Aware of his hesitation, Frau Mutzenbacher looked at him firmly.
‘Whatever you have learned, Advokat, I have paid for. I have a right to know everything.’
‘The letter led me to her parents,’ he said, knowing that the statement would hurt. Indeed, she jerked back at the news as if struck.
He explained their ignorance of their daughter’s death. Then Werthen came to the priest-uncle and accusations of sexual abuse.
She made an audible gasp and Siegfried pounded his right fist into his left palm. Werthen wondered if he had given too much information.
‘An animal,’ Frau Mutzenbacher muttered. ‘Hypocrite.’
There was silence for a moment.
‘And what of the mysterious customer you asked about?’ Siegfried finally said. Werthen sensed real interest despite Siegfried’s seeming nonchalance.
‘We have traced him, as well. One Count Joachim von Ebersdorf of the Foreign Office. He seems to have died only days after Fräulein Mitzi.’
More silence met this announcement.
‘So many deaths,’ Siegfried said after a few moments.
Werthen nodded, locking eyes with him. Siegfried was the first to break eye contact.
‘Perhaps it is time we dispensed with all this,’ Frau Mutzenbacher said.
‘All this?’
‘Your services, I mean,’ she said. ‘With the death of Fanny, the police are now bound to investigate.’
‘You wish to terminate my services?’ He could hardly believe his ears.
‘I believe my sister made her intent clear.’ Siegfried suddenly puffed out his chest.
The sitting room door opened and one of the young women stood there.
‘Madam,’ she said. ‘A visitor. He said he has an appointment.’
Behind her, Felix Salten entered without further introduction.
‘Dear Frau, sorry to be late-’ he began, and then noticed Werthen.
‘Apologies. Have I interrupted?’
‘Not at all,’ Frau Mutzenbacher said. ‘The Herr Advokat was just leaving.’
Then to Werthen: ‘You can send me your final bill.’
THIRTEEN
He made his way from the Bower through a tangle of streets in the First District to his lunch meeting with Gross at the outdoor restaurant in the Volksgarten. He was going to be late, but Gross would just have to wait. The shoe had been on the other foot enough times in that regard.
As he walked, he tried to collate a plethora of facts, but what stuck out primarily was what had just transpired at the Bower: he had been sacked. But why?
He meant to find out.
Entering the Volksgarten, he saw the officer from the General Staff whom he had often noticed on his way to work. He was ramrod stiff in demeanor today as always, perhaps even more so. Again, the patent-leather visor of the captain’s cap was faultless, glistening in the sun, his high boots resplendently polished, the brass buttons on his green tunic twinkling like little stars. They passed one another on the path to the garden restaurant, but the officer’s eyes were fixed straight ahead; a muscle in his jaw twitched, the only sign that he was human and not a moving wax figure or automaton.
Once again, Werthen was struck by the notion that here was a figure out of fiction, here was a fellow that could take center stage in a short story. This was no Lieutenant Gustl out of a Schnitzler play, but a man on a mission.
‘Werthen.’
Gross called to him from a table at the rear of the restaurant’s terrace, diverting his mind from such ruminations. Werthen tipped his Homburg in recognition, and picked his way through the crowded slalom of tables and diners.
‘I thought you’d never get here,’ Gross said as Werthen took a seat opposite him at the small table. The bread basket was depleted; flakes of crust, a salt crystal or two, and a scattering of caraway seeds let him know that Gross had not gone unfed while waiting.
‘I have the most extraordinary news for you,’ said Werthen.
Meanwhile, the General Staff captain Werthen had just seen — having taken an early lunch — made his way into the interior courtyards of the Hofburg, saluted a sentry on duty at the main door to the War Ministry, and then cantered up four flights of broad marble stairs, his boots clacking against the stone. At the top of the stairs another sentry returned a smart salute. Then he took his seat at his desk in the Operations Section of the General Staff’s Intelligence Bureau.
Looking through the midday dispatches, Adelbert Forstl used all his strength of will to maintain a calm exterior. Inwardly he was in turmoiclass="underline" this day might well be the most important in his career, indeed in his entire life. He had come such a long way from his humble origins in Lemberg, the son of a freight clerk for the railway. One of six children, Adelbert knew early on that his only escape from brutal poverty would be a military career. There was no money for higher education; but because his father Franz had served as a lieutenant in the Austrian army for a decade, Adelbert was eligible for free entrance to the Cadet School Karnovsky in the center of Lemberg. And that is where he went when he reached the age of fourteen.
Though Galicia and Lemberg had been under Austrian rule for over a century, the overwhelming number of citizens were still Polish speakers, then came Ruthenian, and only about one percent of the population were true German speakers. After the compromise Emperor Franz Josef struck with his far-flung territories in 1867, there was no pretense at all at making German the official language. Polish, with its harsh gutturals, was the language of commerce and government in the region. Adelbert, born in 1860, thus grew up learning a Babel of languages and hating all but German, as he was an ethnic German and a Catholic. Now, however, he was happy that he had had such an upbringing; his languages (he had since learned Russian as well) were in part what had secured him his present position as Chief of Operations and head of the Russian desk at the Bureau.
Separated from the empire by the Carpathian Mountains and a non-Germanic culture, Adelbert had slowly made his way from junior officer to captain, serving in various outposts of the empire. Through diligence and good luck, he saw his value rise in the army, not an easy task for the son of a freight clerk. Now, after twenty years of hard work, he was delighted to have finally arrived, even surpassing some of those who had a ‘von’ before their names. He was at the very seat of power of the empire — no longer posted to the fringes but at the heart of things, in the same constellation of buildings the Emperor called home.
He looked at the pendulum clock on the wall of his small office. Still fifteen more minutes until his meeting with Colonel von Krahlich, chief of the Bureau. He needed to get his thoughts in order — so much rested on the way he presented his case to von Krahlich. He unlocked the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk, took out two thick gray-covered files, and placed them on the desk in front of him. Bombs about to be dropped.
Von Krahlich’s adjutant poked his head in the door without bothering to knock.
‘Captain, the Colonel would like to see you now. There’s been an alteration in appointments.’
Forstl was dragged out of his ruminations, annoyed that the adjutant had not first announced himself.
That was something he would fix later when he was in charge.
‘If you don’t mind,’ the adjutant, Captain Johann von Daum, added with a barely discernable tone of irony.
That was also something Forstl would fix later.
‘Not at all,’ Forstl said, hiding his pique. ‘Now?’
‘This moment,’ von Daum said.
Forstl straightened his green tunic as he stood up, careful that no evidence of his paunch should show. He picked up the two files from the desk as he left.
Von Krahlich had the largest office on the fourth floor, with tall windows looking out over the parade ground below. Daylight filtered through lace curtains at the windows; the lace was embroidered all over with the Imperial-Royal K und K insignia. Von Krahlich, a large, florid man with thick white hair brushed off his forehead, sat at his inlaid rosewood desk enjoying an after-lunch cigar.