Thomas Ochiltree (19 page)

Impulsively, he picked up the little square of paper and pressed it to his lips.

It was not hard for him to see why she had been kidnapped. His enemies were playing for
very
high stakes if his theory about their motivation was correct. Major Korda had said, “the captain is nothing in this.” Well, von Falkenburg realized, even the espionage was only a part of something far bigger. Why he had been chosen as scapegoat was unclear. But he felt he could be sure that it had been an unpleasant surprise for his enemies when he not merely refused to die on schedule, but started to dog their footsteps.

He had no proofs, no written documents, nothing that would save him from that frightful confession of his that was on file somewhere, God only knew where. But
they
had no way of being sure of that.

And they had learned that he had Helena on his side. Persons less astute than Putzi, less versed in the ways of the Court than he and the Archduke Karl-Maria, would have shrugged off the danger she represented on the grounds that she was a mere woman.

But as creatures of the Court, they had realized that the last thing they needed was to have someone prying around on their own turf. Why take any risk, when a mere human life is all that it costs to avoid it?

More importantly, they had understood him well enough to know that he would halt his pursuit of them in order to try to find her. And his time had been running dangerously short even without this distraction.

He looked at the mantelpiece clock, which stood on four little pillars, between which the pendulum, shaped like a sunburst, swung back and forth. There was only half a minute to the hour, and von Falkenburg waited until the clock began to strike.

Von Falkenburg rose from the delicate little chair he was sitting on. It fell over and he kicked it, with no other effect than hurting his foot. A good reminder, he told himself, that he must keep calm. As an act of self-discipline he picked the chair up and placed it in front of the little writing-table.

One thing was certain. Here, in Helena’s house, surrounded by her possessions, he would never be able to think straight enough to devise a plan of action for finding and rescuing her. He decided to head back to the barracks.

Sick with worry, he cut back across the Inner City, inwardly cursing the throngs of people who impeded his passage. It seemed so long since he had had normal concerns like theirs that he felt almost as if he belonged to another species.

“I report most obediently,” Schmidt said on opening the door to him, “a public errand runner brought a message while the captain was out.”

Suddenly, von Falkenburg
knew
from whom the message had come, and what it said. There was no surprise for him either in the childish block letters that greeted him on opening the envelope – a disguise, of course – of in the message they spelled out:

“Captain!”

“If you are a man of honor, you will not hesitate to sacrifice your wellbeing for that of a person who is dear to you. If you accept the inevitable, no hair of her head will be harmed – beyond the lock we enclose as proof of our bona-fides. Otherwise, we cannot be answerable for the consequences.”

In the envelope along with the letter was a lock of Helena’s blond hair.

So here was their offer: his life for hers.

His life for hers.

Years ago, he had sworn to die if necessary for his Emperor. He had sworn to die if necessary for his country. And although he had always loved life – loved the warmth of the sun as he sat on café terraces, loved the taste of wine and the mystery of women – he had always intended to keep both promises if called on to do so. And that, although he knew that Emperor and country alike were near the term of their years.

How much more willing was he to die for Helena! True, dying for Franz Joseph and for Austria-Hungary would have meant leading his infantry company to a vaguely glorious destruction, while death for Helena meant submission to enemies whom he loathed with a passion of which he had hitherto never thought himself capable. But then, he loved Helena with a similar passion, and what could be more reasonable, he asked himself, than a final balancing of accounts between the two emotions which until now had always seemed beyond his grasp: true love and true hatred, each in its own way as satisfying as the other.

Von Falkenburg sat at his desk, knowing that his service revolver lay inside it, knowing that this time he would not make the mistake that once before – to Helena’s misfortune – had prolonged his life. This time the sharp spike of the hammer would fall on a round, this time the curtain really would fall on the over-long story of the Barons von Falkenburg.

“Christ, what nonsense,” von Falkenburg thought as he pulled open the drawer and looked at the dully-gleaming passport to non-existence for both him and his ancient name.

Christ, what nonsense.
He felt that it was not, and knew that it was. The world would hardly be the worse off for the extinction of one more impoverished noble family. And if he saved Helena by giving his foes what they wanted, it would be far richer.

“Every officer,” the Emperor had decreed, “has the same status, which is that of a nobleman.”

The Austro-Hungarian army, he thought: dashing young officers, gleaming swords, ruined shop girls and governesses, idiotic suicides and duels to replace a war that everyone knew would never come.

“You know, I’ve heard he shot himself for a woman.”

He would not be the first or the last about whom that was said. The women varied immensely in quality, of course. His would be one of the finest in the regimental annals. But it all came to much the same thing.

“Christ.”

With his thumb he turned the cylinder of the revolver, almost enjoying the curiously pleasing metallic clicks. So it all came to the same thing. So he was betraying six hundred years of family history. So his operetta princess was the final point in a progression that had seen generation after generation of his family growing up amid the beautiful elms of Falkenburg – which were now virtually the property of Efrussi and Co., Bankers, Society with Limited Liability.

He felt utterly drained by effort, utterly drained by failure. Even if his enemies had not chosen to prove their superiority once again by their latest brilliant move, they had beaten him anyway. With his time draining away, he had discovered much, but not laid his hand on a single proof.

Von Falkenburg leaned back in his chair and thought of Helena. He thought of her beauty, and her intoxicating feminine perfume when he worshipped her. And though thought called forth desire, and desire a meaningless physical reaction he knew now – too late – how much more there was to a woman than that.

He gripped the handle of his revolver in his yearning to empty it into Putzi and von Lauderstein.

And why not? To hell with family honor and tradition. To hell with the forms. He imagined the look on Putzi’s face as he said, “I am von Falkenburg,” and let his revolver say the rest.

A warm glow of satisfaction spread through him as he imagined the revolver jumping in his hand as the hammer fell again and again; as he imagined Putzi crumpling to the ground, clutching his belly, his warm blood soiling the impeccable suit he would doubtless be wearing.

Von Falkenburg’s teeth ached slightly, and he suddenly realized that that came from the force with which he was clenching them.

But he knew that the satisfaction of killing Putzi would be bought at the cost of Helena’s life, and that was too high a price to pay. Putzi…von Lauderstein. Unless he was willing to shoot innocent bystanders, as of course he was not, he would immediately be seized after killing the one, and before he could get to the other. And certainly the survivor – or rather the survivors, for he had to include the young Archduke Karl-Maria – would have little compunction about getting rid of the one person who might suggest a possible explanation for his act other that a temporary fit of insanity.

No, they had won, and he would not even have the satisfaction of taking one of them with him. His life for hers. It was a fair enough bargain in a way, for it had not been for him, her life would not be in danger now.

But…would they keep their half of the bargain? Von Falkenburg realized with a shock that he had once again fallen into the trap of judging his opponents by the standards of normal men, and of attributing to them at least some semblance of honor and decency.

With him dead, he reflected, their Problem – the one that had led them to frame him in the first place – would be almost solved. There would remain just one loose end to tie up, and a pair of strong hands around a slender white throat would do that nicely.

Helena, he knew, had no family of her own. And even if any of her late husband’s family still lived – and von Falkenburg did not know whether they did or not – they were hardly likely to worry too much about the mysterious death of an interloper who had stepped directly from the stage to a position between them and a very large fortune.

He was the only person, he realized with a start, who really cared whether Helena lived or died. And what he knew of his enemies told him which of those two alternatives they had in mind for her.

“Mysterious Tragedy. Young Lady of the Highest Aristocracy Found Dead in Vienna Woods. Riding Habit and Injury to Skull Suggest Riding Accident.” That could be one of the headlines.

Von Horgenhoff would write in his column about how cut up high society was by the Tragic Event. But there would also be some poisonous allusions to her non-noble origins, for such were both Horgenhoff’s job and his nature.

And within a few days, she would be as forgotten as a stone dropped into a deep well.

No, he realized, he was the only defense she had in the world, and even though in his present state of exhaustion the idea of death was not without a certain definitely attractive side, he knew now that it was a temptation to which he must not yield.

He had to keep on fighting, hopeless though his efforts might seem. And curiously, with that realization came an intense desire to do so. He was, after all, his father’s, his grandfather’s, and his great grandfather’s heir. Always, at these dangerously recurring moments of weariness and renunciation came a new determination that never failed to surprise him.

Von Falkenburg’s great grandfather had always been presented in the family annals as a man of iron, a symbol of instant decision. Von Falkenburg found himself wondering if such was really the case, or if at the Battle of Leipzig against Napoleon, black despair might not have preceded the famous cry, “the 23rd Dragoons, follow me!”

And his father, the night before the fatal duel…?

But there was no time for reflection, for Helena was in the hands of his enemies…of
their
enemies..and he
must
and
would
get her back!

Von Falkenburg slammed shut the drawer of his desk with the revolver in it and strode out of the room.

The evening was cool but clear. He walked along the Ring through throngs of strollers.

Putzi…von Lauderstein…the Archduke Karl-Maria…. A strange trio, he reflected, but together they formed a combination that had so far beaten him at every round. Somehow, he realized, he had to break them apart. Von Falkenburg had studied military theory conscientiously, and he knew how if just one company of a regiment breaks, the whole regiment can crumble.

Putzi…von Lauderstein…the Archduke Karl-Maria…von Lauderstein…von Lauderstein….

Von Lauderstein. That was the weak link in the chain; the Archduke Karl-Maria was protected by his rank. Putzi, von Falkenburg felt instinctively, was a man of towering will. But von Lauderstein was a compulsive gambler. Von Falkenburg was enough of a student of human character to know that an obsession of any kind represents a fault-line through the soul.

No question about it, von Falkenburg told himself, von Lauderstein was the one to hit first.

But how?

How? How? How? Von Falkenburg’s mind remained stuck at dead center.

He had been walking fast, and was already at the Openring. The great bulk of the Opera House loomed in front of him. Elegant throngs were pressing through the doors. The performance must be about to begin.

Von Falkenburg decided to go sit in the Stadtpark. It was there, after all, that the inspiration to visit the Imperial Crypt had come to him, and that visit had been of the greatest importance in terms of figuring out what his enemies might ultimately be after.

To get to the Stadtpark more quickly, he decided to cut through a corner of the Inner City instead of following the Ring around it. He headed down the Seilerstätte with its massive apartment buildings, and looming at the end of it, the
Établissement
Ronacher.

The Ronacher. Von Falkenburg paused and gazed at it curiously, not sure why he did so. He had seen it dozens of times. Been in it dozens of times, for that matter, even though he hated vaudeville. Taken girls there, or gone fishing in the chorus line.

Établissement
Ronacher. With a vague presentiment that the place held some significance for him tonight, he crossed the street.

“Any orchestra seats left, Miss?” he asked the girl behind the ticket window.

“A nice single in Row E, sir. Or if you want two, I have a couple in Row M.”

“One will be fine, Miss.”

Was there the faintest trace of amused malice combined with desire in her glance as she handed him the ticket, he wondered? A mixture of “all alone, the fine officer?” and “I get off work at eleven.”

Von Falkenburg handed over the money and took the ticket.

It was absurd, he knew, to be going to a variety show when he should be devising plans to find and rescue Helena. But it was as if something tucked away in a forgotten corner of his brain was urging him to do so.

Besides, he told himself, perhaps he needed to let his brain rest a while before putting it to work again.

The show had already started, and the lobby with its riot of gilded plaster was empty.

“I’ll wait until the next number,” he said to the usher. As he waited, the idea of entering seemed increasingly absurd, and he decided to leave. He turned to go, but at that moment the usher said, “the act is over now. The captain can go in if he wishes.”