Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07

by The Second Seal

  After a few minutes he was ushered into her sitting-room. It was a fitting setting for her, as she was now a woman of another age, and hated change. The furniture was of heavy carved oak, the red velvet curtains were fringed with bobbles, there were anti-macassars on the backs of the arm-chairs, pots with ferns on high, spindle-legged stools, and many photographs in silver frames, mostly of young men with flowing moustaches and side-whiskers. She was sitting bolt upright in a stiff-backed chair sideways on to the table, her left elbow resting on it. Many yards of black silk billowed out round her lower limbs, passed smoothly over her tightly corseted waist, then rose over an ample bosom to end at chin and wrists in goffered frills of white lawn. Her grey hair was parted in the centre and looped back in a number of complicated flat plaits to form a bun on the crown of her head. She was smoking, as she often did when walking about the public rooms of her hotel, a large Havana cigar. Altogether she made an impressive, almost formidable, figure; but there was in her eyes that quick, friendly look which in all ages denotes one of life’s enjoyers.

  As De Richleau bowed to her, she said: “It must be nearly three years since you stayed with us, Count. After such a long absence from Vienna it is most kind of you to give part of your first evening to calling on an old woman.”

  “You will never be old, Madame,” he told her gallantly. “And how could I better attune myself again to the atmosphere of your lovely city than by coming to talk to you about it?”

  “You have not changed,” she smiled, “and are as much a flatterer as was your handsome father. Vienna has not changed either. The young ones grow up and are as naughty as their parents used to be. Perhaps our music is not quite up to the old standard, but maybe that is only my imagination, and just that I still prefer the airs of Liszt, Mendelssohn and the older Strauss because they remind me of my youth.”

  As she was speaking a white-haired waiter came in carrying a bottle in an ice-bucket and a dish, on which was a shallow basket containing little cakes: they were the delicious Sacher torte, light as a feather and stuffed with cream, for which the hotel was famous. When the wine was poured into the shallow champagne glasses, De Richleau immediately noticed that its froth was pink and, raising his eyebrows, said:

  “Madame, this is a great compliment you pay me—to open a bottle of Cliquot Rosé.”

  “My memory is still good,” she shrugged. “I keep it for my own drinking now, as I have not much left and one rarely sees wines in these days to compare with the old private cuvées of the Widow. But I recall how you always used to insist on having it when you entertained that pretty opera singer to supper. What was her name? Zara something?”

  “You mean Zara Jókai, the little, dark Hungarian. Yes, I remember. How gay she was, and how we laughed together!”

  “And I suppose you still expect me to turn a blind eye when you find another pretty Viennese to your taste, and wish to give her good advice up in your suite over oysters and champagne?”

  “Madame, I promise you that I will give you no reason to complain of my discretion.”

  Frau Sacher chuckled and broke off a piece of the rim of the cake basket, which was made of marzipan. “No, you have never done that, Count; and I should be sad indeed if I did not feel that life and laughter were still going on around me. How long do you intend to remain with us?”

  “It all depends. It is a long time since I have visited my estates at Königstein and they are overdue for a thorough inspection. I have instructed my steward to let me know when the castle is ready for my reception. When it is, I shall go there; but as soon as my business is done I hope to return to Vienna.” De Richleau felt that, when the time came, this excuse would afford excellent cover for his move to Serbia, and went on almost at once to inquire after the Emperor.

  “God be praised! His Majesty keeps in excellent health,” Frau Sacher replied. “Of course, he now appears in public very seldom, but he is still hale and hearty.”

  “And the good Frau Schratt?” asked De Richleau.

  “She, too, keeps very well, and continues to be a great support to His Majesty. He still maintains his custom of walking across the gardens to breakfast with her in her little house every morning. You know he never looks at a newspaper, and relies on her to give him the news of the town.”

  “I have never met her, and I should much like to do so. You are well known to be one of her oldest friends, and I should consider it a great kindness if you could arrange it.”

  Frau Sacher looked a little dubious. “I am very fond of Katharina. She is a fine and good person, and she comes to see me quite frequently. But she lives a very retired life and does not much care for meeting strangers.”

  “I could probably get the Aulendorfs and a few other people who she must know,” suggested the Duke. “Then perhaps you could persuade her to be my guest at a private luncheon party here.”

  It was not idle curiosity that made him anxious to meet Katharina Schratt. No responsible person ever inferred that she was the Emperor’s mistress, as her relations with him had always been open and most decorous; but she was probably more intimate with the old man than anyone else in his empire. She had made her name as an actress at the Burgtheater in 1883, and two years later had been presented to the Emperor and Empress. Both of them had taken a great liking to her, and from ’88 onwards had frequently invited her to visit them. By the following year she had become such an accepted member of the family circle that it had fallen to her, more than anyone else, to attempt to console them both at the time of the tragic death of their son, the Crown Prince Rudolph. During the Empress Elizabeth’s long absences abroad the Emperor had continued to delight in the actress’ company, but they made frequent mention of her in the affectionate correspondence that formed a life-long bond between them, always referring to her as die Freundin. And after the Empress’ death in 1898 Frau Schratt remained ‘the friend’, and the only woman, other than his wife and mother, who had ever enjoyed the Emperor’s confidence. So, in view of his mission, De Richleau felt that it would be very well worth his while to go to some pains in order to make her acquaintance.

  “I will see what I can do,” Frau Sacher promised him, “but she was here only this morning, so it may be some days before I see her again.”

  They then spent an hour or more gossiping about some of the leading figures in Viennese society, and by the time the Duke went to bed he felt that, with the up-to-date information he had obtained about ‘who was now who’ in the Austrian capital, he had spent a very profitable evening.

  Next morning he was up and out soon after the shops were open, as convention greatly circumscribed his actions until he could leave visiting cards upon his old friends and new acquaintances. Sacher’s faced on to a small square, immediately behind the State Opera House, and on turning left as he came out of the hotel a few steps took him into Vienna’s Bond Street, the Kerntner Strasse. Like its London equivalent every shop held a temptation for either women or men: huge hats crowned with ostrich feathers or Paradise plumes, costing up to fifty guineas; cloaks of ermine or sable; cedar cabinets holding a thousand Havana cigars apiece. Perfumeries offered genuine Attar of Roses from the Balkans at £5 an ounce; patisseries displayed confections of an unbelievable richness; jewellers; florists; haberdashers; and antique dealers: all competed for their share of the vast wealth accumulated over centuries by the upper classes in a nation of nearly sixty million people, occupying one of the most highly developed areas in the world.

  Half way down the street, De Richleau turned into a stationers displaying crested and coroneted letter papers of every hue. They had there the engraved plate for his cards as Count Königstein, and as he had always stayed at Sacher’s on his previous visits to Vienna, it needed no alteration. It was soon unearthed and the assistant promised to have some cards printed from it at once on the hand press at the back of the shop. They could be delivered as soon as they were dry, and were promised for not later than two o’clock that afternoon.

  A lit
tle further down, the street merged into a square, from which rose the immense but graceful edifice of the Stefanskirche. As De Richleau approached the cathedral, he craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the tip of the magnificent Gothic spire which rose skywards four hundred and fifty feet above him. Then he crossed the road to admire the colossal west door, with its wealth of carving in which, every time he had seen it, he had found new beauties.

  He was now in the very heart of Vienna where, over two thousand years before, a Roman fortress had protected civilization from the inroads of the barbaric tribes north of the Danube. The city had since been besieged many times, and once in the thirteenth century almost totally destroyed by fire; but through every calamity it had survived to become greater and more beautiful. In the Stefanskirche the chivalry of all Europe had gathered to give thanks to God for the breaking of the heathen Turk before its walls, and for close on a thousand years it had been the greatest centre of wealth and culture between the Baltic and the Black Sea, the Arctic Ocean and the Adriatic.

  By medieval times it had grown to a warren of narrow streets, forming a rough circle based on the Danube canal, which ran some distance south-west of the main river, and extending nearly a mile in radius. But the old fortifications had long since been replaced by a splendid boulevard called The Ring, which encircled the old palaces and churches and the finest hotels and shops. Immediately outside The Ring lay the newer Government buildings, several public gardens ornamented with fine statuary, and the streets and squares of the wealthiest residential districts. Then, beyond them, lay the suburbs and the parks, of which Vienna boasted a greater number than any other city. Yet the Dual Monarchy contained so many other rich and ancient cities that its glittering metropolis had not outgrown itself with miles of slums and sprawling jerry-built dormitory districts, as had London and New York. A tram ride could still take any of its one million eight hundred thousand citizens out into the open country; to picnic in the Wienerwald, or enjoy the lovely view of the Danube from the Kobenzl. It was indeed a city of enchantment and delight.

  From the Stefanskirche the Duke made his way back along the Kerntner Strasse to The Ring, and entering the Kaisergarten café ordered that beverage inseparable from life in Vienna—morning coffee. The cafés there were not few and far between and patronized only by occasional customers who felt like a drink: they were legion, and each was filled from early morning till late at night by relays of regular patrons who used them as clubs. Billiards, chess, dominoes and cards were provided for the amusement of customers: many people took a light breakfast in them, others spent hours there writing their letters; business men used them for meetings, the girls of the town for picking up casual lovers; and thousands of idlers sat in them most of the day, discussing with their neighbours every topic under the sun.

  In them, almost everyone understood German, as it was the lingua franca of the city; but they carried on their voluble conversations in many tongues, as the Dual Monarchy numbered among its subjects millions of Hungarians, Czechs, Croats, Slovenes, Poles, Rumanians, Slovaks, Italians, and Ruthenians. It was this extraordinary mixture of races, the upper strata of which had inter-married for several generations, that gave the Viennese women a greater variety of beauty than was to be found in any other capital; and the smartness of their toilettes, mingled with the brightly-coloured uniforms of the Austrian officers, provided a scene in real life which could have been rivalled for gaiety only on a musical comedy stage.

  On the marble-topped tables were scattered newspapers and journals of every type, including many English, American, French, Italian and German publications, as the Viennese prided themselves on being true cosmopolitans who took a tolerant interest in events—particularly when they were of an artistic or scientific nature—in every part of the world. That was perhaps because, since the rise of Prussia under Frederick the Great, nearly two centuries earlier, the martial power of the Holy Roman Empire had greatly declined. It seemed that since its armies had lost the secret of winning great victories, its people had formed the habit of consoling themselves by achieving intellectual triumphs. They had no colonies, and did not desire any, but they considered themselves second to none in advancing the progress of medicine and social well-being, and as the world’s leading connoisseurs in the realms of music, letters and the art of living gracefully.

  De Richleau sent for a few of the leading Viennese papers and began to study them. It was the Austrian political news with which he wished to bring himself up to date, but to find it he had to search for half-columns on the less important sheets of the papers, as the Viennese took little interest in politics, either domestic or international. The front pages were almost always devoted to long masterfully-written criticisms of performances at the opera, theatres, and concerts, or any outstanding event which had occurred in the lives of their leading prima donnas, ballerinas, actors, actresses, composers and musicians. For the average citizen, accounts of these matters were the only news which held any real interest, and the careers of such celebrities were followed with an eagerness displayed in no other country. The great artistes of stage and orchestra were known by sight to every schoolboy, and their appearance on any street was immediately greeted with a murmur of enthusiasm. The nobility enjoyed a respect engendered by generations of tradition, but the aristocracy of art was honoured in a hundred ways, granted special privileges by the State, and regarded as the true heroes of this cultured nation.

  For lunch, the Duke moved on to Meissl and Schardan’s restaurant; then he collected his visiting-cards, secured a taxi, and made a round of calls. At the Aulendorfs and Count Grünne’s he left a note explaining that he had decided to break his journey for a short stay in Vienna, and that when there he used his Austrian title. With his old friends this was unnecessary.

  That evening he enjoyed an excellent comedy at the Burgtheater then, instead of taking a cab back to his hotel, he strolled across the Volksgarten to the Hofburg, and right round it. The buildings of all shapes and ages, of which the Imperial Palace consisted, covered many acres, and, exclusive of its twenty-two interior courts, its frontages were well over a mile in length. As De Richleau gazed up at the seemingly endless rows of windows he wondered, like any love-struck youth, behind which of them was hidden his beautiful Ilona. But he knew that even this closely-knit town of great mansions, built at the caprices of a long line of Caesars, might not hold its loveliest daughter. She might equally well have taken up her residence at the slightly smaller, but more beautiful, Schwarzenberg Palace on the outer side of The Ring, or at Schönbrunn, the Versailles of Vienna, which lay only three miles away in the suburbs.

  Next day his calls began to bring results. Invitations came in from the Laxenburgs, Batthyanzs, Metternichs and Bukovicks for luncheons, a dinner and a dance. Captain Count Adam Grünne called in person— although the Duke missed him as he happened to be out—and, besides his own card, left an invitation to a musical party at the Aulendorfs for the following night.

  On receiving the last, De Richleau’s heart missed a beat, as it seemed highly probable that Ilona would be there, and he had not expected to see her again so soon. But in that he was disappointed. The gathering was a small one of only thirty-odd people: the occasion to give a try-out to a young pianist of promise. Nevertheless the Duke did not consider his evening by any means wasted, as it enabled him to consolidate his pleasant relations with his host and hostess, and ask them to be present at a luncheon party he was making up when he could settle on a date mutually convenient to them and some of his other friends.

  Moreover, it chanced that Count Leopold von Berchtold, the Emperor’s Foreign Minister, was present, and he was one of the people whom De Richleau particularly wished to meet. He was a highly-cultured German-Austrian aristocrat with a broad forehead, heavily lidded eyes and a long, sharp nose. His demeanour was very correct and a little haughty, even when, as on this occasion, among his equals: so, much as the Duke would have liked to draw him into a political discussion he decide
d that it would be wiser to refrain and remain content at this first meeting with merely having made his acquaintance.

  Another matter which brought De Richleau some consolation for Ilona’s absence was Count Grünne’s presence at the party, and an invitation from him to occupy a seat in the Imperial box at the Horse Show on the coming Friday. He apologized that it should be for the penultimate day of the Show, rather than for the finals, but on the Saturday the Heir Apparent, the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, was to take the salute, and for that all seats had already been allotted. De Richleau accepted with pleasure all the same, both because he liked the dark, broad-shouldered Count and knew that the occasion would afford him an opportunity to meet further people connected with the Court.

  Two afternoons later, the Duke, clad in a black frock-coat, a waistcoat with a narrow band of white showing above it, striped trousers, patent leather boots, grey spats and gleaming topper, made his way to the Hofburg, as under one of its many lofty roofs lay the Spanish Riding School, which was still famous throughout Europe as the home of Haute École. As the Viennese were great horse-lovers its galleries were packed with an enthusiastic crowd, and he found more than half the seats in the Imperial Box, which held about two dozen people, already taken. But Count Grünne had had a seat reserved for him in the second row, and, with a polite bow to his neighbours, he settled down to enjoy the graceful spectacle.

  The majority of the competitors were officers in the brilliant uniforms of the Dual Monarchy, but among them were a few civilians, and some visiting officers from foreign countries who were somewhat less spectacularly dressed. The horses were superb, the riding excellent, and for a quarter of an hour De Richleau watched them, entirely occupied with their well-timed evolutions. But suddenly the band ceased playing in the middle of a tune, the competitors all entered the arena together and formed up into four lines, like a squadron of cavalry, facing the Imperial box. There was a rustle in the crowd, a trumpet call rang out, everyone rose, and the band struck up the national anthem. The privileged few in the spacious box drew aside in two groups, leaving its centre empty, the curtains at its back were drawn apart and, escorted by a grey-faced man in General’s uniform, there entered Ihr Kaiserlich und Koniglich Hoheit, die Erzherzogin Ilona Theresa.