Meanwhile, Gross had begun rapping on the large front door. After a second round of knocks, they heard footsteps echoing on floor tiles from inside and then the door opened.
Much to Werthen’s surprise, it was the same fellow from the Stadtbahn who opened the door, coat still in hand as if about to hang it up.
‘Oh. . Hello,’ he said in recognition. ‘You must be the detective fellows Father was mentioning.’
‘That is quite all right, Otto Emmerich.’ These words came from a small, round woman who looked rather like a defiant pigeon. She bustled to the door. ‘I shall welcome our guests.’
She seemed put out that Otto junior should have answered the door and not she. The man was clearly Wagner’s illegitimate oldest son, whom he had in fact adopted and given his surname, and who, Kraus had told Werthen, had trained as an architect and sometimes worked with his father. The female pigeon must be Frau Wagner, Werthen surmised. Clearly no mere housekeeper could be as curt as she was to young Wagner.
Otto junior ignored her. ‘I was just arriving myself. Had I known you were the ones Father invited, I would have told you to stay on till the last stop. There’s a shortcut.’
‘And I am sure the von Adrassys do not take kindly to your traipsing through their grounds.’
Nothing Frau Wagner said, however, seemed to get through to Wagner’s illegitimate son.
‘Leave your coats and follow me,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you to the studio.’
Gross was having none of this. ‘Doktor Gross,’ he said, with a head nod to Frau Wagner. ‘And my colleague, Advokat Werthen. Do we have the pleasure of addressing Frau Wagner?’
She puffed up her chest at this. ‘Yes, you do. And it is a delight to make your acquaintance.’ She hesitated for a moment as if about to offer her hand, but thought better of it.
‘This way, gentlemen,’ called Otto junior as he strode across the marble floor of the foyer.
‘You must excuse Otto Emmerich.’ she said, shaking her head.
‘May we?’ Gross asked, motioning his hand at the retreating figure of Otto Emmerich Wagner.
‘Yes, but of course. Hurry or you shall be completely lost.’
They did not bother divesting themselves of coats, but did doff their hats as they entered the high-ceilinged vestibule. Wagner led them something of a chase through suites of rooms at the back of the central portion of the villa, all nicely appointed. Werthen noticed that there was not one piece of Jugendstil furnishing or any Secession paintings hanging on the walls of the main house, not even by their mutual friend Klimt. This seemed odd to the lawyer, considering Wagner’s recent defection to the Secession from the more conservative Kunstlerhaus and its slavish devotion to historicism.
Finally they came to the south wing of the villa, and entered the converted pergola. A rainbow of light filled the room, as a sudden break in the clouds outside allowed the sun to shine through the stained glass windows of the eastern side of the studio. Here, then, was their first discovery of Secession work, for the swirling trees in a riot of shades was clearly Jugendstil in design.
‘You like it?’ Otto Wagner stood at the door to greet them.
‘Yes, I do,’ Werthen said, looking again at the windows.
Under his open white work coat Wagner wore a gray, vested, wool suit and a black tie loosely knotted under wing collars. His Van Dyke beard was more salt than pepper, the moustaches rather dramatically twisted and curled upwards at the ends. Thinning gray hair was swept back off his forehead. His most prominent features, his eyes, were lightly cloaked, as if the eyelids had extra folds. However, their piercing glance gave one the sense that this man saw everything and through everything. Eyebrows that arched upward added to a general air of knowing and almost condescension.
‘The series is called “Vienna Woods in the Autumn,”’ Wagner said. ‘Gives the studio a bit of warmth in the winter, too.’
Introductions were made all around, and Werthen shook the architect’s hand, noting that Wagner used only his forefinger and thumb for a grip. Another detail Kraus supplied came to mind: Wagner lost the use of the middle finger on his right hand as a result of a hunting accident in his youth. That did not stop the architect from becoming one of the best draftsmen in the world.
‘You’ve met my son, of course.’ Wagner clapped Otto Emmerich on the back. ‘Boy’s taking after his father. Make a fine architect one day.’
Otto junior smiled like a schoolboy at the praise.
Wagner quickly lost his affability, however, turning to the matter at hand.
‘Now what is this nonsense about Steinwitz?’
‘We do not find it nonsense, Oberbaurat,’ Gross said.
A drawing on one of the drafting tables caught Werthen’s attention. It appeared to be the sketch of a large domed church standing alone like a beacon on a hillside. Another building project that would go unbuilt?
‘Well, I was there just moments after the shot. I can assure you that I saw no one leaving the room.’
‘I understand there was some confusion in the hallway,’ Gross said.
‘Yes, of course. One does not expect to hear a gunshot go off in the Rathaus.’
‘Where were you when you heard the shot?’
‘In my special office. It is on the same floor. I was on my own and looked up immediately from the drafting table when I heard this crack sound. Unmistakably a shot.’
Werthen was pulled out of his observation of the schematic of the church by this remark.
‘Excuse me, Herr Wagner, but did you not tell the Neue Freie Presse in an interview that you thought it might be an automobile backfiring?’
‘Well, one could hardly hear such a thing several floors up in the Rathaus.’
‘But it was your first reaction?’
‘Yes. Silly of course.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Werthen went on, ‘it would not have alarmed you as the sound of a shot would have. You would not have been spurred into immediate action.’
Wagner sighed. ‘Yes, I quite see what you mean. Perhaps there was a moment or two before I went to investigate matters.’
Werthen left it there. No use in antagonizing the man by driving home the point that there may indeed have been time for someone to leave the office before he, Wagner, arrived first on the scene.
Gross picked up the interview again. ‘And what brought you to the door of Steinwitz’s office? How could you know that was the origin of the noise?’
‘The smell. Cordite. That I recognized immediately. I followed the odor.’
‘Did you touch the body?’ Gross asked. ‘I mean, in order to ascertain if he were dead or not.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Wagner replied. ‘I did not enter the room. One look from the doorway was enough for me. Half the man’s head had been shot off.’
‘And you are sure you saw nothing suspicious? Someone, for example, in the vicinity of the office who did not belong there?’
‘I was rather more concentrating on Steinwitz.’
‘Yes,’ Gross allowed. ‘Quite understandable.’ A pause. ‘One other thing. Perhaps you could indicate how far you were from the door to the office. Would it be possible to measure the distance by one of your strides?’
‘But I was standing in the doorway itself.’
‘Actually inside?’
‘No. Well. Let me see. . How might this be important?’
The Oberbaurat was obviously losing his patience.
‘Please indulge me,’ Gross said. ‘I am something of a perfectionist in my approach to a crime scene, much as you are in your preparation for building. Let us say this is the door.’