A Matter of Breeding (6 page)

Franzl felt his heart soar each time he saw one of these beautiful animals.

His aunt alternately threatened and cajoled, but Franzl would not find another position. He had his work, waiting for the horses. He dreamt of becoming one of those riders.

One day after a month of waiting and watching, one of the riders in his magnificent bicorn came up to the young boy and asked him if he would like a tour of the stables. That was the best moment of his entire life. He and the rider, Captain Wilhelm Putter, would form an odd sort of friendship, for it turned out that Putter too had grown up in poverty, but was fortunate enough to rise to be chief rider at the Spanish Court Riding School. Franzl was soon doing odd jobs for Putter, helping the regular grooms polish the gold-plated bridles used for performances or oil the saddles. He even took to polishing the ornate saddle holders lining the walls, using a ladder to reach the highest. He loved the feel of the seasoned wood and the brass figure of a horse head at the end.

He came to the stables as early as he could. Often he was there before the other grooms; just him and Putter, who always was there first.

Thus it was Franzl who discovered the body.

Today the side door was open as usual, but nobody answered his call, which was odd. He passed the horses, nickering in their stalls, and went to the saddle room.

The light was filtered in here and it took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. At first he could not trust his sight. He blinked twice and there was his beloved Captain Putter dangling amid the saddles and stirrups, a rope noose around his neck.

The afternoon newspapers were full of reports of the death of Captain Wilhelm Putter, the deceased riding master at the Spanish Court Riding School.

Authorities were labeling this a suicide, and Berthe had barely finished reading the article in the
Neue Freie Presse
before she began to wonder about the incident.

Was there a connection between the death of Captain Putter and the breeding scandal that threatened her father-in-law? Was Putter part of the breeding scheme? Perhaps he took his own life rather than face the dishonor of being connected with the tainted bloodline. Or perhaps he knew about the fraud and was silenced.

She wished Karl were here so she could discuss it with him. Maybe she was being too fanciful, but she also recalled Doktor Gross’s famous dictum: ‘Distrust coincidence.’

She had a sudden inspiration. Grabbing her hat and coat and requesting Frau Blatschky to take care of Frieda when she awoke from her afternoon nap, Berthe set off for the ninth district and the offices of the
Kronen Zeitung
. Once there, it took her only minutes to establish that Theo Krensky was not on the staff, but was merely a contributor. The editor she spoke with told her she could probably find him at his ‘office’, a café at the corner of Schwarzspanier Strasse and Währinger Strasse.

‘You can’t miss him,’ the editor, a man of middle age with a balding head and foul breath, told her. ‘He’ll be the one dressed like he just came from the hunt. Country boy, is our Theo.’

Berthe thanked the editor, and as it was still early and the café was nearby, she decided to give it a try.

It was called the Beethoven Café, of course. What else could it be, she thought, for Beethoven had died on this very street, Black Spaniard Street. There were those who claimed this was some sort of strange proof that the persistent rumors of the swarthy Beethoven being part Negro were true, for Beethoven was also nicknamed the Black Spaniard as a youth.

However, the name of the street actually came from the house where Beethoven died. Formerly the
Schwarzspanierhaus
, it was now number 15, Schwarzspanier Strasse, quite dilapidated and uncared for, about ready to be pulled down. As Karl loved to inform visitors to the city, the name of this old building had nothing to do with Moors or black Africans, but with the black-robed Spanish monks who occupied it when it was formerly a monastery.

Inside, the café was filled with smoke and men of all ages pouring over newspapers, illustrated magazines, and chess boards. The only other woman in the place appeared to be the hefty matron seated in a round booth by the door where she collected payments. She shot Berthe a quick glance and then looked away.

Berthe knew what the look was for: examining her, an unaccompanied female, to see if she were a prostitute.

Berthe looked around the room and quickly found Herr Krensky, dressed as the editor had said as if fresh from the hunt, wearing heavy boots, elk-hide knickers, and a green Styrian hunting jacket. He was sitting alone, examining this afternoon’s edition of one of the illustrated papers.

He was oblivious to her approach. ‘Herr Krensky?’

This finally caught his attention and he looked up at her with the bluest eyes she had ever seen, so blue they were almost frightening.

‘You have the better of me,’ Krensky said. His face was smooth, without whiskers or lines. He looked as if he were barely old enough to be out of secondary school.

‘Berthe Meisner.’ She put out her hand and he seemed unsure if she meant him to shake it or kiss it.

She reached for his right hand, and finally he understood, shaking her hand with a languid grip.

‘May I sit? Sorry to bother you, but I am interested in a story you are pursuing.’

He now made to get up and almost tipped over the small marble-topped table in the process.

Finally seated, with the table still intact, Berthe glanced at the newspaper in front of Krensky and saw the pen and ink sketch of a shrouded body being carried out of what appeared to be the Lipizzaner stables.

‘Sad story,’ she said.

‘That’s why you are here? About the Lipizzaners?’

‘That is a story you are dealing with, correct?’

‘
The
story I am dealing with, to be exact. It’s meant to be my right of passage into a regular position at the
Krone.
But someone must have got to Herr Davis, that’s the publisher. Suddenly he wants more and more proof before he prints it.’

He stopped abruptly.

‘But why are you interested?’ he said. ‘And who
are
you?’

Such a direct question warranted an equally direct answer, so she told him of her private inquiries work with her husband and of her father-in-law’s possible involvement in the Lipizzaner breeding business.

‘That one. I remember him. Had me thrown off his estate almost at gunpoint. Some retainer with a shotgun in hand led me to the main road.’

Emile von Werthen had not included that little detail.

‘I must apologize, Herr Krensky. Herr von Werthen can be volatile at times. He means well, however.’

‘I assume it was a bit of a shock for him to be questioned about the “business” as you put it. Fraud more like.’

‘That is a strong word. What proof is there?’

He hesitated then breathed deeply. ‘As long as you’re not another journalist, why not? It could even be good practice for convincing my editor and publisher.’ His face suddenly lost all trace of youthful innocence; instead he fixed her with a penetrating gaze that she assumed he practiced as an interviewing technique.

‘How much do you know about the Lipizzaner horses?’

She shrugged. ‘Hardly anything to be honest. They are symbols of the Habsburgs, of course. And they’ve been around for a few hundred years …’

‘Since 1580, to be exact,’ Krensky added. ‘Archduke Charles II, one of the brothers of Maximilian II, then the Holy Roman Emperor, founded a court stud at Lipizza in the Slovene lands that soon took the place of his brother’s stud at Kladrub. The first school of equitation in Vienna was already open by then, using horses with a Spanish blood line.’

Berthe could not help but roll her eyes at this flurry of information.

‘Sorry,’ he said, noticing the gesture. ‘I get rather involved in all this.’

‘Please continue,’ she said.

‘I’ll try to make it succinct. These Spanish horses were soon bred with Arab, Berber, and Neapolitan breeds, much of it done under the watchful eye of the Empress Maria Theresa’s consort, the Duke of Lorraine. He helped to build four classic breeding lines of stallions: Pluto from Denmark, Conversano from Italy, Favory from Austria, and Neapolitano—’

‘From Italy,’ Berthe said.

He nodded. ‘Then, in the early nineteenth century two others were added to these classic breeding lines. Maestoso from Hungary, and Siglavy from Syria. Some also include Tulipan from Hungary and Incitato from Transylvania. I am a purest, though, and disregard those last two. But it is this breeding that has made the typical Lipizzaner, with medium height and long, wide, deep body and strong legs that make them capable of performing the classical dressage movements, the airs above the ground. A thing of beauty.’

‘And what of the mares?’ Berthe asked. ‘I assume there are certain lines there as well.’

‘Very good, Frau Meisner. The mares are also important, or course. There are eighteen classic blood lines of those. Horses bred from these classic dynasties thus have two names, one for the sire and one for the dam.’

‘And you believe these classic lines have been corrupted?’

‘It is very probable. You see, about ten years ago the stud at Lipizza was worried about inbreeding which could weaken the stock. So they brought in a breeding company that had connections to other royal studs throughout Europe and even to the Near East.’

‘Premium Breeds.’

‘Exactly,’ Krensky said. ‘They had been supplying horses to the military for many years, and it was thought they would be the perfect candidate for this task. Their first addition was a pure blood gray Arabian stallion, Siglavy Primavera, said to have been bred in Syria like his famous ancestor. Then, after a few more years, came Tulipan Fantasca, a black Spanish stallion from Croatia. And finally there was Maestoso Redux, brought in from Hungary.’

‘This all seems perfectly above board thus far,’ Berthe said.

‘And so it did to the operators of the stud at Lipizza. Then I received a confidential message saying that these three horses were a sham. Their bona fides had been forged.’

‘An informant. Who?’

He shook his head. ‘The person identified himself – one assumes it is a man – as someone with a conscience and a patriot who does not want to see the symbol of this country ruined.’

‘An anonymous informant. That is the basis of these charges?’ Berthe was amazed that this affair had gotten so far with such flimsy evidence.

‘Not so anonymous. He had obviously been an insider to these dealings and gave me some information to go on. There were studs to contact in Syria, Croatia, and Hungary.’

‘Someone at Premium Breeds then.’

Another shake of the head. ‘Not necessarily. Premium used intermediary companies.’

‘Then investors such as Emile von Werthen can hardly be held responsible for any fraud.’

‘Everyone will be tarred by the same brush, Frau Meisner, when this comes out. I have contacted two of these studs and have found no authentication for the three stallions sold so dearly to the imperial stud. The one in Syria is rather more difficult to trace.’

‘And what do the directors of Premium Breeds have to say?’

‘Very little. The director, Herr Maximillian Hohewart, barely heard me out before excusing himself. According to him there is absolutely no proof of such fraud, and if there were, he blames it on the intermediary companies they hired to track down good breeds.’

‘But that is outrageous,’ Berthe blurted out. ‘If they were hired to find new breeding stock, the onus is on them, Premium Breeds and this Herr Hohewart, to vet the horses properly.’

‘One would think so,’ Krensky said with an understanding nod. ‘But this is Austria we are talking about, land of connections. Hohewart has powerful friends in the Imperial Ministry of Agriculture who oversee the Lipizzaner stud. I doubt that any of them would care to admit to corrupting the bloodline of this famous breed. The only one who has seemed to care thus far is the unfortunate Captain Putter. After I spoke with him, he seemed shaken to his very core.’

‘You interviewed the riding master? When?’

‘Just two days ago. Monday. I asked him if he had noticed anything not quite right about the foals sired by any of the three new breeding stallions. His face went white as the proverbial sheet.’

The telephone was jingling as Berthe returned to the flat on Josefstädterstrasse. Frau Blatschky was just coming out of the kitchen to answer the call, followed by Frieda, as Berthe picked up the receiver.

Frieda skipped to her and hung on to Berthe’s skirt as she spoke with an adjutant from the Lower Belvedere, which housed Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s shadow general staff. The adjutant. Lieutenant Petschner, asked for her husband.

‘I am sorry, Herr von Werthen is working on a case in Styria,’ Berthe told the officer.

The lieutenant paused for a moment. ‘His Imperial and Royal Highness will be disappointed.’

There was a moment more of silence on the line, and then a new voice appeared, higher than the first.

‘Do I have the pleasure of speaking with Frau Meisner? This is the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.’

Berthe felt her stomach do a flip.

‘Hello,’ she said with more enthusiasm than intended. She realized she had no idea how to address an archduke, then simply followed the lead of Lieutenant Petschner. ‘Hello, your Highness.’

She shocked herself by performing a half curtsy as she spoke to the heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Even Frieda noticed the change in her mother, looking up at her with wide eyes.

‘I was hoping to speak with your husband about a delicate matter,’ Franz Ferdinand said, ‘but my adjutant informs me he is otherwise engaged.’

‘That is so, your Highness.’

‘Then perhaps
you
would do me the favor of discussing the matter. I was most pleased with the clever way you handled the Bertha von Suttner affair.’

This had been her last case in which Berthe – with a little help from Franz Ferdinand – had been able to save the good name of the peace activist, von Suttner, foiling the machinations of the General Staff’s espionage agency, the Bureau of Information.