‘The police have given this very low priority, Herr Schnitzler. It is highly doubtful they would interview you. The affair can be kept from Fräulein Gussman, if that is what troubles you.’
‘I see. Then, why not?’ He sat up on the divan looking quite bright and chipper once again, making Werthen wonder how badly injured the man really was.
‘Well, you see, Mitzi – that was my name for her, Waltraude is an impossible name for an insouciant young thing like her – she and I met one day last summer in the Volksgarten. She had been shopping for combs and dropped her packet. I helped her with it. Such a sweet-faced young woman she was, and so impressed to meet a famous author. I am sure you will not believe this, Advokat, but going out that morning I had not the inkling of desire for another conquest. Indeed I had just left the bed of one. No, it was Mitzi who made the advances. I could sense she was an unhappy young woman, troubled even. Lonely. I took her for afternoon coffee at an out-of-the-way place I know and I found a young woman who wished to improve herself.’
‘You became lovers,’ Werthen prompted.
‘Not that first meeting, no. But she arranged to meet again in the park. It was regular as clockwork on Thursday afternoons. I assumed that was her free afternoon, a young woman in service.’
Werthen did not bother to confirm this.
‘Yes, we soon became lovers and our affair followed the usual trajectory.’ Schnitzler smiled at Werthen knowingly.
‘I am not a man well versed in such things,’ Werthen said. ‘Perhaps you could describe the trajectory . . .’
‘Initial infatuation grows to passion as the young woman gives more and more of herself, opens with more abandon until she becomes totally smitten and obsessed. The sweet early days of dalliance are soon replaced with demands and recriminations. She actually thought we would live together. I had to disabuse her of that notion, but in such a way that our physical union was not disrupted. Delicate maneuvering.’
‘But you have had a good deal of practice at that, no?’
‘Advokat, I do not appreciate your tone. If you do not approve of my life, that is your prerogative. You asked for the truth. You are getting it.’
Werthen was silent for a time. Then, ‘But you finally parted ways?’
Schnitzler nodded. ‘She came to me saying she had run away. That we had to be together now. She had nowhere else to go. I told her in no uncertain terms that such a situation was an impossibility. I sent her away.’
‘Yet she has an uncle in Vienna,’ Werthen said.
‘You know about him, then?’
‘From her parents.’
‘Oh – then you really don’t know about him yet.’
‘Herr Schnitzler, full disclosure please.’
Werthen had requested Bachmann to wait. The parish church of St Johann was near the Meidlinger Haupstrasse; behind the church was the rectory, and a graveyard surrounded the whole. It took Bachmann forty-five minutes to drive there, following the Gürtel most of the way.
The rectory was built on the plan of a small hunting lodge, its exterior walls painted the same creamy ochre as the nearby Schönbrunn Palace. Again Werthen asked Bachmann to wait for him, even though the weather had begun to clear up.
He took the miniature hand of a doorknocker in his and rapped it on the front door. An elderly housekeeper answered his fourth attempt. She opened the door with the timidity one might use opening a coffin. She was small, pinched and desiccated, the corners of her mouth turning down through a gullied landscape of chin wrinkles.
‘Who is it?’ she said in a voice barely more than a whisper.
Werthen drew out one of his business cards and handed it to her.
‘The name is Advokat Karl Werthen. Could you tell Father Hieronymus that I have come to talk to him about his niece.’
She took the card, holding it carefully between thumb and forefinger as if it were infected, squinted at it a moment, and then closed the door.
Werthen waited patiently outside for several minutes, but was just about to use the knocker once more when the door opened.
The housekeeper was there again. ‘He says to come.’
Werthen followed her into the rectory, which smelled strongly of furniture polish. There were three different crucifixes hanging from the walls of the long hallway they traversed. Passing a suite of rooms whose doors were open, Werthen saw that the windows had been thrown wide open and that furniture had been pushed against the wall, the large rugs in the center of the rooms rolled up.
He better understood the housekeeper’s surly mood now; he had interrupted her spring cleaning.
They came to a room at the end of the long hallway and the woman tapped on the door lightly.
‘Please enter,’ a voice at once sonorous and self-satisfied said from the other side.
She nodded her head for Werthen to enter and walked back down the hall to resume her cleaning.
Inside, Werthen found himself in a study made almost unbearably hot by a white-and-green ceramic stove in one corner. The walls were covered with bookshelves filled with books that had impressive leather bindings.
‘Advokat Werthen?’
Werthen followed the voice, and finally found its owner seated at a desk partially hidden behind the door.
‘Please do close the door. Draughts, you know.’
Werthen did so and approached the desk, taking measure of the priest.
He had expected someone of the stature of an uncle and a priest, assuming that he was most likely Frau Moos’s older brother. In the event, Father Hieronymus was obviously her younger brother, much younger. He looked, in fact, as if he still belonged in the seminary.
‘You say you have word from my niece,’ the priest said, not bothering to rise to meet his guest.
‘May I?’ Werthen tapped the back of a chair across the desk from the priest.
‘Please, please.’
Seated, Werthen again assessed the man. Ash-blond hair, thinning on top and brushed off a high forehead. Features fine, almost fragile. Eyes watery blue, delicate hands spread out in front of him on the desk. A fresh manicure. He wore a black cassock and in front of him on the desk lay a Bible and some foolscap.
‘Sorry to interrupt you,’ Werthen said. ‘It appears you are planning your sermon.’
‘You mentioned my niece?’
‘Yes, of course. My apologies.’ On the way here he had thought long and hard about how to handle the questioning. In the end, he took Gross’s advice to heart. Go easy at first; save the accusations for later.
‘From your remarks, I fear that I am bringing you bad news. Your niece is dead. She was murdered over three weeks ago.’
Father Hieronymus leaped out of his chair as if set on fire. Standing, he was tall and thin as a wraith.
‘My God, man! What do you mean? She can’t be dead. She’s just a child.’
‘I assure you, such is the case. I visited her parents yesterday; they had not heard the news either. Your sister rather thought you would know, seeing that she lives with you.’
‘Lived,’ Father Hieronymus said. ‘She ran away months ago. I did not have the heart to tell her parents. I did my best to find her, but what could I do? If a young lady wishes to hide herself in the metropolis, there is nothing a simple parish priest can do.’
‘Did you notify the police when she left? Perhaps someone stole her away.’
He sat again, the shock beginning to wear off. He brusquely dismissed Werthen’s suggestion. ‘Waltraude? Unlikely. She was not the type to be stolen away.’
Then he looked at Werthen with suspicion.
‘What business, Advokat, is any of this to you?’
‘I have been retained to look into the death of the young lady.’
‘By whom? And are not the police already investigating? Murdered, you say?’
It was entirely possible that Father Hieronymus was being honest in his avowal that he did not know of his niece’s death. After all, the newspaper accounts identified
the unfortunate young woman merely as ‘Fräulein Mitzi,’ not Waltraude Moos.
Werthen considered this quickly, then took the priest’s questions in reverse order. ‘Yes, murdered. Strangled and left naked in the Prater. And no, the police do not concern themselves over much with the death of a prostitute. Lastly, I have been retained by a good friend of the deceased who wants to see justice done.’
‘Are you mad? Waltraude a prostitute? Impossible!’
‘After she left here – left you – she was discovered on the streets by a recruiter for a well-known bordello. Until her death, she made her living playing the role of an innocent schoolgirl.’
Definitely past the time for going easy now, Werthen thought.
‘Which role she appears to have learned from an excellent teacher.’ From what Schnitzler had related to him of Mitzi’s story, such abuse had begun almost from the beginning of her stay in Vienna with her uncle.
Father Hieronymus cast Werthen a look of such animosity that the lawyer was happy the man was just a priest and not a shaman.
‘What are you insinuating?’
An innocent man would tell me to get the hell out, Werthen thought.
‘I know why your niece ran away from here,’ he said. ‘There are witnesses.’
‘Get out of my rectory this instant.’
Too late for that now, Werthen thought.
‘And the police might also be interested in knowing the background of the young woman so brutally murdered. As well as the whereabouts of those close to her on the night she was killed.’
The priest looked as if the air had suddenly been sucked out of him. He visibly slumped in his chair, his eyes darting this way and that as if looking for an escape.
Werthen kept applying the pressure. ‘The archdiocese might also be interested in such information.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘The truth.’
‘I didn’t kill Waltraude. I couldn’t have harmed her. She was my niece and I cared deeply for her.’
‘Not enough to keep her safe, it seems. Sounds more like lust than love.’
‘I’ve given you the truth, now please leave. I have no idea who killed my niece, but if you find him I should like to know. Such a creature would be in need of the succour of confession. What more can you want from me?’
What in fact did he want from the man? A confession? By the looks of him, Uncle Hieronymus was not a killer. He had preyed on the helpless, had taken advantage of family trust; but he appeared too weak to kill. He did not have the blood for it. However, there was that moment of terror that made him leap from his seat; the evil glare he sent Werthen’s way.
Even if guilty, though, it was doubtful the priest was going to confess.
Did Werthen want contrition? Perhaps. But he knew instinctively that this was not the sort of man to admit sins. Revenge for Mitzi? Again, perhaps.
Werthen had spent only a few days dwelling on the life of Fräulein Mitzi, but already he felt empathy and compassion for her, farmed out from her home as one mouth too many to feed and sent off to her uncle in Vienna, a man of god who should have made a safe haven for her. Instead, he took advantage of the young woman in the vilest way – threatening, according to Schnitzler, to send her to an orphanage if she did not satisfy him sexually. And then there was Schnitzler, whom she looked up to and adored. Her first love, in all likelihood. But he too betrayed her, sent her away in her hour of need to make a living on the streets. The only one in this sorry mess to really love the girl, it seemed, had been the madam who sold the girl’s flesh to the highest bidder.
Yes, revenge, vengeance, justice, call it what you may. Mitzi, Werthen thought, deserved it.
In his mind he saw again the two contrasting sides of the wardrobe in her room: the virginal schoolgirl clothes of Waltraude and the vampish nightwear of Mitzi.
Why had she died? For the sins of Waltraude or of Mitzi?
‘Now I beg you to leave,’ Hieronymus said. ‘There is a group of parishioners due here any moment to discuss the Pfingsten decor-ations for the church.’
Whit Sunday, Pentecost, would take place in just a few days’ time. Though not a religious man, Werthen was angered to think of this sham priest officiating at such a service.
Leave the anger and outrage for later, he finally told himself. For now, focus on procedure.
‘Did she have any friends when she lived here?’
‘Of course not. She was my housekeeper. There was no time for such things.’
‘Would it surprise you to learn that she had a lover during that time?’
‘Why do you wish to torment me? I have answered your questions . . .’
‘I would like to see her room.’
‘There is nothing to see. I have a new housekeeper and she now has the room. The few pieces of clothing Waltraude left behind when she ran away I threw into the bin.’
‘And you did not introduce her to any of your colleagues?’
‘She was my housekeeper!’
‘And your niece. And your lover.’
This time when Hieronymus leaped out of his chair, he had a mission. He strode to the door and held it open.
‘I am finished with this interview, Advokat. And if you dare threaten me again with allegations of impropriety, I shall have the full power of the church come down upon you. The diocesan bishop is a personal acquaintance of mine. Now good day to you.’
Werthen figured he was lucky with the information he had got and did not wish to push his luck.
‘I am sure we will see one another again,’ he said as he was leaving. ‘You might also try to establish your whereabouts on the night of April 30.’
Hieronymus slammed the door behind him. Werthen did not wait to be shown out, but made his way to the front door and outside, where Bachmann was waiting, nibbling on a wurst Semmel. The sun had come out.
‘Where to now, Advokat?’
‘The office, Herr Bachmann, if you please. And take it slowly. I need some fresh air.’
ELEVEN
‘Just what is it you want, Gross?’
‘I thought you would never ask.’ Gross eyed Minister Brockhurst, and told him plainly his request.
Brockhurst pursed his lips and raised his brows in silent denial, feigning surprise in the same way he had as a boy when they were growing up together in Graz.
Even back then, Brockhurst had been a bully, the leader of a band of lower-middle-class children who followed him with abject obedience. The son of a local magistrate, he had attempted to recruit Gross into his ranks, but Gross would have none of it. Already at the age of eight Gross was an avowed leader, not a follower. And he distrusted Brockhurst, who seemed to speak out of both sides of his mouth; sweetness and light one moment, a brow-beating tyrant the next.
Brockhurst would dispatch his crew of true believers to follow cooks on their shopping rounds, in order to find the secrets of the kitchens of the wealthy or discover which maids were taking kickbacks from shops, unbeknownst to their employers. In this manner, Brockhurst became a veritable font of both valuable and downright silly information on the doings of the top twenty families of Graz. These families laughingly referred to themselves as the ‘kilo’: as compared to England’s élite society, referred to as the ‘ton’.
Brockhurst could tell you what the von Dresslers were having for dinner that night or what toiletries the Kneizler family favored, or which domestic might have something to hide in any of these great houses.
What he did with such information on Graz’s society families, Gross had no idea. But the servants were another matter. Brockhurst lost his virginity to one such young maid, who feared for her position lest the young master tell her employers of her secret arrangement with the poulterer, who paid her five crowns every quarter for bringing the family custom his way at slightly inflated prices.
All in all, this had been a perfect training ground for the future spy – for that is what Brockhurst was, despite his protestations to the
contrary.
‘After all, I am only a simple bureaucrat,’ he finally said in response to Gross’s request. ‘I hardly have access to such information.’
‘Let us cut through the blather, Brockhurst. Life is too short for it. We both know what the other is about.’
‘What does it matter to you whether the unfortunate von Ebersdorf was a diplomat or up to his eyes in espionage? He is dead. Full stop.’
‘It matters because it figures in our investigation.’
‘Into the murder of this prostitute of yours?’
‘Of von Ebersdorf’s, actually. He was her regular customer. Does that not raise any alarm bells for you?’
‘My God, Gross. Are you suggesting that a man of von Ebersdorf’s quality, whether spy or diplomat, would indulge in pillow talk with a tart? That he would divulge state secrets in between bouts of bedroom callisthenics?’
‘The thought had crossed my mind.’
‘Because of the coincidence in timing of their deaths?’
Gross said nothing, knowing that Brockhurst was surely experiencing the same suspicions.
There followed a long silence, punctuated only by the ticking of the baroque cloisonné clock on Brockhurst’s fastidiously organized walnut work table.
‘Russia desk,’ Brockhurst suddenly said. ‘But you didn’t hear it from me.’
‘Chief?’
Brockhurst nodded. ‘A family man,’ he added.
Gross understood the veiled threat: do not publicize the dead man’s connection to the Bower.
‘We were aware of Joachim’s peccadilloes, of course.’ He fixed Gross with eyes as grey and unforgiving as granite.
Gross felt a sudden chill, wondering if he were asking Brockhurst about the wrong death. Had he and his minions eliminated the source of the peccadilloes?
He returned the stare, and finally decided to lead the interview in a different direction.
‘Seeing that you are sharing secrets, perhaps you can aid me in another investigation – involving Herr Schnitzler.’
‘Our national treasure.’ Brockhurst said it with dripping sarcasm. ‘What’s your connection?’
The Keeper of Hands Page 10
