The Second Seal

by Dennis Wheatley

The Colonel nodded. “I quite understand your position, and I will see Putnik about you tomorrow morning. If you care to remain here and take a gun out, I will return to lunch and let you know then what we have arranged.”

  De Richleau willingly agreed, and they talked on for a further two hours, mainly about the general state of Europe. Then they doused the oil lamps which hung at intervals along the walls, and went to bed.

  As the Duke got into his, he sighed heavily. The few hopes he had had when leaving England, that peace might yet be preserved, were now dimmed almost to vanishing point. On the one hand there was Conrad von Hötzendorf spoiling for a war with Serbia, in the belief that Austria’s enemies must be dealt with one by one, and that he could smash her utterly in a three weeks’ campaign. On the other, here was Dragutin Dimitriyevitch with his Black Hand gang of vultures, who believed that the Dual Monarchy was already half dead, so that they had only to find a suitable excuse to go in and rip the flesh off her body. Worse, Dimitriyevitch had made it plain that since his vultures would meet with less resistance should the Russian bear decide to maul the victim at the same time, however frightful the final consequences, he meant to do his damnedest to bring Russia in.

  It seemed now that the only thing remaining to be done was to find out when Dimitriyevitch intended to press the detonator of his terrible mine, and from a line that de Richleau had already laid out he had good hopes of succeeding in that.

  Next morning, by the time the Duke got down to breakfast he found that the little Colonel had left an hour before for Belgrade; so, after he had eaten, he followed his host’s suggestion and took out a gun. But his heart was not in the business and his eye, for once, inattentive to the opportunities offered him by the game. For appearance’s sake, he eventually shot a hare and returned to the châlet with it soon after mid-day. At half past one the Colonel’s gleaming Rolls purred smoothly up to the door and, giving himself barely time to swallow an aperitif, he ordered lunch to be served.

  Over the meal he seemed a little distrait, and again made only general conversation while the servants were present. But after coffee had been brought, and they were left alone, he quickly came to business.

  “I saw the Voyvode Putnik,” he said in a low voice. “And as I expected, he fully approves my ideas. You are to be given the rank of Lieutenant General with the full pay and allowances it carries. To begin with, you will be employed at Headquarters. We propose to create a special post for you of Chief Liaison Officer between the High Command of the Army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That means you will work in very close collaboration with myself. Later, should suitable circumstances arise, you will be offered the reversion of an Army Corps. Does that suit you?”

  De Richleau nodded. He saw that Dimitriyevitch meant to keep him near himself for as long as possible, and was glad now that he had not pressed too hard for a field-command. If circumstances made it necessary for him to go into the Serbian army for a time before war broke out, such a post would suit his secret purpose very much better. After a moment the Colonel went on:

  “You had better set about securing your formal release by the Turks at once, although we do not think it would be wise to give you immediate employment. Your presence at Headquarters in Serbian uniform might arouse undesirable speculation. Nearer the time that won’t matter so much, but we don’t want to give anyone in the Austrian Legation here an idea that we are preparing anything, until we are ready to strike.”

  The Duke’s face showed nothing, but inwardly he glowed with satisfaction. Dimitriyevitch had swallowed the bait he had put out the previous night about getting his release from the Turks, and was taking just the line he had hoped. He simply shrugged, and remarked:

  “Just as you wish. But I shan’t be much use to you unless I have a week or so to read myself into your plans, get some idea of your forces, and meet some of the most important people in your Foreign Office, before you begin hostilities.”

  Dimitriyevitch nodded. “There, I agree. But it is not as though you are to command troops in the field to start with. A week or ten days should be enough. To-day is the 16th of May. I suggest that you should leave Belgrade Tonight or to-morrow and return here in a month. That should give you ample time to settle matters with the Turks; and I take it there is nothing else likely to prevent your getting back here by mid-June?”

  “Nothing,” replied de Richleau. He now had the final answer. If he was to report a week or ten days before the crisis was due, that meant that Serbia intended to give Austria cause for declaring war within a few days of June 25th.

  After a moment he said: “I shall not bother to go down to Constantinople. Even allowing for the dilatoriness of the Turks, I am sure I can obtain a satisfactory answer from them in writing in a fortnight or three weeks, because they will naturally be anxious to get me off their pay roll. And I know a way in which I can employ my time much more profitably.”

  “How?” inquired the Colonel.

  “Why, by spending the coming month in Vienna, of course,” replied the Duke with a blandly innocent air. “I should be able to collect quite a lot of little bits of information there, which may later prove useful to us.”

  Dimitriyevitch gave a short, harsh laugh, and exclaimed: “Devil take me! I knew you would prove worth your weight in gold to us if only I could get hold of you.”

  “Thanks,” said the Duke with the smile of a cat that got the cream. And silently he chuckled at the ease with which he had covered his retreat to the other centre of trouble without arousing the least suspicion.

  Evidently Dimitriyevitch favoured a simple meal in the middle of the day, as only two courses were served, and when an iced sherbet was put on the table with some fruit, he said: “I hope you don’t mind: as I came in I told one of my men to pack your bag. I am holding a conference here this afternoon, and the car may be needed later. I thought it had better run you into Belgrade directly we have finished lunch. Would you care for a brandy?”

  Realising that his host had simply fitted in this lunch at the châlet because he had already planned to return there for his meeting, and was now anxious to get rid of him as soon as possible, de Richleau declined the liqueur. So ten minutes later he was on his way back to the capital.

  As the car left the forest and entered the agricultural belt that lay outside the straggling suburbs of the town, peasants and their children working in the fields looked up to grin and wave at this shining chariot of a new age.

  Since Serbia had never known the feudal system, there were practically no large estates in the country, and the greater part of its cultivable areas was divided up into innumerable small-holdings. On many of these the poorer peasants lived in miserable round-roofed mud huts as primitive as the Eskimo igloos that they resembled. The more prosperous lived in the villages, but even there few of them owned houses. The majority still dwelt in shapeless, one-storied buildings, each occupying up to a quarter of an acre of land and often housing as many as a hundred people, which were called zadrugas. These had originated from the Turkish custom of taxing only the head of each household, from which it followed that the more people who could be accommodated under one roof, the lighter the taxation on them all. So, as the young men married, instead of building a cottage for themselves, they simply knocked up another lean-to against the family building, and brought the bride to live there.

  Yet, if they lived in squalor they were at least well fed, warmly clothed, and appeared quite content to remain within their limited horizon. As de Richleau waved back now and then to groups with smiling, sun-bronzed faces, he was suddenly conscious of the awful burden of responsibility borne by the ruling class and their all-too-frequent neglect of it for selfish ends.

  As a professional soldier, he enjoyed war, finding its problems more stimulating to the brain and its actions more exciting than those of the very best expedition after big game. But he realised that he saw war from a privileged angle, where playing a part in its planning, direction, and leadership more than c
ompensated for its hardships. Whereas, for the vast majority it meant an uprooting from a secure and reasonably happy way of life, enforced severance from loved ones, family and friends, the indefinite postponement of all personal plans, the harsh discipline of the barrack square, gruelling forced marches, indifferent food, exposure to torrid heat and bitter cold, and finally, often mutilation or death while still in the prime of life.

  It seemed intolerable that ambitious fanatics like Dimitriyevitch, or coldly calculating patriots like von Hötzendorf, should have the power to inflict such suffering on millions of innocent people; yet humanity had so far devised no way of stopping such catastrophes, and there was no reason to believe that if kings and aristocracies were abolished things would be any different. Leaders of the people had often arisen in the ancient city states, who had driven their ex-co-workers into suicidal conflicts; and the greatest wars so far recorded in the annals of the world had been launched by a small-town youth, educated on charity, who, when first commissioned, had been so poor that he could not pay his washing bills, but whose name was indelibly stamped on history as Napoleon.

  On arriving at his hotel, the Duke wrote notes of thanks to Major Tankosić and Captain Ciganović for having entertained him and, there being nothing further to detain him in Belgrade, left on the night train for Vienna.

  At Sacher’s he found a sheaf of invitations that had arrived for him during his absence. Among them was a note from the Duchess of Hohenberg, in which she reproached him for not having called upon her, and asked him to lunch on the 20th.

  After writing an acceptance of her invitation, and of most of the others, he set himself to try to forget for a few hours the terrible implications of his meeting with Dimitriyevitch, by going that afternoon to see again the unrivalled collection of Breughels in the National Picture Gallery and, in the evening, to a Beethoven concert at the Philharmonik. Nevertheless he felt gloomy and depressed.

  He still had his luncheon appointment to meet Frau Schratt, but had little hope that anything he might learn from her would materially alter the final result of his mission. Now that he knew the violently belligerent intentions of the Austrian and Serbian war chiefs, he thought it very doubtful if the aged Emperor, once caught in the web of events, and under pressure from far more dynamic personalities, would be able to influence their outcome. If he were, that would be good news indeed, but the hope was as fragile as a reed.

  Soon after one o’clock next day Frau Sacher introduced him to the actress who had enjoyed no foreign triumphs, and of whom most of the world had never heard but who, for over a quarter of a century, had been the constant companion of the ruler of the second greatest empire in Europe. She was now just over sixty, but she preserved many of the indications of the fair, Germanic beauty she had once enjoyed, and all the natural, unaffected charm that had so endeared her to both the Emperor and Empress.

  In spite of imperial patronage, many years had passed before she finally left the stage, and de Richleau was able to win her goodwill at once by speaking enthusiastically of her performances which he had witnessed, when, as a boy, he had first visited Vienna with his father in the early ’nineties.

  During lunch he exerted all his skill to draw her out on the leading personalities of the Empire and on various international problems, but he succeeded only in catching a single reflection of the Emperor’s mind through hers in one unguarded moment. Franz Joseph did not like the Kaiser: he regarded the Hohenzollerns as an upstart dynasty, and considered that William II revealed his dubious ancestry by lacking many of the qualities that go to make a true gentleman.

  On the other hand, she spoke freely of the Emperor, declaring that he was still hale and vigorous in mind and body, and that there was every reason to believe that he would continue so for a long time to come. In spite of his eighty-four years, he maintained the habit of a lifetime by getting up at four o’clock every morning and taking his first coffee at his desk while he began to go through the official papers awaiting him. He walked in his gardens for an hour or more every day and was still capable of taking an occasional ride on horse-back. But those were practically the only relaxations he allowed himself. He greatly disliked public functions and entertaining, as they interfered with his routine. On the rare occasions when he did have guests, it meant his putting off dinner until five or six o’clock, whereas normally he took his evening meal between three and four in the afternoon, and liked to be in bed and asleep by eight o’clock.

  She said that underneath his cold exterior he was really kind, considerate and warm-hearted; but he had suffered so many sorrows and disappointments in his life that, while still a comparatively young man, he had become chary of giving his affections freely. The only men to whom he permitted any degree of intimacy were his three personal aides-de-camp, all of whom had served him faithfully for many years and were now over seventy. They were Count Paar, who advised him on the filling of all posts that became vacant; Baron Bolfas, with whom he discussed matters of high policy and foreign affairs; and Count Beck, a long since retired Chief of Staff, who now arranged all public functions and military reviews. Occasionally Generals von Hötzendorf or Potiorek were admitted to lengthy audiences, and the one usually got his way by sheer persistence until the other counteracted his rival’s gains owing to his courtier-like manners and the support of Count Beck. But, generally, the three septuagenarian a.d.c.s. succeeded, like a living rampart, in sheltering their master from all intrusions and minor annoyances; although his sense of responsibility was so great that even they dared not hide from him any matter, internal or external, which might affect the well-being of his Empire. In consequence, the mountains of State papers he perused occupied most of his waking hours; but he devoted himself unsparingly to this duty in the firm belief that his exemplary life and conscientious labours must in the end secure for his people the blessing of God.

  As de Richleau listened to this picture of a dreary, unimaginative existence, he thought of the figure made familiar by innumerable photographs, of the aged ruler with the heavily pouched eyes and white mutton-chop whiskers, dressed in his favourite Tyrolese costume, and added what he knew from other sources.

  The Emperor had been very handsome as a young man, but even then his high moral rectitude had caused him to ignore the blandishments of scores of lovely women. He had been a keen student of military affairs, but had never fought a war without losing it. From the beginning of his reign the non-Germanic peoples who formed the great bulk of his subjects had plagued him with their grievances, yet he had never devised a policy that brought contentment to any of them. He had spent the greater part of his life in a city where music and the arts were esteemed more highly than in any other, yet he had remained deaf to their appeal. He reigned over a people by nature happy and more warm-hearted than any in the world, yet he had eschewed all friendship and preferred to live as a recluse. He was abysmally ignorant in the cultural sense, hide-bound in a narrow morality, and doggedly self-opinionated upon matters about which his strong-willed mother had made up his mind for him several generations ago. His sole virtue was his conscientious adherence to his duty as he saw it, and in the doing of it he had let life pass him by, without either tasting its joys or having to his credit a single noteworthy achievement.

  Such a man, the Duke decided, could certainly not be counted on, at the very end of his life, suddenly to stand forth and veto the considered opinions of his legally appointed advisers.

  After the luncheon was over, he thanked Frau Sacher for her kindness in arranging it, and escorted Frau Schratt to the carriage which, as she told him with a smile, she still used at the Emperor’s request, as he had ridden in a motor-car only once himself to please King Edward VII and had disliked the experience intensely. Then, having waved good-bye to her, he went in again and straight up to his room.

  The luncheon with Frau Schratt had been not only his last line of investigation, but his last chance of being able to send back to Whitehall a glimmer of hope that peace mig
ht be preserved, and he now set to work on the grim task of completing his mission by writing a long report to Sir Pellinore. In it he gave a brief résumé of the state of things as he had found them in the Austrian and Serbian capitals, then a detailed account of his conversations with von Hötzendorf and Dimitriyevitch. To quote his conclusions, they ran as follows:

  1. The Austrian and Serbian peoples continue to cherish an inbred hatred for one another owing to their many centuries of irascible contact:

  (a) The Serbians are animated by a desire for expansion and are conditioned to war by their recent conflicts. They would take the field again with readiness and, as far as their army is concerned, enthusiasm.

  (b) The Austrians have no territorial ambitions and are ill-prepared for war. They would regard its coming as a major calamity, and even a large part of their army would march to it unwillingly.

  2. The military chiefs of both countries definitely desire war, and wield sufficient influence with their governments:

  (a) in the case of Serbia, to force it at any time they consider it expedient to do so;

  (b) in the case of Austria, given a casus belli, almost certainly to over-rule any attempts by peaceable elements to prevent it.

  3. Serbia will deliberately take steps to provoke an armed conflict during the last week in June, or possibly a few days earlier.

  4. The Serbians will make no attempt to localise the conflict but, on the contrary, use their utmost efforts to draw Russia in to their assistance, entirely regardless of the fact that her participation may lead to a general European conflagration.

  He then added a final paragraph to his letter, which read:

  “Having regard to the terms of reference of my mission, I trust you will consider that I have now fulfilled it satisfactorily. No one could regret its outcome more than myself, but it is some small consolation to me that I have been able to obtain for you, within approximately a week, the date that the crisis is likely to arise, and done so without having to perjure myself by joining the Black Hand. About having disclosed the personal confidences of Dimitriyevitch I have no qualms, but I have much disliked abusing the trust of my Austrian friends and am greatly relieved to feel that I need no longer play the part of a spy among them. I plan to remain here for a further ten days or so, as I fear it will be the last chance I shall have, perhaps for years to come, to enjoy the carefree, happy atmosphere of the most delightful and civilised of all cities. I shall then return to England, and take such steps as I can to secure a niche for myself in which to take my part in the coming ordeal. In this connection I should regard it as a personal kindness if you would use your influence to persuade “Mr. Marlborough” to reconsider his decision regarding my request for a commission in the British Army, or at least to endeavour to find me some post where my military knowledge may be of value.”