The Great Game Read Online Free
Author: Michael Kurland
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Mystery Fiction, Holmes; Sherlock (Fictitious Character), Scientists, Moriarty; Professor (Fictitious Character)
" The Werfel place."
"Ah! The temple of chocolate. The smell alone makes it worthwhile to attend."
"Ten o'clock. Sharp! "
" I shall be there."
Hessenkopf nodded and rose, taking his coffee and his hump off to a different table to share the joy of his existence with another soul.
After a time Paul got up, stuffed his notebooks into a well-worn leather briefcase, slid into his green greatcoat, tugged his cap firmly over his eyes, and left the Café Figaro. Moving at an unhurried pace, he headed off down the street.
A few moments later two men, one tall and lean with a thin, hawklike nose and the other solid, almost portly, with something of the bulldog about his appearance, rose from a back table and also left the cafe. When they reached the street the tall one murmured in English, "Wait in that shop doorway, Watson; see if you can follow our humpbacked friend when he leaves. I'll go after this one."
"As you say, Holmes," his companion replied. "Button your top buttons, please, and wrap that scarf securely about your neck. No point in getting a chill from this damn drizzle."
Holmes clapped his friend on the back. "Good old Watson," he said, tossing the knitted wool scarf around his neck. And with that he strode off in the direction that Paul had headed when he left.
-
As Paul moved away from the Caf é Figaro he began to walk faster. Shortly he was moving through the streets with the long stride of someone accustomed to walking great distances for pleasure. His path took him along Halzstrasse, and then through a series of narrow streets leading progressively deeper into the ancient Petruskirche District, a part of Vienna that the ordinary tourist never gets to see. He turned onto Sieglindstrasse, now well into an area where decent, law-abiding citizens would prefer not to meet anyone they knew.
There were women in various stages of dishabille sitting in many of the ground floor and first floor windows along the street, showing various parts of their bodies to interested passers-by. Many of them appeared to be girls in their teens. Men in black knit sweaters and black caps lounged in the doorways, eager to dash out into the rain and discuss the charms and prices of the merchandise or to offer other commodities to any potential customer. There was a time when the filles de joie whistled to attract their clientele, and the ponces accosted pedestrians to encourage them, but the police frowned on whistling and actively discouraged accosting, so the game went on in silence these days. The area was not particularly dangerous—at least not during daylight—the police were too efficient for that. But it was unsavory, and questions might be asked as to what commodity or service you were attempting to purchase in an area where women were only the most visible of the illicit attractions.
Paul turned onto Badengasse, a narrow cobblestone street, innocent of sidewalks, that had an almost timeless quality of decay and neglect. The two-story buildings with narrow storefronts that lined the street had looked ancient and decrepit when Vienna was first besieged by the Turks in 1529; they looked the same as Paul walked down the street now, and so they would look a century hence. The street ended at a fenced-off cement works where craftsmen mass-produced angels, nymphs, woodland creatures, and busts of famous men for the gardens of the bourgeoisie.
Paul paused at the door of a shop three houses from the street's end and looked around. If he noticed the tall man who had paused to tie his shoe at the entrance to the street, he gave no sign. The small, barred window to
"Ah! The temple of chocolate. The smell alone makes it worthwhile to attend."
"Ten o'clock. Sharp! "
" I shall be there."
Hessenkopf nodded and rose, taking his coffee and his hump off to a different table to share the joy of his existence with another soul.
After a time Paul got up, stuffed his notebooks into a well-worn leather briefcase, slid into his green greatcoat, tugged his cap firmly over his eyes, and left the Café Figaro. Moving at an unhurried pace, he headed off down the street.
A few moments later two men, one tall and lean with a thin, hawklike nose and the other solid, almost portly, with something of the bulldog about his appearance, rose from a back table and also left the cafe. When they reached the street the tall one murmured in English, "Wait in that shop doorway, Watson; see if you can follow our humpbacked friend when he leaves. I'll go after this one."
"As you say, Holmes," his companion replied. "Button your top buttons, please, and wrap that scarf securely about your neck. No point in getting a chill from this damn drizzle."
Holmes clapped his friend on the back. "Good old Watson," he said, tossing the knitted wool scarf around his neck. And with that he strode off in the direction that Paul had headed when he left.
-
As Paul moved away from the Caf é Figaro he began to walk faster. Shortly he was moving through the streets with the long stride of someone accustomed to walking great distances for pleasure. His path took him along Halzstrasse, and then through a series of narrow streets leading progressively deeper into the ancient Petruskirche District, a part of Vienna that the ordinary tourist never gets to see. He turned onto Sieglindstrasse, now well into an area where decent, law-abiding citizens would prefer not to meet anyone they knew.
There were women in various stages of dishabille sitting in many of the ground floor and first floor windows along the street, showing various parts of their bodies to interested passers-by. Many of them appeared to be girls in their teens. Men in black knit sweaters and black caps lounged in the doorways, eager to dash out into the rain and discuss the charms and prices of the merchandise or to offer other commodities to any potential customer. There was a time when the filles de joie whistled to attract their clientele, and the ponces accosted pedestrians to encourage them, but the police frowned on whistling and actively discouraged accosting, so the game went on in silence these days. The area was not particularly dangerous—at least not during daylight—the police were too efficient for that. But it was unsavory, and questions might be asked as to what commodity or service you were attempting to purchase in an area where women were only the most visible of the illicit attractions.
Paul turned onto Badengasse, a narrow cobblestone street, innocent of sidewalks, that had an almost timeless quality of decay and neglect. The two-story buildings with narrow storefronts that lined the street had looked ancient and decrepit when Vienna was first besieged by the Turks in 1529; they looked the same as Paul walked down the street now, and so they would look a century hence. The street ended at a fenced-off cement works where craftsmen mass-produced angels, nymphs, woodland creatures, and busts of famous men for the gardens of the bourgeoisie.
Paul paused at the door of a shop three houses from the street's end and looked around. If he noticed the tall man who had paused to tie his shoe at the entrance to the street, he gave no sign. The small, barred window to
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