‘Waste not want not,’ Klimt said, smiling. ‘It is quite good, no? One would never know the identity of the actual sitter.’
Klimt gave Berthe a sheepish look. ‘Her husband was not well pleased to discover his wife was sitting for me. Gossip, you know.’ In other words, Berthe understood, Klimt had slept with the lady in question, then her husband had found out and cancelled the commission. Marie Louise’s head had been superimposed upon the body of the original subject.
‘Fortunate they have the same body type,’ Berthe said.
‘Do they?’ Klimt glanced at the painting now, appreciating his own work, or perhaps regretting that he was unable to paint Marie Louise in the flesh. Quite literally, for it was said that Klimt painted his female sitters in the nude and then later painted on layers of clothing.
‘This will serve the purpose perfectly, Klimt. You are a genius.’
‘Yes, so I’ve been told. Now, how about some coffee and cake?’
No Prokop or Meier today, Werthen noticed, as he sounded the bell on Schnitzler’s flat. Gross stood next to him, surveying the ornamental plasterwork over the door: putti draped in what appeared to be grapes.
Werthen heard the brass plate on the peephole on the other side of the door slide back and saw the lens go dark as an eye was put to it. Then came the rattle of unbolting and unchaining, and the playwright himself opened the door.
‘Herr Advokat! How good to see you. I rather thought you had given up on my hopeless case.’ He looked from Werthen to Gross with a question in his eyes.
Before Werthen could answer, Schnitzler rushed on. ‘Ah, that must be it. I have been rather remiss in sending payment. I do apologize.’ He continued to look at Gross as if trying to place him.
‘I assure you, Herr Schnitzler, that is not the case. This is my colleague, Doktor Gross. If we may come in, I can explain the purpose of our visit.’
‘Please,’ Schnitzler stood aside, sweeping his left hand towards the hallway. ‘I was just having coffee in the study. Perhaps you would like to join me?’
The walk from the Upper Belvedere to the Ninth District had done little to cut through the heavy meal they had enjoyed courtesy of Franz Ferdinand. ‘That would be good,’ Werthen said. As they entered the flat, the scent of hyacinths greeted them, from a bouquet in a crystal vase on a side table by the coat and hat rack.
‘I am honored to be host to the eminent criminologist,’ Schnitzler said, closing the door behind them.
‘And I,’ Gross said, turning to face him, ‘am equally pleased to finally make the acquaintance of the famous playwright.’
‘Hardly famous,’ Schnitzler said. ‘Outside Vienna, that is. But let me tell cook to bring more coffee. I was in my study, but we can. .’
‘The study would be fine,’ Werthen said.
They followed Schnitzler as he quickly ducked into the kitchen to give instructions, and then led them past the sitting room where they had met previously and on to double doors deeper in the apartment. Schnitzler was moving well and seemed to have gotten over most of his injuries. Apparently he had also gotten over his fear of further attack, if the absence of Prokop and Meier signified.
They went into a large and rather dark room; heavy drapes partially concealed floor-to-ceiling windows, a massive Persian carpet covered much of the parquet, and a bear skin sat under a large desk in the center of the room, its teeth bared at Werthen. Two walls were littered with framed photographs of friends, theater bills, and lithographs of foreign capitals. Another wall was completely covered by a bookcase that held leather-bound volumes of German and French writers from Goethe to Balzac.
Before they had a chance to sit down, the door opened behind them and the cook, a shy little woman with the shadow of a moustache on her upper lip, brought in a porcelain coffee pot and matching cups. A ring-shaped Gugelhupf cake accompanied this. Gross patted his stomach as if readying it for battle.
‘Thank you, Martha,’ Schnitzler said as the cook set it down on the desk. ‘We’ll serve ourselves.’
‘Very good,’ she said in a raspy voice.
Gross and Werthen pulled straight-backed leather-seated chairs to the desk. Schnitzler had obviously been at work when they arrived; manuscript pages littered the desk.
‘A new play?’ Werthen asked.
‘A novel, actually. I’ve been attempting it for years. Perhaps I should just content myself with theater pieces and short stories. Olga. . That is Fräulein Gussman, my fiancée, advises as much.’
Werthen noticed that Schnitzler now referred to Fräulein Gussman as his intended. She must be a powerful young woman, indeed.
‘I’m sure you must follow your own instincts in this, Herr Schnitzler,’ Gross said. ‘Only an artist knows an artist’s mind. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Gross was being rather fulsome, Werthen thought. Normally he berated bohemia for self-indulgence. Science was for him — besides the work of his beloved Brueghel the Elder, of course — the only true art. But in fact Gross was simply employing his own interviewing technique for witnesses who do not wish to speak the truth, as set down in his book Criminal Investigation: ‘You must take the witness entirely out of the circumstances and ask something which he does not anticipate.’
There was a time in Werthen’s life when that work was his bible.
‘I do agree, Herr Doktor Gross. It is good to see a man of practicalities such as yourself in tune with the artist’s psyche.’
Gross smiled blandly at this and accepted the cup of coffee Schnitzler poured for him as well as a not insignificant slice of the Gugelhupf. Werthen took the coffee but not the cake.
‘So, gentlemen, what may I do for you?’ Schnitzler said once they had taken initial sips.
Gross set his cup down. ‘You can tell us the truth about Fräulein Mitzi.’
This made Schnitzler sit up straight in his chair. ‘But I have. What more is there to tell? It is not a pretty picture I have painted of myself.’
‘But it is the picture Vienna knows you by,’ Gross said. ‘The roué who takes the virginity of the sweet young thing and then casts her aside when she falls in love with him. The subject of so many of your theater pieces.’
Schnitzler turned from Gross to Werthen. ‘Advokat, what is your colleague getting at? I have been honest with you. Painfully so.’
‘I think not, Herr Schnitzler,’ Werthen replied. ‘I think that perhaps you have been protecting your reputation as a debauchee and rake. We have reason to believe that Fräulein Mitzi was not quite the sweet young innocent you portray her as.’
‘What does it matter? The girl is dead.’
‘It matters in terms of a range of suspects,’ Gross answered. ‘And of motive. We need to know who stood to benefit from her death.’
‘I did not kill her.’
‘We are not accusing you, Herr Schnitzler,’ Gross said calmly. ‘But we must have the truth from you about the young woman.’
Schnitzler tapped his right forefinger on the desktop as if transmitting Morse code.
‘Alright,’ he said finally. ‘The truth. But this must not reach Olga’s ears.’
Neither Gross nor Werthen assured him of this. Another moment of silence ensued.
Schnitzler let out an exasperated sigh. Then began to tell them about Mitzi.
‘She brought nothing but trouble. A regular little vixen. We met in the park, as I told you. She appeared to be such a sweet young thing. And acted the part as well — until I got her in bed. It was obvious she had been with a man before. She told me it was her uncle who had done it, who had ruined her. And I felt sorry for her. But then she threatened to go to Olga, to tell her of our affair. She demanded I marry her. Her! A common little thing from the country. I finally had to buy her off. Not cheap, either, I can tell you. But anything to get her out of my life.’