The Great Game

by Michael Kurland

  "Some of my cases have been chronicled by my friend and colleague Dr. Watson," Holmes acknowledged. "I try to get him to record only those cases which best illustrate the process of deduction which leads to the solution, as this might be of some use to other criminalists—a term I believe was invented by your own Dr. Gross, whose work I have the most respect for—but Dr. Watson claims that the public is interested only in the more sensational or romantic aspects of my cases. In any event, in almost all of my cases I have allowed Scotland Yard or the local police to receive the credit, although in some few of them Dr. Watson may later have revealed my participation in the investigation."

  "Ah, yes, the Dr. Watson, whom you have brought along as your assistant, although he of German understands not a word."

  " 'Kind hearts are more than coronets,' " Holmes offered.

  "How's that?"

  "Tennyson," Holmes explained, "an English poet. I find Watson's loyalty and good English grit to be more valuable than any command of language. Besides, he does understand German fairly well, he just dislikes speaking it for fear of sounding ridiculous."

  "It is then, ridiculous, the German language?" the duke drew himself up, but Holmes waved a placating hand.

  "No, no," he said firmly. "It is just that Watson is aware that his pronunciation of the language is not very, ah, German. His ear hears what his mouth cannot speak."

  "Ah!" the duke relaxed in his seat. "And you—you have no fear of sounding ridiculous yourself?"

  "I?" Holmes looked quizzically at the duke. The thought had obviously never entered his mind.

  "Your German is actually quite good," von Seligsmann assured him. "The accent is Prussian, yes?"

  "I suppose," Holmes said. "I took lessons from an inspector of the Berlin Police, who was staying in London to study the methods of Scotland Yard. He ended up studying my methods, and I studied his language. It was a fair exchange." Holmes took a cigarette from a silver cigarette case and lit it with a wax match. "I decided it was necessary to learn German if I was to study the history of crime. Such interesting crimes have been committed in Germany. And Austria too, of course."

  "I see," the duke said, not sure whether to be pleased or insulted. "Well, what have you discovered regarding this present matter? Outline for me these threads of which you speak. Perhaps I can help you discern the pattern."

  Holmes stared into the column of blue smoke rising from the tip of his cigarette and considered. "There are many separate groups that meet here in Vienna whose avowed goal is, in one way or another, to 'set Europe ablaze.' That, I think, was the phrase used by that anarchist Brakinsky who was guillotined in France last month for blowing up three policemen."

  "There is certainly much unrest," the duke agreed.

  "The Serbian group—'Free Serbia' they call themselves—meets in the back room of a private lending library at thirty-one Stumpergasse in the Mariahilf District."

  "What do they talk about?"

  "I don't speak Serbian. Find me someone trustworthy who speaks Serbian and we'll find out."

  "I know no one trustworthy who speaks Serbian," the duke said. "What else?"

  "An anarchist group—it calls itself the 'Secret Freedom League'—meets in the box cellar of the Werfel Chocolate factory, which is also in Mariahilf. Your police must know about that one; they arrested one of the members for the assassination of the duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz a few weeks ago."

  "Yes, and ...?" The duke sounded unimpressed.

  " 'Poland Must Be Free' meets in various parks around Vienna. They play football and plot assassinations. Then there are the militant socialists, who mingle with their less militant brothers at the Café Mozart on Opernstrasse. They drink coffee and eat strudel at the tables in front and plan revolutions in the small rooms in the back."

  "So?"

  "I am now a member of the Thule Society," Holmes told him, "which believes, or professes to believe, that the true German is descended from a pre-Christian 'Aryan People,' and that they are a superior race, destined to rule over the inferior peoples. They are not as yet very large, but they number among their members middle-level bureaucrats, police officials, and officers of staff rank in the Austrian Army. Their symbol is the hakenkreuz, which they consider a runic symbol of great power. They are enamored of the runic alphabet and various secret signs."

  "The hakenkreuz'?"

  "In India they call it the 'swastika,' and it is a symbol of well-being, probably derived from an early sign for the sun. It is a cross with each of the four ends turned to the right." Holmes sketched it on the table with his finger.

  The duke shook his head and drummed his fingers on the table. "I do not like to tell you how to do your job," he said, "but it is clear to me that you are casting about in too many directions at the same time. How can you hope to discover anything useful if you spend your time running back and forth between these various unrelated groups? And, for that matter, why these groups? There are probably a hundred—a thousand—groups of varying degrees of secrecy and of antagonism to the government of the dual monarchy."

  "Yes," Holmes agreed. "Groups of men with grievances seem to spring up like mushrooms in the dual monarchy; indeed all over Europe. It has become fashionable to blame the government— whichever government one lives under—for one's own inadequacies. And you employed me to discover why and how some of these people seem to have knowledge of the secret plans of your government."

  "That is so. Not only great secrets, but small and seemingly insignificant ones. A minister leaves his office and goes to visit a church he has not been to for half a year, by a road that his carriage has not taken over before, and there is a bomb-thrower waiting for him a block away from the church. Archduke Ferdinand goes to inspect a new battleship, and the launch he is to take from the pier blows up when he should have been aboard. Had he not stopped to speak to a group of schoolgirls and sign their books, he would have been killed."

  "It seems as if the contemplated movements of important officials must be regarded as a great secret at this time," Holmes commented.

  "Yes. That is so."

  "What of these other 'great secrets'?"

  The duke was silent for a minute. Then he shrugged. "An example I can tell you," he said, "involves Plan B of the Imperial General Staff."

  "Plan B?"

  "It is the plan for general mobilization in case of—certain contingencies—that might lead to war. In an empire of this size a general mobilization is immensely complex. Troops must be called to staging areas, trains must be scheduled or re-routed, ammunition must be taken from depots to advance storage areas, appropriate clothing must be issued, food and supplies must be moved from here to there; thousands of details must be planned for in advance. There are only seven—I believe it's seven—copies of the full plan; a book which is many hundreds of pages thick. They are for the general staff only. Lesser commanders each have the appropriate portion of the plan to allow them to carry out their orders. They are kept in sealed envelopes secured in the safes of the commanders."

  "And one of them is missing?"

  "Nothing so simple," the duke said. "One of the master plans, kept in the safe of the office of the chief of the general staff may have been copied."

  "Really? Copied?"

  "Yes. When General Count von Speck removed it from the safe to look at—this would be about a month ago—he noticed that the pages seemed a little loose. It was inspected by the technical branch of the Kundschafts Stelle, our military intelligence section, and they discovered that it had been carefully unbound and rebound. They concluded that someone had probably taken it apart to photograph the pages."

  "How interesting," Sherlock Holmes said. "The book would have to be taken somewhere where a copying-camera could be set up and sufficient light supplied. But it would certainly be faster than copying such a document by hand. Have you determined who had access to the book?"

  "As far as we can tell, nobody but the general himself could have removed the book fr
om the safe."

  "Come now, that is most satisfying," Holmes said, rubbing his hands together. "I assume that General count von Speck is himself above reproach?"

  "You may take it from me that, although nobody but the general could have taken the book, he is not the one who copied it. And he claims—and we believe him—that he has not let the book out of his hands in any occasion when he had it out of the safe."

  "Yes, of course," Holmes said. "And besides, if the general had done anything to the book himself, he would have hardly drawn attention to it afterward."

  "So we thought," von Seligsmann said.

  "I would like to take a look at the book," Holmes said.

  "I'm afraid that is impossible," the duke told him.

  "I am only interested in the spine and the pages, not the contents," Holmes assured the duke.

  "Even so," the duke pointed out, "in order to show you the spine and the pages, you would undoubtedly catch glimpses of the writing, and that we cannot allow."

  "Haven't you changed the plan?"

  "It is not so simple as that. First of all, the plan was the best the general staff could devise, so any other plan would necessarily be inferior. Second, it would be foolhardy to put a new plan in place until we know how and by whom the old plan was taken."

  "Ah!" Holmes said.

  "And even if we wanted to change it, a plan for the complete mobilization of our forces takes many months to prepare. We are taking some steps to minimize the effect of the details of the plan being known. It would help if we knew just what foreign power it was that has the information."

  "The problem is not without its interesting aspects," Holmes said. "I might have some suggestions for whoever is handling the case."

  "I will pass the word," the duke told him. "Now about you and all these disparate groups you are investigating—"

  "Ah! But you see, that's just it," Holmes said. "It would seem that the groups are not disparate. They are somehow interconnected."

  Von Seligsmann screwed his monocle firmly into his right eye and stared across the table. "Interconnected?" he asked. "How?"

  "An interesting question," Holmes allowed. "An even more interesting question would be, 'why?' "

  "Explain," said the duke.

  Holmes tapped the edge of his cigarette against the light blue glass bowl he was using as an ashtray. "I discovered this interconnection by following the leaders of each group about to see where they would lead me. In just about every case they eventually led me to another group. One man—a particularly loathsome individual called 'the Ferret'—is high up in three of these groups."

  "You followed him?"

  "Yes."

  "Didn't he see you?"

  "No. When I follow people they do not see me. They see an old bookseller, or an elderly prelate, or a street ruffian, or a tired bureaucrat wending his way home, or possibly a fiacre driver half asleep as his horse heads back to the stables; but they do not see me." The duke looked unconvinced, but Holmes went on.

  "But, regardless of how I gathered the information, we must deal with the fact that the threat to set Europe aflame comes not from a thousand separate matches but from one coordinated fire. We must discover who is fueling the fire and what they expect to gain from the conflagration."

  "You have as yet no notion?" the duke asked.

  "It is destructive of the powers of deduction to hypothesize before you have all the facts. It causes you to favor your early hypothesis and ignore contrary evidence," Holmes told him. "I have a suspicion only; a direction to look in; a possibility to consider. But we must continue to look in all directions, to consider all possibilities, until we have eliminated all but the one that, by remaining, proves to be the truth."

  "And what is your suspicion?"

  "Very well," Holmes said. "A possibility only, as yet. There is a master criminal who calls himself Professor Moriarty who is capable of such deviltry. His headquarters are in London, but his tentacles stretch all over Europe. I have sent word to London to have him watched, and I am trying to locate the members of his criminal organization here in Vienna."

  "Why, if you are right, would he be doing this?"

  "For money, your excellency. Whatever Moriarty does, it is for money."

  "Moriarty—Moriarty!" von Seligsmann tapped his finger on the table. "That name—"

  "You have heard of him?"

  Von Seligsmann leaned back and closed his eyes. "Professor James Moriarty?" he asked. "That's the man."

  "I have heard the name, and recently. He is the head, is he not, of the British Intelligence Service?"

  "The British—" Holmes chuckled. "Wherever did you get that idea?"

  "Aha!" the duke said, "but would you tell me if he were? You are, after all, British yourself. 'Rule Britannia,' and all that. 'This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,' and all that. No, if you knew, you would not tell me."

  "If I knew the name of the head of British Intelligence I would certainly not tell you," Holmes admitted. "But I will tell you freely and positively that it is not Professor James Moriarty."

  "You are sure?"

  "Positive."

  "Then perhaps you can explain why this man, Paul Donzhof, who was arrested for the assassination of the duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz and the murder of some woman, is said to have been working for Professor James Moriarty, who is said to be the head of the British Intelligence Service?"

  Holmes stubbed his cigarette out. "I am perfectly willing to believe that this Paul Donzhof is one of Moriarty's henchmen," he said. "But I think you'll find that Moriarty has nothing to do with Her Majesty's government. Indeed, Scotland Yard has been trying to arrest him for a decade now, with little success. The man is fiendishly clever, but he is a criminal, not a government agent."

  "Aha! And would that not make a perfect—what do you say— cover—for the head of the British Secret Service?"

  "I wouldn't think so," Holmes said. "Incidently, this Paul Donzhof is a member of one of the groups I'm surveying. It is fairly clear to me that he is innocent of the murder of Duke Paulus, although I have no knowledge of this other murder of which he is also accused. For some reason the leader of this group—this 'Ferret' that I spoke of—wanted Donzhof to be accused."

  The duke shrugged. "That is not my concern," he said. "It is better for public confidence that we have someone locked up for the crime, is it not?"

  "And perhaps hanged for it, whether or not he is guilty?"

  Again the duke shrugged. "Perhaps."

  "I see," Holmes said. He stood up. "I think I'd better get back to my task. But as I leave let me assure you once again that Professor James Moriarty does not serve the British government in any capacity whatsoever. As soon as I have something further to communicate to you, I will post a notice on the letter board at the Café Trieste, and we will meet back here."

  The duke rose. "And I the same," he said. "This news you bring me, this amalgamation of underground groups, this is worrying. I don't know what it means."

  "At the very least it means that these groups are not the spontaneous responses of dissatisfied minorities. The dissatisfactions are there, no doubt, and for that those in power must shoulder the blame. But these groups are the instruments of some person, or some circle, that is orchestrating them for reasons beyond our present understanding."

  "Before you go," the duke said, "I have a suggestion. Well, possibly a request."

  "Yes, your excellency?"

  "When the heads of state meet, probably two weeks from Thursday, I would like you to attend. Possibly to speak to the assemblage. They all know of you, certainly, and will be inclined to credit what you say."

  "If you like," Holmes said. "Let us hope that I have substantially more information for them at that time."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN — A PERSON OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE

  Life is mostly froth and bubble,

  Two things stand like stone,

  Kindness in another's trouble,

  C
ourage in your own.

  —Adam Lindsay Gordon

  The warder with the outsized belly and the bottle-brush mustache swung open the door to Paul Donzhof's cell. "Your sister's here to see you," he said. "Come on out."

  Paul swung himself off his cot and slid his feet into the prison-issue slippers. "My sister?" He went to the door.

  "That's right," the warder said, pushing Paul out into the corridor in front of him and slamming the cell door. "And a lovely little thing she is, too, to be saddled with a murderous lout of a brother like you. Walk ahead of me now."