The Keeper of Hands (12 page)

‘Go softly, Werthen. The man’s a priest.’

Werthen bristled at this, staring at his colleague. ‘But I am not Catholic.’

‘You mistake my meaning. I am not saying that his office automatically disqualifies him as a suspect. What I meant was that if cornered, he could hide behind the robe. It’s been known to happen before.’

‘I expect you had a case once in Graz,’ Berthe joked, dispelling the slight tension. It was always like this when Werthen and Gross worked together, she thought. The competitive tension, the misunderstandings. Like bristling father and son.

T
he spring weather broke suddenly and Thursday dawned wet and cold. Werthen decided to go to Schnitzler’s apartment directly from home, instead of walking to his office first. He closed the door of the house behind him and breathed in an aroma that confused his sense of time, for once more the smell of burning coal was in the air, as if it were the first raw days of autumn and not almost summer.

He called ahead before leaving the house. Prokop with his angelic voice had answered. Werthen ascertained that Schnitzler would see him and that Fräulein Gussman would not be in attendance that morning. He thought about walking, as he had his umbrella with him and was wearing stout walking shoes, but then thought better of it as the needle rain increased to a real downpour.

He was in luck, for Bachmann, his favorite driver, was at the head of the fiaker queue up the street – seated on the bench of the fiaker
,
huddled under a black umbrella, and whistling his usual Strauss tune. Bachmann, known to the other cabbies as ‘the Count’, had been a great friend of Werthen’s ever since the Advokat assisted him in a delicate matter a couple of years before. Fact was, Bachmann was actually the son of a Habsburg count, but because of a deformity he had been, in effect, traded for a healthier specimen, who, upon growing up, had entered the military and got himself killed. The Countess had then wanted her real son back, but Bachmann – the name he had grown up with – would have none of it. He renounced the title and stayed true to the only mother he had ever known.

At any rate, Bachmann was eternally grateful for the bit of legal work Werthen had done to effect the renunciation, and had proved a valuable and valued acquaintance ever since. Most particularly, he did not ask too many questions.

‘Advokat,’ Bachmann greeted him as he approached the fiaker
.
‘It takes unseasonable weather to see you again. How is the young one?’

Bachmann doffed a battered bowler at Werthen as he spoke. His thick frame was covered chin to boot top in an ancient and somewhat moth-eaten woollen greatcoat.

‘She’s lovely, Herr Bachmann. A fine young sprout.’ Werthen climbed into the cab and then, speaking out of the window, supplied the address.

Other cabbies might have inquired as to the Advokat’s health, as the address was in the medical quarter, but not Bachmann. He moved his single-horse fiaker out into the slow-moving traffic and made his way towards the ninth district.

Schnitzler was again lying on the divan when Werthen was shown in to see him. He looked expectantly at the lawyer.

‘Progress already, Advokat?’

‘Yes, in a sense.’

Schnitzler indicated the chair as he had before, but this time Werthen placed it at a distance from the divan.

‘I paid a visit to the Weinviertel yesterday,’ Werthen said.

Schnitzler continued to stare at him expectantly as if awaiting good news.

‘Perhaps you don’t know why I went there,’ Werthen said.

‘I have no idea, Advokat, but I assume you will tell me.’

‘It’s where Mitzi came from. Her real name was Waltraude Moos.’

‘Oh.’ The disappointment showed clearly on his face. ‘That young girl from the Bower again. I had rather hoped you’d come about my case.’

‘They overlap, it seems.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘You’ve been less than forthright with me.’ He handed Schnitzler the letter he had taken from Frau Moos.

Schnitzler opened it and looked quizzically at Werthen.

‘It’s in Volapük,’ he explained. ‘The family used it in communications with each other. Mitzi didn’t tell you about that?’

Schnitzler shook his head. ‘But what does this have to do with me?’

‘Look at the underlined part. Your name is mentioned several times. As it was in other letters from last summer. She was so proud to tell her parents of the grand writer in Vienna who had taken her under his wing.’

Schnitzler, realizing he was caught in a lie, tried to brazen it out: ‘Well, I thought it only right to help the young girl to better herself—’

‘Herr Schnitzler, I have not come to listen to more prevarications. I very much want to help you with your difficulties, but if you can not be open and honest with me regarding Fräulein Waltraude, then I do not see how I can be of any assistance to you.’

‘Ah, so lawyers are not above a bit of extortion, I see.’

‘Call it what you will, but I know for a fact that you were familiar with the young woman long before she went to the Bower. Would you care to explain?’

Schnitzler lay back against the pillow as if exhausted or disgusted.

‘Fräulein Waltraude, as you call her, and I were known to one another before the Bower. That is correct. You must understand, I do not want any official inquiries about our . . . relationship.’

‘The police have given this very low priority, Herr Schnitzler. It is highly doubtful they would interview you. The affair can be kept from Fräulein Gussman, if that is what troubles you.’

‘I see. Then, why not?’ He sat up on the divan looking quite bright and chipper once again, making Werthen wonder how badly injured the man really was.

‘Well, you see, Mitzi – that was my name for her, Waltraude is an impossible name for an insouciant young thing like her – she and I met one day last summer in the Volksgarten. She had been shopping for combs and dropped her packet. I helped her with it. Such a sweet-faced young woman she was, and so impressed to meet a famous author. I am sure you will not believe this, Advokat, but going out that morning I had not the inkling of desire for another conquest. Indeed I had just left the bed of one. No, it was Mitzi who made the advances. I could sense she was an unhappy young woman, troubled even. Lonely. I took her for afternoon coffee at an out-of-the-way place I know and I found a young woman who wished to improve herself.’

‘You became lovers,’ Werthen prompted.

‘Not that first meeting, no. But she arranged to meet again in the park. It was regular as clockwork on Thursday afternoons. I assumed that was her free afternoon, a young woman in service.’

Werthen did not bother to confirm this.

‘Yes, we soon became lovers and our affair followed the usual trajectory.’ Schnitzler smiled at Werthen knowingly.

‘I am not a man well versed in such things,’ Werthen said. ‘Perhaps you could describe the trajectory . . .’

‘Initial infatuation grows to passion as the young woman gives more and more of herself, opens with more abandon until she becomes totally smitten and obsessed. The sweet early days of dalliance are soon replaced with demands and recriminations. She actually thought we would live together. I had to disabuse her of that notion, but in such a way that our physical union was not disrupted. Delicate maneuvering.’

‘But you have had a good deal of practice at that, no?’

‘Advokat, I do not appreciate your tone. If you do not approve of my life, that is your prerogative. You asked for the truth. You are getting it.’

Werthen was silent for a time. Then, ‘But you finally parted ways?’

Schnitzler nodded. ‘She came to me saying she had run away. That we had to be together now. She had nowhere else to go. I told her in no uncertain terms that such a situation was an impossibility. I sent her away.’

‘Yet she has an uncle in Vienna,’ Werthen said.

‘You know about him, then?’

‘From her parents.’

‘Oh – then you really don’t know about him yet.’

‘Herr Schnitzler, full disclosure please.’

Werthen had requested Bachmann to wait. The parish church of St Johann was near the Meidlinger Haupstrasse; behind the church was the rectory, and a graveyard surrounded the whole. It took Bachmann forty-five minutes to drive there, following the Gürtel most of the way.

The rectory was built on the plan of a small hunting lodge, its exterior walls painted the same creamy ochre as the nearby Schönbrunn Palace. Again Werthen asked Bachmann to wait for him, even though the weather had begun to clear up.

He took the miniature hand of a doorknocker in his and rapped it on the front door. An elderly housekeeper answered his fourth attempt. She opened the door with the timidity one might use opening a coffin. She was small, pinched and desiccated, the corners of her mouth turning down through a gullied landscape of chin wrinkles.

‘Who is it?’ she said in a voice barely more than a whisper.

Werthen drew out one of his business cards and handed it to her.

‘The name is Advokat Karl Werthen. Could you tell Father Hieronymus that I have come to talk to him about his niece.’

She took the card, holding it carefully between thumb and forefinger as if it were infected, squinted at it a moment, and then closed the door.

Werthen waited patiently outside for several minutes, but was just about to use the knocker once more when the door opened.

The housekeeper was there again. ‘He says to come.’

Werthen followed her into the rectory, which smelled strongly of furniture polish. There were three different crucifixes hanging from the walls of the long hallway they traversed. Passing a suite of rooms whose doors were open, Werthen saw that the windows had been thrown wide open and that furniture had been pushed against the wall, the large rugs in the center of the rooms rolled up.

He better understood the housekeeper’s surly mood now; he had interrupted her spring cleaning.

They came to a room at the end of the long hallway and the woman tapped on the door lightly.

‘Please enter,’ a voice at once sonorous and self-satisfied said from the other side.

She nodded her head for Werthen to enter and walked back down the hall to resume her cleaning.

Inside, Werthen found himself in a study made almost unbearably hot by a white-and-green ceramic stove in one corner. The walls were covered with bookshelves filled with books that had impressive leather bindings.

‘Advokat Werthen?’

Werthen followed the voice, and finally found its owner seated at a desk partially hidden behind the door.

‘Please do close the door. Draughts, you know.’

Werthen did so and approached the desk, taking measure of the priest.

He had expected someone of the stature of an uncle and a priest, assuming that he was most likely Frau Moos’s older brother. In the event, Father Hieronymus was obviously her younger brother, much younger. He looked, in fact, as if he still belonged in the seminary.

‘You say you have word from my niece,’ the priest said, not bothering to rise to meet his guest.

‘May I?’ Werthen tapped the back of a chair across the desk from the priest.

‘Please, please.’

Seated, Werthen again assessed the man. Ash-blond hair, thinning on top and brushed off a high forehead. Features fine, almost fragile. Eyes watery blue, delicate hands spread out in front of him on the desk. A fresh manicure. He wore a black cassock and in front of him on the desk lay a Bible and some foolscap.

‘Sorry to interrupt you,’ Werthen said. ‘It appears you are planning your sermon.’

‘You mentioned my niece?’

‘Yes, of course. My apologies.’ On the way here he had thought long and hard about how to handle the questioning. In the end, he took Gross’s advice to heart. Go easy at first; save the accusations for later.

‘From your remarks, I fear that I am bringing you bad news. Your niece is dead. She was murdered over three weeks ago.’

Father Hieronymus leaped out of his chair as if set on fire. Standing, he was tall and thin as a wraith.

‘My God, man! What do you mean? She can’t be dead. She’s just a child.’

‘I assure you, such is the case. I visited her parents yesterday; they had not heard the news either. Your sister rather thought you would know, seeing that she lives with you.’

‘Lived,’ Father Hieronymus said. ‘She ran away months ago. I did not have the heart to tell her parents. I did my best to find her, but what could I do? If a young lady wishes to hide herself in the metropolis, there is nothing a simple parish priest can do.’

‘Did you notify the police when she left? Perhaps someone stole her away.’

He sat again, the shock beginning to wear off. He brusquely dismissed Werthen’s suggestion. ‘Waltraude? Unlikely. She was not the type to be stolen away.’

Then he looked at Werthen with suspicion.

‘What business, Advokat, is any of this to you?’

‘I have been retained to look into the death of the young lady.’

‘By whom? And are not the police already investigating? Murdered, you say?’

It was entirely possible that Father Hieronymus was being honest in his avowal that he did not know of his niece’s death. After all, the newspaper accounts identified the unfortunate young woman merely as ‘Fräulein Mitzi,’ not Waltraude Moos.

Werthen considered this quickly, then took the priest’s questions in reverse order. ‘Yes, murdered. Strangled and left naked in the Prater. And no, the police do not concern themselves over much with the death of a prostitute. Lastly, I have been retained by a good friend of the deceased who wants to see justice done.’

‘Are you mad? Waltraude a prostitute? Impossible!’

‘After she left here – left you – she was discovered on the streets by a recruiter for a well-known bordello. Until her death, she made her living playing the role of an innocent schoolgirl.’

Definitely past the time for going easy now, Werthen thought.

‘Which role she appears to have learned from an excellent teacher.’ From what Schnitzler had related to him of Mitzi’s story, such abuse had begun almost from the beginning of her stay in Vienna with her uncle.