The Countess of Prague

by Stephen Weeks

  They lunched at Glocke’s Wine Restaurant, one of the few open during the winter and also located on the Haupt-Strasse. You see, everything of note in Marienbad is on the Haupt-Strasse. This morning’s perambulation of the town had made me aware of its peculiar geography and its popularity, even more so than Karlsbad, with the English. I had only been once before. My husband and I prefer the smaller spas, one in particular in the mountains of East Bohemia is his favourite — a choice of course made by necessity; it is far less expensive there than the grand spas of Western Bohemia.

  The occasion I had had to come to Marienbad had been when I was eighteen, when I was coming out in Society, and I had to attend The Emperor’s Ball here — a glittering event at which I, and a large number of other marriageable young ladies of similar breeding — had been presented to his Imperial Majesty Franz-Joseph I. The Empress had not been present. Some minor ailment was blamed, but we all had known she was terribly jealous of competition, even though His Imperial Majesty was quite content with just his one young mistress who kept him on the straight, if — how shall we say it? — double-width, path.

  So I had not remembered much of Marienbad’s geography, my head having then been in a whirl of excitement and painstaking preparations.

  The Haupt-Strasse is like the sea-front in Brighton, Nice, Biarritz, or any other successful resort facing the ocean. It has high, ornate stuccoed buildings — hotels, apartments, restaurants, and casinos — designed with a certain lightness, a gaiety which announces pleasure and recreation, but in a grand style. The effect of Brighton, Nice, or wherever is complete in that the Haupt-Strasse’s buildings are grouped on only one side of the street. Opposite are the green lawns, glades, and walks of the park below the Humelika Mountain. So, just as at the seaside, one promenades along one huge line of buildings, or sits on terraces gazing out — but in this case not into the blue, but into the green.

  The park thus becomes a focus of natural interest, just as the beach would elsewhere. And as at the beach, it is here where children play, bands in bandstands perform, women sit in the sun, but preserving their skins under parasols, and young lovers stroll together with an abandon not witnessed in Vienna, London, or even Paris. Even before his Majesty King Edward VII, emperor of most of the colonial world (except, of course, the United States), took to visiting annually, Marienbad had become a most popular resort for English visitors. Perhaps they came and looked longingly for the breaking waves which were not to be found there, for had not Shakespeare himself described (in error!) “the shores of Bohemia”? But what Marienbad lacked in undrinkable saltwater was amply made up for by the curative mineral springs with their very drinkable waters for which the spa was already world famous.

  King Edward’s visits were supposed to be incognito, but were known to anyone who cared to find out. He went under the pseudonyms of either “Lord Renfrew” or “The Duke of Lancaster” — a democratic and popular gesture in stuffy Austria, and for this he was quite evidently thought of as a “man of the people.” (Well, Dukes are people, aren’t they?) He normally came in August and stayed at the Hotel Weimar behind the Goethe-Platz.

  The Goethe-Platz is itself a crescent of large hotels behind the Colonnade, the huge open building whose roof is supported on cast-iron columns of the most artistic design and which houses both the most accessible of the mineral springs, from which one can drink, and an arcade of the most luxurious shops — branches of famous stores found in London, Paris, or Rome.

  Today it was still officially winter here, despite the sun which not only had melted yesterday’s snow but which I could begin to feel warm upon my skin. Sun is important to the morale of the loiterer, as I was finding out. I had stationed myself in the passage just next to Ruppert’s, the confectioner’s not too many doors along from Glocke’s. This bakery was open and my nostrils were soon filled with the scents of pastries rising and almonds roasting. I couldn’t determine whether this was exquisite torture or a kind of hateful self-sacrifice, but finally — after not too many minutes — my resolve broke down.

  Pretending I was collecting for gentlemanly masters, I went in and ordered three slices of ordinary strudel to be put in a box and wrapped in paper. I was working out how to open this parcel surreptitiously and enjoy some of its contents when the two emerged from Glocke’s. By any standards they’d had a very short luncheon.

  They walked more purposefully than before their repast. Perhaps they had discussed Mr. Jenks’ requirements more thoroughly over the restaurant’s board and the estate agent had had some more productive ideas. Now they walked away from the centre, towards the railway station and past The Continental Hotel, suddenly taking a sharp right turn.

  This street took them uphill, behind the grand structures of Haupt-Strasse, to what looked like an old monastery or convent. The chapel was raised high, but its tall gothic windows were half bricked-up. The onion-domed spire, with its weathered green copper plating, seemed to have lost its bell. A battered, noseless statue of The Virgin Mary still gazed out with blank eyes over the main doorway, but covered in netting against pigeons. The paint was peeling from the stucco, and even the sign on the wall was beginning to lose some of its painted lettering:

  DOUBLE-EAGLE BRAND

  TOBAC O MANUFACTORY

  The printing of an advertisement poster pasted on a board nearest the street corner of this strange building had also faded in the sun. It depicted the popular singing star Ema Destinnová: “Smoke Emmy’s favourite brand — have the throat of a lark!” it declared.

  All that this advertiser’s message did for me was to remind me of the coughing fit which had nearly done for my whole visit here only a few hours before. However, the factory looked closed. The estate agent was fumbling with a bunch of keys to admit Mr. Jenks for a viewing. In a moment or two they were inside, the door closed behind them. I could hear no key turned in the lock.

  It was now that I took a huge and frightening risk. I had sensed somehow that this was going to be a place of peculiar interest to the mysterious Mr. Jenks so I needed to be able to get into this building later, should it be the one he was — presumably — looking to rent or buy. I ran across to the main door and opened it a fraction. My heart was pumping so loudly, it seemed to me, that my listening out for the sounds of the men was quite impaired. Perhaps the very fact I couldn’t hear any — no footsteps, no doors opening, no conversation — was proof enough they were in a distant part of the place. I entered a reception hall, ran to the nearest window and simply opened the casement catch.

  I fumbled due to my nervousness, but in a second or two it was opened. The window itself remained closed. Just at that moment, voices and footsteps seemed to be right above me, getting closer. I looked round — I could actually see shoes on the staircase descending into the hall where I stood. I could scream, I could be paralysed with fright, or I could run. Luckily instinct guided me.

  I ran. Out of the main door, across the street, and soon I saw the entranceway to the back of some of the buildings in the Haupt-Strasse. I tucked in there and was just able to observe the doorway of my escape. Judging by the coolness of the way the two men left the old tobacco manufactory, they had neither seen nor heard me. I was panting with relief. Had I been wearing a dress, I would have felt a need to have changed it — but, well, I wasn’t wearing one, and a bath was only a distant dream!

  The two took off down another lane which went down almost directly towards the railway station. This appeared to greatly animate the otherwise grave and expressionless Jenks. Having passed by my hotel, in the square opposite the station, they turned once again into the Haupt-Strasse and sauntered in a contented fashion up the street, once more past The Continental, to Thomas Cook’s Travel Bureau — not far from Glocke’s Restaurant.

  Here they parted company. Jenks went into the travel bureau, and the estate agent went off in the direction of his office. After some minutes, Jenks reappeared and waited on the street
a short while until joined again by the estate agent, carrying a sheaf of papers. The two then went along to Glocke’s again, where presumably they would be doing business. My guess, which didn’t take much genius to arrive at, was that Mr. Jenks was concluding the paperwork to rent the old factory. The mystery had by this time only deepened. Any possible explanation only posed a dozen more unanswerable questions.

  ***

  I needed urgently to do two things. One was to get information from the offices of Messrs. Thomas Cook. The other was to go to the lavatory. I shall only recall the former of these two activities. The latter involved my deep embarrassment at entering a public convenience only to find a man standing relieving himself into a porcelain object I took to be a urinal in full view of any other men who might enter. I turned and left. The park was more satisfactory. Gathering the information I needed seemed easier by comparison. How all this related to the death of Alois Tager, his impersonator, and the Tontine I had only one idea — that being that it was related.

  Nearly next door to the travel bureau was the post office. Without much difficulty I managed to get a booth with a telephone and a connection to an operator who rang the bureau for me. Before speaking, I wiped the receiver with my now much-soiled handkerchief; I had never before had to use a public instrument. I was hoping that this operator was far enough away not to realise that I was only a few doors from where I was telephoning. In any event I spoke in hushed tones, as if the clerks at Thomas Cook’s would hear my voice and in some way know I was speaking from a lot nearer than Pilsen — which is what I said.

  I had very carefully thought-out what I was going to say, but nonetheless it would have made a strange sight — an urchin with the imperious voice of a grande dame — but fortunately telephonic communication is merely oral.

  “Thomas Cook’s? I am calling from Pilsen.” Here I paused momentarily, half expecting the operator to cut in and say ‘You bare-faced liar!’ But there was silence. I went on:

  “I have been trying to call my colleague Mr. Jenks at the Continental Hotel all day. They said there that he might be calling in at your office. Would you be so kind as to give him a message?”

  The reply was exactly as I expected. “He’s already been in. I’m afraid you’ve missed him. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

  “Well yes, there is, as a matter of fact. Can you simply tell me what train he is on tomorrow? I have to meet up with him, you see.”

  “It’s the seven-thirty a.m.”

  “And connecting to?”

  “At Eger connecting to the Train de Luxe. The Express to London.”

  I went on to tell him that I should be arriving in Marienbad later that evening and should be requiring two tickets on the de Luxe for myself and my maid. I asked him if he could call by the Bahnhofs-Hotel Central at eight-thirty with the tickets. Showing how light business must have been in Marienbad out-of-season, the manager — for I was told it was he I was addressing — willingly consented.

  I hung up the apparatus, half absolutely satisfied with my day’s work and half completely terrified that unless Sabine arrived with my proper clothes, then I would have to let Mr. Jenks slip away. By now I felt unable to keep up this ridiculous guise any longer, and for tomorrow’s journey it would be impossible — Trains de Luxe were strictly First Class.

  Mr. Jenks was either obliged to go by this method for reasons of speed, or he was treating himself as a reward for his own good work. After all, he only had one fare to pay now. Which paymaster, I wondered, would be pleased with that — for I was beginning to doubt that this Mr. Jenks could himself possibly be the mastermind behind whatever elaborate scheme was afoot.

  Chapter Five

  An Unexpected Stop

  The train from Karlsbad arrived on time and Sabine walked straight past me on the platform, followed by a porter trundling a large steamer trunk. From the perspective of a poor urchin, how refined and wealthily-wise even a lady’s maid appeared to be. I even detected she was wearing a light perfume. Hmm.

  I followed her into the booking hall where she had the porter set down the luggage, paid the fellow, and then stood, looking around. She observed a shabbily dressed young man sidle up to her and wink. She nearly fainted.

  “Madame!” she exclaimed, recognition having taken place in the matter of another second or two. “I can see why you wanted some clothes.”

  “Sabine. Thank goodness. But don’t talk further here. Get a porter to take your things over to the hotel in the square straight in front of the station. Take two rooms or a suite if they have such a thing. Best rooms — it’s not an expensive place. Use your own name. I shall arrive in a few minutes — but let me have that small bag you are carrying.”

  I held out my hand, as if for a tip — which the startled Sabine did not think to offer — and uttered a “Much obliged.” I had practiced touching my cap and bowing like the best lowliest.

  I was soon delivering the lady’s bag to the one suite the hotel possessed on the second floor and sitting for the first time in what seemed an age in a comfortable, upholstered chair with someone — at last — at my beck and call.

  Sabine was busy unpacking various things. At length she stood up and surveyed what had become of her mistress. “Now, where shall we start?” she sighed.

  As the wayward Trixie was being put back into the formal appearance of Beatrice, I ventured to tell Sabine about what was happening: “Now, where shall I start?” I began.

  After the shock of telling her that next morning we were going to board the train for London, I then told her everything I knew — although of course I did not tell her about the Tontine. That the Tontine had been compromised, and my Uncle and I were deeply implicated, was something I thought was not needed for our journey. And when she looked weary, both from getting me in my proper clothes and from what I had told her (oh, and I didn’t say in so many words that Jenks was probably a dangerous murderer), I found myself saying “And, Sabine, for the remainder of this adventure, until we are back in Prague, your pay is doubled.”

  Money, although in itself is not everything — for you cannot, for example, buy class (although respectability is another matter) — it certainly does have a soothing effect on most people. Sabine, I discovered, fell easily into that category. There were more inducements too: “The Hotel Klinger, I am reliably informed, although closed until the Season starts, still maintains its restaurant. King Edward stayed there on more than one occasion, although he now prefers the Weimar. I doubt very much this Mr. Jenks will wish to dine there — but tonight we are going to have the finest dinner that the Count’s money can buy.”

  Sabine, God bless the woman, had already smelt a rat. “And before dinner, Madame?”

  ***

  “Really, Madame, was it necessary to steal this lamp?”

  I was helping her through the window of the tobacco factory when she chose to make this observation. “It was necessary in that otherwise we would be in pitch darkness at this moment — or, if you are enquiring about the theft itself, then I believe that to purchase such a lamp, if one could be procured so late in the evening, would only serve to arouse suspicion, don’t you?” I suppose I could have simply answered “Yes.”

  She still seemed uneasy. “But we will return it,” I added.

  That made her a little more comfortable as we started out on our exploration. At least she had the thought of dinner to sustain her hopes, whereas to me, the very thought of a decent supper just seemed an almost impossible dream after so much deprivation.

  We wandered through many rooms. The equipment of the tobacco manufactory had all gone — long ago, judging by the dust and cobwebs. All there was of any peculiarity was the immense empty space of the former chapel — just a vast, empty room now. Religious items must have been entirely removed even before cigarette-making machines had been installed here.

  “It’s odd, tho
ugh, isn’t it,” I observed, “that cigarettes were made in a former House of God?”

  “Well, here, Madame, I have some knowledge of this. Mrs. Norová — she’s our cook, you know — ”

  “Yes, of course,” I cut in abruptly. Actually, since Monsieur Yves’ departure I had really not taken the faintest interest in the names of our cooks — or even how many there had been.

  “Anyway, Mrs. Norová comes from Kutná Hora.”

  “We call the place Kuttenberg — at the moment,” I said — again like a prig. In any event the Czechs will have their day, eventually.

  “…and she smokes Empress” — Sabine suddenly stopped short. Staff caught smoking were subject to instant dismissal, especially female staff.

  “Please continue, Sabine. I shall turn a blind eye.”

  “Well,” she continued, a little hesitantly, “she’s also a Protestant…”

  “Two blind eyes, then!”

  “And every time she lights one she never fails to tell us that Emperor Josef the Second closed some of the monasteries and banned most of the monks and to add insult to injury had several of the places converted to tobacco factories. And there’s two of them at Kutná Hora, where Empress are made.”

  “Well, that explains it then,” I said. Oddly enough, my Catholic blood is really from the English side. Karel calls himself one, but that’s only because in Austria one must. I have on occasion caught him looking longingly at the Protestant images of the chalice. But that may have been for more secular reasons!

  Despite Sabine’s perfectly good explanation, I was just a little annoyed that she had had the answer and I had not. If this relationship was going to work, and sharing a potentially dangerous adventure was not a time nor place to have between two people any issues of rank, then it would have to be me who changed.