Requiem in Vienna (26 page)

“Another set of suspects. More interviews. Sometimes I feel we have stepped into a morass with this case.”

“I can deal with the Carl Theater,” Werthen halfheartedly offered.

“It’s not a matter of
dealing
with something,” Gross said, suddenly irritated. “Of course we can
deal
with the new lead. But we make no headway scurrying off this way and that in search of a
new suspect, a new interview. Perhaps we are making things too complicated.”

Exactly Werthen’s thought, but he could not let the criminologist off so easily.

“You were the one so enthusiastic about the possibility of a serial killer murdering the great composers of Vienna,” Werthen reminded him. “Something bigger than a simple assault on Mahler.”

“I beg to differ. You have not bothered to ask me how I spent my morning.”

“All right. How did you spend your morning?”

“At an eminent surgeon’s, a disciple of the great Billroth himself, complaining of liver problems in hope of a diagnosis of liver cancer.”

Werthen thought for a moment that Gross’s judgment had become clouded by his lack of real food. Then the connection was made.

“You mean Brahms?”

“Yes. And I learned that there is no way to fabricate the symptoms of liver cancer. In addition to which, a brief autopsy was done before Brahms’s interment in the Zentralfriedhof in the musician’s grove. It was certain that he died of cancer, not some exotic poison.”

“And Bruckner? Strauss?”

Gross held up his hands. “We shall see.”

“What is it you are suggesting, then?”

Gross waited a moment, took a deep breath, and said, “Simplification.”

Gross’s desire for simplification had intensified by the time they returned to Werthen’s office.

Tor greeted them as they entered. “Your wife called, Advokat. She said it was urgent.”

Sudden panic gripped Werthen, fearing the worst regarding her pregnancy.

Gross noticed his change of color. “Easy, Werthen. It could mean anything.”

In his office, Werthen hastily picked up the receiver and gave the operator his home number. It seemed to take forever for the woman to connect him. Then he could finally hear ringing on the other end of the line. Once, twice, three times.

Frau Blatschky could be standing there in fear, trembling to pick up the contraption lest it electrocute her, while Berthe was lying somewhere unconscious or worse.

The receiver was lifted on the fifth ring.

“The Werthen-Meisner residence.”

It was Berthe’s voice.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, darling. Sorry to worry you,” she said. “It’s not me.”

“What is it then?”

“Mahler. Someone’s poisoned him.”

H
e looked like a wax effigy.

They carried Mahler off the special express from Salzburg on a stretcher with four bulky soldiers of the Alpin Korps on guard duty. Prince Montenuovo was sparing no expense, now that there had been yet another “assassination attempt,” as the prince insisted on calling the poisoning.

Mahler’s face was greenish yellow; his chest rose and fell with great difficulty. As they hustled the stretcher past Werthen at the Empress Elisabeth Bahnhof, the composer’s eyelids fluttered open, and he recognized the lawyer.

He lifted a beckoning hand, and Werthen went to him, bending down over the stretcher.

Mahler whispered, but Werthen could not hear his words at first. Leaning down more closely so that Mahler’s breath warmed his ear, Werthen was finally able to hear the message: “Find him, Werthen, before it is too late.”

“He was a lucky man,” Dr. Baumgartner, the attending physician at the General Hospital said. “Well, unlucky to have been poisoned
in the first place, but fortunate in that he ate so little of the tainted sweet. I believe he will fully recover with no significant liver damage.”

“You are certain it was the Turkish delight?” Werthen said.

“The laboratory tests have come back already. Positive for arsenic. And a very healthy dose, at that.”

“We will need to see the box,” Gross said.

“You’ll have to speak with . . . I believe his name is Detective Inspector Drechsler, about that.”

Gross emitted a vexed sigh. “May we speak with Herr Mahler?”

A curt shaking of the head from the doctor. “He is resting now. I would imagine by tomorrow morning—”

Gross did not wait for the medical man to finish, but wheeled around and stormed out of the waiting area.

Werthen reddened at Gross’s bad behavior.

“I apologize for my colleague’s curtness, Dr. Baumgartner.”

“You really should get your friend to calm down. He is headed for a myocardial infarction at this rate.”

And the doctor departed as abruptly as Gross had, perhaps headed for his own bit of coronary difficulty.

Which left Werthen alone in the waiting room with Natalie Bauer-Lechner; Justine was keeping personal watch in her brother’s room.

“Good news at last,” she said, collapsing into a chair.

“May I get you something? Water?”

“No. I am fine. It has been such a terrifying experience. He was retching all afternoon, burning up, and drinking so much water, as if he were dying of thirst. Awful, awful. We were preparing to return to Vienna today anyway. Gustl needs to prepare for the
Tannhäuser
next week. And now this.”

The Hofoper was closed during part of June and all of July, but this summer there was to be a special celebration in honor of Richard Wagner’s widow, Cosima Wagner, founder of the Bayreuth Festival. This would include a performance of the opera
Tannhäuser
in her honor. The celebration, however, was not welcomed by all of Vienna’s musical and artistic establishment, Werthen knew, for Wagner was still an object of controversy for musical purists.

He sat next to Frau Bauer-Lechner, patting her arm. “It’s all right now. You heard the doctor. No permanent damage.”

“Yes,” she said without conviction. “She blames you. Justine, that is. For deserting her brother.”

“Hardly deserted. The police took over the watch.”

“He asked to see you, but you sent your assistant.”

She was clearly distraught. But this was not the time for such a discussion. “If you don’t mind, there are some questions I would like to ask.”

“The police have already been over all of this. Can’t you just speak with them?”

“It helps to have it firsthand. Herr Mahler pressed me to find the culprit. You saw him talk to me at the railroad station.”

“Yes, you are right. We are a little overwhelmed by events of late. Go ahead. Anything to help Gustl.”

“Let us begin with the most obvious.” Werthen fished out his leather notebook from this inside jacket pocket. “Who was at the Villa Kerry recently?”

“You mean in addition to myself, Justine, and Arnold?”

So Rosé had stayed on, Werthen thought. Written out of Mahler’s will if he married Justine, but still a houseguest.

“Yes.”

“Well, there was Herr Regierungsrath Leitner. He was at the villa yesterday. He had some important papers for Gustl to sign. They spoke together for some time. Herr Leitner returned to Vienna this morning, I believe.”

“Did he bring anything with him to the meeting?”

“A box of Turkish delight, you mean?”

Werthen nodded.

“That box was delivered almost a week ago, directly from
Istanbul. Gustl has eaten I do not know how many pieces of candy from it. I am sure they are mistaken about that being the source of the poison.”

“But was their talk . . . congenial?”

She looked at him with gray, perceptive eyes. “Do you mean, could we hear shouting as at his last visit?”

“Did you?”

“No. In fact their dealings seemed rather cordial.”

“Anyone else?”

“That soprano, Gerta Rheingold, showed up quite unexpectedly on Wednesday.”

The one Mahler had made sing a Mozart aria thirty times in an attempt to get it right. The one who had finally screamed the message of the aria directly at Mahler: “Die, horrid monster!”

“I believe a rapprochement was achieved there, as well,” Natalie said. “And neither did she appear to have sweets sequestered on her person. There were
bussis
, cheek kisses, left and right at her departure. Of course there were also the policeman on duty and your man, Herr Tor, who was there yesterday. Quite efficient, he seems, but painfully shy.”

Werthen concurred.

“No, it simply must be that hideous little man the police took into custody lurking about the villa this afternoon.”

It was the first Werthen had heard of this.

“Who?”

“I heard the name. What is it? I can’t . . . such a disgusting little person. Saying that Gustl had sent for him. Nonsense. Why would he want to speak with such a man? Gustl is totally against the use of the claque.”

Gross was waiting for him at the entrance to the hospital.

“I thought Frau Bauer-Lechner might be more responsive to your questions without my presence. Was that the case?”

Werthen quickly told Gross what he had learned.

“Schreier,” Gross surmised. “It has to be him. The head of the claque. He’s in custody? But that is absurd.”

Werthen hoped they could delay meeting Drechsler until the morning so he could get back to Berthe, but this new information made it more pressing that they speak with him this evening. It was still light, a soft evening with a sweet water smell coming off the Danube. As they walked toward the Police Praesidium, they further discussed these new developments.

“Who knew of Mahler’s penchant for those hideous sweets?” Gross asked.

“Anyone who ever visited his premises. A box was always lying around somewhere close to hand. Or anyone who reads the gossip columns. Journalists love those sorts of telling private details.”

“Telling of what?”

Werthen shrugged. “Well, that Mahler is human after all, I assume. That he has a sweet tooth. He had them sent from Istanbul.”

“Apparently not this box,” Gross said. “Or have the Turks decided on long overdue revenge for losing the siege of Vienna four hundred years ago?”

“Someone at the Villa Kerry must have placed some poisoned pieces in the box from Istanbul,” Werthen thought out loud.

“Yes,” Gross said. “The most logical conclusion. Beyond, that is, a renewal of the Islamic invasion of Europe.”

Werthen thought it was probably a good sign that Gross was in a humorous mood, but he also found the remarks somehow irritating.

“Nervous tic,” Gross admitted, as if reading his friend’s mind. “Adele usually tells me to hold my fire. Always thought that was a damn fine way for a woman to tell a man to keep his mouth shut.”

“Tactful woman, your wife,” Werthen said as they reached Schottenring and headed for the police headquarters, the Praesidium, where Drechsler was still on duty when they checked in.
Drechsler looked exhausted. He stood by a small open window in his office, breathing deeply of the pleasant evening air.

“Sit, gentlemen,” he said. There was little choice offered: two old wooden chairs faced Drechsler’s desk. Gross and Werthen took these.

“I was scheduled for vacation starting this week,” the inspector said, throwing himself into his leather-padded chair, the only sign of self-indulgence in the small, spartan office. Werthen noticed a picture of a pigeon-bosomed woman and several boys in short pants. Drechsler’s family? One assumed so, though the inspector hardly seemed the family man.

“Instead, my family is up in the Semmering without me. They were hoping I would at least be able to come up for this weekend, but now, with this Mahler poisoning, even that is out. Meindl wants this taken care of over the weekend.”

“In other words, you are to squeeze a confession from Herr Schreier?”

“Confound you, Gross. How did you know about his arrest? Right. You went to the hospital. Saw the sister—”

“Frau Bauer-Lechner, in point of fact,” Werthen said.

Drechsler nodded. “We caught the blighter dead to rights. Lurking about the grounds like a common burglar. Had a grudge, too. Mahler’s new rules prohibiting the claque put him right out of a job.”

“What does Schreier say?” Gross asked.

“What do you think he says? That he’s innocent, of course. Framed by someone. That Mahler himself sent him a letter inviting him to the Villa Kerry to patch things up between them.”

“And the letter?” Gross asked.

“Not the best of liars, is friend Schreier. He claims that Mahler requested, in the letter, that he destroy it lest it fall into the hands of journalists somehow and that word would get out of their secret meeting. According to Schreier, Mahler wanted to end their
feud, but did not want the public to know he had capitulated to his singers.”

“A perhaps not unreasonable request,” Gross said.

“You don’t believe the man, do you? He’s a cad.”

“I know. I have spoken to him. But that does not necessarily make him a murderer,” Gross replied. “Besides, he has a solid alibi for earlier attempts on Mahler’s life.”

“There could be two perpetrators,” Drechsler quickly countered. “Mahler is not everyone’s friend, after all. Perhaps Schreier got wind of the investigation. Perhaps he hoped to fob off his murder onto whoever has been trying to kill Mahler. A murder of opportunity. Not unheard of. He does stand to gain by Mahler’s death.”

“Only if Mahler’s successor at the Hofoper rescinded Mahler’s new rules,” Werthen reminded him.

Drechsler ignored this appeal to logic. “Meindl wants closure,” the inspector said again. “There are heavy pressures coming from the court as a result of this latest incident. After all, we had one of our men stationed inside the villa and still could not protect Mahler.”

Neither Gross nor Werthen responded to this.

Drechsler slammed his fist onto the desktop.

“All right. I don’t believe it either. The man seems too much of an idiot to be able to get his hands on arsenic, let alone doctor some pieces of Turkish delight with it and then manage to insert them into Mahler’s box of sweets unnoticed. Besides, we have no evidence Schreier ever made it inside the house. He says that by the time he arrived at the Villa Kerry, it was fairly crawling with our boys. He was afraid to go inside, but also afraid to leave lest he miss his meeting with Mahler.”