[VM01] The Empty Mirror

by J Sydney Jones

  Soon. Very soon.

  THIRTEEN

  Berthe had taken his decision well. It was during the intermission in Gustav Mahler’s debut at the Musikverein at the helm of the Vienna Philharmonic. Werthen had met her for dinner and the symphony after leaving the company of Gross at the Café Central.

  Mahler was making a name for himself in the city of music. The year before, he had taken over direction of Vienna’s Court Opera and was transforming that house to be the leading one in Europe. Of course to assume that official court position, Mahler, a Jew (though nonpracticing) had had to convert to Christianity.

  For his debut, he was conducting Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, Werthen’s favorite. The evening had begun with Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, and in the interval Werthen explained to Berthe what Gross had discovered and his own decision to assist the criminologist once more. Werthen’s legal assistant, Dr. Wilfried Ungar, three years out of Vienna law, was a capable young man, well able to take over the work at the law firm for the time being. Werthen’s most important commission, the preparation of Baron von Geistl’s trust, had just been completed.

  “You need not explain all this to me, Karl. When I agreed to be your wife, I did so knowing I am an independent woman well able to provide for myself. I am not marrying you for your earning power. You must do in life those things that most satisfy. Otherwise, what is it all for?”

  He wanted to embrace her then and there in the second-floor interval salon of the Musikverein, amid the potted palms and the tuxedoed and bejeweled patrons who were milling about during intermission, Sekt flutes in hand. He closed his eyes and smiled at her instead.

  Once seated again in the darkness of the auditorium, she took his hand. As the music swelled during the adagio section of the Seventh, he thought he had never been happier in his life.

  Meindl was surprised to see Gross back in Vienna. Gross, so he had told Werthen, was playing on instinct. They had come to the Police Presidium this morning to request a favor.

  “So you intend writing up the assassination of the empress in your journal,” Meindl said, when presented with the request.

  “It should present a fascinating case of the terrorist personality,” Gross said. “Anything we can learn about Herr Luccheni could aid in preventing such another outrage.”

  This implicit appeal to Meindl’s professionalism finally did the trick. They were presented with the Luccheni file ten minutes later.

  “But how is it you knew we had a watch file on the man?” Meindl asked.

  “My colleague, Dr. Werthen, remembered a list of names you so graciously supplied when we were engaged upon … that other business.”

  Meindl nodded at Werthen, casting a weak smile. “Quite so.” Then to Gross again: “I will need that file back as quickly as possible. This is all rather irregular, you realize.”

  Not a word of thanks for their earlier assistance; not even an acknowledgment of their participation. The man was an infernal crawler, Werthen decided. Always on the lookout for his own career.

  Meindl showed them to a room normally used for interrogation, its windows so high on the wall that one could not see the outside, only imagine it. They sat at the large and rather bruised table placed in the middle of the room, dividing up the pages of the lengthy report between them.

  Werthen took the first part of the report, which included a biography of the anarchist Luccheni. Born in Paris in 1873 to an unmarried laundress of Italian extraction, Luccheni never knew his father. His mother left France the year following her son’s birth and placed the infant in an orphanage in Parma. From there he was cast like so much flotsam onto the streets at an early age, to become a laborer. Soon he found an easier occupation as a soldier, serving in Naples under Captain Prince Vera d’Arazona. After three years, Luccheni left the army and became a servant to the prince, but this lasted for only a few months.

  Luccheni took to the road, settling for a time in Switzerland, but also roaming to various capitals, including Vienna and Budapest, and falling into the company of anarchists who supplied the pliant and barely literate young man with literature espousing the destruction of society leading to the creation of a free and classless world in its place. Soon he began, according to Swiss police informants who had infiltrated anarchist cells, to espouse his belief in the “propaganda of the deed,” or letting one’s actions spread the philosophy of anarchism.

  From the pages before Werthen, it was apparent that Luccheni had come to Vienna in early June. Word had come from the Swiss police that Luccheni had boarded a train in Geneva bound for Vienna on June 10. The police in Vienna had not picked up his trail, however, until June 12, when he was spotted outside a known anarchist haven in the workers’ district of Fünfhaus, a pension run by a Frau Geldner. Luccheni had spent the day of the twelfth in the grounds of the Volksgarten, the lovely gardens built on what were once part of the city walls, destroyed by French troops under Napoléon. Werthen himself often enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in these rose gardens, laid out to resemble Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens.

  Luccheni had passed the morning and afternoon moving from one bench to the other, keeping in clear sight of the entrances and exits to the park, as if expecting someone to enter the gardens at any moment. Finally at precisely 5:28 that afternoon, he was approached by a tall man wearing the clothes of a house-painter: white overalls and a boatlike hat fashioned from an old newspaper. He handed Luccheni a note and left the park. Unfortunately, just at that time, the other half of the pair of police watching Luccheni had had to retire to the nearest pissoir on the Ring. Thus the police had been unable to trace the further movements of this other man. The partner did, however, return in time to aid in the tracking of Luccheni out of the Volksgarten and onto the Ringstrasse, where he turned left, headed toward the Opera.

  One watcher crossed the Ringstrasse to follow parallel while the other kept a discreet distance behind the anarchist, careful not to be noticed. Luccheni walked with speed, according to the police report, as if he knew his destination and had to be there at a certain time. Just beyond the Court Opera, he crossed the busy Ringstrasse on Kärntnerstrasse. The two police watchers now changed positions vis-à-vis their quarry. Luccheni continued onto Wiedner Hauptstrasse past the Karlsplatz. Just in back of the Technical University he suddenly turned left onto Paniglgasse, then right at the first intersection, with Argentinierstrasse, and then another left on Gusshausstrasse. The police watchers followed him to about midblock, where Luccheni stopped and seemed to assume watch himself on a building across the street. They did not know which one, either number 12 or 14.

  Suddenly Werthen stopped reading. He felt a chill go through his body.

  “Gross,” he said. “You should look at this.”

  Werthen handed the criminologist the pages he had finished and continued reading from where he had left off.

  Subject remained partly hidden behind a gas lamp for over two hours. At one point he appeared eager to move. A female resident of number 12, dressed in black, quickly departed, ushered out by two men into a waiting landau. The carriage pulled away quickly and the subject resumed his seeming watch. At 8:12 precisely, subject broke off watch and continued walking back to his accommodations in Fünfhaus.

  Gross had already finished reading his pages, and Werthen handed him the final ones for June 12. The criminologist puffed out his lips as he read, then stabbed the paper with a forefinger.

  “Hah! You see, Werthen. There is a connection!”

  “That was the very night Empress Elisabeth was visiting Herr Frosch,” Werthen said excitedly. “It was Frosch’s apartment Luccheni was watching. Gusshausstrasse 12. It all fits.”

  “Lower your voice, my friend,” Gross counseled. “Yes, indeed. It was to Herr Frosch the anarchist had been directed. Most likely by this message handed to him by the mysterious house-painter. Thus, he was already stalking his victim long before he struck.”

  “That was her the police saw leave the building, wasn’t it, Gros
s? The lady all in black? Empress Elisabeth.”

  “Yes. It must have been. And for once she was traveling in the company of bodyguards, or the cowardly Luccheni may well have struck that very night. It seems, however, that the police watchers were ignorant of the empress’s movements. They obviously did not know her identity.”

  “She often traveled incognito. I believe,” added Werthen, “that she often assumed the identity of one Countess Hohenembs, though usually her marvelous looks gave her away.”

  “This changes things dramatically,” Gross said, collecting the papers. “There is nothing of interest in the later reports. The police, in fact, lost track of Luccheni by the fifteenth. It is assumed he had already left Vienna by that time. Or did he remain in Vienna for two more months, changing addresses to evade the police watch, and commit the atrocities we all put at the door of Herr Binder?”

  “But for what possible motive? He was after royalty, after all, Gross. The newspapers say he was ready to kill the Duke of Orléans, but that the unfortunate empress stumbled into his path first. He was after someone important just to get his name in the papers. Why all those other victims then, several of whom were of the working class, which he, as an anarchist, professed to be protecting? It makes no sense.”

  “You are, of course, correct, Werthen. Such a theory does make no sense. However, we have posited the connection between the deaths of Frosch and the empress. Therefore, the only alternative theory is that Luccheni did not kill the empress.”

  Werthen simply stared at Gross, unable to say anything to such an outlandish statement.

  “Come, Werthen. Close your gaping mouth and help me collate these papers and return them to Meindl. We have work to do.”

  Frau Geldner’s pension was located on Clementinengasse, not far from the Empress Elisabeth West Train Station. Werthen could hear the groan and huff of engines arriving and departing; the heavy smell of smoke was in the air. This area was part of the northern extremity of the garment district, where looms and seamstresses worked twelve hours a day, six days a week.

  Opening her door on the fourth knock, Frau Geldner was a large, florid woman dressed in a gingham housedress and smoking a meerschaum pipe. She scowled at Gross as he handed her his card.

  “You blokes must have gotten the wrong address. We don’t cater to your class here.”

  “No, Frau Geldner,” Gross said, inserting his booted foot in the door to keep her from closing it on them. “We have the correct address. The one, I believe, where the celebrated Signor Luccheni briefly stayed last June.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t know any Luccheni. Don’t care much for foreigners. No toffs nor foreigners. That’s my motto.” She chuckled, coughing wetly. Three spiky black hairs bristled from the tip of her red nose.

  “That is not what the police report says.”

  She glanced at his card again suspiciously. “Says here you’re a professor. That right? Not police?”

  “That is correct, my good woman.”

  “And who’s the stooge with you? He don’t say much, do he?”

  At which comment Werthen felt it necessary to introduce himself.

  “A lawyer, huh? Professor and lawyer all took the trouble to come way out to Fünfhaus to visit the likes of me. Must be important, then.”

  “Your working-class-rustic act is not convincing,” Gross said sternly, his foot still in the door. “I have read your writings in the Daily Anarchist, Frau Geldner. And while I hardly agree with your thesis that all the woes in the world have been brought about by the plutocrats and aristocracy, I certainly recognize a first-class mind when I encounter one. Now can we please cease with this hard-bitten whore-mistress role that you have assumed and get down to business?”

  At this, the Frau smiled, opened the door fully, and ushered them in.

  “A professor who can read,” she said, her voice now assuming a higher and, to Werthen’s ears, a more refined tone. “What a novelty. Come this way, gentlemen. Into my lair.”

  They followed her down a long, dark hallway into a sitting room that was surprisingly modern and comfortable. Werthen had been expecting a jumble of cheap and aged furniture, but he found a room appointed in Jugendstil and art nouveau chic, with chairs and divan upholstered in swirls of greens and golds that Klimt himself might have painted.

  “We’re not such barbarians, after all, are we, Advokat Werthen?” she said, catching his look of amazement.

  But Gross was not interested in the tedious puncturing of the balloons of class bias. He took a chair before being offered and set to business.

  “There is no use prevaricating. We know Luccheni stayed here for several days in June.”

  “Three to be precise,” she said, moving to a cherrywood sideboard fitted with stained glass that could have been the work of Koloman Moser, another of Vienna’s leading lights in the decorative arts.

  “Slivovitz?” she offered. “I find it just the thing to pick up one’s spirits in these difficult hours between Gabelfrühstück and lunch.” She poured herself a healthy amount in a brandy snifter without waiting for their replies and merely shrugged when they both declined. The plum brandy went down in one swig, and she sat on the divan, motioning Werthen to take a chair.

  “He always so simple?” she said to Gross.

  “Madam-,” Werthen began, but Gross cut him off with an upraised hand.

  “Please. The matter at hand, and we can let you get on with your prelunch preparations.”

  She chuckled again at this. “You are a wry one, aren’t you? Gross…? You know, I may have heard of you.”

  He nodded appreciatively. “My work has its followers.”

  “Aren’t you the fellow who told the world the Jews were slaughtering Christians in Bohemia? Blood rituals and all. My, but you were off the mark on that one.”

  “Yes,” Gross answered abruptly. “Now about Luccheni.”

  “What about him? Silly little man, if you ask me. The chaps call him ‘the stupid one.’”

  “The ‘chaps’? By which you mean fellow anarchists?” Gross said.

  She nodded quite cheerfully. “That is exactly what I mean.”

  “Why was he here?” Werthen asked, suddenly tiring of this silly sparring.

  “He speaks!” Another laugh, followed by an extended bout of moist coughing. She laid the pipe down on a side table, and it slowly extinguished itself. “Sorry,” she said, once the fit had passed. “I’m not usually so rude. But with you two, I find it rather amusing.”

  “Nonetheless, Frau Geldner, you failed to answer my associate’s question,” Gross persisted. “What business did Luccheni have in Vienna?”

  “None at all. He was on holiday for all I know. Or care.”

  “The man was a near vagrant,” Werthen said. “You expect us to believe he was visiting Vienna for his cultural betterment?”

  “I rent rooms,” she said simply. “Many times such visitors are referrals and thus I know their business. Luccheni was not such a referral. He had simply heard of my pension from his friends and showed up on my doorstep on June eleventh. I could hardly turn him away, could I?”

  “You said before,” Werthen quoted, “‘no toffs nor foreigners.’ Are we to assume that was a lie? Either you were lying then or now.”

  But the lady remained unflustered. “Such eloquence might do very well in front of a judge, Herr Advokat, but here I make the rules. I am the judge. I say things. Some are true, some are jokes, and some are that awful thing you just mentioned, lies.”

  Gross threw his hands in the air. “Then we have little more to discuss. Perhaps the police …”

  “Oh, they’ve been over it several times with me already. But I’ll tell you something for nothing. That man Luccheni couldn’t manage to kill a goldfish. He was all talk and no action. The ones who do the deeds, they’re all action and no talk. Believe me, I’ve known both types.”

  “What do you make of her?” Werthen asked as they left the premises and headed to the
Fiaker rank near the train station.

  “Make of her?” Gross said as if pulled reluctantly out of thought. “Why, Werthen, I make nothing of the woman whatsoever.”

  “I mean, was she telling the truth about Luccheni?”

  “She herself confessed to being laissez-faire where truth is concerned. I see no reason to even wonder about her comments. All of them are suspect. She could be up to her eyes in the plot to kill the empress, or she could be absolutely correct about Luccheni’s incompetence.”

  Gross sped up his pace and Werthen almost had to break into a trot to keep up.

  “Gross, would you please slow down. What’s the hurry, man?”

  He stopped suddenly, looking at Werthen with surprise. “I would have thought that was obvious, dear Werthen. We have a train to catch. If we make haste back to Josefstädterstrasse, we can pack, pick up a few essentials, and return to the West Train Station in time to catch the Alpine Express at four. That should allow us to arrive in time for early breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  “Arrive? Arrive where? What are you talking about, Gross?”

  “Geneva, Werthen. We’re going to interview Luccheni.”

  FOURTEEN

  Werthen watched the early-autumn landscape race by outside the spotlessly clean window of the club car. Gross was holed up in his compartment, reading accounts of the empress’s assassination in a variety of newspapers, from the London Times, to Le Monde from Paris, and Milan’s Corriere della Sera. He had secured these from the tobacconist on the corner of Josefstädterstrasse and Laudongasse, who specialized in international editions and had saved copies dealing with the death of the empress. With the censor hard at work in Vienna, foreign newspapers might include information that had been excluded from domestic papers.

  After their train passed through Innsbruck, they ate together in the dining car-a farmer’s omelet accompanied by a serviceable Müller-Thurgau from the Wachau, a wine region along the Danube that had until recently been best known for its wine vinegar. At first, there was little small talk, as Gross was in deep meditation.