The Silence vm-3

by J Sydney Jones

  ‘You seem like a good man, Advokat Werthen.’

  ‘I suppose I try to be.’

  ‘I as well, though sometimes the flesh is weak.’

  Father Mickelsburg looked suddenly miserable, as if he were suffering from an illness.

  ‘What is it you have come to tell me, Father?’ Werthen still found it odd to use the title with a man several years younger than him.

  Mickelsburg produced a rosary from under his clothing, and began counting the ivory beads with a thumb, a gesture Werthen had seen often enough in cafes frequented by the Greek merchants of the city, but never by a Catholic priest.

  ‘I understand you found the Wittgenstein boy, then. Hans?’

  ‘Yes, quite soon after I spoke to you, as a matter of fact. Herr Praetor, his young friend, told me he had gone to the United States. The family received confirmation of that. You know of Herr Praetor’s death, of course?’

  Father Mickelsburg nodded. ‘Yes. Ricus told me about your visit.’ He stopped tallying the beads.

  ‘Ricus?’ Werthen said.

  ‘I was not forthcoming with you when we met at the school, and I have felt badly about that ever since. He thought you were one of the “great pious ones.”’ Mickelsburg laughed lightly at the expression. ‘It was Ricus’s way of talking about the bourgeoisie, those who would not understand his. . our lifestyle.’

  Werthen raised his eyebrows at this admission from the priest.

  ‘You mean you and Herr Praetor were. . special friends?’

  ‘Lovers,’ the priest said. ‘Let me finally use the word I would never use with Ricus himself.’ A look of extreme pain passed over his face. ‘You see, Advokat, I believe I killed him.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘I was also one of the “great pious ones” Ricus railed against. I would not. . could not admit my love. Perhaps that is why he sought it elsewhere, why he was killed.’

  Mickelsburg had obviously accepted the official explanation of young Praetor’s death: a homosexual tryst gone wrong. Werthen was not about to disabuse him of that by accusing Frau Steinwitz of the crime. Apprising Doktor Praetor of the actual circumstances had been the least he could do, but Father Mickelsburg was owed no such honesty.

  ‘Perhaps.’ But his curiosity got the better of Werthen. ‘I understand there may have been a relationship between Herr Praetor and Councilman Steinwitz.’

  Suddenly Mickelsburg broke out into uncontrollable laughter. His body shook with the force of it and it took him several moments to regain his composure.

  ‘I am sorry, Advokat, but that suggestion is, as you have witnessed, quite laughable.’

  ‘How can you be so certain?’

  ‘One simply knows these things. Did you ever meet the man?’

  ‘I was his attorney for several years.’

  ‘Well, then, did he strike you as someone who might fancy men?’

  Werthen shook his head. ‘But then, neither did you.’

  Mickelsburg nodded at this riposte. ‘I, however, am quite adept at disguises, Advokat. I met Councilman Steinwitz once in the company of Ricus, and I can tell you for a certainty that the man had no sexual designs on him. Councilman Steinwitz was a deeply troubled man, but that had nothing to do with confused sexual identity. Rather, I think it had to do with his wife. He made a few pointed comments about her. I do not remember the exact words, but there was a feeling of disappointment from him.’

  ‘Did Herr Praetor tell you the nature of his and Steinwitz’s connection?’

  ‘You mean exposing the scheme to sell the Vienna Woods? Of course. I was very proud of him.’

  ‘Do you think you might be less than objective when you insist there was nothing more between them? After all, we all experience jealousy.’

  ‘I assure you, Advokat, Councilman Steinwitz was not interested in men. If you have heard otherwise, somebody is trying to mislead you.’

  He rose. ‘And now, I have taken enough of your time, Advokat. But it has been preying on me that I was not completely honest with you before. Was not completely honest with Ricus.’

  Werthen could not let it go. This new information from the priest gnawed away at him until finally he set out in the early afternoon to confirm his reawakened suspicions.

  He went to see the journalist, Karl Kraus. When he and Gross had paid a visit to find out about Councilman Steinwitz’s possible friends and enemies inside the Rathaus, Kraus had ended their conversations with that confounding remark about a circle of ‘special friends’ the councilman was rumored to have. At the time, this offhand remark did not seem important; now it seemed to scream at him for some kind of explanation.

  Kraus was busy as usual with the latest edition of Die Fackel, but made time and space — clearing away stacks of old newspapers from the only available chair — for Werthen.

  ‘I am sorry that my cryptic comment has given you pains,’ he said after Werthen explained the reason for his visit. ‘I should be delighted to expound on that, provided you assist me in another matter of curiosity.’

  Kraus did not offer schnapps today; it sounded as if he might have a cold or a bronchial complaint. But despite illness, he still wore that Cheshire cat grin of his.

  ‘I assume you refer to Frau Steinwitz?’

  ‘Assume away, Advokat.’

  ‘The newspapers say she is undergoing therapy in Switzerland.’

  ‘Yes,’ Kraus said. ‘The newspapers say a lot of silly things.’

  ‘This goes no further,’ Werthen said.

  Kraus assented to the request.

  Werthen quickly outlined the case against Frau Steinwitz and the visit to her, which had elicited a confession.

  ‘Could I not perhaps have gotten this from another source?’ Kraus said after Werthen finished. ‘Such a story needs publication.’

  ‘Part of it is public record,’ Werthen said. ‘I am ashamed to say it, but I do not want my name attached to any of this, Kraus. Gutrum is the sort to bring a nuisance suit.’

  ‘Yes, well, those hardly bother me. I have at least three outstanding legal suits as we speak. It will be on my shoulders, Advokat. That I promise. But this truth must see the light of day.’

  Kraus, busy enough before Werthen’s arrival, seemed suddenly to redouble his efforts, pushing away the story he was working on, and finding several pieces of fresh paper.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Kraus?’ Werthen asked. ‘The special friends?’

  Kraus looked up from the paper where he had already begun writing in a hand so minute and spidery that its decipherment would require the use of a magnifying glass by the printer.

  ‘Ah, to be sure. The special friends. Well, there is a certain group of young ballerinas at the Court Opera that enjoy the company of powerful men. Steinwitz was among this group of men. I understand that the women are traded quite regularly, and that Councilman Steinwitz, whatever his scruples over selling off the Vienna Woods, had none when it came to matters of the flesh.’

  ‘Young women, you say?’ Werthen asked.

  ‘But of course. The man was, by all accounts, quite a mastiff.’

  Werthen’s attentions were otherwise occupied for the next few days. With the collapse of the scheme to sell large portions of the Vienna Woods, the Rathaus recanted its demands on the Laab im Walde property. Werthen’s estate agent, Grundman, notified him that there had been a renewed offer on the property from Herr Pokorny, the pharmacist whose wife had inherited it. The property was now offered, Grundman indicated, at a slightly reduced price.

  ‘Herr Pokorny is, as we in the trade say, rather motivated now after all this business with taking it off the market and putting it back on.’

  They were speaking by telephone, but Werthen could clearly discern a slight tinge of humor in the otherwise dour Grundman’s voice.

  Werthen told him he would let him know, but he was reluctant to get back into this business of the country house, having been so sorely disappointed to lose it before. However, discu
ssing it with Berthe that night, he found that he actually began to consider such a purchase. Then, a visit to the property in the company of Herr Meisner renewed his enthusiasm for having a real home for Frieda to grow up in, if only for the summers at first. That very day he made an offer of fifteen thousand florins, the same that he had started with originally. Motivated or not, Herr Pokorny made the same counter offer as he had earlier and in the end the price was settled at sixteen thousand again. But Werthen was beyond caring, truly relishing the idea of getting the house in order for this summer’s occupancy. They signed the final papers on March 10.

  It was only after signing these that Werthen let his mind return to the business of Frau Steinwitz. This was accomplished by Kraus, who sent a blue flimsy pneumatic letter the same day to inform Werthen that his story on the death of Councilman Steinwitz would appear in the Monday edition of Die Fackel.

  That Monday, Werthen lost no time in purchasing a copy on his way to the office. Photographs of Frau and Herr Steinwitz accompanied the text, a novelty for Kraus’s magazine. Werthen read through the lead article once, then a second time, marveling at Kraus’s ability to fill out the full story by innuendo, suggestion, and unattributed supposition. In fact, Kraus had created a miracle of modern journalism: a damning yet indirect brief against Frau Steinwitz for the murders of her husband and Herr Henricus Praetor, without writing one actionable sentence and without once mentioning the word, ‘homosexual.’

  Why, the man should have been a lawyer, Werthen thought.

  Kraus’s final sentence made Werthen reconsider the whole affair:

  ‘One can only ask about the motive for these heinous crimes.’

  ‘It’s you again.’

  ‘Very nice to see you, as well, Meier. I’ve come to see Herr Wittgenstein.’

  ‘You were hardly welcome before, if you do not mind my saying, sir. Even less so now, I would assume.’

  ‘Herr Wittgenstein, if you please.’

  ‘Very well. I did warn you.’

  Meier led the well-trodden path through the foyer and up the grand staircase to his master’s study. Waiting outside, he heard Wittgenstein’s voice boom at Meier, but could not make out what was said.

  A slightly chastened Meier appeared. ‘He will see you.’

  Werthen entered the study, a fire in the grate once again pouring out waves of heat.

  ‘Damn cheeky servant,’ Wittgenstein said, volubly enough that Meier could hear himself referred to by that title. ‘I’ll decide whom I do and don’t want to see. Now what in God’s name brings you to my door again?’

  ‘May I sit?’

  Wittgenstein shrugged. ‘As you wish. I confess, Advokat, to being somewhat impressed by your persistence. Others who have crossed me would hardly dare to come for such a tete-a-tete.’

  ‘Should I fear for my life?’ he said jocularly.

  Wittgenstein turned suddenly serious. ‘Others have.’

  Werthen began to wonder for the first time if this were really such a good idea. Perhaps he should take Berthe’s advice and simply let the matter go. But Frau Steinwitz’s face, so eminently in control one moment and so suddenly broken the next, came to mind. He no longer believed that act. He needed to know the truth, regardless of the costs.

  ‘I would like your help.’

  Wittgenstein slapped his desk as he chuckled. ‘Advokat Werthen, I must give you kudos for, as our Spanish friends say, your cojones. Why ever should I want to help you? You have cost me dearly.’

  ‘I found your son,’ Werthen said. ‘And I saved you the embarrassment of being blamed for despoiling the Vienna Woods. The latter you may not believe just yet, but the former you know to be true.’

  ‘And I paid you handsomely for that service.’

  ‘Indeed you did, sir. But I am talking about a deeper payment. In kind.’

  Herr Wittgenstein cocked his head, examining Werthen closely. ‘I am not sure if you are overly sincere or simply an idiot. Perhaps both.’ Another chuckle. ‘What help is it you require?’

  ‘I would like to know if, among the list of fellow investors in the Vienna Woods project, was included the name of Colonel Adam Gutrum.’

  Wittgenstein took in a large breath of air and blew it out between his lips, almost whistling.

  ‘I think Colonel Gutrum might have enough on his plate with his daughter in a Swiss asylum. He does not need you dogging him, as well.’

  ‘I have no intention of bothering the colonel, Herr Wittgenstein. That I promise you.’

  Another appraising look. ‘All right, since you ask. Yes. He was one of the major investors. Stood to make a packet if the deal went through. Does that conclude our business, Advokat?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And I thank you.’

  ‘Nothing to give thanks for. But I do believe our slate may be clean now.’

  ‘Tabula rasa,’ Werthen replied.

  Outside on the Alleegasse he thought: We now have motive. She killed her own husband and Praetor to stop them from ruining the Vienna Woods sale, a venture that would bring a fortune to her father and, by inference, to her.

  It was just as he and Gross initially thought: someone involved with the sale had the most to gain by the deaths of Steinwitz and Praetor. But they could hardly be expected to focus on the wife as that person. Frau Steinwitz’s tragic story of a shaming love affair between her husband and Henricus Praetor was just that — a story. A fabrication. She had killed for the basest of human motives, monetary gain. Which explained the missing notes of Councilman Steinwitz detailing the scheme, as well as the notebooks of Praetor where he kept transcriptions of interviews and the particulars of his investigation. Frau Steinwitz had surely destroyed those damning bits of evidence.

  Werthen was walking along the street, lost in these thoughts, when young Ludwig Wittgenstein entered from the Karlsplatz in the company of a tall, thin man Werthen assumed to be his tutor.

  ‘Another outing to the Natural History Museum, Master Ludwig?’ Werthen asked as they approached one another.

  ‘Yes, to be sure,’ the boy said, smiling in recognition. ‘Sorry I could not stay to talk the other day, but Mining would not hear of it.’

  He meant at Huck’s funeral, Werthen knew.

  ‘Quite all right. Not a very happy occasion.’

  ‘Master Wittgenstein,’ the elderly and rather eunuch-like tutor said. ‘We really should be on our way. It is a bitterly cold day.’

  ‘It’s fine, Traschky. Advokat Werthen is an old family friend. Go on if you like. I’ll catch you up.’

  ‘Don’t dawdle, Master Wittgenstein. Latin hour is next.’

  Traschky, a wraith of a man, moved off like fog lifting on a summer morning.

  Ludwig watched him go. ‘He’s not bad, actually. Bad breath, though.’

  ‘How have you been?’ Werthen asked.

  ‘You mean about Huck’s death?’

  ‘I mean in general.’

  ‘When asked that, Father always says, “I can’t complain. No one would listen anyway.” An interesting observation, don’t you think, Advokat?’

  ‘Very realistic, I should think. But in this case, I really do want to know.’

  Ludwig ignored further attempts at solicitude. Instead, he pulled out the latest edition of Die Fackel.

  ‘Have you seen this, Advokat?’

  ‘What are you doing with that?’

  ‘It’s hardly seditious. Besides, Hans never stopped his subscription.’

  Werthen now remembered seeing the red covers of the magazine on Hans’s bookshelf and finding it odd that the son of Karl Wittgenstein would read it, considering the criticisms Kraus sometimes leveled at his father.

  ‘So, three times a month I get to the postman before he delivers the mail and save this for myself. This Kraus fellow is really fabulous, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Werthen agreed.

  ‘There was an absolutely fantastic article this time about this woman who may have killed her husband and another chap, a
journalist. She’s hiding away now in a Swiss asylum, beyond justice.’

  ‘I saw that article, yes.’

  ‘You know the woman of course,’ Ludwig said. ‘I saw her at your office one day.’

  Werthen now remembered. Frau Steinwitz had come to see him the day after he’d been beaten, the day Ludwig met Huck.

  ‘You have a good memory, Master Ludwig.’

  ‘Was she your client?’

  Werthen shook his head. ‘Her husband once was.’

  ‘It’s strange, you know. That day I met her at the office I thought I recognized her. And I was right. Seeing her photo again in Die Fackel and then reading the article by Kraus I realized I had actually seen her the night of this Herr Praetor’s death. Only I didn’t know until reading the article that he had died. In fact, I did not even know that he lived in the Zeltgasse. You see, I don’t regularly read the newspapers yet. Such a lot of rubbish in them, Father says.’

  Werthen felt at once a sudden sense of excitement and bewilderment at this barrage of revelations. ‘You were at Herr Praetor’s flat?’

  ‘Not actually in his apartment. But at the building. We couldn’t get in, you see. For some reason the Portier locked the front doors early.’

  ‘Why were you there?’

  ‘Mining was most mysterious about it. We were supposed to be at the Raimund play in the Theater in der Josefstadt. My tutor was very keen on me seeing Der Verschwender. But Mining said we had to visit someone first. I went along with her. We all have our little secrets. Now that I’ve read the Kraus article, it makes more sense. He was a friend of Hans, right?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘The one, in fact, who told you Hans had gone to America.’

  ‘Again, correct.’

  ‘So maybe Mining was trying to find out more about Hans. Maybe they correspond.’

  ‘Good surmise,’ Werthen said, but thought it more likely that the older Wittgenstein sister had gone there to ensure that Praetor made no revelations to the press about his supposed homosexual relationship with Hans. Only something along those lines would account for her visiting under the guise of attending the theater.

  ‘Well, you see, we rang the bell and could not get in. Mining and I waited several minutes and finally she just left in disgust, walking much faster than me. Like Traschky says, I am famous for dawdling. And it was then the house door opened, with Mining already around the corner, and out walks this woman. Frau Steinwitz.’