The Keeper of Hands (14 page)

He also had the unmistakable look of a watcher. Of course, train stations were full of those waiting and watching for passengers, anxious to greet friends or relatives or business associates. But this man was different, Berthe felt. He was, she fancied, not the sort to personally meet someone at a train station.

She had noticed him earlier but paid him no attention. Now she realized that trains had come and gone and still he waited. Could he be waiting for the delayed train from Krems?

She chuckled to herself, thinking that she had only been on the job half an hour and was already an expert at surveillance, if not counter-surveillance.

Her attention was brought back to the task at hand, hearing the hiss and thump of a train pulling into the station.

She watched as the 11:15 from Krems snaked into the station, and wheeled Frieda’s carriage to the front of the platform, steps ahead of the engine. She knew Baron von Suttner would be in the first coaches, the first class.

Sure enough, second off the coach immediately behind the engine was the Baron, looking expectant as he arrived in the capital. He turned back to offer his hand to a young lady descending from the coach, who seemed awfully pleased with herself in a frilly summer dress, a perfect shade of robin’s-egg blue to show off her blue eyes.

The young woman had, Berthe thought, exactly the sort of self-satisfied expression that needed slapping.

The Baron carried a walking stick, his niece a parasol. They could be father and daughter come up from the provinces for a day in the city.

Except that it was evident they were not. Not the way the young woman wrapped her arm through his, nor the way she kissed him as she joined him on the platform, lingering with a playful peck just by the ear. She whispered something that made him blush and then break into laughter. They passed by Berthe unmindful of her, laughing together like young lovers meeting behind their parents’ backs.

Berthe felt her stomach sink as they passed. It did not take a private inquiry agent to know those two were having an affair.

From a telegram Frau von Suttner had sent earlier, Berthe knew they were coming to Vienna ostensibly to visit the Reinthaler Collection of Flemish art and porcelain.

The only problem with that was that the small private museum was closed on Thursdays for cleaning.

And today was Thursday.

Erika Metzinger was making her way out of the exit, one step ahead of the love birds. The pair would doubtless take a fiaker to their destination – and Berthe, with Frieda in tow, would hardly be able to keep up with them. Outside, Herr Bachman, Karl’s prized driver, was waiting for Fräulein Metzinger to follow wherever they might go.

As Berthe watched Erika climb into Bachman’s fiaker and drive off after the one the Baron and his niece had taken, the man in the boater came running out of the station, squinting in the noontime sun after the darkness of the train station. He hailed the next fiaker in line and headed in the same direction as the others.

With Fräulein Metzinger on assignment with his wife, Karl Werthen was acting as his own secretary; so when Hermann Bahr knocked at the office door without appointment, it was Werthen himself who greeted the writer.

Bahr, one of the luminaries of the Jung Wien literary movement so much in fashion, was an intimate of Altenberg, Schnitzler and Salten. Werthen figured it was no coincidence that Bahr should appear at his office, but was prepared to allow the usual platitudes to issue forth before his visitor got down to what really mattered.

Not so Bahr. Once the outer office door was closed behind them and they were ensconced in Werthen’s office, Bahr said, ‘This Bower business is a farce.’

Bahr, a lapsed Catholic, had the beard of a Jewish elder. He squinted at Werthen as he spoke, as if he suffered from astigmatism.

‘How so, Herr Bahr?’

For a man so loquacious on the printed page – Bahr had already penned numerous plays, novels and volumes of theatre criticism – he was oddly terse in his spoken communication.

‘One prostitute more or less . . .’

He spluttered it out like a caricature of a stolid conservative landowner from Styria. The implication was clear.

‘I visited the young girl’s parents, Herr Bahr. I can assure you her death was not inconsequential to them. And what business, if I may inquire, is this affair to you?’

‘Schnitzler’s being hard used.’

‘Some might say he used the girl rather hard.’

‘You’re a literary chap, I’m told.’

Werthen made no response to this seeming
non sequitur
.

But that did not bother Bahr, who seemed to have his lines memorized.

‘It’s all experience. We store it up and later transform it into art. For a higher purpose. Schnitzler is a man of genius. Surely you see that?’

‘No one is accusing him of murder. Indeed, he is one of my clients.’

Bahr, rather inelegantly, snorted at this.

‘And,’ Werthen added, ‘it was your friend Salten who commissioned the case to begin with.’

‘Salten is too involved with the woman’s memoirs. Hardly an appropriate subject matter for his talents.’

‘You did not answer my question, Herr Bahr. Why are you interested? Were you perhaps also one of Mitzi’s customers?’

‘I am a married man, Advokat.’

‘Many are.’

‘Altenberg said you are a perceptive sort.’ Bahr suddenly shot him a winning smile. ‘Jung Wien has its detractors.’

So that was it, Werthen thought.

‘Scandal? Is that what you are worried about? One would think a hint of scandal would be
de rigueur
for the literary set.’

‘I have worked long and hard to achieve the respect our movement justly deserves.’

‘I assure you, Herr Bahr, I do not wish to bring public disapprobation to Jung Wien.’

Bahr looked into his folded hands as he next spoke. ‘You are a friend of Karl Kraus’s, I understand.’

‘Yes. We have shared information from time to time.’

‘A villain if there ever was one.’

Things were crystallizing now for Werthen. Bahr and Kraus were no friends, for Kraus thought Jung Wien was precious and febrile and lacked
gravitas
. In fact such opinions put into print in Kraus’s journal,
Die Fackel,
had led to that infamous altercation at the Café Central which ended in an
Ohrfeig,
a slap in the face for Kraus, administered by Salten. The feud had continued into the courts, with Bahr suing Kraus for defamation. The case had just been settled, in Bahr’s favor, but Kraus vowed not to be silenced.

‘What might your point be here, Herr Bahr?’

‘Kraus is the sort that will go to extraordinary lengths to avenge himself. He would like nothing better than to see scandal attached to the members of Jung Wien.’

‘Extraordinary lengths, such as killing Mitzi?’

‘You said it, Herr Advokat, not I.’

‘You’re delusional.’

‘You know the man’s penchant. He is forever writing about prostitutes.’

‘In their favor,’ Werthen pointed out. ‘He wants to protect their rights, not oppress them.’

‘The man is a sexual cipher. A monk. Repressed sexuality will find an outlet.’

Werthen was not prepared to continue this discussion. He stood up abruptly.

‘I wish I could say it has been a pleasure, Herr Bahr.’

For a moment, Bahr did not budge.

‘I am merely trying to be helpful, Advokat.’

Then he nodded, as if in defeat, and hands on thighs pushed himself up and out of his chair.

As he prepared to leave, Bahr cast one more crow-like remark:

‘I fear our Viennese Svengali has bewitched you, Advokat Werthen. You might want to ascertain Herr Kraus’s whereabouts for the night of April 30.’

As arranged, Bachman returned to the train station to pick up Berthe and Frieda.

‘Hotel Metropole,’ he said as she lifted Frieda into the fiaker
.
Bachman stored the Richardson Carriage on the luggage-rack at the back and then nodded for her to take her seat.

Berthe shuddered when she heard the destination. She had spent the last fifteen minutes, since the Baron von Suttner and his niece left the station, correcting her initial impression. Perhaps she was reading too much into a kiss on the cheek. The grateful niece giving her stodgy uncle a peck in appreciation for her day out. Perhaps the Baron had simply made a mistake about the opening days of the Reinthaler Collection. Perhaps it was nothing more than that.

She had almost accepted this revision, but now Bachman put paid to that. It seemed the Reinthaler Collection had not been on the Baron’s itinerary, after all.

Berthe did not want Frau von Suttner’s fears to be proved true; she did not want to be the one to tell her idol that her husband was conducting a tawdry affair with his own niece.

The hotel was only a few streets distant, not in the best neighborhood and definitely not known for its rooms or restaurant. Instead, it was known for the discretion of its staff.

As the fiaker pulled up to the kerb, Frieda peeked out of the window and then stared back at Berthe, grinning widely and showing off her two bottom teeth.

‘Dah,’ she said.

‘Mutti,’ Berthe corrected.

Erika Metzinger came up to the coach.

‘Are they still there?’ Berthe asked.

Erika nodded. ‘It appears they have taken a room.’

Berthe’s stomach knotted.

‘The stupid man.’

‘Dah,’ Frieda said.

‘Yes,’ Berthe agreed.

And then, across the street, she noticed the man in the straw boater from the train station, so intent on watching the front of the hotel that he seemed unaware of Fräulein Metzinger or of Berthe’s arrival.

Berthe motioned for Erika to join her in the fiaker
.
‘Are you sure about the room?’

‘In truth, I cannot be absolutely certain. Through the glass front doors, I could see the Baron speak with a concierge at the desk. I can only assume . . .’

‘Yes. But we have to be sure.’

She turned to Frieda. ‘Will you stay with Tante Erika for a moment? Mutti needs to talk to someone.’

‘Tan-tan,’ Frieda said.

Erika’s face brightened at this. ‘Clever girl.’

Berthe slid along the leather bench and let herself out of the door of the carriage.

‘What will you say?’ Erika asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ Berthe confessed. ‘But a bit of fresh air always helps activate my brain cells.’ Then, from the pavement, ‘Has anyone entered the hotel since they did?’

‘No.’

‘You be sweet with Tan-tan,’ Berthe said to her daughter, but Frieda was already delighting in the examination of the outdated lorgnette that Erika insisted on wearing.

Berthe made her way to the entrance of the hotel. Out of the side of her vision she could see that she had finally attracted the attention of the man in the linen suit and boater. He watched her closely as she walked up the steps to the hotel and entered.

Berthe experienced a momentary
frisson
of delight in the precincts of this hotel so well-known for illicit assignations. The gray-faced, jowly man behind the desk looked up at her as she entered. He appraised her with rheumy eyes that had seen it all. She stopped for a moment, then straightened her back and strode to the front desk.

‘Madam,’ the concierge said.

‘Good day to you.’

‘May I be of assistance?’ He managed to insert a large dose of nuance into those five words, so that Berthe felt she must bathe at once upon returning home. He spoke with a heavy Italian accent, and his eyes went up and down her body.

‘Yes you may,’ she replied. Opening her handbag, she extracted a lace handkerchief that Karl had just purchased for her. He enjoyed surprising her with small gifts: flowers, a special book, this lacework handkerchief.

‘I am playing the Good Samaritan. This was left in the fiaker I am riding in. The driver says he dropped his fare here. I thought—’

‘Very nice of you, Madam, I’m sure.’

He reached for the handkerchief, but she pulled it back from him.

‘Don’t you want to know which guests?’

He puffed his lips. ‘Of course. How silly of me.’

‘My driver tells me he deposited the young woman and a man here not fifteen minutes ago.’

‘Ah,’ the concierge nodded knowingly. ‘That would be Herr and Frau von Tilling. They make a point of staying with us when they come up from the country. It must be the young lady’s.’

He thrust his meaty hand palm upward across the desk. ‘I would be happy to return it.’

Karl will understand, she told herself as she relinquished the prized lacework.

‘Von Tilling, you say?’

‘Yes, Madam. Perhaps you know them?’ He turned for a moment, stuffing the prized handkerchief into one of the pigeon-holes behind him. Room 205.

She shook her head, wanting badly to get out into the fresh air once again. ‘No. But I have done my good deed for the day.’

‘Indeed you have, Madam.’

She made her way out of the hotel and back out on to the sunny street. The man in the boater tipped his hat at her as she walked back to the fiaker
.

Inside the carriage, Erika and Frieda were happily engaged in a game of
schnick, schnack, schnuck.
Frieda had just made the scissors sign with forefinger and middle finger, while Erika’s hand was outstretched as paper.

‘Oh, you win again,’ Erika said.

Berthe got in and took a deep breath.

‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,’ Erika said. ‘What did you discover?’

‘They are there. As husband and wife.’

‘Registered as Suttner?’

‘Worse. As von Tilling.’

Erika looked puzzled.

‘More, Tan-tan!’ Frieda pleaded.

‘Just a moment, love,’ Erika said. Then to Berthe, ‘Who is von Tilling?’

‘It’s the name of the protagonist in Frau von Suttner’s
Lay Down Your Arms.
This is a double betrayal! How sad.’

S
he had a bad feeling about this one. He did not smile, did not look her in the eye.

‘I was expecting Herr Forstl.’

The man did not respond.

‘Did he send you?’ She looked around the park. The other walkers had disappeared.