When Emily was 14, she attended the Royal Gala performance of The Nutcracker Suite at Vienna's Grand Hall. Making her final stage appearance in this performance was Hungarian-Dutch dancer Olivia Van Der Saat. It is a curious coincidence that this occasion took place on the 51st anniversary of the dissolution of the Korketzs dynasty by Austro-Hungarian dissidents, of whom Van Der Saat, it was later revealed, was a distant relative. The beautiful young dancer had enjoyed incredible success in her youth, that had begun with her training in the Netherlands where she had been a personal favourite of the Royal Family. Her marriage to impresario Henrik Van Der Saat at the tender age of 16 left her in considerable fortune, and she famously announced her retirement at only 19 years. After four years of self-imposed exile, this performance was intended as a once-in-a-lifetime return to the stage, with the Austro-Hungarian Emperor & Empress Andrejz in attendance. Fifteen minutes before her curtain call, it is believed that Emily slipped from the attendance of her chaperone to meet the illustrious Van Der Saat backstage. Authorities mark that this is the exact moment in which the elegant dancer swallowed cyanide, dropping a lit gas lamp onto the floor and igniting the backstage room, with terrible loss of life. Fortunately, the Emperor and Empress escaped unharmed. It was believed that Emily had perished in the fire, though lines of enquiry had unofficially led the young girl to be suspected of kidnap or possibly murder. One thing is known, that Emily was most probably the last person to see Olivia Van Der Saat alive.
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