by Greg King
Hearing this, Helene turned pale and said, “I was certain that she would do something rash.”21 In her memoirs Larisch claimed that Hanna Vetsera searched Mary’s room and discovered a letter, but according to Helene, the countess handed it over, explaining that she had found it in the carriage: “I cannot go on living,” Mary had written. “Today I have gained a lead on you; by the time you catch up with me I shall be beyond saving, in the Danube, Mary.”22
This note, Larisch insisted, was yet another example of Mary’s theatrics. “Don’t you believe it,” she told Helene of the ominous message. “She is much too fond of life. Perhaps she disappeared with the Crown Prince.” At this Helene later claimed to have protested: “But she does not know him at all!”23 This bit of retroactive whitewashing was clearly meant to save her own reputation. But Helene, too, calmly dismissed the note as “folly,” adding, “Let us see whether she will return. I will not have any scandal; it would be fatal to our position in Vienna.” This “dread of gossip,” Larisch later wrote, “seemed to affect her far more than the loss of her daughter, and I could not help feeling sorry for Mary when I saw how little real affection her mother seemed to have for her.”24
Deeply implicated in the liaison, Larisch hoped to conceal the truth when she now volunteered to intervene with Chief of Police Krauss. “Let me go to him alone,” she told Helene. “I will secretly tell him all my conjectures. If you go, and someone saw you, there would be talk.”25 To Krauss, Larisch was careful to repeat her tale about Mary’s disappearance from the carriage while she had been shopping in Rodeck’s, and feigned ignorance of the affair; as for Mary’s letter, Larisch insisted it wasn’t to be taken seriously.26 “The chief object,” she claimed, “is to persuade the girl to return to her mother at once.” But then Larisch dropped a bombshell: Mary’s disappearance was probably connected to the crown prince: Would the baron please help her locate Rudolf and resolve the situation? Hearing this, Krauss immediately said that he could not possibly interfere in Rudolf’s private affairs.27
Krauss had little sympathy: Any scandal might well fall on the aggravating Vetseras and drive them from Vienna in disgrace. By the time Larisch returned to the Vetsera Palace and reported this interview, Helene had summoned her brother Alexander to a hasty family conference. Baltazzi, Larisch recalled, “was perfectly furious over his niece’s behavior.” Something seems to have left him unhinged. Baltazzi declared that he meant to find the crown prince and confront him over the affair, even as Helene kept repeating that there must be no public scandal. Finally, said Larisch, Baltazzi asked her to accompany him to see the chief of police early that evening and request that his department search for Mary.28
This second interview went no better. Mayerling, Krauss explained, was an imperial residence and thus outside his jurisdiction. “If I were to mix myself up in the love affairs of the Imperial House,” the chief of police declared, “I should have my hands full. Indeed, I dare not.” Hearing this, Baltazzi erupted. “What?” he shouted. “Are the Habsburgs allowed to behave like common ravishers and yet go unpunished? Is there no justice in Vienna?”29 But any investigation, Krauss explained, meant that word of Mary’s disappearance would inevitably leak to the press—something Helene Vetsera was desperate to avoid.30 Finally Krauss agreed that he would make some discreet inquiries; after they left a suspicious Krauss recorded of Larisch: “She came not to make a statement, but because she wanted to exculpate herself.”31
Fear that investigation would expose her role in the liaison drove Larisch to write Krauss an urgent letter as soon as she returned to her suite at the Grand Hotel. Helene Vetsera, she warned:
will probably turn to His Majesty the Emperor as a last resort—I request you urgently to keep silent about my confidences even in that case. It cannot be avoided that the future will be investigated, but one’s wish is to have the past remain as un-elucidated as possible, and I ask you therefore to do your utmost; besides the events that have taken place are of no use—and as for the future events there is nothing left but to go on in the usual way! My request is merely to treat the matter up to the present day with consideration. Because no one wants a lot of innocent people to be implicated.32
Not content to stop there, Larisch followed this with a second letter, which Krauss did not receive until the morning of January 30:
I am speaking to you completely frankly in the knowledge that you will treat my information as private but it is necessary that I should tell you the full truth because I fear that the matter will turn out more serious than it seems! I do not know if I told you that in addition to the note, which I handed over to the lady’s uncle, there was also a letter in the cab—which was the real reason for my coming to see you at all and making my report to you on those lines! Although—no more than the family, I had no suspicion whatsoever—of the lady’s possible relations—an occurrence like that of yesterday never came into my head at all, and I probably do not have to tell you that as far as this escape—I stand entirely outside and was only most reluctantly involved in this affair!33
Something was clearly wrong. Perhaps Larisch had heard some loose talk about suicide. Her rising panic, though, stemmed less from worry about Rudolf and Mary than it did from fear for her own reputation and position. Krauss had no doubt as to the intent behind the letters: Larisch was covering her tracks.
* * *
The night’s snow had turned to rain when Philipp of Coburg and Josef Hoyos left Vienna early on the morning of Tuesday, January 29. A train took them to Baden, where a carriage waited for the short journey to Mayerling. Arriving at half past eight, they saw that all the shutters were still closed, “as if the place was uninhabited,” Hoyos later wrote. But a servant opened the gate and led them into the lodge’s billiard room on the ground floor. Rudolf soon appeared, still wearing a dressing gown, and took a “very cheerful” breakfast with them. But Rudolf declined to join his companions in the day’s shooting, explaining that he’d caught a cold the previous day after his carriage had become stuck crossing a snowy mountain pass and he’d had to help push it back onto the roadway. Hoyos found this odd route to the lodge “incomprehensible” and “very mysterious,” but said nothing. Rudolf remained at the lodge while Coburg and Hoyos set off into the surrounding forest.34
Franz Josef and Elisabeth planned to leave for Budapest on January 31, but at six that Tuesday night they were giving a family dinner at the Hofburg to celebrate Marie Valerie’s engagement.35 Both Rudolf and Coburg were expected.36 But when Coburg returned to the lodge at half past one, he found Rudolf looking embarrassed and wringing his hands; finally he told his brother-in-law that he would be staying at Mayerling. He asked Prince Philipp to kiss the emperor’s hand and explain that he had a cold.37 Coburg left just before three; Rudolf waited until 5:10 to send Stephanie what must have been an unwelcome telegram: “Please write to Papa that I respectfully beg his pardon for not appearing at dinner, but I have a bad cold and think it best that I should not make such a journey this afternoon but instead stay here with Josl Hoyos. Embracing you all warmly, Rudolf.”38
“Oh God, what shall I do?” Stephanie cried out on reading the message. “I feel so strange.”39 Perhaps she understood just how significant and calculated Rudolf’s decision really was. His absence was not only a silent rebuke to both his father and to Marie Valerie’s favored position in the family, but in waiting until the last minute to cancel his appearance and throw the careful arrangements of the imperial court into disarray, Rudolf struck at the traditions Franz Josef held so dear.40 Stephanie attended the dinner alone; she could not shake the nagging sense that something was very wrong.41
The melodrama surrounding Mary’s disappearance continued to unfold in Vienna on Tuesday. That morning Helene Vetsera and Alexander Baltazzi called on Chief of Police Krauss. Helene claimed that, until Mary’s disappearance, she had no reason “to attach any importance to her daughter’s infatuation” with Rudolf, but now Larisch was certain that the crown prince was somehow
involved. Was it possible, Krauss asked, that Larisch had been lying to Baroness Vetsera about the relationship? No, Helene insisted, she’d known Larisch “for fifteen years.” Krauss had spoken to cab driver Franz Weber, who had confirmed Mary’s “disappearance” while Larisch was in Rodeck’s, but the police chief suspected that “he has probably been bribed.” When Helene pressed for further investigation, Krauss again explained that if he launched an official inquiry, Mary’s name would inevitably appear in the press; apparently by this time the baroness was worried enough to consent, leaving a photograph of Mary with the baron, who promised to keep the situation “as secret as possible.”42
Aware of the family’s rather sordid reputation, Krauss called on Prime Minister Taaffe that afternoon and briefed him on the situation. But the prime minister seemed unconcerned, saying that he thought Helene Vetsera “was herself involved in this business, since her own life, and that of her daughter, are not free from wild escapades.” He ordered Krauss to do nothing.43
By nightfall Alexander Baltazzi managed to work his sister into a frenzy over Mary’s disappearance; soon after Krauss’s visit Helene Vetsera stormed into the prime minister’s office, demanding an audience. At first Taaffe was politely patronizing, explaining that he was in no position to speak directly with the crown prince about the issue as he was “not on good terms with him and had no standing to raise his private affairs.” The crown prince was expected back in Vienna that evening; if he failed to appear, Taaffe would then have detectives make some inquiries, “though this made him very uncomfortable.”44 Until and unless Rudolf failed to return, the prime minister warned, the baroness should keep her silence. When Helene threatened to go directly to the emperor, however, Taaffe’s tone immediately changed. After all, he gleefully asked her, what made Helene think that Mary, profligate as she apparently was with her favors, was with the crown prince? All Vienna knew of the young lady’s reputation: Rudolf, Taaffe told her, certainly couldn’t have hoped to deflower Mary Vetsera. When he went further and named Prince Heinrich von Liechtenstein as one of Mary’s “very intimate admirers,” Helene blushed “blood red” and quickly left the prime minister’s office.45
Six o’clock arrived, and Rudolf did not appear at the Hofburg. Learning this, Taaffe again met Krauss. Now the prime minister advised the chief of police to quietly send an inspector out to Mayerling the following morning. He also wanted to know if the crown prince had confided in Mitzi Caspar. Krauss was to send for police agent Florian Meissner and have him question Rudolf’s mistress about his plans, and especially about his relationship with Mary Vetsera.46
Rudolf had spent most of that Tuesday in his rooms at Mayerling, where Mary remained hidden and took her meals. Late that afternoon he summoned one of the gamekeepers, Hornsteiner, and said that he would not participate in the next day’s hunting. Something about his manner struck Hornsteiner as strange. “What’s up with the Crown Prince?” Hornsteiner asked Loschek. “He just spoke with me now, but seemed to be thinking of something else entirely.”47
Hoyos returned to Mayerling at half past five that afternoon: He’d managed only a bad shot at a single stag, and gamekeepers had to chase the wounded animal most of the afternoon before finishing it off.48 At seven he left his room in the old gamekeeper’s lodge and walked across the courtyard to join Rudolf for dinner in the billiard room—the usual spot for informal meals. Mary remained in Rudolf’s bedroom; Hoyos later insisted that he had no idea she was at the lodge. Rudolf seemed to be in a good mood: He ate the soup, goose pâté, roast beef, venison, and pastries “with considerable appetite,” and “drank plenty of wine.” After the meal the two men chatted and smoked. Talk turned to the following day’s hunt, but at nine and complaining of his cold, Rudolf said that he wanted to retire early. He rose, shook his friend’s hand, and disappeared into his own apartments, while Hoyos returned to his lodgings some thousand feet away.49
But Rudolf did not retire. He apparently called for Bratfisch and asked him to wait with his carriage early the following morning: Mary, he said, would be returning to Vienna.50 Loschek tended to the lovers as they retreated to Rudolf’s bedroom. “You are not to let anyone in,” Rudolf warned him, “not even the Emperor!”51 Mary took a small gold watch set with diamonds from her pocket, handed it to Loschek, and said, “Take this as a keepsake of this last time.”52 With these ominous words Rudolf and Mary disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door behind them.
CHAPTER NINE
Flurries of snow fell throughout the night at Mayerling; by the morning of Wednesday, January 30, 1889, a fine powder cloaked the lodge’s steep roof in a blanket of white. Dawn broke late, gray, and gloomy, the dark fringe of forest ringing the estate standing in dim shadow against a leaden sky.
Loschek was up early that morning. At ten past six Rudolf—dressed in his usual hunting clothes—came into the small anteroom, closing the bedroom door behind him. He asked Loschek to see to the horses and carriages needed for the day’s hunt, and to order breakfast for half past eight, by which time he expected Prince Philipp to have returned from Vienna. Until then Rudolf wanted to get a little more sleep, and he asked Loschek to wake him at half past seven. Rudolf’s mood seemed lighthearted as he turned and disappeared back into his bedroom: He was, Loschek remembered, whistling a tune.1
Within a few minutes, Loschek later claimed, he heard two gunshots, fired in quick succession. Running back to the anteroom, he thought he smelled gunpowder in the air. Seeing nothing obviously wrong, he tried the door to Rudolf’s bedroom: It was locked on the inside. This was odd: Rudolf normally left his bedroom unlocked. Yet Loschek did not alert anyone; hearing nothing further, he walked across the courtyard to order breakfast and carriages for the hunt.2
Loschek passed Bratfisch, who sat on the box of his carriage, waiting to take Mary back to Vienna.3 At seven, as the imperial huntsman Franz Wodicka crossed the courtyard to prepare for the day’s shooting, Bratfisch called him aside, announcing, “No good rallying the beaters! There will be no shoot!” When a puzzled Wodicka asked what he meant, Bratfisch declared, “The Crown Prince is dead.”4 The remark remained unexplained at the time.
Half past seven arrived, and Loschek went to wake the crown prince; there was no response to his repeatedly insistent knocking. The door was still locked from within, and Loschek could not find the key. Increasingly worried, the valet left the anteroom, climbed the main staircase, walked through Stephanie’s apartments above, and descended the smaller staircase to the corridor that gave access to Rudolf’s bathroom. There another door opened to the crown prince’s bedroom; when Loschek tried to open it, he found that this, too, was locked on the inside. Returning to the anteroom, Loschek grabbed a length of firewood and used it to bang against the closed bedroom door. It was not unusual for Rudolf to pass out from drinking or overindulgence in morphine, but he’d been up ninety minutes earlier; even if the crown prince was now unresponsive, surely Mary Vetsera would answer the door.5
But after twenty minutes Loschek had worked himself into a panic, and he sent Alois Zwerger, the Schlosswärter (lodge warden) at Mayerling, to fetch Hoyos.6 Hoyos was preparing for breakfast when his valet knocked on the door a few minutes before eight: Zwerger now explained that Loschek was unable to wake the crown prince.7 Hoyos was unconcerned. Rudolf, he told Zwerger, was “probably tired, let him sleep.”8 Zwerger, though, insisted, and Hoyos accompanied him back to the lodge.9
Loschek was still in the anteroom, banging on the door, when Hoyos entered. Was the bedroom, Hoyos asked, heated with a coal stove, and could fumes have overcome Rudolf? No, Loschek replied, the bedroom stove used wood for fuel. Hoyos rapped loudly against the door, yelling out Rudolf’s name; still, there was no reply. The “death-like silence in the bedroom,” Hoyos thought, gave “obvious reason for suspecting disaster.” Loschek refused to break down the door; when Hoyos insisted, the valet confessed that Rudolf was not alone but had Mary Vetsera with him. “This news naturally caused me the greatest embar
rassment,” Hoyos later unconvincingly claimed, “all the more as I had neither suspected the presence of the Baroness at Mayerling nor had I known of her relations with the Crown Prince.”10
Hoyos looked at his watch: 8:09 a.m. Prince Philipp should soon be returning from Vienna for the morning’s shooting; it was better, Hoyos decided, to wait and let Rudolf’s brother-in-law take responsibility for breaking into the room. Ten minutes ticked by before Coburg’s carriage arrived. Hoyos flagged him down, pulled him into the billiard room, and quickly explained the situation. The prince ran to the anteroom, closed the door to the corridor behind him, and ordered Loschek to break into the bedroom; because of “the exceptionally delicate circumstances,” Hoyos said, they asked Loschek to enter the room alone and report back to them.11
Loschek fetched an ax, but his blows couldn’t break the lock. Finally he turned the blade to the upper panel, chopping a hole through the bedroom door. It had been dark when Rudolf came out of his bedroom a few minutes after six; he must have lit a lamp or a candle, and it was in this poor light, with the curtains drawn and the windows shuttered, that Loschek first peered through the smashed panel. Yet with a quick glance, before having entered the room and without a moment’s hesitation, Loschek announced that both Rudolf and Mary were dead.12
“Our horror and grief,” Hoyos said, “were beyond words.” But what if Loschek was wrong? Should a doctor be called? Coburg and Hoyos finally asked Loschek to enter the room and look more closely.13 Loschek reached through the panel, found the key, and opened the door. “An appalling sight” met his eyes: Mary Vetsera was on the right side of the bed, closest to the door, while Rudolf sat on the opposite side, his legs extended over the side of the bed and torso bent forward. Both of their heads, Loschek said, were hanging down, and it was obvious that both were dead. The top of Rudolf’s skull was gone; brain tissue oozed from the cranium, spattering the headboard, and blood had poured from his nose and mouth. His revolver lay on the bed. A single bullet wound to Mary’s left temple had shattered the right side of her skull.14