“And when would you like to perform your investigation?”
“There is no time like the present, as they say, Monsieur Liszt. If you will stand guard, I shall hurry through the public rooms, but I shall need time in Wagner’s study. Should he awaken, you must prevent him from entering.”
“That will be difficult but I shall try. Perhaps Hopkins can distract him should he awake. Perhaps he can offer an examination to Richard.”
Leaving Liszt and me on a bench in a dark corner of the hall, Holmes began his investigations. The least important would be the kitchen, for if he was sure of anything by now, it was that Wagner was not eating poisoned food. The murderer harbored no anger toward the rest of the family, since they appeared to be in very good health. No, the murderer appeared to be interested in Wagner alone. Poisoned food would have been a danger to all, and also would have raised immediate suspicions, particularly if one of the children had been taken ill. And we ourselves had partaken of the food and watched carefully to make sure that Wagner partook of nothing that the rest did not. After an initial hour of investigation, Holmes returned.
“If Wagner is not ingesting the poison,” said Holmes, “then he is either inhaling it or receiving it through his skin. After examining the kitchen I went directly to his study. It was not a large room, but it was filled with the many things of a long life. Books and musical scores lined the walls. There was an upright piano at which he composed, and a large desk.
“The desk immediately caught my eye, for there were the things with which Wagner worked on a daily basis: his pens, rulers, and paper. Of the latter, there were two piles, an enormous one of blank music paper except for the lines and staves which he had drawn in himself; the other, slightly smaller, on the top of which had been written in Wagner’s own hand:
“The latter appeared to be a work that Wagner had just finished, of which the world knew nothing as yet. I could see that it was a voluminous score and appeared to be complete, including the full orchestral parts. The ‘Savitri’ of the dedication was not otherwise identified.”
The only other object of note on his desk, said Holmes, was a curious wooden box about ten inches square, with doors on one side. On opening them, a rather crude figure of the Buddha appeared. On each side of the figure was a small terra cotta cup, each filled with a grey-black powder. A third cup stored behind the figure contained an oily liquid. It was out of these powders, mixed together with the oil, that Holmes surmised that Wagner made his special inks. He took samples of each of the powders, leaving the oil till later.
Holmes had examined the study not a moment too soon, for just as he finished, we heard a shout from the Wagners’ bedroom. I disappeared into my room, watching from my door as Wagner appeared suddenly in the hall, staggering, shaking, sobbing with fear. Cosima was close by him. Liszt suddenly appeared from the shadows where he had been keeping watch.
“He has not slept well. He has been pursued all night by nightmares and hallucinations,” said she to her father.
Liszt helped to calm the shaking composer. They led him to a small sitting room off the hall. In a moment, Liszt appeared at our rooms.
“He needs your attention,” he said.
Holmes and I followed Liszt into the sitting room. Wagner had stopped shivering and appeared calmer. I felt his pulse, which was quite rapid and irregular, and listened to his heart and chest. I gave him a light bromide with water. In a few moments he seemed improved. He insisted that he be allowed to dress and meet everyone for a very early breakfast.
“My dreams have become fearful over the last year,” said Wagner, as Holmes and I sat with him. A few moments later, as the dawn came up, he had recovered sufficiently to discuss what had happened.
“And they maintain their reality into a wakeful state, so that I am unable to shake the mysterious phantoms that I see. Forgive me for sharing such intimate perceptions with you. In sleep, I was beckoned by Kundry, who told me to follow her into the forest. As I did so, she turned into a malevolent ogress, who began tearing at my flesh. It was at this point that I began to cry out, to push her away. I awoke, but she remained, now in the room beside the bed. Only the forest had disappeared. As Cosima responded to my terror, she left, and I staggered into the hall. What lies behind such nightmares I do not know. Dr. Watson, if you have any medical advice, I shall be grateful to receive it.”
“Herr Wagner, I should like to examine you briefly this morning. But, as to my immediate advice, I would counsel you to stop all work, particularly composing, and not to enter your study for one week. You will begin to see improvement immediately.”
“You ask what no one has asked before: the impossible. How can I sit with the music running through my head unrecorded?”
“Herr Wagner, if you do as I say, you will enjoy both physical and mental improvement immediately. Otherwise, there will be further deterioration in your condition, and your hallucinations will only grow worse.”
“Perhaps, Herr Doktor Watson, I can use my influence to prevail upon my husband to take your advice,” interjected Cosima.
“If you insist, my beloved, then I shall do it.”
Holmes and I followed Wagner to his chambers, where we made a thorough physical examination. Holmes took minute pieces, without Wagner’s being aware, of his hair and fingernails, both so brittle that samples were easily taken. The chief areas of concern were the irregular action of the heart, and his enlarged abdomen, which was due to swollen organs, in particular the liver and spleen. In addition, Wagner suffered from a meteorism that had forced the chest cavity to contract, a motion that had a further deleterious affect on his heart.
We left Herr Wagner, having administered another sedative, and brought the samples to my room, where Holmes, the better chemist by far, spent the day with some modest chemical equipment he had brought from London and a few necessary chemist’s tools from a shop near Piazza San Marco. The tests of Wagner’s hair and nails showed that heavy doses of arsenic had now passed throughout his body. We then tested the samples of ink powders that Holmes had taken from Wagner’s desk. The powders were each a different poison: arsenic, belladonna, curare, and, finally, meranic acid, a deadly poison that also creates severe hallucinations, extracted from a rare fungus and used, to the best of my knowledge, by veterinarians to kill mercifully sick and dying animals. It was used only in Switzerland, where the fungus was readily available. And so, we had ascertained, beyond a doubt, that Wagner was not naturally ill but made ill by a set of chemicals, each of which contributed to his strange and numerous symptoms.
Holmes communicated our findings to Liszt immediately. “We must find the source of the ink powders,” he said, “and we shall have our culprit.”
Following Holmes’s wishes, Liszt made quiet inquiries among the servants, and learned that the packages of ink arrived regularly from Germany, from a firm in Dresden. Wagner had given the servants instructions that the packages were to be sent wherever he was, and, as in all things, his instructions had been followed to the letter. The firm was known as E. Windisch and Company, and had been recommended by Wagner’s brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus, a professor of Oriental languages at Leipzig.
“Monsieur Liszt,” said Holmes, “I believe that our work here is now done. We must go to Dresden to find the poisoner. We cannot delay.”
“You are right, but you have been here for only a few days. I do not want to reveal anything to the Wagners unless we feel that his condition will improve. Do not forget the ostensible purpose of your visit. The poisoner will have no suspicions as yet. Delay your departure for a few days.”
It was by then the twelfth February, if memory serves, and we spent the afternoon with the children, who took us to Piazza San Marco to see the church and the Doge’s palace. Liszt and the Wagners remained at home. After the brief tour, the children were content playing with the great flocks of pigeons in the square. Holmes and I sat there, as so many have, contemplating the proportions of this most beautiful of piazzas.
It was about four o’clock when one of the servants appeared to tell us to remain there, for a special concert of Wagner’s music to be held in the piazza had been hastily arranged, and the Wagners were on their way. A military band began assembling in the square, and Holmes and I raced to the canal with the children. In a very short time a gondola appeared bearing Franz Liszt and the Wagners. Wagner looked resplendent in his black beret and velvet jacket.
