Victorian Villainy (13 page)

We worked at untying him as quickly as possible as the barge gave a series of alarming jerks and kicks under us and tilted ever more drastically. Now, in addition to its list to the starboard, there was a decided tilt aft.

“Thank you, thank you,” said the plump man as the rope came off his legs. “They left me here to die. And for what?”

“For what, indeed?” I replied.

“It all started....”

“Let’s wait until we’re off this vessel,” Holmes interjected, “or in a very few moments we’ll be talking under water.”

We helped our rotund comrade up, although our feet were not much steadier than his, and with much slipping and sliding we made our way along the deck. An alarming shudder ran through the vessel as we reached the stern, and we quickly lowered our new friend into the rowboat and followed him down. Holmes and I manned the oars and energetically propelled ourselves away from the sinking barge, but we had gone no more than fifteen or twenty yards when the craft gave a mighty gurgle and descended beneath the water, creating a wave that pulled us back to the center of a great vortex, and then threw us up into the air like a chip of wood in a waterfall. In a trice we were drenched and our flimsy craft was waterlogged, but by some miracle we were still in the rowboat and it was still afloat. Holmes began bailing with his cap, and our guest with his right shoe, while I continued the effort to propel us away from the area.

I oriented myself by the ever-dependable North Star, and headed toward the south east. In a little while Holmes added his efforts to my own, and we were rowing across the dark waters with reasonable speed despite our craft still being half-full of water. Our plump shipmate kept bailing until he was exhausted, then spent a few minutes panting, and commenced bailing again.

It was perhaps half an hour before we spied lights in the distance indicating that the shore was somewhere ahead of us. Half an hour more and we had nosed into a beach. A small, steep, rocky beach, but nonetheless a bit of dry land, and we were grateful. The three of us climbed out of the rowboat and fell as one onto the rough sand, where we lay exhausted and immobile. I must have slept, but I have no idea of how long. When next I opened my eyes dawn had risen, and Holmes was up and doing exercises by the water’s edge.

“Come, arise my friend,” he said—he must have been drunk with exercise to address me thus—“we must make our preparations and be on our way.”

I sat up. “Where are we off to?” I asked.

“Surely it should be obvious,” Holmes replied.

“Humor me,” I said.

“Trieste,” said Holmes. “Wherever Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein goes, there we shall go. For whatever is happening, he is the leader or one of the leaders.”

“Is it your dislike of him that speaks?” I asked. “For you have often said the same of me, and seldom was it so.”

“Ah, but on occasion...,” Holmes said. “But in this case it is my knowledge of the man. He would not be a member of any organization that did not let him be its leader, or at least believe that he is the leader, for he is vain and would be easily led himself.”

Our rotund friend sat up. “Is that English which you speak?” he asked in German.

“
Ja
,” I said, switching to that language. “It is of no importance.”

“That is what those swine that abducted me spoke when they did not want me to understand,” he said, laboriously raising himself to his knees and then to his feet. “But they kept forgetting—and I understood much.”

“Good!” I said. “We will all find dry clothing for ourselves, and you shall tell us all about it.”

He stood up and offered me his hand. “I am Herr Paulus Hansel, and I thank you and your companion for saving my life.”

“On behalf of Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself, Professor James Moriarty, I accept your thanks,” I told him, taking the offered hand and giving it a firm shake.

“I have clothing at my—oh—I don’t dare go back to my hotel.” our friend’s hands flew to his mouth. “Supposing they are there waiting for me?”

“Come now,” Holmes said. “They believe you are dead.”

“I would not disabuse them of this notion,” he said.

We walked the three or so miles back to our hotel, booked a room for Herr Hansel, and set about our ablutions and a change of clothes. We gave the concierge the task of supplying suitable garb for our rotund friend, and he treated it as though guests of the Hotel Athènes returned water soaked and bedraggled every day of the year. Perhaps they did.

It was a little after 8:00 when we met at the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast. “Now,” Holmes said, spreading orange marmalade on his croissant and turning to Herr Hansel, “I have restrained my curiosity long enough, and you may well be possessed of information useful to us. Start with what you were doing on that barge, if you don’t mind.”

Herr Hansel drained his oversized cup of hot chocolate, put the cup down with a satisfied sigh, and wiped his mustache. “That is simple,” he said, refilling the cup from the large pitcher on the table. “I was preparing to die. And were you gentlemen not on board, I most assuredly would have done so.”

“What caused your companions to treat you in so unfriendly a manner?” I asked.

“They were no companions of mine,” he replied. “I am the proprietor of the Hansel and Hansel Costume Company.” he tapped himself on the chest. “I am the second Hansel, you understand. The first Hansel, my father, retired from the business some years ago and devotes himself to apiculture.”

“Really?” asked Holmes. “I would like to meet him.”

“Certainly,” Hansel agreed. “I am sure he would like to thank the man who saved his son’s life.”

“Yes, there is that,” Holmes agreed. “Go on with your story.”

“Yes. I delivered yesterday a large order of costumes to a certain Count von Kramm at the Adlerhof.”

“Hah!” Holmes interjected. We looked at him, but he merely leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed across his chest and murmured, “continue!”

“Yes,” said Hansel. “Well, they were naval costumes. Officers and ordinary seamen’s uniforms. From shoes to caps, with insignia and ribbons and everything.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “British Royal Navy uniforms, no doubt.”

“Why, yes,” Hansel agreed. “And quite enough of them to have costumed the full cast of that Gilbert and Sullivan show—
Pinafore
.”

“And the name you stitched on the caps,” Holmes interjected, “could it have been the
Royal Edgar
?”

“Indeed it was,” Hansel said, looking startled. “How did you....”

“Much like this one?” Holmes asked, pulling the cap we had found out of his pocket and placing it on the table.

Hansel picked it up, examined it carefully, crumpled the cloth in his hands and sniffed at it. “Why, yes,” he agreed, “this is one of ours.”

“Go on,” I said. “How did you get yourself tied up in that cabin?”

“It was when I asked about the undergarments,” Hansel said. “Count von Kramm seemed to take offense.

“Undergarments?”

Hansel nodded and took a large bite of sausage. “We were asked to supply authentic undergarments, and I went to considerable trouble to comply with his request.”

“Whatever for?” asked Holmes.

Hansel shrugged a wide, expressive shrug. “I did not ask,” he said. “I assumed it was for whatever production he was planning to put on. I acquired the requested undergarments from the Naval Stores at Portsmouth, so their authenticity was assured.”

“You thought it was for a play?” I asked. “Doesn’t that sound like excessive realism?”

Another shrug. “I have heard that when Untermeyer produces a show at the
Konigliche Theater
he puts loose change in the corners of the couches and stuffed chairs, and all the doors and windows on the set must open and close even if they are not to be used during the performance.”

“Who are we to question theatrical genius?” Holmes agreed. “If Count Kramm’s theatrical sailors are to wear sailors’ undergarments, why then so be it.”

“Indeed,” said Hansel. “But why only five sets?”

Holmes carefully put down his coffee cup. “Five sets only?”

“That’s right.”

“And how many sets of, ah, outer garments?”

“Thirty five complete uniforms. Twelve officers and the rest common sailors.”

“How strange,” I said.

Hansel nodded. “That’s what I said. That’s why I ended up tied up on that chair, or so I suppose.”

Holmes looked at me. “Count von Kramm,” he said, “or as I know him better, Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein and Hereditary King of Bohemia, dislikes being questioned.”

“I see,” I said.

“Von Kramm is one of his favorite aliases.”

“That man is a king?” Hansel asked, a note of alarm in his voice. “There is no place where one can hide from a king.”

“Do not be alarmed,” Holmes told him. “By now he has forgotten that you ever existed.”

“Ah, yes,” Hansel said. “There is that about kings.”

Holmes stood. “I think we must go to Trieste,” he said. “There is devil’s work afoot.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I need to send a telegram. I’ll have the reply sent to Trieste.”

“I, I think, must go home,” said Hansel.

“Yes, of course,” Holmes agreed. He took Hansel’s hand. “You have earned the thanks of another royal person, and I shall see that, in the fullness of time, you are suitably rewarded.”

“You are g-going to r-r-reward me?” Hansel stammered. “But your grace, your kingship, I had no idea. I mean....”

Holmes barked out a short laugh. “No, my good man,” he said. “Not I. A gracious lady on whose shoulders rest the weight of the greatest empire in the world.”

“Oh,” said Hansel. “Her.”

* * * * * * *

The city of Trieste rests on the Gulf of Trieste, which is the northern tip of the Adriatic Sea, and is surrounded by mountains where it isn’t fronting water. The city dates back to Roman times, and its architecture is a potpourri of every period from then to the present. Although it is putatively a part of the Austrian Empire, its citizens mostly speak Italian, and are more concerned with the happenings in Rome and Venice than those in Vienna and Budapest.

The journey took us two days by the most direct route we could find. But we reconciled ourselves with the thought that von Ormstein and his band of pseudo-English sailors couldn’t have arrived much ahead of us.

During the journey we discussed what we had found out and worked out a course of action. It was necessarily vague, as although we now had a pretty good idea of what von Ormstein was planning, we didn’t know what resources we would find available to us to stop him from carrying out his dastardly scheme.

Before we left Lindau Holmes and I had sent a telegram to Mycroft:

SEND NAMES AND LOCATIONS OF ALL DESTROYERS OF ROYAL HENRY CLASS REPLY GENERAL PO TRIESTE SHERLOCK

A reply awaited us when we arrived. We retired to a nearby coffee house and perused it over steaming glasses of espresso:

EIGHT SHIPS IN CLASS ROYAL HENRY ROYAL ELIZABETH AND ROYAL ROBERT WITH ATLANTIC FLEET AT PORTSMOUTH ROYAL STEPHEN IN DRYDOCK BEING REFITTED ROYAL WILLIAM IN BAY OF BENGAL ROYAL EDWARD AND ROYAL EDGAR ON WAY TO AUSTRALIA ROYAL MARY DECOMMISSIONED SOLD TO URUGUAY PRESUMABLY CROSSING ATLANTIC TO MONTEVIDEO WHAT NEWS MYCROFT

I slapped my hand down on the coffee table. “Uruguay!”

Holmes looked at me.

“Uruguay is divided into nineteen departments,” I told him.

“That is the sort of trivia with which I refuse to burden my mind,” he said. “The study of crime and criminals provides enough intellectual....”

“Of which one,” I interrupted, “is Florida.”

He stopped, his mouth open. “Florida?”

“Just so.”

“The letter.... ‘The Florida is now ours.’”

“It is common practice to name warships after counties, states, departments, or other subdivisions of a country,” I said. “The British Navy has an Essex, a Sussex, a Kent, and several others, I believe.”

Holmes thought this over. “The conclusion in inescapable,” he said. “The Florida....”

“And the undergarments,” I said.

Holmes nodded. “When you have eliminated the impossible,” he said, “whatever remains, however improbable, stands a good chance of being the truth.”

I shook my head. “And you have called me the Napoleon of crime,” I said. “Compared to this....”

“Ah!” said Holmes. “But this isn’t crime, this is politics. International intrigue. A much rougher game. There is no honor among politicians.”

We walked hurriedly to the British consulate on Avenue San Lucia and identified ourselves to the Consul, a white-haired, impeccably dressed statesman named Aubrey, requesting that he send a coded message to Whitehall.

He looked at us quizzically over his wire-rim glasses. “Certainly, gentlemen,” he said. “To what effect?”

“We are going to ask Her Majesty’s government to supply us with a battleship,” Holmes said, and paused, waiting for the reaction.