‘Frau Moos,’ Werthen said, lifting his hat to her. ‘Good to see you, again.’
‘Oh, it’s the lawyer, isn’t it? Wills and trusts?’
‘And private inquiries,’ Werthen added.
He turned to her companion, who disengaged his arm from that of Frau Moss.
‘Herr Platt, if I remember correctly.’
‘You do, you do,’ the man replied. ‘We’ve come to see poor Jakob.’
Werthen made speedy introductions all around, and then explained their visit to Jakob Moos.
‘I am glad to hear he can help somehow,’ Frau Moos said. ‘He has been desolate since my brother. .’ She broke off, and soon was in tears.
‘There, there, my dear lady,’ Platt said, putting a protective arm around her and smiling at Werthen’s look of astonishment. ‘The lady’s going to need a protector after her husband is gone,’ Platt said sotto voce to Werthen. ‘And that big farm to run all by herself. She’ll need a man about the place.’
It was country logic, even though it seemed cold-blooded to Werthen.
He was about to comment, but thought better of it. Instead he asked, ‘Do you remember another visitor from the city a few days after I was there? Herr Moos mentioned a perfume salesman.’
Frau Moos was dabbing her eyes, and managed a nod of assent.
‘Aw that fellow,’ Platt said. ‘Told him Jakob would give him what for.’
‘You gave him a ride from the station?’
‘That I did. Not so much gave as, you know, got paid. Like with you. City man, city manners. Except that he claimed he was from the country, just like me. Well, who knows, maybe he was once.’
‘Can you describe him?’ Gross asked.
Platt looked at Frau Moos and they both shrugged. ‘Wore a city suit,’ Platt said, ‘but it had a good deal of wear to it, I can say that much. Small, compact sort of fellow. Didn’t seem the salesman type.’
‘He tried to give me perfume, to cheer me up,’ Frau Moos added.
‘He knew about your loss?’ Werthen asked.
She nodded.
‘I told him,’ Platt said. ‘Thought he was from the city like you, come to talk about the matter.’
‘And the perfume?’ Gross said. ‘Can either of you remember the name?’
Frau Moos looked suddenly sheepish.
‘Frau Moos?’ Gross said, with an edge to his voice.
She opened her handbag and pulled out a small sample bottle.
‘I managed to put it in my apron before Jakob discovered the man. He would never allow me to wear perfume. I just wanted to see what it was like.’
Gross took the bottle and looked at the name on it: Heisl Parfumerie. Their address was also on the bottle, in Vienna’s fourteenth district.
Gross made a note of this, then handed the bottle back to Frau Moos.
‘No,’ she said. ‘You keep it. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. And if it can lead to Traudl’s killer. .’
Gross nodded. ‘Most wise.’
As they left, Platt winked in Werthen’s direction.
THIRTY
It turned out the Heisl Parfumerie was in the telephone book, and it took only a few minutes calling from the nearest post office to verify that Heisl did not employ a salesman who had recently visited Buchberg. Indeed their only field man, Herr Theobald Vogel, was currently laid up with a summer cold that, Gott sei dank, was apparently not developing into pneumonia.
The telephonist on the other end was the chatty type, and Werthen was also able to ascertain that Herr Vogel’s sample case had gone missing only a few months earlier.
Two minutes later, after learning that the secretary’s brother had also once lost a suitcase on the Budapest express and that her nephew Wilhelm survived pneumonia last winter, Werthen was able to hang up the earpiece and open the door to the small, stuffy phone booth. Gross had meanwhile busied himself reading the customs regulations for shipping parcels to Serbia and Montenegro, on a nearby wall. He would, Werthen reflected, no doubt be able to quote from that material several months later. The man had a dome for a head, but still Werthen wondered where he found the space in his brain to store such information.
Werthen simply shook his head at Gross when the criminologist turned to face him.
‘Looks like our man stole a samples case.’
Our man. There was no way of knowing who this man might be. Forstl himself? A minion of Forstl’s? Somebody completely unconnected with Forstl? Nor of knowing of what deeds he was culpable.
As if reading his mind — and sometimes Werthen thought him capable of such a trick — Gross made a dismissive grunt.
‘Our mystery man. What do we really know? Let’s walk briskly and cogitate. I need a flow of blood through my body.’
Gross set off at a breakneck speed through the midday crush of pedestrians. Werthen struggled to keep up with him, as he was courteous enough not to barge through people; instead he sidestepped here and went into the gutter there, in an effort to keep up with his friend. Meanwhile, Gross, eyes forward and a determined set to his jaw, sailed through the pedestrians like a battleship on patrol.
Werthen suddenly realized that Gross was heading back to the Volksgarten. They crossed the Ring at the Parliament and entered the park. Gross sat down at one end of a bench, Werthen at the other.
‘So,’ Gross said, his voice sounding hearty after their energizing walk. ‘Any thoughts?’
Werthen shared Gross’s logic. The mystery man was either Forstl himself or someone working with him, or someone who had no connection with Forstl and the Bureau. Gross merely raised an eyebrow and murmured to himself.
‘I suppose you have it figured out?’
‘Just about,’ Gross said with no little pride. ‘Forstl is clearly our major suspect.’
‘But you told Berthe-’
‘I know what I told your lady wife, and what you also suggested. But we can’t let the ladies steal the game from us, can we?’
‘Surely not,’ Werthen said. ‘The empire would fall, the sun fail to rise.’
‘Sarcasm is the poor man’s substitute for humor, Werthen. Let us consider the facts. Captain Forstl appears to be at the center of a web of intrigue. The Bureau mounts a trap for Baron von Suttner in order to compromise his wife, and Forstl seems to be in charge of it; he establishes a spy in a brothel in order to discredit a high-level member of the Foreign Office. What else is the Captain up to? Murder most foul.’
He said this last loud enough to disturb a thin little lady knitting on a nearby bench. At the sound of the word ‘murder,’ she rose, tugged the leash of the white poodle sleeping at her feet, and moved to another bench, distant from the one occupied by Gross and Werthen.
The criminologist was oblivious to this disturbance. ‘Not that he sullied his own hands with such things. No, clearly he did not.’
‘So we are looking for his minion, as I suggested. But how can you be so sure?’
‘Really, Werthen, your powers of deduction are failing you today. Do you forget that we have a series of similar murders throughout Central Europe? Captain Forstl was presumably not abroad when most of these murders took place. Easy enough to check, at any rate. Ergo, there is another man, who specializes in killing.’
‘And what is his connection to Forstl? A hired killer?’
‘An assassin, yes. Someone trained to take lives, someone cold and calculating enough to gain entrance to your office and plant a bomb. But, as we know, he is not infallible. An assassin, yes, but not one for hire to the general public. No, Werthen, I think we are dealing with an agent. An agent eager to cover any trail that might lead to Forstl. Which would explain Doktor Schnitzel’s death. Let’s say the barracks rumors about Forstl and Schnitzel were true, and perhaps the young doctor came looking for a “loan” to help set up his practice.’
‘Extortion?’
‘Yes, that’s better, Werthen. So, after the misstep with Schnitzler, Schnitzel was disposed of. Just as Fräulein Mitzi and Fanny were before. Let us say the love-struck Mitzi wanted to end her work for Forstl-’