[VM01] The Empty Mirror

by J Sydney Jones

  “We are going to be sure about this one,” Auberty said by way of explaining all the activity. “We’re preparing a case that no defense attorney will be able to attack.”

  He led them into his inner office, spacious and appointed in Louis XV furnishings. Light poured in from floor-to-ceiling windows, partially opened. Lace curtains fluttered in the morning breeze. Sweet-water smell from the nearby river was carried in the breeze.

  “Please,” he said, indicating upholstered armchairs across the desk from him. “So you came all this way just to talk to the man, eh?”

  “You know my monthly journal, Auberty. I thought that such an interview would be an invaluable resource for other investigators. An index to the anarchist’s mind, if you will.”

  “But to be published after my trial,” Auberty said.

  “That goes without saying,” Gross replied.

  “He is an odd one,” Auberty said.

  “How do you mean, odd?”

  “You will see for yourself.”

  Luccheni was being held in a special security cell in the cellar of the same building. Auberty provided them with a pass, which allowed them to talk to the man for an hour under the supervision of a gendarme. Gross and Werthen were taken to the cell, lit by a single electric light encased behind a steel screen on the ceiling. Everything in the room-bed, table, and chairs-was constructed of poured concrete, so that nothing could be hidden in the cell. It had been specially constructed for political prisoners, the guard explained on the way down to the cellar.

  “We built it last year, but had no idea it would be put to use this soon,” the guard said as he unlocked the door to the cell.

  “Company, Luccheni,” he said to a small man huddled on the bed.

  The anarchist looked up at this, his eyes bright and eager.

  “Press?”

  “In a sense,” Gross said, quickly answering the question to preempt the guard. “I am most eager to meet you, Signor Luccheni.”

  Gross had switched to Italian, which Werthen spoke only haltingly, though he could understand it well enough.

  “In what kind of sense?” Luccheni asked, his eyes squinting in suspicion.

  “I publish a journal of criminalistics, read by learned men around the world.”

  “A specialist, then. I like that idea. Let everyone know of my deed.”

  “To be sure,” Gross said. “But perhaps we could retrace the events of that day.” Gross nodded at the concrete chairs. “May we?

  “Be my guests, signore,” Luccheni said, then broke into a cackling laugh that put Werthen on edge.

  “You came to Geneva to kill the empress of Austria, is that correct?”

  Luccheni looked from Gross to Werthen. “No one’s taking notes. How you going to remember what I said?”

  Gross glanced at Werthen. “You understand what he wants?” he asked in German.

  Werthen nodded and took out his leather notebook and pencil.

  “He understand Italian?” Luccheni demanded.

  Gross nodded.

  Luccheni smiled at this. “Be sure to get my words down like I say them. Now, what did you ask?”

  “If you came to Geneva with the express purpose of killing the empress of Austria.”

  Luccheni shook his head. “No, not really. I thought of doing in that French chap, the Duke of Orléans. But he had already left by the time I got here. But then I heard the empress was here, and she would make an even better target. It had to be someone important enough to get in the papers.” He smiled like a ferret. “I guess she was.”

  “Heard?” Gross interrupted. “From whom?”

  Luccheni grew suspicious once again. “From the newspapers, I guess. Not much secret when the royalty comes to town.”

  “But there was nothing in the local papers to announce her arrival. In addition, the empress was traveling under an alias.” Gross paused dramatically. “So I repeat my question, who did you hear this from?”

  “Look, you want my story for your magazine or not? I did it. I killed her. Saw her prancing along the quay bold as daylight. And I knew I had to do her. Her and all the rest like her. Oppressors and parasites. Feeding off the poor of the world. We’re better off with none of them. Chop all their heads, that’s what I say.”

  Werthen had a powerful desire to slap the man. However, his feeling of revulsion at Luccheni had nothing to do with a fondness for aristocracy or privilege. Rather, he squirmed because of the man’s obvious joy in his position. He was enjoying his notoriety, the infamy brought about by his cowardly action of killing a defenseless woman.

  “And what did you do then?” Gross said, leaving for the time his question of how Luccheni discovered the empress’s whereabouts.

  “Do? Why I went up to her like this.”

  He leaped from the bed and moved toward Gross, but the guard quickly barred his way.

  “No, no. Please leave him be, Officer.”

  Luccheni looked up at the policeman and sneered as he continued his pantomime.

  “Perhaps, however, you could use this gentleman,” Gross said, indicating the officer. “He is somewhat closer to the empress’s height than I.”

  Seeing that the policeman was reluctant to perform the role of victim, Gross said, “If you please, sir, in the interests of science.” The guard shrugged and Luccheni closed on him.

  “Her fancy maid was walking ahead, and the queen-”

  “Empress,” Werthen blurted out in his rusty Italian. He could not help himself from correcting the lout.

  “Queen, empress, all the same to me. She was all alone on the quay. So I came up to her like so.” Luccheni stood directly in front of the guard now. “And I hit her like so with my special file.” Luccheni made a thrust at the officer’s chest with his left hand, stopping inches above it, then cackled again as he saw the policeman automatically wince.

  “I knocked her down with the blow. Knew it had struck home. So I left her dying there and ran.”

  Werthen carefully watched the small man with his bushy mustache and wild eyes and had to restrain himself again from laying hands on the anarchist.

  “I see,” said Gross. “And you left the file sticking in the empress.”

  Luccheni smiled. “My signature.” Then, looking at Werthen, he suddenly shouted, “Write! Write all my words down!”

  “Really, Gross, this is too much.”

  “Calm yourself, Werthen. All for a good cause.”

  Werthen began taking notes. This pleased Luccheni, who now went back to his bed and sat on the edge of it. He was so short, his legs did not reach the floor.

  “Another thing, Signor Luccheni,” Gross said. “Did you act alone? Was this your assassination plot, or were you commissioned somehow?”

  This angered Luccheni. “Mine. All mine. I’m the one who thought it up. I’m the one who struck the blow. They’ll remember me a hundred years from now.”

  “Is that why you were in Vienna last June?”

  The question caught Luccheni by surprise. “Last June?” He scratched his head in a poor attempt at dissimulation. “Can’t remember where I was in June. I travel a lot.”

  “You were in Vienna from the eleventh to perhaps the fourteenth or fifteenth. On the night of June twelfth, you took up watch on a house in the Gusshausstrasse. Or do you not recall that, either?”

  “You a reporter or a prosecutor? I don’t like these questions.”

  Gross pressed the point. Werthen knew the technique from personal experience. Flatter then fluster. Sometimes you could get valuable information from an otherwise reluctant witness.

  “Were you following the empress even then, Signor Luccheni?”

  “What do you mean ‘following’? I saw her on the quay and killed her. It was my heroic deed for the cause of international anarchy.”

  “You were prepared to kill her in June, weren’t you? But cowardice prevented it. When you saw the two bodyguards, you were too afraid to act. Isn’t that so?”

  Lucch
eni bristled at this suggestion. Agitation showed on his face; his breathing became more rapid.

  “I’m no coward. I didn’t even know she was there. He just told me to wait at that address.”

  “‘He.’ Who?”

  But Luccheni realized he had said too much. “I don’t want them in here no more,” he said to the guard. “Get them out. I’m not talking to him.”

  They waited a few moments, but clearly they would get nothing more from Luccheni.

  Back in Auberty’s office, Gross asked the investigating magistrate about the weapon.

  “He seems to believe he left the file in the empress’s body.”

  “The man is not as stupid as he appears,” Auberty replied. “In fact, he is rather cunning, in an animal sort of way. He tells a variety of stories, all in an attempt, I believe, at appearing insane. Diminished capacity could be his defense. But it won’t wash. The fact is, he stabbed the empress. We have dozens of eyewitnesses to the deed. Running from the citizens afterward, he simply threw the file away in a futile attempt at appearing innocent. Now that he’s been caught, he’s looking for any way he can of getting out of it.”

  Werthen disagreed with such an assessment, and by the skeptical look on Gross’s face, he thought the criminologist felt the same.

  “You obviously have the weapon in your evidence bags.”

  Auberty nodded. “It’s what killed her, all right. There were still traces of blood on it.”

  “I know it might sound forward of me, but I was wondering if it would be possible to view the file.”

  “No need, Gross. I know all about your enthusiasm for dactyloscopy. In fact I have your 1891 monograph on the subject among my files. Though fingerprinting cannot yet be used in a court of law, I was fully prepared to take prints from the file handle and compare them with Luccheni’s. But there was nothing there. Or rather, too much there. The file had been handled by numerous people before being passed to the police. A jumble of prints, and mostly smeared.”

  Gross let out an audible sigh. “How unfortunate.”

  “Not to worry. The case against Luccheni is ironclad. The man is as good as convicted.”

  Auberty’s “ironclad” case was rapidly rusting, Gross announced as they left police headquarters. “Twain was right. They do have the wrong man in custody.”

  Werthen did not immediately answer as they turned left out of the headquarters and walked toward the intersection of Rond-Point, there to find a Fiaker rank. In his rational mind, Werthen agreed with Gross, but instinctively he wanted Luccheni to be found guilty. The man was despicable.

  “Luccheni could have been lying about leaving the file stuck in the empress, just like Auberty said.”

  “Yes,” Gross allowed. “But I do not believe so, and neither, my friend, do you. However, that is of less consequence than another essential fact.”

  “The mysterious ‘he’ that Luccheni mentioned?” Werthen offered. “Presumably Luccheni was referring to his controller in the anarchist movement. All that shows is that Luccheni was not acting on his own, but was part of a wider plot.”

  “Indeed, but whose plot?” Gross asked cryptically. “Yet again,” he hurried on before Werthen had time to wonder too much about that statement, “this is not the pertinent fact that disqualifies Luccheni as the assassin.”

  Werthen came to an abrupt halt just as they reached the busy intersection. “What then?” he said in exasperation.

  “Calm yourself, Werthen. I know the man rankles, but we cannot allow personal feelings to intrude in the determination of legal matters. The fact I refer to is physical in nature. To wit, the man’s size and his left-handedness.”

  “He is diminutive, to be sure. But that notwithstanding, he is sturdy enough in build to have dealt a death blow to the empress.”

  “Sturdy enough, indeed, but tall enough?”

  Werthen immediately saw what Gross was getting at. Acting as stand-in for the empress in the reenactment of the assassination, the guard had stood a good head taller than the man. The empress, a woman of stature, was surely several inches taller than Luccheni.

  Gross saw such understanding show on Werthen’s face. “It is quite simple, really. From the autopsy report it is clear that the wound was of surgical precision. Also, it is obvious that it was created by a downward thrust through the pericardium, and with an angle that presupposes not only a much taller but also a right-handed assailant.”

  “My God, Gross, you mean Luccheni could not have killed her. But dozens of witnesses saw him strike the empress.”

  “Strike her yes. But stab her?”

  “Who then?”

  “Exactly my question, Werthen. Let us find a carriage and hasten back to the hotel. There are numerous witnesses to the crime on the staff of the Beau-Rivage.”

  When they finally found a carriage and pulled away from the curb, another carriage also jolted into sudden movement behind them. Fingers tapped nervously on the sill of the open window of the carriage door. A gruff voice sounded from within imploring the cabbie to quicken the pace.

  They were in luck. Fanny Mayer, wife of the owner of the Hotel Beau-Rivage, was at the desk this morning and had commented that she had witnessed the entire event from her upstairs balcony. When Gross explained his presence in Geneva and that he was assisting Investigating Magistrate Auberty, Madame Mayer instantly summoned a clerk from in back to take over the desk.

  “An awful day,” she told them as they settled in the hotel lounge for midmorning coffee. She was attractive and alert, Werthen thought. The perfect combination for hostess of such an establishment.

  “But it had begun so wonderfully for the empress,” she recalled. “She requested a tray full of our breakfast rolls, one of every flavor and shape for her morning repast. Thereafter, she ventured to Baker’s on the rue Bonivard and made the purchase of a player piano and music scrolls. Such a thoughtful, considerate person.”

  Suddenly the lady began sniffling and pulled a lace cloth from the sleeve of her moss-green silk gown. “Sorry, gentlemen. But it was such a terrible thing. The world misunderstood her, I am sure. She was the kindest person. She remembered one’s name, even that of serving girls. That such a thing should happen.”

  “Yes,” Gross sympathized. “Terrible indeed. And anything you can remember will help to bring the guilty man to proper punishment.”

  “I’ve already told the police everything I know.”

  “Of course. Though sometimes one recalls things after a certain time passes. The shock of the event often clouds one’s memory, you see.”

  This seemed to make sense to Madame Mayer, and she pulled herself together, sitting upright and replacing the lace hankie.

  “Anything I can do. Anything. I still carry a small piece of bloodstained ribbon from the empress. I shall always.”

  “You viewed it all from your balcony then,” Gross said.

  “Right. The empress and Countess Sztaray had gotten a late start from the hotel and were hurrying to catch the steamer. I wanted to be sure that she in fact did arrive in time, and thus I watched her departure. The countess was in front with one of our porters, young Mouleau, who was carrying the empress’s case and cloak. You see, the empress had sent her entourage ahead by train …”

  “Yes,” prompted Gross. “And then what happened?”

  “They were just passing the Brunswick monument, the empress walking behind the others, and the first departure bell sounded for the steamer. I was concerned that they might, in fact, miss their passage. Just then, I saw this man get up from a bench on the quay, quickly approach the empress, and then strike her a savage blow to the chest. I gasped and then cried out. The empress was knocked down and this villain ran away. The countess turned around just at that moment, perhaps hearing my scream, and she in turn raised an alarm.”

  “It must have been awful for you to watch,” Werthen said. “I mean, so far away and unable to give assistance.”

  Madame Mayer nodded. “But others were
there to help. A coachman rushed up and helped the empress to her feet. I remember he was so helpful, he even brushed her skirts. Then our doorman, Planner-he’s an Austrian, too-ran up and assisted, but it appeared the empress was fine. A blow and nothing more. She and the countess continued on and boarded the steamer. In the meantime, they had caught the assailant and brought him here for questioning. A sniveling, cringing villain if ever I saw one. I must admit my husband, Charles Albert, grew quite agitated and even struck the man across the mouth. At that time we thought he was simply a petty thief who had tried to steal the empress’s diamond watch. Imagine our distress then when some minutes later the steamer returned to the quay and the empress was brought in a makeshift stretcher back to the room she had latterly occupied. There was nothing to be done. A doctor was summoned, but she died within minutes. I remained with the countess and her dead empress for the following six hours before her court returned.”

  Despite her efforts at maintaining her composure, Madame Mayer once again began sobbing.

  “There, there.” Werthen made to pat her shoulder, but thought better of it, not wanting to give offense at being too intimate.

  “And this coachman,” Gross said. “He is a local man?”

  She sniffed once more. “Coachman?”

  “The one who assisted the empress to her feet.”

  “Oh.” She thought a moment. “I really don’t know. Planner might be able to tell you.”

  Planner was on duty at the door. Of medium height and undistinguished features, he nonetheless carried himself with great importance, decked out in a red uniform with gold epaulets and a shiny black kepi. He was pleased to talk to other Austrians.

  “A right panic it was,” he said when asked of the events of the day Elisabeth was assassinated. “She said good-bye to me personally, she did, on her way out. Called me by name and all. She knew I was Austrian, see. Always left a good tip for me in one of her embossed envelopes. We won’t see her like again.”