Requiem in Vienna: A Viennese Mystery (Viennese Mysteries) Page 2

  “Officer of the court or no,” the policeman said, “there’s a complaint against you . . .”

  “May I be of service?”

  Werthen had not noticed Klimt’s approach. The usually gruff painter was all sweetness as he doffed his hat to the policeman and the old man alike. Those who had helped to take Werthen into “custody” had long since departed the scene, testifying only that they had seen the lawyer with the coin purse in his hand.

  “That depends on the service you’re offering,” the policeman replied. Klimt did not blink at this, however, maintaining his sweetness-and-light demeanor. Werthen was about to greet his old friend when Klimt gave an abrupt, though surreptitious, shake of the head.

  The painter pulled a card out of his vest pocket and handed it to the policeman.

  “Herr Gustav Klimt, at your service.” He tipped his hat again, smiling unctuously. “Painter to his majesty’s court.”

  Stretching it a bit, thought Werthen. Sometimes painter of the ceilings of various public buildings, more like it. And full-time disruptor of the public sense of decency and morality with his nudes.

  The policeman eyed the proffered card suspiciously, rubbing a thick thumb over the embossed lettering.

  “I was standing across from these gentlemen and I saw everything that transpired. This gentleman here”—he indicated Werthen—“was simply acting the Good Samaritan, stopping a theft in progress. He was attempting to return a coin purse to this gentleman”—indicating the old man—“and there arose a subsequent misunderstanding.”

  “The man is a bounder,” the old one all but shouted. It was unclear whom he meant by this admonition, Werthen or Klimt.

  “I’ll swear to it,” Klimt plunged on. “You may take my testimony here and now if you like.”

  “Well,” the policeman said.

  “You’re not taking his word for it. They’re obviously in cahoots.”

  The policeman rolled his eyes at this statement from the elderly gent; a good sign, thought Werthen, who also realized any further protestations on his part would be counterproductive. The embossed lettering on Klimt’s card had done the trick: IMPERIAL ROYAL COURT PAINTER, GUSTAV KLIMT.

  The policeman plopped the coin purse back in the old man’s hands.

  “I think we can say that justice has been done. It would seem there was a simple misunderstanding.”

  “Why, you blithering idiot,” the old man spluttered.

  Werthen left the man to his explanations. But the officer no longer looked in the mood for discussion.

  They found a corner seat in the Café Feldman, directly across the street. It was a cavernous establishment, catering to funeral parties. Nothing cosy or gemütlich about it. But it was handy to the cemetery.

  “Many thanks,” Werthen said as they sat.

  “Nothing more or less than you’ve done for me. Glad to return the favor. And I am especially happy that these cards I had printed have finally come to some use.”

  “It was fortunate you saw what had transpired,” Werthen said, eying the menu on the table.

  “Didn’t see a thing,” Klimt said, not bothering to inspect his menu. “The duffer’s hat blocked my view. But I heard the old fool blustering on and figured out what had transpired. Serves him right for being such a stick-in-the-mud.”

  “You know him?” Werthen asked.

  “Of him. I recognized him straight off. Surprised you didn’t, as well. That was Eduard Hanslick, Vienna’s self-styled musical dictator.”

  So that was Hanslick, Werthen thought. The man had ruled the musical scene for a generation; his critical opinions could still make or break a composer and performer. A great opponent to the Romantic music of Wagner and Bruckner, Hanslick supported the formal music of classicism, as represented by Brahms. What was his line about Johann Strauss? Something about the fact that Strauss’s tunes made the listener unfit for serious music. The pompous old buzzard; Werthen hoped the policeman fined him for being rude.

  The waitress arrived and Klimt ordered coffee with schlag obers—“A mountain of whipped cream,” he said to the young woman. “Burying a man gives a fellow an appetite.” This to be accompanied by a linzer torte.

  Werthen had his usual kleine braune; he hoped to be home in time for lunch. Frau Blatschky had promised zwiebelrostbraten today. He could almost taste the succulent fried bits of onion and beef.

  “A coincidence running into you like this,” Klimt said. “I’ve been meaning to see you.”

  “Not another missing model, I hope,” Werthen said, for it was the death of one of Klimt’s models that had initiated Werthen’s first case. He was beginning to think of his extralegal activities like that now: as cases. Just yesterday he had had his brass plaque at the entrance to Habsburgergasse changed. No longer did it read merely ADVOKAT KARL WERTHEN, WILLS AND TRUSTS. Now it was: ADVOKAT KARL WERTHEN: WILLS AND TRUSTS, CRIMINAL LAW, PRIVATE INQUIRIES.

  Klimt shook his head. “Nothing so serious I should think, though there does seem to be a hint of the dramatic to it. A possible case.”

  Werthen perked up.

  “You know of the young Schindler girl, I expect?” Klimt asked.

  “Schindler? You mean the landscape painter?”

  “Emil Schindler. Yes. His daughter, Alma. Poor Emil, died of a ruptured appendix.”

  “That’s right,” Werthen recalled. “And his widow married your partner at the Secession, Moll.”

  “Carl Moll,” Klimt said. “I am glad to see you keep up with art world gossip.” He nodded knowingly at Werthen, as if he should now comprehend the full story.

  He did not. “Obviously not all the gossip,” Werthen admitted.

  “Well, you see, the young lady and I are often thrown together both professionally and privately—”

  “Tell me no more. Another conquest.”

  Klimt had the good grace to redden at this. “Hardly. Though I confess that I am, like many another man, rather smitten with the young thing. So beautiful. And a head full of brains to go with it. She fancies herself a musician.”

  Another pause as the coffees and pastry were delivered. Klimt’s cup was a miniature Matterhorn of whipped cream. He looked pleased, gazing fondly at the waitress’s behind as she departed.

  “Such a sweet young thing,” he said, turning back to his coffee and cake, and digging in.

  Werthen allowed him five minutes of uninterrupted eating and drinking, by which time Klimt had made large inroads to both coffee and cake.

  “Alma Schindler,” Werthen prompted.

  “Yes, yes. Marvelous girl, and I rather think she is besotted of me, as well. I traveled with her and her family to Italy this spring and there was chemistry between us to be sure. Walking in Venice’s Piazza San Marco. . . . But difficulties, as well. Carl . . . Moll, I mean, not you—”

  “The stepfather does not approve.”

  Klimt shook his head sadly. “Bourgeois conventions. Alma knows her own mind and body, I can tell you. Any other sweet young thing would have shared my bed by now.” He sighed deeply and sadly.

  Werthen pulled out his pocket watch: eleven fifty-five. He could still make it home in time for lunch.

  “What was it you wanted to tell me about Fräulein Schindler?”

  “Yes, that. She has a penchant for older men, it would seem. Her latest pet project is Mahler.”

  “I noticed you with him. A new friend?”

  “Not really my cup of tea, if you know what I mean.”

  “No. Actually, I don’t.”

  “We ended up walking out here together. All the way to the cemetery he was complaining of how unctuous Reverend Zimmerman’s eulogy was at the Episcopal Church, how the a cappella choir of the Männergesangverein finished a tone and a half lower at the end than at the beginning. As if it was his funeral. That sort of chap.”

  Werthen was still not sure what Klimt meant, but pushed on. “Are they close, then, Mahler and Alma Schindler?”

  “Hardly. She’s only seen him
from afar, but swears he is the one for her. And what Alma wants, Alma gets.”

  “Sounds like a force to be reckoned with. But how does this pertain to me?”

  “Here is the drama. She wants a private inquiry agent to make ‘certain investigations,’ as she so mysteriously puts it. She will tell me no more, but has listened to my tales extolling your brilliance in such matters and is desperate to meet with you.”

  Werthen thought for a moment. It sounded all very unpromising; sordid, as if the young girl wanted someone to follow Mahler about to see if he were carrying on an affair. Domestic work of the least interesting sort.

  “I would consider it a personal favor,” Klimt said.

  The painter looked so eager that Werthen gave in.

  “Well, I suppose you can tell her to arrange an appointment at my office. I’ll see if there is any assistance I can offer.”

  “Bravo for you, Werthen. Giving up the old wills and trusts, are we then?”

  “More like putting them in abeyance.”

  “And how is that excellent wife of yours? So sorry I could not be at the wedding. You see, that was when I was in Italy.”

  “It was a quiet affair,” he said. So quiet his own parents had not deigned to make an appearance, protesting that it was a civil rather than a church affair.

  “Do give her my best. A spirited filly, that one.”

  Werthen was not sure Berthe would care for the horse analogy, but understood Klimt’s sentiment.

  “Yes, she is. I’m a lucky man.”

  Werthen made to pay for his coffee, but Klimt stopped his hand. “Please, Werthen. Don’t insult me.”

  Klimt turned back to the remaining crumbs of cake as Werthen gathered his hat and gloves.

  About to leave, he said, “Oh, and Klimt—”

  “I know. I know, old friend. It’s in the mail. Or will be by tomorrow.”

  TWO

  Klimt was right, Werthen thought. A beauty.

  Alma Schindler sat across the desk from him in his office. His wife, Berthe, now acting as part-time secretary at the firm, was seated in the corner behind the young lady and to his right, ready to take notes.

  Fräulein Schindler wore a feathered hat that was much too old for a nineteen-year-old, obviously from the noble firm of Habig on the Wiedner Hauptstrasse. Her hair, one could see once she’d removed the hat, was done up in the popular fashion of the day, piled luxuriantly on top of the head, and full of waves and curls. She had on a white dress, embellished with appliqué, lace, and embroidery, with a high collar and puffed sleeves. Over this, she wore a tight-fitting vest of a cream color striped in dark silk. Werthen was not certain about such things, but thought he had seen a similar outfit in the exclusive dress shop Fournier on the Graben.

  Overall, Fräulein Schindler gave the appearance of a smartly dressed woman about town. Yet when she spoke, it was like conversing with an overly precocious adolescent. She was knowledgeable, but too eager to show her knowledge. Too enthusiastic in general for an era that prized reserve and a kind of bored satiety in its society ladies.

  Looking at Fräulein Schindler and then at his wife, Werthen marveled at how different the two women were. Berthe was only a few years older than the Schindler girl, but there was a solidity as well as originality to his wife that was intoxicating. Where Alma Schindler wanted to shine and thereby gloat in her own reflected glory, Berthe was entirely within herself: poised, quietly confident, calm. Just the trace of a sardonic grin on her fine mouth, as if she always found the world slightly amusing. Berthe drew you in not by the separate strength of her features, nor by an animalistic force, but by her overall appeal. Hers was a quiet, domestic beauty, a warm jumble of womanhood that was not on display for the entire world.

  Of course Werthen was not to be trusted for objectivity regarding his wife.

  “It was good of you to see me on such short notice, Advokat Werthen.”

  What does one say to that besides the obvious? he wondered. “Not at all.”

  “I don’t know how much Gustav . . . Herr Klimt might have told you. . . .”

  “Very little. Just that you had a concern you wished to discuss with me.”

  “You’ll think I’m a silly little girl.” She blushed on cue.

  Werthen raised his eyes, glancing at Berthe. She did not alter the faintly amused expression on her face, busy with her shorthand.

  Fräulein Schindler now leaned across the narrow desk to speak directly into Werthen’s face, just a foot away. He could smell strawberries on her breath, the first of the season.

  “You see, it is about Herr Mahler, the composer.”

  “The Court Opera director,” Werthen added.

  “That, too, but have you not heard his music? Sublime. If I could one day compose like that, my life would indeed have meaning.”

  She smiled sweetly at him as she spoke, still invading his side of the desk. Her dress had a sheer piece of lace for the uppermost half of the bodice; he studiously kept his eyes from her décolletage.

  “No, I have not yet had the pleasure. He is most formidable at the podium, however.”

  “Sleight of hand.” She said it dismissively. “But that is not why I am here. Dear, it sounds so silly now.”

  “Please,” he said, being drawn to her obvious charms now in spite of himself. “Our conversation does not go beyond these walls.”

  “Someone is trying to hurt him, kill him perhaps. There. I’ve said it.”

  She sat back in her chair, folding her arms at her chest like a reprimanded, stubborn child.

  Werthen took a breath. This was hardly what he was expecting. Berthe cast him a quick glance.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Incidents.”

  “Plural.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have read, of course, of the unfortunate accident last week. The death of the young soprano.”

  “It was no accident.”

  He again looked at his wife; Berthe raised her eyebrows now.

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “Fire curtains do not simply fall by accident. They are double roped. The asbestos safety curtain at the Court Opera hangs directly behind the proscenium and has its own dedicated winch. It does not come down unless it is meant to.”

  Werthen was impressed. She had been doing her homework. Of course, all of Vienna was theater mad, himself a qualified inclusion therein. Fire curtains were a relatively new innovation in theaters, their worldwide spread the result of the tragic Ringstrasse Theater fire in this very city in December of 1881. Hundreds had been killed when a backstage blaze spread through the auditorium; the charred skeleton of the theater was later torn down, to be replaced by an apartment house called appropriately the House of Atonement.

  “And what does the stage manager have to say of this?” Werthen questioned, coming back to the task at hand.

  Fräulein Schindler now did something Werthen found quite uncharacteristic: she wrinkled up her pretty nose as if smelling horse droppings under the hot summer sun.

  “The man is an idiot. He has no explanation other than that the ropes must have come untied somehow. These are not simply pretty bows tied in the hemp, Advokat Werthen, but quite ornate knots meant to hold. And two of them, remember.”

  “You mentioned other incidents.”

  “A scenery flat that fell perilously close to Herr Mahler. If you can believe it, the Court Opera is still primarily a hemp house.”

  She smiled at her use of the technical term, most likely expecting Werthen to be puzzled. Instead, he nodded. He, too, had a knowledge of stagecraft, a holdover from a case in Graz when he was practicing criminal law. It had involved an action against a stagehand accused of vandalism after being fired from his position at the Grazer Stadttheater. In Graz, as in Vienna, tradition was a strong influence; the oldest way was often considered the best. Thus, much of the scenery at the Court Opera was still hoisted by sheer human muscle power, with several men flying the scenery flat
s by use of hemp ropes. A “hemp house,” in fact.

  “Counterweight flying is, I understand, being introduced,” Werthen responded. “Herr Mahler is no fan of tradition, so I hear.”

  A different sort of smile showed on her lips now, a rueful acceptance of the lawyer’s knowledge; a realization that he would not be impressed by her obvious encyclopedia cramming.

  “ ‘Tradition is laziness.’ I have heard Mahler say that a hundred times.” Another coquettish smile from her. He noticed that she used the man’s last name with no “Herr” before it; already a self-appointed intimate. “You see, I have taken to attending rehearsals. Mahler knows nothing of it, of course. A friend of Carl’s . . . my stepfather’s, sees that I come in a side door and that I sit very quietly in the fourth balcony.”

  She let a moment of silence pass for this to sink in.

  “His morning cup of chamomile tea was also once seemingly inadvertently used to mix paint. Mahler was fortunate not to drink from it.”

  “The opera direction has not seen fit to investigate these?”

  “They are a pack of old ladies.”

  “And what about Mahler himself? Has he made no complaints of these incidents?”

  “He is too involved in his music to see anything more than coincidence.”

  “But, Fräulein Schindler, why should anyone want to harm Mahler? He is, according to the press, quite transforming the musical scene in Vienna.”

  “There are winners and losers in any such transformation.”

  She was right, of course, but all of this sounded a bit too melodramatic. Kill a man because he wants to get rid of the claque or paid applauders? Because he turns the houselights down before performances and allows no latecomers in until pauses?

  “And what is it you would like me to do?”

  “Investigate. See who is responsible for these outrages. Stop him . . . or her before Mahler is seriously hurt. Or worse.”

  “I see.” He said it flatly, without emotion.

  “I am willing to pay. I have a secret bank account from my father. My real father, that is.”

  Werthen waved a hand at the suggestion. “Let us see where things stand first.”