Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Aaron

Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

At 610 in the morning on January 30, 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire came out of his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and told his valet to prepare

for the day of hunting the head.

The lodge where they were staying at marling in the Vienna woods was still dark in the

early morning.

The Rudolf was already dressed in his hunting clothes.

He said that he wanted to get a bit more sleep.

Have breakfast ready at 830 and wake me at 730, he said.

The valet, named Lochak, noticed that Rudolf was whistling as he went back to his room.

As Lochak was setting the table, he heard two gunshots in rapid succession, but thought

nothing of it.

At 730, he came to the Crown Prince's bed chamber to find it locked.

Lochak knocked loudly, and then again.

Strange, but not too strange.

Rudolf frequently used morphine and drank enough cognac and champagne to pass out cold.

But Lochak had just seen him an hour ago.

Lochak tried running upstairs and down a back staircase to a second entrance to the Crown

Prince's chamber, but he found that that door too was also locked from the inside.

His heart pounding in his chest, Lochak went to find Count Hoyas, Rudolf's hunting buddy

...