[VM01] The Empty Mirror

by J Sydney Jones

  “We have discovered new evidence,” Gross said, informing Krafft-Ebing of the alibi discovered for Herr Binder, but not of the connection between the Prater murders and the assassination of Empress Elisabeth or her son. Gross did not want to endanger his old friend, and knowing too much about this case was to put oneself at risk. Werthen, after the departure of Klimt the evening before, had roundly been chastised by the criminologist for having given the painter too much damning information. Werthen’s ears were still ringing from that dressing-down.

  Krafft-Ebing nodded sagely as Gross imparted the new facts. “Then you are looking for a new profile. But you can hardly suspect Archduke Otto. I mean, the man is a flamboyant fool, but hardly a murderer. Besides, I would imagine that you would now be looking for other connections than those having to do with syphilis. If Binder is innocent, it means that someone wanted to make him look guilty and was thus using the unfortunate man’s infection as part of that charade.”

  “Or was using Binder’s syphilis to cover up his own,” Werthen quickly offered.

  Gross made no response to this, but Krafft-Ebing pursed his lips and said, “Possibly,” without much conviction. “I was reminded of our earlier conversation,” the psychologist went on, “at news of the death of the empress.”

  Gross and Werthen exchanged glances at this non sequitur, but by this time Werthen was aware of the psychologist’s roundabout way of discussion.

  “At first I heard only that she had died in Geneva, poor woman. I had not seen the newspapers yet and read of her assassination. Thus I thought-and this is what reminded me of our earlier conversation-that she had finally succumbed to her illness.

  Gross and Werthen sat in silence, but this very silence was a question.

  “You see, she was a sufferer, as well.”

  “The Empress Elisabeth had syphilis?” Werthen all but choked on the question.

  Krafft-Ebing nodded solemnly. “Not many knew. It was a very well kept imperial secret. Which explains her estrangement from her husband and her continual travels. She was forever seeking a cure, forever trying to run far from the memory of that disease.”

  Gross was finally nudged back into speech: “How do you come by this information, Krafft-Ebing?”

  “I was, during the final years of his life, the personal physician of Crown Prince Rudolf, if you recall.”

  “Of course.” Gross nodded. “You were much away from Graz then. A most prestigious appointment.”

  “Yes, it was. And it was also a burden in many ways. For you see, that sad young man was also infected. Had been at birth, as a matter of fact. Congenital syphilis.”

  “But where…?” Werthen left his question half-spoken, for the answer was obvious. Franz Josef, the kindly father figure of the empire, Der Alte, the bewhiskered gentleman who ruled the empire with punctilious efficiency, who had been at the helm for half a century. He had infected his young wife with the disease, who in turn gave birth to a child who carried the deadly bacteria in his blood. Werthen suddenly understood the empress’s final gift to her husband: the player piano with the single scroll: “Liebestod.”

  “The first child, Archduchess Sophie,” Krafft-Ebing continued, “lived only a pair of years until succumbing to the inherited disease. The second child, Gisela, managed to escape its effects, as did the fourth child, Marie Valerie, born about a decade later. But the third child, the long-awaited heir to the throne, Crown Prince Rudolf, was born with syphilis. By the time of his death, it had gone beyond the second stage.”

  “Tragic,” Werthen muttered. He was also confronted with a totally different picture of Franz Josef than he had ever had before. “But what of the emperor?”

  “I have never examined him, but apparently he is one of those lucky enough to escape the ravages of the illness, thus far. He is far from a young man and there is very little visible effect from the disease, so far as I can make out. Her majesty, however, was a different matter. By the time of her death, she was afflicted with tremors, her legendary beauty had gone, and she preferred to cover her face as if living in Islam.”

  “Was the crown prince in his right mind at the time of his death?” Gross asked.

  “I should say so. He had not yet reached the tertiary stage; you might say he was in a sort of remission. In some, this time between the early stages and the tertiary can last decades. But it preyed on him; he knew he was living in the shadow of the gallows.”

  “Was he suicidal?” Werthen now asked.

  But Krafft-Ebing showed sudden suspicion at all this interest so far removed from their stated investigation. “Gross,” he said,and then nodded at Werthen, “Herr Advokat, I think you are not being forthright with me.”

  “Idle curiosity,” Werthen said, trying to smooth it over. It sounded insincere even to his own ears.

  “Your choice to know or not,” Gross finally said. “But let me warn you, knowledge can be dangerous. We ourselves have narrowly avoided death once as a result of our investigations. I do not want to involve others if not absolutely necessary.”

  “Nonsense,” Krafft-Ebing spluttered. “Now you have got my curiosity up. How can I know how to help you if I am kept ignorant of the facts?”

  Gross exchanged a glance with Werthen, then sighed deeply before outlining the connection between the Prater murders, including that of Herr Frosch, and the death of Empress Elisabeth and Rudolf a decade earlier. He did not, however, provide any details about the direction their investigation was currently taking-toward Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

  The psychologist sat in stunned silence for a time after Gross finished.

  “My God, it sounds like something the American writer Poe might come up with,” he finally said. His mind worked quickly, piecing together this information with Werthen’s earlier questions regarding Archduke Otto. “So you suspect Otto … No. You suspect his brother, Franz Ferdinand! He would be the one to stand to gain most by Rudolf’s death.”

  “A kingdom,” Werthen said.

  Krafft-Ebing shook his head violently. “No. Completely wrongheaded.” He focused on Gross. “You believe this?”

  “He has motive,” Gross allowed. “And whomever we are battling-for it is a life-and-death battle, make no mistake-has terrific power, that is clear from the way he has controlled the investigation into the Prater murders from the very outset.”

  “Nonsense,” Krafft-Ebing insisted. “Franz Ferdinand is sometimes a blustering fool, frustrated at being kept out of policy-making, just as his cousin Rudolf had been. But I have met him. He is actually quite a knowledgeable chap. He has even written a book about his travels, visiting the warmer climates in an attempt to cure his tuberculosis. I had cause to examine him in March, as a matter of fact. I pronounced him cured and able to take on full duties of heir apparent. You should have seen him once I made the pronouncement. He danced around like a small child. The man grows roses, for Lord sake. How can he be a cold-blooded killer?”

  “Roses?” Gross said. “Interesting. The same hobby as our Herr Binder.”

  When Gross glanced at him, Werthen noted for the first time that the criminologist might be taking his theory about Franz Ferdinand seriously.

  “I should keep my opinions to myself then,” Krafft-Ebing said, “and simply help you two create a new profile of the killer. Like you, Gross, I believe that our killer created the signature wounds on the victims of the Prater murders for a reason. The mutilations were not done simply to make the perpetrator look insane. I think they are all significant and all help to sketch a picture of the killer. The nose first.”

  “Settled?” Gross suggested.

  “Yes,” Krafft-Ebing said. “I very much like your theory about Indian lore. The unfaithful servant gets his nose chopped off, just like an unfaithful wife. The fact that it is an American Indian practice is also a signpost. It means the killer has perhaps had the luxury of travel to the United States and back. We Austrians have not sent many immigrants to the New World. More likely it would be someone
with the means to travel, or at least someone educated enough to read of such practices. This points to wealth, possibly even aristocracy.”

  “The middle classes are well enough educated these days,” Werthen objected.

  “Of course they can read,” Krafft-Ebing said. “Any shopkeeper could pick up the adventure books of Karl May and possibly find a reference to such practices in the Indians of the American Plains. But it is the use of such information I am referring to. Honor and faithfulness are terrifically important to this person. Most of us do not live by such symbolic acts. For our killer, such symbolism is important, no, vital. We see that if we look more closely at the other markers.”

  “The blood,” Gross said. “After deciding against the Jewish angle, we did let that detail lapse.”

  “It is as important as the nose,” Krafft-Ebing said. “Blood symbolizes so many things: life, fecundity, sexuality, breeding. But the draining of the blood is telling. Linked with the mutilated nose, I would say that the blood in this case indicates a lack of breeding, or of good blood, as the aristocrats might say.”

  Werthen found this discussion somewhat ironic given that Krafft-Ebing himself was a Ritter, a member of the lower aristocracy, but the aristocracy nonetheless.

  “Excellent,” Gross said, rubbing his hands. “And the placement of the bodies?”

  “That is the third marker,” Krafft-Ebing agreed. “The Prater. Now an amusement park, and thus one thinks it is a symbol of the common man. Or perhaps it was merely a handy place to dump the bodies. Deserted enough in the middle of the night so that no one would notice.”

  “Yet the killer took these people off the streets of Vienna, some even when it was still light,” Gross said. “No, I do not think it was the remoteness of the place that determined the use of the Prater.”

  “It was a royal hunting preserve in the time of Joseph I,” Werthen said.

  “Once again to the aristocratic connection,” Krafft-Ebing said. “And these victims were left as if they were trophies of the hunt.”

  Werthen thought quickly of Franz Ferdinand’s reputation as a hunter who had slaughtered thousands of game animals, but said nothing. There was no reason to derail Krafft-Ebing from his speculations.

  “We are coming closer to a full picture of the perpetrator, gentlemen,” the psychologist said. “A man of power and wealth able to most probably hire someone to do his killing for him. Someone for whom loyalty and breeding are all important. A soldier perhaps, or a member even of one of our illustrious knightly orders, such as the Austrian Imperial Leopold Order, the Maria Theresa Order, the Order of St. Stephen, or even the Order of the Golden Fleece. Those all have a code of honor which demands members to censure other knights for treason or heresy. Such a code could be extended in the man’s mind to a servant of the empire as Herr Frosch. Even to the empress herself.”

  “I believe all members of the royal family are automatically members of some orders,” Werthen added.

  “The Golden Fleece,” Gross said with a sly grin at his display of arcane knowledge. “But there is nothing saying our perpetrator must belong to such an order, merely that he wield power of some sort. Which leaves a wide assortment to choose from. First we have the eighty living descendants of Empress Maria Theresa and her son, Emperor Leopold II. Archdukes, archduchesses, princes, princesses, counts, and countesses.”

  “The First Society,” Krafft-Ebing added.

  “Quite. Any of those could wield the sort of power we are looking for. Then comes the lower hereditary titles from the other parts of the empire, many of which are Hungarian, I remind you. Most of these, with some prominent exceptions such as Esterhazy, Schwarzenberg, Grunenthal, and Thurn and Taxis, have titles no higher than count. Then comes the third tier of Dienstadel, who earned their titles, such as knight or baron, through service to the crown.”

  “As with my own family,” Krafft-Ebing said.

  “And let us not forget,” Gross continued, “the vast array of civil servants, military men, advisers, and even servants who are in positions of power at the court. I have read estimates of the number constituting the court as high as forty thousand.”

  But Werthen had stopped listening. Franz Ferdinand was surely a member of the Golden Fleece, as had been Crown Prince Rudolf. Had Franz Ferdinand needed a rationalization to kill his older cousin, he could have told himself he was doing it for the good of the country, to save Austria from Rudolf’s love of the Magyars, who wanted to break from the dual monarchy. Franz Ferdinand would have been twenty-six at the time of Rudolf’s death, with enough allies to pull off such a coup as assassinating the crown prince and making it look like suicide.

  “Do you agree, Werthen?”

  Gross’s voice finally brought Werthen out of his thoughts. He did not know how long he had been out of their conversation.

  “Sorry, my mind was wandering. Agree with what?”

  “Our next step should be to determine if our central theory is correct.”

  “And that is?”

  “That all of this revolves around the death, no, the murder, of Crown Prince Rudolf a decade ago.”

  “Short of finding a copy of Frosch’s memoirs, how do you propose to do that?” Werthen asked. “We can hardly reopen that investigation, as well. The crime scene exists no longer, as Rudolf’s bedroom was literally torn apart to renovate the Mayerling hunting lodge into a Carmelite nunnery. Many of those who were present at Mayerling that night, including Rudolf’s driver, Bratfisch, and now Frosch, are dead. So how to proceed?”

  “By examining the body.”

  “But the crown prince is in the crypt of the Capuchin Church,” Werthen argued. He did not like being diverted from this present investigation by Gross to waste time on a ten-year-old murder. “They would never let us open his sarcophagus.”

  “Not the crown prince, Werthen, but the girl. Marie Vetsera, whom he supposedly shot before killing himself.”

  “What could you possibly hope to prove by looking at that rotting corpse?”

  “I am not certain, Werthen. Perhaps we shall only succeed in stirring up the killer even more. Enough, perhaps, to act unwisely. Or perhaps there is indeed something to be found in the cold, damp earth besides worms.”

  Gross rose from his chair, nodding at the psychologist. “Krafft-Ebing, as always, it has been a delight. Many thanks for your assistance, and do look both ways before crossing the Ringstrasse tonight.”

  The psychologist shot Gross a look. “You as well, Gross. We shouldn’t want to lose you, just yet.”

  What they found so blasted humorous about the prospect of death, Werthen did not know.

  “And let me know if the Vetsera clan agree to the exhumation,” Krafft-Ebing said as they were on the way out the door. “You’ll need a medical doctor present for the examination, I assume?”

  TWENTY

  Outside, Klimt was still waiting for them. He had insisted on playing bodyguard, and-with the assistance of his former cellmate Hugo from the Landesgericht prison-he had recruited three hulking and rather unsavory-looking individuals, under whose bulging jackets Werthen imagined there to be an assortment of pistols, truncheons, knives, and brass knuckles. Each of these men wore a derby hat atop a medicine-ball-sized head. Klimt made no effort at introductions, and neither Werthen nor Gross insisted on formalities. Though Gross had scoffed at the idea last night, he was not, Werthen noticed, complaining of the company today.

  They were sandwiched by their escorts as they made their way along the Ring.

  “You seem to be a bit of an amateur historian of your adopted city, Werthen,” Gross said as they walked toward the nearest fiacre rank, at Schottentor. “Tell me, what became of the Vetsera girl’s mother?”

  “Well, the court banished her, as you could quite imagine. She was blamed for throwing her beautiful young daughter at the crown prince. Fact of the matter was, however, though Helene Vetsera was a social climber and not beyond arranging an affair between her seventeen-year-old daught
er and Rudolf-indeed, rumor has it she herself as a younger and married woman tried to bed the crown prince-she was innocent this time. It was the empress’s niece Marie, Countess Larisch, who acted as go-between for her cousin and the Vetsera girl. She, too, was banished from court as a result of her involvement. I believe she recently married a Bavarian singer and is living in Munich.”

  “Yes, yes, Werthen,” Gross said impatiently. “But the mother, that’s the one I am interested in.”

  “She was dropped by all good society, though her brothers, the Baltazzi boys as they are known, have managed to remain in society’s good graces. Great racing gents, they are. You can find them at Freudenau in the racing season.”

  “Werthen!”

  “Yes, the mother. Last I knew Helene Vetsera was still living in the family mansion on Salesianergasse.”

  “The so-called Noble Quarter. Then let us be off.”

  “But, Gross, we cannot simply go calling on the baroness. There is etiquette to follow. One must present one’s card beforehand and wait to be invited.”

  “Nonsense, Werthen. The lady is probably pining away, eager for any visitation. If she is the pariah you say she is, she will be only too happy to greet us. Quickly, man,” Gross said as he flagged a passing Fiaker, “we have no time to waste.”

  He and Werthen jumped in the Fiaker, leaving Klimt and his crew scrambling for the next available carriage.

  Arriving at Salesianergasse 12, Werthen was surprised to find that Gross was right about the baroness’s eagerness for company. They delivered their professional cards to the aged butler who answered the door, and within five minutes Helene Vetsera received them. Werthen saw Klimt and his bulldogs draw up in a Fiaker just as he and Gross were entering the house.

  The baroness was seated in a large and rather dark room when the butler showed them in. In her day, Helene Vetsera had been known as a beauty, Werthen knew. Her Levantine good looks came from her father, Themistocles Baltazzi, who came from Asia Minor and embraced the ideal of empire to such an extent that he grew rich off bridge tolls and other such government concessions. She was one of four children; the other three were boys, who had made names for themselves in England racing horses. Helene married an Austrian diplomat and had several children, most notably a daughter, Marie, who became infamous for her early death at Mayerling.