back up the Adriatic and entrain for Belgrade from Fiume. We would arrive no sooner than the night before our royal audience.[20]
The dining room was deserted when I came downstairs, so I ate a quick breakfast from the sideboard and walked out onto the lawn. Three ghostly figures loomed beneath the pine trees near the garden wall. The nearest detached itself, leaving the others deep in conversation, and glided toward me through the fog. It was our hostess, her ivory peignoir all but hidden by the woollen cloak she wore against the morning’s chill.
“Good day, Dr. Watson! I must thank you for your well-timed intervention in last night’s debate. It saved what might have been a very ugly scene. Jealousy is the last emotion I would have expected from Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”
“I was surprised as well, Countess.”
She waved aside the title. “I am still not used to being the wife of a Serdar,” she laughed. “When I first came to the Balkans, I aimed much higher, as you know. Obviously, my career as an ‘adventuress’ has been less successful than Queen Draga’s!”
I bowed my head in shame. “I hope you can forgive me for that description, ma’am. At the time, it seemed a choice between sacrificing your reputation and endangering your life.”
Miss Adler patted my arm sympathetically. “I understand perfectly, Doctor, so please do not apologize. It has all come out well in the end. My husband is a worthy man, and my life has been far happier than the poor ‘King of Bohemia’s.’”
She glanced across the lawn, where two men could now be seen emerging from the pines, their discussion apparently concluded. “Quickly, now, before they come, I must ask a favour of you. You and Mr. Holmes will return here after your visit to Belgrade; is that not so?”
“It is indeed,” I answered, barely able to suppress a groan. Reporting on our mission to the Count would further postpone our return to London, and I greatly missed my wife and stepchildren. “How may I be of service to you?”
“I should like you to give me a medical examination, without Mr. Holmes or my husband knowing anything about it. Unless, of course, such discretion proves impossible.”
“What symptoms have you noticed?” I had not seen Irene Adler, who was then in her mid-forties, since the century had turned. My impression on arriving was that she seemed unchanged. Now I saw dark circles underneath her eyes, and lines of strain beside her lips that were not there at our last meeting. In the morning mist, her complexion was quite pale.
“Oh, nothing of real consequence. Some breathlessness upon exertion, increasing slowly for the past few years. It was the main reason I gave up my warbling - aside from the fact that the Serdar dislikes his wife appearing on the stage! I seem to tire more easily in general than I used to.”
All this was most disquieting, and my heart sank for her. But her soft “Hush!” silenced the response I might have made, as we were forestalled by the simultaneous arrival of Sherlock Holmes, Count Vukčić, and Count Vukčić’s carriage. While his servants brought our luggage, we quickly exchanged words of parting with our hosts. I realised, as our carriage drove away, that although Holmes had decorously embraced Miss Adler, he had only nodded to her husband, not offering his hand. The ill will between them evidently remained unresolved.
I shall not weary my readers with the details of our journey to Belgrade. The beauties of the Adriatic, so enchanting to us days before, began to pall upon a second viewing. After a week of constant travel, Holmes and I were both exhausted. We spent most of the cruise sleeping in our cabin or, in his case, reviewing Mycroft’s notes. When we passed Spalato, I did emerge to see the walls of Diocletian’s palace,[21] my last venture at sight-seeing along that historic shore.
Our train from Fiume on Tuesday evening rolled through Agram in Croatia, then followed the Save River toward the Serbian frontier. Only at that stage was Holmes willing to confer about the object of our mission. As he began recounting what Vukčić had told him of conditions in Belgrade, I interrupted with a different matter I had determined to pursue.
“Why on Earth were you so hostile to Count Vukčić?”
“How was I ‘hostile,’ Watson? It has been obvious from the first that Vukčić and Prince Nicholas are using this crisis in Belgrade to advance Montenegro’s designs upon the throne of Serbia. I was merely seeking complete, unbiased information.”
“No, I will not accept that, Holmes, or at least not entirely. Your manner to the Count was needlessly offensive. I was surprised we were not ordered from the house!”
Instead of replying, Sherlock Holmes went into one of his long silences. He stared out our compartment’s window into the blackness of the night, appearing to ignore my question altogether. After perhaps three minutes, he enquired, “What did you think of The Woman?”
“Miss Adler? What has she to do with this?”
“A great deal, Doctor, as you are aware. Do not be ingenuous.”
‘Well,” I temporized, “I was delighted to see her again, naturally. She is certainly still as charming as I had remembered.”
“You did not think she looked ill?”
“Ill? Well, no, not exactly. A little tired, perhaps.” I was uncomfortably caught between our friendship and professional discretion. “Given the circumstances, Holmes, it was probably a strain on her to have us there. Your conduct after dinner,” I added severely, “must have added to that strain immensely!”
“You are as poor a dissembler as ever!” snarled Sherlock Holmes. He lapsed into another moody silence, then cried out angrily:
“Do you not think it a great shame, Watson, for a woman of Irene Adler’s talent, brains, and beauty to be stuck away in a backwater like Montenegro, married to a man old enough to be her father?”
“Hardly that, I think. He is no more than sixty.”
“That is not my point, as you well know. What can they possibly have in common? What real contact has she with the wider world? It seems no more than a sad exile from all that she once knew, and such a waste!”
“But that was her decision, Holmes,” I answered quietly, “one that she made long ago.” Despite his true concern, it was evident that The Woman’s diagnosis had been accurate, and that jealousy also lay behind this outburst. The same realizat
ion must have struck my friend as well, for he subsided. We said no more of the Vukčić’s for the duration of our journey. Yet, I knew that in the sense he spoke, it was not only Irene Adler’s wasted life Holmes was bemoaning.
Just after half-past ten on Wednesday evening, our train steamed over the great bridge across the Save and into the terminal in Belgrade. It was the tenth of June in England, but in Serbia still the twenty-eighth of May. Our royal audience would begin within the next twelve hours, and I looked forward to some badly needed rest.
The Serbian police, on learning we had come from Montenegro, questioned us at length about our visit’s purpose.[22] Holmes could truthfully deny any official connexion to the British government, but he neglected to disclose our appointment with the King. While dubious of my friend’s bland assurance that we hoped only “to enjoy the beauties of Belgrade,” the inspectors eventually returned our passports and allowed us to depart.
Few cabs still served the station at that hour, and to my disgust we were required to pay a double fare. Our destination was the Hôtel de Paris, which Count Vukčić had recommended for its location near the palace. Just as we set out, a shout halted our vehicle, and a young officer, wearing the bright blue uniform of Serbian infantry, scrambled onto the seat beside me. Without a glance at us, he gave an address to the driver, who promptly turned north, away from the hotel. Holmes held up a hand when I started to protest. We clattered through the almost empty streets, soon drawing up before a coffee-house that faced the old fortress and the Kalemegdan Park.
It was the liveliest scene we had encountered in Belgrade. On a long verandah, open to the flower gardens in the summer night, a crowd of officers and other patrons sat around small tables, imbibing wine or plum brandy and listening to a gypsy band. Several officers, obviously the worse for drink, had linked arms and circled clumsily in an oddly syncopated dance. It ended almost at the moment we arrived; but the soldiers - despite protests from other members of the audience - called for a repeat performance and began the dance anew. Their antics seemed to amuse our uninvited fellow passenger, who laughed heartily as he descended, turning back to us with a ferocious grin.
“Queen Draga’s Kolo!” he chortled before joining his comrades, who welcomed him uproariously. The kolo, I recalled, was a Serbian folk dance, and thus a bit plebian for a queen.
“Could Her Majesty be more popular with the army than we realised?” I wondered as we drove away. “Her kolo seemed quite the rage among those soldiers.”
“To me, Watson, their carouse appeared to mock her.” Holmes shook his head as though perplexed. “A better question might be why the officer who forced himself upon us happened to speak English.”
We arrived at our hotel without further incident, but it was past midnight before I was ready to retire. As I lay abed, still wakeful, I heard the sound of singing from the street below. My window overlooked King Milan Street, and there I saw a number of officers from the recent revel at the coffee-house. They staggered down the cobblestones in the direction of the Konak, still pausing to dance “Queen Draga’s Kolo” as they tra-la-la-ed its banal tune. Other soldiers, I now noticed, were also congregating in the streets. One officer, at the head of a small company, approached the group of drunkards and saluted their apparent leader. This was a young bull of a soldier who towered a full head above his fellows, the effect of his elegant mustache lessened by his balding pate and current air of dishevelment. However, he now buttoned his tunic, retrieved his hat from the gutter, and issued a brief order. The new officer swung his company in line behind the revellers, and they proceeded with more purpose toward the palace.
I thought of rousing Holmes to pass on my observations, but the lateness of the hour and our mutual weariness dissuaded me. I was awakened - only minutes later, as it seemed - by the distant roar of an explosion. This time, when I looked out my window, the streets were full of troops hastening in all directions. Even before I could throw on my dressing gown, Sherlock Holmes was pounding on my door.
“Come, Watson! That blast came from the Konak, unless my ears deceive me. Clearly, there is some deviltry at work. I begin to doubt that Their Majesties will be in a fit condition to receive us when we call tomorrow.”
“There were soldiers in the street an hour ago,” I told him, “heading for the palace. I saw many more when I looked out just now.”
When we arrived downstairs, a crowd of disconcerted hotel guests had gathered in the lobby. The manager, a Frenchman who spoke fluent English and Serbo-Croatian, was talking with the commander of a guard of police outside the door. Even before that officer had finished his instructions, the Serbian members of our congregation began cheering wildly. It took some time for the manager to quiet his guests enough to speak. After he had addressed them in their native language (interrupted by more cheers), he walked over to the bar to offer Holmes and me a brief translation.
“I am informed that His Majesty has just agreed to the expulsion of Queen Draga and her family from the realm. He has placed Belgrade under martial law until they are safely out of the city and across the border.[23] In the meantime, no one is to leave the hotel. These orders will remain in effect at least until the morning.”
It was difficult to say who looked more disbelieving: The manager or Sherlock Holmes. “Do you accept this explanation of the matter?” my friend asked bluntly. “It does not account for that loud explosion from the palace, nor for the gunshots we have heard since then.” Indeed, there had subsequently been fusillades of rifle fire from farther down King Milan Street.
“What you or I accept makes little difference, M. Holmes.” The Frenchman literally threw up his hands in resignation. “Everything will become clearer in the morning, I feel sure. Meanwhile, I intend to go to bed, and I suggest that you and Dr. Watson do the same.”
Needless to say, neither Holmes nor I complied with this suggestion. We returned to our rooms long enough to dress, then reunited in the lobby. At about four o’clock, a light rain set in, and just before dawn the police departed. We stepped into the empty street and began the half-mile walk that would take us to the palace.
It promised to be a dismal outing. In deference to the diplomatic nature of our mission, Holmes and I had put on morning dress, which despite our umbrellas was soon damp and soiled. My friend had not brought Vukčić’s list, waiting for the situation to be clarified. The Konak, when it appeared upon our left, proved to be an ornate, one-storey structure built of yellow stone. Only a fence of iron railings separated its narrow garden from King Milan Street. To our surprise, the gate stood open and unguarded.
Nevertheless, there were many soldiers in the garden. Most clustered near the left-hand corner of the palace, below a balcony outside the royal apartments. Beside Serbia’s defenders, in a muddy flower-bed, lay the mutilated bodies of the King and Queen, clad only in their bloody nightclothes. Even from the street, I could tell the royal couple had been butchered savagely, shot or stabbed long after the infliction of any injuries necessary to ensure their deaths. I have seen the remains of men tortured in Afghanistan, and thousands of corpses on the field of Maiwand, but neither there nor in all my years of practice did I ever witness a more brutal slaughter.[24]
As we stepped into the courtyard, an officer approached to block our way. He appeared to have been waiting for us, so I was not surprised to recognise our cab-mate of the night before.
“Ah, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, we meet again.” His English, while accented, was excellent. “What is it you want here? There are no mysteries for you to solve in Serbia.”
“You know me, then.” My friend was tight-lipped, his face white with anger.
“Of course,” the soldier sneered. “The great English detective and - ” he spared a glance for me “ - the one who writes his books. We were told that you would come to Belgrade, but you have no business at the Konak. There will be no royal audience today.”
“We are acting as unofficial representatives of the British government,” Holmes informed him coldly. “We wish to know what happened here.”
“It is as you see. The King and Queen are dead.”
“Indeed they are. Who is responsible?”
“They are responsible. They brought their deaths upon themselves.”
“Not by themselves, it seems,” said Holmes, “judging from this charnel house.”
“Perhaps. But what is that to you, or to the British government?”
It was evident we would get nowhere with this insolent young puppy. “We grow weary of this conversation, sir,” I intervened. “Allow us to speak with someone in authority.”
“Authority? Authority, you say?” He paused, as though unfamiliar with so novel an idea. “Wait here,” he told us curtly. He strode across the garden, where a small group of officers stood underneath the palace balcony, smoking, conversing, and pointedly ignoring the sodden corpses of their former rulers. After our interrogator had conferred with them, one spoke briefly to the others and walked toward us through the misting rain.
This man was short but stoutly built, appearing to be close to our own age. His open greatcoat did not entirely hide the bloodstains on his colonel’s uniform. Upon his collar lay the insignia of the Serbian General Staff. The face above the collar was a strong but weathered one, its deep-set eyes reflecting horror, guilt, and absolute exhaustion. He nodded brusquely, but neither introduced himself nor offered us his hand. The latter omission was a relief to both of us.
“Mr. Holmes?” With a soldier’s instinct, he addressed himself to my companion.
“I am. And you are Colonel - ?”
“No names!” snapped the young officer who had confronted us, having followed in his leader’s wake.