Requiem in Vienna (7 page)

Mahler chuckled to himself.

Werthen had had enough.

“It is missing. That is one problem.”

Mahler drew himself out of his humorous reverie.

“What is missing?”

“The podium. The stage manager says it is wood chips by now, so there is no way to ascertain whether or not it had been tampered with.”

Mahler considered this for a moment. Then, “You say that is
one
problem. Implying others.”

“The stagehand supposedly responsible for the dropped fire curtain is no longer at the Hofoper.”

“Nor would I want the blighter to be.”

“Nor is he in Austria, it would seem. Rumor has it he has emigrated to America.”

A further silence from Mahler.

“Was he also the one responsible for the dropped scenery flat?”

Werthen had not questioned the stage manager about that, he now realized.

“Possibly,” he said, to cover up his own error.

“And the tainted chamomile tea?”

Werthen simply shrugged at this. “You yourself enumerate four dangerous, possibly life-threatening incidents, yet you continue to joke about it,” he said instead. “Do you think that is the appropriate response? Why have you summoned me today?”

Mahler smiled broadly. “My revised will, or have you forgotten?”

“On a Sunday?”

Mahler nodded his head against the white expanse of pillow. “All right. Yes, I do feel some concern. Especially now you mention the podium has so handily disappeared.”

Werthen said nothing, forcing Mahler himself to say it.

“Fine, then. Investigate away, damn you.”

“Why so stubborn?” Berthe asked as they strolled back toward the Josefstädterstrasse and their home.

“He simply refuses to believe he works alongside someone who wants him dead. I can imagine it is a rather chilling thought, not something you want to contemplate.”

“Why limit the investigation?”

“How do you mean?” Werthen asked. They were approaching the Ringstrasse once again. A streetcar passed, newly electrified, sparks flying from its overhead arm. “You say that Mahler might be working alongside someone who wants him dead. Is it not possible there are domestic possibilities, as well?”

“You mean his sister?”

“Why not? Or the jilted lover?”

“And who might that be?”

“It took less than a half cup of tea for me to see that Natalie Bauer-Lechner is hopelessly in love with Mahler. And for me to understand from Justine Mahler’s comments that she stands no chance of ever becoming his wife.”

“Quite a happy little domicile.”

She raised her eyebrows. “They hover over him like wasps.” Then she tucked her arm more tightly in his.

They reached their apartment a quarter hour later, tired after a full day. Werthen thought fondly of a hot bath, perhaps some sherry before dinner, and a chance to read a bit more. Then a cozy night at home with his wife and early to bed. The thought of that filled him with a sudden warmth beneath his stomach. He was a happy man.

As they let themselves in, Frau Blatschky was quick to meet them at the door, her voice almost a whisper.

“I told him you were out, but he insisted on waiting for you. He’s been here several hours. And eaten twice, I might add.”

Werthen was about to ask her who their mysterious guest might be, when a familiar voice thundered at them from the sitting room:

“Werthen, my good man, where the devil have you been all day?”

The stentorian tones of none other than Dr. Hanns Gross, Werthen’s old friend and colleague, and the foremost “criminalist”—as Gross fashioned himself—in the empire.

I
don’t care if I never see another beech tree,” Gross said as he cut into the boiled beef and horseradish sauce Frau Blatschky had set before them. “That’s what the region’s name comes from, Buchenland, land of the beeches.”

Last year Gross had been posted to the Franz Josef University in Bukovina’s capital, Czernowitz, to open the first department of criminology in Austro-Hungary, final recognition of his years of research and writing in what he liked to call criminalistics. With the university closed for the summer, Gross had come to Vienna for a conference at the university, while his wife, Adele, was in Paris visiting friends.

“My lord,” he spluttered through bites of beef, “even the streets of the so-called capital are lined with those beastly arboreal intrusions.”

“But I’ve heard it is quite a lovely city,” Werthen said, winking at Berthe as he did so.

Gross laid down fork and knife, casting a withering look at the lawyer.

“My dear Werthen. I have known you for years and will therefore not be drawn out by that faux innocent remark. Suffice to say,
calling the place a city is a disservice to the language. It is a dusty and dirty claptrap of dodgy buildings, many of them gussied up to look like the Austrian homeland, but largely a Potemkin village. Their façades may indicate several stories, but the dark and impoverished interiors are one or two levels at best. Catherine the Great herself would be impressed by the deception.”

Berthe now raised her brows at her husband.

“I saw that gesture, my good lady,” Gross went on. “You think I exaggerate. Far from it. Czernowitz boasts a population of a hundred thousand, but you have to go long and far to find a German. The place is an overgrown Jewish shtetl, no insult intended.”

Werthen and Berthe, both of Jewish background, were too accustomed to Gross’s unconscious anti-Semitic comments to even attempt a response. Oddly enough, he meant no harm by such comments; for him they were merely statements of fact.

“I have heard they have a lively musical scene there,” Berthe said.

“If you enjoy the rather overheated melodrama of
zigeuner
music.”

“There is nothing to recommend the place?” Werthen asked.

“I am told the mathematician Leopold Gegenbauer hailed from there,” Gross said, taking up knife and fork again. “It is, in short, dear friends, a backwater. My poor lady-wife, Adele, is perishing for want of companionship and culture. She slips off to visit her cousin in Paris or to fuss over our empty apartment in Graz whenever she has the chance. As for me, I have one or two bright pupils. The rest would better serve the empire in the army.”

“I am sure you do not really believe that, Dr. Gross,” Berthe said brightly.

“And I am sure I do, dear lady. If not cannon fodder, then perhaps milkers and stable hands. Czernowitz is a dreadful place. However, those in power have finally decided to recognize my work by giving me the chair in criminology, and that is the only reason I languish there. If criminalistics is ever to be considered a
true science, then I need to build my department into a topflight research and training center equal to Paris or Scotland Yard.”

They ate in silence for a time, the standard clock on the wall behind Werthen making a pleasant tocking noise to punctuate the clink of cutlery against porcelain.

Finally Gross looked up from his meal. “You must pardon my execrable manners,” he said. “Prattling on about my own situation and not bothering to find out what you two have been up to.”

“Well,” Werthen began, “we have been a bit busy.”

Gross rubbed his hands together. “Do tell.”

“Redecorating, buying new furniture. The sorts of things newlyweds do.”

Gross twitched his salt-and-pepper mustache. “You know very well that is not the sort of busy-ness I was inquiring after.”

“Oh, tell him,” Berthe said.

Werthen smiled at this; she had a kinder heart than he did.

“We are working on a new investigation.”

“That is more like it,” Gross said. “I knew that once you got your teeth into the criminal world again, you would be hooked. Who is involved?”

“Mahler.”

“The composer? Whatever has he done other than assault our eardrums with his music?”

“Not what he has done,” Werthen explained, “but rather what someone is trying to do to him. It appears he is the target of a killer.”

“Marvelous.” This time Gross clapped his hands in delight. “By the way,” he said in an aside to Berthe, “do you think we might move on to dessert?” Then beaming again at Werthen, he said, “Explain away.”

Over coffee and strudel, Werthen detailed the investigation thus far: what appeared to be individual accidents, but which, when put together could suggest several failed attempts on Mahler’s life.

“I take it you have somehow investigated this Schindler girl?” Gross suddenly interrupted.

“Investigated?” Werthen asked.

“Checked on her particulars,” Gross explained.

“I know what the blasted word means, Gross. But investigate her to what purpose?”

“To ascertain that she is, in fact, not the perpetrator.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, man,” Werthen exploded.

“No. Dr. Gross makes a valid point,” Berthe joined in. “After all, what more do we know of her than that Klimt was pursuing her, just as he pursues anyone in skirts. But if she is so smitten with Mahler, then she might be trying to gain his attention, win his goodwill.”

“By trying to kill him?” Werthen replied.

“Quite the contrary, old man,” Gross said. “By seeming to come to his rescue. By raising the alarm in the first place.”

“She has made it quite clear that I am not to divulge her identity to Mahler.”

Gross nodded. “Yes . . .”

“But there is nothing to stop
her
from doing so,” Berthe said.

“Exactly my point,” Gross said, nodding appreciatively at Berthe.

Werthen was beginning to feel outnumbered and outflanked.

”It is essential,” Gross announced, “as your wife suggests, that we take all possibilities into account.”

“
We
?” Werthen blurted out. “Hold on now, Gross. What about your conference?”

Gross made a dismissive “pahh” sound. “The matter of a few hours here or there. While this case poses tantalizing possibilities.”

“It’s hardly a case yet,” Werthen countered. “And I doubt the Schindler girl will be able to produce a fee.”

“Yes, but you say Mahler has given you the go-ahead. And you
are
his lawyer.”

Werthen felt suddenly very protective of his investigation. He was not sure he wanted Gross nudging his way into it and, of course,
attempting to lead it. This was his investigation; Mahler was his client.

As if reading his thoughts, Gross took a final sip of his coffee, daubed at his bristling mustache with the linen napkin and said, “Of course, it is
your
case, Werthen. I shall merely provide ancillary support, as it were. A consultant, I believe it is called.”

“Paid or unpaid?” Berthe wisely asked.

Gross feigned shock. “You do me a disservice, my good woman. Unpaid, naturally. Or should I say that I shall thereby repay your kindness and generosity in inviting me to stay with you rather than book a room at the Bristol. Taking that into account, I will be well remunerated for any services I shall be able to provide you.”

Werthen and Berthe looked at each other for a moment.

“Deal?” Gross finally asked.

Werthen slowly nodded. But he had to admit to a twinge of disappointment that Gross had so neatly maneuvered his way onto the case.

It was one thing for Gross to say he would simply consult, but quite a different matter for him to actually take second chair in any investigation.

The next morning at breakfast they began mapping out a course of action. Berthe wisely remained silent while the men conferred. They quickly agreed on the first order of business. Alma Schindler and her motives would come later. For now, the initial step was to check into the life of the unfortunate Fräulein Kaspar, who died under the fire curtain. If she were not the intended victim of that “accident,” then it would go a long way toward indicating that Mahler was.

As luck had it, Gross knew the examining magistrate of the Waldviertel region from which the young soprano hailed. A call to
him could begin the process of gathering information about her: had she left behind a jealous or rejected lover? Perhaps a voice teacher that she had outgrown? Was there someone, anyone, who might have a motive for killing Fräulein Kaspar? Interviews would also have to be conducted at the Hofoper to see if there were other singers who might see the girl as a threat to their career.

“Professional jealousy can prove a powerful motive,” Gross intoned. “The theater is a most dangerous place to work.”

Werthen nodded. “And let us not forget that there may have simply been a baser form of jealousy at play. Mahler did say he and Fräulein Kaspar had been lovers. Who knows how many other singers the man has wooed and which of those might not appreciate having a new paramour paraded in front of her?”

“Anna von Mildenburg for one,” Berthe suddenly said. She was speaking of the Austrian Wagnerian soprano who had recently been brought to the Hofoper from Hamburg, where Mahler himself had previously conducted.

“How do you know that?” Werthen wondered aloud.

“By reading the
lowbrow
papers, as you call them. One can discover all sorts of valuable information. The papers were full of the affair when von Mildenburg was hired. It seems she and Mahler had a relationship for quite some time in Hamburg.”

“There you have it then, Werthen,” Gross said. “A starting point.”

Once such preliminary measures were settled, however, the two immediately hit a stumbling block on how next best to proceed.

“The list of Mahler’s enemies could be quite extensive,” Gross said. “I have heard he is a stern taskmaster. A perfectionist. Not the sort of personality to hit it off with certain Viennese, I should think.”

Gross was referring to the Viennese, if not Austrian, custom of
schlamperei
, or sloppiness or laziness in one’s job or profession. Mahler required more of a singer than a mere performance; he demanded the best from his performers, or they were asked to
find employment elsewhere. Werthen imagined there were many at the Hofoper who had been rubbed the wrong way by Mahler’s perfectionism, but at the same time he did not want to encourage Gross with a reply. He knew where the criminologist was going with this line of reasoning.