The only topics that seemed to bring him to life were horses and game-shooting. He knew his business about the former, and was, I’m told, an expert rider; as for the latter, about which he prosed interminably, I can say only that my abiding memory of Ischl lodge is of rank upon rank of chamois horns covering the walls from floor to ceiling, wherever you went, all shot by the royal sportsman. There must have been thousands of them.[18]
After dinner the real merriment began when we played a game of tarok, a sort of whist, and I can testify that to his linguistic shortcomings the Austrian Emperor added an inability to count, and pondered each card at length before playing it. I guess the fun was too much for him, for after a couple of rubbers he went back to work at his desk, and we were free to return to our rooms … and wait.
I can’t recall many nights longer than that one. Even though I’d been excused active service, so to speak (assuming the enemy didn’t come through the house) I was like a cat on hot bricks, and Willem was no better. We played every two-handed game we knew in my room, and he was too edgy to cheat, even. About eight o’clock an orderly brought us tea, when what I needed was brandy, about a pint and a half, and we learned that the Emperor was used to retire to bed about nine, and the establishment closed down accordingly. Sure enough, we heard the tramp of the sergeant and sentry beneath the window, marching round the house, and distant words of command as the sentry was posted.
"Damned old martinet!" mutters Willem, as we heard the heavy tread of the sergeant’s return, fading as he went round to the guard-house at the front. "Imagine barkin' orders as if it were a parade. I suppose it’s for Franz-Josef’s benefit as he says his prayers. The sentry’s relieved every three hours, by the way, and you may be sure the Holnup know that, so between three and six will be their best time. We’ll be on the watch from ten, though; they’d hardly come before that."
The place is like a tomb. What price Ischl for high jinks, eh? I’d rather have Stockholm on a Sunday! Now, I’ll take you along to your post, which is in the last of the day-rooms from which the passage runs to the Emperor’s billet and the aides' quarters. There’s a nice shadowy corner where you can watch the passage entry, and on t’other side of the room there’s a flight of stairs leading down to a little hall, where I’ll get out by a window." He paused, thinking. "If they come tonight, as I feel they will, you’d best use your judgment when the shootin' starts. A few quick shots will mean it’s all over; if there’s still firin' after twenty seconds … well, ’twill mean there are more of ’em than I bargain for. If they don’t come, back to bed with you when the house begins to stir. I’ll be out takin' the morning air," he added, with a wink. "All clear, then'? All serene-o?"
It wasn’t, of course, but I gave him my resolute chin-up look, and got his approving nod. "Best take your stick, in case anyone comes on you unexpected in the small hours, tho' I doubt if there’ll be a soul about before dawn. Unless," says he, looking comical, "the Holnup diddle us by coming through the house, in which case … well, good huntin', you lucky bastard!"
He moved quickly to the door, peeped out, and slipped into the corridor, motioning me to follow. There was a light burning at the far end, but not a sound in the building save the occasional creak of its timbers. Willem flitted ahead like a ghost, and what we’d have said if someone had popped a head out and found us roaming the darkened house, God knows. We crossed what he’d called the day-rooms one after another; they had lamps burning low, and here and there the waning moon struck a shaft of light through a window, and the embers of a fire glowed in the shadows.
At last he paused, flicking a finger to his left, and I saw a flight of stairs leading down into the blackness. He pointed to his right, and there was the dark opening of the passage leading to Franz-Josef’s room. A lamp gleamed dimly on a table at the passage entry, and now Willem pointed to a shadowy corner to the left of the passage and a few feet from it, where I could see a big leather chair. At his nod I moved quietly towards it; then he blew out the passage light, leaving the room in darkness.
I didn’t hear him move, but suddenly I sensed him beside me, his hand gripping mine, and his voice close to my ear; "Good luck, old ’un!", and then a whispered chuckle. "Ain’t this the life, though?" Infernal idiot. A second later his shadow was at the head of the stairs, and soon after I heard below the faint noise of a sash being raised and closed again, and good riddance.
And then … well, d’you know, there was nothing to do but sit about, a prey to what they call conflicting emotions. I’d run a fair range of them in the past few days, some damned disturbing, a few delightful with Kralta, but mostly bewildering, and now, seated in that great leather contraption, I tried to take stock of what was, you’ll allow, an unusual situation. Here was I, in the summer residence of the Emperor of Austria, loaded for bear, waiting for bloody murder to break out in his policies, but the odd thing was that now that the grip had come, I wasn’t more than half nervous, let alone scared. I was as well out of harm’s way as any man in the place, Willem could bear the brunt—and the aftermath, with everyone behaving like headless chickens, should provide some entertainment. He’d be the hero of the hour (if he lived), but I’d garner some credit if only by limping about looking stern and impressing the excitable kraut-eaters with my British phlegm. A little discreet lying when I saw Hutton again would ensure that favourable reports reached London and Paris (and Windsor, eh?), and after an amiable parting from Franz-Josef it would be hey for Vienna! with a grateful and adoring Kralta.
She was a happy thought as I sat cosily ensconced in the dark, still warm from the dead fireplace. Odd female, handsome enough in her horsy way, with the body of a Dahomey Amazon and appetite to match, but would she have boiled my kettle in the ordinary way of things? Perhaps ’twas the strange circumstances in which we’d met, or the contrast between her icy, damn-you style and the passion with which she performed, that had me drying my chin at my randy recollections: that fur robe slipping to the floor, like the unveiling of a lovely marble statue, the long limbs entwining with mine, the silky hair across my face … aye, Vienna beckoned, right enough, and on those blissful imaginings I settled comfortably to my vigil in the hours ahead …
… to awake with a start, shivering against the cold that had stolen over the darkened room while I slept—for how long? The soft single chime of a clock might mean one o’clock or a quarter, but I had no feeling of cramp, so I couldn’t have been far under … but what had wakened me? The clock, or the cold, or some other disturbance—and suddenly my hair bristled on my neck as I became aware of a faint scraping sound from the hall below, followed by a rustle and a soft thump … Jesus! there was someone moving there, and the scrape had been the raising of the window by which Willem had departed—could he be returning? No, why the hell should he? But who, then … and I froze in terror, the sweat breaking out on me like ice, for it could mean only one thing, that the stupid swine’s calculations had been all wrong, and the Holnup had never heard of his confounded secret stair, but were slipping into the house burglar-style, intent on their murderous errand, and even now cloaked and sinister figures were at the foot of the stairs, listening, then gliding stealthily forward … a stair creaked sharply, and I started half out of my chair, fumbling for the LeVaux, straining eyes and ears against the dark … another creak, and a hissing whisper, someone stumbled and cursed, and then to my amazement a voice began croaking softly in drunken song about lieber klein Matilde, only to be hushed by a snarled oath and "Wo ist die Kerze? Streichholz, Dummkopf." followed by a giggling hiccup; a match rasped in the gloom, a faint glow appeared below, and I almost collapsed with relief as slowly up the stairs lurched Tweedledum, holding a candle unsteadily aloft, with Tweedledee clinging to him for support.
They were in dress uniform, and by the look of them had crawled through every pub in Ischl; I’ve seldom seen tighter subalterns, but Tweedledum at least was plainly alive to the danger of waking the Emperor, for he staggered with elaborate caution, whispering
to his mate to be quiet, and must have seen me in my corner if Tweedledee hadn’t blown the candle out with an enormous belch, This set him giggling again, Tweedledum dropped the matches, they blundered whimpering in the dark, and would most certainly have come to grief if Tweedledum hadn’t insisted that they proceed on hands and knees. They crawled through the furniture more or less quietly, and presently I heard their door close softly, and peace returned to the royal lodge.
But not to me, Perhaps it was the cold, or the unholy scare they’d given me, but as I sat shivering in the dark, envying those drunken pups their beds, I was conscious of a growing unease which was quite at odds with the lustful moonings about Kralta on which I’d dropped off. I couldn’t figure it; nothing about my situation had changed, and yet where I’d been fairly tranquil before I was now thoroughly rattled. Very well, I’m a windy beggar whose hopes and fears go up and down like a jack-in-the-box, but this wasn’t so much fear as a presentiment that something was wrong, damned wrong, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. ’Twasn’t a logical foreboding, but pure animal instinct—and thank God for it, ’cos it made me stir restlessly, and my fidgeting changed the course of history.
At the recent alarm I had clutched at the LeVaux in my pocket, and at some point must have drawn it, for now I found I was nervously fiddling its patent safety catch, on and off, and turning the cylinder. That reminded me, with a nasty start, that Willem hadn’t given me the promised extra rounds. He’d said it was loaded in five chambers, and in sudden anxiety I probed with my pinky in the dark, trying to feel the tips of the slugs in the cylinders, but couldn’t, so I broke the piece open, not knowing that it was one of the new-fangled models with an extractor plate that whips all the shells out together, and squealed with dismay as bullets flew broadcast, clattering on the floor and rolling God alone knew where—and there I was, with an unloaded firearm, my ammunition hopelessly lost in the dark, and nothing for it but to grovel blindly in search of the bloody things, cursing fate and the imbecility of French gunsmiths and their ridiculous patent gadgets, as if anyone needed them.
Frantic scrabbling round the chair brought one bullet to hand, leaving four to find, and since I’d no intention of having only a single shot between me and damnation, I must have light, whatever the consequences. I had no matches—but, stay! Tweedledum had dropped his somewhere, I’d heard them spilling all over the shop, so now I went panting on all fours in quest of them, lost my bearings altogether, fell into the fireplace, struggled out coated in dead ash, fetched my head a shattering crash on a chair-leg, and only found the scattered matches when I knelt on them. In a trice I had one lighted and was kindling the lamp, and a moment later I had scooped up three of the fallen rounds near the chair and was casting about for the fourth.
It was lying close to the fender—at least the case was, but I drew in an astonished breath when I saw that the bullet itself had become detached and lay a few inches away. In fifty years of handling firearms I’d never known the like: what, a slug clamped tight in the brass case (which contained the explosive charge) coming asunder? With a trembling hand I turned the little case to the light: it was empty, and there wasn’t a trace of powder where it had fallen.
An icy hand gripped my stomach as I held each of the other whole rounds in turn close to the lamp. Every one bore marks on the edge of the case, as though it had been pried back to remove the slug; indeed, I was able to pull one bullet free and saw to my horror that the case itself was empty.
Willem had removed the charges from all five cartridges, replacing the slugs in them so that they looked like live rounds, and if one hadn’t come loose in falling to the floor, I’d never have known that I had, in effect, an empty revolver.
The discovery that you’ve been sold a pup is always disconcerting, but your reaction depends on age and experience. In infancy you burst into tears and smash something; in adolescence you may be bewildered (as I was when Lady Geraldine lured me into the long grass on false pretence and then set about me with carnal intent, hurrah!); in riper manhood common sense usually tells you to bolt, which was my instinct on the Pearl River when I learned that my lorcha was carrying not opium, as I’d supposed, but guns for the Taiping rebels. But at sixty-one your brain works faster than your legs, so you reflect, and as often as not reach the right answer by intuition as well as reason.
Kneeling in that cold shadowy chamber, goggling at those five useless rounds gleaming in the dim lamplight, I knew in a split second that Willem himself was the assassin, not the guardian, and now that I’d served my turn by helping him to within striking distance of the Emperor, he’d rendered me powerless to intervene in his murderous scheme. But it was a staggering thought—dammit, why should he, a German Junker, a trusted agent of Bismarck, want to kill Franz-Josef, doing the dirty work of Hungarian fanatics like Kossuth and the Holnup? … Kossuth, by God! That was the bell that rang to confirm my conclusion, as I remembered him telling me on the train that his own mother’s name was Kossuth, and that he was part-Hungarian by blood. Aye, and pure Hungarian, devil a doubt, in heart and soul and allegiance, flown with the wild dream of independence for his mother country, and itching to fire the shot or wield the steel that would set her free—and plunge Europe into civil war.
All this surmised in an instant, and whether ’twas all another great devilment of Bismarck’s, or whether Bismarck was guiltless and Willem had duped him as he’d duped me, didn’t matter. One thing was sure: I was implicated up to the neck, and as I knelt there sweating my imagination was picturing Willem out yonder, full of spite and sin, disposing of the hapless sentry, humouring the lock of the secret door, stealing up the secret stair knife in hand to the room where his royal victim was asleep … or dead already? I glanced in terror towards the passage entry—quick or dead, Franz-Josef was within forty feet of me … oh, Christ, how long had Willem been gone? I didn’t know. Was it too late to stop him? Perhaps not … but that was no work for me, bigod, not if I’d had ten loaded pistols and the Royal Marines at my back; not for Franz-Josef and a dozen like him would I have gone up against Willem von Starnberg, and as for Europe … but even as I took the first instinctive stride of panic-stricken flight, I came to a shuddering halt as the awful truth struck me.
I couldn’t run! It would be certain death, for if Willem had killed, or was about to kill, the Emperor, I’d be seen as his partner in crime, and while he would have his own escape nicely planned, I’d not have the ghost of a chance of avoiding capture, with the whole country on the look-out. And I’d never persuade them I was an innocent tool, or acting under orders from Downing Street—why, it was odds on I’d be shot on sight or cut down on the spot before I could utter a word in my defence.
I didn’t faint at the thought, but only the knowledge that I must act at once enabled me to fight down my mounting panic. Should I raise the alarm? God, no, I daren’t, for if Franz-Josef was already a goner, I’d be cooked. The only hope was that Willem hadn’t done for him yet, and that I could still … and that was when my legs almost gave way, and I found myself fairly sobbing with fear, for I knew I must go out into the ghastly dark, and find the murderous bastard and kill or disable him … why, even if Franz-Josef was already tuning up with the choir invisible I might wriggle clear if I could show that I’d flown to the rescue … too late, alas … oh Jesus, they’d never believe me!
"I’m innocent, gentlemen, I swear it!" I was bleating it softly in the darkness, and time was racing by, and I’d nothing but an empty pistol … but suppose Willem was still picking the lock, or waiting for moon-set, or for his Holnup confederates to arrive, or pausing to relieve himself or have a smoke, or for any other reason you like, and I could just steel myself to sally forth and find him, whispering raucously to identify myself … well, he might wonder what the blazes I was about, but he’d not shoot before asking questions … and I still had the seaman’s knife I’d slipped into my boot on the Orient Express, and he’d be off guard (just as his father had been when I’d parted his hair
with the cherry brandy bottle)—he might even turn his back on me … well, it was that or the hangman’s rope, unless they still went in for beheading in Austria.
On that happy thought I put up my empty piece, transferred the knife from my boot to my pocket, and crept as fast as might he down the stairs with my heart against my back teeth. There was the window, pale in the gloom; I slipped over the sill to the ground … and realised I’d no notion where the sundial corner was. I forced myself to envisage the house from above … there was the Emperor’s room, here was I, on t' other side, and there the guard-room by the front porch, so I must make my way cautiously by the back.
There was still faint moonlight, casting shadows from the trees and bushes, and the loom of the house just visible to guide me as I crept along, my fingers brushing the ivy. In my imagination the undergrowth was full of mad Hungarians waiting to leap out and knife me, and once I rose like a startled grouse as an owl hooted only a few yards away. Round one corner, peering cautiously, along the wall towards another—and there was something glittering in the dark off to one side, and I saw that it was the moonlight on a little puddle of rainwater that had collected on what might well be the surface of a sundial. And in that moment, from just beyond the corner I was approaching, came a sound that sent shivers down my spine—a faint clicking noise of metal, and the rustle of someone moving. I tried to whisper, and failed, gulped, and tried again.
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