1636 The Devil's Opera: Chapter Twenty Seven

    Ciclope and Pietro were back in that same tavern. It was still filled with smoky haze from the fireplace at one end of the room. Ciclope missed the old man and his pipe, though. It would have made the haze a bit sweeter.

    They bought their ale, then looked for a table. The one they used last time was occupied, but they found another where they could put their backs against a wall and watch the door.

    Ciclope tried his ale. It hadn’t improved in their absence. It still tasted of mold and dirt. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have sworn there was a bit of stable straw floating on top of it.

    “So, when does he show up?” Pietro asked.

    “Don’t start that,” Ciclope said. “Same as last time. The man will be here when he gets here.”

    And in fact, it wasn’t long before their ‘patron’, wearing what looked to be the same ill-fitting clothes slipped into the chair beside Pietro.

    “That was a good start,” he said without wasting any time. “What will you do next?”

    Ciclope took advantage of the moment to study him some more. His German was the local dialect, and under the baggy and slovenly clothes he was still too neat and clean for the kind of man he was attempting to portray. No ink on the fingers, so he was well-to-do enough to pay someone to do his writing. No hint of perfume. He didn’t walk forthright like a soldier, nor like an absent-minded scholar. So, he was a burgher, a merchant of some kind.

    The ‘patron’ shifted on his chair, and Ciclope set his thoughts aside for the moment. “Well, we can’t do the trick with the wood again, if for no other reason than they don’t have much of it left right now. Maybe after they rebuild their stocks.”

    “I do not want them to ‘rebuild their stocks’ the other man hissed. “I want them ruined now!”

    Ciclope raised his hand. “Calmly, calmly, boss. It does no good if you attract attention, now does it?” He drank off the last of his ale, suppressing a shudder at the taste.

    Setting the mug down, he began running a finger around its rim.

    “We have started weakening scaffolding. There should be some falls soon. We’ve also started rumors that the place is unlucky. Between the two, the workmen should start getting goosy soon, and they’ll start drifting away.”

    “I want them ruined!” the man insisted in a whisper.

    “There’s only so much we can do at one time, boss,” Pietro said.

    “He’s right,” Ciclope confirmed. “We can’t pop a big thing every week. They would start looking for people right away.”

    The ‘patron’s’ mouth twisted. “Very well,” he said in a low tone. “But I want to see results soon.”

    “You will, boss,” Ciclope assured him. “You will.”

    Clouds of fine dust arose from the ash in the hospital construction site as they walked through the wood yard, stinging Gotthilf’s eyes and coating his tongue, giving the flavor of smoke to every breath he took. He followed Byron along with Karl Honister, the detective who was being given charge of the investigation. They all trod carefully through the destruction wrought by the fire. He looked up to see Dan Frost waving from the bucket he was standing in. Said bucket was thirty feet in the air at the end of a chain lifted by the derrick of the steam crane. The former Grantville police chief was now an independent consultant on policing and investigation. Luckily, he’d been available right after the fire happened, and quickly responded to Mayor Gericke’s call.

    “He says more to the right,” he reported.

    “I guess Dan can see the burn pattern better from up there than from ground level,” Byron said as he adjusted his heading in the desired direction. “That’s good, because the sooner we let the builder have access back to this yard, the sooner they’ll quit bugging Mayor Gericke about it.”

    Before long they heard a blast from Dan’s old police whistle, his signal to stop. They froze in place, waiting for the crane to lower the former police chief to the ground. In a couple of minutes he joined them, moving to the lead of their little group.

    “It’s like I expected,” Dan said as he stepped forward slowly, eyes on the ground. “I never got any formal training in fire and arson investigation, but you pick up stuff by watching the real experts work a case. Anyway, the fire definitely started in this area. We need to see if we can figure out what started it.”

    “Are you suspecting arson?” Byron asked.

    “If we were still up-time, absolutely. Here and now, no, not really. The whole idea of risk insurance for this kind of project is just starting, so I doubt that the idea of arson for fun and profit has really occurred to anyone yet.” Dan bent over and poked at something on the ground, then straightened without picking it up. “But I still don’t want to rule it out until we’ve checked every bit of this area. So step carefully, gentlemen, and keep your eyes peeled.”

    Gotthilf turned and made his way back to the watchmen standing behind the rope that cordoned off the wood yard.

    “Gather round, men.” Gotthilf waited until they had circled around him. “Okay, here’s the word. Walk single file through the scene over the steps that we made in the ashes until you get to where Herr Frost and Lieutenant Chieske are standing. Once you’re there, spread out where Herr Frost tells you to and start looking at the ground. Anything that is not ash or a bit of burnt wood, stand still and call out. Either Herr Frost or Detective Honister will come check it out. Don’t move again until they tell you to. Everyone got that?”

    Heads nodded all around the circle.

    “Good. Get out there.”

    Honister stepped up beside Gotthilf as the watchmen started down the path.

    “So what are we really looking for?”

    Gotthilf turned his head toward the other detective. “Herr Frost will not rule that this fire was not arson without a detailed examination of the scene. This is the fastest way to do that. You are looking for anything that looks as if it might have started a fire: a match, gun powder, a magnifying lens; anything at all that is not wood or ash needs to be examined.”

    Honister’s father and Gotthilf’s had occasionally joined forces on business dealings, so the two young men were slightly acquainted with each other even before they both ended up in the detective group.

    Gotthilf smiled a bit as he observed the other man’s clothing. Honister was a bit on the dapper side, and he had dressed especially so today.

    “You are going to wish you had dressed differently before the morning is out.”

    Honister gave a rueful nod, then asked. “So what do you think?”

    For all that Gotthilf was the youngest detective in the Magdeburg Polizei, he was well-respected by his peers; a respect he had earned, he admitted to himself.

    “What do I think? Honestly, I don’t know what to think . . . but something about this fire does not feel right.”

    Honister stared at him for a moment, gave another nod, and touched the brim of his hat with a finger before turning and following the watchmen into the crime scene.

    Gotthilf waited where he was. After a couple of minutes, he could see Byron make one last comment to Herr Frost and then head his direction. “Back to Metzger?” he asked when his partner stood beside him taking futile swipes at the fine particles of ash clinging to his clothing.

    Byron straightened. “Yep. Back to Metzger.”

    Stephan Burckardt sighed as he tied a ribbon around a file folder and carried it from his desk to the filing cabinet in the corner. It was one of Master Schmidt’s special files — as the red ribbon color indicated — one of the files that only Stephan and the Master were supposed to see. The men who updated the regular ledgers knew that they weren’t supposed to touch any folder tied up with a red ribbon. In fact, Master Schmidt had made it very clear that anyone other than Stephan who tried to look in the red ribbon files had better leave Magdeburg. And those who had been in the office for very long took that statement seriously.

    He turned away from the cabinet after locking it. To be honest, he hadn’t seen anything in those folders that was particularly risky. Nothing that couldn’t be found in any master merchant’s files, he supposed, based on things he’d heard other secretaries and accountants say. But Master Schmidt’s rules were iron hard.

    Stephan tested the door to Master Schmidt’s office. Locked, as usual. The master never forgot to lock it. He closed and locked the door to his office, walked down the hall and out the building, then locked the front door.

    Dark again. It had been so long since Stephan had seen the sun. Master Schmidt demanded he open the building just as the pre-dawn light was filtering into the eastern sky, and he very seldom got to leave before dusk was well settled. He turned up his collar, shoved his hands in his coat pockets, and trudged down the street.

    Franz was waiting when the river boat from Halle tied up at the dock and threw its gangplank up. Two scruffy looking men, one swinging a live chicken by its feet, disembarked first. Then the man he was waiting for appeared, treading with care up the springy plank. Franz didn’t blame him for the care, because the case the man was carrying was absolutely irreplaceable up-time technology. Once the passenger had both feet on the ground, Franz stepped forward.

    “Herr Cochran, I see you made it safe and sound.”

    Atwood Cochran — music teacher, guitarist, radio personality, and, not least, friend — grinned at him. “Don’t call me that, Franz. People calling me ‘Herr’ is like calling me ‘Sir’ — I look around for my dad.”

    Franz returned the other man’s grin. “Well enough, Atwood. Let me take one of those bags,” and he reached for one.

    Atwood hastily handed him the other bag. “I’ll keep this one, if you don’t mind. It’s not that I don’t trust you, or anything, it’s just that . . .”

    Franz laughed. “You would not trust your own mother with that recording equipment right now, admit it.”

    Atwood laughed, and said, “You’re right.”

    “This way,” Franz motioned. “We should be able to catch a cab pretty quickly.”

    Atwood followed him over to the nearby street. When a pony cart stopped in response to Franz’s hail, he chuckled.

    “That’s not exactly what I imagined when you said ‘cab’.”

    “Heavy wagon, light wagon, large cart, small cart, everyone just calls them ‘cabs’,” Franz said. “Something we picked up from you up-timers.”

    “As long as it saves my feet and gets me and my duffle where I want to go faster than walking, you could call it a Range Rover for all I care,” the music teacher said as he carefully placed his case on the floor of the cart. After he clambered in, he kept the case between his two feet.

    Franz tossed the other bag into the cart, then climbed up to sit opposite Atwood.

    “Where to, Mac?” the cab driver tossed over his shoulder in understandable English.

    “9 Musikstrasse. Sylwesterhaus.”

    “Got it. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

    With that the driver shook the reins and clucked to the pony, which leaned into his collar and harness to start the cart rolling with a lurch.

    Atwood wasted no time in asking the question that Franz expected to hear from him. “So, how are things with Marla?”

    Since Atwood was one of Marla’s long acquaintances, Franz didn’t brush him off with a perfunctory response. “We were very worried about her for some time after we lost the baby, but now she is almost her old self again. Some days are better than others, of course,” he shrugged, “and she is still a bit . . . fragile, you might say. But all things considered, and by the grace of God, she is doing well.”

    “Good,” Atwood said quietly. “That’s good to hear.”

    They rode in silence, surrounded by the noise of Greater Magdeburg as the driver directed his pony through the crowded streets with skill, a certain amount of panache, and a great deal of vulgarity of tongue which he unleashed on anyone who even looked as if they might get in his way.

    Atwood laughed again. “He reminds me of the cabbie I got in my last trip to New York City. I guess they’re a universal breed.”

    Franz chuckled. “That may well be. I know they sprang from the ground almost immediately in the greater city, rather like Mayor Gericke had sown dragon’s teeth in the lands round about.”

    Atwood leaned forward, elbows on knees. “So, enough chit-chat. What’s this all about?”

    Typical up-timer bluntness, Franz thought to himself. No dancing around a topic with this man.

    “It is Marla’s idea, and she has seized upon it with a passion as strong as any I have ever seen from her.”

    The up-timer’s eyebrows rose and his lips pursed for a moment before he spoke.

    “That would be saying something, I believe. Ever since I’ve known her, that girl could be so single-minded at times she would border on obsession.”

    “Obsession.” Franz turned that word around and around in his mind. “I would judge she is not obsessed . . . yet.” He shrugged again. “But single-minded? Oh, yes.”

    “She didn’t tell me in the telegrams what she was planning on performing.”

    Franz felt a wry smile cross his face. “She has decided to sing Do You Hear the People Sing?” He paused for a moment. “In German, mind you.”

    Atwood sat back. “From Les Miserables?”

    Franz nodded.

    “Seriously?

    Franz nodded again.

    “Does she realize what she’s letting herself in for, especially right now?”

    Franz couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. After a few moments, he sobered again. “Ah, friend Atwood, that is the question everyone asks. And the answer is, yes, she understands what the consequences could be. But that is part of what is driving her, you see, the fact that such consequences are even possible.”

    “Hmm.” Atwood crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “Okay, I can see that. And I understand her telegrams a little better now. So it’s damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, huh?”

    Franz didn’t understand the full import of Atwood’s allusion, but he got the general idea. “Indeed. In two nights at the Green Horse Tavern, Marla intends to cause a turmoil in the city, in the province, and even unto the entire USE.”

    “All right,” Atwood said as the cabbie pulled the pony to a stop in front of Franz’s house. “I’ve come all this way; I’ll see it through.”

    They swung down from the back of the cart. Franz hung back to pay the driver as the door to the house swung open and Marla stepped through to greet her friend and erstwhile teacher.

    “Freeze!” Honister snapped. The watch patrolman stopped in surprise, his fingers but a fraction of an inch from picking up the white object that had attracted his attention. “Stand up and back away.”

    Honister looked around for a moment. “Herr Frost! Over here, please,”

    Dan was at his side in a moment. “What is it, Karl?”

    Honister just pointed at the ground in front of him, and what was sitting in the shelter of several bits of charcoaled timber.

    “Son of a . . .” Dan breathed after a pause. “Good catch, Karl. Now, get the photographer over here. I want pictures before we even think about touching anything.”

    The photographer stepped through the ashes, and after judging the light began taking pictures of the evidence.

    “So did I see what I think I saw?” Karl asked Dan in a low tone as they watched the photographer.

    “I’m afraid so. It appears I may have been wrong.”