The Countess of Prague

by Stephen Weeks

  Having tipped the gatekeeper, I ordered the coachman to drive us back to Tepl.

  “Inconclusive, I should say,” I observed to Sabine. I was thinking that I could somehow bend all this to fit my theory, but the facts as they stood did not warrant it.

  “I know what you wanted, Madame. As in those novels when the hump-backed old lodgekeeper says there’s been strange goings-on up there, pointing aloft to the dark castle clinging to its crag in the distance?”

  “Yes, you’re right, Sabine. Nothing in the least romantic.” Now I knew the kind of novels she read.

  The bells of Tepl Abbey were tolling and clanging at the same time for some festival in that discordant way of Continental Europe as our carriage rattled across the cobbles of the Abbey’s forecourt and to lunch.

  ***

  The night before the King’s arrival, on May 2nd, Colonel Northcott telephoned me at the hotel. I had to report that I still did not understand the plot which was obviously in motion. I hadn’t been able to gain admittance to the old tobacco factory, or even to peek inside. On two further occasions, as Sabine and I passed, men obviously walking with purpose to the building diverted their course on seeing us. However, I could only say that I didn’t think it was life-threatening. Assassinations are carried out by small groups or even single individuals and this didn’t have that feeling, not that I had ever witnessed such an event. All I had to go on was my intuition.

  “I will give you HRH’s programme when we meet tomorrow,” Northcott said. “We are keeping it secret until the very last minute. It’s the best policy.”

  “Don’t you think your leak is in fact from Sir Emile?” I said. There was just no one else who could have known anything about the King’s visit. “I mean, he had to make arrangements for his party…invite other guests?”

  “HRH has absolute confidence in Sir Emile, as I have said. But I suppose it is just possible that one of his staff might have let the cat out of the bag.”

  He could see I still had my doubts, and went back on the defensive: “We are lucky to have a monarch who values genius — inventiveness which can attract capital, technology which advances the Nation. This is a new era, and we must accept that there are new people who hold many of the best cards. HRH is a man of a very different mould than his mother. I suppose Her Late Majesty would have frowned on HRH’s present social milieu. But it is not my place to make any kind of judgement, and I must respect his complete confidence in Sir Emile.”

  We left it at that. Tomorrow the fireworks would begin.

  Northcott himself arrived at about eleven in the morning from Prague. He had with him three gentlemen in suits that were very slightly too small and who had that bull-necked look of professional prize-fighters, the tortoise shape of their craniums emphasised by their bowler hats. In short, they were an advertisement for their profession: bodyguards! Northcott had come straight to the hotel and I lunched with him in the restaurant.

  “Here’s the programme,” he said, starting off briskly. This was business. “HRH is arriving on the early evening de Luxe. It’s a very small party: HRH, two equerries, private secretary, two detectives. Usual valet, footmen, and so on. He’ll dine here in this restaurant — in the private room — and then he’ll have the rest of the evening off.”

  “Off?”

  “Well, no duties. Not to be disturbed. You understand?”

  “I think I do,” I said. This is where “HRH” visits his pretty Czech milliner, I assumed. “He’ll be trying new hats?”

  Northcott smiled.

  “So that brings us to Saturday. It’s been arranged that you will be introduced to HRH just after lunch, at two-thirty. You may tell him what you know, but no suspicions of Sir Emile, as I said. He wouldn’t want to hear that. Oh — and no mention of that man Charles Hammond. After the Cleveland Street affair, HRH never wants to hear of him again.”

  I looked puzzled. Northcott lowered his voice to a confidential whisper: “The late Prince Eddy, HRH the Duke of Clarence. An unhappy business. Only by a miracle was it not in the press. And, quite frankly, only by another miracle is he not with us today. Could you imagine the King’s eldest son, the heir presumptive, one of those? So you can see why this topic mustn’t be mentioned — ever, at all.”

  “Anything else I shouldn’t say?”

  “No, not really. Otherwise HRH is very broad-minded and likes talking to attractive women, so you should have no difficulty.”

  I couldn’t work out if this was a sly compliment from Northcott — and with a wife like Violet, as plain as a pikestaff, I could understand his need to spread his wings occasionally — or whether it was just in the line of “business.”

  “Anyway,” he concluded, “the rest of the programme we will give you at the interview with HRH. The dinner party is, as you know by your invitation, on Saturday evening.”

  Before I left Northcott to go to the smoking room to have his cigar I asked him if I might have the use of one his men to follow Brodsky if he arrived later. We agreed I should go to the station first and try to find out if Brodsky had already arrived and if not, then Northcott would assign a man to watch for him there. All this was on the strict understanding that HRH would not be informed.

  ***

  I still had the photograph of the actor Jules Lefèvre and I showed it to the ticket inspector at the railway station, asking if this man had been through the station in the last day or so.

  “Now that’s a funny thing!” he exclaimed, “— in fact the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It was about this time yesterday. Your man comes, but there’s three of him! Three of this gentleman, all dressed the same — same monocles, same ties, same everything…spats an’ all.”

  I had missed them. I kicked myself for not having thought of watching the station earlier. This detective business was damned far from being easy.

  “And were these three men on their own?”

  “No, there were two other men accompanying them. Two burly fellows.”

  “One with red hair?”

  “Well, no, the man with the red hair was here to meet them. They went off in a motor.”

  As I was leaving the station, a figure stepped out from behind the newspaper kiosk. It was Inspector Schneider.

  “Good afternoon, Countess,” he said, taking off his hat in a gentlemanly manner. “I am here with my men. We are keeping in the background, but we want to ensure nothing happens to the ‘Duke of Lancaster’ on his visit to Bohemia.”

  “I’m glad to hear of it, Inspector. I’m still no nearer solving this riddle, however — and are you?”

  “In a word, no. We have not found Pilipenko. Jenks has disappeared. Your lads watch the theatre, we know that — but nothing new there either.”

  “All calm before the storm, do you think?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “And The Union of Servants?” The day of their excursion had almost arrived.

  “Their train’s still due to arrive tomorrow at one. We’ll be watching them, of course, but as they have done nothing wrong — other than purloining the odd tie-pin here and there — we have no other powers. They’re all staying at the Continental, by the way. Management gave them a special rate as the Season’s hardly started.”

  As I left the station I recognised the less than inconspicuous forms of other “men in plain clothes” who were there on the lookout. What a nuisance we were all too late to have caught Jenks with, I presumed, at least one real Sir Emile Brodsky!

  ***

  In one way the time passed slowly until two-thirty the following day. It was the next event in the sequence and there was nothing more to do until then. I had seen the woodland paths, statues, memorials, fountains, grottoes, and springs of Marienbad too many times already. Now I simply wanted to get on with what I was really here to do. In another way, however, there didn’t seem enough time
for Sabine to make me ready to meet the most powerful monarch on Earth — the man whom a quarter of the world’s population either admired or cursed as their King and Emperor.

  “So you are our new detective?” were his very first words to me. I had to get used to this “Royal We.” He put out his cigar (a good sign, I was told) and bade me sit down opposite him at the small table in the window — one of his favourite spots in the Weimar’s restaurant. Northcott sat to one side.

  Here he was: that famous beard and those slightly hooded eyes. I curtsied and as I rose he took my hand in his for an instant. He had stood up. I was surprised at how short he was. One imagines Kings — but then, here he was — no throne, no courtiers other than Ponsonby and one of his equerries whom I noticed sitting discreetly at another table out of earshot, no fanfares — just a rather portly old man with a short beard, cigar ash on his waistcoat, and a knowing twinkle in his eye.

  “Wish all of them were as pretty, Colonel. But dear girl, what have we got to do? We are told we are in your hands.” As he looked at me I knew he was a man used to taking in a woman in a single glance.

  “Well, Your Majesty…”

  “We’re a Duke here, a common or garden Duke.”

  “Well, Sir, I believe there may be some form of criminal undertaking connected with your visit. I am extremely sorry to say that it has been impossible to discover a lot more about it than that. I do think, however, that I shall be able to recognise it the moment it commences, so all I am advising is to keep on one’s guard.”

  “Hhmm,” he growled, reaching for his cigar case.

  “It could be, of course, a hoax or even some pleasant surprise,” I added — trying to sound positive and making no mention of the three mysterious deaths in the matter thus far.

  “We hate surprises,” was all the King of England could find to say.

  “Let’s go through the schedule, Sir, if I may —?” Northcott managed to change the tone.

  The King nodded. Northcott began:

  “Train arrives from Berlin at five-thirty-nine.”

  “So let’s see if we can remember. Our nephew Willy goes straight to his hotel — the Klinger — and has an hour in his room. Six-forty he comes here for the reception in the ballroom. Seven-thirty he changes here from his uniform.”

  “There is a small ante-room, next to the ballroom, which has been prepared,” Northcott added.

  “And then at seven-forty-five the motors take us up to Glatzen for Sir Emile’s little soirée. Bedtime at eleven or half-past. So that’s the drill unless some damned anarchists, revolutionaries, or practical jokers disrupt it, eh?”

  In a few moments I was out in the bright sunshine — that very bright sunshine that makes its appearance from dark clouds — on the Haupt-Strasse. So I had survived my first conversation with a King. I had curtsied before Queen Victoria and been in the same room as Emperor Franz-Joseph, but had never had the pleasure of being engaged in a conversation. My mother would dine out on this for months when I told her.

  Sabine had been waiting for me and we promenaded together. The colonnade looked quite busy with strolling couples. The band was playing under the graceful iron arches as rain was threatening. In fact the street looked quite busy too, especially when compared to yesterday.

  Suddenly Sabine tugged at my arm and was just about to wave. I pulled her hand to me to stop her. “But look, it’s Müller, Madame!”

  Indeed, it was Müller — dressed as normally, that is, dressed as he would normally be for a day off. He was strolling on the opposite side of the street, along by the green swards of the park, arm-in-arm with a woman of similar age. They made a presentable couple for their class. He made no sign of recognition although clearly he could see us. That I had arranged with him.

  So the sudden busy look of the spa was due to the arrival of the servants’ outing. It all looked innocent enough. Perhaps I had been deluded into believing all kinds of conspiracy theories of my own making. May 4th just happened to be the same day as a surprise visit of King Edward and his nephew Wilhelm II of Germany, although it must be an important visit for the King to come before August. There was nothing really to link the argy-bargy of the Tontine Theatre with Brodsky other than that he knew — fifteen years ago — this man Hammond when he was in London. Nothing.

  But I was wrong. There was, of course. Jenks had just collected Brodsky from the station — that is assuming one of the three was the genuine article, but even of that I wasn’t one hundred percent certain. This really wasn’t the neat way events unfolded in the casebook of Sherlock Holmes!

  Sabine looked a little upset. Maybe she was just a little jealous at seeing Müller with another woman. I felt like reminding her of her Parisian love-life, but it really was none of my business. “They’re all just play-acting,” I said to reassure her. “Don’t worry. He’ll be back to being our old Müller tomorrow.”

  ***

  I was dressed and ready for the reception in the Weimar’s ballroom at six-thirty. I found several old friends from amongst local people in Society who had been invited. It wasn’t a good time in Marienbad with the Season hardly started, so there was no-one particularly glittering, other than some Russian and Austrian women who had got themselves up for the occasion like Babylonian princesses and I presumed would be coming on to dinner (and whatever else) afterwards. However, I was absolutely certain that all these persons were the genuine article — not servants in disguise.

  “But where is Sir Emile?” I whispered to Northcott.

  “Oh, he will be waiting for us at Glatzen.”

  I did not want to display my ignorance by asking exactly where or what Glatzen was. It was enough to know it was the place where we would be having dinner, a party of fourteen, I was told.

  We were served champagne — 1885, I noticed — and chatted until, just a few minutes later, the King made his entrance. He was dressed in the full dress uniform of a German Field-Marshal, helmeted with a spiky Pickelhaube which managed to look more humorous than menacing. He nodded across the room to me as he made his way to various Austrian nobles who were very pleased to be so honoured. But I could see he was slightly tense. He didn’t meet his nephew very often, they didn’t get on particularly well, and obviously he must have had good reason to wish to meet him now and in this informal setting.

  At precisely six-thirty-five the doors of the ballroom opened and in stepped the Kaiser, resplendent in the full dress uniform of a British Field-Marshal, also bedecked with gold frogging, ropes with pointed tassels which swung against the scarlet of the tunic and jingling with, naturally, Prussian and German decorations with those British ones he’d been presented with at meetings similar to this. Under his arm he carried the appropriate plumed, cockaded helmet. He was a full five minutes early. The King was looking at his pocket watch, obviously of the same opinion.

  “Willy, how good to see you,” ventured the King, striding up to him, shaking his hand vigorously and trying to stuff his watch back into the folds of his unfamiliar uniform.

  “Uncle, you look in excellent health and no more portly than many of my own Field-Marshals. Gone are the days, sadly, when any leader could be challenged to single combat as a way of settling differences. That kept their waistlines down, I daresay.”

  “Yes, Willy. You and I should fight it out ourselves and save Europe the trouble!”

  “Now Uncle, this is a social occasion, I trust.” The poor man really didn’t have much of a sense of humour.

  “Of course it’s entirely social. Business tomorrow. Pleasure tonight. There’s a man there waiting to give you champagne. Come.” The waiter advanced.

  The King took the Kaiser into the crowd and introduced him to several fawning couples. Very informal. Very Marienbad.

  Meanwhile the famous singer Ema Destinnova had taken the small stage and begun singing in her enchanting voice, as I edged nearer the Kaiser. The
re was that slightly wild look in his eyes which I had noticed from photographs — the kind of look I assumed an angry bull would give one before it charged. The points of his moustache were waxed sharp and elevated upwards, giving the impression of a boar’s teeth. Indeed he was a fearsome creature.

  One little incident occurred which was mildly embarrassing. The Kaiser had been engaged in conversation with a divorcée who, I was told, was new in Marienbad. She had been married to a wealthy American who had built railroads in the west of that sub-continent. As he was turning away, he caught one of his spurs in the hem of her dress, thus causing it to tear quite badly. She was rather distraught — and I sympathised — as it was an expensive Paquin gown. I supposed that these things just happen, but the Kaiser should have been more careful with his spurs in the company of ladies. He offered neither recompense nor even a gesture of pity.

  It didn’t seem long before the King led the Kaiser away, and both men disappeared for fifteen minutes. The orchestra stopped playing and those who had been invited only to the reception melted away, leaving those who were to go on to dinner. So far I had not detected anything in the least suspicious.

  Northcott came over. “Well, my men shadowed him from the station to the hotel, waiting outside for the fifty minutes or so he was due to rest, then shadowed him again from the hotel to here. Nothing untoward so far.”

  I nodded agreement and crossed my fingers.

  The motorcars were waiting outside — three big Pragas like Mr. Pinkerstein’s. It was getting a little dark as we climbed out of Marienbad and into the forested hills. I had managed to get a seat next to Northcott in the second motor and I finally admitted my ignorance. He replied with a sympathetic voice:

  “First I’d heard of the place as well, but I’m not a regular here. The Glatzen is a popular hill in these parts. Eight hundred and something metres. Good view of the town. Good hunting in the forests at the right time — and there is a shooting box there. It’s a place that HRH likes a lot — most informal, extremely private and one can do what one likes there. It’s a good choice of Sir Emile, I think. And he seems to have laid on some striking enough women.”