‘Herr Schnitzler, I have not come to listen to more prevarications. I very much want to help you with your difficulties, but if you can not be open and honest with me regarding Fräulein Waltraude, then I do not see how I can be of any assistance to you.’
‘Ah, so lawyers are not above a bit of extortion, I see.’
‘Call it what you will, but I know for a fact that you were familiar with the young woman long before she went to the Bower. Would you care to explain?’
Schnitzler lay back against the pillow as if exhausted or disgusted.
‘Fräulein Waltraude, as you call her, and I were known to one another before the Bower. That is correct. You must understand, I do not want any official inquiries about our. . relationship.’
‘The police have given this very low priority, Herr Schnitzler. It is highly doubtful they would interview you. The affair can be kept from Fräulein Gussman, if that is what troubles you.’
‘I see. Then, why not?’ He sat up on the divan looking quite bright and chipper once again, making Werthen wonder how badly injured the man really was.
‘Well, you see, Mitzi — that was my name for her, Waltraude is an impossible name for an insouciant young thing like her — she and I met one day last summer in the Volksgarten. She had been shopping for combs and dropped her packet. I helped her with it. Such a sweet-faced young woman she was, and so impressed to meet a famous author. I am sure you will not believe this, Advokat, but going out that morning I had not the inkling of desire for another conquest. Indeed I had just left the bed of one. No, it was Mitzi who made the advances. I could sense she was an unhappy young woman, troubled even. Lonely. I took her for afternoon coffee at an out-of-the-way place I know and I found a young woman who wished to improve herself.’
‘You became lovers,’ Werthen prompted.
‘Not that first meeting, no. But she arranged to meet again in the park. It was regular as clockwork on Thursday afternoons. I assumed that was her free afternoon, a young woman in service.’
Werthen did not bother to confirm this.
‘Yes, we soon became lovers and our affair followed the usual trajectory.’ Schnitzler smiled at Werthen knowingly.
‘I am not a man well versed in such things,’ Werthen said. ‘Perhaps you could describe the trajectory. .’
‘Initial infatuation grows to passion as the young woman gives more and more of herself, opens with more abandon until she becomes totally smitten and obsessed. The sweet early days of dalliance are soon replaced with demands and recriminations. She actually thought we would live together. I had to disabuse her of that notion, but in such a way that our physical union was not disrupted. Delicate maneuvering.’
‘But you have had a good deal of practice at that, no?’
‘Advokat, I do not appreciate your tone. If you do not approve of my life, that is your prerogative. You asked for the truth. You are getting it.’
Werthen was silent for a time. Then, ‘But you finally parted ways?’
Schnitzler nodded. ‘She came to me saying she had run away. That we had to be together now. She had nowhere else to go. I told her in no uncertain terms that such a situation was an impossibility. I sent her away.’
‘Yet she has an uncle in Vienna,’ Werthen said.
‘You know about him, then?’
‘From her parents.’
‘Oh — then you really don’t know about him yet.’
‘Herr Schnitzler, full disclosure please.’
Werthen had requested Bachmann to wait. The parish church of St Johann was near the Meidlinger Haupstrasse; behind the church was the rectory, and a graveyard surrounded the whole. It took Bachmann forty-five minutes to drive there, following the Gürtel most of the way.
The rectory was built on the plan of a small hunting lodge, its exterior walls painted the same creamy ochre as the nearby Schönbrunn Palace. Again Werthen asked Bachmann to wait for him, even though the weather had begun to clear up.
He took the miniature hand of a doorknocker in his and rapped it on the front door. An elderly housekeeper answered his fourth attempt. She opened the door with the timidity one might use opening a coffin. She was small, pinched and desiccated, the corners of her mouth turning down through a gullied landscape of chin wrinkles.
‘Who is it?’ she said in a voice barely more than a whisper.
Werthen drew out one of his business cards and handed it to her.
‘The name is Advokat Karl Werthen. Could you tell Father Hieronymus that I have come to talk to him about his niece.’
She took the card, holding it carefully between thumb and forefinger as if it were infected, squinted at it a moment, and then closed the door.
Werthen waited patiently outside for several minutes, but was just about to use the knocker once more when the door opened.
The housekeeper was there again. ‘He says to come.’
Werthen followed her into the rectory, which smelled strongly of furniture polish. There were three different crucifixes hanging from the walls of the long hallway they traversed. Passing a suite of rooms whose doors were open, Werthen saw that the windows had been thrown wide open and that furniture had been pushed against the wall, the large rugs in the center of the rooms rolled up.
He better understood the housekeeper’s surly mood now; he had interrupted her spring cleaning.
They came to a room at the end of the long hallway and the woman tapped on the door lightly.
‘Please enter,’ a voice at once sonorous and self-satisfied said from the other side.
She nodded her head for Werthen to enter and walked back down the hall to resume her cleaning.
Inside, Werthen found himself in a study made almost unbearably hot by a white-and-green ceramic stove in one corner. The walls were covered with bookshelves filled with books that had impressive leather bindings.
‘Advokat Werthen?’
Werthen followed the voice, and finally found its owner seated at a desk partially hidden behind the door.
‘Please do close the door. Draughts, you know.’
Werthen did so and approached the desk, taking measure of the priest.
He had expected someone of the stature of an uncle and a priest, assuming that he was most likely Frau Moos’s older brother. In the event, Father Hieronymus was obviously her younger brother, much younger. He looked, in fact, as if he still belonged in the seminary.
‘You say you have word from my niece,’ the priest said, not bothering to rise to meet his guest.
‘May I?’ Werthen tapped the back of a chair across the desk from the priest.
‘Please, please.’
Seated, Werthen again assessed the man. Ash-blond hair, thinning on top and brushed off a high forehead. Features fine, almost fragile. Eyes watery blue, delicate hands spread out in front of him on the desk. A fresh manicure. He wore a black cassock and in front of him on the desk lay a Bible and some foolscap.
‘Sorry to interrupt you,’ Werthen said. ‘It appears you are planning your sermon.’
‘You mentioned my niece?’
‘Yes, of course. My apologies.’ On the way here he had thought long and hard about how to handle the questioning. In the end, he took Gross’s advice to heart. Go easy at first; save the accusations for later.
‘From your remarks, I fear that I am bringing you bad news. Your niece is dead. She was murdered over three weeks ago.’
Father Hieronymus leaped out of his chair as if set on fire. Standing, he was tall and thin as a wraith.
‘My God, man! What do you mean? She can’t be dead. She’s just a child.’
‘I assure you, such is the case. I visited her parents yesterday; they had not heard the news either. Your sister rather thought you would know, seeing that she lives with you.’
‘Lived,’ Father Hieronymus said. ‘She ran away months ago. I did not have the heart to tell her parents. I did my best to find her, but what could I do? If a young lady wishes to hide herself in the metropolis, there is nothing a simple parish priest can do.’