Still, Werthen was sure the stench was real. Looking behind the cushions on the daybed upon which he had sat on his previous visit to the flat, he quickly found the source. It was the golden parakeet Werthen had earlier seen flitting about the apartment. Its neck was broken, one wing was torn completely off, and its body was beginning to bloat with gas. This fact alone convinced Werthen that Praetor had been killed. He would never have committed such a barbarous act upon his pet. Killing the bird had been a final deed of spite, of revenge.
Whoever it was killed Praetor, he had done so out of an anger and spite so great that it could not be vented by simply pulling a trigger.
‘Have you found anything, Advokat Werthen?’ Praetor’s diminutive father came out of the bedroom, and began sniffing. He, too, finally smelled the decay. Perhaps, being a surgeon, his nostrils were inured to such odors.
Werthen showed him the dead bird and explained his theory.
The doctor’s shoulders slumped as if all the energy had been sucked out of him by this discovery.
‘You are right,’ he sighed. ‘Ricus would never hurt Athena. She was his prized possession.’
The father took no delight in being right about the cause of his son’s death. There was no vindication in this discovery. The realization brought only misery to the man. It was as if he visibly aged while gazing at the mangled parakeet. Perhaps Drechsler was right? Maybe there was only grief to be gained by this investigation.
‘This seems to be the act of some deranged individual. My son did not associate with such violent people.’
Werthen did, and knew that you can never predict the behavior of someone. Outwardly proper and well-mannered, the best of persons could turn homicidal if pushed to extremes. As a criminal lawyer in Graz, he had made a living from good people doing bad things.
No parents tonight. Berthe and Werthen had a quiet dinner together. Even Frieda cooperated, going to sleep early. They sat at the table amid a clutter of dirty dishes, enjoying the glow of candlelight, sipping the last of a Bordeaux Werthen had picked up on his way home. They spoke of small domestic things — Frieda’s new smile when she passed gas, the delivery of coke fuel that was overdue, Frau Blatschky’s recently discovered recipe for potted kidneys.
After the housekeeper had cleared the dishes and delivered the coffee, Werthen began a discussion of his new investigation. Berthe listened with rapt attention, eager it seemed for communication of a non-domestic variety. Werthen could understand; Berthe was a wonderful mother, but she also had a mind that needed to be fed.
‘Why do you discount what the father says?’ Berthe asked once Werthen finished his description of the investigation thus far.
‘You mean as regards the sorts of people his son would or would not associate with?’
She nodded, stirring a silver spoonful of sugar into her coffee.
‘I suppose it is because I suspect fatherly pride trumping reality.’
‘But he was right about his son not being suicidal,’ Berthe said. ‘Perhaps he knows his son better than you think.’
‘I have not discounted his opinion, but merely set it against opposing theories.’
‘Drechsler’s “these people” theory, you mean. What a horrid man.’
Werthen made no reply to this and Berthe took a sip of coffee, then set the cup aside with a sigh. She was being a good nursing mother; of the wine she had drunk only half a glass, as well.
‘You didn’t mention Drechsler’s response to your discovery,’ she said.
Werthen shook his head. ‘No. For the very good reason that I did not inform him of the parakeet.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘Telling Drechsler of it would not necessarily make him change his opinion of the case. In fact, I think it would convince him even more of his “berserk lover” scenario. Someone so deranged he would tear a harmless bird apart. There’s nothing to be gained then by telling him of the mangled bird, and doing so would, pardon the metaphor, very likely ruffle Drechsler’s feathers. After all, he warned about interfering with the crime scene, and then there is also the not insignificant matter that he and his fellows completely missed this vital clue.’
‘My, but I have a competent husband. Not only an investigator, but a diplomat.’
‘This is Vienna, remember?’ he teased. ‘I do not want to get on the wrong side of Drechsler. We may need him before this case is over.’
‘Theories?’ she asked.
Werthen took a sip of his coffee, unadulterated with sugar.
‘Discounting the homosexual angle-’ he began.
‘Thank you. .’
‘I ask myself who might have a reason to kill a young journalist. These missing notebooks come to mind. His colleagues said he kept research notebooks, but there is no trace of them at the offices of the Arbeiter Zeitung or at his flat. The desk there had, I am sure, been tampered with. Someone had tidied it.’
‘Isn’t it possible that Praetor himself had just done a little housecleaning? After all, we are now virtually certain that he did not kill himself, so such an act would not be out of the ordinary.’
Werthen did not fail to notice the ‘we’ in Berthe’s sentence. It made him smile slightly.
‘Agreed. But he hardly seemed the housekeeping sort.’
‘Perhaps you should check with the building Portier on Zeltgasse to see if he employed a cleaning lady.’
‘Excellent,’ Werthen agreed, taking his small leather notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket to make a list.
After scratching a few lines, he looked up. ‘That is one direction of investigation. The whole idea of the notebooks and the story he was working on. Adler says it had to do with the 1873 Vienna Woods preservation act. Though it is difficult to believe someone would kill him over that. Hardly sounds inflammatory enough.’
‘What about Steinwitz?’ Berthe said.
Werthen leaned over and kissed her full on the lips, holding her face in both hands as he moved back.
‘You see? That’s why we are married. Exactly my thoughts.’ He let go of her face. ‘Say that Praetor’s article about the graft investigation in the Rathaus caused Steinwitz to take his own life. Then it could be that a friend, a colleague. .’
‘A relative,’ Berthe added.
‘Yes, or a relative — any one of those close to Steinwitz who might have a motive to kill Praetor. Simple revenge.’
‘Or to silence him,’ Berthe offered. ‘Perhaps there were other revelations coming. Maybe Steinwitz was not the end of the investigation, but instead the beginning. I only wish I could be of more help to you with this. But with Frieda. .’
Werthen scribbled some more in his leather notebook. Then, ‘I propose a simple division of labor. You know the journalists at the Arbeiter Zeitung. Without leaving this apartment, you could interview them by telephone, try to ascertain more closely the parameters of the story Praetor was working on. What might be in those missing notebooks. Meanwhile, I will investigate the Steinwitz angle and the Rathaus.’
It was Berthe’s turn now to lean over and give her husband a generous kiss.
Nine
Werthen’s right knee was acting up the next morning. Sometimes it felt as if the bullet from the duel was still lodged in there. He did not let it stop him, however, from walking to work as usual. He merely took his mahogany walking stick with him. Berthe had bought it for him last Christmas; a handsome piece of work with a brass grip in the shape of a globe that fit perfectly into the palm of his hand. Berthe knew him so well: Werthen’s vanity would not allow him to use a mere cane, but this walking stick had a distinguished feel to it. He felt a bit of the dandy as he strolled to the Inner City, high clouds scudding in the sky ahead of a chill north wind.
No sooner had Werthen arrived at the Habsburgergasse and settled in at his desk, than he received a visit from an old friend.
‘My God. Gross,’ he said, pumping the man’s hand after he was shown into the office by Fraulein Metzinger. ‘How wond
erful to see you.’
Doktor Hanns Gross, a tall, somewhat portly man in his early fifties, returned the handshake with equal vigor. His lips seemed to quiver under his salt and pepper moustache, which, Werthen noticed, had lately been transformed from a pencil-thin sprig of foliage to a bristling and slightly confused snail-like growth, curving up cavalierly at its right terminus yet dipping down into the doldrums on the left. Gross’s pate, ringed with a fringe of gray hair, gleamed from a fresh application of bay rum, which he used every morning.
‘Did you just arrive?’ Werthen asked.
‘We’ve been here since Friday, actually.’
‘Where have you been hiding? And who is “we”? Don’t tell me that you actually brought Adele with you this time.’
Gross grimaced as if in sudden pain. ‘Yes, dearest Adele is with me. Or, more accurately, I am accompanying her.’ He sat in a chair with a slight sigh. ‘Fasching, you see.’ Another grimace.
‘You’re not?’
‘Afraid so. After years of politely requesting, my dear lady wife finally made an ultimatum: we would attend the Vienna ball season or else. I was too devastated to inquire about the nature of “else.” Thus, here I am in your pre-Lenten city.’
Werthen sat down in one of the client chairs next to Gross instead of sitting behind his desk. ‘So you are actually going to attend a ball?’
Werthen did not think he had ever seen the criminologist looking so miserable, not even when faced with hemorrhoid surgery in Graz. Gross made a quick nod of the head.
‘Have done already, in point of fact. Last Saturday night’s Gartenbau Ball. Would it were otherwise. I am not as graceful on my feet as I once was, Werthen.’
‘Well, I for one think it is damn fine of you, Gross. Poor Adele has been pining to attend the Vienna ball season ever since I first met her in Graz.’
‘Oh, long before that, my dear friend.’
‘And you finally consented.’
‘Relented,’ Gross corrected. ‘And there was the plumiest band of dandies and swells in attendance at the ball. Insipid and bored lower aristocracy with too much drink taken. All they could think of doing to entertain themselves was wager thousands of crowns on snail races. My God, what an occupation.’
It was the latest rage in Viennese society, Werthen knew. Dissipated nobility purchased snails at exorbitant rates to see which could climb to the top of a meter stick first, wagering even more exorbitant sums in the process.
‘It was an outrage,’ Gross spluttered.
Inactivity of any sort was anathema to Gross.
‘But come, tell me Werthen, what lovely case do you have in hand?’
Werthen quickly outlined the major points in the Praetor murder.
‘One of those, eh?’ was Gross’s immediate reply.
‘Not you, too,’ Werthen all but groaned.
‘I was referring to the young man’s profession rather than his sexual inclinations. Journalists make prime targets for homicides, as they so often step on the toes of the powerful or merely the vengeful.’
‘You’ve come close to the truth there,’ Werthen allowed, and proceeded to relate Praetor’s possible link to the death of Councilman Steinwitz as well as the missing notebooks, which may or may not contain damning information from Praetor’s unfinished investigation.
Before Werthen had a chance to further elaborate on the direction of his investigations, as he and Berthe had determined last night, Gross interrupted.
‘I assume you are investigating possible links between Herr Steinwitz’s death and Praetor’s?’
Werthen made to assent, but Gross barged on.
‘And are making inquiries with fellow journalists regarding the possible whereabouts if not contents of said notebooks?’
Again Werthen attempted to say yes, and again was drowned out by Gross.
‘And are tracking down any leads regarding Praetor’s relations. His. . well, his lovers.’
Not wishing to respond to this, Werthen was now presented with silence from Gross, who peered at him like a slightly perverse owl.
Finally Werthen said, ‘Yes to the first two, and no to the last. I do not discount the possibility of a tryst gone wrong, as your friend Drechsler surmises, but rather prefer to follow what seem to me to be more pressing leads.’
‘Ah, Detective Inspector Drechsler is in charge of the case?’ Gross asked.
‘And dragging his heels. Willing to list it as a suicide in spite of the lack of either weapon or note simply to avoid complications.’
‘And in light of this dismembered avian creature?’
Werthen sat silent at this question.
‘You haven’t told him, have you? And bravo. Nor should you. The man and his minions were too incompetent to discover it. Well, that is their problem.’
How like Gross, Werthen thought, to make this a competition.
‘I would very much like to help, if I may,’ Gross said after a moment more of silence. ‘There is much to do. Follow the leads to Steinwitz, other councilmen, the bereaved widow, et al. I assume your good wife is off to the offices of the Arbeiter Zeitung.’
He said the name of the socialist newspaper the way one might pronounce a distasteful disease.
‘Actually, Berthe is pursuing such leads from the comfort of our apartment, using our telephone. You must not have received my card.’
‘Which card, dear Werthen?’
‘Telling you of the birth of our daughter Frieda, on the nineteenth of January this year.’
There followed several moments of well-wishing from Gross, who apparently had not received the communication. He had left Czernowitz, where he held the chair in criminology, almost a month ago, during the long semester break. First he and his wife had gone to their home in Graz, and then finally to Vienna, and had not had their mail forwarded.
‘Marvelous news,’ Gross concluded. ‘Truly marvelous. Adele will be so happy to hear of it. All the more reason for me to help out in this investigation then. I suggest I follow the lead to Praetor’s father.’
‘But there is no lead to the father,’ Werthen protested.
‘Oh, I imagine we will find one. If the man knew his son as well as you say, then he surely knew if his son were in love, or at least entangled.’
Werthen nodded at this. From his long acquaintanceship with Gross, he knew there was no way of dissuading the criminologist from joining an investigation that piqued his interest.
‘I would take it as a personal favor,’ Gross suddenly added. ‘A respite from my Fasching requirements.’
‘Agreed,’ Werthen said. In fact, he rather relished joining forces with Gross once again.
‘And it is just as well that you did not shame Drechsler with the discovery of the bird. We need him for another small favor. As Herr Praetor was a journalist, I assume he used a typewriting machine.’
Werthen nodded at this.
‘Excellent,’ Gross said. ‘I have lately been making an investigation of deciphering the marks left on the platen of a typewriting machine as well as on the ink ribbons. Some of my students in Czernowitz have assisted me in my endeavors, setting up a separate mechanical decipherment department at the crime laboratory I instituted at the university. There I have begun to assemble a rather workable technology in recovering typed impressions. I would like to see what can be discovered from Herr Praetor’s typewriting machine.’
‘Excellent,’ Werthen said, and then came a brief rapping at his office door.
He called out for Fraulein Metzinger to enter, and she did so, her young friend, Huck, in tow, looking awfully well-appointed in a new gray suit from Loden Plankl, his thin legs encased in green knee socks and woolen knickers.
‘Sorry to interrupt, AdvokatWerthen. But I was thinking of sending Huck to the Bezirksamt.’
This was her usual duty, carrying wills to be registered at the local district office in Naglergasse. To send Huck in her stead was an elevation in duties from mere delivery boy to official represent
ative of the firm, for Huck would sign the ledger at the district office. Werthen knew that Fraulein Metzinger had been working on Huck’s penmanship and clearly now thought that the youth was ready for this promotion. Huck stood up straight and proud in his new suit and Werthen did not have the heart to do other than consent.
‘I am sure Huck will carry out his duties successfully,’ Werthen said importantly, and was pleased to see the boy puff out his chest even more.
After Fraulein Metzinger and Huck left, Gross peered at Werthen, a slight smile on his lips.
‘Doing good works are we now, Werthen?’
‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘You can clothe him like a gentleman, but it is painfully obvious that young boy was lately living rough on the streets.’
‘However can you know that?’ Werthen said, amazed.
‘The color of his skin, for one. Far too ruddy for this time of year when sensible people stay indoors. Then there is the matter of the gray under his eyes, which suggests not just lack of proper sleep, but also a poor diet, something that cannot be reversed overnight. Additionally there was the very manner in which he held his body, so proud of himself as if this were the first good suit of clothes he has possessed.’
‘That is quite impressive, Gross. From those scant clues you could conclude that he was once a street urchin?’
Gross waved off the compliment as if such deductions were nothing.
‘From that, and from the bits of conversation I overheard between your new assistant and the boy when I arrived and was taking off my coat waiting to be announced. It is quite surprising what people will say around one they think is too old or perhaps too proper to attempt to overhear them. Your young secretary was giving the boy tips on how to enter and leave a room with grace rather than the manner in which one might “pull a scamper in the sewers,” as I believe she put it in quite good street argot. Not something the young woman would know on her own. Ergo. .’
In the end, they decided to take lunch together. Gross and his wife were staying at the Hotel Imperial. Before, when on his own, Gross would be Werthen’s house guest, but that was now out of the question with the coming of Frieda and the fact that the criminologist was here with his wife. It spoke of the level of their intimacy that Werthen made no insincere invitations, nor did Gross expect one.
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