The Reichenbach Problem Read online

  I wandered into the dining room to discover a cold collation and Madame Plantin completing her meal. We nodded hello, I collected my own selection from the sideboard, and sat down across from her. She took a sip from a glass of water and smiled at me. I returned the smile, took a forkful of salami, chewed and swallowed. With the two of us in that large room, and with just plates laden with sliced cheese and cured meats for company, the silence became unbearable. I chose to break it.

  “Monsieur Plantin did not join you for lunch?” I did not mean to pry, but it was an unavoidable question; they had appeared to be inseparable.

  “Ah. Oui! He was here earlier but now he has gone out.”

  “By himself?” I enquired, wondering how, considering he was confined to a rolling chair.

  “Non. Herr Werner has accompanied him.”

  “Splendid…” I was somewhat abashed that I had misjudged the Bavarian for no reason other than personal antipathy. “Have they gone for a walk? It is very beautiful around here.”

  “Yes, it is very beautiful. They have gone for a walk, but only to try and find the psychic.”

  The evening before crowded in on me. I had hoped that the previous night’s conversation had been dismissed as so much nonsense and badinage and forgotten. I reflected again upon a day that had started out so gloriously, but in which cloud upon cloud had now banked upon it. If this trend continued, I may find myself stalking morosely around the town staring just a yard ahead of my boots, like Holloway.

  “Concerning this psychic…” I began, then fell silent. I surveyed my companion across the dining table. I was not convinced that she would be able to respond intelligently to my confidences. Not that she wasn’t intelligent. Not because she was French. Because she was young. I estimated her to be about half Plantin’s age. She was pretty, too, possessing a very pleasant temperament and plainly adept at choosing clothes that set off her colour and vivacious disposition admirably. She was wearing an electric blue chenille dress, which complemented her olive skin and tight blonde curls.

  “I wonder if such an experiment is wholly ethical?” I asked.

  “Ethical, Monsieur?”

  “Do you think it is proper, this séance?”

  “But of course,” she shrugged.

  My dealings with the French people had almost always been of the most amicable and constructive nature. Also, despite his obvious failings, I was a great admirer of Napoleon, and his outrageously flamboyant Grande Armée. However, on this occasion, I found the matter of fact way she dismissed my reservations, before I had even had the chance to form the reason, as somewhat trying.

  “It is sad about Monsieur Brown, n’est-ce pas?”

  It took me a moment to recollect about whom she was speaking.

  “Oh yes. The Englishman.” I suspected Holloway of spreading the news the moment he had returned.

  “Oui. I mean to say, Plantin did not like him one little bit, but it is sad all the same.”

  Two questions popped into my head. I chose to address only one of them.

  “Why didn’t Plantin like him?”

  She looked at me quietly for a moment and pursed her lips. She decided, on balance, to confide in me. “You are a doctor, non?”

  “I am.”

  “Marcus, he has not the use of his legs.”

  “Yes. I am sorry.”

  “Why should you be?”

  I had no idea. It was just something people tended to say in these circumstances.

  “He was in the war as a young man. It was a bouf! – canon.”

  He was about forty, so I assumed the war to which she referred was the Franco–Prussian conflict.

  “A shell exploded?”

  “Exploded. Oui. It had cut his… how do you say…? His wires… from his head to his body…”

  “His nerves?”

  “Oui. It cut them and bouf! He could use his legs no more.”

  “Tragic.”

  “Tragique. I did not know him, then.”

  This much I suspected.

  “But when we married two weeks ago, I had known him for many months. In all this time I did never know him to be angry or unhappy. We have a good marriage.”

  “I am sure you do.”

  “But since he has come here, he does not seem to be so happy. Oh yes, we are in love and spend many happy hours with each other. But still he is cross, he is not content. He has been so content in Paris. And then this Mr Brown, he makes Marcus so unhappy. Even when he walks into the room, so Marcus becomes cross. I can tell. It makes me nervous, doctor.” With this last, she leaned across and laid a hand on my wrist.

  “You have talked about this with him?” I asked.

  She started, and sat back in her chair. “Do married people talk about such things? Is a wife supposed to? What about her husband’s dignity? What if he does not wish to discuss this? Or even wish to think he was behaving so? Would he not be angry with me?”

  “You should hope to discuss everything together in private, with one another. There should be no secrets. My wife and I have no secrets. If I am sad or angry or frustrated, then she will come to me. When we are quiet and alone together. And she will say ‘Is something the matter?’ and then we will talk about it.”

  She had watched me with her blue eyes growing wider by the second. A true newly-wed. A true naivety about their husband and wife relationship. However, her manner and approach to her marriage did answer the second question. The one that had leapt into my mind when I heard that Plantin did not like Brown at all. The question was whether she had any opinion of her own. Perhaps it was one of which she was ashamed? Or was her husband’s opinion in all things sufficient for the both of them? “I will speak to him,” she resolved. “It is a wife’s duty to ask her husband if there is anything the matter.” She stood up, looked across at me and bobbed her head. I felt as if she were my daughter and I had given her permission to buy a new dress. “Thank you, doctor. Vous êtes trop gentil.”

  “Je vous en prie.”

  She giggled, and left me to the rest of my luncheon. I conversed briefly with Anton, who had come to tidy the dining room, and complimented him upon his sister, which seemed to gratify him. I then retired to the library for a pipe, and after, sauntered upstairs.

  I awoke, startled. In my bedroom, I had closed the shutters. This had rendered the room so dark that I was initially disorientated. My heart hammered at my rib cage and my breath came in gasps. And then I recalled. I had gone for a nap knowing that I couldn’t lie there for too long. I had an appointment to keep with Frau von Denecker. I leapt from my bed like a disturbed grouse, and felt my way across to the shutters. Flinging them open, I was dazzled by bright sunlight and gleaming mountains. If the sun was still high in the sky, I could not be that late, I reasoned. I jerked my watch out of my waistcoat on the back of one of the chairs, and brought it to the window. It was three fifty. I had ten minutes to present myself at Frau von Denecker’s door. I had never met the lady, but something about her embossed calling card and the way she directed little messenger boys suggested it would not do to be either a minute late or a minute early. I smoothed my clothes as best I might, wet my hair, brushed it, swept a comb through my moustache and, donning my best city boots, left for my appointment.

  Walking along the main street at a businesslike but not overly hasty pace, I happened to glance up at the Hotel Jungfrau. On the second floor balcony, which seemed to stretch the breadth of the building, a woman stood looking down at me. She was in her late fifties, I estimated. Her grey hair was tied tightly to the back of her head and held in place by a black lace toque. She wore a black satin dress, buttoned to the neck. She did not flinch when she noticed I was looking up at her. In fact, all she did was nod slightly then turn and withdraw into her room, supported by a silver-topped ebony cane.

  I presented myself at the door and knocked. The little Swiss boy opened it and beamed a grin at me.

  “Herr Doctor, Conan Doyle,” he announced to nobody in particul
ar and, pushing me in the small of the back, mischievously pressed me inside.

  “You may go, Dieter. Thank you,” said a voice from the next room, in high German.

  He gave me another grin and a large wink and closed the door behind him. There was silence. I was not sure at first whether to stand there until I was permitted into the presence, or to take the liberty of entering unbidden. I chose the latter; I was on holiday. At such times, certain protocols may perforce be set in abeyance.

  I entered the room to meet with a pair of steel blue eyes. Although she had grey hair and wore widow’s weeds, these eyes, while grave, were by turns sprightly and commanding. I presented myself and she gave me her hand. I held the tips of her fingers in mine for a moment and let my head bob towards them courteously.

  “Frau von Denecker. A pleasure to meet you,” I said.

  “The pleasure is mine,” she said, in her elegant German. I have seen eyes gain a radiance when a new idea, or a piece of mischief, or a moment of humour occurs to the owner. Frau von Denecker’s did so now. The question was, which of the three stimuli had occurred to her?

  She indicated a Windsor chair on the far side of an occasional table. She sat, formally, uprightly, upon a chaise longue. The silver-topped cane leant against the arm, ready for use whenever it was called into service, like a footman.

  The table supported plates and knives, a rich glazed apple torte and a chocolate marble cake. The latter was formed in an O and was dusted with icing sugar. There was a jug of milk, a jug of cream, some tall, thin glasses with handles, and a large teapot. A bowl of large, amber sugar crystals, like rough cut agate, completed the display.

  “It has been a beautiful day, has it not?” Frau von Denecker remarked.

  “Indeed. And I have marvelled at the mountains in such a light.”

  “Would you care for some tea, doctor?”

  She lifted the bowl of sugar, with its silver spoon. Why did she offer me tea, but hold up the sugar? I did not dare suggest that it was the pot which contained the tea.

  “I have been coming here for eighteen years. First with my husband and then, when he died, on my own…” She spoke while preparing tea. The reason she held the sugar bowl became apparent a moment later. “You may not know, doctor,” she continued, as she gathered up a few tawny crystals onto the spoon and dropped them into the first glass, “and there is no reason why you should, that my family comes from East Prussia.” I felt I could say or do nothing other than nod. She resumed, “This means that we have inherited some of the customs of our neighbours, the Russians. Which is why…” She paused, a spoonful of sugar crystals suspended motionless above the second glass, “I like my tea in this manner.” The crystals fell into the bottom of the glass with a jingle. “Now,” she said, lifting the teapot, prior to pouring, “listen…” With that, she poured piping hot tea upon the crystals. They crackled like kindling; thorns in a flame. She moved the pot across to the second glass and repeated the procedure. “Like ice breaking, is it not?” She smiled at me. The smile had a similar effect on me.

  She returned with the teapot to completely fill both glasses. She then slid a slice of lemon in each.

  “I understand that in England one prefers milk in one’s tea? And it is a matter of protocol which goes into a cup first – the milk or the tea?”

  “That is correct. It is to do with the quality of one’s porcelain. Whether it can withstand the boiling water, or needs the milk to temper it.”

  “So, it is to do with class.”

  “Is not everything?”

  “Everything,” she agreed.

  I accepted a plate with cake. I presumed to sample both varieties, one after the other, and found them equally quite exquisite. No doubt Frau von Denecker had them made in the village especially to her explicit recipes.

  While I was sampling both cakes, we discussed my Sherlock Holmes stories, many of which, to my surprise and gratification, she had read. She had spent her early years in England and had Come Out at St James’s. She had consequently taken a great interest in English literature. She had once even been privileged enough to meet Mr Charles Dickens. A fact, I assured her, that made me most envious indeed. She often had Austrian embassy staff bring her the latest reading matter from London on their frequent visits home, which was how she had been introduced to my stories.

  “Do you think, doctor, that your central character is a little too scientific for his own good?”

  “In what way?”

  “I am concerned that he cares little for people and more for results. In my experience, it is not good for a person with great talent or great position in society to remain aloof from others, to the extent that they treat them as objects existing solely for observation, or their personal benefit.”

  “I assure you, Frau von Denecker, that my intention in creating Holmes was to invest him with warm red blood and a heart of flesh. If he did not come across in this way, then I shall make it my business to ensure his humanity be more evident in future. If I write any more, that is.”

  “I am exercised, doctor, by the possibility that your excellent creation’s future could be in any doubt. In my opinion, it would be a sad loss to literature.”

  “Regrettably, Frau von Denecker, I am currently unable to reassure you in this regard. However, if it is of any consolation, your views chime entirely with those of my own dear mother.”

  “I am glad at least that your mother and I see eye to eye, doctor,” she smiled. “On further consideration, I imagine that he is probably neither aloof nor immune to human sensitivities; his own or others. In my opinion, perhaps he concerns himself more with a person’s motive and the product of that motive, rather than with the person, but not at the expense of that person, rather to their benefit. This gives me some comfort, particularly because Holmes’s creator is clearly devoted to humanity and its care thereof.”

  “You are very kind, madame. However, I fear your view greatly overestimates my character.”

  “The correct response. A true gentleman is always humble. Now,” she moved on to another topic, “it is terrible news to hear about your countryman, Mr Brown.”

  “Terrible,” I agreed.

  She fixed me with a glittering eye. “Did you know him?”

  “No, in fact we had not even met. I arrived after he had left for his, as it turned out, final, fateful walk.”

  “Ah… So…” I hoped I wasn’t hiding anything, because the gaze that now held me made me feel as though she could see into my very soul. “Are you staying with us long, doctor?”

  “Two weeks,” I replied.

  “Exactly?”

  “Well, in fact… ah… you are quite right, it is only twelve days now, as I leave this Saturday week.”

  This answer appeared to satisfy, and the conversation moved on. She told me how she was still just about mobile, but nowadays she found it hard to venture much beyond her hotel, since her hips and knees were stiffening with age. I did not do her the disservice of seeking to flatter her in this regard by telling her she did not appear old to me, or some such nonsense. I merely nodded my doctor’s understanding of her trying circumstances. She said that everyone was so kind and considerate in the village, and brought her every last whim to her very door. Even the local priest was good enough to bring her communion once a week. I could quite believe that her manner commanded such attentiveness. She continued by telling me a little more of her provenance. She had been married to an Austrian gentleman. They had lived most of their married life just outside Salzburg. We discussed that city’s most famous son, Mozart. She was then interested to learn that I myself had spent two separate periods of my life studying in Vienna.

  The discussion then shifted onto the political situation in Europe and beyond; the Austro-German alliance and the three emperors’ alliance of Austria, Germany and Russia, which had collapsed five years previously. I could not help but think that she was involved in the intricacies of these diplomatic treaties. She was plainly well versed
in their political subtleties. We considered the French government’s rapprochement with the Tsar and the fall from grace of Bismarck, which had led to the détente between the German and Russian royal houses. Not only an intelligent, but also a well-informed woman.

  She asked me, naturally, how the British government viewed this “elegant gavotte”, as she called it. I responded as best I might, not being absolutely clear on my government’s policies in this regard myself. I knew there was great concern that the wrong alliance could threaten the Balkans and the near east and, consequently, our trade routes to the subcontinent and beyond. I also knew that there was a growing rift between any number of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren who seemed, presently, to occupy half the thrones of Europe.

  Then, just as I was about to launch into a long and complicated theory regarding the relationship between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Turks, she stood up. “Well, doctor,” she smiled, “I must detain you no longer.” A command. My mouth closed. I quite understood, and did not wish to outstay my welcome. Listening to a British ophthalmologist’s views on high international politics was not, perhaps, the most enthralling way of spending an afternoon.

  Taking my leave, I offered my thanks and took the hand she held out. I bussed it with the gentlest of touches from my lips, and made my exit.

  I stepped out of the hotel just as the church bells began to ring. They sent their peals echoing across the village and the valley beyond. I fumbled for my smoking implements. Having filled my pipe, I strolled down the high street, puffing away like a Swiss valley locomotive, and reflected on the day.

  I recalled Madame Plantin and her concerns for her husband. I also remembered both her and Frau von Denecker’s sympathy expressed to me of Brown’s tragic demise. Why to me? Because I was his countryman? Frau von Denecker had asked if I had known him. Was I expected to do so? Or was it just a simple expression of sympathy, which I had started to take personally and to complicate? And why had I had such a fitful sleep and a reawakening in such disorientation? It cannot have been that I was unnerved by all of this. I am a doctor. I have seen many a corpse. Indeed, I have dissected them. I have been witness to the personal outcomes of many tragic cases in the past. Yet, I was disturbed. Why didn’t all of this make sense? Why was I beset by such a sequence of unconnected yet individually unsettling events and unwarranted conversations?