Spider Dance (53 page)

Ten years have elapsed since the events with which Lola Montez
was connected in Bavaria, and yet the malice of the diffuse and
ever vigilant Jesuits is as fresh and as active as it was the
first hour it assailed her . . . I was compelled at last to
fly before the infuriated bands of the Jesuits of Austria
.
—
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
, LOLA MONTEZ

It took ten years and retreat to another continent before I could publicly and frankly address the machinations of the Jesuits and the Ultramontanes in Bavaria.

Those who haven’t lived under the thumb of the
papacy laugh at the alarms I’ve sounded. They think my accusations of the Jesuits spreading lies and scandal about me as far as America belong in one of my plays, not real life.

Before I ever went to Bavaria, or knew that I would, I had heard tales of the Jesuits’ thirst for power in the governments and royal houses of Europe.

After having been expelled from the cities of Berlin and Warsaw, and the backwaters of Spa, Baden-Baden, and Ebersdorf—once for the mere act of demonstrating my dancing prowess to a gentleman by throwing a leg over his shoulder—I returned to Paris, scene of my doomed romance with Dujarier.

And there is where I first heard of the Society of Jesus and its political machinations that had caused it to be banned in more than one European country. France would have been a Catholic country save that their bloody revolution fifty years before had made them a wholly secular society.

But Catholics and Protestants halved most European countries, and the Reformation was still being fought. In Paris we heard constantly how that battle was being waged. For if the loyalties of Catholic citizens everywhere were first to the pope “beyond the mountains,” then no government was secure.

The Jesuits were exposed and excoriated in lectures at the College de France. Newspapers across Europe detailed the Jesuits’ plans to undermine nations, undo kings and governmental officials, and destroy any brave enough to oppose their secret agenda.

In France, in Spain, in the many German states, the Jesuits were a hidden political force working against the great movements of nationalism and liberalism.

So now, when I’d retreated to the Paris of my lost love, I was secretly approached by members of this very despised society, who wished me to help them convert a Russian nobleman of my close acquaintance to their cause. Spanish noble blood may run in my veins, and I might be expected to sympathize with all Catholic causes, but I refused to be used in this manner. I informed the French foreign mimster of
their plot to influence Franco-Russian affairs, and for once Jesuits were banned from a place, not Lola.

But, oh, I paid the price for my patriotism to my current country. The Jesuits swore eternal vengeance, and God knows that the Church of Rome claims to be eternal. . . .

My second stay in Paris wouldn’t allow me to forget the tragic ending to my first visit: Dujarier’s death.

At the end of March in 1846, I was called to testify in the trial of Beauvallon for the murder of Dujarier.

My dear one’s mother and brother-in-law brought the action. Mobs thronged the entrance to the Palais de Justice as Dumas
père et fils
and myself arrived. Since the bloody revolution, Paris has always been a city of mobs.

The case was simple: Dujarier, an innocent in the matters of duels of honor, had been goaded by a superior opponent into a fatal meeting. Dujarier had been too innocent to even choose a weapon that would have given him a chance at life: a sword, rather than a pistol. I testified how I pled with him not to go; I knew that I was the better shot and offered to take his place. He would hear nothing of it. And that awful morning he discharged his pistol, which fired far wide of Beauvallon. And then he stood there as a man of honor while the sharpshooter Beauvallon slowly took his shot, aiming for death, not a shot gone wide, or even a minor wound.

I came forward when called to testify, clad in a black silk dress, a black veil, and a black cashmere shawl. The Woman in Black, as I was ever after.

In the witness box, they handed me Dujarier’s bloody clothing and pistols from the duel. Had I worn them, shot them, Beauvallon would be dead, I knew it!

I held the small lead ball that had pierced Dujarier’s face.

The arguments made clear that Beauvallon had goaded Dujarier into the duel, that he was by far the more adept. He had not hesitated to shoot the unarmed man full in the face.

Ranks of gendarmes and soldiers held back thousands of people swarming the Palace of Justice. The jury retired, and in ten minutes had a verdict. Not guilty.

Sick of France, I gathered my trunks of clothing and jewels, my maid and my lapdog, and, some say, a young English lover, and left for the seaside resorts of Belgium, and then traveled into Germany. Heidelberg. Homburg. Stuttgart.

The summer faded, and so did my grief. Fall was coming. The theaters would be reopening. I aimed for Vienna, but my route took me across Bavaria, through Munich.

It would be the most significant detour of my life.

The Countess of Landsfeld would not be welcome anywhere in
Prussian territory because her presence might incite public
demonstrations by liberals, socialists, and communists
.
—
BRUCE SEYMOUR,
LOLA MONTEZ: A LIFE

Waiting is such a helpless state. I have come to detest it more than anything. While Godfrey and I waited to hear from Mr. Holmes, I found myself jumping up at every muffled sound in the hall.

I hadn’t realized I’d become so accustomed to going out and doing things on my own. When I reviewed my actions after Irene had disappeared, I grew quite astounded by my own nerve.

Godfrey had been able to take a room adjoining our suite, so we’d ordered breakfast served in Irene’s and my larger parlor. I’d simply rearranged my shirred eggs rather than eating them. Godfrey was, as far as I could see, subsisting on brandy by night and coffee by daylight.

The sight of his fine-featured face taut with unrelenting worry made my heart twist. Surely Irene would have sent us word, were she in any state that would permit it!

A knock on the door sent my eyes to my reinstalled lapel watch—8:45
A.M.
—and then to Godfrey.

He leaped up, paused to gather himself, then went to open the door.

Sherlock Holmes shouldered in like a weary pugilist, head lowered, shoulders leading. Seeing Godfrey drew him up short.

“Mr. Norton. This is a timely surprise indeed!”

“Mr. Holmes. What word have you?”

They were both of a height, and both at the end of their tethers. No time for pleasantries.

Holmes answered. “I bring no news, either of hope or despair. The four people I tracked from the boardinghouse retreated in the same direction, but whether together or not, I can’t yet say.”

“And that direction was?” Godfrey wanted to know.

“The dock and warehouse area near the harbor.”

“Will you take coffee, Mr. Holmes?” I asked, merely to break the intolerable tension within, and between, the two men.

“Not ordinarily,” he said, “but yes.”

He came to stand before me while I poured . . . and while I cogitated as to how to turn the energies and aims of these two motivated but wary men into an asset rather than a competition.

Holmes bolted the hot coffee I handed him as if it were cold milk, while Godfrey watched him. The man who had spent the night assuring me of Holmes’s expertise had been replaced by a stern taskmaster.

“You,” Godfrey said, his silver-gray eyes hardening into sheer steel, “set Irene on this fool’s mission. You directed her attention to Lola Montez. You bear responsibility for her absence now.”

Holmes shrugged, a gesture I now recognized as his way of shaking off arguments and concerns he regarded as less
than logical. The man lived and breathed logic. Emotional appeals only muddied his mind and wasted his time.

“I pointed out the obvious,” he said. “That is my profession.”

“My profession is the law,” Godfrey replied, “and it’s obvious to me that your ‘obvious’ has led my wife into subtle dangers. Why haven’t you found her?”

“Because she doesn’t wish to be found, my good man.” Sherlock Holmes swallowed the last bitter dregs of coffee. “You underestimate your lady wife. She could lead a bloodhound a tangled trail. Pity rather the three men who sought to contain her. I’m sure you can understand their plight.”

Godfrey let out a deep breath. “You say she’s in control of herself and her actions and her whereabouts?”

“I say she may be in control of any number of things. I just don’t quite know what and where yet.”

“I did not,” Godfrey said, “come all the way from Bavaria to be put off with vague answers.

“Bavaria?” Mr. Holmes visibly inhaled after saying the word, as if it were redolent of scent. He eyed Godfrey with new attention. “Of course. You have been recently in Bavaria, I perceive.”

“How do you perceive that?” I challenged him. “You have already heard where Godfrey has come from.”

“I’m afraid I regarded him as a given on this scene and did not give him a second look, once I had adjusted to his sudden presence.”

Like a bird he brightly surveyed Godfrey and the entire parlor. “It is perfectly obvious that Mr. Norton has spent some weeks in the country. The sueded velvet hat on the entry table speaks strongly of the Tyrolean. I note a watch chain of German manufacture. It is much more elaborately scrolled than the English or even the French variety one would expect Mr. Norton to use. Items of foreign manufacture on his person indicated an extended stay rather than a mere visit. Also, his footwear is a sturdier sort than one finds in the far western countries.”

Godfrey shook his head. “I’m not sure from your clues and conclusions that you aren’t a haberdasher rather than a detective, sir.”

I held my breath. I knew enough of Sherlock Holmes to realize that he did not accept gently slights to his observational powers.

He suddenly laughed, as if glad for the opportunity.

“Haberdashery is the first refuge of an able investigator, sir. Clothes may not make the man, but they make the man easier to read. I see that you’re astute enough to have made yourself available here when needed, on very little evidence. The proof of that is found not in your dress but in your anticipating what has become a very dangerous situation.

“Now.” He turned to me. “I’m certain, Miss Huxleigh, you’ve been diligently aiding and abetting Mrs. Norton in mastering the life and times of the late Lola Montez. We must pool our knowledge. Mr. Norton knows Bavaria, where this current nest of evil had its birth. Miss Huxleigh knows Lola Montez, rather better than she would like to, I believe. I know the Vanderbilt connection. Surely we can conspire to solve this lethal riddle.”

I noticed that when in Godfrey’s presence Mr. Holmes retreated to the more polite form of Mrs. Norton, rather than his usual more intimate and perhaps more dismissive reference to her as Madam Irene.

“Tell me about this Bavarian business of yours,” Holmes added.

“It can’t have anything to do with the current crisis. Besides, it’s confidential,” Godfrey answered reluctantly.