Requiem in Vienna: A Viennese Mystery (Viennese Mysteries)

by Jones, J. Sydney

  The day was still fine, so they decided to walk to Mahler’s apartment. First, however, was the matter of food. This morning’s kip-ferl was now just a distant memory, and he was feeling and hearing a distinct rumbling that demanded attention.

  “You must be hungry, darling,” he said as they departed the Court Opera.

  She cocked her head at him, smiling. “Which means you must be.”

  “Yes, well, one tries to be a gentleman about such things.”

  “About hunger? I did not realize the rules of decorum pertained.”

  “What we both need is a snug little booth, a plate of schnitzel, and a chilled glass of Vetliner. Agreed?”

  She nodded vigorously, taking his arm. “Lead on, hungry one.”

  And he did, taking them to the Opera Café where they indeed found a snug little booth out of the foot traffic, and were soon treated to plates upon which generous slices of breaded veal overlapped the edges. This was accompanied by a cabbage salad with cumin seeds and tart vinegar dressing. The Vetliner was of a coolness as if the bottle had been stored in an alpine brook.

  They ate in silence for a time, both of them hungry and giving their sensations over to tastes and aromas for the time being.

  “What did you think of him?” Werthen finally asked.

  “Him? Leitner or Blauer?”

  “Leitner is a self-server.” Werthen waved his fork at the idea. “Blauer is the trickier one.”

  “A modern man,” Berthe pronounced.

  “Blauer? With those muttonchops?”

  She nodded, placing fork and knife on her plate for the moment.

  “A self-made man, obviously. Connections did not win him a job as stage manager at the Royal Court Opera. Most likely the product of night school, hard work, and ambition. You heard how he could modulate his accent.”

  “But is he honest?”

  “That, my dear, is harder to discern.”

  “No podium to examine, no stagehand to question about the earlier accident. A bit too convenient, I would say.”

  “For whom?”

  “For whoever is trying to kill Mahler.”

  If she had been wearing reading glasses, she would have looked over the rims at him doubtingly.

  “So now you are taking Fräulein Schindler’s story at face value?”

  “No,” he answered. “I’m taking the facts at face value.”

  They arrived at Mahler’s apartment in the afternoon, as arranged. The composer’s sister obviously did not feel compelled to answer the door herself this time. Instead, the maid, a wiry little woman in a freshly starched blue uniform and apron, opened the door. He had not seen the woman on his previous visit, but clearly she had been notified of his imminent arrival. Just as clearly, no one had apprised her of the fact that he might be arriving in company. She looked from Werthen to Berthe and allowed a tiny gasp from her birdlike mouth.

  “Herr Werthen and his wife to see Herr Mahler,” he announced loudly enough, he hoped, for his voice to carry to the inner rooms thereby allaying any further surprise caused by Berthe. It had been Werthen’s experience that a household run by a sister was generally one where other females were not welcome. Justine Mahler had given the impression upon first meeting of a most protective and territorial sort of woman. In part, that is why he insisted Berthe accompany him to Mahler’s this afternoon; he wanted the sister discomfited, put off her guard. If there were deeper truths to be gotten at, then comfortable was not how Werthen wanted the sister, or brother for that matter.

  His volume did the trick, for the maid was quickly relieved of her duties by Justine Mahler, who arrived in a swoosh of heavy skirt and a clacking of heels. She wore—was it the same one?—a broad dove-gray tie with her blouse as before, tucked into the waist of her white belted skirt.

  “Herr Werthen.” She pronounced it as if it were a question.

  “Fräulein Mahler.” He nodded. “May I present my wife, Berthe Meisner.”

  Justine Mahler quickly appraised Berthe, measuring her as if for a coffin, then slowly outstretched her hand.

  “A pleasure, Frau Werthen.”

  Berthe shook the proffered hand. “Frau Meisner, actually. I have kept my family name for professional reasons.”

  Justine Mahler squinted her eyes at Berthe. This information was obviously as little welcome as another woman in the apartment was.

  “But forgive me,” the composer’s sister finally said. “I am so little accustomed to society caring for the needs of my brother. I forget the amenities. Please do come in, and welcome, both of you.”

  Once again Werthen followed the sister into the cavernous flat, crossing the outer hall to the inner rooms. A violin sounded; something by Bach, Werthen thought, and the tone quality was quite good. He and Berthe were led to the same sitting room where he had earlier met with Mahler. As before, the composer was installed in a daybed, but now his left arm was in a sling. The violin was being played by a tall, one might say statuesque, woman in a long white gown that draped in folds about her feet. She played without the benefit of music and now Werthen placed the selection: the chaconne for violin from the Solo Violin Partita 2. He had first heard the piece as a young boy at his family’s estate when, for a dinner party, a young Viennese violinist, a protégé not much older than Werthen himself still in knee pants, was brought in to entertain the guests. Werthen well remembered the heat of embarrassment he felt as the guests seated at dinner paid the young musician little heed, instead laughing and drinking and clinking their silverware as they continued to consume the dinner of wild boar and red currant sauce. But for Werthen, seated at the far end of the table from his parents and from their strained joviality, the music hit a profound chord. He lost himself in it as he had never before done with any piece of music. Only written words—the poetry of Schiller, for example—had heretofore been able to take him so outside of himself. But that evening, with the young violinist from Vienna playing so passionately the notes written one hundred and fifty years earlier, he was shocked to find tears at his eyes, realizing he was crying only when one tear splashed the edge of his plate of untouched food.

  Now, many years later, he once again felt that same profound stirring at this music as they entered the salon. The woman, eyes closed, seemed to sense rather than hear their presence and abruptly broke off the music, dramatically removing the violin from under her chin, and resting it in the crook of her right arm. She peered at Werthen and Berthe with her head cocked like a bemused pigeon.

  “Please, Natalie,” Justine Mahler said. “Not on our account. It was quite lovely.”

  The woman named Natalie merely smiled at Justine, making no overture toward recommencing.

  “Werthen,” Mahler called out from his sickbed. “We must stop meeting like this. You are going to take me for an invalid, while I am, despite my slightness, a rather robust individual. And who might this charming young woman be?”

  Noting a look of disapproval from both the other women at Mahler’s remark, Werthen made introductions and was introduced in turn to the violinist, Natalie Bauer-Lechner, an old family friend. A friend, that is, of Mahler’s since the days when he was a poor music student in Vienna.

  Mahler did not bother with common civilities; not waiting for small talk, he immediately said, “Now, ladies, I am sure you will forgive Herr Werthen and myself for secreting ourselves for a small business conference.”

  His sister and Frau Bauer-Lechner were immune to Mahler’s abruptness, clearly having suffered it, perhaps even encouraging it as a sign of his artistic genius, for long years. Berthe, however, noticeably bristled at the remark, but said nothing. Instead, she repaired with the other women to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

  Mahler waited for the double doors to shut behind them, then breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Sometimes a chap needs to be on his own.”

  Werthen smiled at the comment, having felt the same way at times.

  “Sit, sit.” Mahler waved his good arm at a nea
rby armchair. “By your concerned demeanor, Werthen, I assume you believe this latest fiasco is a further attempt on my life.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  “Poppycock. Though it is interesting. I suppose you are a student of musical history, no?”

  “Of a sort.”

  “Of course you recall the sad events of 1870? This was five years before I entered the conservatory here, but even in the backwater of Iglau where I grew up we heard of the tragedy to befall Josef Strauss, the talented brother of Johann and Eduard.”

  Werthen did recall the incident now. Strauss, on a tour of Poland, had fallen from his podium and died not long after. There was a deal of mystery surrounding the death, for his widow would not allow an autopsy. It was not known whether the composer died of injuries suffered from his fall, or if he had injuries or an illness prior to that.

  “Surely you are not comparing the two?” Werthen objected. “There was no indication the podium in that instance was at fault.”

  “Is there in this instance?” Mahler responded. “I have been known to experience vertigo. Sometimes in the high mountain peaks I am so overcome with passion for the scenery that I quite forget myself.”

  “You’re saying that you may simply have fallen from the podium. That it did not, in fact, crumble beneath you.”

  “One moment I was conducting Wagner, the next I was flat on my back in the orchestra pit gazing up at the rather shiny white shins of Arnold Rosé, my first violinist, as he hovered over me, his trousers billowing at the ankle.”

  “He was the first to reach you?”

  “Please, Werthen. The man hopes to be my brother-in-law. Murdering me would hardly win him a warm place in Justine’s heart.”

  Werthen felt himself growing annoyed at Mahler’s cavalier response to this latest outrage.

  “There is indeed a long history of odd musical deaths, Werthen, none of which were necessarily attributed to nefarious plots. Take the unfortunate Jean-Baptiste Lully, for instance. You think my fall from a podium was dire? Monsieur Lully, in the French style of the day, pounded out the rhythm of his music from the wings, using a large staff. One night the poor man impaled his own foot while thus conducting and died of gangrene not long thereafter.”

  Mahler chuckled to himself.

  Werthen had had enough.

  “It is missing. That is one problem.”

  Mahler drew himself out of his humorous reverie.

  “What is missing?”

  “The podium. The stage manager says it is wood chips by now, so there is no way to ascertain whether or not it had been tampered with.”

  Mahler considered this for a moment. Then, “You say that is one problem. Implying others.”

  “The stagehand supposedly responsible for the dropped fire curtain is no longer at the Hofoper.”

  “Nor would I want the blighter to be.”

  “Nor is he in Austria, it would seem. Rumor has it he has emigrated to America.”

  A further silence from Mahler.

  “Was he also the one responsible for the dropped scenery flat?”

  Werthen had not questioned the stage manager about that, he now realized.

  “Possibly,” he said, to cover up his own error.

  “And the tainted chamomile tea?”

  Werthen simply shrugged at this. “You yourself enumerate four dangerous, possibly life-threatening incidents, yet you continue to joke about it,” he said instead. “Do you think that is the appropriate response? Why have you summoned me today?”

  Mahler smiled broadly. “My revised will, or have you forgotten?”

  “On a Sunday?”

  Mahler nodded his head against the white expanse of pillow. “All right. Yes, I do feel some concern. Especially now you mention the podium has so handily disappeared.”

  Werthen said nothing, forcing Mahler himself to say it.

  “Fine, then. Investigate away, damn you.”

  “Why so stubborn?” Berthe asked as they strolled back toward the Josefstädterstrasse and their home.

  “He simply refuses to believe he works alongside someone who wants him dead. I can imagine it is a rather chilling thought, not something you want to contemplate.”

  “Why limit the investigation?”

  “How do you mean?” Werthen asked. They were approaching the Ringstrasse once again. A streetcar passed, newly electrified, sparks flying from its overhead arm. “You say that Mahler might be working alongside someone who wants him dead. Is it not possible there are domestic possibilities, as well?”

  “You mean his sister?”

  “Why not? Or the jilted lover?”

  “And who might that be?”

  “It took less than a half cup of tea for me to see that Natalie Bauer-Lechner is hopelessly in love with Mahler. And for me to understand from Justine Mahler’s comments that she stands no chance of ever becoming his wife.”

  “Quite a happy little domicile.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “They hover over him like wasps.” Then she tucked her arm more tightly in his.

  They reached their apartment a quarter hour later, tired after a full day. Werthen thought fondly of a hot bath, perhaps some sherry before dinner, and a chance to read a bit more. Then a cozy night at home with his wife and early to bed. The thought of that filled him with a sudden warmth beneath his stomach. He was a happy man.

  As they let themselves in, Frau Blatschky was quick to meet them at the door, her voice almost a whisper.

  “I told him you were out, but he insisted on waiting for you. He’s been here several hours. And eaten twice, I might add.”

  Werthen was about to ask her who their mysterious guest might be, when a familiar voice thundered at them from the sitting room:

  “Werthen, my good man, where the devil have you been all day?”

  The stentorian tones of none other than Dr. Hanns Gross, Werthen’s old friend and colleague, and the foremost “criminalist”—as Gross fashioned himself—in the empire.

  FOUR

  I don’t care if I never see another beech tree,” Gross said as he cut into the boiled beef and horseradish sauce Frau Blatschky had set before them. “That’s what the region’s name comes from, Buchenland, land of the beeches.”

  Last year Gross had been posted to the Franz Josef University in Bukovina’s capital, Czernowitz, to open the first department of criminology in Austro-Hungary, final recognition of his years of research and writing in what he liked to call criminalistics. With the university closed for the summer, Gross had come to Vienna for a conference at the university, while his wife, Adele, was in Paris visiting friends.

  “My lord,” he spluttered through bites of beef, “even the streets of the so-called capital are lined with those beastly arboreal intrusions.”

  “But I’ve heard it is quite a lovely city,” Werthen said, winking at Berthe as he did so.

  Gross laid down fork and knife, casting a withering look at the lawyer.

  “My dear Werthen. I have known you for years and will therefore not be drawn out by that faux innocent remark. Suffice to say, calling the place a city is a disservice to the language. It is a dusty and dirty claptrap of dodgy buildings, many of them gussied up to look like the Austrian homeland, but largely a Potemkin village. Their façades may indicate several stories, but the dark and impoverished interiors are one or two levels at best. Catherine the Great herself would be impressed by the deception.”

  Berthe now raised her brows at her husband.

  “I saw that gesture, my good lady,” Gross went on. “You think I exaggerate. Far from it. Czernowitz boasts a population of a hundred thousand, but you have to go long and far to find a German. The place is an overgrown Jewish shtetl, no insult intended.”

  Werthen and Berthe, both of Jewish background, were too accustomed to Gross’s unconscious anti-Semitic comments to even attempt a response. Oddly enough, he meant no harm by such comments; for him they were merely statements of fact.
r />   “I have heard they have a lively musical scene there,” Berthe said.

  “If you enjoy the rather overheated melodrama of zigeuner music.”

  “There is nothing to recommend the place?” Werthen asked.

  “I am told the mathematician Leopold Gegenbauer hailed from there,” Gross said, taking up knife and fork again. “It is, in short, dear friends, a backwater. My poor lady-wife, Adele, is perishing for want of companionship and culture. She slips off to visit her cousin in Paris or to fuss over our empty apartment in Graz whenever she has the chance. As for me, I have one or two bright pupils. The rest would better serve the empire in the army.”

  “I am sure you do not really believe that, Dr. Gross,” Berthe said brightly.

  “And I am sure I do, dear lady. If not cannon fodder, then perhaps milkers and stable hands. Czernowitz is a dreadful place. However, those in power have finally decided to recognize my work by giving me the chair in criminology, and that is the only reason I languish there. If criminalistics is ever to be considered a true science, then I need to build my department into a topflight research and training center equal to Paris or Scotland Yard.”

  They ate in silence for a time, the standard clock on the wall behind Werthen making a pleasant tocking noise to punctuate the clink of cutlery against porcelain.

  Finally Gross looked up from his meal. “You must pardon my execrable manners,” he said. “Prattling on about my own situation and not bothering to find out what you two have been up to.”

  “Well,” Werthen began, “we have been a bit busy.”

  Gross rubbed his hands together. “Do tell.”

  “Redecorating, buying new furniture. The sorts of things newlyweds do.”

  Gross twitched his salt-and-pepper mustache. “You know very well that is not the sort of busy-ness I was inquiring after.”

  “Oh, tell him,” Berthe said.

  Werthen smiled at this; she had a kinder heart than he did.