The Great Game (36 page)

             
"That's your riddle?"

             
"That's it."

             
"How do we go about solving it?"

             
"We?"
Moriarty put his hands flat on the table and stared across at the prince. "Are you sure you want to involve yourself in this?"

             
"If some group is going to blow up the Parliament or assassinate the emperor, I think I should get involved," Prince Ariste said. "But I do think that at some appropriate time we should
find some appropriate authority to tell. The empire does have some resources, and not all its officials are stupid or venal."

             
"Agreed," Moriarty said. "As soon as we have something to tell that might be believed, and we know who best to tell it to, we will do so."

             
"Now," Prince Ariste said, "what are we to do about the Barnetts' incarceration?"

             
Moriarty leaned back in his chair. "I've come to you because Mummer Tolliver tells me that von Linsz's castle and the grounds around it are well guarded and well patrolled. I have a tentative plan in mind, subject to looking over the area myself. But for it I need some trustworthy men. And, as I said earlier, I have no 'gang' to command. Do you have some men available that you can trust to do as you say?"

             
Ariste nodded. "I do.
About six hundred.
I am commander of a regiment of light infantry. Most of them are reservists, and it would take an official mobilization to call them up now. But the headquarters company is regular army, and their barracks is about a mile from here."

             
"Well," Moriarty said. "More than I'd hoped for, but welcome just the same. If you have some way to select, say, a dozen of them to volunteer for some extra-martial duty, we can rendezvous with the mummer and perfect the plan."

             
"I'll do that," Prince Ariste said. "And I'll order up a special train to get us to Vienna. You can tell us the plan on the way."

All nature is but art unknown to thee;

All chance, direction which thou can'st not see;

All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal
good ...

—Alexander Pope

             
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson had adjoining rooms on the second floor of the Hotel Leopold, a solidly built, modern edifice which took up one square block on the
Schwarzenbergplatz,
about as central a location as one could get in the spread-out city that was Fin de Siècle Vienna. It was shortly before dinner time Thursday evening, and Holmes sat at the small writing desk in his room jotting down the day's notes in the next empty page in his notebook. Through the connecting door he could hear Watson whistling "A Wandering Minstrel" from
The Mikado
as he dressed for dinner.

             
"Spent the afternoon concealed in the waiters' pantry at the Danube Cafe," Holmes wrote. "Could hear the conversation in the private back room clearly, but could not always tell who was speaking. Much discussion of the 'great event' that is to take place in the near future. There were at least three groups represented that one would not think were related, or even amicable, and that certainly would not be expected to make common cause. There must be—"

             
There was a soft, tentative knock at the hall door. Holmes put down his pen. "Yes?"

             
"Entschuldigen sie bitte, Herr Holmes?"
It was a woman's voice.

             
Holmes switched to German. "Yes? One moment, please." He went to the door and opened it. The woman in the hall looked to be in her forties, and was well, if plainly, dressed. "What can I do for you, madam?"

             
"You are Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

             
"I am."

             
"Please, it must be that I am sure of that—if you would tell me; what is your landlady's name, in London?"

             
"Ah!" Holmes said.
"Just so.
Her name is Mrs. Hudson. What do you have for me?"

             
The woman took a step back. "You know already that I have something for you? Did someone tell you to expect me? I told no one!"

             
Holmes gave the woman what he probably thought was a reassuring smile. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said. "Surely it was obvious from your question that someone sent you to me. It could have been that you wished to consult me, but then the question of my identity wouldn't
be so urgent. So I deduced that someone had given you something for me, and the lady wanted to be sure that I received it myself."

             
"And now you know, without my telling you, that it is a lady who employs me." She took a small brown envelope from her purse and handed it to Holmes. "Here you are, sir. Please don't deduce anything else about me, or I'll scream, I swear I will!"

             
Holmes laughed. "You have my word," he said, digging in his pocket and fishing out a coin. "Now perhaps a little something for your trouble—"

             
"No, no, thank you, sir. I have been adequately recompensed. It's been—an event—meeting you. You are everything she said you were!" And with that the woman curtsied and scurried off down the hall.

             
"It's true you know, Holmes," Watson said, adjusting his bow tie as he came through the connecting door. "What seems a trite and commonplace deduction to you can be quite startling to the
observer.
How did you know that the lady was carrying a message from another lady?"

             
"Ah, Watson, you could have deduced it yourself if you were standing here observing the woman as I was," Holmes said, stepping back into his room and closing the door.

             
"So you have often said in similar situations in the past," Watson told him. "And yet I never seem able to grasp what you consider the obvious until you have explained it to me."

             
"You do yourself an injustice my dear Watson," Holmes said. "You have improved your deductive ability greatly since first we began lodging together. Once you started applying the diagnostic skills you learned in the practice of medicine to the greater world about you, your observation of detail increased considerably. True, you have not yet developed skill in detecting the minutia that make for the finer distinctions, and the inferences you draw from your observations lack a certain, let us say, courage; but there is hope for you, Watson, there is hope!"

             
"Thank you for that, Holmes," Watson said. "But I am content to let you do the inferring." He stopped fiddling with his tie and shrugged into his dinner jacket. "What was it about that lady that led you to deduce that she was carrying the message of another lady?"

             
"She had some straight pins stuck through the collar of her blouse and her left sleeves," Holmes explained. "And there was a smudge of
french
chalk on the heel of her right hand."

             
"Really, Holmes!"
Watson managed to sound mystified and exasperated at the same time.

             
"Surely the inference is clear," Holmes told his companion. "The woman is a dressmaker. And the hour indicates that she has hurried over at the close of her business day to deliver this message, certainly as a favor to one of her clients."

             
Watson said, "Humph! Surely there are a dozen other possible explanations."

             
"Perhaps," Holmes admitted. "But the probabilities—and the lady's own response—would indicate that mine is the right one. Now, let's see what this envelope holds for us."

             
Holmes held the envelope up to the gaslight, sniffed it, and peered at it intensely for a minute. Then he shrugged. "Seems to be just an envelope," he said.
"Local manufacture.
Well, let us see who knows I'm here, and what she has to say for herself." He slit the envelope open carefully with the blade of his clasp-knife, and pulled the folded paper out gingerly with two fingers.

             
Watson peered over his shoulder. "What is it, Holmes?"

             
Holmes unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on his writing desk. "A letter," he said.
"In English."
He peered down at it. "Come now, this is most interesting."

             
"Really?
What does it say?"

             
"The salutation is, 'Dearest Emma,' " Holmes said.

             
"Dearest
Emma?"
Watson chuckled. "There you have it, Holmes. The letter is not for you after all. The woman must have a purse full of envelopes, and she gave you the wrong one. Perhaps she'll return in the near future to exchange messages."

             
"I somehow don't think so," Holmes said. "There is at least one other explanation for that salutation." He adjusted the gaslight over his desk. "It continues:

             
'So finally I have gotten around to writing the letter I promised you those many months ago. How quickly time flies! This letter, I hope, finds you and your father in good health. Really I apologize for not writing sooner, but I have been having a horribly busy time meeting people, making friends, and traveling about here in Europe, and have been most remiss in my communications. You know, I must confess I have not written Mama or Edward, or anyone.' "

             
"Does it go on like that?" Watson asked.

             
"It does:

             
'Have found the most wonderful agent who promises to help me with my singing career over here.
Everyone, I must say, has been more helpful than I could have expected. And so I have wandered from Italy to Austria with the
most wonderful companions! There you have it, and I hope you can forgive me for my indolence and sloth. Please, please, give my love to all those I left behind and tell them, especially Edward, that I miss them and think of them every day.
Especially Edward.
And, of course, save some of that love for yourself! I expect to be here for some time, and a letter can always reach me at Post Restante, Uhmstein, Austria (which, my dear, is just a hop and a skip from Vienna).' "

             
Holmes paused in his reading there, and Watson asked, "Is that all?"

             
"It's signed, 'your loving Jenny,' " Holmes told him
. "Nothing on the back of the page.
This is most curious."

             
"As I said, Holmes, it's obviously some mistake," Watson offered.

             
Holmes stared at the letter for a minute, and then put it down and picked up the envelope. He carefully pulled it apart along its gummed edges and examined the inside. "I had thought perhaps— but I find nothing here."

             
"Come," Watson said, "Let's go down to dinner. There's nothing to be found."

             
Holmes took up the letter again and folded it carefully along its original creases. "You think so, do you, Watson? You don't see anything strange about the letter? No alternate solution for its misdirected salutation suggests itself to you?"