‘I deduce from the handwriting the author is female and young,’ he said. ‘I would not vouchsafe her equilibrium. See the extreme height differentials - and how strikingly the words slant to the left. Look at the strange ending of letters. The ‘ts’ - the capital ‘T’ and the middle ‘t’. They are vigorously crossed. It can only imply the highest possibility of impetuous violence.’
I looked across at Holmes affectionately. Only disciples of water-divining, spiritualism, socialism, fortune-telling, nudism and animal magnetism made as many claims as graphologists.
Holmes went on, ‘Before I forget, Watson, there is a little masquerade I wish you to undertake here in Berne. Let’s discuss it tomorrow.’
The next day, I entered the hotel breakfast room. Before I could greet him with a customary good morning Holmes met me with my instructions.
‘I need you to look your most respectable and walk into the bank nearest Einstein’s address on the Tillierstrasse. It’s called the Spar Leihkasse. Demand to see your bank-statements - that is, Albert Einstein’s bank statements. A bank has a thousand customers a day. It’s hardly likely any teller would know the real Einstein from the ghost of Newton.’
‘Why would you wish to know how much this young man has in his bank-account? It can hardly be the equal of Baron de Rothschild,’ I demanded.
‘Not so much his financial standing but the manner of his outlays,’ came the explanation. ‘I can tell eighty percent of a man’s secrets from one glance at his accounts. What of regular payments of a precise amount over many months or years? Landlord? Mistress? Blackmailer?’
‘Holmes,’ I protested, ‘other than greatly inadequate French and a smattering of Urdu in which Swiss bank tellers may have little grounding, I speak only English!’
‘My dear fellow, look how the students around us at the Café Bollwerk converse - English is the lingua franca. Einstein is a Jew, born in Bavaria. His native tongue would be a colloquial German but it is quite likely he would use English at a bank.’
Despite my evident discomfort at the task, I was dismissed with a ‘Good-bye and be brave, Watson- it’s hardly a case of performing the salto mortale, the most dangerous act in the circus. ’I entered the Bank with a show of confidence I didn’t feel. If the teller shouted out for my arrest my advancing years and stiffening limbs would make an escape to the outside world difficult. The teller greeted me politely with a‘Comment puis-je vous aider, Monsieur?’
In English I replied, ‘I wish to see my bank-statements for the last three months of 1904.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ came the reply in English. ‘Your name, please?’
‘Mr. Albert Einstein,’ I replied.
He began writing ‘Albert’ then stopped, looking up at me over his eyeglasses.
‘Albert -?’
‘Einstein,’ I responded firmly.
‘Did you say Albert Einstein?’
‘Yes,’ I repeated stoutly. ‘Mr. Albert Einstein of the Tillierstrasse.’
‘The Tillierstrasse?’ he parroted.
‘Yes, the Tillierstrasse,’ I returned, trying to look suitably bewildered and irritated by this interrogation.
The Bank teller leaned towards me.
‘I have a reason for asking you to repeat your name. You see, ever since the Great Council of Geneva in 1713 we are prohibited from revealing details about our customers to anyone else but the account holder.’
‘Such discretion is the hallmark of the Spar Leihkasse Bank and the principal reason I bank with you,’ I retorted. ‘I am a customer and my name is Albert Einstein.’
A smile crept across his face. He turned to a small notebook at his side. From it he wrote on a piece of scrap paper what appeared to be a telephone number and slipped it through the grill.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, bewildered.
‘Our famous University’s Medical Department,’ came the reply.
‘Why should I want - ?’
His smile broadened. ‘Mr. Albert Einstein, I must ask you to offer yourself as a guinea-pig in the University’s Gerontology department.’
‘Why in Heaven’s name would I do that?’ I protested.
‘Because in hardly three hours, you have aged more than thirty years. You were here this morning exactly where you stand before me, trying to get the bank to increase your overdraft. If indeed you’re the same Albert Einstein you really must avoid repeating whatever it was you ate for lunch.’
He sat back on his uncomfortable stool. ‘I realise you may be one of Mr. Einstein’s many creditors, Mein Herr, but I must wish you good-day before I call the police and have you questioned in some depth.’
I hurried out of the bank, relieved at avoiding a confrontation with the Berne police. Holmes waved at me from a horse cab across the busy street. I started to cross towards him. As I did so, my attention was caught by a large brass and mahogany Thornton Pickard half-plate bellows camera on a tripod. The operator was hidden beneath the black cloth, turning a handle which moved the lens back and forth. The camera was focusing on the upper floors of the Spar Leihkasse bank. A hand with a large Jerusalem cross tattooed across the fingers reached out to pull the tripod back a foot. I had last seen that tattoo on the hand of a bank-robber in the case of the Red-Headed League. Inspector Lestrade of the Yard described the robber, a John Clay, as ‘the fourth cleverest man in London - I’ve been on his track for years. Despite the tattoo I’ve never set eyes on him yet.’ Police agent Jones told me, ‘John Clay, bank-robber and forger. He’s a young man but he is at the head of his profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in London.’
I signalled to Holmes, making a covert gesture towards the photographer. Holmes understood at once. He descended from the cab and walked quietly up to the man crouching behind the camera. With a rapid snatch he pulled away the cloth. It revealed the astonished face of John Clay.
‘Mr. Clay,’ Holmes said, ‘we meet again.’
Chapter VII
We Plunge into Serbia
I pondered on what our next move would be. Holmes settled the matter. He announced we would take the morning train to Serbia.
‘Surely, Holmes,’ I protested, ‘we must first start our investigations here in Berne, or in Swabia?’
‘You would be mistaken to do so, Watson,’ my comrade replied. ‘If just the one note had been sent, we would have started in Switzerland or Germany. The second note told us that if anything was to be uncovered about Einstein it would be in Serbia. It pointed us to Titel but we shall need to start our search in Novi-Sad. Novi-Sad is the regional centre. That’s where all the records will be held. We may after all need my brother Mycroft’s involvement to find our way through officialdom.’
The early-morning express came roaring into the station. We boarded it, our first stop Zurich, then beyond to Vienna and onward into the Balkans. Thirty-six hours later we arrived in Novi-Sad, a medium-sized town set among acacia trees at the foot of the Fruška Gora hills. The upper slopes were covered with dense deciduous forests providing shelter for deer, jackals, boar and lynx. Our Baedeker told us Novi-Sad itself was home to Hungarians, Germans, Croats, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Greeks, Cincars, Jews, Romanians and Roma. Above, on the right bank of the Danube River, loomed the great Petrovaradin Fortress constructed three hundred years earlier at the 1244th kilometre of the River Danube’s course. Our carriage dropped us at the Hotel Tvrdjava Leopold I, a Renaissance building near the Varadin Bridge.
Holmes was clearly impatient at breakfast. The expected communication from his brother Mycroft had not arrived. Without it we were powerless to start our enquiries. No government employee in this vast and bureaucratic Austro-Hungarian Empire would allow us access to municipal records without proper permissions, in triplicate probably, and stamped with many seals. I suggested we start by purchasing a map of Novi-Sad.