The Third Place

by J Sydney Jones

  ‘Count Wilczek sends his regards,’ Werthen said, ‘as does Herr Girardi.’

  At least that will give her someone else to wonder about, Werthen thought.

  ‘You gentlemen have been busy,’ she said, putting out her hand to be kissed. ‘The emperor is fortunate to have such clever fellows in his employ.’

  In turn, Gross and Werthen kissed the air an inch above the proffered hand and took their leave. Franzl was waiting in the front hall, his small satchel of belongings at his side. As they were leaving, Fräulein Anna came tripping down the hall.

  ‘Off so soon, poppet?’ she said, a look of surprise on her face.

  Franzl looked confused.

  Werthen tried to cover for him, saying, ‘Frau Schratt has decided she needs an older assistant in the kitchen. We agreed to take him back into town.’

  A vacuous enough explanation, but it seemed to satisfy Fräulein Anna, who bent over and gave Franzl a hug and kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Take care of yourself, poppet.’

  He sniffled. ‘You, too.’

  Franzl did not speak a word the entire ride back to Habsburgergasse.

  They meet at the Hofburg that same afternoon. Gross was last in Montenuovo’s city office on the matter involving Court Opera Director Gustav Mahler. He was joined this time by Werthen, who was gazing out of the fine lace curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows, through the embroidered Habsburg eagle in the center of the curtain to the Imperial Chancellery across the courtyard. The emperor had his town apartments there. Gross wondered if he were at the Hofburg or at Schönbrunn, or perhaps even at Frau Schratt’s paying the good lady the attention she required.

  As he was mulling this over, the hidden door in a wall of bookcases opened and Montenuovo made a dramatic appearance. Today he was dressed in the quasi-military style of his office with embroidered blue tunic and sword at his side, supported by a broad red sash from his right shoulder to his left hip.

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please be seated,’ the diminutive prince said as he took the large chair on the opposite side of a massive rosewood desk. ‘I understand from my aide that congratulations are in order. Splendid work.’

  ‘Rather mundane, actually,’ Gross said, again taking the lead and leaving Werthen in the role of Greek chorus. ‘The letter had merely been misplaced.’

  Montenuovo formed a steeple with his fingertips touching upraised in front of his chest. He tapped the fingertips together rhythmically.

  ‘Misplaced?’

  ‘Put into another folder by accident.’

  ‘I see.’ He said it as if he were blind.

  Silence for a moment.

  ‘You brought the letter, I assume.’ The prince reached across the desk as if to take it in hand.

  ‘Actually, I left it with Frau Schratt. She and the emperor can determine what is to be done with it, I imagine.’

  Montenuovo drew his hand back in. ‘If it does not go missing again in the meantime.’

  Gross shook his head. ‘I do not believe that will happen again. And now perhaps, Prince Montenuovo, you can tell me what this is really about. In lieu of payment, I would greatly prefer the truth.’

  The prince leaned back in his chair, smiling at Gross. ‘I see why they call you the father of criminalistics. Tell me, what leads you to this deduction?’

  Werthen eyed Gross: he would like to know, as well, for it was the first that he heard of this.

  Gross cleared his throat as if preparing to deliver a university lecture.

  ‘It was patently obvious from the first day we met. You told us that the emperor needed our services because of the delicate nature of the missing letter and because he did not want to appear to have feet of clay to his junior officers. Nonsense and piffle. He is the emperor: he commands, the others obey. No, there is only one reason that he would call in an outsider such as myself …’

  Werthen noted his absence in the outsider category. Gross might be a great criminologist, but he was even a greater egotist.

  ‘And what would that be, Doktor Gross?’ Montenuovo obligingly queried.

  ‘That he cannot trust even his inner circle. That there must be a reason for such distrust—’

  ‘But you are assuming that he does trust me?’ Again the steepling of the fingertips.

  ‘Most certainly. You are the one man he can trust, Prince. You would have the most to lose in professional status were anything to happen to the emperor.’

  Montenuovo displayed no reaction to this rather demeaning comment: no one else would have the prince.

  ‘And that is what this is all about, is it not, Prince? Something happening to the emperor. As with the unfortunate accident with his royal carriage two weeks ago.’

  The fingertips bounced with increased tempo until the hands intertwined and were lowered to the desk.

  ‘Very good, Doktor Gross.’

  Werthen had finally had enough. ‘What’s all this about, Gross?’

  The criminologist turned to him. ‘A theory, my dear Werthen. A theory.’

  ‘Would you care to appraise me of it? As usual, I had the mistaken notion we were working together.’

  ‘I should rather the prince do that,’ Gross said with that irritating superciliousness that made Werthen want to crush the man’s hat.

  Gross turned to Prince Montenuovo. ‘Am I correct, Prince?’

  An appreciative nod from the small man. ‘There was an unfortunate incident a couple of weeks ago, yes. The royal carriage was overturned when a fiaker ran into it.’

  ‘There was rather more to it than that, as I understand,’ Gross said.

  ‘But how could you know any of this, Gross?’ Werthen asked. ‘You were in Prague two weeks ago. I live in Vienna and had no knowledge of such an accident.’

  To which remark Gross merely rolled his eyes.

  ‘So you keep informants about,’ Werthen said.

  ‘Otherwise known as assistants. Clever journalist chaps who are kept from publishing the news they gather but who do not mind earning a few crowns to pass on valuable information to me.’

  ‘It seems you have your own network of spies at work, Doktor Gross,’ Montenuovo said.

  ‘Assistants,’ he repeated.

  Werthen wondered if one of these assistants might not be his secretary’s beau, Herr Sonnenthal, journalist for the Arbeiter Zeitung.

  ‘All the better,’ Montenuovo said. ‘You will need them. You are absolutely correct that the emperor does not trust his inner circle. He has even begun to worry that there may be a traitor in his Trabant Life Guards. The incident of the royal carriage was a bit unnerving. One can only thank the Lord that, at the last moment, he decided to walk. That is why, when this letter went missing—’

  ‘The emperor thought it was another plot to do him harm,’ Gross finished.

  ‘Quite,’ the prince said.

  ‘Please forgive this poor benighted individual,’ Werthen interrupted, exasperated at being excluded from the facts. ‘But are you saying that someone is trying to kill the emperor?’

  ‘Concision, Werthen,’ Gross said as a proud parent might to a ten-year-old. ‘You are its master.’

  ‘It would appear so,’ Prince Montenuovo affirmed. ‘The carriage incident was, as Doktor Gross indicated, rather more complicated than a mere accident. Armed men stormed out of the fiaker in broad daylight at the gates of Schönbrunn, threw open the imperial carriage doors and, discovering it was empty, killed the driver and lone guard instead. They most brutally and brazenly emptied their revolvers into the two men, then reloaded and fired off a fusillade at approaching guards from the palace.’

  ‘Why an empty carriage?’ Werthen said.

  ‘Pardon me?’ the prince asked.

  ‘He means,’ Gross said, ‘why would the carriage proceed when the emperor had decided to go on foot to his nearby destination? One assumes he was on his way to Frau Schratt’s?’

  A curt nod from Montenuovo. ‘And it is standard protocol to vary the mean
s of transport.’

  ‘In other words, when the imperial carriage draws down a Viennese street it might very well be empty.’

  ‘Yes, Werthen,’ Gross answered for the prince. ‘Standard security methods.’

  ‘Guards from the palace witnessed the incident at the gates,’ Montenuovo continued, ‘but by the time they ducked the salvo of bullets and had raced to the scene, the fiaker and assailants were long gone. We, of course, covered up the incident. Passersby were told it was a military exercise, and newspapers were forbidden to print any mention of it.’

  Montenuovo nodded at Werthen. ‘It appears our silencing methods functioned.’

  Werthen tilted his head in assent. One could not keep secret the fact that a certain princess was carrying on an affair with the captain of the guards, but when there was an attempt on the emperor’s life, all was silence.

  ‘I am actually delighted that you have discovered the true motive behind your commission, Doktor Gross.’

  ‘And why would that be, Prince?’

  It was now Werthen’s turn to be one step ahead. ‘Because he wants to continue our commission in order to find out who was behind the attack.’

  Gross pursed his lips. ‘Don’t be absurd, Werthen. No. Prince Montenuovo wants nothing less than that we prevent the assassination of the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. That we, in fact, save the empire.’

  PART THREE

  FIFTEEN

  He would have to take Dimitrov with him. Klavan could not trust him on his own. Dimitrov was in even worse shape than when he had arrived, if that was possible.

  ‘You’ve got to stop drinking,’ he told the man after he had shaken him awake this morning. ‘You’re a mess.’

  Dimitrov smirked at this. ‘Perhaps a new suit of clothes will do the trick,’ he said.

  ‘It is rather too early for gallows humor,’ Klavan retorted. Why had the idiots in Belgrade sent him such a specimen? Did they want him to fail?

  Had he under- or over-estimated Apis? Is the man a preening fool or a canny stage manager somehow setting me up for a fall? Klavan wondered.

  But it was too late for such second thoughts. He knew this from long experience: the soft part of you, the piece some called cowardice, was always looking for a way out, always seeking excuses for inaction.

  ‘Get dressed,’ Klavan ordered him. ‘We’ve got a busy day. You can have coffee on the way.’

  ‘But I do enjoy the cup Frau Geldner serves.’

  ‘You haven’t been talking to her, have you?’

  ‘I’ve displayed good manners, Herr Wenno. Nothing more.’

  ‘She’s not the bumpkin she appears,’ Klavan said. He himself had stopped taking morning coffee his second day in Vienna; he didn’t like the questioning looks the other boarders were giving him. Anonymity was his only friend. There was one especially interested fellow. Klavan heard he was the nephew of Geldner. He had little piggy eyes that sized Klavan up like maybe he was fitting him for a prison suit.

  They took the elevated train from the west train station along the Gürtel, or outer ring road, to the Josefstädterstrasse stop, and then headed by foot down Neulerchen‌felderstrasse to the Kubit Men’s Hostel. Klavan had actually stumbled on his plan, but regardless of how it had been developed, it was a thing of wonder.

  And it all depended on one old man – Hermann Postling.

  They stopped outside the hostel for a moment, then headed in.

  ‘Jesus,’ Dimitrov muttered as they entered the dingy building. ‘Is this where they store you when you get old?’

  ‘Only if you’re lucky,’ Klavan said. There was a front desk where Klavan signed in as a supposed nephew of Postling.

  They proceeded to the second floor, to the reading room where the old man usually passed his days. He was there, in his corner seat, a world atlas open on the table in front of him. None of the other men shared his table. Postling was the solitary sort and not quite all there. The atlas was open to a map of the Canary Islands, Klavan noticed as he and Dimitrov approached. The old man had a fixation on islands; he swore he was going to retire to one when his ship came in.

  ‘It’s nice there this time of year,’ Klavan said, taking a seat uninvited next to the old man, who smelled unwashed.

  Herr Postling looked at Klavan and then at Dimitrov, who was still standing.

  ‘Fat lot you know about it,’ he said. ‘I doubt you’ve ever been on a ship let alone an island.’

  ‘I could take you up on that bet, Herr Postling. I come from a long line of—’

  Klavan had almost said ‘amber fishers’, but abruptly cut himself off. There was no need to share his life story, to give anyone a hint of his true identity. Dimitrov lifted his eyebrows as if beckoning him to finish.

  ‘You are quite right,’ Klavan said to the old man. ‘I saw a reference to the weather in Tenerife the other day in a newspaper.’

  The old man tapped his bulbous red nose. ‘You can’t fool Hermann Postling. I can smell shit a mile off.’

  But he was incapable of smelling his own, Klavan decided. Postling was an unwashed and disagreeable codger, which made him even a better choice. Klavan felt no reluctance in using him and discarding him. There was no one to miss him, no one to question about poor old Hermann. The hostel keeper had seemed amazed the first time Klavan had come to call that the old man could actually have a nephew who cared enough about him to pay a visit.

  ‘Is that where you’re going when you get your twenty pieces of silver?’

  Postling eyed him contemptuously. ‘Not likely I’d tell you, is it?’

  ‘And you haven’t told anybody else, right? Like you promised.’

  ‘Who would I tell? And why? Buzzards around here would probably just try to steal the invitation.’

  ‘You keep it hidden. That’s the idea. Can’t trust anybody.’

  Postling looked up at Dimitrov again. ‘Your friend going to sit down?’

  ‘He likes to stand,’ Klavan said. ‘We’ve got to go soon. I just wanted to drop by and see how you’re doing.’

  ‘I’m not sharing the silver, if that’s what you’re after.’

  Klavan shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t think of it. I just don’t want people pestering you. Nobody’s come around asking questions, have they?’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘Just questions. Maybe about the invitation.’

  The old man muttered something in such a thick Austrian accent that Klavan did not catch it.

  ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  ‘I said there’s no damn misfit bothering me except for you.’

  Back out on the street, Dimitrov asked, ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Just my old uncle,’ Klavan said, turning his collar up against a sharp wind.

  ‘And the twenty pieces of silver?’

  Klavan eyed him with a brooding sense of loathing that shut the other up.

  It was, in fact, how Klavan had met old Postling: begging on the street near the water tower on the Wienerberg in Favoriten. It was a spot Klavan had taken a shine to, with a view over the city that made a man feel like he controlled things. He had been there several times, thinking and planning. He’d taken little notice of the old man before, but for some reason today he’d focused on him.

  At first glance, Postling was just one more scrofulous old reprobate, with an aroma coming off him bad enough you’d think it would keep anyone at arm’s length. But it didn’t. This patch of ground was near playing fields and a park that attracted the Viennese, even in winter with skating. He did all right for himself as a beggar. Klavan could see there was something about the old man, a cast of the eye, a glum look that reminded him of his own grandfather, and he’d dropped a half crown in the man’s filthy tin dish. The clatter seemed to wake the geriatric up; he’d spluttered to life.

  ‘Don’t have to make a racket of it,’ he’d said. ‘Now I suppose you expect me to tip my hat to the fine gentleman. Pah. When I get my invite and my tw
enty pieces of silver from the emperor there’ll be no more begging for Hermann Postling.’

  He’d had no idea what the ancient shit was talking about, but Postling was happy enough to fill him in.

  And thus was born his plan.

  A bit of charity that paid off handsomely. Or would, anyway, as long as Dimitrov put a cork in the bottle.

  ‘Just a simple question,’ Dimitrov said, still stung by Klavan’s silence.

  They walked on without speaking. Klavan needed a break from the man. He saw a poster on the side of a factory wall, garish red with huge black lettering and a pair of handcuffs dangling between the letters: ‘See the Great Houdini Defy Death by Drowning!’

  ‘I assume the bullets were at least recovered before burial,’ Gross said, his voice inching toward petulance, Werthen noted.

  The court coroner shook his head. ‘I’ll have to check with my assistant, but I cannot see the importance of that. The driver and the guard were killed. Shot down like dogs at the gates of Schönbrunn. The means of death is clear.’

  Gross rolled his eyes; a low moan escaped his throat as if he were in pain.

  Werthen knew he was about to explode and interceded quickly. ‘I believe Doktor Gross was hoping to examine the spent rounds for any identifying features.’

  The coroner stared at him as if he were speaking Mandarin. Finally he said, ‘I will get back to you after I speak with my assistant.’

  Gross wasted no time in departing the coroner’s office in a discrete corner of the immense Hofburg complex; he stomped down a long hallway like a man bent on violence.

  When Werthen caught up with him, Gross turned on him as if it were he, Werthen, who was about to receive said violence.

  ‘Damned incompetent man,’ he thundered. ‘Just our luck the shooting took place on court property. Herr Doktor Starb, whatever his deficiencies in dress might be, is at least no fool.’

  Gross, Werthen knew, was referring to the director of the city morgue at the General Hospital, Doktor Starb, with whom they had had dealings in the past. But as this killing took place at Schönbrunn, the subsequent autopsy was under the purview of the court morgue, which was not known for its scientific acumen. Likewise the investigation: the bumbling fools had no clue as to who might be responsible for such an outrage. He and Gross had read their report; they could not even come up with a consistent description of the two assailants. In one report they were described as tall, beefy criminal types, in another as dark and sinister-looking denizens of the Balkans.