Sent to the Devil (5 page)

I went through the door and up a flight of stairs. Was this the floor? I peered down the long hallway, where clumps of workers stood outside office doors. No, it must be up another flight. I dragged myself up to the next floor and looked around. Ahead of me was the long hallway that occasionally still featured in my nightmares. But unlike that night two years ago, when the doors were all closed and nothing but sporadic pools of light lit the way, today the office doors all stood open.

A tall man in a gray woolen suit approached. “Can I help you, sir?” he asked.

“I'm looking for Count Pergen's office,” I said.

His brows shot up. “The minister of police? What would you want with him?” He studied me, suspicion written on his face. “Are you one of his spies?”

“No, no! There's been a crime, a murder. I believed—I remembered—no, I must be in the wrong hallway.” As I turned away, I stumbled.

The bureaucrat caught my arm. “Wait, sir,” he said. “You are in the correct hallway. But Pergen's ministry moved last year. This is the tax reform office now.”

“Do you know where I can find Count Pergen?” I asked.

“Yes. His offices are in the imperial chancellery wing, right beneath the emperor's rooms. But take my advice, my friend. You should stay away.”

“I must speak to his assistant. There's been a murder,” I said.

“Well, if you insist on going there—when you leave this building, go through the arch on the right. That will take you into the main courtyard. Go in the first door on the left. Ask any of the guards to direct you to the ministry offices.”

I thanked him and hurried out the door. I made my way into the courtyard of the Hofburg. The long expanse was dotted with groups of bureaucrats, soldiers, and citizens of the empire who had business with the various ministries. I made a sharp left and entered a small door flanked by oversized statues of young men wrestling a bull and a lion into submission. Once inside, I asked directions from a guard, who pointed me up to Pergen's second-floor suite of offices.

I hesitated outside the door that led to Pergen and Troger. What was I doing? I had hoped never to encounter either man again. Perhaps I should take the bureaucrat's advice, and stay away. I closed my eyes. A vision of the surprised expression on my dead friend's face appeared. I opened my eyes and hurried through the door.

The anteroom was ornate and lavishly furnished with stuffed armchairs. A middle-aged secretary clad in a severe black suit sat at a large mahogany desk. He looked up as I approached.

“I am Lorenzo Da Ponte, the theater poet. I must see Captain Troger immediately. It's about the man who was killed at the Stephansdom this morning.”

He motioned me toward one of the armchairs. “Let me see if Inspector Troger is free,” he said.

I put down my satchel, sank into a chair, and looked around. I had been in just one room during my former encounter with Pergen and Troger, and it had been sparsely furnished and dimly lit. This office was its extreme opposite. It looked more like one of the salons in which I occasionally met with the emperor than a police office.

After a few minutes, the secretary returned. “I'm sorry, Signor Da Ponte,” he said. “Inspector Troger is in an important meeting and cannot be disturbed.”

“I'll wait for him,” I said.

“I wouldn't advise it, signore,” the man said, frowning.

I leaned back into the comfortable chair. “I'll stay until he is free. I must speak with him. I don't care how long it takes.”

The secretary sighed, went over to his desk, and picked up a small bell. Moments later, a barrel-chested guard appeared.

“Please escort Signor Da Ponte to the Court Theater,” the secretary said. He looked at me, his face apologetic. “I'm sorry, signore. Inspector Troger does not wish to see you.”

*   *   *

At the main gate of the Hofburg, I assured the guard I could make my own way to the theater. Nevertheless, he stood watching until I entered the front door.

Six large candelabras had joined the ladder and mandolin in the narrow hallway to my office. I maneuvered past them, opened my door, threw down my satchel, and collapsed onto my desk chair. I rested my head in my arms. The horrible vision of Alois's body sprawled at the base of the chancel, above him Saint Francis, his foot on the defeated Turk, came unbidden to my mind. Had my friend really just encountered a violent thief? Or had he been confronted by someone much more sinister, a minion of the devil with an evil purpose? I shuddered as I imagined Alois's last moments. I hoped that God had taken him quickly.

I cast my thoughts back to the times I had spent with my friend—our first meeting, in the aisles of an old bookshop in the Jewish quarter of the city; the many hours we had sat in his spartan office, discussing our favorite books; the many meals shared over a bottle of his favorite Tokay. A sob lodged in my throat as I recalled his continual yet gentle scolding of me—sometimes trying to draw me back to the church he loved so much, other times urging me to work more on writing poetry and less on writing for the theater.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my swirling emotions. I reached into my satchel and pulled out the notes I had scratched out the other day, ideas for the burlesque scene Mozart had agreed to add to
Don Giovanni
. The words on the paper swam before my eyes.

After a few futile hours I gave up and threw down my pen. My grief for Alois had turned to anger at Troger. He and I had been uneasy allies two years ago, but I had solved the case that had been put to me. The least he could have done was to allow me to wait today, and not had me escorted from his office under guard. Why was the Ministry of Police interested in Alois's death? It usually concerned itself with more important matters affecting the security of the empire and, these days, censorship, leaving the city constabulary to handle crime. I determined to go back to the Hofburg tomorrow morning and refuse to leave until I spoke with Troger.

I put my work into my satchel, left the theater, and went home. My landlady was setting a vase of flowers on a small table in the foyer of the house when I entered.

“Signor Da Ponte! You are home early today,” she greeted me.

“Good afternoon, Madame Lamm,” I mumbled.

“You are just in time for dinner. Professor Strasser is downstairs already with Sophie. Please come down. There is plenty for one more.”

I opened my mouth to decline, to claim that I had no appetite, but she had already caught sight of the misery on my face.

“Signore! What is wrong? You look terrible. Are you ill?”

I shook my head. “No, madame. I've just heard about the death of a close friend.” My voice broke.

She bustled over to me and took my satchel. “You poor man. No wonder you left work early. Was your friend ill?”

Her face was full of concern. I could not share the horror of the scene at the Stephansdom with her. She would hear about it from the neighborhood gossips soon enough. “No,” I replied. “It was sudden. But he was an old man.”

“Let me take this up to your room,” she said. “You need a good dinner and an afternoon reading in the garden. It feels as though it might rain later, but you should have a few hours. I'll make sure that Sophie and her friends do not disturb you.”

I started to protest, but shut my mouth. It was comforting to have someone directing me about. “Thank you, madame,” I said.

I took the back stair down to the comfortable, cheery kitchen. My fellow lodger, Erich Strasser, a professor at the university's Oriental Academy, was already seated at the long table. Sophie Lamm was at the hearth, ladling stew onto large plates.

“Signor Da Ponte! Good afternoon. Are you joining us?” she asked.

I nodded. I slid into the chair across from Strasser and greeted him. The fifty-year-old professor had an exotic air about him, his closely cropped light gray hair contrasting with thick, almost ebon brows.

“Get the wine from the cupboard, Sophie,” our landlady said as she entered the room. Sophie set a steaming plate in front of Strasser and went over to the cupboard.

“A special treat for my favorite lodgers,” her mother said. She set a plate of stew in front of me. Sophie poured a glass for each of us from a large jug, and took a seat across from her mother.

I bit into a piece of soft meat. Madame Lamm was a good cook, but today the food tasted like sawdust. I sipped my wine slowly and picked at my plate as the others conversed.

“Have either of you gentlemen heard any news about the emperor's troops?” Madame Lamm asked.

Strasser shook his head. “As far as I know, madame, they are still outside Belgrade, waiting for the Russians to get to Galicia to distract the Turkish army,” he said.

“Still? Well, at least they are keeping the Turks away from Vienna,” the landlady said.

“I don't believe the Turks wish to invade Vienna, Madame Lamm,” Strasser said. “We are the aggressors in this war.”

The landlady frowned. “Oh! But I'm sure the Turks would love to take the city, if they were able. They've attacked us so many times. I remember my grandfather talking about the last one. He was just a boy of ten when it happened, but when he was an old man, he used to tell me stories about how we almost lost the city to the Turks, how his family had to scrabble to find food during the siege, how terrified everyone was that the city walls would fall and the Turks would massacre everyone. I still shudder when I see one of their cannonballs stuck in a building, like that one over in the Am Hof. We came so close to losing everything then!”

“Is it true, Professor Strasser, that you've lived among the Turks?” Sophie asked.

Strasser nodded. “Yes, Miss Sophie. I spent many years in Constantinople as part of my training. I've traveled to many parts of the Ottoman Empire.”

Sophie gave a sly glance in the direction of her mother. “Is it true what they say?” she asked Strasser. “That their sultan keeps a stable full of women?”

“His religion allows the sultan to marry many wives,” the professor explained. “The women all live together in a wing of the royal palace. It is called a harem.”

Sophie's eyes glittered with excitement. “I've heard stories about it. They say the women, especially the young beautiful ones, are kept chained to the walls in the harem. They are only released when the sultan sends for them, to sate his needs—”

“Sophie Lamm! Watch your mouth!”

“Oh, Mother. You must have heard the stories yourself. Are they true, Professor? I've heard that the Turkish pirates capture ships and kidnap Christian women. They sell them as concubines. If a woman resists, she is tortured to death.”

“I have heard no such thing!” her mother said.

“Those are just tales, Miss Sophie,” he said. “The truth is actually the opposite. Most Turkish women have more freedom than do women here in Vienna.”

Madame Lamm frowned. “But Professor, how can that be? The Turks are not Christians. Everyone knows they have no morality. Why, even their religion is based on violence. They are bloodthirsty barbarians!”

Strasser sighed. “Ah, madame, I'm afraid you've fallen right into the emperor's trap.”

“What do you mean?”

“It serves the emperor well if you have no real understanding of the Turk. By getting people riled up with all these stories, he keeps you in fear, and assures your support for his plan to grab some of the Ottoman Empire's lands for Austria.”

The landlady opened her mouth to retort, but then shut it. She glanced over at me. “Would you like another glass of wine, signore?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, thank you, madame. If you will excuse me, I'll just go up to my room and rest.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything, signore.”

I went up to my room, took off my coat and waistcoat, and rinsed my face at the basin. I sat at my desk and stared at some work for a while, but concentration eluded me. Sighing, I went over to the cupboard, rummaged through the small collection of beloved books I kept there, and pulled out my tattered copy of Dante's
The Divine Comedy
. I returned to my chair, opened the book, and read: “In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark forest, for I had lost the straight path.” Soon I walked in Dante's world, traveling with him and the poet Virgil through the circles of Hell.

I must have dozed a bit, for when a soft knock sounded at my door, I was surprised to see that darkness had fallen. I put down the book and opened the door. A folded paper sat on the floor. I drew in a sharp breath, leaned over and picked it up. My landlady was at the end of the hallway, about to descend the stairs.

“Madame Lamm,” I called.

She came over to me. “Yes, signore?”

“This message, where did it come from?”

“A boy delivered it an hour ago. I am sorry, signore. I thought you were sleeping. If I had known you were awake, I would have brought it up earlier.”

“What type of boy?” I asked. “What did he look like? How old was he?”

My intensity startled her. “Let me think, signore. Young, about eleven or twelve. Blond hair.”

“One of the neighborhood boys? Was he wearing livery?”

She looked at me quizzically. “Is something wrong with the message, signore?”

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “I am sorry, madame. I did not mean to interrogate you. I am just tired.”

She nodded. “I understand, signore. You need not apologize. You have had a terrible day.” She thought for a moment. “No, I've never seen the boy before. He wasn't wearing any uniform. I wish I could tell you more. Is it important?”

I shook my head. “Probably not. Thank you, madame.”

“I will say good night, signore. I am sorry about your friend.”

I went back into my room and threw the message on the desk. I was not in the mood for another mysterious communication tonight. I took the volume of Dante over to my bed, lit a candle on my small bedside table, and resumed my reading, but soon found that I could not regain my interest in the poetry. I glanced over at the desk and shook my head. I was being silly. It was a piece of paper, that was all, as were the other two messages I had received. It was simply my imagination that made me think they were a threat to me. Someone—perhaps one of my enemies at court or at the theater—was merely playing a vexatious prank on me.