by Laura Lebow
Finally, when her tears were spent, she raised her head and looked into my face. “I’m all alone here, in this dark place,” she whispered. “What shall I do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I am here to help you.” I ran my finger over her cheek to wipe away her tears. She gently pulled away from me and stood. “I had better go in. Thank you, Lorenzo, for the evening. Good night.”
“Good night, Marta,” I said. I sat on the bench staring at the shadows the moonlight cast against the walls of the small garden. The door to the house opened and closed. I stood and looked up at the house. A moment later, a light appeared in her window. I turned back to the garden and stood there for a long time, staring into the night.
Eleven
A soft knock on my door roused me from sleep. The gray light of dawn filled my room as I wrapped myself in my dressing gown and opened the door to find my landlady, her hair still bound in her nightcap, her brow furrowed with concern.
“Signore, there is a carriage waiting for you downstairs,” she said, pulling her shawl around her worn wrapper.
“Thank you, madame. I’ll be right down.”
I glanced out my window and saw a black carriage standing in the mist. The driver lounged in the street. I washed hastily, dressed, took my cloak and satchel, and hurried down the stairs.
The driver tipped his cap and held the door for me. “I’m from the Ministry of Police, sir. I’m to take you into town. Inspector Troger and Count Benda are already there.”
“What is it?” I asked him, although I had already guessed the terrible answer to my question.
“There’s been another one, sir. Another murder.”
* * *
The carriage clattered loudly through the Stuben gate and onto the deserted, silent streets of the city. I turned my head away from the north side of the Stephansdom as the driver pushed the horses around the cathedral, into the empty Stock-im-Eisen-Platz, and past the curved apartment building that marked the entrance to the Graben. The stalls of the cloth market, which would soon be busy with vendors selling fabric, buttons, ribbons, and thread, sat closed, dark and still.
The carriage halted. The driver climbed down to open the door for me. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you here, sir. They are closing off the Graben at both ends.”
Ahead of me, constables were setting barricades along the width of the large plaza.
The driver shouted to one of the constables. “Just go in there, sir, before he places the barrier. You’ll find the inspector and the count straight ahead.”
I thanked him and trudged into the Graben. A light rain had begun to fall, and despite the warmth of the early morning air, I was grateful for my cloak. A small group of men huddled around the plague column. Benda saw me and came over to greet me.
“Good, you came quickly. We want to get him out of here before the city wakes up and we have a furor on our hands.”
“Who is it?” I asked. “It is the same?”
Benda gestured toward the base of the large monument. Walther Hennen lay on the steps at the base, his gnarled right leg splayed off to the side at a sharp angle. His right arm rested against the bloodstained, squat balustrade wall that separated the plinth of the huge pillar from the stones of the plaza; his left arm lay at his side. He stared unseeing at the sky, his mouth shaped in the same surprised rictus as Alois’s had been, his throat slashed from ear to ear. Blood seeped over the coat of the dress suit I had seen him in just hours before at the Redoutensaal. His ornate stick lay several feet from his body.
Troger nodded at me. “It’s our killer,” he said. “The placement of the body, the slashes on the throat are the same. And his forehead—the cuts are the same as those on the old priest.”
My empty stomach heaved, but I forced myself to look carefully at Hennen’s body. His forehead was covered with blood. “Could someone clean off his forehead?” I asked.
Troger opened his mouth to object, but then nodded at a constable, who leaned over the body and gingerly wiped the crimson mess off the dead baron’s head.
My legs shook as I knelt and examined the forehead.
“It’s the same man, for certain,” Benda said. “The pattern fits. First he attacks a great war hero, next a priest, and now an aristocrat.”
The markings were the same as Troger had described to me when he and Pergen had told me that Alois’s body had been mutilated. A shallow, straight line stretched from the spot in the center of Hennen’s eyes to about a half-inch below his hairline. To the right of the straight line, the killer had cut a broad arc beginning at the top of the straight line and ending halfway down it, in the middle of the baron’s forehead. I squinted, trying to avoid Hennen’s vacant stare as I studied the cuts. A memory niggled in the back of my brain. Something about the shapes was familiar—
“You must arrest that protester, Richter, right away,” Benda told Troger.
“On what evidence, sir? I need more than your theory and intuition before I can convince Count Pergen to issue an arrest warrant,” Troger replied.
I stared at Hennen’s forehead, racking my brain to remember where I had encountered this figure before. I looked up at the statues on the plinth of the monument, and then down at Hennen’s forehead again. Then it came to me. A ball of ice settled at the pit of my stomach. I knew that Benda’s theory was wrong. We were not confronting a man who, motivated by his hatred of the war, was killing symbols of the country’s might and power. No, the devil committing these crimes was driven by urges that were much more malevolent.
PART II
Women and Good Wine
Twelve
Benda and I walked down the Kärntnerstrasse to the Himmelpfortgasse, where Hennen had lived. We said little, each of us lost in our thoughts.
“I saw Hennen just last night, at the Redoutensaal,” I finally said as we turned into the street. “He was wearing the same clothes.”
“He must have met his killer on his way home,” Benda said, as we walked by a large, opulently ornamented palace that was now used for ministry offices.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “He left early, as did I. I heard him berate some girls in a fancy carriage as I was hailing a cab. He was angry that they hadn’t donated their horses to the war effort. He stalked away, in this direction, not toward the Graben. And besides, the Graben would have still been busy that time of night. This man waits until everyone in the city has gone to bed before he comes out to commit murder.”
Hennen’s palace stood at the end of the next block. It was a bit smaller than its neighbors, and not as well maintained. There was no courtyard entrance, just a large, plain wooden door. The paint on the façade had peeled off in large patches in some places, and the stone caryatids that flanked the large doorway were each missing several toes.
Benda knocked on the door. We waited in the light rain for a few moments. There was no answer.
“It’s early, but there must be servants about,” Benda said, pounding on the door.
A window directly above us on the top floor opened, and a round face swathed in a frilly white nightcap looked out.
“Who is there?” the woman called.
“Are you the housekeeper?” Benda shouted.
“Yes, sir. What is this about? Please keep your voice down. You’ll wake the baron,” she said.
“We must speak with you. Please let us in.”
“Let me dress, sir. I’ll be down in a moment.” The window slammed shut.
Benda stomped his foot in irritation. “Surely she could send a lackey down to open the door, so we could get out of the rain,” he said.
We stood for five long minutes, and then the door opened to a large woman in a threadbare uniform. I could tell from the look on her chubby face that her irritation with us had turned to fear on her way down the stairs. She stepped back and ushered us into a large, cold foyer.
“What is it, sirs? If you are here to see the baron, he is not at home.”
“Where
are the other servants?” Benda demanded, looking around the room, which was barren of any decoration. A simple wooden bench sat against the right wall.
“I am alone here, sir,” she said.
“In this big house?” I asked. “You do everything? That must be a lot of work.”
She cast me a friendly look, and nodded. “The baron doesn’t need much, sir. He is a bachelor. Most of the rooms are closed up, so I dust them just once a week. It’s so expensive to keep the fires going in them, you see—” She saw the look on our faces and put her hand over her mouth.
“Something has happened to the baron,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Benda said. “He was found in the Graben this morning.”
“Is he dead?” Her voice trembled.
Benda nodded.
Large tears rolled down her ruddy cheeks. “What happened, sir? Did he fall and hit his head?” she asked. “He rushed everywhere, leaning on that stick. I was always afraid he would fall.”
We did not answer. I pulled out my handkerchief and handed it to her. She nodded gratefully.
“How long have you worked for him?” I asked.
She wiped her eyes. “Twenty-five years, sir, since he was a boy. I was hired to watch him after his mother died. The former baron, Walther’s father, had no interest in the boy after his wife died. He drank and gambled.” She sniffled. “But I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, sir. All of that happened a long time ago.”
“Was Walther married? Is there any other family?” Benda asked.
“No, sir. He was an only child. It was just the two of them, Walther and his father, until the old baron died a few years ago. Walther never married. There was an engagement, five years ago, but after the accident—”
“When he was lamed?” I asked.
She twisted my handkerchief in her chapped, plump hands. “Yes, sir. Walther was a joyful, handsome boy, but very lonely. When his father sent him off to school, he suffered from melancholia. He was never able to overcome it. That’s why I was so happy when he became engaged to Mademoiselle Albrechts.”
Benda gasped.
She glanced at him and frowned, and then returned her attention to me. “She was from an excellent family. Her father was a war hero. He passed away recently. Walther adored her.” Her voice broke. “Then the carriage knocked him down over in the Michaelerplatz. Both of his legs were broken. The doctors could not set one of them right. The young lady changed her mind after that.”
She sighed. “Poor Walther never recovered from the blow. When his father died a year later, Walther discovered that the old baron had lost most of their lands at the gambling tables. Walther was left with almost nothing, just this house and its contents. He let the rest of the staff go, but kept me on to look after him. He’s had to sell the furniture and all of the art to support us.”
She began to weep.
“When did you last see him?” Benda asked.
“Last night, sir. He had gone to that ball at the Redoutensaal. I was happy that he had decided to go. He usually avoids parties. ‘No one wants to dance with a cripple, Marthe,’ he would say. But he didn’t stay very long. I’ve heard those parties let out well after midnight. He came home at about eleven. He’d been drinking. I could smell the whisky on his breath.”
“What did he do when he came in?” I asked.
She blew her nose into my handkerchief. “A message had been delivered earlier in the evening, sir, after Walther had left for the ball. I gave it to him when he arrived home. He read it, and then told me to leave the front door unlocked. He said that he would be going out again later.”
“Who delivered the message?” I asked. “Was there an insignia on the seal?”
“Oh, sir, I didn’t look at it. The baron’s correspondence is none of my business.” She thought for a moment. “A young boy delivered it.”
I stifled a curse. These damned anonymous boys! How many were there in this city? “What happened after he read the note? Did he tell you anything about its contents?” I pressed.
“No, sir. He took it up to his room. I went to bed a few minutes later.”
“Did you hear him go out again? Did you hear him come back?” Benda asked.
“No, sir. You see, I sleep on the top floor. I can’t hear anything that goes on way down here. But when I was coming to let you in just now, I looked in his room. His bed hasn’t been slept in.”
“We’ll need to search the house,” I told her.
“But I don’t understand, sir. What is it you are not telling me? You said he tripped and hit his head.”
“He was murdered,” Benda said. “We found his body at the base of the plague column this morning. His throat had been cut.”
Her face crumpled. “Like the old priest by the cathedral?” She staggered. I grabbed her arm before she fell. As I guided her toward the bench, I glared at Benda, who was already halfway up the stairway.
“What is going on, sir?” she asked me. “Is there a maniac on the loose? Why would anyone kill Walther?” She rocked back and forth, sobbing. “My poor little boy, my poor boy,” she moaned. I sat next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. Benda continued up the stairs.
She wiped her eyes and turned to me. “Who could have done such an evil thing, sir?”
“That’s what we are going to find out,” I said. “Can you tell me which rooms he used?”
“The salons on the first floor are all closed up. He used the rooms on the second floor. His chamber is there, and the library is next door. He spent most of his time in the library. Lately, he even took his meals in there. Do you want me to show you?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “You stay here. We’ll go up ourselves.”
* * *
I joined Benda at the first landing. “We should look in all the rooms in case she’s hiding something,” he said.
We walked through the grand public salons on the first floor. Every room was empty of furniture. Tattered velvet drapes hung at the tall windows. Large dark rectangles on the faded damask wallpaper were the only evidence that the Hennen family had once owned a large art collection.
On the second floor, we walked through more empty rooms until we finally reached the baron’s library. The walls here also showed the telltale marks of treasured paintings sold, and most of the books had been removed from the shelves.
Benda hurried over to the writing desk at the center of the room. He shuffled through a pile of papers on its top. “Look here, Da Ponte,” he called to me. “Here’s a letter Hennen was writing, to send to one of the newspapers, I imagine.” He scanned its contents. “It’s the usual arguments in favor of the war.”
He picked up another paper and read it. “He’s been writing a pamphlet in support of widening the draft,” he said. He slapped the table. “Yes! Hennen was a logical victim for our killer—a nobleman, highly vocal in his support of the war. Yet another symbol of the greatness of our country.”
“But the victims are not very strong symbols,” I objected.
He arched a brow. “What do you mean?”
“General Albrechts was an old man, his days of glory already faded. Alois was also old. He hadn’t been involved in church affairs in over ten years. Hennen was a minor nobleman who had to sell off his family’s possessions simply to survive.” I waved my hand around the bare room. “Where is the greatness your killer is supposedly attacking?”
Benda thought for a moment. “All you say is true,” he said. “But consider this. The people the killer actually wants are out of his reach. The high-ranking officers in the military and most of the nobility are in Semlin with the emperor. The senior members of the cathedral staff are usually sequestered in the archbishop’s residence. The killer chooses victims whom he can confront and murder easily.”
I shook my head, but said no more. Benda’s theory was far-fetched, but I did not want to argue with him until I could mull over the ideas that had begun to form as I had examined Hennen’s body.
We q
uickly finished our search of the library, but found no paper that could have been the message Hennen had received last night. We moved next door to the baron’s chamber. Most of the furniture that once had filled the large room was gone, and like the other rooms in the house, no art graced the dark bedroom’s walls. A small bed sat in one corner, a stuffed reading chair in another. Next to the chair was tucked a small table, upon which sat a lamp and a pile of papers. I riffled through them as Benda searched Hennen’s meager wardrobe.
The first item in the pile was a political pamphlet, the type one saw in every coffeehouse in the city. I scanned the front page and snorted.
“What is it?” Benda asked.
“It’s a broadside entitled ‘Chambermaids: A Cautionary Tale for Young Gentlemen,’” I said. “The author is warning wealthy young men against their servant girls, who are looking to seduce their masters and improve their social standing.”
“You shouldn’t laugh,” Benda said. “That’s happening everywhere these days.” He smirked. “But I don’t think Hennen had anything to fear from that one downstairs.”
I thumbed through the rest of the pile, which included a bill from Hennen’s tailor for the repair of a dress suit, a receipt from a pawnshop in the Jewish quarter for a gold watch, a notice of a meeting in one of the Masonic houses in the city, and a letter from a nearby bookshop informing the baron that the proprietor could not take the baron’s remaining books on consignment because the market for histories of the wars at the turn of the century had dried up.
At the bottom of the pile I found two sheets of paper of a lighter color than the ones in the rest of the pile. Both sheets were of fine rag with an elaborate watermark. Each contained a few lines written in black ink in a neat hand. I studied the contents of the top sheet. “But you have fixed your mind solely on earthly matters; you harvest only darkness from the true light,” it said.
I put the sheet aside and took up its companion. “That infinite, indescribably good that dwells above, speeds itself to love, like rays of light to a shining body.” My pulse began to race. “Come take a look at these,” I said to Benda. He came and read the lines over my shoulder.