‘Theories?’ she asked.
Werthen took a sip of his coffee, unadulterated with sugar.
‘Discounting the homosexual angle-’ he began.
‘Thank you. .’
‘I ask myself who might have a reason to kill a young journalist. These missing notebooks come to mind. His colleagues said he kept research notebooks, but there is no trace of them at the offices of the Arbeiter Zeitung or at his flat. The desk there had, I am sure, been tampered with. Someone had tidied it.’
‘Isn’t it possible that Praetor himself had just done a little housecleaning? After all, we are now virtually certain that he did not kill himself, so such an act would not be out of the ordinary.’
Werthen did not fail to notice the ‘we’ in Berthe’s sentence. It made him smile slightly.
‘Agreed. But he hardly seemed the housekeeping sort.’
‘Perhaps you should check with the building Portier on Zeltgasse to see if he employed a cleaning lady.’
‘Excellent,’ Werthen agreed, taking his small leather notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket to make a list.
After scratching a few lines, he looked up. ‘That is one direction of investigation. The whole idea of the notebooks and the story he was working on. Adler says it had to do with the 1873 Vienna Woods preservation act. Though it is difficult to believe someone would kill him over that. Hardly sounds inflammatory enough.’
‘What about Steinwitz?’ Berthe said.
Werthen leaned over and kissed her full on the lips, holding her face in both hands as he moved back.
‘You see? That’s why we are married. Exactly my thoughts.’ He let go of her face. ‘Say that Praetor’s article about the graft investigation in the Rathaus caused Steinwitz to take his own life. Then it could be that a friend, a colleague. .’
‘A relative,’ Berthe added.
‘Yes, or a relative — any one of those close to Steinwitz who might have a motive to kill Praetor. Simple revenge.’
‘Or to silence him,’ Berthe offered. ‘Perhaps there were other revelations coming. Maybe Steinwitz was not the end of the investigation, but instead the beginning. I only wish I could be of more help to you with this. But with Frieda. .’
Werthen scribbled some more in his leather notebook. Then, ‘I propose a simple division of labor. You know the journalists at the Arbeiter Zeitung. Without leaving this apartment, you could interview them by telephone, try to ascertain more closely the parameters of the story Praetor was working on. What might be in those missing notebooks. Meanwhile, I will investigate the Steinwitz angle and the Rathaus.’
It was Berthe’s turn now to lean over and give her husband a generous kiss.
Nine
Werthen’s right knee was acting up the next morning. Sometimes it felt as if the bullet from the duel was still lodged in there. He did not let it stop him, however, from walking to work as usual. He merely took his mahogany walking stick with him. Berthe had bought it for him last Christmas; a handsome piece of work with a brass grip in the shape of a globe that fit perfectly into the palm of his hand. Berthe knew him so welclass="underline" Werthen’s vanity would not allow him to use a mere cane, but this walking stick had a distinguished feel to it. He felt a bit of the dandy as he strolled to the Inner City, high clouds scudding in the sky ahead of a chill north wind.
No sooner had Werthen arrived at the Habsburgergasse and settled in at his desk, than he received a visit from an old friend.
‘My God. Gross,’ he said, pumping the man’s hand after he was shown into the office by Fraulein Metzinger. ‘How wonderful to see you.’
Doktor Hanns Gross, a tall, somewhat portly man in his early fifties, returned the handshake with equal vigor. His lips seemed to quiver under his salt and pepper moustache, which, Werthen noticed, had lately been transformed from a pencil-thin sprig of foliage to a bristling and slightly confused snail-like growth, curving up cavalierly at its right terminus yet dipping down into the doldrums on the left. Gross’s pate, ringed with a fringe of gray hair, gleamed from a fresh application of bay rum, which he used every morning.
‘Did you just arrive?’ Werthen asked.
‘We’ve been here since Friday, actually.’
‘Where have you been hiding? And who is “we”? Don’t tell me that you actually brought Adele with you this time.’
Gross grimaced as if in sudden pain. ‘Yes, dearest Adele is with me. Or, more accurately, I am accompanying her.’ He sat in a chair with a slight sigh. ‘Fasching, you see.’ Another grimace.
‘You’re not?’
‘Afraid so. After years of politely requesting, my dear lady wife finally made an ultimatum: we would attend the Vienna ball season or else. I was too devastated to inquire about the nature of “else.” Thus, here I am in your pre-Lenten city.’
Werthen sat down in one of the client chairs next to Gross instead of sitting behind his desk. ‘So you are actually going to attend a ball?’
Werthen did not think he had ever seen the criminologist looking so miserable, not even when faced with hemorrhoid surgery in Graz. Gross made a quick nod of the head.
‘Have done already, in point of fact. Last Saturday night’s Gartenbau Ball. Would it were otherwise. I am not as graceful on my feet as I once was, Werthen.’
‘Well, I for one think it is damn fine of you, Gross. Poor Adele has been pining to attend the Vienna ball season ever since I first met her in Graz.’
‘Oh, long before that, my dear friend.’
‘And you finally consented.’
‘Relented,’ Gross corrected. ‘And there was the plumiest band of dandies and swells in attendance at the ball. Insipid and bored lower aristocracy with too much drink taken. All they could think of doing to entertain themselves was wager thousands of crowns on snail races. My God, what an occupation.’
It was the latest rage in Viennese society, Werthen knew. Dissipated nobility purchased snails at exorbitant rates to see which could climb to the top of a meter stick first, wagering even more exorbitant sums in the process.
‘It was an outrage,’ Gross spluttered.
Inactivity of any sort was anathema to Gross.
‘But come, tell me Werthen, what lovely case do you have in hand?’
Werthen quickly outlined the major points in the Praetor murder.
‘One of those, eh?’ was Gross’s immediate reply.
‘Not you, too,’ Werthen all but groaned.
‘I was referring to the young man’s profession rather than his sexual inclinations. Journalists make prime targets for homicides, as they so often step on the toes of the powerful or merely the vengeful.’
‘You’ve come close to the truth there,’ Werthen allowed, and proceeded to relate Praetor’s possible link to the death of Councilman Steinwitz as well as the missing notebooks, which may or may not contain damning information from Praetor’s unfinished investigation.
Before Werthen had a chance to further elaborate on the direction of his investigations, as he and Berthe had determined last night, Gross interrupted.
‘I assume you are investigating possible links between Herr Steinwitz’s death and Praetor’s?’
Werthen made to assent, but Gross barged on.
‘And are making inquiries with fellow journalists regarding the possible whereabouts if not contents of said notebooks?’
Again Werthen attempted to say yes, and again was drowned out by Gross.
‘And are tracking down any leads regarding Praetor’s relations. His. . well, his lovers.’
Not wishing to respond to this, Werthen was now presented with silence from Gross, who peered at him like a slightly perverse owl.
Finally Werthen said, ‘Yes to the first two, and no to the last. I do not discount the possibility of a tryst gone wrong, as your friend Drechsler surmises, but rather prefer to follow what seem to me to be more pressing leads.’