CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: DEATH OR GLORY

Desperately I tried to cock the Mauser but it was jammed solid; there wasn’t even time to unhitch it from the lanyard and throw it at the bastard. My only other means of self-defence, my sword, was lying several yards away attached to the saddle of my fallen mount; anyway, I was still too winded to rise. Where the hell were the cavalry when you needed them, I thought? Why didn’t Churchill’s wretched Troop ride to my rescue? In all good novels they’re supposed to do so at the last minute. But this wasn’t fiction and the last minute was now a matter of a few short seconds.

Quite why the Dervish decided to apply the coup de grâce from short range I don’t know, but he did. Straddling my prone form he glared down at me, muttered something incomprehensible in Arabic, spat and raised his spear. The remaining seconds of my life immediately went into slow-motion, so I’m not sure how long what happened next actually took to occur, but the past flashed before my eyes (yes, it really does happen), starting with a vision of Flashy hacking an idle fag in the groin. Instinctively, I kicked upwards in the direction of the Dervish’s balls; I connected and he let out a yell, followed by a sort of gurgling noise as a lance point suddenly appeared through his chest. Not surprisingly, my would-be murderer looked distinctly shocked at this development but he remained rooted to the spot. Then there was a flash of steel, blood from the bugger’s severed neck drenched and almost blinded me whilst his skewered, headless and reeking corpse collapsed over me, pinning me to the ground.

With my one free hand I wiped the gore out of my eyes. Before me, with a smile the width of the Hindu Kush and a bloody Khyberi knife in his right hand, was Khazi. He was uniformed as a 21st Lancer and looked as though he had bad sunburn. At this point, I started to see double for standing next to Khazi was another Lancer, who had a smoking gun in his hand and was taking pot shots at targets beyond my limited vision. As my head reeled, the only way I could make any sense out of this double apparition of Khazi was to assume that, rather than being saved, I had in fact died and the old boy – who looked curiously young for his age – had arrived to welcome me to the ‘other side’, which looked suspiciously like the battlefield I’d just departed.

“Are you alright, huzoor?” asked the young Khazi-angel/devil.

“I think so,” I said somewhat tentatively, “have you come to take me to St Peter – or, perhaps, the other bloke?”

“St Peter, huzoor? No, I have come to give you a hand up and to get you back on a horse. There is still fighting to be done.”

I was now seriously confused for, although I hadn’t ever given it much thought, if asked I would have said that soldiering was not on the curriculum in either Heaven or Hell. Yet here was Khazi wanting me to join him in a spat between the Seraphim and the Brimstone Boys. How bloody typical - and proof that old soldiers don’t die they simply get reassigned to another field of combat.

“Well, roll this smelly cadaver off me and then help me up, Khazi.”

“I’m not Khazi, huzoor – I’m Fahran.”

“Don’t be bloody silly,” I said, “he’s still alive and probably tryin’ to fend off that bugger Kitchener, whereas you and I, my old friend, are both dead.”

“I think you must have hit your head when you fell, huzoor,” he said hauling me upright, “for I am indeed Fahran – and you are most definitely not dead.”

“If you insist, Khazi,” I replied as my knees buckled under me.

And that was the last thing I remembered until, the following morning, I came back to consciousness to find myself the guest of Beatty on his tub and in the capable hands of Nurse Fahran. Of course the first thing I said to the excellent matelot was to request a large glass of the Emperor’s best. Whilst Beatty bimbled off to get the brandy, Fahran fussed around me looking concerned; next to my bunk there was a steaming cup of beef tea on a tray.

“Enough, Fahran,” I commanded. “I’m perfectly alright and I don’t think you’re your father.” He looked somewhat relieved at that. “Tip that muck over the side,” I said pointing to the cup, “and then sit down and tell me how you got away from Kitchener and explain what the hell you were doin’ with the Lancers?” Fahran gave a sigh and did as I’d instructed.

“You may recall, huzoor,” he said after he’d poured the Bovril out of the nearest porthole, “that my father and Uncle Fred – Mr Searcy that is – always considered it to be their first duty to look after you, whatever you were doing.”

“Yes,” I said, as I remembered all too well a lifetime of their infernal nannying.

“Well, Uncle Fred made me promise before we left London that I would continue with the task. So when I heard that you would, after all, be attached to the Lancers I decided that, no matter what duties you had assigned me to, I had to follow you. Besides which, as I was not in uniform, the Sirdar didn’t exactly have me under his command - at least not for the particular duty he wanted me to perform…”

“Quite,” I said quickly, “although the general point is not one that I’d want to argue with him. So how did you get into uniform?”

“You know Corporal Major Digney, the HQ Mess Steward, huzoor?”

“Indeed. A sound fellow whose mother is a dab hand at picklin’.”

“Did you know he was Uncle Fred’s godson?”

“No – he never mentioned it.”

“Well, he is. Apparently, his father served with Uncle Fred at Knightsbridge and, when we came out here, Uncle Fred wrote to him and told him to keep an eye on us. Besides which, the Corporal Major belongs to Uncle Fred’s club for valets and butlers: it’s called the Nehemiah.”

“I know all about it,” I interjected: was there no limit to the reach of Nanny Searcy or the Nehemiah, I thought?

“Anyway, as you rode out of the zeriba with Mr Churchill, I made an excuse to the General and ran to find the Corporal Major. I found him almost immediately, told him my problem and he took me straight over to see a friend of his who’s the Quartermaster of the 21st.

“The QM thought it was all a bit of a lark and rigged me out in a Lancer’s tunic, helmet and lance, commandeered a horse from the HQ Troop and told me to ride like hell after the Regiment. I caught up with you all just as the Regiment was wheeling into Line, so I was one of the last into the dry watercourse and made it through without the chance to have even a prod at a Dervish.

“At first I couldn’t see you or Mr Churchill, so I trotted over to join Mr de Montmorency’s Troop. I’d just reached them when one of his Troopers yelled that a Dervish was about to skewer an officer. I looked over my shoulder and immediately saw that the officer was you. I’ve never used a lance before, but I was at a gallop by the time I got to you and, although the impact unseated me, I got the lance between the Dervish’s shoulder blades which probably did for him but - to make sure - I got up quickly and cut his throat as my father had taught me.”

“But what about all the other tribesmen around you? Surely they had a thing or two to say about you skewerin’ then beheadin’ one of their cousins?”

“That’s where Mr de Montmorency came in. He charged after me and, whilst I was dealing with your assailant, he kept the others at bay with his pistol. This gave me enough time to pick you up and throw you over the back of his saddle. It could still have been tricky but the rest of his Troop rode to the rescue, at which point the Dervishes started to withdraw. There’s really not much more to tell.”

“Except,” said Beatty who’d been listening to the tale from the cabin door, “that de Montmorency is up for the Cross.”157

“What about Fahran?” I asked.

“No dice, I’m afraid. He hasn’t ‘taken the shilling’ so, despite the fact that he was in uniform at the time, he’s not a soldier and so doesn’t qualify.”

“You’d have thought that, under the circumstances, Kitchener would stretch a point.”

“Unfortunately, not. It seems that he regards Fahran as having deserted his post at Headquarters and has decided that a Court Martial will be dropped only because of his extraordinary act of bravery in saving you. A sort of quid pro quo.”

“That ridiculous: if Fahran can’t be given a VC because he’s not a soldier how could he be Court Martialled? It’s illogical.”

“It’s Kitchener, Colonel. Now drink your brandy.”

“And, by the way, who won?”

“The battle?” queried Beatty.

“What else?” I parried.

“We did – and, unless the rumour mill ain’t working properly, Kitchener will soon be sending you back to London.”

“Excellent news. I think we might just do that via Geneva – a few days at the Beau-Rivage is exactly what I need – followed by a visit to Flashman in Paris,” I replied. “What do you say Fahran?”

“As you command, huzoor.”

…

Our exit from the Soudan was faster than even I had hoped. Kitchener clearly wanted to see the back of me - and Fahran, but (I suspected) for different reasons. Indeed, I barely had time to censor Churchill’s drivel before we’d reached Alexandria, where we got an immediate connection to Venice. We arrived in Geneva from there by train and checked into the hotel, where the staff were all of a dither. Not, sadly at the news that the Hero of Omdurman and I were beneath their Alpine portal but because of a more august presence who had taken over half the hotel. Who? Read on, dear reader, read on. As Fahran unpacked my bags in the only available suite, which was at the back of the hotel and without a lake view, I wondered if I’d bump into this personage. I didn’t have long to wait in order to find out.

On my way into breakfast on my first morning at the Beau-Rivage, I consigned to the hotel’s concierge a gaudy coloured postcard to Flashy and a telegram to C-G informing her of my imminent return to London via Paris. The concierge gave me in exchange the latest newspaper from London with which I strolled into the dining room for coffee and croissants: fortunately for my waist line, which wasn’t what it used to be despite the best of tailors and a whalebone vest, Geneva’s finest hotel didn’t understand the concept of a ‘full English breakfast’. I was about to take a sunny table overlooking the lake, when I spied in a corner a rather handsome woman breakfasting on her own; I thought that I recognised the solitary bint, for there was something about her that reminded me strongly of one of the Empress Sisi’s Ladies-in-Waiting, who had tended to me when I came a cropper at Schönbrunn back in ’65.158

“Baroness Ferenczy?” I asked, giving her a slight bow.

“No, monsieur, you are mistaken,” she said stiffly, whilst giving me a freezing cold look in return. “Countess von Ferenczy is somewhat older than me: I am Countess Sztáray.”159

“I do apologise most profoundly,” I said quickly, “but you are one of Her Imperial Majesty’s Ladies-in-Waiting?”

“That is correct, monsieur,” she replied, although there was still frost on her upper lip.

“Then permit me to introduce m’self; m’name’s Colonel Jasper Speedicut. I am very well acquainted with Her Imperial Majesty and would be grateful if you would pass on to her my compliments. Here’s m’card,” I ended, fumbling for one in my waistcoat pocket. She took it and gave it a haughty stare.

“I believe I have heard of you, Colonel, in connection with the tragic death of the Crown Prince…”

“That’s correct. It was a service for which His Imperial Majesty invested me with the Order of Franz Josef.” I didn’t say that it was only as a lousy Commander, but she looked impressed and started to thaw a touch.

“I see, in that case I will inform Her Imperial Majesty of your presence here – although I should warn you that the Empress is in Geneva purely in a private capacity and travelling incognito as the Countess of Hohenembs.” So, of course, the whole of Switzerland knew of her presence in the Alps.

And that was it and, most decidedly, there was no invitation from the Hungarian to join her for breakfast. So, unperturbed, I continued on to the table by the window where I consumed a large pot of coffee, some excellent pastries and a two-day old copy of The Times which was full of ‘Kitchener’s triumph at Khartoum’. Thank goodness the hotel didn’t run to the Morning Post or I’d have had to read all over again the boy Churchill’s (albeit edited and censored by me) account of the old sod’s glory.

I’d ordered a brandy to settle my breakfast and was wondering whether or not I’d get Fahran to row me out onto the lake, when a shadow fell across the Court & Social page’s account of the goings-on at Marlborough House in which – to my surprise - C-G was reported as having a prominent role. I looked up to find the Sztáray woman glaring down at me, so I rose from my chair and waited to see what this was all about.

“I have informed Her Imperial Majesty of your presence, Colonel, and she has commanded me to deliver you this note.”

She handed me a heavy, cream coloured envelope with my name in a sloping script on the front and the Austrian double-headed sparrow stamped in high relief on the flap. The Lady-in-Waiting hovered dutifully whilst I opened the letter; it read:

Dear Colonel Speedicut

It is many years since we last met but I remember you well; and I have not forgotten the various services you have rendered to me and my family – nor have I forgotten your invitation to join you in the fox hunt in England. Would that we could turn back the clock on so much tragedy and so little happiness.

As Countess Sztáray has informed you, I am travelling privately and I no longer entertain. However, it would give me great pleasure if you would join me on a lake cruise I am taking this afternoon to Montreux, where I will be staying the night. If you are able to accompany me, I am sure there is much we could talk about during the voyage, for we share so many sad memories.

I am yours, very sincerely,

Elizabeth

I put down the letter. It was not clear if the invitation was just for the journey to Montreux or included the overnight stay and, if it did, what did that imply? Either way, Fahran and a row boat were no competition for several hours with the woman who had once been hailed as the most beautiful in the world and who, even at sixty-odd, was still reputed to be a fancied runner in the Bedroom Stakes. I gave the Countess a head nod and told her that the Empress’ wish was my command.

“Her Imperial Majesty will leave the hotel for the quayside at one thirty this afternoon, Colonel. The Empress hates an entourage, so her staff has been sent on ahead, the police guard has been dismissed and it will not be necessary – or permitted - for you to bring any of your staff with you.”

Hard luck, Fahran, I thought, although it was still not clear if I was to stay the night. Well, if I was, then I would have to send a telegram for him to bring my evening togs and night wear.

“The Empress will meet you in the lobby,” she went on. “Although her Imperial Majesty is incognito and will be veiled, you will - of course - bow.” And thereby confirm what everybody already knew, I nearly added. The ways of Princes are strange and those of the Wittlesbach variety the strangest of the lot, but if that was what HIM wanted then that was what she would get.

I spent the rest of the morning doing nothing much in particular whilst Fahran busied himself with my wardrobe. At twenty past one I took the lift down to the ground floor to await the arrival of Sisi and her minder. Sure enough, they appeared as the large clock in the lobby chimed the half hour. I raised my tile and gave the veiled figure in black a deep bow as she approached. She held out her hand whilst steadying herself with a parasol clutched in the other. I couldn’t make out in any detail her features under the heavy gauze, but she appeared not to have turned to fat – unlike her late cousin Ludwig – for her waist was still as trim as I remembered it and shown off to great effect by her corseted, figure-hugging rig.

“Colonel Speedicut,” she murmured, “it is a great pleasure to see you again – and looking so tanned. Where have you been?”

“In the Soudan with General Kitchener, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Really? How thrilling. Were you at Omdurman?”

“I was indeed, Ma’am and even had the privilege of bein’ in the charge.”

“But that was only eight days ago, Colonel. You have travelled fast.”

“The wonders of modern locomotion and steam ships, Ma’am…”

“I prefer to voyage more slowly these days – Cap Martin, Bad Ischl, Geneva and Corfu are my preferred destinations – and I spend my year journeying between them. But enough of my wanderings. As we walk to the Genève you must tell me all about your adventures…”

So, with the Sztáray creature trailing along behind, the Empress of Austria and I sauntered out of the hotel and along the promenade in the strong afternoon sun. I told Sisi everything – well, almost everything – that I’ve already related in these pages, whilst she shaded herself with the open parasol in one hand and took my arm with her other. She was an attentive listener and only asked me a couple of questions, neither of which I can now remember.

Anyway, we’d almost reached the lake steamer’s berth, when an uncouth looking fellow wearing a striped jersey under a cheap jacket stepped in front of us and attempted to look under Sisi’s parsol. Damned cheek was my immediate reaction. As the bell on the Genève announced its impending departure, I made to push the man away. Quite what happened next I’m not entirely sure, for he either lurched or tripped – my immediate thought at the time was that he was drunk – but instead of falling back he put out his hand to steady himself and made what looked like a grab for Sisi’s left tit. Now I was no stranger to lèse majesté, but that was going altogether too far and Sisi clearly thought so to for, as the fellow legged it off into the crowd, she collapsed on the ground. I assumed she’d fainted. But when I bent down to attend to her, Sisi was fully conscious, gave me her hand and, with the assistance of Countess Sztáray, I helped her up. Nothing seemed to be out of order, beyond the mild shock that any Empress must have felt on having her top hamper squeezed by a member of the working class. So, with the Austrian aristo on one side of her and me on the other, we walked the last hundred yards to the boat and made our way up the shallow gangway onto the deck.

“Thank you, Colonel,” said the Empress, “I’m quite alright.” And with that she fainted.

“Fetch a doctor,” I said to Sztáray, who started yelling like a banshee for one. A couple of minutes later a woman appeared with, behind her, a man who, judging from the gold rings on his nautical tunic, was not a doctor but the Captain.

“I’m a nurse,” said the woman, “what’s happened?” Whilst the Lady-in-Waiting explained, the Captain spoke to me.

“Permit me to introduce myself, monsieur, my name is Roux and this is my command. If your lady friend has fainted I think you should all disembark immediately.” Was Roux the only man in Switzerland who didn’t know that it was the Empress of Austria who had just collapsed on his promenade deck, I wondered? “It’s very hot on the lake,” he went on, “and my boat is no place for a sick woman.”

But, despite the fact that Roux was supposed to be in charge of the tub, it was pulling away from the quayside before he’d finished speaking. Looking a little shamefaced, as well he might, he then suggested that we take Sisi up the top deck where there would be more of a breeze.

“I’ll send some of my crew to give you a hand,” he added.

So it was that the wife of the autocratic ruler of most of mittel-Europe was unceremoniously hauled up a companion way by three sweaty land-locked matelots and laid out under a flapping awning on a slatted wooden bench. Somewhere along the way we’d lost the nurse, so it fell to me to direct Sisi’s resuscitation.

“I think we’d better loosen the Empress’ stays,” I said somewhat tentatively to La Sztáray.

“You cannot be serious, Colonel? In a public place?”

“I rather fear that if we don’t you may just find yourself with a dead employer on your hands.” Sztáray didn’t look happy at this but, at the same time, she must have realised that there was sense in what I’d said, for she reached into her reticule and produced a small pair of scissors.

“Turn your back, Colonel.” I did as instructed whilst I heard a succession of snipping sounds, followed by Sisi’s voice.

“What happened?” Sztáray didn’t reply but instead asked if she was in pain. “No,” Sisi said, followed by a little gasp.

I instinctively turned to see the prone and once again unconscious figure of Franz-Josef’s sometime mount. Her dress, bodice and corset were hanging open and her veil had been pulled back. Her face was deathly pale but I could see from the movement of the unlaced whalebone that she was still breathing. Then I noticed a small red stain on the fabric of her camisole above her left breast. Something was clearly wrong.

“I think one of us had better go and tell that idiot Roux who he’s got on board, to turn this boat around and to get us back to Geneva aussi vite que possible,” I said to the Countess.

“I agree,” she replied. “Will you?” I did.

As the reeking steamer headed for home, Captain Roux – doubtless in an attempt to redeem himself and be spared an Austrian firing squad – ordered his sailors to construct a stretcher from two oars, a length of awning from the top deck and a pillow from the saloon. It was on this lash-up that Sisi was eventually lugged off the Genève and back to the Beau-Rivage by six beefy boys. Once we got her prone form into the Royal Suite, my responsibility in the matter was taken over in short order by Mrs Meyr, the hotel manager’s wife, who sent a bell boy scurrying off for a doctor.

“She must be placed on the bed and then undressed,” opined Mrs Meyr, Geneva’s self-appointed answer to Flo Nightingale, as she looked down at the unconscious figure on the makeshift stretcher. To my eyes Sisi already looked dead but, whether alive or in the hereafter, to protect the Empress’ modesty I was shooed out of the room.

Banished from the bedchamber, I decided not to stray too far, so I hung around in the corridor outside the Royal Suite and lit up a cigar. I’d hardly smoked an inch of it when two doctors - at least I assumed they were doctors - led by Mr Meyr and followed by a priest, bustled past me and into the Empress’ room. I’d got about half way through the Havana when Meyr re-emerged followed by the Countess with tears streaming down her face.

“Colonel!” she exclaimed with a loud sniff as the hotel’s manager headed down the stairs, “how can you smoke at a time like this?”

“A time like what?” I quite reasonably asked.

“Her Imperial Majesty – sob - is – sob - dead.”

“Oh dear, so that means you’re out of a job.”

It was a heartless thing to say, and I’m not quite sure why I said it, but the Countess’ implied instruction to stub out a half-smoked cigar had riled me; besides which it was a horrible waste of an excellent and expensive comfort at a time of bereavement. The now-ex-Lady-in-Waiting was so shocked she stopped blubbing and I used the opportunity to focus her back onto her duty.

“Somebody had better inform the authorities,” I said.

“Which authorities?” she asked in a rather vague sort of way.

“Well, at the very least the Emperor needs to be told and I suppose the police will have to be called.”

“The police? Why them?”

“In England,” I said, as I remembered the way the Austrians were willing to play fast and loose with the rules when it came to an Imperial death, “it is customary to summon the police in a case of murder.”

“Murder, Colonel? Whatever can you mean?” she said looking deeply shocked.

“I mean, my dear Countess, that unless the late Empress died as a result of over-tightened corsets, she must have been murdered. Besides which, how do you explain the patch of blood above her left t…” I managed to stop myself just in time. The Countess was once again speechless as she digested the enormity of my Holmesian deduction, so I ploughed on. “In fact, I think you should inform the Austrian Consul. He will be able to speak to the Gendarmerie, send a telegram to the Hofburg and take control of the arrangements at this end.”

“You are right – but my place is with Her Imperial Majesty, Colonel. Perhaps you could make contact with the Consul on my behalf?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request so I said that I would. I was about to head off in the direction of the hotel manager’s office and get directions to the Austro-Hungarian Consulate when I formed the notion that I would like to pay my respects to Sisi before I left the hotel. I said as much to Countess S.

“Follow me, Colonel.”

The curtains were drawn in the death chamber, but Sisi’s inert form was illuminated by a lamp on her bedside table. She was fully dressed, her eyes were closed and her hands had been clasped over a rosary. If it hadn’t been for the Roman priest, who was kneeling at the foot of the bed intoning the prayers for the dead, and the two doctors who were muttering in a corner about the need for an autopsy as they washed blood off their hands, you would have thought that the unhappy Empress was having an afternoon nap; in death, she certainly didn’t look her sixty-odd years. I gave the corpse a Court bow, reversed out of the room and went in search of Meyr. I found him in his office.

“Quel désastre - quel désastre…” he kept moaning.

“Pull yourself together man and brace up.”

He didn’t, but then like all continentals the Swiss probably don’t understand the benefit of a stiff upper lip in a crisis.

“But the reputation of the hotel, mon Colonel…”

“Will have to wait for another time. I need directions to the Austrian Consul.”

“The Consul? But ’e is not in Geneva.”

“How do you know?” I demanded.

“I play cards with ’im and I know that ’e ’as gone on vacation and will not return for a week.”

“Surely he has a deputy?”

“In Geneva, Colonel? The Consul only works part-time as it is.”

“I see. In that case I will have to send a telegram to the Embassy in Berne. Do you have their telegraphic address?”

“No, Colonel, but I do have that of the Imperial ’ousehold in Vienna. Perhaps you should inform them direct.” I thought for a moment and then agreed.

“But what are we goin’ to do about the police.”

“The police, Colonel? Why do we need to inform them?”

“Because it’s almost certain that the Empress was murdered.”

The Swiss hotelier almost fainted at this news: clearly a dead Empress was a disaster, but a murdered Empress was a catastrophe of previously unimagined proportions. When he had recovered from this new shock he said that he would fetch them himself whilst I used his telegraph clerk to inform Franz-Josef that he was now a widower.

You may find this hard to believe, but it took three exchanges of telegrams for the bewhiskered old fool in Vienna to accept that Sisi hadn’t topped herself. I suppose that, as she was a Wittelsbach, he assumed automatically that that was what she had done. Anyway, whilst I was closeted in the hotel’s telegraph office, a posse of Peelers barged their way into the hotel. I had just received a fourth telegram commanding me to stand in loco Consul and to make the necessary arrangements for the return of the body when a Bobby strode in. I told him to wait whilst I read the telegram. It informed me of the arrival the following day of the Imperial Train with a suitable casket for the late Empress’ mortal remains; it also stated that the train would, in addition to the box, be carrying a senior member of the Imperial Household who would formally identify the body.

“Are you Colonel Speedicut?” the alpine Peeler demanded in French whilst consulting his notebook.

“Yes,” I replied in Frog, for what else was there to say?

“As the principal witness to this event, monsieur, I must ask that you do not leave Geneva without my permission.”

I had no choice but to agree, so I said that would not be a problem. Then, because the telegraph had ceased to chatter out instructions from Vienna, I decided that I should let Countess S know what was going on before returning to my room and ringing for Fahran. That was when I caught up with the doctors, who I tackled in the lobby as they were leaving the hotel.

“There was nothing to be done, Colonel; we arrived too late. Her Imperial Majesty was already dead. Indeed, she probably died on the stretcher.”

“But what killed her?” I asked for, other the small drop of blood I’d seen, there had been no other obvious injuries.

“I can’t be sure without an autopsy, which is required anyway under Swiss law, but my guess is that her heart was punctured by a thin, sharp instrument. The wound was very small and the extreme tightness of her corset will have prevented an internal haemorrhage, which is why she was able to walk with you to the boat. But when her stays were loosened it was time to call the priest. Whoever ordered her corset strings to be cut killed the Empress, as I shall say in my report…”

Ludwig, Rudolf and now Sisi: it looked as though a Wittelsbach’s life expectancy was not improved by my presence, although I could hardly be blamed for any of their demises. But – if the quacks did as they had promised - that is precisely what would happen in the case of Sisi. My immediate instinct was to find Fahran and tell him to pack. Then, despite the commands from the Hofburg and the orders of the police, we would catch the first train leaving Geneva, no matter what its destination. However, a moment of reflection indicated that this would be the worst possible course of action, so I sat tight. There’s nothing more to tell of that Saturday 10th September 1898, although events took several turns the following day.

First, the Imperial Train chugged into Geneva’s main station carrying an officious Baron, who gave me a cursory greeting and then strode off to make the formal identification, leaving me with the problem of how to remove from the train and into the morgue not one but two coffins, an inner one of lead and a heavy outer oak casket. I say problem, because, not only was it Sunday, but the combined weight of the boxes required a Platoon of Guardsmen to lift them.

Eventually, I managed to persuade a party of strapping young porters to haul the caskets, each of which - bizarrely - had a sliding panel of wood over a glazed peep hole roughly above where Sisi’s head would be laid, onto an empty brewer’s dray that was waiting for a delivery of beer from Zurich. Despite the protests of the driver, I summarily commandeered it.

So far, so good.

However, events took a distinct turn for the worse when I returned to the Beau-Rivage for a pre-luncheon restorative. Standing in the lobby with Meyr was - to judge by his elaborate uniform - a senior officer of the law. The hotel’s manager pointed at me and the Peeler blocked my path to the lift.

“Colonel Speedicut?”

I confirmed his identification.

“My name is Police Chief Virieux and I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Austria.”