The Keeper of Hands (6 page)

He and Altenberg were neighbors, of a sort. The hotel where the man lodged in Wallnerstrasse was only a couple of streets away from Werthen’s office in Habsburgergasse. Werthen stopped off at the office briefly to put away the Bible he had found in Mitzi’s room. Walking the streets of the city with it in his hand, he felt like a missionary doing the rounds; and by the quizzical look Fräulein Metzinger gave him as he entered, he obviously looked the part, as well.

‘Don’t ask,’ he said, briskly moving to his office and placing the book on his desk.

‘I may be out the rest of the day,’ he said as he returned through the outer office to the main door.

‘His work is done in mysterious ways,’ the assistant said to him deadpan as he departed. Glancing back from the door, he saw the hint of a smile on her face.

The Hotel London was not to be found in Baedeker, for it was more a brothel than a lodging house, the rooms – except for a few such as Altenberg’s – being rented by the hour.

Happily, there were no women outside the hotel at this hour. Going through the portal, with yellow paint peeling on the sign, Werthen was assaulted by the cloying fragrance of day lilies, the first of the year. They could be the last, for all Werthen cared; he hated the noxious objects, their six yellow stamens and dusty anthers curled like beckoning fingers.

It was destined to be one of those days, he decided. A day when he was poor company even for himself.

‘What brings you to this fine establishment, Advokat Werthen?’

He looked with a mixture of surprise and recognition from the vase of day lilies to the man standing behind the front desk. He saw a thin man, in shirtsleeves, with sunken eyes, gray complexion, and hair plastered to his abnormally large skull like wet paint. The man wore a celluloid collar that was at least one size too large and a chartreuse tie with a pearl stickpin; in his left hand he held the latest racing sheet for the Freudenau track, in his right a pencil.

‘Herr Fehrut! You’ve changed your place of employment.’

The man shrugged as if to say that was self-evident. ‘On your advice, Advokat.’

True. Last time Werthen had unsuccessfully defended Herr Fehrut against pandering charges, he advised the man to find a new occupation.

‘No more
Zuhälter
for me. I’m on the up and up now, a concierge.’ He visibly puffed up as he said this.

Werthen looked around at the shabby foyer – dusty potted palms and aging notices tacked to the walls – and stopped himself from reminding the man this was a
Stundenhotel,
after all, and that he was still in the procuring business one way or the other.

‘I see you like my flowers,’ Herr Fehrut said, nodding towards the vase. ‘Grow them myself. I’ve got a little plot of land in a garden settlement in Penzing. Spend the occasional day off there. Nothing like a bit of fresh air.’

‘Especially after the stale air of the Liesel,’ Werthen added.

‘They’re not getting me back in there, again. No more iron bars for Fehrut. I’m a reformed man.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ Werthen said without enthusiasm. ‘And to return to your question, I wish to speak with one of your guests.’

‘Advokat, you surprise me!’ He made a tssking sound.

‘Not that kind of guest. Altenberg, is he still in?’

‘I think maybe you should visit one of the other rooms. That fellow’s strange.’

‘Is he in?’

‘Oh, he’s in alright – insane.’

‘Room number?’

‘Thirteen. And no, we didn’t have a room number thirteen before he came here. He paid us to change the number of room twelve.’

Werthen wasn’t listening now, though. Instead, he was making his way to the narrow staircase leading to the upper floors. Room thirteen was on the third floor, at the end of a dimly lit hall. A notice was posted on the door:
I am not available to speak with anyone today. No exceptions!

Werthen rapped his knuckle on the notice.

Nothing for a moment, and then an irritable high-pitched voice from inside:

‘Can’t you read?’

‘Advokat Werthen here. I have come from Frau Mutzenbacher’s.’

Now a shuffling of feet. The door was drawn open inwards with force. Altenberg stood in the doorway, a short, stocky, disheveled man whose half-bald pate was camouflaged poorly with wings of hair from the sides brushed forward Roman-style. He was wearing a silk dressing-gown of indeterminate color that had clearly been around since the 1848 Revolution; his tortoiseshell pince-nez dangled from a crimson cord around his neck.

‘Do I know you?’

He peered at Werthen as if measuring him for a new suit.

‘We met once,’ Werthen said. ‘Kraus introduced us at the Café Central. But briefly only.’

He grunted at this, smoothing his drooping moustaches with the top edge of his right forefinger. It drew Werthen’s attention to the brown nicotine stains on both finger and moustache.

‘Frau Mutzenbacher, you say. Do you mean you have come from there?’

Suspicion showed around his rheumy eyes; they were red-rimmed as if he had been crying recently. Now Altenberg’s breath reached him, a raw ferrous mixture of tobacco and alcohol.

‘Perhaps I might come in,’ Werthen said. ‘It is about Mitzi.’

The mention of the young woman’s name struck Altenberg like a body blow. He grabbed his middle, sucked in air.

‘Mitzi.’ The name was uttered in a whimper.

Altenberg looked as though he might fall. Werthen took his left arm, holding him up.

‘You should sit down.’ He shuffled the small man into the cluttered room, its walls filled with postcards and photos of young women and girls, many of them nude, some of them framed, others merely pinned to the wall. A central table held two large black Japanese lacquer boxes, assorted writing paper, a Mont Blanc pen, a half-empty bottle of gentian schnapps, a packet of Sport cigarettes, and a tumbler overflowing with the crushed ends of partially smoked cigarettes.

Altenberg allowed himself to be steered to one of two straight-backed chairs, and then at the last moment said, ‘No. On the bed.’

Werthen helped him to the bed in the corner, its surface covered with newspapers, soiled food wrappers, and a drawing of a woman that Werthen recognized from Frau Mutzenbacher’s photo. Mitzi.

Altenberg slumped on to the bed, thrust his head into his hands, and began weeping.

Werthen did not know what to do. He tentatively patted the man on his heaving back, but this did no good. Finally he said, ‘You can cry your eyes out or you can try to help me find her killer. The choice is yours.’

This seemed to reach Altenberg, who looked up at Werthen, snot dribbling from his nose. He wiped at it with the sleeve of his dressing-gown.

‘How?’

‘Tell me about Mitzi.’

‘She was a sweet innocent.’ Altenberg noticed Werthen’s lips pursing. ‘No, I mean it. I know innocence when I see it. Mitzi was pure. She and I, you see . . .’

‘You were not intimate with her,’ Werthen finished for him.

‘Is it that evident? No, we were not intimates. I paid her fee, but we talked. We shared a higher form of intercourse.’

Again, Werthen could not help feeling skeptical. He looked around at the photos of naked girls plastering the walls: gamboling Alpine maidens; a saucy young harem miss; a view of the back of young legs, a petticoat showing above, boots below.

‘This is my gallery of beauty. They are all my sweet innocents. As fresh as air off the Semmering. Nothing sordid. Nothing tainted.’ He got up and crossed to the table. Opening the lacquer boxes there, he showed Werthen the contents: thousands of postcards. Pictures not only of his adored pubescent girls, but also photos of Beethoven, Tolstoy, Hugo Wolf and Klimt; and numerous Japanese woodblock prints. ‘I put these in order in my spare time,’ he said, flipping through the cards and photos as if they were a deck of Tarock cards.

Werthen ignored this. ‘What did you talk about?’

‘Her life. Her ambitions. Her disappointments.’

‘Can you be more specific? Was there anybody threatening her? Something or somebody she feared?’

Altenberg squinted at him and then put his pince-nez to his eyes, and inspected Werthen for a full minute before answering.

‘You ask a very pertinent question, Advokat. Something was obviously bothering Mitzi in the last few months.’

Werthen was reminded of a similar observation by Mitzi’s room-mate at the Bower, Fräulein Fanny.

‘Did she mention what it was?’

Altenberg shook his head. He motioned Werthen to a chair now, and they both sat. Altenberg picked up the bottle of schnapps, uncorked it, and took a long draught as if drinking from a mountain spring.

The drink revived him. ‘No. She wouldn’t say. Not that I didn’t ask. I am a sensitive man, Advokat. After all, I had known her since she first came to the Bower early last fall. Fresh from the country, she was. You could still smell the hay on her.’

‘Do you know where she came from?’

Altenberg stuck out his lower lip. ‘She wouldn’t say. But I have a feeling her name was not really Mitzi. At first when I would address her by that name, she would appear not to hear me. No, I think our Mitzi had a secret about her past. But I watched her develop over the months. When she was first at the Bower, there was a certain sadness to her. She once told me someone had betrayed her. Nothing more specific. But soon she adapted to the life there. You could see it in her face, she felt at ease, in control. She had a place and she was admired. Even Frau Mutzenbacher was taken by her.’

‘She was planning to adopt her. Did you know that?’

Another shake of the head, another swig from the bottle.

‘I would have adopted her if they’d let me.’

Werthen interrupted before Altenberg grew maudlin again.

‘So, in a way, she blossomed at the Bower, you are saying?’

‘Yes, most definitely. A changed young girl. Everyone wanted to be with her. Sometimes I had to wait half the night for my turn. But then two or three months ago a change came over her. She seemed fretful, worried about something, but grew angry if I questioned her. ‘Mind your own business, Bunnykins,’ she would say. She loved calling me that name. Such a sweet young thing.’

Werthen could see the tears welling again, but Altenberg surprised him, shaking his head as if to fight off the sadness and sitting up straight in his chair.

‘I am not always such an old woman, Advokat. I had my period of mourning directly after Mitzi’s death. I was perfectly fine this morning, ready to make my way to the Café, and then I came across a drawing I made of my little angel.’ He nodded at the drawing Werthen had noticed earlier. ‘And then, you see, the tears once again, the schnapps once again. I’m afraid I appear a silly goose to you, but I did love her. In my way. It was real love. Nothing asked in return. The only tragedy in this world is not to love at all, don’t you agree?’

‘Yes, Herr Altenberg, I agree. And I am sorry if I have appeared less than sympathetic. Accept my apology, please.’

Altenberg extended a slight, puffy hand, and they shook.

‘Now, to the business at hand,’ Werthen said. ‘You mention that Mitzi was popular. Did she have any other regular customers?’

‘Oh, yes. Several. She was a popular young woman. Mostly they were the usual sorts after the usual pleasures. But there was one even more persistent than myself. And Mitzi confided in me that this particular customer was less than appealing. It seems he wanted her to play the naughty girl so he could punish her. Well, it takes all kinds, I’m sure.’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘No. Mitzi was discreet about such things. You think this fellow could be involved in her death?’

‘You mentioned punishment. Perhaps he was a violent sort.’

‘But it is all theater at the Bower.’

Werthen said nothing.

‘I see what you mean. But perhaps play-acting got out of hand? Perhaps he hired her for a private meeting, even though such things were strictly forbidden?’

It sounded to Werthen as if Altenberg had firsthand experience of such attempted assignations.

‘But wait. I do have something that might help.’

He went over to the single chest of drawers in the room, rummaged about in the second drawer, and then pulled out a small leather notepad, examined the first page for the date, threw it back in the drawer and found another, read the date, and then leafed through the pages.

‘There. That’s the fellow.’

He came back to the table and thrust the notebook at Werthen. Drawn on the graphed paper was the likeness of a middle-aged man with furious Franz Josef side-whiskers and a full head of curly hair.

‘I drew this while waiting one night. He was ahead of me, you see. I never did get to see Mitzi that night.’

‘It’s well drawn.’

‘It’s actually also a very good likeness of the man.’

‘May I take it with me?’ Werthen asked.

‘If you think it might be of help, of course.’

He ripped it out of the notepad and handed it to Werthen, who in turn placed it for safe keeping in the pages of his own notebook.

‘You never mentioned how you discovered Mitzi, Herr Altenberg. Did you simply pick her out of the new arrivals?’

‘Not at all,’ Altenberg said, and then seemed to grow wary.

‘Herr Altenberg?’

‘I wouldn’t want to bring trouble to a friend.’

‘There will be no trouble if your friend has nothing to hide.’

‘True. But there is the matter of his new paramour . . . No, you are absolutely right, Advokat Werthen. Suddenly I develop bourgeois values. I was told about Mitzi by my dear friend Arthur Schnitzler.’

‘The writer?’

‘Yes. I was not aware of another.’

‘And he was a client of Mitzi’s?’

‘That you will have to ask Schnitzler.’

They talked for a few more minutes, but there seemed nothing more that Werthen could discover from Altenberg.

As he prepared to leave, the poet fixed him with a searing gaze: ‘I would do anything to help find Mitzi’s murderer. But, Advokat, I wonder that you do not suspect me.’

Werthen returned his gaze, pausing a beat.‘Who said I don’t?’

Fehrut was still inspecting the racing form as Werthen came down the stairs.