The Silence (18 page)

Werthen felt his anger rise and knew his face was growing red.

‘You silly man,’ he said. ‘
You
pay the apprentice fee, or didn’t you know that? I should have you taken to court for non-support of your son.’

‘Now hold on,’ Beer said, shaking his palms at Werthen to calm him. ‘It was just a suggestion.’

‘Or better yet, take your urchin back with you to the
Zwingburg
where he belongs. I will not be extorted by the likes of you. Yes, that is the very thing. Come with us this very moment and take the boy with you. It’s about time you took on the responsibilities of a father.’

‘Your Magistrate, please listen to reason,’ the man all but wailed. ‘I had no idea of the fine situation my wonderful boy had landed himself in. I’m not trying to pestulate things for him. No, none of that. I’m his dear loving father. Just give him my best and tell him to wash his hands. Little beast never did like washing up. We can just forget we ever had this meeting, right?’

‘And you will not attempt to contact the boy again,’ Werthen said.

‘Never a thought of it,’ Beer said.

‘Then be off with you.’

Beer tipped his dented derby at Werthen then at Gross.

‘And Beer,’ Werthen said, digging into his vest pocket and extracting a crown. He flicked the coin in a gentle arc to the man, who caught it with alacrity.

‘Get some good food in you,’ Werthen told him.

Beer did everything but bite the coin, so excited was he by his good fortune.

‘That’s the first and last from me,’ Werthen said with his courtroom voice.

‘Yes, sir,’ Beer replied. ‘This is the last of Erdmann Beer you’ll be seeing.’

He was gone and Gross looked askance at Werthen. ‘He’ll only spend it on liquor.’

‘I suppose so. He’s got little enough else.’

‘Do I hear the quivering beginnings of a social conscience?’

Werthen shrugged away the question. A moment later he began laughing to himself.

‘Might one inquire what is so humorous?’ Gross asked.

‘It just struck me,’ Werthen said. ‘His name. Erdmann Beer. A fruit, just like his son.’

‘Are you quite all right, Werthen?’

‘You see, we call the boy Huck because his name is Heidl Beer, which if put together means blueberry or huckleberry.’

Gross gazed at him, seemingly unimpressed.

‘As in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.’

‘Ah, quite,’ Gross said. ‘And let me then finish your thought. Herr Erdmann Beer’s Christian name could be shortened to Erd. Say both names together quickly and you have –
Erdbeer
, a strawberry.’

Gross could not restrain himself. He now enjoyed a low chuckle at the absurdity of the names.

‘But,’ he quickly returned to his usual stern demeanor, ‘this is not getting our case solved. First we must send off Praetor’s evidence. Secondly, the crime scene photos from the Rathausmight have been delivered by now. Thirdly, your attacker adds a new dimension. I should think it is time we seek an interview with Mayor Lueger.’

Twelve

L
ueger, however, would have to wait. A visit to the spa at Bad Ischl had taken the mayor out of town for several days.

There was a flurry of rumors surrounding this visit. The official Rathausline was that Lueger was leading a Viennese trade delegation to the famous Austrian spa – Franz Josef himself summered in Bad Ischl – in hopes of securing contracts for a Viennese glassmaker who had perfected a new process to make the thick-walled, flask-shaped drinking glasses spa guests used. Such flat glasses were extremely handy as they could be easily carried in the patient’s pocket as he strolled from fountain to fountain.

The Vienna rumor mills, such as
Neues Wiener Journal
and other ‘tabloids’ as they were recently dubbed, had it instead that Doktor KarlLueger was taking the cure himself for an unnamed but very serious complaint. Journalists doubling as spa cognoscenti even attempted a diagnosis of the mayor’s supposed complaints: Bad Ischl was known for high salt and sulfur content in the water and attracted those in search of relief from respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Other spas, such as Baden bei Wien, Marienbad, Karlsbad or Baden Baden, were noted for water with high carbon dioxide content or temperature, appropriate for nervous disorders and digestive complaints, or for their therapeutic mud baths that relieved joint pains, rheumatism, even eczema. Thus, these
knowledgeable
journalists opined in their tattler columns: Lueger most definitely had a heart problem.

But Werthen was not worried about the mayor’s health this morning. He had a far more unnerving task than long-distance diagnosis. Indeed, in light of the attack he suffered two days ago this task bordered on the reckless, for he was once again in the company of Councilman Bielohlawek, the very man, Werthen assumed, who commissioned the attack upon him.

Gross, however, said the risk was worth it. Easy enough for Gross to say; he would not be playing decoy.

It was all because of the crime scene photographs. Gross, an expert in numerous unexpected fields, also seemed to be one on carpet patterns. In this case it was the Ushak medallion carpet that was in Bielohlawek’s office and that had, according to the photographs received from Meindl, been there also at the time of Steinwitz’s death. As Gross noted, this particular carpet specimen was almost certainly seventeenth century from West Anatolia, and though much of the design was in iodized browns and ochre, it was happily much lighter than some of the deeper maroon carpets of a later period. In the black and white photographs supplied by Meindl, Gross could detect, amid the fecundity of floral ornamentation, a darker patterning that was not part of the design. He would make no further comment on what he could see in the photographs other than that he had to get into Bielohlawek’s office and inspect the carpet first-hand.

Thus Werthen was seated in the Café Landtmann just across the Ring from the Rathaus attempting to make small talk.

‘Let us just forget it, shall we?’ Bielohlawek said. ‘As you say, you cannot be held responsible for your colleague’s speech.’

‘I just wanted you to know, face to face, that I did not approve. Herr Doktor Gross can sometimes be a bit . . . well, exasperating. Calling you a civil servant.’ Werthen shook his head in disapproval. ‘It was not what I had expected. And I do so very much appreciate you meeting me like this.’

‘
Aber, bitte
.’ Bielohlawek shrugged the apology away.

‘Allow me to treat you to a bit of strudel as a small sign of my regard. Never too early for a bit of fruit, eh, Councilman?’

‘I really should not.’ Then Bielohlawek glanced at the confectionery cart that Werthen had beckoned over to their table. His greedy eyes fell on a
Nusstorte
, and it was love at first sight.

‘Perhaps just a bite,’ he said. ‘It will be a long day for me.’

Gross did not know how long he had. He told Werthen to keep the gorilla occupied for half an hour. But there was no assurance he would be able to do so. Gross entered the Rathausby the trade entrance in one of the interior courts. Unfortunately he wasted several minutes trying to then find his way to the second floor of the main staircase, yet he could not have simply entered the main doors, for the former staff sergeant would be seated there directing visitor traffic.

Finally he worked his way along the warren of hallways and stairs to the main staircase, and from there followed the route he knew to Bielohlawek’s office. The hallway was clear. He quickly fetched his key pick out of his breast pocket. The lock on the door was a simple mortise variety with pin-and-tumbler mechanism. Inserting the pick, he expertly tripped the pins out of the cylinder as he’d had occasion to do dozens of times as an investigating magistrate in Graz. Truth be told, the experience still gave him a small frisson, a delighted shiver at this quasi-illicit behavior. In Graz, the deed would be done with warrant in hand. No such conveyances here, however. Though he might have been able to persuade Drechsler to get him entrée to the office officially, such a move would have given away his suspicions to the councilman. And Gross was very much beginning to look in Bielohlawek’s direction for a connection to the deaths of Steinwitz and Praetor.

As the lock clicked open, he glanced quickly over both shoulders: still clear.

Inside, Gross lost no time in setting to work. Bielohlawek’s office was well lit by a large window looking down on to the Ringstrasse. Thus, no need to turn on a lamp and risk attracting attention. The primary tool he needed was in the large pocket of his overcoat: a folding magnifying glass made in Birmingham from sterling silver, a birthday gift from Adele. Gross loved the design with a single strip of silver doubled over itself as the handle. The lens could then be folded sideways into the thin cavity created between the two sides of the handle. The lens itself was six-power magnification; any stronger and it would have been too difficult to use by hand. In the same pocket he had a smaller folding lens at ten and twenty times magnification for use once he identified a particular spot for examination.

Gross had not been able to bring the crime scene photographs with him for Meindl had insisted they be returned by courier last evening. He had, however, a mental picture of them and knew exactly what he was looking for. But something was wrong. The pattern of the carpet suddenly seemed at variance with what he had seen in the photographs. Was this the same carpet after all? The poppy and duck motif in the lower left quadrant seemed simply to be missing. Or was his memory faulty?

Gross felt the time slipping away; how long could Werthen entertain the councilman? And where were the telltale poppies?

A sudden inspiration led him to examine the lower right quadrant of the carpet. Yes. That was it. Whoever had printed the crime scene photographs had accidentally reversed the image, easy enough to do from a negative. What he had seen in the left side of the photographs was actually then on the right side of the actual carpet.

This problem solved, Gross did not bother to divest himself of his overcoat or his derby hat. He got down to his knees and closely examined the carpet in the regions he had found suspicious in the photographs. It took less than a minute to find the first example. His heart was racing as he found a second and then a third and fourth similar smudge, each growing a trace darker nearer the desk. In all, Gross tallied six such smudges, each a small elliptical shape, the curves pointing toward the door. No need for the stronger magnifying glass; he knew what this was. He took out a roll of measuring tape from another pocket and stretched it between smudges. The first pair closest to the desk was one hundred and two centimeters apart; from the second to the third smudge was a distance of ninety-eight centimeters. The distances continued to decline, until the last pair spanned eighty-six centimeters.

Satisfied, Gross was just rolling his tape when he heard footsteps outside the door. They suddenly stopped at the door. He hadn’t locked it. A stupid oversight. The handle began to turn. With no time for subtlety, Gross moved with the alacrity of a man half his age.

The door opened inward and the bullish-looking fellow from the other day, Kulowski, the one Werthen had said was Lueger’s bodyguard, poked his large head into the room.

‘Hermann? Time for
Wurstsemmel
and beer.’

Getting no response, the man stepped briefly into the office, breathed heavily, muttered ‘
Scheisse
,’ and left, closing the door behind him.

Gross, crouched under the desk and viewing the man through a crack in its front apron, let out a sigh of relief. He forced himself to wait another two minutes, and then crawled out of the cramped space and brushed off his knees. He’d made such a rush of getting under the desk that he had badly dented his new derby. That would take a bit of explaining to Adele.

Werthen could no longer keep Bielohlawek without making him suspicious. He walked with him partway back toward the Rathaus.

‘We must do this again, Advokat. Perhaps we might even have some work for a smart young yid like you, eh? Scratch each other’s back. You know Lueger’s philosophy. He’s the one to decide who’s a Jew and who’s not.’

Werthen was so astounded by the crassness of Bielohlawek’s comments that he was speechless. He found himself smiling like a harlequin at the ignorant beast when a part of his brain wanted only to attack the fool with his walking stick and feel the satisfying crunch of skull under the brass knob. It was one thing to hear rumors of such outlandish behavior, quite another to experience such blatant prejudice first-hand.

Bielohlawek tipped his top hat and made off across the broad boulevard. Still speechless, Werthen could only watch the man leave, hoping that Gross had gotten out of the office by now.

‘The man’s more of a fool than I took him for initially.’

Werthen spun around at the voice. Gross was grinning at him from one of the benches lining the Ring, huddled in his coat with derby drawn down over his eyes. There was, Werthen registered, a V-shaped dent in the hat.

‘You may be a “yid,” but I dare the man to say again that you are young.’

The comment made Werthen smile, losing some of the anger he felt.

‘That was fast.’

Gross beamed up at him. ‘Yes. And productive.’

They had taken a private carriage.

Over the objections of her mother-in-law, Berthe had brought Frieda with her. The baby had slept most of the way to Laab im Walde, lulled by the rocking motion of the vehicle and the rhythmic clopping of the four pairs of hooves. Meanwhile Herr von Werthen stuck his nose in a copy of the latest auction catalogue from the state-run Wiener Versatz- und Fragamt, or Viennese Pawn and Query Bureau. Though its new headquarters in the Dorotheergasse were not yet finished, many Viennese were already calling the state-run pawnshop by a new name, the Dorotheum. Also in the carriage, Adele Gross and Frau von Werthen made small talk about country homes and the importance of roots.