Requiem in Vienna: A Viennese Mystery (Viennese Mysteries)

by Jones, J. Sydney

  “But this is not all bad news,” Gross said. “No. With this latest attempt on Mahler’s life we approach a psychological profile of our man. I posit a romantic by nature. One who is hypersensitive and with an acute sense of persecution. A youngish man of action—witness the ruthless killing of Herr Gunther—yet one who mounts elaborate and rather absurd plans to do away with Mahler. He does not take the direct route. How simple to use a pistol; how much more efficient. Shoot Mahler and have done with it. But no, our man plans symbolic attacks: a fire curtain drops, a podium crumbles underfoot, a bicycle brake is severed. Such are the convoluted strategies of our man. It is obvious then that for Mahler he holds a special loathing, a special grudge. He is extracting vengeance, not merely trying to kill a man. We are getting close to him. Yes, closer and closer.”

  “I am glad you think so at least,” Werthen said.

  “You weren’t very hungry today,” Werthen said as he and Berthe walked to the law offices.

  The Josefstädterstrasse was a hectic thoroughfare this afternoon with horse-drawn carts and streetcars tumbling over cobbles and along metal rails, metal shutters rattling open after the midday closing, and shoppers bustling here and there with wicker baskets already filled with fruit and bread. After the chill of the Salzkammergut, the summertime warmth of Vienna was comforting to him; a perfect day for a postprandial stroll.

  “No,” she said, suddenly gripping his hand more tightly. Then, “Karl?”

  “Yes, my dear.” He loved the lilting way in which she said his name.

  “I have something to tell you, and this is hardly the way I imagined it would occur, walking down a busy avenue.”

  Indeed, “What is it?” He felt sudden alarm. Was she ill? But she was so young and hearty.

  “Well, I suppose the best way is the most direct. I . . . I mean we, well, we are going to have a baby. I am pregnant.”

  This news filled him with sudden elation; he felt his chest swell. A child. Their child. But at the same time he felt a sudden sadness that his parents, who had rejected his marriage, should not be a part of this happiness. Would they reject their grandchild, as well?

  “That is wonderful news,” he said flatly.

  “What’s wrong. You do want a child, don’t you?”

  They had stopped in the middle of the busy sidewalk and pedestrians grumbled as they had to maneuver around them.

  “Of course, dear.” He weighed telling her of his concern, deciding against it. Now was not a time to burden her. She needed to focus on the tiny life inside of her. “It is just such a surprise.” He willed a smile onto his face. “A glorious surprise. And you shall be the most beautiful mother in all of Vienna.”

  But his false bonhomie served only to chill her.

  “I am afraid Gross will be losing his pied-à-terre in Vienna,” Werthen laughed. “Soon it will become a nursery.”

  She made no attempt to join in the forced laughter. It should be the happiest day of our lives, she thought.

  Instead, they walked the rest of the way into the First District in silence, each deep in his or her own thoughts.

  Herr Tor was busy at his desk when they arrived. Werthen was glad for his presence, as he could feel Berthe readying herself to probe him more deeply about his response to her news. Why not just tell her the truth, he thought. She is my wife, she has a right to know my concerns. But a misguided sense of male protection kept him from burdening her, and thus the misunderstanding was allowed to grow.

  They each went about their own tasks the rest of the afternoon, Berthe taking care of billings that were long overdue—Klimt’s among them—and Werthen retiring to his office to deal with the difficulties presented by a trust being set up by Count Lasko, certain intricacies of which Tor did not feel competent to handle. Yet when Werthen took a look at what Tor had accomplished with the trust, he thought it fine. Which left him with free time to ruminate more over the Mahler matter.

  He took out a piece of foolscap, dipped his pen in the inkwell on his desk, and made three columns, one for suspects at the Hofoper, one for those at the Villa Kerry, and one for those out of Mahler’s past, particularly his early days in Vienna. The first column, of course, was the longest, despite the fact that several of these people had supplied alibis. Leitner, Blauer, Schreier, and Hassler topped the list. But there were also Richter (a distant possibility) and the tenor Franacek, both of whom had also been in attendance at the Villa Kerry, as was Leitner. These he scrawled into the second column. Additionally, on that second list was Mahler’s prospective brother-in-law, Rosé, and then his sister Justine, and thwarted lover, Natalie. And Alma Schindler, though this seemed rather far-fetched to Werthen, as he had subsequently learned that she had been in the company of her sister and several cousins that day in the mountains. Highly unlikely that she could escape their companionship long enough to adulterate Mahler’s brakes; equally unlikely that all of them were guilty of the deed. But he could not totally dismiss Alma or her companions from his list. The women, of course, would necessarily need an accomplice.

  Werthen then added Alma’s name to the first list, as well, for she had admitted to attending Mahler’s rehearsals at the Hofoper.

  The third list, Mahler’s past, was the shortest, just Hugo Wolf’s name. But that was where the investigation now needed to focus, he thought. What other names could be included in that last column? He made several question marks where there might be new names to be discovered.

  So many possibilities. At least there was one positive thing that had come from their efforts thus far. As Gross reported, through their investigation, Montenuovo had been enlisted and now the police were also involved. Mahler would at least be under police protection as they sifted the evidence for the killer of Fräulein Kaspar and Herr Gunther.

  A light rapping on his door roused him.

  “Yes?”

  Tor entered, carrying the rest of the Count Lasko file with him.

  “I think that about accomplishes the other matters,” he said, placing the file on the desk next to Werthen’s list of suspects.

  “Fine,” Werthen said, quickly glancing through the file, admiring Tor’s penmanship as well as the wording.

  Tor lingered for a moment close by the desk, scanning, Werthen thought, the three columns of his list of suspects.

  “Is there something else I can do for you?”

  “If it wouldn’t be an inconvenience, might I leave a bit early today, Advokat Werthen? I am still getting settled, and there are several things I need for my rooms.”

  “Of course, Herr Tor. You’ve more than earned the time with your ramble to Altaussee on our behalf. Take the time you need to get settled in. I shall not be leaving town again this summer.”

  Tor attempted a smile, Werthen thought. But it came across more like the show of sympathy one might cast a family member at a funeral.

  Poor man, Werthen thought. He really is painfully shy. But he had a first-class legal mind and they were lucky to have him. Good for Berthe, he thought after Tor had made his departure, for seeing this jewel in the rough.

  Thinking of his wife, he decided to go to her then, to explain himself. But when he went to the outer office, there was a note on her desk:

  Karl,

  I need to pick up a few things at Gerngross. See you at home later.

  B

  He read the note twice. Berthe had never, to his knowledge, set foot in the new emporium of Gerngross on the Mariahilfer-strasse. Such a self-styled “department store” on the American model was an abomination to her, a spearhead of a kind of capitalism run amok that she warned would ruin the very fabric of Viennese society, forcing family-run businesses to stay open during lunch, perhaps even on weekends. Unthinkable.

  He found himself smiling at her imagined diatribe. But the fact was, she would never “pick up a few things at Gerngross,” and she also knew that he was aware of that.

  Her coded message was a rebuke to him.

  Hofrat Richard Freiherr vo
n Krafft-Ebing, chair of the psychiatry department of the University of Vienna, had a corner office on the third floor of the new Ringstrasse University building. It was every centimeter a working space: glass-fronted lawyer’s bookcases lined the walls and framed large windows overlooked the Ringstrasse. His smallish desk was piled high with notebooks, paperbound journals, and thick books, many of which lay open, and others generously bookmarked with slips of blue paper.

  Of medium height, Krafft-Ebing dressed conservatively and wore his graying hair short. His beard was trimmed to a sharp V under his chin, and his eyes, as Werthen had noted at their initial meeting last year, were a gray-green that seemed to spill light.

  Gross and Werthen had consulted the neuropsychiatrist on their previous case, and his researches into the etiology of syphilis had proven invaluable in that matter. Gross and he were old friends from Graz, where together they helped pioneer the field of forensic psychopathology, the study of mental disorders as put to the use of criminology.

  Now, on Saturday morning, they had come to him on a different errand. In his role as hofrat, Krafft-Ebing also oversaw the direction of one of the primary mental clinics in Vienna, the Lower Austrian State Lunatic Asylum, where the composer Hugo Wolf was now housed.

  After social pleasantries were dispensed with, Krafft-Ebing got to the point.

  “Your message mentioned Hugo Wolf. I must admit he is one of our more renowned guests. I am not, however, sure that he is compos mentis any longer. He is in the final stage of syphilis, as I suppose you know.”

  ”I had no idea,” Gross said.

  “Tragic case,” Krafft-Ebing said, shaking his head. “Contracted the disease as a young man. His initiation into the wonderful world of sexuality at the hands of one of this city’s legion of prostitutes. A great pity. You are familiar with his music?”

  He addressed the question to Werthen, being only too well aware of his friend Gross’s taste in music—nothing later than Haydn for him.

  “I’ve attended several of his lieder evenings at the Musikverein,” Werthen responded. “There is genius in him.”

  “Was,” Krafft-Ebing corrected. “His friends and sponsors still insist on paying for an expensive room with a view of the Stephansdom. A grand piano also graces the room. All to no avail. For him, music is now ‘loathsome.’ The view out his window he thinks is a mural.”

  “Nonetheless,” Gross said, “we would like to speak with him if at all possible. We shall not overexcite him.”

  “Forewarned,” Krafft-Ebing told them. “Do not expect much. I will call to the administration. By the time you arrive, it should be arranged.”

  The State Lunatic Asylum was located at Lazarretgasse 14, near the General Hospital in the Ninth District, Alsergrund. It was a fine day and they decided to walk there, turning off the Ring at Universitätsstrasse and passing the General Hospital first. It was there, in the Narrenturm, the fool’s tower or madhouse tower, where the insane had been “treated” until only four decades before. Such treatment included chaining the poor souls to the walls, throwing them in ice baths, and making them wear leather masks to supposedly reduce their anxiety.

  The nearby State Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1853, improved the lot of these sufferers, but still scandalous occurrences took place even there. In 1865 the great physician Ignaz Semmelweis, whose discovery that simple hand washing provided valuable antisepsis in the prevention of puerperal fever or childbirth fever, was confined to the asylum after suffering a nervous breakdown. He died two weeks after being admitted, supposedly from a sepsis caused, ironically, by a surgically infected finger. Werthen, however, knew the truth from a lawyer representing the family, who had unsuccessfully attempted to sue the facility: Semmelweis had, in fact, died of injuries suffered at the hands of asylum personnel who had beaten him violently.

  Passing the General Hospital, they neared the intersection with Spitalgasse, where they turned right.

  Until now they had walked in silence, but suddenly Gross cleared his throat.

  “Tell me, Werthen,” he said. “Am I causing undue strain by my presence in your home?”

  “Whatever do you mean, Gross?”

  “It is just that I sensed a certain, how shall I put it, glacial ambience last evening. Your lady-wife was not her usual self at dinner. There was no spark to her conversation. Indeed, she managed to rearrange the peas on her plate several times. You can be honest with me. I know I am an old curmudgeon at times. The wonder is that Adele still puts up with me. But then she has to, doesn’t she? But I would understand if my presence is off-putting to your wife.”

  “Trust me, Gross, it has nothing to do with you.”

  “Ah, your trip to the Salzkammergut, then? She does not like to be abandoned.”

  “And not that, either.”

  Gross stopped walking. “Well, what is it, then? I do not mean to pry into your private business, but something is obviously bothering the both of you. If something causes you to give less than full concentration to our case, then it is my concern.”

  “Our case!” Werthen felt his temper flash. “This is my case, Gross. I invited your cooperation, but have not relinquished control.”

  “There, you see. How unlike you to lose your temper. Something is preying upon you. It affects your judgment, your usual good nature.”

  Confound the man, Werthen thought. He would keep picking and prying until he had his answer. Werthen was about to charge into a further tirade, but suddenly saw the sense of what Gross was saying. He was allowing this absurd misunderstanding between him and Berthe to continue too long.

  Thus he found himself confiding in Gross, telling him of Berthe’s wonderful news and the strange manner in which he had reacted to it.

  “But that is only natural,” Gross said after listening patiently. “Of course you are concerned about your parents’ reaction to the news. Of course you want them to accept your wife and offspring. And I think I might have a way to ensure that. Just leave that to me, old friend. And when we return for lunch, no, when you return for lunch sans the baleful Dr. Gross, then take your young wife in your arms and tell her the truth. Tell her your hesitation was caused not by the blessed news of the baby, but by considerations about your parents. Share your burdens, man. Marriage is about sharing.”

  Werthen could not imagine Gross living in accord with such prescriptions. In fact, an intimate to the Gross ménage from his years earlier in Graz, Werthen could guarantee that Gross was the autocratic paterfamilias in his household, every bit as tyrannical in its operation as Mahler was in his. Werthen did, however, make no mention of this.

  “Thank you, Gross. That is fine advice, indeed.”

  “And not to worry about my missed lunch,” the criminologist said. “I am sure to find a bite somewhere.”

  As if he were an urchin seeking handouts on the street. Werthen had to smile at this bid for sympathy.

  “I am sure you will.”

  They continued on their way, and Werthen did feel a new lightness to his spirit as a result of their little talk. He could, in fact, concentrate more fully on the matter at hand.

  Spitalgasse soon intersected with Lazarettgasse and they stood in front of the imposing gray walls of the State Lunatic Asylum.

  “Shoot me first, old friend,” Gross muttered as they mounted the steps to the front door. “If I go barking mad, never let them lock me up in such a place.”

  A day of revelations, Werthen thought, as they entered through the large front doors past the uniformed doorman and headed for the inquiries desk.

  The fat, florid offcial there was dressed in a dark blue and red uniform that appeared to be a bizarre blend of Hussar and train conductor.

  “What is it?” he asked before either Gross or Werthen had a chance to make an inquiry. On the small desk in front of him lay the most recent copy of the Reichspost.

  Krafft-Ebing’s message had obviously arrived, for the man quickly changed his aggressively unhelpful demeanor once Gross had introd
uced themselves.

  “This way, gentlemen. Why didn’t you say so at first? The Herr Hofrath called specially in this regard.”

  They followed the rotund man up the central staircase and then down a corridor marked Abteilung 2A. Muffled sounds reached them from behind closed doors. The official moved surprisingly quickly for such a large man, obviously in a hurry to get back to his edifying reading on the Jewish problem in Austria, thought Werthen.

  “Here it is,” he finally said, stopping in front of a door with number thirteen stenciled over it. He did not bother knocking; instead he slipped his master key into the lock and opened it, sticking his head in the room.

  “Visitors for you, Herr Wolf. You be nice now, or no strudel for you tonight.”

  The man drew his head out and winked at them conspiratorially as one might after chastising a naughty child.

  “He should be cooperative now. If not, I can have a stronger talk with him. . . .”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Gross said. “You may leave now.”

  “Most irregular,” the man said.

  His official pique, however, subsided, when Werthen offered him three florins.

  “Well, the Herr Hofrath himself allowed the visit, so I suppose it is all right.”

  “Indeed,” Gross said, sidling past him and into the room. Werthen followed, closing the door behind him.

  On the bed a slip of a man stared at them with the largest and most distant eyes Werthen had ever seen. Wolf was lean and with a brooding face that appeared more chiseled than molded. He had violet smudges under his deep-set eyes and deep lines drawing the flesh in under his cheekbones as if scarred. His beard, sparse because of a nervous tick that forced him to continually pick the whiskers out, was reduced to a faint blur of a mustache and goatee.

  The room, as promised, had a view of the tower of St. Stephen’s cathedral, Werthen noted, though it was fragmented in quadrants by the barred windows; a dusty Bösendorfer grand took up most of the floor space.

  “I knew you would come.” Wolf’s voice was powerful, booming, in complete contrast to his appearance. It made Werthen jump.