The Third Place Read online

  ‘I’m not going without you, and that’s final.’

  ‘Think of our daughter then.’

  ‘We don’t even know if he has the bacilli.’

  ‘Do you really want to wager against Klavan’s perfidy?’ Werthen asked.

  She sighed at this, for she was witness to it herself when they were last confronted with the man.

  ‘And there is your father and his bride-to-be, as well as my parents.’

  ‘They should go back to Hohelände,’ Berthe said before she could stop herself. ‘I mean, it would be safer for them there.’

  ‘Yes, but who is going to tell them to go? They would only get suspicious and ask questions. The fewer people who know about this affair the better, or else panic will set in. There could be riots.’

  She still kept her arms crossed stubbornly in front of her, the muscle in her jaw twitching.

  ‘Invite everyone for a nice house party in the country to celebrate Easter.’

  ‘My father, the Talmud scholar, celebrating Easter? None of us are Christians except for your parents, and that’s only on paper.’

  ‘Spring, then. Make it a vernal celebration. No one need be the wiser.’

  ‘I don’t like putting my tail between my legs.’

  ‘I am not asking for acrobatics, schatz, just a simple sojourn in the Vienna Woods.’

  ‘And don’t be so humorous. I’ll worry myself sick over you.’

  The Emperor Franz Josef finished his solitary meal later that evening and went back to his Spartan quarters to continue work. So many petitioners, but he needed to read each request individually.

  He wished he had the ear of his dear Katharina, but she was still upset about the matter of the missing letter. He’d never accused her, but she obviously felt guilty and so took out her feelings on him. There was no word from her about the little mix up the day before at the ceremonial washing of the feet. He was sure her spies let Katharina know about the attempt on his life. But not even that would break her silence. And he could use his silence broken now; just to hear the pleasant melody of her laughter.

  Such a long life it has been, he thought. He felt indestructible in a certain way. After all, how can you kill someone half dead already? The tragedies of the last years had taken their toll: the death of his son and wife. That is how he always thought of those two tragedies: bound together as one death.

  A knock at his door and he turned to face it as he said, ‘Enter.’

  He was surprised to see Prince Montenuovo at his door, one of the emperor’s guard behind him.

  ‘Isn’t it rather late for you to be in attendance, Prince? There must be some theatrical performance, some dinner party which you would rather be attending.’

  Then Franz Josef saw the solemn expression on the prince’s face. ‘There is something you need to know, Your Majesty.’

  Montenuovo told Franz Josef all the details of this dire new threat to Vienna, and the emperor remained still throughout, as if listening to a bedtime story, a fantasy.

  When Montenuovo finished, the emperor said, with almost a frisson of pride, ‘And all this just because the swine could not kill me? What a petty man he must be. Were I younger I would challenge him to a duel.’

  The casual remark in the face of such grave danger would remain with Montenuovo for the rest of his life.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Saturday morning and still no word from Klavan.

  Werthen and Gross, however, were not merely sitting and waiting for that psychopath to determine the rules of the game. After sending Berthe, Frieda and the in-laws off to the country (Frau Blatschky was due to visit her sister in Linz this weekend and so did not have to be convinced to leave Vienna), Werthen joined Gross at the Lower Belvedere for a war council.

  The archduke had a grim look on his face. ‘The fool Montenuovo is fearful of causing concern in the populace. He refuses to put the army out in the streets to hunt for this animal. Well, I’m damned if I’ll be timid about this threat. I have a battalion of dragoons in my service and they will be scouring the city for Klavan.’

  Werthen partly agreed with Montenuovo on this one, but said nothing. Troops questioning the public with a description as vague as the one they would have of Klavan were sure to raise suspicion and anxiety. But what else was there to do? Police had already notified all legitimate hotels, pensions and lodging houses in the capital. Klavan’s last known description – dressed in Trachten – was used with the caveat that he may have changed attire by now. And the only distinctive feature of the nondescript Klavan – his stiff little fingers – was being emphasized.

  ‘Do your men have a likely story?’ Gross asked Franz Ferdinand. ‘They are sure to arouse curiosity with their questioning.’

  A flicker of smile crossed the archduke’s face. ‘As a matter of fact, they do. I instructed them to tell any curious citizen that the man was being sought in connection with selling our military secrets. Hardly far from the truth in light of Klavan’s activities the last time he visited Vienna.’

  ‘And sure to work up a patriotic fervor in the populace,’ Gross said. ‘Make them eager to help out. But not so eager that they might attack Klavan were they to see him, one hopes. Force him to actually use the vial of bacilli.’

  Franz Ferdinand looked stunned. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ He shook his head. ‘But then one had to do something. It’s the infernal waiting that wears one down.’

  Contingency plans were being arranged by Doktor Nothnagel and his colleagues at the General Hospital in the event that Klavan was not bluffing. Quarantine huts were being constructed in the grounds around the hospital, as they had been in the 1898 plague scare. This time, however, it was not a matter of a few huts, but of hundreds. Lord knows how they were going to explain those away when the public became aware of them, thought Werthen.

  They all traveled together in one carriage. Berthe made it sound like a happy family get-together. They could all help out preparing the house in Laab im Walde for summer residency. She deeply loved the old farmstead they had purchased a few years earlier. From the seventeenth century, the farm was what was called a four-square: a house that was more like a fort built in a rectangle around a central courtyard. They had opened it up somewhat, putting in a series of high windows on the outer walls that gave onto the fields beyond and the grass tennis court Werthen’s father had arranged for.

  Today, however, she approached the place with foreboding. Her family was not complete; Werthen’s absence was keenly felt. She tried to keep a gay facade so as not to make the others suspicious.

  She had also felt like a coward abandoning Vienna and the Viennese in this time of danger. She felt as she imagined a captain might who abandons his ship, leaving the passengers to fend for themselves in cold Atlantic waters. She had contacted Erika, their legal secretary and friend, and told her cryptically that this might be a good weekend for a trip with her fiancé, Herr Sonnenthal. But Erika said he was too busy trying to verify a rumor of another attempt on the emperor’s life. She had been about to tell Erika of the plague threat, but remembered her husband’s warning about not spreading the news and causing a panic that might be deadlier than even the bacilli. She had also placed a call to Frau Rosa Mayreder, and was happy to discover from her maid that Rosa and her husband had gone to an architectural conference in Paris. Should she tell the maid to leave town? Where would it ever stop? And what of young Franzl and his aunt and Frau Blau, the painter. Klimt, and a hundred more? There was no end to it; she could not warn her entire circle of friends and acquaintances, yet she still felt a coward for slipping away.

  And then Frieda whispered in her ear that Opa had a whisker in his ear, and she remembered all over again why she had to leave Vienna, and she hugged her young daughter to her tightly as the carriage bumped along the macadamized road.

  ‘I say we have lunch first at the gasthaus across the road from the house,’ Herr Meisner said. ‘I’ll bet they have some of their famous venison stew toda
y.’

  His thought was seconded by the von Werthens and Frau Juliani.

  Berthe joined in the chorus of approval, buoyed up momentarily by the good cheer. They will capture him, she told herself. They’re bound to. It will be fine. You’ll see.

  They left the Lower Belvedere later that morning, taking a fiaker to the hospital where young Brigitte Huber was still being held for observation, as she was near hysteria from her ordeal. The doctor allowed them to speak with her for only a few minutes, but it was all they needed to ascertain that the girl knew nothing of her captor; he had not even spoken as he abducted her and took her in unseen in the back entrance to the Hotel zur Josefstadt. She had no idea even why she had been abducted.

  They wasted no more time there but instead took another fiaker to Neulerchen‌felderstrasse and the Kubit Men’s Hostel. Postling was their only other human link to Klavan.

  The same insolent attendant was on duty at the front desk.

  ‘You again?’ The illustrated sports newspaper was again spread out in front of him.

  ‘The ledger, if you please,’ Gross said, not wanting to engage the man.

  ‘Be my guest,’ he said, shoving the large book toward Gross. ‘But he’s not here.’

  ‘Herr Postling?’ Werthen said.

  ‘Right. Out on his rounds.’

  ‘Rounds?’

  ‘Begging,’ the attendant said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Gross turned and stumped out of the building.

  ‘Your friend’s got a serious problem with anger,’ the attendant said.

  ‘Yes,’ Werthen said. ‘He does have a short fuse. I don’t suppose you know where Herr Postling might be found?’ Beggars often had their own pitch they returned to, Werthen knew.

  The man eyed Werthen, scratched his cheek then nodded slowly.

  ‘Old Hermann, he’s got his sacred ground, all right. Take a bottle to anybody who tries to crowd him out.’

  ‘And where might that be?’ Werthen asked pleasantly, but all the while wanted to grab the man around and choke the information out of him. Time was dear; with no further word from Klavan the situation seemed even more desperate, as if he expected them to figure out how to get in touch with him. Just as with the hidden note to Gross. Like a challenge, a puzzle for the great criminologist to solve.

  ‘It’s on the Wienerberg in Favoriten, near the park. That’s where you’ll find Hermann.’

  Reaching the street, he saw Gross striding toward the fiaker rank. He had to run to catch up with him. ‘I know where he is,’ he said.

  ‘Well, bravo for you,’ Gross said, and then thought better of his ill temper.

  ‘I apologize, Werthen. This matter has well and truly got my dander up.’

  Thirty minutes later a fiaker delivered them near the gates to the park on the Wienerberg. The weather was fair this Saturday and the park was filed with families; the sports fields were also in full use with kite flyers and some amateur teams were busy on the football pitch. It did not take them long to spot Hermann: he was squatting with his back against the park gates, a tin dish on the pavement in front of him.

  He spotted them as they approached. ‘Stay away from me, you two. You’ve already cost me my twenty pieces of silver.’

  ‘That’s what we’ve come about,’ Werthen said, improvising. ‘We have spoken with the emperor and he does not think it fair that you should lose your reward simply because of your association with Herr Klavan.’

  Postling’s face screwed up in a question. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Sorry. The man you knew as Wenno,’ Werthen explained.

  ‘Man’s got a curious taste in names. Wenno, Klavan. Not Austrian, that’s for sure. Not German.’

  ‘No,’ Werthen agreed, eager to steer the conversation back on track. ‘How did you meet Herr Wenno, if I might ask?’

  ‘Well, take a coin out of your pocket, tip it into my plate and you’ll know.’

  Werthen began digging into his coin purse, but Gross stopped him.

  ‘I believe Herr Postling means that Wenno put a coin into this very plate. Is that correct, sir?’

  The last word made Postling thrust his shoulders back and sit up straight. ‘That I do. Dropped a half crown into my plate with a rattle that woke me right up. Told him that was all well and good but not to expect any thanks.’

  ‘How did you come to make the arrangement for Maundy Thursday?’ Werthen asked.

  ‘So maybe now you might practice some of that coin tossing.’

  ‘Go ahead, Werthen,’ Gross urged, as usual playing free with the money of others.

  Werthen put in a ten-heller piece, but Postling just glared up at him.

  ‘Really, Werthen,’ Gross grumbled.

  He added a twenty-heller piece, and when Postling continued to glare, he dropped in a second twenty-heller piece. ‘That should satisfy,’ Werthen said. ‘After all, it’s the same that Wenno gave you that day, by your own admission.’

  He knew better than to antagonize witnesses, but the old man could get under one’s skin.

  Postling scooped up the coins and shoved them into his coat pocket. Then he stood with some effort, stretching his legs and arching his back.

  ‘It was me that gave him the idea, wasn’t it? Told him when I got my bag with twenty pieces of silver from the emperor there’d be no more begging for me. He was curious about that. And so I told him. Why, the man had never even heard of the foot-washing ceremony. That should have been my first clue he was a bad one. Any man calls himself an Austrian knows about that. Well, he gets all excited, buys me lunch, takes me back to the hostel in a fiaker. Treated me like a lord.’

  Another rueful laugh. ‘Another clue. I should have known. I mean I figured he was out to get something too, but I wasn’t going to let him get his hands on my twenty pieces of silver.’

  ‘Did he ever speak about himself?’ Gross asked. ‘Tell you what his business was.’

  The old man shook his head.

  ‘Nothing?’ Werthen said.

  ‘I wasn’t interested. What would it matter, anyway? Most men are liars. Actions don’t lie, though. He had time on his hands.’

  ‘How do know that?’ Gross asked.

  Postling looked again into his empty plate.

  ‘Werthen,’ Gross said.

  ‘I don’t suppose you bother with such mundane details as carrying change with you,’ Werthen said.

  Gross scowled at this comment, and once again Werthen dropped a half crown worth of change in the dish.

  ‘Lovely sound, that is,’ Postling said.

  ‘You were saying that Wenno was a man with time on his hands,’ Gross reminded him. ‘And what makes you think that?’

  ‘I saw him out here often enough, didn’t I? Wandering about, gazing out over the hillside like he was some kind of lord himself. Took a particular interest in that water tower, he did.’

  Postling pointed a dirty finger to the massive water tower sitting atop the Wienerberg.

  ‘Used to come up here quite a bit. Just sit and gaze out over the city. I’m sure he never knew I was watching him. Always by that water tower.’

  ‘My God, that’s it, Werthen. The water tower. That’s where he means to dump it.’

  ‘Dump what?’ the old man squawked as Werthen and Gross ran toward the tower.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  They were contented after a filling lunch at the gasthaus. As Herr Meisner had predicted, the proprietor had prepared venison stew for the menu. Now they walked down the country lane toward the house; the carriage, after depositing them at the gasthaus, was to leave their luggage at the front door. A slight breeze played through early wild flowers to each side of the dirt track leading to the house.

  Berthe felt a sigh of contentment as they drew near.

  ‘I hope somebody remembered to bring cards,’ Emile von Werthen said. ‘A bit of Tarock might be in order this evening.’

  ‘Or we could play charades,’ Frau Juliani sugges
ted.

  ‘Yes, poetry charades,’ Frau von Werthen said as they marched along. ‘My first is a letter, my second I mix, my whole points direction no compass can fix.’

  ‘Cunning,’ Herr Meisner uttered.

  Berthe focused on the problem. The first syllable made the sound of a letter. Not much help there. The second syllable formed a word that meant to mix. The whole word was a direction.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Frau Juliani said. ‘Easter.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Frau von Werthen said.

  ‘I do hope someone brought cards,’ Herr von Werthen muttered, which made the others laugh.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘Cards are convivial.’

  Reaching he farmhouse, they saw the luggage piled on the step as arranged. Berthe unlocked the door and threw it open for light and fresh air. They had not been here since Christmas, and there was the usual musty smell of a closed house.

  Herr Meisner and Herr von Werthen brought the luggage in while the three women took sheets off the furniture and opened curtains and windows on both sides of the long sitting room. In the meantime, Frieda was running about shrieking for joy. Several minutes later they were about to prepare the various rooms when there came a knock at the door. Berthe went to answer it as Herr von Werthen peered out the window.

  ‘Now what’s he doing here?’

  Berthe had just begun to open the door when Herr von Werthen added, ‘That Tyrolean chap from the hotel.’

  She immediately tried to close it, but Klavan burst in, a revolver leveled at her chest.

  ‘That’s no way to welcome a guest, Frau Meisner.’

  They were both winded by the time they reached the water tower with its ornamental roof that made it look as if a muezzin should appear at any moment and call the Musulman to prayer. Built only a few years earlier, it already looked part of the environment, its brownish-orange brick exterior seeming to grow out of the landscape.

  They stood sucking in air while Gross surveyed the place.

  ‘There are a thousand cubic meters of water inside there,’ the criminologist said.

  More of his vast store knowledge, much of it useless. Useless, that is, Werthen thought, until a time like this.