The Third Place

by J Sydney Jones

  ‘He’s planning on poisoning the water supply,’ Werthen said.

  Gross did not bother with a reply, but opened the gate surrounding the tower. The massive front doors were secured with a padlock of gargantuan proportions. Undeterred, he began walking around the unguarded, untended building. Of course, there would be no one in attendance: this was Easter weekend. Even the trams were idle.

  The building was banded with a series of latticed windows ten feet high each. One of these in the back of the building had been shattered.

  ‘He’s been here already,’ Werthen said. ‘He never gave us a chance to pay his ransom.’

  ‘I don’t like this, Werthen.’ Gross stepped first through the window, which led to a walkway around what appeared to be a huge indoor swimming pool.

  Gross looked into its depths. ‘The water supply for a quarter of the citizens of Vienna, Werthen.’

  ‘No.’ Werthen was not listening to Gross. Instead, his eyes focused on the rim of the tank not four feet from where they were standing.

  A glass vial lay there next to a paper plug. The vial was empty.

  Gross looked at these for a moment, neither he nor Werthen speaking. Gross suddenly took out a pocket handkerchief and, holding it with both hands, began unfolding the crumpled stopper.

  ‘What are you doing, Gross? There could still be bacilli on it.’

  But the criminologist did not stop until he had it laid out flat and could see the words scrawled on it:

  This has been fun, Doktor Gross. I hope you too are enjoying my little puzzle game. Feel free to keep the money yourself. But do carry on! Carry on to the third place!

  ‘This is a disaster,’ Montenuovo said. ‘What is to be done?’

  ‘Quarantine the districts the tower supplies,’ Gross said. ‘Immediately. This is no time for half measures.’

  ‘How can we be sure he dumped the contents of that vial into the water?’ Inspector Drechsler said. ‘Perhaps it was one he had already used for the atomizer – just a bluff.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that, do you, Inspector?’ Werthen asked. ‘Not after seeing what Klavan is capable of last time we went up against him.’

  The tall inspector let out a sigh long enough to empty his frame.

  ‘A disaster,’ Montenuovo repeated. He looked incapable of action, stunned by the news.

  ‘Prince,’ Gross said, trying to get through to the man. ‘We have no time to waste. Delay will cost lives.’

  The telephone on Montenuovo’s desk jingled to life. The prince could only stare at it as if it were a bomb about to explode.

  ‘Prince Montenuovo,’ Werthen said. ‘Should I answer it?’

  Montenuovo sank back in his chair, waving a listless hand at the phone in assent.

  Picking up the receiver, Werthen announced himself and then listened to the man on the other end.

  ‘Just a moment,’ he said into the speaker, then handed it to Gross. ‘It is Professor Doktor Nothnagel.’

  Gross took the telephone. ‘Gross here.’

  He listened for a time. Werthen could hear the excited tones of Nothnagel on the other end. Gross nodded once. ‘You are sure of this?’ More loud speaking from Nothnagel, loud enough to make Gross move the earpiece more distant from his ear. Another nod.

  ‘Very well, Professor. And many thanks.’

  He put down the phone, looking grave.

  ‘What is it, Gross?’ Werthen asked.

  He seemed to come out of a momentary reverie, blinking his eyes as he spoke.

  ‘It was Nothnagel at the General Hospital.’

  ‘We know that Gross. What did he say? Have there already been cases of the plague?’

  ‘No, not at all. Quite the contrary. In fact, the researchers inspected the two cologne atomizers and found no living bacilli. That made them curious, and after re-examining the entire batch of plague bacilli from which Klavan stole his vials, they conclude that the bacteria was no longer viable.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Drechsler asked.

  ‘It is dead. It is harmless.’

  ‘So even if he dumped it …’

  Gross shook his head. ‘No. It could do nothing.’

  ‘Well, that is tremendous news,’ Drechsler said with more volubility than he usually showed. ‘Why so glum, Gross?’

  ‘This is wrong. We have been playing Klavan’s game all along. He led me to the note in the hotel. Then he expected us to track Postling and discover his connection to the water tower. The note he left there proves that. This is not over.’

  ‘But where next?’ Werthen asked.

  ‘It’s in his note. The “third place.”’

  They wasted the next hour scouring first the Café Burg and then Werthen’s café, the Frauenhuber. No sign of Klavan.

  And then Gross did a very uncharacteristic thing. He took off his derby and swatted his thigh with it in disgust. ‘I’ve been a fool. It’s not about cafés. It’s another type of third place. Home, office and country home.’

  Gross gave him a look filled with fear and pity.

  ‘God, no,’ Werthen cried out. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘I fear it is so, Werthen. Call them quickly. Tell them to lock the doors.’

  ‘There is no phone,’ Werthen said. This had been a solace, that their country home would be a sanctuary from the outside world.

  ‘The gasthaus across the road, then.’

  Another shake of the head from Werthen.

  ‘Then call Franz Ferdinand and tell him. We will need his automobile. And we could use a contingent of his men. Quickly, man. There is no time to lose.’

  ‘I am afraid you lose once again, gentlemen,’ Klavan said, picking up the final trick with the Pagat. This was truly his day. The women were safely tied up by their hands and feet. and gagged, the child locked away in a back bedroom. She had given up long ago with her useless screaming. The two men sitting at the table with him were also tied up, hands in back and feet bound, but he had not gagged them. They needed to talk to give him instructions what to do with their cards, which he held up for them to look at. He did not peek into their hands; he played fair. This slowed the game no end, but then life was filled with all sorts of obstacles.

  He was enjoying himself. He would enjoy it even more when Werthen and Gross arrived.

  ‘You are a despicable person,’ Herr von Werthen said. There was a strip of torn sheet wrapped around his head from where Klavan had hit him with the butt of the pistol upon his entrance.

  ‘I do appreciate the recognition,’ he replied. ‘Now, shall I deal another hand?’

  ‘He will expect us to come storming in,’ Gross said as the rode in the open car. ‘He is feeling very good about himself at this moment, I am sure. He is winning, as far as he reckons. He does not know about the inactive bacilli, however. It is our one weapon.’

  ‘I don’t care about any of that,’ Werthen said. ‘All I want is for my family to be safe.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll be safe until we get there. Klavan wants a Götterdämmerung, not a simple homicide here and there.’

  Duncan, who was accompanying them, nodded in agreement.

  Werthen seemed to come out his shock, Gross’s last words finally reaching him.

  ‘If that is the case, I think I might have a plan.’

  ‘Why so glum, ladies?’ Klavan said as he finished another winning hand.

  The three women were lined up against the wall near the door. Berthe glared at the creature. She was also quietly working at the knots binding her wrists behind her. When her father-in-law was forced at gunpoint to tie her, Berthe did not let her arms go back as far as they could. Thus, now she could work the slack on the rope, and had managed to wriggle a fingernail into the knot. For the last several minutes she had been loosening it slowly and painfully.

  ‘Such a pity to have it all end this way.’ He shuffled the cards with a cascading, ratcheting sound, shoved the two blocks of cards into one deck, knocked the edges in line on the table, di
vided the deck again and shuffled once more.

  ‘And such a waste, too.’ He looked straight into the faces of each woman in turn, ignoring the men, who were now gagged. ‘Advokat Werthen and Doktor Gross let you all down, did you know that? Oh, yes. They had me in their grips and were not clever enough to tighten their fingers. Thanks go to Princess Dumbroski with her hiding compartment behind the bookcase, but credit is also due to the stupidity of those two men. Only a matter of inches from me and they let me go.’ He shook his head.

  Berthe would not be baited; she continued to work on the knots. She also filed away the information about Princess Dumbroski for later.

  There would be a later, she reassured herself.

  They parked the automobile a quarter mile from the farm, not wanting to risk Klavan hearing them approach. The driver remained in the machine while Gross and Duncan took up position as planned and Werthen made his way on foot to the house.

  He was not going to wait for the rest of the archduke’s men. What good could they do? This battle would not be about numbers but strategy.

  Werthen was sure that Klavan was in the house and holding the others captive, waiting. Waiting for him and Gross to figure out the last of his puzzles and to come in a rush to save the day.

  He was unarmed and defenseless as he walked down the long drive to his home.

  A lone man in the flat landscape trudging to what fate held in store for him.

  Klavan heard the footsteps in the courtyard and took up position behind the door, next to Berthe. She heard the footsteps as well and desperately wanted to shout out a warning. She dug her fingertip now into the knot, but could not open it. She began wriggling and Klavan put the gun to her temple.

  ‘Move once more and you die,’ he hissed.

  Feet sounded on the steps, a key fitted in the lock and the door opened.

  Werthen’s voice came from the other side. ‘I’m unarmed, Herr Klavan. I’ve come for my family.’

  Berthe could see Klavan flinch at the use of his real name, like an insect exposed to the sunlight by a lifted rock.

  He slammed the door into Werthen with sudden force. There was a groan and Klavan dragged him quickly inside, shutting and bolting the door behind him.

  Blood streamed down Werthen’s face from where the door had struck him.

  Klavan held the gun on him. ‘How nice of you to join my little party, Advokat.’

  Berthe’s eyes grew wide; she wanted to somehow communicate to her husband with them.

  Werthen quickly surveyed the scene: men and women tied up. He forced a smile at Berthe.

  ‘My daughter? Where is she?’ He tried to move closer into the room toward the windows on the exterior wall, but Klavan waved at him with his gun to stay where he was.

  ‘She’s safe enough, the little brat. Cried her eyes out in a back bedroom. Now where is your faithful colleague? Didn’t have the heart for the final chase?’

  ‘He left once we discovered the bacilli you stole were useless.’

  Klavan said nothing, but the gun wavered in his hand minutely.

  ‘Professor Doktor Nothnagel at the General Hospital let us know himself. The whole batch had already died off by the time you stole the vials. There’s no need for a quarantine on the water from the Favoriten water tower. Gross thought it more important to get in touch with your employers in Belgrade than waste time with your juvenile games.’

  ‘The silver-throated Advokat. Telling lies like all of you do. Gross was too cowardly to come face-to-face with me. No matter. I’ll see to him later. For now, I guess I’ll just have to settle for you.’

  He pulled out a hollow rubber ball from his pocket; Werthen could see a tube attached to it.

  ‘I assume you know what this is?’ Klavan said.

  Werthen had read about such explosive devices; anarchists used them to self-detonate rather than be taken alive by the police. He nodded, and then grabbed his wounded head, seeming to stumble deeper into the room to his left, forcing Klavan to alter his position as well.

  ‘You say you want your family. Well, here they are. You can watch one of them die. Who shall it be? Try to stop me and I squeeze my magic ball. Then we all go to hell together.’

  Berthe’s finger nudged deeper into the knot; it began to loosen now as Klavan approached the line of men and women.

  ‘Who shall I start with?’

  ‘Lie still, Doktor Gross,’ Duncan ordered. ‘I can’t get a clean shot if you wiggle.’

  Gross was supine on the grass, hands over his ears, and a bug had decided to trek across his cheek – hence the twitch. Duncan was using him as a makeshift tripod, the rifle barrel propped over his back, perpendicular to his body so that the blast of the shot would not burst his eardrums. With his ears cupped by his hands, he could barely hear Duncan’s command.

  ‘There was a moment there,’ Duncan murmured. ‘I can see Advokat Werthen but not the others. I think it was Klavan, but just for an instant.’

  ‘Take your shot, man,’ Gross insisted.

  ‘But what if it is one of the others?’

  ‘They’ll be tied up,’ Gross said. Or dead, he thought.

  Klavan hovered menacingly over Berthe, the pistol pointed straight at her head.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, Klavan,’ Werthen pleaded. ‘There is still time for you to get away before the archduke’s men arrive.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Advokat.’ He looked from his intended victim to Werthen with an expression approaching sexual ecstasy. ‘Your kind never would. This is what it is all about. This moment. This supreme moment.’

  Keep talking, you bastard, Berthe thought, loosening the knot further.

  ‘You’ve won,’ Werthen said. ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  Klavan let out a howl of laughter. ‘You call this winning? I failed to kill that decrepit old man you call emperor, and now you tell me that the plague bacilli was also a failure. This is my victory.’

  He nudged the gun closer to Berthe’s head. The others lined up against the wall made grunting protests through their gags.

  Werthen knew it was a lie, that Klavan would kill them all. But part of him also doubted. If he jumped him, Klavan would squeeze his damned ball. But what if that was a bluff?

  What if? What if?

  His mind reeled. It was time for action, not thought. He would not let Klavan kill his wife. That was all there was to it. No more balancing of one life against another. This was Berthe’s life and obviously Duncan was unable to get a clear shot.

  It was up to him now. He braced himself as he watched Klavan’s finger tighten on the pistol.

  Berthe slipped her right hand out of the rope and brought it up suddenly with the middle knuckle foremost between Klavan’s spread legs, digging it into his scrotum with satisfying fury. He let out a strangled cry, stumbling backward, and suddenly dark liquid matted the front of his loden jacket followed immediately by a cracking sound from outside as if a whip were snapping. Werthen was immediately by his side, kicking the pistol clear and pulling the rubber tube out of the ball just as Klavan squeezed it in a death grip.

  He looked up at Werthen with eyes already growing glassy and transfixed. A smile crossed his face, and he was dead.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  They were all gathered in Prince Montenuovo’s office at the Hofburg two days later as arranged. It had been Franz Ferdinand who had talked his uncle, the emperor, into this final act. The old man owed Werthen and Gross, and by extension, Werthen’s wife, Berthe. She had remembered something, a small comment, an unguarded utterance that changed everything.

  Besides Berthe, Werthen, Gross, Franz Ferdinand and Prince Montenuovo – looking angry and annoyed – and Inspector Drechsler, there were others present who were also involved in the case. There was Herr Karl’s hausfrau, Frau Polnay; his old friend, Czerny; the failed lawyer, Bachman, who was once a suspect in the death of Herr Karl; Herr Otto, who had initiated the investigation by bringing Falk to Werthen; and there was also the
nephew of the murdered Frau Geldner, August Kaufmann.

  These guests had no idea why they had been summoned to the Hofburg, but an imperial summons was not to be ignored.

  Berthe waited until they were all seated in chairs added to the office for this very purpose. She would be the master of ceremonies. ‘Your discovery, your unveiling,’ her husband had insisted.

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘This all started with the death of a head waiter,’ she said. ‘An insignificant sort of man, except to his loyal customers for whom he provided a comfortable, gemütlich third place. His murder would have escaped attention, listed as accidental, were it not for an eye witness, Herr Falk, who also subsequently was murdered. One assumes the ruthless Herr Klavan – who apparently talked with the unfortunate Herr Karl on the very day he was murdered – was fearful lest Falk might remember him, might somehow identify him if ever Karl’s death were suspected to be a homicide. So Falk had to die, too. Or was there another reason for Falk’s death? But we will get to that presently.’

  As she spoke, Berthe eyed each of the guests in turn, searching their faces for a reaction, any change of expression. And she thought she saw one, then plunged on with her description.

  ‘Herr Falk subsequently came to my husband with the information of what he had witnessed. He feared going to the police, thinking they would suspect him. My husband looked into the matter, searching for people who might want Herr Karl out of the way. Motive seemed a problem, until it was discovered that Herr Karl was not all he seemed. Indeed, he was involved in a series of kickback schemes with his fellow workers and café suppliers. But would that be something kill for? Then, other events impinged. The investigation of Herr Karl’s death took second place to a more pressing matter. Someone was trying to kill the emperor.’

  Another dramatic pause.

  ‘It must have been during that conversation with Herr Karl that Klavan produced this little slip of paper.’ She held up the paper with ‘Postling’ scrawled on it. ‘It is clear that he demanded of Herr Karl that he convince his old friend, Oberstabelmeister Czerny,’ she nodded at him, ‘to add Herr Postling to the list of pensioners for the Maundy Thursday ceremony. Herr Czerny himself confirmed that this was the case.’