Ted Riccardi - Between the Thames and the Tiber

The crowd began to go mad and Holmes motioned that we should leave quickly. We barely made it back to our rooms when we heard the police firing into what had become an unruly mob. That evening we learned that Prinzip and his wife had been apprehended and were to be tried for murder.

It was several days before we returned to London. We consulted several times with the Viennese police, Holmes revealing all that he then knew There is no need to recount the events that took place in the aftermath of the assassination, for we are living through them now.

“Well, Watson, without Mycroft, the Foreign Office has behaved as incompetently as one might have feared,” said Holmes handing me the paper. “We shall be at war soon. Those who have a lust for blood shall have a surfeit of it this time.”

Holmes took his violin from its case and began tuning it slowly. It was late July, a month after the Archduke’s death, and Holmes’s prediction was soon to become true. For my good friend, there was to be no respite. He responded to his country’s needs with courage and determination. He had no illusions, however, about the dreadful events that were to begin shortly.

THE CASE OF THE PLANGENT COLONEL

IT WAS ON AN UNUSUALLY WARM DAY IN LATE APRIL of 1898 that the incidents alluded to below first came to notice. Holmes had left a note saying that a minor matter had taken him to Castel Gondolfo and that he would return in the afternoon. Having no special tasks to which to attend, I determined to put my solitude to good use by taking a long morning stroll in the Villa Borghese. I spent the better part of an hour in the museum with Canova’s celebrated statue of Madame Recamier, and after my walk, I sat on a bench in the cool shade of the Roman pines, studying, with great pleasure, the wide variety of Romans who passed by. I then took a light meal at one of my favorite trattorie on Via Palestrina, and reached our quarters shortly before two.

The city was already quiet with the siesta, that afternoon restorative nap which characterises so strongly the life of the Italian. I too felt that sweet lethargy to which the Roman air, coupled with a few glasses of cool frascati, inevitably leads one. As I began the climb to our quarters, I was suddenly met on the first landing by a young woman hurriedly running down the staircase. She addressed me instantly in English.

“Please forgive me, but might you be Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am not,” I answered, “but I know him well. Is he not there?”

“The landlady let me knock on his door, but there was no answer.”

“Hallo, Watson, and whom have we here?” said a voice suddenly from below.

I turned to see Holmes, a smile on his face, obviously satisfied with his trip.

“This young woman is looking for you, Holmes.”

“Then let us make the climb together. I trust that la signora Manfredini will prepare a cup of tea for us.”

The young woman smiled with relief, turned on the stair, and led the way up. I directed her to our sitting room where we began our conversation.

“I take it that you are English?” Holmes inquired.

“Yes,” she said, “from London.”

As she took her tea from our landlady, I observed her for a moment. Young, perhaps no more than twenty-two or twenty-three, almost pretty, she was dressed in a dark blue dress, a straw Italian bonnet over her chestnut hair. There was a look of strength and determination in her green eyes, but she appeared to be quite tense, her fingers moving nervously on her lap and then fingering a silver locket that she wore around her neck.

“I come to you with a matter of the greatest concern to me, Mr. Holmes. I must speak to you in all candor. I trust that this gentleman is as trustworthy as—”

“I myself am. Quite correct. This is my colleague, Dr. Watson. You may speak before him as you would to me. You are a pianist, I see?”

I could sense her wonder as Holmes began to ply his tricks.

“Indeed, I am, but how could you know that?”

“It is simplicity itself. I noted as you took your seat that your bag contains a common edition of some music. Noting the letters—ven protruding from the top, I assumed the name of Beethoven. Judging from the thickness of the volume and its well-worn look, I was sure that it was a volume of his sonatas, obviously among the commonplaces of the pianist’s trade. Add to that your posture, which speaks eloquently of hours at the piano, and your well-developed hands and fingers.”

“It is with reason that you have the reputation that you have,” she said admiringly.

“But there is more, dear lady. You have been practising with great assiduity a particular piece—the piano concerto in D minor of Anton Rubinstein.”

At this a look of disbelief crossed her face, and she became almost angry as she answered, “That is unfair, Mr. Holmes. You are correct, of course, but I feel now that someone has told you of me and that you are engaged in some kind of deception, to what end I do not know.”

“Forgive me,” said Holmes, with a smile, “I can assure you that I have not spoken to anyone about you—I do not even know your name—and that so obvious are the clues to me that I often forget how mysterious their explanation may be to the untrained eye. Among other things, I am a student of the human hand. Because of its wide use in our work and activity, it can be even more important in revealing a life than the face itself. Thus while la Signora Manfredini was pouring your tea, I observed your hands as they moved unconsciously on your lap and then stretched as you toyed with your locket. Noting the span between the fingers, particularly between thumb and forefinger, I surmised what was almost assuredly a D minor chord. The rhythm and repetitions brought me to the melody and cadence of the Rubinstein piece, now the rage in Europe among pianists. But tell me what I do not know, to wit your name, and why you are here.”

The young woman appeared relieved by Holmes’s explanation, and said: “You are most amazing, Mr. Holmes. I shall not forget easily these illustrations of your methods. I hope they can be used to help me. My name is Alice Morel, and I am indeed a musician. I have trained at the Royal Conservatory in London, and was selected to take part in the piano competition soon to take place here in Rome under the auspices of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia .”

“A singular honor,” said Holmes. “And a rather nerve-wracking one, I would imagine.”

“It is, Mr. Holmes. It means all-day practise, little sleep, and the anxious feeling that comes over one when one knows that the leading pianists of the world are the judges. Rubinstein himself is coming. Winning means a year’s study with him. And rumours are rife that Busoni and Theodor Leszhitisky will also attend.”

“I see,” said Holmes. “But, while the excitement must be great, there is something else that is producing a certain agitation in you. What is it?”

“Let me tell you how it came about. I won the preliminary competition in London two months ago, and was told to prepare for my immediate departure for Italy. Once arrived, I was to spend the next three months in preparation for the competition, which is to take place at the end of this coming August. It was made clear to me by our director that my performance would mean much to the national honour since whatever our accomplishments abroad we were not known in Europe or America as a musical nation.”

“’Tis true indeed, we English are not considered musical, a not unjust opinion of us in some ways, but not totally true on the other hand. Pray continue, Miss Morel.”

“On my arrival in Rome I was met by the British vice consul, Mr. Herbert Spenser, who helped me settle in and also to find a suitable piano on which to practise. Through the officials at the Academy he helped me find a flat on Via Ezio, off the Via Crescenzio. According to the notice, the flat was fully furnished, and I was told that it was the property of a Colonel Santoro, a military man of some note in Italy and recently retired. He seemed kind and friendly in our first meeting and showed me through the flat. Despite the disappointment in Italy at its armies’ defeat at Adowa, Santoro was one of its few heroes, and he showed me many photographs of himself and his various medals. “The flat was furnished with heavy wooden furniture from the Carpathians, somewhere in Hungary or Austria, I think, hardly to my taste, but I did not complain. Indeed, when I saw what was in the study I was overjoyed. It was a large concert grand piano, originally given to his daughter, he said, but hardly used. The piano, a Vulsin from Graz in Austria, was all I could ask for. I touched the keys and I heard the sweetest tone emanate from it. Mr. Anzio, the music publisher, had supplied it instead of offering it to some foreign potentate. Mr. Spenser had done very well by me, and I thanked him and the Colonel profusely for their help. It was precisely then that Mr. Spenser gave me this locket as a good-luck charm.”