Werthen’s smile disappeared. ‘How good of you, Gross,’ he said with a sarcastic edge that made Berthe raise her eyebrows.
‘Are you holding back from taking the Archduke’s commission on my account?’ asked Berthe.
‘Yes, of course I am. And Frieda’s. She hasn’t asked to be involved in such matters.’
‘So,’ Berthe said, stiffening her back, ‘if von Ebersdorf actually was poisoned and the Intelligence Bureau of the General Staff was responsible for it, they would not like people nosing around making accusations, is that the theory?’
‘In a nutshell,’ Werthen said. ‘Though we cannot be sure it was the Intelligence Bureau at work.’
‘It stands to reason,’ she said. ‘If there are internecine battles, that means the Foreign Office is pitted against the General Staff. Von Ebersdorf worked for the Foreign Office, ergo-’
‘Ergo nothing,’ Werthen interrupted. ‘It could just as easily be some competitor in the Foreign Office eager for advancement.’
‘Then we give ourselves insurance,’ she said, ‘just as we did in the Grunenthal case.’
She was referring to Werthen’s first case involving those close to the Emperor. In that instance, Werthen had let it be known that the information he gathered was waiting to be sent off to the foreign press in case anything untoward happened to him.
‘They may very well decide to strike before we have damning proof,’ Gross said.
Which comment brought a pall of silence over the table, punctuated only by the ticking of the pendulum wall clock. During this pause, Werthen recalled how that first case had put Berthe into deadly danger. How could he do the same again?
Berthe finally broke the silence. ‘But what if it really was just a case of bad shellfish? Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves? First the exhumation and autopsy, and then the wringing of hands.’
Another moment of silence.
‘I for one say we proceed,’ she added. ‘I know that I am going to go ahead with Frau von Suttner’s investigation. And Karl, you know that you are not going to give up investigating the death of that poor young girl. Not after what you have found out. Not after visiting her family.’
Werthen felt a surge of pride in his wife, a warmth that engulfed him and made him want to embrace her.
‘Most persuasive, Frau Meisner,’ said Gross. ‘I shall let you put the case to my dear wife, as well. And indeed, you are right. Though my instincts tell me otherwise, von Ebersdorf’s death may turn out to be from natural causes.’
‘And even if it is not,’ Werthen added, in turn infected by Berthe’s fighting spirit, ‘who is to say that these deaths involve the intelligence agencies or even that they are connected? We still have a basket full of suspects who need vetting.’
‘That’s my man,’ Berthe said.
‘One concession,’ Werthen said.
Berthe nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Next time I shall leave Frieda with Frau Blatschky.’
They lay in bed later, haunches touching through their thin linen night apparel. She placed her head on his shoulder, threading her finger through the neck opening of his nightshirt and teasing the few hairs on his chest. The steady thrum of Gross’s snores rattled through the house from the distant guest room.
‘I’m awfully proud of you,’ Werthen said.
She placed a forefinger on his lips.
‘But I am,’ he insisted.
‘And I am proud of you — we’re a proud family, and by the sound of the good Doktor’s snores we could be a pride of lions.’
‘Just how do you intend to proceed with the von Suttner matter?’ he finally asked. ‘It would seem you have accomplished what you set out to do.’
‘I haven’t notified her yet.’
‘Are you going to warn her?’
She breathed in and then let out a warm sigh of breath on his chest.
‘If you reported the conversation correctly, the Archduke requested that his information go no further.’
‘But I’ve already told you-’
‘That was before you decided to take him on as a client. Now it seems we have an ethical conundrum — clients with competing needs.’
‘I didn’t know I married a philosopher.’
‘It must be my father’s Talmudic influence at work.’
‘I don’t think we need to let that worry us too much,’ Werthen said. ‘After all, Franz Ferdinand also said he appreciates her work.’
‘Amazing that he of all people should think so!’
They said nothing for a time.
‘Well?’
She ignored this for a moment, then sighed again. ‘I will deal with it — though it may take some thought.’
‘She is the client. She has a right to know about her husband.’
FIFTEEN
The 7:00 a.m. train left the Nordbahnhof five minutes late. He was not overly concerned with such things today. A Sunday. The family would be at home all day.
He was a traveling salesman for the Viennese cologne-maker Heisl today. He carried a case with the brand name blazoned on the side in white lettering to prove it. Sunday was an odd day for a traveling salesmen to be doing his rounds; but he was also Jewish, for today.
In Vienna he was Schmidt, representative of the Heisl Parfumerie; in Berlin he was Erlanger, the rail engineer from Budapest; in Warsaw he was de Koenig, the agent of a Dutch mining concern; in Zurich he was Axel Wouters, rubber merchant; and in Prague he was Maarkovsky, an importer of Polish vodka. He had posed as policeman, actor, wine grower and noble. Sometimes he had difficulty remembering his true identity: Pietr Klavan, an Estonian who at one time had prospects of a career as a concert violinist. But that, he reflected, was so long ago. .
Schmidt was a cautious man, a man who did not like loose ends dangling. Loose ends could unravel an entire operation; and they could cost a man of many identities his life.
The train followed the course of the Danube at first, and then traversed flat farmland. Schmidt stared out of the window at the fields of spring wheat, and orchards in full bloom.
He was not sure what he expected from this trip; he knew only that he needed to see for himself. Schmidt was not merely a chameleon: he also possessed an uncanny ability to see into and through people, to instinctively read their emotions and fears. These were skills that had made him an invaluable asset to Russian Army Intelligence. These and certain other talents with his bare hands, and with knives and pistols.
A compact man, he took up not two-thirds of the window seat; the rest of the third-class compartment was empty. Later in the morning, after church services, there would be far more traffic. That was one reason for his early start: Schmidt liked to be alone with his thoughts.
Soon the train entered rolling hills striped with vineyards. They pulled into the station of Hollabrunn, and a family got on to the train, entering his compartment with eager energy that made him purse his lips and focus more diligently on the view out of the window. But he was processing all the time. Schmidt was never simply around other people: he analysed them, dissected them, searched for fault lines.
A farmer and his wife, dressed in Sunday best by the looks of them. Two gangly boys in knee pants, smelling of hay and incense. Just out of church, he registered. An infant in the red-cheeked wife’s arms. The man was carrying a basket covered over with a blue-and-white checked cloth. Off to the grandmother’s for Sunday lunch, bearing what? No yeasty smell of baking. More likely the freshly slaughtered Sunday chicken.
The boys began squirming on the wooden bench opposite him. One was pinching the other. The father barked a command in a strong local dialect that Schmidt barely made out to mean ‘Enough!’ and the boys sat still once again. The older one, the one initiating the tickling, turned his attention to Schmidt, but tried to act as if he was gazing about the compartment or out of the window as he glanced at the valise in the overhead rack and examined Schmidt’s reflection in the window.