Requiem in Vienna (31 page)

“Right,” Werthen said. “Brahms had a penchant for such games, I am told.”

Herr Meisner cast him a friendly glance. “Indeed. For Bach it was the use of the F–A–B–E in his canons, referring to his fellow composer and friend, J. C. Faber. Over the years, composers got more and more ingenious in developing their alphabet. For example, E-flat stands for the letter
s
, naturally, because in German our name for that note is
Es
, and B-sharp is the equivalent of
Hah
, or
H
. You mention Brahms, but also Schumann delighted in musical jests, inserting names of friends in his work. I am told the Irish composer, John Field, once complimented a dinner hostess with melodies produced by B–E–E–F and C–A–B–B–A–G–E. Just last year the British composer, Edward Elgar, published his
Enigma Variations
, hinting that the various melodies of his variations are based, in fact, on a well-known tune. I have yet, I dare say, to break the code, though I favor
Auld Lang Syne
as the inspiration.”

“And this was a simple sort of cipher like those?” Werthen asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Herr Meisner said. “Musicians have also
created codes using an ascending scale of quarter notes, a dozen of them to represent the first twelve letters of the alphabet. Rhythm has also been used in such endeavors, creating a cipher system not unlike Morse code. Additionally, we must also contend with basic letter substitution systems. Here, as the great ninth-century Baghdad cryptographer, Al-Kindi, has shown, one simply develops a system of replacing one letter with another. For example, the letter
A
is always replaced by
B
, or
B
in turn is replaced by
H
. Also, we have the work of Porta, whose secret alphabet was used widely in the early seventeenth century. Which brings me finally to the work of that notable seventeenth-century British clergyman, Bishop John Wilkins.”

“Yes, yes,” Gross said, unable to control his enthusiasm. “His
Mercury: The Secret and Swift Messenger
was a revelation for me.”

“You should also read his work on the construction of an artificial language for the use of diplomats, scientists, and philosophers. It makes inspiring reading.”

“Papa,” Berthe said, urging him back to the subject at hand.

“Yes. The good bishop wrote his book on cryptography when he was just twenty-seven and I believe it proved quite handy for chaps during the English Civil War. In that book he touches on language as concealed in musical notes. In chapter eighteen, as I remember, he posits an alphabet of descending notes, beginning with A, and leaving out letters
K
and
Q
as their sound may be created by the C. But Wilkins goes on to employ a letter substitution system as well as the use of Latin as base language. Once I recalled that system, the rest was mere secretarial work.”

“What was the secret message?” Werthen’s curiosity was well and truly piqued by now.

Herr Meisner took a slip of paper out of his vest pocket and, squinting at it, read, “Hans Rott salutes and condemns you from the grave, Mahler.”

“You are absolutely certain?”

Herr Meisner nodded his head solemnly.

“But that is marvelous,” Werthen said.

Gross clapped Werthen on the back, handing him a glass of
sekt
.

“So now you know the reason to celebrate. Someone who was connected with Rott seeks revenge on Mahler for stealing the man’s work. Now we only need to find who that someone might be.”

Werthen, however, began to have second thoughts. “But why would this person expose himself so? Why such an overt lead.”

“Hardly overt,” Gross said. “In point of fact, it took two skilled cryptographers to break the code.”

“Still,” Werthen said.

“My friend,” Gross reassured him, “this message includes several valuable pieces of information. One points to Hans Rott, and another tells us our enemy here thinks he is invincible. His ego is immense; he believes the rest of the world is comprised of idiots. Thus he can create false leads about the murders of famous Viennese composers and at the same time thumb his nose at us with this coded piece of music. This lets us know, via the false leads, that perhaps we were getting too close to him earlier in our investigation. Still a further piece of information we gain is that our culprit has a working knowledge of music and composition. Perhaps he associated with musicians.”

“My God, could it be?” Werthen said.

“What is it, Karl?” Berthe took his arm, alarmed at his sudden change.

“Speaking with Arnold Rosé today, I discovered that Rott had a younger brother who was not the best sort of citizen.”

Gross clapped his meaty hands together. “Ah, yes, now we are getting somewhere.”

W
erthen thought it odd that church bells should be ringing this early. It was still before dawn, and as he listened to this faux Angelus, he felt a throbbing at his temples and a dryness in his mouth. One too many celebratory glasses of
sekt
last evening.

By the time he realized it was the phone and not church bells ringing, the sound had ceased, only to be followed a few instants later by an insistent tapping at the bedroom door.

Berthe rolled over groggily. “What is that, Karl? Mice?”

“Nothing, darling. Go back to sleep.”

He slipped out of bed, wrapping his silk robe around him as he went to the door.

Gross, looking bleary-eyed and with a tuft of his tonsured fringe askew, spoke quietly but with urgency.

“Get dressed. Our man’s been at his dirty work again.”

She lay on her back in a pool of dried blood. The gaping wound at her neck had already attracted flies. Drechsler swatted at them with his derby.

“I don’t like this one little bit,” he spat out. “I tell you the young
lady’s name and place of abode, and the next thing I know, she is dead. Who did you tell?”

“And I do not appreciate your insinuation, Inspector. I told no one. Not even Gross, here. I forgot. Other matters intervened.”

“Werthen,” Gross said. “How could you, man? If I had known of her existence, perhaps this young woman would still be alive.”

The statement was so preposterous that not even Drechsler commented on or added to it.

They were in the garret room of Mitzi Paulus, of whom Drechsler had indeed apprised Werthen just the day before. An officer had thrown the one window open, but the fumes over the Kohlmarkt this morning were not much better than those within: a combination of cheap perfume, human sweat, and dried blood. To take his mind off this, Werthen quickly explained to Gross about the young woman and her supposed ability to identify the man she saw the night Herr Gunther was killed.

Then turning to Drechsler, Werthen said, “I take it your sergeant was unable to talk to her again?”

“You take it correctly,” Drechsler said morosely. “But how the hell did he find out we were on to him through this tart?”

Gross sighed. “She was in a dangerous profession. Perhaps this murder is merely a coincidence.” But he uttered this with such a lack of conviction that it was clear he did not think so either.

“Think, man,” Drechsler persisted. “There must have been someone. Perhaps our conversation was overheard?”

The only thing Werthen could think of was the fact that Herr Tor seemed to arrive at the office door just as Drechsler was leaving. Had he overheard? But that was patently absurd. The mouselike Tor was hardly capable of murder. He mentioned none of this, but instead went on the offensive.

“And why not assume that it was not your own sergeant who told one too many friends about his great success? Or perhaps you yourself spoke about it out of turn and were overheard?”

“I must say, Drechsler,” Gross added, “I agree wholeheartedly with Werthen. “Why put the blame on him?”

“Meindl is turning apoplectic.”

“That,” Gross said, “is Meindl’s affair, not ours.”

They used their Montenuovo letter to gain access to the K und K Hofarchiv in the Hofburg, presenting the baleful clerk in his white coat with a birth registration request. They were searching for the records for one Karl Rott, born circa 1860. Rosé had told him the younger brother was about two years younger than Hans Rott, who was born in 1858.

The clerk had an ink smudge on his right earlobe, the result of a habit of rubbing his ear with his pen hand, Gross explained once the young man had taken their form and disappeared into a labyrinth of wooden shelving that held a formidable array of bulky, gray file boxes.

Gross had been the one, after Werthen had explained about Rosé believing there to be some question surrounding the propriety of the birth of this second son, who advised a further search for birth records.

As they waited Werthen once again thought of how the information about Mitzi Paulus could have gotten to the killer. Perhaps, as with Herr Gunther, their man was only tying up loose ends, getting rid of any possible witnesses to his crimes. Thus, he would remember the young woman who had approached him and looked into his empty eyes. He would know her territory, where to find her. But would she actually go with the man? After all, she said she could recognize him. He had frightened her the first time she had seen him. Now she knew that he was wanted by the police, one would assume she would be doubly fearful of him.

Or perhaps, as they had suspected all along, the perpetrator was not working alone. He had someone else he could send to
Mitzi Paulus, a stranger, who had bargained with her, trudged up the three flights of creaky stairs behind her to the bedroom garret over the Kohlmarkt and then slashed her throat as she began to disrobe and was defenseless.

Their nemesis was a cur. Not a man, or men, at all. How many had died now in the pursuit of Mahler’s death? Three innocent victims.

“Nothing here for a Karl Rott.” The clerk had returned, but not empty-handed. “I did find a file for Hans Rott, though. I was at the
R
s, so thought it might be worth a look.”

“It is not Hans we are searching for,” Gross said with some displeasure.

“I realize that, gentlemen. But seeing’s how you’ve been dispatched by Prince Montenuovo himself, I thought you might appreciate thoroughness.”

“Quite right, my boy, “ Gross replied, attempting to rein in his monumental impatience. “Do forgive my brusqueness.”

“That’s fine, sir. Many of our clients pay me no heed, as if I were simply a piece of furniture here. I do appreciate it, though, when my diligence does not go unnoticed.”

“Perhaps you could just inform us of what you found, if anything,” Gross said.

The clerk clutched the file closer to his breast. “Well, there is mention here of Hans Rott being first born to the actor Karl Matthias Roth, later changed to Rott, and one Maria Rosalia Lutz, a singer. A later addition to the file shows that he had a half brother, legitimized to the name of Rott.”

“Legitimized?” Werthen said. “Whose child was it then?”

The young clerk blushed as he spoke. “Well, it says here that the file for this brother is in the imperial house archives. Perhaps Prince Montenuovo can enlighten you.”

Which, Werthen realized, meant that the younger brother was most likely the illegitimate child of Maria Lutz and a member of the royal family.

______

“You believe it to be important?” Prince Montenuovo asked once Gross made the reason for their visit clear.

“Imperative, Prince,” Gross said.

“This is hardly the sort of information we like to make public.”

“He may by our murderer and the one attempting to kill Mahler,” Werthen said. It was hardly the time for decorum.

“Yes,” Montenuovo said in an even tone. He leaned back in his chair, looked at a fresco of two putti gamboling on the ceiling over his baroque desk, and then he made a most unprincely clucking sound with his tongue.

“It shall be done. If you could wait outside. My attendant will see to it.”

Thus it was that ten minutes later they were presented with the birth certificate of young Wilhelm Karl, born December 20, 1860, later to bear the family name of Rott. But in the document the true father was listed as Archduke Wilhelm, one of Franz Josef’s brothers. A bachelor all his life, the prince died in 1894, but, it appeared, his progeny lived on.

Mahler was looking like his old self, working on the score to
Tannhäuser
as Justine showed Werthen into the large sitting room with the Bösendorfer grand. Meanwhile, Gross had gone to check on further leads with Drechsler.

Werthen had often wondered how conductors managed to direct an orchestra of fifty or more and a cast of singers that sometimes reached into the hundreds—especially in Mahler’s grandiose performances—through two or three hours of a complex and demanding operatic score. Here was an obvious partial explanation: hard work, attention to detail, and intensive cramming that would make a
matura
candidate, an aspirant for a
secondary school degree, blanch. Mahler, who must have conducted the opera a score of times in his career, was pecking out the score with his left hand while making detailed and last-minute notes with his right.

Despite being near death only days earlier, Mahler was going to conduct tonight’s special performance of
Tannhäuser
, a tribute to Wagner’s widow, Cosima, who was to be in attendance.

“Werthen,” he called out once seeing the lawyer. “Have you caught him?”

“Soon, Herr Mahler.”

He nodded at his sister, who was waiting by the door. She shut it behind her as she left.

“I want to make this positively clear to you and your detective friends. I do not want my sister, Natalie, or Herr Rosé any further discomfited by your inquiries. They are not to be treated as common criminals. Is that understood?”

His face suddenly took on a ferocious, predatory look.

But Werthen was having none of his bullying techniques.

“Someone is trying to kill you, Herr Mahler. Someone who has now killed three others in the process.”

“Three?”

“Yes. I have just come from the gruesome scene of a crime where a young woman was butchered. She probably had seen our man leaving Herr Gunther’s and she paid for it with her life.”