Chapter three: New Acquaintances
Stepping out of the thicket and listening keenly, I realized the girl was actually reciting something, according to the musical quality of her talk. As it were, she was reading out a poem from a book in her hand, with sufficient loudness and clarity of voice, for me to distinguish words, but still in German. Contrarily to Holmes, I spoke but a few bits and pieces of the language, all of which I had acquired at school years ago. Yet I remained silent and hearkened.
"Und junge Himmel fielen herab,
Unersehnbare, wildsüße Düfte,
Wir rissen uns die Hüllen ab
Und schrieen!"
I felt myself blanch when, despite my linguistic deficiency, I gathered from these lines the salacious tenor of the verses, and tried to beat a retreat, hereby stepping on a dry twig. The girl lifted her head in surprise, which wore off quickly when she beheld her clandestine audience.
"Guten Tag!"
She smiled and waved at me, obviously desirous that I should join her. I was astounded to see her neither frightened nor embarrassed at the sight of a stranger, and bemusedly followed her summons. She cocked her head to one side and watched me crossing the meadow, blinking up at me when I stood in front of her, for the sun had risen over my shoulder. Her face, framed by her soft hair with the peculiar feuilles mortes tint, was youthful and spirited. While not being much of a beauty, she clearly possessed a certain charm that enabled her to turn the heads of men at her leisure.
"Wer sind Sie?" she asked calmly. She was not a bit scared by my appearance.
I stammered a few words and tried to explain my inability to converse in her mother tongue, when suddenly she laughed and slapped her hand to her forehead.
"Of course! Her Highness has me told. You are one of the English gentlemen who come should. I have it forgotten." She rose and extended her hand to me. "Luise, Duchess of Bavaria. But you can say only Luise."
"It is a pleasure, Fräulein Luise. My name is Watson, Dr. John Watson." Smilingly, I took her proffered hand and carefully pecked it.
Everything about her, her forwardness and her droll broken English, endeared the girl to me, I liked her better every second I spent in her company. When I introduced myself, I discovered a hidden spark of excitement in her eye, and after I had taken a seat on one of the tuff rocks at her invitation, she burst forth:
"I remember now. You are the friend of the famous detective. Sherlock Holmes. Is he here?"
Chuckling to myself at the way she pronounced my companion's Christian name – she might have been talking about Sherwood Forrest – I inclined my head.
"He is indeed. At this moment, he is engaged in an attempt to unravel the mystery. The unfortunate incident, I mean", I explained, for Fräulein Luises eyes went wide like a set of saucers in default of comprehension. "The robbery at Frau Mahler's quarters. You wouldn't have heard or seen anything out of the ordinary, I presume?"
She shook her head avidly. "No. I have it not done."
"I believe you." I ran her over in an attempt to disclose things about her in the fashion of my skilled comrade. Needless to say, I failed abysmally.
Apart from her saucy dress, she seemed a perfectly kind, appealing young woman. The infantine softness of her features recalled to me Delaroche's "The execution of Lady Jane Gray", a portrait of the tragic young aristocrat whose nine day's regency resulted in her execution at the Tower of London. On the girl seated opposite to me, however, not a trace of the tragic was to be found.
I pointed at the small volume of poetry now lying next to her on the rock. "You were reading when I interrupted you."
"Yes." She grasped it and I flightily read: "Else Lasker-Schüler: Gedichte" on the back of the book.
"Like you poems?"
"Pardon? Oh – " I do not exactly cherish reading poetry, I prefer prose.
Anyway, my answer was not essential to Fräulein Luise. She turned back to the page she had abandoned on my behalf, and continued precisely where she had left it.
"Berauscht vom Most der Lüfte
Ich knüpfte mich an sein Leben an
Bis dass es ganz in ihm zerrann,
und immer wieder Gestalt nahm
und immer wieder zerrann.
Und unsere Liebe jauchzte Gesang,
zwei wilde Symphonien!"
„My dear young lady!" I exclaimed with indignation.
"What is the matter?" she asked innocently, and put the volume aside once more. "You like it not?"
"It certainly is very inappropriate reading, especially for an unmarried woman like you. Are you not ashamed of yourself to indulge in such smut?" I chided her.
She burst into a small fit of laughter. "You are very sweet, doctor! But think you not it is a little old-fashioned to be angry because I read this?"
"I do not claim to be awfully modern", I grumbled, "Still I retain my opinion that this botch is mere filth. Your parents shouldn't allow…"
"They are not here now!" the girl crowed, smiling triumphantly.
I gave up the fight. "Very well. You are your own master, then. However, may I learn from you the whereabouts of Gräfin Wilhelmina and her party? I was supposed to meet them in the afternoon."
"Hum…" she knitted her brow, then a radiant smile showed me all of her white, even teeth. "Ah, of course. She wanted to go over to the Japanese garden – there, there!" Vigorously pointing into the direction I had come, she elaborated: "Leopold and she go around the other side of the park. Try it there!"
"I will. Thank you, Fräulein Luise. It's been a privilege to meet you." I rose and bowed. She accepted my gallantry calmly, as her well-deserved due.
"I see you at the ball this evening."
"I'm looking forward to it. Maybe you would consider saving a dance for me?"
"Yes!" She looked up at me hopefully. "Can you dance the cake-walk?"
"Excuse me?" I spluttered, even more confounded than I cared to show.
She shrugged her shoulders in disappointment. "I thought you dance it in London. Then not!"
"Well…until tonight, nonetheless." And bowing once more, I left the curious maiden, who in all likelihood was inwardly assigning a more conventional dance to me.
oooOOOooo
Whilst straying back to the castle, I mused about how different Fräulein Luise was from the young English ladies of my acquaintance, who were far more distinguished by modesty and the strict compliance with decorum. Still – who knew? It might as well be they only exercised reticency in the presence of Dr. Watson, the dear old uncle…
I sighed, the autumnal melancholy affecting my mood. When had I become so ancient? I fell into a brown study, pondering the death of my beloved wife Mary and the feigned death of my friend at the Reichenbach Falls, years back. Both events had, I believe, greatly contributed to my aging process, both on the inside and on the outside.
And now, with a new era dawning, an era comprising strange dances, short frocks, motorcars and I know not what, I distinctly felt myself growing into an archaic relic, a thing that was deposited in the attic, and retrieved only from time to time, just to be laughed and marveled at.
My sinister musings were eventually interrupted by the bird-like call of "Watson!" which caused me to decelerate my pace and look around. My eyes found Holmes sitting on the brim of the circular fountain, in the centre of the Louis quatorze gardens. He had been smoking a cigarette, which he tossed away on my appearance, lazily waving his hand to excite my attention.
His long legs were outstretched and crossed at the ankles in his customary way, as if he had been sitting in front of the fire at Baker Street, he appeared to feel quite at home. Next to him, Gräfin Wilhelmina seemed like a dark omen, standing erectly on her feet in her severe black accoutrement, her basically benevolent countenance a little dour.
I hastened to meet them by the flat basin, gallantly bowing to our hostess. " I beg your pardon, your Highness. I failed to find you and digressed from my path, I'm afraid…"
"No need to apologize, my dear sir", she assured me. "Mr. Holmes and I met just a moment prior to your arrival. My son asks your forgiveness for remaining absent, I understand he has a slight indisposition. Shall we?"
"By all means, Your Highness."
I kept to her side while Holmes, who had taken another cigarette from his apparently inexhaustible case, stayed a little apart from us. His walking stick produced crunching sounds on the gravel ground, a delicate whiff of tobacco now and then confirming us of his continual presence.
Leaving the almost pedantic layout of the baroque park behind, we dived into the shade of some patriarchic oaks, which surrounded a small, square granite building, whose Grecian porch was supported by Doric columns. The open interior of the sanctuary displayed the white marble statue of a female warrior, appareled with helmet and shield.
"The temple of Minerva", Gräfin Wilhelmina illustrated. "Our ancestor, the Kurfürst Karl Friedrich, has been a fervent admirer of ancient cultures, both from the Orient and the Occident. On his order, the park was filled with shrines like this one, in memoriam of a creed that was lost to the ages."
I knew her discourse was not exactly enjoyable to Holmes, who preferred to keep his mind free of all facts unrelated to his business, yet he was obliged to listen. It was not his habit to show disrespect if he could help it. In order to hide my smile, I left him with the Gräfin and approached the temple with the intention of stepping inside, when for the second time in a day, I surprised a woman absorbed in a book.
"Huh!" The lady issued a peculiar, startled little sound and in the impulse of a first instinct raised her book to shield the face with.
She was elderly, older than Frau Mahler, and older still than the Gräfin, a small wiry woman with crinkled hands and tiny, withered features that were revealed when her book sank to her lap again.
"I beg your pardon." Taking off my hat to her, I attempted an apology, but she proved to be quicker.
"Oh, it is quite alright, sir. I just thought you were a mass murderer." A faint sense of disappointment rang in her voice.
"A….?" I fell silent when catching sight of the cover of her book, it had been styled in black and a shade of red which hurt the eyes, and in essence seemed to portray a vile, demonic face and a slaughter's knife dripping with blood.
"Oh my, it's Agnes!" The Gräfin and Sherlock Holmes had ascended the few steps leading up to the temple behind me. Swiftly passing me and taking her book from the small old lady, the Gräfin mildly rebuked her: "Have you been reading those penny dreadfuls again, dear? Why don't you choose something nice to read, for a change?"
The bereaved gave up the book without an offer of protest. Curiously, not to say eagerly, she stared at us. Wilhelmina sighed the sigh of a long sufferer.
"This is Sherlock Holmes, dear, the gentleman I told you would come to assist poor Margarete with her misfortune. And this is his colleague Dr. Watson. Gentlemen, please let me introduce Agnes, Freifrau of Wittgenstein."
"Oh, indeed?" Agnes got up and shook both our hands, with a vigour I should hardly have given her credit for. "I am very glad to meet you, gentlemen, all the more so as I have heard of you and your endeavours ever so often. You will be excited to hear I have already formed a theory regarding the abstraction of poor Margarete's things."
"Irrepressibly", my friend Mr. Holmes returned sarcastically. Albeit having been considered one more than once during his career, he detested meddlers.
Gräfin Wilhelmina gave the impression of being somewhat abashed. "Well…perhaps another time, dear?" she said tentatively. "I wanted to show the gardens to our guests…"
If she had truly hoped to get away with this, she had mistaken her woman. Ere we knew what was happening to us, we were on our way, Agnes clinging to us like a limpet with the peculiar obnoxiousness of old age.
"I already examined the crime scene to save you the trouble, Mr. Holmes, and I can furnish you with several valuable clues. For instance, I found a button under the drawer Margarete used to keep her Krupp-papers in. I also found traces of hand balm on the night stand she had locked the missing snuff box in. Looked at everything with my most powerful lens, I did. Naturally, everything indicates the villain to be a woman. Not to mention, I perceived the scent of rose perfume in both places."
She gabbled incessantly, and I believe both the Gräfin and I noticed the way Mr. Holmes' jaws tightened, and his face assumed an extraordinarily sour expression. I think all three of us thought about the same: Namely that if Agnes was given free reign, she would most likely end up having Frau Mahler arrested, on the evidence of the traces she had left in her own apartment.
"We have had the police at the Castle over this matter", the noblewoman blathered on, "but I told them there was no need to exert themselves, since I'd be on the alert until your arrival. Now you've come, I believe our case will be concluded in no time!"
"Our case!" Mr. Holmes snapped. "I'm gaining the conviction that with the zeal of the local forces combined with your doubtless cunning, you will hardly require my humble services."
"Oh, I am not too sure about that", Agnes proceeded imperturbably. "You are a very renowned detective, after all…surely, there are things for me to learn from you…"
My companion did not evoke the impression of being too keen to impart any of his knowledge, but he was unable of further utterances. I presumed he would just go on swelling internally till the explosion. And yet, though the situation was infinitely comical to me, I had a little pity for Agnes, who seemed to genuinely believe she was the kindred spirit the great detective had longed to find.
Her Highness the Gräfin tried to enliven our respective moods by continuing her explications. We had reached a long avenue framed by huge sycamore trees, a high brick wall running parallel to it on our left. Craning my neck, I caught a glimpse of several dull rows of trees that looked rather dead.
"The Japanese garden", the Gräfin explained. "Though it is nothing much of a garden, naturally, just a nursery of almond trees. Still, it is a pity you won't be here to see them in spring, when they are in bloom. They're a lovely sight to see, then…a sea of delicate, pink blossoms….it's very beautiful…"
I turned around to face Holmes, who looked decidedly ill. I fancy he had had his share of pink already, this day.
Ok, easy. I trust Mr. Holmes is much too well-bred to be sick in front of the party…one never knows, though. And whooo! I guess he will have a miserable time with his "kindred spirit"…and I a great one *snicker*.
Next chapter, we will meet the male inhabitants of the castle. Hopefully, my overarching adoration for my countrymen is not seeping through too much already. *coughs* Err, well.
So long, then! Kind regards,
