The Silence (16 page)

‘I simply assumed—’

‘There was every possibility that Ricus may have met a young woman who finally put him on the right path. Who would make him settle down, start a family. Give me grandchildren.’

Gross internally sighed. It seemed the good doctor was no better than the usual unreliable witnesses: he confused his own needs with those of others. The farther into the recent past his dead son receded, the more Doktor Praetor would reshape him in the form he desired.

‘And the notebooks,’ Gross said, changing the subject. ‘Have you found any trace of those?’

‘None. Ricus lived on his own. He had very few possessions left at my flat. Mementoes of his youth only. Nothing recent.’

‘Did he discuss his work with you? I ask because we have discovered that your son and Councilman Steinwitz appear to have been working together to uncover corruption at the Rathaus.’

‘You mean the councilman who killed himself?’

Gross nodded at this; no reason to go into his suspicions about that death.

‘This is the first I have heard of it.’

After another five minutes of questioning, Gross determined that Doktor Praetor was not as much an intimate of his son as he would like to have been. That too was being reshaped with time, however. But it was not Gross’s job to point this out to his client.

Suddenly the man’s clamoring need for justice outweighed his self-delusion.

‘I want justice for my son,’ he blurted out. ‘One way or the other. Do you understand? Justice.’

Werthen had not expected to see her so soon.

‘A pleasure,’ he said, guiding Frau Steinwitz into his office.

She wore an anxious expression, but that was hardly uncommon for clients seeing their lawyer. Or for someone in fear of her life.

Once seated, she began fidgeting with her fox stole. ‘I do not mean to make a pest of myself.’

‘Not at all,’ Werthen reassured her.

‘I simply wanted to ascertain if what you said yesterday was more than merely conciliatory.’

‘I am at your service, Frau Steinwitz.’ Internally, Werthen cursed Gross for his high-handed generosity with other people’s time.

‘So you do not fear to take on such a responsibility?’

Suddenly she peered closer at his bruised face.

‘Whatever did you do to your cheek, Advokat?’

He shrugged the question away. ‘A collision with a door, I am afraid. Nothing heroic. But to answer your previous question, no, I have no fear in taking on a commission to protect you. I have men whom I can employ to keep a watch on you and your children.’

This suggestion seemed to alarm her more than the prospect of sudden death.

‘That would hardly be
au fait.
After all, I do have a social life to conduct.’

‘These men can be quite discreet,’ he said, though truth be told, the fellows he was thinking of might stand out a bit at afternoon tea at the Sacher.

‘I must consider it,’ she said. ‘I imagined that you personally . . .’

‘Frau Steinwitz, I have a law office to run and an investigation under way.’

She straightened in her chair. ‘I see. Investigating the murder of Herr Praetor takes precedence over protecting a defenseless widow.’

He tried to be reasonable. ‘You must understand that in any circumstance I would have to hire assistants to maintain a watch around the clock.’

But she apparently was little concerned with reason. ‘I only understand that you were my husband’s trusted attorney and that you owe his widow similar allegiance.’

There were so many responses he could make to that absurd contention; instead, Werthen remained silent, steadily looking at her.

Finally she glanced away with a sigh. ‘Forgive me, Advokat. I am under a great deal of strain. Let me consider your offer.’

She stood and he did so, as well. ‘Of course. Take your time. But really I cannot believe that you or your children are in any real danger.’

She merely shook her head at this comment and adjusted the fox stole.

As he was escorting her out the outer office, the pink face of young Ludwig Wittgenstein peeked around the door.

‘Oh, hello,’ he said to them both as he might to old friends. ‘I was just coming to see you, Advokat.’ Wearing his distinctive loden coat with a fur collar, he cast a smile at Frau Steinwitz.

‘Master Wittgenstein,’ Werthen said with a smile. ‘How good to see you. Just a moment while I show this good lady out.’

Frau Steinwitz looked from the Wittgenstein boy to Werthen, squared her shoulders and nodded an adieu.

‘I shall consider your proposal,’ she said once more before leaving.

Turning, Werthen noticed that Master Wittgenstein had already introduced himself to Fräulein Metzinger and in fact was aiding her in replacing the ribbon in her Underwood typewriting machine. Into this charming domestic scene entered Heidrich Beer, freshly back from delivering copies of a will to the Countess Isniack on the Stuben Ring. Like young Wittgenstein, the boy’s cheeks were flushed red with the cold.

‘Good day to you, Huck,’ Werthen said, giving in to the use of the boy’s nickname.

‘Advokat Werthen,’ Huck said importantly, struggling to make his voice deeper than it was.

‘Huck,’ said Fräulein Metzinger. ‘Come and meet Master Wittgenstein.’

‘They call me Luki,’ he said turning his attention from the typing ribbon to the older boy.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Huck said, extending his thin hand.

Fräulein Metzinger smiled to herself as the two boys shook hands with great seriousness.

That done, Huck promptly reported delivery of the documents.

‘Do you work here?’ Ludwig asked, his eyes growing large.

Huck breathed in deeply, expanding his chest. ‘Yes.’

‘That’s wonderful. I mean, you go out into the town and all?’

‘Every day.’

Ludwig simply shook his head in disbelief. ‘That’s the life,’ he muttered.

‘You’ve got a very handsome coat, if you do not mind my saying so.’

Huck had been taking lessons in polite small talk from Fräulein Metzinger and was obviously trying his new skills out now.

‘You think so?’

Huck nodded. ‘Really.
Kein Mist.
’

He reddened when he realized he had slipped into his old street argot again, meaning ‘no manure,’ or, in this context, no nonsense.

‘So, Herr Wittgenstein,’ Werthen broke in. ‘What brings you here, and . . .’ he exaggerated a glance at the door, ‘apparently on your own.’

‘Luki,’ he reminded. ‘And I have to make this quick. I am supposed to be at the Fine Arts Museum with my tutor. We are studying Raphael today,’ he said with a sigh. ‘He left me there for a time to have his
gabel Frühstuck
.’

Werthen thought he could do with a mid-morning snack today, too, and led Ludwig into the inner office. ‘And what was so important that you are playing truant?’

Werthen closed the door behind them, and Ludwig promptly pulled out a maroon-colored leather-bound diary from his coat pocket.

‘I thought you would be interested in this. Hans left it with me.’

‘But that is all settled. Hans is in New York.’

‘Yes,’ Ludwig said somewhat impatiently. ‘But Hans told me I should give this to someone I really trust. Someone who could make use of it. I don’t know many people and this has been nagging at me. Please take it.’

The boy handed the diary to Werthen. ‘Anything to relieve you of the burden.’

‘You make a joke about it, but it really has been bothering me. I feel badly about not giving it to you earlier when you were investigating Hans’s disappearance. But you see, at that time I did not know if I could trust you.’

Werthen smiled at the child’s conundrum. ‘And now you do?’

‘Trust you? Well, as much as anyone, I guess. But this diary’s been bothering me so much that I have made no progress at all on the model of Herr Daimler’s motorcycle.’

‘Well, I hope now you can concentrate on your work,’ Werthen said kindly. ‘What’s in it that it is so important?’

Ludwig looked abashed. ‘Gentlemen don’t read other men’s mail or diaries. Papa always says so.’ Then he brightened. ‘You were trying to trick me, right? To find out if I could be trusted. Very good. Now I know I have the right person.’

On the way out, Ludwig and Huck exchanged a few more words. Fräulein Metzinger had another envelope ready for delivery, and so Huck accompanied Ludwig on his way back to the museum.

When the boys were gone, she beamed at Werthen. ‘I really think they hit it off.’

‘And I do believe you would make a fine matchmaker. That letter you gave Huck already went out two days ago.’

She had the good grace to blush at being caught out.

‘I was thinking of getting tickets for the Remington show in the Prater. What do you think, Advokat?’

What he thought was that Remington’s Wild West Show was the most tasteless performance event yet thought up by Americans, in many cases the kings of bad taste. He would never subject even his basest enemy to the supposed jollities of seeing fake Indians slaughtered or herds of buffalo decimated by sharpshooters. Remington himself was a crass businessman and showman whose Wild West Show had traveled several times around the world and was definitely the worse for wear. That’s what Werthen thought.

‘What an excellent idea, Fräulein Metzinger,’ he said. ‘I am sure Huck would love seeing it.’

‘Really, Gross. Each time you come to town, you make everything topsy-turvy.’

Police Praesidium Inspector Meindl was a small, fastidious man who did not like his closed cases reopened. He was ensconced in a massive armchair behind his cherry wood desk at police headquarters and cast Gross a look of exasperation at his request for crime scene photographs from Steinwitz’s office at the Rathaus and for permission to enter the Praetor apartment, which was still under seal, there to obtain the platen and ribbon from the dead man’s typewriting machine.

‘I do not live to complicate your life, I assure you, Meindl.’

Gross used a teasing tone; Meindl had been a former junior colleague of his in Graz before finding higher office in Vienna and well before Gross himself had been elevated to his current position in Czernowitz.

Detective Inspector Bernhard Drechsler, sitting beside Gross and looking more painfully gaunt than usual, followed these proceedings with a sardonic expression.

‘I’ve no objections to Doktor Gross taking those items from Praetor’s apartment,’ he offered. But there was an unpleasant edge to his voice that Gross could not fail to notice.

Meindl, hands on his chest, formed a steeple with opposing fingers. ‘I am delighted to hear that, Detective Inspector. But I thought you put the young man’s death down to suicide.’

‘Well,’ Drechsler began with a Viennese drawl. ‘There could be a loose end here and there.’

‘Such as the absence of the death weapon?’ Meindl peered down at the Praetor report on his desk. ‘What did the gun do, simply walk off by itself?’

Now it was Gross’s turn to watch events and smile inwardly.

Just as quickly Meindl turned his attention back to the criminologist, his former mentor.

‘And what is this about photographs from the scene of Councilman Steinwitz’s death? Are you suggesting his death was not a suicide as well?’

‘It is one possible theory,’ Gross said without offering more.

‘You believe there is a connection between these two deaths?’ Meindl’s voice sounded peevish.

‘Of course if you are unable to assist . . .’ Gross began.

‘Who said anything about not being able?’ Meindl sat forward in his large chair now, hands on the edge of the desk. ‘You’ll get your photos and permit to enter the Praetor flat. But please, Gross, keep us posted, eh? I should like to know if we have a killer running loose in Vienna.’

Drechsler left with Gross, maintaining a stony silence as they took the newly installed elevator to street level. Outside the wind whipped up off the nearby Danube Canal; Gross tucked his hands more deeply into his woolen overcoat.

‘A bit dour, Drechsler,’ Gross said, thinking that perhaps the man was ill.

Instead Drechsler stuck his hawk-like face so close to Gross that the criminologist could see the pores in the man’s nose.

‘I do not appreciate being ambushed like that. By you or Werthen.’

Gross jerked away from him as one would from a leper displaying his sores.

‘I assure you, Detective Inspector, that you were not
ambushed
, as you put it. Werthen and I are investigating a case. Clients are paying good money for us to get to the bottom of the death of young Praetor. You cannot blame us for your own oversight.’

‘You’ve got the luxury to have fancy clients paying your way. Me, I’m stuck with grade G-4 in the Austrian bureaucracy. And I’ve got a full plate what with keeping track of Serbian anarchists and a crime gang that is operating out of the sewers and using runaway children as their proxies. You’ll find that Praetor had a lover who got jealous or that he tried to solicit the wrong sort of gent. I’ve no time for that sort of thing, nor would you if you were in my place.’

The speech was so unlike Drechsler that Gross was momentarily stunned. No one ever accused the Vienna constabulary of being the most gifted lot, but Drechsler had, Gross always thought, stood out from the rest of the pack for whom
Schlamperei
, or lazily muddling through, was a way of life.

‘What is it, Drechsler? This does not sound like you.’

The thin man’s face contorted momentarily, then he let out an immense sigh for one so narrow in the chest.

‘It’s the wife, Gross. She’s sick. Been so for weeks. Sorry. You’re right. I am not myself lately.’

‘What is it? She’s been to the doctor, of course.’

Drechsler ran a hand over his bony chin. ‘They say she needs an operation. But she’s dead set against it. Had an uncle who was operated on and died.’