‘I assume you refer to Frau Steinwitz?’
‘Assume away, Advokat.’
‘The newspapers say she is undergoing therapy in Switzerland.’
‘Yes,’ Kraus said. ‘The newspapers say a lot of silly things.’
‘This goes no further,’ Werthen said.
Kraus assented to the request.
Werthen quickly outlined the case against Frau Steinwitz and the visit to her, which had elicited a confession.
‘Could I not perhaps have gotten this from another source?’ Kraus said after Werthen finished. ‘Such a story needs publication.’
‘Part of it is public record,’ Werthen said. ‘I am ashamed to say it, but I do not want my name attached to any of this, Kraus. Gutrum is the sort to bring a nuisance suit.’
‘Yes, well, those hardly bother me. I have at least three outstanding legal suits as we speak. It will be on my shoulders, Advokat. That I promise. But this truth must see the light of day.’
Kraus, busy enough before Werthen’s arrival, seemed suddenly to redouble his efforts, pushing away the story he was working on, and finding several pieces of fresh paper.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Kraus?’ Werthen asked. ‘The special friends?’
Kraus looked up from the paper where he had already begun writing in a hand so minute and spidery that its decipherment would require the use of a magnifying glass by the printer.
‘Ah, to be sure. The special friends. Well, there is a certain group of young ballerinas at the Court Opera that enjoy the company of powerful men. Steinwitz was among this group of men. I understand that the women are traded quite regularly, and that Councilman Steinwitz, whatever his scruples over selling off the Vienna Woods, had none when it came to matters of the flesh.’
‘Young women, you say?’ Werthen asked.
‘But of course. The man was, by all accounts, quite a mastiff.’
Werthen’s attentions were otherwise occupied for the next few days. With the collapse of the scheme to sell large portions of the Vienna Woods, the Rathaus recanted its demands on the Laab im Walde property. Werthen’s estate agent, Grundman, notified him that there had been a renewed offer on the property from Herr Pokorny, the pharmacist whose wife had inherited it. The property was now offered, Grundman indicated, at a slightly reduced price.
‘Herr Pokorny is, as we in the trade say, rather motivated now after all this business with taking it off the market and putting it back on.’
They were speaking by telephone, but Werthen could clearly discern a slight tinge of humor in the otherwise dour Grundman’s voice.
Werthen told him he would let him know, but he was reluctant to get back into this business of the country house, having been so sorely disappointed to lose it before. However, discussing it with Berthe that night, he found that he actually began to consider such a purchase. Then, a visit to the property in the company of Herr Meisner renewed his enthusiasm for having a real home for Frieda to grow up in, if only for the summers at first. That very day he made an offer of fifteen thousand florins, the same that he had started with originally. Motivated or not, Herr Pokorny made the same counter offer as he had earlier and in the end the price was settled at sixteen thousand again. But Werthen was beyond caring, truly relishing the idea of getting the house in order for this summer’s occupancy. They signed the final papers on March 10.
It was only after signing these that Werthen let his mind return to the business of Frau Steinwitz. This was accomplished by Kraus, who sent a blue flimsy pneumatic letter the same day to inform Werthen that his story on the death of Councilman Steinwitz would appear in the Monday edition of Die Fackel.
That Monday, Werthen lost no time in purchasing a copy on his way to the office. Photographs of Frau and Herr Steinwitz accompanied the text, a novelty for Kraus’s magazine. Werthen read through the lead article once, then a second time, marveling at Kraus’s ability to fill out the full story by innuendo, suggestion, and unattributed supposition. In fact, Kraus had created a miracle of modern journalism: a damning yet indirect brief against Frau Steinwitz for the murders of her husband and Herr Henricus Praetor, without writing one actionable sentence and without once mentioning the word, ‘homosexual.’
Why, the man should have been a lawyer, Werthen thought.
Kraus’s final sentence made Werthen reconsider the whole affair:
‘One can only ask about the motive for these heinous crimes.’
‘It’s you again.’
‘Very nice to see you, as well, Meier. I’ve come to see Herr Wittgenstein.’
‘You were hardly welcome before, if you do not mind my saying, sir. Even less so now, I would assume.’
‘Herr Wittgenstein, if you please.’
‘Very well. I did warn you.’
Meier led the well-trodden path through the foyer and up the grand staircase to his master’s study. Waiting outside, he heard Wittgenstein’s voice boom at Meier, but could not make out what was said.
A slightly chastened Meier appeared. ‘He will see you.’
Werthen entered the study, a fire in the grate once again pouring out waves of heat.
‘Damn cheeky servant,’ Wittgenstein said, volubly enough that Meier could hear himself referred to by that title. ‘I’ll decide whom I do and don’t want to see. Now what in God’s name brings you to my door again?’
‘May I sit?’
Wittgenstein shrugged. ‘As you wish. I confess, Advokat, to being somewhat impressed by your persistence. Others who have crossed me would hardly dare to come for such a tete-a-tete.’
‘Should I fear for my life?’ he said jocularly.
Wittgenstein turned suddenly serious. ‘Others have.’
Werthen began to wonder for the first time if this were really such a good idea. Perhaps he should take Berthe’s advice and simply let the matter go. But Frau Steinwitz’s face, so eminently in control one moment and so suddenly broken the next, came to mind. He no longer believed that act. He needed to know the truth, regardless of the costs.
‘I would like your help.’
Wittgenstein slapped his desk as he chuckled. ‘Advokat Werthen, I must give you kudos for, as our Spanish friends say, your cojones. Why ever should I want to help you? You have cost me dearly.’
‘I found your son,’ Werthen said. ‘And I saved you the embarrassment of being blamed for despoiling the Vienna Woods. The latter you may not believe just yet, but the former you know to be true.’
‘And I paid you handsomely for that service.’
‘Indeed you did, sir. But I am talking about a deeper payment. In kind.’
Herr Wittgenstein cocked his head, examining Werthen closely. ‘I am not sure if you are overly sincere or simply an idiot. Perhaps both.’ Another chuckle. ‘What help is it you require?’
‘I would like to know if, among the list of fellow investors in the Vienna Woods project, was included the name of Colonel Adam Gutrum.’
Wittgenstein took in a large breath of air and blew it out between his lips, almost whistling.
‘I think Colonel Gutrum might have enough on his plate with his daughter in a Swiss asylum. He does not need you dogging him, as well.’
‘I have no intention of bothering the colonel, Herr Wittgenstein. That I promise you.’
Another appraising look. ‘All right, since you ask. Yes. He was one of the major investors. Stood to make a packet if the deal went through. Does that conclude our business, Advokat?’
‘Yes, sir. And I thank you.’
‘Nothing to give thanks for. But I do believe our slate may be clean now.’
‘Tabula rasa,’ Werthen replied.
Outside on the Alleegasse he thought: We now have motive. She killed her own husband and Praetor to stop them from ruining the Vienna Woods sale, a venture that would bring a fortune to her father and, by inference, to her.