Aria to Death

by Nupur Tustin

  He said as much to Johann. “And while we are there, we may as well let Her Majesty have the madrigals. They are bound to be safer at the imperial palace than in Papa Keller’s house.”

  He only wished he had not dismissed the carriage Maria Anna had hired for them.

  Before he could express his regret on the matter, a hackney coach passed by, slowing down as it neared them. Johann hailed it and, giving the coachman their destination, climbed in after Haydn.

  “If Signora Padrona considered her son to be in danger, she would do anything to protect him I imagine,” Johann took up the thread of their conversation once the coach was underway.

  “Or, if she had a hand in the affair herself,” Haydn replied. His eyes, when he turned to his brother, were worried. “She had as much cause as her son. In abandoning her and evading her demands, Wilhelm Dietrich slighted her no less than he did his son.”

  “Do you suppose it was she who ordered Fabrizzio’s death?”

  Haydn considered the matter. “She seemed genuinely shocked by it,” he said after a while. “I begin to wonder, however, if it was her word that sent Kaspar to his death.”

  “She seemed to know something of the matter,” Johann agreed.

  Haydn recalled the Signora’s unnatural stillness the moment Kaspar’s name had fallen from his younger brother’s lips. She had seemed to him like a cornered animal, desperate and afraid, but nevertheless unwilling to give up.

  “She must have had no thought her son would be suspected of the crime.”

  “I can scarcely see why not,” Johann countered. “It would be far easier to suspect a man—even one as vapid and vacuous as Fritz—than a woman, however embittered.”

  “But that is just it, Johann. How could a man of Fritz Dichtler’s meager intelligence mastermind a crime of this nature? It is impossible to believe.”

  “Appearances are often deceptive, brother. His habitual vacant demeanor must be deliberately cultivated, concealing a mind of great cunning and malice. The chest, wrested from your arms and brought to her house, is evidence of the fact.”

  The Kapellmeister considered Fritz Dichtler. He had never thought much of the tenor. His singing was merely passable. And as for his acting, if what his brother said was true, Fritz was clearly in possession of a far greater talent than he had been willing to display for either the Opera Director or himself.

  “It would appear so,” he said at last. “He has successfully deceived us all.”

  But his voice held more than a hint of skepticism, and it must have been evident to his younger brother, for Johann pressed on: “It can be no coincidence that his wife was at the Signora’s door this afternoon. What could have brought her there other than the news Luigi must have delivered?”

  Haydn remained quiet, unable to either deny the coincidence of Frau Dichtler’s presence or dispute that it had been caused by news of the supposed discovery of the operas. Still, the niggling doubts in his mind remained.

  Another tenuous possibility named itself, but it seemed so implausible, he thrust it away almost as soon as it surfaced.

  They were almost at the River Wien when he spoke again. “Fritz looks nothing like his mother, does he?”

  * * *

  The late afternoon sun streamed into the Princess’s sitting room, transforming the yellow damask furnishings to a warm gold; burnishing the mahogany armrests and backs of the Rococo chairs with a coppery hue. Rosalie cast her head aside to avoid its glare as she followed Clara Schwann into the room with a tray of refreshments.

  “The necklace has been recovered, Elsa,” Her Serene Highness was saying to Frau Dichtler. “There is nothing more to say on the subject.” The Princess turned her head to smile at Rosalie.

  Convinced Rosalie had ambitions of someday rising to the position of lady’s maid, the Princess had insisted upon her attendance in the sitting room that afternoon. “How else will you learn, my dear, if not by observing Clara at work?”

  Rosalie had consented readily enough when she realized Frau Dichtler would be present as well.

  “I am glad to see you here, my dear,” the Princess now said, accepting a cup of coffee and selecting a small piece of ginger-spiced lebkuchen from the plate Frau Schwann held out to her.

  But Frau Dichtler was clearly in no mood to allow the matter to rest.

  “If it has been recovered, it is only because the person who stole it chose to return it.” The words came out in an irritable snap that clearly caught the Princess by surprise, although she made no comment on the soprano’s ill humor.

  “I have already told you, Elsa, it was never stolen,” she responded calmly. “Clara merely forgot to put it away.”

  “Then what was stolen when we were on our way to the bank?”

  The Princess took a sip of her coffee before replying. “Nothing apparently. The police guard whose help you sought evidently warded off the theft.” She took another sip of her coffee. “Although, it appears he only prevented the theft of a paste replica.”

  “And the theft in Leopoldsdorf?” The soprano watched the Princess carefully. It was a question Rosalie had been waiting for. She was about to utter a cough to draw attention to herself when the Princess spoke.

  “Theft!” Her Serene Highness repeated, puzzled. “But I thought a few small items merely fell off the carriage.” She looked toward Rosalie, who nodded.

  “Frau Dichtler found the rope frayed,” she explained.

  “Be that as it may.” The soprano brushed aside the matter with an irritable wave of her hand. “How did the items in question find their way back to the palace, then?” Frau Dichtler nearly hissed out the question.

  Rosalie was prepared for it. “They didn’t,” she said, suppressing a strong urge to giggle. “I’m afraid it was your enamel case that fell off the wagon. They look so alike, one of the maids mistakenly put Her Serene Highness’s jewelry case in your luggage, while yours was simply tied in place with the hatboxes.

  “Your maid discovered the error shortly after our arrival and returned Her Serene Highness’s case with the paste necklace in it to Frau Schwann.”

  “Indeed!” Frau Dichtler’s eyes narrowed.

  But it was not a story her maid would refute. Rosalie had taken care of that.

  The hat she had purchased from Sabina had won the girl over completely. Rosalie and Greta had been allowed into the soprano’s bedchamber in her absence that afternoon and had combed the room in search of the case.

  It had taken a while, but they had eventually found it, tossed into a corner of the closet with some old silk scarves.

  “I hope you had nothing valuable in it, Elsa.” Her Serene Highness looked concerned. “As for the case itself, it should be a simple matter to have another just like it fashioned.”

  * * *

  The Emperor was seated at his desk when Haydn and Johann followed Her Majesty into the Walnut Room. It was not an encounter the Kapellmeister was looking forward to, but the Empress had insisted he repeat his story to her son and co-regent.

  “Haydn has some information on the prowlers and footpads who have been dogging the city, Joseph,” she said without preamble as soon as she entered the lavishly furnished walnut-paneled chamber.

  She walked briskly in and sank heavily into one of the gilded, damask-covered chairs set against the wall.

  “Information?” The Emperor raised his head and turned around.

  His pale blue eyes fastened themselves upon the Kapellmeister and then swiveled toward Johann.

  “What kind of information might you have, gentlemen?” He motioned toward the chairs at the edge of the carpet.

  “Information that might help you apprehend the thieves, Your Majesty,” Haydn said, swallowing the irritation that had risen like bile at the Emperor’s sardonic tone. He lowered himself into the crimson damask seat of the chair His Majesty had indicated.

  “Indeed!” The Emperor arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Becoming quite the detective, are we?”

&nb
sp; “He would have no need to take on the job if your Count Pergen and his police guards were quite as capable as you consider them, Joseph,” Her Majesty retorted. “Did you know the ruffians have already killed one musician—one of our own?”

  “Not to mention breaking into a house nearby in broad daylight to kill a foreigner, a visitor to the city,” Johann added, speaking for the first time.

  The Emperor frowned. “I had heard of the first incident. The man was left abandoned in the streets. The second incident—”

  “Was not reported to you, I suppose.” The Empress uttered a loud snort, making her jowls quiver.

  His Majesty ignored his mother’s remark. “How did you come by the news?” he demanded.

  “The man in question,” Haydn responded, “was the one responsible for the deception perpetrated on Her Majesty.

  “It was Dr. Goretti who led us to him. But when we went to his lodgings, we found him already dead. Brutally murdered. The matter was reported to the police guards, but I fear nothing will come of it.”

  “And why is that?”

  Haydn paused. His suspicions were based on such tenuous evidence, he doubted His Majesty would find them very compelling. “It would appear that one of the police guards himself is involved.”

  “On what grounds do you make this accusation, Haydn?”

  “Both men were attacked in the same manner, Your Majesty. As was my brother.” It was Johann who volunteered the information. “With a truncheon.

  “Whether the barber-surgeon involved in the first case detected the instrument that caused the wounds, we do not know. It was the undertaker, trained as a barber-surgeon himself, who made the observation.”

  “The implications under the circumstances,” Haydn began but the Emperor held out a palm to silence him; the gesture so brusque, it had the stinging sensation of a hard slap.

  “I am quite aware of the implications, Haydn.” His Majesty said. “I am not quite the fool you imagine me to be.”

  “There is more, Your Majesty.” Haydn swallowed his ire, forcing himself to speak. “The police guard in question, Poldi, has a sister who operates as a fence. Her establishment is near the Carinthian Gate.”

  The Emperor sat so still, Haydn wondered whether he had even heard him. His Majesty’s face was an expressionless mask, the widening of his eyes the only indication he had not been struck suddenly deaf.

  The Kapellmeister shuffled his feet. The Emperor continued to stare at him as though he were a prisoner who had omitted to provide all the facts. But what else was he expected to say?

  The silence was growing uncomfortable when Johann spoke, having fortunately divined the Emperor’s unasked question.

  “We discovered the connection quite by accident, Your Majesty, when Her Serene Highness’s necklace was stolen and subsequently recovered from Madame Chapeau’s establishment.” Johann briefly recounted the circumstances. “Were it not for a maid’s suspicions of Frau Dichtler—”

  “Elsa Dichtler!” His Majesty echoed, surprise animating his features. “I would not have taken her for a thief.”

  “No, you would have merely taken her to your bed,” his mother muttered. It was all Haydn could do not to gape at the Empress, her words were so unexpected.

  He similarly resisted the urge to glance at his brother, but His Majesty seemed quite unfazed by the remark.

  “A man has needs, Mother. And Elsa fulfilled them admirably. For a time.”

  “And then you insisted Esterházy give her a position in his orchestra.”

  “His wife was only too happy to take in a fallen woman. She wanted to reform Elsa, an act in which you, I believe, encouraged her.”

  Ach so! It was thanks to the Emperor, then, that La Dichtler had been foisted upon him. This time Haydn did allow his gaze to shift toward his brother’s face.

  “Well, clearly the woman is quite beyond reform, Joseph,” the Empress burst out, apparently at the end of her tether. “Esterházy ought to have her arrested.”

  “On what grounds, Mother?” enquired the Emperor coldly. “The necklace has already been recovered without anyone having the slightest suspicion it was ever stolen. No one saw Elsa deliver it to the fence in question.

  “And rather than tell the truth, the maid herself seems to have aided in the elaborate deception that the damned thing was merely misplaced.”

  Haydn sighed, unable to refute His Majesty’s argument. “Rosalie had no choice in the matter, Your Majesty. It would take more than a mere maid’s word for Her Serene Highness to accept that Frau Dichtler is a common thief.”

  “Then I shall have a word with Princess Marie Elisabeth myself,” the Empress declared.

  “There may be a better way, Your Majesty,” Haydn said with a smile.

  “Indeed!” The Emperor stared down his imperious nose at the Kapellmeister, the contempt in his eyes so evident, Haydn felt his smile freeze and all but disappear. He marshaled his thoughts.

  “If the Police Inspector himself along with a few of his most trusted men were to pay Madame Chapeau’s millinery a visit, they would find sufficient evidence of her misdoings to arrest her and close down her establishment.”

  “The thieves cannot operate without a fence, Your Majesties,” Johann hastily added before the Emperor, who was looking increasingly skeptical, could object to his older brother’s proposition. Unable to refute the truth of this, His Majesty merely harrumphed.

  “And Madame Chapeau may, perhaps, be prevailed upon to disclose the names of her associates,” Johann continued.

  “As for Frau Dichtler,” Haydn said, more confident now. “If she cannot be arrested for theft, she can, I am convinced, be apprehended for murder.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “Nonsense!” the Emperor dismissed the notion. “Who could Elsa possibly have murdered? You let your imagination go too far, Haydn.”

  Even Her Majesty seemed startled. “I can well believe that the woman might steal a few trinkets. But to kill someone? Surely you are mistaken. Is Esterházy aware of your suspicions?”

  Haydn was silent. He had never intended to bring the matter to Her Majesty’s attention. But the words had erupted out of his mouth in the heat of the moment, and there was no taking them back. Now he regretted having spoken at all.

  He threw his younger brother a glance of desperation, but Johann seemed just as disconcerted as he himself. In the growing silence, Haydn was uncomfortably aware of Her Majesty’s warm gaze settling on his features. It remained there, waiting for an answer.

  “I have not yet had occasion to speak with His Serene Highness on the matter.” He allowed his eyes to meet hers at last. “It is only recently that I have become aware of Frau Dichtler’s possible involvement in the matter.”

  “And the person she is suspected of killing?” Her Majesty enquired, although her son snorted his contempt. “Must you encourage him in his ravings, Mother?”

  Haydn swallowed. It took an effort not to allow his eyes to stray toward the Emperor. “Kaspar, Your Majesty, the musician who was found killed in front of the Seizerkeller. I believe the ruffians who attacked him, did so at the behest of Frau Dichtler and her husband.”

  “When did Elsa acquire a husband?” the Emperor exclaimed.

  “She has had one ever since she joined the Esterházy troupe,” Johann explained at the same time that the Empress hissed: “Shh Joseph … Let the man speak.”

  “When his uncle died,” Haydn began, “Kaspar inherited a casket of scores that the old merchant had acquired during his travels in Italy. The bequest apparently consisted of the entire operatic works of Monteverdi.”

  The name caught Her Majesty’s attention. “Where are the scores now?” she enquired, tilting her bulk forward. Even the Emperor seemed suitably impressed.

  Haydn hesitated again. “We have yet to find the operas, I am afraid, although I feel quite sure they exist. The madrigals the casket contained, however, are quite valuable in and of themselves.”

  With Johan
n’s help, he explained the situation as succinctly as he could.

  “Kaspar left a widow, Your Majesty,” Haydn finished as he handed over the scores. “In ill health and impoverished. His bequest is the only provision he left for her.”

  The Empress’s fingers closed around the thick bundle of music. She perused the sheets carefully. Her lips widened into a slow smile of satisfaction.

  “Haydn, I do believe you have done it again!” She held the scores out to her son. “These will appease the Mantuans just as well as the operas. Although,” she continued turning back to Haydn, “if the operas can be found…”

  “I will do my best, Your Majesty. It is only a matter of deciphering the workings of old Wilhelm Dietrich’s mind.”

  The Empress nodded, glancing down at the scores again. “I would prefer to keep the madrigals for the imperial library.

  “As for the other matter.” Her smile disappeared, her lips thrusting out in suppressed anger. “You were wise to come to us. The Police Inspector—”

  “Cannot arrest anyone on the mere suspicion of murder, Mother,” the Emperor cut in irritably. “And as for the Countess Kuenberg’s imaginings, the woman was ever a notorious gossip. If she were to be believed, half of Vienna would be in prison! Haydn will have to—”

  “Brother already has a plan Your Majesties,” Johann interjected, his voice and manner so mild, they mitigated the rudeness of the interruption.

  He elaborated on the trap they had set for the Dichtlers.

  “You would agree, would you not, that anyone who wishes to steal Kaspar’s bequest must have sought to kill him as well?”

  “If that were the case, one would be forced to, I suppose,” the Emperor reluctantly conceded the matter.

  “But what will you do when they make the attempt, Haydn?” Her Majesty asked anxiously. “If you are right, Elsa is involved with a dangerous band of criminals. They have already killed twice.”

  Haydn nodded. “All we ask is that someone entrusted with your authority accompany us. If only to witness the crime.”