Requiem in Vienna (33 page)

“And what of Gunther and the Paulus woman?”

Gross stirred his coffee. “Either Tor or his accomplice could have done those killings.”

“It is difficult to imagine Tor in the role of the killer,” Werthen said, remembering the man’s shyness, reticence, almost quaking nature.

“A man can change his mannerism and appearance as easily as he can his name,” Gross counseled. “Meekness is the perfect disguise for a man with anger enough to kill several times.”

Gross had another thought. “Perhaps we should question Frau Ignatz once again,” he said. “As I recall, she told me she saw no strangers in the building the day you were attacked. If I interpret
that statement literally, it leaves the possibility that she may have seen Herr Tor. After all, he is no stranger to her. If Tor is Rott, that explains something else that was bothering me about your assault.”

Werthen was about to ask what that was, but Gross charged ahead.

“The locked door to your office. Thus far we have hypothesized that it was the unusual actions of a burglar, but why couldn’t the locked door be the habitual actions of an employee?

“How could I have been so blind?” Werthen suddenly said.

“Do not berate yourself, friend,” Gross consoled. “Neither did I see through him. But for now, this is a theory, only. We have no hard proof. However, I know how we might gather some, and without the necessity of interviewing your impertinent
portier
again.

“His writing,” Werthen said. “The telltale smudges. We have reams of his hand-written documents at the office.”

As they quickly paid and made their way to the door, Herr Otto stopped Werthen for a moment.

“A couple of things you might want to know, Herr Advokat. Last week as you left, I saw a man follow you.”

“Following me?”

“Yes. He was standing on the corner. I noticed him because he stood there the entire time you were speaking with Herr Hanslick. He pretended to look at a display in the milliner’s shop, but every once in a while he quickly gazed into the windows of this café. Then when you left I saw him carefully hide his face from you, as if you might recognize him. After you had gone half a block, he set off after you, pulling his bowler down tight over his eyes.”

“Lord, Herr Otto, you would make a good inquiries man yourself. Can you describe this fellow.”

“Oh yes, sir. Larger than average and somewhat thick. A nose that is more round than narrow. He carried himself close, you know. As if he was the humble sort, maybe even shy. But when he
started following you, it was clear he was neither. Seemed to me more like a hawk hunting prey, if you take my meaning.”

“I do, Herr Otto, very well,” Werthen replied. “And thank you.”

Herr Otto had just supplied a close description of Wilhelm Tor.

“You mentioned ‘a couple’ of things,” Werthen said before leaving.

Herr Otto nodded. “Right. Last week I mentioned how Herr Hanslick and his friend Herr Kalbeck were deep in discussion.”

“ ‘Thick as thieves,’ I believe was the expression you used.”

Herr Otto reddened. “Yes, well, perhaps that was a bit on the melodramatic side. Yesterday I overheard a conversation between them that explained much.”

He looked at Werthen sheepishly. “They were talking at a certain volume. I am no snoop.”

“Nor was I suggesting you were.”

“Well, it seems the two of them had invested a packet of money on a gold mine in South America and had just confirmed it was all a swindle. Lost their money and their self-respect, by the sound of it. They had just got wind of the possible problem last week. So that is presumably what they were discussing.”

“Not thieves at all, then,” Werthen said. “Rather the victims.”

T
he foul smell struck them like a hammer the instant they opened the door to Werthen’s. Just as with skunk spray, the reaction to this stench was automatic and extreme. Werthen threw his hands over his mouth and nose, while Gross dug in his jacket pocket for a handkerchief to cover his face.

Halting in the doorway, they did not see Tor at first, then Werthen noticed a pair of boots sticking out from under the desk.

Wilhelm Tor had not died nicely. His mouth was twisted into a rictus of pain. Green bile and vomit was spread down the front of his vest. From beneath him exuded the noxious odor as a stain of waste spread on the parquet.

Gross, heedless now of the smell and horror of the scene, immediately got down on one knee and put a finger to the man’s carotid artery. Then he leaned over, his nose centimeters from the man’s gaping mouth and took in large breaths.

“Arsenic poisoning,” he said, rising and brushing at his pants. “Unmistakable smell of garlic.”

They quickly scanned Tor’s desk and saw the edge of a small box under a sheaf of papers. Lifting the papers, Werthen discovered a container of powdered Turkish delight.

“Does this mean what I think it does?” he said.

“It would appear so,” Gross replied. “A rather lovely form of irony. Herr Tor managed to poison himself with his own creation. He must have confused the poisoned pieces of candy with the original ones when his sweet tooth got the better of him.” Gross sounded almost gleeful at this prospect.

“But this is patently absurd,” Werthen said. “All our labors and investigations, and then to have the man do himself in accidentally.”

“He was not the greatest strategist,” Gross said. “After all, look at all the failed attempts he made on Mahler’s life. No, I find this a most fitting conclusion to his miserable career in crime.”

Gross bent over the man again, going through his pockets, and extracted a well-worn leather notebook cum money purse.

“And what of his accomplice?” Werthen said, for they both agreed he must have had help on the inside at the Hofoper in the early attempts on Mahler’s life. “Perhaps, knowing somehow that we were getting close, this accomplice killed Tor to save himself?”

But Gross was not listening, too busy going through the leather notebook.

“Here’s a familiar name,” Gross said, handing the notebook to Werthen, his thick forefinger underscoring a name and address.

“Herr Ludwig Redl,” Werthen read. The address was in the Twelfth District.

“Wasn’t that the stagehand Blauer told you about?” Gross said. “The one he let go for incompetence?”

“It must be the same,” Werthen said, making the connection now. “Tor’s accomplice?”

“Most probably so,” Gross said. “One would assume Tor hired him to do the deeds. To lace Mahler’s tea with paint thinner, to drop the fire curtain.”

“But Blauer indicated he’d already fired the man before the final attack at the Hofoper, the collapsing podium. He was supposedly off to America and a fresh start.”

Gross shrugged this off. “This Redl fellow could have rigged the podium long before he left. A stress fracture that finally gives out. He could have been thousands of miles away when the ‘accident’ finally happened.”

Something did not seem right to Werthen about all this, but Gross’s elation was infectious.

“One should not complain simply because we were unable to put the handcuffs on the man, Werthen. Sometimes fate gives the criminalist a hand in such matters. Now, I think it is about time we call Drechsler and apprise him of matters.”

Drechsler, after arriving with a brace of policemen and listening to Werthen and Gross’s explanation of the real identity of Wilhelm Tor, came to much the same conclusion that Gross had. Death by accidental ingestion of arsenic, which was obviously to be found in the Turkish delight.

“Serves the blighter right,” Drechsler added. “Of course we will have to wait for the coroner’s report, but it’s a certainty the man’s ingested a fair amount of the poison. And just as certain this batch was tainted with the poisoned sweets meant for Herr Mahler. This should make Meindl happy for once.”

The other officers stood about the room with noses stuffed into the crook of the elbows, trying to block the hideous stench. They were waiting for the arrival of an ambulance to remove the body to the city morgue in the cellar of the General Hospital.

“And Herr Redl,” Gross prompted.

“Yes. To be sure. I’ll dispatch some men out to that address immediately. There is always the possibility the man is still around, that he only spread the rumor that he was emigrating to America.”

He nodded at the senior officer with him, who presumably went off to coordinate this particular errand.

Drechsler was almost smiling when Werthen looked at him now.

“Well, I imagine our Herr Mahler will breathe more easily now. Thanks to you chaps.”

“Thanks more to Tor’s own incompetence,” Gross said, but one could tell he was proud of this outcome.

“You may still be able to vacation with your family,” Werthen said to Drechsler, and the detective inspector nodded hungrily at the idea.

“I’d give my pension for a good night’s sleep.”

Twenty minutes later, with the ambulance carrying the remains of Wilhelm Tor away, and after commissioning the
portier
, Frau Ignatz, to get a cleaning crew into the office by morning, Werthen and Gross were on their way back to the Josefstädterstrasse.

The early evening was glorious. The sky over the Josefstadt to the west was turning pink suffused with peach. Gross whistled bits and pieces from Mozart: a portion of an aria from
Cosi fan tutte
, a line or two repeated endlessly from
Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
He was clearly pleased with the outcome, but Werthen felt a slight unease.

Perhaps it was merely the sense of anticlimax and that they had not been allowed to make the arrest. They could not question the man and confirm their suspicions. Instead, they would have to make do with their deductions, to whit, that Tor was in fact actually Wilhelm Karl Rott, younger brother of Hans Rott. He had formed a mania about Mahler, blaming him for everything, not just possible musical plagiarism, but for his brother’s slip into insanity and ultimate death as a result of the tuberculosis he had contracted while in the asylum. Older brother Hans’s incarceration and death forced Wilhelm to support himself however he could, and thus probably added to his resentment for Mahler. A large quota of sins to avenge.

How long had his hatred festered? There was no telling, but it did seem Wilhelm attempted to carve out a life for himself, for his law degree was genuine. In any event, Werthen now assumed
that by early summer Tor had resolved to kill Mahler and had hired Redl, the stagehand at the Hofoper, to help him in this endeavor. How had the two met? Unless Drechsler was able to track the man down, they would never know for certain anything about this collaboration. They did know that such efforts led to the death of the soprano, Fräulein Kaspar. And what of Herr Gunther? He must have seen something from his seated position in the orchestra pit. Perhaps he approached Redl later and threatened him with exposure. Perhaps he could see that the dropping of the fire curtain was no accident at all, but rather the result of malicious intent. Gunther lived a meager existence: perhaps he hoped to better himself financially through his threats.

Whatever the case, Gunther paid for his knowledge with his life. Was it Redl or Rott, alias Wilhelm Tor, who did the deed? That, too, would be an uncertainty. And then came Berthe’s fortuitous advertisement for a legal assistant. Fortuitous, for by this time Rott-Tor must surely have known of Werthen’s investigation. Thus, if hired, he would be on the inside of the investigation and also have access to Mahler away from the Hofoper. It must have seemed a heaven-sent opportunity for Tor, for it put him in direct contact with Mahler, enabling him to cut Mahler’s bicycle brakes, and, when that failed, to poison him with arsenic-laced Turkish delights.

And what of the anonymous letter announcing the killing of the great composers of Vienna? As a member of the firm, Tor-Rott would be privy to much, Werthen knew. And suddenly a vague memory came to mind, of a day when he was making a list of suspects and Tor came in to deliver some pages to him. Did the man linger overlong by the desk? Had he seen that Werthen added a column of suspects from out of Mahler’s youth, that his investigation was about to head in a new and, for Tor, dangerous direction?

Most likely that was the case. Tor knew that, once the case of Hans Rott was uncovered, it would only be a matter of time before
suspicion led to the younger brother, to himself, in fact. Thus, he concocted a diversion, a false trail for them to follow, which they happily did for a time, looking for someone who had killed Bruckner, Brahms, and Strauss, and who made an attempt on the life of Zemlinsky. And all the while, Tor was thus free to make further attempts on the life of Mahler. Not one of his or Gross’s finer hours, Werthen thought as they walked through the Volksgarten and reached the wide expanse of the Ringstrasse.

And then there was the unfortunate Fräulein Paulus, the prostitute who was butchered in her garret. Clearly Tor had listened in to Drechsler’s conversation at the office, and knew he was about to be identified. That final act of extreme brutality was clearly the act of a tortured mind. One could only be pleased that Tor’s life had ended, that his string of evil deeds had been brought to an end, no matter by what means.

So why was Werthen still feeling on edge?

“Cheer up, Werthen,” Gross said as they let a fast-moving
fiaker
pass by before crossing the Ring. “Your lady-wife is sure to be pleased with your labors. And for my part, I shall delight in sharing with Herr Meisner the final moments of our Wilhelm Tor.”

Ten minutes later, reaching the flat in the Josefstädterstrasse, they discovered from Frau Blatschky that Berthe and her father had left only moments before for the Hofoper.

The frau looked reprovingly at Werthen. “I tried to talk sense into her. A woman in her condition should not be out in public. But that father of hers! And the Schindler girl. Between them they convinced her.” She clucked her tongue.

“I am sure it will be fine,” Werthen said, disappointed at not seeing his wife.

Gross’s disappointment was greater in learning that Frau Blatschky had not prepared any dinner.