Oh friends, not these sounds!
Let us instead strike up more pleasing
and more joyful ones!
—Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, “Ode to Joy”
Performed in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Sherlock strummed the last note of the symphony and exhaled sharply. The power required to produce those incessant fortissimos—the sheer amplitude of the piece—was nearly too much for any instrumentalist to play, let alone a violinist. One of the strings on Sherlock’s violin unwound itself, sprang up into the air in a wild corkscrew, and nearly stabbed his eye out. He bit his tongue and swallowed his frustration, careful not to upset his vehement conductor.
Luckily, his conductor was a little hard of hearing as of late and had not noticed. Sure, Ludwig van Beethoven was a creative genius, but his demand was much too high; how could one be expected to learn his Ninth Symphony in less than two weeks’ rehearsal? If it were not for the sheer beauty of their performance hall, the Kärntnertortheater, throbbing in the heart of Vienna, Sherlock would have dropped his violin in the middle of the movement and moved to Berlin the next day, leaving everyone, even his roommate, to ponder his exit strategy as an unsolvable mystery—something only he alone could solve.
“Have to make sure I remember this theme,” Watson said. He laid the violin on his lap and dog-eared a page of his score. “I have never heard anything so sweet.”
“After how loud that was,” Sherlock said, “surely I will never be able to hear anything ever again.”
There was a yell from the podium, and Sherlock covered his ears just in time before it turned into a roar. Beethoven was screaming at Fabian Rainer for not turning the pages of Marcos Pierre’s score quickly enough. Since Fabian had been demoted from first-chair to second-chair cellist, Fabian was required to turn the pages of their score, but he had been falling behind. There was something in Fabian’s demeanor—his sagged shoulders, his pallid skin, the constant nervous flitters of his eyes—that made Sherlock uneasy. With only one day until their performance, the orchestra needed to be focused on the task at hand.
“If you are not paying attention, then perhaps I should not pay you at all.” Beethoven spoke in a deep legato, his words nearly incoherent mumbles. He threw his hands in the air and shook his head furiously. “Do you not know who our guest is tomorrow, or are you all ignorant? Leopold Hobrecht, the royal representative of Berlin, will sit right there in that box seat. And if you do not turn pages quickly enough, Fabian, I ensure you will never play a note in the heavenly gardens of Vienna ever again.”
Beethoven chewed the tip of his baton and wrote a note on his score. Fabian seemed to cower into his chair, and Marcos smiled sardonically.
“Look at his nervous twitch, chewing his baton like that,” Watson said. “Just listen to those hideous ultimatums. And his infallible rage—I believe that he might finally be losing it.”
“My dear Watson,” Sherlock said, “surely he has lost it long ago. Have you not seen him walking around town like a vagabond, wandering through darkness on many midnight’s new moons, humming? It is a gradual breakdown of the mind. For when an artist born with sight can no longer see his own painting, he suffers a gradual breakdown; likewise, when a composer can hardly hear his song, the brain begins to hum dark phantom melodies in the mind.”
“Whatever phantom tune his muse whispers into his ear, it is straight from Apollo’s lips,” Watson said. “His melodies are the anthems of Olympus. He truly understands what the world wants to hear.”
“And how the world should sound. He is desultory and delusional, but ingenious at that. I just wish he were not marching to the beat of his own drummer.”
“Careful. He can still read lips.”
Beethoven glared at Sherlock. He ran his hands through his steely-gray hair and stormed out of the room. Sherlock nodded and mouthed a pleasant hello; Beethoven quickly walked by without giving him another glance and hissed a sharp “Auf wiedersehen.”
“Harsh,” Sherlock said.
Sherlock felt something brush up against his ankle. He leaned over, and there on the floor was one of Fabian’s pages. He picked it up and stared at it incredulously, as if he were deciphering some foreign language. The room was empty now, and Sherlock could hear Watson sighing, eager to join the rest of the orchestra and chorus for a well-deserved break.
“What is it?” Watson reached for the score, but Sherlock pulled it back. “Another one of your treasonous conspiracy theories?”
“Take out your violin.”
“But I do not want to practice any longer. You promised me a wine at Café Dejaun after our last case, remember?”
“Stay just a moment longer, and I will double my offer. Take it or leave it.”
“The price of friendship is costly, and yet in such instances I must remind myself the payback is greater.” Watson walked over to the piano and opened the cover. “Two glasses of wine it is, yes?”
Sherlock nodded and set the score on the piano. “Play me the first theme.”
“It has been a while since I have even touched the keys, but how is this?” Watson played a few notes, and to Sherlock it sounded as if a child were taking his first lesson on the piano. The grand concertmasters of Vienna—Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert—would wince at the amateur fingers dancing across the keys. Surely, Sherlock concluded, Bach was rolling over in his grave.
“Now play me this.” Sherlock turned over the score. Scribbled at the top of the page was a new staff with mere inkblots as quarter notes. Underneath was a scrawl of an almost illegible date: May 7, 1824.
“I have never seen this before. Beethoven is not surprising us with a new theme tomorrow, is he?”
“That is because Beethoven did not write it. It is not even in the proper key.”
“And to whom does this belong?”
“Fabian.”
“Then perhaps Fabian was attempting to start his own opus and nonchalantly wrote a tune.” There was a tone of annoyance in Watson’s voice that surprised Sherlock. “It was his own personal diary. I do not see the point of this. Now let us go. I am hungry and in desperate need of a drink or three.”
“If your eyes do not fail you, the date written is tomorrow. How can one write a journal entry for the future? Unless our friend is a time traveler, of course. Go on, play it for me.”
Watson sighed and conceded; he played the tune a little more fluently. “There, are you happy? It is not even good. This melody belongs at the bottom of a pigsty.”
Sherlock stood at the far end of the piano and played the notes flawlessly. “Do you not see it?”
“All I am seeing is a future which consists of me slapping you across the face. You owe me food. Do not let that future come true.”
“Look closely. Sometimes it is not what is heard, but what is seen on the page. The notes.” Sherlock played so quickly that it nearly became a flurry of dissonant notes. “D-E-A-D-F-A-C-E.”
“It is a few chords with major sevenths. I do not understand why you are—”
“‘Dead face,’ circled approximately three times below Beethoven’s name, written in a hurry.”
“Peculiar, I admit, but what do you make of it?”
“Murder, Watson. Murder. Is it not obvious? This is revenge commissioned by Fabian himself. He is more than a little angry that he is not first-chair cellist anymore. Follow me.”
“But my drink, the café…” Watson was barely able to pick up his violin case as Sherlock dragged him excitedly by the sleeve.
• • •
Watson had scarcely begun to proclaim his appetite to the foggy, crowded streets of Vienna when Sherlock knocked on Fabian’s door. Beethoven’s fortissimos had perhaps haunted Watson—Sherlock’s knocks were soft rasps on the door, yet Watson nearly jumped at the sound.
“Remember,” Watson said, “we must not accuse Fabian of treason unless we have definite proof.”
“Must you state the obvious?” Sherlock said. “That is part of the fun, to let him announce his own guilt.”
“What guilt?” The door opened a crack, and the soft glow of candlelight danced across Fabian’s face. Sherlock would have mistaken Fabian’s expression for a scowl if it weren’t for his peculiar countenance. Fabian looked as though he were in a state of perpetual despair—and perhaps he was. His eyebrows were upside-down arches digging crevices into his skin, nearly dragging his entire forehead down beneath his eyes. Sherlock had once seen a mutt with the same visage, although the mutt was happy, unlike his colleague standing before him.
“Fabian, a minute of your time, please.”
“I do not possess many of those.” Fabian opened the door and motioned for them to come inside. “Get on with it.”
The house looked lonely, and it took no effort for Sherlock to deduce that it was a reflection of the dismal man who resided within. The floor was littered with paper, and with every step Sherlock had to lift his feet to avoid tripping. He was astounded that the candle had not fallen from the nightstand and the paper had not caught fire, burning the entire place to ruins. In one corner of the room sat a shoddy piano slanting unevenly on one leg, its keys ragged at the edges like broken wishbones. In the other corner sat a bed, its down feathers seeping through the mattress, as if a pheasant had imploded within. Sherlock would have concluded that Fabian had had an intense night of passion and love with some unseen mistress if he did not already know of Fabian’s perpetual state of isolation outside of work.
“Listen here,” Sherlock said. “We wanted to confess just how disappointed we are about the situation.”
Fabian didn’t flinch. “I know not of what you speak.”
“You are no longer first-chair cellist,” Sherlock said. “A situation that is most appalling. Especially before the premiere.”
“It is no matter.” Fabian seemed to wave this off with a flick of his hand, as if he were batting away a fly, until Sherlock noticed that indeed there were minuscule houseflies fluttering about. Sherlock felt one crawling up his neck and flicked it away. “Our beloved conductor will experience an unfortunate epiphany sometime soon.”
Watson shot a look to Sherlock, eyes wide, mouth ajar. Could Watson be any more obvious? Sherlock was highly experienced at hiding his observations, but he could tell Watson was breaking. Sherlock remained stone-faced; they could not play the game of deduction without even beginning in the first place.
“And what do you mean by that?” Sherlock asked.
“His time will come,” Fabian said. “He will realize he was wrong, but by that time it will be too late.”
Sherlock stepped closer, cornering Fabian against the wall. Now was the time to accuse.
“And by what time are you calculating this murder?”
“Murder?” Fabian’s eyes, for once, had opened up, and his expression of despair was replaced with surprise. He chuckled, as if Sherlock were simply telling a joke; Sherlock played it off as so and joined in on the laughter. “I would be lying if I said I had never dreamt such thoughts in mindless reverie, but I have no plans of the sort. I could not even hurt a fly.”
A fly was crawling across Fabian’s cheek and was poking its legs around the corners of his lips. Fabian slapped himself and the fly’s body fell to the floor.
“Well, most of the time,” Fabian said, shrugging.
“Tell us, what do you make of this?” Sherlock pulled the musical score out of his pocket and held it beneath the candlelight.
Fabian walked over to the piano and strummed the melody. The piano was severely out of tune, each note in a key of its own, the entire instrument playing tritones and hideous chords from the underworld.
“This melody belongs on the floors of a pigsty.”
“That is exactly what I said.” Watson walked over and played the piano with Fabian. “We speak the same language. Musicians.”
“Pleading ignorance leads you nowhere, Fabian.” Sherlock closed in on Fabian and studied his face. Near the candlelight, everything was illuminated, including the fear plaguing Fabian’s face. “You wrote this melody yourself. It is your own handwriting. Your floor is covered with your own penmanship, and the strokes of the quill on this page match perfectly with those littering your floor.”
“I do not deny that. Yes, Marcos hummed this to me and had me write it down the day he arrived. I believe it is a secret love letter Marcos had me write for his man-lover, Beethoven. They are infatuated with each other, you know, because why else would Marcos arrive from Berlin, completely unannounced, and replace the most respected virtuoso string player in Vienna?” Fabian put his thumbs up to his chest, reveling in his pride. “You must stop their rabid desire for each other before they run off and have children together. Sure, Marcos acts as though he blows me out of the water, but that is only because he was blowing something else.”
Sherlock studied the message again; he hadn’t considered that perhaps Fabian had been told to write this.
“And you know nothing else?” Sherlock asked.
“Oh, one more thing,” Fabian added. “He said his melody was linked to proper fingering with piano or something intellectual like that. Berlin piece of shit, trying to act regal all the time. Not that he knows how to finger any woman, though, unless it is up somebody’s—”
“Watson,” Sherlock said, stopping Fabian from sharing any more of his theories. “Tell me, what fingers do you use to play the melody that belongs at the bottom of a pigsty?”
Watson struck the piano keys. “D is on the fifth in the scale. So five.”
“Or fourth,” Sherlock said, “if you are counting the letters of the alphabet. Yes. D is fourth. E is third. Keep playing.”
Sherlock ran over to Fabian’s nightstand, picked up a quill, and started writing. Sherlock scribbled on the score, drawing arrows and lines correlating the notes to the alphabet.
“Listen here. D-E-A-D-F-A-C-E correlates to numbers 4314 and 6135 in the alphabet. Or, combining the two lexicons, it is 4314 face, or, when the letters are unscrambled, F-A-C-E can spell cafe. Yes, that is it—4314 Cafe Street, hidden in the slums of our city. I know that area. You ass, Sherlock. You pure ass. Should have known.”
“So Marcos is trying to kill Beethoven?” Fabian’s face lit up with joy. “He will be demoted from first-chair cellist again?”
“No reason to celebrate yet,” Sherlock said. “If you keep quiet about this mess, you will regain your position in the orchestra.”
“But if we know Marcos is to blame, why not simply expose him?” Watson asked.
“On the contrary,” Sherlock said. “He is carrying out orders from someone above. Let us follow his accidental trail of clues and subvert his expectations by going straight to his superiors.”
“So to the cafe, then, finally?” Watson asked.
“Not the typical cafe you are thinking of,” Sherlock said.
“But you promised…”
Lost in excitement, Sherlock stormed triumphantly out the door.
“Run along, then,” Fabian said, and Watson tried his best to keep up.
• • •
Sherlock and Watson had discovered the apothecary’s workroom right where the conspirator had not wanted them to be found, directly at 4314 Cafe Street, near the southern shores of the Danube River. It was almost too easy, Sherlock noted, and the irresponsible breadcrumbs this madman had left behind seemed almost purposeful.
The apothecary’s room smelled of lavender, rosemary, and sweet tea; for an institution that held such desperate clients of the mad, the depressed, and the dying, Sherlock was surprised that Raphael Czerny, the apothecary, had kept the place smelling so sweet. Such exact sanitization was not normal. Perhaps he was hiding something—the stench of a corpse, the rot of decaying limbs, or perhaps even the fumes of a dangerous lie.
Underneath the candelabra, Sherlock held his magnifying glass in one hand, a vial in the other. Translucent liquid bubbled to the top of the vial and exploded in tiny eruptions within. It was odd, the way the liquid reflected Sherlock’s face in steep curves, his eyes transforming into bulbous and gelatinous bubbles, only to have his reflection blow up and dissolve back into the liquid as if it were never there in the first place.
“You will have to pardon my friend for his poor manners.” Watson stood at the other end of the room, leaning wearily against the wall. “When he is seized upon his work, he acts with the chivalry of a fool. Is that not so, Sherlock? He does not even listen. But I can assure you—he is not as rude as he seems.”
“Seems pretty rude to touch what’s not yours.” Raphael ran to Sherlock, snatched the vial from his hands, and set it in a wooden container next to four other glass vials. “An emergency, you said. Emergency my ass. Are you going to purchase your medicines, or aren’t you?”
Sherlock reached for the vial again but Raphael grabbed his wrist. Sherlock glared at Raphael, and Raphael almost recoiled. Sherlock was venomous when he allowed himself to be.
“Tell me,” Sherlock said. “If somebody were to come here seeking something lethal, what would you say?”
“Would tell ’em they’re looking in the wrong place.”
“And if they were to request anything other than medicine, perhaps something to kill a few rodents—arsenic—how would you go about providing this?”
“Haven’t sold that shit in years.”
“Tell me, then, why is every other substance displayed in even numbers of vials, whereas this rat repellent is displayed in the odd? There are only five of them.”
Raphael’s eyes flittered nervously across from Sherlock to the vial then back to Sherlock again.
“Who was it?” Sherlock asked.
“Some ex-members of the Committee of Public Safety needed some stuff to clear paths on the Alps. Needed to prepare themselves for a journey through winter, they said, and needed something strong.”
“They supply their own arsenic, their own licensed apothecary. Do not lie to me, Raphael. I can close this place down with the snap of my fingers if I so desire.”
That was partly true, partly false, but Sherlock remained silent as Raphael thought this over.
“You step through my door and threaten me?”
“Not only would you become a criminal if you chose to withhold such key information, you would also be a treasonous murderer of your dear country, eradicating patriotism and nationalism for eternity.”
Raphael twiddled the arsenic between his fingers. “About a fortnight ago, a man came in here requesting some. Said his house was infested with rats, didn’t want to wait for the rats in office to give him the go-ahead to clear them himself.”
“Tell me who he is.”
“Truth is, well, I was too high to tell. I sell opium, use the stuff. Happy? Looked like a murderer to me, this man. But the next morning, I found this on the floor. Figured it belonged to him. You can have it, as long as you get the hell out of here.”
Raphael pulled open a cupboard and held an object under the candelabra. Sherlock’s heart started clanging against his ribcage—had his theories all been wrong? It couldn’t be.
It was Beethoven’s baton.
• • •
“But he would never lose his lucky baton the night before the concert,” Watson said. He was trailing behind, and Sherlock began to grow annoyed. “A man that anxious practically views his baton as a part of himself.”
“That is because he does not know it is missing. Someone has duplicated it. Someone who does not want King Leopold to enjoy the show. Keep up.”
Sherlock rolled the baton and felt the imprint of the company’s sigil beneath his thumb; the official seal of East Orderly, the woodworking plant of Vienna, was emblazoned into the bottom of the baton, and it matched the seal on the door.
Although the midnight air was cold, Sherlock felt himself breaking out in a sweat; time was of the essence, and, for once, Sherlock began to feel the prevention of this murder was slipping entirely out of his grasp. If Vienna were to lose Ludwig van Beethoven, one of its greatest artistic, sociological, and political assets, the streets would erupt in chaos, riot, and destruction, and Sherlock would feel entirely responsible.
Sherlock knocked on the door. No answer. He charged his shoulder into the door; it didn’t budge. It was Watson who was finally able to open it by simply turning the knob. Watson laughed, and Sherlock pretended not to hear.
Inside, the room was torn to shreds. Fabian’s house was cleaner in comparison, and that was saying something. The tiled floor was cracked and covered with wooden planks, fallen bricks, and heaps of dust.
“Looks like someone left in a hurry,” Watson said.
“Someone who had a reason to rush off. Keep the door open. We need more moonlight.”
Watson propped open the door as Sherlock started sifting through the rubble. After a moment, Sherlock came across something cylindrical and nearly froze.
“What is it?” Watson asked.
“Erroneous revenge, Watson. This object confirms that they wanted to be discovered after the fact. That is such a shame, because we will expose them before.”
“Before when?”
“The potential murderer has been playing Beethoven’s symphony for quite some time, someone who is capable of observing Beethoven’s eccentric twitches, but this man’s heart belongs to the song of another country.”
“In plain German, please.”
“Marcos was never commissioned to play Beethoven’s symphony.”
Sherlock turned the object in his hands, and through the soft moonlight seeping through the door, he could see it was the same as the vial of arsenic in Raphael’s shop, but this one was marked with a different sigil. It was a maroon flag with a mighty lion slashing its claws.
The official sigil of King Leopold’s office.
• • •
Perhaps it was the heat of the audience that had gathered in the cramped Kärntnertortheater, or perhaps it was because he felt the future of music resting solely in his hands, but regardless of the reason, Sherlock needed to regulate his body temperature, for any slip in his plan, any erroneous mistake caused by his nervous system, would mean an abrupt ending to the concert, and an even more abrupt ending to their misunderstood yet beloved conductor.
Sherlock casually glanced at the front row, pretending to admire the royal guest. King Leopold of Berlin obviously wanted to be noticed for his grandeur and riches; he didn’t even take his box seat reserved for royalty. King Leopold sat in the center of the front row surrounded by mistresses on either side who could have passed for his granddaughters. They fought desperately for the King’s attention, rubbing their hands through his milky-white hair that fell in curls to his shoulders, caressing the nape of his neck with their fingers, even going so far as to nibble his earlobe and tug it ferociously, giggling as it slung back into place.
As King Leopold lifted his hands in a wave to a Viennese admirer, golden bracelets clattered against his body, nearly as loud as the cymbals in the orchestra. His well-equipped guards behind him didn’t even flinch. Sherlock found it increasingly difficult to stop himself from running offstage and directly knocking this disgusting man unconscious himself.
The orchestra finished tuning on a lush, open A chord as the Grand Ambassador of the theater walked onstage.
The audience hushed. After a brief pause, the ambassador made his introduction.
“We introduce to you Ludwig van Beethoven and his works. Let the royal procession begin.”
The audience erupted in applause. King Leopold gently pushed his lovers away as Beethoven walked onstage. A devilish grin crept across the king’s face. Chills shot through Sherlock’s spine; he had never seen a smile so genuine. If Sherlock didn’t know any better, he might have thought the king was smiling simply because he had never been more excited to hear the newest symphony, not to watch Beethoven’s body fall lifelessly to the floor.
Beethoven ran his hands through his hair, and just as he was about to pick up the baton and chew on the arsenic, Sherlock bolted upright from his chair.
“Before the royal procession can begin,” Sherlock shouted, “we have one more important announcement. You sir, in the front row, please stand up. And, Beethoven, keep your hand off the baton.”
Confused, Beethoven looked around and muttered an incoherent curse under his breath. King Leopold stood without hesitation.
Sherlock pointed to King Leopold with his violin. “I will be blunt—your royal guest here is trying to kill you.”
King Leopold and Beethoven gasped at nearly the same time; ironically harmonious, Sherlock noted.
The king was no longer smiling. “Such accusations of treason will sentence your head to the blood-caked planks of the guillotine,” he said. “Be careful what you say.”
“It is not my hot-headed brain that will be decapitated in the name of Vienna,” Sherlock said. “Observe.” Sherlock walked to the podium and picked up Beethoven’s baton. Sherlock could feel the angry stares of the orchestra and chorus behind him. “Tell me, Ludwig van Beethoven, have you recently created a duplicate of your baton?” Beethoven, having carefully read Sherlock’s lips, shook his head. “Throughout rehearsals, you chew at the tip of your baton. Surely this one would be worn down by now, but it is not. Can you explain the cleanliness of this?”
“Looks new to me,” Beethoven said. “I presume it is a gift?”
“A deadly one. Now observe evidence number two: An empty vial, which formerly contained arsenic, imprinted with the sigil of your beloved king, found in the East Orderly shop the night before the potential murder. Explain this, King Leopold Hobrecht of Berlin.”
The king opened his mouth as if to speak but found himself stuttering instead. There were a few grumbles from behind.
“That is correct,” Sherlock continued. “King Leopold cannot deny this, because he was attempting to assassinate Beethoven by dipping his baton into a vial of arsenic, this very baton, commissioned by his very own rat, Marcos Pierre, in conjunction with East Orderly. Stand up, Marcos, and stand up, Leopold. Let the audience applaud your effort.”
Marcos remained seated, hatred flickering through his eyes.
Sherlock turned to Beethoven. “King Leopold was not here to listen to your newest symphony. He planned his regal attendance to witness your murder with his own eyes. Anything to say, King?”
“Take him away.” King Leopold snapped his fingers, and his guards stood in perfect synchronization. They pushed through the crowd and charged for the stage, their bayonets pointed straight at Sherlock.
The orchestra wouldn’t allow it; they rushed from their chairs and stood as a wall shoulder-to-shoulder around Beethoven, their instruments standing in as their swords and shields.
“Tell us the truth,” Watson said, hands trembling, “or I smash my violin into your skull.”
“So what if it is true.” The king stood in front of the audience as if he were reciting a monologue. “I could not allow Vienna to be the home of the most wonderful music in the world any longer. Once you refused to hold the premiere of this symphony in Berlin, that is when we lost it. You wanted to, and yet the people of Vienna have tainted your loyalty. You are a traitor, nothing more. Do you even remember where you grew up?
“Yes, you have discovered our plans, you mere instrumentalists,” the king continued. “I admit—we have hired your own first-chair cellist, Marcos, to help in the plan. He is splendid, really, just splendid, and he has done well in convincing Vienna’s very own baton craftsman to flee the country.” King Leopold motioned for Marcos to stand. “Applaud, everyone. Applaud.”
Fabian glanced at Sherlock with an I-told-you-so smirk. Sherlock smiled an embarrassed apology.
“But, Beethoven, there is still time to redeem yourself to your original king, the only true king of the world. We can forget this has ever happened and erase this from our memories. However, if you perform here any longer, you will disgrace your fathers and their forefathers before them, erasing your existence from the greatest country of the universe: Berlin.”
“Never speak of my father. I hated him.” Beethoven held up the baton with a trembling hand and pointed at King Leopold. “You will be exposed.”
“Well, then, since I have the power to rewrite history, even to rewrite this very moment, I sentence you all to death for defying the greatest king who has ever lived.”
The king’s guards rushed the stage. Before they could attack, a cellist swung his instrument at the tip of a guard’s bayonet. The bayonet clashed to the floor with a metallic thunk, and a bullet went speeding through the roof, spraying rubble over the crowd. Someone yelled from behind, and suddenly the entire orchestra and chorus were harmonizing in terrifying war cries, charging the guards.
The guards had no chance of firing any additional bullets; the musicians knocked the rifles out of their hands before another shot could be fired. A guard reached for his fallen bayonet, arms outstretched nearly out of their sockets, grasping for his only defense; he was stopped instantaneously as a flutist smashed him on the side of the head with the sweetest instrument an orchestra could have. As the guard fell, he blew a sharp exhalation into the flute’s mouthpiece, producing an ethereal resonance that, given the circumstances, was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Sherlock struggled to maintain his balance as he sacrificed an invaluable Stradivarius violin to the cause by holding it up as a shield; a guard’s bayonet had pierced the violin, and Sherlock used his new shield as support to push the guard back. By the time the guard realized his weapon was now useless, Sherlock punched him in the jaw, catapulting him to the floor, stumbling over broken bows and dented woodwinds.
The guards retreated. They were clearly outnumbered, nearly ten to two hundred.
The battlefront was clear. Sherlock and Watson rushed to the front row, but King Leopold had vanished.
“Over there,” Watson said, pointing to the entrance.
King Leopold stood as a silhouette in the doorway, the Vienna sunset radiating a bright violet and blood red behind him. Sherlock met the king’s eyes, and King Leopold mockingly bowed.
Just as King Leopold was about to end his bow, Beethoven ran from behind, tackling him to the ground. The king thrashed about, tugging at Beethoven’s hair, attempting to claw out his eyes, but it was no use; Beethoven’s fury was too great.
Beethoven pulled out the poisoned baton. As Beethoven raised his arm in the air to slash the king’s throat, Sherlock ran up from behind and grabbed it. Watson held the king down, and Sherlock knocked the baton out of Beethoven’s hand.
“He must confess his crimes to the royal courts,” Sherlock said, “or nobody will believe us.”
“But my symphony! It was supposed to be joyous. The ode dedicated to joy.”
“It will be,” Sherlock said.
“The memories of today will haunt the melodies,” Beethoven said. “The blood of the slain will seep into the harmonies. The king will terrorize the chords forevermore.”
“That is true,” King Leopold said. “Your song will belong to me, always.”
Beethoven’s eyes grew wild with rage. His hands began shaking uncontrollably, then balled up into tight fists. He turned to Sherlock and Watson, narrowed his eyes, and bashed his head into King Leopold’s temple.
King Leopold’s skull hit the ground with such incredible force that the sound could have replaced the strike of the symphony’s last bass-drum hit. The king was knocked unconscious, blood seeping through his scalp. He might not even remember what had happened.
Sherlock tied the king’s hands with frayed bowstrings. That would have to do, Sherlock conceded, until the public execution.
“Joyous.” Beethoven stood, rubbed his forehead, and brushed dirt from his sleeves. “I said joyous.”
• • •
The guillotine’s blades glimmered in the summer sunlight. The orchestra had set up outside in a half arc around the public execution, and it was so bright out that Sherlock nearly had to squint to watch his conductor’s nonlethal baton bounce to the beat of the music.
King Leopold walked gravely to the guillotine, bare feet dragging across the floor. The Viennese government had spared no time in providing King Leopold a last supper before the beheading.
“Let me confess one more thing,” King Leopold yelled. Beethoven added an extra rest in his symphony to let the man speak. “At least I will die with the most pleasant sounds on Earth encompassing my earbuds. It was never personal, Ludwig.”
This made Beethoven smile, which was a rare sight as of late. He nodded to Fabian, who had resumed his position as first-chair cellist, and cued the orchestra to continue playing.
Watson played his violin and spoke to Sherlock between notes. “My friend, thanks to you, our eccentric conductor will be able to create more music, and Vienna will remain triumphant.”
“No, it is not I who should be thanked,” Sherlock said. “I am but a mere melody in this symphony we call life, and I cannot experience true harmony without our brotherhood. For what is life without harmony?”
King Leopold rested his head on the welcoming planks of the guillotine. As the orchestra crescendoed to the very last phrase, the blade fell, slashing through the wind, the sound of the joyous symphony matching the tempo of a falling head.
Badump. Badump. Badump.