Sherlock Holmes and the King of Clubs Read Online Free PDF

SIX

There Is No Trick To It
    T HE FOLLOWING DAY Watson dutifully arranged for a locum to take over the practice in Deptford. Holmes, meanwhile, who was staying at the Goring, less than two miles from their old stamping ground in Baker Street, began arranging every detail of their trip. Thus it was that they departed from Charing Cross aboard the Ostend-Vienna Express promptly at ten o’clock two mornings later.
    Watson had mixed feelings about the trip – and with good cause. The Summer Olympics, held in Sweden earlier in the year, had brought together competitors from almost thirty countries and encouraged overseas travel as never before. Austria, though, was still a suspect destination for moSt Although four years had passed since Emperor Franz Joseph I had annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, there still lingered considerable ill-feeling among the three million Serbs who, quite rightly, objected to Austria’s bullish attempt at empire-building.
    The Serbs were not alone in these objections. For some time now, Italy had been threatening military action against Austria as a consequence; while Russia, taking advantage of the unrest, had been inciting a revolution throughout the Balkan states. The situation had become so dire that the leader of the German Catholic Centre Party had warned that any Austrian retaliation against Serbia would inevitably draw Russia even further into the conflict, and that in turn could lead to a European war.
    When Watson mentioned his misgivings, however, Holmes only filled his favourite clay pipe with his usual acerbic blend of shag and replied that, with Vienna presently such a hotbed of intrigue, there was little chance of their having a boring holiday.
    An hour and forty minutes after leaving Charing Cross, they reached Dover, where they caught a steamer to Ostend. From this Belgian municipality they made their next connection easily and continued their train journey through Brussels, Aix-le-Chapelle, Cologne and Bonn.
    In all, the thirty-two-hour trek proved to be a pleasant one, although Watson was not sorry when they’d left Passau behind them; and the train steamed into Vienna three hours later.
    A fifth set of tracks was being added to the terminus. More building work was being carried out to the two towers that flanked the station entrance and the roof. In consequence the din was tremendous and so – as they climbed down from their carriage and Watson tried to shake some life back into his gammy leg – they were startled to hear a brass band suddenly break into the Austro-Hungarian national anthem,
Land der Berge, Land am Strome.
    Watson turned toward the far end of the platform where the band was playing and could see a group of dignitaries as well as several journalists from the Austrian press.
    ‘Good Lord,’ he said above the noise. ‘They must have found out you were coming, Holmes.’
    Holmes gave a sardonic chuckle. ‘I fear the greeting is not for me.’
    ‘Really? You mean, they greet
all
their new arrivals this way?’
    ‘I doubt it. No, my friend, this is in honour of someone
else
.’
    He paused as a number of the passengers broke into spontaneous applause.
    He and Watson turned just as a short, stocky man in his mid-thirties led his entourage off the train and began to work his way up the platform, waving and smiling as the crowd parted to make way for him.
    Watson squinted at him. He was well dressed in a suit of grey serge, with a heavy winter overcoat slung over one arm. He lookedvaguely familiar, but Watson couldn’t put a name to the fellow. Finally he gave up and asked, ‘Who is that man, Holmes?’
    ‘That, my friend, is Mr Erik Weisz.’
    Watson sniffed. ‘Never heard of him.’
    ‘Then perhaps you will know him better by his stage name,’ said Holmes. ‘For he is none other than the escapologist Harry Houdini.’
    The name, of course, was instantly recognizable. And how could it be otherwise? Houdini was a legend. The son of a rabbi, he was a Hungarian