‘Do you know his name?’
‘No. Mitzi was discreet about such things. You think this fellow could be involved in her death?’
‘You mentioned punishment. Perhaps he was a violent sort.’
‘But it is all theater at the Bower.’
Werthen said nothing.
‘I see what you mean. But perhaps play-acting got out of hand? Perhaps he hired her for a private meeting, even though such things were strictly forbidden?’
It sounded to Werthen as if Altenberg had firsthand experience of such attempted assignations.
‘But wait. I do have something that might help.’
He went over to the single chest of drawers in the room, rummaged about in the second drawer, and then pulled out a small leather notepad, examined the first page for the date, threw it back in the drawer and found another, read the date, and then leafed through the pages.
‘There. That’s the fellow.’
He came back to the table and thrust the notebook at Werthen. Drawn on the graphed paper was the likeness of a middle-aged man with furious Franz Josef side-whiskers and a full head of curly hair.
‘I drew this while waiting one night. He was ahead of me, you see. I never did get to see Mitzi that night.’
‘It’s well drawn.’
‘It’s actually also a very good likeness of the man.’
‘May I take it with me?’ Werthen asked.
‘If you think it might be of help, of course.’
He ripped it out of the notepad and handed it to Werthen, who in turn placed it for safe keeping in the pages of his own notebook.
‘You never mentioned how you discovered Mitzi, Herr Altenberg. Did you simply pick her out of the new arrivals?’
‘Not at all,’ Altenberg said, and then seemed to grow wary.
‘Herr Altenberg?’
‘I wouldn’t want to bring trouble to a friend.’
‘There will be no trouble if your friend has nothing to hide.’
‘True. But there is the matter of his new paramour. . No, you are absolutely right, Advokat Werthen. Suddenly I develop bourgeois values. I was told about Mitzi by my dear friend Arthur Schnitzler.’
‘The writer?’
‘Yes. I was not aware of another.’
‘And he was a client of Mitzi’s?’
‘That you will have to ask Schnitzler.’
They talked for a few more minutes, but there seemed nothing more that Werthen could discover from Altenberg.
As he prepared to leave, the poet fixed him with a searing gaze: ‘I would do anything to help find Mitzi’s murderer. But, Advokat, I wonder that you do not suspect me.’
Werthen returned his gaze, pausing a beat.‘Who said I don’t?’
Fehrut was still inspecting the racing form as Werthen came down the stairs.
‘Glad to see you survived.’
‘He’s eccentric, not insane.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘A matter of class, Herr Fehrut. A simple matter of class. The lower classes are insane. The upper are eccentric.’
‘So what does that make us?’
‘Employed and relatively well adjusted, Herr Fehrut. But next time try growing carnations instead.’
FIVE
Thus, Werthen, in the course of a morning on the job already had a handful of suspects. Fräulein Fanny, despite her protestations, had much to gain by the death of Mitzi. In all probability the lonely Frau Mutzenbacher would turn to her again for comfort and support. And Mutzenbacher’s brother, Siegfried, though he attested to pure friendship for the girl, might have done her in during a fit of pique — perhaps she rejected his advances? After all, he only had the man’s word for it that he and Mitzi were friends rather than lovers. There was also the mysterious client of Mitzi’s who enjoyed doling out punishment. As Altenberg said, perhaps play-acting got out of hand. And finally there was Altenberg himself. Werthen was honestly moved by the man’s declaration of love for Mitzi, but who can tell what dark places lie in each of us? Perhaps he grew weary of waiting in line — or perhaps, worse, he grew jealous.
Now, as Werthen searched out a gasthaus where he could take his midday meal, he thought of his next steps. First was the caricature of Mitzi’s client sketched by Altenberg. He would take that back to the Bower and see if anyone there recognized it. Perhaps they could even put a name to the face. Then, if that proved unsuccessful, he would take the sketch to Detective Inspector Drechsler of the Vienna constabulary. Perhaps the face would match that of someone on the police registry. Short of inserting a personal ad in the newspaper — not, to Werthen’s mind, a wise move as it would possibly alert the man if he were actually the guilty party — this was all he could think of doing with the sketch.
The Bible next. Werthen was unsure about that. He assumed it belonged to Mitzi — as well as the note interleaved in Joshua: 2, for the date at the top of the note fitted into the timeline of Mitzi’s occupancy. It had the appearance of a letter; but until he could determine what language it was written in, he could not be sure. However, it might very well cast some important light on what had been troubling her recently, a fact that more than one witness thus far had commented on.
As he walked, Werthen remembered a wine house in Fürichgasse that he had not frequented lately. They served a passably spicy Bohnensuppe along with a Kalteteller of cheese and wurst that would be perfect for today. He was there in less than three minutes, found a single table in the corner under a dusty pair of stag’s horns, and settled in for his lunch, which he accompanied with a glass of chilled Welschriesling.
Eating, Werthen decided that the next obvious step was to pay a visit to Arthur Schnitzler, the man who had led Altenberg to Mitzi. How was Schnitzler involved in all this, Werthen wondered, other than in the most obvious ways?
Salten, Altenberg and now Schnitzler. Half the literary establishment of Vienna seemed to be connected to Mitzi. Werthen speculated how many more men of Vienna’s literary world would be included in his investigation.
Werthen finished the last of the wine with a chunk of nutty-tasting Emmenthaler and decided now was a good time to talk with the playwright.
Werthen stayed on foot. Though Schnitzler had not practiced medicine in almost a decade — ever since scoring his first dramatic success with Liebelei, a play that defined flirtation and was the first in Viennese dialect to be performed at the austere Burgtheater — the writer still lived in the medical quarter of the Ninth District. His flat was on Frankgasse, just behind the Votivkirche.
In a way, Werthen felt an affinity for Schnitzler. There were similarities in their lives. An assimilated Jew, Schnitzler had been forced against his will into a suitable profession. In his case, as the son of a famous laryngologist, he had gone into medicine, becoming an ear, nose and throat specialist, a much-needed profession among the numerous singers in Vienna. In Werthen’s case it had been the law, despite an inclination toward writing. But there, it seemed, the similarities ended. Schnitzler had more than a mere inclination to the literary life. He was fast becoming one of Vienna’s most respected writers. As mentioned by Salten, the man’s early plays featured the playboy Anatol; and Schnitzler had single-handedly created the trope of the süsses Mädel, the sweet young thing from the lower classes and the suburbs who has sexual adventures with aristocratic or upper-class men before settling down to a quiet life with an honest husband of her own station. Schnitzler’s plays and stories examined sexual love in all its aspects, focusing on the psychology and outcomes of passion.
By all accounts, Schnitzler himself was an Anatol character, finding love where and when he wanted. It was said that he had been initiated into the sexual world by an actress at the age of sixteen; and that he kept a journal tallying the exact number of his orgasms with various mistresses.