The Silence (34 page)

‘Part of it is public record,’ Werthen said. ‘I am ashamed to say it, but I do not want my name attached to any of this, Kraus. Gutrum is the sort to bring a nuisance suit.’

‘Yes, well, those hardly bother me. I have at least three outstanding legal suits as we speak. It will be on my shoulders, Advokat. That I promise. But this truth must see the light of day.’

Kraus, busy enough before Werthen’s arrival, seemed suddenly to redouble his efforts, pushing away the story he was working on, and finding several pieces of fresh paper.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Kraus?’ Werthen asked. ‘The special friends?’

Kraus looked up from the paper where he had already begun writing in a hand so minute and spidery that its decipherment would require the use of a magnifying glass by the printer.

‘Ah, to be sure. The special friends. Well, there is a certain group of young ballerinas at the Court Opera that enjoy the company of powerful men. Steinwitz was among this group of men. I understand that the women are traded quite regularly, and that Councilman Steinwitz, whatever his scruples over selling off the Vienna Woods, had none when it came to matters of the flesh.’

‘Young women, you say?’ Werthen asked.

‘But of course. The man was, by all accounts, quite a mastiff.’

Werthen’s attentions were otherwise occupied for the next few days. With the collapse of the scheme to sell large portions of the Vienna Woods, the Rathaus recanted its demands on the Laab im Walde property. Werthen’s estate agent, Grundman, notified him that there had been a renewed offer on the property from Herr Pokorny, the pharmacist whose wife had inherited it. The property was now offered, Grundman indicated, at a slightly reduced price.

‘Herr Pokorny is, as we in the trade say, rather motivated now after all this business with taking it off the market and putting it back on.’

They were speaking by telephone, but Werthen could clearly discern a slight tinge of humor in the otherwise dour Grundman’s voice.

Werthen told him he would let him know, but he was reluctant to get back into this business of the country house, having been so sorely disappointed to lose it before. However, discussing it with Berthe that night, he found that he actually began to consider such a purchase. Then, a visit to the property in the company of Herr Meisner renewed his enthusiasm for having a real home for Frieda to grow up in, if only for the summers at first. That very day he made an offer of fifteen thousand florins, the same that he had started with originally. Motivated or not, Herr Pokorny made the same counter offer as he had earlier and in the end the price was settled at sixteen thousand again. But Werthen was beyond caring, truly relishing the idea of getting the house in order for this summer’s occupancy. They signed the final papers on March 10.

It was only after signing these that Werthen let his mind return to the business of Frau Steinwitz. This was accomplished by Kraus, who sent a blue flimsy pneumatic letter the same day to inform Werthen that his story on the death of Councilman Steinwitz would appear in the Monday edition of
Die Fackel.

That Monday, Werthen lost no time in purchasing a copy on his way to the office. Photographs of Frau and Herr Steinwitz accompanied the text, a novelty for Kraus’s magazine. Werthen read through the lead article once, then a second time, marveling at Kraus’s ability to fill out the full story by innuendo, suggestion, and unattributed supposition. In fact, Kraus had created a miracle of modern journalism: a damning yet indirect brief against Frau Steinwitz for the murders of her husband and Herr Henricus Praetor, without writing one actionable sentence and without once mentioning the word, ‘homosexual.’

Why, the man should have been a lawyer, Werthen thought.

Kraus’s final sentence made Werthen reconsider the whole affair:

‘One can only ask about the motive for these heinous crimes.’

‘It’s you again.’

‘Very nice to see you, as well, Meier. I’ve come to see Herr Wittgenstein.’

‘You were hardly welcome before, if you do not mind my saying, sir. Even less so now, I would assume.’

‘Herr Wittgenstein, if you please.’

‘Very well. I did warn you.’

Meier led the well-trodden path through the foyer and up the grand staircase to his master’s study. Waiting outside, he heard Wittgenstein’s voice boom at Meier, but could not make out what was said.

A slightly chastened Meier appeared. ‘He will see you.’

Werthen entered the study, a fire in the grate once again pouring out waves of heat.

‘Damn cheeky servant,’ Wittgenstein said, volubly enough that Meier could hear himself referred to by that title. ‘I’ll decide whom I do and don’t want to see. Now what in God’s name brings you to my door again?’

‘May I sit?’

Wittgenstein shrugged. ‘As you wish. I confess, Advokat, to being somewhat impressed by your persistence. Others who have crossed me would hardly dare to come for such a tête-à-tête.’

‘Should I fear for my life?’ he said jocularly.

Wittgenstein turned suddenly serious. ‘Others have.’

Werthen began to wonder for the first time if this were really such a good idea. Perhaps he should take Berthe’s advice and simply let the matter go. But Frau Steinwitz’s face, so eminently in control one moment and so suddenly broken the next, came to mind. He no longer believed that act. He needed to know the truth, regardless of the costs.

‘I would like your help.’

Wittgenstein slapped his desk as he chuckled. ‘Advokat Werthen, I must give you kudos for, as our Spanish friends say, your
cojones.
Why ever should I want to help you? You have cost me dearly.’

‘I found your son,’ Werthen said. ‘And I saved you the embarrassment of being blamed for despoiling the Vienna Woods. The latter you may not believe just yet, but the former you know to be true.’

‘And I paid you handsomely for that service.’

‘Indeed you did, sir. But I am talking about a deeper payment. In kind.’

Herr Wittgenstein cocked his head, examining Werthen closely. ‘I am not sure if you are overly sincere or simply an idiot. Perhaps both.’ Another chuckle. ‘What help is it you require?’

‘I would like to know if, among the list of fellow investors in the Vienna Woods project, was included the name of Colonel Adam Gutrum.’

Wittgenstein took in a large breath of air and blew it out between his lips, almost whistling.

‘I think Colonel Gutrum might have enough on his plate with his daughter in a Swiss asylum. He does not need you dogging him, as well.’

‘I have no intention of bothering the colonel, Herr Wittgenstein. That I promise you.’

Another appraising look. ‘All right, since you ask. Yes. He was one of the major investors. Stood to make a packet if the deal went through. Does that conclude our business, Advokat?’

‘Yes, sir. And I thank you.’

‘Nothing to give thanks for. But I do believe our slate may be clean now.’

‘
Tabula rasa
,’ Werthen replied.

Outside on the Alleegasse he thought: We now have motive. She killed her own husband and Praetor to stop them from ruining the Vienna Woods sale, a venture that would bring a fortune to her father and, by inference, to her.

It was just as he and Gross initially thought: someone involved with the sale had the most to gain by the deaths of Steinwitz and Praetor. But they could hardly be expected to focus on the wife as that person. Frau Steinwitz’s tragic story of a shaming love affair between her husband and Henricus Praetor was just that – a story. A fabrication. She had killed for the basest of human motives, monetary gain. Which explained the missing notes of Councilman Steinwitz detailing the scheme, as well as the notebooks of Praetor where he kept transcriptions of interviews and the particulars of his investigation. Frau Steinwitz had surely destroyed those damning bits of evidence.

Werthen was walking along the street, lost in these thoughts, when young Ludwig Wittgenstein entered from the Karlsplatz in the company of a tall, thin man Werthen assumed to be his tutor.

‘Another outing to the Natural History Museum, Master Ludwig?’ Werthen asked as they approached one another.

‘Yes, to be sure,’ the boy said, smiling in recognition. ‘Sorry I could not stay to talk the other day, but Mining would not hear of it.’

He meant at Huck’s funeral, Werthen knew.

‘Quite all right. Not a very happy occasion.’

‘Master Wittgenstein,’ the elderly and rather eunuch-like tutor said. ‘We really should be on our way. It is a bitterly cold day.’

‘It’s fine, Traschky. Advokat Werthen is an old family friend. Go on if you like. I’ll catch you up.’

‘Don’t dawdle, Master Wittgenstein. Latin hour is next.’

Traschky, a wraith of a man, moved off like fog lifting on a summer morning.

Ludwig watched him go. ‘He’s not bad, actually. Bad breath, though.’

‘How have you been?’ Werthen asked.

‘You mean about Huck’s death?’

‘I mean in general.’

‘When asked that, Father always says, “I can’t complain. No one would listen anyway.” An interesting observation, don’t you think, Advokat?’

‘Very realistic, I should think. But in this case, I really do want to know.’

Ludwig ignored further attempts at solicitude. Instead, he pulled out the latest edition of
Die Fackel.

‘Have you seen this, Advokat?’

‘What are you doing with that?’

‘It’s hardly seditious. Besides, Hans never stopped his subscription.’

Werthen now remembered seeing the red covers of the magazine on Hans’s bookshelf and finding it odd that the son of Karl Wittgenstein would read it, considering the criticisms Kraus sometimes leveled at his father.

‘So, three times a month I get to the postman before he delivers the mail and save this for myself. This Kraus fellow is really fabulous, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, I do,’ Werthen agreed.

‘There was an absolutely fantastic article this time about this woman who may have killed her husband and another chap, a journalist. She’s hiding away now in a Swiss asylum, beyond justice.’

‘I saw that article, yes.’

‘You know the woman of course,’ Ludwig said. ‘I saw her at your office one day.’

Werthen now remembered. Frau Steinwitz had come to see him the day after he’d been beaten, the day Ludwig met Huck.

‘You have a good memory, Master Ludwig.’

‘Was she your client?’

Werthen shook his head. ‘Her husband once was.’

‘It’s strange, you know. That day I met her at the office I thought I recognized her. And I was right. Seeing her photo again in
Die Fackel
and then reading the article by Kraus I realized I had actually seen her the night of this Herr Praetor’s death. Only I didn’t know until reading the article that he had died. In fact, I did not even know that he lived in the Zeltgasse. You see, I don’t regularly read the newspapers yet. Such a lot of rubbish in them, Father says.’

Werthen felt at once a sudden sense of excitement and bewilderment at this barrage of revelations. ‘You were at Herr Praetor’s flat?’

‘Not actually in his apartment. But at the building. We couldn’t get in, you see. For some reason the
Portier
locked the front doors early.’

‘Why were you there?’

‘Mining was most mysterious about it. We were supposed to be at the Raimund play in the Theater in der Josefstadt. My tutor was very keen on me seeing
Der Verschwender.
But Mining said we had to visit someone first. I went along with her. We all have our little secrets. Now that I’ve read the Kraus article, it makes more sense. He was a friend of Hans, right?’

‘Correct.’

‘The one, in fact, who told you Hans had gone to America.’

‘Again, correct.’

‘So maybe Mining was trying to find out more about Hans. Maybe they correspond.’

‘Good surmise,’ Werthen said, but thought it more likely that the older Wittgenstein sister had gone there to ensure that Praetor made no revelations to the press about his supposed homosexual relationship with Hans. Only something along those lines would account for her visiting under the guise of attending the theater.

‘Well, you see, we rang the bell and could not get in. Mining and I waited several minutes and finally she just left in disgust, walking much faster than me. Like Traschky says, I am famous for dawdling. And it was then the house door opened, with Mining already around the corner, and out walks this woman. Frau Steinwitz.’

‘You saw her clearly?’

‘Very. We were not half a block apart.’

‘And that means—’

‘Yes. I know. That she saw me, too. And knew I had witnessed her leaving the scene of a crime. That is why I was so happy to see you just now. All morning long I have been trying to figure out how I could see you again, and here you are, like magic.’

‘To tell me about Frau Steinwitz?’

‘Yes. Well, and the rest. It’s pretty clear, isn’t it?’

The realization struck Werthen violently, like a physical blow. Of course, he told himself. I should have seen it before.

Young Wittgenstein continued, ‘I mean, when she saw me again at your office she must have panicked. There is no way she could know I was ignorant of Herr Praetor’s death. I was, in her eyes, the only witness to her crime.’

‘She killed Huck,’ Werthen finally said.

Ludwig nodded his head vigorously. ‘That’s what I think, too. It was the coat, you see. That night I first saw her I was wearing my loden coat with the fur collar. There’s not another one like it in all of Vienna. At least Father says so. They tailored it specially for me. I was wearing it again that day at the office. And then Huck and I traded coats because I knew how fond he was of it.’

His boyish excitement was suddenly stilled, replaced by grief.