The Keeper of Hands (24 page)

‘Advokat Werthen. Odd meeting you like this.’

‘Fine day for a walk,’ Werthen said by way of reply. ‘You haven’t met my colleague, Doktor Gross.’

‘Good day to you,’ Gross said, nodding his head, his forefinger and thumb to the front brim of his bowler hat.

Siegfried said nothing, just squinted at Gross. There was towel lint, Werthen noticed, caught in the stubble just below his left ear. He had washed, but not shaved.

‘I have to do my shopping,’ Siegfried said, about to move off.

‘I think it might be wise to talk with us first.’

‘I’ve got nothing to talk to you about. You don’t work for us anymore.’

‘I either talk to you first or go directly to the police,’ Werthen said.

Siegfried shrugged his shoulders. ‘Fine. Go talk to them, then. They were friends, both of them, Fräulein Mitzi and Fanny. I’ve told you all I know.’

‘Actually,’ Gross said, his voice assuming the rich sonority it took on when giving evidence in court, ‘it was in reference to a different matter. The death of Count von Ebersdorf.’

‘
Der Alte?
My sister already explained why we said we didn’t recognize the sketch. We protect the anonymity of our more esteemed clientele. I only saw him now and again at the Bower. They say he died of food poisoning.’

‘He was not so old,’ Gross said. ‘And he didn’t die because of bad shellfish.’

Siegfried began to lose his aggressive demeanor, chewing on the inside of his mouth and assessing the situation.

‘A cup of coffee might be in order,’ Werthen said. ‘Don’t you think so, Siegfried?’

He made no reply, but followed them as Werthen made his way to Himmelpfortgasse and his usual coffee-house, the Café Frauenhuber. Herr Otto, who was on duty, bade them a hearty good day.

‘It’s been too long since we’ve seen you, Advokat.’

To which Werthen smiled and said, ‘Perhaps a corner table, Herr Otto? A bit of privacy.’

‘But of course.’ The headwaiter led them through a maze of marble-topped tables, around Thonet chairs and red-velvet benches to a banquette in the deepest corner of the establishment. A student had spread out his papers on the table, but Otto efficiently and politely informed the young man that the table was reserved, and would it not please the young gentleman to take the fine table nearer the window where the light was better?

The young gentleman was not overjoyed at the suggestion until Otto offered him a refill of his mocha.

Werthen had once proved the headwaiter innocent of petty theft at another establishment and had won the man’s allegiance for ever. A handy thing in Vienna, the loyalty of the Herr Ober at a coffee-house.

Siegfried had watched the affair with interest. ‘So that’s the way you folks make your way in the world, is it?’ he said after Otto had brought their drinks and left again.

‘Not much different from how
you
folks make your way,’ Gross rebutted. ‘Connections, connections. They bind the world.’

They sat, Siegfried between them. His momentary silence had allowed him to regain some of his old bluster.

‘So, what’s this all about, then?’

‘You had no contact with von Ebersdorf?’ Werthen asked.

‘He was a client. We were hardly pals.’

‘He was Fräulein Mitzi’s regular.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Did she ever talk about him?’

‘What was there to talk about? It was a business matter, not love.’

‘You’re certain of that?’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘The truth, for starters,’ Gross interjected. ‘You see, we have come across a bit of interesting information. It seems you were among the temporary help at the Hotel Excelsior the day of the banquet at which von Ebersdorf died.’

‘So? I help out there a lot. I have dreams, you know. Ambitions. I don’t always want to be herding women around the Bower. I want to become a chef some day. I learn on the job.’

‘I would not put that particular day on your résumé, if I were you,’ Gross said. ‘Poison is hardly among the accepted culinary ingredients.’

‘It was the shellfish. They all said so. Besides, I was just the sous-chef that day. One of several. What? Is the great Chef Marcel trying to shift the blame? He chose the shellfish.’

‘Peculiar that nobody else was taken ill, don’t you think?’ Werthen asked.

‘I didn’t get paid to think. I just got the ingredients ready.’

‘It was the fact that only Count von Ebersdorf was affected by the tainted shellfish that made me curious,’ Gross said.

Siegfried looked back and forth between them, his eyes narrowing to slits, his incisors working the inside of his mouth again.

‘What are you two getting at?’

‘Count von Ebersdorf didn’t die of food poisoning,’ Gross said.

‘Yes he did. They said so in the papers.’

‘No. I rather think the man was poisoned by some enemy who was present at the hotel restaurant. Who had access to his food?’

‘The man’s in the ground. Pretty hard to prove that now.’

‘Well, actually, Herr Mutzenbacher,’ Gross began, ‘that is not accurate. Last I saw of the poor man, he was on an autopsy table at the General Hospital.’

‘That’s impossible. I read about his funeral. It was weeks ago now.’

‘Yes, to be sure.’

Werthen could see that Gross was toying with Siegfried now. Not exactly a cat with a mouse, but toying nonetheless. Hoping the man would panic, get flustered, offer up a tacit confession.

Siegfried must have felt this too, for suddenly it was as if a curtain were drawn over his face. He shut down, let his eyes go blank, said nothing.

‘In point of fact,’ Gross continued, ‘the body was exhumed. Aren’t you interested in knowing what we discovered?’

Siegfried made no reply.

‘Poison,’ Gross said. ‘Arsenic poison. That was the cause of death. Whoever killed von Ebersdorf was clever enough to know that arsenic can mimic the effects of food poisoning, but was not clever enough to know that arsenic remains in the body for a very long time
post mortem
.’

There was continued silence from Siegfried.

‘Talk with us or we go to the police with this information,’ Werthen reminded him.

Still nothing. Then, after another instant, Siegfried suddenly stood.

‘I have to be going now, gentlemen. Shopping to do. Hungry girls to feed at lunch.’

‘If you are innocent, it is far better for you to talk to us now. Clear up any misunderstandings.’

He said nothing, picking up his empty baskets and waiting for Werthen to move off the red-velvet bench and allow him to leave.

‘It’s only a matter of time, you know,’ Werthen said to him as he passed. ‘So many working in the kitchen that day. Someone is sure to remember something. Seeing somebody tamper with the food, or mark a plate as being specially for von Ebersdorf. Some pharmacist is going to remember the person who purchased arsenic for poisoning vermin.’

But he slipped past Werthen without further comment.

They watched him leave the café. There was nothing they could do to stop him.

‘That went well,’ Gross said, stirring his half-empty cup of coffee.

It took them over ninety minutes to be allowed in for an audience. By that time, Gross’s stomach was beginning to make rather disturbing sounds.

‘The man treats us like we’re his employees,’ complained the ravenous criminologist.

‘We are, Gross.’

‘Never,’ he said with a degree of passion uncommon for him before his first glass of Vetliner. ‘We . . . Well, at least you, are a private inquiry agent. A free-lance in the most literal and knightly sense of the word. We choose what cases to investigate.’

‘Do we earn money by so doing?’

‘Hardly the point.’

But Werthen would not let him off. ‘It
is
the point. We are paid for our services, sometimes quite handsomely. I would call that a form of employment.’

‘And ergo, Franz Ferdinand is the boss and can keep his underlings waiting.’

At which point the Archduke himself came bustling into the antechamber, right hand outstretched, a concerned expression on his face.

‘My dear sirs,’ he said as he got to them, and shook first one hand and then the other. ‘They have just told me you were waiting. I do beg your pardon.’

At which comment, Gross shot Werthen a self-satisfied look.

Franz Ferdinand cast a glance at an ormolu clock resting on the marble mantle of the room’s one fireplace.

‘You two have been waiting right through lunch. You must be famished.’

Werthen was about to voice a polite denial when Gross jumped in.

‘I am hungry enough to eat the nether parts of a skunk, if you must know, your Highness.’

Franz Ferdinand let out a quite unmanly giggle at this comment. Werthen felt his own face reddening: Gross had to be light-headed from lack of nutrition to use such language in front of the Archduke.

‘Well, we shall have to do something about that, shan’t we? Cook came up with a very passable venison ragout for lunch. I wouldn’t doubt there is a bite or two left.’

‘That would be heavenly, your Highness,’ Gross told him.

The Archduke tugged on the brocade pull by the fireplace, and a liveried servant appeared instantly, as if popping out of a rabbit hole. Franz Ferdinand gave orders brusquely, and the man hastened off.

‘You can dine in my office, gentlemen. I assume you have news for me?’

He did not wait for an answer, but set off with a rapid clacking of boots on the parquet, out of the anteroom and down a long sun-filled corridor whose one wall was covered with oil paintings marking the high points of Habsburg history. On the other side of the corridor, a bank of tall windows gave out on to the magnificent gardens below, with Vienna in the distance, the spires of the churches the highest man-made structures visible. It was a scene that filled Werthen with a quiet pride in his city of residence, that made him want to explore its quiet squares and little-known lanes. They were in the Upper Belvedere today, the higher of the two palaces in these splendid grounds, the summer palace, as it was called. Franz Ferdinand maintained his shadow government in the Lower Belvedere, but in the warmer months would repair to the airier upper palace for relaxation.

They both had to hurry to keep up with the Archduke as he made his way along the corridor and around to the side of the palace, to a suite of rooms that seemed large enough to hold a court ball. Of this opulent space – its walls bearing tapestries and enormous oil paintings in the Makart style – the Archduke appeared to be using one small corner, which contained a modest desk and a comfortable-looking leather chair.

No sooner did they arrive in the room than a scurry of servants appeared carrying chairs, small side tables, and table settings for Werthen and Gross. These they set up near the Archduke’s desk with all the expertise of stagehands at the Burgtheater.

Then came another bevy of servants carrying silver-domed chafing dishes, which, when their lids were opened, gave off a rich aroma that set Werthen’s salivary glands on alert.

‘Please eat,’ Franz Ferdinand said. ‘And then we will talk. I have a telegram to send to the Kaiser, but shall return presently.’

Neither Werthen nor Gross waited for further invitations, but tucked into the fare with gusto. The cook had paired the venison with an excellent vintage Côtes du Rhône Villages. Werthen would have taken the Archduke for an Austria-first sort, serving at his table perhaps a Blauburgunder from the Esterházy estates or from the countryside around Eisenstadt to the east of Vienna; he was happy, however, for Franz Ferdinand’s lack of nationalistic chauvinism in this regard.

They were just finishing their repast when Franz Ferdinand returned, a serious expression on his face. Werthen wondered what he and the German Kaiser had been communicating about.

‘Bad news, your Highness?’ Gross said, never one to let protocol get in the way of his native curiosity.

Franz Ferdinand looked as if he was about to upbraid the crim-inologist for his effrontery. But then, squinting first at Gross and then at Werthen, he seemed to think better of it.

‘Alarming news, perhaps. But not from the Kaiser. I just received a dispatch from a man we have in St Petersburg. He talks of rumors of a double agent in Vienna. Someone at the Bureau in the employ of the Russians.’

There was silence for a moment, and then the Archduke shrugged. ‘Rumors. They come cheap.’ He smiled, looking suddenly more relaxed as if the mere act of sharing this piece of information had unburdened him.

‘So, gentlemen,’ he said, sinking into his leather chair, ‘what wonderful news do you have for me?’

‘There have been developments, your Highness,’ Gross said, taking the lead. ‘You have of course received the autopsy report?’

Franz Ferdinand nodded.

‘We may, in fact, have a suspect,’ Gross said.

The Archduke sat up in his chair. ‘Who?’

Werthen knew it was silly to try to withhold the name of the suspect from the Archduke. After all, although he had not actually seen him, Werthen was certain that Duncan had been dogging them every step of the way that morning and would know exactly who they had been talking to. Nor was there reason to withhold the name from their ‘employer’. He therefore explained about Siegfried Mutzenbacher, and how Gross had discovered that he was among the extra staff brought in for the von Ebersdorf banquet. He also told the Archduke about the interview they had had with Siegfried that morning.

‘But why him?’ Franz Ferdinand asked. ‘What motive would he have?’

Werthen had given this some thought. ‘I assume it had something to do with the death of Fräulein Mitzi, the young prostitute Count von Ebersdorf was frequenting.’

‘Not jealousy, surely?’ the Archduke said.

‘He was close to her, that I know,’ Werthen began. ‘How close—’

Gross interjected, ‘Jealousy would hardly seem to be the motive, seeing that the Count was killed after
the death of the young woman.’

‘Could he have imagined the Count was somehow responsible for the girl’s death?’ Franz Ferdinand said.

‘That is one possibility,’ Werthen allowed. ‘Herr Mutzenbacher is not being forthcoming. We may have to turn this over to the police now.’