The Devil's Opera(171)

They looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Byron pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket, and knelt at the right side, shining the beam into the drawer space.

“My last set of batteries. I’m really gonna be bummed when they run down, because no one’s got anything as small as a AA going yet. Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?” Gotthilf responded.

“Solid wood back there. No lines, grooves, buttons, locks; nothing.”

Byron flicked the light off and thought for a moment. Then he pushed the chair out of the way, lay down on his back and pushed into the leg well of the desk. Gotthilf heard the light flick on again.

“Aha!” came the muffled voice from under the desk.

“What did you find?” Gotthilf bent over and tried to see.

“Another drawer, only it opens out here. Now, if I can only figure out how to…” There was a click. “Gotcha! Come to papa.” Gotthilf heard the sound of a drawer sliding out, then Byron held it out to him. “Take it.”

Gotthilf took the other drawer and laid it on the desk top as well. Byron slid his body out from under the desk, then flipped up onto his feet and turned to examine his prize.

“Oh…my…God.”

* * *

Something—some slight change in the light falling on the wall before him, or perhaps a slight noise—caught Schardius’ attention. His head started to turn. There was a sudden rush of footsteps behind him, and a hard shoulder rammed into his shoulder blades, sending him into and through the laths of the wall.

For one very short sharp instant Schardius bewailed in his mind the loss of his splendid viewing point.

Then he was through the wall and falling.

* * *

The two detectives spread the papers out on the desk. Gotthilf couldn’t believe his eyes. Every piece of paper from the hidden drawer connected to Marla Linder in some way. There were copies of newspaper articles that mentioned her or her performances that went back to when she first appeared in Magdeburg in late 1633. There were copies of broadsheets with her song lyrics, including the latest one, the one that had made the CoC run their printing presses almost nonstop for a couple of weeks.

The last two items were in Byron’s hands, and had been the cause of his exclamation. One was a picture of Marla, from a sketch that had been printed in one of the newspaper articles. The other was the article that announced the performance schedule for the new opera, with today’s date circled in red ink.

The papers were trembling a bit in Byron’s hands. Gotthilf looked at his partner’s face. His jaw muscles were bunched, and the muscle tic in his left cheek was twitching, which sent Gotthilf’s sense of alarm soaring.

“What is it, Byron?”

“We need to find this scumbag, and now.”

* * *

Simon had been waiting outside the Schardius factorage for what seemed like forever. It had been at least two hours, judging by the movement of the sun in the sky. If they didn’t come out pretty soon, he was going to have to run to Frau Zenzi’s to sweep. He didn’t want to do that until he knew what was going on. Obviously something was, or they wouldn’t have spent all this time inside the building when Schardius wasn’t even there, according to one of the clerks.

He finally started walking back and forth across the front of the building, counting steps. “…thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty.” Turn about and walk the other direction. “One, two, three, four…”

It was in his third circuit that he saw something. It was lying in a low spot right beside the steps up to the front door of the building. He stopped counting and walked over to pick it up.

A glove. Pink, with purple and green bands across the back of it. Made for a right hand, so it wouldn’t fit him. No luck there.

Simon was still standing there turning the glove this way and that when the door burst open and he was almost run down by the two detectives.

* * *

Byron had barely let Gotthilf stuff the papers into an envelope and put them in his jacket before he hurtled out of the office.

“Hermann,” Gotthilf ordered the patrolman as they ran by, “no one in the office until we say differently.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” followed them out the door.

Gotthilf barely avoided running over the person standing outside the building, then he did run into Byron who had stopped short.

“Simon!” Byron barked as he grabbed something out of the boy’s hand. “Where did you get that?”

The boy pointed to a spot beside the steps leading to the building entrance. “Right there.”

“Great find, kid. I’ll tell you how great later.” Byron twisted and whistled shrilly, then yelled, “Cab!”