Aria to Death

by Nupur Tustin

  “Yes, he bought her a house there,” Johann said, his lips still pursed in distaste.

  Haydn nodded, his eyes skimming over the entry in question. He flipped over a few more pages, deciphering their contents as quickly as the untidy hand would allow.

  “And she—” His eyes were halfway through the next sentence before the words he had read sank in. His startled gaze collided with his younger brother’s steady gray eyes.

  “She bore him a child, Johann.”

  * * *

  The evening’s entertainment over, Luigi dismissed the musicians and hurried up to the Music Room. The violin concerto he had begun composing shortly before Kaspar’s death awaited his attentions, and he was eager to return to it.

  It had been a harrowing day. The sight of Fabrizzio’s lifeless corpse, beaten and bruised, had brought back disturbingly vivid memories of poor Kaspar’s body. But the satisfaction of seeing Kaspar’s murderer brought to the same fate had somewhat eased his distress.

  The guards, when they eventually arrived, had thought no more of the situation than that the music scholar was an unfortunate victim of the thieving bandits that plagued the city.

  “The cutthroats grow more brazen with each passing day,” one of them commented as he helped remove the body from Signora Padrona’s cottage.

  “Not much we can do about something like this,” another one grunted in response to the Signora’s frantic questions. “Keep your gates and your doors locked. It is the only way to keep your lodgers safe.”

  It was evident Fabrizzio’s murder would receive as little attention as Kaspar’s had.

  “Just as well,” Luigi thought as he sank into Haydn’s chair and drew his sheets of music toward himself. The young jackanapes deserved no better.

  He dipped his pen into the silver inkwell and tapped it against the sides to let the excess drip back into the receptacle. “Besides, the Emperor is more concerned with cutting the nobility down to size than with pursuing thieves and murderers.”

  Many an errant nobleman had been forced to sweep the streets along with petty thieves and other miscreants, His Majesty delighting in setting an example of his peers in this manner. The only exceptions were the assassins whose attempt on the Empress’s life Haydn had fobbed this past winter.

  They had been publicly executed.

  “But the rest of us, mere mortals that we are, could be murdered in our beds, and His Majesty would think nothing of it.”

  He was about to write down a phrase when a hesitant knock sounded. The door opened to reveal a pretty, heart-shaped face framed with dark curls.

  “Rosalie.” Luigi gave the maid a feeble smile. The room needed to be put in order, he supposed. The candles snuffed out. “I will not be long,” he assured her. “And I can put the candles out when I leave.”

  “It is not that, Master Luigi.”

  “No?” A droplet of ink made a splotch on Luigi’s paper. He replaced the pen in its stand. Rosalie stood before him, twisting her apron. He waited expectantly.

  “It is Frau Dichtler.” Rosalie cleared her throat. “We felt Herr Haydn ought to know.”

  “What has she done now?” The Konzertmeister sank back into the cushioned depths of his chair. He ought to have known his troubles were not over. How could they be when La Dichtler was near?

  * * *

  In Papa Keller’s barn, the revelation from the merchant Wilhelm Dietrich’s journal had driven all thoughts of sleep from its occupants’ minds. The candles in the lantern burned low, flames sputtering dangerously close to the wax that was pooling around the wick.

  But neither the Kapellmeister nor his brother took any notice.

  “If there is a child, Johann,” Haydn said, jabbing his thumb into the binding of the leather notebook, “a child that Wilhelm Dietrich wanted nothing to do with, as seems evident from these pages—”

  “Then possibly it was he, not Fabrizzio, who was behind the assault against Kaspar and yourself.” Johann gently prized the notebook out of Haydn’s fingers as he finished his brother’s thoughts.

  He swiftly skimmed a few pages. “Wilhelm Dietrich’s steadfast repudiation of his own child would be reason enough, I suppose, for the child to lash out against anyone his father appeared to favor.”

  Haydn nodded. What kind of man had the merchant been to reject his own offspring? His own long-suppressed yearning for a child, doomed never to be fulfilled, swelled within his chest, clenching his heart and lungs. Surely a childless man would seize upon any opportunity, any child …

  “Wilhelm Dietrich’s mistress was apparently not content to remain husband-less,” Johann’s voice checked his brooding thoughts. “She seems to have demanded that he marry her.”

  “A demand he naturally could not meet, having a wife already.” Haydn gazed sightlessly at the lantern as he reeled his mind in. He was vaguely aware of the flames from the guttering candles dancing before his eyes but was too preoccupied to bestir himself.

  “His mistress appears to have been well aware of his predicament when she entered into the arrangement with him.” He sat with his chin cupped in his hand, fingers slowly stroking it in a broad, pensive sweep. “He cannot have fobbed her off with mere words.”

  “Money might have kept her quiet,” Johann suggested. Drops of wax sizzling against the glass surface of the lantern caught his attention. He reached for a pair of fresh candles from a shelf behind him.

  “It might have,” Haydn agreed. He watched as his brother carefully held the new candles against the flare of the old before snuffing out the dying flames. “It would have to be a substantial amount given her demands.”

  “Do you suppose his lawyer handled the details?” Johann raised his head from his task.

  “It is possible. It would have been the only prudent course of action under the circumstances.”

  Innumerable questions blazed through Haydn’s brain all at once. The implications of Wilhelm Dietrich having a son had still to sink in.

  At their last meeting, he had received a strong impression that Herr Anwalt was concealing some aspect of the matter from them. Was it this unsavory fact revealed to him quite by chance?

  Had the payments to his mistress put such a dent in the merchant’s estate, he could leave Kaspar nothing more than his most prized possession? Or had Wilhelm Dietrich so resented having to support a child he eschewed, he was determined to keep his music, at least, from his mistress and her son?

  If so, it would account for his meticulous preservation of his scores. But had the old merchant’s collection included Monteverdi’s operas? The will, as he recalled it, had specified neither genre nor composer.

  As the thought passed through his mind, his gaze fell on Johann sifting through the packet of letters, all written in a graceful, flowing hand, retrieved along with the leather journal.

  One in particular seemed to seize his younger brother’s attention. He smoothed it out and brought it closer to his eyes.

  “She refers to a collection of operas here, brother.” Johann proffered the sheet of paper to the Kapellmeister.

  “The legacy of Cremona,” Haydn read the words aloud. “And rightfully belonging to my son.” That settled the question, then. The operas did exist. “But where are they concealed?” he wondered.

  A most disquieting thought took hold of his mind. “Is it possible my assailants were after the chest and not the madrigals it contained? They let go of the scores all too easily, I thought.”

  “After a bigger prize, you think?” Johann’s features’ reflected his own unease. “If Wilhelm Dietrich concealed the operas somewhere in that chest, they are lost forever.”

  “Or until we find his son,” Haydn said softly, beginning to have a notion who the man might be. There had only been three people after the bequest, and two of them were quite easily eliminated.

  * * *

  “Trying to get Clara Schwann dismissed, is she?” Luigi repeated Rosalie’s words. He recalled the dustup about a necklace.

>   La Dichtler, he supposed, had acquired a bee in her bonnet that poor Clara was the culprit. That didn’t surprise him at all. A more meddlesome woman he had yet to see.

  His eyes, clear, hazel, rested on Rosalie’s features. “Surely Her Serene Highness doesn’t believe that nonsense?”

  He had come out just in time to see her rousting the idiot Poldi out of the palace. Her manner as she swept him out could not have been more masterful, in the Konzertmeister’s opinion.

  “No-o.” Rosalie bit her lip. “But nothing will persuade her that it was Frau Dichtler who stole her necklace.”

  “What?” Luigi’s back stiffened. “Are you certain? How do you know?”

  It was not news Haydn would enjoy receiving. The Dichtlers, husband and wife, had joined the opera troupe against the Kapellmeister’s wishes. In vain had he remonstrated, Luigi adding his own voice to Haydn’s protests on the subject. The Prince, however, had been adamant.

  He returned his attention to the maid.

  “I followed her to Madame Chapeau’s millinery,” Rosalie was saying. “She has a reputation for being a fence.”

  “Madame Chapeau?” Luigi frowned. The name sounded familiar. Hadn’t Haydn been attacked in the vicinity of an establishment with a ridiculous name like that? “Is it near the Carinthian Gate?”

  “Yes. And Sabina is Madame’s assistant.”

  “Sabina?” Who was the girl referring to now?

  “The girl who came here insisting she was the new lady’s maid Frau Dichtler had sent for. Frau Dichtler insisted it was all a mistake. But it was not.” Rosalie shook her head emphatically.

  “No?” The softly uttered monosyllable seemed to spur the maid on. Luigi settled back in his chair as she plunged headlong into her narrative.

  “So, Frau Dichtler knows a fence, does she?” He said when Rosalie, at last, paused to take breath. A soft smile played around his mouth. The news had troubled him at first. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity.

  What better means than this to rid themselves of the wretched Dichtler and her feckless husband? His Serene Highness could hardly be persuaded to keep on a thief.

  “It was the necklace Her Serene Highness received for her name day, was it not?” he asked.

  Rosalie nodded. “So expensive, Her Serene Highness had a paste replica made and only wore the real necklace on very special occasions. Had Gerhard—Herr Heindl, that is—not driven me there this morning, it might have been lost forever. Madame Chapeau takes out the jewels and attaches them to the hats she makes.”

  “Ach so!” Luigi said, liking the girl’s gumption. “You have found a way of returning it, I hope.” When Rosalie nodded again, he continued: “But you’ll need Frau Dichtler out of the way when you do it? That is no trouble at all. I can find some means to keep her occupied.”

  And he would enjoy doing it, he thought.

  Rosalie took a deep breath, then let it out. “But if Frau Dichtler were to find out—and I am sure she will. If Sabina doesn’t come here to tell her about it, Her Serene Highness will. And then…”

  “And then that idiot Poldi can earn his keep and take Frau Dichtler away,” Luigi said. “The facts speak for themselves. Even Her Serene Highness cannot refute them…”

  He had raised his voice, drowning out her objections, but something she said caught his ear.

  “But Poldi is Madame Chapeau’s brother, Master Luigi.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Luigi wrenched his head aside as a stout, dark truncheon, swinging from a hairy wrist, whirled through the air, landing with a bone-crunching crack upon the fragile bones of a face.

  Who was the poor soul? Kaspar? Or Fabrizzio?

  The sudden pounding in his head told him it was own skull being attacked.

  He had barely registered the fact when his eyes flew open, encountering the still darkness of his bedchamber. A dream. It had been but a dream. Nothing more, God be thanked. He sat up against his pillows, gasping for breath.

  When his ragged, uneven respiration slowed to a steady pace, Luigi allowed himself to return to the images his slumbering mind had conjured.

  One in particular wavered before his eyes.

  Armed with truncheons? Kapellmeister Reutter’s skeptical tone echoed in his ears as he examined the hairy wrist that had haunted his dreams. A leather thong, secured to a truncheon, was twisted around it.

  A police guard? Luigi frowned. They were the only men in the city so armed. His mind’s eye wandered up from the hairy wrist to a coarse-featured man with dark, bristly spikes of hair. Poldi.

  The thought caused Luigi to sit upright. His eyes widened. Had the brigands who attacked Kaspar been led by Poldi? Small wonder the police guards were helpless against their onslaught on the city.

  It would be easy enough for Poldi! The wretched man was related to a notorious fence. As a police guard, he could force any petty criminal to join his murderous pack. Gossip about inheritances or expensive items being transported reached his ears quite easily no doubt, fueling his illegal trade.

  And Poldi was acquainted with La Dichtler.

  The woman who had stolen Haydn’s newspaper; who had persuaded Rahier to purchase Kaspar’s bequest; whose own husband seemed to bear an unusual interest in the music. Had Haydn not caught a glimpse of Fritz loitering about near Herr Anwalt’s chambers?

  The thoughts dislodged a few more uneasy, half-forgotten memories from Luigi’s brain. Frau Dichtler had been at the Seizerkeller the night Kaspar was murdered. It was a memory he had consigned to oblivion, his day with her had been so traumatic.

  He recalled her passing by his table, a bottle half-full of wine in her hand. He had flinched at her touch and the sound of her wine-animated laughter. Had his own glass been a little fuller after that brief encounter?

  He knew his mind had been quickly befogged after it. Never before had he been so drunk. If La Dichtler had drugged Clara Schwann’s tisane, could she not have drugged his wine?

  Luigi pressed his fingers to his forehead. His head was beginning to throb. How could the wretched Dichtler woman, or her husband for that matter, have heard of Kaspar’s bequest? They had all been in Eisenstadt when the will was read.

  From Fabrizzio? His father had known the merchant Wilhelm Dietrich, had he not?

  But how had Fabrizzio, a stranger to the city, fallen in with Poldi and his gang?

  * * *

  Dawn had scarcely broken, bathing Vienna in a warm rust-orange glow, when Luigi hurried out of his apartment. He had almost neared the Kohlmarkt when his mind took note of the early hour.

  He stopped uncertainly, glancing up. The sun hovered low in the red-tinged horizon. No time to be barging in on anyone unannounced, let alone the Countess of Kuenberg. Best to wait a while, he thought.

  He paced around the fountain, fists clenched. Once; twice. Could Her Grace, ancient and wizened, be counted on to remember anything at all? He had wasted his time if the couple she claimed to have seen going up to Kaspar’s apartment were simply an invention of her fancy.

  Luigi circled the fountain a third time. Then, unable to contain his impatience any longer, he strode into the building, determined not to be turned away. The Countess no doubt habitually rose as early as he had this morning. She would receive him, he insisted to himself.

  The raspy voice when he set foot on the landing took him entirely by surprise.

  “Come to woo the widow, have you? And her husband dead no more than a week. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  The Countess’s door stood wide open. Her Grace herself sat in a wheeled chair before a table set with the remnants of a half-eaten breakfast.

  “It is not her I am here for,” Luigi said, stepping across the threshold. “Her husband was a good friend of mine. I was hoping, in fact, to meet you, if Your Grace can spare me a moment or two.”

  The Countess tipped her chin at his uniform. “After another position, are you? Well, I have no money to spare. E
ven if I did, I could not pay you as well as Esterházy does.”

  “It is information I am after, Your Grace. And I could think of no better person to approach. It was just the other day that Haydn was commending your faculties. It would be a wonder if anything escaped the Countess of Kuenberg, he said.”

  Haydn had in truth called her a nosy, gossiping harridan, but Luigi saw no need to be too exact.

  The small flattery had its desired effect. The Countess’s shriveled cheeks spread into a wrinkled smile. “Katherl says I imagine things, but my mind is still as keen as ever,” she said proudly.

  “Haydn said you saw a man and a woman climbing furtively up the stairs. Was it on the night poor Kaspar was killed?” It must have been the very night his keys were stolen. The locks had been changed shortly after.

  But the Countess seemed puzzled by the question. “A man and a woman?” she repeated.

  “Your Grace has no memory of the incident?” Luigi’s hopes, barely afloat, sank heavily. It had been a mistake to come.

  “I have not forgotten it,” she snapped, offended by the mere suggestion. “I was merely trying to recall which night it was. They all seem the same to me now.”

  She pondered the matter a few minutes more, then said: “I suppose it could have been on that night. Or not long after it. It was certainly not before it. Things were quiet then.”

  “What did they look like?” Luigi leaned forward eagerly, oblivious to the bald phrasing of his words.

  “It was late evening! Do you think I saw enough to paint you a portrait? A silhouette against the glass panes on the door, that is all. The woman seemed like a brazen hussy, that much I can tell you.”

  “Indeed.” Luigi held his breath. Anyone who saw Frau Dichtler might be tempted to characterize her as such.

  “Her bodice provided so little cover for her bosom, it was entirely inadequate for the job.” The Countess pursed her lips. “I suppose a man like yourself would find it attractive. Men always do, dumb fools that they are.”