Heir Inapparent
At thirty-four, 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 finds 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 coffeehouse proprietor. Despite his efforts to leave the past behind, he’s drawn to helping others with their problems and setting things right. His friend Róbert, who owns the clothier next door, often helps, though he struggles to keep up with Máté’s quick mind. Róbert’s sister, Júlia, helps in his shop and is often pulled into their intrigues.
✧ ✧ ✧
1889. 7 November. Tuesday. Budapest.
10:20 a.m.
Who would deny Júlia was irresistible? Twenty-eight and already widowed, Róbert’s sister had untamable brown hair—curls that defied every attempt at coifing. So, she pulled them into a bun, more for propriety than vanity, since she cared little for how she looked. The strands spent the day trying to escape their confinement, and far too few succeeded for my tastes. I disliked any hint of restraint in her. That impropriety was, to me, her most alluring quality. Her essence would not be molded by Budapest society; it said to the world, I am who I am, and that is my power.
“Máté, are you even listening?” She feigned irritation, but she couldn’t suppress a coy smile now. We sat in the window of my coffeehouse on Andrássy Avenue, the sunlight falling on her face, casting her lips a deep and full auburn, warmed by the coffee she sipped.
“I’m sorry, it’s been a long day already,” I said. She was right—I wasn’t listening. “A man at the shop … he disturbed you?” I would come to her aid the moment I saw her threatened, which only inflamed her independence. My problem, she would tell me, was I conceived of women as something to be cherished—protected. She aimed to prove herself different, capable on her own terms. Yet, my old paternal ways, shaped by the brothers at the orphanage and then my military years, they were stubborn things to excise.
She sat back in her chair and folded her arms, her eyes narrowing. “Why do I endure you?”
Indeed. Why did she? Róbert and I had worked together on a case eight months previous, the Ludovika affair, and Júlia became an essential member of our coterie, much to Róbert’s chagrin. She and I both wanted more than the friendship we had, but I had ghosts that haunted my nights, which she knew well, so we stayed our declarations for some day yet to come, when I might be free of my demons.
“You’re not obliged to endure me,” I said. “Suitors come into Róbert’s shop every day. I watch them maneuvering for an introduction to his beautiful sister.”
She threw her napkin onto the table. “They’re loathsome. That’s not what I want.”
I paused, afraid to ask the next question. “So, what is it you do want?” And then, I sensed the intimacy of what I asked, and I shrank inside now that the words couldn’t be taken back.
Her eyes grew glassy for a moment, but then it passed. “Máté, you know better than to ask, and that’s not why I’m here.”
I reached out and touched her hand. “I’m sorry. The man in the shop …”
But she took her hand away and looked into the street, then back, meeting my eyes. “He dropped off a suit yesterday to be altered. I found this in the pocket.”
Pulling a card from her handbag, she slid it across the table.
A lawyer in the city: Zoltán Farkas, Ügyvéd. Wills ~ Codicils ~ Deeds ~ Contracts.
I turned it over. An appointment date and time were penned on the back in a neat hand.
“I hope he’ll remember his appointment this afternoon,” I said, handing the card back to her.
“Máté. He’s dead.” Her face flushed, her eyes growing large. “He was struck by a wagon in the street just after he left our shop yesterday.”
“Does Róbert know about this?”
“He cares not. I knew you would.”
And she was right—again. It would be a strange coincidence for a man to die hours before he would have met with his estate lawyer. Perhaps not a coincidence, which was my fear.
“Who was this man who died?”
Júlia sighed, impatient. “László Kálmán. One of Róbert’s clients, and a friend of mine, of sorts … and I suspect he may have been murdered.”
✧ ✧ ✧
1:48 p.m.
The office of Zoltán Farkas, Ügyvéd, hid itself amidst the frenetic activity of Váczi Street, resting above a bustling milliner’s establishment. There was no obvious door to the second-floor offices, so we had to inquire inside the shop.
Yes, Júlia had joined me. I’d objected, citing various reasons, all of which sounded hollow the moment I voiced them. And Júlia, her logic often surpassed my own, though I would not admit that to her. Yet, I was glad she was with me, for she accomplished things I couldn’t. She had her brother’s gift of conversation without his pompous proclamations. And although deception was not natural to her, she could do what she must when justice hung in the balance.
Once inside, Júlia whispered, “Let me handle this.”
The woman at the counter looked to be the matron of the shop, who, I suspected, regarded all but the most wealthy with an eye of condescension.
Júlia appeared fearless. “How do we access the office of Zoltán Farkas?”
The woman blinked her eyes and pursed her lips. “And who is asking after Mr. Farkas?”
“Mrs. Júlia Ruspoli and Lieutenant Nádasdy.” She pulled the card from her bag, showing the woman the appointment time. “And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“Mrs. Csorba. And I am not his secretary—indeed, I’d be no man’s secretary—but you’ll find him up the stairway in the back.” The woman motioned to a doorway behind the counter.
Then Júlia’s moment of brilliance. “Perhaps we should wait down here—in case he has a previous appointment that’s run long.”
“Oh, you won’t be interrupting anything but the man’s pessimism. He’s a curious sort.” She soured her face. “Too much time thinking of wills and planning for death.”
“Really?”
Mrs. Csorba leaned over the counter ever so, and looked right, then left, happy for a fellow conspirator. “He can’t keep a secretary—more than a few have run crying through our shop never to return. Poor things.” The woman’s lips wavered but never quite broke into a smile.
“Maybe we should seek another lawyer,” Júlia said.
The woman shook her head and lowered her voice. “He’s harmless. I put him in his place when he gives me trouble. The titled seem to like him, so he must be doing his work right by them.” She straightened. “Perhaps I can show you a hat after your appointment. Something Mr. Ruspoli would find attractive?”
“Unfortunately, Mr. Ruspoli is deceased. I’m a widow.”
Mrs. Csorba took her hand and held it. “Oh, my dear, and so young. I’m a widow as well, but not unfortunately so.”
The women broke into a fit of laughter that settled into warm smiles.
“I promise to return soon to choose something suitable for a young, eligible widow,” Júlia said, and a bond had been established, one that would have been impossible for a retired lieutenant with a bias for action.
✧ ✧ ✧
The fresh-painted lettering on the door made me uneasy, but I knocked and we waited a few moments, then Júlia turned the knob and walked in. Farkas was sitting at his desk, his back to the windows overlooking Váczi Street. A bookcase of legal volumes stood on one wall and a rank of filing cabinets on the other. The office was tidy; in fact, I saw nothing out of place. Even the papers he was working on were neatly stacked and clipped.
He looked up from his desk when we entered. A lean pole of a man, he had sunken cheeks and deep-set eyes. And a thin mustache, almost French in style, certainly not Hungarian. I took him to be about forty-five, but I imagined he might be much younger, aged by worry or guilt.
“I’m not accepting new clients. I’ll ask you to let yourself out.” His tone was sharp and dismissive, and he went back to scribbling on the unruled paper on his desk.
“You were expecting someone today,” I said.
His head came up again and cocked to the side, waiting for me to explain myself.
Júlia put the business card on his desk. “Mr. László Kálmán.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Kálmán. He’s late,” he said to me, ignoring Júlia and turning over his work. “And who are you, sir?”
“Lieutenant Máté Nádasdy …”
“And Mrs. Nádasdy.” Júlia extended her hand, which the man ignored. She had been comfortable teasing at our relationship in this way, since we impersonated a couple earlier in the spring to uncover some key facts in a case. Yet, it still caught me to hear her throw around our fictitious union so glibly. “You were recommended to us by Mr. Kálmán.”
He lifted his eyes in a flash. “For what?”
“We need a will.”
“Well, I have an appointment right now. We’ll have to meet some other time.” Farkas’s patience was thinning. Time to get to the point.
“Mr. Kálmán won’t be making his appointment today,” I said. “He died yesterday.”
Farkas stood in surprise. “What a dreadful thing to say! How do you know the man?” He collapsed into his chair, his arm dangling at his side.
I motioned to Júlia that we should take a seat, and Farkas scowled.
“What was his business with you?” Júlia asked.
Farkas was flustered and began turning over the papers on his desk. “That would be a privileged matter, if he were my client.”
Even in our short time here, I disliked this man. “Privileged? He’s dead!”
“I can’t speak of it, now leave.”
I moved to the edge of my seat, my temper rising, but Júlia put her hand on my arm. “He was a dear friend of ours.”
“To whom can we pay our respects?” I asked.
“I thought you were dear friends.” His eyes narrowed. “You’d best leave immediately!”
✧ ✧ ✧
We stood on the walk outside the milliner’s, the midday crowds flowing around us. Júlia was beside herself with anger. “It’s clear Kálmán was a client of Farkas. Did you see the way he reacted when we mentioned his name? Kálmán had business regarding his will and was murdered before he could make any changes. We need to see whatever copies Farkas has.”
“We’re not sure he has anything of Kálmán’s. And what would we learn by seeing a will? Without previous copies, we couldn’t see whether it had been changed or not.”
“But you have to concede, it sounds suspicious.” Júlia looked at me with the most honest eyes I’d seen, maybe ever, which stripped away any posturing I might have entertained.
“It does. And if Farkas is Kálmán’s lawyer, he will likely have only a copy of the will in his office. Most lawyers use a notary, who retains a signed original—” Before I could finish my thought, Júlia had slipped back into the shop. After just a few moments, she was back.
“Mrs. Csorba will meet us here tonight at ten o’clock.” She suppressed a satisfied grin. “We women have a bond forged by a common enemy.”
“What have you done?”
“She has keys to the front door and the door to the stairway. The lawyer’s door lock will be our challenge, though she says she will deny knowing us if something goes afoul.”
“No! I’m not going to have you breaking into a lawyer’s office. That’s my line of work.” I was already feeling a pang of regret bringing her this far in our inquiry. Now, we risked arrest, and if Kálmán was indeed murdered for his inheritance, the murderer wouldn’t hesitate to silence us if we got close to the truth.
But Júlia laughed.
“I don’t appreciate your humor right now,” I said, for I experienced more than a prick of irritation. After all, I was looking out for her reputation—indeed, her safety.
“You think you’re the only one who can play the thief. You don’t know me well enough, Lieutenant.”
Just that moment, I glanced up at the lawyer’s windows. He was staring at us, his face stolid, meant to intimidate. I was intent not to break his stare, for he wouldn’t scare us away.
“Máté?” Júlia interrupted the contest.
“Promise me you won’t be there. Let me handle this,” I said, my unease with the whole affair mounting.
But she said nothing, and instead an artful smile grew on her lips.
We strolled awhile in silence, in no hurry to return to our lives. The foot traffic was thick and we had to stop at the intersections to wait on a constable’s signal to cross. I’d been looking at my feet at such pauses to avoid conversation, and Júlia was doing the same, but this time I glanced behind us.
A man, well built, dressed in fine clothes, with a thin mustache and beard of a young man. And he was staring at me—no, Júlia. He’d stopped about ten meters back, and when he saw me studying him, he turned to a store window. “Do you know that man?” I asked, motioning to him.
Júlia looked back. “I noticed him in front of the shop yesterday, then again today.”
“And?”
“I’ve never seen him before that.” Her neck twitched in a nervous spasm.
“Let’s just keep walking.”
At the next block, Kristóf Square, we paused for an elegant carriage to pass, and I said to her, “You have a crumb of something,” and wiped the corner of my mouth, showing her. She looked at me, questioning, and wiped at her own mouth.
“Your vanity mirror?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
She pulled the mirror from her handbag and held it just so.
“I bet you can see that shadow of a crumb now.” I looked ahead and lightened my expression.
“Ah yes, there it is,” she said. “Window shopping again.”
“When we cross the square, you go left. I’ll continue straight then circle back to see if he follows you.”
Sure enough, as Júlia turned east, her pursuer followed. I paused a moment to tie my boot, pulling my foot up on a bench. Only a moment, for I didn’t want to fall too far behind. My aim was to catch the man.
And off I went. A few meters behind now. At the next intersection, when Júlia crosses, he’ll pause, and I’ll knock him down, pretending to trip.
So, just before he stepped off the next curb after Júlia, I lurched forward, putting my shoulder into the small of his back. We were both down, me on top, and I twisted his arm behind him, and he cried out. He was lighter than me, yet he had a wiry persistence that frustrated my strength.
“What do you want with Mrs. Ruspoli?” I shouted in his ear. People started to gather about us. I pulled up on his arm and he yelled in pain.
But he rolled, and in an instant, the barrel of a revolver was thrust under my chin. How foolish! I hadn’t noticed the pistol, a Gasser 11mm. It would easily remove my head from my shoulders.
He was on his knees now, holding my collar, and he cocked the hammer of the pistol. Pedestrians started to yell and move away. This would end soon, with hope in my favor.
He put his mustache to my ear and hissed, “She knows what I want. I’ll kill if I need to.”
“Who wants what?”
But he was gone into the crowd. A circle had cleared around me as people shrank back.
Júlia stood at the edge of the crowd, and for the first time, she looked afraid.
✧ ✧ ✧
6:10 p.m.
I’d not talked to Róbert about our situation, and I’m sure Júlia hadn’t, yet he sensed something in the air and was keen to pry information from me. I was learning Júlia was the master of discretion, so I became the vulnerable strand in the cable, and Róbert redoubled his efforts.
He sat at his table in the window, trying to draw me into conversation. His shop had closed a mere ten minutes prior, and he already had the day’s newspaper spread on the table with a glass of pálinka. He wouldn’t be leaving soon, despite my attempts to ignore him.
“Máté. I need you,” he called to me as I stood behind the counter. János, my head waiter rushed to him, but Róbert waived him away.
“Máté!” His voice was getting louder and the other patrons were noticing.
Finally, I walked to his table and sat, resigned to my fate.
“So, what is happening with you and Júlia?” he asked without preambles.
I wouldn’t lie to him, even if it would bring him angst and strain our friendship, but I could withhold information, and lies of omission are only half the evil. “You remember the appointment card Júlia found? From the man that died?”
He rolled his eyes in a dramatic take. “What is going on? I’ll not have you putting her in any compromising situations.”
“I hope you understand I’d die to protect you and your sister. Her safety is in the front of my mind every moment.” And that was true. I would have walked away from this investigation if I didn’t feel it would place Júlia at greater risk. “Tell me about this client of yours, Kálmán?”
“Didn’t Júlia tell you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
I was unsure how to respond. I felt something like a lump in my chest, and I regretted ever agreeing to investigate this mess.
“I can see she didn’t.” He sighed, and his face showed an empathy for me, for my ignorance and perhaps naïveté. “I promised her I would not involve myself in this.”
“Yet, here you are.”
“Indeed. Like a cat to fish. Please keep this between us, for Júlia’s sake.” He began to stare at the ceiling as though the words were written there. “László Kálmán. He was a courtier of hers many years ago, before Gianni, her husband—and only for a short while. She was only eighteen, and he, obscenely wealthy and unmarried. But it wasn’t to be.”
I was stunned, more that Júlia had withheld this critical information from me than the implications of the facts themselves. But it helped explain her determination in pursuing the issue, and her insistence on being a part of the investigation. Knowing Júlia, I suspected she held little if any sentiment for the man after a decade, yet there will always be strings that connect us to our past loves, even those that end poorly.
I explained to Róbert the details of the case, our meeting with Farkas, and our desire to see Kálmán’s will. I didn’t mention my altercation with her pursuer or my rendezvous tonight at the milliner’s shop.
He appeared unperturbed, even tranquil, regarding Júlia’s participation. “It doesn’t surprise me. When Júlia loves, she loves unconditionally. It’s hard to suppress that, even when she’s been wronged. But he has no heirs, that’s why he was so keen on courting Júlia. He’d come in the shop on occasion, claiming he’d never marry after Júlia. Said he’d leave it all to his household staff, kidding of course. And there’s a nephew over in Buda, but they weren’t close. I don’t think Kálmán was close to anyone.”
“Why do you think that’s so?”
He caught himself, for I suspected he was exercising his professional discretion. “His manner was very …” he looked into the street, “… direct.”
I chuckled. “So, he was rude—a nagyhangú—all bluster and no brain.”
“I don’t like to speak ill of my clients—or the dead.” Róbert looked to the street and stroked his thin beard, something he trimmed and preened to achieve a more mature look. His callow face was, to him, a curse in a business that honored legacy and tradition.
“Do you know anything of his household staff?”
Silence hung for a moment, then he said, “Not that I recall, other than he loved them, and to hear him tell it, they loved him—but then it’s easy to love your employer, at least to his face.”
He sipped his pálinka deep in thought, and we both sat looking out onto Andrássy Avenue. Finally, he put words to his thoughts. “It seems the timing of all of this—his premature death, his pending appointment with Farkas—the timing is key.”
He was right, and I was never pleased to have Róbert posit something before me. But I was back at my original assertion: men don’t die by coincidence when they intend to revise their wills. Several pieces to this puzzle were emerging, yet my thoughts were clouded by a small but piercing wound to my heart at Júlia’s hand.
✧ ✧ ✧
9:55 p.m.
I was surprised Váczi Street was deserted. This block, the one with the milliner’s shop, had no restaurants or coffeehouses, and the stores had long since closed for the evening. The air was unseasonably warm, and I was expecting the odd watchman or shopkeeper still milling about. A rodent scurried down the gutter, startling me and leaving me unnerved, and a heaviness settled in my chest that I couldn’t ignore, like the moments between an artillery shell’s firing and its devastating impact.
A large barren maple stood across the street from the milliner and I sheltered in its silhouette. The streetlamps flickered and dimmed, a common occurrence this time of night, but still, the swaying and twitching shadows it cast were foreboding. Adequate gas pressure had been an ongoing problem in Budapest, especially in the evening, as its citizens turned up their lamps.
I hoped the shop matron was true to her word, for I needed to gain access to that office. Still, the street was empty of any pedestrians or horse traffic. A couple blocks north, I saw more activity, men in the street, a carriage, but the distance deadened the sound and the effect was almost one of a waking dream.
Just as the wind picked up, I saw a figure approaching from the south on the opposite side of the street. No sound. The pedestrian was moving at a brisk pace, head down, a flowing cape with a hood pulled over the head. He slowed in front of a store window and lowered the hood, looking around.
Not a man—a woman.
Júlia! Her unflinching eyes shone in the light of the lamps.
My heart sank, and my exhilaration, typical during such a vigil, turned to apprehension. I’d told her not to come. And now, we had to go back.
I ran across the street to her. She turned and smiled, nothing disingenuous or teasing, just Júlia, prepared to do her part. “Where’s our accomplice?”
“We can’t do this,” I said. “You’re placing your life—and mine—in danger! I think Kálmán was killed by one of his household staff—the man who’s been following you.”
“You’re overreacting, like always. No one followed me tonight—I made sure of it.”
Her tenacity frustrated me, and I took her arm. “I think he saw you talking with Kálmán through the window at Róbert’s shop. He thinks you have a copy of the will, one that doesn’t name him heir. I’m taking you back.”
But she pulled away, and then Mrs. Csorba appeared on the walk.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, pulling the key from her pocket. “Oh, my! The lock is broken.” She gave the door a push and it swung open.
I looked once more up and down the street, wondering where Júlia’s pursuer was, and hoping we weren’t too late. Róbert liked to say I have a streak of pessimism, but that isn’t fully true. I’d learned evil exists. I couldn’t wish it from the Earth, but I took it as my vocation to know where it was lurking.
Once inside, the clerk lit a candle for us. “Now, I don’t have keys to the offices upstairs.”
I pulled my Laguiole from my pocket and flipped it open. “My friend and I have opened many locks together.”
I took a breath to stay my nerves. The store closed at six o’clock and twilight would have dissipated by seven. Still, an intruder would wait until eight or even nine to reduce the chance of witnesses. I feared someone had beaten us to the will and our mission was for naught.
✧ ✧ ✧
“And I’ll ask you never to take my arm like that again.” Júlia brushed by me as we climbed the staircase, almost knocking the candle from my hand, and a stream of wax ran down and burned my wrist.
I regretted my reaction in the street. More of my paternal ways. Júlia was cut from a different cloth. Think, Máté. Don’t react.
“Sorry,” I said.
She looked back at me but didn’t say a word, but I understood.
At the top of the stairs, the door to Farkas’s office stood ajar. I was expecting it to be locked tight to secure his secrets, but the dim light from Váczi Street came through the door and lit a crescent on the hall floor.
Júlia turned around again, and I nodded and handed her the candle, signaling her to proceed slowly.
She slid into the room with a silent grace of a zephyr. I was but a step behind.
The office was a violent turmoil of paper and books. It looked as though someone had pulled every file from the cabinets and threw them in the air. The legal volumes had been pulled down, and lay about the bookcases at postures and angles unnatural for books, the pages mashed, some torn. Yet, I saw a purposeful progression in the way the debris was layered—first the files, then the desk, then each law book. Someone was looking for something, and by the complete and methodical ransacking of the room, my guess was they didn’t find what they desired.
And seated at the desk—Farkas, his head back, staring at the ceiling. Júlia inhaled abruptly. A bullet hole in his chest, an 11mm-sized hole. The crimson stain on his white shirt circled the wound like an eclipse—silent, accusing. Death would have been instantaneous.
“Seems your pursuer beat us here. And he must have shot Farkas when he wouldn’t or couldn’t produce the will.”
I motioned for her to bring the candle near.
“What is it?” she asked.
I squatted down next to the chair. On the floor, a brass button from a coat. I set it in my palm. It was engraved with a family coat of arms and the initials E.K.
“Farkas pulled this from his murderer’s sleeve.”
“Yes. And that’s László’s coat of arms. I’ve seen it before on his clothing.”
Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put the pieces together. “But it’s one of his staff who wants the estate. Why would he wear such a coat?”
“Not someone from Kálman’s household. Endre Kálmán—László’s nephew. It’s his coat.”
“Is Endre a thin young man, with a mustache?”
“I’ve never met him, but László once spoke of his love of firearms, how he’d wasted considerable money on all types of weapons, many imported. ”
“Well, I suspect it was one of those weapons that was thrust under my chin, and that was used to put a hole in Farkas. It’s time to bring the police into this. We have two murders, and we may have lost a key piece of evidence—whatever will Farkas had kept in this office—”
She put her hand on my arm and took a breath. “I have something I need to tell you before we talk to the police.” And she did not meet my eyes, which told me what I needed to know, that she was perhaps ready to share a wound she’d been intent on keeping hidden from me.
✧ ✧ ✧
10:34 p.m.
“He was a horrid man, yet I loved him.”
Such a simple statement, yet the logical conflict contained seemed able to split my mind. Júlia and I sat on a bench a few blocks north on Váczi Street across from a busy coffeehouse. A concert must have just finished at the Vigadó Concert Hall a few blocks away, for well-dressed men and woman flowed southward on the sidewalks.
“What did he do to you?” Despite the pedestrians, there was a certain discretion amid the activity. And my insides began to burn with anger at this dead man.
She wouldn’t meet my gaze and instead, stared at the waiters as they scurried about the sidewalk tables, set out to take advantage of the warm evening. It seemed they all were laughing at the same moment, and the sound of it was deafening to me.
“I would never, never marry him. That’s what Róbert wanted, but when he understood how vile the man was, he relented.”
I reached for her hand, but she pulled away. “What was there to love in him? I don’t understand?”
“I’m convinced his army service twisted his mind. The cruelty of war shaped him in horrid ways. I don’t want to relive those months. Over the past years, I’ve come to see him more graciously, as a victim of the war machine our empire has become.”
“But then you saw him at the shop …”
She turned to me and let out an ironic chortle. “He was dying, and his body was wasting. He wanted a suit refitted for his funeral.” Her eyes were dry, but sad, the lids heavy.
[[ #kalman dying]]“And something else …” I knew what came next would be nothing about Júlia, yet the revelation would change whatever our future might have been into something else, and that frightened me.
She looked away again. “He wanted to name me sole heir of his money.”
I didn’t understand. Such a gift would transform Júlia’s life, giving her the freedom to live the way she wanted. She could continue working in Róbert’s shop if she liked—or not. She could marry who she liked and not be subservient to another rich but entitled suitor. That amount of money would also open her prospects to a higher stratum of society, one previously beyond her reach.
And something more. Was Júlia using me, this whole situation, to secure an inheritance from Kálmán? Anyone would in her place. So it wasn’t about justice, or friendship, or anything, but money. Still, that didn’t feel like who Júlia was.
But now the pieces fit; they made sense. Kálmán stopped to see Júlia on the way to see Farkas. “That’s where he was headed yesterday … to see Farkas and tell him of his plans. Farkas asked him to return in the afternoon to sign the new document, but Kálmán never made it. He was killed before he could return to his lawyer’s office.”
She nodded. “His nephew Endre lives in Buda, but he’s foolish with their family’s money, spending it on all manner of diversions, a reprobate. László couldn’t stomach giving him a single kreuzer. And he thought of me, how I was kind to him, and I was, despite my revulsion. Yet, he didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“No, he didn’t. Endre will make a claim on the estate or his efforts will have been for naught. So, he can’t run.”
“The coat of arms on the button is as damning as a calling card,” she said.
“Yes. A fatal oversight to wear such a garment, but we’re not dealing with a professional assassin here. He has no plan, which makes him the most dangerous kind—unpredictable.”
Despite the activity on the street, a silence fell on us, and we both knew what stood between us. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
Of course, I understood why, and my hurt from earlier had all but dissolved over the course of the evening. But asking gave me a sense of resolution, regardless of her answer.
“This is mine to make right. I need your help, and I’m thankful for it, but still I want to feel I’ve set things on the proper course, for László. It’s something you’ve experienced many times. Me, never.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.” But perhaps it was. I had little conception of what her life was like in Róbert’s home, or even her work in the back room of his shop. Yet, I knew Júlia’s existence, though commonplace, would eventually suffocate what made her sparkle.
“So, I guess we’ve succeeded” she said.
“Not yet.”
She looked at me, expectant, hopeful.
“Let’s assume Kálmán requested a change to his will, and his purpose after dropping off his suit was to meet with Farkas to sign the revised will. We have to assume Endre found the revised, unsigned will, and destroyed it, so the original would stay in full power, likely naming him heir.”
“Yes. We know all this.”
“But Farkas would have prepared the revised will from notes. Perhaps Endre overlooked those. They might still be in the office. If we could show them to the courts, they might give you some standing with the estate, considering Endre’s compromised position.”
Júlia’s face softened, either from relief or exhaustion. “Do you think we could find them?”
I had asked the matron of the shop to allow us ten minutes before contacting the police, so I’d have to act fast.
I motioned across the street. “Go inside the coffeehouse. Tell the owner you’re a friend of mine. You’ll be safe there for a while. I’ll go back and check the office for the notes, hopefully before the police arrive.”
✧ ✧ ✧
22 November. Wednesday.
12:25 a.m.
My friend had seated Júlia in the coffeehouse’s rear, away from the windows, but even the most inspired of his clientèle had left for their beds by the time I arrived. She rose as soon as I entered.
“And?”
I motioned for her to sit and then joined her. A waiter ran to our table with coffee.
“So, what happened?” she asked. I could see the anxiety on her face and wished it away forever.
I pulled a single sheet of paper from my coat and laid it on the table.
“The notes?”
I nodded. “Under the blotter, as I suspected.”
She took them from the table and read them, then read them again. “And the police?”
“They’ll be by to see you in the morning, but with the button and my story about the notes, a squad is headed directly to Buda Hill to arrest Endre Kálmán. It’s far from a shut case, but it seems this isn’t Endre’s only attempt at taking what isn’t his. He’s attempted a similar scheme with an aged relative in Debrecen, but other relations intervened and the police were called in. He’s been chasing hearses, so to speak, for the past year or two.”
“And the will?”
“I’m not a lawyer, but I assume the extant copy would stand. If it was signed and notarized—and names Endre the heir, as I presume it does—the estate would go to him, or his family if he’s dead or incarcerated. A copy is likely held by the notary utilized by Mr. Farkas. But the notes—you have a credible claim on the estate! We can demonstrate his intent to name you heir—intent Endre obstructed.”
She sat staring at the lamp on the table, her chocolate eyes sparkling in its flame.
I continued, “There would be legal proceedings, for the family would appeal, considering the sum … but eventually, justice would be done …”
“Eventually?” Her eyes lifted to mine.
“Yes. It’s right. It’s what you deserve.” But still something pressed at me, like a single árvácska, a wild pansy, a fleck of white insistent amid a field of green.
And then she held the page to the lamp flame and it caught and burned. It lit her face, her eyes, for she seemed transfixed by the fire.
My chest felt suddenly empty. “Don’t you want this? I thought that’s why we were doing this?”
She dropped the burning paper onto a plate and looked up. “How do you know what I want?”
I didn’t. That much was clear. The deeper I came to know her, the more inscrutable she became. Yet, it was plain an estate, a fortune, would rob her of the very thing she fought for—independence, self-determination. Yes, it would offer opportunity, but also the temptation to become what she hated about our world.
“I won’t make any claim on the money. Why spend my time in such mud? You only get dirty. And mind you, I don’t mind dirt on my hands, but not on my soul.” Then her face warmed and I reached across the table and touched her hand and she didn’t pull away.
✧ ✧ ✧
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.
HEIR INAPPARENT. Text copyright © 2025 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.
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