Requiem in Vienna Read Online Free

strawberries on her breath, the first of the season.
    “You see, it is about Herr Mahler, the composer.”
    “The Court Opera director,” Werthen added.
    “That, too, but have you not heard his music? Sublime. If Icould one day compose like that, my life would indeed have meaning.”
    She smiled sweetly at him as she spoke, still invading his side of the desk. Her dress had a sheer piece of lace for the uppermost half of the bodice; he studiously kept his eyes from her décolletage.
    “No, I have not yet had the pleasure. He is most formidable at the podium, however.”
    “Sleight of hand.” She said it dismissively. “But that is not why I am here. Dear, it sounds so silly now.”
    “Please,” he said, being drawn to her obvious charms now in spite of himself. “Our conversation does not go beyond these walls.”
    “Someone is trying to hurt him, kill him perhaps. There. I’ve said it.”
    She sat back in her chair, folding her arms at her chest like a reprimanded, stubborn child.
    Werthen took a breath. This was hardly what he was expecting. Berthe cast him a quick glance.
    “What makes you say that?”
    “Incidents.”
    “Plural.”
    “Yes.”
    “I have read, of course, of the unfortunate accident last week. The death of the young soprano.”
    “It was no accident.”
    He again looked at his wife; Berthe raised her eyebrows now.
    “Could you elaborate?”
    “Fire curtains do not simply fall by accident. They are double roped. The asbestos safety curtain at the Court Opera hangs directly behind the proscenium and has its own dedicated winch. It does not come down unless it is meant to.”
    Werthen was impressed. She had been doing her homework. Of course, all of Vienna was theater mad, himself a qualifiedinclusion therein. Fire curtains were a relatively new innovation in theaters, their worldwide spread the result of the tragic Ringstrasse Theater fire in this very city in December of 1881. Hundreds had been killed when a backstage blaze spread through the auditorium; the charred skeleton of the theater was later torn down, to be replaced by an apartment house called appropriately the House of Atonement.
    “And what does the stage manager have to say of this?” Werthen questioned, coming back to the task at hand.
    Fräulein Schindler now did something Werthen found quite uncharacteristic: she wrinkled up her pretty nose as if smelling horse droppings under the hot summer sun.
    “The man is an idiot. He has no explanation other than that the ropes must have come untied somehow. These are not simply pretty bows tied in the hemp, Advokat Werthen, but quite ornate knots meant to hold. And two of them, remember.”
    “You mentioned other incidents.”
    “A scenery flat that fell perilously close to Herr Mahler. If you can believe it, the Court Opera is still primarily a hemp house.”
    She smiled at her use of the technical term, most likely expecting Werthen to be puzzled. Instead, he nodded. He, too, had a knowledge of stagecraft, a holdover from a case in Graz when he was practicing criminal law. It had involved an action against a stagehand accused of vandalism after being fired from his position at the Grazer Stadttheater. In Graz, as in Vienna, tradition was a strong influence; the oldest way was often considered the best. Thus, much of the scenery at the Court Opera was still hoisted by sheer human muscle power, with several men flying the scenery flats by use of hemp ropes. A “hemp house,” in fact.
    “Counterweight flying is, I understand, being introduced,” Werthen responded. “Herr Mahler is no fan of tradition, so I hear.”
    A different sort of smile showed on her lips now, a rueful acceptanceof the lawyer’s knowledge; a realization that he would not be impressed by her obvious encyclopedia cramming.
    “ ‘Tradition is laziness.’ I have heard Mahler say that a hundred times.” Another coquettish smile from her. He noticed that she used the man’s last name with no “Herr”