The couple who received us was nearly the same age as the deceased Mrs. Gunther, about 40. Lady Orion was still in her prime, with dark brown hair cascading in curls down the sides of her face in rather more of a daring coiffeur than an English lady of her age would have attempted.
Her husband was tall and pale with dark chestnut hair, and affected an odd sort of hat at a jaunty angle. It was evident that although Lord Bertrand was a nobleman of a rank several steps closer to the royal family than Maria's family, the couple considered itself artistic. Even I could deduce from the splatters of paint on the lord's hat that his interest in art was less superficial than his wife's.
We were invited to sit down in a parlor decorated with excellent taste and a maid brought coffee. Lord Orian did not sit but stood fussing with a canvas he had set up so he could paint the garden visible from the large window.
"The palace had advised you we might visit?" Holmes inquired.
"Yes, they came right after poor Greta died and asked if we had a copy of the portrait with the two girls. We must have lost our print at some point, but they made a frightful mess going through our house," Lady Lidia Orian said, handing me a cup. "I can see why they wish to preserve the Princess from any calumnies by containing this rumor, but I think it's absurd. How could the girls' true origins never have asserted themselves in all these years? Maria was Greta's child, through and through, not a princess."
Holmes made a noncommittal sound, and I preferred this to hearing a speech on his irreverent views of monarchies.
"I had understood your relationship to the photograph was through the royal family, not the Gunthers," I chose to ask instead.
"My family is an offshoot of the house of Vargas, yes," the lord replied from his corner. "Through that connection, Lidia and I were were fortunate to spend a good deal of time there when the children were small. At that age, they are not separated by better education or fine manners or any awareness of differences between them. They're just children, and those of us with a family line leading to the court and had children of the right age were rather thrown together."
"And we always got on very well with the Gunthers," our hostess took over, "Our two families became a natural unit, frequenting each other very often outside of the palace as well."
She picked up another photograph, evidently by the same artist. "Here is a photograph with our children, Agnes and Lucius, taken at the castle. There were two other photographs like this, with Princess Anna but with no Maria. Since Princess Anna was the youngest of the Queen's many children, all of her peers by age had settled families with almost no new arrivals like our young ones. Certainly there were no girls just a few weeks apart like Maria."
"Can you tell me anything of the girls' dispositions, Lady Orian?" Holmes asked.
"Certainly. Maria had a very warm and kind disposition from a young age, so that it was a pleasure to have her around. She made the princess more tractable, as Princess Anna was a child mostly brought up among adults and liked to have her way. She's much calmer now, but as a child she had very fixed opinions about who she liked and disliked, and she liked Maria," the lady recalled.
"When was the last time they saw each other?"
"Maria's family moved abroad for some years," the husband spoke up again. "The mother and daughter returned to their home city and then the husband died a few years after. Maria's mother had delicate health, some infirmity picked up in Algiers, I imagine. Greta's former servant came to care for her and she never went out in society."
"I saw her a few times at their home," said the wife, "But her manner had become very taciturn, almost rude, though we were close years ago and Greta was always so docile. She said she didn't want to be looked at as she was, for she had grown thin and sickly, and after two visits she asked that I not come again."
Holmes assumed an intent look. "Did she ask after your children?"
Lady Orian reflected. "I suppose she did. Yes, certainly it would have been polite, and though her manners were brusque, she asked after every member of my family, my brothers and their spouses as well, all by name. As a rule she was very considerate, Greta, just like Maria turned out to be. Maria I have seen out in society, and she has always been pleasant, even when she must have known her mother's prognosis was very grim."
My companion was staring off into space again, and so I said, "I have spoken to Mademoiselle Maria on two occasions, and have found her to have an admirable composure considering the stress of her circumstances. Still, it must be no easy thing to mourn a mother who had more sorrows than she knew."
It was a noncommittal remark to fill the silence, but Holmes gave a significant nod at my words.
"Thank you for meeting with us, Lady Orian, you have been most helpful," my friend said. "And Lord Orian, we are most appreciative."
"Anything to help Maria out of her predicament," the man said, leaning from around his portrait. "A noble young lady no matter what the outcome of your investigation, I should say."
"He's an interesting sort of lord, with his dramatic hat and coloring," I remarked when we left the Orians' residence. "He certainly has the makings of a man who has done no work in his life. Even I saw that his hands were as soft as a maid's—but most people of good breeding have more respect for it."
When we were out on the main street, Holmes proposed walking back to our hotel, which would take us through some of the busiest districts of the city.
"Very well said, once more, Watson. We may not know the mother, but we know she kept an explosive secret over many years. This tells us quite a bit. The palace may be less than forthcoming, and we have little evidence from the fire or the girls' early years. But what remains when all the clues are washed away?" He gestured to the passersby. "Character. We can take each personage's character to be a relative constant, and deduce from there in which direction we might find real evidence."
"Character will not relieve these two young women of their uncertainty," I pointed out. "Maria, especially, needs some solid proof that she is not some kind of upstart."
"Yes, quite. Uncertainty can be a difficult sentence," my friend agreed. "Step by step Watson." Then he turned his attention to the life on the streets of this foreign city, and refused to discuss any more about the case. He seemed to be looking for something in the districts we passed.
My impression was confirmed when he chose for our dinner spot a restaurant that reminded me of an amenable establishment I had sometimes visited with him and Bruno, though there was nothing to indicate that it catered to such a clientele.
Holmes' manner was abstracted and we ate mostly in silence. I discerned one of his occasional raw nerves about his lost lover. but he was looking over his diagrams of the jubilee celebration, along with the newspaper articles translated by Ghjuvon describing the scene with the musicians and the dancers, and then the fire in the children's tent.
Then he spoke. "One of the nursemaids said afterwards, 'We were watching the fireworks when suddenly the embers alighted on the tent and all was ablaze, with burning cloth blowing at us."
He thrust a page in front of me. "Mark this, Watson: 'We carried all the little ones away, one to each arm' But how many children do you think would be in the charge of each nursemaid.? Surely the little princess' nurse was only looking after her?"
"We know the woman was separated from the tent and couldn't return. But I should think each noble baby would have its own caregiver. Perhaps more than one."
He struck the table. "But her particular nursemaid was dismissed and has since deceased. It is most frustrating, this solving a crime backwards."
"Indeed, Holmes," I said calmingly. "We see twenty years of aftermath and none of the explosion."
Those deep gray eyes were regarding me with a sort of wonder. "Say that again, Watson."
"Twenty years of—"
"You give me the first breath of reason in days, my good friend. Nay, you said something very valuable in the carriage yesterday." He'd thrown some money on the table, sprung up and grabbed his coat. "I'm going for a walk. You should get some air as well. I've been overworking you with this case. Moderation in all things, Doctor."
An exultant Holmes returned to the hotel couple of hours later with Ghjuvon, who was bearing books and papers and rather unfairly most of the weight. Sherlock Holmes could only wave around two pieces of paper. "You see this, Dr. Watson? Look at it well, for it is a scientific discovery that will sadly never be published."
"If you stop waving it perhaps I will read it," I said, mindful of the late hour. He thrust the two sheets under my nose. One was the list of characteristics we had gathered from Maria.
"Right there, Watson, you noted it yourself. 'Six scattered marks, each with a slight concavity, barely distinguishable on the right forearm.' They were the key all along."
"She says she doesn't remember how she got them. A child scrapes herself many times. It could have been any sort of childhood injury," I objected.
"Maria Gunther has a lovely skin. Was it not you who drew my attention to it? A lovely complexion, as could befit any royal court, or something to that effect," Holmes said in high spirits.
I could feel my face redden. "Perhaps I did say something about her cutis, but I meant nothing indecent."
"That is not my meaning, old man. Besides maintaining a ladylike aspect, why would Greta have been so concerned that Maria stay out of the sun?"
"Greta Gunther was quite put out by any of her daughter's sporting interests that might put her in the sun," I mused. "If a mother were concerned that her child might have a sensitivity to the sun, she would teach her to always care for her skin."
"Your observations follow mine exactly, my friend, but let me nudge you even further. A genetic sensitivity to the sun," Holmes supplied.
"Porphyria," I responded, and then our friend the scientist could contain himself no longer. He handed me a book describing the likelihood of inheriting the disease.
"It is known that a sensitivity to sun can run in families," Ghjuvon said. "For those with a mild affliction, avoiding the sun is sufficient, but for some, grave illness can result from exposure through pathways we only poorly understand. A noble family keeps better records than most, and there are no mentions of porphyria in its past."
"Well that is wonderful! If Maria truly has some form of porphyria and the Vargas line is not known to have it, then she is saved! Neither girl must give up her life," I said with relief.
"I know you are anxious to save our prisoner from her dungeon, but wait a moment, Watson," said Holmes. "Nothing like porphyria came up in any of the interviews we conducted with the house of Gunther, although the parents are no longer alive. A few faint blemishes that might be the remnants of a sun rash are not enough to guarantee the girl's release."
I rested my head in my hands. My level of energy wasn't anything like that of the other two men, who kept exchanging little glances of complicity. Holmes rang for the porter and Ghjuvon had some brief conversation with him. Then my friend was back at the charge.
"There is a mistaken parentage in this case, but it is not bound up with the royal family. At least not its central trunk. We've been examining all the wrong people."
"Oh yes?" I asked, not looking forward to more examinations.
"And what did your keen medical eye also note about someone else's skin?"
I cast my mind back. "The Prince Robert had a rather large strawberry birthmark on his left inner thigh. The Princess Beatrice has a tendency to pruritis. Then in the Gunthers I observed a minor darkening on the upper lip—"
"Yes, yes, that's all fine," Holmes interrupted. "I should have specified—someone not in the royal family."
Both men were waiting for me to understand their meaning. It took me only a moment. "The Lord Bertrand Orian, who was in the photograph with the two little girls. I remarked on his coloring because his skin is unusually pale for someone with such dark hair. But he seems healthy, so without examining him I couldn't speak about the import of his pallor."
"That won't be necessary. You remember how his face was obscured by a large hat in the photograph? It must have been similar to the one we saw him affecting at a rakish angle today. Why should he wear such a hat, which was neither then nor is now in fashion?" my friend pursued.
"A severe sensitivity to the sun," I breathed. Perhaps the lord had struck me as a man with no profession because his freedom was limited by photosensitivity. "He was painting the garden from inside. Why would anyone do that when they can step outside and paint from up close?" Then the detective's import finally struck me. "You're saying Maria Gunther is the child of Lord Orian?"
Suddenly I felt very dizzy. The coffee came, though I would have much preferred a whiskey. Holmes poured me a cup.
"I think it is very likely, Watson, though I am almost entirely positive that neither Lord nor Lady Orian suspected it. Lady Orian knew nothing of the affair, I am almost sure. She seemed genuinely hurt that Greta did not wish to renew their acquaintance."
"When you think of the context of the note, Greta's meaning is now very clear," Ghjuvon reminded me.
"Lord Orian struck me as a decent chap. Greta must have feared that he would have made some type of settlement on the girl, perhaps tried to raise her himself," I said.
"That seems to have been the dead woman's meaning, but if there was this affair that at least Lord Orion himself was aware of, why did neither he, nor anyone else step forward before the royal hysteria landed upon Maria as a pretender to the line of accession?" Holmes asked me.
"Well the photograph. The girls were and are strikingly similar. And because deathbed confessions are usually of the greatest candor, for the person has no reason to obscure their meaning any longer."
"Greta was very clear, but we mistook the meaning entirely, and I believe she would have wished us to have all the facts. Maria said that the original letter had a line where the pen had fallen from her mother's hand—which went still before she could express the whole story."
He drew out his sketch of the photograph and circled the shadowy adult male figure and little Maria. "We have been focusing on the two girls in the foreground who, yes, are nearly twins, although that meaning only became apparent with the servant's story. It is far more likely that the servant put the photograph in the woman's hands. But divert your gaze to this pair. This is perhaps the only photograph of a father with the daughter he did not know was his. Greta kept in on her bed table. A love that never quite extinguished, at least in Greta's heart? It would explain why she would not accept Lord Bertrand in to see her when she was sick."
I lit my pipe while shaking my head. "Then Lord Orian and Greta Gunther had an assignation if not a longer relation, and neither spouse suspected? It seems a difficult thing for a woman to bear alone."
"We won't know the reason for Mr. Gunther taking them abroad to Algiers, but this is where we can wager upon character. Lady Orian described her as a very pleasant and polite woman. We can only deduce that any suspicions about the hidden romance were able to be ignored quite well by all involved, due, I believe, to the woman's accommodating nature."
It struck me that my friend was doing much better in the human nature department since his own affair. He was striding up and down my room. "Greta may have had this liaison, but her desire not to offend was to be completely relied upon. This woman from her minor branch of nobility was the hub around which both families' stasis revolved. It was only when she was dying that she turned her eye to her girl's fortunes more than to maintaining her own. Character, as I said. And Maria is completely her mother's daughter—remember that she was one of the few children who could get along with the willful princess."
The coffee was making me more alert but my head was swimming with all this new information. This theory still made no sense to me.
"If Maria has no idea she possesses this trait, the only way your theory could help her would be if we set her in the sun to burn. That would be an unacceptable risk," I said.
"Ah, there is someone who can save us from such a measure."
Sherlock Holmes disappeared for a moment and returned with his outdoor things.
"Put on your coat, Watson. We're going to make a visit."
"At this hour?"
"The jailers won't mind, and the palace will be happy if I obtain proof that helps them keep their princess."
We found a cab willing to take us across town to the ladies' jail. The whole way there I shuddered to think that Maria could ever end up in such a place. My mind got carried away, considering if she really were the child of Lord Orian, and if so, what that might mean for her future and the other family.
Dr. Ghjuvon and Holmes were talking about something but I couldn't be bothered to listen. When the cab left us at the unsavory destination, I took little comfort in finding that my imaginings were correct. The stone edifice seemed drafty and damp and the guards at the front door had a most forbidding aspect.
Holmes marched us up to the sentry gate and stood there impatiently while Ghjuvan had some conversation with the man.
"Will you tell me why we're here?" I asked while the scientist tried to gain our admittance. "You have your theory—a very thin theory, I think, and one that won't satisfy the royal family entirely, either. This woman is half-mad, I thought they said."
"Hush, Watson, you'll be able to follow the next bit quite well."
A higher-ranking superintendent was coming down the front steps with his shirt half-untucked from his uniform jacket.
"Monsieur Holmes and the two doctors," he said in French, offering his hand. "Please forgive this rude treatment. I had been told you might visit us, but alas, you came while I was resting in my office. We have much to do with our special prisoner, you will see."
He brought us up a narrow stone staircase to where a man was keeping watch. The superintendent had a brief conversation with the guard, who shrugged and stepped back.
"Do you mind if I watch your methods, Monsieur Holmes? I have heard much about you but never imagined I would see you in action," the warden asked.
"Not at all," Holmes said.
The door was unlocked.
We saw an elderly woman who was not all that ancient, but looked older because of her unkempt appearance. Her white hair was all askew and she was crouching in a corner. She directed a snarl at all of us equally.
Sherlock Holmes was not in the least perturbed. He bowed to the woman, called her "Miss Marta," and, when two men brought in a table and some chairs, pulled out the chair for her until she reluctantly sat.
The jailers seemed to have expected some violence done with the chairs, for there was not a stick of furniture in the room, but Ghjuvon and I sat on either side of our friend and waited to see what would happen next.
Out of his pocket, Holmes produced a sketch of Maria's mother, Greta, which I recognized as being from as a likeness the royal secretary had supplied several days ago. Then my friend produced the sketched reproduction of the photograph clutched by the dead woman, depicting the two girls, Anna and Maria. side by side, with the man we now knew to be Lord Orian in the background. He said the word for "father" I recognized by now from their language.
Marta drew back with a hunted expression but then her jaw set again. The superintendent made a motion and the jailers gathered around her should she lash out, as she had apparently done in the innumerable interrogations before this one.
Holmes then showed her a photograph of the entire royal family, en masse, again, a likeness that had been furnished by Mr. Abel in the hopes of establishing the princess' paternity. Compared to the frail woman in her cell, the whole group of them looked very wealthy and very powerful.
The elderly nurse crossed her arms.
Then Holmes gave the prisoner a steely stare and said another phrase very clearly.
"What did he say?" I asked Ghjuvon, now understanding that Holmes had been picking up a few necessary phrases on the drive there.
"Traitor," he explained.
The old woman made a scoffing noise and said one word.
"Never, she says."
Next, Holmes extricated his map, the one he had studied so often in his attempts to understand the night of the fire.
His finger traced the map of the grounds, one going in the direction of the house, and one coming from the estate house towards the fire. I assumed he was trying to understand who had rescued the babies from their cribs, as whoever Maria's parents might have been, she still could have been confused with the real princess in the fire.
The detective traced these two paths twice, was beginning to trace them a third time when the woman's face went white.
"Traitor," was all Holmes said.
The woman began to shiver so violently I couldn't bear to see it. She accepted my coat around her shoulders but only had eyes for Sherlock Holmes.
"How many?" I had heard that phrase often enough in the shops. Holmes was pointing to the drawing of the children's tent. Marta held up ten fingers and then three more. Then he uttered a name very low, too softly for me to catch, and she shook her head emphatically.
Holmes traced his fingers on their convergent paths once more. The superintendent looked as confused as I was, and when I glanced at Ghjuvon, he seemed lost as well.
The interrogator uttered the word for traitor twice more, once while pointing to the face of her old mistress, once while jabbing his finger at the other end of the table, where the photograph of the royal family lay.
He said two more sentences, which was duly translated by the scientist:
"A family will do much for the sake of reputation, but you have no one to take pains for your sake."
Whereupon the old lady shrieked and then covered her mouth.
Holmes then turned to the superintendent. "May we have paper and a pen, should our prisoner wish to confess?"
A jailer was sent to procure the items, but our host chuckled. "This one won't break down so easy."
The paper and pen was placed before the lady, who regarded them disdainfully.
"Please," Holmes said in her language.
He faced off with the fierce old woman for a few moments before standing up. "Let us leave our faithful nurse to her thoughts," he said in French.
To my surprise, as Holmes turned away the prisoner wept and implored the detective for mercy, something I could clearly see without translation.
The tall man regarded the desperate creature on her knees. He said something in a harsh tone and swept out, tugging my coat from her shoulders as he left. The rest of us could only follow.
"If you would not mind having your sentry stay with the Judas window open so that she does not do anything foolish in her desperation, I wager that Miss Greta will soon come round."
"Your friend's intonation is very good in our tongue," the superintendent marveled to me.
"Yes, Holmes has a gift with accents," I agreed.
We approached the front door and Holmes stepped outside. "Let us wait a while," he advised. "My little performance had but few lines left and no more characters to enter. If she does not confess that she added the portrait from the bedside and tell a fantastic story about the fire at the palace to mislead those who found the letter, she never will."
Finally, I understood the performance Holmes had just given. He kept saying "traitor" to show that he understood why the old woman would cause such a scandal in order to protect Greta's reputation—Holmes had said as much in one of his sentences. "To think that one woman would go to such lengths to protect the reputation of another woman—not even a relation—and even after death," I mused.
"Indeed," was all my friend said.
We smoked a few cigarettes in the fresh night air, in which I fancied I could smell the trees of the country's famed mountain region. Ghjuvon, who does not partake of tobacco due to his compressed chest cavity, spoke: "If she is smart, she will say nothing. We have no proof that Lord Orian is Maria's true father. And even if we did, that does not discount possibility the two children were confused during the fire. Which is why you were asking her to retrace her movements on the map, I presume?"
"Yes, Marta was a palace servant assigned to work inside during the jubilee, but I could not discount her knowing something important," Holmes agreed.
We stared up at this foreign sky for a few moments, and then he continued, "This was not a crime of reason, though it would have been a splendid one. It was, as you said, Watson, a crime of the deep, blind loyalty she felt towards her mistress. We may never know why that affection developed, but we can only hope that she has begun to understand that she is betraying her mistress' dying wish."
Just as we were getting chilled a guard came to fetch us. "She has spoken! She has spoken!" He said in mangled French.
We returned to the cell, where the woman appeared to be coming out of a fit of hysterics before a tin mug that must contain some kind of spirit. Her face was still streaming with tears and she was talking as if to her self, but at least she was writing with a deliberate hand on one of the sheets of paper placed before her. Two sheets were already filled.
The superintendent addressed us in French:
"It was just as you said, Mr. Holmes. She did not wish for Miss Maria to understand who her father was, as it would reveal the mother's adultery and cause disruption to another family, something she believed her mistress would not have supported had she been thinking clearly on her deathbed."
"Is she writing of the fire?" Holmes asked.
Our host peered over her shoulder. "Only to say that she was there the day of the fire and knew that both girls had sustained similar injuries. She had to do nothing except tell this true story of what happened 20 years ago and let everyone draw the wrong conclusions from the letter and photograph."
"Ah yes," Holmes nodded with approval and said a word to that effect in the woman's language. Marta gave him a frightened look and kept writing and mumbling to herself.
"Did she make clear why she had such a devotion to Greta Gunther?" I asked the superintendent.
"Yes, she was mumbling something about her mistress taking her away from her post at the palace, where she was unhappy. There was a man, she didn't say what sort of man, who was pressing his affections on her. The Lady Greta hired her on the spot because this woman was one of those from the palace who fought their way to the children's tent and saved her little girl. She was grateful for being free of this troublesome situation."
"Ah. Two women with a lifelong feeling of indebtedness to each other would form a very strong bond," I said.
"One that continues after death, it seems," Holmes concluded. "Gentlemen, it has been a long night of good work. Shall we see you before your train tomorrow, Ghjuvan?"
The scientist considered. "The best train for me is midmorning, so alas I think not."
We all shook hands and made invitations for the other party to stay with us should he be in our city, and the great student of heredity who was so scorned by the same took his own cab to his hotel.
"Good heavens, Holmes, the best train for us is midday. I would rather get some sleep before then," I said as we drove.
"Sleep all you like, Watson. I don't expect the royals keep a very early schedule either." He nodded. "We are not leaving today. But it was best that the essential Dr. Ghjuvon thought we would. This is a leg of the journey that only you and I can traverse, my friend."
