"You did not say why you left Munich," he remarks at last.
"Oh!" I answer lightly, "because I had a ticket for Vienna."
III.
That afternoon, as I had decided, I went to the Karlsgasse, where Mr. Doblana lived. My hotel being rather a long way from his address I took a fiaker, the most graceful two-horse carriage you can imagine. Fiakers are well-known for their jolly cabbies. Was it their fame which made me look at this one, or was it his face that attracted me? I cannot tell, but when I did look at him, I was startled. For I knew the man, or thought so for a moment. He was at once alike to the irascible Frenchman whom Destiny had obliged to make room for the fair Comtesse (see chapter one), and to the conductor who soon afterwards had accepted a backsheesh for certain services. But he seemed a little younger and had that special low class smartness which distinguishes the Viennese cabman. So I concluded that after all this was only a coincidence. Nevertheless it was extraordinary that I should see in so short time three people having the same black hair, the same black moustache and pointed tuft of beard on their chin, and, above all, the same somewhat mocking expression on their features.
When I arrived in the Karlsgasse, I was still so impressed with my cabbie, that I had a feeling, when I first saw Mr. Doblana, that he too was greatly alike to somebody I knew. The funniest thing is that really he did resemble someone; but at this first meeting I could not possibly remember who it was.
I found an elderly refined man with an exceedingly sorrowful expression in his face. This expression was increased by his speech. He pronounced his German with a Czech accent, which makes people speak with a kind of sad sing-song. Many Slavs always seem to talk as if they were making a visit of condolence.
Now, Mr. Doblana was really mourning. And I had to hear with some details the story of Mrs. Doblana, whom he had lost a year ago. She had been first a comic-opera singer, and later had earned good money by giving singing lessons. This made me understand how it was possible that a horn-player, even a first horn-player at the Imperial Opera, could afford such a fine flat. For it was, indeed, a handsome apartment.
The knowledge of its disposition, reader dear, has some importance for the understanding of events which I will relate to you in due course. The simplest thing would be to draw a plan of the apartment, but, somehow, I am too proud to fight against my incapacity as a draughtsman, and I remember that Conan Doyle always rises up to circumstances when the question is the description of some locality. Then, why shouldn't I?