Jennie claimed that her marriage “permitted her to withdraw from politics,” but to Jennie, truth was only a tactic. She might have involved herself in one last game, for old time’s sake as it were. Perhaps her husband asked her to. Von Neulinger certainly knew his wife’s talents. In 1815, brokering sub rosa arrangements between international competitors was the cornerstone of Jennie’s repertoire.
In her heyday, she thrived during some of Europe’s most delicately vicious negotiations, creating or breaking alliances between the most unlikely parties. Under a veneer of perfect civility, Jennie casually created or destroyed careers, fortunes, and even, some rumors held, a government or two. With Jennie the only certainty was that, however things turned out, she remained at the top, natürlich! Jennie’s accomplishments as a negotiator surprised everyone. The few coups that Vogl viewed in full light showed more inventiveness than a Schiller play.
But it was a long way from ancient unsavory political maneuvering to murderous violence, especially murder by surprise. Jennie lived by subterfuge and subtlety, yet there was nothing subtle about how she died. The savagery suggested that the crime was one of impulse, not the culmination of long, deliberate planning. If so, then something happened during the soirée that drove someone to destroy Jennie von Neulinger.
The destroyer evidently found a way to re-enter the house or remain inside until everyone was asleep, entered Jennie’s room, did the deed, and departed. None of this posed any particular difficulty for someone possessing the requisite audacity. Should anyone ask, a forgotten hat or glove creates access to the house. Once inside, the killer hides in an empty room. There’s no need to smuggle in a weapon; just select one of von Neulinger’s swords. Four rooms had them mounted on the walls. Locating Jennie’s room might cause anxiety, but as long no one wakes up …
No one had. Jennie’s killer found her and all but decapitated her. Vogl had to consider that Jennie herself left her door unlocked, expecting to meet the person. In any event, all the murderer required was a quick slash or two. Judging from her remains, Jennie had not resisted. Her killer gave her no chance to scream.
The matter of escape presented obstacles, but nothing insurmountable. The most direct egress was Jennie’s bedroom window, which opened onto a small balcony with a wrought iron rail. Vogl couldn’t recall the exact topography beneath the balcony, but even without special gymnastics involving tree limbs and the like, one could, with a modicum of luck, drop from the balcony to the snow-covered ground safely. New snow falling throughout the windy night obliterated any subsequent tracks. All very convenient for an impetuous murderer.
Vogl’s scenario depressed him. Nothing in it prevented him from playing the murderer. Nothing in his reconstruction provided support of his innocence.
The official inquiry into Eugénie von Neulinger’s death echoed Vogl’s speculations. A blood-smeared saber, missing from the main dining room on the ground floor, was discovered under snow beneath the countess’s balcony. The weapon belonged to the count, taken from a wall in the dining room. The room had been essentially vacant after supper ended the previous night, long before the guests departed. Anyone could have gone in and remained out of sight. Outside, the snow’s depth implied that at least an hour elapsed between the murder and its discovery, probably more. Ignatz Nordwalder explained everything to the count.
“The sword was discarded during a heavy snowfall, and the heaviest snow occurred during the hours just before dawn. It wasn’t snowing when the countess’s maid discovered her corpse. Heavy winds obliterated any hopes of tracing anyone from your garden. We can’t be certain that anyone was beneath the balcony at all. But you are positive that all the downstairs doors were locked?”
“Quite positive,” said the count. “Check with Diederich for confirmation.”
Nordwalder nodded. “Now, Georg, we come to the painful part. We are alone; speak frankly. Do you know of any reason behind this … unspeakable atrocity?”
“No more than you know yourself, Ignatz. Our household arrangements haven’t varied for months. Perhaps it was foolish to mention platinum to Eugénie, but in asking for her advice, I never dreamed that she’d take such an active interest.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jennie took it upon herself to open a private platinum exchange. Diederich can tell you the exact days and times. I only recently discovered what she was up to. Adhering to our government’s belief that many years would elapse before the metal, in any quantity, could be transformed into useful ordnance, I encouraged her to extract as much money as she could from the Russian broker and his various competing buyers.”
“Perhaps, Georg, a matter of the heart…?”
“Please, Herr Doktor. I married Eugénie with my eyes open. We knew each other’s backgrounds. We only demanded discretion of each other, not perfect fidelity, although for all of that, Eugénie was a faithful wife.”
“Then …”
“I know of no one. Eugénie kept her part of the bargain.”
“What of this Vogl fellow?”
“An old acquaintance. He was granted more liberty about the house than most, but I’ve consulted with Diederich. Whatever went on in the past, there was nothing currently going on between him and my wife. She enjoyed teasing me with their friendship, but there’s no scandal.”
“Perhaps he wished to rekindle the flame, and your wife denied him.”
“Perhaps, but Vogl isn’t stupid. He knows that we monitor our visitors, and he knows how much he stands to lose.”
“Let’s return to the platinum seekers.”
Von Neulinger was almost amused. “Jennie’s visitors? Ignatz, you saw them yourself—a laconic Russian ascetic, an aging English fop, and two German barbarians she nicknamed ‘the bear and the weasel’. There’s not an ounce of wit or charm among them. If Jennie ‘loved’ them, it was as a child loves its toys. I assure you, there were no liaisons in her recent past, or on the horizon.”
“Then we must proceed to the metal itself. Hager won’t like it.”
“I’ll see to it personally, Ignatz, that any current negotiations remain unaffected.”
“Even if your wife had personal reasons to keep the ‘market’ open?”
“Even then.”
“A thought occurs to me, Georg. Assuming that the countess tried to operate behind your back, she’d need a reliable way to receive and disseminate information outside of regular channels. Could Vogl have functioned as a courier?”
“That’s a possibility. I’ll investigate.”
“With the utmost circumspection. Let’s not incur Hager’s displeasure.”
“That goes without saying.”
There was a knock on the door. “Come in, Millstein,” Nordwalder said. “So, what do you have for us? How do we tell the city of von Neulinger’s great loss?”
Millstein knew his duty, and his plan of procedure was deemed satisfactory.
Chapter Seventeen
An eloquently oracular written obituary, crafted under Millstein’s supervision appeared promptly, but the fact of the death of Countess Eugénie von Neulinger already floated abroad. Rumors flew. Vogl received some of the earliest blasts, from theatrical colleagues returning from dinner. Kunegunde Rosa was among the most upset. She came into the theater fifteen minutes before she was due, alone and agitated.
“Tell me, is it true?” she asked tearfully.
“Is what true, Fraülein?”
“The von Neulingers! The fire! The family!”
Vogl chose a careful response. “There’s no fire at the von Neulinger’s.”
“Are you sure?”
“I visited the house myself,” said Vogl, still exercising caution, “not two hours ago.”
“Then the count and countess are unharmed?”
“The count is well. What have you heard, Fraülein?”
“What I heard is inconsequential, since it’s clearly not the truth.” Kunegunde collected herself and moved up a notch in Vogl’s esteem. �
�I now know only that you went to the house this morning.”
“In that you are correct. Forgive me if I don’t talk about my business there. You are better off not knowing, believe me.”
“But the count and countess….?”
Vogl prevaricated no longer. “You will hear the news soon enough. Regrettably, the countess is dead. The count survives. I’ll say no more.”
Tears again filled Kunegunde’s eyes. “That beautiful lady. She was your friend, was she not? Herr Vogl, my condolences.” Kunegunde walked away.
The rest of the troupe, however, was less accommodating. “Well, Michael,” a jovial Peter Thym said, “you are quite healthy for a ghost. Or was it you who vanquished the count in the affair of honor?”
“Don’t talk rot, Peter.”
“Von Neulinger didn’t take you from us to demand satisfaction?”
“Rubbish!”
“Did you not force his wife to leap from her window and run barefoot through the snow?”
So it went. Vogl fought off falsehood after distorted falsehood. It seemed as though every returning performer accosted him for verification of disasters he had caused, prevented, or rectified.
“Meine Damen und Herren,” Assistant Manager Schmidt said at last, “we are all assembled. Time is short. The Empress awaits!” Even then the company didn’t settle down until rumblings of impatience from Anna-Marie Donmeyer succeeded in focusing their attention on Bildman’s opus. For once, Vogl approved of the diva’s self-centered professionalism.
In one respect, the people involved with Eugénie von Neulinger were fortunate. Discussion of her death, variously reported as a murder, a suicide, an accident, even by one craven publication, “a misunderstanding,” quickly subsided into a distant second place behind the all-consuming matter of von Weber’s impending arrival. Despite efficient policework, people of all classes died in Vienna every day. Harbingers of impending artistic war came to town far less frequently.
Countess Eugénie died before dawn on Friday morning. News of the event was ubiquitous by Saturday afternoon. For a few hours it inspired much irresponsible speculation, but Carl Maria von Weber was supposed to arrive in Vienna on Sunday evening. Intensive Freischütz rehearsals would proceed for the next three weeks, with the long-anticipated performance on the first Thursday of March. What death, even a sensational murder, could compete with the artistic event of the decade (or perhaps merely the winter)?
A substantial minority believed that Weber conspired with all managers of the city’s central opera house, including the Italians, to insure secrecy. The identities of the principal singers remained unknown. After the orchestra musicians received their individual parts, they assembled for only one group rehearsal, and even then they played through only the overture and chorus numbers. A few scene painters succumbed to bribes or similar cajolery, but the only enlightenment they offered was that some of the story occurred in a forest. All was going as the management wished. Everything remained in the hands of Carl Maria von Weber, with three feverish weeks to prepare his case for native German opera.
The arrangement pleased everyone. Champions of a new Germania rejoiced because their champion was in the ascendant. Traditionalist Italianophiles basked in the expectation of a fiasco that would solidify their status as the world’s only legitimate operatic artists. Newspaper editors and pamphleteers delighted in inflated circulation caused by the controversy.
Interest in Der Freischütz enabled the civil authorities, oblivious to operatic concerns, to pursue their investigation through their usual means of infiltration and intimidation without attracting undue attention. Responsibility for solving the crime fell under the punctilious direction of Doktor Ignatz Nordwalder.
By inclination and necessity, Nordwalder was devoted to his mission of securing Vienna’s tranquility, though he also had great passion for his avocation, chess. He saw his occupation and his pastime as highly compatible. Experience in one area often helped in the other. When determining responsibility for a crime, Nordwalder liked to think in terms of a chessboard with pieces positioned on it. His opponents were, naturally, enemies of the state, or had to be considered so. On his own side, Chancellor Metternich was his king, and (in terms of power, not gender) Baron Hager was queen. Underlings like Captain Millstein and Count von Neulinger performed as castles, knights, or (in some literal cases) bishops. His world was full of pawns, agents available for early probing of his opponents’ positions, and occasional sacrifice to the greater good.
Nordwalder did not carry the analogy too far. In chess, one was acquainted with one’s adversary and aware that he controlled forces equal to one’s own. In his job, it was not always easy to determine who the adversary was, or what resources he had. And Nordwalder was not so foolish as to allow his allies to see themselves as pieces in his game. Still, he found it useful to think of his main objectives as to protect the Chancellor at all costs, to rely on Hager as infrequently as possible, and let other pieces fall where they may.
Unlike the majority of chess players in his era, Nordwalder won his games by patient defensive stratagems. He had a distaste for the valiant gambits others found so popular. He preferred his opponents to attack recklessly while he carefully martialed his forces for one decisive counter-thrust. Thus Ignatz Nordwalder was greatly feared in all quarters where he was known.
But Nordwalder wasn’t heartless. In line with the most successful Viennese of the time, Nordwalder truly loved civil order. Unlike a number of his confrères, he harbored substantial respect for justice as well, although, of course, justice had to be sacrificed sometimes for the sake of expedience. He saw himself as a master player who, when the inevitable time came, would be able to abandon the game—preferably with considerable winnings—without forfeiting his life. Just results pleased him more that merely victorious results. In any event, the prospect of unearthing the Eugénie von Neulinger’s killer rather exhilarated him. He believed himself more than able to undertake the challenge.
Nordwalder saw the task of narrowing the field of Eugénie von Neulinger’s enemies as substantial but well within his resources. Many of the von Neulinger’s guests that night worked within his ministry. All in all, that facilitated his work. The last of the count’s non-ministerial guests left around midnight. Routine interrogation of servants and similar contacts proved that most of the guests went straight home and didn’t stir until after the countess was dead. Nordwalder’s agents aroused more than one suspect from slumber. The agents themselves delivered the tragic news. Before word of the countess’s death reached the street, the number of possible suspects among the guests was under ten. The number of suspects requiring further investigation was, at most, seven.
Of these, three were quite far-fetched. Zdenka Merlinbeck claimed to have dispatched her two foreign companions towards their lodging before returning straight home. A servant remembered letting the von Merlinbecks in shortly after one. The count said he was indisposed, and the Merlinbecks retired to their chambers.
Further inquiry unearthed a housemaid who, rising to start her workday in the kitchen, saw the countess enter the house around five in the morning. Merlinbeck offered no explanation of, and had little interest in, his wife’s comings and goings. So, his highly attractive wife enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy.
Nordwalder’s moment of pity for his old friend became a pang of lust. Countess Zdenka seemed less desirous of withdrawing from state affairs than her husband. Nordwalder indulged himself for a moment, pondering interesting possibilities.
Then he turned his attention to Zdenka’s German companions, Doktor Barenberg and Professor Himmelfarb. The keeper of the inn where they resided locked his door at midnight. When the Germans woke him “at some ungodly hour,” he noticed their clothing was in disarray. Both were groggy, but the bigger one, Himmelfarb, “staggered about so” that he merited a second look. The innkeeper couldn’t say whether there was any blood on either man. By then Nordwalder knew of events in “Nero’s Rat
hskeller” that could account for Himmelfarb’s condition. It was hard to imagine the Germans committing the murder, before or after the brawl, either individually or in concert. Still, one or both could have gone out again after the innkeeper left, taking a key along.
Nordwalder maintained an open mind about Zdenka and her companions, but he decided not to pursue them with undue vigor. The image of the murder weapon deterred him. The other suspects, men whose exact movements during the night were not fully accounted for, seemed far more promising. All of them knew how to wield a cavalry saber with enough skill and force to dispatch a defenseless woman.
Nordwalder remembered the Englishman, Thomas Bellingham from 1815. “If milord had any hand in the current business, the motive was greed, not love,” Georg assured him. Other colleagues said that he played the fool to encourage his adversaries to underestimate him. Nordwalder believed the story fueled by a chance remark of Eugénie: “I find Thomas difficult to understand.” Bellingham once may have come close to outmaneuvering her, before being thwarted by von Neulinger. Like the two Germans, Bellingham returned to Vienna to purchase platinum; but since platinum was also of interest to Metternich, Nordwalder was reluctant to look in that direction.
Similar concerns prevented Nordwalder from giving Bellingham’s Russian companion, Pyotr Dmitrivitch Tagili, deep consideration, although Tagili couldn’t be ruled out. Like Bellingham, Tagili resided in Vienna at the British ambassador’s residence. The spies there were not completely reliable. Nordwalder deeply resented Metternich’s constant harping on how little he knew about the British. About the few Russians in Vienna, he knew even less. Until this platinum matter surfaced, the Ministry of the Interior showed complete indifference about them.
The two remaining suspects resided closer to home, both literally and figuratively. Not Eugenie’s husband, of course, but Georg’s son Heinrich merited Nordwalder’s scrutiny. He spent the night traveling between taverns after his unceremonious departure from Nero’s. One bar-keep in Nordwalder’s employ verified that Heinrich stayed at his place until the snow abated. He left, “shortly before daybreak accompanied by two of his cronies, considerably less sober than he was.” Heinrich was not a credible suspect, if the scenario of Eugenie’s murderer waiting until the house was quiet, killing her, and then slipping away was accurate; this, despite the large, fresh bruise the barkeep noticed on Heinrich’s cheek.
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