‘What is so surprising about a wife attempting to visit her husband at his place of work?’
‘Ah, then you also saw her,’ Werthen said, quite innocently. ‘But of course you would have. Being first on the scene.’
‘Of course I did,’ Wagner said, taking offense. ‘My eyes are perfectly fine.’
Werthen took this morsel of information as well as the decipherment of Praetor’s typing ribbon to the Police Praesidium. Meindl, supplied with this evidence, merely shrugged.
‘Still not very convincing. But in any case, she is out of our jurisdiction now,’ he told them. ‘As you well know, Switzerland failed to renew its extradition treaty with us last year.’
Werthen could not restrain his anger. ‘Perhaps if Austria recognized the right of political asylum, then we might have such treaties with the rest of the civilized world and not just countries such as Russia and Prussia.’
Meindl smiled at him as if he had just made a bon mot. ‘But when she returns to the empire, we shall take the matter up.’
Meanwhile the Steinwitz children were living with their grandfather on his estate near Vienna. Rumor had it that he was to adopt them and change their names to Gutrum.
After attending the Lawyers’ Ball on Saturday, March 3, Gross and his wife Adele returned to Czernowitz for the spring semester. Ash Wednesday came on March 7, marking the end of the ball season.
He was suddenly awake, disoriented. Berthe was leaning over him.
‘You were grinding your teeth again,’ she said.
He brushed his hand over his face; it felt sweaty.
‘Sorry.’
‘You must stop thinking about it. There is nothing you can do.’
‘She killed twice and is free.’
‘Not free,’ Berthe said. ‘She can never come back home.’
‘And that is fitting punishment?’
‘Go to sleep,’ Berthe said, laying a soothing hand on his forehead. ‘It’s over.’
Next morning, Werthen was catching up on legal work. Fraulein Metzinger had been so dislocated by the tragedy of Huck that she had not been able to complete an urgent brief, so he was finishing it. But no sooner had he sat down with the brief than Fraulein Metzinger announced the arrival of a visitor, showing in a young man in clerical garb.
‘Father Mickelsburg,’ Werthen said when he finally recognized his visitor, the priest from the Theresianum whom he had earlier questioned about Hans Wittgenstein. ‘An unexpected pleasure.’
The priest smiled as he took an offered chair.
‘I have come for a bit of absolution, I am afraid.’
‘Don’t you have things reversed, Father?’
‘You seem like a good man, Advokat Werthen.’
‘I suppose I try to be.’
‘I as well, though sometimes the flesh is weak.’
Father Mickelsburg looked suddenly miserable, as if he were suffering from an illness.
‘What is it you have come to tell me, Father?’ Werthen still found it odd to use the title with a man several years younger than him.
Mickelsburg produced a rosary from under his clothing, and began counting the ivory beads with a thumb, a gesture Werthen had seen often enough in cafes frequented by the Greek merchants of the city, but never by a Catholic priest.
‘I understand you found the Wittgenstein boy, then. Hans?’
‘Yes, quite soon after I spoke to you, as a matter of fact. Herr Praetor, his young friend, told me he had gone to the United States. The family received confirmation of that. You know of Herr Praetor’s death, of course?’
Father Mickelsburg nodded. ‘Yes. Ricus told me about your visit.’ He stopped tallying the beads.
‘Ricus?’ Werthen said.
‘I was not forthcoming with you when we met at the school, and I have felt badly about that ever since. He thought you were one of the “great pious ones.”’ Mickelsburg laughed lightly at the expression. ‘It was Ricus’s way of talking about the bourgeoisie, those who would not understand his. . our lifestyle.’
Werthen raised his eyebrows at this admission from the priest.
‘You mean you and Herr Praetor were. . special friends?’
‘Lovers,’ the priest said. ‘Let me finally use the word I would never use with Ricus himself.’ A look of extreme pain passed over his face. ‘You see, Advokat, I believe I killed him.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘I was also one of the “great pious ones” Ricus railed against. I would not. . could not admit my love. Perhaps that is why he sought it elsewhere, why he was killed.’
Mickelsburg had obviously accepted the official explanation of young Praetor’s death: a homosexual tryst gone wrong. Werthen was not about to disabuse him of that by accusing Frau Steinwitz of the crime. Apprising Doktor Praetor of the actual circumstances had been the least he could do, but Father Mickelsburg was owed no such honesty.
‘Perhaps.’ But his curiosity got the better of Werthen. ‘I understand there may have been a relationship between Herr Praetor and Councilman Steinwitz.’
Suddenly Mickelsburg broke out into uncontrollable laughter. His body shook with the force of it and it took him several moments to regain his composure.
‘I am sorry, Advokat, but that suggestion is, as you have witnessed, quite laughable.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘One simply knows these things. Did you ever meet the man?’
‘I was his attorney for several years.’
‘Well, then, did he strike you as someone who might fancy men?’
Werthen shook his head. ‘But then, neither did you.’
Mickelsburg nodded at this riposte. ‘I, however, am quite adept at disguises, Advokat. I met Councilman Steinwitz once in the company of Ricus, and I can tell you for a certainty that the man had no sexual designs on him. Councilman Steinwitz was a deeply troubled man, but that had nothing to do with confused sexual identity. Rather, I think it had to do with his wife. He made a few pointed comments about her. I do not remember the exact words, but there was a feeling of disappointment from him.’
‘Did Herr Praetor tell you the nature of his and Steinwitz’s connection?’
‘You mean exposing the scheme to sell the Vienna Woods? Of course. I was very proud of him.’
‘Do you think you might be less than objective when you insist there was nothing more between them? After all, we all experience jealousy.’
‘I assure you, Advokat, Councilman Steinwitz was not interested in men. If you have heard otherwise, somebody is trying to mislead you.’
He rose. ‘And now, I have taken enough of your time, Advokat. But it has been preying on me that I was not completely honest with you before. Was not completely honest with Ricus.’
Werthen could not let it go. This new information from the priest gnawed away at him until finally he set out in the early afternoon to confirm his reawakened suspicions.
He went to see the journalist, Karl Kraus. When he and Gross had paid a visit to find out about Councilman Steinwitz’s possible friends and enemies inside the Rathaus, Kraus had ended their conversations with that confounding remark about a circle of ‘special friends’ the councilman was rumored to have. At the time, this offhand remark did not seem important; now it seemed to scream at him for some kind of explanation.
Kraus was busy as usual with the latest edition of Die Fackel, but made time and space — clearing away stacks of old newspapers from the only available chair — for Werthen.
‘I am sorry that my cryptic comment has given you pains,’ he said after Werthen explained the reason for his visit. ‘I should be delighted to expound on that, provided you assist me in another matter of curiosity.’
Kraus did not offer schnapps today; it sounded as if he might have a cold or a bronchial complaint. But despite illness, he still wore that Cheshire cat grin of his.