Writ in blood : a novel of Saint-Germain

by Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn, 1942-

  “Does her husband want to marry again? Or are there children he would like to disown?” Dyre asked with an acuity that took Reighert aback.

  “The man is not one to ignore his duties,” said Reighert with more sincerity than the statement warranted. “He has been told by the nuns

  that his wife’s condition is worsening and that they are powerless to help her.”

  “Has he tried everything?” Dyre asked. “What about this Herr Dok-tor Freud in Vienna? Mightn’t he have the means to treat the woman?”

  Reighert regarded Dyre with dawning suspicion. “Why should this trouble you? I tell you everything that can be done for her is being done.”

  Dyre hitched his shoulders up and plucked at a fraying strand of his sleeve. “I . . . suppose I dislike killing anything that is helpless. When it is a woman, it is much worse.”

  “Ach, ja,” said Reighert, recognizing the weakness of the man. “You think that the only dangerous humans are male, that females are soft and biddable, needing our guidance and protection. Well, that is hardly the case with this woman, you must believe me. She has rages and in those rages she is capable of pulling closed doors off their hinges. I myself have read the report the nuns provided of just such an incident. You know that nuns would not give a false report, especially of anything so serious.” That was stretching the truth, but he had seen von Wolgast read it, and for the moment that was close enough to the truth to satisfy him.

  “And the children? What does this mean to them?” Dyre asked, his gaze once more directed at the tops of his knees.

  “The man hiring us has no children,” Reighert snapped. “Not that that has any bearing on the case. Women as mad as she do not conceive.”

  “Then the man wants heirs,” said Dyre, looking less apprehensive now that there was some reasonable explanation for the husband’s intentions. “Legitimate ones, and who is to blame him? With a wife locked away like that, he must feel himself in desperate trouble. Any child coming from such a mother would not be regarded as competent no matter how hale he seemed. If his wife should outlive her husband, then so much the worse.” He smiled nervously in his efforts to convince himself. “I still do not like the notion of killing someone who is mad,” he said in an undervoice.

  “Do you think God will hold it against you?” Reighert s laughter grated. “I can assure you that God has no concern for such things. Why, He destroys more lives in a single day than any man can, no matter how warlike his actions. And how does the woman come to be mad, but at God’s instigation. Could it not be God moving her husband to end her travail?”

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  Dyre shook his head. “You used to be a Jesuit, didn’t you? I’d forgot.”

  “I was.” Reighert glowered. “I am still ordained: that cannot be taken from me. Not that oil on the thumb and first two fingers is anything more than slippery. They chose me as the example to the rest. I was not the only one profaning my vows; I knew of four others who were far more corrupt than I was, but they came from better families. I was defrocked; one of my . . . companions was promoted. He works in Rome now, at the Vatican. The other runs a foundling school in Silesia. To put Ernst Schneide in charge of children!” He spat to show his contempt.

  In the front of the house someone was banging out a polka on the piano, and from the thunderous pounding, a few were attempting to dance to it; a few seconds later came the unmistakable rattle of falling chairs.

  “You say that the woman is suffering?” Dyre asked after a long, thoughtful moment.

  “She must be: she is just sane enough some of the time to know she is mad beyond all healing.” He shook his head in counterfeit sympathy. “She has four times attempted to starve herself to death. She has told her husband, when she has not tried to gouge his eyes out with her thumbs, or bite the skin from his cheeks, that she is miserable. When she is not in her wits, she becomes wholly altered. Increasingly she claims to be under the control of angels and devils, all of whom prompt her to unspeakable things. The nuns say that she has been getting worse; occasionally she sleeps for days on end. She will stand in one posture from dawn until dusk. She eats her own excrement. She has gnawed the flesh off the backs of her hands. If she dies by her own hand, it is a mortal sin. If she is killed by another, she will be welcome in heaven as a martyr. Consider what she has endured and decide what is kindest to that poor woman.”

  Dyre’s confusion was so apparent that it might have been amusing if the circumstances were less stringent. “I suppose, if she has tried to die, that it makes a difference.” His voice was hardly audible over the noise from the parlor.

  “Of course it does,” said Reighert, certain he had achieved his end with the young man. “She has had anguish enough in her life.”

  There was enough doubt remaining in Dyre for him to ask, “And the husband is concerned only for her welfare? He is not planning a new marriage, or ... or anything of that sort?”

  “No,” said Reighert, “he has no one he intends to marry.”

  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Dyre fussed with the frayed cuff of his old-fashioned coat. “And it is not that he is unwilling to support her any longer?”

  That guess was close enough to the truth that it caught Reighert off guard. He stammered out a denial, hoping Dyre would take this as a sign of indignation on von Wolgast s behalf. He gathered his wits quickly enough. “The man is wealthy, and of very good family. He could easily afford to support her for decades to come, but seeing her in such affliction would break his heart.”

  “I see,” whispered Dyre, then spoke up to be heard over the intruding noise. “When does he want this done? Why has he decided it must be now?”

  Reighert had an answer ready for this. “He recently had a long discussion with the nuns caring for her, and they have told him that his wife is unable to recognize those who have tended her for years. She is despondent and is often unaware of her surroundings. From time to time she throws herself violently at the walls of her cell and must be restrained in order to prevent serious injury. The nuns and her physician warned him that she may soon be incapable of remembering any individual for more than a day. The last time he went to see her, she did not know him, called him disgusting names and accused the nuns of drugging her with opium and belladonna.” Reighert shook his head. “What would you do, in his place.”

  “I would not want my wife to suffer,” said Dyre quiedy before shoving himself to his feet. “All right. It goes against the grain, but I can understand why it is so urgent a matter.” This time when Reighert offered him the money, he took it. “Who is this woman, and where do we find her?”

  “You do not need to know more than that her name is Antonia; the nuns refer to her only by her Christian name, out of deference to her family. When everything is arranged, I will drive you to the hospital— it is in the country—blindfolded, so that you will not know which one it is, or where.” He saw the qualms come back into Dyre s manner, and hurried on. “You will be able to say you do not know the woman, or where she was confined if there are ever any questions asked. I will take the brunt of such investigation, if there is any.”

  One hand on the door latch, Dyre had one last concern. “This woman’s condition: what is the cause?”

  “Who knows, in these matters?” Reighert answered with a sigh. “She comes from a fine family, very old and distinguished. Their arms were enrolled in the eleventh century. But, you know, there is often a great deal of intermarriage in the highborn, and the bloodline can be-

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  come . . . shall we say, too dense? She was the only child of her parents, who were first cousins with one remove. There was more than twenty years difference between husband and wife.” He knew this only because of von Wolgast s scathing remarks about his in-laws.

  “You are saying that they were too closely related for healthy children?” asked Dyre, who had followed some of the writings about eugenics.

&nb
sp; “They, and many of their ancestors. The result was few living children, and then Antonia, who is, as I have told you, mad.” Reighert lit a cigarette and let his first exhale serve as a sigh. “Inbreeding inevitably leads to a compromised line.”

  “Inbreeding could cause such madness?” Dyre asked incredulously. “I have been told that it sometimes results in idiocy, but madness?”

  “Madness, idiocy—is there really so much difference?” Reighert asked, expecting no response and receiving none. “You will hear from me within the week.”

  “Yes,” said Dyre, and left Reighert to depart from the Chez Noir through the rear kitchen door, as he had been instructed.

  Half an hour later von Wolgast arrived, decked out in full formal attire; after a friendly glass of cognac with Heloise, who was rigged out in a broad damask skirt over a flounced petticoat and panniers with only the tight-laced corset above, he sought Reighert out in his austere room. “How does it look? Is he willing?”

  “Oh, he will do it,” said Reighert through a halo of cigarette smoke, “but we had better be about it quickly. I do not know how long he will remain convinced that murder is the only path to your Antonia s salvation.” The cynicism of his words was as real and oppressive as summer heat in Naples.

  “What do you mean by soon?” von Wolgast asked with mild interest. “Tomorrow? A week? A month?”

  “No more than a week. Dyre has too many reservations to depend upon his greed and confusion to sustain him longer than that.” Reighert finished one cigarette and used it to light the next before dropping the butt on the floor and grinding it with his heel.

  “Very well. I will make the arrangements we discussed,” said von Wolgast, sitting down in the same chair Dyre had occupied. “And the other matter?”

  “Baron,” said Reighert with an impatient sigh, “I wish you would abandon your vilification of Ragoczy. What is Ragoczy, that he deserves so much attention? And what use is pursuing him? Soon or late, it will bring questions to you, questions you will not want to answer.”

  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “That’s ridiculous.” Von Wolgast dismissed Reighert s caveat with a swipe of his thick hand. “There is no reason for that to happen.”

  “Not yet,” Reighert said. “But the longer you insist on keeping the calumnies alive, the more likely someone will trace them to their source.”

  “And who would that someone be?” von Wolgast jeered. “Who does he know? What Prussian will vouch for him? The most prominent supporter he has is that newspaperman Oberstetten, and he is a sensible man who does not ally himself with unpopular causes or figures, which Ragoczy is rapidly becoming.” He leaned back in the chair in order to draw out a tall, cylindrical cigar case from his inner breast pocket. This he opened and sniffed the cigar it contained. “Rum-soaked,” he said with a beatific smile.

  Reighert cocked a brow, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Well, I have delivered my caution, and you will heed it or not, as you like.” He folded his hands. “I have found a source of heroin to use on your wife. If she speaks at all after she is injected, the nuns will suppose it is more of her delusions.”

  “Excellent,” approved von Wolgast. “Did you warn Dyre that she could be dangerous?”

  “Yes, of course; I told him she has attacked you,” said Reighert, offended that von Wolgast would ask such a question.

  “Good. Good. And the truth, as well.” His cherubic smile never warmed his eyes. “The nuns have been increasing Antonias sedatives, which her physician has recommended in case she should attempt to injure herself again. There should be no trouble with her, but it would be best to be on guard, in case she revives enough to realize her danger.” He bit the end off his cigar and removed the band. “This is such a pleasure.”

  “Arranging the death of your wife or smoking a cigar?” asked Reighert sarcastically.

  “Why, both,” said von Wolgast as he lit up; pungent, rum-scented smoke blended with the harsher odors of Turkish tobacco. “Now, you said you had to speak to me about Inspector Blau? What is the matter this time?”

  “He has resumed asking questions about the night Nadezna died; apparently he is not as convinced of Ragoczys culpability as we assumed he was.” He noticed that von Wolgast s brows drew down upon hearing this. “He has asked Pflaume about her soirees, again. Pflaume would like to have a word with you about it.”

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  “I am certain he would,” said von Wolgast. “How much does he want?”

  Reighert shrugged. “Whatever it is, it will not be the last, dear Baron. Pflaume needs a pension.”

  “Must he be accommodated?” asked von Wolgast with a significant look. “Dead men do not collect pensions.”

  “No, but that man dead could reignite the fire the police have been willing to damp. It would be imprudent to have another tragedy occur so nearly related to the case.” He felt annoyed with the Baron, and decided to go on. “I begin to think that you like dead bodies: that you make weapons to provide you with more of them.”

  Von Wolgast sat bolt upright in his chair. “I trust you spoke in jest,” he said, so smoothly that he filled Reighert with dread.

  Reighert drew back. “Of course I did; what else would it be?” he said at once, and attempted a laugh to illustrate his sincerity. He nearly dropped his cigarette from suddenly nerveless fingers. “You could arrange for him to leave Germany. He must have relatives in America or Canada who would have a place for him if he brought them a small stipend, enough to make him welcome but not so much that he would be conspicuous for it.” As he spoke, he became more confident. “The police are not going to cross the Atlantic to ask Pflaume about Nadezna, and once he is gone, the need to pay him also ends. So a single amount would be the best offer, along with a second-class ticket to New York or Nova Scotia, to speed him on his way.”

  Out in the front of the house, someone with a very good voice was singing one of the Mahler songs about dead children; most of the guests had gone silent to listen.

  “America or Canada,” said von Wolgast to himself. “It is, as you stated, a long way from Germany.” He contemplated Reighert with a degree of interest that the former Jesuit found unnerving.

  “And once he is there, he is not likely to return, particularly if you pay him enough to make it worth his while not to,” Reighert said hurriedly, and explained himself. “If you do not pay him well, he may become discontented. You want him grateful enough that he will not suddenly take it into his head to send a sworn statement to the police. If you w6re to give him a generous amount, anything he said about you could be dismissed as the dissatisfaction of a servant, one who is ungrateful for the generosity of his late employers friend.” He was not actually certain this was the case, but he knew beyond all reservation that killing Pflaume would take suspicion off Ragoczy and might well

  lead back to them. “You could be certain he would be ignored if you—”

  “What do you mean by a generous amount?” von Wolgast interrupted.

  “Five years’ salary, or six,” said Reighert. “Based on whatever Nadezna paid him in her best years. He was very loyal to her.” It was not the amount he would have recommended, but he thought it was the greatest sum von Wolgast would stomach.

  “Why should I spend so much? That is not an insignificant amount of money, is it?” von Wolgast asked around his teeth as he chomped on his cigar.

  “For your own safety, of course.” He paused, arranging his arguments in his mind and striving to quiet the tension he could feel gathering in his neck and back. “It is nowhere near what you would have to pay to defend yourself in court. It might be just as well to have Pflaume out of Germany in any case. If what you tell me is true, he did not know everything about her business, but he knew how often you were in her company, and he might begin to assume certain things that would be to your disadvantage.”

  “And yours,” von Wolgast said, his mouth sullen.

  “Oh, with
out doubt, if Pflaume knew me. But as far as I can recall, he saw me only once or twice, and not at any time near her death.” Reighert let this sink in. “Tell me what you decide as soon as you do,” he advised von Wolgast.

  “I will,” was the answer, given so readily that Reighert braced himself for what would come next. “If you will do something for me.”

  “What would that be?” Reighert asked, feeling his chest tighten with the question.

  Von Wolgast did not answer directly. “Did you know that Ragoczy is back in Germany?”

  Reighert was startled and disbelieving. “I have heard nothing of it.”

  “No; nor had I until I paid a handsome sum to Seligerquelle, who had been contacted by Ragoczy from his estate in Bavaria. He had provided Ragoczy with information that would spur his interest, worse luck. I wish Seligerquelle had come to me before he answered Ragoczy s inquiry. I would have made it worth his while.” His glare became a sour smile. “Yes, it would seem he has not remained under the Czars cloak, so to speak. He has come back.” Von Wolgast relished the shock in Reighert s eyes. “I understand from Seligerquelle that Ragoczy is seeking information about Nadezna s death with the intention of apprehending the man responsible for it as well as removing all suspicion

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  from himself.” He drew on his cigar again. “I think it would be best to distract him.”

  “Distract him?” Reighert repeated, knowing he would not like what was coming, and knowing that von Wolgast was already determined on his course.

  “Yes. We must provide a diversion. He has been as busy as he has been private, may God strike him blind and impotent for his audacity.” His small eyes glittered dangerously. “I won’t have it. He will not be permitted to ruin everything, not when I am so close.”