Sent to the Devil (30 page)

She turned away from Salieri and put a hand on my arm. “If you believe so, Signor Poet, then I will stay. A woman just needs some reassurance, that is all.” She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. I bowed to her and excused myself, leaving Salieri to his fate. As I approached Mozart, I saw her sweep down the aisle of the theater, the music director trotting after her like a lady's lapdog.

“She was good,” Mozart said. “With that scene and the new burlesque scene, I think we've enough to please Viennese ears.”

“The second act is a bit too long,” I said. “Is there anything you think we can cut?”

He thought for a moment. “Benucci's aria, where he pleads for mercy from the rest of the cast. He can just sing a few lines instead.”

“Shall I tell him?” I asked. I hated informing a singer that his role had been diminished.

“I'll do it,” Mozart said. “He'll be fine with the change. He already has the catalog aria in the first act to show off his talents. And he is really the star of the burlesque scene, even though he spends most of it tied to a chair!”

We headed into the lobby. At the door, Mozart hesitated. “Is what you told Cavalieri true, Lorenzo,” he asked, “that you are helping the police?” I was relieved to see no judgment in my young friend's eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

“Because of your friend Alois?” Mozart asked.

I nodded. “He was like a father to me,” I said softly. “I don't like what the ministry has become, but I feel I must find Alois's killer. If I'm not involved, he'll be forgotten.”

*   *   *

After Mozart departed, I headed downstairs to collect my cloak and satchel. As I started down the hallway to my office, I drew a sharp breath. My door stood ajar. I always take care to close it when I leave. I shook my head. I must have absently forgotten to close it in my hurry to meet Mozart, Cavalieri, and Salieri.

But as soon as I entered the room, I knew he had been there. An eerie sensation that I was in the presence of evil gripped me. I forced my eyes to look over to my desk. My papers had been shoved to the floor, leaving a clear surface for the single piece of folded paper that sat in the center. I swallowed hard, and then picked it up, unfolded it, and flattened it on the desk. The serpent glowered at me as I read the lines inked across the page. “Those who would not endure to the end with Anchises' son, who instead gave themselves up to a life without glory.”

My hands were cold and damp as I folded the message and put it into my satchel. Once again, the killer had sent me a passage from
Purgatory
in which Dante and Virgil encounter the slothful. This time, Dante had referenced the
Aeneid,
Virgil's epic about the founding of Rome, reminding the sinners of the followers of Aeneas, who instead of choosing to continue the journey with the hero to the site of the new city, were content to remain in the comfort of Sicily. Virgil had called these men
animos nil magnae laudis egentes
—souls who needed no great fame.

I picked my papers off the floor and put them into my satchel, took my cloak, closed the door tightly behind me, and slowly climbed the stairs to the lobby.

*   *   *

Dusk was falling as I walked through the Michaelerplatz, passed the Spanish Riding School stables, and then cut down a short street to the Neuer Market. I continued down the Kärntnerstrasse and then turned into the Himmelpfortgasse. The street was deserted. Hennen's house was shuttered, dark and lonely. His housekeeper must have found a new position already, or had gone to stay with relatives.

I sighed. It seemed so long ago that Benda and I had been here, Benda so certain that the killings were politically motivated and eager to suspect Richter, the war protester. But Countess Stoll had vouched for Richter, and the protester had still been in Troger's prison cell when Father Dauer had been killed.

Casanova had noted the connections between the victims and Christiane Albrechts. I had laughed when he had suggested that Benda might be the killer. But it was odd that the count had left Vienna in the middle of the investigation. Perhaps I had been too hasty to dismiss him as a suspect. Could he have told Christiane that he was leaving, then stayed in the city to continue his crimes? Had he been motivated by extreme jealousy to kill any man close to his fiancée? I shook my head. He had been as surprised as I when Hennen's housekeeper revealed that the baron had been engaged to Christiane. And I just could not believe him to be capable of committing these brutal crimes.

The paper the killer was using to send his infernal messages had to be the key, I thought. The bookseller supplied it to just two men in the city. I was sure that Strasser was innocent. What motive could he possibly have to murder five men, and to come after me next? He barely knew any of the victims.

No, the killer must be Maximilian Krause. But I could not fathom his reasons for judging and sentencing his victims to death. I recalled my conversations with the gentle, friendly priest. Had he been born a monster, and murdered many times before, but never been caught? Or had something happened to him lately, some traumatic event, one that had injured his brain and led him to begin killing? Perhaps the devilish urges to commit murder had crept up on him slowly, changing his perspective on life in small increments, until the desire to murder had taken over his life.

If Krause was the killer, why had he chosen me as a victim? Why had he accused me of sloth? What was it that I had failed to do in my life that rose to the level of a sin in his estimation? He must know that I was helping the police with the investigation. Did he choose me as his next victim because he wished to be caught? Perhaps he was appalled at his actions, and, knowing that he could not control his murderous impulses, was begging me to stop him.

I turned into the street that ran parallel to the city walls, and walked in the direction of the Stuben gate. Ahead of me, several doors down the quiet street, a man exited a small apartment building. I stopped and gaped as he adjusted his cloak, donned a hat with a large plume, and sauntered down the narrow way toward the city gate.

*   *   *

I followed von Gerl as he suddenly turned left onto the Weihburggasse. He must have heard me behind him, because although he did not turn to look at me, he quickened his pace. I matched my pace to his.

Horses' hooves sounded behind me. “Watch out!” a voice called. I pressed myself against the side wall of the Franciscan Church and waited as a fancy carriage rushed by me and continued up the street. I looked ahead. Von Gerl had disappeared.

I ran into the small plaza that fronted the entrance portico to the Baroque church. Above me, Saint Jerome stood at the apex of the portico arch, his simple wide-brimmed hat and staff cast in gold, the devoted lion at his feet. Shouts and laughter came from a small tavern across the plaza. The candles in its windows were the sole lights in the square.

“Von Gerl! Where are you? It is me, Da Ponte!” I shouted. I peered down the Weihburggasse, but saw no one. I started down the Ballgasse, on my right. A moment later I saw him, a few yards ahead of me, about to turn into the Suningerstrasse. I ran after him.

“Von Gerl?” I grabbed his arm. “Is it you? How is it possible?” I pulled at him to turn him so I could see his face.

He grunted and yanked himself out of my grasp. The air went out of my chest as he pushed me, hard. I stumbled and fell to the ground, dropping my cloak and satchel. He wrapped his own cloak around his body and ran.

“Von Gerl, come back!” I shouted. “I mean you no harm!”

He turned to look at me, and as he did, he tripped over a loose stone in the street and fell flat on his face. The plumed hat tumbled off his head. I pulled myself up on all fours, then stood and ran to him. He scrambled to right himself. I lunged and grabbed him around the waist with both hands.

“Let me go!” he cried as he tried to pull away. I started as I recognized the voice. He clawed at my hands and writhed in my grasp. I let go of him and pushed him onto the ground. As he twisted his body to pull himself up, I kicked his leg. He howled with pain, sat up straight, and grabbed his shin.

“What did you do that for?” he cried. “You've hurt me!”

I looked down into his face. “How could I have hurt you?” I asked. “You are dead, are you not?”

He clamped his mouth shut.

It was von Gerl's manservant, Teuber.

 

Thirty-two

“Why are you wearing your master's clothes?” I demanded.

He cowered as I looked down at him. “Please, signore, please have mercy on me,” he said. “I was just having some fun.”

“Fun? These things don't belong to you. Get up!”

He struggled to his feet and pushed his hands out in front of him as if to ward off a blow. Did the idiot actually believe I was going to hit him? “Tell me what you were doing,” I said.

“Well, signore, the ladies—one in particular, who lives in that house around the corner—I've found they respond better to my wooing if they believe I am Baron von Gerl, not his lowly manservant.”

“You've been seducing noblewomen by claiming to be your dead master?”

“Oh, no, signore, not noblewomen—their maids.” He glanced at me, a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. “I've been around my master long enough to pick up a few of his techniques with women. Those get me an audience with a lady's maid, and if I am particularly persuasive, perhaps a kiss or two. But when I tell them I am Baron von Gerl, they let me do anything I wish.”

I shook my head in disgust.

“What are you going to do, signore? Turn me in to the police? Please take pity on me. I am a poor servant. My master left me with nothing. I meant no harm.”

I paused for a moment, and then shook my head again. “No, I'm not going to report you to the police. They have too many other things to deal with besides a fraudulent manservant. No, I won't turn you in this time. But if I see you out here again, wearing those clothes and that hat, I will take you before Count Pergen himself and have you charged with impersonating a nobleman.”

He made an exaggerated bow to me. “Thank you, signore, thank you,” he said. “I promise, I will mend my ways.”

“And you must move out of von Gerl's palace,” I said. “Try to find a new master.”

“I will, signore, I will.” He backed away from me, bowing again. “There's a tavern back by the church. I'll stop in there right now and see if anyone is looking for a manservant. Thank you, signore, thank you.”

“Go along, then,” I said. He took a few steps back, scraping to me as though I were royalty, and then turned and ran.

*   *   *

Back at my lodgings, I ate a solitary cold supper in the cellar kitchen, and then climbed the stairs to my room. I lit a candle and sat at my desk, idly turning the pages of my copy of
The Divine Comedy.
A shiver ran down my back as I reached the canto in
Purgatory
where the poet and Virgil meet the slothful. I imagined Krause sitting at a small desk similar to mine, reading these same words, but instead of seeing them as instructions to mankind about how to live a good life and achieve Paradise, interpreting them as messages he could send to the people he had determined to judge. My stomach churned as I thought about my impending confrontation with him. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, but when I closed my eyes, I pictured myself laid carefully at the foot of one of the city's monuments, my head nearly severed from my body, the dress shirt I had mended so many times soaked with my own blood.

I jumped as a knock sounded at the door. “Who is there?” I called.

“Lorenzo? It is Marta.”

I closed the book, slipped it back onto my bookshelf, took a deep breath, and went to the door. She stood as she had the first time she had come to me, clad in a white dressing gown, her hair curled about her shoulders.

“Are you all right, Lorenzo?” she asked. “You look so tired and pale.”

A pang of longing stabbed me. I wanted to take her in my arms, bury myself in her return embrace, and pour out my fears to her. But I could not.

“May I come in?” she asked.

I nodded dumbly and motioned her toward the bed. I came and sat next to her. The scent of her perfume tortured my nose.

“I wanted to apologize for my words this morning,” she said. “I was not fair to you.”

“There is no need for you to apologize,” I said. “You have lost someone you loved. I understand that.”

She looked into my eyes. “I must be honest with you,” she said. “I don't know if I am able to give you the love you deserve.”

She took my hand.

“But you have been kind to me, and I've enjoyed our times together.” She blushed. “Perhaps I have been too quick to succumb to my emotions in the past,” she continued. “I met Valentin and fell in love with him rapidly, without thinking about the consequences. A man like you might be what I need to make me happy. May we start over, Lorenzo?”

I took my hand away, rose, and went over to lock the door. When I returned to the bed, she stood. I took her in my arms. “I love you,” I murmured as I buried my lips in her soft hair. She pulled me down to the bed. Our lovemaking was impassioned and unbridled, as if we both were seeking a release from our separate disquietudes: she seeking to banish her memories of von Gerl; I thirsting for the moments of sheer pleasure that would supplant my fear of the ordeal ahead of me.

When it was over, she fell asleep in my arms. I lay awake in the narrow bed, staring first at shadows the dying candle cast on the ceiling of the room, then at the flickering tallow itself, trying to quiet the Dante passages that echoed through my brain, wondering what the next day would bring.

*   *   *

When I woke the next morning, Marta was gone. I hurriedly washed and dressed, took my cloak and satchel, and went to Pergen's office, where I demanded to see Troger. After a wait of half an hour, I was ushered into his office. He looked up from a pile of papers on his desk as I entered.