“Then it’s not one of the bourgeoisie? Oh, that’s quite another story,” replied the functionary. “Very well, I will see what I can do.”
For the policeman, as for Windischgraetz, mankind evidently began with the baron; and he gave the information. “His Imperial Highness is at Alland,”[3] he announced; but the announcement came too late. It had hardly been made—and no action had yet been taken on account of it—when the telegraph flashed its startling news from Meyerling to Vienna. The Crown Prince had died suddenly at Meyerling—of apoplexy.
[3] Alland is quite close to Meyerling.
That was the first story, officially given out; but it was found that it could not be maintained. People did not believe it—naturally enough, seeing that it is almost an unknown thing for a man of Rudolph’s age to die of apoplexy. It might have obtained credence—or, at all events, it might have been upheld in the face of scepticism—if it could have been substantiated by a medical certificate; but that certificate could not be procured. The doctors were asked to draft and sign it; but they refused to do so. They were then asked at least to give a certificate of death from heart failure on the ground that failure of the heart’s action played its part in every death; but they would not do that either. So that violence had to be admitted; and an amended official version of the story was issued to the effect that the Crown Prince had committed suicide by shooting himself.
Even so, public opinion was not satisfied. The medical certificates were called for; and when they were published they were severely criticised. There were two such certificates, and they contradicted each other; and neither of them would have been accepted in an English criminal court as compatible with the theory of suicide. According to one certificate, the bullet entered the head behind the ear and carried off the top part of the skull; according to the other, it had entered by the left temple and issued by the right temple. The critics pointed out that Rudolph was most unlikely to have shot himself in the left temple, because he was not left-handed, and that it was materially impossible for him to have shot himself from behind.
The inference was clear. If Rudolph had been shot, and had not shot himself, then he must have been shot by some other person. That is to say, either there had been an accident or he had been murdered. But if there had been an accident, there would have been no need to envelop it in mystery or tell certificated lies about it; so the hypothesis of murder held the field. But who could have murdered him, and why should he have been murdered? Conjecture fastened itself on those problems, and found solution for them: solutions which varied accordingly, as the speculators knew, or did not know, that Mary Vetsera, as well as the Crown Prince, was involved in the tragedy, and that her death, as well as his, had to be accounted for. The theories which obtained the widest credence were the following:—
1. Rudolph had been killed in the course of a drunken quarrel by one of his boon companions.
2. Rudolph had been pursuing the daughter of a gamekeeper with his attentions. The gamekeeper had caught him in flagrante delicto, and had shot him without waiting to ascertain who he was. His body had been carried into his bedroom in the hunting-box, and the suicide tableau had been arranged in order to cover up the scandal.
3. One of the Baltazzis, jealous of his niece’s honour, had tracked Mary Vetsera to Meyerling, and had there committed the double murder.
Not one of these three theories will hold water, in view of the facts which have since been brought to light. The first and second may be set aside on the ground that there is nothing in either of them to account for the death of Mary Vetsera. The third theory is incompatible with statements, the truth of which there is no reason to doubt, made by Countess Marie Larisch in “My Past.”