Part 5

"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.

Yet, the outer reconciliation between the horny father and his daughter took place that same day in exactly the same form as Fanny had foreseen it, and Mitzi recovered her liberty. Henceforth she had again the freedom of her movements, and I the pleasure of seeing her unconstrainedly. But that did not bring her one step nearer to the knowledge of what her father was reproaching her with. His was an obstinate silence. She asked him why he suspected her of having received any visitor during his absence, and he answered sternly:

"You know, and you had better tell me who it was."

And that was all.

The next day she went to see Giulay; but she came home greatly disappointed. He swore on his oath that he had not sent the Salzburg telegram, that he had not left Vienna, and that there had been no splendid opportunity whatever which could have induced him to send that wire.

"Either Giulay lies," explained I to Mitzi, when she had finished telling me this story, "or this wire is the keystone of the whole mystery."

"I am sure," was her answer, "that Giulay not only speaks the truth, but also that he is incapable of telling any lies."

Holy Moses! An agent, especially a theatrical one, was here considered trustworthy. Well, perhaps my doubt was unjust--perhaps we had only arrived at that chapter which is commonly entitled: "The Mystery thickens," and without which no detective story would sell.

"If Giulay speaks the truth," I went on, "then it is obvious that somebody else sent that wire, somebody who was well acquainted with the fact that this particular wire would make you undertake the journey to Salzburg. Who can this person be? What can his aim have been? Why especially to Salzburg?"

"Do you mean to say that it was my cousin Augusta who sent it?"

"The suggestion is yours."

"It is impossible. Firstly, had she had something particular to tell me, I would have come quite as well if she had called me signing the wire by her own name instead of by Giulay's. And secondly, even in case of her fearing that my father would have objected to my journey to her, and if she had wanted to hide from him the reason of my travelling to Salzburg, she would have been at the station to meet me on my arrival, instead of letting me wait there for a couple of hours, and would have informed me of the truth. But she was genuinely surprised when she saw me, and, pleased as she was to pass a few hours with me, there was not the slightest reason why she should have called me to Salzburg."

I did not dare to tell her that to judge from Mr. Doblana's behaviour something serious must have happened, and that in my opinion Augusta von Heidenbrunn was not free from suspicion. People sometimes think very badly of their friends, yet they do not allow others to express these thoughts. So I kept silent on the point.

Sagacious Fanny was again consulted.

"_Fräulein_ ought to write to the _Herr_ Lieutenant" (that was Franz von Heidenbrunn's rank). "Men can do more than women in such cases. And ask him to find out who sent that wire. Then we shall know all."

Once more the advice seemed good, and Mitzi followed it. The Lieutenant's answer came by return; he would try, and he felt pretty sure that he would succeed. After a week or so, however, there came another letter saying that he had failed. He had found the telegraph office from which the telegram had been dispatched, but the name of the sender was unknown, and the official to whom it had been handed was unable even to remember whether the sender had been a man or a woman. So we were no wiser than before.

In the meantime I had followed Fanny's third suggestion, namely, to make friends with my host by taking lessons.

M'yes!

What the people who lived underneath and above us must have thought of my first trials on the horn I do not know, nor have I any wish to know it. I dare say my trials were a trial to them.

There is a little tune which every Englishman knows, for it serves to call dogs with, when they are on tour in the streets. That tune is the theme which young Siegfried carols rejoicing in the forest; at least, he is supposed to do it; in reality it is the first horn-player placed in the wings of the theatre. The horn there illustrates rapturous vital power. You ought to have heard me and my vital power--or no! no! You are a kind person, you have bought this book, or at least, you have borrowed it from your Circulating Library, anyhow, you are reading it; you are a friend, and there is no reason for my wishing you evil, not even retrospectively. Nobody can in the least imagine what I achieved on the horn. At first I could not utter a sound at all, but then, when I succeeded!... How the dogs of Belsize Park would have been jealous had they heard my barking. And I carolled, not as if I had been young Siegfried, but a young dragon, nay! an old one!

That second-hand genius of modern German music (second-hand down to his very name, for the first owner of it was the great Johann Strauss), well, Richard Strauss once said that if he had been Bizet (which, Heaven be thanked he was not), one would have heard in the last act of _Carmen_ the bellowing of the bull counterpointed against the celebrated duo between Carmen and Don José. I do not know whether he ever wrote that part for the bull--but with my real talent I was able after three lessons to play it. I am sorry that Richard did not hear me, it was delightfully terrible.

* * * * *

There are strange coincidences. As I sit there, sucking my pencil (my Turkish fountain pen having disappeared) and remembering my first attempts at playing the horn and, later, at writing for it, something strikes my ear. A father (at least a decent one) always recognizes his children, and if I was no great composer, I may at least say that I was a decent one. What I hear is music, played by a military band. And what do they play? What, if it is not my own paraphrase on the "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu"? Yes, there is a military band somewhere in the rear, and what the horns attack is the theme of "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu" set as Doblana had told me to do it.

You ask me, ignorant reader, what that "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu" is. The oldest military march ever composed in these foggy islands of Great Britain, at a time when--at a time--well, earlier than that. It is a Scotch tune, fierce and proud, the right thing to be thought of in our fierce and proud time. I scored an arrangement of it as an entr'acte when I was writing my opera _Lady Macbeth_. But I must not anticipate. How I came to write _Lady Macbeth_ (not _Macbeth_, as you will notice, but _Lady Macbeth_) that I will tell in due time.

For the present I listen and remember. That Scotch march, that weird melody, calls back to my memory all the days of Vienna, all the story which I am busy writing.

And while they play, I hum the words Sir Walter Scott wrote of the old tune:

Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu, Pibroch o' Donuil, Wake thy wild voice anew, Summon clan Conuil. Come away, come away, Hark to the summons, Come in your war array. Gentles and commons!

Come from deep glen and from mountain so rocky, Warpipe and pennon are at Inverlochy. Come ev'ry hill-plaid and true heart that wears one, Come ev'ry steel blade and strong hand that bears one.

Leave untended the herd And the flock without shelter, The corpse uninterr'd And the bride at the altar. Leave the deer, leave the steer. Leave nets and barges, Come in your fighting gear, Broad swords and targes.

Come as the winds come, when forests are rended, Come as the waves come, when navies are stranded. Faster come, faster come, faster and faster, Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master!

Fast they come, fast they come, See how they gather, Wide wave the eagle plumes Blended with heather. Cast your plaids, draw your blades, Forward each man set, Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu, Knell for the onset!

I wonder. How does it happen that they are playing my march here? I do not even remember whether I left the score in Vienna or took it with me.

Now they play other music, the overture of _Poet and Peasant_, of course, and the waltz from the _Merry Widow_ and other things--all Viennese, my God!--as if to make it still harder to me, to think that these days of Vienna, these beautiful days of mirth and sorrow, should be gone for ever, for ever!--And then, then they play the "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu" once more, and then nothing else. Nothing. I dream, I wonder, and an hour passes.

* * * * *

"Post!"

This cry would awaken a dormouse. There are but three things at the front. Long stretches of boredom, short ones of fright, and post.

Two of the letters are for me, and the first one is from Dad. Just now I had been wondering at that strange performance of the "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu." Here is the solution of the riddle.

"My lad,

"I quite understand that composing is an impossibility when one is in the firing line, and I regret having worried you. I therefore do not send you the music paper. But I have forwarded a few days ago the parts of your Scottish march to your regimental bandmaster. You see, I want one of your marches to be played when you are going on towards victory. And as you can't compose another one, it may as well be the "Pibroch." Before I sent the parts I had the music played to me. It was only a band of the Salvation Army, I could not get hold of anything else. We went there to hear it, your mother and I and Bean, who was just staying in London. My word, it was beautiful, and it reminded me of the olden days. If only I could once more hear the whole opera. Mother looked very proud and dignified, Bean wept, but wept like a fountain, and I ... well, I had it performed three times. I gave the bandmaster a cheque for ten guineas. At first he did not want to accept it; he said it had been a pleasure to play such beautiful music, and apologized for the two little mistakes that had been made..."

(Happy man! He had heard only two!)

"... And then he pocketed the cheque all the same. Mother sends you hearty kisses. So do I.

"DANIEL COOPER."

Dad! Good Dad! There isn't a Dad like you in all the world.

The other letter is from Bean. It is quite short.

"Dear Pat" (it runs), "I have just heard your beautiful music. I am quite overcome. With such sounds striking our soldiers' ears, how can they march to anything else than Victory? I feel that I must do something, too. My heart drives me forth.

"The girl you left behind you,

"BEAN."

And Bean, there isn't a Bean like you in all the world, either.

* * * * *

I have lost a whole day, remembering and musing. This would have been rather bad if this book were written to an order from a publisher. For one reason or another publishers are always in a hurry. But then they belong to the higher orders of animals. A simple _Tommyius subterraneus_ has plenty of time.

Yet perhaps you have not. Therefore I hasten to return to the nice sounds I used to extract out of an unhappy horn. It is intentionally that I used the word "extract," which will remind you of a toothache. So did my blowing the horn. It was pitiful, yet heroic. For, in truth, I had no wish to make a living out of these horny studies. It was all for the sake of the charming Mitzi. Had I but been in possession of her fleshy lips!

I notice that this last sentence has a double sense. On the one hand it means that I have thin lips and therefore enjoyed great difficulties in producing any sounds on the horn. But on the other hand that sentence also informs you of my ardent desire to call Mitzi' s red lips my own. I had fallen in love with her from the first day, from the very moment when in the railway carriage I had been attracted by the handsome contours of ... of ... of the reverse of the medal. I had now arrived at that state when the very name Mitzi would strike my brain with a glowing emotion, when I liked to forget all other things and to occupy myself solely with her, remembering the evenness of the outline of her figure, her feminine daintiness, her slim, narrow feet. Yet, I had no experience of women, my feelings were intense, but my thoughts were vague, my love was a formless abstraction, and Mitzi a perceptible fact. In truth, I did not know that I was in love, and some time had to pass before I realized it.

In the meantime I used my breath in blowing the horn. Nevertheless I did not gain Mr. Doblana's confidence. His intercourse with his daughter seemed to be restricted to the utmost necessary, and I was unable to find out with what offence he was reproaching her. Still, if I did not learn his secret--for it was evidently a secret--I had occasion to study his character.

After about a dozen lessons he allowed that I was hopeless as a horn-player. He strongly advised me to give it up. But having once tasted my money (or, to render unto Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's, the money of Daniel Cooper & Co., Ltd., Insurance Brokers, London, E.C.), and having found it savoury and palatable, he decided on having another helping of it.

"Mr. Cooper," he said--he always pronounced my name with a hyphen between the two o's, associating it probably by some mysterious etymology with the origin of Cooperative societies--"Mr. Cooper, you have talent only as a composer; but I am afraid that you will profit very little by the lessons you take with Hammer. He is a genius and, poor devil, I do not grudge him the little money you will let him earn; however, I venture to say that you would benefit more by studying with a more practical man like me. Of course, it could not be the same figure..."

Now, as he did not know what I was paying Hammer, these last words could only refer to his own lessons, the famous attempts at teaching me the horn, and this was already twice the cost of Hammer's lessons. But it was true that I improved little with the organist's loose and obscure explanations which, indeed, were more fascinating than serviceable; and I was only too glad to be relieved from the torture I inflicted upon myself and the neighbourhood. Besides, had I not the duty, as it were, of cultivating my friendship with Mr. Doblana?

So I accepted, and had Viennese lessons in the noble art of composition, from a Czech, at London terms. Nor had I to regret my decision, for Mr. Doblana proved a most invaluable teacher. I have already stated that I owe to him all I know, little as it may be.

I was not only his pupil, but his apprentice, which is the best, the surest way of learning, for it necessitates a continuous connexion between the master and the disciple.

Mr. Doblana was now composing a new ballet called _Aladdin_, and many pages of this work were scored out by me from his sketches.

Now, if the reader will be good enough to peruse again the fourth chapter of this book, he will find that Mitzi had informed me that her father was working on a ballet called _Griseldis_, the book of words of which--if I may use the euphemism "book of words"--had been provided by the Archduke Alphons Hector, or the _Herr Graf_, whichever name you may prefer for this exalted person. The book of _Aladdin_, too, was signed Joseph Dorff, the Archduke's nom de plume.

As I was training myself not only as a composer but also as a detective, I thought that this inconsistency might have its importance, and I submitted it to the joint council of Mitzi and Fanny. Mitzi only abandoned herself to grief. In former days she would have known all about it, while now her father treated her with such indifference! But Fanny declared the incident of no importance: The first ballet "Fa_ther_ Morgana" had also had another name at the beginning.

"Yes," said Mitzi, "it was at first called _Daphnis and Chloe_."

"How is that possible?" asked I. "The two subjects seem absolutely different--as different as _Griseldis_ and _Aladdin_."

"Oh!" declared Mitzi lightly, "that does not matter with ballet. The same music can always serve for the most dissimilar objects. When father altered _Daphnis and Chloe_ into _Fata Morgana_ he said he had only to add some fifths to the bass, and some strange drums and tambourins in order to change his music from occidental to oriental."

This seemed to me very deep and probably true. So the incident was dismissed. Yet I had never been nearer a clue! I ought at least to have noticed that Mr. Doblana was not merely adapting a musical dress from its occidental fashion to an oriental one, but that, musically speaking, he was making up his _balletis personæ_ in real old carpets from Baghdad or some other such place.

* * * * *

One evening--he and I used to pass his free evenings together--we went to a tavern called the "Tobacco Pipe," one of those places which a London innkeeper would not fail to denominate "Ye olde...." The whole of the Round Table used to meet there once a month in a nice smoky back-room. It was a large room, which from its dimensions seemed lower than it really was. It was panelled in old dark oak, and on the ceiling heavy black joists were visible. The tables, which no table-cloth adorned, were made of old oak, as were the chairs and the rest of the furniture. Old fashioned oil lamps fixed on the joists succeeded in giving the whole locality a kind of pleasant homeliness, although these oil lamps were lit by electricity. I was told that this room was several hundred years old, and that the new modern house had been built around it. That room was in great demand by all sorts of societies, and it was not possible for it to be hired by one body oftener than for one evening a month, because decisions in any trade or profession had to be taken at "The Tobacco Pipe" if fashion was to be satisfied.

That day the programme of the Round Table was to find some means of defence against the growing invasion of amateurs in the theatrical and especially the musical profession. All the people I knew were there and, of course, many more.

Poor Hammer, who was the senior of the company, made the first speech. He began all right, talking of art for art's sake, but soon lost the subject and, before anybody knew how it had happened, was explaining the fundamental difference between mediæval and modern counterpoint. By unanimous consent he was deprived of the power of going on with his speech, and, greatly astonished, sat down.

The _Herr Graf_ said, that being himself a sort of an amateur he was defending their cause. He quite understood that hopeless cases should be prevented from producing their work in public, but such rule could not be applied to all. Had not Wagner been called an amateur? The only way out was the creation of a special tribunal for such disputes.

An elderly gentleman who stammered told the assembly that if Wagner had been suppressed it would not have been a shame. He was hissed into silence, and Mr. Bischoff declared that such words were Anti-German, that to attack Wagnerism was to attack Germanism, that Wagner's object had been the freeing of opera from its traditional and conventional Franco-Italian forms, and his one law: dramatic fitness.

Thereupon another speaker arose. He was a medical man by profession, and his name was Doctor Bernheim. He declared that the subject of Germanism was quite out of place, and that the right way of tackling the question had been indicated by Mr. Hammer.