The Empty Mirror (19 page)

After the final peeling of bells, indicating the end of the service at the Capuchin Church, sherry was served, and a half hour later, the proceedings were about to end when Twain made a pronouncement in English all of those gathered could understand.

“But of course they’ve got the wrong man in Switzerland. Or the right one for the wrong reason. It’s all to do with the Hungarians. First Rudolf and now his mother.”

“What could he have meant?” Werthen asked of Gross when, later that evening, they were settled down to a nice plate of Frau Blatschky’s boiled beef and potatoes, accompanied by a chilled bottle of tart
Grüner Veltliner
from Gumpoldskirchen.

Gross, who had taken Werthen up on his invitation and was now occupying the spacious back bedroom, spooned freshly
ground horseradish onto his plate. Berthe, joining them for dinner, sat primly at the other end of the table from Werthen, giving him a taste of what married life might be like. The dining room faced onto the courtyard. It was a trim little room, all in Biedermeier. Two silver candelabra lit the space in warm light.

“Twain is a man of fiction, never forget that,” Gross somewhat cryptically answered. He offered the horseradish to Berthe with a dramatic flourish, but she politely declined.

“You mean he makes things up out of whole cloth, Herr Doktor Gross?” she said with a wry smile.

“Perhaps not
whole
cloth. But he takes tall tales related to him by the Hungarian nobility a little too literally. They are forever going on about their Magyar freedom, as if they would not in turn oppress every other minority in their realm if given half a chance.”

“I take it you are not a fan of the dual monarchy,” Berthe said, shooting Werthen a conspiratorial look. Werthen had shared his high and low opinions of Gross with her, noting especially the criminologist’s tendency toward pomposity.

“I should say not, my good woman,” Gross boomed. “Most idiotic bit of diplomacy Franz Josef ever came up with. Eviscerated the empire. I wouldn’t doubt that Austria will be reduced to a mere shadow of herself in the matter of two decades. But that is neither here nor there. Friend Twain was merely repeating the conspiracy theories so often voiced by the Magyars. To wit, Crown Prince Rudolf was not the victim of suicide nine years ago, but of an assassination by those close to power who had no appetite for his liberal ways or his pro-Magyar views. I assume the same is now being said of his unfortunate mother, who also tended to romanticize the Hungarians.”

“An intriguing theory,” Werthen said, winking at Berthe. This was going to be jolly good fun, he thought, having Gross as a houseguest and having Berthe to help him poke and prod at the man’s inflated ego.

“Poppycock,” Gross said, cutting his beef and forking it along with a healthy dose of horseradish into his mouth. He chewed aggressively, then washed down the beef with a draft of wine.

“The man’s confessed to his crime,” the criminologist continued. “I fear our empress fell victim to a professed anarchist who was not sure of his intended victim until he almost literally ran into Elisabeth on the quays of Geneva. Who could not even afford a proper weapon, but had to grind down a cheap file to make a stiletto.”

Gross shook his head vigorously, as if this tawdry fact added to the tragedy. “No, my friends,” he said, eyeing Werthen and then Berthe, “I am afraid what we have here is not high intrigue but low and very sad comedy.”

G
ross did not bear inactivity well. Werthen had assumed this to be the case before; now that they were sharing the same roof, he perforce had to experience it firsthand.

On the Monday following the state funeral, Gross made a return visit to his beloved Brueghel room at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Werthen, who had resumed his law practice after his return from Upper Austria, met him for lunch after a busy morning preparing the trust of Baron von Geistl. They attended the Burgtheater that evening, seeing Girardi play in Johann Nestroy’s
Lumpacivagabundus
, a satirical comedy that fitted the actor’s talents perfectly. Gross, however, was not amused, Werthen noted.

Nestroy had made the leap from Volkstheater to the more prestigious Burgtheater because of longevity; the play had premiered in 1833 and had confused the Habsburg censors enough so that its subtle social criticism had been overlooked even to the present day. The play chronicled the fortunes and misfortunes of Leim, a joiner, Zwirn, a tailor, and Knieriem, a cobbler, all framed by a series of supernatural events, primary of which was their holding communally a winning lottery number.

Nestroy, not only a playwright but also a skilled actor, assumed
the role of Knieriem 258 times, or so tonight’s program explained. Girardi had taken on this part now for himself and performed it with great aplomb. Yet Gross could seemingly find nothing to like in the farce. Each time the audience broke into laughter, Gross scowled at the stage. He squirmed in his seat at every turn of the plot, as the three journeymen pondered how to use the money miraculously won from their shared lottery ticket. Instead of bettering themselves, Zwirn and Knieriem squandered their magical winnings and remained, at the end of the play, firmly-one might say defiantly-outside the orbit of bourgeois life. Only Leim used his winnings wisely, marrying his longtime sweetheart and setting up a productive business.

“Absolute piffle,” Gross pronounced after the houselights went up following the third act. “Why they should be showing such revolutionary and demoralizing prattle at the noble Burgtheater is beyond me.”

“Oh, come now, Gross,” Werthen replied as they made their way up the aisle to the coat check in the lobby. “You sound like an old reactionary. I found it extremely clever.”

“Clever,” Gross spluttered. “So when you and your Fräulein Berthe marry and begin having children, I suppose you will want your offspring to ape such dissolute behavior. I think not, Werthen. Speaking from personal experience, one must be ever vigilant when it comes to one’s children.”

Werthen made no reply to this. Gross was of course referring to the troubled history between himself and his gifted son, Otto. Where Gross senior was all business and practicalities, young Otto had a playful spirit, never one to take life too seriously. Indeed, even as an adolescent Otto traveled in somewhat louche society, and this more than anything else troubled his father. Young Otto made friends of artistic bohemians and had himself become a free thinker in matters of sex and marriage. Gross even mentioned experimentation with drugs. Although Otto seemed to have straightened himself out and was now successfully pursuing medical studies,
son and father were still oil and water. It was a mark of Gross’s disturbed equilibrium that he would mention Otto at all, even tangentially. Gross was, to put it simply, bored stiff.

The next morning they spent a painfully quiet breakfast together before Werthen departed for the office. Walking to the suite of rooms he rented in Habsburgergasse in the First District, Werthen wondered if perhaps it had been a mistake inviting Gross to stay. He was turning churlish and bearish; even fair-minded and forgiving Berthe was making herself scarce, not really caring to be around the man in such moods.

That night, however, Werthen recalled that he had received a piece of mail for the criminologist, forwarded from his former address at the Hotel Bristol. Frau Blatschky had prepared a marvelous
Zwiebelrostbraten
for dinner, which they accompanied with a bottle of Bordeaux that Werthen had taken great pains in choosing at his wine merchant’s on the way home.

Gross seemed to brighten as he opened and read the letter Werthen produced for him.

“Well, that is an interesting turn of events,” he uttered as he set the letter down next to his plate. He filled his glass half full of the wine, which had not yet had time to breathe, and threw it back as if it were American whiskey.

“What is it, Gross?”

“The autopsy report on Herr Frosch, the last victim in the Prater murders. Not that it matters much now. His neck was broken, just as we all assumed at the time.”

“Doesn’t sound so interesting to me,” Werthen said, pouring himself a glass of the wine and swirling it in his goblet.

“The interesting part is that the man was at death’s door when he was killed. Dying of cancer, so it appears.”

“Hmm.” Werthen eyed the deep ruby glints of the wine, the “legs” forming at the lip of his glass. “Wonder if he knew?”

“That, my dear friend, I hope to determine. Tomorrow.”

Werthen was about to denigrate the idea. After all, the case was closed. What did it matter if the man knew he was dying or not? Idle curiosity had made Werthen posit the question, but suddenly he was happy he had. He held his tongue. No sense in discouraging Gross. Any activity was better than none.

They spent the rest of the evening in pleasant conversation.

In the morning Werthen inquired of Frau Blatschky if their guest had risen yet. Werthen was due at the office earlier than usual and did not want to wait for breakfast.

“Oh, yes, sir. The Herr Doktor was up with the birds and had his coffee and kipfel an hour earlier than usual. I believe he has already departed.”

The news came as something of a relief for Werthen, who could now unfold the morning
Neue Freie Presse
and read in peace. He wondered if he should get back in the habit of writing his stories before beginning his workday; if he should bother writing them at all anymore. However, for the time being, he was content enough just sipping his coffee and scanning the paper for large chunks of white space, which would indicate a story that had been censored. This was a national sport in Austria. People would then spend the rest of the day trying to discover the juicy bits that had been cut out of the newspapers.

At five that afternoon, just as Werthen was preparing to close up for the day, Gross telephoned him, his voice vibrant and excited once again. It was a pleasure to hear that tone.

Gross invited him for a drink at the Café Central on Herrengasse, the home of Vienna’s literati since the scandalous demolition of the Café Griensteidl the year before. With the building of a bank on the site of the Griensteidl, the literary world of Vienna, including Schnitzler, Peter Altenberg, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Karl Kraus, Hermann Bahr, and Felix Salten, had migrated to the
nearby Central. Werthen was somewhat amused by Gross’s choice of venue, but happily agreed to meet him there in half an hour.

Gross was occupying a corner table by the time Werthen arrived and was nursing a
viertel
of white wine. Werthen ordered the same and joined his friend, surveying the other tables for anyone he knew. Only the young Hofmannsthal, sporting a wispy mustache, and his older mentor, the bohemian and sandal-wearing Altenberg, were in attendance today.

“You’re looking awfully pleased with yourself, Gross,” Werthen said as he took a chair. “What’ve you been up to?”

“It has been an intriguing day, my dear Werthen. Most intriguing.”

As he sipped his wine, Gross explained to Werthen that he had first gone to Frau Frosch on the Gusshausstrasse to ascertain whether her husband knew of his illness, and to find the name of his doctor. In the event, however, the Frau had other news for Gross.

“She told me that she had been contemplating getting in touch with me,” Gross noted. “I am happy to say that my earlier efforts in winning her trust thus paid off. With the assassination of the empress, Frau Frosch felt she was no longer under an obligation of secrecy.”

Gross paused dramatically, seeing that he had caught Werthen’s attention.

“Herr Frosch had a distinguished visitor in June,” Gross finally continued. “The empress herself came to talk to him. According to Frau Frosch, they were in consultation for over an hour in his study, and when she left, she was extremely distraught. The empress made Frau Frosch pledge herself to secrecy. No one was to know of her visit to Herr Frosch.”

“Whatever were they talking about, Gross?”

“Herr Frosch did not confide in his wife, but she does recall him talking of his memoirs at about this same time, and how he was finally going to tell the full truth about the Mayerling tragedy.”

“You mean Crown Prince Rudolf’s suicide?”

“Was there another tragedy played out there?”

Really, Gross could be insufferable when he was in his cogitating frame of mind, but Werthen let it go. This was still better than depression by inactivity.

“But what could he know?” Werthen wondered aloud. The Mayerling tragedy had rocked the court and all of Austria in January of 1889. Rudolf, heir to the throne of Franz Josef, supposedly despondent at being kept out of responsible situations in the military and government, had turned to drugs and drink. Perhaps he had inherited some of the Wittelsbach instability from his mother. There had even been talk of the young prince suffering from incurable syphilis. At any rate, one snowy night he had taken the life of his young mistress, Marie Vetsera, then shot himself.

“It turns out that Herr Frosch was in service to the crown prince himself, as a personal valet. He was at Rudolf’s hunting lodge in Mayerling the very night of the deaths.”

“But we found no evidence of such memoirs,” Werthen said, recalling their patient search of Herr Frosch’s papers following his death. “We concluded it was all hot air on his part.”

“Something important brought Empress Elisabeth to see Frosch after all these years,” Gross said. “Something was said behind closed doors, according to Frau Frosch, to shake the empress so that she needed a brandy to bring the color back to her cheeks before leaving.”

Neither said anything for a few moments, then Gross continued, “Frau Frosch, by the way, knew nothing of her husband’s terminal condition, but she was able to supply me with the name of his doctor. I visited that gentleman this afternoon, and he verified that Frosch was aware of the seriousness of his cancer. That would seem to add verity to the tale of Frosch being willing to share certain secrets with the empress.”

“You mean that he no longer had anything to lose?” Werthen was quick to reply.