He knew immediately what they were up to – summoning a controller. This was one of the oldest coded signs in the operation manuals. But what were they playing at? Whose controller? The logical deduction would be that it had directly to do with the playwright Schnitzler whom they had just visited. Schmidt considered it: a playwright would have easy access to international contacts. He could attend conferences abroad and openings of his plays without anyone batting an eyelid. Not a bad cover at all for a secret agent. But what could be the draw for one such as Arthur Schnitzler? Schmidt wondered.
Since making that mistake about names, Schmidt had studied Schnitzler, just as he had looked up Doktor Gross and Advokat Werthen in old editions of the Viennese newspapers. Schnitzler had recently caused something of a furore in Vienna with his play about a cowardly lieutenant, afraid even to challenge a baker to a duel. Not the best candidate for an agent, one would think, unless that play was in itself a form of cover.
Schmidt was all too familiar with the motivations for his agents. There were those who offered their services out of patriotic zeal. Usually their perceptions were so tainted that one could view their information only with great skepticism. Then there were those in it for a profit, whose reports were generally inflated as a result. And there were the reluctant agents, like Forstl, coerced into service through blackmail. They found a thousand reasons to drag their heels, resentful of their new masters and conflicted about their allegiances.
And me? Schmidt thought. The agent with something to prove, with a need for revenge. Was that Schnitzler’s motivation, too?
Schmidt would find out.
He waited in place for two hours before contact was made. A fresh-faced young recruit, by the look of him, though dressed in civilian clothes. Looked barely old enough to put a razor to those apple cheeks. He walked by the glove twice before stopping on the third pass, looking over his shoulder but failing to notice Schmidt, now busily reading a newspaper on a nearby park bench. Schmidt kept watch through a small hole he had cut in the centerfold.
The youth quickly took the glove, tucked it into a pocket, and headed out of the park towards the Hofburg.
Schmidt followed him through interior courtyards to the main door of the War Ministry. With another quick glance over his shoulder, the agent entered.
More and more interesting, thought Schmidt.
TWENTY-NINE
It was the solstice, and for Werthen the longest day of the year was dragging out interminably. Schnitzler had explained that someone checked the fence daily, late in the afternoon. If the glove was in place, then the meet would automatically be set for the next day, at two in the afternoon at the Grillparzer monument.
It was now ten past two. The glove was no longer in place, but that could mean anything, Werthen assumed. Some pedestrian might have taken it, or the controller. But if the latter, then why did no one appear? They should have had Schnitzler make the meeting. Was the controller one of the idle strollers in the park, waiting for Schnitzler to appear before he did so himself?
Werthen was about to suggest the same to Gross, when a man approached the monument. Clean-shaven, he carried himself like a soldier, though he was dressed in a linen suit and straw boater.
Werthen nodded at Berthe, who had taken up position under a nearby tree. She had the Brownie camera in her hands but she was not operating it, too busy staring at the man with a startled expression on her face. Werthen nodded at her to take the photo; they would not have another chance, for the man was beginning to look nervous.
Just as he thought this, the man abruptly turned and made his way out of the park. As planned, Werthen followed him, but professional training ultimately won out and Werthen lost him in the welter of interior courtyards at the Hofburg.
Gross and Berthe were waiting for him at the park.
‘Did you get the photo?’ Werthen asked.
Gross answered the question with another. ‘You lost him?’
Werthen nodded, then looked at his wife.
‘Oh, I took the photo. But there was no need.’
Werthen looked from Berthe to Gross, puzzled.
‘It was the watcher from the Hotel Metropole,’ Berthe said. ‘And we know who he works for. His name is Captain Forstl and he is on the staff of the Bureau.’
Schmidt watched the farce with some amusement. He assumed that the lawyer had lost the agent. Schmidt would not have lost him. But there was no need to follow; he already knew where the agent was headed.
And by the look of the animated discussion, it appeared that the lawyer’s wife and the criminologist had recognized the agent while the lawyer was fruitlessly tailing the man.
It was also apparent from the slight bulge in the criminologist’s right jacket pocket that he expected trouble, for he was armed and ready to defend himself.
Schmidt shook his head. This was not right. None of it. He had had enough of clearing up Forstl’s messes. If this blew up now, it could easily be traced back to St Petersburg; Forstl would surely say anything, sell anyone, to save his own skin.
His masters had made it clear to Schmidt that they were not ready yet for an altercation with the Habsburgs. Not until they had built enough railway lines to mobilize their army – and that could take another decade. Russia possessed the largest army in Europe, but this would be no use unless they could deploy the troops in a timely manner.
Another disgusted shake of the head. Schmidt rose and turned his back to the lawyer and his wife and Gross before closing his newspaper. He headed for the nearest tram stop to travel to the telegraph office at the South Railway Station. He would need to send a coded message to St Petersburg. He did not want to make this decision on his own.
Later that evening, after Frieda had been put to bed, Berthe, Werthen and Gross gathered in the sitting room, husband and wife shoulder to shoulder on the leather couch, and Gross occupying one of the Biedermeier chairs. They had brandies in their hands, but no one had taken a sip.
‘For me it is only too clear,’ Berthe insisted. ‘All the roads lead to this Captain Forstl.’
Gross blew air in derision. ‘Bosh! We have merely accomplished a certain degree of triangulation. But detection is not trigonometry.’
‘And there is nothing clearly linking Forstl to the Bower operation,’ Werthen agreed. ‘Schnitzler’s suggestions may well have fallen on deaf ears at the Bureau after the scandal of Lieutenant Gustl.’
Berthe took a sip of her brandy. ‘You say it yourself all the time, Gross. Too many coincidences. Sometimes you men cannot see the woods for the trees.’
Gross suddenly sat bolt upright in his chair, looking for all the world as if he had swallowed a partridge.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! That’s it. I think you may have something there, Frau Meisner.’
‘How do you mean, Gross?’ Werthen said, setting down his glass on a side table, as if ready to apply a life-saving slap to the man’s back.
‘The letter,’ he said, twirling his right forefinger through the air like a conductor. ‘The one to the girl’s father that includes the word “copse”. That one, fetch it.’
Werthen was too tired to respond with irony to this impolite demand, but simply got up and went to his office, riffled through the drawers until he found the relevant documents, and returned to the sitting room. He could hear Frieda’s regular breathing from her room as he passed it.
Gross was pacing about the room. He tore the papers out of Werthen’s hands and placed them side by side: the one in the original Volapük, and the other Frau von Suttner’s translation.
‘It’s this section,’ Gross said, stabbing the paper with a forefinger. ‘The well-tended Copse says I am a clever girl! I love my patriotic work. That section is the key to it.’
‘And it still makes no sense,’ Werthen said.
‘Assuming that it has been translated correctly,’ Gross added.
‘But how can we check—’ Werthen stopped in mid-sentence, seeing what Gross was getting at.
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br /> Berthe, too, understood. ‘Herr Moos!’
‘Quite right,’ Gross said. ‘I would assume the man would be more than happy to aid us in our inquiries. I propose a visit to the Landesgericht prison tomorrow.’
‘I’m afraid it will have to wait,’ Werthen said.
‘Why the devil should it?’ Gross boomed.
‘Because tomorrow is Saturday, and there are no visiting times on Saturday or Sunday.’
Gross merely harrumphed, as if Werthen himself had set the visiting hours at the prison.
On Monday morning Jakob Moos sat slump-shouldered on his bunk in the cell at the Liesel, the Landesgericht prison. Moos was being held in B block, for murder suspects.
The sallow-faced guard did not want to allow them into the cell at first, warning them that Moos had murdered a man with his bare hands.
‘It was in a moment of rage,’ Werthen replied. ‘There was no premeditation.’
‘It’s still the noose for him, killing a priest,’ the guard replied, sniffling as he took out his keys. ‘And don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Another sniff, as if he was suffering from hay fever.
A call to Inspector Drechsler had allowed this visit but, to be honest, Werthen was not so sure about Moos. His one other meeting with the man had not gone well.
The prisoner sat hunched like a brooding bear, his massive fingers intertwined in his lap. He did not look up at the sound of the key in the lock, nor when Gross and Werthen entered. The guard remained outside the cell, his back turned to them, a snuffle emitting from him occasionally.
‘Herr Moos,’ Gross said, ‘we need your help.’
The bowed head did not move. He was dressed in standard grey convict jacket and pants, both of them at least a size too small. The man’s thick wrists and ankles showed. His hair had been shorn as if he were already convicted.
‘It is in regard to your daughter, Waltraude,’ Gross added.
This brought a low moan from Moos. Werthen was fearful that Gross might enrage the man after all.
‘We are trying to discover who killed her. Won’t you help us?’
The large hands flexed as if wringing the neck of a chicken.
Werthen tapped Gross’s arm in warning, but the criminologist plunged on.
‘I think I understand you, Herr Moos. Your daughter disappointed you. It is as if she was no longer your daughter before her cruel death. I have a son, you see, and we have been estranged for years.’
Werthen was shocked to hear Gross mention his only son, Otto. It was true, there was no love lost between father and son, but it was unlike the criminologist to mention his wayward son to a stranger.
‘But were my son to be so brutally murdered, I would want vengeance, I assure you.’ Gross spoke with real passion, Werthen thought. ‘I would want the killer brought to justice. That is what any father would want, isn’t it, Herr Moos?’
Moos suddenly stood upright, a movement so forceful it caught the attention of the guard who jolted himself into a semblance of action.
‘What is it you want?’ His voice thundered in the small cell; he towered over them.
Werthen stepped back a pace, but Gross held his ground. A tall man, Gross was not accustomed to looking up at others, but he had to do so with Moos.
‘We need your assistance with this letter from your daughter.’ Gross quickly drew out the letter in question, unfolding it for Moos.
The big man glanced at it for a moment, surprise on his face. ‘Where did you get this?’
Werthen said, ‘Your wife gave it to me when I visited your farm.’
Moos nodded his head. ‘Yes, I remember you. The fancy man from the city come to tell us our Traudl was dead.’
But he said it in a resigned tone, slumping back on the bunk, the letter in his hands.
Werthen turned to the guard, shaking his head. The policeman put the truncheon he had drawn back in its sheath.
‘I have underlined the passage we are concerned with, Herr Moos,’ Gross gently explained.
A sudden smile crossed Moos’s lined face. A strangled chuckle emitted from his mouth.
‘What is it, Herr Moos?’
Moos looked up at the two of them, his eyes watering. ‘She was always the bright one, our Traudl. The only one to really learn the language properly. So smart, she was. Such a waste.’ He lowered his head, choking back a sob, the paper trembling in his hands.
They waited a moment, not wishing to hurry him. It was perhaps the first time he had actually allowed himself to grieve the loss of his daughter.
He looked up again, his jaw muscles working. ‘We had a game, you see,’ Moos explained. ‘A little play with words, changing people’s names into a sort of code. A silly childish game, really, but it was our private fun.’
‘Is there a name here, Herr Moos?’ Werthen asked. ‘This passage has been translated as “the well-tended copse”. But that makes no sense, of course.’
An actual laugh came from Moos now. ‘To you folks, maybe not. But it is close.’
Then suspicion crossed his face. ‘You think this name is important?’
‘We think,’ Gross said, ‘that this is the person who . . .’ Gross hesitated a moment, wondering how much detail to supply.
‘The person responsible for leading Waltraude astray,’ Werthen said, simplifying matters. ‘And perhaps also her killer.’
Moos set his jaw again, nodding. ‘Let’s get it right then. Like I say, whoever tried to translate this got it right and wrong. It’s this word here,’ Moos pointed to the word smafot on the page, showing it to Gross and Werthen.
‘That’s made up. Traudl put together a couple of words in Volapük to get that. Sma, that means small; and fot, for woods or forest. So your translator got the small part right, as a copse is a small wood. Problem is fot. Volapük is an economical language and, like I say, fot can mean either woods or forest. In one meaning it is a wild forest or wood, but in another meaning we have forest like where you cut timber, like farming almost.’
‘That’s the “well-tended” part?’ Werthen said.
Moos nodded. ‘Like I say, right and wrong.’
‘And your daughter meant “little forest”?’ Gross said. ‘Forstl.’
‘That’s my guess. Mean anything to you?’
Gross sucked in air mightily. ‘Oh yes, Herr Moos.’
‘Wait. You don’t think he’s the one come visiting, do you?’
Werthen and Gross looked quizzical.
‘Another man from the city. He came several days after you did,’ he said, looking at Werthen. ‘Acting like he was handing out samples of perfume. I gave him short shrift, sent him on his way. Him and his bottles of fancy-smelling whale vomit.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘What do all city folk look like? Dressed in their suits and hats, so you can’t even see them.’
‘Tall, short, slim, fat?’ Werthen prompted.
‘Oh, he was a man you would never notice,’ Moos said. ‘Neither tall nor short, thin or fat. Almost like he had no features. But he wasn’t Austrian, I can tell you that. I’m a student of languages, and he spoke German like . . . Well, he didn’t learn it from his mama. Too clear, like; too formal. Not just city formal, but from foreign parts.’
Werthen was immediately reminded of Frau Ignatz’s description of the man in the stairwell at Habsburgergasse the night before the explosion; and Duncan’s description of the man with the sandwich board outside their flat. Everyman; the man who blended into the background.
‘But I did notice something about him. His hands. When he went to gather up the bottles of perfume he’d tried to give us, his little fingers were odd. He picked things up like a high-class woman drinking tea.’ He mimicked holding a tea cup between thumb and forefinger, his little finger sticking out straight. ‘But on both hands, like he couldn’t use them properly. Like maybe they had been broken.’
‘Do you remember the name of the perfume?’ Gross asked.
Moos looke
d to the ceiling in an attempt at memory, then to his left and right. Finally, he shook his head. ‘Can’t say as I do. I think there was some writing on the bag he was carrying, but I didn’t catch it. The only reason I noticed his fingers was because I had a friend once who had the same problem with a finger after breaking it. Just stiffened up on him.’
Moos looked down at the letter. ‘She was a smart one, was our Traudl.’
He handed the letter back to Gross. ‘You better keep this. It might be evidence.’
‘You’re right, Herr Moos. It might well be.’
‘I appreciate your help,’ he said after a moment’s silence. ‘You find the man who did this, right? He ruined our lives. All of us.’
As they were leaving the prison, Werthen was surprised to see two familiar faces approaching on the street. As they drew nearer, it seemed they remembered him, as well.
‘Frau Moos,’ Werthen said, lifting his hat to her. ‘Good to see you, again.’
‘Oh, it’s the lawyer, isn’t it? Wills and trusts?’
‘And private inquiries,’ Werthen added.
He turned to her companion, who disengaged his arm from that of Frau Moss.
‘Herr Platt, if I remember correctly.’
‘You do, you do,’ the man replied. ‘We’ve come to see poor Jakob.’
Werthen made speedy introductions all around, and then explained their visit to Jakob Moos.
‘I am glad to hear he can help somehow,’ Frau Moos said. ‘He has been desolate since my brother . . .’ She broke off, and soon was in tears.
‘There, there, my dear lady,’ Platt said, putting a protective arm around her and smiling at Werthen’s look of astonishment. ‘The lady’s going to need a protector after her husband is gone,’ Platt said sotto voce to Werthen. ‘And that big farm to run all by herself. She’ll need a man about the place.’
It was country logic, even though it seemed cold-blooded to Werthen.
He was about to comment, but thought better of it. Instead he asked, ‘Do you remember another visitor from the city a few days after I was there? Herr Moos mentioned a perfume salesman.’
The Keeper of Hands Page 27
