A Matter of Breeding: a mystery set in turn-of-the-century Vienna (A Viennese Mystery)

by J Sydney Jones

  ‘That must have cost a bit of money.’

  ‘Oh, her relatives can afford it, I assure you. Regular steel barons and with all sorts of rich friends to boot. Herr Hohewart was a lucky man to marry into that family. It made his career. But sad, too.’

  ‘And she has been hospitalized for almost a decade, you say.’

  Frau Czerny gave him a cunning look. ‘I see what you are getting at. But Herr Hohewart was much too busy for domestic dalliances. Not that he did not get up to some antics. Wild oats and all that.’

  ‘He was in his fifties, I believe,’ Gross said. ‘A bit old for sowing wild oats.’

  She ignored this, plunging on with her memories. ‘Yes, he was a silly boy sometimes, but such a wonderful businessman. We worked together like a charm, you know. He valued me.’

  ‘And male friends?’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Outside of business hours, we did not see one another.’

  Gross found it odd that she had an opinion on Hohewart’s female encounters, but none at all for men. But then everything about Frau Czerny seemed a bit odd, from her hair style – two long braids that were far too young for her – to her choice of beverage to offer him – Underberg, digestif bitters, in the early afternoon.

  ‘Enemies?’

  ‘Herr Hohewart? Hardly. He was beloved.’

  ‘By whom?’

  But again she ignored him. ‘He was devoted to his work. Many is the time he would call me in to work on Sunday if there were important contracts to be completed.’

  ‘You were aware of his dealings with the Lipizzaner stud, I assume.’

  ‘That was his pet project from the time I began working with him. He took care of it personally.’

  ‘All of it?’ Gross asked. ‘Communications, contracts?’

  She nodded, then took a sip from her thimble-sized drink of bitters.

  Which made sense, he figured, if the breeding contracts were not legitimate.

  ‘I simply do not understand why he would kill himself,’ Frau Czerny said. ‘He had so much to live for.’

  ‘As I told you, Frau Czerny, he did not kill himself. That is why I have come to talk with you.’

  ‘Herr Hohewart was not the sort to be murdered, I assure you. There was never a trace of impropriety about him.’

  Gross stopped himself from rolling his eyes; however, a sigh escaped before preventive measures could be put in place.

  But Frau Czerny was not paying attention to him. Instead, her gaze had wandered to a large, orange tabby cat making its way up the brocade curtains of the one large window in the sitting room, paw over paw, its claws digging into the fabric.

  ‘Now Siegfried,’ she said in a cooing tone. ‘I have told you time and again not to climb the curtains. Silly boy.’ She got up and lifted the cat from the material, its paws swiping at her as she did so.

  Her comment made Gross pick up on something she had said earlier.

  ‘You said that Herr Hohewart was one of your “boys”. Did you have other employers?’

  ‘Of course. For many years I was private secretary to a very important man in the field of politics. A patriot if there ever was one. But of course the Habsburgs had to find a way to discredit him, to ruin his career.’

  Gross began to see the lay of the land. ‘Christian von Hobarty?’

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ She beamed at him. ‘Another one of my boys. When he was sent to jail for that altercation—’

  ‘I believe a fellow minister was beaten senseless.’

  ‘Perhaps he deserved it, speaking as he did to Herr von Hobarty.’

  ‘What was said between them?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Herr von Hobarty about that,’ she said. ‘I do not go about telling tales out of school.’

  ‘And so that is how you came to work for Herr Hohewart?’

  Another curt nod. ‘When Herr von Hobarty was indisposed, he was kind enough to suggest me to Herr Hohewart.’

  ‘So they were friends? Male friends.’

  ‘I suppose. I never really gave it much thought.’

  ‘Did Herr von Hobarty come to the office?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was instrumental in obtaining the Lipizzaner breeding contract with the Imperial Ministry for Agriculture. He would drop in from time to time.’

  ‘And when was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Herr Hohewart?’

  ‘No. I meant von Hobarty.’

  She looked toward the ceiling as she thought. ‘I really cannot recall. But we often saw him.’

  Then her eyes shot to the door where one of the cats was hunkering.

  ‘Herbert! Naughty boy. We do that outside.’

  Werthen arrived at the Reiter’s cabin later that afternoon. He was again in luck, for the parents were not there, taking a walk instead in the fresh snow. Annaliese’s brother, Kurt, was alone, polishing his prized crossbow. It was he Werthen wanted to talk with at any rate.

  ‘Can’t see why you want to stir things up again,’ the young boy said. ‘They got the one who killed her, more’s the pity. I wish it had been me had a chance to do him.’

  ‘It is not a matter of stirring things up, as you say. I was just curious to know if your sister had come into a bit of money before she died.’

  The boy shot a glance at the new crossbow in the stand by the door.

  ‘She did, didn’t she?’ Werthen insisted.

  ‘What of it? Annaliese got a raise at work.’

  ‘That explains it then,’ Werthen said. ‘A good worker deserves a good income.’

  ‘She gave me the two crowns for my crossbow. She was a good sister. The best. I would have done anything to save her. Anything to avenge her.’ A good-looking boy, Kurt suddenly looked at Werthen with the cunning of a hunter on the track of prey. ‘You don’t think this Klapper fellow killed her, do you?’

  He did not know how to answer that.

  Werthen left before the parents returned, plagued by the thought that there was something more Kurt Reiter knew that he was not sharing.

  ‘This is not the same friend, is it, Advokat Werthen?’

  ‘No. This is my colleague, the renowned criminologist, Doktor Hanns Gross.’

  Frau Paulus nodded her head sideways at this, as if it might mean something to her or to indicate that she was at least impressed with the title.

  As with the last visit, Herr Paulus was tucked away in his study working on matters to deal with the spa. Or, as Werthen now knew, the two spas he managed. The children carried on their noisy game from a room just off the front vestibule.

  ‘I will get him for you, then, shall I?’ she said cheerily.

  Werthen and Gross had met as arranged at the café in Köflach, where they had discussed their mutual discoveries. These included the fact that both Maria Feininger (according to her father) and Annaliese Reiter were in possession of extra money at the time of their deaths and both had been employed at a spa managed by Herr Paulus. Werthen also imparted the news from Sister Agnes that Maria had not been a very religious girl; shame seemed to be driving her to a nunnery. Gross had considered these and then apprised Werthen of his own information, culled from Frau Czerny, namely the further connection between Hohewart and von Hobarty and the story of the mysterious words that drove von Hobarty to beat the Czech minister. As they were so close by, it was natural that they travel the few miles to Piber and interview Paulus once again. Annaliese’s brother Kurt seemed to think that his sister’s new-found wealth was due to a raise at work. Paulus should be able to shed some light on that, at the very least.

  The sound of descending footsteps made Werthen swing around to see Herr Paulus and his wife coming down the stairs.

  Greetings were made and Frau Paulus smiled at Werthen. ‘I’ll leave you men to it, then.’

  She entered the room where the children were playing and there was a joyous shriek let out from one of the young ones.

  ‘I thought we had settled matters last time we talked,’ Paulus said as soon as
his wife was out of earshot. ‘And now you bring another stranger into my home …’

  Werthen handed him the new letter from Thielman, knowing that a man like Paulus needed the whip of authority in order to cooperate. Paulus read this with the same close attention he had the earlier one and then handed it back as if returning someone’s filthy handkerchief.

  ‘How could the death of Annaliese Reiter have anything to do with this latest tragedy?’

  ‘And Maria Feininger,’ Werthen added. ‘You neglected to say last time that you were acquainted with her, as well.’

  ‘Hardly acquainted,’ Paulus said.

  ‘Or that you work as manager of the Styrian Park Sanatorium in Judendorf-Strassengel as well at the Bad Terminus.’

  ‘One assumes you were aware of my positions. You seemed to know so much about my private life.’

  ‘Did you know Maria Feininger?’ Gross suddenly said with all the gravitas of a former magistrate.

  Paulus turned to him, clearly hearing the tone in which the question was put.

  ‘By sight. She was recommended by the receptionist.’

  ‘Fräulein Henninger,’ Werthen said.

  ‘Yes. And she proved adequate in her service. I have very little contact with employees of that level.’

  ‘Had either or both of the young women received a raise in wages around the time of the deaths?’

  This question seemed to affront Paulus. ‘Now look here, advokat. I have been very patient with you. I explained my slight indiscretion with the Reiter girl. That should be an end of it. I resent you persecuting me, and at my home.’

  At that moment, Frau Paulus stuck her head out of the door to the inner room. ‘Tea anyone? I should have asked before.’

  ‘No,’ Paulus said with animus. ‘The gentlemen are just leaving.’

  Another strained smile and she ducked her head back in, quickly closing the door behind her as if afraid that one of her energetic children might wriggle out of the opening.

  Werthen stood his ground, gazing at the door and then back to Paulus, as if to remind the spa manager of what he did not want his wife to know.

  ‘Gott im Himmel,’ he finally spluttered. ‘No, as far as I know, there have been no raises given in the past year.’

  ‘And you would know, Herr Paulus?’ Gross asked.

  ‘Of course I would. I’m the manager. I approve any such changes in expenditures.’

  ‘And these two young women,’ Gross continued, ‘did they have any special admirers at their respective spas? These things sometimes happen. An older client or patient becomes besotted with the help. Especially if they are young and attractive.’

  ‘We do not allow such fraternization, I assure you. Had I heard of any such irregularities, the young woman in question would have been terminated. And now, gentlemen, if you please.’ He ushered them toward the front door.

  Once they were outside and the door was closed brusquely behind them, Gross and Werthen looked admiringly for a moment at the little garden that Frau Paulus – obviously she and not her husband – had fashioned in the front.

  ‘Interesting choice of words, don’t you think, Werthen?’

  He nodded at Gross, for it had sounded odd to him, as well. ‘Terminated,’ Werthen said. ‘Not how I would describe dismissing an employee.’

  Twenty-Nine

  Berthe was early for her appointment with the archduke. She waited in the Marble Hall of the Lower Belvedere, where Franz Ferdinand lived and worked during the colder winter months. The two-storey hall was drafty; she could see the snow-covered grounds outside the tall windows. High overhead, the ceiling fresco depicted Prince Eugene of Savoy, the original inhabitant, as Apollo. Gazing upward, Berthe grew dizzy with the swirling mass of celestial putti, floating angelic, dimple-thighed ladies, and defiant warriors in bright blues and rose.

  An army officer who introduced himself as Lieutenant Petschner finally came for her.

  ‘We spoke not long ago on the telephone,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. I remember, gnädige Frau. I regret I was no longer on duty to greet you that day.’

  He seemed a pleasant young man, but his form of address made her feel suddenly very old.

  Lieutenant Petschner led her through the Marble Room to an interior suite of offices where a number of officers seemed to be busy at desks, each with a telephone and some of which even had typewriters upon them, seeming so out place among the gilded columns and tapestries on the walls. This was a different route than she had taken when visiting Franz Ferdinand before, but finally she reached his corner of the room and he greeted her heartily.

  They made small talk for a time; he had heard of her child’s illness and asked after Frieda by name. It seemed there was little that transpired in Vienna without the archduke knowing about it.

  ‘And now, what is this urgent business you referred to on the phone?’ he asked.

  She opened the large handbag she carried today and removed the Krensky file she had received in the mail the previous Friday. That and the murder of Hohewart, director of Premium Breeds, convinced her that Franz Ferdinand would once again open the investigation into the alleged Lipizzaner breeding scandal.

  He took his time reading the file. When he handed it back to her, he said, ‘This is rather what we had heard before.’

  ‘Yes, but here it is all written down with dates and names of breeding houses.’

  He shrugged; she imagined his stiff red collar on his military tunic must scratch with such a gesture.

  ‘It still means little if we do not have corroboration.’

  ‘I thought the murder of Herr Maximillian Hohewart would lend some credence to these allegations.’

  ‘Not unless we discover the killer had some connection to the Lipizzaner matter.’

  This comment deflated her. She obviously wore her disappointment on her face.

  ‘I am sorry to be so discouraging, Frau Meisner. I, too, want to get to the bottom of this, but we need hard proof to do so. We need Herr Krensky’s informant.’

  ‘There have been other developments in addition to the death of Director Hohewart.’ She quickly explained about the picture they had discovered linking Hohewart to Christian von Hobarty; the fact that it was Hobarty who had secured the breeding contract for Premium Breeds; and the connection, finally, between Hobarty and Krensky, who had once interviewed the former member of parliament for an article on Styrian wines.

  ‘You have been busy,’ the archduke said with a smile. ‘Von Hobarty … And you suspect him then of being the source of the story?’

  ‘There is the connection to Krensky.’

  ‘The young man must have interviewed any number of people during the course of his brief career.’

  ‘Not someone so connected to Premium Breeds and the Lipizzaner stud,’ she protested.

  He considered this. Finally: ‘Motive?’

  ‘You think Hobarty killed Hohewart?’

  He shook his head at this. ‘I mean motive for making such a scheme public.’

  She had considered this, but had always come up with more reasons against such a possibility than for.

  ‘I know it does not sound rational. When all is said and done, von Hobarty was the one to help secure the Premium Breeds contract with the Imperial Ministry. If Premium Breeds were discredited, you would think he would want to avoid any publicity, anything that might bring disrepute to his name. And if he were part of the scheme, financially gaining from it, there would be an even stronger reason not to want it made public. Or if he were an investor—’

  ‘He isn’t,’ Franz Ferdinand said, pushing a hefty ledger book across the desk to her. ‘After hearing of Hohewart’s death, I had the finance minister bring a copy of the Premium Breeds investors’ list and went through it. You are free to examine it, but I would surely have remembered von Hobarty’s name if I had seen it.’

  ‘Well, then …’

  ‘Perhaps he is a simple patriot,’ Franz Ferdinand said. ‘Perhaps his invo
lvement with Premium Breeds was purely innocent, and then, when getting word of a breeding fraud, he chose to do the right thing.’

  ‘Why not just go to the police, then? Or to the Imperial Ministry for Agriculture? He may be out of politics, but von Hobarty must still command some respect.’

  ‘You have given this some thought,’ he said.

  She sighed. ‘Not enough, apparently.’

  ‘Well, enough to convince me there is reason to re-open the matter. Perhaps I should investigate the finances of Herr von Hobarty a little more closely.’

  She sensed an eagerness in Franz Ferdinand for such an investigation: Von Hobarty with his German leanings and his knack for stirring up race animosity had been a thorn in the side of the Habsburgs for decades.

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Franz Ferdinand said, ‘can you not think of any new direction your investigations should take?’

  She was about to answer in the negative when suddenly she remembered something.

  ‘What an idiot I am. I forgot completely about the list.’

  Franz Ferdinand looked perplexed. ‘What list might that be?’

  ‘When I interviewed Herr Hohewart, he told me that negotiations on these new bloodlines were all done through what he called respectable intermediaries. I asked to speak with these people, but Hohewart indicated he had dispensed with their services as he was dissatisfied with their field work, whatever that meant. He had no addresses for them, but promised to have his secretary send me a list of names. I hardly expected him to carry through with it, and when it came I admit to surprise. But then Krensky was killed and the Lipizzaner scheme was put on a back burner, so to speak. I simply filed the list away.’

  ‘Well, we are moving things back to the front of the stove, Frau Meisner. It is time you unearthed that list. Perhaps I can be of service in tracking down those mentioned.’

  Later that afternoon back at the Josefstädterstrasse flat, she went through her files and quickly discovered the letter sent from Hohewart’s secretary, Frau Czerny. The list was not long, just ten names, none of which were recognizable to Berthe.

  There was, however, something familiar about the typing itself. She looked closely at it, then fetched the Krensky file sent to her and placed a sheet from those notes next to Frau Czerny’s list of names. The similarities were unmistakable. The lower case ‘e’ on both was out of line, somewhat raised above the baseline, and that the lower case ‘p’ key likewise needed a cleaning, for the loop of the letter was obviously gummed with ink, creating a dot-like bowl rather than a circular one. The descender of the ‘p’ key was also feathered from ink accumulation in both these samples.