The Figaro Murders

by Laura Lebow

  My heart thumping, I took the chain from her and placed the key into the lock.

  “We shouldn’t open the door, sir, we should call the police,” she whispered.

  “Someone needs our help,” I said. I turned the key, but the door would not open.

  “Are you sure this is the right key?” She nodded. I turned the key again. Still the knob would not turn.

  No further sound came from the closet.

  I shook the key. I twisted the knob. Nothing. I stepped back, and pushed myself against the door. Pain shot through my injured shoulder. The door popped open, revealing a large closet lined with shelves full of white linens.

  I looked down at the floor. My stomach turned over. Rosa gasped. We were too late. Antonia lay on the floor, her skirts pulled up around her waist. Dark spots stained her undergarments, and blood ran down her leg. Her large blue eyes stared vacantly at me, reproaching me for my failure to save her.

  Twenty-four

  I dropped to my knees. Rosa crossed herself and began to mutter a prayer. I took Antonia in my arms. She felt as delicate as a tiny bird. My eyes began to water. Who was this monster, preying on the young and innocent?

  The eyes blinked. A moan.

  “She’s alive!” Rosa crossed herself again.

  “Hurry, bring Dr. Rausch here,” I said to her.

  “I do not think—”

  “Now! She could still die!”

  Rosa stared at me, sighed, turned, and ran down the hall.

  Antonia’s eyes searched my face. “Antonia. What happened? Who did this to you?” I asked. She did not answer, just continued to stare at me, her breathing shallow and raspy. I leaned in close. “Tell me, who did this?”

  “Christof.” Her voice was so quiet, I wasn’t sure I had heard her.

  “Christof? Who do you mean?”

  Her head sagged to the side. “Florian,” she whispered. “Florian.”

  Auerstein? Was she so close to death that she was imagining things? “No, Antonia, Florian is dead. He cannot have attacked you.”

  “He knew.”

  “What did he know? Antonia, please, dear God, you must tell me. He could kill again,” I pleaded.

  She turned her face back toward mine. Her lips moved as she struggled to expel the words. “Christof. Florian knew,” she whispered again. She moaned. Her eyes closed again. I brushed my hand against her white cheek. Her skin was cool and clammy. I pulled her closer, trying to keep her warm.

  * * *

  The few minutes I sat there holding her seemed like hours. She did not speak again, and I did not press her, for it seemed that every breath was a struggle for her. My imagination ran wild as I tried to interpret what little she had told me. Had the baron tried to kill her? Why? What was it that Florian Auerstein knew? Something about the baron? Had Christof Gabler killed Florian?

  “What is it, Da Ponte?” Urban Rausch entered the closet. Rosa remained in the hallway. “Put her down on the floor, please.” I gently laid Antonia on the floor, stood, and backed out of the small room. Rausch knelt and began to examine the girl, whose eyes remained closed. Rosa stood stiffly next to me, a look of distaste on her face as we watched Rausch work.

  “You said she had been attacked,” the doctor said, looking up at Rosa. Her face flushed. She opened her mouth.

  “I was the one who made the assumption, Doctor,” I said. “Are you saying that Antonia is merely ill? Surely the blood—”

  “The girl has lost a baby, that is all.”

  Rosa gasped.

  “She obviously started to bleed and crawled into the closet to hide,” he said. “Take her to her room. I’ll find Bohm and tell him to come up.” He headed across the landing, toward the baron’s chamber.

  I pulled Antonia’s skirts down around her legs and lifted her, then followed Rosa up the stairs. Antonia had been pregnant? Who was the father? I struggled to remember what she had told me. Florian had promised to take care of her, that was it. Had he really promised to marry her after all? We reached Antonia’s room. Rosa opened the door. I carried the girl inside and placed her on the small bed. Her breathing was still shallow, her skin still pale. A thin blanket lay rumpled at the end of the bed. As I pulled it up to cover her, something fell from its folds and clanged to the floor. Rosa picked it up.

  “Where could she have gotten this?” she asked, showing it to me.

  My eyes widened. “It belongs to a friend of mine,” I said, taking Vogel’s medallion from her. I slipped it into my pocket. “It disappeared from my room a few days ago.”

  “Antonia is the thief!” Rosa rushed to the cupboard and threw it open. “The baron’s little gold clock. That pink cap the baroness was missing a few weeks ago. Oh! The wicked girl! Here is my mother’s shawl! I thought I’d never see it again! I’ll see her dismissed for this!”

  “Dismissed for what?” Bohm stood at the doorway. Rosa crossed the room to confront him. Antonia stirred on the bed, moaning softly.

  “Your daughter has been stealing things. I agreed to take her on when you arrived to serve the baron, but I will not tolerate this behavior in my household!”

  I drew a sharp breath, waiting for the sullen valet to explode. Instead, he shoved Rosa to the side and knelt at the bed. He stared at his daughter’s pale face, then reached under the thin blanket and took her hand. To my amazement, he began to weep. Rosa and I stood awkwardly as the big man’s shoulders trembled with grief.

  “Anna. My Anna. What have they done to you?” he cried.

  * * *

  I caught Rosa’s eye and nodded toward the door. As we stepped into the hallway, Marianne ran toward us. “Signore, a message just came for you.” I unfolded the paper and read. Maulbertsch had located Katrin Spiegel. Marianne peered into Antonia’s room. “What is going on? Is Antonia ill?”

  The housekeeper sniffed. “She was pregnant. She lost the child.” She turned to me. “Excuse me, signore, there is work to do.” She hurried down the hall.

  “It is true, Signor Abbé?” Marianne asked. I nodded. Her face crumpled. She began to cry.

  I took her arm and steered her down the hall. I settled her on the bench in the alcove and sat beside her, taking her hand. After a few minutes, she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes. “Oh, signore, this is terrible news. My poor mistress, I have done her a great wrong.”

  “You believed she killed Florian,” I said.

  She nodded. “One day a few months ago, I caught the two of them in her chamber. Her dress was unbuttoned, her hair loose. They were embracing. Neither of them saw me.

  “After that she became very secretive. She usually told me everything. She stopped buying new hats and dresses, and insisted I mend her old things, even those that were in tatters. I suspected he was blackmailing her, threatening to tell the baron that she had slept with him.”

  “Would he have been so foolish, to taunt his patron with that information?” I asked.

  She waved my objection away. “He was the heir of Prince Auerstein. He knew that even though he was twenty years younger and a mere page, he outranked the baron.”

  I nodded for her to continue.

  “After Florian died, my mistress seemed relieved, almost happy even. I believed his death was probably an accident. Then—”

  “You saw her ribbon in my pocket.”

  “Yes. She had been wearing that bonnet the morning of the day Florian died. She gave it to me the next morning, telling me she had lost one of the ribbons, and asking me to change them. Then I saw the missing ribbon in your pocket.”

  “How did you know where I had found it?”

  “I suspected you were here for another reason besides poetry lessons. The baroness had never mentioned any desire to learn poetry. Johann had said you knew a lot of important people through your job at the theater. I suspected you were here to investigate Florian’s death.”

  I shook my head. What a muddle I had made of everything! I could not even fool an innocent lady’s mai
d.

  “You imagined that she had lured Florian to the library, there was a struggle, the ribbon was torn off her cap, and she threw him out the window?”

  She chewed on her lip. “Yes, something like that.”

  Florian must have accosted Caroline in the library that morning, before I had arrived in the house, and torn the ribbon from her cap.

  “Where was she going the night she was killed? Do you know?” I asked.

  “She was very happy after Florian died. I guessed she had taken a lover.” She smiled forlornly. “For a time, I thought he might even be you, signore.”

  I put my head in my hands.

  “She asked to borrow my cloak. A lady cannot go out on the streets alone, but no one troubles a mere servant,” Marianne continued. She put her hand on my shoulder. “Please don’t judge her harshly, signore. She was desperately lonely. And as you’ve seen today, her husband took pleasure in humiliating her.”

  I lifted my head. “What do you mean?”

  “Antonia. He slept with her. He must have fathered her child.”

  I gaped at her. “How do you know this?”

  “Antonia told me herself, signore. She bragged about it, about how often he made love to her.” She shook her head. “Foolish girl.”

  “But—I understood she loved the Auerstein boy. I thought they might be lovers.”

  “No, signore. She told me Florian tried with her once, but couldn’t do it slowly. He ended up with his pants all wet.” Her cheeks reddened.

  “But she was so insistent that he was going to marry her,” I protested.

  “Just a dream of hers, signore, I imagine.”

  I did not know what else to say. The two of us sat quietly for a few minutes. Marianne wept softly. Bile rose in my throat as I recalled my encounter with the drunken baron in the library. If she does anything to jeopardize my career, I’ll kill her. He had been unfaithful to his wife. He had fathered Antonia’s child. Had he also committed two murders?

  Twenty-five

  Two hours later, I shifted uncomfortably in the seat of a hackney cab as it rumbled through the southeastern suburbs of the city. I had paid little attention to the scenery on my journey. My mind was filled with thoughts about murder.

  Christof Gabler was the father of Antonia’s lost child, Marianne was certain. Had Antonia, upon learning she was pregnant, turned to the person she considered her only friend in the household—Florian Auerstein? It was likely. She had confided the identity of her baby’s father to him, and he had “promised to take care of her,” as Antonia had so vehemently declared at the first dinner I had shared with the staff. She had believed he intended to marry her himself, and claim the child as his. But what if that was not what he had intended? Had he instead blackmailed his patron, planning to give the money to Antonia so she could leave the palais and start a new life when the child was born? Received 30 florins from C.G. Could the initials in Florian’s notebook, the record he kept of blackmail, those I had been so quick, because of my own emotions, to ascribe to Caroline, belong to her husband instead? Had the baron killed Florian because of the blackmail? Had his wife found out about it, and had to be killed also?

  I glanced out the window of the cab. The village of St. Marx came into view. The spire of its neat, small church and the bulbous dome of its poor relief hospital nestled into rolling green hills.

  My heart lurched as the cab hit a rut in the road. I grabbed the bench beneath me to steady myself, then returned my gaze to the view outside. The cab rolled by farm after farm, row after row of small green seedlings grasping for purchase.

  Ten minutes later, we reached the gates of the emperor’s new cemetery, established just two years ago. In the past, Vienna’s dead had been buried within the city walls, in church crypts and small cemeteries. Modern science had concluded that the accumulation of so many bodies—in Vienna, over ten thousand new ones each year—was unhealthy to the living residents of the city, so the emperor had ordered new cemeteries to be created out in the suburbs, where land was available and the population was less dense. He had even gone so far as to ban the burial of coffins. Wood took up a lot of space in cemeteries and was expensive. Instead, corpses were to be sewn into linen sacks and lowered into common graves.

  The people of Vienna had accepted the new cemeteries, but had rebelled against the banning of coffins. After a few months, the emperor had relented and restored the option of individual plots and burial in coffins. The enlightened thinkers of Viennese society, who agreed with the emperor’s public health motivations, usually chose the newer sack and common grave for burials, leaving the old methods to the uneducated and superstitious.

  The cemetery was quiet this afternoon. A lone black crow sat on the iron gate. I wondered if Caroline’s body lay in one of the common pits, her beauty covered for eternity by a rough linen sack. I did not know what plans had been made for her funeral, and I did not feel it was my place to ask the baron. Icy fingers clutched my heart as the cab rolled by the cemetery. My eyes filled with tears, and in the privacy of the cab’s interior, I allowed myself to grieve freely.

  After about ten minutes, I dried my eyes with my handkerchief and returned to my previous musings. I was certain the baron had killed Florian Auerstein and Caroline, but I had no proof. If I accused him, I would be asking Pergen to take my word against that of the protégé of the most powerful politician in the empire. I had to face the truth. No one was going to believe my charges against the brilliant Christof Gabler, in mourning for his own young protégé and his beautiful wife. Accusing him would mean the end of my life in Vienna. To take on such a powerful man, with his many friends and sponsors? I would be mad to even consider it. I knew in my heart that while my own patron, the emperor, gladly supported me in my battles with my enemies in the theater, he would not take my side in this fight. All of Vienna would turn against me. I would lose my position in the theater and would have to flee yet again, to build a new life in another city.

  I gazed blankly out the window at the never-ending farmland. But what about the victims—the boy, too young to die, and my own beloved Caroline? In my heart I could hear them crying for justice. I was the only one who could see to it that their murderer was punished for his crimes.

  The wheels of the carriage turned, taking me toward my destination. The wheels of my mind turned, taking me toward a decision that I did not wish to make.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the cab arrived at a small village. I instructed the driver to pull up near the church in the middle of the main street, and asked him to wait for me. The church was surrounded by the large dwellings of the community’s founding families, prosperous shopkeepers and important landsmen. I hoped that one of these was the address I sought. But when I hailed a passerby and asked directions, he pointed me down the road, toward the outskirts of the village.

  My heart filled with dismay as I approached the cottage. It was a small, shabby affair, but I could see that the tiny garden out front was neatly kept. Green flower shoots were breaking through the ground. I knocked on the door. A moment later, it was opened by a woman in her late forties, her graying hair tied neatly up in a bun. Two small children regarded me seriously from the safety of her skirts. Behind her I could see a younger woman seated by the hearth, nursing a baby.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” the older woman said. “Can I help you?”

  Now that I was finally face-to-face with her, I did not know what to say. I gave a small bow. “Good afternoon, madame. Are you Katrin Aigen, formerly Katrin Spiegel?”

  Her face grew wary. She nodded.

  “I’ve come about your son,” I began.

  She gasped, and clutched the doorjamb, trying to keep herself steady. Her face was white. The two children began to cry.

  “Matti? Are you here about Matti?”

  Matti? Who was Matti? Perhaps it was the name she had given Vogel before she gave him up for adoption.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She shriek
ed. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  I gaped at her. “I—”

  Before I could finish, she fell to the ground in a dead faint.

  Twenty-six

  “Who are you? What did you say to her?” The young woman rushed to Katrin and knelt beside her. “Don’t just stand there like an idiot, help me!”

  My tongue was tied with embarrassment. I put down my stick and helped the girl lift her mother, who was regaining her senses. Together we led her over to the chair by the hearth. As the daughter fussed over her mother, I looked around the room. Unlike the outside of the house, this main room was cheery and neat, with flowered curtains hung at the windows. Over in the corner, the baby wailed from the cradle into which his mother had dropped him when Katrin fainted.

  “Mama, are you all right?”

  “Some water, please. That’s all I need.” The girl hurried to the back of the house. Katrin’s eyes wandered around the room, confused, and finally lit on me. “Matti,” she moaned. She began to cry. The girl returned with a mug of water and knelt beside her mother. Katrin took a long swallow.

  “Who is Matti?” I asked the daughter.

  “My younger brother. He is in the army. Surely you know that?”

  I chided myself for my clumsiness, for blurting out as I had, frightening these poor women. I shook my head.

  “You are not from army headquarters?” Katrin asked.

  “No, madame, I am here on another matter.” I introduced myself.

  “What could the theater poet want with me?” Katrin asked.

  I looked over at the girl, who was listening intently. “Perhaps if I could speak to you alone, madame? My errand is confidential.”

  The girl snorted. Katrin squeezed her hand. “It’s all right. Take the children outside. I’ll listen for the baby.” The girl glared at me, but called to the two toddlers, wrapped them in bulky woolen cloaks, and ushered them out the door. She paused to give me one last cold stare on her own way out.