Aria to Death

by Nupur Tustin

  * * *

  Rosalie cursed herself as she hurried into the kitchen. If only she hadn’t dawdled over her chores that morning. Goodness gracious, she was late! Already the musicians could be heard descending from the Rehearsal Room like a horde of hungry Turks. And she had only just gotten the warmers going in the Officers’ Mess.

  Good thing it was summer. It had taken no time at all.

  She uttered another curse as the kitchen door slammed shut behind her. The soup and the boiled beef had been carried in. But four more dishes still remained. The roast pork was on a silver platter so heavy, she would have to come back for the dumplings that went with it. Then there were the vegetables. And the kipferl, sweet crescent-shaped rolls covered in cherry marzipan and chocolate.

  “Greta will have to come back for those,” Rosalie muttered, hefting the platter of roast pork with an ill-suppressed grunt and maneuvering her way out of the kitchen door.

  She trudged down the hallway, the weight of the platter slowing her down when a light patter of footsteps caught her ears. Who was it, she wondered. Her feet itched to turn around, but the musicians were already at their meal and the roast pork would not convey itself to the Officers’ Mess.

  She willed herself forward. But the relentless tap-tapping behind her was making the hairs on the nape of her neck rise. She found her steps lagging. Was it her imagination or were the footsteps behind her slowing down, too?

  Good heavens! Whoever it was, was right behind her. Rosalie whirled around.

  The platter she held came into contact with a slight, apron-clad figure, catching the woman in her midriff.

  “I beg your pardon!” the woman said breathlessly. “I didn’t…that is to say…”

  “Who are you?” Rosalie demanded. “Why were you following me?”

  She planted herself on the marble floor, determined not to move until she had received an answer. The musicians would just have to wait.

  “I…er…” A strand of brown hair escaped from its pins and fell over the woman’s eyes. She swept it back impatiently. “I am the new maid.”

  “The new maid!” Rosalie repeated. She could not recall anyone mentioning a new maid. But then she had been so preoccupied with the events of the previous day, she had barely remembered to serve the midday meal.

  “I was sent for,” the woman continued. “Frau Dichtler—”

  “Frau Dichtler!” What did that infernal woman mean by hiring a new maid? Rosalie had half a mind to send the stranger packing. Her eyes swept over the newcomer’s form. She looked a bit long in the tooth to be a kitchen maid. And that hat—a rakish red affair with all those feathers! Most unsuitable for a maid.

  She was about to say as much when she recalled Greta’s gossip. Had the Estates Director become so intimate with the soprano that he now allowed her a share in his prerogatives? She had best keep her mouth shut if that were the case. She didn’t want to get in any trouble.

  And now that she thought about it, a new maid would be most welcome. She could certainly do with an extra pair of hands.

  Rosalie regarded the woman, head tilted to one side. “Are you supposed to start today?”

  “At once. So I was given to understand.”

  “Very well.” Rosalie bit her lip. Should she be issuing orders to the newcomer? On the other hand, it would soon be time to serve the pork with its dumplings and vegetables. She tipped her chin in the direction of the kitchen. “Go in there, get the bowl of dumplings and the vegetables, and follow me.”

  The woman frowned. “But… Are you sure? That is to say… I don’t know if that is it to be one of my duties, you know.”

  “It most certainly is.” Rosalie stared at the girl for a space. “So I was given to understand,” she added. She could always claim to have been mistaken. “Well, go on. You don’t want to keep the musicians waiting, do you? And take off your hat!”

  Really! Where had Frau Dichtler found the woman? Strolling up and down the Graben or the Kohlmarkt of an evening as she plied her godless trade? Rosalie had never seen anyone who looked less like a maid and more like one of those shameless creatures of the night.

  * * *

  “It was but yesterday that the locks were changed.” Johann carefully picked up a fragment of glass from the ledge outside the window and dropped it onto the piece of paper Haydn was holding between his hands. “Not a moment too soon, in my opinion.”

  Haydn nodded but with a tentative air, more than a little surprised that Johann had noticed nothing amiss. If the window had been broken from the outside, there would be some fragments of glass on the parlor carpet. Yet they had detected none. The window itself was set far enough back from the ledge that the larger pieces of glass would inevitably have fallen inside the parlor.

  Johann was still speaking. “Who would have thought the thieves would strike again so shortly after their first attempt? What can have gone through their minds when they found the locks changed?” The thought elicited a good-humored chuckle.

  But Haydn was not amused. “If they were unable to walk through the door, they would have had to climb up, Johann.” He leant over the windowsill again. They were well above the street. “It is either a very brave man or a very desperate one who would climb all the way up to the third floor.”

  He turned to face his brother. “Does it not strike you as strange that all the glass is outside the room?”

  Johann’s smile faded. He stared at his brother, then turned toward the window. “Well, perhaps…” He tried the left sash. It opened inward. “No, it would be the same even if the window had been open—” he checked himself and turned back to his brother. “Not that there would be any need to break the panes, if that were the case.”

  “None at all.” Haydn pointed to the teardrop-shaped vase in front of the right sash. “No object of any beauty is damaged at all, save the panes on the left.” He swiveled around, facing the room. “No part of the room is in any disarray save those papers on Kaspar’s bureau. What thief would be so loath to leave disorder in his wake?”

  Haydn’s eyes came to rest on Kaspar’s widow.

  Johann followed his gaze. “Why, what reason could she have, brother?”

  “Who can tell?” Haydn replied. He had not known Amelie long enough or well enough to be sure of her character. “To negotiate a quick sale, perhaps. Every attempt makes the bequest appear more valuable.”

  He started toward the widow. A question had occurred to him. He was quite sure he knew what the answer was, but to hear it in Amelie’s own words would be helpful. Rudi returned just as he was making his way across the room. He dropped the paper with its collection of glass shards into Rudi’s dustpan and emitted a low cough to attract Amelie’s attention.

  She smiled up at him. “How can I thank you, Joseph? Were it not for the precaution you advised yesterday”—she gestured around the room—“Kaspar’s bequest would be gone.”

  “It is safe, then?”

  “Oh yes!” Amelie tipped her chin at the litter of papers on the bureau. “Those are merely old papers I meant to throw away. I left them in a neat stack on the bureau, but, as you can see, they have been rifled through.”

  “Kaspar mentioned some buyers who were interested in the scores, Amelie. Did any one of them happen to come by after Johann and I left yesterday?” Haydn watched her closely as he asked the question.

  Amelie’s eyebrows lifted. “Why, yes! A visitor from Italy. A physician, I believe. He was most interested. Why—”

  “Did he make you an offer?”

  Amelie wrinkled her nose. “It was not as much as Kaspar hoped to get for it. Still, I was quite tempted, but”—her eyes swiveled to the lawyer, then back toward Haydn—“when he offered twice as much if I could offer solid proof the scores were as valuable as we thought they were, I thought it best to wait…”

  She glanced up at Haydn. “But what greater evidence could there be of its value than this?” She motioned toward the window.

  Herr Anwalt harrump
hed. “Well, be that as it may, the music is clearly not safe here. What think you, Herr Haydn?” He turned toward Amelie without waiting for a response. “Nor you, my dear, while it remains here.”

  “Brother and I can take it with us,” Johann interjected quickly. “It will have to be examined, and—”

  “An ingenious notion,” Haydn agreed readily. “To sell it to the first buyer without knowing its true value would be a fool’s choice, Amelie.”

  “Very well.” Amelie nodded obediently, but the corners of her mouth puckered in discontent. She rose heavily.

  “Come with me,” she said, leading them out of the parlor.

  * * *

  “Kaspar thought it would be secure here.” Amelie stepped into a small room.

  Herr Anwalt was following close on her heels, but stopped short a few paces past the threshold. He cleared his throat and looked around him, apparently dismayed to find himself in a bedchamber.

  The coverlet had been flung aside, exposing the wrinkled sheets to view. Haydn averted his eyes, as embarrassed as the lawyer and Johann, who stared straight ahead, his features expressionless. Amelie must have risen in haste that morning.

  She was at the closet now, a large affair with doors of painted green and panels decorated with flowers. She opened first one door, cast her eyes down past the shelves, then threw open the other.

  “It is not here,” she cried, whirling around in disbelief.

  Dresses and overcoats hung on pegs attached to the doors, and a number of garments lay neatly folded on the shelves. But from where he stood at the doorway, Haydn could see nothing resembling a sheaf of papers.

  “Are you certain—” he began. If only he had thought to take the bequest with him yesterday.

  “It was here. In a small walnut chest. The thieves must have stolen into the room”—Amelie’s eyes opened wide—“while I lay sleeping.” She turned toward Haydn, stricken. “But I heard not a sound.”

  With her hands clasped tightly together, she surveyed the room as though fearful an intruder lurked somewhere within, undetected. “Something—a noise, perhaps—aroused me this morning. But I sensed nothing amiss. I would have known, would I not, if a stranger were in the room?”

  The lawyer shook his head gravely. “If only Kaspar had heeded my advice. The music would have been safer in my chambers. To conceal it in his bedchamber! What could Kaspar have been thinking?” He shook his head again. “A man who will break into another’s home knows neither shame nor modesty.”

  He went toward Amelie, gently lowering her into one of the chairs by the window. “You are fortunate, indeed, in having come to no harm, my dear.”

  Johann rang the bell for Rudi. “Your mistress has had a tremendous shock,” he explained when the old servant appeared at last in response to the summons. “A little brandy will do much to alleviate it.”

  Haydn glanced around the bedchamber, listening absently as Johann explained the situation briefly to Rudi. Amelie’s distress seemed genuine enough. She had clearly not expected to find the music gone. But when had it been taken?

  Rudi was apparently having trouble comprehending the situation. “But what has been stolen? God knows, we have little worth taking.”

  “A small walnut chest containing manuscripts of some importance,” Johann repeated. “I presume nothing else has been taken.”

  “It is Master’s bequest, Rudi,” Amelie cried, rousing herself. “The thieves have taken it.”

  Rudi’s face cleared. “Master’s bequest! Is it Master’s bequest you are worried about? Why, no thief will have found that!”

  “But they have. It is gone. Gone, I tell you!” Amelie pointed an agitated finger at the closet.

  “No, no, Mistress. Master’s bequest is quite safe, never fear.” He smiled at Johann and Haydn. “Master could not have found a better hiding place for it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Frau Dichtler stood with her hands on her hips and glared at Rosalie and Greta. “What were you two thinking?” she demanded. Her voice bore relentlessly into Rosalie’s ears— like the piercing cry of an alphorn driving cattle to pasture.

  Rosalie cringed, violet eyes sliding over to Greta, who stood beside her, head bowed, plump hands clasped over her midriff.

  “It was my mistake, Madam. Greta had nothing to do with it.” She spoke quickly, not wanting to get Greta into any more trouble.

  The Estates Director, left infuriated by his encounter with Master Luigi, had already taken a gulden out of Greta’s wages the previous evening. He had even threatened a second fine if he received so much as a whisper of a complaint against her.

  It would be just like Frau Dichtler, Rosalie thought, to go running to the old stick-in-the- mud grousing about this matter.

  The singer had swept into the Officers’ Mess, late as always—behavior that Herr Rahier allowed no other musician to get away with— and was sauntering over to her seat when her eyes fell on the new maid. Why the sight of the woman serving dumplings should have caused her so much fury, Rosalie had no idea. But it had.

  “I thought—” she began only to be interrupted.

  “Thought!” the soprano screeched, eyes blazing. “Why would you think at all? Leave the thinking to your betters. Since when have you been paid to think?”

  Greta’s head came up defiantly. “What was she supposed to think? Your friend did say she was the new maid.”

  “Nonsense! Why would she say that?” But Frau Dichtler’s voice trembled ever so slightly.

  “She said you had sent for her,” Greta pressed her advantage. “She didn’t say anything about wanting to be a lady’s maid. Not then, she didn’t. Besides, why would we have need of one when we already have Frau Schwann?”

  A frown rippled over the smooth whiteness of the soprano’s forehead. “Why would my friend want to be a lady’s maid? That is utter nonsense!”

  “But that is what she said when she saw you. We both heard her.” Greta indicated Rosalie with a wave of her plump hand. “She said you had sent for her—”

  “You must have misheard her,” Frau Dichtler said briskly. The frown had disappeared, and she appeared to have recovered her equanimity. “I sent for her to… to… Well never you mind why I sent for her. It was most reprehensible of you to have compelled her to serve as a kitchen maid.

  “But I see it was all a mistake now,” she continued. “I should not have lost my temper. Here”—she opened the purse hanging at her waist and brought out a gold gulden—“I trust this will make it up to you.”

  Rosalie stared as Greta reached for the coin and, out of force of habit, bit into it. Frau Dichtler was not one to apologize for her words or actions. In the brief time they had known her, not a single word of regret had passed her lips. What had brought it on this time? And a gold gulden, as well?

  “I see no need to mention this little misunderstanding to anyone, do you?” Frau Dichtler surveyed the maids. “Very well, then.” With that, she swept down the corridor.

  Greta, who was still inspecting the coin, barely acknowledged the soprano’s remarks. “It is real,” she said once the singer had left. “What shall we do with it? We could treat ourselves to some of that delicious blackberry-flavored ice the vendors on the Graben sell. Or have a meal at the Seizerkeller—”

  “That was a bribe,” Rosalie interrupted her friend.

  “What!”

  “I think she just tried to buy our silence with that gold coin.” Rosalie turned to face Greta. “That friend of hers—or whatever she chooses to call her—came expecting to be hired as a lady’s maid. Just as she said. Neither one of us misheard that.”

  Greta looked at Rosalie as though she had lost her mind. “Yes, I know. But we already have a lady’s maid—”

  “Only because Her Serene Highness refused to dismiss Frau Schwann and let that horrible police guard arrest her.”

  “You mean—” Greta’s eyes turned round with horror. “But why? How does it profit her?”

  “I don�
��t know. But I intend to find out.” If the soprano had been trying to cost Clara Schwann her job, she was hardly likely to stop now.

  * * *

  “No thief would think to look for it here, Master said.”

  Rudi opened a door at the back of the kitchen and stepped aside to allow his mistress and her visitors a view into a narrow pantry. White painted shelves stacked with jars ran around three of the walls. On the floor underneath the shelves stood a number of tall white ceramic barrels.

  Flour, sugar, and noodles, no doubt, Haydn thought as he poked his head around the door. Maria Anna kept her stock of the selfsame items in just such jars, although hers were painted with a delicate floral design.

  “But where…?” he began when he caught sight of a chest of walnut wood just behind one of the barrels. “I see it now.” He smiled. “It is indeed a good hiding place.”

  No intruder, however determined, would have thought to enter the pantry in search of the scores. The chest itself, moreover, was not immediately visible when the door was opened.

  “The scores were safe enough in our bedchamber,” the widow said. “Why Kaspar felt the need to put them in with my spices, I shall never know!” Her face was beginning to look a little pinched.

  “He had not told you of his decision, I take it.” Johann stepped forward to help Haydn move the ceramic jars aside.

  That Kaspar had not confided in his wife was evident. But the Kapellmeister knew his brother had asked the question merely to gauge Amelie’s reaction. He saw her lips tighten as she curtly shook her head in response.

  “He must not have wanted to trouble you, my dear,” Herr Anwalt sought to reassure her. It may well have been the truth, but seeing Amelie’s face, Haydn wondered whether that was the sole reason for Kaspar’s reticence.