The Silence (20 page)

Then another entry from January 22:

The final entry was made on January 30:

The very next day Councilman Steinwitz was – as Gross had now partially proved – murdered in his Rathaus office.

Werthen could feel the excitement building in him. Was that what was behind all of this: a secret plan to sell off much of the Vienna Woods? But why? For what gain? And, what lengths would Lueger or his henchmen like Bielohlawek go to in order to stop publication of this intended sale? And what did Hans’s final cryptic message mean? What was lost? It could not refer to the death of Steinwitz, for that happened the next day, January 31. Or did Hans learn something about the murder beforehand? Is that what sent him off to America? And then a further thought: Could this scheme to sell off the Vienna Woods also be associated with the incidents in Laab im Walde yesterday?

Unfortunately, there was no way to ask these questions of Hans Wittgenstein, for he had given his family no return address when contacting them from New York.

Still, this truly was explosive information. If Hans Wittgenstein were accurate in the reporting in his journal, two deaths might very well be laid at the door of Mayor Lueger.

Herr Pokorny, it turned out, was almost a neighbor of Werthen’s in the Habsburgergasse. He ran a small pharmacy, was thick in the waist and small in the head, and nicely outraged at Werthen’s visit.

‘I cannot assist you. I do not know why Grundman gave you my name.’

‘You are on the deed. You are the one who listed the property. You are the one who countered my offer. Those are just a few of the reasons.’

Werthen had to resort to threats of a lawsuit claiming professional incompetence against Grundman to get the name out of him.

Pokorny lifted from the counter a large ceramic jar with
Kamillentee
, chamomile tea, written in blue glaze against a cream background. This he placed on a shelf about shoulder height behind the counter. The interior of the pharmacy was traditional in design, with elegantly tiled floor, an abundance of mahogany and brass, and overall the smell of respectability and
Protektion
, the connections with which businesses such as Pokorny’s Löwenherz pharmacy needed to open and stay in business. The issuance of new operating licenses was strictly controlled by the pharmacists’ guild and the city in order to control competition. Pokorny, oddly enough, did not look the sort to have such connections, nor did he, despite the white laboratory coat he wore, seem to have any scientific or professional inclinations.

He listened coolly to Werthen’s list of reasons for visiting him. ‘That proves nothing,’ he maintained.

Werthen lost what little patience he had with the man.

‘Understand this. My wife and child, along with my parents and close family friend, were threatened and abused on your property yesterday.’

‘That’s no matter for me. What were they doing there anyway?’

‘You know perfectly well what they were doing. Inspecting the property we were proposing to buy.’

‘That property is no longer on the market.’

‘It is still yours and you can be held responsible. In a court of law.’

This last statement got his attention. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph. That farm’s been a cross ever since my wife’s parents died and left it to her. A burden and a headache. Money to repair this, money to repair that. Money for taxes, money for land rehabilitation. I just want to be rid of it.’

‘You need to give me an explanation.’ Werthen looked at the man steadily.

‘They said not to mention it.’

‘Who?’

‘The fellows who came around yesterday. Doing a survey they were for the city, so they said. And they suddenly find that my wife’s property is sitting smack in the middle of other open and protected land in the woods. Well, what’s that to me?’

‘What was it to you?’

‘They made it clear, these men, that my property was no longer for sale. I would be hearing from important people who would give me a price for it. But I should take it off the market or else.’

‘Herr Pokorny, you are making no sense. Or else what?’

‘They take my business license away from me. That would be an end to it all. No license. How could we survive?’

Werthen turned to leave. He did not wait to hear any more complaints from Pokorny.

‘You’re so interested, where are you running off to?’

But Werthen did not bother to reply.

Only one entity could single-handedly revoke a business license: the Rathaus.

It was fitting that they take the
Stadtbahn
, Vienna’s metropolitan railway, for it was designed by Otto Wagner himself. Construction had begun in 1894 and was scheduled for completion next year. Wagner had done literally thousands of drawings for the massive urban rail system, employing a workshop of dozens of engineers and architects.

They were taking the River Wien Line from Karlsplatz in the center of the city all the way out to the Fourteenth District where Wagner lived. Until eight years ago this area had been merely green suburbs; now they were part of Vienna proper, the Rudolfsheim District.

On the way, Werthen was pleased to be the one regaling Gross with the startling news from Hans Wittgenstein’s diary and of his visit to the owner of the property in Laab im Walde.

Gross listened carefully, looking straight ahead at the granite walls surrounding their train as they sped westward along the trench-like carriageway. They were sitting in the first-class car of the railway; the other classes were not heated.

Gross continued to mull over what Werthen said for a few moments after he finished.

Finally he muttered, ‘As I suspected.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Werthen was damned if he was going to let the criminologist get away with such a preposterous claim.

Gross turned to look at him now. ‘Or perhaps I should have said as
we
suspected.’

‘Thank you, Gross.’

Werthen noticed a man sharing the first-class carriage with them – the only other passenger at this time of the day, for sensible people would be finding a cozy
Gasthaus
or inn where they might delight in a warm meal on this frigidly cold day. Werthen’s attention was caught at first by a resemblance in this man to someone else he was familiar with. It teased him, this similarity. The man, perhaps in his thirties, wore his curly, golden-brown hair short, a thin moustache graced his lip. It was the eyes, however, that held him. Deep-set, they looked out at the world with curiosity and a faint hint of disdain. Like a scent that recalls former times, these looks reminded Werthen of another man, perhaps older now, but with similar sensitive looks as a younger man.

The other thing that caught Werthen’s attention about this young man was that he was quite obviously trying to overhear their conversation. Well, perhaps not obvious to one unschooled in tricks of observation, but to Werthen it was plain to see the man was either a chronic eavesdropper, or that he wished to follow the course of their discussion.

Seated to the right across the aisle from Werthen and Gross and two rows forward, the man found ample excuse to turn back toward them, as if righting his muffler or brushing at lint on the left shoulder of his coat. He had taken up position on the aisle seat and was positioned at an angle so that he could attempt to see their reflection in the glass on his side of the car.

They were speaking in low tones, so Werthen did not believe that the man could hear him. Still it bothered him. Had someone put a spy on their trail?

Gross, seemingly oblivious to the man’s attentions, prattled on about Adele’s discovery last night and how angry she still was at the events in Laab im Walde. So angry in fact that she was now determined to aid in their investigations.

Suddenly he stopped, smiling at Werthen’s discomfort.

‘Not to worry, dear friend,’ he said. ‘Were he a professional, we would not be aware of his presence. Nor would he have chosen to ride in the same car as us, the only other passenger and thus so ridiculously obvious in his curiosity.’

They rode in silence the rest of the way to the penultimate stop, Hütteldorf-Hacking, right out in the greenery of the Vienna Woods itself.

They rose to exit the car, but their curious co-passenger remained on the train as it pulled out of the small station toward the terminus at Hütteldorf-Bad.

‘Typical Viennese,’ Gross said, dismissing the traveler as merely congenitally nosey, as most Viennese tended to be.

Out of the station, the two made their way to the nearby Hüttelbergstrasse where Wagner had his villa. They walked in silence, each deep in his own thoughts. The narrow street climbed steeply up into the woods with large villas on both sides surrounded by park-like settings.

A brief visit to Karl Kraus earlier had brought Werthen quite up to date on the private life of Oberbaurat Otto Wagner. Werthen knew that Wagner had built his villa here in 1888, to be used as a summerhouse for his growing family. All told, Wagner had seven children by three different relationships. Kraus was careful to term them relationships rather than marriages because the first of these was not consecrated. Wagner had two sons, Otto junior and Robert, by Sofie Anna Paupie, daughter of a well-to-do building contractor. Wagner’s domineering mother, however, would not approve marriage to this woman despite the fact that her father had earned an honorary ‘von’ to his name. Their ménage was ultimately torn apart by Madame Wagner.

‘A pliable sort of chap, our Oberbaurat Wagner, when it comes to certain women,’ was Kraus’s trenchant comment on this state of affairs.

Wagner’s first wife, Josephine Domhart, who was his mother’s choice rather than his own, was the mother of two daughters, Susanna and Margarete, the second of whom had died in adolescence. With the death of Wagner’s mother, the architect finally determined to leave the unhappy marriage with Josephine, and in 1884 he shocked much of Vienna by his marriage to the much younger Louise Stiffel, governess to his daughter Susanne. Theirs appeared to be a true love marriage according to Kraus, and three children resulted from the union: Stefan, Louise, and Christine.

It was for this third ‘family’ that Wagner had built the villa, and they were just approaching it now at Hüttelbergstrasse 26. Sitting stately on a hillock above road level, the building was a graceful Palladian structure, with a central portion reached by an impressive range of steps leading to a magnificent portal entrance. Four large pillars decorated the balustrade, each covered in vertical bands of colored porcelain. Statues of Greek gods were fitted into niches on each side of the entrance. This central rectangular living section was further elongated by a pergola at each end. These had latterly been converted into a spacious living room at one end and into Wagner’s home studio at the other, its windows done in stained glass. This summerhouse had now become Wagner’s year-round abode.

The spacious and dignified villa was made utterly bourgeois by a white picket fence surrounding the grounds at street level; Werthen had to check a laugh as he and Gross went through the main gate and made their way up the wide flight of marble stairs to the front entrance. Painted wrought iron in a riot of design served as a balustrade for the entrance porch; plaster relief work of cupids at play filled three friezes over the door. Similar relief work decorated the overhanging sections of the slightly peaked roof.

How much must such a home cost? Werthen wondered. And how could Wagner, who was essentially a university professor, afford such a place? After all, everyone knew that his building designs were more often discussed than built. His work on the metropolitan railway and the regulation of the River Wien and the Danube Canal was in no way remunerated in accord with the countless hours he had put into these projects, the thousands of sketches he had made in their planning. During the hectic years of the
Stadtbahn
construction, Wagner’s studio employed a staff of seventy architects, engineers, and draftsmen. Other city buildings by Wagner had been constructed on speculation; he would occupy them for a time, but then always sell them. This villa, however, was his family seat and substantial enough for an archduke. In fact, rumor had it that it was initially intended for Crown Prince Rudolf, but that Wagner’s wife had so fallen in love with it that the architect withdrew his commission to the Hofburg. Which might account for difficulties Wagner had in winning commissions from the emperor.

Meanwhile, Gross had begun rapping on the large front door. After a second round of knocks, they heard footsteps echoing on floor tiles from inside and then the door opened.

Much to Werthen’s surprise, it was the same fellow from the
Stadtbahn
who opened the door, coat still in hand as if about to hang it up.

‘Oh . . . Hello,’ he said in recognition. ‘You must be the detective fellows Father was mentioning.’

‘That is quite all right, Otto Emmerich.’ These words came from a small, round woman who looked rather like a defiant pigeon. She bustled to the door. ‘I shall welcome our guests.’

She seemed put out that Otto junior should have answered the door and not she. The man was clearly Wagner’s illegitimate oldest son, whom he had in fact adopted and given his surname, and who, Kraus had told Werthen, had trained as an architect and sometimes worked with his father. The female pigeon must be Frau Wagner, Werthen surmised. Clearly no mere housekeeper could be as curt as she was to young Wagner.