‘Hoping again it would all tie back to von Hobarty,’ Gross said. ‘But you had motive for that murder, as well, right?’
‘I do not like being pressured by anyone. He had threatened to expose my involvement with the Lipizzaner matter if I did not kill the Reiter girl. I waited patiently for my opportunity to pay him back for that.’
‘And the unfortunate Captain Putter of the riding school?’ Werthen asked.
Thielman shrugged. ‘Why not satisfy your curiosity? It was Hohewart. He told the man the whole breeding scandal would be blamed on him for not paying close enough attention. Told him to do the honorable thing. Hohewart did not like loose ends.’
He sighed. ‘But this is now becoming tedious. I think we have had enough revelations. Time to die.’
He leveled the gun at Gross who did not make a move. Just then, through the open window came a whooshing sound and Thielman’s forehead spouted a red flower of blood with a steel crossbow bolt at its very center. He dropped the gun in a clatter on the wooden floor and slowly sunk down to his knees and then toppled forward.
Werthen moved to the fallen man, but could see immediately that he was dead.
He looked up to see young Kurt Reiter peeking through the open window. ‘I told you I would get the man who killed my sister,’ he said.
They shared glasses of brandy to settle their nerves. Kurt explained how he had used the last of his sister’s money in order to hire fiakers and follow Gross and Werthen, and eventually they had led him to von Hobarty’s estate. He had overheard everything through the open window.
‘Well, you saved our lives, young man,’ von Hobarty said.
Werthen looked at Gross. ‘If you already suspected Thielman when we came here, how could you let us be drawn into a trap like this? We could all have been killed if not for Kurt.’
Gross smiled at this. ‘Not quite, Werthen. You see, coming back from the telegraph office in the train station this morning after collecting the message from Paulus, I stopped by the gendarmerie. Thielman was not yet in, but his weapon was hanging from a rack near his desk. I got the sergeant on duty to look for some evidence bags, and meanwhile I took the bullets out of his gun.’ He reached into his pocket and displayed a fistful of cartridges. ‘It was the only way I could think of. There was no hard evidence.’
‘That makes me feel better,’ Werthen said, picking up Thielman’s gun and playfully pulling the trigger as he aimed at the ceiling. The gun went off with an ear-splitting bang, and debris fell from the damaged ceiling.
Gross stood red-faced, brandy in hand, as plaster rained on his head.
Epilogue
All four candles were lit on the huge advent wreath hanging down from the ceiling of the art studio. Christmas was only two days off, and there was a festive air to this art show, featuring the work of Tina Blau’s students, foremost among them the equine paintings of young Franzl Hruda.
The sun was out, glinting off the snow in the Prater and filling the aula of the studio with warm light.
The gathered guests were enjoying hot punch and Christmas cookies, served by none other than the painter and former vandal, Herr Kleinwitz, who had been converted to the notion of having women in the arts after teaching some of Blau’s talented and rather attractive pupils. The guests were speaking in polite, low murmurs as they examined the paintings. Berthe even had one on display, Werthen noted; a somewhat tortured picture of an espaliered apple tree with fruit, but bare of leaves.
‘My Rembrandt stage,’ she joked in his ear. He loved the feel of her warm breath on him.
Frieda was running about quite indecorously, playing tag with Berthe’s father, while Frau Juliani shook her head in mock disgust at such frivolity. Werthen’s parents had been unable to come; his father had a sinus infection and was laid up at their home at Hohelände in Upper Austria, being waited on hand and foot by his wife, Werthen imagined. He, Berthe, and Frieda would pay a visit to his parents after Christmas. But Werthen’s father had sent his personal thanks for taking care of the Lipizzaner affair. Not exactly the resolution he or Berthe had been seeking, however.
Gross, too, was missing from this little get-together, back at his post in Czernowitz where he continued to battle the upstart sociology department while waiting to hear if his appointment to the University of Prague would finally be approved. No mention of his son, Otto.
This quiet, comfortable affair suddenly took a turn for the more formal when Werthen spied out the window a large touring car pull up in front of the art studio and none other than Archduke Franz Ferdinand emerge from it.
The guests went silent as he entered, along with several aides. He carried a bouquet of hothouse roses, which he presented to Tina Blau, and then he approached Werthen and Berthe.
‘The best of the season to you,’ he said, nodding to them both, and then thinking better of it, taking Berthe’s hand and kissing the air an inch above it.
‘How good of you to come,’ Berthe said.
‘I could hardly refuse such a fine invitation.’
One of Franzl’s horse paintings had been printed up for the formal invitation.
‘And where is this miraculous young artist?’
Werthen led him to Franzl, looking awfully shy and much smaller than the canvas he was standing next to.
‘Herr Hruda,’ Franz Ferdinand addressed the boy with great formality. ‘I must congratulate you on two counts.’
The boy continued to stare at the archduke as if struck dumb by his presence.
‘First is your art. These are wonderful paintings of our fine Lipizzaners. A testament to your skill and our stables.’
Berthe and Werthen exchanged glances. The upshot of all their hard work had been that the Lipizzaner matter was buried. With Hohewart dead, it was felt that von Hobarty was an unreliable witness. But at least Franz Ferdinand had mounted a full-scale investigation into the affairs of von Hobarty, promising to make life very difficult for him if he ever breathed a word of the breeding scandal. The one bit of justice done was that ‘Herr Hobarty’ now had the ‘von’ stripped from his name.
What the emperor gives, the emperor can take away.
‘Yes,’ Franz Ferdinand continued, ‘your paintings demonstrate the strength and vigor of the Lipizzaner line, the symbol of Habsburg Austria.’
Werthen had the feeling that this last part was added for his and Berthe’s benefit.
Franz Ferdinand shook the boy’s hand.
‘Please, sir,’ Franzl said, his voice cracking. ‘You said there were two things to congratulate me for.’
Franz Ferdinand threw his head back and laughed. ‘So I did. So I did. Marvelous boy. Yes. The second is your most patriotic of Christian names. I salute you, Franz Josef Hruda!’
A Matter of Breeding: a mystery set in turn-of-the-century Vienna (A Viennese Mystery) Page 26