The Strangler's Waltz

by Richard Lord

  The Strangler’s Waltz

  Vienna Noir Quartet (Vol.1)

  Richard Lord

  To Simon,

  who already at a tender age has developed a refined taste for good murder mysteries.

  “If I speak of Vienna, it must be in the past, as a man speaks of a woman he has loved and who is dead.” – Erich von Stroheim

  “Austria is a laboratory for the collapse of the world.” – Karl Kraus

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  READ MORE IN THE VIENNA NOIR QUARTET

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Introduction

  That winter of 1913 had been vociferously harsh, the kind of weather that brought the natural melancholy of the Viennese seeping to the surface. Temperatures had slumped below zero (Celsius) shortly before the solstice and stayed locked there through most of January and February. Christmas was deep-white and frigid. Snow fluttered down with the confetti on New Year’s Eve, but stayed around much longer. Through the first half of March, rancorous winds whipped off the Danube and swirled through the wide boulevards of Vienna, its narrow lanes and twisting alleys. Anyone who spent more than 15 minutes outdoors was sure to slink back in with brain freeze.

  When the snow departed, something much worse – freezing rain – swept in. Broken bones became commonplace as the smaller streets turned into makeshift skating rinks.

  The surface of the Danube froze over in the first week of January and stayed frozen through late February. In fact, an unusual number of people drowned in that period. The authorities weren’t sure if these unfortunate souls had been seduced by the gleaming ice on the river and tried skating or even crossing the river without the convenience of a bridge … or if these were just normal suicides, their numbers raised because of the harsh weather and infectious melancholy.

  But this was Vienna, in those final years of Habsburg Vienna, a city which was happily, deliriously bipolar. Sure, melancholy was rampant, but this did not impair the ardent embrace of life’s sweetest pleasures by those same people infected by melancholia. For a cultural split personality was a defining trait of Viennese society in that period.

  This split was manifested in various ways. For instance, that melancholic posture of many Viennese was usually alloyed with a refined sense of Lebensfreude (the Austro-Hungarian version of joie de vivre). The Viennese could find reason for frolic and fun even in bad news. One prime example: in that brutal winter of 1913, the upper crust of Viennese society still held their celebrated pre-Lenten costume balls, where drink, dance and dalliance all flowed freely.

  These balls were often themed events and one of the more popular bashes that year was a “Bankruptcy Ball”, where participants celebrated the recent plunge of the economy that sent many formerly successful people into the maelstrom of insolvency.

  At the ball, this monetary misfortune was parodied with women whose costumes flaunted the credits up top, debits at the bottom; thin men were asked to dress as deposits, corpulent men as withdrawals; and the posh restaurant at the hall, renamed Debtor’s Prison for the occasion, was decorated with fake foreclosure notices and other signs of financial ruin.

  And while Vienna was, on the surface, a sexually puritanical society, it also featured a string of elegant, high-end brothels and one of the highest rates of streetwalkers in Europe. More, premarital and post-marital affairs were evidently commonplace. A wealthy and well-situated Viennese gentleman who did not have at least one mistress was an exception who drew admiration or wonder … or perhaps suspicion.

  In that year of 1913, Vienna was the capital of the second largest contiguous empire in the world. (The Russian Empire was the largest.) Its southwestern corner included a slice of present-day Italy, all of Slovenia and Croatia and Bosnia. The main body of the country was, of course, Austria and Hungary, a large scoop of Romania, all of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, extended in the east to parts of present-day Poland and even a sliver of Russia.

  As the capital of such a diverse empire, Vienna also boasted one of the most diverse multicultural populations of any European city. Its streets, factories, shops, bars and cafés were filled with ethnic Germans, Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Italians, Romanians, Poles, East European Jews, Czechs, and Slovaks. Strolling through any of Vienna’s working class neighborhoods, one could hear a rich symphony of languages, accents and street-tempered idioms.

  In fact, with just over two million residents, Vienna’s population in 1913 was double its immediate post-World War I population, when the country had lost much of its empire and ended up as plain old Austria, a small, landlocked country in the heart of Central Europe. In fact, even today, the population of Vienna is significantly smaller than it was in the last years of the Habsburg regime.

  Vienna in those days was also a city of stark contrasts. For instance, within the city, one could find opulent mansions and large, luxurious apartments a short tram ride away from some of the worst slum dwellings of any major European city. Not surprisingly, the city was no stranger to class conflict.

  There were also, to be sure, numerous frictions, resentments and prejudices amongst the various ethnic and social groups in the city. The ethnic Germans, who formed the majority of Vienna’s residents, were most prone to these negative influences. There were a good many so-called pan-Germans, who wanted a more ethnically pure Austria and even dreamed of union with the German Reich and other lands with overwhelming German populations. These pan-Germans had their own newspapers and included some powerful politicians on their side.

  Anti-Semitism was also rampant in Vienna at this time. The city boasted some of Europe’s most successful and influential Jewish citizens – in fields as diverse as science, finance, heavy industry, newspaper and book publishing, and politics – and yet also suffered from much overt anti-Semitism. In fact, one of Vienna’s most beloved politicians, the long-serving mayor Dr Karl Lueger, was an outspoken anti-Semite. And here, too, we see another example of the city’s peculiar bipolarity: Lueger often inveighed against the Jews and their nefarious influence in Vienna, but he also had a number of Jewish friends and even appointed Jews to important positions in his city government.

  (One of the famous historical figures who appears in this novel shared this trait: he was in those days a pedestrian anti-Semite, but some of his closest friends in Vienna were Jews and he respected and tr
usted his Jewish clients more than any of the others he dealt with in his business.)

  This rich stew of a society was held together by the Habsburg monarchy, which had ruled Vienna and its environs for centuries, eventually extending the reach of their domains to become the leaders of a massive empire. It fact, it was the figure in the Hofburg Palace – the official residence of the Austro-Hungarian emperor – who kept the whole thing together in relatively peaceful circumstances.

  That figure was Emperor Franz-Josef, who, at the time of the events in this story, was 82 years old, halfway to his 83rd birthday, and in the 65th year of his reign as emperor. Partly because of the longevity of his reign and partly because he then seemed like a cranky but affectionate grandfather figure, Franz-Josef was admired, respected, sometimes even loved by many of his subjects throughout the empire. His influence was strongest in Vienna, however, where his presence was dominant and his likeness in photos and paintings almost ubiquitous.

  An inveterate reactionary in his social and political views, “old Franzl” had outlived most of his former political enemies by 1913 and had been steadily withdrawing from national and city politics for a number of years. He now served more as a unifying figure, holding together all the groups and forces in the country.

  Many on the political left still despised the emperor for his past transgressions and his occasional forays into contemporary politics, while the anti-monarchy press often suggested he was a doddering old man, perhaps even senile. But his public appearances showed a remarkably robust octogenarian and solidified the affection for him amongst many of Vienna’s ethnically diverse residents.

  As the Karl Kautsky quote at the beginning of this book reminds us, Austria in the first decades of the 20th century was a laboratory for the end of the world. But Vienna in those years was also the incubator for the modern world that we now inhabit.

  Much of how we today see the world, of how we react with each other, of what our dreams are – as well as our fears – are the product of the intellectual and artistic ferment prevailing in Vienna in the first few decades of the 20th century.

  In those first decades of the last century, Vienna was known worldwide for its amazingly rich intellectual and cultural life. Much of modern psychology and other branches of medical science; economics; architecture; social and political theory; linguistics; philosophy … modern decadence were started, developed or brought to their fullest fruition in Vienna. The city was not only a world capital of painting, theatre, music (in both classical mode and startling modern innovations); it was also a crucible for revolutionary politics which would soon reshape Europe and the world beyond.

  Amongst those who lived in Vienna either short-term or permanently before and after the First World War were many of the personalities who forged the modern sensibilities of the world we’ve inherited. Two of those who influenced the modern world in very important ways turn up in this novel as major secondary characters – even if the significant roles they play in the novel are not quite as important as the roles their real-life models played in the political and intellectual life of the last 100 years.

  Another major feature of Viennese life in the first decades of the last century was the vibrant newspaper culture. Printed newspapers had been around in Vienna for over two hundred years, but as the 20th century began, there was an explosion in the number of daily and weekly newspapers along with the readers and reporters for those newspapers.

  The mushrooming of newspapers set off a fierce competition between the various journals as they tried to outdo each other to push up circulation numbers and poach readers from the other publications. Truth was often the first casualty in the newspaper’s heated war for readers: sensationalism ruled and facts were trimmed, disguised or simply discarded in the rush to fashion attention-grabbing stories.

  As the sensationalist press could also claim the most readers in Vienna, their influence was enormous: many Vienna residents viewed their city, their world through the distorting lenses of the popular press that was churning out trash in able to keep their readership numbers up.

  Much of this change was fermenting or already well underway in that last full year before the world plunged into the slaughter pit of the Great War.

  Indeed, the empire and Vienna’s place as one of Europe’s most powerful cities were both endangered as the year 1913 rolled in.

  Just over a year after the events in this book, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, and his widely admired wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ironically, the royal couple had made this trip to show the enduring power of Habsburg rule in one of the empire’s outlying urban redoubts, but a group of Serbian ultra-nationalists decided to use the trip to make their own political point.

  The assassination and Austrian demands on Serbia for recompense and justice are often cited as “the causes” of the First World War. That’s too reductionist really, but certainly the murders of the royal couple and Vienna’s decision to take strong retaliatory measures threw the fatal match into the political tinderbox that was Europe in those years. The result was a devastating conflict that would culminate with the destruction of not just the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but also the Russian, Ottoman and German empires. In this case, Habsburg pride led to a total Habsburg fall … from power.

  Intriguingly, many Viennese in those last years leading up to the war lived with a premonition of a major catastrophe about to hit their city and their country. They seem to have sensed deep within that the world they’d known their whole lives was about to come to an abrupt end.

  The celebrated Viennese compulsion to enjoy life probably flowed from this premonition. So, until the catastrophe of the war arrived, the party raged on. And at no time was the party running at such a fever pitch as in the middle months of that last prewar year.

  Yes, that winter of 1913 was unusually harsh, but it served as the overture to a spring and summer that were breathtaking in how they once again transformed the city of Vienna. The Strangler’s Waltz may be a fictional work, but it employs a raft of the historical facts behind the rise and sudden decline of one of Europe’s – indeed the world’s – most fascinating cities. It’s a tale of how a great city which carefully cultivated its split personality was suddenly jolted into confronting its darkest side as terror began stalking its normally charming streets and scarring the self-assurance of a unduly smug nation.

  Chapter 1

  Finally, after four months of battering Vienna, winter broke. An enervating thaw set in. Spring-like weather filled the city: warm days paired with pleasantly cool evenings. The outward changes immediately brightened the mood of many Vienna residents; they felt they were finally being rewarded for having made it through a particularly harsh test of wills. As they saw it, winter had tried with all its force to break them, but they had won.

  The gaunt young man with a disconcerting gaze had come to despise winter. For him, it signified the cruelty of death. Beyond the death imposed on nature, this animus had a personal side for him: his father had died on a brutally cold day in early January and his beloved mother had died four days before Christmas. So this mid-March thaw was, for him, all too welcome.

  Returning to the center of town after what had been the equivalent of a long and busy day, he felt exhaustion weighing on his shoulders, making his limbs achingly heavy. Tucked under his arm was a ragged leather case stuffed with a sheath of his paintings, watercolors. He had spent much of that afternoon with a long-time customer. He had gone there hoping to sell him forty of his watercolors, which would have set a new sales record for him. To his disappointment, the owner of the shop had been in a sour mood so he ended up buying fewer than half. A lot fewer.

  This was just one of the things on the young artists’ mind as he ambled down Mariangasse. He was also mulling over an offer from a friend to make a trip to Prague, where he was assured he could sell more of his paintings in a week than he would in a whole month in Vienna. He was also worried ab
out the discussion to relax restrictions on eastern migration into the capital.

  Tugging at his scarf as he moved along, the young man was so absorbed with his swirl of thoughts that he didn’t hear anything until he was almost at the corner of the small alleyway halfway to Schafsgasse.

  Then, then, he heard some strange sounds. They seemed to be coming out of the alley. Ugly sounds, like someone gargling. He stopped to listen more intently. There it was, but now it sounded like someone taking a harsh gulp. The artist took three cautious strides to the edge of the alley. Now he heard some kind of scraping sound, like a heavy barrel being dragged along a gravelly road.

  As he was right at the top of the lane, the sound changed. It was now the sound of heavy footsteps, moving rapidly. He turned to look down the alley and … he was knocked down by a burly man rushing out of the alley, throwing a quick look back as he emerged.

  The burly man seemed just as shocked by the collision as the lean artist. The two stared at each other for several seconds; the younger man’s stare was mixed with blunt confusion, the older man’s with raw disdain. The artist was still locked in that stare when the other man pushed him to the side, then turned and headed quickly down the street.

  The push was forceful. The artist just managed to maintain his balance and keep himself from crashing to the ground again. He had to grab onto the side of the corner building to regain full balance. He then turned to look down the alley. About twenty meters from where he stood, he saw a figure lying on the ground. Apparently, a female.

  Now his attention was fully seized and he loped quickly to where the figure was sprawled behind a trash can. Though he wasn’t expecting anything too pleasant, what he did see came as a gut-wrenching jolt. It was a female, and she was lying there motionless. At first, he thought she might just be drunk, passed out; maybe what he’d heard from the street was some kind of argument between her and the burly man. But a closer look showed something much more serious.