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Updated: May 13, 2025
He wanted little now and then a sip of water, the cooled juice of fruit. Injections of stimulants, given by Doctor Wiederman himself, had scarred his old arms with purplish marks, and were absorbed more and more slowly as the hours went on. He rarely slept, but lay inert and not unhappy.
"Doctor!" she said sharply. Doctor Wiederman came first, the others following. They grouped around the bed. Then the oldest of them, who had brought Annunciata into the world, touched her on the shoulder. "Madame!" he said. "Madame, I His Majesty has passed away." Mettlich staggered to his feet, and took a long look at the face of his old sovereign and king.
A United States deputy, Wiederman, had been employed by the father of the murdered J. H. Tunstall to take care of the Tunstall estates and to secure some kind of British revenge for his murder. Wiederman falsely persuaded Tunstall père that he had helped kill Frank Baker and Billy Morton, and Tunstall père made him rich, Wiederman going to England, where it was safer.
Now at last the old King's hour had come. Mostly he slept, as though his body, eager for its long rest, had already given up the struggle. Stimulants, given by his devoted physician, had no effect. Other physicians there were, a group of them, but it was Doctor Wiederman who stood by the bed and waited.
Mettlich of the Iron Hand had held them, would continue to hold them. The King, meanwhile, lay dying, Doctor Wiederman in constant attendance, other physicians coming and going. His apartments were silent. Rugs covered the corridors, that no footfall disturb his quiet hours. The nursing Sisters attended him, one by his bedside, one always on her knees at the Prie-dieu in the small room beyond.
"It may be, as you say, contagious, Olga," she said. "You would better go to bed and stay there. I shall send Doctor Wiederman to you." When she had gone the Countess rang for her maid. She was cool enough now, and white, with a cruel line about her mouth that Minna knew well. She went to the door into the corridor, and locked it. Then she turned on the maid. "I am ready for you, now."
She slipped to her knees beside the bed, and looked up to Doctor Wiederman with appealing eyes. "I am afraid," she whispered. "Can you not ?" He shook his head. She had asked a question in her glance, and he had answered. The Crown Prince was gone. Perhaps the search would be successful. Could he not be held, then, until the boy was found? And Doctor Wiederman had answered "No."
Father Gregory, his friend of many years, had come again from Etzel, and it was he who had administered the sacrament. The King had roused for it, and had smiled at the father. "So!" he said, almost in a whisper, "you would send me clean! It is hard to scour an old kettle." Doctor Wiederman bent over the bed. "Majesty," he implored, "if there is anything we can do to make you comfortable "
"But the King?" inquired old Adelbert in a shaking voice. "How can you set a day, when the King may rally? I thought all hung on the King's death." The concierge bent closer over the table. "Doctor Wiederman, the King's physician, is one of us," he whispered. "The King lives now only because of stimulants to the heart. His body is already dead. When the stimulants cease, he will die."
The King having been examined and given some digestive tablets by the Court physicians a group which, strangely enough, did not include Doctor Wiederman had been given a warm bath and put to bed. There was much formality as to the process now, several gentlemen clinging to their hereditary right to hang around and be nuisances during the ceremony. But at last he was left alone with Oskar.
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