by Laura Lebow
My hands shook as I placed my glass on the table. “You do a great disservice to your wife, sir,” I said. “You are drunk, so I will ignore that last remark.” I turned to go.
He grabbed my arm. “Sit down! I haven’t dismissed you!”
I pulled my arm away, but sat.
“Tell me what you know. Does she have a lover? Who is it?”
I hoped he could not hear my heart pounding in my chest. “I know nothing, sir. The baroness and I merely discuss poetry when we are together. She does not consider me a confidant.”
“You think I have no right to be suspicious of her?”
I said nothing.
“Listen, Da Ponte. You tell my wife to be careful. If she does anything to jeopardize my career, I’ll kill her.”
I raised my hands in a defensive gesture. “Sir, I know nothing—”
A loud knock sounded at the door. Bohm entered.
“There you are, sir,” he said gruffly. “It is time to dress for the theater.” I watched as the valet took the glass from the baron’s hand, pulled him from the sofa, and put his shoulder under the deadweight of the drunken man.
The baron shook him away. “I’m fine!”
Bohm nodded. A brief look of satisfaction crossed his face. “Yes, sir. Come, it is time to dress.” He led the baron out the door.
I exhaled and looked down at my trembling hands. Did the baron sense that I was attracted to his wife? I chided myself for letting him draw me into the argument. Why hadn’t I just kept my mouth shut, let him rant?
And Caroline herself—she had guessed my feelings for her, I was sure. I had believed she returned them. Instead she had humiliated me by using me as her errand boy, asking me to take the note to her lover. After finding the notebook, I had begun to suspect that she had murdered Florian Auerstein. Why had I leaped so vigorously to her defense?
My hands had stopped shaking. I sighed, and buried my face in them. The answer to my question was clear. I could not help myself. Despite what she had done to me, I still loved her.
Twenty
The skies were threatening rain when I arrived at Maulbertsch’s office early Thursday morning. The bureaucrat was in the large anteroom, consulting with a colleague.
“Good, you came promptly,” he said as he ushered me into his office. “Did you have a chance to speak to the Hassler woman?”
I nodded. “Yes. An admirable lady. She is doing good work at the school.”
“Could she be of any help to us?”
“No. She is too young. She didn’t come to the convent until ten years after my friend was born. And she knew of no stories or gossip about a nun or novice who had given birth there.”
“I was afraid that might be the case,” Maulbertsch admitted. He gestured me toward a chair, went to his desk, picked up a book, and pulled his chair toward mine. “Here is what I found.” The book was about a foot and a half tall, eight inches wide, and an inch thick. It looked old, its dark leather cover worn. Some of the gilt on a large cross embossed on the front cover had chipped away.
Maulbertsch opened it and slowly flipped through the first few pages. The paper had yellowed, and the pages had been written on with different inks and in different hands over the years.
“I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to look at this yet. This is the roster book for the convent. As you can see, the records go back many years, to the last century, when the order was established. Each page lists the names of the nuns who resided in the convent on the first of the year.” He handed me the book. I started at the beginning, turning the pages gently. Each leaf was lined with names, some written in a flowing, large hand, others in more-cramped writing. The pages were dated from the middle of the last century to the beginning of our own, then up to the year of my own birth. The ink, faded on the early sheets, grew darker as I turned the leaves. Pity flooded through me as I thought of these women, all of whom had dedicated their lives to serving God in this house, the early ones believing that the sacrifices they had made—love, marriage, children—would strengthen the order for many centuries to come. None had suspected that their home would be destroyed in the name of modernity.
Maulbertsch took the book from me. “The pages of interest are back here. Now, what year was your friend born?”
“He is thirty, he believes—so 1756.”
“We’ll start there.” He turned the large pages until he reached that year. “What were the initials on the medallion?”
“K.S.” My pulse quickened. Was I going to find Vogel’s mother at last? I peered over the top of the book at the page, but could not make out the scribbled writing while reading upside down.
“Let me see. Seventeen fifty-six. Here it is. Yes, the Abbess Elisabeth. She has written her own name at the top of the page. Hilda Gassinger, Annaliese Tiel. Wait, here is a K, Klara. No, her last name was Mader. Hmmm.” He looked up. “No one with the initials K.S., I’m afraid.”
I tried to hide my disappointment. I looked at the page. The list he had read through took up only three-quarters of the sheet. “Is that all of them? There aren’t very many. I thought it was a rather large convent.”
He ran his finger down the list. “Twenty. Perhaps we should look at the next year.” He turned the page. “Wait, you are right. There are more names on the back of the page.” I fought the urge to grab the book out of his hands and look for myself. He studied the names. “Ah, yes, I see,” he murmured. “The abbess decided to split the convent’s inhabitants into two groups,” he explained. “The front page is a list of all the nuns. The names here on the back are of the novices. There was a large class that year. There are ten names.”
“Is there a K.S.?” I tried not to shout.
“Barbara Eder, Renate Born, wait—here it is, Seipel—no, her first name is Charlotte. Katrin. Katrin Spiegel. This might be the one we are looking for.” He turned the book to show me. “Let me look further through the book to see what happened to her.” He pulled the book back and flipped through the next few pages.
I sat quietly, trying to contain my excitement and temper. It was well known that when dealing with bureaucrats, one must do things their way, otherwise one’s query would take twice as long. A novice! That made sense. A young girl—unsure of her vocation, vulnerable to the seductions of one of the rich patrons of the convent—had sinned, and had been forced to give the babe up for adoption and then to leave the convent. That would explain why Josepha Hassler had not heard gossip about a nun giving birth to a child. The girl had been a mere novice, quickly forgotten by the permanent members of the sisterhood.
Maulbertsch closed the book with a loud thump. “Yes, I believe we’ve found her. Katrin Spiegel, from the south of the Simmering district. She became a novice at the beginning of 1756. She must have become pregnant soon after. When did you say your friend was born?”
“November, he believes.”
“She was probably required to leave the convent after she gave birth,” Maulbertsch continued. “Her name is not in the roster for the following year, nor for any of the years afterward.”
“Yes, the timing makes sense,” I said. “How can I find her?”
“She probably went back to her people in the village. I’d wager she must have married, so she would have a different name now. Let me look some more. We have copies of all the marriage records from the churches in the area. I’ll have a clerk look through them.”
I thanked him profusely and headed toward the door. I turned back when I heard him chuckle.
“That’s why I love this job,” he said. “One never knows what one can dig up from these old records. We were lucky today, Da Ponte.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“It was just chance that I had that roster book. When the convents and monasteries were dissolved, the junior minister in charge of the reform kept most of the records. He’s a bigwig now, you wouldn’t have had much chance getting to see that book if he had had it.”
“What’s his name?” I as
ked.
“Gabler. The one who is to be the emperor’s new ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg. Christof Gabler.”
* * *
My mind raced as I left the main court of the Hofburg and walked over to my office in the theater. The baron had all of the convent records? I pulled my cloak closer around my chest and tried to dispel the eerie sensation that gripped me. Of course. Pergen had told me that as a junior minister, Gabler had been involved in many of the emperor’s pet reforms. Surely it was just a coincidence that I should find the medallion from the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin convent while living in his house.
Once at my desk, I shook off thoughts about Vogel’s mystery and settled in to work. I wanted to sketch some ideas to replace the pantomime scene before I told Mozart about Rosenberg’s injunction against the dances. I had scribbled down ideas for only ten minutes before the door opened and Troger entered.
“Well, Da Ponte? Have you found our spy?” He smiled scornfully and sprawled in the chair I keep for guests.
“I’m working, Troger,” I said. “Come back in two hours, I’ll give you a full report.”
He slammed his fist on my desk. My inkwell bounced. “You’ll tell me now!”
I threw down my pen. “Very well, if it means you’ll leave me alone. You know Pergen promised that I would be able to work unheeded.”
“What have you learned? Who is the killer?”
I paused.
“You know nothing!” He laughed and shook his head.
“I need more time. There are several suspects. I just haven’t had the opportunity to gather enough evidence to determine who the spy really is.” I thought of Ecker’s defensiveness, Rosa Hahn searching the baron’s desk, Bohm’s refusal to answer my questions, and the argument I had overheard between Caroline and Rausch. I was not sure if I wanted to tell him about the notebook I had found.
“You’d better hurry up. Prince Auerstein is getting impatient. He wants to see someone hang for his son’s murder.” His smile chilled me. He picked one of my books off my desk and riffled through it.
“I did find something—”
He looked up sharply. “What?”
“Are you and Pergen absolutely certain that this spy killed the boy?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Information has been leaked from the Gabler household to the King of Prussia. An innocent boy is murdered in the same house. There must be a connection.”
“But isn’t it possible that there are two crimes here, committed by two people? Someone is spying on the baron for Frederick, and someone else killed the Auerstein boy?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “What are you saying, Da Ponte? What have you found?”
I told him about Florian’s notebook: how he had dropped it the day I met him; how I had set it aside, and had just found it. “It contained copious notes on the comings and goings of members of the household. Some of the entries seemed to be a record of payments of some sort.” I did not tell him whose initials were associated with the payments.
“Blackmail? Where is this notebook? Let me see it.”
I willed my eyes not to glance over at the cupboard, where the notebook sat safely in my cloak pocket. “I don’t have it here. It’s back in my room at the palais.”
“You idiot! The blackmailer could easily find it.”
“It’s well hidden, I assure you,” I said.
Troger threw my book onto the desk. “It probably means nothing,” he said. “If the boy was blackmailing someone in the house, it must have been the spy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think he discovered something else, some secret that someone is trying to hide, and that person killed him to end the blackmail.” My stomach churned as I thought about Caroline.
“Your theory doesn’t explain the documents missing from the baron’s office,” Troger said. “I still believe Auerstein discovered the spy, and the spy killed him to protect his identity.”
“That’s the simple answer, perhaps,” I said. “But I think you and Pergen are mistaken.”
His face twisted in anger. “Listen to you, suddenly you are an expert on police matters! You worm! You are lucky the count even gave you the chance to investigate this. I would have taken you out and had you tortured that night. After a few hours you would have confessed that you spied for Frederick and murdered the boy.”
My pulse began to race. “You know I am innocent!” I cried.
“What does that matter? We would have solved the case, then and there. But no, we had to play this stupid charade. And now you dare to think you are smarter than we are?”
I fought not to wilt under his glare. “You should treat me with a little more respect, Troger,” I said quietly. “I know that the emperor himself recommended me for this investigation.”
He rose and towered over me. “You think the emperor will protect you, Signor Poet?” He sneered. “He needs Prince Auerstein’s support for his land reforms. The prince is clamoring for a solution to the case. You have accomplished nothing.” He lowered his voice. “Picture this. In a few days, Count Pergen and I deliver the Prussian spy to His Majesty. He is stunned to learn that it is his very own theater poet. He is heartbroken that he has so grossly misjudged the man, yet he must act for the good of the empire. He orders a quick trial and execution.”
I shivered.
He laughed as he walked to the door. “You are running out of time, Da Ponte! Bring us some useful information, before Pergen decides to end this stupid experiment.”
* * *
“Who was that?” Mozart asked as he came through the door.
I took a deep breath to compose myself. “No one important,” I said. “Come in, Wolfgang, have a seat.”
“Have you talked to Rosenberg? What did he want?”
“You are not going to like this,” I said. “He told me to cut out the pantomime.”
“What? Why? Because of the cost of the dancers? There are dancers in the ballet company—we can easily use those.”
I held up my hand to stop him.
“He says the emperor does not allow ballet in his operas.”
“What? I’ve never heard of that. And this isn’t a ballet like in Paris, anyway. It’s a scene of a wedding celebration, for God’s sake. Everyone dances at weddings!”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I told him that.”
“It’s a joke, right? He wants us to change the whole scene two days before the dress rehearsal?” Mozart paced up and down the small room, red-faced with anger. “Did you tell him the ballet was necessary to the dramatic action?”
“I explained it all to him, but he did not want to listen,” I said. “He is determined to ruin the opera any way he can.”
Mozart’s eyes narrowed. “Who told him about the pantomime, anyway?”
I sighed. “Probably one of the singers. Mandini, or Bussani. You know Bussani is part of Casti’s clique.”
“Damn these Italians!” Mozart shouted. “Oh, not you, of course, Lorenzo. Salieri, Casti, the whole cabal, they’ve worked against me since I arrived in Vienna. They’re trying to poison Rosenberg’s attitude toward me. They think I’m some sort of peasant—”
I leaned back and let him talk. I did not want to tell him that the cabal was really arrayed against me, that Rosenberg’s attack on Figaro was really just another attempt to get Casti my job.
“What are we going to do?” Mozart asked wearily.
“I’ve sketched some ideas to replace the pantomime,” I said, handing him the sheets I had written before Troger had arrived.
He waved my hand away. “I don’t want to replace it! It’s perfect the way we wrote it.”
I nodded my agreement. We sat for a moment, thinking.
“Can you go to the emperor with this, Lorenzo?”
“I don’t know, Wolfgang—”
“You’ve told me about how he supported you against Salieri that time. Go to him and tell him what Rosenberg did.”
I hesitated. Given my
discussion with Troger, I didn’t feel this was the best time to run to the emperor with a complaint.
“What do you think? Will you do it?” Mozart looked at me expectantly. “I suppose I could try myself, if I could get in to see him.”
Just as my heart began to sink, an idea came to me. “Let me handle this, Wolfgang.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of Rosenberg. Just give me until Saturday.”
* * *
After Mozart left, I sat for another half hour, working out my idea to foil Rosenberg and Casti. My stomach growled. I wanted to get a quick dinner in the Kohlmarkt and return to work, but Troger’s warnings echoed in my ears. I needed to face another unpalatable meal at the palais, trying to get information from the members of the staff. I packed up my satchel and put on my cloak, checking to see that the notebook was tucked safely in the pocket. I picked up my stick and walked upstairs and into the Michaelerplatz. The sky had darkened considerably while I had been working. I turned to hurry back to the palais before the rain began.
A woman screamed. “Stop!” a male voice shouted. I turned to the left to see what the commotion was about. A carriage drawn by two large black horses hurtled toward me. I stood frozen. The woman screamed again. I tried to jump out of the carriage’s path, but my legs would not move. My heart pounded so hard I thought my chest would burst before the beasts ran me down. I stared, my mouth agape, as they neared. Just when I felt their hot breath upon me, I fell. Someone grabbed my arms. Pain shot through my body as I was dragged out of the path of the oncoming horses. I felt the wind as the carriage raced by me, its horses whinnying, its driver cracking his whip. I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed. All I could see was a field of gray light twinkling with stars.
“Sir, are you all right?” I felt myself being lifted into someone’s arms. Was I dead? I felt a gentle slap on my cheek. My eyes cleared, and I looked into the concerned eyes of a young lackey.