Sent to the Devil (24 page)

“I wish I knew,” I answered. We returned to our food and finished eating in silence. The waiter removed the plates.

“There is one thing we are overlooking,” Casanova said. “Something—or I should say someone—at least three of the four victims have in common.”

“Who?”

“The woman, Christiane Albrechts.”

I thought a moment. “Of course!” I said excitedly. “The general was her father. She had been engaged to Hennen several years ago but broke it off when he was injured in the carriage accident. And Alois told me that he had been her confessor when she was young.”

“Perhaps the killer is obliquely aiming at her in some way,” Casanova said.

“Murdering all the men around her?” I asked. A thought niggled at the back of my brain. “You know, now that I think of it, it seemed that she and von Gerl had a relationship of some sort.” I described the behavior I had observed the first day I had met the two of them—Christiane's nervousness in von Gerl's company, the pleading look she had directed toward him, his raised brow.

Casanova sat quietly for a moment. “Have you considered that Benda might be the killer?” he asked.

“Benda! You must be joking!”

“Listen to me, Lorenzo,” Casanova said. “If Christiane Albrechts is the common factor in all the killings—”

“What are you saying?” I said. “You expect me to believe that Benda is killing every man who has been close to her? What is his motive—some perverted jealousy? Besides, I truly believe he was surprised to learn that Hennen had been engaged to Christiane.” I shook my head. “No. I'll admit I don't like the man, but I don't think he's capable of these killings.”

The waiter approached and Casanova ordered a milk ice for dessert. “You are probably right,” he said after the waiter left. “And we have no proof that Christiane and von Gerl had any sort of relationship. The baron was an attractive man,” Casanova said. “Many women must have reacted the same way in his presence. What you observed likely means nothing.”

The waiter returned with the ice.

“Did you disapprove of Elisabeth?” Casanova asked me as he took large bites of the frozen concoction.

“No,” I said. “Who am I to judge her? But I'll admit that she shocked me a bit. I'm of the old school, I suppose. I believe a woman should allow a man to be the pursuer.”

Casanova raised a brow.

“All right.” I laughed. “A woman should allow a man to believe that he is the pursuer.”

“I've known Elisabeth for thirty years, since she was sixteen,” Casanova said. “Like most marriages, hers was a business arrangement between families, not a love match. Her husband is away at his diplomatic posts. She won't agree to live in a rural outpost, so she remains in Vienna. They see each other once or twice a year.” He scraped the remaining ice from the bowl with his spoon. “A woman like Elisabeth needs attention. She's very lonely.”

I nodded, and signaled the waiter for the check.

“Things are changing, Lorenzo,” Casanova said. “Women are different now. They are much more independent, much more concerned with their own needs. Just look at your Miss Cavalli, selling everything she owned to travel here to Vienna. In my day, it was the rare woman who would do that.” His eyes twinkled. “But there were a few whom I met on my travels. Long days spent in a dark coach, our bodies thrown together whenever the wheels hit a rut…”

I did not want the discussion to lead to Marta, so I changed the subject.

“What about you? Will you go back to Dux?” I asked.

He sighed. “Yes. As I told you the other day, it is not a perfect situation for me. But I think that at this age, it is good for me to be settled somewhere. And of course the count pays for all of my expenses.” A faraway look came to his eye. “I long to go home one last time before I die, though.”

“To Venice?”

“Yes. Perhaps I still might, when I finish my work in the count's library.”

I sighed. “You are lucky. You can return whenever you wish.”

“How many more years on your sentence?” he asked.

“Seven,” I said.

“You should do what I did,” Casanova said. “Offer to spy for the Council of Three. You have access to some of the top people in government here. Your banishment could be reduced if you were able to relay Austrian state secrets to Venice. Once you've proved you are a changed man, they'd welcome you back. There's money to be had working for the Inquisition there. That's what I was doing when we first met.”

My mouth dropped open.

“Don't give me that look,” he said. “A man must do what he must do. If you want to return home, that's the way to get there. For God's sake, you're working for Pergen on these murders! He's becoming as oppressive as the Council of the Three. What's the difference?”

I just shook my head. The waiter brought the check and I placed enough coins to cover it on the table. I glanced over at my old friend. His shoulders sagged as he stared down at his hands. I hated to see him so unhappy. So I said the words that I knew would cheer him.

“I have a little more time,” I said. “Tell me again about your escape from the doge's palace. I never tire of hearing the tale.”

 

Twenty-three

I stayed for another half hour, listening to Casanova's account of his escapade: how he had been arrested for alleged crimes against religion and sentenced without trial by the Council of Three to five years in a low, small room in the Leads—the dreaded prison cells directly under the roof of the doge's palace, broiling hot in summer, freezing cold in winter; how after nine months he was allowed out to exercise in a vaulted area under the roof, where he found an iron spike which he eventually managed to smuggle to a fellow prisoner, who dug a hole in his own ceiling and one night escaped his cell and came for Casanova; how the two men waited until the moonlight would cast no shadows, and then climbed out onto the lead roof of the palace, where they found a skylight and slipped down a rope made of bedsheets into the locked offices of the Inquisition, where they convinced a night watchman that they were noblemen who had been mistakenly locked in overnight; how they strode out of the front door of the palace, hailed a gondola, and crossed the lagoon to Mestre, where they parted, Casanova riding a donkey toward the border near Brenta and then making his way to Paris, where he dined out on the story for years.

After I left my friend, I went to the Palais Albrechts, eager to inform Benda that Countess Stoll had vouched for Richter. A maid opened the door, took my cloak and satchel, and asked me to wait. She returned a moment later, telling me that Benda was not at home, but that her mistress had asked me to come upstairs. I followed her up to the salon.

Christiane sat in the large armchair, a piece of embroidery lying idly in her lap. Her skin was ashen, her eyes rimmed with red.

“Richard is not in, signore,” she told me. “He received a message from Bohemia this morning. He hurried off to attend to matters at the chancery. Is your errand anything I can help with?”

The maid returned with a tray of coffee. Christiane told her she would pour and dismissed her.

“I've learned some important information about the murders,” I said.

“Oh, please, I would be obliged if you would tell me,” she said. Her hands trembled as she poured the coffee. I hurried over to take mine before it splashed all over the tray. I sat on the sofa near her chair and reported my encounter with Countess Stoll.

“Elisabeth Stoll. I am not acquainted with her. She is much older than me. She has a reputation as a very liberal person.” She stared at a place somewhere to the left of me. The lone sound in the room was the ticking of the clock.

Finally she spoke again. “I feel as if I am in a nightmare. My beloved father, torn from me. Father Bayer. Now my neighbor has been taken. And you may not be aware, but I knew Walther Hennen when we were younger.”

I nodded.

“I despair of my father's murderer ever being caught.” She sighed. “Richard will be disappointed. That protester was the best suspect.”

“Do not worry, mademoiselle. We will catch this monster. The last murder was different from the others. The killer is becoming more frenzied. He is beginning to make mistakes.”

She closed her eyes.

“I wonder, mademoiselle, if you could tell me—” I paused, reluctant to increase her unhappiness.

“Yes, signore?”

“Do you know if your father received any strange messages in the days before his death?”

She frowned. “Messages? Are you speaking of letters? Strange in what way?”

“Sheets of paper with brief quotations from Dante written on them,” I said. “Just a few lines on each page.”

She pulled herself out of the chair. “Wait here,” she said. “I'll be back in a moment.”

I paced up and down the salon as I waited. If the general had indeed received messages from the killer, then surely I was on the right path.

Christiane returned a few minutes later and handed me two sheets of paper. “I found these in his library, a few days after—” Her voice faltered.

I scanned the lines on the first sheet. “Worldly fame is nothing but a puff of wind, that goes this way or that, and changes name when it changes direction.” I drew a sharp breath and turned to the second sheet. “Your renown is the color of grass, it comes and goes, and that which fades it is the same as that which first drew it unripe from the earth,” it read.

I recognized the lines. Before he had butchered him, the killer had accused General Albrechts of the deadly sin of pride.

 

Twenty-four

“Da Ponte.” Benda entered the room. “Why are you here? What has happened?” He noticed Christiane sitting in the armchair and rushed to her side. “My love, what is wrong? You are so pale. Are you ill again?”

“I am merely tired, Richard. I will be fine,” she said.

“You must rest. The last few weeks have been too much of a strain for you. I'll ring for Charlotte.”

She placed her hand on his arm to stay him. “I'll go up myself,” she said. “Signore, I hope I've been of help.”

I thanked her and bowed. She left.

“What is happening?” Benda said.

I told him about my meeting with Countess Stoll.

He frowned. “Yet you believed her? Her reputation is such that—”

“I believed her,” I interrupted. “You must send word to Troger to release Richter.”

Benda sat on the sofa and put his head in his hands. “I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know what to do. We haven't been able to stop this fiend from killing two more victims. Now you tell me that our best suspect is innocent. I was so sure it was him.”

I cleared my throat.

He looked up at me. “You saw Christiane just now. Her grief for her father is eating her away. Yet she refuses to leave Vienna. I must solve these crimes and take her to my estates in Bohemia, or I feel she will die.”

“She just gave me these,” I said, handing him the messages I believed the killer had sent to the general. “Three of the four victims received such messages.”

He grasped the sheets of paper and scanned them. “More quotations from Dante?”

I nodded. “Yes, from the second book of
The Divine Comedy, Purgatory
.”

He stared dumbly at me. “I don't understand what these excerpts mean. They make no sense to me.”

“Each passage is about the sin of pride,” I explained.

“Pride?” Benda shook his head. “The killer accused the general of pride? Of course he was proud—he was a great war hero. He had a right to be proud.”

“Dante is speaking of the seven deadly sins—avarice, pride, gluttony, lust, wrath, sloth, and envy,” I explained. “Every person has some of these qualities to some degree. Most of us think about committing sins. But when a man gives in to temptation and commits sinful acts, when he lets his desires take over his life, then, according to Dante, he must either burn in Hell or atone in Purgatory instead of entering Paradise directly.”

“So the killer believes the general had an excess of pride,” Benda said. He took a deep breath. His eyes widened. “He has appointed himself the judge of his victims,” he whispered.

“Yes,” I said. “He has accused each victim of one of the deadly sins—the general of excessive pride, Hennen of envy, and Alois of gluttony.”

“Gluttony?” Benda asked. “I saw the priest's body. He was as thin as a reed.”

“The killer must believe Alois had an insatiable desire for something,” I said. “The man is deranged. He does not think rationally, like we do. He believes what he wishes to believe about his victims.

“Yes, he is acting as a judge. In
Purgatory,
each sinner must be educated about his sin before he may be absolved of it.” Excitement entered my voice. “I see now—he is sending the passages to teach his victim about the sin. Then he summons the victim to judgment.”

“But we don't know that,” Benda objected.

“The general, Hennen, and von Gerl all received a mysterious message the evening of the murder. These messages are nowhere to be found. The killer is taking them away. They must contain some sort of enticement, to ensure that the victim appears at his judgment.”

“He thinks he is God,” Benda said.

A chill traveled down my spine. “Yes. I understand now. When the victim appears at the appointed time and place, the killer offers him a chance to repent his sins. If the victim repents, the killer tells the poor soul he is bound for Purgatory, to serve time for his sins before he may enter Paradise. He then slashes the man's throat and carves the
P
in his forehead.

Benda's face was ashen. “But the general—there were no markings on his forehead.”

“No, but his lower torso was burned,” I said, my mind racing. “Perhaps he refused to repent. A man in the general's position would be defiant to the end. So the killer resigned him to Hell. He slashed the general's throat and set the body on fire.”