As Colonel Northcott was relating all these details I remembered that I hadn’t made up one of my cards for Ema Destinnova. But I decided I wouldn’t make her a card: she didn’t fit my theory. If I had bothered to look in any of Uncle Berty’s books on famous military disasters (I imagined that all generals kept such books to hand) — although my morning in his study was hardly conducive to this task — no doubt I would have encountered numerous instances of theories made to fit, regardless of the facts staring the ever optimistic Field-Marshal, General, or plain despot in the face. But there was an explanation. Destinnova had been part of the King Edward imposture, and that I felt certain had now been cancelled in favour of a fake Kaiser.
Sabine brought the dressmakers to see me. If it was to be a ball, then I favoured a white tulle skirt with a white silk body adorned with jet — “jet” in Bohemia being very cleverly fashioned black glass; one could never tell the difference. If the occasion was supper only — and the wretched invitation had been criminally vague on this point — then I favoured the white tulle with pâquerettes, a very striking creation from a Paris pattern book which would be made here in a workroom in Josefov. Of course, by “a dress” in my note to Karel I took that to include a new hat, evening bag, shoes — and as my long white gloves looked a little tired, new ones there too. I declined a new parasol, however. Early May did not warrant such an extravagance.
So the days passed. Müller had taken it upon himself to find out when Monsieur Yves intended delivering his next cargo of vintage champagne empties and organised the young men to have Jenks followed. Pilipenko — too dangerous for our little poor chaps to follow — had anyway disappeared.
At the beginning of the third week in April the two Honzas reported back to Müller. Initially they had followed Jenks to a warehouse on one of the narrow streets that go down to the river between the vodka distillery in Zlíchov and the big brewery in Smíchov — a district therefore of drifting aromas. He appeared to spend his nights there, camping out on the job. There were various comings and goings: plenty of deliveries, carters, and general labourers helping during the day with whatever work was going on there. This work appeared to include packing a large quantity of china and glassware into crates, taking in a consignment of chandeliers, even dealing with several large potted palms which had arrived one morning. Then on April 22nd three carts left the warehouse laden with crates and boxes and made the short journey to the West Bohemia Railway Company’s goodsyard — the big sheds and sidings opposite the brewery. The potted palms were on the last cart.
The following day a four-wheeler fiacre took Jenks, the small white terrier, and a large amount of luggage to the FJ1 Station. He left on the Eger train which would be stopping at Pilsen and Marienbad.
I thanked Müller for his very thorough report, and gave him money for the young men. I called Sabine and asked her to pack as soon as possible. Our journey to the great spa for the resolution of this intriguing and doubtless tragic affair had begun.
Chapter Eleven
A Royal Visit
As Sabine and I were driven from the station, it was clear that spring was in the air. The surrounding forests gave the streets of Marienbad the distinctive aroma of pine needles. Cane chairs were being unloaded from carts to be set outside numerous cafés; men were at work repairing awnings and hanging up flower baskets; the large hotels were busily recruiting the last members of their staff who were lining up for interview outside the larger establishments; and at the few restaurants which were already open, waiters hovered for their expected guests. Over the season some of the richest men in Europe would make their way here for the cure. How different the whole place seemed from the empty, shuttered place of just a few weeks before.
The British Consulate had arranged for myself and Sabine to stay at the Weimar, where the King — under his pseudonym of The Duke of Lancaster — would also be lodging. It was the grandest hotel in the spa, whose façade resembled…well, to put it truthfully, an overblown opera house in some provincial French city. Although it was a few days before the season started officially and finishing touches were still being put to the great hotel, the restaurant was one which had already re-opened. Our suite was fine and airy.
King Edward was not only a favoured regular customer, but under his patronage Marienbad had blossomed into one of the most famous spas in Europe. It had in part achieved its fame for the two types of individuals it attracted: fat men with money and dubious women without. The spa was a Mecca for beautiful adventuresses of every nationality. There were American divorcées, Russian demi-mondaines, and fascinating Austrian widows of doubtful origin. An ambitious young writer who last year had attended several of my Drawing Room soirées once said to me of his then-recent visit here: “To mingle with monarchs whilst losing superfluous weight was to glimpse the sublime.”
The forest-scented air, the bubbling trickle of streams, the splashing of the fountains — all this would aid my concentration, I felt sure. I sat in my corner room on the third floor with my cards laid out on a small writing desk. Now here was a card whose significance I had overlooked: “BRODSKY TO BIARRITZ: Alone by train. Gives police the slip en route. Does not get there.”
In the context of this Brodsky being an impostor, then naturally he would need to lead the London police on a false trail and actually head for Bohemia. But what if he had been the real Brodsky? What then would have been the reason? The Biarritz ruse could put off anyone else following him — such as Jenks — but it also could be used to give the man a few days in a state of limbo. He would re-surface in Marienbad for his party in early May, or perhaps some while before to complete arrangements, but he would have had a few days off the official record. Now the clue this offered would have to wait until I could possibly imagine what he would need this time for. It might have something do with this man Hammond, whose whereabouts were also unknown at the moment. The homosexual half-world might just hold the answer.
There was also the fact that this meeting — this party — must be very important for the King to come to Marienbad in May, when usually he only came in August.
The afternoon light was turning into the warmer hues of evening and I remembered I had agreed to take a walk with Sabine. Our route would take us down the Haupt-Strasse then a right turn into the lane that led past the old tobacco factory.
As we walked along together we not only looked like the first of the season’s promenaders but also its first pair of adventuresses. Sabine, being French, managed to look extremely chíque even on the modest wage I paid her. I probably looked a trifle overdressed, for there was no one else of my class taking the air tonight or probably in the entire spa. I wished I had purchased the parasol to go with my tulle dress even though the sun was now in fast retreat and the shadows lengthening with every step we took. It would have given a jaunty spirit to the outfit.
As we turned to the right off the Haupt-Strasse, Sabine gripped my arm: “We’re not going there again, are we?”
“It’s all right, Sabine. We’re not going to climb in through any window. I just want to go past — to see what’s happening.”
There was the mysterious old convent once more. Its main entrance was now shrouded in a wooden framework draped with a tarpaulin. The windows appeared to be boarded-up from the inside with very new wood. Certainly there was no way we could see anything within.
Everywhere in Marienbad was the sound of hammering — for those last minute repairs which were still being completed in time for May 1st. Everywhere too was the sound of the beating of carpets. It was a mania. Large carpets dragged from hotel dining rooms, druggets from corridors, rugs from bedrooms — all were taken into the unfamiliar outdoors and punished severely: bruised into docile, dustless submission for the start of the Season. The rich, famous, and fat could then walk all over them for another summer.
“Listen,” I said to Sabine.
“It’s not coming from over there
, is it?” observed Sabine, pointing in the direction of the Haupt-Strasse, where all the hotels, restaurants, and pensions were busy repairing or improving.
No, it wasn’t. Coming from inside the old tobacco factory was the distinct sound of hammering and sawing, but outwardly there were no visible signs of life. I wondered just what the secret activity inside could be. However, I couldn’t see how we were to discover more by just standing here.
We turned away. As we were walking back down the lane, not one but two very large motorcars began making their way up the thoroughfare towards us — or, rather, towards the old tobacco factory. At the sight of us they appeared to change their course, quickly turning down into the shorter route that led to the railway station. Other than their drivers, the motors were empty.
It was clear that they had not wanted to be observed.
“It seems everything is in pairs in this mystery,” I muttered.
***
The following morning, after the kind of hearty breakfast that one only eats in hotels, I gave some errands to Sabine to run while I visited the estate agent’s office where Jenks had procured the rental of the tobacco factory. I was curious to see if other premises had been let to this team for the purposes of their scheme. It was only while Sabine had been running my bath for me that an idea to get this information came to me.
I stood by the counter in the estate agent’s and adroitly rang the bell. The same clerk who had dealt with Jenks came out of an inner office. I could see his breakfast had been more modest, consumed this time at his office, for there were still remains about his mouth and clinging to the ends of his moustache which he was trying to remove with a handkerchief. If I was to get anywhere in this interview I would have to forget I had seen this disgusting exhibition. I proceeded to do so.
My dress was one of the plain, workaday items that I’d had Sabine get made for me. With any luck I didn’t look a Countess. I just hoped that my face did not betray my loathing for bad manners. If I had had a napkin with me I would have given him it, together with a lecture.
“Can I be of service, Madam?”
“I am writing an article for the Rodina Illustrated Weekly on the subject of family holidays at the great spas,” I began. “The cost of hotels is rising so steeply that it is far better for a family — especially a large one — to take a house. I was wondering if you would be so good as to give me some information on the rental accommodation available — or even that which you have let successfully recently?”
“Of course, Madam.”
“Naturally, I shall mention the name of this firm. So what about very large houses — country houses, castles, and the like? Our readers also like to dream.”
I was thinking that this crew of varlets would need a base somewhere. What better than a quiet castle just out of town?
“Well, Madam, I can say that there are a few large country houses let for the Season. These are mainly for later on, for July and August.”
“Have there been any let for the entire Season? I mean, from now onwards? I was thinking of larger castles — like Count Nostitz’s at Planá or the Trauttmansdorffs’ — Schloss Bischofteinitz, I think it is.” (I sounded so knowledgeable as I had been dragged to both of these. Karel liked to shoot at one or other of them in the autumn.)
“No, there’s almost no demand for that — and most families don’t want to let out their homes for longer than a couple of months in the summer at the most. There are some big houses idle, owned by foreigners. One of those we let recently.”
“Oh? Which one?” This would be it, I felt sure.
“Madam, I am afraid I am not at liberty to say. Indeed it was an express term of the contract between both the lessor and the lessee that we kept the matter confidential. I am sure you understand.”
“But tell me just a little about the transaction, something interesting for my readers?” I tried rolling my eyes seductively in a way which I thought suited to the class of person I was hoping to emulate — like the shop-girls I’d often observed waiting at the tramstop near St. Jindřich’s churchyard. The ploy seemed to work a little in that it reminded the man to put his handkerchief away and smooth his hair with his hand. He looked at me with an earnest gaze.
“Well, I suppose it names no names for me to say that the lessee was a gentleman from Belgium, a director of the Brussels Water Works Company.”
So, I had drawn a blank. I couldn’t imagine Jenks, Pilipenko, or Hammond hiding behind that alias — although, by that very fact, it would have been a good one to use. However, there was no stopping the estate agent now.
“He particularly wanted the house because it has nearly two kilometres of fishing in the stream that borders one side of the estate. We were, in fact, instructed to negotiate with the Grand Duke’s agent for the rights to fish on the far bank as well.”
“Grand Duke?”
“Yes, Grand Duke Mikhailovich. He is one of several Russians — industrialists as well as the aristocracy — who have estates here in West Bohemia. They enjoy the recreational spirit of the spas and the cure certainly performs its restorative effect on them. I hope you will use these words in the your article…”
But I was gone.
The Ladies Reading Room, the warmth and shelter of which I had so envied when walking by in a very different guise on my last visit, now provided me with the use of reference works. I was able to discover that this Grand Duke Mikhailovich was, in St. Petersburg, head of the Theatrical Society and the Russian Ballet Company. That all made sense. In another directory I found an address in Bohemia — a castle but a dozen kilometres away. That would make an outing for Sabine and me…a change from the normal sights at the spa.
***
We had already walked through the woods and up the Dianahof path, but found that the Dianahof Café was still closed, and climbed the hundred steps of the Hamelikaberg view tower (although they seemed like two hundred in each direction) by the time the hotel had found a two-horse carriage that we could hire for a day. The spa was beautifully provided for with these invigorating recreational walks. It was finally the first of May, and the carriages had just returned from their winter quarters, ready for the Haupt-Strasse’s promenaders to go — on a whim at the sight of them on their stand outside the magnificent Church — for many outings that were about an hour or two’s pleasant drive. It made a change for the visitor weary of trudging those endless woodland paths.
The Marienbad Season opened with some ceremony and with a band playing in the Colonnade. The abbot of Tepl blessed the springs as he did every year, for they were indeed the well-spring of the Abbey’s fortunes and put sumptuous roasts on the refectory board every day of the week but Fridays. More importantly, the hammering and the frantic beating of carpets were now forbidden until the autumn. The town, after all, thrived on its air of unreal serenity. It was its currency. To me, this was all like some majestic overture to a drama which I was sure would unfold soon in a more exciting way than any grand opera could hope to rival.
The estate of Grand Duke Mikhailovich was a few kilometres onwards from the small town of Tepl, the great Abbey of which owned Marienbad’s lucrative warm springs — the Waters of Mary. I instructed the coachman to drive us to Tepl first, then take the road in the direction of Franzensbad, the smallest of the three great West Bohemian Spas, whose development had lacked the aggressive entrepreneurial spirit of the last abbot of Tepl, the venerable priest who had been Marienbad’s tireless commercial promoter.
It was raining gently, as one would of course expect on a holiday, and I was finding Sabine agreeable company. Sometimes it falls on a maid to be a de facto companion. One should resist the temptation to get over familiar, as the role of maid would be reverted to soon enough — but for the while we could talk about things viewed from the carriage and what we anticipated of our luncheon, to be taken on returning through Tepl at the Abbey’s own hostelry, a short
distance from the town itself. Since that was also an establishment of the enterprising monks, we had expectations of a fine repast.
The road beyond Tepl ran through gently undulating, pleasant countryside. Eventually, on the left-hand side, began a long estate wall, made of stone. It ran for over a kilometre until there were gates with twin lodges. As we were passing, a horsedrawn cart was stopped as the gates were being opened for it. It appeared to be carrying a large quantity of freshly sawn timber.
I had the driver turn round and we drew up before the lodges. The gatekeeper was by this time just closing the heavy iron gates, upon which were iron plaques of a coat-of-arms I did not recognise.
“Is this the Nostitz Estate?” I called down to the man.
“No, Ma’am. I’m afraid it’s not.”
Insolent fellow! He should have told me whose it was. All my senses were so roused that I was in a continual tetchy mood…
“Anyway, the place is let for the Season,” he went on.
“And may I enquire to whom?”
“I’m afraid not, Ma’am. If I knew, I’m told not to tell.”
I shook my hand in a way Sabine knew was for her to take out my purse. The man’s face brightened as Sabine handed it to me.
“Then can you at least tell me if they are at home, then?”
“They comes and goes. That’s all I can say.”
“And the timber waggon — are they doing repairs to the castle?”
“Oh no, Ma’am. That’s just for extending the summer house in the park. Nothing up at the castle.”
The Countess of Prague Page 20