A Matter of Breeding (19 page)

‘Call me if there is any sudden change,’ Doktor Weisman said, gathering his medical bag. ‘It is in the hands of a higher power now.’

Werthen felt helpless at this expression of faith. Or was it resignation to fate? For the first time in his life he wished he were a religious person; that he could draw strength from belief.

Once the doctor left, it was decided that Frau von Werthen would sit with Frieda first.

‘The rest of you get something to eat.’ she admonished them. ‘You’ve scarcely eaten all day and it will be a long night.’

They filed out of the room solemnly. Stoker was still standing in the entryway with Frau Blatschky, talking to her in low, reassuring tones.

Dinner was a silent affair, so unlike the chatty evenings they all had shared around that table. Werthen persuaded Berthe to get some rest; she had been up all last night with Frieda. He went back to his child’s room to relieve his mother.

‘I want to sit a little longer, too,’ she told him.

So they sat by the bed together, their eyes fixed on Frieda as she tossed and turned. Werthen had seen too much of death lately, and too many grieving parents. Freida could not die; he would not let her. He would trade places with her willingly.

But there was no one with whom to make the bargain.

‘I watched my mother die,’ Frau von Werthen said, breaking the silence.

‘I’m sorry. How’s that?’ Werthen’s maternal grandmother had died about a decade earlier taking the waters at Baden, while his mother had been at Hohelände, the Werthen family estate in Upper Austria.

‘My real mother,’ she said. ‘She died when I was six. I stayed with her till the end. I loved her very much. My father, your grandfather, married again. She and I were never close.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Werthen said.

‘You weren’t meant to.’

He wondered why she was telling him this now.

‘That is why I cannot cry. I had no more tears in me after Mother died. It doesn’t mean I don’t care, that I am not torn apart inside. But the tears no longer come. Not with Max, not with …’

‘There is no need for tears here, Mother. Frieda will live.’

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice carrying little conviction.

Werthen’s mother finally left to return to their hotel with her husband and Werthen sat alone in the dark room listening to his child’s labored breathing. Toward midnight, Frau Blatschky came to join him, but he told her it was not necessary. He would sit with Frieda tonight; there was no chance that he could sleep anyway.

And then he suddenly remembered Stoker.

‘Not to worry,’ Frau Blatschky said. ‘That nice young man went back to his hotel, as well, after dinner. And Berthe … Frau Meisner is sleeping.’

‘Good. Let her sleep. And thank you, Frau Blatschky.’

‘I would do anything for the little one,’ she said with real emotion.

‘I know. I know you would.’

When she was gone, he focused again on Frieda’s breathing, counting the breaths per minute, making the act of respiration a talisman. She occasionally emitted a pitiful little moan, and he would stroke her hand or her hair. But she did not wake.

He jerked into sudden consciousness, having fallen asleep in the chair. How long had he been sleeping?

‘It’s all right.’ Berthe was sitting beside him, wrapped in a comforter.

‘What time is it?’

‘About four. You should go to bed. I’ll stay.’

He shook his head. ‘We’ll stay together. The three of us.’

‘The three of us,’ she repeated, gripping his hand.

In the morning Gross still had no word from either Werthen or Stoker. He could not stand inactivity; could not bear to think what might be happening with his dear friends in Vienna.

So he plotted a course of action, focusing on the investigation. He had retrieved the taunting note left under his door the first day he was on the investigation and had handed it over to Inspector Thielman for safe-keeping. It was indeed a match for the writing on the envelope to Monika Stiegl and to the poisonous letter sent to Lechner, which the magistrate’s assistant had found.

So, apparently these murders did have some personal connection to him. He refused to believe, however, that such atrocities had been committed simply to implicate him. There had to be a larger motive at work. There must be some connection between the victims, something that they had hitherto overlooked.

And if Werthen were correct, tonight would see another death. He had to prevent that.

He looked about the breakfast room in the Hotel Daniel; the number of journalists was dwindling now that the notion of a vampire at work or a blood libel had been laid to rest. Murders still sold papers, and murders of young women who were also mutilated sold even more. However, the morbidly sensational element had been taken out of the story and some of the journalists had simply moved on to other greener pastures. Gross did notice one new addition, however: an odd-looking young man dressed in lederhosen and hunting jacket who appeared to be after a mountain goat rather than a story.

Over his
kipferl
and coffee, Gross ruminated on leads not yet examined. He would need to check with the families of the other victims to see if their daughters had received a letter shortly before their deaths. He should also interview the friends of the victims again, as that had been done initially by Werthen and Stoker, not himself. Perhaps there was more to be learned from them. Five minutes later he struck on another possible lead: the man who had discovered the body of the pregnant scullery maid, Ursula Klein.

Neither he nor Werthen had ever spoken to him.

Johannes Schmidt lived in a crumbling cottage to the north of the little village and not far from the von Hobarty estate. Gross had the local fiaker wait for him. As he rapped his knuckle on the weathered door, he gathered his thoughts. This visit was more a matter of dotting the ‘i’s than of anything else. Gross doubted Schmidt had any more to contribute than he had already done with Inspector Thielman, but one never knew.

He rapped again with no answer and was about to give it one last try when a large hand gripped his shoulder and spun him around.

‘Who are you and what do you want on my property?’

Gross looked into the rheumy eyes of a man that was perhaps five or ten years his senior. A tall, thickly built fellow, he would be an imposing enemy, Gross thought.

‘Herr Schmidt?’

‘Obviously. This is my place. The question is, who are you?’

‘Hanns Gross,’ he said. ‘Doktor Hanns Gross.’

‘Nobody’s sick here. Now get out.’

‘Not that kind of doctor, Herr Schmidt. I am a criminalist and former investigating magistrate in this district.’

Schmidt raised an eyebrow at this. ‘Former? Fine, then goodbye again.’

‘I have been consulted by Inspector Thielman to aid in the investigation of Fräulein Klein. Thielman and I once worked together.’

This information seemed to pacify the large man. His hands, formerly balled into fists, now relaxed.

‘My God, what a fine mess that was. Thought it was a joke at first. Couldn’t believe my eyes. That somebody would do such a thing to another human.’

He ran his hand over his grizzled chin. ‘But I already told Thielman everything I know.’

‘Sometimes it helps to go over these things a second time. After the shock has worn off.’

‘It wasn’t shock. Made me sick. I threw up.’

‘Did you know the young woman?’

‘Not by name, no. But I’d seen her in the woods from time to time. She liked to take a bit of a walk, I guess. One time she was out hunting mushrooms. She never said anything about me being in Hobarty’s woods. That made her a good girl in my book.’

‘You were often in the woods?’ Gross asked.

Schmidt cast him a shrewd look. ‘You say you and Thielman worked together. Old chums. Well then I guess he already told you about my little project.’

‘There was a feud mentioned between you and von Hobarty.’

‘Feud! More like a civil war. And you won’t catch me calling him “von”. Bought and sold, that title was. The short of it is, I once owned a good portion of the woods Hobarty now claims as his estate. This was before they threw him in jail for making a cabbage head out of that other minister. He never came down here much before then. Too much to do in the big city without taking care of his lands in Styria. Then, when they let him out of jail early, he comes roaring back here like he’s the local gentry and we should all be doffing our hats as he passed. I had a fine piece of land on the upland side of the estate, and he comes to me eager to buy it. Wants to plant wine grapes, he says. And it one of the best pheasant shoots around. Got the right soil, he says. Even brings some other city fellow with him, showing me soil marked in little jars. From my land! I told him to get the hell off of my property.’

‘You have a tendency to do that, Herr Schmidt, if you do not mind my saying so.’

He laughed at this. ‘Yes. I like my privacy. You a drinking man?’

The question caught Gross off balance. ‘I’ve been known to take a drop.’

Schmidt moved past Gross, shoved open the door, then looked back at Gross, who had not moved.

‘Well, come on in. You’re so eager to ask questions. Might as well wet the vocal cords a bit. Never too early for a little sip.’

Inside the cottage it was dark and there was a gamey smell. Schmidt lit an oil lamp on a simple deal table and suddenly Gross understood the smell. Every rafter contained a flotilla of rabbit hides, each in a different stage of drying. Schmidt pushed a chair out from the table for Gross and then went to a chest by an unmade bed. He lifted the lid, pulled out a bottle and two small glasses. Setting the glasses on the table, he uncorked the bottle and poured out two healthy drinks of a light golden liquid. The fragrance of prunes struck Gross’s nose.

‘Slivowitz?’

‘None other,’ Schmidt said, corking the bottle again and joining Gross at the table. He gripped the glass, which seemed very tiny in his big hand, and held it out to Gross. They clinked glasses and each threw back the brandy. Water came to Gross’s eyes, fire erupted in his throat. He blew air as if extinguishing a candle.

‘Good stuff, no? Double burned.’

Gross was glad that he had taken it in one gulp. If it had been a sip, he would have had to risk offending his host by not finishing the punishing brandy.

‘More?’ Schmidt grabbed the bottle.

‘No, no. Many thanks. I have a long day of work ahead of me.’

Schmidt nodded at this. He left his glass empty, as well.

‘So what happened to the land in question?’ Gross asked.

‘Hobarty got himself a bunch of fancy lawyers who traced ancient deed claims to prove that the uplands had never been in my family. Showed that it was part and parcel of the Hobarty estate. I should have taken his first offer. At least I would have gotten some compensation.’

‘Sounds rather unfair,’ Gross said.

‘I thought of taking vengeance by ruining the vines he put in there, but I can’t stand the thought of waste. I am a man of nature.’

‘So instead …?’ Gross prompted.

‘Well, I just took another part of that estate as my rightful property. Set up a hunting blind there, cut firewood, the lot. And things went fine with the old gamekeeper. Peter Kern, he was from the village and he never gave me any trouble about the little trade. He didn’t think it was very fair, either. So, you know, he just sort of didn’t see me. But then last year, about this time, maybe a little later, Hobarty up and fires Peter who had been at the estate half his life. Brings in this other fellow, Kupfer. Fritz Kupfer. Supposedly some distant cousin or something. And Kupfer, he doesn’t turn a blind eye. No, sir. He tears down my hunting blind, kicks me off every time he sees me cutting wood. So I took to poaching rabbits. The only kind of vengeance left for me.’

Schmidt suddenly uncorked the bottle, took a swig from it, and slammed the bottle back on the table.

‘How I’d love to give that Kupfer a new face. Maybe a nose turned toward the east? Except that he’s already ugly enough with that birthmark of his in the shape of a boot right on his face.’

Until then, Gross had been barely paying attention, assuming this was, as he had thought, going to produce nothing of interest.

‘A birthmark, you say?’ he asked, a sudden frisson of excitement passing through him.

Schmidt nodded.

‘On the right or left side of the face?’

Schmidt looked up at the rafters as he thought. ‘Left.’

‘About this long?’ Gross said, holding his forefingers about five inches apart.

‘That’s right. You know the guy?’

‘Maybe,’ Gross said.

The ‘Italian’, they had called him back when Gross was an investigating magistrate because of the boot-shaped birthmark on the left side of his face. Like the boot of Italy on a map.

Gross quickly ascertained that Schmidt could not recall seeing anyone else in the woods the day he found the body. He tried to control his emotions as he took leave of the woodsman and climbed into the fiaker.

‘The gendarmerie,’ Gross directed.

As the carriage bounced over the pitted country road, Gross recalled his connection to the ‘Italian’ fifteen years ago in the Graz assizes.

Franz Klapper was accused of poisoning two wives. Gross investigated and prosecuted the case, but won conviction only on a lesser charge of attempted murder of a third wife after the Marsh test failed to show any sign of arsenic in the decomposing bodies of the first two Frau Klappers. He was also suspected of a string of brutal murders in the neighboring province of Kärnten. Still, at the trial, the weasel-like Klapper vowed revenge on those who persecuted him.

‘Prosecuted, not persecuted,’ Gross quipped at the time. And now he remembered the look of absolute hatred the man shot him at the comment.

How can I have forgotten that incident? Gross asked himself. Easily, he decided. After hundreds of such cases he pursued as an examining magistrate, the names, dates, even the deeds blurred. Only the patina of the foul side of humanity remained from those years; only the expectation of the worst in human nature.