The cook, Frau Anschitz, was alone in the kitchen, already busy with early preparations of the evening meal. Werthen eyed the marinating veal roast hungrily; he suddenly remembered they had not had lunch.
Frau Anschitz, once properly introduced to her interlocutors, proved to be a voluble woman. Her body was the shape of a well-fed game hen and she seemed to bounce as she spoke.
‘She was a kind one, was our Ursula. Always eager to do her bit, never complaining. Even helping out upstairs when the serving girls were ill. It was that good nature that got her into trouble. A girl’s got to learn when to say no.’
‘Is her young man employed at the castle?’ Gross asked.
Frau Anschitz let out such a guffaw at this question that she blew flour in a cloud of dust over the dough she was pummeling into submission.
‘I take it the young lady—’ Gross began.
‘She was not a lady, letting herself be put into the condition she was. But she was a fine girl, all the same.’
‘Do you know who the father was?’ Werthen asked seeing that Gross’s manner seemed somehow to put her off.
The cook hesitated just a fraction too long before she answered. ‘No. Nobody from around here. And I am not one to gossip.’
But Werthen had the feeling Frau Anschitz did enjoy a good gossip, just not with all these strangers in attendance.
She began rolling out the dough, slamming it onto the table and battering it with a massive rolling pin, taking great joy in the process, it seemed.
They subsequently managed to find out very little about Ursula Klein from the cook, other than that she had come into service at the estate just ten months before, bore adequate references from a family in Graz where she had served before, and that she had dreams of one day setting up her own small business.
‘“It’s a changing world, Frau Anschitz”,’ she would say to me. The cook grew a bit misty eyed as she related this. ‘“There are new opportunities for a girl with some ambition.”’
She cut the dough into strips and now wove them over a bed of apples and raisins in a baking dish. She sighed.
‘Silly girl. In the end it was the same old opportunities for her, for any girl not careful of her morals. I warned her …’ Frau Anschitz paused.
‘Yes?’ Gross said.
‘Warned her about too much ambition. Not good for the likes of us.’
All this time Stoker had kept quiet, just as Gross had earlier counseled him, but this comment drew a response from the Irishman. ‘She sounds like a wonderful young woman. What a tragedy for mother and child.’
A tear formed in her left eye. ‘That is the word, isn’t it? Tragedy.’
They made their way back up the warren of stairs to the entry hall, but before reaching it Werthen said, ‘I’ve forgotten my notepad. Go on without me. I’ll catch you up.’
‘Good fishing,’ Gross said, seeing through the ruse.
Werthen ignored this, hurrying back down the stairs.
‘Sorry,’ he said, re-entering the kitchen. ‘Forgot my notepad.’
‘I doubt it,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I saw you set it down there like you had a plan in mind. Get the old girl alone and she’ll tell all.’
He chuckled at her frankness. ‘Well, will you?’
‘You’ve got to ask a question first.’ She laid on the final strip of dough, then wiped her hands on her blue apron.
‘All right,’ Werthen said. ‘Why did you laugh so at Doktor Gross’s question about whether Ursula’s young man was employed here?’
‘I don’t know anything about a young man, do I? Like I already told you.’
‘But it was as if you knew something. That the very idea of a young man or his employment was absurd.’
‘You don’t miss much, do you?’
‘I try not to. And I certainly would not miss a meal you prepared, Frau Anschitz.’
‘No need to throw out compliments. I liked you better just clever.’
‘Then I’ll make a clever guess,’ Werthen said. ‘You laughed because Ursula’s lover was the opposite of that description. Not young, but old, and not employed here, but the employer.’
‘You said it, sir, not I.’
He waited for more.
‘We do seem to go through quite a few young kitchen helpers,’ the cook added acidly.
Six
Werthen re-joined the other two just as they were being led into von Hobarty’s cold and damp library cum study. Christian von Hobarty was seated at a desk by a mullioned window that allowed in dim green light, giving him the appearance of an undersea creature. He rose as they approached and there was nothing amphibian about the man. He was well over six feet in height and stood erect as a soldier. Though he was into his sixties, Hobarty still had thick black hair and a beard that bore very little gray in it. By the deep nutbrown color of his skin, von Hobarty also appeared to spend a good deal of time out of doors.
In short, Herr von Hobarty was the sort of man, Werthen figured, who could still sire a child.
They introduced themselves quickly and von Hobarty seemed less than impressed.
‘So you are the detective chaps Thielman mentioned,’ he said in a voice as vital as his posture. ‘Takes a litter of you to solve a paltry murder?’
He continued standing and made no indication for them to sit, so the interview was conducted upright. Von Hobarty’s brash manner caused an instant antipathy in Werthen, which he attempted to hold in check.
But Gross obviously felt no such restraint. ‘I am afraid there is nothing paltry about this brutal crime, especially for the victim.’
‘Just a manner of speaking. I meant no disrespect for the deceased.’ Von Hobarty said it as if implying it was their fault for taking his words at face value.
Such an inflammatory statement was typical of von Hobarty, however, Werthen knew. He had made a career in Parliament with just such antics as leader of the far right Fatherland Party, demanding racial purity and a union with ‘our German brothers’. A brawl in the Parliament which had left one Czech member in a vegetative state for several months had earned von Hobarty six months in prison and finally ended his political career. Since that time, he had retired to this family estate in Styria and taken to growing premium wines and cultivating his reputation with the occasional blustery article in the Deutsches Volksblatt, the Reischspost, and other right-wing newspapers that promoted the ideas of German racial purity and blamed all the ills of society on the Jewish community.
‘As I am sure you know,’ Gross proceeded, ‘this is just one of a series of similar crimes perpetrated in this vicinity in the last month.’
‘Terrible,’ von Hobarty said. ‘I blame it on the leadership in Vienna. They refuse to firm up our borders. The empire is as porous as a sponge. Any sort of riff-raff is allowed in. If this were a true German country nothing like this would happen.’
‘Yes,’ Gross said mildly. ‘You might bring that idea up with the Munich constabulary who are this very moment looking for their own pathological murderer whom the papers have dubbed the “Schwabing Ripper”. Or the Frankfurt police and their homegrown “vampire killer” captured just last year after killing nine young men and drinking their blood. A good German he proved to be.’
‘There’s been a weakening of our race, an insidious eating away at the moral fiber by pornographers, most of them from the east.’
Code word for Jew, Werthen knew. He, unlike Gross, was not going to rise to von Hobarty’s crude bait.
‘I mention these other cases only to put ours into some perspective, Herr von Hobarty,’ Gross continued. ‘You know that Fräulein Klein was pregnant?’
Von Hobarty nodded. ‘Terrible times we live in.’
‘How long had she worked for you?’
‘You will need to confer with my majordomo about that. I hardly have the time to keep track of my domestics. I doubt I said more than one word to the girl.’
‘Accordin
g to your cook, she did serve upstairs from time to time.’
‘Well, if Frau Anschitz says so, it must be so.’
Gross continued to ask his questions but got nowhere. No, von Hobarty did not know the other two young women killed and why ask such a damn silly question? No, he had no idea why Ursula Klein should be out in the grounds so late at night. No, he had no inkling of who her young man might have been; he was a landlord not a matchmaker.
Werthen listened and also watched von Hobarty closely. Clearly the man had a temper and a tendency toward violence. That was demonstrated by the beating he had given to the Czech minister. But what motive would he have for killing Ursula Klein? Simply to cover up his parentage? A man like von Hobarty would simply ship the young woman off as Frau Anschitz implied had happened before with other kitchen staff. A bit of money to keep her quiet; much simpler than murder.
But, Werthen went on with his mental calculations, what if, as rumor had it, von Hobarty’s family wealth from his engineer father was fast diminishing with von Hobarty’s lavish experiments in viniculture? It was cold enough in the library; one would think the man would have a roaring fire going in the hearth. Perhaps the rumors were true and he simply did not have the requisite funds to buy the girl off. Or, what if Ursula Klein was not as pliant as other girls? What if she demanded some acknowledgement. Gross suspected that Ursula Klein might be of Jewish background. That was yet to be ascertained. But if so, von Hobarty, pillar of the pan-German movement, known for his virulent anti-Semitism, may not have been too eager for news of his sexual relations with a poor Jewish scullery maid in his employ to become public.
And what of the other two victims? If von Hobarty killed Ursula Klein, were the other two an elaborate misdirection for the one murder with real motive? Werthen had investigated such a case in the past, but it seemed far too fanciful in this situation.
‘I told Thielman there was nothing more I can offer,’ von Hobart was saying to Gross. ‘A waste of everyone’s time.’
‘Not at all,’ Gross said. ‘It has been very instructive.’ He left the comment dangling, something for von Hobarty to mull over.
‘I believe I have contributed what I can,’ von Hobarty said. ‘And now I have a meeting with my gamekeeper.’
They were making polite farewells when Stoker, silent until this moment and busy examining the books in von Hobarty’s library, suddenly spoke up.
‘I see you are a student of folklore and customs, Herr von Hobarty.’ Stoker nodded toward several shelves of books.
‘Ah, yes,’ von Hobarty said. ‘A hobby of mine since leaving politics. Styria is a land rich in tradition and custom.’
‘Some of it rather frightening in a modern context, wouldn’t you agree?’ Stoker said. ‘Belief in all sorts of superstition, witches, vampires, what have you.’
‘Parts of the province are admittedly yet to enter the twentieth century,’ von Hobarty allowed, but suspicion showed on his face at this line of questioning.
‘You will excuse me for asking, sir,’ Stoker continued, ‘but you wouldn’t be connected to the Bathory family, would you?’
For once, von Hobarty showed some degree of reaction. His eyes squinted at Stoker.
‘I beg your pardon. What impertinence.’
‘We should be leaving, Herr Stoker,’ Werthen said, tapping his arm.
But Stoker held his ground. ‘It is just the interesting spelling that comes to mind. You must forgive me, I am a word man. Your last name is an anagram of Bathory. You of course know of the Countess Erzsebet Bathory.’
‘I believe you know your way out,’ von Hobarty said dismissively. ‘I have business to conduct.’
He sat at his desk and consulted a sheaf of papers, leaving them to take their leave.
Once out the door, Gross said, ‘What may I ask was that about, Herr Stoker?’ This was delivered with the sort of edge to his voice reserved for extremely inept police.
‘The “Blood Countess”. You know the one. The sixteenth-century Transylvanian noble who supposedly tortured and killed over six hundred young maidens and then bathed in their blood.’
‘Of course I know of her,’ Gross said with great disdain. ‘But what do the events of three centuries ago have to do with this?’
‘Well, it’s the blood connection, right? During my researches I found how stories of her also informed the repute of Vlad the Impaler.’
‘Please, Herr Stoker. Your point?’
‘Vlad was the inspiration for my Count Dracula of course.’
Gross sighed mightily, shaking his head at Werthen. ‘Would you please put a collar on your charge, Werthen.’
‘Now just a minute, Doktor Gross. I was only trying to help.’
‘Anagrams.’ Gross spat out the word.
‘It did get a rise out of him, Gross,’ Werthen said.
‘Yes.’ Stoker was cheered at Werthen’s tepid support. ‘It was worth a try. After all, there was Carmilla and the Countess Mircalla.’
‘That is fiction, Herr Stoker. What’s in a name, eh? Following your logic, I would assume you came from a long line of laborers tending boilers, or that Werthen here is from a particularly worthy family.’
But Stoker did not respond to this. ‘It was worth a try,’ he muttered as they walked down the long hallway to the front door and their waiting fiaker.
Gross shook his head again at Werthen. ‘The man does not know a Wallachian from a Transylvanian,’ he muttered.
Stoker turned around suddenly, but not to reply to this comment.
‘He had your book, too, you know,’ he said to Gross. ‘Your Criminal Investigations. But he acted as if he had never heard of you, of any of us. Interesting, don’t you think?’
Werthen glanced at Gross who seemed to be ruminating on this observation. Perhaps, Werthen thought, our friend Stoker is not as slow-witted as he makes out.
Seven
Very little in his ten years of life had gone right for Franz Josef Hruda.
It started with his name.
While the Hungarians were great fans of the Emperor’s wife, Elisabeth, they did not much care for her husband, the Emperor Franz Josef. It was Franz Josef, very much a boy himself when he became emperor, who helped to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1849. Franzl’s parents, simple farmers from near the town of Szegedin, did not understand this dynamic. For them, 1849 was ancient history. They only wanted their first born to have a chance in life.
Instead, this name worked against Franzl. Even if his parents had not died when he was six, he would not have continued school. The schoolmaster and the other boys ridiculed him and teased him mercilessly because of the seeming pretension of his given name and because in all schools teachers and students must have someone to pick on, someone to be the last chosen or the one to blame for poor grades.
The death of his parents from diphtheria came as almost a pleasant release for Franzl, bundled off to Vienna to live with an aunt, his mother’s sister.
Thereafter he was known only as Franzl Hruda.
This aunt was much older than Franzl’s mother, and she had never married. She took in sewing and kept a simple one-room apartment in a tenement in the district of Favoriten. Franzl was put to work for a local butcher, sweeping offal and taking care of the butcher’s workhorse.
But at least there were no teachers or students to taunt and torment him.
It was at the butcher’s he learned to love horses. The butcher kept a cart and an old horse in a shed in the back of the shop. It was a dray animal that had served its entire life in harness and had never been named.
Franzl called it Star because of the five-pointed white mark above its eyes. It was as if that horse understood him, knew him better than anyone else in the whole world. Franzl would steal apples from the nearby fruit shop to feed to Star; would brush the old beast till his tattered coat began to glow.
Franzl came to work early one day to find the stall empty.
The butcher had sold the old horse to a rend
ering plant and gotten rid of the cart.
Franzl ruined the butcher’s favorite knife that afternoon before leaving work. He never returned.
He went to where the horses were in Vienna, at the Stallburg. Here the famed Lipizzaner were housed from the Fall through early spring before returning to the greener pastures of Lipizza, home of the stud in rolling hills near the Adriatic. He would wait hours by the entrance just to catch a glimpse of one of these beautiful animals or of the young military men in their brown tailcoats, white buckskin breeches, black riding boots, and bicorn hats. The best time to see the horses was just before or after the morning training, when the grooms would lead the grey-white Lipizzaners between the stables on Stallburggasse and the elegant Winter Riding School on Josefsplatz.
Franzl felt his heart soar each time he saw one of these beautiful animals.
His aunt alternately threatened and cajoled, but Franzl would not find another position. He had his work, waiting for the horses. He dreamt of becoming one of those riders.
One day after a month of waiting and watching, one of the riders in his magnificent bicorn came up to the young boy and asked him if he would like a tour of the stables. That was the best moment of his entire life. He and the rider, Captain Wilhelm Putter, would form an odd sort of friendship, for it turned out that Putter too had grown up in poverty, but was fortunate enough to rise to be chief rider at the Spanish Court Riding School. Franzl was soon doing odd jobs for Putter, helping the regular grooms polish the gold-plated bridles used for performances or oil the saddles. He even took to polishing the ornate saddle holders lining the walls, using a ladder to reach the highest. He loved the feel of the seasoned wood and the brass figure of a horse head at the end.
He came to the stables as early as he could. Often he was there before the other grooms; just him and Putter, who always was there first.
Thus it was Franzl who discovered the body.
Today the side door was open as usual, but nobody answered his call, which was odd. He passed the horses, nickering in their stalls, and went to the saddle room.
A Matter of Breeding: a mystery set in turn-of-the-century Vienna (A Viennese Mystery) Page 4