Death’s Visage
A Nádasdy Short
At thirty-three, Máté Nádasdy had already lived a full and conflicted life during the time the Habsburgs ruled Hungary. After a troubled childhood, he served his country in battle, lived abroad in Paris, and now found himself the owner of a popular coffeehouse on the Champs-Élysées of Budapest, Andrássy Avenue, where he hopes to live out a peaceful, if mundane, life as a café proprietor. Despite his efforts to leave the past behind, he’s drawn to helping others with their problems and set things right. His friend Róbert, who owns the clothier’s next door, often helps, though he struggles to keep up with Máté’s quick mind.
1888. 21 May. Monday. Budapest.
9:30 a.m.
“How’s Carnot faring with his Third Republic?” I asked Róbert, my friend who owned the clothier’s next door, for he and I enjoyed sparring on the finer points of French politics.
I’d arrived at the coffeehouse on Andrássy Avenue late that gray morning, and he was already sitting at a window table where I joined him. He was reading a copy of Le Figaro, the Parisian daily. Newspapers from Vienna, Paris, and Berlin had become de rigueur for the fashionable Budapest coffeehouses, and as the proprietor of Café Nádasdy, I worked hard to satisfy my clientèle.
János arrived with my coffee and I motioned for him to check on the group of men sitting toward the back. Our resident intelligentsia always needed looking after.
But Róbert tossed aside my question and went straight to his agenda. “I’ve someone coming to meet you.”
I gestured to the crowded tables and said, “We’re very busy this morning.”
Róbert set the paper down. “This will only take a moment. The man has a problem that will interest you.”
Nine years prior, I’d served in the Royal Hungarian Honvéd at Sarajevo. Róbert knew of the investigations I conducted for Feldzeugmeister Filipović, for we were close. But I’d walked away from all that, and Róbert couldn’t accept I was peddling coffee to socialites.
“The gossip in here is enough,” I said. “I don’t need other people’s problems.”
“Baron Tamás Havas. Do you know him?”
The mention of titled nobility caused my nose to wrinkle. Despite the rise of a new aristocracy in Budapest, self-made with money from manufacturing and trade, the ancient land-owning nobility persisted.
“The weather is chasing away my en terrasse customers.” Ignoring Róbert’s question, I looked away to the rain-soaked street and sipped my coffee.
“He’s a collector of all things at once hideous and valuable.” Róbert’s voice was almost a whisper, as if he were confiding a customer’s measurements to an assistant.
“Hagyjon békén! Leave me be!” In my frustration, I set the spoon down on my saucer with a clack. A little of the coffee spilled.
Róbert waited for me to meet his eyes. “In the Honvéd, you thrived on puzzling out where a runaway soldier had disappeared to, or what sergeant was selling goods on the black market.”
“I’m older now, and I don’t miss those days.”
“Yes, you’re a pensioner at thirty-three,” he snapped, rolling his eyes. “Look here. Coffeehouse life doesn’t suit you.”
Just then, a broad-shouldered young man was standing over our table, dressed in a gray wool suit that drew out his steel-blue eyes.
“Ah, here he is.” Róbert stood and moved his homburg from the vacant chair.
“Baron Havas,” I said, giving him a slight nod.
“Heavens, no,” the man replied. “I’m György Vaskó, his secretary.”
His expression was serious, but carried a sense of amusement, as though he’d recognized an original turn of phrase lost on present company.
“Lieutenant Nádasdy, I’m eager to meet you. I understand you investigate … difficult situations,” he said and sat in the vacant chair.
“Please, call me Máté. I left the Honvéd years ago, and I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
“He’ll be interested when he hears about the case,” Róbert said. “Just listen, Máté.”
“This is a complicated affair, so I can understand your reluctance,” György said.
“Sorry to waste your time.” I lifted my cup for another sip.
“Tell him,” Róbert urged György.
I sighed in a moment of weakness, and the corners of Róbert’s mouth turned up.
“Someone stole an artifact belonging to the baron,” György said. “We’d like you to recover it—for a fee, of course.”
“You should go to the police,” I said.
“The baron uses many alternate sources to secure his relics. Some the police would frown on. And we don’t care to punish the perpetrator. The baron simply wants the item returned.”
I nodded. I’d heard rumors of Havas, how he dealt in stolen items, often of questionable authenticity.
János arrived with another cup and set it in front of György.
“So, what would I look for—if I were to look for it?” I folded my arms and sat back.
“The death mask of Erzsébet Báthory.”
Countess Erzsébet Báthory de Ecsed was the most infamous murderer in Hungary’s history. She was accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls in the sixteenth century, for which she was confined to Čachtice Castle for the rest of her life. After she died, her body was moved to her birth home in Ecsed, but its exact location was still unknown. A death mask, if it existed, would be valuable beyond imagination. Róbert always seemed to find an intrigue that grabbed my curiosity.
“Someone stole it from a safe in the baron’s study,” György continued.
“When was it last seen?” Róbert asked.
“Two days ago, when the baron was entertaining guests. We showed them the mask and returned it to the safe. At the end of the evening, after the guests had left, I opened the safe to retrieve some papers and the mask was gone.”
“Let me think on it.” I showed a wan smile and nodded again. Róbert and I had been through this before. I had no interest in reliving my Honvéd years, despite my curiosity, or Róbert’s persistence.
“I can stop by in a few days to talk again.” György looked down, then scanned the coffee house. He seemed impatient, ready to move to his next task of the day, yet it was his lack of disappointment that intensified my curiosity.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking our coffee, but then Róbert’s patience evaporated. “György, there is another consideration, isn’t there?”
György shifted in his chair a bit, looking into his coffee. “Well, yes. It seems the baron grew ill when the mask went missing. He believes it carries a curse, and only its safe return will save him.”
“Then we must speak with him this morning,” Róbert said, and he looked to me for some word.
“Then you’ll help us?” György asked, now showing me an earnest smile.
I should let Róbert find the mask; this kind of mystery fascinated him. Nonetheless, the coffeehouse routine had become an unexpected monotony after three years, a reality that had never occurred to me. So instead, I forced another smile, which I regretted at once.
And then Róbert smiled. His teeth, framed by his dark beard, were large and white, and I suspected he might burst with satisfaction.
✧ ✧ ✧
10:20 a.m.
Róbert and I hired a cab for the ride to the baron’s ancestral home on Castle Hill. I told him I would only help find the mask if he dealt with the baron. Róbert was practiced at placating his sort.
“How did you drag me into this?” I pulled my collar closed around my neck to ward off the dampness.
“My shop tailors the baron’s clothing, and men talk when being measured. I must have mentioned your experience with the Honvéd at some point.” Róbert showed a sheepish smile, which I wouldn’t return.
Our carriage stopped in front of a dramatic neo-Gothic facade on Tárnok Street where an archway barred by an iron gate led back to a courtyard at the center of the home. Our horse snorted and shifted, and after a moment a footman opened the gate and we entered the cobbled carriage court. From the street, the home appeared majestic, but once inside the gate, you could see the wear the years had wrought on the building. The walls looked as if they might crumble at the slightest touch.
Inside the foyer, I couldn’t help but stare at the excesses, which only renewed my loathing of nobility. A mezzanine with a carved balustrade overlooked the foyer, ending in a dramatic winding staircase that stretched to the floor in front of us. A fine layer of dust seemed to blanket everything.
The butler had let us in and was fetching György when a young woman began descending the stairs. She held a cocktail coupe in her hand.
“You must be the lieutenant!” She was slender and tall, and beautiful in a way that was both timeless and uncommon. Her chiffon gown flowed as she glided down the marble steps and across the floor.
I bowed and kissed the hand she offered. Her skin smelled of lavender.
“But you’re not entirely sure who I am, are you?” she asked, as she broke into a teasing smile.
I released her hand and looked to Róbert who turned the color of a cherry.
“Máté, this is the baroness.”
Her bright laugh echoed in the hall.
“It’s alright, Lieutenant. I’m almost thirty years the baron’s junior, so your miscalculation is flattering.”
“I apologize, Baroness.” Bowing again, I noticed frayed threads trailing from the edge of her gown.
“You’ll be staying a while, I hope. It’s so boring around here. Just Tamás and his repulsive collection.” She rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t slept since the mask disappeared. He just paces on that terrace, back and forth, and back again, and eats nothing. I’m sure he’ll just wither to his death.”
She took a sip from her cocktail.
“It’s valuable, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It’s vile! They say she bathed in her victims’ blood to keep her youth!”
“I’m not much for legends. I put faith in what I can see.”
She grinned and said, “Well, Tamás believes in it. He thought if he had the mask it would protect him from … age? Death? I don’t know.”
“You deserve of a well-preserved husband.”
She laughed again and György entered the foyer.
“Oh, György, I like this handsome lieutenant,” she said.
He came and stood next to her and she took his arm.
“György has rescued our lives, taking care of our every need. The baron can be quite a handful, isn’t that right, darling?” She squeezed his arm and he looked at the floor to hide his reddening cheeks.
When he looked up, he’d recovered his composure. “We’ll meet the baron outside. This way.”
We passed through a set of French doors and out onto a terrace at the rear of the house. Beyond the terrace, the rain had stopped, but a mist hid most of the gardens below, and the air was cool and heavy. A small man of about sixty years stood at the stone railing at the edge of the terrace, staring into the mist.
“Don’t forget the roses. You need to remove those beetles!” he shouted.
When György announced our arrival, the man turned. His skin was gray, his cheeks sunken, and his reddened eyes had deep shadows beneath.
I took a few steps forward to greet him, but he didn’t move from the railing. Instead, he turned back to look out on the garden.
“And the dahlias go over there!” He gestured with a shaking hand to someone unseen below.
“How can we help you?” Róbert asked.
“I’m sure György’s briefed you. I must have the mask back. No time to waste. Just find it.”
“Tell me about the evening it disappeared,” I said.
The baron turned to me and his eyes became piercing. “I’ll tell you what you need and don’t need. There are many I could hire to do this.”
“But none with the talent and discretion of Lieutenant Nádasdy.” Róbert showed the baron his adept smile.
The baron turned back to the garden somehow satisfied, and in an arrogant, plodding manner, he began recounting the events that led to the theft. He had come by the artifact from a dealer in Turkey. The cost was exorbitant, but he relished adding it to his collection. When he returned with the mask, he needed to determine its authenticity.
“That’s why György arranged for Fodor to examine the mask,” the baron said.
“Ernő Fodor is the chief of antiquities at the Hungarian National Museum.” György was quick to insert himself into the conversation.
“You needed to see if you had something valuable,” I said.
“That’s right. I also invited Schäfer to join us as a favor to his wife. She’s an old friend,” the baron said.
I knew Martin Schäfer by reputation only. One of the new aristocrats, he had made his money in the construction boon of the last decade, only to lose all but a fraction to speculation. Despite his turn of fortune, the society page often featured Schäfer and his wife, Rozália fraternizing with dukes and barons. I couldn’t understand how they persevered in their lifestyle, given Martin’s shortage of capital.
“Schäfer and I share a passion for the macabre,” the baron continued. “That evening we were here on the terrace having drinks, and when it was time to see the mask, György took Fodor and the Schäfers into the study. I stood in the doorway.”
I turned to see a second set of French doors that let to the study.
“Fodor examined the mask with his magnifying instruments and took measurements.” In his excitement, the baron took a step forward, but then tottered a bit and stepped back, catching himself with the railing. “He proclaimed it authentic! Schäfer immediately declared he wanted to buy it, to which I said I would not sell.”
“Where was the mask during this time?” I asked.
“I was holding it on its velvet display,” György said.
“Then we all came out on the terrace and to have another cocktail,” the baron said. “György put the mask back in the safe, and we stayed out here until Fodor had to leave.”
“Did he have another appointment?” I asked.
“He left because he is ill! The cancer, you know. Sad fate.”
György walked to the railing. “He had a spell right here and almost fell over. But Schäfer and I ran and saved him from the fall. We were all shaken. He stayed until he collected himself, then left. The Schäfers left shortly thereafter.”
The baron turned to me. “Schäfer’s your man. Just get the mask from him.” His voice sounded weak, almost frail. Then he reached out and I hurried forward to steady him. His grip was boney and cold, but strong.
“I need that mask,” he said, almost pleading.
He pulled away, turned back to the railing for balance, and stared once again into the gardens.
So, this wasn’t to be an investigation but a coercive solicitation, a shakedown. The baron only needed me to go retrieve his mask, something he found below his station, objectionable in some way. My face grew hot, and I had to fight to keep the words in my mouth. Go fetch your own mask, you decrepit fool! If not for Róbert, I would have said just that or something equally incautious and then walked away, but he took my arm and steered me toward the study.
Once inside, I forgot my irritation, for the air was so thick with decay, my breath caught in my chest. The dim light from the terrace illuminated only half the room, and the rest was a shroud of inky shadows. Specks of dust floated in the air, disturbed by our entrance.
A dozen items were displayed on two long tables. A skull the color of dark amber, a set of throwing knives of various sizes, and what I could only guess was a human heart floating inside a glass jar. But the dominant feature of the room was framed within a large bookcase behind the desk. Locks of hair of various lengths, colors, and textures were mounted on a velvet display board. Some were braided, others bound with ribbon. Each had a label beneath secured with a pin.
“The baron’s hair collection. From notorious Hungarians over the centuries.” György had walked into the study, and now stood beside me. “I’ve seen it hundreds of times and it still makes me shiver.”
“How did you end up here with the baron?” I asked.
György blinked a few times, surprised by my question. “An indenture of sorts. My family owed a sum to the baron, so I’m here to reconcile the account, you might say.”
“That’s a dreadful sentence,” Róbert said.
“And the baroness?” I asked.
“She needs him.” György’s matter-of-fact tone seemed almost disrespectful.
“You mean his money,” I corrected.
“There’s no shame in marrying for money.” I spun around to the sound of the baroness’s voice as she stepped from the shadows.
“Baroness. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you,” I stammered.
“Oh, love. I’m not offended. I’m often overlooked.” The baroness lowered her voice. “You see, the baron needs an heir, so kéz kezet mos, hand washes hand. But alas, I can’t give him one.”
“Sad.”
“I’m not, and György keeps me sane. Don’t you, dear?”
His cheeks flushed again, but his face remained stoic.
“Show me how this opens,” I said and turned to the safe beside the desk.
“With this.” György withdrew a large brass key from his coat pocket. “Insert the key and turn it one-half turn. Remove the key. Twist the knob, and voila!”
He pulled the safe door open, revealing its contents. The top shelf held the mask’s velvet display pad. A stack of documents and some paper currency crowded the lower shelf.
“There’s only one key?”
“There is a duplicate,” György replied. “I have one, and of course, the baron has the other. Mine never leaves my person.”
“And his?”
“I believe he sleeps with it around his neck.”
“Yes. It’s quite romantic,” the baroness quipped.
“One last thing. Was anyone in the study alone that night?” I asked.
“No, never.” György pushed the safe door closed and turned the key.
“I need to talk to Martin Schäfer.”
“The baron can write a note of introduction for you. I’ll deliver it to the coffeehouse this afternoon.” He gestured through another door to the foyer.
“I can wait while you get it from him.”
“Yes, we must hurry,” Róbert said.
For the first time, György frowned, then nodded. “Let me show you to the foyer, and I’ll go speak with the baron.”
As we began moving into the foyer, the baroness grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“Rozália returned to the study,” she whispered, her hand clutching my arm. “When Fodor took ill, we were all distracted and she came back. She returned to the terrace before anyone noticed.”
“Would she steal the mask for Martin?”
Her sober expression surprised me, and she shook her head. “My handsome lieutenant, a vér nem válik vízzé.”
Blood doesn’t turn to water. So, perhaps, there was more to this tale than the baron thought, and I suppressed a smile. I might enjoy this caper after all.
✧ ✧ ✧
But why the reference to blood ties? Once inside our hansom, I shared with Róbert what the countess had said, and he was as confused as I was.
I rapped on the roof of our hansom and called out, “Martin Schäfer’s home!”
We grew silent and I pulled the wool blanket the cabbie provided over my legs to warm myself. The mist had settled in for the day, and I had to fight to keep a chill from settling into my bones. I was still a bit stung by the turn of the investigation, that it was no investigation at all, rather a bruiser’s job to harass, to threaten, to abuse—until the perpetrator rendered up the mask.
“Did you know the baron’s plan was to have me pressure Schäfer for the mask?” I asked.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes, for he was embarrassed. “Intimidation is one of your strongest suits. But no, I didn’t. And I wouldn’t have pulled you into this if I did.”
I reached over and patted his knee. “All is well. There’s more here than the baron sees.”
But Róbert was now puzzling over all the pieces. I saw it in his face. “If what the baroness said was true, then Rozália had access to the safe,” he blurted.
“But the key. Where would she get that? And I don’t see her motive.”
“She stole for her husband! It’s clear he wanted the mask. And the baron suspects him.”
“True. Martin Schäfer incriminated himself when he demanded the mask, but he was never alone in the study.”
Róbert sighed and shook his head. “Máté, you frustrate me. So, who is the thief?”
“Patience. We don’t have all the pieces yet.”
✧ ✧ ✧
11:30 a.m.
“I was never alone in the study.”
Rozália Schäfer reclined on an ornate Parisian divan in her Andrássy Avenue apartment. Her salon may have been fashionable in her circles, but I found it garish. I preferred a utilitarian decor of unadorned cups and saucers, the copper shine of an ibrik, tin boxes that held the roasted beans, beauty in function.
“The baroness seemed sure,” I said. Róbert and I sat across from her on matching club chairs that were not as comfortable as they looked.
“Why would you believe a word that vulgar woman said? She’s a drunk.” Rozália was wringing her hands in her lap, in contrast to the still countenance on her face.
“I’ve read Mr. Schäfer’s had some financial losses.” Again, I watched for her expression to change. Nothing. She was well practiced at this sort of polite fencing.
She shook her head with a gentle smile in a gesture that was almost like one correcting a child. “We all carry debts, if that’s what you mean. It’s a circle. Difficulties followed by triumphs, again and again.”
“Yet, it must be hard.”
“Are you inferring I would steal the mask to settle debts? That’s ludicrous!” Rozália’s face reddened, and I noticed the chaffing on her hands.
“We’re just trying to locate the mask, and to do that we need to understand why someone would want it.” Róbert was trying to placate her, without success.
“Mr. Schäfer wanted to buy the mask that evening and the baron refused,” I said.
“I can’t speak for Martin. We’ve lived apart for some time.”
I could never understand these aristocrats, how their lives were layers of deceit and illusion. Marriages weren’t marriages, and genuine desires were never overt. Still, there was a steel inside Rozália that was difficult to reconcile. I looked again at her hands which she now noticed, so she tucked them beneath the elaborately embroidered lap robe draped over her knees.
“I’m sorry. We were unaware of your living arrangements,” Róbert said.
“So, if he took the mask, and he may have, I know nothing of it.”
“I need to ask about a more discrete issue.” I paused, considering my next words for it was time to test Rozália’s composure. “The baroness carries some ill feelings toward you.”
Rozália’s face flushed and she looked away.
“I suspect she might be jealous. There is an unpleasant history connecting the baron and me. But she’s not worth your time and I’ll not say more.” She stood to dismiss us, but I remained seated.
“Where’s Mr. Schäfer now?” I asked.
“Martin is at his office on Váci Street.”
✧ ✧ ✧
12:05 p.m.
Despite the gray weather, Váci Street was teaming with people, some having a meal at a fashionable restaurant, others running here and there to take care of an errand. The wealthy, baronesses, and countesses shopped for the latest style from Paris or London. Vendors were yelling, and horses’ hooves on the cobbles created a din that made me wish I were back at my coffeehouse.
We found M. Schäfer & Company two flights above a milliner’s shop, and after our knocks went unanswered, we let ourselves in and found Schäfer alone behind his desk. His office was smaller than I imagined proper for the president of a holding company. A balding man of about fifty years, he wore an ill-fitting sac suit as though acting a role in some foppish melodrama. He didn’t project the bearing needed to control the likes of Rozália. His pipe filled the room with the rich, exotic smoke of Turkish tobacco.
We stood across from his desk with hats in hand and waited, for Schäfer provided no chairs for visitors. I suspected this would be the most interesting conversations of the day.
After a long minute, Schäfer lifted his gaze from his work.
“I don’t have the mask, if that’s why you came.” The smoke from his pipe wafted about his head almost obscuring his face.
“Your wife seemed less sure,” I said.
“I suspect she incriminated me.”
“You were eager to purchase the mask.”
“That’s so, but what would I gain by stealing it? She has much more to gain.”
“I don’t follow.”
Martin Schäfer lowered his voice. “What I’m going to tell would embarrass many if it became known, but the situation is complex, and I’ll not be martyred for my wife.”
Years before he met the baroness, the baron fancied Rozália. He met her while on holiday in Keszthely on Lake Balaton, and he was taken with her provincial beauty and acerbic wit. She moved to Budapest after the holiday to be close to him, and a courtship of sorts unfolded. However, despite their mutual attraction, the baron had no interest in marrying Rozália since she was much too common to pass in his circles. But, even as the relationship cooled, he continued to toy with her, until she became pregnant. And since the baron couldn’t endure the embarrassment such a marriage would bring, he sent her away to the north to have the child. She gave birth to a boy, the first and only heir to the baron’s estate, although quite illegitimate. The baby was taken away to be raised in an orphanage, and Rozália returned to Budapest and improved herself, such that when she and Schäfer met, she presented herself as a polished socialite.
“Imagine the irony when I learned of Rozália’s relationship with the baron and their child. She and I were already married, and baron and I were business associates. And, in an ultimate irony, he holds the majority interest in my business ventures,” Schäfer said.
“That sounds uncomfortable,” I said.
“The baron likes to have the upper hand.”
“What of the child? Where is he?”
“Now, Lieutenant. Need I spell it all out for you?”
And then, all the pieces fit. I stood there, stunned.
Of course. What if the theft of the mask was never about the mask, but about an inheritance, about a son who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, inherit a fortune?
“Come, Róbert! We’re going back to Castle Hill.”
“What about Rozália?” Róbert asked.
But I was already out the door and taking the steps in twos to catch a cab back to the baron’s residence. For all his charm, Róbert could be as dense as the fog on the Danube.
✧ ✧ ✧
12:46 p.m.
This time György greeted us at the door as though he’d been waiting. He led us into a sitting room off the foyer and slid the pocket doors closed. The room was dark except for a lamp on the side table by a sofa. The drawn, heavy curtains blocked the dim light of the day.
“How is the baron feeling?” Róbert asked.
“He took to his bed after you left this morning but seems improved this afternoon.” György sat on the sofa and motioned for us to sit in two chairs opposite.
“You must be disappointed, since you’re his heir,” I said, hoping to bait him.
“Interesting you should say that. After you left, Baron Havas was shaken, and fearing death, revised his will, naming me heir to his estate.”
“So, the theft was just a catalyst to move all this along.”
“I have no interest in the mask per se.” György slid his hand in his coat pocket and reclined into the deep upholstery.
“No. You took the mask to prey on the baron’s belief in the legend. It was odd that at our first meeting you didn’t have a sense of urgency, and you shared about the baron’s illness only when Róbert pressed you.”
“My mother and I begged him for years to change his will and make things clear but he demurred. But when you’re staring death in the face, a bastard son might actually look less objectionable than some reprobate nephew he’s never met.”
“But you and Rozália needed a szamár, a mule of sorts, to carry the mask away.”
“Fodor was more than willing to take the mask, understanding it couldn’t be exhibited until after his own death.”
“And Fodor takes the blame and dies without prosecution.”
“The mask will be well cared for in the museum’s collection. That’s all Fodor wanted. And even if the baron cries foul, it’s unlikely he could get the mask returned since it is a national treasure.”
“You never locked the safe after everyone viewed the mask. Then, all that was needed was a distraction, which Fodor provided on the terrace, but you didn’t expect the baroness to stay in her chaise and see Rozália slip back into the study.”
“Yes, the baroness can be … unpredictable.”
“From there it was simple. Rozália put the mask in the bag Fodor let lie next to the safe. You picked it up and carried it for him as he left.”
“Well done.” György clapped his hands and crossed his legs in practiced poise. His composure was unnerving.
“Surely you knew we would figure all this out.”
“Things have moved more expeditiously than I expected. When the baron insisted we employ someone to fetch the thing from Schäfer, I made some inquiries. The baron has high-ranking friends in the Honvéd, and it seems your reputation was less than stellar. You sounded like just the man to mishandle the job.”
“You’ve attempted murder!” Róbert stood now and pointed at György with a shaking hand.
“When the baron learns about this, he’ll just change his will again,” I said.
György’s eyes narrowed. “And how will he learn that?”
For the first time, I noticed a small revolver in his hand. The absurdity of it made me laugh until he leveled the weapon and I was looking down its barrel. What did he hope to gain by killing us?
Then, my military training must have taken control because my response was autonomic[[ Thanks]]. I don’t remember what transpired, but afterward Róbert said I leaped toward the sofa, landing on György with my full weight, chest to chest. The sofa tipped backward with me atop him, pinning the arm with the revolver to the floor. I pounded his hand on the floor once, twice, and on the third time, he dropped the gun.
I remember with clarity Róbert saying, “Well done, Máté,” and kicking the revolver away from György’s hand, his only contribution to the moment[[ Great line!]]. When I looked up, his face was white and his lower lip quivered, and I was sure he was going to be sick.
In such moments, it is always best to be calm but also direct. “Róbert, summon the police—with all haste.”
✧ ✧ ✧
July 13. Friday.
1:45 p.m.
The day was oppressive, and Róbert and I stood in a queue that wound its way up the grand staircase at the Hungarian National Museum. The line snaked back and forth, climbing the marble steps flight by flight.
“Máté, you always surprise me. I thought you’d have little interest in seeing the mask.”
“Well, you know, she and I share a surname. Her husband was Count Ferenc Nádasdy.”
Róbert’s eyes grew large. “You never told me you had noble blood!”
“Any blood connection is improbable.”
Róbert grew muted for a moment, but then seemed to find himself. “You were gracious in not pressing charges against György.”
“The baron executed his own judgment and struck György out of his will.”
“Yet, I hear he’s still in the baron’s service.”
I shook my head in disappointment. “An evil known is better than one that isn’t. So that tale is still to be told.”
Indeed, turmoil seemed the status quo for the nobility, but I took comfort in knowing they were often too busy manipulating each other to turn their twisted ways outward.
We approached the top of the steps and Mór Than’s mural towered over us. The artist had painted a woman holding a child in her arms on a gold leaf background. She pointed with her left hand to a sapling oak planted in a pot. Hit és lelkesedés a jövő iránt, I think that was its title. Faith and enthusiasm for the future. Most of the time, I felt neither. But since the Havas affair, I sensed my persistent pessimism might be changing into something else, something more generous.
To the right of the mural was the gallery door, and the crowd’s excitement had increased now that we stood but a few feet from the entrance.
“And what of my friend?” Róbert asked.
“Your friend?”
“You! This situation was not black and white, and you’ve handled it brilliantly.”
“I don’t feel I’ve helped anyone.”
“Sometimes justice is not a simple thing.”
I had to confess I missed the exhilaration of finding the truth and putting things right.
And just then Róbert gave me a shove, and I tripped into the gallery to see this countess’s face. I hadn’t anticipated what I’d see, and suddenly there she was, with a lifeless yet troubled expression. And maybe there was even a resemblance, perhaps in the eyes or the nose?
This story is a work of fiction. Except where explicitly identified in the afterword, the names, characters, and incidents herein are a product of the author’s creation and any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.
DEATH’S VISAGE. Text copyright © 2024 by Mark Mrozinski LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Sign up with your best email address to receive exclusive previews, behind-the-scenes stories, and news of new releases.
