Barbara Hambly - 02 TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD

The bodies of a coachman and a laborer were also found.

No patients were present at the sanitarium when it burned, Dr. Fairport having temporarily closed the premises last week. The distinguished Herr Hofrat Theobald Beidenstunde, of the Imperial-and-Royal Austrian Coal Board, undergoing treatment for a nervous condition at Fruhlmgzeit last week, states that Herr Professor Doktor Fairport requested that all patients return to their homes due to repairs on the foundations of the main building. Complete financial recompense was made to all patients so affected.

It is believed that the fire started in the laboratory where a generator was positioned too dose to stores of kerosene, and later spread to the main villa. However, since all three bodies bore marks of violence, arson is being considered as a possibility. Further investigation by the Vienna police is under way.

"Behold an Englishman," murmured Ysidro. "The good Hofrat Beidenstunde should thank his stars he was reimbursed. The old Queen would never have approved such request for funds." He folded the newspaper and bestowed it in the pocket of his cloak.

"Victoria?" Margaret Potton asked in surprise.

"Elizabeth. There is nothing there which proves your husband's fate, mistress. This way."

The Slovak was waiting for them in the square outside, on the seat of a gaily painted wagon. Ysidro helped the two women in-lifting Lydia with unnerving ease from the pavement-and without wasted words they proceeded into the winding network of high-walled ways that made up the most ancient part of the Altstadt. "Who- besides Fairport-would Jamie seek out in Vienna?"

"Three years ago it was a man named Halliwell." Ysidro turned his head, as if listening for some sound below or between the myriad voices and threads of stray music that clamored all around them on the bustling streets. "I have no more recent knowledge than that, nor am I sure where the Department has its headquarters these days. The embassy would be the place to inquire. Say that you seek your husband, that you wish to speak with Halliwell."

"They won't be there on a Sunday," Margaret pointed out worriedly.

"At least we can rent a carriage and go out to the rums of the sanitarium."

Lydia brought the newspaper up close enough to her nose to make out something other than vague blocks of gray. "It may not say anything about Jamie, but considering it was Fairport I came to warn him against, the coincidence is a little marked. I expect we could find the address in a city directory."

"I expect every jehu in the town will know its location," Ysidro remarked. "From what I know of human nature, the place will have been trampled by curiosity seekers ere the ashes cooled."

Palaces crowded them on all sides, the darkness patched and painted by a thousand glowing windows whose reflections gilded the scrollwork of doorways with careless brush strokes of light, the faces of the marble angels rendered curiously kin to Ysidro's still, thin features as the vampire turned his head again, seeking whatever it was that he sought.

The wagon drew up before a tall yellow house in the Bakkersgasse, like an excessively garlanded wedding cake in butter-colored stucco. Ysidro accompanied the two women inside, watching as the Slovak unloaded Lydia's trunks, portmanteau, satchel, and hatboxes, but when that was finished, he returned to his own luggage, still on the cart, and drove away with it into the darkness. An hour later he returned, afoot and uncommunicative as ever, for picquet in a salon that was a miniature Versailles above a shop selling silk.

"I made arrangements ere departing London," he said, shuffling the cards. "It is necessary to know the existence of such places, which can be had in any city for a price. You will find a cook and chambermaid at your disposal in the morning, though they speak no English and little German. Still, I am assured that the cook is up to the most exacting of standards. Certainly, for English, she will suffice."

Margaret said, "It's too good of you..."

"Assured by whom?" Lydia wanted to know. Ysidro picked up his cards. "One whose business it is to know. You are the elder hand, mistress."

Ysidro's estimate of human nature proved a distressingly accurate one. When Lydia and Miss Potton arrived by rented fiacre at the smoke-stained wall around what was left of Fruhlingzeit Sanitarium the following afternoon, they found at least five other carnages there, the drivers seated comfortably on the low stone wall across the road chatting among themselves, and a large number of fashionably dressed men and women prowling around the trampled weeds or engaged in argument with a couple of sturdy gentlemen who seemed to be guarding the gates.

"I do not see that you have the authority to turn us away," a slim man in an overemphatic waistcoat was saying as Lydia hesitantly crossed the road. "I do not see this at all."

"Can't do anything about that, sir." The sturdy gentleman pushed back his flat cloth cap and remained blocking the entry. Even through the comforting blur of myopia, the glimpse of blackened rafters and fallen-in walls was horrible, and the smell of cold ash lay thin and gritty on the chill air.

"I shall write to the Neue Freie Presse about this."

"You do that, sir."

Lydia stepped forward hesitantly as the slim man stormed away to rejoin his party by the carriages; the sturdy gentleman fixed her with a jaundiced eye and said, in not-very-good German, "Nobody allowed in, ma'am."

"Is... is a Mr. Halliwell here?" asked Lydia. If Dr. Fairport were officially an agent of Britain, it stood to reason the burning of his sanitarium would not go uninvestigated by the Department. It only surprised her they'd still be at it three days later. She saw the man's stance shift at the sound of the name and said, Could you tell him a Mrs. Asher is here to see him? Mrs. James Asher."

Without her spectacles, Mr. Halliwell proved to be a magpie behemoth, a series of circles of blacks, whites, pinks, and gleaming reflections that resolved itself at four feet into a heavy, pug-nacious face and brightly humorous green eyes behind small oval lenses. A big damp hand gripped Lydia's while a second patted it moistly; the little clusters of would-be sightseers across the road glowered at this favoritism.

"My dear Mrs. Asher!"

"My friend, Miss Potton."

Halliwell bowed again, an awesome sight.

"Strange business. Deuced strange business. Your husband didn't send for you, did he?" He glanced down sidelong at her from his height, but she noticed his voice was barely above a whisper.

She shook her head. "But the telegram he sent me on his way here gave me reason to believe that he might be in trouble. He... he wasn't here when this happened... was he?"

The green eyes narrowed. "Why would you think he was?"

"Because..." Lydia took a deep breath. In broad daylight and in front of half a dozen argumentative Viennese, she thought, they couldn't very well drag her away in a closed carriage. She said, very softly, "Because he said he was coming to Dr. Fairport. And because I have reason to believe Dr. Fairport was in the pay of the Austrians."

His glance flicked across the road, then to Miss Potton- discreetly out of earshot- and back. "You don't happen," he said equally quiet, "to have mentioned this to anyone else?"

"No. Not even to Miss Potton," she remembered to add, mindful of her companion's safety. "But I think it's true. I take it," she went on slowly, "that you haven't spoken with Dr. Asher on the subject."

Halliwell fingered his short-clipped beard, studying her as if matching the eggplant taffeta of her gown, the mint and ecru frills of her hat, against other things. Lydia wondered how James could possibly have played at spies for as long as he had: This business of not knowing what to say or whom to say it to was both wearing and unnerving. Presumably, Ysidro would come to her rescue if Halliwell were a double agent also, provided Margaret had the wits to run for it...