Low brass was very prominent in the march, which was something that would sound strange to the typical down-timer. Tubas and sousaphones and baritone horns were all unknown here-and-now. Franz suspected that one of the reasons was just the economics involved. A dozen trumpets could be made from the brass used in a single sousaphone; maybe more.
The rumble of low-pitched drums also stood out, which was another sound the down-time residents hadn’t heard before. In fact, as the music crested to the final climax, it resembled thunder. Franz smiled at that. It would be an ominous sound to many of those who heard the march, he thought to himself.
After Thomas concluded his rehearsal and the musicians began to scatter—some to their day jobs, some to different chairs on the platform for the orchestra rehearsal—Franz walked up beside him.
“Oh, hello,” Thomas said after a quick sideways glance.
“Nice job,” Franz said. “It’s starting to sound good.”
“Thanks,” Thomas said. “It took longer than I thought it would, but it’s finally getting there.”
“So are you ready?” Franz asked.
“Is it time?”
Franz let a mischievous grin surface when Thomas reacted in wide-eyed panic. “No, no, nothing like that.”
“Don’t do that!” Thomas slumped in relief as he continued, “Still, I wish whatever it is would hurry up and happen.”
“Me, too,” Franz replied, “if for no other reason than so you’ll settle down.”
* * *
Karl Honister looked at the naked knife blades the blacksmith was holding. His name was Erhard Misch and he was a friend of the Honister family.
“Very cheap knives,” the smith said. “I punched out the rivets—they were soft brass—and took the hand grips off.” He nodded at the pieces of wood lying on the table standing to one side. “The blades are steel, but not very good grade steel, and not forged all that well.”
“So can you tell me where they came from?” Honister took one of them and turned it over in his hands.
“Not from around here,” Misch replied.
“How can you tell?”
“I know the work of every smith in and around Magdeburg, and no one does work like this.”
“Right.” Honister said. “So what else can you tell me about them?”
“Made by the same smith, probably in or near Venice.”
“Venice?” Honister looked up from the blade.
“Yah.” The smith pointed with one very large and very grimy finger at a mark on the blade he held. “No maker’s mark on either blade, but that’s a symbol used by a lot of people in Venice.”
Honister held his hand out for the other blade, and looked at both of them closely. Sure enough, there was a similar mark on the first blade as well.
He looked up at the smith. “Anything else, Erhard?”
Misch spread his hands. “Looks like young journeyman work to me, maybe even made on the sly and sold for drinking money. Even the wood for the grips is cheap pine.”
Honister set the blades on the table next to the grip pieces. “So what are two cheap knives from northern Italy doing buried in the chests of two dead men in a Magdeburg alley?”
“Good question.” Misch picked up a towel to wipe his hands.
“Got an answer?”
“Nay. That’s why you are the detective and I am but the blacksmith.”
“Thanks a lot,” Honister said sourly over the smith’s chuckle.
* * *
“I want the money,” the mysterious boss hissed as he leaned over the table in the tavern.
“No,” Ciclope murmured in return. “We took the money, we keep it.”
“You fools!” The boss’s whisper almost could be termed a scream; for all that it was barely audible. The expression on his face and the tone to his voice both expressed agitated anger. “You can’t spend it. You can’t even be seen with part of it. The Polizei will be looking for anyone who has more than two or three of the bills and asking some very pointed questions of them—questions I do not think you want to be faced with.”
Ciclope ran his finger around the rim of the mug sitting before him. It was still full of ale, which was still as noisome as ever. He was minded to have Pietro start a fire in this place. If there was ever a waste of space, this tavern was it.
“Half,” he said as he drew a line on the table top between them to test the boss, who placed his head in his hands and muttered something Ciclope didn’t catch.
The boss lifted his head. “You idiots really do not understand just how much danger you are now in. I do not fault you for what you did. I applaud it, to be truthful. But the up-timers have a very dim view of murder, and they will really be on the hunt for you. If they get even a hint that you might have some of that money, they will be on you like flies on the turds floating in Venice’s canals.”