The Keeper of Hands (18 page)

‘It was not my intention. Events, however, outpace us.’

‘I thought I heard voices.’

Werthen and Gross turned to see Berthe standing in the doorway between the sitting room and kitchen, wearing a fashionable Japanese kimono as a bathrobe.

‘Frau Meisner.’ Gross stood and nodded his head at her.

‘Please sit, Gross. You haven’t come to ruin our weekend, have you?’

Accused twice of the same crime, Gross was human enough to hang his head guiltily.

‘I assure you—’

‘It’s alright, Gross,’ Werthen said. Then to Berthe, ‘Coffee?’

‘Mmm.’

He took this as assent, and filled a cup for her. A sleep wrinkle scarred her left cheek. She yawned as she sat to join them.

‘Frieda could sleep through a hurricane,’ she said, taking the cup happily. ‘Whatever are you doing riding in one of those machines, Gross? The stink woke me up.’

Gross sighed. ‘I am simply the messenger, good folk. Please do not kill me.’

‘The messenger of what?’ Werthen said. ‘And how are we outpaced by events, as you say?’

‘All will be explained,’ Gross said. ‘But meanwhile we have been summoned.’

‘The weekend, Gross. I will have a weekend with my family.’

‘Archdukes do not respect weekends.’

‘No.’ Berthe said it as if it were an expletive.

‘Franz Ferdinand?’ Werthen said in wonder.

‘The very same.’ Gross once again eyed the apron and lederhosen. ‘You might want to change for the occasion.’

Their driver turned out to be the loquacious type, which was fine by Werthen, for even though he and Gross sat on the back bench of the open carriage, anything they said could be overheard. Instead, they listened to Private Ferdinand Porsche as he extolled the virtues of the machine carrying them at a brisk pace along the dirt roads of the Vienna Woods towards Vienna.

‘She’s a beauty of a vehicle, and that’s for sure,’ the young man enthused. ‘What we call a hybrid. Runs on both gas and electricity.’

‘Ingenious,’ Gross said through tight lips as he held on to the side rail of the bench with a fearful grip.

‘The very word, sir,’ Porsche said, glancing back at them from time to time, his youthful face made to look older by a wide hussar’s moustache. ‘She’ll do upward of sixty kilometers an hour if I let her loose.’

Which statement made Gross audibly gulp.

‘Perhaps we can save the high speeds for the race track,’ Werthen advised. ‘This is a comfortable pace.’

Werthen soon understood why Gross’s cheeks were red when he arrived this morning. Sitting high above the road as they were, the wind played at their faces as they sped along the lanes. A pair of goggles would not go amiss, he thought. They both soon took their hats off, to stop them blowing away.

‘I was none too pleased when I got my call-up notice,’ Porsche said. ‘That’s not to say I am not a loyal Austrian, born in Bohemia. “Ferdinand,” I said to myself when I saw the notice, “Ferdinand, you’re off to the Balkans to some lonely outpost for two years.” Instead, I became the chauffeur to the Archduke himself. Quite an honor.’

‘It is indeed,’ Werthen said, enjoying the young man’s enthusiasm. ‘Had you much experience with such vehicles?’

This brought a honking laugh from the private. ‘Sorry, sir. Not to be rude, but yes, I have a fair amount of experience. I designed this little buggy myself.’

‘
You
did?’ Gross spluttered.

‘The Lohner-Porsche system, it’s called. Porsche. That would be yours truly.’

Werthen had, of course, heard of Jacob Lohner, who produced carriages for Franz Joseph as well as various other European royals. Lohner had also begun production of an electric horseless carriage in his Floridsdorf factory. Lohner was naturally the name one remembered. Just as with Martini & Rossi’s vermouth. Who ever remembered the Rossi part? Poor Porsche, Werthen thought. Destined to obscurity because his name came second.

‘Bravo for you,’ Werthen said with gusto, as if to make up for the man’s eventual anonymity.

‘It’s the future, I always say. We are riding into the future.’

Gross, Werthen noticed, closed his eyes briefly at this comment, as if he desired a time machine traveling in the opposite direction.

Before they realized it, they had reached macadamized roads leading to Vienna’s fourth district and the Belvedere, where Franz Ferdinand made his office. They had made the Archduke’s acquaintance once before, in 1898, when investigating a case that took them to the very doors of the Hofburg, the Habsburg seat of power.

Werthen wondered what the Archduke could have in mind for them this time.

Soon their vehicle pulled into the long circular drive of the Lower Belvedere. Franz Ferdinand, as heir apparent to the Austrian throne, was eager to assume some leadership position and impatient with his uncle, Franz Josef, who seemed to be living for ever; the old man had already been ruling for over half a century. The Archduke had therefore installed at this former palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy what was often referred to as ‘the Clandestine Cabinet’ – a sort of shadow General Staff, formally known as the Military Chancellery, ready to assume power when his uncle stepped down or died. Thus, he kept his hand in both military and diplomatic matters, often at odds with his uncle and with the General Staff, and always an enemy of the Court Chamberlain, Prince Montenuovo, who protected court etiquette and greatly disapproved of Franz Ferdinand’s morganatic marriage to a ‘commoner’. The Archduke’s wife, Sophie von Chotek, was a mere countess with just sixteen quarterings of major nobility in her blood line, far too few to make an adequate Habsburg match, according to the Court Chamberlain, who himself was the product of a less than appropriate marriage between the Habsburg Archduchess Marie Louise and an officer of her guard. All of Vienna followed this enmity with the eager expectancy of an audience at a Lehar operetta. What new indignity would the Court Chamberlain submit the Archduke and his wife to next? Would Franz Ferdinand ever get his own back on Montenuovo? Thus far, the Archduke had sought revenge simply by spending as much time away from Vienna as he could, ensconced in his Bohemian castle of Konopiste.

A liveried servant awaited them at the columned entrance to the Lower Belvedere. They descended from the horseless carriage, bid adieu to the resourceful Private Porsche, and followed the servant not inside to the Archduke’s offices but along the side of the massive building to the gardens. Just as with their first meeting with Franz Ferdinand, they once again met in his rose garden. The Archduke, in addition to being a frustrated heir apparent to Franz Josef’s extreme longevity and an ardent hunter, was an enthusiastic gardener; and roses were his specialty.

Just as last time, Franz Ferdinand was at work in the rose beds, in a light-blue cavalry tunic and red breeches. His secateurs snipped at the long-stemmed tea roses while a liveried servant gathered the stems into a basket for bouquets.

Missing today was the array of medals the Archduke had worn last time, Werthen noticed as they approached. He was still amazed at the diminutive size of the man; in photographs he always appeared larger than life.

As they drew nearer, Franz Ferdinand turned to face the pair. His rather bulging oversized bright-blue eyes twinkled as he recognized them.

‘Ah, so you have accepted my invitation.’

‘One hardly refuses an Archduke, your Imperial and Royal Highness,’ Gross said.

A sardonic grin softened the Archduke’s features, making his moustache quiver. ‘So you know the proper address for a Crown Prince? Court etiquette from a criminalist. Bravo, Doktor Gross. And you, Herr Advokat,’ he said, turning his glistening eyes on Werthen. ‘None too worse the wear I see for your duel.’

‘No, your Highness.’

‘An interesting solution to our little problem,’ Franz Ferdinand said, referring to Werthen’s desperate gambit several years ago.

A tall, lanky figure appeared out of the shadows deeper in the garden.

‘Yes, Duncan. Please join us. You two remember my bodyguard, I am sure.’

Both Gross and Werthen nodded.

Duncan had saved their lives more than once in that earlier adventure. The scar down his cheek gave the Scotsman a ferocious appearance, though in actuality it was merely the result of a terrier bite and the subsequent ministrations of an incompetent surgeon when he was a boy.

‘Gentlemen,’ Duncan said, tipping his hat to them. He managed to place a thick glottal stop into the English word, imbuing it with a heavy Scots accent, which reminded Werthen that Duncan came into the Archduke’s service after saving Franz Ferdinand’s life on a Highland hunting expedition.

‘I never had a chance to thank you for your service,’ Werthen said.

‘No need to mention it, sir,’ the wraith-like Scot responded.

‘But to business,’ Franz Ferdinand said, handing the secateurs to a servant, who departed, leaving the four of them alone in the garden.

Franz Ferdinand waited until the servant was well out of earshot. He cleared his throat. ‘Feels like rain.’

The sky overhead was still radiantly blue.

‘The weather can be changeable this time of year, your Highness,’ Gross replied. There was, however, a sarcastic edge to his voice that did not escape the Archduke.

Franz Ferdinand smiled again. ‘Yes, quite right. I should get to the matter at hand. After all, it is the sacred weekend, is it not? I understand that the populace has grown quite fond of its weekends. Leisure time, I believe it is called. I shall soon return you to your weekend, never fear. But, as with the last time we met, I have information that you might want.’

Which meant, Werthen translated, the Archduke wanted to use them to do some of his own dirty work.

‘I understand that you are looking into the death of the unfortunate Count Joachim von Ebersdorf.’

‘That we are,’ Gross said.

‘May I inquire why?’

Both Gross and Werthen paused a moment, glancing at one another.

‘Is it such a great secret?’ Franz Ferdinand asked.

‘His death pertains to inquiries we are making, your Highness,’ Gross said.

‘That is self-evident. What inquiries?’

‘The death of a young . . . woman.’ Gross was obviously searching for a euphemism appropriate to an archduke’s sensibilities. ‘Of a certain persuasion.’

‘You mean a tart,’ Franz Ferdinand said bluntly.

Werthen continued to let Gross take the lead; he enjoyed seeing the great man stumble.

‘Yes,’ said Gross, as if confessing to a crime.

‘Should I surmise that the connection between Joachim and this girl was of a professional sort?’

The Archduke’s use of the Count’s Christian name did not go unobserved by either Werthen or Gross.

‘That would be a sound surmise, your Highness.’

Franz Ferdinand sighed, returning to his roses for a moment and gently cupping an elegant bud as one might lovingly lift the head of an infant.

Turning back to them, he said, ‘The death was reported as natural. Why do you suspect foul play?’

Gross had regained his equilibrium, and puffed out his chest as he replied. ‘I find it quite curious, your Highness, that no one else at the banquet was afflicted by this tainted shellfish. I also question the propinquity of events. The Count died just days after the murder of the young woman in question.’

‘Propinquity and causality are two quite distinct things, Doktor Gross.’

Gross thumped his sternum, a most uncharacteristic thing for him to do.

‘I feel it. Here. The result of decades of working with murder and mayhem. One has an instinctive sense of these things, your Highness.’

It was a surprisingly impassioned speech for Gross, Werthen thought. This case was affecting them both in a most personal way.

‘If I may,’ Werthen said. ‘There is a straightforward way to determine this.’

‘Exhumation,’ Gross added.

‘Was there no autopsy done at the time of death?’

‘None,’ Gross said. ‘The medical chaps took it as a clear case of food poisoning from tainted shellfish. Arsenic poisoning exactly mimics acute gastroenteritis.’

‘But it’s been what – a month?’

‘Three weeks, your Highness,’ Gross said. ‘Count von Ebersdorf died three weeks ago today. Because arsenic is a metallic poison, it can be detected in the body even years after death. There is a test—’

‘Yes, the Marsh test,’ the Archduke said, amazing them both. ‘A method for converting arsenic in body tissues and fluids into arsine gas. I had my suspicions, as well, you see.’

Franz Ferdinand paused to consider this information. As with the first time he was in the presence of the Archduke, Werthen was impressed with the difference between the man’s mannered, thoughtful behavior and his reputation for bellicosity and posturing. Those at Court who did not like him, Prince Montenuovo foremost among them, had done their work well, filling the press and the people’s imagination with a caricature ogre of a man, a slaughterer of animals and a warmonger to boot. Werthen saw no traces of such characteristics, mostly left behind in the Archduke’s youth.

‘I sense the Count was a personal friend,’ Gross said, interrupting the Archduke’s ruminations. ‘I assure you, I do not make these assertions lightly.’

‘I wish to spare his family unnecessary distress.’

‘I am sure you also wish them to see justice done.’

‘The young woman . . .’

Again, Werthen spoke up. ‘This can be handled delicately.’ But he knew such a promise was impossible to keep; once an investigation was initiated, there was no controlling the direction it would take. One thing only was certain: the Count was not Fräulein Mitzi’s killer. He was long dead by the time of Fräulein Fanny’s death, and it was abundantly clear that both deaths were by the same hand.

‘I sh-shall see about permission for exhumation,’ Franz Ferdinand finally said.

The Archduke was clearly moved, Werthen could see, even reverting to the stuttering of his youth, a condition that he had largely cured, along with tuberculosis, as a young man during the course of an around-the-world voyage.

‘You say you had suspicions of foul play, your Highness,’ Gross said. ‘May I ask why?’