Chapter II: Part 2

I ought to tell you that this was quite unnecessary. There were plenty of nice girls in Vienna whom I had leisure to look at, but somehow I had no mind for them. Much less for a spinster who, to judge from her father's age, was probably ten years my elder and wore hair-curlers. In fact, I had not been able to forget my fair Comtesse of Salzburg fame; and I lived in an unceasing hope that I might see her again.

* * * * *

A voice to my right calls my name. But there is no-one to my right. And then a shout of laughter resounds to my left. It is Private Pringle, who in civil life is a ventriloquist and enjoys playing such tricks. So do we. To-day he plays beside this the part of a postman, and he has a letter for me. It is from Daniel Cooper and consort. The consort treats me as a naughty boy, because I write so little, and could I not tell her some pretty story about the war? And whether I was careful and avoided these wicked shells?

The pater wants to know whether some music paper would be welcome; I ought to write a good military march, so that English soldiers could at last stop playing Austrian marches.

And both of them tell me that Bean was simply dying with anxiety for me. Bean is Violet Dicks. She hates flower names and prefers to be a vegetable. In war time evidently vegetables have a greater value than flowers, but she had already had this mad idea in peace time, from the very day when her tiny brain awoke to wisdom. And yet, she is in love with me. If she knew that I am writing the story of another girl! No, little Bean, no! Anyhow, not yet--if ever! And so I return to Vienna.

I had made a rule of going every evening to a theatre. The theatres are beautiful, and the performances generally excellent. This evening, the first day of my stay at the Karlsgasse, I went to the _Burg_ theatre to see _Macbeth_. I had arranged with Mr. Doblana that we should meet at a certain café after the performance.

I found him there sitting at a large round table amongst his friends, a dozen or more, who were all actors, or artists, or belonged in some fashion to the theatrical world. One of them was an officer, but seemed nevertheless to belong to the company. They called him "_Herr Graf_." Doblana was sitting to his left and seemed to have kept a place next to himself for me.

I had, on my journey to Vienna, stopped in various towns in Germany, here for a few days, there for a few weeks, and had been introduced to some such companies. But while in Germany women were admitted, actresses mostly, we were only men in Vienna. This may account for the fact that the conversation was generally much more of a serious character. There was but one individual, a Hungarian, who with a loud and discordant voice told funny yarns and tried to attract the general attention. He was a theatrical agent, named Maurus Giulay, and remarkable by the quantity of black hair which grew in his nose instead of on his head, and by the amount of diamonds which adorned his coarse, greasy fingers. His stomach was rather protuberant. So was a roll of fat that protruded beyond the back of his collar. He displeased me intensely, and I took an immediate dislike to him.

Not knowing anybody present I took no part in the conversation. Besides, I was not acquainted with the subjects which were being discussed. So it happened that keeping quiet, from no choice of my own, I overheard a part of the dialogue which just was taking place between Doblana and the _Herr Graf_.... My host was entreating his neighbour not to take a certain matter as lightly as he did.

"After all," he said, "your share is as large as mine, so should your interest be!"

"If it is a question of money," retorted the other, "although I don't owe you anything, you know that you may count on any compensation from me for the ill-luck which has befallen you."

"I know that you are always generous," answered Doblana, "and I thank you from my heart. But it is not a question of money. Think only: the result of a full year's work, and it has been announced to the press..."

"You know that I was always against this announcement."

"I know it and deplore it. For this is the explanation of your indifference now. You had taken a prejudice against the thing. But should it therefore be lost altogether?"

"Well," said the _Herr Graf_ haughtily, "I do not care, and I have heard enough of the whole affair."

Whereupon Mr. Doblana looked very distressed and assumed an air of an even more unspeakable sadness than that which I had noticed when I first had seen him.

At this moment a new guest arrived, evidently a popular knight of this Round Table, for they were all eager to shake hands with him. If he was not King Arthur himself, he was nevertheless something very near to this exalted personage, namely, Vienna's most celebrated actor, Alfred Bischoff.

The table was rather full, however he managed to squeeze himself between Doblana and me. As he did so, he uttered some words of apology. I had not recognized this clean shaven man with his heavy eyelids and deep drawn features, but I recollected at once his incomparable voice. If I am not much of a musician, after all, I have at least good ears, a minor detail for a composer, when you think of Beethoven.

"Mr. Bischoff," I cried, "I have just had one of the greatest experiences one can imagine: your Macbeth. How happy I am to make your acquaintance!"

He looked at me.

"You are an Englishman," he said, which made me think that if all was said my accent must be more pronounced than my vanity would have wished; yet, though vexed, I answered in a meek affirmative.

"Then," he continued, "there is no danger of your being an Anti-Semite and of your withdrawing your admiration once you have heard from Alfred Bischoff himself, that he is neither a bishop, nor even a Christian at all, but a simple Jew named Aaron Cohn."

The _Herr Graf_ distorted his features a little.

"You see," went on the great actor, "our friend Alphons Hector ..." and he nodded at the _Herr Graf_, "smells something like sulphur. After all he would like to have me burned." And he added laughing: "It's in the blood, _Herr Graf_, and it cannot be helped. And to think that you are the best of the lot!"

Mr. Bischoff--for I prefer to call him by this name which he has made so celebrated--turned to me and said:

"You English are a great nation. Freedom is your motto. Freedom in everything--freedom even in religion. A Jew, with you, is as complete a human being as a Christian. You have no Anti-Semitism."

"May I take it," I asked him, "that there is a little gratitude in your masterly interpretation of our Shakespeare?"

"No," replied he, "not in the least. Our art is art for art's sake. And if I succeed in rendering Shakespeare's meaning, it is due to our possessing good translations of his works."

"That may be," I declared, "but then the German tongue is so suitable to translations."

At once he flew up in a rage. And the same man who just had called us a great nation used the most abusive terms against us.

"As if any tongue were unsuitable to translations. But, of course, with you, with mean shopkeepers, with you and your mercenary point of view, how could you have good translations? I have been asked by one of your English firms to translate an English play, a rotten one, of course. 'We usually pay seven and sixpence a thousand words,' they wrote, 'but in consideration of your fame, we would pay anything up to ten shillings a thousand.' As if this could be a decisive factor! As if it were not before all necessary to be inspired by the original! And it has always been like that. A workman's pay for a workman's job, while translating in reality is the most difficult occupation in literature. Do you know who translated _Macbeth_ into German? Wieland, a classic, Voss, a classic, Schiller, a classic, and finally Schlegel and Tieck, two classics, whose translation you have heard this evening. Goethe translated the tragedies of Voltaire and novels by Diderot and Cellini's memoirs. And Schiller translated Virgil and a Greek tragedy, and Racine's _Phaedra_, and French and Italian comedies. Do you think they did it for seven and sixpence a thousand words or even for ten shillings? No! They did it out of enthusiasm, out of the one feeling which creates everything great in art. They thought theirs a holy mission, and thus, amongst other things, they originated the art of translating. For translating is an art with us, while it is pot-boiling with you."

He remained silent for a minute or so.

"Yes," he said then a little more composedly, "we have excellent translations of _Macbeth_, wonderful translations. Yet we do not know how to play it."

"What do you mean?" I asked rather astonished.

"For instance," he replied, "when in the first act the witches say to me:

'All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
All hail, Macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter!'

the stage manager this evening made some noise with a gong and destroyed that moment of great impression, into which Banquo is to murmur:

'Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair?'

Indeed, I had seemed to start, not because of the prophecy, but because of the gong. And Klein who, God knows, is a fine actor, was obliged to speak his words aloud instead of murmuring them. The scene was spoiled. And so it went through the whole evening. The entire tragedy is a tissue of terror, of trembling, of anxious forebodings, of dreadful silence, and it was torn into rags this evening. But the worst of all was the Lady Macbeth."

Poor me! How difficult it seemed to satisfy Mr. Bischoff. I had thought the performance extraordinary. I had been so much impressed by the mysterious way in which the whole thing had been played. At one moment I had not been able to distinguish whether Macbeth had sighed or whether the night wind had howled in the chimney. Everything had seemed to me to be but one soul. When Macbeth after the murder had come and looked at his bloody hands and had muttered:

'This is a sorry sight.'

I had felt as though I had done the deed myself with him. And Lady Macbeth! How dreadful she had been, especially in the dream scene.

"Lady Macbeth!" went on Mr. Bischoff, "of course, it is Goethe who made the great, fatal mistake when he called her a superwitch. Our actresses make a monster of her. I did not feel seduced by our Lady Macbeth this evening. She ought to flatter, to cajole me. She ought to be a beautiful, flexible cat, she ought to be trembling with love and to shudder herself before her awful thoughts and words. And at the end, when she walks in her sleep, I don't want her to come and to declaim. I want her to be ill and feverish and weak, weak as a child, yes, as a child. I want her to say in a childish, soft voice:

'Yet here's a spot.'

and I want her to weep when she says:

'Who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?'

I want her to be a broken, ruined woman, and I want you, the spectator, to pity her."

I listened surprised, for what he said seemed true to me.

"Look here, sir," he went on. "You are a composer, or will be one. There has never been a more splendid task for a musician than to write a musical drama on _Macbeth_, to express all that the poet left untold, to show this couple of criminals as poor human beings, to change their poison into tears."

The next day I was quite full of these ideas: they satiated my brain. _Macbeth--Macbeth, an opera_--an opera by Patrick Cooper, an opera with original Scotch tunes, perhaps with bagpipes, an opera with a Lady Macbeth full of charm instead of full of hideousness, an opera with strange mysterious sounds.... For the first time I thought that I was understanding Hammer's extraordinary theory, that there were no harmonies, but only voices....

I think I was a ridiculous youth then. Anyhow, I like myself better in khaki. And, strange to say, the music I hear now, the roar of the guns, has its fearful beauty, too.

I believe the editor will cancel this. Of course it is not easy to write a book in such surroundings. I should like to see you trying to do it. Sometimes I admire myself. But then I have only to think of the man who works at the chemistry treatise, and you ought to see how bashful I can become.

Well, to return to my subject, the day after _Macbeth_ rather resembled its predecessor, for in the morning I was again watched through the partly opened door, and in the evening I went to the opera, where they played _Tannhäuser_. Mr. Doblana had given me a ticket so that I might hear him blowing his part.

On the evening before Mr. Bischoff had been far from enthusiastic about _Macbeth_. I tried to imitate him re _Tannhäuser_. I did not think the performance very extraordinary. Venus ought to have had more charm, and her pink chemise (or was it a dress robe?) did not provide the illusion I was looking for. Tannhäuser was rather elderly and seemed not to have understood the problem of sacred love _versus_ profane love. And he treated Venus as though she had been his "Missus," and Elizabeth as though she had been his "fancy lady"; and yet it was Venus who was the "fancy lady." But the worst was Elizabeth. She was a beautiful, fair wig, large and wavering, with a stately lady in front; the whole had a strong voice, which wavered too. I had always imagined Elizabeth as a young girl with long rich plaits thrown in front of her over her shoulders, a girl, nice and pure and not yet womanly at all. While the one I saw seemed to be an aunt of the Landgrave, and not his niece.

Mr. Doblana and I met again after the performance. But we had only a hasty supper at a restaurant before we went home. For it was already late, and the horn-player had a heavy rehearsal before him which was to begin at ten o'clock next morning.

The house was very quiet when we arrived. Midnight was just striking at the Karl's Church. There was not a sign of life. In the _salon_ a tiny flame of gas was burning. We parted wishing each other a good night; Mr. Doblana extinguished the little gas flame and went into his room, I into mine.

There I lit my chandelier. As I did so I noticed well in evidence on my table an envelope bearing my name. I did not know the writing, which was thin and pointed, a woman's hand. I tore the envelope open. Inside, on a half-sheet of paper, were written the words: "Do not bolt your door this night." There was no signature.

Now, please, darling reader, imagine my feelings.

There I was in a strange house and in a strange town, where I had no feminine acquaintances. (I beg Fanny's pardon, but as I had tipped her but the day before, she did not count.) And there was a female bidding me not to bolt my door.

Imagine further, that I had slept little the night before, the sitting at the café having lasted long, up to the small hours. Imagine that the whole day I had mentally worked hard on _Macbeth_, an opera in five acts by Patrick Cooper. Imagine also that I had heard an expanded, tiring performance of _Tannhäuser_ and that I felt sleepy and little disposed for receiving visits. But fancy also that I was twenty-one and thirsting for adventures; yet that I was clever enough to guess that the lady who wished to see me was that elderly spinster, Miss Doblana, with her curler-pins, a detail which made the adventure less desirable. Think of all that, and then of an idea which occurred to my shrewd brain, namely, that, after all, it was perhaps not Miss Doblana who wanted that nocturnal interview, for in that case she would have to cross her father's room. That, therefore, the mysterious lady was hidden in one of the backrooms whither she must have penetrated with the help of Fanny. That there was but one lady who could have sufficient interest in my whereabouts to have taken the trouble of finding out where I was staying; one, the Comtesse! For as I had told her the name of the hotel where I was going to stay, and as I had left my new address when I departed from the said hotel, nothing was more natural and easy than to find me. But nothing was more unnatural than to call upon me in the middle of the night. No! it was not the Comtesse, It was the daughter of my horn-player.

There was another dilemma. Should I take off my boots? Was it possible to await a lady at such an hour in slippers? I had not much experience in affairs of that sort.

In my despair I used bad language, threw myself into an easy chair and took my Shakespeare. Destiny had made me take it with me when I left Hampstead. Since this morning it had been lying on the table, in case of emergencies. I opened it and started reading _Macbeth_.

Then a funny thing happened. Lady Macbeth was no longer present at the famous banquet, but she presided in the equally famous hall over a competition of Scotch bards, who tried to play Wagner on their bagpipes. As they did not succeed the Landgrave said most rudely: "Go to ... Venus!" whereupon they all disappeared. Lady Macbeth in the same moment became the fair Landgravine Elizabeth, but not the one I had seen at the Opera this evening, for she had two beautiful plaits thrown over her shoulders and falling upon her bosom, exactly as I had wished it, and she was young and uncommonly pretty. She carried a taper which allowed me to see the funniest detail, namely, a certain likeness, to whom do you think, wise reader? To the Comtesse.

Some slight noise made me start, and Shakespeare tumbled down to the floor. Near the door, with a candle in her hand, exactly as Lady Macbeth ought to come in the dream scene, a forlorn child--and exactly dressed as I had wished Elizabeth to be dressed, in a long white gown, with long, rich, fair plaits falling on her bosom--there stood my Comtesse. As she saw me awakening from my dream, she put her left forefinger on her thick, fleshy lips and whispered anxiously:

"Don't talk aloud."

I wanted to take her light, to press, nay! to kiss her hands, but she prevented it.

"I have come," she said, "to ask you, whatever might happen, not to tell my father that you met me at Salzburg."

"I promise that, Miss Doblana...."

You see, clever reader, I had grasped the situation quite as quickly as you, I had realized who the mysterious person was to whom Mr. Doblana was so greatly alike, that it had struck me on my first visit at the Karlsgasse; I had devined that SHE was neither a Comtesse, nor an elderly spinster with hair-curlers, nor Lady Macbeth, nor even the Landgravine as I had wished her, but Miss Doblana, who was apparently not as ill as her father had told me, yet very pale.

"I promise, but why?"

This "Why" was not precisely chivalrous, and you might even call it indiscreet, but Miss Doblana evidently expected the question.

"To-morrow morning," she replied, "my father has a long rehearsal at the opera. He leaves here at a quarter to ten and will not be home before two. I will be in the _salon_ the whole time during his absence. If you wish it I will then tell you all."

It was said in the faintest whisper. Without a sound she opened the door and disappeared. Not even the door creaked. Fanny had done her duty.

But was it Fanny?

IV.

How long have I been writing? I don't know. But there is Sergeant Young coming back.

"You had better get ready," he says, "there is going to be an attack. The Germans are coming over this way."

"Ah!" I answer quietly and begin preparing myself.

"I dare say," goes on the Sergeant, "that the Germans are very Hun-wise. It will be a Hun-pleasant job for them."

When he starts on those puns it is a sign that he is in a good temper.

"If they think that they will get Hun-perturbed into our trenches, they make a Hun-believable mistake. These trenches are Hun-approachable."

But time passes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, and no order comes. You cannot imagine how bored one is during the long hours of waiting between attacks, but the anxiety which precedes the moments of real danger makes up for these weary intervals.

"Have you written something more?" finally asks Charlie.

Silently I offer him the sheets, and he begins to read. Meanwhile I am thinking that I ought to write to dad and tell him that I cannot compose a march in the trenches because of the booming of the guns which will never keep time--and to mamma that nothing was easier than to avoid the shells; she need not know that they cannot always avoid us--and to Bean, that there was no reason for anxiety at all, war being only an exaggerated picnic and casualties some sort of indigestion.

"I say," declares Sergeant Young, who has read the chapter in less time than was necessary, "I say, your Miss Doblana behaves in a rather Hun-maidenly manner. To call in the middle of the night upon a young, Hun-married man, with her hair Hun-done! I am afraid the public will find it Hun-conventional and even Hun-pardonable. Of course, she was in love with the pretty Salzburg officer."

"You jump to conclusions. I do not think that anything in my story may have suggested that."

"In this case, what did you think of her visit?"

"I thought ... that she had been obliged to go across her father's room, and that she would not have done so without some necessity. Her fear had been great, to judge from her wide eyes and her paleness. Would she have undergone any risk if there had been some chance of avoiding it?"

"Of course--if it was Hun-avoidable! And what did you feel?"

"Perhaps you think that I felt very happy? Certainly, there was joy in my knowledge of having found her again. There was also, as I have written, a desire to kiss her beautiful hands. But, above all, above my surprise, my joy, and my desire, there was apprehension lest her father should have noticed her absence, lest her step, in spite of its lightness, should have been audible in the deep silence of the night. What would I have done if the door had opened and the sad, old man had appeared and reproached me with having violated his hospitality?"

"I see. You had a little chilliness, like when you heard the bullets whistling around you for the first time and felt the wind caused by the shells. It's a bit Hun-canny and one shivers a little, but one goes on. Did you?"

"I did. But it was not an easy affair. For, to begin with, the next morning our interview was spoiled. It was the first time since my arrival in his house that Doblana was to be absent for several hours. And, while on the two previous days he had left the door of his room open, this time he had locked his daughter in. I waited in the _salon_ for a good while, in vain."

"It must have been Hun-comfortable."

"At last I heard a little noise at Mr. Doblana' s door, as though some small dog were scratching at it. And a piece of note paper was pushed through the split at the bottom of the door into the _salon_. At once I rushed forth to it. As I came to the door I heard a well-known voice, _her v_oice, talking through the door."

"'Is that you Mr. Cooper?'--'Yes.'--'Are you alone?'--'Yes.'--'Can you open this door?'

"I tried. It was locked.

"'I cannot.'--'Nor can I. Take the letter I have pushed under the door. Read it and then destroy it. Good-bye.'

"I tried to talk more, but there was no answer. So I read the letter. It ran something like this:

'My father has locked me in. I can tell you nothing through the door. But you may trust Fanny. She will do anything for a tip. I have no money, but you have.'

And it was signed Mitzi D."

I look at the Sergeant. He seems no more interested in my story than if I were preaching a sermon in a Sunday School. Of course, I keep the sequel to myself, namely, how Fanny and I conspired to call in a locksmith who promised to make a key within two hours, but forgot to tell us that these two hours were to begin only three days later. Punctuality is a virtue of which no workman ever wishes to pride himself, not even in Austria.

The Sergeant has an air as though he were dreaming, an absent-minded air which he sometimes assumes. When he is visionary like that, nothing can make him follow other people's thoughts. But he makes no secrets of his ideas, and sooner or later we learn what is in his mind. So I wait in the respectful silence a Lance-Corporal owes to his superior officer.

Suddenly he jumps up.

"P.C.," he cries, "I firmly believe that I will get my commission to-day!"

It was about time he did get it! Thrice already he has purchased an officer's kit. Twice he has lost it. Let us hope that the third will serve.

"And whence does that belief come?" I ask him.

"I told you that I got a supplementary lot of hand grenades by blackmailing the Colonel. Well, it has occurred to me that I might try the same trick for obtaining my commission. Where protection, ability, and courage have failed, blackmailing might succeed."

"Yes," I answer somewhat doubtfully, "but how will you blackmail him?"

"That," he declares solemnly, "is of course a secret between him and me!"

Mr. Reader will understand me, if I state that I grew curious.

"Is there a woman at the bottom of it?"

You ought to have heard the Sergeant's fit of laughter. He does not laugh very often, our Charlie, but when he does, it is the noisiest laugh in the world. Develish we call it. It is indeed a terrific laughter, long and irresistible. Finally, however, he will be able to utter some words. This time he says:

"No! Dear me, no! There wasn't a woman at the bottom of it--no! There was something quite different!"

At this moment the order comes, the order which we had been waiting for during an hour. In single file we march through the communication trenches.

Now, if you think, impatient reader, that I will annoy you with a detailed description of the attack, you are greatly mistaken. Firstly, you have doubtless read many such descriptions in the papers and do not want another. Secondly, I could not depict the attack, because I had another business than that of observing, Lance-Corporals not being, generally, Special Correspondents. Finally, you have no idea how easily one forgets the details. They are rapidly dimmed in the fog of war.

Yet I remember the Germans coming very near us and being beaten back. And I remember, too, the following incidents:

On our way the Sergeant tells me that it is to-day two years since he saw _Parsifal_ in London, which he declares being not only a Hun-palatable, tedious work, but also a Hun-Christian one mocking the Mass and acceptable only from the Hun's point of view, as Pan-Germanic propaganda. Whereupon we hear from somewhere the bells of the holy Grail ringing. It is Pringle, the ventriloquist, who provides them, of course.

Cotton, the chemist, who enjoys quite naturally the nickname Guncotton, and who habitually speaks a special language nobody can understand (for it is crammed with chemical formulas), starts a great sniffing performance. At last he declares that there is a distinct scent of H₂SO₄, and wonders, wonders, wonders.

Nor is his astonishment incomprehensible. H₂SO₄ is sulphuric acid, and what he smells is in reality cabbages being cooked somewhere in a neighbouring trench.

Later on I remember our throwing hand grenades. The Sergeant is very clever at that game, which he accompanies with fits of his devilish laughter. When a shell bursts near us without hurting anybody, he laughs again, rather imitating the laughter of Mephisto in the third act of _Faust_.

The Colonel is quite near us, and Charlie by his side. There is a periscope and the Colonel can see whatever we achieve.

The Sergeant throws another hand grenade.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" he laughs, "one more Hun Hun-done!"

"That was a nice one," states the Colonel.

"What of my commission, Sir?" risks Charlie.

But he has no luck. In the same moment the Colonel's periscope is smashed by some unkind shell. Spontaneously Charles Young laughs.

The Colonel, who is no coward, at once climbs up the parapet.

"What are you doing there, sir?" cries Charlie.

No answer.

"You'll be killed in a jiffy!"

No answer.

"But that's madness! Come back!"

The Colonel shouts something which we cannot understand in the noise, probably "Shut up!" and stands there amidst the bullets which are immediately directed at him.

"You damn fool!" thunders Charlie, "will you come down?"

This time the Colonel turns round and shouts so strongly that I can hear the words:

"You will be court-martialled for that!"

But in the next instant Charlie runs up to him:

"I don't care! And if you don't come down at once I'll tell the company your secret."

He has caught the Colonel's arm and drags him down to relative safety. And another fit of laughter follows.

I wonder. Has he won his commission or decidedly lost it? But there is no time for wondering. A big shell, a Jack Johnson, falls in our trench. There is a terrific explosion, and I see Charlie thrown up into the air, three or four yards up, and coming back.

No one else is wounded, although we were all shaking a bit. Even the Colonel.

There he lies, my chum, my Charlie, quite pale, white as a corpse, save for the blood that covers his big nose. Somebody bends over him and says:

"Some water, quick!"

Off runs Guncotton shouting:

"H₂O!"

But after a minute he comes back with real water. Nobody utters a word while poor Charlie's nose is washed. At last the Colonel, much affected, says:

"He has finished swearing and laughing. Poor fellow, he has at last met his fate."

And solemnly--for he is a very religious man--he adds:

"May the Lord have mercy upon his soul."

Now, is it the Colonel's speech that rouses him, or is it the effect of the fresh water? But the answer comes at once:

"Nonsense!" says the Sergeant, "I am quite Hun-hurt!" and laughs once more. "Where am I? In hell?"

The Colonel takes flight, although, I repeat it, he is no coward.

* * * * *

I am back in my trench, and the time for being bored has come once more. So I return to Vienna and to Mitzi Doblana, with apologies to Bean in case of her ever reading this book.

I think you will have noticed the great difficulty I experienced in meeting Miss Mitzi. First I suffered from a closed door and then from a locksmith of remarkable punctuality. When at last I had secured the key, which was to be not only the means of opening that hostile door but also of solving a mystery, my landlord had no long rehearsal for another couple of days. Thus nearly a week had passed since I had had her promise of an interview, and in all these days there arose not the slightest opportunity of catching a glimpse of her.

Now, if you have the least idea of the peculiar qualities of a young man's heart, you will know that such waiting is the right thing to inflame it, namely, the heart. Therefore, when finally we met, fancy my joy as I saw her advancing towards me and presenting me one of those beautiful hands of hers with a sweet: "At last!"

Yes, at last! At last she let me kiss her hand--as was due to me since that Sunday evening when she had abandoned my bags and valises, and myself into the bargain. I need not tell you that I paid myself heartily and that, while I was kissing that loveable hand I kissed it thoroughly. It was an enchanting hand, with graceful nails and with a soft, fascinating skin. And, my word, what a soap she used, a bewitchingly scented soap.

Footnote by the gentle reader: P. C., go on with your story!

Well, I will. Yet it is not my, but Miss Mitzi's story!

By the way, Mitzi is a Viennese diminutive of Marie, and I ought to translate it by Pussy, for it is used equally for cats and girls, which proves that the Viennese have some trifling knowledge of psychology.

I began by telling her that there had been no danger of her father asking me questions about the Salzburg trip. How could he have guessed that we had travelled together from Salzburg to Vienna?

Her answer was that she never had feared such a thing. It was of me that she was afraid.

"For the present I am locked up, as you have noticed; but sooner or later I will be released. My father will then present us to each other, and I did not want you to exclaim at that moment: 'Oh! but we have met already.'"

"Be assured that I will not make the slightest blunder."

"Now," she went on, "I suppose that you wish to have an explanation."

"I cannot deny that I feel curious. But I will not be inquisitive...."

"And I will be candid. It is not in order to satisfy your curiosity that I am prepared to give you an explanation, but because I hope that you will help me. You are probably the only person who can."

I trust that my dear readers do not place so much confidence in Patrick Cooper as did Miss Doblana. I don't want to mislead anybody by insinuating that her belief in my capacities was in any way justified. But I must state one thing: My heart leaped up. Not only were we to share a secret, but I was to be allowed to help her! I accordingly promised what you may expect: discretion and help.

"I must begin at the beginning."

(Holy Sergeant Young, you will be pleased with this young lady who shares your principles.)

"I am taking singing lessons. People say I have a nice voice. It is not a strong one, but it is expressive. My aim is to become an operatic singer, though my father strongly objects. This is strange, as mother herself was a singer. Yet, strange as it may seem, there is a reason for it. When mother married she did not tell him that she was a sister of no lesser person than La Carina. Of course, you know La Carina?"

I did not, and I thought best to plead guilty.

"You do not know La Carina?" exclaimed Mitzi. "But then--then--then I must begin at the beginning."

(Holy Sergeant Young, etc., etc., as before.)

"La Carina was a celebrated dancer, exceedingly beautiful and clever, and famous for her charming, tiny feet as well as for...."

She hesitated.

"Well?" asked I, trying by my question to help her.

Miss Mitzi blushed and finished her sentence in a whisper:

"... As for her lover. It seems hardly believable that you never should have heard of her adventures with the Archduke Alphons Hector."

Now, distinguished reader, you--being endowed with a better brain than I--will, no doubt, remember that name Alphons Hector. And you will say: Alphons Hector, that is how the _Herr Graf_ on the evening of _Macbeth_ was called by Bischoff, the actor.

Readers are supposed to have good memories. I apparently have a bad one. When I heard Miss Mitzi pronouncing these two names "Alphons Hector" they did not bring any recollection to my brain.

"How my aunt Kathi--that was La Carina's real name--eloped with the Archduke, how he wanted to marry her, how the Emperor frustrated that plan, is a story which has been told so often that I am really surprised that you should not know it."

"Perhaps I was not allowed...."

"But was it not in the English papers?"

"English papers never meddle with things matrimonial, except when they reach the Divorce Court."

Miss Mitzi laughed.

"Well," she said, "this affair did not reach the Divorce Court, but it was scandalous enough. Still, my father would never have guessed our connexion with royalty, had not my mother when I was nine decided to send me to a certain high-class school, which could not be entered without protection. So mother wrote to aunt Kathi, whose daughter was being educated at that particular school."

I must have made a surprised face at the mention of the dancer's daughter, for Miss Mitzi added:

"Yes! the Archduke and aunt Kathi had two children, a boy and a girl, both older than I, the boy three years and the girl ten months. They were called _Franz von Heidenbrunn_ and _Augusta von Heidenbrunn_. Their mother was _Frau von Heidenbrunn_, and their father was supposed to be a _Graf von Heidenbrunn_.

"I went to that school and made friends with Augusta. We soon became inseparable; nor did my father then object to our frequenting each other. By and by both families became acquainted, and father felt greatly pleased that an Archduke, although only under the incognito mask of a Count, should climb up into his modest apartment of the Karlsgasse. They--the Archduke and my father--became even friendly enough to collaborate in a ballet--it was called _Fata Morgana_--and I suspect that my aunt Kathi had a finger in the pie. However, what was bound to happen occurred when that ballet was performed. Up to that time my father had remained unaware of the relationship that existed between the two sisters. But on that particular evening somebody congratulated my father on having so influential a brother-in-law ... and, of course, the fat was in the fire.

"It is impossible to imagine my father's anger. That he should have been cheated, he, by his wife, in his own home! He forbade his door to my poor aunt and to her children, and if he did not act in the same way with the Archduke it was only because he had not the courage to do so. Yet the result was the same: the Archduke, too, ceased to visit us. And all our nice intercourse was over, save for Augusta and me, who remained friendly and became probably even friendlier than we had been before.

"Three years ago aunt Kathi died, and her children left Vienna for Salzburg...."

"Ah!" said I.

I leave to you to interpret this "Ah!" as it pleases you. Was it expressing my pleasure of finding my way through her story, or my sorrow at the discovery of who and what the pretty officer in Salzburg was?

"A little over a year ago," went on Miss Mitzi, "my mother followed her sister. On her death-bed she asked father to reconcile himself with the Archduke and his children. But he did not yield to her prayer, although I believe that he loved her dearly. The Archduke on his side made a step towards peace and proposed to father another collaboration. They are writing another ballet together, which they call _Griseldis_. Still, my father persists in not allowing me to see Augusta. He says that as a daughter of an Archduke she is too high-born for me, and as a daughter of La Carina too low."

"I see," I exclaimed, "I see what you were doing in Salzburg."

She looked at me wistfully, as if to say that a mere man would always be short-sighted.

"Not only was I separated from my dearest friend, but I was not allowed to frequent anybody belonging to the theatrical world. And if I am taking singing lessons it is on the understanding that I will never become a professional singer."

"How cruel!"

"Yes, cruel," repeated the dear girl, and the brims of her eyelids became very pink as though she were going to have a cry. If I had dared I would have taken her into my arms and would have told her ... I knew not what. One has to be rather experienced to know what to tell to a sweet creature who opens her heart, her sorrowful heart to you.

"Now," she went on, "among the people who think that I have some talent and could make a successful operatic singer, there is a theatrical agent, Mr. Maurus Giulay."

"I know him," I cried, "a fat Hungarian with diamonds on his fingers and...."

"Oh, yes!" said Miss Mitzi eagerly, "is he not a charming man? So full of wit, and so kind, and such a business man!"

The reader will do well to compare this appreciation of Mr. Giulay by Miss Doblana with my own, as reported in chapter three, and to judge whether I was right in having taken an immediate dislike to him.

"Mr. Giulay," continued Miss Mitzi, and I am sure that her eyes shone while she was speaking, "Mr. Giulay says I have a great talent not only as a singer but also as an actress."

And she added in a low voice, as though she were telling me a secret:

"He has seen me act."

She remained for one moment as in a dream, and then went on:

"Of course I am not supposed to know him at all. Now, on that Sunday morning when you saw me first, father was playing a concerto at Prague. The rehearsals were on the evenings of the Friday and Saturday before. So on the Friday morning he left for Prague. I accompanied him to the railway station to show him off. He did not know that he was leaving me alone in charge of the house; for Fanny had begged of me to let her go and see her dying mother. Each time she wants to see her young man her mother becomes gravely ill; and although I am well aware that her mother died a good many years ago I let Fanny depart, because otherwise she becomes intolerable. I was therefore quite alone, and, you may believe me, I did not enjoy it. A little singing, a little cooking, a little reading, and a good lot of being wearied, that was how nearly the whole day passed. But late in the afternoon something happened. A wire came. A wire for me. It came from Salzburg and ran thus:

'Splendid opportunity for you, meet me to-morrow evening six at Salzburg station. Giulay.'

"I had no money. It is one of father's peculiarities to leave me with as little money as possible. What do you think I did? I went out and pawned my ring. A nice ring my mother had given me. I am ashamed to tell you how little they gave me for it. It was not even enough for a return ticket; but never mind, Augusta would lend me my return fare. I was not going to Salzburg without seeing her."

"I passed the night in an undescribable state of excitement, and on the Saturday morning I went to the Western Station, took my ticket and departed. Now, imagine my feelings when on my arrival at Salzburg there was no Giulay!"

She made a pause. Probably she expected me to express my surprise; but I did not. I kept silent. If I had said anything it would have been to tell her that I was not astonished. I knew that I did not like him. But how to signify such an opinion to a girl who had just told me that she found him charming?

"I waited an hour, I waited two hours, and no Giulay came. So I went to my friends, where I passed the night, and the next day I returned home half angry and puzzled, and half amused at my childish eagerness. Surely Giulay would give me an explanation. Yet this explanation I never received for the same reason that prevented me from seeing you: I am locked up."

"But why?" I asked.

"That, my friend," (how sweet of her to call me friend!) "I don't know, and I want you to find out."

"But your father must have given you a reason."

"He has not."

"He is probably angry for your having gone to Salzburg."

"He does not know it."

"How is that?"

"When I came home, just in time, Fanny had arrived and was, of course, in great anxiety about me. I told her all, and I am sure that she has not betrayed me. A quarter of an hour later my father arrived. He had had a splendid success and seemed very happy. He kissed me and was absolutely as usual. We had some supper and I went to bed. Tired as I was I fell asleep at once. But after an hour or so father came into my room, pale and with distorted features.

"Mitzi," he called with a voice which I scarcely recognized. "Who called upon you during my absence?"

"I told him that nobody did. But he made a fearful scene, insisting that he knew all, while he evidently knew nothing, and that I would be confined to my room until I had told him the truth. And since that day I am here, and every morning he comes and asks me:

"'Will you confess?'

"And I really do not know what has happened, nor what he wants from me."

* * * * *

"P. C.," calls Guncotton. (I wonder whether that has any meaning in Chemistry.) "Here's a letter from Sergeant Young for you."

This is what Charlie writes:

"My nose is broken, but I don't care. Your humble servant has the honour of being mentioned in dispatches. I once had a brother called Friedrich Wilhelm. He was mentioned in dispatches during the Boer War and soon afterwards obtained his commission.

"Yours,
"CHARLIE."

There was never such faith as brave Sergeant Young's.

V.

I have already had an opportunity of telling you that I had been brought up chiefly on detective stories. I therefore thought that there would be but little difficulty in solving the case of Miss Doblana. In a nutshell this case was as follows: She was sure that nobody had called, while her father seemed certain to the contrary. How did he know it? He did not say. The mysterious visitor had left no card, otherwise either Mitzi or Fanny would have found it when they arrived, which was some time before Mr. Doblana's return. Besides, a card generally bears a name, and the horn-player's question to his daughter had been: "Who called upon you during my absence?" which proved that he only knew, or thought he knew, that somebody had called, but did not know who the somebody was.

We rang for Fanny. Had Mr. Doblana asked her anything in connexion with the affair?

"Yes," she said, "on the Monday morning he asked me who had called during his absence, and I said: 'Nobody.'"

Thereupon Miss Doblana wanted to know, why Fanny had not said the truth, namely, that she did not know.

"He was very cross," answered the girl, "and I thought that perhaps somebody did call, and that _Fräulein_ did not wish Mr. Doblana to know."

"You have a good opinion of me, Fanny. However, what did he do when you said that nobody had called?"

"He did not do anything. He swore. He said that I was in the plot, and that we were both deceiving him."

"In the circumstances you could have told him that you were absent all the time."

"And what would have been the good of it? He would have thought that _Fräulein_ had removed me intentionally."

I recognized that Fanny had quite a lot of common sense. So did Mitzi, for an extraordinary thing took place: She asked Fanny for advice.--Think of a young English lady asking for the advice of a general, or even of a between-maid.

Fanny declared that above all _Fräulein_ must recover her freedom.

"But how?" cried Mitzi and I _unisono_.

Fanny looked at us and seemed to pity us for the evident helplessness of our brains.

"The young gentleman" (that was I), "will go in an hour's time to the opera. The rehearsal will be over, he will by chance meet Mr. Doblana leaving the theatre, and they will walk home together. In the meantime _Fräulein_ will have dressed and will go out, and she will, by chance, too, meet the two gentlemen in the street."

"But," interfered Mitzi, "he will make a fearful row!"

"In the street?" said Fanny. "No fear. An Imperial and Royal Member of the Court Chapel will make no row in the street. He will present you to each other, and the young gentleman" (that was, of course, again I), "will enquire into _Fräulein's_ health, and _Fräulein_ will answer that she is now quite well, and she will never more be locked up."

What a shame that such brains are wasted on servant girls! And the Editor of the _Evening News_ when he reads this page will say: What luck that a certain Government did not know that Fanny! A special department would have been created for her: she would be appointed President of the Board of Intelligence.

Up to this day I wonder how she knew all about Mitzi's journey to Salzburg and about the Giulay wire. Her young mistress when talking to her had given her no details, yet she knew. She knew and even thought it desirable that _Fräulein_ should communicate with Mr. Giulay, call upon him and ask him about that telegram.

"I know," she added, "that it is a month since he last left Vienna, even for half-a-day."

"How did you learn this?" asked Mitzi.

"But," said Fanny with just a flavour of contempt, "I wanted to know. So I made friends with his mother's cook."

I was overwhelmed. Fanny was revealing herself as a really superior being. You may therefore believe me that it was almost with reverence that I received her instructions.

"The young gentleman," she said, "will do well in getting on familiar terms with Mr. Doblana, for we must know what prevents him from being more explicit. If the young gentleman could win his confidence, we might learn what happened in that hour between his return home and his declaration to _Fräulein_ that somebody must have visited her. Something must have led him to that wrong conclusion. And the young gentleman could find out not only what it was, but also why Mr. Doblana is so vague."

"And how am I to win his confidence?"

Fanny scratched herself. For the first time she appeared a little perplexed. But the scratching soon helped.

"I know a way," she declared, "but it will be terrible. The young gentleman must learn to play the horn."

Statesmen are merciless.

Now, if you are a reader of the _Evening News_ you know that Statesmen have often ideas of a dazzling appearance, but which, all things considered, prove rather unsubstantial. They work all right, yet the results are slight. They seem very clever ideas, but somehow they do not reach the main point of the question. I am sorry to state that Fanny in this respect as in other ways was worthy of her fellow statesmen and that, brilliant as was the appearance of her bits of advice, and workable as they were, they led to no definite result. And so the reader need not fear that the solution of the case of Miss Doblana will be reached before the last chapters.