“By recommendation of the apothecary for whom I worked, I was apprenticed at Windisch and Company as one who mixed the inks and had them dispatched to select customers. Because I was known to have a family relation with him—I was still known as his wife’s sister—Wagner’s orders to the firm were quickly put in my personal charge. His instructions to Herr Windisch were characteristically precise and firm: two packages per month to arrive on the tenth and twentieth, no matter where he was. It became part of my task to know his travels and whereabouts. This was done through one of the domestic servants whom Wagner instructed to notify Windisch of his plans. I myself was never in direct communication with Wagner, nor did he nor anyone in his household know that I was employed at Windisch and Company. And so, my task began. I experimented at first—”
“Strychnine, belladonna, and arsenic are obvious, but there are others,” Holmes interjected.
“There are several others, including curare, and, of course, for the last six months, the deadliest, a mixture of curare and sugar of lead.”
“Well done, Frau Planer, the last explains the sweet taste of the ink that he mentioned to me.”
“Indeed, I made it known in special instructions that the ink was even safe for him to drink in small quantities. I knew that he would drink it, because he was one of those individuals who could not resist chemicals of any kind.”
At that moment, Holmes realised that on the morning of his death, Wagner, feeling better for the first time in many days, attributed his well-being to what was indeed killing him, and probably took a small drink made from the latest shipment, the shipment of 10 February 1883, a final drink that caused his death.
“Frau Planer,” said Holmes grimly “I am not here to judge your actions, nor to report your account to anyone but my client.”
“It is all immaterial to me,” she said firmly, “for I have not acted against Wagner alone, but that he and I should enter a new life. You see, Richard and I are bound together by birth and rebirth. He is my Ananda and I his Savitri. I do not intend to live much beyond today. Over the last few months I have been giving myself the same poisons that I gave him, and I shall soon join him. . . . free from Sansara, in Nirvana!”
At this moment, Nathalie Planer, the bitter old woman, became transfigured. A strange light appeared in her eyes and she gazed into a far distance that was not contained by the walls of her small room, a trance, induced only in part, by the poisons, probably the belladonna.
We decided not to question her further. Holmes examined the room quickly. My eye was immediately caught by the photograph of a young girl on the wall, one aged about fifteen. Judging by the resemblance to her parents, I knew that it must be of her daughter by Richard Wagner. As we left, I glanced out the window, and noticed that a cab had just drawn up to the entrance of the house. Alighting from it was Mrs. Burrell of Philadelphia. We left unseen.
The following evening Holmes explained all to Liszt, who had arrived from Bayreuth after the burial at Wahnfried. He listened in rapt attention to Holmes’s account of the deeds of Richard Wagner and of the revenge of Nathalie Planer.
“How strange a tale, Monsieur Holmes. I assure you I knew nothing of this. Nathalie Planer was a mere child when I met her, and I saw her but once. Wagner never mentioned her to me.”
“We must leave Nathalie to her fate, to her karma, as she would put it,” Holmes replied, “and keep the story to ourselves. It would do no good at this point to reveal it.”
“
“All the more reason for us to remain silent.”
“Yes, let us keep it to ourselves.”
We said our farewells, and in two days Holmes and I were back in London.
“Remarkable,” said I as we sat in our living room. “The more I think about it the more remarkable a story it becomes. Who would have thought—”
“And it is not quite finished, Watson. Here,” said Holmes, holding out a letter.
As I glanced up, I saw that Holmes had already buried himself in the day’s agony column. I stared at the photograph for a time, wondering how long it would take the young lady to write the life of Wagner.
THE CASE OF THE TWO BOHEMES
IN THE WINTER OF 1899, MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND I found ourselves still happily ensconced in our flat in Rome but compelled to endure a fortnight of snow-filled days; indeed, an unexpected blizzard so bitterly cold that it threatened to reverse our long-held convictions concerning the respective merits of cold, foggy London as opposed to sunny Rome. The meager silver light of these short December days in the dead of winter faded quickly into the dark Roman night, and the usually animated city fell silent and still by early evening, as if uninhabited.
“Just remember, old fellow, that in London they talk of heat stroke or even sunstroke on days such as these,” said my friend with unusually good humour.
“Quite right, but I shall not move until our landlady recognises how cold her establishment is, and that one of her boarders is about to expire from cold stroke,” I replied.
Indeed, our landlady, la signora Manfredini, had done nothing, once we had moved in, to alleviate our sufferings, despite our increasingly vociferous remonstrances. Windows throughout her large establishment remained broken, letting in freezing drafts of icy-cold air. The fireplace, after two days of intense labour on our part, produced only a few sputters and then settled into permanent inactivity. Blocked by countless swallows and their nests, which I had tried in vain to dislodge with the point of my umbrella, the chimney merely produced a dark grey smoke that finally forced us to open the windows, thereby augmenting the long unrelenting chill that blew in and destroyed what was left of our thoroughly diminished comfort.
In addition to her refusal to hear our pleas, La Signora, as we referred to her, took the outlandish action of storing the remaining firewood and kindling in a locked valise which she attempted to hide behind the kitchen stove. When she realised that Holmes could open the valise easily, she hid it in her bedroom, leading us to throw the broken legs of an old chair into the remaining embers of our dwindling fire.
Despite our failure, Holmes kept searching the long halls of the Manfredini residence for things to burn in the hope that he would eventually succeed. I myself moved less and less within our quarters, covering myself with the musty moth-eaten blankets provided to us. They were our only refuge until by chance Holmes found in one of the dark corners of the flat an old metal bucket filled with chunks of coal and kindling with which he produced a small fire.
“My gratitude knows no bounds, Holmes. I doubt that I would have survived the last few minutes without your serendipitous find.”
“We are almost warm in this room now, dear Watson, and, with any luck at all, the icy rain and snow will
