[VM01] The Empty Mirror

by J Sydney Jones

  “The disease proceeds in a step-by-step pattern,” Krafft-Ebing began again. “The first stage is characterized by a chancre sore that develops about three weeks after contact with an infected person. This is followed by skin rash, headache, fever, and enlarged lymph nodes about two months thereafter. The second stage. At these early stages, the disease is easiest to treat, but many ignore the symptoms, which eventually go away. The infected person may live a healthy, normal life for another year, or perhaps even ten, before the tertiary stage begins. Here begins the degeneration of the nervous system, the infection of the cardiovascular system, disorders of the spinal cord, general paralysis.” He shook his head. “A horrible disease, to be sure. Gentlemen, I still hold that sexual feeling is the root of all ethics rather than the root of all evil. When manifested for its true purpose, procreation, sex is a gift from God. Yet when used for sordid enjoyment or perverted ends, then …” He spread his hands.

  By now, even Gross had grown impatient for the psychologist to connect this long aside with the business at hand.

  “And you believe that syphilis plays a part in these crimes?” Gross prompted.

  “You have heard of the One Hundred Club perhaps?”

  Both Werthen and Gross had to shake their heads.

  “A cynical association if there ever were one,” Krafft-Ebing pronounced with venom in his voice. “A society of upper-class men-I refuse to call them gentlemen-who wear what they term the badge of sexual honor. Roués and debauched members of society’s elite who have been infected with syphilis and proudly display its ravages. Many of the members are forced to wear leather noses, for in the late stages of the illness, the bacteria eats away at cartilaginous areas, including joints and the nose. It is said that Archduke Otto, younger brother of the heir apparent, Franz Ferdinand, is a prominent member of the One Hundred Club. Young virgins are brought to the celebrations of this perverted group and are infected.”

  “Scandalous,” Werthen blurted out.

  “Inspired!” Gross exclaimed, exhibiting a contrary emotion, though not at the activities of those debauchees, but rather at Krafft-Ebing’s insight. “They are in fact ‘thumbing their nose’ at society, is that it Freiherr?”

  “Afraid so,” Krafft-Ebing replied. “The ‘noseless ones’ has become, in fact, a bit of street argot for sufferers of syphilis. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that you should be looking for someone suffering from syphilis, though in stages early enough to enable them still to function. The disease has affected the mind but not yet the musculature. Far from being a Jew seeking revenge on non-Jews, your killer may well be a victim of Treponema pallidum with a twisted sense of persecution, wreaking a terrible vengeance on those not infected.”

  SEVEN

  Gross or Werthen could achieve little on the sacred Sunday in Vienna. Shops and businesses were closed; if there was no chicken in the pot for many Viennese, then at least they had a day free from the cares of the workplace. For Werthen it had been a day of rest, copying out his notes for the progress of the case thus far. Gross had, however, kept himself busy with a minute examination of the lists of possible suspects, and with familiarizing himself with each of the firms handling the Harwood and Meier serrated scalpel.

  On Monday they paid visits to the three firms distributing Harwood and Meier cutlery and surgical products in Austria, for each had its Austrian headquarters in Vienna. Breitstein und Söhne was located in Vienna’s Third District only blocks from where Liesel Landtauer had resided. This connection had not gone unnoticed by Gross, and he had thus chosen it as his first visit.

  The director of the firm, the only Breitstein son, despite the “Sons” in the firm’s name, received them in his third-floor office. A large, effusive man, he was sweating heavily on this hot and humid day, for the foehn had now been replaced by a stifling heat wave without the hint of a breeze. The clopping of horses hooves and the rumble of wheels over cobblestone came from the open windows in the large office. Breitstein sat at his large desk and gestured Gross and Werthen to armchairs facing him. A small gallery of black-and-white photographs hung on the wall directly in back of the director.

  Gross had again used his letter from the Police Presidium as an entrée and explained that Breitstein’s assistance was needed in an official inquiry.

  “Can’t imagine how I can be of help to the police,” he said with a nervous laugh.

  Werthen had often noticed the seemingly guilty behavior of perfectly innocent people when faced with a police visit.

  Gross attempted to put the man at ease, Werthen observed, for the criminologist taught that it was better to have witnesses relaxed than nervous. People were unreliable at their best; with their nerves on edge there was no accounting for what they might say just to please an interrogator.

  “I am sure you have a wealth of information that you might share with us, Herr Breitstein,” Gross began. “A man in your position, running a company such as this, there is no telling the sort of information you accumulate. Of course, to you, much of it might seem inconsequential. You do not mind, I hope, if I therefore direct your attention to certain specifics.”

  Gross’s garrulous words seemed to have a sedative effect on Breitstein, who leaned back in his chair and began losing the pinch lines around his mouth.

  “It is true we see a bit of life in our business,” the director said. “Sales is a world requiring the ability to read the customer, to understand human nature.”

  “Exactly.” Gross beamed at him. “You have a large sales force?”

  “Seven in the field and three secretaries here in the office. When I took over, there were only four salesmen.”

  “And handling the medical instruments line,” Gross said. “How many would that be?”

  “Just two.” Breitstein nodded. “Binder. Gerhard Binder. Been with the firm for six years now. Bright lad. And Maxim Schmidt, an old company hand from my father’s time. In knives and cutlery we’ve got three, and another two in razors and tonsorial devices. Do you need their names, as well?”

  Gross nodded. “Perhaps I will start with your salesmen in surgical equipment. Your firm represents Harwood and Meier products, I assume?”

  “Indeed. That would be Binder, then. He is our sole representative for Harwood and Meier. The finest Sheffield has to offer. Sheffield steel holds its blade twenty-five percent longer than German steel, did you realize that, Doktor Gross?”

  “A handy piece of information to have at one’s disposal,” Gross replied, and the man nodded, a fleshy grin on his face.

  Werthen more closely inspected the pictures on the wall in back of the director now: Breitstein’s face was grinning out of a dozen or so photographs of shoots: one showed a small aviary of dead birds stacked one atop the other; a black bear lay dead in a second with Breitstein placing a triumphant foot on its back; a chamois made a limp sacrifice in a third. In yet another, Werthen thought there was a familiar face in the background, but was too far away to recognize detail. It was one of those tantalizing glimpses that tease the brain thereafter, for he quickly returned his attention and focus to the conversation at hand.

  “And you also represent the new Harwood and Meier serrated scalpel, if I am not mistaken?” Gross continued.

  “‘Serrulate scalpel, yes.”

  “Ah,” Gross made a mental note of the technical name for the scalpel.

  “The blade is scored,” Breitstein explained, “but not sawtooth in form.”

  “Indeed.” Gross raised his eyebrows at Werthen. “Your Herr Binder, he wouldn’t happen to be about, would he?”

  Breitstein consulted a large calendar laid out like a blotter on his desk. “Actually, Binder is on holidays this week. But I am sure you will find him at his small weekend garden hut. The man is an avid gardener; his roses have taken some local prizes, so I understand.”

  Breitstein smiled at such folly; hunting stag in the Alps was probably more along his lines for leisure-time activities, Werthen thought.

/>   “Check with Fräulein Matthias at the front desk. She can supply you with the names and addresses of all our sales representatives. Now, can you tell me what all this is about, gentlemen? I do not mind helping out the authorities, but I also have a curiosity that needs satisfying.”

  Gross stood, offering his hand to the director. “Rather complicated. A matter of defective steel products. Poor imitations being sold as originals.”

  Breitstein showed instant concern. “I assure you, gentlemen, my firm imports directly from the source.”

  “Of course. In fact, we would like to use your firm as the benchmark to judge the fraudulent items against,” Gross explained.

  Werthen knew that Gross wanted to insure that word of his inquiries about the Harwood and Meier scalpel in connection with the Prater murders did not become public knowledge. Thus far this was the first piece of hard evidence they had discovered; there was no sense in risking such information somehow reaching the killer.

  They visited the other two surgical and medical equipment suppliers in Vienna before lunch. Each of these led to a dead end. Though both represented Harwood and Meier products, neither Müller GmBh nor Leikowitz Imports dealt with the serrated or serrulate scalpel. According to each, Breitstein had done some hard dealing with Harwood and Meier to secure exclusive representation for the new product in all of Austria.

  “Makes our job that bit easier,” Gross said, after they had had a quick lunch at a small Beisl and were headed to the garden district in Penzing where Binder’s little plot of land was located.

  Werthen held his own counsel, as he had much of the morning. The effects of the attack on Klimt the previous Saturday had still not worn off; he had been in a contemplative mood ever since.

  Once in Penzing, they had to ask directions twice to find the garden district, built on wasteland near the railway line. The settlement was constructed on a little rise overlooking the tracks and was filled with small huts set in the middle of ten-by-forty-meter allotments. A surprising degree of fecundity had been teased out of these postage-stamp patches of earth; some favored fruit trees while others enjoyed verdant vegetable gardens, and still others focused on flowers of all sorts. The entire settlement was a riot of colors and fragrances as a result. The one-room huts built on each allotment were as lovingly maintained as the gardens and orchards: most favored the hunting-lodge look, though in a miniaturized version: brown siding with green shutters; a rack of deer or elk horns gracing the lintel over the front doors; potted red geraniums in trays under the tiny windows.

  Binder’s was number 55, and just as Breitstein had predicted, the man was there tending his roses. Gross held Werthen back, watching the man work the flowers before they announced themselves. Werthen could see that Binder, if indeed that was he toiling over the flowers, was methodical. He was deadheading the plants, cutting bloomed-out flowers off the bushes and topiary trees. He carried a special basket for the chore and was careful to avoid spilling petals on the neatly raked soil underneath the plants. He wore long, rubberized gloves to protect his hands and arms from thorns. His right hand made quick and firm cuts, lopping off the dead flowers not with garden shears, but with a small, hooked, and obviously sharp gardening knife.

  A man of medium height and brilliantly red hair thinning in patches, he wore an immaculately clean white apron for this task. Beneath was a lightweight summer suit.

  Finally Gross had seen enough. He went to the man’s gate and rapped on the wooden slats. “Herr Binder,” he called.

  This finally drew the man’s attention away from his roses.

  “Hello,” he said, giving a final slash to a dead flower, sending it toppling into his basket. Werthen was reminded of images of the guillotine at work during the French Revolution.

  “Fine day for the garden, no?” he said as he approached the gate. “You gentlemen from the allotment committee?”

  Gross shook his head. “Sorry, other business.”

  “Oh. I was waiting for them, you see. The lot next door has come available. Old Frau Gimbauer died last week, don’t you know. Such a sadness, to be sure, but then she has no family. No one to carry on the tradition out here, you see. And my roses do seem to want to stretch and expand. They can’t be too close to one another, roses. Not like we humans all cramped in our tiny apartments. They can’t stand the touch of another plant, if you want to know the truth. Wither up and die if encroached upon. Her allotment would allow me to experiment with the new hybrids out of America.”

  He suddenly stopped his rambling. “Do forgive. I was practicing my speech for the committee. It’s not usual for one person to have two allotments. Name’s Binder.” He ripped the glove off his right hand. “What’d you say yours were?”

  “We didn’t,” Gross replied. “Herr Breitstein suggested we talk with you. That perhaps you could aid us in our inquiries.”

  Gross offered the same cover story to the salesman, noting that the Harwood and Meier implements had been copied, using inferior steel. “If you could perhaps help us out with a list of clients who have purchased the new serrulate scalpel in recent weeks, that would help immensely.”

  “These counterfeit products have become a regular nuisance,” Binder agreed. “I’m happy to see somebody taking the matter seriously. Cuts into everyone’s profits.” He grinned. “No pun intended.” Another weak smile. “And it destroys customer confidence in your product.”

  Binder was the compulsively organized sort who took his bookwork with him even on his holidays. He made a short foray into his tiny hut and came back with a small samples bag, inside of which was his order book and schedule.

  “Not a major sales item,” he said, as he perused his sales chart. “Last few weeks, that it?” His hand had a slight tremor as he flipped the pages, Werthen now noticed.

  “For starters,” Gross said.

  “Most recent sale was last week. I was in Klagenfurt Tuesday and Wednesday. I sold a pair of the scalpels to Dr. Fritz Weininger of the general hospital in Klagenfurt. Before that”-he flipped more pages, scanning with his forefinger-“before that was the end of June to a surgeon in Salzburg.” Binder showed the open book to Gross.

  “Nothing in Vienna?” Gross asked.

  Binder shook his head, closing the sales book and returning it to the samples case. “Viennese surgeons are a conservative lot. They have not yet accepted the aseptic qualities of the serrulate blade as a trade-off for slight feathering of the incision.”

  Gross nodded at the salesman, covering up his obvious disappointment.

  “Though …”

  “What?”

  “Well, none of the instruments have been sold here, that is a fact. But I do believe one might have been removed from my samples case. I had three of the samples when setting out week before last on a round of Viennese surgeons. Those are the original ones supplied to me by Harwood and Meier in England. But, by the end of the first day, I had only two left.”

  “What surgeons did you visit?” Gross demanded.

  “None of them could have stolen it, I’m sure. But there was a time when I was at a coffeehouse in the afternoon that the case was left unprotected while I had to visit the men’s room.”

  Fairly cheeky business stealing a scalpel out of a man’s case in a busy coffeehouse, Werthen thought.

  “We’ll still need a list of the surgeons. And the name of the coffeehouse,” Gross said.

  “Did you believe him?” Werthen asked Gross as they walked away from the garden settlement.

  “Did you notice the deft hand with the roses?” Gross said by way of answer.

  Werthen nodded.

  “He has a nice out-of-the-way place here to work in,” Gross added.

  “You mean to bring bodies back to?” Werthen looked over his shoulder at the mild-mannered salesman, who was returning to his pruning. “Seems doubtful to me. Someone would have noticed the coming and going, don’t you think?”

  Gross sighed. “Probably. Besides, he couldn’t have killed Fr�
�ulein Landtauer.”

  “Or so he tells us. Seems to me he made too much of a point of inserting that alibi.”

  “Very good, Werthen. But I don’t imagine it would be too difficult to check. Fritz Weininger. That right?”

  “At the Klagenfurt general hospital.”

  Once, however, they had finally tracked down a post and telephone exchange and completed the trunk call to Carinthia, they were disappointed. Dr. Fritz Weininger, like most of Austria, was on holiday. He would be back in his office at the end of the week.

  Events, however, overtook this line of inquiry.

  EIGHT

  The clock on the marble mantel rang six times; pearly pink dawn light filtered through the lace curtains, filling the room with soft luminescence. Werthen wiped at the ink that had leaked onto his middle finger, then took up the pen again.

  A knock at the door stopped Werthen in midsentence.

  “Herr Doktor Werthen?” Frau Blatschky’s voice sounded timidly from the other side of the closed drawing-room door.

  “Enter.”

  She did so reluctantly, rubbing her hands plaintively on her starched apron.

  “What is it then?”

  “A gentleman to see you.”

  But she had barely gotten the words out before the heavy tromp of boots sounded on the parquet outside the sitting-room door.

  “Werthen!” It was Gross’s voice.

  “Shall I see him in, sir?”

  But there was no need.

  “My dear Werthen,” Gross was saying even as he entered through the half-open door. “Do stop mucking about with the scribbling for now. There’s work afoot.”

  Frau Blatschky stood by the door watching the large man with great interest.

  “That’ll be all, Frau Blatschky,” Werthen said.