‘But your Royal Highness, you can’t just - ’ I castigated, waving towards his dying victim.
The War Minister was staggering backwards towards the door, staring in horror from the Prince to Holmes and me and back to the Prince. The once-glittering black eyes were losing their fire. Death moved across his face.
Ferdinand retorted, ‘Oh but my dear Doctor, I venture to think I can. These are the Balkans. I am a Balkan Prince.’
He turned towards the dying man.
I have it word for word in my note-book that he addressed him as follows: ‘Don’t worry, Konstantin, my old friend, you shall have a state funeral. I shall personally lay a golden wreath at your grave, as I did at Tsar Alexander’s. The same wreath in fact. I retrieved it for occasions like this.’
For a further few long-drawn-out seconds, Kalchoff’s legs emulated a grisly Portuguese two-steps waltz. Then he collapsed. Coolly the Prince stepped towards him and pressed a hand on his heart. Assured he was dead, with one palm he held the corpse’s face down while with the other hand he withdrew the blade and ran it across his smock. He turned to look up at me.
‘Dr. Watson, it seems you are no longer keen to take my Minister’s photograph?’
‘Indeed not,’ I exploded.
‘You appear horrified a monarch should stoop to methods unworthy of the head of a gang of thieves. I ask you to remember the destiny of Europe rests on my shoulders. Were I afforded a greater amount of freedom and fewer grave responsibilities I might have let him live.’ He stood up. ‘It’s a good idea to wear a painter’s smock if you have to stick a sword in someone. Mr. Holmes, do thank the Prime Minister for his gift. Tell him I have already made excellent use of it.’
He turned again to the body and examined the pockets, drawing out the Black Pearl of the Borgias. He held it up to the light. ‘Well I never!’ he exclaimed with an ironic look. ‘Then it’s true. The Borgia pearl does bring bad luck to its owner. I must decide who shall have it next.’
Still badly shaken, I stammered, ‘But I thought the Minister was among your greatest supporters? In our presence you described him to his face as your most loyal and constant friend and ally.’
‘Sovereigns have peculiar responsibilities,’ Ferdinand replied. ‘I learnt at my dear mother’s knee the advice offered to the Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph by his statesman Prince Felix von und zu Schwartzenberg.’
‘Which was?’ I asked.
‘No autocrat can afford to be either grateful or humane. Certainly I know my action would be considered very shocking in one’s private affairs, but it is quite something else in matters of State. The moment the interests of my principality become involved I have to recollect that I am the Prince Regnant of Bulgaria.’
He clapped his hands. A small gaggle of servants ran in. In a silence broken into solely by the sound of the deceased’s scraping heels, the three of us stood staring at Kalchoff’s body as they pulled him away, like mules dragging out a slain bull.
The following morning a copy of the Sofia English-language newspaper was pushed under our door. Holmes picked it up. I left my chair and studied it over his shoulder. Dramatic black strips outlined the front page.
The headline blared: A FURTHER ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE OUR BELOVED RULER FOILED. TRAGIC DEATH OF WAR MINISTER.
The article continued: ‘Yesterday, in the heart of the Palace, in the former boudoir of our dearest departed Princess Marie-Louise, a vile attempt was made on the life of our beloved Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha by a Ruthenian assassin armed with a Russian needle-gun. It took place while the Knyaz and War Minister Kalchoff were saying goodbye to the famous English consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his diarist Dr. Watson. Realising at once the danger to the Prince, the faithful Minister threw himself at the attacker. For his bravery he suffered a mortal wound through the throat. The would-be assassin fled and has so far eluded capture. The Knyaz considers it his duty to render to the eminent deceased those honours which his services have merited: a national funeral.’
Holmes lowered the newspaper. With complete disregard to the dramatic reporting, he said, ‘The note brought to Captain Barrington by the stable-boy arranged a rendezvous in a forest glade near an obrok, ostensibly to engage with the vampire rumoured to have moved into the region from Istria, hence Captain Barrington insisting he would be back before sun-up the next day.’
Holmes looked across at me to be certain I was following his train of thought. ‘After all,’ he added, ‘unless speared in the heart with a wooden stake, vampires retreat to their lair by dawn. Kalchoff waited just short of the rendezvous point. He may have checked the horse’s gallop with a tight rope. While the rider lay winded on the ground, he began to strangle him. If all had gone to plan, a day or two later the body would have been identified, the killing easily explicable as the result of a robbery. The husband’s death would irretrievably weaken Mrs. Barrington’s hold on her estates, lands which Kalchoff yearned to gain for himself. But imagine Kalchoff’s amazement when he found he was murdering a woman.’
After a pause, Holmes added, ‘It was indubitably Kalchoff who lured Captain Barrington to his death in the forest, but it is clear from the Minister’s last words the timing of the murder was Ferdinand’s.’
‘I have a question, Holmes - ’ I began.
My comrade offered me an encouraging look.
‘Namely?’
‘How would Kalchoff be certain that Captain Barrington would carry with him the most important clue of all, the note decoying him to his death? Wasn’t that a great risk? What if Barrington - Julia - had left it behind? The note would inevitably have led to the culprit.’
‘That’s why Kalchoff arranged the rendezvous at the obrok. It is unlikely a foreigner would know the exact location of such a shrine. The note contained precise directions, almost certainly accompanied by a sketch - you recall Mrs. Barrington saying her husband turned it this way and that - ensuring the victim would bring it with him.’
‘I can see why Kalchoff would murder Captain Barrington - but why would the Prince become involved?’
‘Cui prodest? Ferdinand’s mother and the nation press Ferdinand hard to remarry. Several prospects of Royal lineage have said no to his proposals of marriage, aware life in Balkan royal circles is likely to be both brutal and short. If not of his own station, then from Bulgaria’s Upper Crust. The Prince’s unusual gift to Mrs. Barrington - a pair of diamond swallows for her hair, given to him by the Viennese actress Kathi Schratt, and to Schratt by the Emperor Franz Josef- I took it to be a sign of unrequited love. After the killing, Kalchoff could say nothing to prevent his master waiting a while, then marrying Mrs. Barrington and absorbing her vast lands for himself. Ferdinand immediately saw through the request for a photographic session. He understood I was about to unmask the one witness who could implicate the Prince himself. It became imperative to eliminate him.’
‘Pretty gory stuff,’ I said with feeling, ‘thrusting the blade into his throat like that. Better a thrust through the heart - ‘
‘Even those of us who are not medical realise a bodkin in the wind-pipe makes it difficult to finish the sentence,’ Holmes broke in, drily. He looked at me quizzically.
‘Do you recall the Minister telling you the Prince’s favourite saying?’