Frau von Suttner was still unconvinced, but still asking the right questions.
‘How would we get into his apartment?’
Erika looked a bit sheepish as she said, ‘I think I might be able to help with that. Huck was only too happy to teach me some of his. . skills.’
Huck was the nickname of the young street urchin whom Erika had wanted to adopt. He had tragically died last year in a case involving the Wittgenstein family. Breaking and entering, Berthe thought, might very well have been among the boy’s skills.
‘And I can chat up the Portier,’ Frau Ignatz offered. ‘Keep her busy while you women go about your business.’
Frau von Suttner suddenly clapped her hands together. ‘Then what are we waiting for?’
And now, not half an hour later, Erika was delicately applying her hatpin to the lock on Captain Adelbert Forstl’s apartment door.
Have we all gone crazy? Berthe suddenly asked herself. Too late now to stop.
He commanded himself to walk slowly, so as not to bring attention to himself as he made his way through the operations room. He had tucked the mobilization plans into his high boots, just in case.
Captain Forstl had finally complied with the orders of his masters in St Petersburg.
This should keep Schmidt off my back for a time, he thought ruefully. Now to get these papers into a safe place in his apartment.
Nothing suspicious about a man leaving the Bureau for lunch. He would hurry back to the Florianigasse, tuck the papers away in his desk, and then be back at his desk before his absence was even noticed. Tonight he would copy the papers and return the originals in the morning, before anyone noticed they were missing.
Outside, the midday sun and heat struck him, and he blinked in the glare for a time before his eyes dilated. Then he set off at a brisk pace for his apartment.
‘My God, I wish I could afford one of these frocks.’ Frau von Suttner felt the silk of one of the gowns in the dressing room off Forstl’s bedroom. Berthe was surprised; she had thought the man was a bachelor, and said as much.
This brought a low laugh from Frau von Suttner. ‘I doubt these belong to a woman.’
She lifted one dress from its hanger; it was so broad in the shoulder that it dwarfed the Baroness.
‘You mean. .?’ Berthe felt her face going red.
‘They call it transvestism,’ Erika calmly explained. ‘Men dressing as women and vice versa.’
Berthe had, of course, read about such things, but had never been presented with their reality. Then she remembered Gross’s description of Forstl’s rumored connection to Doktor Schnitzel. It all made sense now.
‘Karl thought he might be trying to hide some such secret. Something that would compromise him.’
‘There must be something else,’ Erika said. ‘Homosexuality is a crime, of course, but we are looking for something larger.’
Frau von Suttner had moved to a small table in the corner of the dressing room. A locked box sat on top of it.
‘Can you apply your skills to this, Fräulein Metzinger?’
He began sweating into his tunic as he strode along Josefstädterstrasse. Perhaps he would have time for a quick wash and brush-up at his apartment. Quickly now, he prodded himself.
The plans hidden in his boot suddenly began to feel heavy and hot. He knew it was only his imagination, but nonetheless, he picked up pace as he neared the corner of Florianigasse.
As soon as Erika had performed another hatpin trick, Frau von Suttner slowly opened the box.
She was barely able to stifle a scream as she dropped the box and its contents on the parquet floor. It landed with a loud clatter, and several fleshy bits scattered about the floor.
For a moment the three women stood horrified.
‘My God, it’s a man’s member!’ Berthe hissed.
Erika was the first to regain her composure. ‘And two little fingers. I do believe we have found the lodestone.’
Forstl had never been so happy to reach the apartment building on the Florianigasse. He was actually beginning to feel sick. All in my head, he kept telling himself. But he knew he could try to calm himself. The only thing that would make him feel better was to put these papers in a safe place.
He gave his mail box in the foyer a quick glance and noticed that there was a note indicating a package had been left with the Portier. He groaned to himself; he had no time to spare. But it might be something urgent from Schmidt: they sometimes made contact in this way. Instead of going directly to his apartment on the third floor, he stopped at Frau Novak’s apartment in the mezzanine to collect the package.
He knocked at the door and could hear voices inside. When Frau Novak finally came to the door, Forstl could see the pinched face of another woman seated at the deal table in her kitchen. Some old friend he thought, come to share coffee. The woman’s eyes seemed to brighten when Frau Novak addressed him by name and handed over the package. He looked at the return address. It was not important after all. Just a hat he had ordered from a milliner in Salzburg. Not even the thought of this lovely creation, with its nest of feathers, could take his mind off the damning papers stuck in his boot.
‘Oh, but Captain Forstl, please do not run off,’ Frau Novak’s friend said as he was about to make his way up the stairs. ‘I must ask you a question. You see I have a nephew who is interested in the military as a career. What branch would you recommend? Manfred is such a good young man. How would he serve his country best?’
‘I am sure I do not know, Madam,’ he said, irritation sounding in his voice. ‘I know nothing about your nephew. It would be better for him to speak with a recruiter.’
‘But you appear such an intelligent man and so young to have gone so far in the army. Surely you can spare an old lady a dram of advice?’
‘The cavalry,’ he said, exasperated. ‘They get all the pretty women.’
Frau Novak looked shocked at the pronouncement, but her friend merely laughed. A high cackle that grated on his raw nerves.
‘And a joker to boot,’ the woman said.
‘No,’ Berthe said. ‘We cannot take this with us. We have to leave it as evidence. Let the authorities discover it here. And leave the flat just as we found it, so that Captain Forstl is none the wiser.’
Frau von Suttner nodded at the wisdom of this.
‘Quickly, though,’ Erika said. She took a handkerchief from the waist of her skirt and picked up the grotesquely gray pieces of anatomy and returned them to their wooden box. She made sure it was locked and then placed the box back on the small table, careful to set it inside the rectangle of dust that had accumulated on the surface.
They hurriedly tidied up after themselves and were at the door when they heard footsteps on the stairs outside.
‘Captain Forstl!’
He turned abruptly on the stairs just below his landing. It was the old lady from Frau Novak’s. What now?
‘Captain Forstl!’
‘Yes. What is it?’ His voice had a sharp edge.
‘Your package,’ she said, her voice echoing in the stairway. ‘You forgot your package.’
They could hear Frau Ignatz’s voice. She had said Forstl’s name twice, as an obvious warning. Now or never, Berthe thought, opening the door as silently as she could and making sure the lock was in place before the three of them slipped out into the hallway, closing the door behind them.
There was nothing for it but to brazen their way down the stairs. If Forstl came up the last steps now and saw them moving towards the upper floors, he would surely know they had been in his apartment. Descending the stairs, however, there was no way for him to know where they had come from.
And it worked, Berthe was amazed to discover, as she passed the tall, thickset officer on the stairs. The three of them looked straight ahead as they passed him and Frau Ignatz, and quickly made their way to the vestibule and out on to the bright street.