Requiem in Vienna: A Viennese Mystery (Viennese Mysteries) Page 19

  Werthen could not answer the question for the gray-faced Herr Pfingsten and took his leave. So, an afternoon at his own office, after all.

  Herr Tor had been sent to Altaussee, and Berthe was supposedly visiting Viktor Adler, so Werthen thought he would not be distracted in any way from catching up on work. As he approached the doorway on the Habsburgergasse, Werthen noticed that it had been left ajar. He had complained of this several times to the portier, Frau Ignatz, an aging woman with a penchant for cats. One of the tenants on the upper floors consistently neglected to pull the street door completely shut. A nuisance, really, for anyone could enter the building.

  Frau Ignatz was not in her lodge in the foyer, so Werthen filed his complaint for another time. He went to his office on the second floor, and thought for a moment that he saw a shadow pass in front of the frosted glass of the door. But then that was impossible.

  Or perhaps Berthe had decided to help out at the office instead. He felt a sudden surge of pride at the fact that she should give up her own investigation to help out at the office. Especially in her condition.

  The door was locked, but that did not mean she was not inside. After all, it was still officially lunchtime, and the office was closed from noon until two.

  He slipped his key into the lock, twisted it, and opened the door.

  “Berthe,” he called out, for the reception was empty. “You here?”

  There was no answer. He felt suddenly deflated. Well, nothing for it then but to get busy with paperwork.

  He entered his office and was momentarily shocked to see drawers pulled out of the desk and papers strewn everywhere. He sensed a movement behind him, but before he could react, a sharp crack of pain tore into the back of his head. His knees gave out and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  “My God, Werthen, you could have been killed.” Gross dabbed at the wound with a wet compress. “This might need sutures.”

  Werthen’s head pounded like a timpani. He raised himself on one elbow and could not resist the temptation to put his other hand to the wound. It felt wet and warm; taking his hand away he saw blood, but not quantities.

  “Someone broke in,” he said.

  “Apparently,” Gross agreed.

  “How long have I been unconscious?”

  “I am a criminalist, not a psychic, Werthen. When did you arrive?”

  “A little after one.”

  Gross glanced at the standard clock on the wall behind them.

  “Then about a half hour. The landladies to Brahms and Bruckner have both taken themselves off to the country for the month, so I decided to meet you back here.”

  Gross examined the mess of the office for a moment.

  “Did you see who attacked you?”

  “No. No time.”

  “What could he have been after?” Gross asked.

  “You think it is our man?” Werthen was now sitting up and despite a momentary dizziness, he thought he would be all right. No concussion. No hospital. That was the last place he wanted to be today.

  “I see no other conclusion possible. Unless you are currently engaged in some rather sensitive matter of a contentious will.”

  Werthen shook his head, a mistake that turned the timpani into a kettledrum. He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  “No,” he finally managed to say. “Nothing like that.”

  “Then it seems patently obvious to me. But what the devil could he have been searching for? Do you keep private papers here?”

  “No,” Werthen said again. And then a sudden fear tore at him. “My notes of the investigation are at home. My God, Gross. Might he have gone there? Berthe . . .”

  “Quickly, man,” Gross grabbed his left arm and helped him to stand. “Not a minute to lose.”

  After the first few steps he was able to control his nausea. The first flight of stairs down was an agony, but then he began to deal with the pain, the dizziness. As they passed Frau Ignatz’s lodge, the portier saw his condition and came to the door.

  “Advokat, what is it? Blood.”

  “Not to worry, madam,” Gross said bluffly.

  But her concern was not for Werthen.

  “I knew it would mean trouble. That sign of yours. It attracts all the riffraff of Vienna. And now this. In my house!”

  She turned and closed the door of the lodge behind her before either Gross or Werthen could reply.

  They were in luck; a fiaker was just passing by outside. On the ride to the Josefstadt and his apartment, Werthen tried to console himself with the thought that Berthe had planned, after her brief morning at the office, to visit Victor Adler. She would not be home; she would be safe. He must believe that; he must.

  But what of Frau Blatschky? Had he put her in danger’s way?

  The fiaker was held up for a time when one of the new electrified streetcars on the Josefstädterstrasse stalled, blocking the intersection at Langegasse and backing up traffic in four directions.

  Gross pounded the roof with his fist. “Find a way around this, my good man. We have an emergency.”

  The driver grumbled something about pregnancy, Werthen thought, some typically droll Viennese rejoinder. He was not in the mood for drollness.

  “Fifty kreutzer if you find a way around this mess!” Werthen shouted at the driver out the window.

  No witty riposte this time; instead the driver reined his horses to the left. There was a scraping and jolt as the fiaker took over part of the sidewalk for half a block, then skidded on the cobbles down a side street to detour around the stopped traffic. The man drove his two horses like a jockey at the racecourse in the Prater’s Freudenau track. In no time they had circled the bottleneck and were back onto the Josefstädterstrasse just at Werthen’s apartment house.

  He quickly leaped from the fiaker, leaving Gross for once to pick up the tab of his extravagantly guaranteed tip.

  He did not bother with the elevator, but instead took the stairs two at a time, heedless of the pain in the back of his head, or of his damaged right knee. Up the stairs he flew with Gross now puffing behind him.

  Reaching his door, he tried the latch, but it was, as it should be, locked. He quickly turned his key in the lock, threw the door open, and called out.

  “Frau Blatschky!”

  There was no sound and for a moment Werthen panicked, thinking the worst. But from the foyer, the apartment looked undisturbed.

  Gross now joined him, breathing quite heavily, and they moved into the sitting room.

  A sudden movement behind them put them both on guard.

  “You simply must be more quiet, Advokat.”

  It was Frau Blatschky standing in the doorway to the sitting room.

  “There you are,” Werthen said.

  “Well, of course I am here. And so is your poor dear wife. And future mother.” She positively beamed as she spoke these words. “You should have told me. The poor woman cannot stand rich food now. It won’t do. I have her in bed, where she should have been before. Yes, and some soothing chicken broth. We shall eat more simply now that I know of her condition.”

  “She’s all right?”

  “Of course. But she is with child.” Another smile at this statement. “And we must all be considerate of that.”

  “Do I take that to mean no more zwiebelrostbraten?” Gross asked.

  “And no more bauernschmaus or palatschinken or other such rich foodstuffs that will unsettle the lady’s stomach,” Frau Blatschky declared.

  Gross looked downcast.

  “And morning coffee?”

  “Herbal tea shall suffice,” she sternly answered. “Now what sort of mischief have you got into, Advokat? There is blood down the back of your collar.”

  TWELVE

  Forty-eight hours later, Werthen was beginning to feel human again. He spent the rest of Wednesday and all of Thursday in bed, along with Berthe, Frau Blatschky fussing over the both of them, and no longer making eyes at them for sharing the same bed. At the end
of it, he didn’t care if he never saw another bowl of chicken soup again in his life.

  One positive aspect of Berthe’s morning sickness, however, was that it brought a rapprochement between the two women of the house. Now Frau Blatschky did not look upon Berthe as an uninvited guest, a modern woman who had no sense of domesticity; in short, as some sort of threat to her own position in the household. Berthe’s pregnancy validated her in Frau Blatschky’s eyes.

  It was as if Frau Blatschky, the widow of a naval officer who had been killed only a week after their marriage, suddenly found in Berthe the daughter she had never had. And Werthen was not going to say one word that might upset this lovely new balance.

  It had been Frau Blatschky, in fact, wisely enough, who made Werthen tell Berthe about the attack on him. He was at first reluctant, not wanting to burden or upset his wife, especially at this delicate time in her pregnancy. But Frau Blatschky convinced him that he must not lie to his wife, and Werthen was reminded of how earlier his failure to be honest about his parents had caused an unneeded rift between them.

  In fact, Berthe took the news of the attack at the office quite well, telling him only that the back of his head had been rather too prominent anyway.

  Gross and he had also had plenty of time to speculate about the attack over the past two days: the possible perpetrator and possible reasons. Still they came up with nothing plausible. Was it a message, then? A warning? For there was scant little to be learned about their investigation from any files in Werthen’s office or home.

  But if it were meant as a warning, then it was most unsuccessful, for it only made Werthen more determined than ever to get to the bottom of this case.

  Thursday afternoon, after Gross had made inquiries and with Berthe up and out of bed for an afternoon stroll about the apartment, he and the criminologist conferred, Werthen still flat on his back in bed.

  After questioning by Gross, Frau Ignatz could remember seeing no strangers in the building on Wednesday. Of course she had been absent when Werthen himself had entered the building.

  “A most impertinent woman,” Gross said in addition, but would not elaborate.

  Gross also found it interesting that though the street door had been left open to the Habsburgergasse building that day, the door to Werthen’s office had been locked.

  “This could imply someone on the inside,” Gross said.

  Werthen had dissented at this suggestion. “The only person on the inside, as you say, is Tor. And he was off to Altaussee.”

  Gross nodded at this, pursing his lips, and had begun speaking of nibs, pin wrenches, edge levers, and all assortment of other tools of the breaking-and-entry trade.

  “Someone skilled in the profession could open your lock from the outside, and in a matters of seconds, not minutes,” Gross said with a faint hint of disapproval at the primitive state of the lock in question. “However, one wonders why he would lock the door behind him.”

  “Clearly the person wanted to make things appear normal,” Werthen replied. “What if a client came early, and, ignorant of the midday closing, simply opened the door and stepped into a burglary in progress? Also, as was the case, the locked door bought the man time. Hearing me put my key in the lock, he was able to sequester himself and take me unawares when I entered the inner office.”

  “True,” Gross said. “I have considered these things myself.” However, he did not look convinced.

  In the end, they decided not to inform the police of the break-in. There was no reason to clutter their investigation further.

  Friday Werthen was able to return to the office by midmorning. Tor had already straightened up the place. Werthen, owing the man no marital loyalty, decided to not tell Tor the full story, merely that there had been an intruder who had gone through files and that, owing to a bit of bad fish he’d eaten, he had not been able to make it to the office for a couple of days.

  Tor seemed genuinely alarmed at the fact someone had broken into the office, but Werthen quickly reassured him.

  “We’ll have Frau Ignatz on the lookout for any suspicious characters from now on.”

  Tor, however, took this bit of levity sincerely. “She is a cautious woman.”

  Werthen could only agree.

  “And how was your little expedition to Altaussee, Herr Tor?”

  “Uneventful, sir. But the sun was out for a change. And Herr Mahler’s further inquiries were simple enough to deal with.”

  It seemed there was more to add, but that Tor was reluctant to proceed.

  “But?” Werthen offered him an opening.

  “Well, it is hardly for me to say, sir, but it seems he is being unduly harsh vis-à-vis his sister.”

  “But that has already been settled, I thought. Emma has been written out of the will.”

  “Not Emma, Advokat. It is Justine this time. If she marries Herr Rosé, then Mahler proposes to disinherit her, as well. That was what he wanted to add.”

  Werthen had expected as much. It seemed Arnold Rosé would fare no better than his brother Eduard if he married one of the Mahler girls. He wondered at what spite and animus could be involved in such a petty decision on Mahler’s part, but it was hardly for him to judge. He and Tor were only the agents of such decisions, not the perpetrators.

  He was about to make this case, when suddenly the outer office door burst open and in marched Alma Schindler in a state of high distress.

  “My God, Advokat. It has happened again.”

  “Calm yourself, Fräulein,” he said, taking her arm and ushering her into his office for privacy’s sake.

  He helped her take a seat by his desk.

  “Now what is it. Another attack on Mahler? But that cannot be possible. The police—”

  “No, not Mahler,” she all but shrieked. “Zemlinsky this time. Every man I get close to is in danger, it seems.”

  She really was in a state; he feared that she might faint.

  “Deep breaths, Fräulein Schindler,” he advised, following Berthe’s time-honored recipe. “Deep breaths. Follow my count.”

  By the time he reached ten, she had calmed herself enough to tell him what had happened.

  The story sent shivers down his spine. Another composer. Another possible target.

  ______

  Alexander Zemlinsky lived with his newly widowed mother and sister Mathilde on Weissgerberstrasse, located in the Third District, but with a view over the canal to the Leopoldstadt, the Jewish quarter, from which they had recently resettled. The family represented the strange mélange of races and creeds that made up much of the population of Vienna. The father, Adolf, who had died earlier in the summer, was the son of Catholic parents but had fallen in love with Clara, the daughter of a Sephardic Jew and a Muslim woman. The entire family converted to Judaism, the religion in which Zemlinsky was raised.

  Zemlinsky, so Kraus had once told Werthen, was a composer of promise. Three years Kraus’s senior, he studied at the Vienna Conservatory, won prizes and accolades for his compositions, and this summer had been appointed music director at the Carl Theater, a stunning achievement for a man just turned twenty-eight. It was said that his opera, Es War Einmal, was to be staged by Mahler at the Hofoper next winter. Like Mahler, Zemlinsky renounced his Judaism in order to better assimilate.

  As Werthen was led into the composer’s room at the family dwelling he could see that the walls of this study-cum-bedroom were covered with all sorts of decorations. Laurel wreaths adorned one entire wall; another was taken up with pictures of composers the young man obviously respected: Johannes Brahms had a place of prominence, for he had been an early champion of Zemlinsky’s work, according to Kraus. Wagner was there as well, represented in a photogravure with a sprig of mistletoe lodged on the top of the frame as if the picture had been a Christmas gift. On the man’s desk stood a bust of Brahms along with a picture of a young and very attractive woman.

  Alma Schindler, in point of fact.

  And the composer himself, all five feet two
inches of him, lay on a daybed, a large plaster on his forehead. Kraus had delighted in shocking Werthen with rumors of this small man’s gargantuan sexual adventures, for despite his stature and a face so ugly that it was vibrant, Zemlinsky seemed to attract beautiful or at least willing women like a toad draws princesses. His chin was almost nonexistent, his nose large and ungainly, and his eyes bulged so that it seemed they would pop out of his head at any instant.

  Tending to him were several people: his sister, Mathilde; a young soprano who was introduced as Melanie Guttmann (whom Werthen later learned was Zemlinsky’s fiancée); and a rather portly young man with a receding hairline, a very intense gaze, and a soft collar—Herr Arnold Schoenberg, a former pupil of Zemlinsky’s and a fellow member of Zemlinsky’s small orchestra, Polyhymnia. By the manner in which Mathilde and Schoenberg exchanged looks during Werthen’s visit, and their hands would inadvertently touch when pulling up the coverlet over the injured Zemlinsky or handing him a glass of water, Werthen assumed they were already courting.

  The small, tangled world of Viennese music and musicians.

  Fräulein Schindler made brief introductions, and as Zemlinsky was about to speak, Schoenberg cut him off.

  “We told you this was unnecessary, Fräulein Schindler. It was merely a silly accident. Accidents do happen at theaters.”

  His voice was surprisingly high, but he spoke with vehemence.

  “Poor Zem,” Alma said. “It’s all too dreadful. It was my fault for becoming your student. I am a curse to all those who get too close.”

  At this comment, Fräulein Guttmann visibly bristled.

  “I am sure there is a logical explanation,” she said. “We should not become overly melodramatic. It serves no purpose.”

  “Quiet, all of you,” Zemlinsky said from his sickbed. “Just who is this fellow you have brought, Alma?”

  Werthen spoke up before she had a chance to tell them too much about his investigations regarding Mahler.

  “A family retainer who has lately taken to private inquiries, as well,” he said. “Fräulein Schindler was fearful that something less, or rather more than accidental had happened to you. I agreed to accompany her. And I assure you, I do not tend toward melodrama.”