‘I’ve been following you. Figured a man like you, he wouldn’t let my boy’s death go unavenged.’
Fraulein Metzinger put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It was an accident. There’s no one to blame.’
‘Ask him,’ Beer said, shaking off her touch. ‘He knows different.’
She began to have doubts now. ‘Advokat?’
Gross finally joined in. ‘I think you can put that down now, Werthen.’
Werthen had not realized he was still gripping the paperweight.
‘And you, Herr Beer, please be seated and tell us what you think you know,’ continued Gross. ‘You, too, Fraulein Metzinger. Our precipitate visitor is right in one regard: this does concern you.’
Beer took a proffered chair warily, as if handed a loaded gun. Once seated, he looked from one to the other of his interlocutors with a tight-lipped grimace.
‘It was the coat Heidrich had on when he died. I knew right off that was not my boy’s coat. Then I saw you talking to that young swell near the Karlsplatz the other day.’
‘Young Wittgenstein,’ Werthen said.
‘That’s the one. Say what you like about the rich, but they aren’t all bad. This young one was a bit scared when I approached him at the skating pond in the park-’
‘You followed him, too?’ Werthen was appalled.
‘Don’t get so high and mighty. I didn’t mean him any harm. Waited till this walking cadaver he was with was busy with the skates, and then I told the boy my situation. That I am. . was Heidrich’s father. That I had a right to know. And so, he told me.’
‘Told you what?’ Fraulein Metzinger asked, casting a brief glance at Werthen.
‘It is a sad tale,’ Gross said. ‘We did not wish to involve more people in it than absolutely necessary.’
‘Tell me.’ It was an animal shriek.
Werthen told her the entire sordid story. She listened as one would to a requiem mass, hands held tightly in her lap, head bowed. When he finished, she looked up.
‘Then Herr Beer is right,’ she said. ‘You are planning something.’
‘We want to bring her back to Vienna to stand trial.’
‘Rich folks’ justice?’ Beer sounded skeptical.
‘There is a strong case against her,’ Werthen replied.
‘Circumstantial,’ Fraulein Metzinger said. ‘Unless there is someone you have not told us about.’
She was right, of course. Werthen was well aware of that. Frau Steinwitz’s confession to himself and Gross was a matter of hearsay; they were not officials of the court, merely private citizens who would claim to have heard one thing while Frau Steinwitz and her father would surely aver that no such confession had been made. Further, the Kulowski testimony had already been compromised, by none other than Mayor Lueger himself, no matter what Oberbaurat Wagner might say to the contrary about seeing Frau Steinwitz at the Rathaus the day of her husband’s death.
Also, would Father Mickelsburg be willing to sacrifice his entire career for justice? He sought penance, but self-immolation might be too much to ask of the man. And Ludwig Wittgenstein? Assuming his father let him testify, would his sighting of Frau Steinwitz at the scene of Praetor’s death be sufficient? Would jurors believe the transcribed note salvaged from Praetor’s typing ribbon, suggesting a meeting for the night in question? Would they give credence to Frau Czerny’s attestation to hearing a woman’s voice from inside the flat that same evening? And would these same jurors put these facts together to accept the fact that Frau Steinwitz was also guilty of the murder of the hapless Huck?
Additionally, there was the fact of Gutrum being a major investor in the Vienna Woods deal, which provided Frau Steinwitz’s motive in killing her husband and Praetor. But they had made a bargain with Lueger that that matter should be put to rest. Werthen knew Lueger would do everything in his power to quash such evidence. And he had powerful friends in every strata of the Viennese social, political, and judicial worlds. The gun in the case in the Steinwitz flat could be another circumstantial bit of evidence, that is, if it were still there.
Another factor was Frau Steinwitz herself. Confronted with her crimes, she would either deny them completely, or, if cornered, would opt for the defense of a crime passionel, as Werthen had earlier surmised. Then it would be the job of the prosecutor to show that both murders showed extreme premeditation. There was nothing of ‘killing in the passion of the moment,’ which is at the heart of a crime of passion. Yet demonstrating that depended on a clever prosecutor.
‘You are absolutely correct, Fraulein Metzinger,’ Werthen finally replied. ‘The case is strong, not sure. But bringing Frau Steinwitz back to Vienna to stand trial is the best we can do.’
‘Put me on the stand. I’ll say I saw her shove my boy under the wheels of that Stadtbahn train.’
Gross was on his feet, a look of amazement on his face.
‘Thank you, Herr Beer.’ He grabbed the seated man’s hand and shook it vigorously. ‘You’ve struck on exactly the line of inquiry we have failed to pursue. The platform that day of young Heidrich’s death was of course crowded, for the trains had only just begun running regularly again after the heavy snowfall. We need to track those passengers down and show them photographs of Frau Steinwitz. Someone, perhaps several, must have seen her there. No one would suspect at the time, of course, that an elegantly attired woman would have pushed the boy. But I guarantee that some of them will remember her presence there; it is not every day that the rich and powerful subject themselves to the hustle and bustle of public transport.’
‘The officer first on the scene must have taken names of passengers,’ Werthen said without a pause, for this was exactly where his thoughts were going, as well. ‘It is standard police procedure.’
‘Perhaps Detective Inspector Drechsler can be of assistance one more time,’ Gross said.
‘I say we just kill her,’ Beer muttered. ‘You know where she is. I’ll do the deed and smile on my way to the gallows.’
‘Were we living several centuries ago, my good man,’ Gross intoned, ‘such a course of action would be the norm. Private settlement of accounts was an acknowledged method in the German-speaking lands. The authorities in such cases merely supervised these private settlements.’
‘Please do not encourage him, Gross.’
‘You seem an ardent man, Herr Beer,’ the criminologist said. ‘Perhaps you would care to join forces with us to see that justice is done?’
‘Is that wise, Gross?’ Werthen said.
‘Done,’ replied Beer. ‘I am your man.’
Fraulein Metzinger merely shook her head at the entire enterprise. ‘She will walk away from the courtroom smiling.’
Gross looked at her long and hard.
‘I promise that will not happen, young lady.’
The private train Wittgenstein provided left from Wiener Neustadt, joining the rails of the Austrian train system a few kilometers to the west. If this was what it was like to be an industrialist, Werthen figured that he had chosen the wrong profession. The car they were traveling in was appointed as elegantly as one of the rooms in the Wittgenstein mansion. The walls were red plush, matching the well-stuffed fauteuils. Hunting scenes hung on the walls. At Werthen’s side table sat a silver bell, which he picked up and jingled. Nothing happened. He jingled it more violently this time and heard the door open and close from the front carriage to theirs in the middle of the three-car train.
‘Yes, sir.’
Werthen had never heard quite so much loathing put into two words before.
‘Beer, I am only doing this for your benefit. You need practice at being a servant.’
Herr Erdmann Beer stood in front of him in deep-blue satin livery, his spindly shanks looking rather pitiful in the silk hose he wore. A sorrier version of Meier, the Wittgenstein house servant, but a real improvement over Beer’s usual attire.
‘What is it you require, sir?’
‘Excellent, Beer. Now you sound like the real thing.’