It was just as he and Gross initially thought: someone involved with the sale had the most to gain by the deaths of Steinwitz and Praetor. But they could hardly be expected to focus on the wife as that person. Frau Steinwitz’s tragic story of a shaming love affair between her husband and Henricus Praetor was just that — a story. A fabrication. She had killed for the basest of human motives, monetary gain. Which explained the missing notes of Councilman Steinwitz detailing the scheme, as well as the notebooks of Praetor where he kept transcriptions of interviews and the particulars of his investigation. Frau Steinwitz had surely destroyed those damning bits of evidence.
Werthen was walking along the street, lost in these thoughts, when young Ludwig Wittgenstein entered from the Karlsplatz in the company of a tall, thin man Werthen assumed to be his tutor.
‘Another outing to the Natural History Museum, Master Ludwig?’ Werthen asked as they approached one another.
‘Yes, to be sure,’ the boy said, smiling in recognition. ‘Sorry I could not stay to talk the other day, but Mining would not hear of it.’
He meant at Huck’s funeral, Werthen knew.
‘Quite all right. Not a very happy occasion.’
‘Master Wittgenstein,’ the elderly and rather eunuch-like tutor said. ‘We really should be on our way. It is a bitterly cold day.’
‘It’s fine, Traschky. Advokat Werthen is an old family friend. Go on if you like. I’ll catch you up.’
‘Don’t dawdle, Master Wittgenstein. Latin hour is next.’
Traschky, a wraith of a man, moved off like fog lifting on a summer morning.
Ludwig watched him go. ‘He’s not bad, actually. Bad breath, though.’
‘How have you been?’ Werthen asked.
‘You mean about Huck’s death?’
‘I mean in general.’
‘When asked that, Father always says, “I can’t complain. No one would listen anyway.” An interesting observation, don’t you think, Advokat?’
‘Very realistic, I should think. But in this case, I really do want to know.’
Ludwig ignored further attempts at solicitude. Instead, he pulled out the latest edition of Die Fackel.
‘Have you seen this, Advokat?’
‘What are you doing with that?’
‘It’s hardly seditious. Besides, Hans never stopped his subscription.’
Werthen now remembered seeing the red covers of the magazine on Hans’s bookshelf and finding it odd that the son of Karl Wittgenstein would read it, considering the criticisms Kraus sometimes leveled at his father.
‘So, three times a month I get to the postman before he delivers the mail and save this for myself. This Kraus fellow is really fabulous, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Werthen agreed.
‘There was an absolutely fantastic article this time about this woman who may have killed her husband and another chap, a journalist. She’s hiding away now in a Swiss asylum, beyond justice.’
‘I saw that article, yes.’
‘You know the woman of course,’ Ludwig said. ‘I saw her at your office one day.’
Werthen now remembered. Frau Steinwitz had come to see him the day after he’d been beaten, the day Ludwig met Huck.
‘You have a good memory, Master Ludwig.’
‘Was she your client?’
Werthen shook his head. ‘Her husband once was.’
‘It’s strange, you know. That day I met her at the office I thought I recognized her. And I was right. Seeing her photo again in Die Fackel and then reading the article by Kraus I realized I had actually seen her the night of this Herr Praetor’s death. Only I didn’t know until reading the article that he had died. In fact, I did not even know that he lived in the Zeltgasse. You see, I don’t regularly read the newspapers yet. Such a lot of rubbish in them, Father says.’
Werthen felt at once a sudden sense of excitement and bewilderment at this barrage of revelations. ‘You were at Herr Praetor’s flat?’
‘Not actually in his apartment. But at the building. We couldn’t get in, you see. For some reason the Portier locked the front doors early.’
‘Why were you there?’
‘Mining was most mysterious about it. We were supposed to be at the Raimund play in the Theater in der Josefstadt. My tutor was very keen on me seeing Der Verschwender. But Mining said we had to visit someone first. I went along with her. We all have our little secrets. Now that I’ve read the Kraus article, it makes more sense. He was a friend of Hans, right?’
‘Correct.’
‘The one, in fact, who told you Hans had gone to America.’
‘Again, correct.’
‘So maybe Mining was trying to find out more about Hans. Maybe they correspond.’
‘Good surmise,’ Werthen said, but thought it more likely that the older Wittgenstein sister had gone there to ensure that Praetor made no revelations to the press about his supposed homosexual relationship with Hans. Only something along those lines would account for her visiting under the guise of attending the theater.
‘Well, you see, we rang the bell and could not get in. Mining and I waited several minutes and finally she just left in disgust, walking much faster than me. Like Traschky says, I am famous for dawdling. And it was then the house door opened, with Mining already around the corner, and out walks this woman. Frau Steinwitz.’
‘You saw her clearly?’
‘Very. We were not half a block apart.’
‘And that means-’
‘Yes. I know. That she saw me, too. And knew I had witnessed her leaving the scene of a crime. That is why I was so happy to see you just now. All morning long I have been trying to figure out how I could see you again, and here you are, like magic.’
‘To tell me about Frau Steinwitz?’
‘Yes. Well, and the rest. It’s pretty clear, isn’t it?’
The realization struck Werthen violently, like a physical blow. Of course, he told himself. I should have seen it before.
Young Wittgenstein continued, ‘I mean, when she saw me again at your office she must have panicked. There is no way she could know I was ignorant of Herr Praetor’s death. I was, in her eyes, the only witness to her crime.’
‘She killed Huck,’ Werthen finally said.
Ludwig nodded his head vigorously. ‘That’s what I think, too. It was the coat, you see. That night I first saw her I was wearing my loden coat with the fur collar. There’s not another one like it in all of Vienna. At least Father says so. They tailored it specially for me. I was wearing it again that day at the office. And then Huck and I traded coats because I knew how fond he was of it.’
His boyish excitement was suddenly stilled, replaced by grief.
‘She was following you. Looking for an opportunity to strike.’ Werthen was thinking out loud.
‘We went into the Karlsplatz Stadtbahn station to exchange coats. I left with Huck’s coat on, hurrying to get home before I was missed. She must have thought I was Huck leaving and then followed him on to the platform thinking he was I. The coat was so bulky she never realized she killed the wrong boy.’
‘And the fact that there was no mention of the tragedy in the press would not have bothered her,’ Werthen thought out loud. ‘She most probably thought your family was keeping the tragedy private.’
A blast of frigid wind blew down the Alleegasse, making them both shiver.
‘She’s an evil woman, Advokat. You aren’t going to let her get away with it, are you?’
Twenty-One
What do you tell a ten-year-old boy to make him understand the ways of the world? How do you explain expediency, connections, and the perversion of power? How do you tell him that the world is not always — in fact seldom is — a fair place? That money and influence can trump justice?
Werthen did not bother to try. Instead he said, ‘No, I won’t let her get away with it, Master Ludwig.’
It was only later that he began to believe his own words.