forget to cover their tracks: banking records, wills, probates, leaseholds, account books can yield a startling amount of information to someone with time at his disposal and a high tolerance for dust. Asher started with the oldest palaces of the Altstadt, those exuberantly decorated masterpieces of white stucco whose baroque facades could barely be seen because of the narrowness of the ancient city's alleys, matching ownership records with wills, wills with death notices and, more importantly, birth notices; doing sums on every page of his notebook and all around the margins of the Times Personals, the only other paper he had in his valise. He found himself heartily missing Lydia, not out of romantic considerations, but simply because she was a good researcher and would thoroughly enjoy this chase. He left around two for a sandwich, but it was only when one of the several bespectacled young clerks came to his table in the reading room and said apologetically, "If it please you, Herr Professor Doktor, this building is now closing," that he realized the windows were pitch-black and that the electric lights had been on for nearly an hour and a half.
By previous arrangement, Artemus Halliwell was waiting for him at Donizetti's cafe. The head of the Vienna section was in his mid-thirties, untidy, bearded, bespectacled, and enormously obese; Asher remembered him from the London statistics department. Behind small oval slabs of glass, Halliwell's pale green eyes were like cabachon peridots as he listened to Asher's account of his journey.
"So this Farren thinks he's a vampire, eh?" Halliwell carved a neat fragment of backhendl and popped it into his incongruous rosebud of a mouth. "I suppose that's how he came into your purlieu in the first place, is it?"
Asher nodded. In a sense it was actually true.
"You get some of that in Vienna, though not as bad as Buda-Pesth. When I went west into the mountains only last year, there was a tizz-woz in one of the villages about a man who was supposed to turn himself into a wolf. I'm told in parts of the Black Forest no one will talk to you, sell you anything, give you directions to anywhere, if you kill a hare."
He dabbed his lips with his napkin and the ubiquitous Ober appeared, asking with folded hands if everything was all right.
"I think you should know," said the fat man, when the Ober had effaced himself again, "that there's been a bit of a stink."
Asher felt his nape prickle. He'd been around the Department long enough to recognize that carefully neutral tone. "Oh?"
"Streatham's doing." He made a dismissive gesture with his fork. "Naturally. Always was a bloody fool. He's made to-do about that boy Cramer's death with the French authorities, ranting about British citizens and treaty rights-just as if our offices weren't in flat violation of any treaty's assertions of good faith. The thing is, the French have washed their hands of the whole matter, contacted the Vienna police, and are demanding your return under escort on the first available train. I held them off for a day, saying I hadn't any idea where you were," he went on, raising a staying hand against Asher's protest. "But whatever you've learned today at the Rathaus, you'd probably better pass along to me."
"Idiot," Asher said dispassionately, while his mind raced ahead. It was close to eight; the streets would remain crowded enough to protect him until ten at least, possibly later, and in any case he doubted that vampires could detect an intrusive interest in their lairs from a single walk by a casual observer.
But even in a single walk-past he could tell a great deal, particularly which of the several houses on his list of possibilities was the likeliest haunt. Enough information, at least, that whoever took over wouldn't be going into the job defenseless, as Cramer had done.
"And what was it," asked Halliwell, "that you went to the Rathaus today to find?"
Asher considered for a moment, then said quietly, "Vampires."
Halliwell's tufted brows went up.
"Are there people here who believe in them?"
The Vienna chief gestured with his fork again. "There's always muttering among the Gypsies. The waiter at my cafe swears he saw a vampire on an old gate tower connected to a house in the Bieberstrasse-used to be part of the ramparts." He shook his head. "My cafe. I sound like a Viennese. Caught myself calling this place my restaurant the other day, same as I'd talk about my club at home."