Werthen nodded.
‘Fräulein Fanny,’ he said.
Flies buzzed around the corpse’s left nostril, feasting on a dried trickle of blood. He averted his eyes.
‘An assistant at the Bower,’ he added.
Drechsler leaned down on one knee, careful to place a handkerchief under it to avoid soiling his suit. He looked closely at the dead body.
‘We’ll know better when our friend Todt at the morgue does his work, but I’d say this is the work of a professional. Blow to the nose sending bone to the brain.’
‘Why contact me?’ Werthen asked.
Drechsler drew an evidence envelope out of his jacket pocket and from it produced a business card. Werthen immediately recognized it as his own.
‘She must have taken it from the Bower.’
Drechsler made no reply, replacing the card in the envelope and stuffing it into his pocket once again.
‘No other identification on her?’ Werthen asked.
Drechsler, again examining the ruined nose, grunted an assent. He wore his usual serge suit, the same clothes summer and winter, and Werthen wondered that he wasn’t sweating under the strong morning sun.
The tall, thin inspector stood again, picking up the handkerchief as he did so.
‘Professional,’ Werthen said. ‘As in professional killer?’
‘It has the hallmarks. The single blow. The under construction sign blocking the path. Maintenance says it is not Turkenschanz Park property.’
Werthen’s mind raced, trying to think of reasons Fräulein Fanny would be the victim of a professional killer.
‘She’s a long way from her turf,’ Drechsler said.
Werthen agreed. The park, located in the eighteenth district, was quite a distance from the Bower and the First District.
‘Makes you wonder what would bring her here,’ Drechsler added.
‘And when,’ Werthen said. But he knew where to find the answer to that question at least.
‘Our same man,’ Drechsler said in an undertone, as if fearful any of the beat gendarmes at the scene might overhear.
Werthen was not sure he had heard correctly. ‘You mean the man that killed Mitzi?’
Drechsler nodded. He looked dyspeptic today.
‘I confess, Inspector, that I was considering the same notion. It seems too much of a coincidence that two women from the same bordello should fall victim to murder in such a short time. But, as you well know, prostitution is a dangerous game.’ Gross’s dictum — ‘Never eschew the simple solution, but always follow the evidence’ — played through his mind.
‘Besides,’ Werthen added, ‘Mitzi was strangled, whereas Fräulein Fanny suffered a blunt-force trauma.’
‘Heel of the hand to the nostril region of the nose, actually,’ Drechsler said. ‘But it’s our man.’
Werthen squinted at the detective. ‘Would you care to share, Inspector?’
Drechsler brought out the handkerchief once again, placed it next to the body, then leaned down on one knee. He dragged the dead woman’s left hand out from under the body and held it up in the bright sun. Bile caught in Werthen’s throat as he looked at it.
‘Fellow’s a pro, you must give him that. Sliced that left pinkie off just at the base knuckle. Clean as a butcher chopping a joint.’
Werthen sucked in fresh morning air, averting his eyes from the gore of the ruined hand.
Finally he spoke. ‘And it was the same finger with Mitzi? That’s why you figure it was the same killer? His signature?’
Another grunted assent came from Drechsler as he stood up and folded the handkerchief.
‘You kept it from the newspapers, of course.’
‘Just like your Doktor Gross advises. We don’t want any emulators.’
‘Copycats,’ Werthen corrected. ‘It’s from the English. Gross’s American colleagues.’
Werthen said this almost as an apology, but Drechsler was not listening.
‘Fifth finger, first joint. Same on both women. That’s no coincidence. And there was no trace of the finger at the scene. Our man’s a collector.’
A sudden chill gripped Werthen, remembering his secretary’s mention of ‘the keeper of hands’.
‘She was here for lunch yesterday,’ Siegfried said.
The major-domo looked shaken, his face still bloodless as it was when Werthen told him of Fanny’s murder.
‘Was she supposed to be working last night?’ Drechsler asked.
Siegfried did not look at the detective. Shaking his head, he addressed his response to Werthen.
‘Her time of the month.’
‘Did she tell anyone she was going out?’ Werthen asked.
Siegfried sniffed at this, as if it were unworthy of comment.
Instead, he said, ‘Lot of good you’ve been.’
Werthen bristled at this.
‘I was hired to investigate Mitzi’s death, not to be a bodyguard to your staff.’
‘And you don’t think there’s a connection between their deaths?’
Werthen and Drechsler exchanged glances at this query.
‘There may well be,’ Werthen said. ‘But one does not wish to jump to conclusions.’ No reason to share the information of the harvested fingers.
The door to the sitting room opened and the proprietress entered, her shoulders slumped, eyes red-rimmed. Siegfried had dispatched one of the young women to give her the bad news. It seemed to have taken its toll. Werthen assumed that, with the death of Mitzi, Frau Mutzenbacher had once again bestowed her affection and attention on Fanny. And now they were both dead. What must she be thinking?
‘I am not a religious woman,’ she said, as if conscious of Werthen’s silent question. ‘Yet I cannot help but feel it is a kind of judgment.’
It was, in a way, a shocking admission, as if she was condemning her entire life as sinful.
‘You wouldn’t know who Fräulein Fanny was meeting at the park, would you?’ Werthen asked the madam.
She sank into her armchair like a deflated balloon.
She shook her head. ‘I cannot believe this is happening again.’
‘Which park?’ Siegfried asked.
‘Turkenschanz,’ Drechsler said.
Siegfried glanced at his sister.
‘Is there any significance to that?’ Drechsler asked.
‘There are many parks in Vienna.’
Frau Mutzenbacher was more forthcoming. ‘It was once her precinct, shall we say. Before she came to us at the Bower.’
There was a garrison near the park, Werthen remembered. Thus Turkenschanz would offer rich pickings for working girls. Obviously Fanny had chosen the location because she was familiar with it. She was not on the job; she was meeting someone. And she had suggested Turkenschanz Park because she knew it, because she felt safe there. Which implied whoever she was meeting was not necessarily trustworthy. In the event, her fears were sadly confirmed.
It also meant that whoever she met was, as Drechsler indicated, a professional. He had outsmarted Fanny on her home ground.
They would know more about the time of death when Todt got his report in, but Werthen guessed they would find that, concerned for her safety, Fanny had insisted on meeting during daylight hours. This time of year, that could mean up to eight o’clock in the evening.
‘Does this change the direction of your investigation, Advokat?’
Like her brother, Frau Mutzenbacher ignored Drechsler, an unwelcome presence.
Realizing little information would be forthcoming while he was there, the inspector stood up.
‘I’ll confer with you later, Werthen,’ he said and stalked out of the room without a good-bye for Frau Mutzenbacher or her brother.
They both watched his progress out of the room, and then turned their eyes on Werthen.
‘I had meant to come here today anyway,’ he said.
‘Is there progress to report?’ she asked flatly.
He briefly outlined his investigation to date, noting the roles Altenberg and Schnitzler had played. He also discussed the letter he had found in Mitzi’s room and its subsequent translation. Then he hesitated, unsure how to broach the next steps in his investigation.