by Rick Blechta
Shaking my head, I followed the tour to the next room, thinking about the money I’d wasted because I hadn’t heard a word of the guide’s spiel and had barely even looked around. So much for taking my mind off things. Maybe it would be better to go sit in a park and watch the pigeons.
We went from one huge, high-ceilinged room to another, the guide going blah, blah, blah about Emperor Franz Josef doing this in here and that in there. I stayed on the outskirts of the group, looking around, just trying to shut down my mind. Everything was opulent, as one might expect, but the furniture and decor looked very similar from one room to the next, unlike the Schönbrunn, in which each room seemed to have its own individual stamp. It became pretty clear, for instance, that somebody here had liked red, cream and gold way too much for my taste.
Finally, we got to the old boy’s bedroom and I was struck once again (like the room in which he’d died at the Schönbrunn) by its simplicity: an iron bed and utilitarian furniture one might have seen in the room of any army officer (but all upholstered in red!). The only extravagant-looking thing in the room was a large structure made out of what looked like porcelain standing in the corner near the Emperor’s bed. I’d noticed others in pretty well every room we’d passed through.
Finding myself near the guide, I asked, “What is that?”
“It is called a faience. They were used to provide heat in the old days. The heat came from a coal fire in the bottom.”
“Interesting. They certainly are quite ornate.”
“In the Hofburg, most everything tends to be ornate. In ordinary homes or in the servant’s areas of the palace, they are, of course, very plain. The faiences in these rooms are also interesting because the coal was put in from the back, from between the walls. In this way the Emperor and his family and guests would not be disturbed. Servants were meant to be seen as little as possible.”
“It must be hell to keep them going.”
She smiled at my naïveté. “They have not been used for many, many years. All of the Imperial palaces have long been fitted with central heating.”
The tour moved on to the Empress’s apartment. Here the guide’s spiel became more animated, and it was obvious she took a far greater interest in Empress Elisabeth’s life than in that of her husband. I could have understood this better if the guide had been male. Empress Elisabeth had been an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Apparently, she’d been a bit of a pariah, too, in the ultrastiff world of the Austrian court, finding court life horribly boring.
“And here is the Empress Elisabeth’s gymnastic apparatus. Every day she exercised for several hours, much to the scandal of the court. Sissi, as she was fondly known to those who admired her, was also an expert horsewoman. As a matter of—”
“What did they call her?” I shrieked and everyone turned, shocked by my outburst.
“It is an affectionate diminutive of her name, sir. And she is still known as Sissi to those of us who idolize her spirit and her memory.”
I barely heard that last part as I turned, running for the exit. I had the missing piece of the puzzle.
“Bydd olaf i fyned drwy ddwr dwfn.” (Be the last one to go through deep water.)
—Welsh Proverb
Chapter 32
ROCKY
A taxi! I needed a taxi! My kingdom for a goddamn taxi!
When I got back outside again, I mistakenly turned right instead of left and wound up in the middle of a huge square dominated by a wing of the Hofburg palace and two humongous statues of some important-looking guys on horseback. There was a rank of those horsedrawn carriages you probably think of when someone mentions Vienna. I went over to the first, where the driver was sitting on one of the passenger seats, his derby down over his eyes.
“Mein Herr, would you tell me where can I find a taxi?”
He raised his hat and looked down at me with a jaundiced eye. Then he stuck up his hand and pointed back over his head with his thumb. In the distance across the intervening square, I could see a broad boulevard, probably the Ringstrasse.
“Danke,” I said, and the horseman disappointedly nodded before pulling his hat back down over his eyes.
I hot-footed it across to the big road which was alive with traffic, including lots of taxis. I tried flagging some down, but even though they were empty, they didn’t even slow down to look at me. Frustrated, I turned to someone walking by.
“Excuse me. Do you speak English?”
The businessman stopped. “Ja. How may I help you?”
“Why can’t I stop a taxi?”
“It is not allowed for them to stop. One must go to the place where they stand.” He indicated places up the road or down the road about an equal distance away.
I thanked him and turned left, since my destination also lay in that direction. On the way, I whipped out the cell phone Roderick had had the good sense to buy and dialled Seidelmann’s private number.
“Please be in, please be in,” I chanted in my head as it rang.
“Hier Seidelmann.”
“Thank God I got you!” I said. “It’s Rocky Lukesh. Have you seen Tory yet?”
“Herr Lukesh! I was just on my way to see her again when the phone rang. You have something for me to say to your wife?”
“No, I have a question for you. This may take a minute or two. Do you have time now?”
“If it is important, I have time.”
“It is. I’m going to describe something to you, and you tell me if it sounds familiar: disorientation, loss of memory, nausea, a splitting headache.”
“That is what your wife described to me when she found Baron von Heislinger dead. Why do you ask this?”
“Because a guard at the Schönbrunn described the same thing to me, and I was too dumb to see the significance. Could symptoms like these be caused by a drug?”
“Hmm. Ja. I should have seen it myself, knowing what the baron was like. Of course! Please hold while I look through some journals on my desk... I had them here someplace... Ah, here is the one! These symptoms we are dealing with here could be caused by a drug called gamma hydroxy butyrate. It is what is being called by the media in North America the ‘date rape drug’.”
“How common is it?”
“At this point, getting it is not much harder than getting any other illegal drug, I suppose.”
“And if Tory had been under the influence of this gammawhatever drug, could she be held accountable for her actions?”
“That is an interesting thought. The main reason it is used is to induce extreme intoxication. It’s slipped into a woman’s drink, and after it takes effect, she is attacked. It is almost undetectable: odourless, tasteless and it goes through the victim’s system quite quickly. The fact that often victims cannot remember what has happened afterwards is looked upon as the most desirable of its effects.”
“How long does the drug’s power last?”
“That would depend on the quality of the drug, I suppose, the amount used, the victim’s weight, the contents of the stomach, metabolism, many things. No more than a few hours generally. A large dosage would most likely be fatal.”
“Can you talk to Tory about this, Dr. Seidelmann? Maybe it will help her remember what happened, maybe it will trigger something, but in any event, tell her what we’ve been talking about. She needs to know that she stands a fighting chance. There are other things going on, too. Tell her that I have other good news, and I may have an amazing surprise. Tell her... that I love her.”
Seidelmann replied softly, “I will do that.”
“Can you do one other thing for me? Please call Schultz and tell him that I accomplished my mission, and I’m still on the go. Tell him what we’ve been talking about. I will contact him later. Okay?”
“I will do that, Herr Lukesh.”
“And thank you for doing so much for Tory. You’ve been a loyal friend, and I appreciate it.”
The line was silent for a moment. “It has been my pleasure.”
***
The cabby almost rubbed his hands together with glee when I told him to take me to the Schönbrunn, and I had to check my wallet to see if I had the necessary cash. With slightly over one hundred Euros, I guessed I was doing all right.
I don’t remember the drive at all, since I had more than enough to occupy my mind. Several major questions still needed to be answered, but I felt the brainstorm I’d had back at the Hofburg gave me a fighting chance at recovering the manuscript.
Not wanting to attract attention, I simply bought a ticket for the Imperial Rooms and went on in to my second Habsburg palace of the day. Seen back-to-back, my feeling was confirmed that the rich variations of color and decor of their summer place were far more interesting than the almost sterile cream, gold and red of their formal downtown digs. I quickly walked through the entry rooms, sitting room, Franz Josef ’s bedroom and on through the imperial closets and through another bedroom and finally to the Empress Elisabeth’s, Sissi’s, bedroom. It had a faience.
If I was correct, Thekla had found a truly inspired hiding place for her treasure. Probably no one had looked inside the disused faiences in years. She must have thought of it during the day she had worked at the Schönnbrunn. It was perfect: safe, and the place probably had alarms by the dozen. When Thekla realized that Hauser, the womanizing guard, could provide the opportunity she needed to stash the score, she had immediately seized it. After things went so wrong for the poor girl, she’d used her dying breaths to try to let someone in on her secret.
But Tory had misunderstood. Thekla hadn’t said, “My fiancé is a sissy,” but probably something about the manuscript being in the faience of Sissi. She had also used a word Tory had thought was “broom” but that could easily have been the tail end of Schönbrunn.
I needed to see inside the back of that faience. I knew if I were to step over the rope barrier, alarms would go off all over the place and that would be the end of my big plan. I went to find Hauser.
I found him standing watch in a room at the opposite end of the building, looking very preoccupied. As I approached, he didn’t look overjoyed to see me.
“Why are you back again?” he demanded suspiciously.
“I need a small favour; one that is easily accomplished.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to let me look someplace, someplace backstage.”
“Backstage? What are you talking about?”
“Those servants’ corridors that run behind the rooms? Could I see something in one of them?”
“Why?”
“Because I think what I’ve been searching for is hidden back there. It won’t take a minute,” I finished, grinning in what I hoped was a reassuring manner.
He looked at me expectantly and I got the picture, stuffing everything in my wallet into Hauser’s outstretched hand without even bothering to count it.
The guard nodded without smiling. “Follow me.”
We went back through an overwhelmingly large ballroom filled with yet another group of gawking tourists.
As we walked, Hauser asked me, “What is it precisely that you’re looking for?”
“Something Thekla hid when she had you out cold that night she stayed with you.”
“Out cold?”
“Herr Hauser, you were drugged. Thekla put something in your wine. I think she got it from her dead employer, von Heislinger. That’s why the wine you drank affected you so much and why you had such a whopping headache. While you were unconscious, she took your keys and snuck downstairs. Did she at some point ask about the alarm system?”
“She did, yes.”
“And when she returned from her aunt’s apartment to spend the night with you, did she have the backpack with her?”
He nodded. “She said it contained her night clothes, but she certainly wore none that night. I thought she was making a joke. That little cow used me, didn’t she?”
“She used everybody—except in the end. That’s when somebody, unfortunately, used her.”
We entered the servant’s area from a door off the ballroom this time. As it shut behind us, Hauser asked, “Where is it you want me to take you?”
“Where is the opening to the faience that’s in Empress Elisabeth’s bedroom?”
“Ah...” Hauser said, nodding, “Come this way, it is not far.”
The wide corridor had rooms on both sides, probably used for storage and the like. Everything had been painted a utilitarian gray; the lighting was barely adequate. Servants didn’t need the brilliance of the surroundings supplied for their betters.
Hauser stopped in front of a small, iron door built into the wall at about knee height. “This is it.”
He reached out to open it, but I got there first. The darkness of the firebox was impenetrable, and the light from the ceiling fixture farther down the hall too meagre to see into its depths. “Do you have a lighter or a match?” I asked.
Holding the lighter Hauser gave me, I knelt down and stuck my head into the firebox. I cannot tell you my profound disappointment when I discovered nothing more than cobwebs, ashes and a few old chunks of half-burned coal.
Hauser crouched over my shoulder. “Is what you seek in there?” he asked.
“Sweet bugger all,” I answered as my shoulders slumped. “I can’t believe I was wrong!”
Hauser patted my back. “What was it you were told, my friend?”
I stood up, feeling like punching a hole in the wall. “Before Thekla died, she said something to my wife which sounded like incoherent babbling until I realized what it might mean. I thought that Thekla was telling Tory to look for what she’d hidden in the faience in Sissi’s room at the Schönbrunn. Obviously, I was wrong.”
Hauser thought for a moment. “Maybe not. The staff calls the small dressing room next to the imperial couple’s bedroom by Sissi’s name—and it, too, has a faience. We will look there.”
A short distance away, we came to an identical iron door in the wall. Fighting down a tremor, I bent down, flicked the lighter with one hand and opened the door with the other. If this wasn’t it, my little treasure hunt was over.
The grate inside was just as disused, but sitting on the grate I found a thoroughly modern plastic bag folded neatly around something long and flat. Hardly able to believe my eyes about that, I also saw on top of the bag two black plastic rectangles that screamed “Video cassettes!” to my tired eyes and trembling fingers. I rocked back on my heels, hardly able to believe that the finish line of the race was within my grasp at last!
“It’s here,” I said and began to reach in. There was a quick, searing pain on the side of my neck followed by blackness.
***
I gradually became aware of a breath-robbing stiffness in my body. Part of it was due, I quickly realized, to the fact that my hands and feet were bound, and I was lying with my left cheek against the cold floor.
Not able to move properly, I couldn’t raise my head to see more than two sets of feet approaching down the corridor around fifteen minutes later.
“Sehen Sie!” Hauser said to his companion. “Hier ist er?”
“Can you hear me, Herr Lukesh?” a familiar voice asked.
This was not the way it was supposed to end! At no time had I even remotely suspected that I was being had. Christ! How could I have been so damn stupid? I’d even been warned and had refused to listen!
My tongue felt like a block of wood. “I can hear you, Ertmann,” I croaked.“Please excuse me if I don’t stand up to greet you properly.”
“How long ago did you use that stun gun on him?” Ertmann asked Hauser in English.
“Almost an hour. I wanted to make certain he would not get away while I went and got some rope.”
“You oaf! You could have killed him with a charge that strong! Don’t they teac
h you guards anything?”
“I was only trying to make sure nothing went wrong,” Hauser whined. “He has found something in the back of the faience over there.”
“Help him to his feet!” my erstwhile friend barked.
I was very wobbly as you might imagine, partly from having my legs bound too tightly at the ankles. Hauser held me up.
As Ertmann bent down, opening a pocket knife to cut the cord around my ankles, he asked, “Whatever are we going to do with you, my friend?”
It took everything to keep me from screaming in frustration. “I sure was a chump about you, Ertmann! You had me fooled up and down the line. You strung me along perfectly. I never suspected a thing!”
“Whatever are you talking about? I thought we were working together to catch a murderer. You think that I am he?” The former cop shook his head in wonder. “No, the only reason you were stunned by Hauser is that I did not make my intentions clear enough to him this morning when we spoke. I only wanted him to detain anyone who came nosing around here again or asking questions. I felt, as you obviously did, that the baron’s maid might have hidden the manuscript here in the Schönbrunn. I was only waiting for the necessary government clearance to search for it.”
“Yeah, yeah, tell me another good one!”
“He is telling you the truth,” Hauser said to me, then turned to Ertmann. “I am sorry if I did not do the correct thing, mein Herr. I thought you were waiting to arrest this man.”
“On the contrary, we are hunting bigger game,” Ertmann said, smiling at my probably comically confused expression. “But we will not catch them here.”
“No, you will not catch them at all,” a new voice said from behind him.
“Schatzader!” I hissed.