A Matter of Breeding (26 page)

He had a great desire to reach across the desk and slap her. Instead, he smiled at her asinine joke.

‘Is he connected with the spa?’

‘He’s regional manager. Runs both the Köflach Bad Terminus and ours. Now …’

‘Of course. Get back to work. Wouldn’t want the management to dock your pay.’

Thomas Lukasz was also at his post at the train station. The young man immediately remembered Werthen.

‘Alone today, I see,’ he said.

‘Yes. My colleague did not want to risk another run in with your fist.’

Thomas blanched at this.

‘Only teasing,’ Werthen said. ‘He’s back in England.’

‘But he spoke German.’

Werthen did not bother trying to explain the concept of learning a foreign language for this literal-minded youth.

‘I have another question for you about Maria.’

‘They caught her killer.’

‘I know. This is just personal curiosity. Her father says she had more money than usual just before her death. Do you know anything about that?’

‘She worked at the spa. I didn’t want her to. Told her I could support us both on my earnings here. But she sort of laughed at that.’

‘Did you notice her spending more than usual?’

He shook his head. ‘But then for the last few weeks we didn’t see much of each other. She was making plans.’

‘To become a nun.’

A nod. ‘But I thought that was strange. I mean, we were both Catholic. Everyone is. But she never said anything to me about having a vocation. And then all of a sudden she was going off to a nunnery. I guess that’s why I exploded with your friend. It wasn’t right. She belonged with me, not with Jesus.’

‘I remember her very well,’ Sister Agnes said.

Werthen was seated in the presbytery of the church of Maria Strassengel, finally managing to speak with the woman who had discovered Maria Feininger’s body and the person with whom the young woman was supposed to meet the day she was killed.

‘She was a sweet young girl. Not the sharpest tack in the box, mind you, but willing and kind.’

‘Her young man, Thomas Lukasz, did not think she was the sort to become a nun.’

She smiled. ‘Well, he wouldn’t now, would he. After all, she was leaving him for a life in the Church. But he was right in a way. It was surprising to me when she announced her intention of becoming a nun. I was prepared to talk her out of it, you know.’

‘Why is that, sister?’

‘She intimated once that she wanted to enter the convent because she did not feel worthy of her young man. She felt ashamed.’

‘Ashamed of what?’

A sigh. ‘Well, that we will never know, I am afraid. We were scheduled to discuss that the very day she was killed.’

Frau Czerny, Herr Hohewart’s secretary, lived in a modest flat in the center of Köflach. There were four cats that shared the small apartment with her, one of which was currently wrapping itself seductively around Gross’s right shoe and shin.

The criminologist resisted the temptation to kick the flea-bearing feline, figuring that might not be the best way to get information from the older woman.

‘Herbert is the friendliest,’ she said, a fracture of a smile on her heavily powdered face.

For a moment Gross thought she was referring to her deceased employer, then remembered his name was Maximilian. He looked at the cat spreading hair on his woolen pant leg.

‘He loves a bit of a scratch behind the ears,’ Frau Czerny said.

But there were limits to what Gross would do to secure information.

‘Then, so as far you know, Frau Czerny, there were no close relatives.’

‘None that I met, and I served with Herr Hohewart for a number of years. One of my boys, I liked to call them.’

Her eyes were red-rimmed; he had arrived not long after a cry, apparently. Apparently also, Frau Czerny was the devoted sort of secretary who put work ahead of family, for on the massive sideboard, which took far too much space out of the tiny sitting room, there was an extensive photo gallery, but not one picture of a human. No indication of a husband or any children ever in her life. No time for them. Just row after row of cats neatly framed and, by the looks of them, freshly dusted.

‘And did Herr Hohewart have close friends … of either gender?’

‘Other than his wife, none that I know of.’

‘But you said there were no relatives.’

She looked flustered for a moment and he regretted the edge to his voice.

‘Like a brother or sister, I meant.’

‘I didn’t know he was a married man,’ Gross said. ‘Nobody mentioned.’

‘It was a sadness for him. She’s been hospitalized for the better part of a decade.’ Frau Czerny swirled her forefinger at her temple. ‘Not right up there, poor woman. Has a suite of rooms in the psychiatric clinic in Graz.’

The same as his own son, Gross thought ruefully. But he forestalled any further painful thoughts by focusing on the interview at hand.

‘That must have cost a bit of money.’

‘Oh, her relatives can afford it, I assure you. Regular steel barons and with all sorts of rich friends to boot. Herr Hohewart was a lucky man to marry into that family. It made his career. But sad, too.’

‘And she has been hospitalized for almost a decade, you say.’

Frau Czerny gave him a cunning look. ‘I see what you are getting at. But Herr Hohewart was much too busy for domestic dalliances. Not that he did not get up to some antics. Wild oats and all that.’

‘He was in his fifties, I believe,’ Gross said. ‘A bit old for sowing wild oats.’

She ignored this, plunging on with her memories. ‘Yes, he was a silly boy sometimes, but such a wonderful businessman. We worked together like a charm, you know. He valued me.’

‘And male friends?’

‘I’m sure I wouldn’t know. Outside of business hours, we did not see one another.’

Gross found it odd that she had an opinion on Hohewart’s female encounters, but none at all for men. But then everything about Frau Czerny seemed a bit odd, from her hair style – two long braids that were far too young for her – to her choice of beverage to offer him – Underberg, digestif bitters, in the early afternoon.

‘Enemies?’

‘Herr Hohewart? Hardly. He was beloved.’

‘By whom?’

But again she ignored him. ‘He was devoted to his work. Many is the time he would call me in to work on Sunday if there were important contracts to be completed.’

‘You were aware of his dealings with the Lipizzaner stud, I assume.’

‘That was his pet project from the time I began working with him. He took care of it personally.’

‘All of it?’ Gross asked. ‘Communications, contracts?’

She nodded, then took a sip from her thimble-sized drink of bitters.

Which made sense, he figured, if the breeding contracts were not legitimate.

‘I simply do not understand why he would kill himself,’ Frau Czerny said. ‘He had so much to live for.’

‘As I told you, Frau Czerny, he did not kill himself. That is why I have come to talk with you.’

‘Herr Hohewart was not the sort to be murdered, I assure you. There was never a trace of impropriety about him.’

Gross stopped himself from rolling his eyes; however, a sigh escaped before preventive measures could be put in place.

But Frau Czerny was not paying attention to him. Instead, her gaze had wandered to a large, orange tabby cat making its way up the brocade curtains of the one large window in the sitting room, paw over paw, its claws digging into the fabric.

‘Now Siegfried,’ she said in a cooing tone. ‘I have told you time and again not to climb the curtains. Silly boy.’ She got up and lifted the cat from the material, its paws swiping at her as she did so.

Her comment made Gross pick up on something she had said earlier.

‘You said that Herr Hohewart was
one
of your “boys”. Did you have other employers?’

‘Of course. For many years I was private secretary to a very important man in the field of politics. A patriot if there ever was one. But of course the Habsburgs had to find a way to discredit him, to ruin his career.’

Gross began to see the lay of the land. ‘Christian von Hobarty?’

‘Indeed, yes.’ She beamed at him. ‘Another one of my boys. When he was sent to jail for that altercation—’

‘I believe a fellow minister was beaten senseless.’

‘Perhaps he deserved it, speaking as he did to Herr von Hobarty.’

‘What was said between them?’

‘You’ll have to ask Herr von Hobarty about that,’ she said. ‘I do not go about telling tales out of school.’

‘And so that is how you came to work for Herr Hohewart?’

Another curt nod. ‘When Herr von Hobarty was indisposed, he was kind enough to suggest me to Herr Hohewart.’

‘So they were friends?
Male
friends.’

‘I suppose. I never really gave it much thought.’

‘Did Herr von Hobarty come to the office?’

‘Oh yes. He was instrumental in obtaining the Lipizzaner breeding contract with the Imperial Ministry for Agriculture. He would drop in from time to time.’

‘And when was the last time you saw him?’

‘Herr Hohewart?’

‘No. I meant von Hobarty.’

She looked toward the ceiling as she thought. ‘I really cannot recall. But we often saw him.’

Then her eyes shot to the door where one of the cats was hunkering.

‘Herbert! Naughty boy. We do that outside.’

Werthen arrived at the Reiter’s cabin later that afternoon. He was again in luck, for the parents were not there, taking a walk instead in the fresh snow. Annaliese’s brother, Kurt, was alone, polishing his prized crossbow. It was he Werthen wanted to talk with at any rate.

‘Can’t see why you want to stir things up again,’ the young boy said. ‘They got the one who killed her, more’s the pity. I wish it had been me had a chance to do him.’

‘It is not a matter of stirring things up, as you say. I was just curious to know if your sister had come into a bit of money before she died.’

The boy shot a glance at the new crossbow in the stand by the door.

‘She did, didn’t she?’ Werthen insisted.

‘What of it? Annaliese got a raise at work.’

‘That explains it then,’ Werthen said. ‘A good worker deserves a good income.’

‘She gave me the two crowns for my crossbow. She was a good sister. The best. I would have done anything to save her. Anything to avenge her.’ A good-looking boy, Kurt suddenly looked at Werthen with the cunning of a hunter on the track of prey. ‘You don’t think this Klapper fellow killed her, do you?’

He did not know how to answer that.

Werthen left before the parents returned, plagued by the thought that there was something more Kurt Reiter knew that he was not sharing.

‘This is not the same friend, is it, Advokat Werthen?’

‘No. This is my colleague, the renowned criminologist, Doktor Hanns Gross.’

Frau Paulus nodded her head sideways at this, as if it might mean something to her or to indicate that she was at least impressed with the title.

As with the last visit, Herr Paulus was tucked away in his study working on matters to deal with the spa. Or, as Werthen now knew, the
two
spas he managed. The children carried on their noisy game from a room just off the front vestibule.

‘I will get him for you, then, shall I?’ she said cheerily.

Werthen and Gross had met as arranged at the café in Köflach, where they had discussed their mutual discoveries. These included the fact that both Maria Feininger (according to her father) and Annaliese Reiter were in possession of extra money at the time of their deaths and both had been employed at a spa managed by Herr Paulus. Werthen also imparted the news from Sister Agnes that Maria had not been a very religious girl; shame seemed to be driving her to a nunnery. Gross had considered these and then apprised Werthen of his own information, culled from Frau Czerny, namely the further connection between Hohewart and von Hobarty and the story of the mysterious words that drove von Hobarty to beat the Czech minister. As they were so close by, it was natural that they travel the few miles to Piber and interview Paulus once again. Annaliese’s brother Kurt seemed to think that his sister’s new-found wealth was due to a raise at work. Paulus should be able to shed some light on that, at the very least.

The sound of descending footsteps made Werthen swing around to see Herr Paulus and his wife coming down the stairs.

Greetings were made and Frau Paulus smiled at Werthen. ‘I’ll leave you men to it, then.’

She entered the room where the children were playing and there was a joyous shriek let out from one of the young ones.

‘I thought we had settled matters last time we talked,’ Paulus said as soon as his wife was out of earshot. ‘And now you bring another stranger into my home …’

Werthen handed him the new letter from Thielman, knowing that a man like Paulus needed the whip of authority in order to cooperate. Paulus read this with the same close attention he had the earlier one and then handed it back as if returning someone’s filthy handkerchief.

‘How could the death of Annaliese Reiter have anything to do with this latest tragedy?’

‘And Maria Feininger,’ Werthen added. ‘You neglected to say last time that you were acquainted with her, as well.’

‘Hardly acquainted,’ Paulus said.

‘Or that you work as manager of the Styrian Park Sanatorium in Judendorf-Strassengel as well at the Bad Terminus.’

‘One assumes you were aware of my positions. You seemed to know so much about my private life.’

‘Did you know Maria Feininger?’ Gross suddenly said with all the gravitas of a former magistrate.

Paulus turned to him, clearly hearing the tone in which the question was put.

‘By sight. She was recommended by the receptionist.’

‘Fräulein Henninger,’ Werthen said.

‘Yes. And she proved adequate in her service. I have very little contact with employees of that level.’

‘Had either or both of the young women received a raise in wages around the time of the deaths?’

This question seemed to affront Paulus. ‘Now look here, advokat. I have been very patient with you. I explained my slight indiscretion with the Reiter girl. That should be an end of it. I resent you persecuting me, and at my home.’