A Matter of Breeding: a mystery set in turn-of-the-century Vienna (A Viennese Mystery)

by J Sydney Jones

  When she finished, he smiled at her. ‘How fortunate for me, then, that you are already investigating this matter. Captain Putter left a note, you see.’

  She felt her pulse quicken. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘That death was the only way out for him, the only way to avoid shame. He was not more specific.’

  ‘But there must be a connection,’ she said.

  ‘It would seem so,’ the Archduke replied. ‘And that is why I summoned you—’

  ‘Karl, actually,’ she quickly corrected.

  He shook his head. ‘I like the way your mind works, Frau Meisner. Would you be prepared to accept my commission?’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To get to the bottom of this affair. The breeding scandal … the death of Putter. I fear it may cast a pall on this great land.’

  ‘There may be a conflict of interest, Archduke.’

  ‘I do not see that, Frau Meisner. We both want to get to the truth. It sounds as if your father-in-law has been taken advantage of. If that is the case, then the truth can only help, not hurt him.’

  She said nothing for a moment.

  ‘So, will you?’ Franz Ferdinand said. ‘Will you be my eyes and ears in this matter? It all goes to Piber,’ he added. ‘I am convinced of that.’

  Piber, in Styria, was, Berthe knew, home to a major stud farm for the cavalry of the Austro-Hungarian Army. It was also, if she remembered correctly, headquarters of Premium Breeds.

  Part Two

  Nine

  ‘I wonder …’ Gross suddenly said mid-bite of his breakfast kipferl.

  Werthen and Stoker exchanged glances. They had been speaking of inconsequential matters: the state of the weather (rather mild for this late in the year) and the level of culinary delights to be found at the Hotel Daniel (subterranean). But Gross’s non sequitur interjection ended such mundane pursuits, for it was patently obvious that the great criminalist was wondering about the case at hand and not about the quality of today’s kipferl.

  ‘Do share, Gross,’ Werthen prompted.

  ‘I had a loathsome sleep last night,’ Gross said. ‘Or rather non-sleep. I just kept going over and over in my head who I might have wronged that they should attempt such barbarous revenge.’

  Gross rubbed his large hand over his face. Werthen thought that he indeed did look the worse for wear this morning: grey smudged the bags under his eyes.

  ‘It may be some totally different motive, Gross—’ Werthen began, but his former mentor cut him off.

  ‘Of course it may. You don’t think I know that? Nonetheless, I was plagued all last night with a rogue’s gallery of faces that might have some reason to want to destroy my good name. Criminals, lawyers, and other supine forms of low life who may have been defeated by me in the past.’

  ‘I thank you for that,’ said Werthen, a former defense attorney himself and, as such, often routed by Gross.

  But Gross was, as usual, beyond paying attention to other mortals.

  ‘Why, Inspector Thielman himself might very well have laid all this on for me, tired of being the man Gross trained. Not a resonant legacy for a proud ex-military man. He has always been simply competent in his job, never a standout. Could he be harboring feelings of jealousy all these years? Who better to have left the trail of clues from my own writing at the scenes of these crimes than Thielman? He was the very man to request my assistance.’

  ‘Thielman?’ Werthen said with a degree of incredulity, but Gross charged on.

  ‘And so I wonder about others. And it just struck me that Herr Doktor Reininger of the Munich courts sent me a most unpleasant letter following publication of my Criminal Investigations. The fellow had the temerity to accuse me of pilfering his footprint analysis technique for my book. Footprints!’

  He nearly shouted this last word, which brought the muffle of voices and clacking of cutlery against china to an abrupt halt in the busy dining room. All eyes were suddenly on their table, and Werthen, as so many times in the past, felt compelled to somehow apologize or at least indirectly offer an explanation for Gross’s odd behavior.

  ‘Well, footprints do serve as the groundwork of investigation,’ he said rather more loudly than he usually spoke in public spaces. The pun brougtht a slight chuckle from Stoker, but was met by a contemptuous look from Gross.

  ‘Whatever is the matter with you this morning, Werthen? Has the country air quite addled your thought processes? This is no time for adolescent humor.’

  The eyes were still on their table and now Gross turned to the other diners.

  ‘Don’t you all have something better to chew on at breakfast than gossip?’

  After an awkward silence, the room once again returned to its normal hum of activity.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Gross continued, ‘Herr Doktor Reininger was most uncivil. I believe I saved his letter someplace.’

  ‘Gross,’ Werthen said, his cheeks still stinging as if Gross’s remark to him were an actual slap, ‘it is not often I remind you that you are a human. That, like it or not, you belong to human society and that there are certain codes of behavior. You speak of Herr Doktor Reininger’s incivility as if you are a foreigner to such behavior yourself.’

  Gross slapped a meaty hand down on the table top. ‘That is the Advokat Werthen I know and respect. Bravo for a stirring oration. Your apology is accepted.’

  Werthen was about to further complain, but finally gave it up with a disappointed shake of the head.

  ‘I am going to send a telegram to Munich this very instant. I want to know the whereabouts of our dear friend, Reininger.’ He rose abruptly. ‘Meanwhile, you gentlemen should finish your breakfast. We leave once I return from the telegraph office.’

  Gross stuck the unfinished kipferl in his jacket pocket, swilled down the remainder of the coffee, and stomped out of the dining room like a man well shed of bad company.

  ‘Is he always like that?’ Stoker asked, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

  ‘No,’ Werthen assured him. ‘Sometimes he’s worse.’

  They had booked a closed fiaker for nine thirty. It was now a quarter to ten and still no Gross. Werthen and Stoker sat in the carriage, each poring over the morning papers.

  The vampire angle still prevailed in several editions, while the right-wing press opted for Jewish ritual murders. However, some enterprising reporter had spoken with Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vienna and author of Psychopathia Sexualis, the premier handbook on sexual deviation. Werthen knew the man well, as Krafft-Ebing had assisted them on more than one of their cases, helping to build a profile of the possible perpetrator from the very nature and specifics of the crime. In the current case of these Styrian murders, Krafft-Ebing opined – as quoted in Vienna’s foremost daily, Die Presse – that the perpetrator of these horrendous crimes displayed symptoms of ‘inversion’. The report went on, quoting the eminent psychiatrist: ‘Such brutal killings indicate that the killer, most probably a male, has a deep-seated neurosis, sexual in nature. However, the release of such a neurosis is apparently asexual. This means that the killer is able to keep his deviancy under control, to hide it from the world. Outwardly, he may appear the most mild-mannered of men. The police have their work cut out for them in this case.’

  Krafft-Ebing went on to note that often such individuals displayed an early proclivity to sadistic brutality toward domestic and farm animals, including mutilations, offering further quotes from Psychopathia Sexualis to prove his point.

  This reminded Werthen very strongly of the advice Krafft-Ebing had served up in the first case he and Gross had worked on together, a series of murders in the Vienna Prater for which the painter Gustav Klimt was so wrongfully accused.

  And one more thought: how had Krafft-Ebing gotten details of the killings? The local police had attempted to keep details of the mutilations from the press. But it was apparent that Krafft-Ebing knew something of the specifics of these hideous crimes.

&n
bsp; His thoughts were interrupted by Gross’s arrival. The criminalist threw the carriage door open in an apparent huff and got in, making the fiaker rock back and forth as he took his seat.

  ‘So much for Reininger,’ he said, gripping his hands together on his lap.

  Werthen feigned disinterest, staring blankly into his newspaper.

  Gross sighed dramatically. ‘I was able to make a trunk call to Munich at the railway station.’

  Still no response from Werthen or Stoker.

  ‘Well, don’t you want to know what I learned?’

  Werthen finally put down his newspaper. ‘I am sure you will inform us.’

  ‘Herr Doktor Reininger, despite his incivility, is not among the suspects. He died last year. Silly man, fell off an alp. What is a forensic scientist doing traipsing about in the mountains?’

  The fiaker took off with a jerk, thrusting Werthen back in his seat. Gross, seated across from him, took the newspaper out of his lap and found the article Werthen was reading.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘A new cat among the pigeons.’

  It took a moment for Werthen to understand. ‘You gave Krafft-Ebing that information.’

  Gross looked pleased with himself.

  ‘And the reporter?’ Werthen asked.

  ‘I merely made a conjecture in a telegram to an editor I know. We cannot very well have half of Europe believing there are vampires in Styria or that Jews are committing blood rituals.’

  ‘Manipulating the press now, are you?’ Werthen said.

  ‘Someone must,’ Gross said. ‘And neatly done, too, I believe. But I must apologize, Stoker,’ he said, turning to the third passenger. ‘This rather takes the steam out of your promotional efforts.’

  ‘I am not sure I follow you,’ Stoker said.

  ‘But of course you do, man,’ Gross said. ‘If the press takes up the cry of a sexual deviant being responsible for these murders, then the vampire angle is gone and so is your Dracula connection. You see, my same editor friend advised me that he had been contacted by your agent or publicist, or whatever such a person is called, regarding a possible series of articles on the vampire murders.’

  Stoker had the good grace to redden in the cheeks at being caught out.

  ‘Now, far be it from me to suggest that you, Herr Stoker, having read in the early editions of the supposed vampire killings in Styria, fabricated the story of being followed in order to worm your way into this investigation. That, knowing Advokat Werthen and I often work together, you decided to employ our good friend as a bodyguard.’

  ‘How could I know that you were involved in the investigation?’ Stoker protested.

  ‘It has come to my attention that various newspapers reported my presence at the third crime scene.’

  Werthen looked on in stunned amazement that quickly turned to pique.

  ‘Is this true, Stoker? You hired me under false pretenses?’

  ‘No, none of it,’ he said.

  Werthen and Gross both stared hard at him and he finally relented. ‘Oh, all right. If you must know, I was bored senseless in Vienna waiting for the day of my speech. I do not know why my publicist brought me over so early.’

  ‘You’re a free man,’ Werthen said. ‘Why not just come down here on your own? Why involve me in this ruse?’

  ‘I feel a kinship to you gentlemen. You may not know it, but I was once clerk of court to the petty sessions. It was a position that took a degree of legal training. I traveled all round Ireland as a young man, organizing the courts, listening in on cases, advising the Justices of the Peace. It was a fascinating time, my first introduction to real life outside the cosseted home life of my family.’

  ‘Collecting fines and issuing beer licenses hardly qualifies you as an investigator,’ Gross said.

  ‘I apologize, to both of you. Sincerely, I do. But I was so eager to put my brain to some real use.’

  ‘Not the gentlemanly thing to do, Stoker,’ Werthen said, but he took some pleasure in the realization that Stoker had fooled Schnitzler, too.

  ‘Whoever said I am a gentleman? I am a writer. But I can be of assistance, a third pair of eyes. Just give me a chance.’

  Remembering Stoker’s observation that von Hobarty had an edition of Gross’s Criminal Investigations, Werthen thought maybe the Irishman had a point. Perhaps he could be of service and see things with fresh foreign eyes.

  Werthen looked at Gross. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’ the criminologist said. ‘We can hardly throw the man out of a moving carriage. Besides, he is rather too large for that endeavor. In fact his size might come in useful.’ Then to Stoker: ‘Are you handy with your fists?’

  ‘I’ve been known to spar in the ring.’

  ‘Then it’s settled. Roles are thus forth reversed,’ Gross said. ‘You shall be our protector.’

  ‘But what of my commission?’ Werthen said. ‘I should be taking money under false pretenses.’

  ‘Not at all, Werthen,’ Gross said. ‘Think of it. Who is paying you to protect our Irish friend?’

  ‘Well, officially the Concordia, but it seems to be coming from Court. Prince Montenuovo.’

  ‘Precisely. And if you discover you have the time to aid in investigations of a heinous murderer, who would be benefiting?’ But he allowed no time for a response. ‘The empire, of course. To solve such horrendous crimes is a public service, indeed a duty to the state. False pretenses, pahhh.’

  Their initial stop was the village of Judendorf-Strassengel, about six miles to the northeast of Hitzendorf where they were lodged; a little over an hour by carriage. It was a pleasant hamlet set amid rolling hills with the fourteenth-century pilgrimage church of Maria Strassengel overlooking it like a watchman from atop a stony outcrop. It was just off the path of a trail up to the church where the body of the first victim, Fräulein Maria Feininger, had been found on Friday, the fourth of October.

  As their carriage was pulling into the main square of the town, a train came chuffing into the nearby station. They had not taken the train from Hitzendorf as it would have necessitated a trip via Graz, where they would have had to change trains and head north for this village.

  Even in the twentieth century, Werthen decided, there are times when a horse and the direction a bird flies make more sense than steam power.

  The train added a sense of bustle to an otherwise sleepy village. Among the cluster of buildings near the main square was a large and sparely modern construction, the Styrian Park Sanatorium. Recently built, it was one of many water-cure establishments that were fast making Judendorf-Strassengel and other small Styrian villages well-known spa destinations.

  Despite the town’s name, there were not many Jewish folk in the town any longer. Only a few shops and the cement works on the edge of town were Jewish-owned, as Gross had informed them en route.

  When Stoker queried him regarding the source of such information, Gross had merely cast a haddock eye his way and said, ‘It is common knowledge for those who read.’

  For those who read the Austro-Hungarian Statistical Yearbook perhaps, Werthen had wanted to say, but thought better of it. Gross was sure to chide him for not making that tome his bedside reading.

  The carriage stopped at the local gendarmerie headquarters quite near the little hill atop which the church stood.

  Sergeant Alfred Metzler was on duty. A bluff man, as round as he was tall, with a lazy left eye, Metzler was full of suspicion at the arrival of strangers asking questions, until he read the letter of introduction Gross carried from Inspector Thielman.

  ‘Felix vouches for you,’ Metzler said, handing back the hastily perused letter to Gross, ‘that’s good enough for me. But I don’t see the need for calling in fancy Viennese detectives.’

  ‘Actually,’ Gross said, ‘I am from Graz originally. Perhaps you know of my work as magistrate inspector, or of my textbooks for inspectors?’

  Metzler blew air through puffed lips. ‘Can’t say I do. You don’t talk like one of
us.’

  Werthen held back the urge to clap the good man on the back.

  But Gross ignored the remark.

  Metzler screwed up his mouth in thought now. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, looking with renewed suspicion at the criminologist. ‘Gross. Doktor Hanns Gross, would that be?’

  Now Gross began to puff up, exulting in advance at finally being recognized.

  ‘None other,’ he replied.

  Metzler rifled through a welter of papers atop a tiny desk and finally came up with a folded letter.

  ‘I was to give this to you if you came my way,’ Metzler said, handing the paper to Gross, who opened it eagerly.

  Werthen watched as Gross’s eyes scanned the message, at first showing surprise, but quickly followed by a squinting so fierce as to appear demonic.

  ‘That odious, carpet-chewing cretin,’ he thundered. Gross crumpled the paper into a ball and looked for a wastebasket into which to toss it. Seeing none, he thrust the crumpled mass into his jacket pocket.

  ‘Which carpet-chewer would that be, Gross?’ Werthen asked innocently.

  ‘Magistrate Lechner. A former colleague, and I use that world loosely. We were both investigating magistrates in Graz a decade and more ago. Seems Lechner has stayed at his post.’

  Gross said this with acid disgust, for he was a great critic of what he termed the professional bureaucratic class, even though he himself, as a professor at an imperial university, was part and parcel of that very class. Werthen remembered the man from his own time as a criminal defense lawyer in Graz. Lechner took the inquisitorial system to unexpected lengths, playing not only judge, jury, and prosecution, but also the ultimate determiner of the legal code, deciding what evidence could be permitted and what witnesses called on behalf of the defendant. With such weapons at his disposal, it was no wonder Lechner had the highest conviction rate in the province. Gross and Lechner had been oil and water; the criminologist at one point even penned a letter to the editor of the Graz Presse complaining of Lechner’s tyrannical judicial manner.

  ‘He has the temerity to order me back to Graz forthwith. Order. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who does he think he’s talking to?’