Increasingly Werthen was coming to believe that their main suspect was indeed the mayor himself. Yet how to prove it?
This afternoon, however, they concentrated on stopping the sale of the Vienna Woods; finding the murderer of Steinwitz and Praetor would have to wait for another day.
To that end they paid a call on Victor Adler at the offices of the Arbeiter Zeitung.
It was dinnertime when Werthen returned to his flat; Gross and his wife would be dining with friends of Adele tonight. Werthen knew his parents were also staying in this evening, as his mother had caught a touch of the grippe and did not want to spread the illness to baby Frieda. He was looking forward to a quiet evening alone with his wife and child. He needed it, a sort of psychic recharging.
As he fitted the key into his apartment door and began turning it he realized, however, that this intimate evening was not to be. Instead he heard voices from inside, and as he opened the door, they grew clearer. In the foyer he saw a leather valise by the coat rack. His disappointment at not being alone with Berthe and Frieda was supplanted by a more positive emotion.
He burst into the sitting room, from which issued the voices, and was well pleased to see his father-in-law seated on the leather couch. Frieda sat astride his thigh bouncing gently to the nursery song, so reiten die Damen. . ‘this is the way the ladies ride.’
‘Herr Meisner! How wonderful to see you.’
The older man looked up from the child, evident glee in his eyes.
‘And you, son.’
They said nothing of this miraculous reconciliation during dinner. Instead, Werthen regaled them with the course his investigation had taken, and Herr Meisner seemed to take it all in as a youth would the adventures of Old Shatterhand from a Karl May novel of the West.
It was not until later, with Herr Meisner off to the guest room, Frieda happily asleep in her crib, and Werthen curled around his wife, that he discovered Berthe understood her father’s return no better than did he.
‘You mean he gave no explanation?’ Werthen asked.
He felt her shrug.
‘And you didn’t ask?’
She looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrows raised. ‘I did not witness you jumping into the fray, either, Karl.’
‘But does he still insist on the naming ceremony?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know. I just know it is good to have him here again. To see him with our baby.’ And they left it at that.
Eighteen
He had time for a brief visit to Frau Steinwitz the next morning before he was to meet Gross at the Rathaus.
I’ll be in the quarter, anyway, Werthen told himself, feeling guilty that he had not yet contacted the woman. Of course, they had left it that she would get in touch with Werthen if she needed help, but he knew she was a proud woman; perhaps too proud to ask for help.
So he was out early to make this call before confronting Lueger. Ushered into the Steinwitz flat by the same maid, he was led down the hallway once again past the glass cases full of family heirlooms and weapons to the sitting room where they had talked before. The curtains, however, were still drawn and the room sat in a melancholy gloom.
It was ten minutes before Frau Steinwitz entered, dressed in riding clothes: a sapphire-blue satin skirt surmounted by a waist-length jacket in moss-green suede. The maid bustled in beside her and finally opened the curtains, casting off the noxious pall.
‘Advokat, I was just on my way to the Prater for my morning ride.’
‘Sorry to interrupt, dear lady,’ he said, kissing the air just above her proffered hand. ‘But I realize I have been remiss in my duties.’
‘How so?’ she asked brightly. ‘I believe we left it that I would contact you if I felt the need.’
‘Yes, but then I have also felt a good deal of guilt about that meeting. Though I continue to have no time personally to conduct protective services for you, I wanted to ensure that you. . well, that you-’
‘Were still alive?’ She smiled condescendingly. ‘I greatly appreciate the consideration, Advokat, but I believe my earlier fears were completely unfounded. A simple case of nerves. In fact I hope you do not take seriously my contention that someone killed my poor husband and this journalist fellow. I was still in shock. No, worse. I was being a silly female. I believe I shall be quite safe without a bodyguard.’
‘I am glad to hear that your fears have been allayed,’ he said. ‘I won’t keep you from your ride any longer.’
Frau Steinwitz nodded, and then asked as an afterthought, ‘And how is your investigation proceeding? Will you continue now? I mean, I hope my earlier misinformation did not put you on completely the wrong path.’
‘Not at all,’ Werthen said. ‘Gross and I are approaching the truth.’ Hardly, but he felt suddenly defensive that Frau Steinwitz should think he had been basing his entire investigation on her tales and fears. Frau Steinwitz was the sort of coddled Viennese woman who felt the world revolved around her.
‘If that is the case,’ she said with a cold edge to her voice, ‘then I will not detain you either.’
She rang for the maid and Werthen found himself on the landing, given short shrift.
What was that about? he wondered. Had somebody from the Rathaus gotten to her, either paid her off or made further threats? Why so eager to distance herself from her earlier comments?
In the event, of course, it was Werthen who had to wait in the bitter cold for ten minutes. Gross made no apologies when he finally arrived, merely asking Werthen if he had got the sheets from Adler.
‘In my coat pocket,’ Werthen answered.
They mounted the steps to the vestibule, and inside the same hefty ex-military fellow was on duty at the information desk.
‘We would like to see Mayor Lueger,’ Gross said to the man.
This request was greeted by a plosive sound in the man’s nostrils: half snort and half snigger.
‘I’m sure you would. So would half of Vienna. Do you have an appointment?’
They had purposely not tried for an appointment, ensuring that the element of surprise would be on their side.
Gross nodded to Werthen, who pulled a folded front-page dummy of a newspaper out of his coat pocket.
‘Perhaps you could show him this. I believe he will see us.’
The guard took the newspaper and tossed it on to his desk along with other mail.
‘Now,’ Gross said with an authority to his voice that made the man sit ramrod straight.
‘I can’t very well leave my desk,’ he protested.
‘We will keep watch over it, right, Advokat?’ he said to Werthen.
‘Absolutely,’ Werthen agreed. Then to the guard: ‘You really should hurry. That is this afternoon’s edition and I believe Mayor Lueger might have something to say about it.’
‘Or should we tell Mayor Lueger later that his own vestibule guard was responsible for the end of his career?’ added Gross.
The man rose, suspicion written on his face. ‘This better not be some damn trick. When I come back, I expect to see you two waiting here.’
Gross saluted him. ‘We won’t budge from this spot.’
They waited several minutes as other well-dressed men entered and departed the vestibule. Each time steps descended the wide marble staircase they looked expectantly for the returning guard, only to be disappointed.
Suddenly the inter-office telephone on the guard’s desk rang. The abrupt jingle of it startled them at first, but then they returned their attention to the stairs. The telephone continued to ring. A most persistent caller, Werthen thought. And then the realization struck.
He picked up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘I am waiting,’ came the voice on the other end of the line. ‘Bielohlawek’s office.’
Werthen knew that high, resonant tone. It was Mayor Lueger himself.
They wasted no time in getting to the councilman’s office, not knowing what to expect there, wondering if they had over-played their h
and. At least they had come armed, for at Gross’s insistence each was carrying one of the Steyr automatic pistols the criminologist always traveled with.
Reaching Bielohlawek’s corner office, however, they were met by the mayor’s bodyguard, Kulowski, who demanded to search them.
‘I assure you,’ Gross protested, ‘we have not come to assassinate your mayor.’
‘That’s as may be,’ the man growled.
Suddenly Werthen made a connection that had until this moment eluded him. It all added up now that it was clear that Lueger was in back of the Vienna Woods sale. Adalbert Kulowski was in fact the large beefy man Berthe had described, the man who had assaulted his father and chased the party away from the farmhouse in Laab im Walde.
‘Do you enjoy terrorizing women and children?’ Werthen looked the man straight in the eye.
‘What are you talking about?’ The man glared back at him.
‘About a little farmhouse at Laab im Walde. Sound familiar?’
Kulowski cut his eyes from Werthen for a fraction of a second.
‘The courts might have something to say about your tactics, Herr Kulowski.’
‘What’s keeping them, Kulowski?’ Lueger’s voice boomed from inside the office.
‘Indeed,’ Gross said with heavy indignation. ‘What is keeping us? Let us leave this bully to easier pickings. Come, Werthen.’
They brushed past the bodyguard, who by now was too confused to bother with his search.
Inside the room, Lueger sat behind Bielohlawek’s desk, and the councilman was seated in a smaller chair at his side. On the desk in front of them both was the mock-up of the front page of this afternoon’s Arbeiter Zeitung, which Adler had kindly supplied them with. The banner headline was upside down to Werthen, but he knew very well what it said, for he had written it:
Lueger to Sell Woods in Bid for Higher Office
A smaller headline underneath got the point across for any who could not interpret the main headline:
Man of the People Steals the People’s Woods for Private Gain
Under the two headlines was an article detailing the sale and naming those interested parties who were putting in bids, as well as their plans for development. It ended by elucidating Lueger’s own plans for the position of prime minister. The whole sordid business was laid out in plain, but sometimes breathless prose. Also written by Werthen.
‘I’ll sue if you print this,’ Lueger said, not bothering with introductions.
‘You will have to speak to Herr Adler about that,’ Werthen said. ‘I believe Herr Kraus will also be carrying a similar story in the next edition of Die Fackel. You might want to speak with him, too.’
Werthen wanted to make sure that Lueger understood that others were involved in this, as well. That others knew of their interview at the Rathaus today.
‘The censors would never allow it.’
Gross was impolitic enough to laugh at this. ‘I am afraid it is the Habsburgs who do the censoring around here. And they will be only too happy to have such news broadcast.’
‘You’ll regret this,’ Lueger snarled at them. ‘For as long as you both live.’
Neither responded to this threat, but rather stood in silence and let Lueger make the next move. Werthen’s hand slipped into his coat pocket and was comforted by the cold touch of the Steyr pistol.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
‘You are not the victim, Mayor,’ Gross said. ‘This is only what Councilman Steinwitz and Herr Praetor were attempting, before they were killed.’
‘Killed!’ Lueger stood as if an electric current had been shot through him. ‘Councilman Steinwitz shot himself in this very office. And of this journalist, I can only assume that a man with his predilections might meet with some very bad company.’
Werthen and Gross refused to be drawn into diversions from the issue at hand: stopping tomorrow’s sale of the Vienna Woods. They stood silently across the desk from Lueger as the mayor looked from one to the other.
Finally, ‘What is it you want?’
‘I should think that would be very clear,’ Werthen said. ‘Call off the sale. Neither Remington nor Wittgenstein would be very interested, I assume, with such adverse publicity,’ he said, pointing at the paper on the desk. ‘And your hopes for higher office, let alone another term as mayor, will be null if this is published.’
‘In your opinion,’ the mayor shot back.
Werthen shrugged. ‘Take your chances, then. The afternoon editions will be on the streets in three hours. Which gives you plenty of time to call this off and instead appear to be a heroic mayor who uncovered a despicable cabal out to privatize the Vienna Woods and foiled it.’
Lueger glanced at the front-page dummy in front of him. ‘Where does it say that?’
‘It doesn’t,’ Werthen said. ‘But it will, in this afternoon’s edition. A carrot for you and an assurance that you really will call off the sale.’
Lueger, despite his obvious anger, nodded in appreciation at the gambit. ‘You have given this some thought.’
‘We try,’ Werthen said. ‘Do we have your word?’
Lueger clenched his jaws violently.
‘Mayor?’ Werthen prodded him.
‘Yes, yes. My word.’
‘And you might tell Herr Kulowski that next time he decides to play rough with women and children there will be consequences.’
‘I have no idea whatsoever of what you are speaking,’ Lueger replied.
Bielohlawek, who until now had remained quiet, suddenly found his voice.
‘I for one do not know what motivates men such as you to destroy a brilliant political future-’
But Gross cut him off. ‘On the contrary, we are ensuring your mayor’s political future. . in Vienna.’
They could not believe how easy it had been. After leaving the Rathaus, Werthen placed a call to Victor Adler to let him know he should run the positive story about Lueger foiling a plot to sell the Vienna Woods to an unnamed American developer.
‘Neatly handled,’ Gross pronounced after Werthen came out of the telephone cubicle of the telegraph and exchange office near the Rathaus.
‘Too neatly, I fear,’ Werthen said.
‘Do not despair, my friend. We have yet to catch the killer of Steinwitz and Praetor.’
‘Do you still think Lueger was responsible?’
Going back out on to the chill of the street, Gross pulled the collar of his coat up.
‘I believe that was your theory,’ he replied. ‘I have not yet made a determination. There is still much evidence to be gathered. We should hear from my researchers in Czernowitz this week about the ribbon from Herr Praetor’s typewriting machine. With any luck that might give us a new direction to pursue or confirm old suspicions. I admit I expected more direct threats from Mayor Lueger.’
‘He could not very well make us disappear. Not after I made it clear that Adler, Kraus and who knows what others were aware of our presence there today.’
‘That is true. But still, a man who has killed twice, one of the victims his old friend. . Well, one expects a bit more fight.’
‘He knew he had lost,’ Werthen said. ‘Perhaps he did not want to raise our suspicions about his culpability for the deaths, did not want us focusing too hard on him as a suspect. His financial scheme was foiled this time, but he will have other opportunities. However, if homicide is traced to him, that is quite another matter.’
‘Hmm.’ Gross did not seem convinced. ‘That is one theory. I suggest, however, that we watch our backs.’
They reached the Josefstadterstrasse in time for lunch. Frau Blatschky had promised stuffed kidneys.
They found pandemonium instead.
‘It’s Father,’ Berthe said to him as they entered the apartment. ‘He’s been badly injured. The doctor fears for his life.’
The immediate thought came into Werthen’s mind: Another attack from the Rathaus. But he had no time for other rumination.
They quic
kly followed Berthe to the guest room. There Herr Meisner was laid out on the bed, a nasty gash over his right eye. Doktor Weisman, a local physician, was leaning over the man. Berthe began sobbing now that Werthen had finally arrived. It was as if she had been holding herself together as surrogate head of the household, but now that Werthen was here, she could finally let her emotions out.
‘It was horrible, Karl. This brute of a man came to the door. Frau Blatschky answered it, and he came storming in, demanding to see you. I screamed when I saw him coming in and Father came out of the reading room, newspaper in hand and demanded the man leave. At that the thug struck him in the face. I am sure he was carrying something heavy in his hand. And Father fell back with such force that he knocked his head against the base of the telephone table.’
‘Easy,’ said Werthen, putting an arm around her shoulder.
‘I was frantic. There was Father flat on his back, not moving. Frieda was screaming. Thank heavens for Frau Blatschky. By this time she had retrieved one of your shotguns from the study. I am sure it was not loaded. . but she aimed it straight at his chest. The coward ran without a word.’
Gross meanwhile was conferring with the doctor, who was shaking his head. Herr Meisner’s breathing was labored, ragged.
‘We’ve got to get him to the General Hospital,’ Werthen said, instinct telling him that if they left him here the man could easily die. Weisman was a good general practitioner, but surely he knew nothing of head wounds.
‘I would advise against moving him,’ the doctor said. His voice was high, almost a falsetto.
‘I’ll take that risk,’ Werthen said.
‘Karl,’ Berthe said, holding him tight.
‘He may just as easily die here,’ Werthen said to Weisman. ‘Am I right, Doktor?’
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