“I’m going to give you one more chance to save whatever future you may have left with me,” said Korsch, casting upon his young protégé a steely glare. “Where might we find the baron’s private papers, his files—anything that could tell us where to find the rabbi?”

“He has a study, an office.”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” roared Korsch. “Lead me to it!”

Gustav did so.

Korsch stormed inside, stood a moment in the middle of the room, a calm gradually stealing over him in the midst of his passion. The demonic nature of his sensitivities immediately sensed the baron’s presence, and he began to walk slowly about the room, knowing that his own master, he whom the baron called the enemy, would reveal to him what he needed to know.

“Leave me,” he said quietly.

Gustav backed away and closed the door.

Finding himself suddenly alone in the house upon which he had gazed so many times from afar, in the very corridor he had dreamed of walking, he turned, walked quickly away from the study, and a moment later stood, hand trembling, opening the door to Sabina’s private chamber.

Slowly he walked inside. It had not been disturbed, though the light that shone gave evidence that it had been cursorily searched.

A mingling of a thousand sensations rose within him! Every sight reminded him of Sabina. There was her bed! Her dresser! Her mirror!

He breathed in deeply, smelling the faint, lingering reminders of her presence.

Making himself wild with fancies, he walked through every centimeter of the room, looking over every trinket, every object to remind him of her, then picked up her pillow and held it close to his face.

Meanwhile, four rooms away, a wicked and cunning smile spread over the rutted face of Emil Korsch.

What looked to be a hand-drawn map of some kind buried amongst some papers on the baron’s desk had led him to the envelope now held up to the light.

It really was rather careless of the fool of a baron, he thought to himself, to leave revealing papers about. But then he’d probably left in a hurry and hadn’t planned on his house being searched.

The letter had obviously not gone through the normal postal channels. But that made it none the less legible.

Korsch squinted. It was a hasty scrawl. But the name on the envelope was clear enough.

Wilhelm Stegerwald, Fürstensdorf.

The villainous grin widened. It may have taken a long time, and a wild goose chase to Switzerland with only incomplete pieces, but at last all the clues fit together.

Now he had the right name and the right town!

Stuffing both map and envelope into his pocket, Emil Korsch removed his pistol from its holster, emptied its contents against the baron’s desk, leather chair, and through the window, then turned and ran from the room.