‘I beg your pardon?’
She shook her head in disgust, looking at the paper in the carriage of her typewriter.
‘That is what they call the Belgian officer in charge of keeping the cut-off hands of natives deemed too indolent at gathering rubber.’
‘Why ever would they do that?’
‘Cut off their hands? As punishment, of course. King Leopold must have his slaves industrious at all costs.’
‘I meant keep the hands. Collect them like that.’
She sighed. ‘Those in charge of discipline make their living by keeping track of punishments. So many crowns for each hand.’
He felt a shiver pass over him.
‘Of course they take the hands of those who have done no wrong, as well. They must make a living, you see. It’s all been documented in Mary Kingsley’s book on Africa and by the reporting of Edward Morel. Even in the novel of that Pole, Conrad.’
‘British now, actually,’ Werthen said. ‘The Heart of Darkness.’ Werthen had read it in the English original, in instalments in Blackwood’s Magazine, and found it a powerful indictment of the horrors being perpetrated in Africa.
‘But people do not listen. Letters need to be sent to those with power and conscience all over the world, in order to end this savagery in the Congo Free State.’
Werthen swallowed hard. ‘It is a noble cause, Fräulein Metzinger. Keep up the good work. Spread the word.’
But she had already gone back to a furious clacking of keys, quite ignoring him. It had been like this ever since she lost the street urchin whom she had hoped to adopt, a tragedy that set her to fighting for noble causes wherever they might be, from pacifist campaigns to ones against European barbarism in the Congo.
In his office, he sat down at his desk, looking forward to the morning edition of the Neue Freie Presse. As per arrangement, Frau Ignatz’s younger brother Oskar should have already delivered the paper, but there was nothing on his desk. Oskar was slow – some would say disadvantaged mentally – but dependable. It surprised Werthen that the man had failed in his duties today. He was about to go and inquire about it with Fräulein Metzinger when he heard a commotion from that direction. There was a low mumbling and a higher voice. Surely that of Frau Ignatz? An argument seemed to be ensuing.
Poking his head out of his office, he saw his secretary, Frau Ignatz and Oskar in a tug of war over the Neue Freie Presse. Frau Ignatz saw Werthen and sighed.
‘There you are, Advokat. Will you please tell this stubborn man to hand over the paper and go back to bed? He has a temperature of a hundred and two.’
Looking at Oskar, Werthen saw that he was as pale as Semmel dough.
‘It’s my duty,’ Oskar countered, his usual booming voice a weak imitation.
‘I heartily agree with the ladies, Herr Oskar,’ Werthen said, approaching the stand-off. ‘I much admire your sense of duty, but you clearly belong in bed.’
He took the newspaper out of the man’s sweaty hand, clapped him on the back, and announced, ‘Back to bed with you. Have you seen a doctor?’
Frau Ignatz snorted at this suggestion. ‘Oskar won’t let the white coats near him. Had a bad fright with one when he was a child.’
‘Well, Oskar, you’re in luck. My friend Doktor Kramer wears a dark coat and knows more about stamps than anyone I know.’ This was Oskar’s passion, and it drew an instant response.
‘He’d know about the Basel Dove? First time they made a three-colour stamp.’
‘Absolutely,’ Werthen said. ‘Now let your sister put you back to bed. And Fräulein Metzinger, could you call Kramer’s office and see if he can pay a visit?’
She nodded, and reached for the telephone even as Werthen was returning to his own office with his prized, but somewhat battered, newspaper.
Werthen spent the better part of an hour perusing the paper. He skimmed over the lead article on Hungary – yet another question about that unwilling partner in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Then read a feuilleton from Pretoria on the war in South Africa, and finally settled into the sports news dealing with the Traber Derby. It seemed much the saner choice, but there was no safe ground today. Details of the Derby simply reminded him of his father, Emile, and his plans to create his own estate in the Vienna Woods with an equestrian area.
Werthen wanted to feel more kindly towards his father, but found it a difficult task.
Looking at the standard clock on the wall in front of him, he saw that he had managed to squander the better part of an hour. He grabbed his Homburg and left. In the reception, Fräulein Metzinger was still at her pile of letters. She did not notice his departure.
The establishment in question, the Bower, was located in a narrow lane in the First District near the Danube Canal. A narrow three-story baroque building, its exterior could have been that of a fashionable men’s club – for, compared to its bleak and dour neighbors, the façade of the Bower was newly repainted in a shade of buttery gold several tones lighter than the Habsburg yellow of Schönbrunn that continued to infect the imperial world. Multi-colored putti frolicked about the heavily shuttered street-level and second-floor windows that housed Frau Mutzenbacher’s establishment. It was clear the brothel was closed, but Salten had told him to simply ring at the front door. He would be expected. He let himself in through the street door and, as Werthen went to the door of the Bower in the vestibule, he heard a tssking of tongue: descending the stairs was an elderly woman about her shopping, reminding him that the third floor was still given over to apartments. She was not too busy to scold him for illicit behavior.
He read the small brass plaque on the door to ensure he was at the right place, pulled the bell, heard it jangle behind the oak doors, and was soon greeted by a man of about forty in suspenders and shirt collar. He looked as if he could use a shave.
‘You’ll be the investigator, then,’ he said.
Werthen had no chance to reply. The man turned and began heading down a long, darkened hallway. Werthen stood uncertainly at the door.
The man turned and waved to him. ‘Come on. She’s expecting you.’
Entering the hall, Werthen was struck by the heavy blend of aromas: cigar smoke, talcum powder and, from deeper inside, the smell of fried food. He followed the man down the long hallway with some difficulty. The world outside was iridescent in the spring light; here, inside the Bower, it was eternal night.
Finally they came to a door at the end of the hall. The man tapped gently and from inside a voice mumbled something. Werthen could not make out what was said. The man turned the knob, opened the door, and gestured Werthen inside with the wave of a hand.
‘In you go.’
Werthen found himself still in the gloaming; he could barely discern a figure sitting in an armchair at the far end of the room.
‘You may be seated on the divan,’ this figure – a woman by the tone of the voice – said.
Werthen did as he was bid. The divan was across the room from the woman.
‘Frau Mutzenbacher, I presume?’
‘Is this Salten’s idea of a clever detective?’
Werthen felt himself stiffen at the jeer. ‘May we have some light?’
‘No we may not, thank you very much for asking. You’re here so that I can determine if I want to hire you. What do you know of my business?’
The question took him aback for a moment. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Salten tells me that you operate a house of . . .’
‘Say it, man. A house of ill repute. A brothel. A whorehouse.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Have you any familiarity with such establishments?’
‘Very little, I’m afraid.’ He tried to focus on her face in the darkness. It seemed she was wearing a veil.
‘Good. I want someone with fresh eyes. No assumptions. Would that be you?’
‘Madam, I must admit I am unaccustomed to this sort of interview.’
‘Too many words, Advokat. Speak plainly.’
This remark sudd
enly endeared the woman to Werthen, for it was an echo of what his wife Berthe had said to him when they first met several years before. She had accused him of sounding like someone running for mayor. ‘Pompous’ was the word she chose, and she was right.
‘Plainly said. I am quite good at what I do, as you are at your job. However, I am not a miracle worker. Neither do I have a bias against prostitutes. If you wish to employ me, fine. If not, I have other matters at hand.’
She said nothing for a moment. Then stirring in her chair, she nodded.
‘That’s better spoken, Advokat. With some feeling.’
‘What is it exactly that you want?’ Werthen asked.
Another long pause.
‘The young woman’s name was Mitzi, as I understand,’ Werthen began.
‘My girls are expendable,’ Frau Mutzenbacher said, as if not hearing him. ‘I can give you a list of Mitzi’s customers, but they surely use assumed names when coming here. Society spits on us, yet we hold the social fabric together. How many marriages do you think would survive, Herr Advokat, if we were not around to service oversexed husbands? How many marriages would be torn asunder by affairs with married women? How many ignorant youths would blunder on the wedding night were we not there before to train and gently guide? You ask what I want. I want justice for whores, that is what I want. I want society to finally acknowledge us. Barring that, I want to see the bastard who killed poor Mitzi rot behind bars in the Liesel for the rest of his pitiful days.’
‘Justice for all whores is a tall order. But I can try my best to find who killed this one young woman. And yes, I would like that list of names. It is a place to start, though the killer need not have been one of her clients. Do you have any suspicions?’
‘I’m not the detective.’
She sounded defensive; he did not bother to correct her choice of titles. ‘Private Inquiry Agent’ is what was listed on the brass plaque at his office below ‘Wills and Trusts’ and ‘Criminal Law’.
‘Was Mitzi close to any of the other women here?’
‘Fräulein Fanny.’ Said without an instant’s hesitation. ‘I will have her brought to us.’
‘In other words, you wish to engage my services?’
‘It appears so, no?’
‘Then I need to know something before we begin. Why do you care? You must have lost girls before. This can be a dangerous business for young women.’
She uttered a mirthless laugh. ‘Don’t I know!’
Suddenly, she turned up the wick on the kerosene lamp at her side and he could see her more clearly: a woman of ripe middle age, somewhat dowdy and matriarchal in appearance, thick in the middle with feet squeezed into lace-ups perhaps a size too small for her. She removed the veil covering her face and he saw the jagged line of a scar along the right side of her face.
Frau Mutzenbacher jabbed a finger at it. ‘That is what one of my clients left me as a going-away present. Did me a favor, actually. I couldn’t work the houses anymore, not even the streets, not with this. So I started using the other end of my body to make a living.’ She tapped her temple. ‘And it brought me all this.’
Werthen suddenly remembered what Salten had said about Frau Mutzenbacher: that she was not bitter about her former life.
Not a very discerning witness of human character, Salten.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Werthen said. ‘Why the concern for Mitzi?’
‘Well, take it as an old woman’s fantasy, but I looked on the girl as the daughter I never had. She was special. You never met her, you could not know. But she was attentive to one’s needs. Thousands of little kindnesses. I really don’t know how to explain it. She was also the living likeness of my younger sister, Theresa. Dead these twenty years from consumption.’
She paused for a moment, working the embroidered black silk of her skirts between thumb and forefinger as if searching for imperfections.
Werthen said nothing, allowing the silence to gather around them in the muffled room.
‘I was planning to adopt her,’ Frau Mutzenbacher said, looking up from her skirt. ‘This was all going to be hers.’
‘But she continued working?’
‘That was her decision. She was stubborn. Swore that she would keep working, that otherwise the other girls would think she had wormed her way into my affections and was using me.’ She permitted herself a sniffle.
Now she fixed Werthen with a look commingling ferocity and pleading. ‘She was special. You see?’
‘I am beginning to,’ he replied. ‘And as for my earlier question regarding any suspicions you might have. I cannot help you if you are not absolutely forthcoming with me.’
She touched the scar and then shook her head. ‘Everyone loved Mitzi. She had no enemies.’
He watched her carefully as she said this. After all, Frau Mutzenbacher was a woman paid handsomely for dissembling, as were all her employees.
‘No one client who was exceptionally attached to her?’
Another abrupt head shake. ‘As I said, she was beloved by all.’
‘Except for one,’ said Werthen. ‘The person who killed her.’
THREE
He met Fräulein Fanny in the parlor, and not in the company of Frau Mutzenbacher. He wanted candor from this young woman.
Fanny looked amused rather than concerned; her chalk-white face was still puffy from sleep, her black hair untidy but partially hidden under a shawl wrapped dramatically around her head. She held a cup of morning tea daintily between forefinger and thumb as if trained to do so.
‘Frau Mutzenbacher tells me that you and Mitzi were fast friends,’ he said, as the major-domo – still in his suspenders – left the room after delivering the young woman.
‘Well, aren’t we all working girls together?’
‘Did you know her well?’
‘I found her. If that means I knew her well, then yes.’
‘Found her?’
She nodded, giving a chirrup of laughter.
‘I saw her working the corner near the Naschmarkt. Bright-looking little pigeon she was, as I told Frau Mutzenbacher. She’d be tarnished soon enough working that corner, though. Obviously not very experienced in the trade.’
‘And you told your mistress about this young girl on the streets?’ Werthen said.
‘Of course. That’s part of the job, you know. Finding new girls, fresh girls. Mitzi had that look on her. The kind men like.’
She did not look away as she spoke, as if daring him with her frankness.
‘How long was she here?’
She wagged her head as if attempting to shake order into her thoughts.
‘Seven or eight months, I’d say.’
‘She must have been an extraordinary young woman, then,’ Werthen said.
‘How so?’
‘To have so impressed your employer, that is. To have charmed her and earned her love.’
He got the reaction he was waiting for. Fanny pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She set the teacup down.
‘She knew what she was about, despite all her ignorance of the trade. Knew which side of the Semmel is buttered.’
‘I take it you were Frau Mutzenbacher’s favorite once?’
A knowing look transformed her face like wind on water.
‘Oh no you don’t. I see what you’re doing here, Advokat.’
‘What am I doing, Fräulein Fanny?’
‘You’re trying to make it look like I might have done for Mitzi. That I had some grudge. A motion.’
‘Motive,’ he corrected, and quickly regretted having done so. Fanny’s face grew sullen, her eyes hooded in defiance.
‘I assure you, Fräulein Fanny, I am not attempting to associate you with this murder. I only want to get to know the victim, to understand her workings. Knowing that might lead me to the person who committed this barbarity.’
She adjusted herself in the chair. Holding her head haughtily, she sniffed.
‘Truly,’ he added. ‘You
must believe me. Whatever your true feelings for Mitzi, you must feel compelled to help. The person who perpetrated this outrage is still at large, perhaps hunting other poor young women at this very moment.’
She shivered at this pronouncement.
‘Did she have special clients? Any man who paid unusual attention to her? Someone she might have met off the premises?’
‘No, that is strictly forbidden. If Frau M found out, she would take the hide off your backside and you would find yourself on the street.’
‘Did she confide in you at all? What of her background, her family? Do you know where she came from?’
‘We shared a room, that’s all,’ Fanny said. ‘We weren’t friends. We just talked about the usual things. The new Paris fashions, what we would do if we found the right man. She was not very talkative. She saved that for her customers.’
There was an ironic edge to the last comment.
‘How do you mean?’ he asked.
Fanny shook her head. ‘She had that way about her. Used her mouth as much as what she sits on. And not in the way you are thinking, either. She came across the innocent young girl, and men loved that. They liked to talk to her, to confide in her. She talked to them and seemed to listen.’
‘Her clients shared secrets with her? Did she tell you that?’
‘Not in so many words.’
‘Any names? Of clients, I mean.’
Another sniggering laugh.
‘Oh, plenty of names. Loads of names. And all of them false, to be sure.’
She hesitated, thinking.
‘What is it?’ Werthen asked.
‘There was this one old duffer,’ she said. ‘He would sit and wait his turn if it took all night. Had a particular fancy for the young girls, even if they weren’t really so young. Funny-looking old guy with flowing moustaches, and sandals sometimes – even in winter. He would sit in the second parlor all on his own, writing in this little leather notepad he carried. Even drawing pictures. I saw him doing a face one time. Not a bad likeness of one of the other gentlemen swilling his champagne.’
‘You don’t recall his name?’
‘I told you, we’re not much on names here. They have the crowns or florins, what do they need with a name?’
The Keeper of Hands Page 3