Ted Riccardi - Between the Thames and the Tiber

“Monsieur Abbé, I shall be happy to, but I shall need to have direct access to Herr Wagner and his family. And since I am not a physician, I request that my colleague, Dr. Watson, accompany me. His experience should be of great aid to us.”

“That can be easily arranged. Fortunately, Monsieur Holmes, Cosima and her husband have expressed the desire to improve their own English as well as that of their children by having two English speakers live with them for a time. On my recommendation, those persons could be you.”

“This would mean a trip to Venice.”

“The family is at present occupying large quarters in one of the old palaces off the Grand Canal, the Palazzo Vendramin. There is more than adequate room for you, and you would lack for nothing. In addition, I am willing to pay you whatever you wish, including your expenses. I am not the King of Bohemia, Monsieur Holmes, but I assure you that I can afford to pay you whatever fair sum you require.”

“I accept your offer, Monsieur Abbé. Nothing keeps me in London at present, and since I have never visited Venice, nor Italy, for that matter, I shall be happy to leave as soon as possible. I see one very large problem: Wagner, if memory of my files serves, is a person with many enemies. Despite his bourgeois life, as you put it, he has managed to offend so many people that even the first task, the narrowing of the range of suspects, will be a formidable one. There have been many enemies, like Meyerbeer, for instance.”

“Meyerbeer was one of Wagner’s many stupidities. Meyerbeer never hurt anyone, least of all Wagner, and, poor man, he is dead these many years. But you are right. Wagner’s enemies are legion. I myself, however, do not know anyone who would go so far as to kill him. I must, therefore, have your judgement of his condition as soon as possible. If I am correct in my suspicion, then we must protect him by finding the culprit.”

“You shall have my judgement about Herr Wagner’s condition within a day of my arrival in Venice. As to identifying the culprit—that will be a more difficult matter, but not an impossible one. All crimes are preceded by similar ones, Monsieur Abbé, and I have learned that there is nothing really new under the sun. The history of crime, if well known, can provide us with much useful information. Already, I can think of three cases that bear interesting similarities to this one.”

“No doubt,” said Liszt, “one of them is the case of Mozart and Salieri.”

“A most interesting case, that one, but Salieri’s guilt is the concoction of the Russian poet Pushkin, who, I suspect, may know who the real culprit was. That Mozart was poisoned is clear to me. That Salieri did not murder him is also most obvious, but more of that at another time.”

“Then I shall telegraph my daughter at once, informing her that I have discovered two wonderful young Englishmen who will be delighted to stay with them for a time in order to aid them in their study of the English language. And what names shall I give them?”

“Since I shall need to examine him, I shall also go in the guise of a physician. Tell Frau Wagner,” Holmes said with some amusement, “that a Dr. John Watson of London is prepared to spend several months with them in Italy. He will be accompanied by his friend, Anthony Hopkins, also a physician.”

As I listened, the two made their final arrangements, and Holmes bade the great pianist good-bye. The Abbé bowed gracefully and, like some enormous falcon readying itself to take flight, swiftly turned and left the room. Holmes began at once to make the preliminary preparations for our extended trip to Italy.

“Do you really think it will come to pass?” I asked.

“I can assure you that it will. Liszt is in earnest and will stop at nothing to catch the poisoner. And neither will we.”

The following morning we received a note from Liszt saying that the Wagners would be delighted to receive us and that we should proceed to Venice as soon as possible. He had reserved two berths on the Orient Express and notified the Wagners directly that we would be arriving in Venice by train on the morning of seven February.

Holmes paused for a moment t to light his pipe, and I took the opportunity to interject with a certain merriment, “I am amused that you are traveling under my name.”

“It was an immediate choice, safe and convenient, old boy. Neither my exploits nor your chronicles of them are as yet widely known on the Continent, and should either of our names have appeared in Europe at this early date, it was still unlikely that the Wagners would have been cognizant of either. Because of his revolutionary past and his contact with police and their agents, however, there exists a remote chance that Wagner might have heard my name. Yours would have been unknown to the police of any country, and is, unlike mine, a common one. By using your name, I have the advantage of speaking convincingly about Dr. Watson’s career without having to invent an imaginary past for myself. And so, I shall begin by holding my left arm rather stiffly, this due to a Jezail bullet received in the shoulder in the campaign in Afghanistan that shattered, if I remember correctly, the clavicle and the subclavian artery.”

“Well done, Holmes, if I may say so myself.” He had, as he spoke, suddenly assumed my posture, and though we looked not at all alike, I had the feeling that part of me at least had suddenly appeared across the room, so convincing was his portrayal.

Holmes smiled and let out a puff of smoke.

“The Orient Express,” he continued, “leaves London early in the morning and arrives in Venice the following evening, with stops in Paris and Milan. I shall use the uninterrupted time between Paris and Milan to review carefully what I know of Wagner and his career. I have fished out my folder on musicians. You may want to read through it as well. His is, on the surface at least, an extraordinarily complex life, for he is not only a composer, but a political revolutionary as well. In 1848 he participated, with Bakunin, the Russian anarchist, in the famous Dresden uprising. As a result he was banished from most of the German states by the authorities and was forced to take up residence in Switzerland—in Zurich, among other places. He still feels forced to wander a good deal. Until Ludwig of Bavaria provided him with adequate support he had no peace. It was only in this way that in the latter part of his life he has found the measure of tranquillity that he requires for his work. Despite his success, a life of travel has become a habit, and he often longs for the climate of the south, particularly that of Italy, where at one time or other he has lived in Palermo, Naples, Siena, and now Venice. His life has been filled with friendships, love affairs, and sworn enemies. There is no end of possible suspects, no end to motives, real or imagined, for the killing of Wagner, if indeed that is what is happening. His marriage to Cosima in itself has only added to the number of his enemies, including her former husband, von Bülow, who, despite his ardent support of Wagner’s music, must bear him a deep and continuing grudge.

“To add immeasurably to the problem, we are required to chase our quarry in Italy—in Venice in particular—where poison has, over the last five hundred years, become so perfected as a weapon of murder that only those who are perpetrators of a crime are aware of its success. My monograph has barely touched the Italian industry, which is worthy of several monographs in itself. The case of Cardinal Tosca was a later example of this kind of skill. But even in my early experience at the time, the murder of churchman is a far simpler affair to resolve than the murder of artists. And so, if it is poison in the case of Wagner, it could come from almost anyone associated with him, from a dissatisfied servant to a rival composer. As to the means of administering the poison, that would also have a wide variety of possibilities. Wagner has suffered a variety of ailments, is known to take large doses of medication carelessly, and therefore may indeed be poisoning himself.”