Thus, they walked to the nearby Imperial for lunch. Adele was indeed pleased to see him, for Werthen had been a constant guest in the Gross household during his years in Graz as a young criminal lawyer. And though he had already twice collaborated with Gross on criminal investigations since leaving Graz, Werthen had not seen Adele in the intervening years.
She was a short, thin woman, and, like many smaller women, she was full of a bubbling strength and confidence that made you forget her stature. Hearing of the birth of his first child, Adele leaned across the table to kiss him on the cheek. As she did so, she whispered, ‘Do not ruin your child.’
At least he thought she had said that. Implying that Gross had done his utmost to ruin their own child, Otto, a budding twenty-three-year-old psychologist by all accounts, but who, as a youth, had been at loggerheads with his authoritarian father.
Werthen merely smiled in return to Adele. It felt almost like a betrayal of Gross even to receive such advice. Still, Werthen would not have wanted to be the man’s son. Hard enough being the offspring of Emile von Werthen.
They spoke of food for a time once the carp was served, and then Gross regaled them for a full half-hour about the discoveries he had made yesterday at the Kunsthistorisches Museum viewing his beloved Bruegel paintings. In particular, he had been inspecting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent.
‘A most propitious painting for this time of year,’ Gross remarked.
Gross thought he had discovered the mystery behind the change in orthography for Bruegel’s name. Prior to 1559, the Flemish painter spelled his name with an ‘h’: Brueghel. However, thereafter for the final decade of his life, he spelled it without the ‘h,’ even though his offspring — both painters as well — kept the ‘h.’ Many art historians credited such a spelling change to the influence of humanism on the painter, wanting to Latinize his name. However, in The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, from 1559, Gross felt that he had uncovered the secret reason for this change. Amid the bewildering myriad of characters populating the canvas, Gross had discerned a recurring pattern: in each group there appeared to be a hunched crone plying some occult trade. According to Gross, the ‘h’ thus represented to Bruegel the word heks, the Flemish for witch or sorceress.
‘In effect,’ Gross said with a satisfied smile, ‘Bruegel underwent a form of self-exorcism of the witch within himself with this spelling change.’
Adele was quite obviously uninterested in such a discussion; she peeled a dessert apple and left it untasted, then proceeded to fold and refold her napkin. Werthen, too, felt a little impatient with this discourse, not because it was uninteresting to him, but rather because he had his own mystery to chew on and would have preferred Gross to confer with him on further details of that business. However, it soon dawned on him — as Gross requested Werthen’s company for an after-lunch visit to the museum — that the criminologist was using the Bruegel matter as a ruse. Adele had finally shamed Gross into making a round of the Fasching balls; she would obviously not want his attention diverted by a new criminal investigation.
‘I would be pleased to join you,’ Werthen responded to the invitation, which brought a wide and satisfied smile from Gross.
‘Remember we have a dinner engagement tonight with the Hausmanns, Hanns,’ Adele said as they were leaving the restaurant.
‘Of course, my sweet. It is uppermost in my mind.’
‘You are as sharp as always,’ Gross said as they left the Imperial. ‘I confess that in a moment of weakness I vowed to Adele that I would not become involved in a criminal investigation while in Vienna. But really, Werthen. Snail races. I’ll be sold for a donkey before being exposed to such foolery again.’
They did not, of course, go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Instead, with Werthen’s knee feeling better now that he had his walking stick, they took a leisurely stroll to the nearby Maximilianstrasse 13, one street in from the Ring and just across from the Hofoper. In a cramped and cluttered corner office they found Karl Kraus hard at work getting his latest edition of Die Fackel ready for the printer.
Kraus, whom Werthen had the occasion to consult on an earlier investigation, was more than a mere journalist. He seemed to know where all the bodies were buried in Vienna, who was sleeping with whom, and even what the emperor had for dinner the night before. His network of colleagues and friends extended to every section of society. Kraus, a slight man with a curly head of hair and tiny oval wire-rim glasses, was happily surprised at their visit, even setting out three small glasses of rather too sweet apricot schnapps in honor of the occasion. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship: in exchange for quite accurate gossip, Kraus had been, in the past, provided by Werthen and Gross with material for his thrice-monthly journal that, as the Americans said, ‘scooped’ the dailies.
They made small talk for a time, Kraus encircled by uneven piles of Viennese newspapers which he scoured daily for signs of hypocrisy, pomposity, and, worst sin of all, poor grammar.
‘So, gentlemen,’ Kraus said after appropriate toasts to communal health had been made, ‘I trust you have not paid a visit solely for a bit of free schnapps. What wonderful case are you currently engaged in and how can I be of service?’
Gross, who at first meeting had heartily complained of Kraus’s affectedness, was now a convert and greeted the journalist’s flair with a smile.
Werthen set his empty glass on to the small desk amid the clutter of newsprint. ‘I am interested in the colleagues of Councilman Steinwitz. Any close friends he might have had at City Hall or elsewhere.’
Kraus leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands over his narrow chest.
‘Ah, the dear departed Councilman Steinwitz. His name has been quite eclipsed in the press of late. We journalists are a fickle lot.’ He squinted at Werthen. ‘By friends, do you mean acquaintances?’
‘Real friends,’ Werthen said.
Kraus nodded. ‘I assume you know that he and Lueger were school chums. Both at the Theresianum together.’
Werthen remembered now the flag at half-mast at the school when he was investigating the disappearance of Hans Wittgenstein. The words of Father Mickelsburg came back to him, for the Piarist priest had reported that Steinwitz and Lueger were among the first class of commoners to be allowed to attend the school, and that the two had remained close friends after graduation.
‘Quite attached to one another, by all accounts,’ Kraus continued. ‘Lueger brought him into his government despite certain irreconcilables.’
‘How do you mean?’ Werthen quickly inquired.
‘Well, the two were not of one mind about the Jewish question at all. Lueger has gone so far as to suggest the Jews all be loaded on a ship and sent off to Palestine.’
Werthen noted that Kraus, a converted Jew like Werthen himself, did not use the pronoun ‘we’ when speaking of Vienna’s Jews.
‘And Steinwitz?’ But Werthen, having formerly represented the deceased councilman, felt he already knew the answer.
‘Race and religion were never one of Herr Steinwitz’s concerns,’ Kraus said. ‘But their differences went beyond that.’
He smiled at them rather enigmatically for a moment.
‘Do you intend to share your knowledge, Herr Kraus?’ Gross asked with a degree of irony.
Which brought a pinched smile to the journalist’s face. ‘Our esteemed mayor fashions himself the representative of the little man. He loves them so much, he tells us, that he wants to create parks and open spaces in their honor. Let the Kleinburgertum enjoy nature along with the toffs, right? Every time a tree is planted or a new green space, no matter how small, is installed, then there is an accompanying plaque commending Mayor Lueger for this worthy deed. Why, it has got so bad that last month, after the birth of an elephant at Schonbrunn Zoo, one of our leading journalists, hardly before known for his waggish tongue, suggested a plaque be erected at the elephant house: “Born during the Mayoralty of Karl Lueger.”’
‘Yes,’ Gross interrupted, ‘b
ut what does this have to do with Councilman Steinwitz?’
‘Not to worry, Doktor Gross. I shall come full circle presently. From all this, one must conclude that Lueger is sincere in his connection with the lower middle classes. Correct?’
There was silence in the small office for a time. It took Werthen a moment to realize Kraus had actually posed a question.
‘Well, it might appear so,’ the lawyer answered while Gross sat thin-lipped.
‘Yes,’ Kraus said. ‘Appearances. They are so important to our mayor. In fact, however, the so-called little man hardly benefits from such beautification schemes. I could count on one hand the number of parks that Lueger has built in working-class districts. And those he built in the rest of Vienna have used up open space that could have been put to better use building affordable housing. But that would not please Lueger’s real constituency, the landlords and the moneyed classes. Building more housing would tend to bring rents down, something the landlords, and therefore Mayor Lueger, do not want. Our mayor is touted for building the new metropolitan rail-road, but no one now mentions that he single-handedly vetoed extension of it into outlying suburbs where the workers and lower middle classes could find more affordable housing. Instead, Lueger confines those classes to the city limits and thereby again helps to keep rents high. The countryside around Vienna, it seems, is fit only for those who can afford their own carriages.’
Gross let out a sound midway between clearing one’s throat and retching. ‘A rather cynical interpretation, wouldn’t you say, Kraus?’
‘Cynical,’ the journalist allowed, ‘but accurate. The two are not incompatible.’
‘Then I am to assume,’ Werthen said, ‘that Steinwitz was opposed to such policies.’
Kraus swept his hand magnanimously in front of him. ‘Assume away, Advokat. My minions inside the Rathaus tell me that of late there was no love lost between Steinwitz and Lueger. In fact, things were quite frosty between them. Steinwitz felt that Lueger had abandoned all his old principles in a mad rush for power. Old friendships turning sour. One never knows where that might lead.’
‘And who were the man’s supporters at City Hall?’ Gross inquired.
‘You mean who might have been close enough to seek revenge on the journalist who drove Steinwitz to suicide? I assume you are ultimately investigating the death of the unfortunate Henricus Praetor?’
Thus spoken, the theory seemed absurd even to Werthen, who had proposed it in the first place.
‘Yes to both your queries,’ responded Gross with conviction.
‘Off hand, I can think of more colleagues who might have been happy to see Steinwitz dead. However, he had one quasi-supporter in the inner circle. Councilman Hermann Bielohlawek.’
The name was familiar to Werthen. A Christian Social city councilman, Bielohlawek was an ur-philistine, infamous for his reaction to a Jewish Social Democrat member who wanted to introduce a book into evidence in debate. Werthen well remembered Bielohlawek’s response: Another book! I’ll puke!
Kraus nodded at the look of wonder on Werthen’s face. ‘Yes, that Bielohlawek. I strongly doubt, however, that he would avenge Steinwitz’s death. Theirs was a profoundly political alliance. Friendship did not enter into it. Bielohlawek likes to keep a foot in both camps. Other than that, rumor has it that Steinwitz had a wide circle of special friends.’
‘Special?’ Werthen said.
‘Rumor only. I do not like to speculate further.’
But by the wry smile on Kraus’s face, Werthen could see that he was pleased to have piqued their interest in this way.
‘Any possible avenging angels among them?’ Gross asked.
‘Not the dueling sort. And now, gentlemen, if you will forgive me. I have an edition to prepare for the printers.’
Ten
Well, what do you make of that?’ Gross sputtered as they regained the sidewalk.
‘Kraus enjoys his little games,’ Werthen said. ‘“Special” could mean anything from a sweet young thing to a bookmaker. For now, though, that seems a moot point.’
‘Agreed,’ Gross said, picking up his pace. ‘We need to get on with this or I won’t have enough time to dress properly for dinner.’
Werthen made no comment, but was momentarily irritated by Gross’s egocentricity.
‘Yes, I know,’ Gross said. ‘I am a self-centered old beast, but there it is. I cannot change. Nor would you want me to, eh, Werthen?’
‘Well. .’
‘Thought not. Where to first? The Rathaus or Herr Doktor Praetor?’
‘There is also Frau Steinwitz, the widow, to consider. She should be aware of her husband’s friends.’
‘Even the special ones?’ Gross asked.
‘Point taken.’
‘So, as we are close by, why not storm the battlements of City Hall?’
They both walked briskly now, not out of urgency, but out of a desire to keep warm. A biting wind had come up, bringing the smell of snow from the Puszta, the great flat plains of Hungary to the east. For no good reason, the words of the statesman, Prince Metternich, sounded in Werthen’s mind: Asia begins at the Landstrasse.
And indeed, Vienna was infused with an undercurrent of Byzantine protocol and corruption. Werthen wondered just how high such corruption reached in the corridors of City Hall.
In the foyer of that august building they were greeted by a bulky fellow at the main information desk. He looked as if he might have been a staff sergeant earlier in his life. Gross and Werthen had decided on the direct approach, and informed the man that they were private inquiry agents looking into the death of Councilman Steinwitz. They desired an audience with Councilman Hermann Bielohlawek if possible.
The man at the desk looked at them gruffly for a moment, and Werthen thought he may not have heard him properly. Before Werthen could speak again, however, the ex-sergeant picked up the handset of a recently installed inter-office telephone, told the in-house operator who he wished to be connected with, and then, after the few moments it took to direct the call, repeated into the mouthpiece their request for an interview. Werthen could hear the hollow, tinny sound of the voice on the other end, but could not make out what was said.
‘The councilman is happily available for a short meeting,’ the man said, setting the handset back into its cradle.
So much for having to storm the battlements.
They were directed to the top floor of offices, and began climbing the broad stairway, their heels and Werthen’s walking stick echoing in the vast space. Werthen had had many occasions to visit the City Hall as a lawyer in wills and trusts, but he was still awed by the sheer size of it, boasting over fifteen hundred rooms, two thousand windows, and a Festsaal, a festival or ceremonial hall, that was over seventy meters long and twenty wide, spanning two stories in height. Large enough for the royal Lipizzaner stallions to romp about in, performing a levade here, a capriole there.
Like other official buildings along the Ringstrasse, the Rathauswas a stone-hewed symbol. Built during the heyday of the liberals in the 1870s, the building was meant to stand for the rise of democratic, or at least quasi-representative government after centuries of absolutist rule by the Habsburgs. The competition for its design had been won by the German architect Friedrich von Schmidt, who created an imposing neo-Gothic edifice, reminiscent of the old Flemish and northern German town halls. Such a style was meant to symbolize the medieval roots of the city when Vienna was a free commune. Werthen doubted any of those old town halls were quite so extravagant as this modern embellishment on the style.
They reached Bielohlawek’s office after ten minutes of fairly arduous stairs. Workmen were busy at the door as they approached the corner office. It seemed that it necessitated three of the workers to install a small bronze plaque over the lintel with Bielohlawek’s name. Werthen glanced at the one recently removed and now lodged in a tin refuse pail. It bore the name of Councilman Steinwitz.
Bielohlawek, it appeared, was coming up in the world, n
ot only taking over the coveted office of the deceased councilman, but also, most likely, Steinwitz’s position as personal aide to Lueger.
Werthen and Gross made their way around these workmen, and Werthen used the brass globe of his walking stick to knock on the closed door. An instant later they received a basso command to enter. The workmen now doffed their hats at the gentleman as they entered through the door.
Bielohlawek, dressed in a dark three-piece suit and stand-up collar, was seated at the desk formerly occupied by Steinwitz. Or had they got rid of that piece of furniture? Werthen wondered. After all, the councilman had killed himself while seated at it. One did not have to be overly squeamish to wriggle at that thought, though Bielohlawek did not look the sort to be easily upset. He had a street fighter’s face with deep-set eyes, brown hair cut short and bristling like a hedgehog, long, tapering sideburns, and a moustache curled up at the ends. His jaw line was camouflaged partly by premature jowls, but still Werthen could see that it was jutting and strong.
Much of the parquet floor beneath their feet was covered by what appeared to Werthen to be a Ushak medallion carpet of a delicate ochre hue.
‘You’ll be the two investigators, I suppose.’
Werthen had heard more enthusiasm in the greeting from a condemned man to his executioner. Everything about Bielohlawek was gruff and rough-edged, even the sound of his voice. There was a strong hint of Czech heritage in his accent, though Bielohlawek had been born in Vienna. A man of about forty, the newly elected city council member was, according to some accounts, the chief clown in Lueger’s court, and to others, a shrewd political operative who used his street-thug facade to conceal his machinations. He was, at once, a man who could call the great Russian master Tolstoy an ‘old dope’ or ask for the deportation of all of Vienna’s Jews to Devil’s Island along with the Frenchman, Dreyfus, while at night studying French and Latin to better himself.
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