The Empty Mirror (10 page)

He was due to meet Gross in the afternoon to continue their search for the salesmen of medical instruments, but before then, he had to get his physical ship in order. Gross had, of course, held his wine well last night, not once bursting into song, as Werthen had felt compelled to do when the Gypsy band played a popular ditty at their table. That he knew the lyrics to such a tune was a surprise to Werthen, but it was hard to avoid these things.
Fiaker
drivers were forever whistling well-liked tunes or
singing the lyrics as they drove their carriages; counterpeople at the bakeries and the fruit shop in Werthen’s district were also avid devotees of the more rough-and-tumble popular culture. Though he seldom did his own shopping, Werthen did come into contact with all sorts of people.

Osmosis, he told himself now, as he left his apartment building headed for his local café for a restorative lunch. The popular culture seeps into one’s very pores unbidden.

Just outside his building he was given a
Grüss Gott
by Frau Korneck, the building
Portier
. He tipped his hat at her. As if to prove his osmosis theory, she was humming a tune from a Strauss operetta as she swept the sidewalk in front.

Werthen crossed the street, playing back the scene last night with the
Zigeuner
band at the wine house. No. Most definitely he had not danced. That was some kind of blessing, at any rate. He had merely sung, though painfully off tune. Then he further recalled a vision of Gross watching him, bearing one of his enigmatic smiles that could signify anything from mild enjoyment to contempt.

His irritation was compounded when, reaching the Café Eiles, he discovered it had begun its annual two-week summer closure yesterday. Werthen had not kept abreast of such things, for it had been his habit to spend much of August with his parents. And then he was reminded of a further duty: he would have to telegraph his parents and let them know that his arrival would be delayed even further. Though, truth be told, he did not look forward to that visit for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his parents’ infernal attempts at matchmaking.

“Advokat
Werthen?”

He had been so consumed with his own thoughts and concerns that he had not noticed the man approaching him. He was a tall, rough-boned-looking fellow, dressed in a heavy suit completely inappropriate for the weather, and he wore no hat. His face was weathered from the sun and he looked unaccustomed to
his stiff clothes. From his demeanor and the cut of the suit, it was obvious to Werthen the man was from the country.

“Yes,” Werthen responded. “May I help you?”

“I’m sorry to bother you like this, but, you see, I was told I should look you up.”

The man’s heavy accent confirmed to Werthen that he was indeed from the country, and most probably from the far west: Tyrol or Salzburg.

“You have the better of me,” Werthen said. The man squinted at him, not understanding. “You know my name, sir, but I am ignorant of yours.”

The man quickly wiped his right hand on his trousers and held it out to Werthen.

“Name’s Landtauer. Josef Landtauer.”

It was Werthen’s turn to squint now. A sudden gust of warm wind almost blew his derby off his head, but he steadied it with his hand.

“I’ve come to town to collect my daughter. Liesel.”

They found a
Gasthaus
with a shady garden near the Rathaus and ordered beer with the daily special, smoked ham and sauerkraut. They sat at a table beneath a massive chestnut tree that seemed to breathe coolness over them.

Once the waitress-clad in a powder blue dirndl in the style of Lower Austria-set the orders in front of them, they resumed their conversation.

“Perhaps first you should explain why you want to visit Herr Klimt,” Werthen said.

Landtauer, as they were looking for an eatery, had explained that yesterday, arriving in the city from his native Vorarlberg (Werthen had been close in placing the accent), he had gone to the prison to visit Klimt, but had been told by the jailors that only family or his legal counsel was allowed access to the prisoner.
In the event, they had supplied Landtauer with Werthen’s name; a quick examination of the new telephone directory at a post and telephone exchange had supplied him with Werthen’s office address, where there was a phone, as well as his home address, even though he had no phone installed as yet at his apartment. Too shy to call on the lawyer without introduction, Landtauer had been pacing up and down the street wondering on what course of action to take when Werthen left his apartment and Landtauer heard the
Portier
address him by name. He had simply followed, still unsure how to approach the man, he’d explained.

“It is a rather odd request, you must admit, Herr Landtauer.”

“It’s not like you think,” the large and ungainly man said as he tucked into his meal. “My Liesel, she wrote back to me and told me what a kind man Herr Klimt had been to her. A real gentleman, she said. The way she described him in her letters, I figure the fellow can’t be a murderer.”

Landtauer’s eyes began to tear up as he said the last word. He took a swig of the foamy beer as if to chase away the sadness.

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am for your loss, Herr Landtauer. From everything I have heard, your daughter was a wonderful girl.” Werthen was always at sea in such situations; he hoped his white lies provided solace. The words echoed hollowly to him, though.

“She was,
Advokat
Werthen. A true angel of a girl.” Landtauer wiped a rough sleeve across his watery eyes. “Her mother died when she was just a wee one, and I raised her on my own. Raised her to be honest and God-fearing. I’ll be straight with you, I never wanted her to come to the capital. Knew she’d be exposed to wicked people and wicked ways.”

For a moment another emotion other than sorrow showed in the man’s eyes. Then he quickly took another gulp of beer. Werthen joined him.

“Have they released your daughter’s body?” Werthen asked.

The big man nodded solemnly.

“Then leave it at that, Herr Landtauer. Take your daughter home and bury her. Seeing Herr Klimt will not help your grief. I can only assure you I also believe him to be innocent. I and my friend Professor Doktor Hanns Gross are working to find the real culprit. That person or persons will be brought to justice, I swear that.” Another white lie? Werthen wondered. After all, his first and primary obligation in this matter was to secure Klimt’s release and freedom. What came after that, well…?

“I wish I could just leave it at that,” Landtauer said. “But I feel honorbound to visit the man my daughter praised so highly. It’s like an unpaid debt. I couldn’t rest easy knowing I hadn’t seen it through.”

He fixed Werthen with a pleading look. “You’ll help me, sir, I know you will. You, too, seem like a kind gentleman.”

They ate on in silence. Finished, Werthen dabbed at his lips with the linen napkin, folding it again neatly and placing it by his plate, knife and fork resting side by side at a diagonal to signal his completion. Meanwhile, Landtauer soaked up the last of the meat juices with a thick slice of rye bread.

“First time I’ve had a real meal in days,” he said, eyeing the scraps still remaining on Werthen’s plate. “Ever since getting the news. Local constabulary knocked at the door just as I was sitting down to lunch. It’s been a nightmare ever since, I can tell you.”

Werthen nodded at the waitress for the bill, and the big man struggled a change purse out of his coat pocket.

“No, please. Allow me, Herr Landtauer.”

Werthen placed the correct amount plus a generous tip on top of the bill. The buxom waitress flashed him a smile as he and Landtauer left the restaurant and came out into the glaring sunlight of Reichsratsstrasse. A Saturday afternoon in the midst of August, the street was virtually deserted. Half of Vienna was off taking the waters at a spa or hiking in the Alps, while Werthen was left sweltering in Vienna and looking into the pleading eyes
of a man who had just lost his only daughter. Words alone could not console, he knew.

“It can only be a short visit, Herr Landtauer.”

The man grabbed Werthen’s hand and shook it vigorously.

The Landesgericht prison was in back of the Rathaus, a few blocks away. Werthen led Landtauer to the registration, where he signed his own name and added “plus guest.”

“They’ve finished lunch,” the red-nosed desk sergeant told Werthen. “Just coming back to their cells. Be a few minutes.”

They waited at the registry, Landtauer pacing back and forth, his thick-fingered hands held tightly in back of him. Poor man, Werthen thought. His daughter’s loss had to be a terrible blow.

Finally a warder came to take them to Klimt’s cell. Klimt, lounging on his bunk, tipped a forefinger at Werthen and looked quizzically at his companion.

“Wait here while I explain matters to Herr Klimt,” Werthen told Landtauer.

“Just want to shake his hand,” the man said. “Tell him that. For being so good to my Liesel.”

Werthen patted his shoulder. “I’ll let him know.”

Inside the cell Werthen quickly explained the man’s presence.

“Well, bring him in, Werthen, by all means,” Klimt said volubly.

Werthen turned to Klimt so that his back was to Landtauer, outside the cell; the man could neither see his face nor hear him.

“Perhaps it is best just to say hello through the bars. I don’t personally know the man. He seems honestly devastated by his daughter’s death, but-”

“Nonsense,” said Klimt emphatically. “I will see the man face-to-face and with no bars between us. Then he’ll know I could never have killed his daughter.”

Klimt shouted to the guard outside the door, “Well, what are you waiting for, Officer? Show the man in, please.”

Klimt’s two cellmates, who had been listening to the conversation, swung their legs off their bunks. Hugo, the taller one, said, “You think that’s a good idea, Gustl?”

“The man’s lost his daughter,” Klimt said over his shoulder. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Seems dodgy to me,” Hugo said, glaring at Werthen.

The cell door swung open and Josef Landtauer entered, a grateful smile on his lips.

“Herr Klimt,” he said, closing on the painter, who held out his hand to the man. “This is from my daughter.”

The man simultaneously closed the cell door behind him and pulled his hand from his pocket to produce a knife. He lunged at Klimt.

Werthen, seated on the bed between the two men, acted out of instinct. He thrust a foot out and Landtauer tripped over it, falling onto his face in the cell. Hugo leaped from his upper bunk, crushing the man’s knife hand underfoot. Landtauer groaned in pain, but this only seemed to infuriate him further. He tossed the inmate off his hand like so much firewood and was on his feet again before the guard could get the cell door unlocked and come to their aid.

“Put the knife down,” another guard shouted from outside the cell.

“You bastard,” Landtauer spit at Klimt. “You killed my Liesel. You’re going to pay.”

Klimt crouched as if to do battle with the man.

“Guard!” Werthen shouted. “Do something.”

The first guard was still fumbling with his key in the lock while the one behind him was attempting to get a clear shot at Landtauer. However, Klimt was in his way.

Landtauer swiped the knife at Klimt, who managed to parry the thrust. The painter tore the blanket from his bed and quickly wrapped it around his left arm.

“I didn’t kill her, I swear,” he said to Landtauer in a surprisingly
calm voice. “Put the knife down, man, before someone gets hurt.”

“You fiend, beast, animal,” Landtauer growled. “You defiled my little angel.”

Landtauer made another lunge, which Klimt blocked with his wrapped arm, but the knife managed to cut through the thin blanket, leaving a streak of red behind.

Just as the guard was bursting through the cell door, Hugo jumped on Landtauer’s back, ripping at his eyes with long, bony fingers. Landtauer screamed in pain, twisting his body and flailing with both arms. He finally managed to stab Hugo in his left thigh, but by then the guard had drawn his weapon and put the cold metal of the barrel next to Landtauer’s temple.

“Enough,” the guard said. “I’ll use it. Now drop the knife.”

Landtauer stared around him like a caged animal, his eyes wide and his breath fast and shallow. Suddenly he crumpled into a ball on the floor, the knife clattering beside him.

Werthen quickly kicked the knife aside, and the guard put handcuffs on Landtauer, now blubbering incoherently. As the guard lifted the man to his feet, Werthen saw a familiar-looking piece of newsprint in the inside pocket of Landtauer’s coat. Werthen reached in and removed the paper, unfolding it to discover the front page of one of Vienna’s gutter tabloids. This one had run a picture of Klimt next to the sketch of Liesel as
Nuda Veritas
.

Landtauer seemed to come to himself for a moment seeing the page of newsprint. “I would have killed the little bitch myself rather that let that pig sully her.” He thrust his head around to look at Klimt as the guards dragged him from the cell. “May you rot in hell, you piece of filth!”

“Sounds like a busy afternoon” was Gross’s first comment when, later that evening, ensconced in Gross’s suite of rooms at the
Bristol, and poring over the evidence thus far collected, Werthen told him of his misadventures.

“It was all my fault.”

“Nonsense,” Gross said, scanning the enemies list Herzl’s secretary had hand-delivered that afternoon. “You warned Klimt. It was only his own misguided sense of duty and honor that put him in jeopardy.”

“I should never have taken Landtauer to the prison. But he seemed genuine to me. So much for my ability to read my fellow man.”

“I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself, Werthen. I am sure the man’s grief
was
genuine, whatever its origin. And even the lowliest villager can demonstrate an animal cunning in times of crisis.”

“I tell you, Gross, Girardi could take lessons from our Josef Landtauer.”

“Speaking of whom,” Gross said, “I had the opportunity to check on his story this afternoon. The headwaiter at the Sacher remembers him in the company of a young woman the night in question and that they left separately.”