‘Bravo, Werthen. Exactly so. I received partial confirmation of these new suspicions this morning from Frau Czerny at Zeltgasse.’
Gross now shared his newly won information, as well.
‘I was late for our meeting as I stopped off at the telephone exchange to place two calls. The Portier at the Zeltgasse was good enough to supply me with the telephone number of the domestics firm that employs Frau Novatny. They confirm that the lady has been seriously ill for the last two weeks and in hospital. Thus, hers could not have been the voice Frau Czerny heard at Herr Praetor’s flat that night.’
He looked rather pleased with himself.
‘You mentioned two calls,’ Werthen reminded him.
‘Yes. I was just getting to that. The second was a trunk call to my laboratory assistants in Czernowitz. The long-distance lines only opened this year via Budapest. I can assure you I do not wish to spend more time in the confinement of a telephone cubicle. After a half-hour of attempts, I was finally put through to my chief assistant, Nagl. Bright young lad.’
A twinkle in the man’s eye made Werthen expectant. ‘And what did you learn?’
‘I put a simple question to the lad, for I know they have not yet had time to analyze the entire ribbon from Henricus Praetor’s typewriting machine. One name only I was seeking.’
‘Frau Steinwitz?’
A nod from the criminologist. ‘Nagl supplied me with the desired outcome. Happily, the ribbon was quite new and Nagl and his team did not have to analyze the entire length of it. They had, in fact, already come upon the name of Frau Steinwitz. They are attempting to put together the message accompanying this name, but one other bit of information has already been culled. A date was clearly typed in close proximity to the name. February fifteenth.’
The date was not lost on Werthen. ‘The night Praetor was shot,’ he said.
They were shown into the parlor, and the maid told them the mistress was still at table.
Werthen took a seat on the settee, but Gross wandered about the room, picking up silver-framed photos off a cherry wood side table, examining a vase of hothouse tulips, and then meandered off to the hall. In search of the facilities? Werthen dared not ask.
After a few more moments, Gross came back into the sitting room, smiling to himself. Werthen had no chance to ask about his discoveries, for at that instant Frau Steinwitz breezed into the room, dressed in a no-frills house dress.
Werthen stood as she entered; Gross was already standing.
‘I thought I told you, Advokat, that I no longer have need of your services.’
‘Yes, Frau Steinwitz. You made that very clear.’
She tilted her head an inch or two to the left as if to say, ‘Well, then?’
‘We have come about a related matter, Frau Steinwitz,’ Gross said. ‘To wit, what brought you to Herr Praetor’s apartment the night of February fifteenth?’
Werthen had to hand it to her. She did not flinch. Not even so much as a blink. It was as if she were expecting this visit. Had Lueger let her know he could no longer protect her?
‘Is that any of your business?’ she asked, still cool and in control.
‘I notice that you have a fine collection of pistols,’ Gross said, suddenly changing the subject.
‘What are you prattling on about?’
‘Among them is a very nice piece. A sample of one of the new Roth-Sauer automatics, in point of fact. And the space next to it looks to have once contained another weapon but is now empty. A matching automatic perhaps?’
Still she did not respond, but no longer did she wear such a haughty countenance.
‘I observe also a bevy of ribbons in those same glass cases,’ Gross said. ‘Forgive the prattling, but I notice they were won by you, Frau Steinwitz. You are no stranger to guns?’
‘I come from a military family,’ she said in a voice much subdued in tone.
‘Tell me, Frau Steinwitz,’ Gross pushed on, ‘why did you kill your husband and Herr Praetor?’
The question shocked Werthen; Frau Steinwitz seemed to crumble once it was put to her.
‘I didn’t want to,’ she said, tears beginning to form. She cupped her hands around her mouth and slumped down on to the settee recently vacated by Werthen.
‘You admit it, then,’ Gross said.
She waved a dismissive hand at the question. ‘They shamed me. Shamed the Gutrum name.’
‘Because they were ready to tell the public about the Vienna Woods plot?’ Werthen said in disbelief.
‘Shame,’ she said. ‘Humiliation. Do you know what it feels like to be betrayed, gentlemen?’
Neither Werthen nor Gross spoke for an instant. Frau Steinwitz pulled a linen handkerchief out of a sleeve of the smock and dried her eyes. She forced herself to sit up straight like a subaltern coming to attention and breathed in deeply to control her emotions.
‘He was going to leave me. Me and the children, for that, that. . creature.’
‘You mean Herr Praetor.’
‘Reinhold said he was in love with him. It was awful. I could not let that happen to us. To the children. To the good name of Gutrum.’
Before Werthen had a chance to digest this shocking revelation, a commanding, gravelly voice sounded from the doorway to the sitting room.
‘Valerie.’
An elderly gentleman stood there with firm dignity, dressed in a wool suit, but carrying himself as if he were in cavalry uniform.
‘What are these men doing here?’
‘Colonel Gutrum?’ Werthen asked. He had not heard an arrival and assumed that the father had already been at the flat, perhaps lunching with his daughter.
‘It is nothing, Father.’
‘You look distressed. Are they bothering you?’
She began crying again.
The colonel looked at them with savage eyes. Old he might be, but the pistol he now drew from his suit coat pocket was quite new and appeared to be in fine working order.
‘I want the pair of you out of here.’
Gross made to speak to the man.
‘Now!’ He cocked the pistol.
‘I assure you, Colonel Gutrum,’ Werthen said as he moved to the door, ‘we have come here only to ascertain the truth of your son-in-law’s death. Your daughter says she killed him. A matter of honor.’
The old man seemed not to listen or not to care. He pursed his lips and his leathery cheeks twitched as he worked his jaw muscles.
‘Both of you must be gone in one minute or I will not answer for my actions.’
Gross and Werthen moved quickly down the hallway, the colonel following them with the pistol at their backs. Out on the landing, the apartment door closed heavily behind them, echoing in the vast, empty hallway.
Of course, Werthen thought as they walked toward Schottenring. Praetor’s ‘someone important’ whom the journalist’s father had become aware of, was none other than Councilman Steinwitz. And Councilman Steinwitz also had his ‘special friends,’ as Kraus had mysteriously alluded. Discovering such a tryst had been too much for Frau Steinwitz. She killed them both out of rage and jealousy.
But this was hardly a crime of passion; she had evidently planned the murders over weeks. Not a crime of passion then, but cold-blooded murder. Yet would a court in the land bring in a guilty verdict against such a wronged woman? Werthen doubted it; the very mention of a homosexual affair would be enough to sway most jurors.
Still, they had to try, Werthen thought as they approached the Police Praesidium.
‘I am afraid we need more than that to proceed,’ Inspector Meindl said, a gnome of a man seated as usual behind his monumental desk.
‘More than a confession?’ Werthen said, bewildered at Meindl’s statement.
‘More than an emotional outburst,’ Meindl said. ‘The woman is the daughter of Colonel Gutrum, after all.’
‘Who threatened us with a pistol,’ Werthen said.
‘You were on private property,’ Meindl said almost with disgust.
‘One does not simply accuse the daughter of such a man.’
Werthen looked to Gross to intervene, but the criminologist seemed lost in his own thoughts.
‘I know we could find evidence,’ Werthen said. ‘I mean, your men could find evidence. Send Detective Inspector Drechsler to the Steinwitz flat. Let him search through the lady’s closet. There is sure to be a skirt or shoes with traces of blood on them.’
Drechsler, seated against one wall, made no comment to this suggestion. A faint smile only showed on his features.
‘Because you have a theory? Please, gentlemen.’ Meindl directed his attention to Doktor Gross. ‘I have the utmost respect for you, Herr Doktor, but theories are hardly enough for a judge’s order to search the Gutrum premises.’
‘It is Councilman Steinwitz’s premises we want searched,’ Werthen said, but Meindl ignored this, continuing to stare at his former mentor, adjusting his tortoiseshell pince-nez and passing a forefinger along the tidy hairline over his right ear.
Finally Gross came out of his thoughts long enough to address the head of the Police Praesidium. ‘There is the matter of the typing ribbon from Herr Praetor’s flat.’
‘Circumstantial only,’ Meindl retorted.
‘Not if we decipher the accompanying message. I believe Herr Praetor was writing to confirm an appointment with Frau Steinwitz for the night of his death.’
‘Beliefs, suppositions, theories.’ Meindl spread his tiny and immaculate hands as if begging for more.
‘She was seen leaving the scene of her husband’s death,’ Werthen reminded him, for they had appraised Meindl of all their evidence.
‘Ah, that.’
Werthen did not like the sound of this response.
‘Herr Kulowski was very clear about it.’
‘Yes, well, the mayor’s office has been in contact since. It seems that there may be some debate about this sighting. Herr Kulowski, it turns out, does not have very perfect eyesight. In fact, he should be wearing spectacles, as I do, but in his line of work, as the mayor explained, Herr Kulowski feels such apparel might make him appear less than imposing.’
‘And the mayor offered this because. .?’ Gross said.
‘He was afraid that Herr Kulowski’s information might lead you two to the wrong conclusion about Frau Steinwitz. As it clearly has.’
Gross turned his head to look out the window to the gray and forbidding sky over the Schottenring. Werthen too refrained from comment. It was clear to him that Lueger had played a double game. The mayor, through Kulowski, had given the information about Frau Steinwitz in order to take suspicion off himself, and then proceeded to call it into question in order to keep the Gutrums in his debt. Politicians relished such machinations, Werthen knew.
Inspector Meindl took their silence as an admission of defeat.
‘When and if you have more conclusive evidence, we will surely act, have no fear.’
Werthen read about it in the next day’s Neue Freie Presse. It was under the society news.
Frau Valerie Steinwitz, nee Gutrum, has been taken to a private clinic in Switzerland, there to recover from nerve attacks following the tragic death by suicide of her husband, Councilman Reinhold Steinwitz. The family attorney released a statement to the effect that Frau Steinwitz will remain incommunicado for the duration of her treatment, which could be lengthy.
Twenty
‘So much for justice in the Habsburg realms,’ Herr Meisner said. His recovery had been speedy and seemingly full. He was sitting up in his hospital bed, munching unhappily on dried toast with all the appearance of a martyr. Crumbs collected in his salt and pepper beard.
‘Don’t think about it, Father,’ Berthe said, resting her hand on his, which lay on the counterpane. ‘We should not have told you about it.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘It is not as if I am an invalid. I simply bumped my head.’
‘The doctor says you should not become overly excited,’ Werthen told him, feeling a fool now for having mentioned the outcome of his case.
‘You’ll be coming home tomorrow,’ Berthe said.
‘About time, too.’ Herr Meisner cast the piece of dried toast a baleful glance as one might a person expectorating in the street.
‘And we are arranging the Aliya,’ Werthen added.
Herr Meisner dropped the toast and reached a hand out to his son-in-law.
‘It takes a bump on the head for this to happen?’
But it was said in good humor.
‘As a matter of fact, it did. Life is simply too short for such quarrels.’
‘You’ve made an old man very happy,’ he said.
‘Hardly old, Father. But this doesn’t mean we are going to keep kosher.’
‘Please,’ Herr Meisner admonished her, ‘do not even mention that word until after I get a good meal in my stomach.’
And so the Werthen residence returned to a semblance of normality as February passed into March. Werthen’s parents did indeed depart for their estate in Lower Austria, though he was sure that the estate factotum, ‘young’ Stein — now approaching forty — would hardly be happy to have the old man back to bark out orders. And they held the naming ceremony as promised, Frieda taking the middle name of Ruth. Had his parents remained in the capital, Werthen would have maneuvered them into a christening instead of baptism, but without their presence it just did not seem important. Perhaps on their next visit.
At the office, Fraulein Metzinger was still observing a period of mourning, but Werthen no longer heard her sniffling mid-morning.
Werthen dreaded most speaking with Doktor Praetor, father of the murdered journalist. He did not want to tell the man that the murderer of his only son was beyond justice, for Austria and Switzerland had no extradition treaty. He had no idea how the man would react. Would he go to the newspapers? In which case Werthen could find himself in the midst of a nasty slander suit. But the man deserved the truth. Both Werthen and Gross met with Praetor and explained the events.
‘The daughter of Colonel Gutrum,’ he said, almost in awe.
The surgeon appeared to be a realist; he understood how things worked in Austria and made no overt protests.
‘At least we know,’ Doktor Praetor said. ‘But she is lying to you about the motive, mark my words,’ he said with fierce vehemence. ‘My son was no homosexual.’
Gross heard from Nagl in Czernowitz the day after Frau Steinwitz bolted. As suspected, Praetor was writing to confirm a meeting with her the very night of his death.
Additionally, Werthen happened to meet Oberbaurat Wagner again, this time in the company of Gustav Klimt. Out for a quick bite, he happened upon the artist and architect at one of his favorite eateries, The Red Stork, and accepted their invitation to join them at table. They exchanged pleasantries for a time, and then Werthen said, quite casually, that he was surprised to learn of the presence of Frau Steinwitz at the Rathaus the day of her husband’s suicide. Wagner, who had discovered the body, merely shook his head.
‘What is so surprising about a wife attempting to visit her husband at his place of work?’
‘Ah, then you also saw her,’ Werthen said, quite innocently. ‘But of course you would have. Being first on the scene.’
‘Of course I did,’ Wagner said, taking offense. ‘My eyes are perfectly fine.’
Werthen took this morsel of information as well as the decipherment of Praetor’s typing ribbon to the Police Praesidium. Meindl, supplied with this evidence, merely shrugged.
‘Still not very convincing. But in any case, she is out of our jurisdiction now,’ he told them. ‘As you well know, Switzerland failed to renew its extradition treaty with us last year.’
Werthen could not restrain his anger. ‘Perhaps if Austria recognized the right of political asylum, then we might have such treaties with the rest of the civilized world and not just countries such as Russia and Prussia.’
Meindl smiled at him as if he had just made a bon mot. ‘But when she returns to the empire, we
shall take the matter up.’
Meanwhile the Steinwitz children were living with their grandfather on his estate near Vienna. Rumor had it that he was to adopt them and change their names to Gutrum.
After attending the Lawyers’ Ball on Saturday, March 3, Gross and his wife Adele returned to Czernowitz for the spring semester. Ash Wednesday came on March 7, marking the end of the ball season.
He was suddenly awake, disoriented. Berthe was leaning over him.
‘You were grinding your teeth again,’ she said.
He brushed his hand over his face; it felt sweaty.
‘Sorry.’
‘You must stop thinking about it. There is nothing you can do.’
‘She killed twice and is free.’
‘Not free,’ Berthe said. ‘She can never come back home.’
‘And that is fitting punishment?’
‘Go to sleep,’ Berthe said, laying a soothing hand on his forehead. ‘It’s over.’
Next morning, Werthen was catching up on legal work. Fraulein Metzinger had been so dislocated by the tragedy of Huck that she had not been able to complete an urgent brief, so he was finishing it. But no sooner had he sat down with the brief than Fraulein Metzinger announced the arrival of a visitor, showing in a young man in clerical garb.
‘Father Mickelsburg,’ Werthen said when he finally recognized his visitor, the priest from the Theresianum whom he had earlier questioned about Hans Wittgenstein. ‘An unexpected pleasure.’
The priest smiled as he took an offered chair.
‘I have come for a bit of absolution, I am afraid.’
‘Don’t you have things reversed, Father?’
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