Читать книгу Flashman and the Tiger: And Other Extracts from the Flashman Papers - George Fraser MacDonald - Страница 11

You don’t know Blowitz, probably never heard of him even, which is your good luck, although I daresay if you’d met him you’d have thought him harmless enough. I did, to my cost. Not that I bear him a grudge, much, for he was a jolly little teetotum, bursting with good intentions, and you may say it wasn’t his fault that they paved my road to Hell – which lay at the bottom of a salt-mine, and it’s only by the grace of God that I ain’t there yet, entombed in everlasting rock. Damnable places, and not at all what you might imagine. Not a grain of salt to be seen, for one thing.

Mind you, when I say ’twasn’t Blowitz’s fault, I’m giving the little blighter the benefit of the doubt, a thing I seldom do. But I liked him, you see, in spite of his being a journalist. Tricky villains, especially if they work for The Times. He was their correspondent in Paris thirty years ago, and doubtless a government agent – show me the Times man who wasn’t, from Delane to the printer’s devils – but whether he absolutely knew what he was about, or was merely trying to do old Flashy a couple of good turns, I ain’t sure. It was certainly his blasted pictures that led me astray: photographs of two lovely women, laid before my unsuspecting middle-aged eyes, one in ’78, t’other in ’83, and between ’em they landed me in the strangest pickle of my misspent life. Not the worst, perhaps, but bad enough, and deuced odd. I don’t think I understand the infernal business yet, not altogether.

It had its compensations along the way, though, among them the highest decoration France can bestow, the gratitude of two Crowned Heads (one of ’em an out-and-out stunner, much good may it do me), the chance to serve Otto Bismarck a bad turn, and the favours of that delightful little spanker, Mamselle Caprice, to say nothing of the enchanting iceberg Princess Kralta. No … I can’t think too much ill of little Blowitz at the end of the day.

He was reckoned the smartest newsman of the time, better than Billy Russell even, for while Billy was the complete hand at dramatic description, thin red streaks and all, and the more disastrous the better, Blowitz was a human ferret with his plump little claw on every pulse from Lisbon to the Kremlin; he knew everyone, and everyone knew him – and trusted him. That was the great thing: kings and chancellors confided in him, empresses and grand duchesses whispered him their secrets, prime ministers and ambassadors sought his advice, and while he was up to every smoky dodge in his hunt for news, he never broke a pledge or betrayed a confidence – or so everyone said, Blowitz loudest of all. I guess his appearance helped, for he was nothing like the job at all, being a five-foot butterball with a beaming baby face behind a mighty moustache, innocent blue eyes, bald head, and frightful whiskers a foot long, chattering nineteen to the dozen (in several languages), gushing gallantly at the womenfolk, nosing up to the elbows of the men like a deferential gun dog, chuckling at every joke, first with all the gossip (so long as it didn’t matter), a prime favourite at every Paris party and reception – and never missing a word or a look or a gesture, all of it grist to his astounding memory; let him hear a speech or read a paper and he could repeat it, pat, every word, like Macaulay.

Aye, and when the great crises came, and all Europe was agog for news of the latest treaty or rumour of war or collapsing ministry, it was to the Times’ Paris telegrams they looked, for Blowitz was a past master at what the Yankee scribblers call ‘the scoop’. At the famous Congress of Berlin (of which more anon), when the doors were locked for secret session, Bismarck looked under the table, and when D’Israeli asked him what was up, Bismarck said he wanted to be sure Blowitz wasn’t there. A great compliment, you may say – and if you don’t, Blowitz did, frequently.

It was through Billy Russell, who you may know was also a Times man and an old chum from India and the Crimea, that I met this tubby prodigy at the time of the Franco-Prussian farce in ’70, and we’d taken to each other straight off. At least, Blowitz had taken to me, as folk often do, God help ’em, and I didn’t mind him; he was a comic little card, and amused me with his Froggy bounce (though he was a Bohemian in fact), and tall tales about how he’d scuppered the Commune uprising in Marseilles in ’71 by leaping from rooftop to rooftop to telegraph some vital news or other to Paris while the Communards raged helpless below, and saved some fascinating Balkan queen and her beautiful daughter from shame and ruin at the hands of a vengeful monarch, and been kidnapped when he was six and fallen in love with a flashing-eyed gypsy infant with a locket round her neck – sounded deuced like The Bohemian Girl to me, but he swore it was gospel, and part of his ‘Destiny’, which was a great bee in his bonnet.

‘You ask, what if I had slipped from those Marseilles roofs, and been dashed to pieces on the cruel cobbles, or torn asunder by those ensanguined terrorists?’ cries he, swigging champagne and waving a pudgy finger. ‘What, you say, if that vengeful monarch’s agents had entrapped me – moi, Blowitz? What if the gypsy kidnappers had taken another road, and so eluded pursuit? Ah, you ask yourself these things, cher ’Arree –’

‘I don’t do anything o’ the sort, you know.’

‘But you do, of a certainty!’ cries he. ‘I see it in your eye, the burning question! You consider, you speculate, you! What, you wonder, would have become of Blowitz? Or of France? Or The Times, by example?’ He inflated, looking solemn. ‘Or Europe?’

‘Search me, old Blowhard,’ says I rescuing the bottle. ‘All I ask is whether you got to grips with that fascinating Balkan bint and her beauteous daughter, and if so, did you tackle ’em in tandem or one after t’other?’ But he was too flown with his fat-headed philosophy to listen.

‘I did not slip, me – I could not! I foiled the vengeful monarch’s ruffians – it was inevitable! My gypsy abductors took the road determined by Fate!’ He was quite rosy with triumph. ‘Le destin, my old one – destiny is immutable. We are like the planets, our courses preordained. Some of us,’ he admitted, ‘are comets, vanishing and reappearing, like the geniuses of the past. Thus Moses is reflected in Confucius, Caesar in Napoleon, Attila in Peter the Great, Jeanne d’Arc in … in …’

‘Florence Nightingale. Or does it have to be a Frog? Well, then, Madame du Barry –’

‘Jeanne d’Arc is yet to reappear, perhaps. But you are not serious, my boy. You doubt my reason. Oh, yes, you do! But I tell you, everything moves by a fixed law, and those of us who would master our destinies –’ he tapped a fat finger on my knee ‘– we learn to divine the intentions of the Supreme Will which directs us.’

‘Ye don’t say. One jump ahead of the Almighty. Who are you reincarnating, by the way – Baron Munchausen?’

He sat back chortling, twirling his moustache. ‘Oh, ’Arree, ’Arree, you are incorrigible! Well, I shall submit no more to your scepticism méprisant, your dérision Anglaise. You laugh, when I tell you that in our moment of first meeting, I knew that our fates were bound together. “Regard this man,” I thought. “He is part of your destiny.” It is so, we are bound, I, Blowitz, in whom Tacitus lives again, and you … ah, but of whom shall I say you are a reflection? Murat, perhaps? Your own Prince Rupert? Some great beau sabreur, surely?’ He twinkled at me. ‘Or would it please you if I named the Chevalier de Seignalt?’

‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘In Italy they called him Casanova. Aha, that marches! You see yourself in the part! Well, well, laugh as you please, we are destined, you and I. You’ll see, mon ami. Oh, you’ll see!’

He had me weighed up, no error, and knew that on my infrequent visits to Paris, which is a greasy sort of sink not much better than Port Moresby, the chief reason I sought him out was because he was my passport to society salons and the company of the female gamebirds with whom the city abounds – and I don’t mean your poxed-up opera tarts and cancan girls but the quality traffic of the smart hôtels and embassy parties, whose languid ennui conceals more carnal knowledge than you’d find in Babylon. My advice to young chaps is to never mind the Moulin Rouge and Pigalle, but make for some diplomatic mêlée on the Rue de Lisbonne, catch the eye of a well-fleshed countess, and ere the night’s out you’ll have learned something you won’t want to tell your grandchildren.

In spite of looking like a plum duff on legs, Blowitz had an extraordinary gift of attracting the best of ’em like flies to a jampot. No doubt they thought him a harmless buffoon, and he made them laugh, and flattered them something monstrous – and, to be sure, he had the stalwart Flashy in tow, which was no disadvantage, though I say it myself. I suppose you could say he pimped for me, in a way – but don’t imagine for a moment that I despised him, or failed to detect the hard core inside the jolly little flâneur. I always respect a man who’s good at his work, and I bore in mind the story (which I heard from more than one good source) that Blowitz had made his start in France by paying court to his employer’s wife, and the pair of them had heaved the unfortunate cuckold into Marseilles harbour from a pleasure-boat, left him to drown, and trotted off to the altar. Yes, I could credit that. Another story, undoubtedly true, was that when The Times, in his early days on the paper, were thinking of sacking him, he invited the manager to dinner – and there at the table was every Great Power ambassador in Paris. That convinced The Times, as well it might.

So there you have M. Henri Stefan Oppert-Blowitz,¹ and if I’ve told you a deal about him and his crackpot notions of our ‘shared destiny’, it’s because they were at the root of the whole crazy business, and dam’ near cost me my life, as well as preventing a great European war – which will happen eventually, mark my words, if this squirt of a Kaiser ain’t put firmly in his place. If I were Asquith I’d have the little swine took off sudden; plenty of chaps would do it for ten thou’ and a snug billet in the Colonies afterwards. But that’s common sense, not politics, you see.

That by the way. It was at the back end of ’77 that the unlikely pair of Blowitz and Sam Grant, late President of the United States, put me on the road to disaster, and (as is so often the case) in the most innocent-seeming way.

Like all retired Yankee bigwigs, Sam was visiting the mother country as the first stage of a grand tour, which meant, he being who he was, that instead of being allowed to goggle at Westminster and Windermere in peace, he must endure adulation on every hand, receiving presentations and the freedom of cities, having fat aldermen and provosts pump his fin, which he hated of all things, listening to endless boring addresses, and having to speechify in turn (which was purgatory to a man who spoke mostly in grunts), with crowds huzzaing wherever he went, the nobility lionising him in their lordly way, and being beset by admiring females from Liverpool laundresses to the Great White Mother herself.

Hard sledding for the sour little bargee, and by the time I met him, at a banquet at Windsor to which I’d been bidden as his old comrade of the war between the states, I could see he’d had his bellyful. Our last encounter had been two years earlier, when he’d sent me to talk to the Sioux and lost me my scalp at Greasy Grass,^fn1 and his temper hadn’t improved in the meantime.

‘It won’t do, Flashman!’ barks he, chewing his beard and looking as though he’d just heard that Lee had taken New York. ‘I’ve had as much ceremony and attention as I can stand. D’you know they’re treating me as royalty? It’s true, I tell you! Lord Beaconsfield has ordained it – well, I’m much obliged to him, I’m sure, but I can’t take it! If I have to lay another cornerstone or listen to another artisans’ address or have my hand tortured by some worthy burgess bent on wrestling me to the ground …’ He left off snarling to look round furtive-like in case any of the Quality were in earshot. ‘At least your gracious Queen doesn’t shake hands as though she purposed to break my arm,’ he added grudgingly. ‘Not like the rest of ’em.’

‘Price of fame, Mr President.’

‘Price of your aunt’s harmonium!’ snaps he. ‘And it’ll be worse in Europe, I’ll be bound! Dammit, they embrace you, don’t they?’ He glared at me, as though daring me to try. ‘Here, though – d’you speak French? I know you speak Siouxan, and I seem to recollect Lady Flashman extolling your linguistic accomplishments. Well, sir – do you or don’t you?’

I admitted that I did, and he growled his satisfaction.

‘Then you can do me a signal favour … if you will. They tell me I must meet Marshal Macmahon in Paris, and he hasn’t a word of English – and my French you could write on the back of a postal stamp! Well, then,’ says he, thrusting his beard at me, ‘will you stand up with me at the Invalids or the Tooleries or wherever the blazes it is, and play interpreter?’ He hesitated, eyeing me hard while I digested this remarkable proposal, and cleared his throat before adding: ‘I’d value it, Flashman … having a friendly face at my elbow ’stead of some damned diplomatic in knee-britches.’

Ulysses S. Grant never called for help in his life, but just then I seemed to catch a glimpse, within the masterful commander and veteran statesman, of the thin-skinned Scotch yokel from the Ohio tanyard uneasily adrift in an old so-superior world which he’d have liked to despise but couldn’t help feeling in awe of. No doubt Windsor and Buck House had been ordeal enough, and now the prospect of standing tongue-tied before the French President and a parcel of courtly supercilious Frogs had unmanned him to the point where he was prepared to regard me as a friendly face. Of course I agreed straight off, in my best toady-manly style; I’d never have dared say no to Grant at any time, and I wouldn’t have missed watching him and Macmahon in a state of mutual bewilderment for all the tea in China.

So there I was, a few weeks later, in a gilded salon of the Elysée, when Grant, wearing his most amiable expression, which would have frightened Geronimo, was presented to the great Marshal, a grizzled old hero with a leery look and eyebrows which matched his moustache for luxuriance – a sort of Grant with garlic, he was. They glowered at each other, and bowed, and glowered some more before shaking hands, with Sam plainly ready to leap away at the first hint of an embrace, after which silence fell, and I was just wondering if I should tell Macmahon that Grant was stricken speechless by the warmth of his welcome when Madame Macmahon, God bless her, inquired in English if we’d had a good crossing.

She was still a charmer at sixty, and Sam was so captivated in relief that he absolutely talked to her, which left old Macmahon standing like a blank file. Blowitz, who as usual was to the fore among the attendant dignitaries and crawlers, came promptly to the rescue, introducing me to the Marshal as an old companion-in-arms, sort of, both of us having served in Crimea. This seemed to cheer the old fellow up: ah, I was that Flashman of Balaclava, was I? And I’d done time in the Legion Étrangère also, had I? Why, he was an old Algeria hand himself; we both had sand in our boots, n’est-ce pas, ho-ho! Well, this was formidable, to meet, in an English soldier of all people, a vieille moustache who had woken to the cry of ‘Au jus!’ and marched to the sausage music.² Blowitz said that wasn’t the half of it: le Colonel Flashman had been a distinguished ally of France in China; Montauban would never have got to Pekin without me. Macmahon was astonished; he’d had no notion. Well, there weren’t many of us left; decidedly we must become better acquainted.

The usual humbug, though gratifying, but pregnant of great effects, as the lady novelists put it. For early in the following May, long after Grant had gone home (having snarled his way round Europe and charmed the Italians by remarking that Venice would be a fine city if it were drained), and I was pursuing my placid way in London, I was dumbfounded by a letter from the French Ambassador informing me that the President of the Republic, in recognition of my occasional services to France, wished to confer on me the Legion of Honour.

Well, bless the dear little snail-eaters, thinks I, for while I’ve collected a fair bit of undeserved tinware in my time, you can’t have too much of it, you know. I didn’t suspect it, but this was Blowitz at work, taking advantage of my meeting with old Macmahon to serve ends of his own. The little snake had discovered a use for me, and decided to put me in his debt – didn’t know Flash too well, did he? At all events, he’d dropped in Macmahon’s ear the suggestion that I was ripe for a Frog decoration, and Macmahon was all for it, apparently, so back to Paris I went in my best togs, had the order (fourth or fifth class, I forget which) hung round my unworthy neck, received the Marshal’s whiskery embrace, and was borne off to Voisin’s by Blowitz to celebrate – and be reminded that I owed my latest glorification to him, and our shared ‘destiny’.

‘What joy compares itself to advancing the fortunes of an old friend to whom one is linked by fate?’ beams he, tucking his napkin under his several chins and diving into his soup. ‘For in serving him, do I not serve myself?’

‘That’s my modest old Blow,’ says I. ‘What d’ye want?’

‘Ah, sceptique! Did I speak of obligation, then? It is true, I hope to interest you in a small affair of mine – oh, but an affair after your own heart, I think, and to our mutual advantage. But first, let us do honour to the table – champagne, my boy!’

So I waited while he gorged his way through half a dozen overblown courses – why the French must clart decent grub with glutinous sauces beats me – and when the waiters had cleared and we were at the brandy and cigars he sighed with repletion, patted his guts, and fished a mounted picture from his pocket.

‘It is a most amusing intrigue, this,’ says he, and presented it with a flourish. ‘Voilà!’

I’m rather a connoisseur of photography, and there was a quality about the present specimen which took my attention at once. It may have been the opulence of the setting, or the delicacy of the hand-colouring, or the careful composition which had placed two gigantic blackamoors with loin-cloths and scimitars among the potted palms, or the playful inclusion of the parakeet and tiny monkey on either side of the Oriental couch on which lounged a lovely odalisque clad only in gold turban and ankle-fetters, her slender body arched to promote jutting young bumpers which plainly needed no support, her lips parted in a sneer which promised unimaginable depravities. A caption read ‘La Petite Caprice’; well, it was a change from Frou-Frou … I tore my eyes away from the potted palms, a mite puzzled. As I’ve said, Blowitz had put me in the way of Society gallops, but never a professional.

‘Très appétissante, non?’ says he.

I tossed it back to him. ‘Which convent is she advertising?’

He clucked indignantly. ‘She is not what you suppose! This is a theatrical picture, made when she was employed at the Folies – from necessity, let me tell you, to finance her studies – serious studies! Such pictures are de rigueur for a Folies comedienne.’

‘Well, I could see she hated posing for it –’

‘Would it surprise you,’ says he severely, ‘to learn that she is a trained criminologist, speaks fluently four languages, rides, fences and shoots, and is a valued member of the département secret of the Ministry of the Interior, at present in our Berlin Embassy … where I was influential in placing her? Ah, you stare! Do I interest you, my friend?’

‘She might, if she was on hand. But since she ain’t, and posing for lewd pictures belies her stainless purity –’

‘Did I say that? No, no, my boy. She is no demi-mondaine, la belle Caprice, but she is … a woman of the world, let us say. That is why she is in Berlin.’

‘And what’s she to do with this small affair after my own heart to our mutual advantage?’

He sat back, lacing his tubby fingers across his pot. ‘As I recall, you were at one time intimate with the German Chancellor, Prince Bismarck, but that you hold him in no affection –’

I choked on my brandy. ‘Thank’ee for the dinner and the Legion of Honour, old Blow,’ says I, preparing to rise. ‘I don’t know where you’re leading, but if it’s to do with him, I can tell you that I wouldn’t go near the square-headed bastard with the whole Household Brigade –’

‘But, my friend, be calm, I beg! Resume the seat, if you please! It is not necessary that you … go near his highness! No such thing … he figures only, how shall I say – at a distance?’

‘That’s too bloody close!’ I assured him, but he protested that I must hear him out; our destinies were linked, he insisted, and he would not dream of a proposal distasteful to me, death of his life – quite the reverse, indeed. So I sat down, and put myself right with a brandy; mention of Bismarck always unmans me, but the fact was I was curious, not least about the delectable Mamselle Caprice.

‘Eh bien,’ says Blowitz, and leaned forward, plainly bursting to unfold his mystery. ‘You are aware that in a few weeks’ time a great conference is to take place at Berlin, of all the Powers, to amend this ridiculous Treaty of San Stefano made by Russia and Turkey?’ I must have looked blank, for he blew out his cheeks. ‘At least you know they have recently been at war in the Balkans?’

‘Absolutely,’ says I. ‘There was talk of us having a second Crimea with the moujiks, but I gather that’s blown over. As for … San Stefano, did you say? Greek to me, old son.’

He shook his head in despair. ‘You have heard of the Big Bulgaria, surely?’

‘Not even of the little ’un.’

He seemed ready to weep. ‘Or the Sanjak of Novi Bazar?’

‘Watch your tongue, if you please. We’re in a public place.’

‘Incroyable!’ He threw up his hands. ‘And it is an educated Englishman, this, widely travelled and of a military reputation! Europe may hang on the brink of catastrophe, and you …’ He smote his fat forehead. ‘My dear ’Arree, will you tell me, then, what events of news you have remarked of late?’

‘Well, let’s see … our income tax went up tuppence … baccy and dog licences, too … some woman or other has sailed round the world in a yacht …’ He was going pink, so just to give him his money’s worth I added: ‘Elspeth’s bought one of these phonographs that are all the rage … oh, aye, and Gilbert and Sullivan have a new piece, and dam’ good, too; the jolliest tunes. “I am an Englishman, be-hold me!” … as you were just saying –’³

‘Enough!’ He breathed heavily. ‘I see I must undertake your political education sur-le-champ. Gilbert and Sullivan, mon dieu!’

And since he did, and I’ll lay odds that you, dear reader, know no more about Big Bulgaria and t’other thing than I did, I’ll set it out as briefly as can be. It’s a hellish bore, like all diplomaticking, but you’d best hear about it – and then you can hold your own with the wiseacres at the club or tea-table.

First off, the Balkans … you have to understand that they’re full of people who’d much rather massacre each other than not, and their Turkish rulers (who had no dam’ business to be in Europe, if you ask me) were incapable of controlling things, what with the disgusting inhabitants forever revolting, and Russia and Austria trying to horn in for their own base ends. By and large we were sympathetic to the Turks, not because we liked the brutes but because we feared Russian expansion towards the Mediterranean (hence the Crimean War, where your correspondent won undying fame and was rendered permanently flatulent by Russian champagne).^fn2

At the same time we were forever nagging the Turks to be less monstrous to their Balkan subjects, with little success, Turks being what they are, and when, around ’75, the Bulgars revolted and the Turks slaughtered 150,000 of them to show who was master, Gladstone got in a fearful bait and made his famous remark about the Turks clearing out, bag and baggage. He had to sing a different tune when the Russians invaded Ottoman territory and handed the Turks a handsome licking; we couldn’t have Ivan lording it in the Balkans, and for a time it looked as though we’d have to tackle the Great Bear again – we sent warships to the Dardanelles and Indian regiments to Malta, but the crisis passed when Russia and Turkey made peace, with the San Stefano Treaty.

The trouble was that this treaty created what was called ‘Big Bulgaria’, which would clearly be a Russian province and stepping-stone to the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. The Austrians, with their own ambitions in the Balkans, were also leery of Russia, so to keep the peace Bismarck, the ‘honest broker’ (ha!) called the Congress of Berlin to amend San Stefano to everyone’s satisfaction, if possible.⁴

‘Everyone will be there! Tout le monde!’ Blowitz was fairly gleaming with excitement. ‘Prince Bismarck will preside, with your Lord Salisbury and Lord Beaconsfield – as we must learn to call M. D’Israeli – Haymerle and Andrassy from Austria, Desprez and Waddington from France, Gorchakov and Shuvalov from Russia – oh, and so many more, from Turkey and Italy and Germany … it will be the greatest conference of the Powers since the Congress of Vienna, with the fate of Europe – the world, even – at stake!’

I could see it was just his meat; but what, I wondered, did it have to do with me. He became confidential, blowing garlic at me.

‘A new treaty will emerge. The negotiations will be of the most secret. No word of what passes behind those closed doors will be permitted to escape – until the new treaty is published, no doubt by Prince Bismarck himself.’ His voice sank to a whisper. ‘It will be the greatest news story of the century, my friend – and the correspondent who obtains it beforehand will be hailed as the first journalist of the world!’ The round rosy face was set like stone, and the blue eyes were innocent no longer. ‘The Times will have that story … First! Alone! Exclusive!’ His finger rapped the table on each word, and I thought, aye, you could have heaved your wife’s former husband into the drink, no error. Then he sat back, beaming again. ‘More brandy, my boy!’

‘Got an embassy earwig, have you? How much are you paying him?’

He winked, like a conspiring cherub. ‘Better than any “earwig”, dear ’Arree, I shall have the entrée to the mind of one of the principal parties … and he will not even know it!’ He glanced about furtively, in case Bismarck was hiding behind an ice bucket.

‘The Russian Ambassador to London, Count Peter Shuvalov, will be second only to Prince Gorchakov in his country’s delegation. He is an amiable and experienced diplomat – and the most dedicated lecher in the entire corps diplomatique.⁵ Oh, but a satyr, I assure you, who consumes women as you do cigars. And with a mistress who knows how to engage his senses, he is … oh, qui ne s’en fait pas … how do you say in English –?’

‘Easy-going?’

‘Précisément! Easy-going … to the point of indiscretion. I could give numerous instances – names which would startle you –’

‘Gad, you get about! Ever thought of writing your recollections? You’d make a mint!’

He waved it aside. ‘Now, this Congress will dance, like any other, and it is inevitable that M. Shuvalov will encounter, at a party, the opera, perhaps on his evening promenade on the Friedrichstrasse, the enchanting Mamselle Caprice of the French Embassy. What then? I will tell you. He will be captivated, he will pursue, he will overtake … and his enjoyment of her charms will be equalled only by the solace he will find in describing the labours of the day to such a sympathetic listener. I know him, believe me.’ He sipped a satisfied Chartreuse. ‘And I know her. No doubt she will be the adoring ingénue, and M. Shuvalov will leak like an old samovar.’

I had to admire him. ‘Crafty little half-pint, ain’t you, though? Here, give us another squint at that picture … by Jove, lucky old Shovel-off! But hold on, Blow – she may romp each day’s doings out of him, but she can’t get you the treaty word for word – and that’s what you want, surely?’

‘Mais certainement! Am I an amateur, then? No … I absorb her reports by the day, and only when all is concluded, and the treaty is being drafted, do I approach a certain minister who holds me in some esteem. I make it plain that I am au fait with the entire negotiation. He is aghast. “You know it all?” he cries. “A matter of course,” I reply with modesty, “and now I await only the text of the treaty itself.” He is amazed … but convinced. This Blowitz, he tells himself, is a wizard. And from that, cher ’Arree,’ says he, smiling smugly, ‘it is but a short step to the point where he gives me the treaty himself. Oh, it is a technique, I assure you, which never fails.’

It’s true enough; there’s no surer way of getting a secret than by letting on you know it already. But I still couldn’t see why he was telling me.

‘Because one thing only is lacking. It is out of the question that Caprice should communicate with me directly, for I shall be jealously observed at all times, not only by competitors, but by diplomatic eyes – possibly even by the police. It is the price of being Blowitz.’ He shrugged, then dropped his voice. ‘So it is vital that I have what you call a go-between, n’est-ce pas?’

So that was it, and before I could open my mouth, let alone demur, his paw was on my sleeve and he was pattering like a Yankee snake-oil drummer.

‘’Arree, it can only be you! I knew it from the first – have I not said our fates are linked? To whom, then, should I turn for help in the greatest coup of my career? And it will be without inconvenience – indeed, to your satisfaction rather –’

‘So that’s why you wangled me the Order of the Frog!’

‘Wangle? What is this wangle? Oh, my best of friends, that was a bagatelle! But this what I beg of you … ah, it imports to me beyond anything in the world! And I would trust no other – my destiny … our destiny, would forbid it. You will not fail Blowitz?’

When folk yearn and sweat at me simultaneous, I take stock. ‘Well, now, I don’t know, Blow …’

‘Shall I give you reasons? One, I shall be forever in your debt. Two, my coup will enrage Prince Bismarck … that pleases, eh? And three …’ he smirked like a lascivious Buddha ‘… you will make the acquaintance … the intimate acquaintance, of the delicious Mamselle Caprice.’

At that, it wasn’t half bad. It was safe, and I could picture Bismarck’s apoplexy if his precious treaty was published before he could make his own pompous proclamation. I took another slant at the photograph lying between us … splendid potted palms they were, and while her pose of wanton invitation might be only theatrical, as Blowitz had said, I couldn’t believe she wasn’t enjoying her work.

‘Well … what would I have to do?’

D’you know, the little villain had already reserved me a Berlin hotel room for the duration of the conference? Confidence in destiny, no doubt. ‘It is in the name of Jansen … Dutch or Belgian, as you prefer, but not, I think, English.’ He had it all pat: I would rendezvous with Caprice at her apartment near the French Embassy, and there, in the small hours of each morning, when she had sent Shuvalov on his exhausted way, she would give me her reports, writ small on rice paper.

‘Each day you and I will lunch – separately and without recognition, of course – at the Kaiserhof, where I shall be staying. You will have concealed Mamselle’s report in the lining of your hat, which you will hang on the rack at the dining-room door. When we go our respective ways, I shall take your hat, and you mine.’ This kind of intrigue was just nuts to him, plainly. ‘They will be identical in appearance, and I have already ascertained that our sizes are much the same. We repeat the performance each day … eh, voilà! It is done, in secrecy the most perfect. Well, my boy, does it march?’

The only snag I could see was being first wicket down with the lady after she’d endured the attentions of blasted Shovel-off, and would be intent on writing her reports. Happy thought: being a mere diplomat, his performance might well leave her gnawing her pretty knuckles for some real boudoir athletics – in which case the reports could wait until after breakfast.

Well, if I’d had any sense, or an inkling of what lay years ahead, or been less flown with Voisin’s arrack, I’d have given the business the go-by – but you know me: the promise of that photograph, and the thought of dear Otto smashing the chandelier in his wrath, were too much for my ardent boyish nature. And it never hurts to do the press a good turn.

So it was with a light heart and my hat on three hairs that I found myself strolling under the famous lime trees to the Brandenburg Thor a few weeks later, taking a long slant at the Thier Garten in the June sunshine, and marvelling at the Valkyrian proportions of German women – which awoke memories of my youthful grapplings with that blubbery baroness in Munich … Pech-something, her name was, a great whale of a woman with an appetite to match.

That had been thirty years ago, and I hadn’t visited Germany since, with good reason. When you’ve been entrapped, kidnapped, forced to impersonate royalty, shanghaied into marriage, half-hung by Danish bandits, crossed swords in dungeons with fiends like Rudi von Starnberg, drowned near as dammit, and been bilked of a fortune … well, Bognor for a holiday don’t look so bad.^fn3 Thank God, it was far behind me now; Rudi was dead, and lovely Lola, and even Bismarck had probably given up murder in favour of war … not that he’d done much in that line for a few years. Mellowing with age, like enough. Still, I’d steer well clear of their Congress: Otto aside, I’d no wish to have D’Israeli inveigling me into a game of vingt-et-un.^fn4 Nor had I any great desire to ‘do’ Berlin; it may have the finest palaces in Germany, and the broadest streets, which is capital if you enjoy miles of ornamented stucco and don’t mind tumbling into drains which are mostly uncovered, but it also has the disadvantage of being full of Germans, most of ’em military. They say there’s a garrison of 20,000 (in a town no bigger than Glasgow) and it seemed to me the whole kit-boodle of ’em were on Unter den Linden – sentries presenting arms at every door and the pavements infested by swaggering Junkers with plumed helmets and clanking medals, still full of Prussian bounce because they’d licked the Frogs eight years before, as though that mattered.

The Congress was to begin on the 13th, and it was on the evening of the 12th that I left my modest hotel on the Tauben Strasse and walked the short distance to the discreet, pleasant little court off the Jager Strasse where Mamselle had her apartment – both of us quietly tucked away (trust Blowitz) but convenient for Unter den Linden, and the Wilhelmstrasse where the Congress was to sit. Blowitz had fixed the time, and primed her; his note awaiting me at my hotel had hinted delicately that she knew I wasn’t a puritan, exactly, and would expect to be paid in kind for my services, so I was in excellent fettle as I knocked at her door. My one doubt was that, being used to coupling for her country (or, in this case presumably, for The Times), she might be a dutiful icicle with one eye on the clock and her mind elsewhere, in which case I’d just have to jolly the sparkle into her eyes.

I needn’t have fretted; it was there from the first in the mouth-watering vision who opened the door determined to practise her art on Flashy. Like all good actresses, she’d decided exactly how to play her part, and dressed according in a déshabillé of frothy black lace clinging to a petite hourglass shape which recalled the Maharani Jeendan of intoxicating memory. Without her turban, her hair showed light auburn, cut in a fetching schoolgirl fringe above a lovely impudent face whose smile of invitation would have melted Torquemada. For an instant it faded on ‘Herr … Jansen?’ only to return as I made my gallant bow.

‘Oh, pardon!’ she exclaimed. ‘I was expecting someone … much older!’

‘Mamselle,’ says I, saluting her dainty fingertips, ‘you and I will get along famously! May I return the compliment by saying that your photograph don’t do you justice?’

‘Ah, that photograph!’ She made a pretty moue and rolled her eyes. ‘How I blushed to see it outside the theatre … but now, it has its uses, non?’ She didn’t wink, but her voice did, and her smile, as she closed the door and looked me up and down, was pure sauce. ‘Stefan tells me it brought you to Berlin … oui?’

‘Stefan has a reputation for accuracy, oui,’ says I, and now that the courtesies had been observed, and she was French anyway, I slipped my hands under her delectable stern, hoisted her up, and kissed her soundly. She gave a muffled squeak for form’s sake before thrusting her tongue between my lips, but just as I was casting about for a convenient settee she disengaged, giggling, and said I must put her down, and we should have an aperitif, and then I must explain something to her.

‘No explanation necessary,’ growls I, but she wriggled clear, rolling her rump, and checking my pursuit with a shaken finger – and if you’d seen that bouncy little bundle, pouting mischievous reproof and absolutely crying, ‘Non-non-la-la!’ like the maid in a French farce, you’d have been torn between bulling her on the spot and brushing away a sentimental tear. I did neither; I enjoy a good performance as well as the next licentious rascal, and never mind playing wait-a-bit with a coquette who knows her business. So I sat on the couch while she filled two glasses, pledged me with a flashing smile, and then sauntered artlessly into the sunlight from the window to give me the benefit of her transparent négligée. There followed as eccentric a conversation as I can recall – and I’ve been tête-à-tête with Mangas Colorado Apache, remember, and the lunatic leader of the Taiping Rebellion.

Mamselle (solicitous): You are comfortable? Eh bien, you must rest quietly a moment, and be courtois … what you call proper, correct … until you have explained what I wish to know.

Flashy (slavering with restraint): Good as gold. Fire away.

M (handing him an illustrated journal): So tell me, then, what is so très amusant about that?

F: Good God, it’s Punch! One of last month’s.

M (ever so serious): If I am to be perfect in English, I must understand your humour, n’est-ce pas? So, instruct me, if you please.

F: What, this cartoon here? Ah, let’s see … two English grooms in Paris, and one is saying there ain’t no letter ‘W’ in French, and t’other says: ‘Then ’ow d’yer spell “wee”?’ Just so … well, the joke is that the second chap doesn’t know how to spell ‘oui’, you see …

M: And one is to laugh at that?

F: Well, I can’t say I did myself, but –

M: Pouf! And this other, then? (Sits by F, taps page with dainty scarlet nail, regards him wide-eyed)

F (aware that only a wisp of gauze lies between him and the delightful meat): Eh? Oh, ah, yes! Well, here’s a stout party complaining that the fish she bought yesterday was ‘off’, and the fishmonger retorting that it’s her own fault for not buying it earlier in the week …

M (bee-stung lips breathing perfume): What then?

F: Gad, that’s sweet! … Ah, well, I guess that the joke is that he’s blaming her, don’t you know, when in fact he’s been selling the stuff after it’s started to stink.

M (bewildered, nestling chin on F’s shoulder): So le poissonnier is a thief. That amuses, does it?

F: See here, I don’t write the damned jokes … (Attempts to fondle her starboard tit)

M (parrying deftly): Good as gold, méchant! Now, this page here, the lady in harlequin costume … ah, très chic, her hat and veil trop fripon, and her figure exquisite, mais voluptueuse! (sits bolt upright, inspired to imitation)

F: God love us!

M (swaying out of reach) … but her expression is severe, and she carries a baton – to chastise? She is perhaps a flagellatrice? Formidable! But this also is humorous?

F: Certainly not. This picture is intended to be ogled by lewd men. Speaking as one myself …

M: No, no, be still, you promised! What is ogled?

F: What people did at your Folies photograph, as well you know! Enjoyed posing for it, didn’t you? – dammit, you’re enjoying this!

M (wickedly): Mais certainement! (nestles again, nibbling F’s ear) Et vous aussi? No-no-no-wait! One last question … ah, but only one … these words, above this article … what do they mean?

F (reading): ‘Hankey Pankey’ … (as she bursts out laughing) I knew it, bigod! You understand Punch’s beastly jokes as well as I do, don’t you? Well, just for that, young woman, I shan’t tell you what Hankey-Pankey means … I’ll show you! (Demonstrates, avec élan et espièglerie and lustful roarings, to delighted squeals and sobs from Mamselle. Ecstatic collapse of both parties)⁶

Afterwards, as I lay blissfully tuckered, with that splendid young body astride of me, moist and golden in the fading sunlight, her eyes closed in a satisfied smirk, I found myself wondering idly if the French secret service ran an École de Galop to train their female agents in the gentle art of houghmagandie, as Elspeth calls it – and if so, were there any vacancies for visiting professors? Anyway, Mamselle Caprice must have been the Messalina Prizewoman of her year; no demi-mondaine perhaps, according to Blowitz, but as expert an amateur as I’d ever struck, with the priceless gift of fairly revelling in her sex, and using it with joyous abandon … and considerable calculation, as I was about to learn.

She stretched across to the nearby table for a gilt-tipped cigarette, lighting it from a tiny spirit lamp, and I couldn’t resist another clutch at those firm pointed poonts overhead. She squirmed her bottom in polite response, trickling smoke down her shapely nostrils as she studied me, head on one side; then she leaned down, murmuring in my ear.

‘If you were Count Shuvalov … would you be ready to confide in me now?’ She gave a little chuckle, and nibbled.

‘I’ll be damned! Been using me for net practice, have you?’ I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Experimenting on me, you little trollop – of all the sauce!’

‘Why not?’ says the shameless baggage, sitting up again and drawing on her scented weed. ‘If I am to learn his secrets, it is well I should know what … beguiles men of his age. After all, you and he are no longer boys, but mature, possibly of similar tastes …’

‘A couple of ageing libertines, you mean? Well, thank’ee, my dear, I’m obliged to you – as I’m sure Count Shovel-off will be, and if you pay him the kind of loving attention you’ve just shown me, I daresay he’ll be sufficiently captivated to gas his fat head off –’

‘Oh, he is captivate’ already,’ says she airily. ‘He has admired the notorious photograph … and we have met, and he has begged an assignation for tomorrow night.’⁷

‘Has he, now? That’s brisk work.’ Highly professional, too … by Blowitz? … by the French secret department? Certainly by the brazen little bitch sitting cool as a trout athwart my hawse, sporting her boobies and blowing smoke-rings while she mused cheerfully on how best to squeeze the juice out of her Russian prey.

‘You see,’ says she, ‘to captivate, to seduce, is nothing … he is only a man.’ She gave the little shrug that is the Frenchwoman’s way of spitting on the pavement. ‘But afterwards … to make him tell what I wish to know … ah, that is another thing. Which is why I ask you, who are experienced in secret affairs, Blowitz says. You know well these Russians, you have made the intrigues, you have made love to many, many women, and I am sure they have – how do you say? – practised their nets on you.’ She smiled sleepy seductive-like, and leaned down again to flicker the tip of her tongue against my lips. ‘So, tell me … which of them most appealed, to win your confidence? The fool? The task-mistress? The slave? L’ingénue? Or perhaps la petite farceuse who teases you with foolish jokes, and then …’ She wriggled, stroking her bouncers across my chest. ‘To which would you tell your secrets?’

‘My, you’ve studied your subject, haven’t you?’ I eased her gently upright. ‘Well, the answer, my artful little seductress, is … to none of ’em – unless I wanted to. But I ain’t Shovel-off, remember. From what I hear he’s the kind of vain ass who can’t resist showing off to every pretty woman he meets, so it don’t matter a rap whether you play the innocent or Delilah or Gretchen the Governess. Get him half-tipsy, pleasure him blind, and listen to him blather … but don’t try to come round him with jokes from Punch, ’cos they’d be lost on him. Tease him with a few funny bits from Tolstoy, if you like, or the latest wheezes from Ivan the Terrible’s Guffawgraph –’

‘Oh, idiot!’ She slapped me smartly on the midriff, giggling. ‘You are not serious, you! I ask advice, and you make game of me!’

‘Advice, my eye – mocking a poor old man, more like.’

‘Old? Ha!’ exclaims she, rolling her eyes – she could pay a neat compliment, the minx.

‘As if there was anything I could teach you about bewitching a man!’ I can pay a compliment, too. She gave a complacent toss of the head, arms akimbo.

‘Oh, one can always learn, from a wise teacher … I think,’ says she, assuming the depraved sneer she had worn in her photograph, ‘that since I do not like M. Shuvalov, I should prefer to be Gretchen the Governess, très implacable, sans remords!’ She made growling noises, flourishing an imaginary whip. ‘Ah, well, we shall see! And now,’ she hopped nimbly down, ‘I make supper!’

Which she did, very tasty: an omelette that was like a soufflé for lightness, with toast and a cold Moselle, fruits soaked in kirsch, and coffee Arabi style – black as night, sweet as love, hot as hell. Listening to her cheery prattle and bubbling laughter across the table, I found myself warming to Mamselle Caprice, and not only ’cos she was a little stunner and rode like a starving succubus and cooked rather well. I liked her style: no humbug, just Jezebel with a sassy twinkle and a fifth-form fringe, lightly touched by the crazy gods – as many politicals are; Georgie Broadfoot was daft as a brush. In her case it might have been a mask, a brass front over inner hurt; she was in a dirty business, and no doubt her male colleagues, being proper little Christian crooks, would make it plain that they regarded her as no better than a whore – I did myself, but I wasn’t fool enough to damp her amorous ardour by showing it. But no, ’twasn’t a mask; as we talked, I recognised her as one of these fortunate critters who (like yours truly) are simply without shame, and wouldn’t know Conscience if they tripped over it in broad day. She was fairly gloating at the prospect of wringing Shuvalov dry for the sheer fun of it – and the handsome fee Blowitz had promised her.

‘A hundred golden pounds!’ cries she gleefully. ‘You see, it is not a secret department matter, but personal to Stefan and his paper. And since he has friends in high places … behold, I am in Berlin!’

‘And that’s all that matters to me, my little Punch-fancier,’ says I, nuzzling her neck as we repaired to the couch. ‘As an Asian princess once said to me: “Lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions”.’

‘An Asian princess!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Ah, but I must hear of this! Was she beautiful? Did you carry her off? Were you her slave?’ and so on, so I told her all about Ko Dali’s dreadful daughter, and how she’d rescued me from a Russian dungeon, and filled me with hasheesh unawares, and dam’ near had me blown to bits, and was surpassingly beautiful (at which Caprice pouted ‘Pouf!’) but bald as an egg (which sent her into peals of delight). Whether she believed me, God knows, but she demanded particulars of a most intimate nature, inviting comparison between the Silk One and herself, and that inevitably led to another glorious thrashing-match which restored her amour-propre and left me in what I once heard a French naval officer describe as a condition of swoon.

Only when I was taking my leave did we return to the subject of Shuvalov. His assignation with her was for eight the following evening, after the first day of the Congress, and she expected to have him off the premises by midnight, whereafter I would roll up to see that all was well, she would write her report, and we would enjoy a late supper and whatever else came to mind before I left with her despatch in my hat for transfer to Blowitz later in the day.

She hadn’t counted on Shovel-off’s appetite for jollity, though. The clocks were chiming twelve when I sauntered up the Jager Strasse in the warm dark of the next night, and turned into her court only to see that her curtain was still closed – the signal we’d agreed if the Russian buffoon was still infesting her quarters. I took a turn up and down, thankful that it wasn’t winter; Berlin in June evidently went home with the milk, and there were open carriages carrying merry-makers up the Mauer Strasse to the Linden, sounds of gaiety and music came from the Prinz Carl Palace across the way, and beyond it I could see lights burning in the great ministries on the Wilhelmstrasse: understrappers of the Congress still hard at it while their betters waltzed and junketed – aye, and rogered away the diplomatic night, if Shuvalov was anything to go by. It was close on two, and I was in a fine fume, when a cloaked and tile-hatted figure emerged at last from Caprice’s court, taking the width of the pavement, damn him, and a moment later I was being admitted to her apartment by a furious harem houri clad only in a gold turban with a slave-fetter on one ankle, fairly spitting blood while she filled an antique bath-tub with hot water; the air was thick with steam and Gallic oaths which I hadn’t heard outside a Legion barrack-room.

Count Shuvalov, she informed me, was a sacred perverted beast, a savage and a mackerel and a swine of tastes indescribable. He professed to have been so enraptured by her photograph that he had brought the turban and shackles for her to wear, describing himself as Haroun al-Raschid and demanding from her an Arabian Nights performance which I doubt even Dick Burton had ever heard of. He had also insisted that they smear each other all over with quince jam, to which he was partial, and while much of it had been removed in the ensuing frolic, I noticed that she still had a tendency to attract fluff and other light debris as she raged to and from the kitchen with hot kettles for her bath.

‘And for a hundred pounds I endure this!’ cries she, kicking her fettered foot and fetching herself a crack on the shin with the chain. ‘Ah, merde, it will not come off – and I shall never be clean again! Oh, but it is not only this disgusting confiture, this … this ordure collant, but his loathsome touch, his foul body and vile breath, his hideous tongue upon me … ugh! Muscovite ape! Oh, do not look at me – I cannot bear to be seen!’ In fact she looked adorable, if you can imagine an Alma Tadema beauty striking passionate poses while picking feathers off her bottom.

I soothed her by undoing the ankle-chain, lifting her into the bath, and lovingly soaping her from head to foot while murmuring endearments. I’m a dab hand at this, having trained under Queen Ranavalona, so to speak, and after a while her plaintive cursing gave way to little sighs and whimpers, her eyes closed and her mouth trembled, and when I suggested I could do with a sluicing myself she responded with an enthusiasm that would have done credit to those poor little Kashmiri sluts who bathed me so devotedly at Lahore, the night the ceiling fell in.^fn5 Aye, I’ve wallowed in some odd spots in my time, but nowhere more happily than Berlin, with that delightful mermaid performing as though Shovel-off had never existed, and the floor ankle-deep in suds. Heaven knows what the charwoman had to say in the morning.

It cheered Caprice up no end, and by the time we’d dried off and drowsed a little and made an early breakfast of coffee and rolls, she was her vivacious self again, even making fun of Shovel-off’s amorous peculiarities. Her first report for Blowitz was a brief one, the Galloping Cossack having been too intent on his muttons for much conversation, but having taken his measure she was sure she could make him sing in due course. ‘A shallow fool, mais pompeux, and his brain is in his –’ was her charming verdict. ‘Also he is jealous of his leader, the Prince Gorchakov.’ She lowered an eyelid. ‘Let me touch that key, and he will boast everything he knows!’

And I guess he did. Having sampled her myself, and marked her A1 at Flashy’s, I’d still wondered if she could keep Shuvalov in thrall for the whole Congress – it lasted a month, you know – but damme if she didn’t. Not that he saddled her up every night, you understand, but more often than not, and whether she was ringing the changes, Pride o’ the Harem one night, Gretchen the Governess the next, or was tempting him with different flavours of jam, I didn’t inquire. She kept him happy, I had my ration of her, and for the rest, Blowitz’s arrangements went like clockwork: there he was every day, browsing at the Kaiserhof while I lunched at t’other side of the room, never a glance between us, and each picking up the other’s tile when we left.

We had one scare, when an idiot diner by mistake went off with my hat containing Caprice’s report. My first thought was, oh lor’, we’re rumbled, and I was ready to make for the long grass till I saw that Blowitz was on the q.v., but instead of leaping up with screams of ‘Ah, voleur! Rendez le chapeau!’ as you’d expect from a Bohemian Frog, he quietly despatched a waiter in pursuit, the apologetic diner replaced my roof on its peg – and no attention had been drawn to Blowitz or to me. My opinion of little fat Stefan went up another rung; he was a cool hand – and even, it seemed to me, sometimes a reckless one.

It was about half way through the Congress, when the other correspondents were all in a frenzy at the absolute lack of news from the secret sessions, that he broke cover with an item that was plainly from the horse’s mouth. Gorchakov had made some speech in camera, and there was the gist of it in The Times two days later. Diplomatic Berlin was in uproar at once; who could have leaked the news? It was after this that Bismarck, who took the breach as a personal affront, looked under the table to see if Blowitz was roosting there. His fury was even greater soon after, when The Times had the news that D’Israeli had threatened to leave Berlin over some wrangle that had arisen, and then decided to stay after all.

Of course the blabberer in both cases had been Shuvalov, as I learned from Caprice, who had passed the glad tidings on to Blowitz via my tile. I was fearful that Shovel-off might twig he was being milked, but she ‘Pouf!’-ed it away; he was too dull and besotted to know what he was saying after she’d put him over the jumps, and depend upon it, says she, Stefan knew what he was about.

She was right, too. The little fox had been angling, like every other scribbler, for an interview with Bismarck – and after the column about Dizzy appeared, hanged if he didn’t get one! Otto, you see, was so piqued and mystified that his precious Congress was being blown upon, that he invited Blowitz to dinner, no doubt hoping to learn what his source had been. Fat chance. Blowitz came away with a five-hour interview, leaving the Iron Chancellor none the wiser and fit to be tied, The Times triumphed yet again, and the rest of the press gang could only gnash their teeth.

What between helping to spoil Bismarck’s digestion and whiling away the golden afternoons with Caprice (for we’d abandoned our nocturnal meetings, and I was collecting her reports in the mornings) I was in pretty bobbish form, and took to promenading about the town in search of amusement. I didn’t find it on one day at least, when chance took me down the Wilhelmstrasse past the Congress hall, and who should I meet face to face but dear Otto himself; he was with a group of his bag-carriers and other reptiles, coming down the steps to his carriage, and for one blood-freezing instant our eyes met – as they had not done since that day at Tarlenheim thirty years before when he’d launched me unsuspecting into his ghastly Strackenz murder plot. I’d never have recognised him if I hadn’t seen his mug in the papers, for the nasty young Norse God had turned into a jowly sausage-faced old buffer whose head seemed to grow straight out of his collar without benefit of neck. Just for a second he stared, and I thought bigod he remembers me, but there ain’t a thing he can do, so why don’t I exclaim: ‘Well, Otto, old sport, there you are, then! Drowned any Danish princelings lately?’ It’s the kind of momentary madness that sometimes takes me, but thank God I tipped my tile instead, he did likewise, frowning, and a moment later he was clambering aboard and I was legging it in search of a gallon or two of brandy. Quite a turn he’d given me – but then, he always did. Bad medicine, Bismarck; bad man.

I kept clear of the official cantonment thereafter, and by the last week of the Congress was beginning to be infernally bored, even with Caprice; when I found myself knocking at her door in the expectation of having it opened by Elspeth, smiling blonde and beautiful, I realised it was time for the train home. Oddly enough, if I’d cut out then it wouldn’t have mattered, for Blowitz no longer needed her reports, although he continued to change hats with me at the Kaiserhof.

The fact was his stock had risen so high with his three ‘scoops’ that he was being fed information by the bushel, the embassy fawns being anxious to stand well with him; he even put it about, very confidential-like, that Bismarck had promised to give him the treaty before it was published, which wasn’t true, but made them toad-eat him harder than ever. I knew nothing of this, of course, and on the penultimate day of the Congress, a Friday, as I was strolling home enjoying the morning after a strenuous late breakfast with Caprice, I was taken flat aback by Blowitz’s moon face goggling at me from the window of a drosky drawn up near my hotel.

‘In! In!’ hisses he, whipping down the blind, so I climbed aboard, demanding what the devil was up, and before I was seated he was hammering on the roof and bawling to the coachee to make for the station with all speed.

‘We leave on the 12.30 for Cologne!’ cries he. ‘Fear not, your bill is paid and your baggage awaits at the train!’

‘The dooce it does! But the Congress don’t end till tomorrow –’

‘Let it end when it will! It is imperative that I leave Berlin at once – that I am seen to leave, mortified and en colère!’ He was red with excitement – and beaming. ‘Regardez-moi – do I look sufficiently enraged, then?’

‘You sound sufficiently barmy. But what about the treaty – I thought t’wasn’t to be finished until this evening?’

He pulled back the lapel of his coat, chuckling, whipped out a bulky document, waved it at me, and thrust it away again. ‘A treaty of sixty-four articles – approved, printed, fini! What d’you say to that, my boy? Nothing remains but the preamble and a few extra clauses to be adopted at today’s session.’ He rubbed his hands, squirming with delight. ‘It is done, dear friend, it is done! Blowitz triumphs! He is exalted! Ah, and you, my brave one, my accomplice extraordinary, I could embrace you –’

‘Keep your dam’ distance! Look here, if you’ve got the thing, what are you in such an infernal hurry for?’

He smote his forehead. ‘Ah, forgive me – in my joy I go too fast. Let me explain.’ He was licking his lips at his own cleverness. ‘You remember I told you in Paris how I would persuade some diplomat of eminence to give me an advance copy of the treaty? Eh bien, this morning I received it. I rejoice, knowing that no other journalist will see the treaty until after the signing ceremony tomorrow. But in the meantime a crisis has raised itself. Since my interview with Prince Bismarck the German press has been in jealous agitation, and to pacify them he has let it be known that he will give them the treaty this evening! When I learn this, I am thunderstruck!’ He assumed a look of horror. ‘Of what use to me to have the treaty in my pocket if it is to appear in the Berlin journals tomorrow? Where then is my exclusive account, my priority over my rivals?’

‘Down the drain, I’d say. So why are you exalted?’

‘Because I see at once how to frustrate them. I go to Prince Hohenlohe, the German Minister, and demand that as a reward for my services to the Congress – and because I am Blowitz – Prince Bismarck should give the treaty only to me, so that I may publish it in The Times tomorrow. Hohenlohe consults Bismarck, who refuses (as I knew he would). He says I must wait until it is signed. But,’ he raised a pudgy finger, ‘I know Bismarck. He is one for strict justice. Having said I must wait until tomorrow, he will now make the German papers wait also. So, in effect, I have gained a postponement … you see?’

I don’t know if Macchiavelli was a fat little cove with long whiskers, but he should have been.

‘When Prince Hohenlohe tells me my request is refused, I play my part. I am affronted. My disgust knows no bounds. I tell him I am leaving Berlin at once in protest. If Blowitz is to be treated with such contempt, they may keep their Congress and their treaty. Hohenlohe is dismayed, but I am adamant. I take my leave in what you call the dudgeon – and word flies from mouth to mouth that Blowitz is beaten, that he sulks like a spoiled child, my rivals rejoice at my failure – and breathe sighs of relief … and all the time the treaty is here –’ he tapped his breast, chortling ‘– and tomorrow it will appear in The Times and in no other paper in the world!’

He paused to draw breath and gloat; you never saw smugness like it, so I pointed to the one fly I saw in his ointment.

‘But you haven’t got the preamble or the clauses they’re adopting today.’

He gave a lofty wave. ‘Soit tranquil, my ’Arree. From Hohenlohe I go tout suite to M. de St Vallier, the French Ambassador – who I know has a copy of the preamble. In confidence I show him the treaty. He is staggered, he goes pale, but when I ask for the preamble and clauses, he throws up the hands, crying why not, since already I have so much? He cannot give me his copy of the preamble, but he reads it aloud, page upon page, and now it is here –’ he tapped his brow ‘– and will be dictated to my secretary after we board the train.’

I ain’t given to expressions of admiration, as you know, but looking at that grinning cherub with his baby peepers and daft whiskers I confess I put a finger to my hat brim. ‘Though I still don’t see why you’re in such an almighty sweat to leave. Can’t you telegraph your story to London?’

‘From Berlin? Oh, my boy, you want to laugh! Where my every action is watched, my movements followed – why, let a telegraph clerk catch a glimpse of my message and I should be in a police cell!’ He grew earnest. ‘But it is not the authorities I fear – it is envious rivals. My little charade of pique will deceive the many, but not all. Some, knowing Blowitz, will suspect me still. They may board the train. They would rob me if they could. That,’ says he, clapping a hand on my knee, ‘is why I bring you with me. I am small, you are large. Who knows what they may attempt between here and Paris? But what have I to fear,’ cries he, with a great idiot laugh, ‘when the bravest soldier of the British Army, the partner of my fate, is by my side?’

A great deal, I could have told him, if Bismarck’s bullies were after him; he’d find himself relying on the communication cord. But no, that wasn’t likely; even Otto wouldn’t dare. Blowitz’s brother journalists were another matter, as I saw when we reached the station, and they were on the platform to see him off with covert grins and ironic tile-doffing; I hadn’t realised what respect and jealousy my stout friend attracted. He bustled down the train looking like an angry frog in his great fur coat and felt hat, ignoring their greetings, and I played up by taking his arm and wearing my most threatening scowl.

The secretary and Blowitz’s colleague, Wallace, were already aboard, and when we pulled out punctually on 12.30, Blowitz told the secretary to get out his book, folded his hands across his paunch, closed his eyes, and recited steadily for half an hour. It was fearful stuff, all in German, with an occasional phrase in French or English by way of explanation, and he didn’t even pause; once, when the train clanked to an unexpected halt and we were almost jolted from our seats, he forged right ahead with his dictation, and when it was done he sat drooping like a limp doll, and then went straight off to sleep. For concentration and power of mind, I don’t recall his equal.

Sure enough, there were fellows from the other papers on the train. Wallace spotted two Germans and an Italian in the next carriage, but once one of ’em had tried to look in on us, and I’d sent him about his business, they let us alone. They followed us when we alighted for refreshment at Cologne, but we baffled ’em by each taking a different way back to the train, so that they had to separate, one dogging Blowitz, another behind me, the third after the secretary – and no one at all to watch Wallace, who was lurking in the W.C. with treaty, preamble and all inside his shirt, until the time came for him to board another train to Brussels, where he would telegraph the whole thing to London. Wallace had wondered if the Belgians would accept such an important document; Blowitz told him that if there was any difficulty he was to send for the superintendent, tell him The Times was thinking of setting up (and paying handsomely for) a daily line to London, and that this despatch was by way of a test. Of course, if Brussels didn’t want the business …’nuff said.

So next morning, Saturday July 13, 1878, before the leading statesmen of Europe had even penned their signatures to the treaty, Otto Bismarck was goggling apoplectically at a telegram from London informing him that the whole sixty-four articles, preamble, etc., were in that day’s Times – with an English translation. Talk about a ‘scoop’! Blowitz was drunk with glory, conceit, and gratitude when I managed to tear myself from his blubbering embrace in Paris, and I wasn’t displeased myself. T’isn’t every day you play a part in one of the great journalistic coups, and whenever I see some curmudgeon at the club cursing at the labour of cutting open his Times and then complaining that there’s no news in the dam’ thing, I think, aye, you should see what goes to the making of those paragraphs that you take for granted, my boy. My one regret as I tooled back to London was that I hadn’t been able to bid a riotous farewell to Caprice; she’d been worth the trip, ne’er mind spoking Otto’s wheel, and I found myself smiling fondly as I thought of Punch and the gauzy lace clinging to that houri shape in the sunlight … Ah well, there would doubtless be more where that came from.

In case you don’t know, the great Berlin Treaty panned out to general satisfaction – for the time being anyway. ‘Big Bulgaria’ was cut in two; Roumania, you’ll be charmed to learn, became independent; Austria won the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina (which only an idiot would want to do, in my opinion, but then I ain’t the Emperor Franz-Josef); Russia got Bessarabia, wherever that may be; the Turks remained a power in the Balkans, more or less, and by some strange sleight of hand we managed to collar Cyprus (no fool, D’Israeli, for all he dressed like a Pearly King). There had been a move at one stage (this is gospel, though you mayn’t credit it) to invite my old comrade William Tecumseh Sherman, the Yankee general, to become Prince of Bulgaria, but nothing came of it. Pity; he was the kind of savage who’d have suited the Bulgars like nuts in May.

At all events, what they call ‘a balance’ was achieved, and everyone agreed that Bismarck had played a captain’s innings, hoch! hoch! und he’s ein jolly good fellow. So he ought to have been content – but I can tell you something that wasn’t suspected at the time, and has been known to only a handful since: the Congress left darling Otto an obsessed man. It’s God’s truth: the brute was bedevilled by the galling fact that little Blowitz had stolen a march on him, and he could not figure out how it had been done. Astonishing, eh? Here was the greatest statesman of the age, who’d just settled the peace of Europe for a generation and more, and still that trifle haunted him over the years. Perhaps ’twas the affront to his dignity, or his passion for detail, but he couldn’t rest until he knew how Blowitz had got hold of that treaty. How do I know, you may ask? Well, I’m about to tell you – and I’m not sure that Bismarck’s mania (for that’s what it amounted to) wasn’t the strangest part of the adventure that befell me five years later, and which had its origins in my meetings with Grant and Macmahon, Caprice’s picture, and the Congress of Berlin.⁸