The Figaro Murders (6 page)

“Only ten? But it is solid gold! It is worth at least a hundred florins!” the customer said.

“It isn't solid gold—it is plated,” Michael replied. He pointed to a glass cabinet in the corner of the shop. “Look how many snuffboxes I already have,” he said. “But you are a good customer, so I'll give you fifteen florins for this one.”

The customer's voice grew pleading. “Are you sure you can't go up a bit more? This is the most valuable thing I have left.”

“I'm sorry, sir, I wish I could. But I cannot.”

My survey of the items on offer in the shop told me that many of the aristocrats of Vienna were financially overextended. I studied a display of gold saltcellars and inkwells, then moved over to the jewelry section of the shop, where Michael kept a large collection of gemstones in a locked glass cabinet. A few watches sat on top of the glass. I picked up one with a gold case engraved with delicate arabesques. I sighed. I would love to have it to wear with my court suit, but I too was overextended, and if I did not want to dip into my meager savings, I would have to wait until I received payment for the
Figaro
libretto before I bought myself anything new.

After a few moments, the customer, realizing that he was not going to cajole Michael into giving him a better deal, gathered up his florins and left the shop.

“I'll be with you in a minute, Signor Abbé,” the pawnbroker called as he carried his purchases into the back room. I placed Vogel's box on the counter and removed the lid.

Michael returned, a frown on his face. He waved toward the door. “That one, always arguing with me,” he said. “Every week.”

“Gambling debts?” I asked.

“No. He is one of those who lost his pension when the old empress died. He lives off the money I pay him for his family's collection of baubles.” He peered into the box. “What have we here, signore?” he asked.

“A small favor, please, Michael. I am in need of your expertise.” His eyebrows rose with curiosity. I removed the muff from the box and laid it on the counter, then brought out the ring and the book. “A friend of mine recently lost his mother. He found these things in her cupboard after she passed away. He would like to know if they are of any value. I thought you could tell him. You are the man to come to for authentication of valuables.” I had known Michael since I had arrived in Vienna, and I knew that an appeal to his pride and professional inquisitiveness would entice him to help me.

He puffed out his chest. “Yes, well, as you know, Signor Abbé, I have studied on my own for years. Let me see what you have.” He picked up the muff. “How old does your friend believe these are?”

“About thirty years.”

He ran his fingers through the fur of the muff, turning it over and over, looking at it carefully. “You must understand, Signor Abbé. I am not an expert on furs and fabrics.”

I nodded.

“But I think I can safely say that this muff is of no real value. Most of the ladies' trappings in that time were made of ermine or white fox. This hair does not feel like either of those to me.” He laid the muff to one side and picked up the ring.

“My friend believes this might have been a betrothal or wedding ring,” I offered, as I watched him turn the ring in his fingers. “I noticed myself that the jewel is shaped like a heart.”

He looked up at me and laughed. “Ah, Signor Abbé, you are the sentimental type. This is not a heart. It is just a badly cut piece of glass.”

“Glass? My friend was certain it was a valuable gem.”

“No, sir. I don't even need to use my glass to see the poor quality. Here, have a look. Do you see how cloudy the jewel is? It is not a real gem, it is an imitation. The ring itself—it is brass, not gold. This is nothing but a cheap piece, something you could buy for a few coins from a vendor in the street.”

I tried to keep my disappointment from my face. “What about the book?” I asked, pushing it toward him. He ran his fingers over the leather cover, then opened it, turned a few pages, closed it, and handed it back to me. “Again, signore, it is of little value. Such books were common at the time—all the ladies had one. This one is an inexpensive version. The leather is too thin, and the stamping on the side is not real gold.” He smiled at me apologetically. “I'm afraid your friend will be disappointed. These things will bring him no money.”

I sighed as I placed the items back into the box. “He will be sorry to hear that,” I said. “He was hoping to use them to trace the woman who owned them.”

“That would be a difficult task, Signor Abbé. Those things could have belonged to any number of women. I can tell you this, though. No lady of noble birth would own items of such inferior quality. Most likely they belonged to a shopkeeper's wife or even a servant girl.”

I nodded and pressed a coin into his hand. “Yes. Well, thank you anyway, Michael,” I said, taking up the box. “I appreciate your help.”

“Come back soon, Signor Abbé,” he said, his eyes full of mischief. “I noticed you admiring that watch—shall I set it aside for you?”

I hesitated, thinking again about how good it would look with my suit. Perhaps I could afford it. After all, I had the
Figaro
fee coming soon, and I had already agreed to write another libretto for Martín. But I had promised to send my father more money. Two of my young stepbrothers were entering the seminary in the fall, and my father could not afford the tuition without my help. I shook my head. “No, Michael, thank you, but not now. If it is still here in six months, though—” We laughed.

Disappointment washed over me as I carried the box down the street. I did not look forward to telling Marianne and Vogel that I had already failed in my investigation. If the items in the box had indeed belonged to Vogel's birth mother, she had not been the aristocrat he had imagined. The best he could hope for was that she had been a servant who had been seduced by a nobleman. But how to trace such a man? As Michael had said, cheap trinkets like those in the box were sold in markets all over Vienna. The box grew heavy in my arms. I shifted it and trudged down the street toward the Graben.

 

Three

That evening, I joined the crowds of well-dressed Viennese milling around outside the Court Theater. The emperor had been twice widowed, and when he ascended the throne, the social life of the court ceased to revolve around the dances and parties his mother had loved, and now centered around the opera. The theater was the place to see and be seen, and most of its patrons were so busy conducting business affairs, flirting, or arguing with one another that they paid little attention to the performance, ceasing their chattering only when the prima donna sang her arias.

I spent some time supervising the sale of copies of the evening's libretto in the lobby. The performance had already begun when I slipped into my seat in the fifth row on the main floor. As theater poet, I tried to attend every performance, whether I had written the libretto or not, whether the performance was a premiere or a repeat. Tonight's opera was by Casti and Salieri, a revival of a work that had premiered last year. Since I had heard the opera several times already and did not consider it all that good, I allowed my attention to wander from the stage to the main hall of the theater.

To my right, up on the second tier, boxes reserved for the emperor and his closest advisors were festooned with red and gold bunting. The royal box sat empty tonight, as did its immediate neighbor, that belonging to Joseph's chancellor, Prince Kaunitz, the second most powerful man in Vienna. A third box belonged to Count Rosenberg. His party was small, just a few friends and the omnipresent Casti, beaming and nodding as his poetry was performed.

I turned my gaze to my left, again to the second tier, where a box close to the stage was reserved for the librettist and composer of the work being performed. Because Casti never left Rosenberg's side, tonight the box was occupied only by Court Composer Salieri and his wife. I studied Salieri's suit, which looked to be a three-piece set of dark green wool. From my seat on the main floor, I could just pick out the elegant embroidery—gold thread, I guessed—around the cuffs and collar of the coat. The suit must have cost over eighty florins. Salieri could easily afford it. He had held the well-paid position of court composer for the last seven years. He, his wife, and their five children lived in a large house in the best part of the city, and I had heard that he possessed a wonderful art collection, although I personally had never been invited to see it.

As my eyes wandered over that side of the theater, a flitting movement from the box next to Salieri's caught my attention. The box was occupied by a young woman dressed in a white gown. She sat stiffly at the front center of the box, alone, toying absently with a fan, staring down, not at the stage, but at a spot near my seat. Despite her direct gaze, I sensed that she was looking at no one in particular, but that instead her eyes were unfocused and her mind was miles away.

Her auburn hair was loosely bound up by a small jeweled tiara, not tightly drawn under a large feathered hat, as was the current style among the ladies. A few tendrils had escaped from the headdress and tumbled to join the white pearl earrings hanging from her lobes. The effect was an aureole of warm spun copper about her small head. Her face was a perfect oval, her neck long and graceful. Yet her skin was deathly pale, its ashy color relieved only by two spots of rouge on her cheeks. She wore an expression of utter melancholy. I wondered who or what had caused her such misery.

Loud applause erupted as the first act came to an end. Everyone around me rose and headed toward the lobby to purchase punch or wine. I remained in my seat, turning to look at the woman again. Her expression was unchanged.

“Lorenzo!” I stood as Mozart approached. “Are you enjoying the performance?” he asked, his eyebrow cocked.

I laughed. “As much as I can,” I replied. I put my hand on his arm. “Wolfgang, look at the woman in the box next to Salieri's. Do you know her?”

“The one in white? No. I've never seen her before,” he said. “Whose box is that? Do you want me to run up and ask the countess? She knows everybody.” Countess Thun was the wife of one of the emperor's closest advisors, and had been one of Mozart's patronesses since he came to Vienna from Salzburg.

“No, no,” I said. “It's not important.” I looked past him. “Where is Constanze tonight?”

“Carl had a little cough, so she wanted to stay with him. She's heard this opera before. She said once was enough for her!” We both laughed again. Mozart's eyes narrowed as he looked at someone behind me. “Here comes the court composer,” he said in a low voice.

I turned and gave a slight, automatic bow. “Good evening, Signor Salieri,” I said. Mozart merely nodded at his fellow composer and turned his attention to digging his watch from his coat pocket.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Salieri said. The court composer was actually a year younger than me, but looked older. His lips turned downward, giving him an air of sad experience, and his dark eyes always looked tired and bored. I looked at the suit. I had been right, the embroidery was gold thread. I sighed to myself, thinking how much better than Salieri I would look in that suit.

“How does your work proceed?” he asked.

Mozart looked up from his watch. “Very well,” he said. “We have dress rehearsal in two weeks. I am almost done with the composition. Lorenzo has written a wonderful adaptation of the play,” he added.

Salieri glanced at me and turned back to Mozart. “Yes, I'm sure it will be excellent,” he murmured. “I hope you will have no delays. I am looking forward to hearing it, but as you probably have heard, I am leaving in July for a year in Paris.”

Mozart caught my eye. I frowned. Delays? What did he mean? We were due to premiere in three weeks. By July we should be well into our tenth or twelfth performance.

Salieri hesitated. “May I, as a friend, of course, offer you both some advice?”

Mozart began to fiddle with his watch fob. His face grew red.

“If it were I who was working with such a delicate subject as the Beaumarchais play,” Salieri continued, “I would take pains to include Count Rosenberg in all of my artistic decisions. I've found him to have excellent judgment as to what will please the emperor, and—”

“We have already spoken to the emperor about the opera,” Mozart said in a cold voice.

“Yes, yes, of course. You had one interview with him, I believe—”

“Lorenzo!” A familiar voice cried behind me. A moment later I found myself enveloped in a hug from my dearest friend, Vicente Martín. He gave a nod to Mozart and Salieri. “When are we going to meet?” he asked me in his rich Valencian accent.

“Soon,” I said. “A week, maybe two. After that I am all yours.”

“Good! I have a lot of ideas and I'm eager to start writing.” His dark eyes twinkled. “We should go out again soon. You've been a hermit. Rosita was asking for you just the other night.” Martín was a bachelor like me. The wife of the Spanish ambassador was his patroness, and he and I had spent many evenings enjoying the charms of her lady's maids. I had found the raven-haired Rosita to be a nice diversion from the pressures of work.

Martín smiled, nodded at the three of us, and was off to the next group of friends. Salieri looked after him. “An exuberant young man,” he said with a sniff. He turned back to us. “As I was saying, the emperor is fixed in his likes and dislikes. The count can give you valuable guidance as you proceed, so that you will have no problems over the next few weeks. I would hate for you to discover, at the very last moment, that His Majesty has found something in your libretto of which he cannot approve.”

I heard Mozart's jaw snap shut. His fist clenched around his watch fob. His face was redder than I'd ever seen it. I tried to catch his eye, but he was staring at his watch. I took Salieri by the arm and led him away a few steps. “Please do not worry on our account, Signor Court Composer,” I said. “We have everything under control. We appreciate your advice, though.” I turned to Mozart, whose eyes were bulging. “Don't we, Wolfgang?” He forced himself to nod.