Funeral In Blue Part 17

"I'll do all I can," he said to Kristian. "We all will." Kristian nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Chapter Ten.

Monk left London on the last train to Dover, so he could catch the first boat of the morning across to Calais and on through Paris to Vienna. It was a journey which would take him three days and eight hours, a.s.suming all went well and he at no time got lost or met with any delays or mechanical faults. A second-cla.s.s ticket cost 8. 5s.

6d.

At any other time the journey would have fascinated him. He would have been absorbed by the countryside, the towns he pa.s.sed, the architecture of the buildings, and the dress and manners of the people. His fellow pa.s.sengers would have interested him particularly, even though he did not understand their conversation and could deduce only what observation and knowledge of human nature told him. But his mind was intent upon what he would find in Vienna, and trying to formulate the questions he should ask in order to learn some truth through the mist of heroic memory.

The journey seemed endless and he lost all sense of time and place. He was imprisoned with strangers in a padded iron room which swayed and jolted through alternate grey daylight and intense darkness as autumn evenings closed in. Sometimes it was clear, sometimes rain pattered against the windows, blurring the view of farmland, villages, bare forests.

He slept fitfully. He found it difficult when there was no s.p.a.ce to lie, and after the first night and day his muscles protested against the constant inactivity. He could speak to no one because it seemed all the other pa.s.sengers in his coach understood only French or German.

He exchanged polite nods and smiles, but it did little to break the monotony.

His mind raced over possibilities of success and failure, all the difficulties that might arise to prevent his learning anything of use, above all that he was ignorant not only of the language but of the culture of the people.

And what would success be? That he could prove Niemann guilty? That he could find and take back to London something at least to raise a reasonable doubt? What, for example? No one was going to confess, not in any form that could be used. Sworn testimony of a quarrel, money, or revenge? Would that be sufficient, along with the evidence that Niemann had been in London?

And was Monk taking the chance of accusing and perhaps slandering a man who was innocent?

All that turned over and over in his mind during the long days and interrupted nights as the train crossed France and made its way over the border into Germany, then on into Austria, and finally through the city outskirts into the heart of Vienna.

Monk climbed to his feet and retrieved his luggage. His back and legs ached, his mouth was dry and his head pounded with weariness. He longed to smell fresh air and to be able to walk more than a few swaying steps without b.u.mping into anything and having to stand aside as someone pa.s.sed him.

He alighted on to the platform amid clouds of steam and the rattle and clang of doors, shouted orders, greetings, demands for porters and a.s.sistance, little of which he could understand. He grasped his single case and, feeling profoundly lost, he started to walk along the platform, patting his inside pocket again to a.s.sure himself his money and letters from Callandra and Pendreigh were still there. He looked for the way out to the street, and the struggle to find a cab of some sort with a driver who would understand his request to be taken to the British Emba.s.sy.

He was crumpled and dirty, which he loathed, and tired beyond the point of thinking clearly, when at last he was deposited on the steps of Her Britannic Majesty's Emba.s.sy to the Court of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austro-Hungaria. He paid the driver in Austrian shillings, from the startled look on his face, far more than he deserved. He climbed up the steps, case in his hand, knowing he looked like some desperate Englishman fallen on hard times and begging for a.s.sistance. It galled his pride.

It took Monk another hour and a half before his letters gained him audience with a senior aide to the Amba.s.sador, who explained that His Excellency was heavily engaged in matters of state for the next two days at the least. However, if a guide and interpretator was all Monk required, no doubt something could be done. He looked down at Pendreigh's letter spread open on the desk in front of him, and Monk thought he saw more respect in the man's face than affection.

It did not surprise him. Pendreigh was a formidable man, a good friend perhaps, but a bad enemy for certain. But then no doubt the same would have been said of Monk himself. He recognised the impatience, the ambition to a.s.sess and to judge.

"Thank you," he accepted stiffly.

"I will send someone in the morning," the aide replied. "Where are you staying?" Monk glanced down at his suitcase and then at the man, his eyebrows raised very slightly. The question had been intended as patronising, and they both knew it.

The aide blushed very slightly. "The Hotel Bristol is very good. It is not inspiring from the outside, but it is beautiful inside, especially if you like marble. The food is excellent. It is first in the Karntner Ring. They speak excellent English, and will be delighted to help you."

"Thank you," Monk said graciously, relieved to have Callandra's money, and Pendreigh's, so that the charge was immaterial to him. "I shall be obliged if whoever is good enough to a.s.sist me would present themselves there at nine o'clock at the latest, so I can begin this extremely urgent matt eras soon as possible. You are no doubt aware of the tragic death of Mr. Pendreigh's daughter, Elissa von Leibnitz, who was something of a heroine in this city." He was highly satisfied to see from the man's blush that he did not.

"Of course," the aide said soberly. "Please convey my condolences to the family."

"Of course," Monk muttered, picking up his case and going out into the distinctly chilly night air, aware of the sharp east wind like a slap on his skin.

He was up, breakfasted and was waiting in the morning, his temper already raw, when a fair-haired youth of no more than fourteen or fifteen approached him in the magnificent marble lobby of the hotel. He was slender and his face had a freshly scrubbed look, probably occasioned by the weather outside. He looked more like a schoolboy than a servant on an errand.

"Mr. Monk?" he asked with a certain eagerness which instantly confirmed Monk's impression. He had probably come from the Emba.s.sy to say that his father, or brother could a.s.sist Monk in the afternoon, or worse still, tomorrow.

Monk answered him rather curtly. "Yes? Have you a message for me?"

"Not exactly, sir." His blue eyes were bright but he maintained his self-possession. "My name is Ferdinand Gerhardt, sir. The British Amba.s.sador is my uncle. I believe you would like someone to guide you around Vienna, and interpret for you on occasion. I should be glad to offer my services." He stood to attention, polite, eager, a curious mixture of English schoolboy and young Austrian aristocrat. He did not quite click his heels.

Monk was furious. They had sent him a child, as if he wished to while away a week or so seeing the sights. It would be inexcusable to be rude, but he could not waste either time or Callandra's money in evasion.

"I am not sure what you were told," he said with as much good grace as he could manage. "But I am not here on holiday. A woman has been murdered in London, and I am seeking information about her past here in Vienna, and friends of hers who may be able to lead me to the truth of what happened. If I fail, an innocent man may be hanged, and soon." The boy's eyes widened, but he did his best to maintain the sort of calm his imagination told him was dignified. "I'm very sorry, sir.

That sounds a terrible thing. Where would you like to begin?"

"How old are you?" Monk said, trying to conceal his mounting anger and sense of desperation.

A couple of very pretty women walked past them, giving them a curious glance.

Ferdinand stood very straight. "Fifteen, sir," he said softly. "But I speak excellent English. I can translate anything you wish. And I know Vienna very well." There was a definite touch of pink in his cheeks.

Monk had no memory whatever of having been fifteen. He was embarra.s.sed and angry, and he had no idea where to begin. "The events I need to enquire about took place when you were two years old!" he said between clenched teeth. "Which is going to limit your abilities considerably, no matter how excellent your English!" Ferdinand was embarra.s.sed also, but he did not give up easily. He had been handed an adult job to do, and he intended to discharge it with honour. His eyes did not waver from Monk's, even though they were distinctly challenging and unhappy. "What year exactly, sir?"

"In 1848," Monk replied. "I expect you learned about it in school." It was not a question, simply a rather tart observation.

"Actually not very much," Ferdinand admitted with a slight tightening of his lips. "Everybody says something different. I'd jolly well like to know the truth! Or rather more of it, anyway." He glanced around him at the marble-faced hotel lobby where a small group of well-dressed gentlemen had come in and were talking. Two ladies seated on well-upholstered chairs exchanged a piece of entertaining gossip, bending towards each other very slightly to bridge the gap between them created by the billowing of their skirts.

"Are you going to stay in Vienna for a while?" Ferdinand asked. "If you are, maybe you'd be better to find rooms over in the Josefstadt, or somewhere like that. Cheaper too. That's where people sit around in cafes and talk about ideas and... and plan sedition. At least so I've heard," he added quickly.

There was no better alternative offering, except wandering around alone, unable to understand more than a few words, so with as much grat.i.tude as he could a.s.sume, Monk accepted. He checked out of his room, settled the bill, and with his case in his hand, followed Ferdinand down the steps of the hotel and into the busy street of a strange city with very little idea of what to do or where to begin in what was looking like an increasingly hopeless task.

"You may call me Ferdi, if you don't mind, sir," the boy said, watching carefully as if Monk had been not only a stranger in the city, but one lacking in the ordinary skills of survival, such as watching for traffic before crossing the road, or paying attention so as not to become separated from his guide and thus getting lost. Perhaps he had younger brothers or sisters and was occasionally put in charge of them.

With a considerable effort, Monk schooled himself to be amused rather than angry.

Most of the morning was taken up in finding suitable accommodation in a very small guesthouse in the less expensive quarter where it seemed students and artists lived.

"Revolutionaries," Ferdi informed Monk in a discreet manner, making sure he was not overheard.

"Are you hungry?" Monk asked him.

"Yes, sir!" Ferdi responded instantly, then looked uncomfortable.

Perhaps a gentleman did not so readily admit to such needs, but it was too late to take it back. "But of course I can wait a while, if you prefer to ask questions first," he added.

"No, we'll eat," Monk said unhappily. This whole thing was abortive.

He had made Callandra believe he could learn something of use when it was beyond his capabilities even to ask for a slice of bread or a cup of tea or as it was far more likely to be coffee!

"Very good," Ferdi said cheerfully. "I suppose you have some money?" he added as an afterthought. "I'm afraid I haven't much."

"Yes, I have plenty," Monk said without relish. "I think it is perfectly fair that the least I do is offer you lunch." Ferdi duly found a small cafe, and with his mouth full of excellent steak, he asked Monk who, precisely, it was that he was looking for.

"A man named Max Niemann," Monk replied, also with his mouth full. "But I need to learn as much as possible about him before he is aware that I am looking for him." He had decided to trust Ferdi with a reasonable portion of the truth. He had very little to lose. "It is possible that it was he who killed the woman in London." Then seeing Ferdi's face he realised that he had no right whatever to endanger him, even slightly. Perhaps his parents would prefer that he did not even know about such subjects as murder, although that consideration was rather late. "If you are to help me, you must do exactly what I say!" he said sternly. "If I allow any harm to come to you, I dare say the Viennese police will throw me in prison and I shall never find my way out." That would be very unfortunate," Ferdi agreed gravely. "I gather what we are about to do is a trifle dangerous." It was completely idiotic. Monk was foundering out of his depth and trying very hard not to let despair drown him.

Ferdi looked keen and attentive. "What would you like me to ask someone, sir? What is it you really need to know, other than who killed this poor lady?" There was nothing to lose. "Say that I am an English novelist, writing a book about the uprising in '48?" he began, the ideas forming in his head as he spoke. "Ask for as many first-hand stories as you can find.

The names I am concerned with are Max Niemann, Kristian Beck and Elissa von Leibnitz."

"Absolutely!" Ferdi said fervently, his eyes bright with admiration.

The rest of that day was largely a matter of asking people tentatively and being more or less dismissed. By the time Monk went to bed in his new lodgings, saying "Thank you' in some approximation of German, he felt lost and inadequate. He lay in the dark, acutely conscious that Hester was not beside him. She was in London, trusting that he would bring back weapons of truth to defend Kristian. And Kristian would be lying awake in a narrow prison cot. Was he also trusting Monk to find some element which would be a key to make sense of tragedy? Or did he know it already, and was trusting with just as much pa.s.sion that Monk would wander pointlessly around a strange city where all speech was a jumble of noise, everybody else was rushing about business, or strolling in fashionable idleness, but belonging, understanding.

d.a.m.n them! He would seek out the past! He would find it, whether it meant anything or not. If nothing else, Max Niemann would be able to tell him about Kristian as he had been then. But before he approached him, he would hear the same stories from other people, so he could judge the truth of Niemann's account. What he needed was another member of that group from thirteen years ago, from Kristian's list.

He finally drifted off to sleep with a firmer plan in mind, and did not waken until it was broad daylight, and he was extremely hungry.

With much nodding and smiling his hostess gave him an excellent breakfast with rather more rich, sweet pastry than he cared for, but the best coffee he had ever tasted. With repet.i.tion of "Danke schon" over and over, he smiled back, and then set out with a freshly scrubbed and very eager Ferdi, who had spent all evening and a good part of the night reading accounts of the '48 rising. He was full of a jumble of facts and stories that had gathered the patina and exaggeration of legend already. He relayed them with great enthusiasm as he and Monk walked along the street side by side towards the magnificence of the Parliament and the gardens beyond, now bare.

"It actually sort of began in the middle of March," Ferdi told him.

"There was an uprising in Hungary already, and it spread here. Of course, Hungary is vast, you know? About six or seven times as big as Austria! All the n.o.bles and senior clergy were due to meet in the Landhaus. That's on the Herrenga.s.se," he pointed ahead of them, 'over there. I can take you if you want? Anyway, it seems they were asking for all sorts of reforms, particularly freedom of the press, and to get rid of Prince Metternich. Students, artisans, and workers mostly, forced their way into the building. About one o'clock a whole lot of Italian grenadiers shot into the crowd and killed thirty or more ordinary people. I mean, they weren't criminals or the very poor, or lunatics like the French Revolutionaries were in '89, last century." He stared at Monk as they came to the Auerstra.s.se and were obliged to wait several moments for a break in the traffic to cross.

"That was the really big one," he went on. "Ours was over within the year." He smiled almost apologetically. "Pretty much everything is back as it was. Of course, Prince Metternich is gone, but he was seventy-four anyway, and he's been around since before Waterloo!" His voice rose in incredulity as if he could barely grasp anyone having been alive so long.

Monk hid a smile.

"Then the barricades went up all over the city," Ferdi went on, matching his stride to Monk's. "But it was killing the people that really drove them to send Metternich into exile." A flash of pity lit his young face. "I suppose that's a bit hard, when you're that old.

Anyway," he resumed, 'in May they drove the whole court out of Vienna Emperor Ferdinand and everyone. They all went to Innsbruck. Actually, you know, there was trouble just about everywhere that year." He checked to make sure Monk was listening. "In Milan and Venice too, which gave us a lot of bother. They are ours as well, even though they're Italian. Did you know that?"

"Yes," Monk answered, remembering his own trip to Venice, and how the proud Venetians had hated the Austrian yoke on their shoulders. "Yes, I did know."

"We've sort of got the German Empire to the north-west, and the Russian Empire to the north-east, and us in the middle," Ferdi went on, increasing his pace to keep up with Monk's longer legs. "Anyway, in May they formed a Committee of Public Safety sounds just like the French, doesn't it? But we didn't have a guillotine, and we didn't kill many people at all." Monk was not certain if that was pride, or slight sense of anticlimax.

"You must have killed some!" he responded.

Ferdi nodded. "Oh, we did! We made rather a good job of it, actually, in October. They hanged the War Minister, Count Baillat de Latour from a lamppost! The mob did! Then they forced the Government and the Parliament to go to Olmutz, which is in Moravia that's north of here, in Hungary." He heaved a great sigh. "But it all came to nothing. The aristocracy and the middle cla.s.ses which is us, I suppose supported Field Marshal Prince Windsichgratz, and the uprising was all put down.

I expect that was when your friends were very brave, and did whatever it was you need to find out about."

"Yes," Monk agreed, looking about him at the busy, prosperous streets with their magnificent architecture, and trying to imagine Kristian here, and Elissa, battling for reform of such a vast, seemingly untouchable force of government. He had seen in every direction the superb facades of the state and government buildings, the mansions and theatres, museums, opera houses and galleries. What fire of reform had burned inside them that they dared attempt to overthrow such power?

They must have cared pa.s.sionately, more than most people care about anything. Where would you ever begin to shake the foundations of such monolithic control?

He could see in Ferdi's young face that something of it had caught him also.

"I need to find the people on my list," he said aloud, 'the people who were there then, and knew my friends."

"Right oh!" Ferdi answered, blushing with happiness and enthusiasm, striding out even more rapidly so Monk was now obliged to lengthen his own step to keep up. "Have you got money for a carriage?" That afternoon they saw streets where the barricades had been, even chips out of stone walls where bullets had struck and ricocheted. They had supper in one of the cafes in which young men and women had sat huddled over the same table, by candlelight, planning revolution, a new world of liberty on the horizon, or mourned the loss of friends, perhaps in silence but for the rain on the windows and the occasional tramp of pa.s.sing feet on the pavement outside.

Monk and Ferdi ate soup and bread in silence, each lost in thoughts which might have been surprisingly similar. Monk wondered about the bond between people who shared the hope and the sacrifice of such times. Could anything that came in the pedestrian life afterwards break such a bonding? Could anyone who had not been in that danger and hope enter into the circle or be anything but an onlooker?

In the flickering candlelight, with the murmur of conversation at the little tables around them, it could have been thirteen years ago.

Ferdi's young face, flushed and lit golden by the candle in an upturned wine-bottle, could have been one of theirs. The smell of coffee and pastry and wet clothes from the rain outside would be the same, the water streaking the windows, wavering the reflecting streetlamps and, as the door opened and closed, the splash of water, the brief hiss of carriage wheels. Except that the dreams were gone, the air was no longer one of excitement, danger and sacrifice, it was comfortable, rigidly set prosperity and law in the old way, with the old rules and the old exclusions. The powerful were still powerful, and the poor were still voiceless.

In spite of the defeat of the revolution, Monk envied Kristian and Max their pasts. He had no memory of belonging, of being part of a great drive for his own people, any cause fought for, or even believed in. He had no idea if he had ever cared about an issue pa.s.sionately enough to fight for it, die for it, enough to bond him to others in that friendship that is the deepest trust, and goes through life and death in a unity greater than common birth and blood, education or ambition, and makes you one of a whole that outlasts all its parts.

The closest he had ever come to that was fighting a cause for justice, with Hester, and then with Oliver Rathbone, and Callandra. That was the same feeling, the will to succeed because it mattered beyond individual pain or cost, exhaustion or pride. It was a kind of love that enlarged them all.

How could it possibly be that Kristian or Max Niemann could have murdered Elissa, no matter how she had changed in the years since?

He pushed his empty cup away and stood up. "Tomorrow we must find people who fought in May, and October," he said as Ferdi stood up too.

"The ones on my list. I can't wait any longer. Begin asking. Say it is for anything you like, but find them." The first successful conversation was stilted because it was translated with great enthusiasm by Ferdi, but of necessity went backwards and forwards far more slowly than it would have had Monk understood a word of German.

"What days!" the old man said, sipping appreciatively at the wine Monk had bought for them, though he insisted on water for Ferdi, to his disgust. "Yes, of course I remember them. Wasn't so long ago, although it seems like it now. Except for the dead, you'd think those times had never happened!"

"Did you know many of the people?" Ferdi asked eagerly. He had no need to pretend his ardour. It shone in his eyes and quivered in the edge to his voice.

"Of course I did! Knew lots of them. Saw the best those that lived through it and those that didn't." He reeled off half a dozen names.

"Max Niemann, Kristian Beck, Hanna Jakob, Ernst Stifter, Elissa von Leibnitz. Never forget her. Most beautiful woman in Vienna, she was.

Like a dream, a flame in the darkness of those days. As much courage as any man... more!" Ferdi's eyes shone. He was leaning forward, lips parted.

Monk tried to look sceptical, but he had seen Allardyce's painting of her, and he knew what the old man meant. It was not a perfection of form, nor even a delicacy of feature, it was the pa.s.sion inside her, the force of her vision which made her unique. She had had the power to carry others into her dreams.

The old man was frowning at him. He spoke to Ferdi, and Ferdi smiled at Monk. "He says I'm to tell you that if you don't believe him, you should go and ask others. Shall I tell him you'd like to do that?"

"Yes," Monk agreed quickly. "Ask him about Niemann and Beck, but don't sound too keen." He must find something relevant to the personal pa.s.sions and envies, more than a history lesson, however ardent.

Ferdi ignored the warning with great dignity. He turned to the old man, and Monk was obliged to listen to a quarter of an hour of animated conversation, mostly from the old man, but with Ferdi putting in increasingly excited questions. Ferdi kept glancing at Monk, willing him not to interrupt.

As soon as they were outside in the rain again and the shifting pattern of gas lamps the wind sharp-edged and cold in their faces, Ferdi began.

"Max Niemann was one of the heroes," he said excitedly. "He came out for the reforms straight away, not like some people who waited to see the chances of success, or what their friends or family would think of them!" They came to the corner of the street and a carriage swished by, spraying mud and water. Monk leaped backwards but Ferdi was too absorbed in his story to notice. He was wet up to the knees, and oblivious of it. As soon as it was clear, he set out across the roadway and Monk hastened to keep up with him.

"He was brave as well," Ferdi went on. "He was right out there on the barricades when the real fighting began. So was Elissa von Leibnitz.

He told me one story of how when the fighting was really awful in October, after they'd hanged the minister and the army just charged in, several young men were shot and fell in the street. Frau von Leibnitz took a gun herself and went out, shouting and waving, firing at the soldiers. She knew how to and she wasn't scared. All by herself she drove them back until others could crawl out and get the wounded men back behind the barricades."

"Where was Kristian?" Monk asked. "Or Max?"