The Third Place

by J Sydney Jones

  Kiss looked upward as if searching for inspiration. He sighed deeply. ‘I highly doubt any of the staff is involved,’ he said.

  This comment gave Gross a sudden jolt but he did not show any emotion.

  ‘Enemies then,’ he said.

  ‘I can do you one better. Why not visit the count?’

  ‘Which count would that be, young man?’

  ‘Count Johann Nepomuk Wilczek. Uncle Hans and mother were … well, they have been friends for years. Longer even than Uncle Franz Joseph. He may be able to help you.’

  The Baron Kiss appeared to have a quantity of ‘uncles.’ It was also clear to Gross that he was withholding information. Kiss had not yet learned the fine art of dissimulation, so vital in the diplomatic trade.

  ‘You surely do not put him in the category of enemy, then.’

  Kiss shook his head. ‘Uncle Hans has an island named after him.’ He said this non sequitur earnestly as if it provided some sort of testimony for the man. ‘He can tell you all about mother. No one knows her better.’

  Gross squinted at him; he felt that same jolt of uncertainty Kiss’s earlier remark had elicited.

  ‘Is that all?’ Asked like a young school boy of an older prefect.

  ‘I think that should suffice,’ Gross said. ‘I thank you for your time and hope that I have not too greatly disturbed your studies.’

  Kiss rose and left the room without an adieu.

  The school director, Michael Pidoll von Quitenbach, must have been watching the hallway, for he appeared in the doorway not half a minute after Baron Kiss’s departure.

  ‘I hope that little visit helped,’ he said. There was more than a trace of irony on the word ‘little’.

  ‘It all helps,’ Gross said. ‘Each of the fragments adds up, you see. Individually they are simply shards, tile chips. But correctly assembled …’ Gross snapped his fingers, ‘… and voila, we have—’

  ‘A mosaic!’ Von Quitenbach beamed, proud of himself.

  ‘More of a collage, Herr Direktor. Sometimes a mere tessellation. And that is where this comes into play.’ He tapped his right forefinger against his temple. ‘The facility to interpret the patchwork, to make your mosaic out of a variegated montage is more than a guessing game. For that, you need training, diligence, experience, but most importantly talent.’

  He found himself glaring at the man whose ironic intonation of the word ‘little’ had spurred this invective. But apparently its intended target was completely unaware of the hedged hostility in Gross’s comments, for which the criminologist was happy.

  This fit of pique bothered Gross. What has got into me that the smallest perceived slight can set me off so? he wondered. But he knew.

  Baron Kiss had said it himself: this wretched missing letter business. He might as well be investigating a case of infidelity.

  He returned to his room at one-thirty in the afternoon. He checked the tell he left at the bottom of the door. Before leaving, he had stuck one of his black hairs to door and jamb with a bit of grease. It was still in place.

  Young Dimitrov was at his side; he could feel the man’s anxiety. It oozed from his pores like stale sweat.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Dimitrov said in badly accented German.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’ He bent down and retrieved the hair, then opened the door.

  ‘It’s small for two of us,’ Dimitrov said, surveying the room with its pair of cots separated by a scarred deal table and a pair of rickety chairs. Wooden pegs hung on the walls at the head of the cots in lieu and a wardrobe stood against the wall between them.

  ‘We won’t be here long,’ he replied.

  ‘I won’t be, that is for sure.’ Dimitrov made an attempt to laugh; it trailed off into a thick cough. He dropped his case to retrieve a soiled handkerchief from his breast pocket.

  The hairs on the back of Wenno’s neck bristled as the suitcase struck the floor. He shut the door behind Dimitrov. ‘You should be more careful with that case.’

  Dimitrov coughed blood into the handkerchief, sniffed once, folded the rag and stuck it in his breast pocket once again. He shrugged at Wenno’s suggestion.

  They had promised him a volunteer; they said nothing about the mental condition of the man.

  ‘What kind of a name is Wenno anyway?’ Dimitrov asked.

  He didn’t bother answering this. ‘We have a little over a week for preparations. They say you are willing to give your life for your homeland. Are you a patriot?’

  ‘I’m dying anyway. They’re paying my wife.’ A snarl of a grin. ‘My widow soon enough.’

  Wenno had worked with all sorts of agents: those who did it for love of country, those who did it for love of money, those who were forced into it either by their rank or by blackmail. He preferred working with those who – like himself – were paid. Paid professionals.

  Dimitrov was being paid. Period.

  ‘Did they give you any training before sending you to me?’

  ‘They said you would handle that end. Look, I’m all in. I was on that stinking train for twenty hours. Twenty hours on a third-class wooden bench. You’d think they could afford first class.’

  ‘It’s a matter of discretion,’ he told him. ‘You don’t need unwanted attention with what you’re carrying in that case.’

  ‘Which translates that you don’t figure I look like the first-class sort.’

  He had not taken Dimitrov for the introspective sort, but obviously there was some organ at work between the man’s ears. ‘It’s how your controllers would think. Not my decision.’

  ‘Well, thanks for that, at least.’

  ‘Did you eat?’

  ‘I ran out of cheese and salami somewhere in the miserable flatlands of Hungary. You got something here?’

  ‘We can go out. There’s a good gasthaus at the corner.’

  Dimitrov’s face suddenly paled. He grabbed the handkerchief out of his pocket and put it to his mouth as another fit of coughing gripped him. His eyes teared and he breathed deeply as he again folded the cloth.

  ‘Does that go on most of the time?’ Wenno asked Dimitrov.

  A curt nod. ‘Worried about your sleep?’

  He shook his head. ‘Worried that you make it to next week.’

  TWELVE

  ‘What are you doing, little poppet?’

  Franzl looked up from the sketch he was making. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could write.’

  The dinner dishes were cleaned up and the cook and Fräulein Anna were sitting at the kitchen table having their meal. Franzl had finished his quickly and discovered a bit of scrap paper and a pencil in the small writing desk in one corner of the cavernous kitchen where the cook planned her menus and shopping lists.

  ‘I can write,’ he said, looking up briefly. ‘But I’m not writing now.’

  Anna smiled at him. ‘Well, what are you doing then? Doodling?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  She shot him another impish grin, hopped out of her chair and came over to where he was sitting on a low stool, using the seat of a chair as his desk.

  ‘Well, you are a clever little poppet, aren’t you!’ She snatched the sketch and went back to the cook. ‘Look what he’s done. He’s made pictures of us eating.’

  Cook glanced up from her kraut and pork long enough to make a grunting noise, followed by, ‘Be better off learning to clean the skillet properly.’

  ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ Anna enthused. ‘A regular artist is our Herr Franzl.’

  ‘And he’s going to be a regular sleepyhead tomorrow if he doesn’t get to bed,’ Cook said. ‘You, too, you flighty little bird.’

  Anna rolled her eyes at Franzl, making him giggle.

  ‘And what’s so funny about that?’ the cook thundered. ‘Tomorrow’s another day just like this one. You need to be up and working by six, so off with you both.’

  Cook stood and swept the plates off the table, plunging them into the sudsy water of
the deep porcelain sink.

  ‘I need to clean the last of the dishes,’ Anna said.

  ‘Off with you. I’ll see to these, you see to your little “poppet.”’

  It came as a surprise to Franzl that he was sharing lodgings with Fräulein Anna, but he figured if it was all right with her it was for him, too. Truth was he liked her. She treated him like a little brother.

  They went up the back stairs to the top of the house where the servants’ rooms were. It was a small room, but they had hung a blanket over a rope as a divider.

  ‘Sorry to be crowding you,’ Franzl said as he went to his side.

  ‘No. I think it’s just fine. It’s nice to have someone to talk to before going to sleep. When you get bigger they’ll give you your own room, but for now we can be roommates.’

  She pulled the blanket across the rope, providing a degree of privacy. He listened to the rustle of her clothes as she changed into her nightgown. Then he hurriedly hopped into pajamas as she turned down the gas lamp.

  ‘Cook is right,’ came her disembodied voice from the other side of the blanket. ‘Tomorrow’s another day and it’s up early around here, I can tell you.’

  ‘She likes to yell,’ Franzl said.

  ‘Cook? Yes, but she doesn’t really mean anything by it. She’s got a big heart, really. Just likes to act bossy. I mean, look at her tonight cleaning up after us.’

  Franzl considered this and decided Fräulein Anna was probably right.

  ‘You just do your job and it’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Besides, she’s a little nervous. We all are.’

  ‘Why is that?’ he asked.

  ‘About the letter, of course. But then you wouldn’t know – you just got here. Cook says we’re not to know, but she overheard some fancy gents the other day who came asking questions. Acted like they were newspaper writers or some such, asking us all questions – could we read, did we know where certain keys were … Cook says they were investigating a letter that’s gone missing.’

  Franzl felt his pulse quicken. ‘What kind of letter?’

  ‘An important one, I guess. No wonder, we’ve got important people calling at this house. I suppose you don’t know about that, either.’

  ‘Actors and such?’ Franzl said. ‘I know Mistress is a famous actress.’

  ‘A whole lot more important. The emperor himself is a special friend. He sometimes comes to visit for breakfast. You might even see him one day.’

  Franzl whistled low to let her know he was impressed. But he didn’t like trying to fool Fräulein Anna.

  ‘Cook says it’s all a lot of hogwash, pardon the expression.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Promise not to tell?’

  Franzl crossed his fingers. ‘Promise.’ And he hated himself.

  ‘Cook thinks that letter did not really go missing. There wasn’t much activity around this house for a month or so, I can tell you. And then this letter disappears and suddenly there are visitors from Schönbrunn and fellows who call themselves newspaper reporters and now the mistress is in the spotlight again. That’s what Cook thinks, anyway.’

  ‘You mean that mistress made it all up?’

  ‘Remember, you promised not to tell.’

  ‘I think we should be going, Emile,’ Frau von Werthen told her husband. ‘I believe our trio of intrepid investigators has things to discuss.’

  Werthen’s father, having taken a glass or two of the Gewürtztraminer beyond his usual quota, looked crestfallen at the suggestion. ‘But we just got here.’

  ‘Yes,’ his wife teased, ‘and we just ate one of Frau Blatschky’s best plates of boiled beef, fresh horseradish and parsley potatoes. And a double helping of rice pudding for someone I know to top it all off.’

  Gertrud von Werthen got up and lifted her husband by the arm. Before rising, Emile von Werthen quickly quaffed the last drams of the wine in his glass.

  Werthen and Berthe exchanged smiles. They made no polite protests: they did in fact have matters to discuss. Gross sat across the table from them enjoying his own second helping of the rice pudding, evidently oblivious to the imminent departure. At the last moment he mustered a modicum of politesse, rising from his chair to wish the older couple a good night. He would be following them soon, for he was staying at the same lodgings, the Hotel zur Josefstadt in the nearby Langegasse.

  They saw Werthen’s parents off at the door and then he and Berthe returned to the dining room where Gross was still worrying his rice pudding.

  Werthen went first. He outlined his discussion with Girardi and how he had started to follow up on the enemy list the actor had given up.

  ‘I sat in Herr Director Schlenther’s outer office at the Burg for a good half hour waiting to speak with the man, then I finally realized it would be a fool’s errand. After all, what would I ask him? “Did you hire someone to steal a letter from Frau Schratt?” Nonsense. Finally I decided it was enough to know who the possible enemies might be, but there is precious little to be gained by interviewing them other than watching for guilty reactions to probing questions.’

  ‘I’m afraid I came to the same conclusion,’ Berthe said. ‘The one thing I did learn from Princess Dumbroski was that she already knew of the missing letter. She seems to have a network of allies in high places. And she swears she had nothing to do with the theft.’

  Berthe unconsciously wiped her lips with the linen napkin.

  ‘That’s all?’ Werthen intuitively sensed that his wife was holding something back.

  Berthe shook her head. ‘Nothing else worth sharing. She is an odious woman. And clever to boot.’ She was not about to tell her husband of the shaming kiss.

  They sat in silence for a moment, waiting for Gross to share his information.

  ‘I may have had more luck,’ the criminologist began, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his well-fed stomach. ‘Anton Kiss is doubtless conflicted about his mother and her relationship with the emperor, but I do not believe he is responsible for the missing letter. There was something, however, that I felt he wanted to say but could not bring himself to do so. Instead, he directed me to another of his mother’s admirers, Count Wilczek.’

  ‘The leaping lord,’ Berthe said brightly. The count had been a high jumper of international repute in his youth and was known to practice his jumping prowess at any moment. Those strolling down the Herrengasse might very well be treated to the sight of a tall, lean man in his sixties leaping from the second-floor window of his city palace to the cobbled street below instead of using his front door to exit.

  ‘I was not aware of that distinction,’ Gross said, irritated at Berthe’s comment. ‘I know of him only as a rather rare form of nobility – a man who actually exhibits noble behavior. You know he fought as a common soldier at Königgrätz when he should have been officer class. Carried a wounded captain out of a hail of bullets, they say. Awarded the Medal of Honor for his troubles. He personally funded the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition—’

  ‘Yes,’ Werthen interrupted, ‘and he served at court, formed the first volunteer ambulance society and is refurbishing his castle at Burg Kreuzenstein. All very well, but what did the good count have to tell you?’

  ‘We are skittish tonight, aren’t we?’ Gross said.

  Werthen pulled a face at this.

  ‘Very little and quite a lot,’ Gross said, assuming his irritating mysteriously imperious air.

  ‘Oh, come now, Gross,’ Berthe chided. ‘No reason for cryptic statements. Did you discover anything or not?’

  ‘You tell me. The count merely stated that Frau Schratt is the most wonderful, sincere and sensitive person it has ever been his good fortune to know. He also said she was most grievously disappointed following the death of the empress.’

  Werthen thought about this for a moment. ‘Because of the subsequent intrigue at court against her?’

  Gross shook his head.

  Berthe gasped as if seeing a ghost. ‘My God,’ she sai
d. ‘She expected a marriage proposal.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ Werthen began, but then he saw the smile on Gross’s face.

  ‘Too true, Frau Meisner. The poor woman actually expected a morganatic marriage.’

  ‘She must have been horribly disappointed,’ Berthe said. ‘After all those years …’

  ‘Indeed,’ Gross said. ‘She has been out of the emperor’s life for a pair of years, only lately returning to Vienna from her travels.’

  ‘Revenge?’ Werthen asked, understanding the import of the count’s information.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gross allowed.

  ‘Or a cry for attention,’ Berthe added.

  Werthen could only think of how incestuous all such matters were in Vienna. He had not been aware of the liaison between Frau Schratt and Count Wilczek, but it was merely one more indication of the village-like nature of Vienna. The count’s wife had been the former maid of honor to the Archduchess Sophie, mother of Emperor Franz Josef, the very man who the count had cuckolded with Frau Schratt. Plus, it was rumored that Count Wilczek had the ear of the willful Crown Prince Rudolf, son of the emperor, who would not listen to a word of advice from his own father.

  Werthen imagined there was little love lost between the emperor and the count.

  THIRTEEN

  The man who now called himself Herr Wenno, Pietr Klavan, was most at ease in the night, even one as bitterly cold as tonight. The darkness suited him. He sheltered in the doorway of a tobacco shop across and just up the street from the Café Burg. The street had electric lighting, but Klavan had made sure his sentinel position was between the lights; he was in the shadows in the recessed doorway with an unobstructed view of the café entrance.

  He had been here for almost an hour. He could not read his pocket watch in the gloom, but intuiting the time was one of those skills he had, like sensing where a man carried a hidden weapon or knowing how long a man’s reach was before engaging him in battle. One of those skills that cannot be trained. Enhanced. Polished. But never trained.

  He had left the unfortunate Dimitrov at the pension, sleeping and fitfully coughing. The man took enough cheap Spanish brandy to put an elephant to sleep. Klavan had aided the process by slipping laudanum into his drink.