This year he had created a sensation with Lieutenant Gustl, a short play about a military officer, the lieutenant of the title, who gets into an altercation with a baker following a concert. The baker goes so far as to grab the lieutenant’s sword, but Gustl fails to challenge the man to a duel, fearing that he might indeed lose to this burly fellow below him in class. Instead, he hurries from the concert hall, hoping that no one has witnessed his shame. He spends the rest of the night worrying about his lost reputation — only to discover in the morning that the baker has had a stroke and is dead. His guilty secret is safe. Recovering, Lieutenant Gustl resumes his aggressive ways and makes plans for a duel that he is certain to win.
Werthen read this play when it was first published as a serial in the special Christmas editions of the Neue Freie Press. It had caused a firestorm of protest from the military-loving conservatives, who pilloried Schnitzler for depicting the army in a bad light. The gutter press had resorted to their tried-and-tested theme: anti-Semitism. A writer for the satirical journal Kikeriki asked what more one could expect from such a “Jew writer.” In fact, the same writer averred, the cowardly lieutenant of the title was most likely a Jew himself.
For Werthen it was not this implicit indictment of the military that made Lieutenant Gustl interesting; instead, it was the manner in which Schnitzler told the tale. ‘Interior monologue,’ the critics were calling the device. The entirety of the story was told from inside the mind of the lieutenant, a bold new method Werthen thought.
Werthen had now reached Frankgasse 1, where the portal was guarded by three putti-like stone warriors, seemingly Roman legionnaires, on the façade overhead. The street door remained unlocked during daylight hours; he checked the name-plates to see which was Schnitzler’s flat before entering. He noticed that Schnitzler had never bothered to change his brass plaque announcing him as an ear, nose and throat doctor.
Several minutes later he found the flat on the second floor and was about to ring the bell when suddenly he was gripped from behind by a pair of thick and exceedingly strong arms. He tried to struggle free, but the man had him in an iron grip.
‘Gott in Himmel, if it isn’t Advokat Werthen!’
Werthen would have recognized that choirboy’s voice anywhere. And now, as the owner of the voice appeared, he saw he was right. A week for reunions with the criminal class, it seemed: first Fehrut and now Herr Prokop.
‘Let him go, Meier,’ said Prokop, in that high sweet voice which ran counter to his pugilist’s appearance.
Released, Werthen was able to gather his breath again. ‘What are you doing here, Prokop?’ He swung around and the hulking Meier smiled down at him sheepishly. Both of them were dressed in their usual work clothes: tattered suits and dented bowler hats. Prokop, Werthen noticed, had not had dental work done since their last meeting — he was still missing a front tooth. And Meier’s left little finger had now healed, its stub missing the last joint. Hazards of the trade.
‘I suppose I should be asking you the same question, Advokat,’ Prokop said. ‘Herr Doktor Schnitzler described everyone he knows who might pay him a visit. You were not on the list.’
‘You’re working for Schnitzler?’
The two of them nodded in unison.
‘Whatever for?’
‘Half-crown a day each,’ the literal Meier answered.
At which Prokop merely shook his head in disgust. ‘Ah, then you haven’t heard, have you? The Herr Doktor suffered a vicious beating not three days ago. We have been engaged for protection.’
‘Klimt recommended you?’
A smile appeared on both their faces.
‘Herr Klimt never forgets a favor,’ Prokop said.
Indeed, Werthen and the painter Klimt had earlier secured the services of these two toughs when their lives were endangered by an eminence grise at the Habsburg court; Werthen had also later employed them to watch over the composer Gustav Mahler when someone was trying to kill him.
‘It is good to see you both again,’ Werthen said brightly. ‘But how is Schnitzler? Can he receive a visitor?’
Meier and Prokop exchanged glances, puffed out their lips and stared at Werthen.
‘Perhaps you could ask,’ Werthen suggested. ‘You might tell him it is important.’
‘I suppose I could do that,’ Prokop said. ‘His fiancée is out. She’s been a terror, I can tell you. Won’t let a soul in. Terrified, she is, his attacker will come back. His mother has the adjoining apartment. You would think she’d be the one hovering over the wounded son — but no, she’s off to a spa somewhere. Something tells me she and Fräulein Olga don’t get along very well. She can’t be twenty, but she’s already got the makings of a real Viennese wife, if you know what I mean.’
Werthen nodded, though he was not sure what Prokop meant, other than that the said fiancée must be a strong-willed woman. Anybody who could get Schnitzler to propose marriage must have special talents.
Werthen waited in silence with Meier on the landing as Prokop went to Schnitzler. Meier was not one much for talking. Prokop made up for that deficiency; they made a good team.
Another minute of silence and then Prokop lumbered back out on to the landing.
‘He’ll see you. Seemed almost eager, I’d say. Gentleman like Herr Doktor Schnitzler, I don’t think he’s used to being cooped up.’
Prokop led the way down a long dark hallway to double doors that opened on to a large and bright study, its walls covered in bookcases. A massive potted palm stood in a brass pot near the floor-to-ceiling windows, through which he could just make out the spire of the Votivkirche.
Schnitzler lay on a divan, a white bandage round his head. A boyish lock of hair stuck out of the wrapping, dangling over his forehead. He was a good-looking man, despite a somewhat pained expression on his face. He wore a beard, closely trimmed on the cheeks and longer at the chin. As he looked up, his eyes were inquisitive and sparkling. Dressed in a royal-blue velveteen suit with kid slippers, he held a book in his hands. As he approached the divan, Werthen could see that this was a volume of the works of Lessing.
‘Advokat Werthen,’ Schnitzler said as he drew near. It appeared he was struggling to get up to welcome his visitor.
‘Please Herr Schnitzler, stay recumbent. What a nasty state of affairs.’
Schnitzler leaned back against a mound of white pillows, giving up all thoughts of politesse.
‘Isn’t it just?’ He motioned to a chair near the divan. ‘Please, bring it over here next to me and sit.’
Werthen did so, and sat close to the divan. ‘Who did this? Have the police caught the blackguard?’
‘Well, I assume that is why you are here.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand.’
‘I assume Klimt sent you. He talks much about your deductive powers.’
‘No. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I have come about a completely different matter. I had not heard of your unfortunate circumstances.’
Schnitzler closed the volume of plays, setting it on his lap. ‘And what matter would that be?’
‘I have just come from Altenberg. He tells me that you introduced him to a young woman. . Mitzi is, or was, her name. From the Bower.’
Schnitzler’s eyes suddenly grew larger. He looked around the room as if fearful someone might overhear.
‘That part of my life is past,’ he said in almost a whisper.
‘I understand that you are recently engaged,’ Werthen said. ‘I do not wish to create any difficulties-’
‘Hardly engaged,’ Schnitzler interrupted. ‘Fräulein Gussman and I have a certain understanding. Still, it would be better if she did not learn of my visits to the Bower.’