1636: The Devil's Opera

by Eric Flint

  Gotthilf was still frowning. Nichols grinned. “Think about it, Sergeant. Have you ever seen a piece of beef or pork blister on a grill or in the fire? Or a chicken breast?” Nichols shook his head, still grinning. “Never happen. Burn, yeah, but not blister.”

  His expression sobered and he turned back to the corpse. “So if he didn’t blister, he was already dead when the boiler blew. I’m not going to go out on a limb and say there’s something wrong here, but if I were you I wouldn’t cross that idea off the list just yet.”

  Like Gotthilf, Dr. Schlegel was now writing notes in his own notebook. He looked up. “I think I understand your concerns. I will examine this man most carefully.”

  Gotthilf looked at Byron. His partner’s eyes were narrowed, in that expression he knew from experience meant that the up-timer’s thoughts were racing furiously.

  After a moment, Byron straightened. “Okay, thanks, Doctor and Doctor. I think we can take it from here, but I’ll want to see the results of those examinations as soon as they can get done.”

  Dr. Schlegel closed his notebook and slipped it back in a jacket pocket. Dr. Nichols nodded, then held out his hand. “Right. I’ve got to get back to the palace and see to the emperor. Good luck.”

  * * *

  Otto Gericke looked around as someone stepped into place beside him on the side opposite of Prince Ulrik. He was faintly surprised to see his brother-in-law Georg Schmidt standing there also, face ashen, the latest in a sequence of the “important” people who had come to view the disaster.

  “Georg,” he said, turning back to watch the patrolmen starting to fan out across the disaster area.

  “Otto,” Georg responded. “I came as soon as I heard. This is horrible.”

  “Yes, it is,” Otto responded tightly. “But what’s even more horrible is the idea that Captain Reilly just shared with me.”

  “What was that?” Georg asked the obvious question.

  “That this may not be just a terrible accident.”

  Georg furrowed his forehead. “What do you mean?”

  “The up-timers have a saying that goes something like this: ‘once is an accident, twice might be a coincidence, but three times is enemy action.’”

  “What are you talking about?” Schmidt sounded bewildered now.

  Otto started ticking items off on his fingers. “One: the fire that destroyed much of the stored timbers for this project. Two: the murder of the two employees and the theft of the payroll money. Three: the explosion here today.” He crossed his arms and looked back to the disasters. “They may all be related. Someone may be trying to destroy this project.”

  If it was possible, Schmidt was even paler.

  “How could that be? Who would do such a thing? What would they gain from doing it?”

  “The who and the why of it are what the Polizei will be looking into shortly. If this is indeed some part of someone’s evil plan, the detectives will find them. I know these men. They will not rest after this.”

  Otto brooded quietly for a few moments, watching the patrolmen gather the bodies one by one. “If this was indeed an act of what the up-timers call sabotage, I pity the fool who set it in motion. The Committees of Correspondence are not at all happy. This hospital addition was something they were supporting in full, and to not only see it almost destroyed, but to see so many men killed—many of them CoC union members and supporters—has them ready to strike out. Gunther Achterhof is livid. He had already arrived at the same conclusion, and he’s convinced that there is an agency at work behind all of this. If Captain Reilly had not set them the task of checking all the roofs for coals and fire, they would be on a hue and cry through the streets of the city at this moment, searching for an instigator.”

  Schmidt said nothing more. After a few minutes, he turned and walked away without a farewell.

  * * *

  Gotthilf proved to be a prophet. When it came time to move the corpses of the dead workers, several of the patrolmen joined Sergeant Milich in depositing the remains of their breakfasts on the ground. Gotthilf had felt his own gorge start to rise a couple of times. He was able to firmly resist it enough that it settled down, but he didn’t think he’d be eating much for dinner that night.

  The heavy clothing worn due to the weather appeared to have provided some protection to the men. But the steam had ravaged any exposed skin. Faces, hands, necks—if it was uncovered, it was badly blistered. Fingers were so blistered they resembled sausages; hands were almost obscenely swollen.

  But it was the damage done to the tender tissues of the face that seemed to trigger nausea the most. Eyelids were so blistered that the eye-sockets resembled some kind of horrible growth; ears were severely misshapen; noses couldn’t be recognized; and lips were hideously swollen, like a travesty of a marionette.

  “Halt!” Gotthilf barked, as a pair of patrolmen just dropped a corpse to the ground next to the forming line, leaving the limbs splayed any which way. They looked up in surprise as he stormed over. “You will treat these men with respect.”

  “They can’t feel anything,” one of the patrolmen protested.

  Gotthilf reached up, grabbed the man’s collar, and yanked his head down to his level. “Maybe these men can’t, but they can.” He motioned to where a crowd of mostly weeping women were gathering outside the cordon. “You will give these men respect, for their own sakes and the sakes of their families, or I will give you cause to regret the day you were born. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Sergeant!” the patrolman responded, echoed by his mate.

  Gotthilf looked around at where the other patrolmen were watching what was going on. “Got that?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” “Yes, Sergeant.” “Yes, Sergeant.” The answers came from all around.

  “Good. Now, get after it.”

  * * *

  Bill Reilly looked over at Byron. “Is he ready yet?”

  Byron had a small smile on his face. “Almost.”

  * * *

  “What did you say?” Andreas Schardius couldn’t believe he’d heard what he thought he’d heard.

  Johann Westvol flinched.

  “I…I said that the steam crane at the construction site blew up, destroyed some supplies, and killed a bunch of the workmen.”

  Schardius could feel rage swelling within him. His teeth were gritting together so strongly he was surprised they didn’t crumble. He surged to his feet and threw his chair across the room, to clatter against the wall and land on its back. He leaned forward, face dark, fists planted on his desk top.

  “What happened?”

  * * *

  Georg Schmidt hurried back to his office, trying not to think of anything. He burst through the front door and hurried past Stephan’s desk and into his own office, slamming the door behind him.

  He didn’t even take off his coat; just settled into his chair behind the desk and clasped his hands together tightly before him on the desktop.

  * * *

  After hearing the jumbled account from Westvol and Kühlewein, Schardius thought long and hard, waving the pair silent every time one of them tried to speak. At length, he stirred.

  “This is disastrous. If we are going to have a chance of recovering from this, we’ve got to take steps.”

  A long forefinger pointed at Kühlewein. “You contact the insurance underwriter who wrote our accident policy. Make certain they know about this, and put them on notice that a claim will be filed. Make it very clear to them that they will not be allowed to fold up and disappear on us.”

  Now the finger pointed to Westvol. “You get in touch with our good friend Mayor Gericke, and tell him that if he wants his precious hospital project finished, he’d best find some ways to help us out of this hole. Tell him to get this Lieutenant Chieske on top of the matter, now, so we can sue someone!”

  The finger dropped, but the eyes now bored into the two councilmen.

  “I am convinced that someone is doing this to us. I can feel it, even if I can’t p
rove it…yet. So both of you will start asking questions of your fellow members of the Rat, and start thinking of anyone who might be responsible for this. I want names, and I want them now.”

  The two councilmen hurried out of the room and Schardius rubbed his hand over his face.

  Chieske again. He was really starting to dislike the man. First, right after he started with the Polizei, he shot Lubbold Vogler. Granted, Vogler was a fool and ordinarily would have been no great loss to Magdeburg in particular or the earth in general. His plan to teach children to pick pockets and become thieves had proven particularly idiotic. But the fool had also been Schardius’ only contact with certain families in Hannover who used to facilitate the…exchange…of certain previously-owned assets from time to time—a contact he had not been able so far to replace.

  Then there was the Bünemann affair.

  And then Frau Linder revealed that he was her brother-in-law.

  Now he was involved with investigating one of the biggest disasters to ever occur to one of Schardius’ business ventures.

  No, if it was all the same to God and the universe, he’d rather not have any more personal contact with the good lieutenant.

  * * *

  Georg Schmidt was still dazed.

  He had never dreamed that what the two Italians had planned would be so deadly. He’d just thought the machine would be broken, maybe one or two men hurt or killed. He would never have allowed them to take it this far, if he had known what would happen.

  And now the detectives were going to be looking for him. They didn’t know about him yet; he’d hidden his tracks well and there were only a few of them, so hopefully they never would find him.

  More problematic, his own enemies would start trying to identify him. He could handle Kühlewein and Westvol, but Schardius somewhat worried him. Still, he had plans for Schardius, so he wasn’t afraid of him.

  The Committees of Correspondence, however, were a different story. They were going to be looking as well, with hundreds of pairs of eyes and angry minds. If they managed to find anything—even one little hint—they would be on his trail, as implacable as the Erinyes. And once they found him, he would not face a magistrate, or even a senior judge. No, the court would be that of the streets, Judge Gunther Achterhof, presiding.

  If the detectives or Schardius traced everything back to him, the scandal would ruin him. The death-price for over forty men, even common laborers, would simply complete the destruction.

  But if Achterhof managed to identify him, it would be the end of everything.

  Literally.

  He twitched as a chill ran down his spine.

  What was he going to do?

  * * *

  A long harrowing day was drawing to a close. Mayor Gericke and Prince Ulrik had finally returned to the palace to report to Emperor Gustav, taking their Marine guards with them.

  The dead men had all been laid out in a row, and grieving family members had been allowed in a few at a time to claim them. Many of the bodies had been so badly blistered by the steam that they were only identified by the clothing they were wearing.

  One by one, names had been given to the bodies. The police photographer took a picture of each body. Each name was written down, both by Sergeant Milich, who was tasked with collecting that information, and by one or more of the Lutheran pastors who had gathered—or in the case of two of the men, a rabbi. Bereft, sorrowing widows and children were going to need support for a time; especially those with no immediate family in Magdeburg.

  Byron and Gotthilf were left with a half-dozen bodies that had apparently been single men with no families nearby, since no one had shown up to claim them. They had finally managed to locate a Schiffer work leader who hadn’t been at the site when the explosion happened, one Gunther Bauer.

  Bauer was lucky to be alive. If he hadn’t been off dealing with a stubborn supplier, he’d have been in the middle of the bodies when the boiler blew.

  Still in shock at the disaster and his preservation from it, Bauer had walked down the row of remaining corpses, giving names. He arrived at the last two bodies.

  “That one is Nils Svenson,” Bauer said, pointing to the body that Dr. Nichols had recommended be examined carefully.

  “A Swede? Was he married?” Gotthilf asked as Milich wrote the name down and the picture was taken.

  “Yah. Good guy. Not married. Lived in a rooming house over on Kristinstrasse.”

  “What was his job?” Gotthilf continued.

  “I think he worked with the steam system. Yah, that’s right—he was a boiler tender.”

  Gotthilf and Byron exchanged sharp glances. Now they really wanted that exam done.

  “Okay,” Gotthilf said. “What about this last one?”

  “Peter something, I think,” Bauer said with a tone of uncertainty. “No, maybe it was Pietro. Anyway, he wasn’t from around here. Someone said he was from Italy. One of the northern cities, I think.”

  That caught not only Byron and Gotthilf’s attention, but Karl Honister’s as well. He turned around from the conversation he’d been having with another sergeant and stepped up beside Gotthilf.

  “Could he have been from Venice?” Karl questioned.

  “Mmm, maybe,” Bauer said with a grimace.

  “Any family or friends that you know of?” Karl asked sharply, beating Gotthilf to the question by a fraction of a second.

  “No family, but he did seem to hang around with another workman. Guy with one eye. I don’t remember his name.”

  Both Gotthilf and Honister were busy scribbling in notebooks. Gotthilf looked up long enough to ask, “Is there anything else you can remember about him?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Byron said as the two sergeants continued scribbling. “Thanks for all your help, Herr Bauer, and if you think of anything else, be sure and let us know.”

  All three of the officers shook hands with Bauer before he left.

  “Maybe,” Honister said fervently, “just maybe I have a bit of a lead on the robbery murder case.”

  “Go for it,” Byron said. “Meanwhile, Gotthilf and I need to talk to the captain about this Nils fellow. It’s starting to look like the captain’s idea might have legs, as much as I hate to think about it.”

  A thought with which Gotthilf wholeheartedly agreed.

  * * *

  Schardius looked up, a snarl on his face, as his secretary opened the door.

  “I am sorry to disturb you, Master Schardius,” the man said, “but there is a merchant here from Hannover who insists on seeing you.”

  Schardius sat back. “Hannover, you say?” That piqued his interest. He wondered if it was one of the Praegorius family, the corn factors that had been rumored for over a year now to soon be establishing an office in Magdeburg.

  “Send him in.”

  The secretary withdrew, and a moment later a stocky man in fine clothes entered.

  “Good morning, Master Schardius. My name is Elting, Karl Elting. We had a mutual acquaintance in Herr Lubbold Vogler before his untimely death.”

  Schardius was stunned for a moment. He had been thinking earlier about the loss of the Hannover contact. Now it appeared the families from the other end were reaching out to him.

  They shook hands, and the master merchant gestured to a chair.

  “Please, be seated.”

  After they took their seats, Schardius steepled his fingers. “What can I do for you, Herr Elting?”

  The Hannoverian smiled. “It’s more a case of what I can do for you, Herr Schardius. I bring you greetings from my employer, who wishes to resume the relationships you previously enjoyed through Herr Vogler. But before we discuss that, I have a proposition for you…”

  Chapter 51

  It took Dr. Schlegel another day to finish his examination of the three bodies that hadn’t been blistered. Lieutenant Chieske and Sergeants Hoch and Honister were invited to the morgue to receive the results.

  Gotthilf s
niffed when he entered the corpse storage room. Even with the advantage of the outside cold, there was a certain aroma of decomposition in the room. He’d smelled worse before, though, and doubtless would again.

  “What’s up, Doc?”

  From the smile on Byron’s face, Gotthilf suspected that he’d just heard something that was funny in an up-time way. Sigh. Another question to ask his partner later.

  Dr. Schlegel tilted his head at Byron’s quip, then shook his head and moved to the wall with all the cabinet doors in it.

  “First victim,” the doctor began, opening one door and sliding out the tray with the body on it. “Male, Heinrich Kleist, thirty-five years old according to his wife. The injury to his neck, no surprise, was the cause of death. Instrument of death was the metal door found near the corpse.” He pointed to the door, labeled, lying on a nearby table. “Confirmed by marks on the neck matching marks on the door.”

  “So, death from effects of the explosion. Nothing unusual about the corpse, Doc?”

  “Correct.” Dr. Schlegel didn’t seem to be insulted by Byron’s nickname for him, Gotthilf observed as he made notes. Of course, the doctor had been around up-timers for some time, both here and at Jena before.

  “Any questions?” Dr. Schlegel asked.

  Byron looked at the two sergeants, and when neither spoke, he replied, “Nope.”

  “The family has asked for the body to be released to them.”

  Byron looked around again. Honister shrugged. Gotthilf thought about it for a moment, then nodded. There was nothing more to be gained there.

  The doctor pushed the tray back into the cabinet, closed that door, opened the one next to it and pulled out the next body.

  “Second victim: male, tentatively identified as Peter or Pietro, approximately thirty years old, unclaimed by family, friends or church. As Dr. Nichols suspected, the cause of death was a piece of debris that penetrated the frontal bone of the skull, lodging approximately two inches behind it.”

  Dr. Schlegel reached over and picked up a small object off of the nearby table.