The Great Game (37 page)

             
"No, Holmes, I can't say that anything comes to mind except that the letter was not intended for you, and you're attaching too much importance to an innocent mistake of some kind."

             
"Ah, well, Watson, perhaps you're right," Holmes said, putting the letter in the inner pocket of his dinner jacket. "Let's go down to the dining room and consider the matter over a pair of veal chops and some of that thick bean soup. And then there's the question of dessert which will require careful thought." They left the room and headed down the hall. "But nonetheless it's a very curious letter."

             
"If you say so, Holmes."

             
After dinner they retired to the hotel's reading room, where Watson found a comparatively recent copy of
The Strand
magazine with which to amuse
himself
while Holmes once again produced the letter and stared at it. After a while Holmes lit his pipe and puffed on it, alternating between staring at the letter, and staring at the ceiling. This went on for about half an hour when, all at once
Holmes sprang to his feet and exclaimed, "Of course!
How stupid of me!"

             
Watson looked up from his magazine to find Holmes fairly dancing with excitement. "Come, Watson!" he said, "I believe the game's afoot!"

             
After all the years Watson had spent as Sherlock Holmes's companion and amanuensis, he still couldn't suppress the thrill of excitement that went through him when he realized that Holmes had picked up the scent and was on his way to solving another mystery. "Where to, Holmes?" he asked.

             
"First back to our rooms," Holmes told him, "and then we shall see—we shall see!"

             
Back in the room Holmes closed the door and turned up the gas mantle. "We want light," he said, "and heat."

             
"What have you discovered, Holmes?"

             
"It's what I am about to discover," Holmes replied. "I had it all in front of me, and I wasted a good hour staring at it. Was it not Jonathan Swift who said, 'There's none
so
blind as they that won't see'? Ah, Watson, I have no excuse—I should have seen it right away!"

             
"Seen what, Holmes?"

             
"What should have been obvious from the beginning," Holmes told Watson. "First, what were the chances that the message, as you suggested, was not for me?"

             
"I would say that the fact that it was addressed to 'Emma' was a good sign of that," Watson protested.

             
"It would seem that way at first thought," Holmes agreed. "But surely reflection on the way that seamstress was so careful to ascertain my identity before turning over the envelope would suggest otherwise."

             
"Then why the 'Emma'?"

             
"Combine that with the envelope's delivery by a seamstress, and what does it
suggest
?"

             
Watson took a deep breath. "I don't know, Holmes, what does it suggest to you?"

             
"That the sender could not have it delivered in the usual way; through the post or by a courier. Therefore that she was afraid to be seen posting a letter to Sherlock Holmes. And why is it headed 'Dear Emma'? Surely because she was afraid to be seen
writing
a letter to Sherlock Holmes."

             
"I see," said Watson. "But why would anyone go to such lengths to send you such a letter? It does not convey anything of interest; at least, not to my eyes."

             
"Therefore the real meaning is concealed. That is the conclusion I reached before we went down to dinner. But concealed how? At first I thought of pinholes. An old trick of prisoners and lovers is to prick tiny pinholes above the letters to spell out the secret message." Holmes held the letter up to the light. "But, as you can see, there are no pinholes in this paper. Then I tried reading every third word, or fourth word, or fifth word; and for my troubles I got gibberish."

             
"And then, Holmes?"

             
"And then we went down to dinner."

             
Watson dropped heavily into the chair by the window. "Really, Holmes, you can be the most exasperating man."

             
Holmes chuckled.
"Sorry, Watson.
But it came to me after dinner that I was getting too complicated, and the answer was probably very simple. And I looked, and it was. You see the first thing I looked at, the simplest cipher of all, is the first letter of the first word in each sentence. Now look—" he handed the letter to Watson. "The first four letters derived that way are S-H-T-R. Utter nonsense. So I stopped. I should have gone on. The first nine letters spell out S-H-T-R-Y-H-E-A-T. Or, as it suddenly occurred to me, S. H.—Sherlock Holmes—try heat!"

             
"Try heat?"

             
"Yes, Watson.
There are several liquids—lemon juice is one of them—that you can use to write on paper
with,
and the writing disappears when the liquid dries. But then, when the paper is heated up, the writing reappears. Like this!" Holmes grabbed the paper back and held it up to the side of the gas mantle, moving it back and forth so that it would heat evenly.

             
For a time nothing happened. And then, slowly, on the backside of the message, letters appeared, first very faintly and then deepening into a dark brown:

Sherlock,

             
I'm in trouble.
Guest/prisoner of Graf Sigfried von Linsz at Schloss Uhm, the castle on his estate in Uhmstein.
The Barnetts, friends of Prof. Moriarty, prisoners here also.
Von Linsz thinks I'm on his side, but not sure enough to let me write. He is one of the ringleaders of the plot.
Goal to take over Austria/ Europe.
Fete for locals planned for next weekend. Come in disguise. Other leaders coming here then I think.

Your
American Cousin Jenny

             
"Uhmstein?"
Holmes said. "Where is Uhmstein?
"

             
"
Who is Jenny?"

             
"Jenny Vernet," Holmes explained. "She is an opera singer.
Contralto.
Quite good.
Related to me on my mother's side.
Grew up in the United States.
She was born in San Francisco, where her father had made his fortune selling supplies to gold miners. When she was quite young the family moved back East to Boston, then on to London when she was in her teens."

             
"What is she doing in Europe? And, more to the point, what on earth is she doing writing you a secret message?" Watson asked. "How does she know you're here? How does she know about any plot?"

             
"I know no more than you do," Holmes told him. "But if I had to guess—Mycroft."

             
"Your brother?
What does he have to do with it?"

             
Holmes shrugged. "He knows I'm here, and what I'm doing. If some new information came to his attention, he is quite capable of acting on his own initiative and sending someone to investigate."

             
"And sending a woman?
Your cousin?
Really, Holmes!"

             
"Mycroft has little patience for the customary distinctions between the sexes. He often employs women as his agents. He finds them more reliable, more quick-witted, and less prone to make careless errors. I am quoting him, I'm not sure I disagree."

             
"Well this relative of yours seems to be a plucky young woman," Watson said.

             
"She always had amazing courage and initiative," Holmes
agreed. "If she'd been born a male, she'd probably be an explorer or something equally as adventurous. As it is her singing gives her all the independence she craves and the ability to travel about the world."

             
"It sounds like her independence is a bit limited at the moment," Watson commented. "What shall we do, Holmes?"

             
"Pack!"
Holmes said. "We're going to Uhmstein—wherever that may be."

One should not bewail the death of hope until it has been buried.

— Alma Schindler

             
Schloss Uhm, the castle on the von Linsz estate, was not large as castles go, but it was still impressive against the skyline. A triangular structure some eighty feet high, with a tower that went up another three stories in each corner, it had a crenellated outer wall ten feet thick and twenty-two feet high. It was one of a chain of fortresses built in the twelfth century by the Order of the Knights of Wotan to defend the Holy Roman Empire against invaders from the east. The east eventually stopped trying to invade, and the eighteenth century counts of Linsz enlarged the arrow-slits into windows, filled in the moat, and did what they could to convert their dank and drafty fortress into an elegant and graceful chateau. But, with the curtain wall surrounding it, and the high stone towers, it always looked more foreboding than inviting.

             
When Sigfried Karl Maria von Linsz inherited the title and estate in 1878, he put bars on the windows, re-installed the portcullis, and did what he could to restore Schloss Uhm to its primal state as a medieval fortress. It was the stony obstinance of the original that he admired. As a child, the graf had cultivated a secret belief that he was a reincarnation of the original Sigfried, king of the Nibelungers, chief of the god Wotan's hero race, hero of the German people. And surely King Sigfried should live in a castle.

             
Graf von Linsz trotted up the stone stairway in the castle he called home and stood aside while a burly man in the black leather uniform of his personal guard unlocked a heavy wooden door and pulled it open. He waved the guard aside and entered the room, stooping slightly to pass under the five-foot-three-inch high doorway. The room was a small one, furnished with a bed, a chair, a cupboard, a wash basin, a small, square table, and a small bookshelf holding a history of Hungary in Hungarian, a railroad timetable in German, and a dozen or so ancient hymnals in old church Slavonic. One tiny barred window high up on one wall admitted the room's only natural light, which was supplemented by an oil lamp on the table. Benjamin Barnett sat on the bed reading a two-week-old copy of the
London Times,
and Cecily was in the chair sewing a button on a blouse. They both looked up as von Linsz entered, but said nothing.

             
Von Linsz stood just inside the doorway and spread his arms expressively. "Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Barnett, I have come up to see how you are doing. What a fine domestic picture you make. I apologize for having neglected you recently, but I have been busy, quite busy. I do hope you forgive me."

             
Barnett put down his paper and glared up at the graf. "How long is this farce going to continue?" he demanded.

             
Von Linsz shrugged. "It is out of my hands now, I assure you," he said. "Certainly you see that we cannot let you go at the moment. There is no way that we could insure your silence about your, ah, visit to my home. And, while I'm confident that we could handle the situation, what with accusations and counter-accusations, right now we cannot afford the attention that
would be directed toward us. You must not think harshly of us, we are doing the best we can in a difficult situation."