Aria to Death

by Nupur Tustin

  The lawyer glanced back the way they had come and continued in a grudging tone. “It was wisely done, I must admit. Especially if the intruder entered your bedchamber, Amelie.

  “Although now”—Herr Anwalt’s head pivoted around just as Haydn moved the last of the barrels out of the way and tugged the chest toward himself—“it would be best to get the chest and its troublesome contents out of your house.”

  “Besides, the scores still need to be authenticated,” Haydn said. “And I promised Kaspar I would examine them.” He was determined not to brook any argument on the subject. The music had caused quite enough trouble already. It would be best to trust no one at this point. “I assure you they will be quite safe with me, Amelie.”

  The sound of the door knocker beating upon the front door prevented the widow from responding. She turned her head, gathering up her skirts to leave. “I will see who it is.”

  Herr Anwalt followed her out of the kitchen. “I had best be leaving myself. If Herr Haydn promises to take charge of the music, there remains little for me to do at the present time.”

  “I trust it is not another prospective buyer,” Haydn whispered to Johann, not relishing the prospect of having to run the gauntlet between Amelie’s impatience and the visitor’s equally keen desire to procure the music, if it were.

  “It is that young man Master found so annoying,” Rudi said before Johann could respond. “I will lay my life on it.” He craned his neck out, although little could be seen of the hallway from his position near the pantry door. “He always comes when he is least wanted.”

  “What young man, Rudi?” Johann voiced the question before Haydn could, but the Kapellmeister was quite sure he knew who it was. Kaspar had not been dead for more than a day, and already the vultures had started swarming around.

  “A scholar, he said he was,” Rudi replied. “Something to do with music. Master liked him not at all, I can tell you that. Why, it was after his second visit late one night that Master decided to keep the chest here.”

  Haydn was about to push the chest back into the pantry when he heard the newcomer’s loud ejaculation: “What! Another theft? How is that possible?”

  It was a voice he recognized, and it belonged to no music scholar.

  * * *

  “It is only Albrecht,” Johann said to Rudi. “He is a violinist like your master and works for the imperial court.”

  He grasped one of the brass handles of the chest as Haydn edged it toward the door. It was not so heavy as to require two people to convey it, but Haydn was grateful for the help, nevertheless.

  They could still hear Albrecht speaking. He had been coming up to ensure all was well with the widow when he had encountered a police guard. Sent by the Police Inspector, apparently, to inform Amelie that the medical examiner had concluded his examination and the dead body could be released for burial. It was a fortuitous circumstance, was it not…

  Haydn listened with half a mind, his thoughts elsewhere. He had no doubt the scholar would be by before too long. If he had not come thus far, it could only be because he had not heard of Kaspar’s death, or the brutal manner in which he had been despatched.

  Although now that he considered the matter, how in the name of heaven had the doctor, Kaspar’s other buyer? Haydn’s grip tightened on the brass handle. Johann, peering over his shoulder as he retreated out of the kitchen into the narrow hallway, appeared to be unaware anything was amiss.

  Haydn followed, his mind churning. Not many people could know the man found dead in the streets was Kaspar. And nothing Amelie had said suggested she was the source of the physician’s information. The doctor, he had gathered, had been an unexpected visitor.

  They were approaching the parlor. Johann peered over his shoulder again, slowly edging past the doorway into the room.

  The reason for the visit may have been entirely innocent, of course. The man had seemed quite desperate to gain possession of the scores.

  But what if it was not?

  It would be as well to enquire more closely into the matter, Haydn decided as he in his turn entered the parlor.

  * * *

  The lawyer had already left, but Albrecht was attempting to persuade a bristly-haired guard with a bored expression on his face to take a report of the theft. He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Haydn and Johann enter the parlor carrying the chest between them.

  “That is what the thieves were after!” he cried, pointing to it.

  The police guard turned lazily in the direction of his pointing finger. “And yet here it is, still within the house.”

  “Yes, b-but…” Albrecht sputtered.

  “Besides,” the guard continued, speaking over Albrecht, “what crime has been committed when nothing was taken?”

  “But the window!” Albrecht pointed to it. “Someone broke into the house. That is a crime.”

  The guard shrugged. “Most likely the work of some careless servant girl.”

  “I employ no servant girls as you can see.” A frown of displeasure settled on Amelie’s face. “I certainly hope you are not suggesting that I or anyone connected with my household had anything to do with it.”

  Haydn exchanged a glance with Johann as they set the chest down beside the bureau. Now why had Amelie’s mind gone straight to that supposition? The police guard had said nothing to elicit such a remark.

  The guard shrugged again but said nothing.

  “My husband was robbed of his keys on the day he was killed. The house was broken into that very night. The thieves must have made a second attempt and, finding the locks changed—”

  “The locks have been changed, have they?” The information appeared to have sparked the guard’s interest.

  “Yes,” Amelie replied shortly.

  “And it is that wooden chest, the thieves are after?”

  “Yes.” Amelie hands, Haydn could see, were balled into fists.

  “Well, well. A pretty pickle we have here, then. You have changed the locks, and that has been no help. Nothing has been taken, so there is no crime to investigate.” The guard stroked his face. “All I can do to help, meine Dame, is to suggest that the chest be taken out of the house. I will be quite happy to take charge of it, if you will allow me.”

  “That is quite all right,” Amelie said at the same time as Haydn spoke up: “Your offices will be quite unnecessary. I intend to take charge of the music myself.”

  “It is just as you wish, good sir. And now, which one of you gentlemen will accompany me to the police station to take charge of the dead man?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Greta swirled her tongue over the mound of blackberry ice the vendor on the Graben had handed her. “Umm…” She slurped up a small quantity of the dark purple slush and swallowed. “To think we have Frau Dichtler to thank for this! I can’t say I like the woman, but it was nice of her to arrange for us to have a half-day.”

  “I wonder why,” Rosalie mumbled indistinctly as she bent her head over her cherry ice. She let her tongue linger on the treat, savoring the cold sweetness of it as it dissolved in her mouth in a burst of flavor.

  At any other time she would have enjoyed the sights, but she was too preoccupied now to care where they were going. Her feet simply kept step with Greta as they sauntered down the Graben.

  “I wouldn’t have thought she had it in her,” Greta said, taking another lick of her ice. “But she must be feeling quite sorry for yelling at us like that.” She gazed around at the shop windows with their displays of fine porcelain, perfumes, jewelry, and silks.

  The Graben was bustling with life even though most of the nobility had by this time left Vienna for their country estates. Carriages rolled slowly past, their wheels rattling on the cobblestones. Elegantly dressed men and women promenaded the street, enjoying the balmy spring air.

  “She’s up to something, I’m sure of it,” Rosalie muttered. The gold gulden the soprano had given them was a generous enough gift. There had really been no need for a half-
day as well. “She must be trying to get rid of us for some reason.”

  “What!” Greta thrust the ice away from her. “You mean she tricked us into taking a half-day we haven’t earned?” She tugged at Rosalie’s arm, trying to swing her around in the other direction. “We had better hurry back. We’ll get the boot if Herr Rahier finds out. That old stick-in-the-mud won’t content himself with just a gulden out of our wages for this. You know he won’t.”

  “It is quite all right, Greta. We won’t get in any trouble. It was the head steward who told me we could take the afternoon off. He said we had Frau Dichtler to thank for it.”

  “Are you sure?” Greta’s plump frame slowly pivoted back a few inches. She clung to Rosalie’s elbow, her gaze dwelling longingly upon the shop fronts. It was not every day that they received an unexpected half-day, or money for that matter. It would be a shame to turn back before they’d even had time to enjoy it all.

  “Yes.” Rosalie smiled, easing her friend’s fingers off her arm. “But I still think Frau Dichtler wants us out of the way for a while.”

  Greta turned back to face her. “Why? So, she can get rid of Frau Schwann? Whatever for?” Her tongue lapped anxiously at her melting blackberry ice, desperately trying to prevent the sweet black-purple rivulets from dribbling down the side.

  “I wonder if Her Serene Highness’s necklace has anything to do with all of this.” Rosalie frowned, pushing her finger up against the side of her treat to collect the melting ice.

  She lowered her mouth to it, but raised it again sharply as another thought occurred to her. “What if she was using the necklace, Greta? To get rid of Frau Schwann.” Melted cherry ice dribbled, unnoticed, through her fingers.

  “That makes no sense,” Greta mumbled, licking her ice. “She would have had to steal the necklace herself for that to work.”

  “What if she did?” An image of a frayed piece of rope arose in Rosalie’s mind. Someone had quite deliberately cut it. Had it been Frau Dichtler?

  * * *

  “I trust Albrecht will have the forethought to ask the medical examiner for his report,” Haydn said after they had taken their leave of Kaspar’s widow. “It surprises me that he can have concluded his examination so soon. It has been but a day.”

  He wrapped his arm firmly over the walnut casket and clasped it close to his chest as he navigated the steep stairs. It was an uncomfortable way of bearing the article, but the stairs were so narrow they would have impeded the passage of any passerby had he allowed Johann to help.

  Johann pulled Kaspar’s door shut and followed his brother down the stairs. “If the medical examiner’s report reveals nothing of interest, the undertaker may be of help. If I mistake not, it is the same man who arranged Wilhelm Dietrich’s funeral. Kaspar said the man was a barber-surgeon, but left his practice for the more lucrative trade of arranging funerals.”

  Albrecht had, at Johann’s suggestion, accompanied the police guard to the medical examiner’s rooms where Kaspar’s body would be released to him.

  It was a task Haydn would have preferred to undertake himself, but the wisdom of Johann’s advice could hardly be refuted. The thieves had already made two attempts to appropriate the music. Who was to say there would not be a third—in full view of the city at that?

  A dapper man with a trimmed, pointed beard was making his way up the narrow stairs. He glanced up and had no sooner set eyes on Haydn than he pressed himself against the wall to allow the Kapellmeister to pass. Haydn nodded briefly at him over the top of the chest and, murmuring his thanks, hurried past.

  “I will be glad to finally have an opportunity to peruse the contents of this chest, Johann,” he said in a low voice as they made their way down. “It appears to exert an unnatural fascination upon everyone who hears of it.”

  “That it does. It must contain something of value. The doctor has been by already. The young music scholar will not, I suppose, be too far behind.”

  Haydn paused at the landing and glanced over his shoulder. “It occurred to me that he may not have heard the news. If Kaspar distrusted him as greatly as Rudi says he did, he would have rebuffed any offer he made. Having been spurned twice, I doubt he would come by a third time.”

  “I would think men like that are quite hardened against the most persistent repudiations, brother. Why, Kaspar’s rejection of the doctor’s offers were no less resounding. Yet he was by just yesterday.”

  “To offer his condolences, according to Amelie, along with a more material offer. He appears to have known of Kaspar’s demise even though it was but yesterday that the discovery was made.”

  “What can you be implying?” Haydn heard Johann come to a halt behind him. “That the doctor—”

  Haydn looked over his shoulder into his brother’s eyes. “I can think of no other explanation unless Amelie sent word to him.”

  “She said she did not, but…” Johann looked troubled.

  * * *

  “I thought the only person who could’ve stolen the necklace was someone who knew it was a paste replica of the original.” The corners of Greta’s eyes crinkled as she gazed at Rosalie.

  They were sitting on the stone steps encircling the enormous granite basin of Leopold’s Fountain in the Graben. The imposing figure of St. Leopold, the Empire’s patron saint, stared impassively down at them, its sightless bronze eyes appearing to hold the same question.

  Rosalie glanced away, drawing a deep breath. “Frau Schwann could have taken the necklace—the genuine thing—at any time. After all, she is the sole person in charge of Her Serene Highness’s wardrobe.”

  “If she had, suspicion would’ve fallen immediately upon her,” Greta pointed out, licking the sticky residue of blackberry ice from her fingers. “She’d be a fool to simply take it.”

  Rosalie nodded, taking another deep breath. It had all made sense in her head, but now that she was giving utterance to her thoughts, the different threads she had woven were in danger of becoming a tangled mess. “So, if Frau Schwann had wanted to take the necklace, she would have had to concoct an elaborate plan, wouldn’t she?”

  Greta pondered this for a moment before slowly inclining her head. “I suppose a plan like the one that police guard, Poldi, mentioned would work. Steal the fake and then substitute it for the original at some point. Or have someone else do it. Didn’t you say a ragamuffin snatched the case out of Frau Schwann’s hands?”

  Rosalie nodded again. “And Poldi gave chase and brought the case back.”

  “Hmmm…” Greta tapped a rhythm on the cobblestones. “Either the ragamuffin was very quick or Poldi was in on it.” She raised her head sharply. “Poldi and Frau Schwann acting together? Impossible!”

  She shook her head doubtfully. “But I don’t see how it could have been Frau Dichtler, either. For one thing, when did she ever have an opportunity to take the fake?”

  That was a question Rosalie could answer. “At Leopoldsdorf,” she replied simply. “Do you recall how she sent us on a chase—”

  Greta snorted. “A wild goose chase. Her jewelry case and the Princess’s medicaments were where they were supposed to be. And you and I spent a good half hour traipsing around in the cold looking for them.”

  “Yes, but do you recall the rope?” Rosalie turned to face her friend. “I knew someone had deliberately cut it.”

  A small furrow appeared on Greta’s brow. “You think Frau Dichtler cut it?”

  “She was at the back of the carriage before either one of us was even out of it,” Rosalie reminded her. Why was her friend, usually so wont to believe the very worst of Frau Dichtler, being so skeptical?

  But Greta was convinced now. “So she was!” she gasped. “And she screamed blue murder about the rope being cut.”

  Rosalie bent forward. “She had plenty of time to take the necklace when she sent us off on our errand. Of course, she didn’t know at the time that it was a fake. No one did except Frau Schwann and Her Serene Highness.”

  Greta’s blond curls
bounced as she bobbed her head up and down. “She either found out later that it was a fake or—”

  “Or Her Serene Highness mentioned it to her,” Rosalie said. “They are quite friendly. Frau Dichtler seems to have won her confidence, who knows how? Why, Frau Schwann was worried she might be dismissed. And she has served the Princess since her marriage to the Prince.”

  “It is likely enough.” Greta regarded the gray cobblestones, dragging her foot forward and back against them. She glanced up after a few moments. “There is just one problem, you know?”

  “What?” Rosalie wanted to know. Hadn’t she explained it all clearly enough?

  “We have no evidence, and no one will believe us without it.”

  “Oh!” Rosalie’s shoulders drooped. She hadn’t considered this aspect of the matter. All she had wanted to do was prevent that horrid soprano from costing Frau Schwann her job.

  “No need to get all downcast.” Greta reached over to pat her hand. “We just have to find the necklace.”

  “Easier said than done,” Rosalie said gloomily.

  “Never fear. My cousin works at a pawnshop.” Greta leaned over and continued in a whisper, “Sometimes, someone will come in with stolen goods and try to palm them off. The pawnshops aren’t supposed to take items like that, but some of them do it anyway. Otto knows all the shops in the city. The ones that will accept stolen items. The ones that won’t even consider it. If he can’t help us, no one can.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Let us rest here a while.” Haydn stepped onto the second-floor landing and eased the weight of Kaspar’s chest onto his bent left knee, glad to momentarily relieve his arms of their burden.

  “Shall I carry it the rest of the way down?” Johann enquired, coming up behind him.

  Haydn shook his head. “There is no need. I require but a moment to catch my breath.”

  A few moments later, he hefted the chest up again, preparing to descend the last flight of stairs when he felt his progress barred. He peered over the top of the chest. Who had so rudely thrust a walking stick at him? It had struck him lightly against the shin. He could see no one but still felt the stick pressing firmly against his leg.