The Great Game (30 page)

             
"I'm afraid that is impossible," the duke told him.

             
"I am only interested in the spine and the pages, not the contents," Holmes assured the duke.

             
"Even so," the duke pointed out, "in order to show you the spine and the pages, you would undoubtedly catch glimpses of the writing, and that we cannot allow."

             
"Haven't you changed the plan?"

             
"It is not
so
simple as that. First of all, the plan was the best the general staff could devise, so any other plan would necessarily be inferior. Second, it would be foolhardy to put a new plan in place until we know how and by whom the old plan was taken."

             
"Ah!" Holmes said.

             
"And even if we wanted to change it, a plan for the complete mobilization of our forces takes many months to prepare. We are taking some steps to minimize the effect of the details of the plan being known. It would help if we knew just what foreign power it was that has the information."

             
"The problem is not without its interesting aspects," Holmes said. "I might have some suggestions for whoever is handling the case."

             
"I will pass the word," the duke told him. "Now about you and all these disparate groups you are investigating—"

             
"Ah! But you see, that's just it," Holmes said. "It would seem that the groups are not disparate. They are somehow interconnected."

             
Von Seligsmann screwed his monocle firmly into his right eye and stared across the table. "Interconnected?" he asked.
"How?"

             
"An interesting question," Holmes allowed. "An even more interesting question would be, 'why?' "

             
"Explain," said the duke.

             
Holmes tapped the edge of his cigarette against the light blue glass bowl he was using as an ashtray. "I discovered this interconnection by following the leaders of each group about to see where they would lead me. In just about every case they eventually led me to another group. One man—a particularly loathsome individual called 'the Ferret'—is high up in three of these groups."

             
"You followed him?"

             
"Yes."

             
"Didn't he see you?"

             
"No. When I follow people they do not see me. They see an old bookseller, or an elderly prelate, or a street ruffian, or a tired bureaucrat wending his way home, or possibly a fiacre driver half asleep as his horse heads back to the stables; but they do not see me." The duke looked unconvinced, but Holmes went on.

             
"But, regardless of how I gathered the information, we must deal with the fact that the threat to set Europe aflame comes not from a thousand separate matches but from one coordinated fire. We must discover who is fueling the fire and what they expect to gain from the conflagration."

             
"You have as yet no notion?" the duke asked.

             
"It is destructive of the powers of deduction to hypothesize before you have all the facts. It causes you to favor your early hypothesis and ignore contrary evidence," Holmes told him. "I have a suspicion only; a direction to look in; a possibility to consider. But we must continue to look in all directions, to consider all possibilities, until we have eliminated all but the one that, by remaining, proves to be the truth.
"

             
"
And what is your suspicion?"

             
"Very well," Holmes said.
"A possibility only, as yet.
There is a master criminal who calls himself Professor Moriarty who is capable of such deviltry. His headquarters are in London, but his tentacles stretch all over Europe. I have sent word to London to have him watched, and I am trying to locate the members of his criminal organization here in Vienna."

             
"Why, if you are right, would he be doing this?"

             
"For money,
your
excellency. Whatever Moriarty does, it is for money."

             
"Moriarty—Moriarty!" von Seligsmann tapped his finger on the table. "That name—"

             
"You have heard of him?"

             
Von Seligsmann leaned back and closed his eyes. "Professor James Moriarty?" he asked. "That's the man."

             
"I have heard the name, and recently. He is the head, is he not, of the British Intelligence Service?"

             
"The British—" Holmes chuckled. "Wherever did you get that idea?"

             
"Aha!" the duke said, "but would you tell me if he were? You are, after all, British yourself.
'Rule Britannia,' and all that.
'This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,' and all that.
No, if you knew, you would not tell me."

             
"If I knew the name of the head of British Intelligence I would certainly not tell you," Holmes admitted. "But I will tell you freely and positively that it is not Professor James Moriarty."

             
"You are sure?"

             
"Positive."

             
"Then perhaps you can explain why this man, Paul Donzhof, who was arrested for the assassination of the duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz and the murder of some woman, is said to have been working for Professor James Moriarty, who is said to be the head of the British Intelligence Service?"

             
Holmes stubbed his cigarette out. "I am perfectly willing to believe that this Paul Donzhof is one of Moriarty's henchmen," he said. "But I think you'll find that Moriarty has nothing to do with Her Majesty's government. Indeed, Scotland Yard has been trying to arrest him for a decade now, with little success. The man is fiendishly clever, but he is a criminal, not a government agent."

             
"Aha! And would that not make a perfect—what do you say— cover—for the head of the British Secret Service?"

             
"I wouldn't think so," Holmes said. "Incidently, this Paul Donzhof is a member of one of the groups I'm surveying. It is fairly clear to me that he is innocent of the murder of Duke Paulus, although I have no knowledge of this other murder of which he is also accused. For some reason the leader of this group—this 'Ferret' that I spoke of—wanted Donzhof to be accused."

             
The duke shrugged. "That is not my concern," he said. "It is better for public confidence that we have someone locked up for the crime, is it not?"

             
"And perhaps hanged for it, whether or not he is guilty?"

             
Again the duke shrugged.
"Perhaps."

             
"I see," Holmes said. He stood up. "I think I'd better get back to my task. But as I leave let me assure you once again that Professor James Moriarty does not serve the British government in any capacity whatsoever. As soon as I have something further to communicate to you, I will post a notice on the letter board at the
Café
Trieste, and we will meet back here."

             
The duke rose. "And I the same," he said. "This news you bring me, this amalgamation of underground groups, this is worrying. I don't know what it means."

             
"At the very least it means that these groups are not the spontaneous responses of
dissatisfied
minorities. The dissatisfactions are there, no doubt, and for that those in power must shoulder the blame. But these groups are the instruments of some person, or some circle, that is orchestrating them for reasons beyond our present understanding."

             
"Before you go," the duke said, "I have a suggestion. Well, possibly a request."

             
"Yes,
your
excellency?"

             
"When the heads of state meet, probably two weeks from
Thursday, I would like you to attend.
Possibly to speak to the assemblage.
They all know of you, certainly, and will be inclined to credit what you say."

             
"If you like," Holmes said. "Let us hope that I have substantially more information for them at that time."

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone,

Kindness in another's trouble,

Courage in your own.

—Adam Lindsay Gordon

             
The warder with the outsized belly and the bottle-brush mustache swung open the door to Paul Donzhof's cell. "Your sister's here to see you," he said. "Come on out."

             
Paul swung himself off his cot and slid his feet into the prison-issue slippers.
"My sister?"
He went to the door.

             
"That's right," the warder said, pushing Paul out into the corridor in front of him and slamming the cell door. "And a lovely little thing she is, too, to be saddled with a murderous lout of a brother like you. Walk ahead of me now."

             
"Watch how you talk about my sister," Paul said, wondering who on earth his "sister" could be. He'd better move—and talk— carefully until he found out just what this was about. Charles Bredlon Summerdane had a sister, Lady Patricia Templar, now the wife of an energetic young prelate destined someday to become an archbishop, or even, if he had his way, a saint. But Paul was sure that his alter ego's sister was not the lady waiting for him in the visitor's room.

             
It was only two days ago that Paul had been permitted to see his first visitor, an elderly gentleman named Karl Stetelmeyer, possessor of a red nose, an overly bushy white beard, an old leather briefcase stuffed to the point of bursting its straps, and a mild and intelligent disposition, who had declared himself to be Paul's attorney. "I accepted your case," he had told Paul, "because the presiding magistrate wants you to be well represented, and I have a reputation, well-founded may I say, as an excellent advocate. Also I am too old to be overly concerned about what this case might do to my reputation. So don't expect miracles. Assassinating a duke! Murdering your own lady friend! I have reviewed the evidence against you. Would you like to, perhaps, plead guilty?
"

             
"
No, thank you," Paul had told him.

             
"Oh, well, one can but hope." He had stood up. "I shall return soon and we'll talk and see what we can do."

             
"Wait!" Paul also rose. "The evidence against me—what is it?
"

             
"
Soon!"
Stetelmeyer had promised.

             
And now Paul's "sister" had come to visit. Was this, perhaps, some ploy of Stetelmeyer's? No, the aging attorney didn't look as though he was accustomed to use ploys of any sort. Paul paused at the door to the visitors' room. Well, here he was, and he would find out in a second.

             
The visitors' room was a small, airless cubicle with stone walls and two iron doors, one for the prisoner and one for his guest. The only furniture was a thick wooden table on a massive central pillar in the middle of the room, and two small wooden benches, one on each side. A wooden panel under the table assured that the feet of the prisoner could not reach the feet of the visitor. A thick black line across the center of the table separated the prisoner's space from his visitor's space.