Sydney Jones - The Keeper of Hands

Finally they came to a door at the end of the hall. The man tapped gently and from inside a voice mumbled something. Werthen could not make out what was said. The man turned the knob, opened the door, and gestured Werthen inside with the wave of a hand.

‘In you go.’

Werthen found himself still in the gloaming; he could barely discern a figure sitting in an armchair at the far end of the room.

‘You may be seated on the divan,’ this figure — a woman by the tone of the voice — said.

Werthen did as he was bid. The divan was across the room from the woman.

‘Frau Mutzenbacher, I presume?’

‘Is this Salten’s idea of a clever detective?’

Werthen felt himself stiffen at the jeer. ‘May we have some light?’

‘No we may not, thank you very much for asking. You’re here so that I can determine if I want to hire you. What do you know of my business?’

The question took him aback for a moment. ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Salten tells me that you operate a house of. .’

‘Say it, man. A house of ill repute. A brothel. A whorehouse.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Have you any familiarity with such establishments?’

‘Very little, I’m afraid.’ He tried to focus on her face in the darkness. It seemed she was wearing a veil.

‘Good. I want someone with fresh eyes. No assumptions. Would that be you?’

‘Madam, I must admit I am unaccustomed to this sort of interview.’

‘Too many words, Advokat. Speak plainly.’

This remark suddenly endeared the woman to Werthen, for it was an echo of what his wife Berthe had said to him when they first met several years before. She had accused him of sounding like someone running for mayor. ‘Pompous’ was the word she chose, and she was right.

‘Plainly said. I am quite good at what I do, as you are at your job. However, I am not a miracle worker. Neither do I have a bias against prostitutes. If you wish to employ me, fine. If not, I have other matters at hand.’

She said nothing for a moment. Then stirring in her chair, she nodded.

‘That’s better spoken, Advokat. With some feeling.’

‘What is it exactly that you want?’ Werthen asked.

Another long pause.

‘The young woman’s name was Mitzi, as I understand,’ Werthen began.

‘My girls are expendable,’ Frau Mutzenbacher said, as if not hearing him. ‘I can give you a list of Mitzi’s customers, but they surely use assumed names when coming here. Society spits on us, yet we hold the social fabric together. How many marriages do you think would survive, Herr Advokat, if we were not around to service oversexed husbands? How many marriages would be torn asunder by affairs with married women? How many ignorant youths would blunder on the wedding night were we not there before to train and gently guide? You ask what I want. I want justice for whores, that is what I want. I want society to finally acknowledge us. Barring that, I want to see the bastard who killed poor Mitzi rot behind bars in the Liesel for the rest of his pitiful days.’

‘Justice for all whores is a tall order. But I can try my best to find who killed this one young woman. And yes, I would like that list of names. It is a place to start, though the killer need not have been one of her clients. Do you have any suspicions?’

‘I’m not the detective.’

She sounded defensive; he did not bother to correct her choice of titles. ‘Private Inquiry Agent’ is what was listed on the brass plaque at his office below ‘Wills and Trusts’ and ‘Criminal Law’.

‘Was Mitzi close to any of the other women here?’

‘Fräulein Fanny.’ Said without an instant’s hesitation. ‘I will have her brought to us.’

‘In other words, you wish to engage my services?’

‘It appears so, no?’

‘Then I need to know something before we begin. Why do you care? You must have lost girls before. This can be a dangerous business for young women.’

She uttered a mirthless laugh. ‘Don’t I know!’

Suddenly, she turned up the wick on the kerosene lamp at her side and he could see her more clearly: a woman of ripe middle age, somewhat dowdy and matriarchal in appearance, thick in the middle with feet squeezed into lace-ups perhaps a size too small for her. She removed the veil covering her face and he saw the jagged line of a scar along the right side of her face.

Frau Mutzenbacher jabbed a finger at it. ‘That is what one of my clients left me as a going-away present. Did me a favor, actually. I couldn’t work the houses anymore, not even the streets, not with this. So I started using the other end of my body to make a living.’ She tapped her temple. ‘And it brought me all this.’

Werthen suddenly remembered what Salten had said about Frau Mutzenbacher: that she was not bitter about her former life.

Not a very discerning witness of human character, Salten.

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Werthen said. ‘Why the concern for Mitzi?’

‘Well, take it as an old woman’s fantasy, but I looked on the girl as the daughter I never had. She was special. You never met her, you could not know. But she was attentive to one’s needs. Thousands of little kindnesses. I really don’t know how to explain it. She was also the living likeness of my younger sister, Theresa. Dead these twenty years from consumption.’

She paused for a moment, working the embroidered black silk of her skirts between thumb and forefinger as if searching for imperfections.

Werthen said nothing, allowing the silence to gather around them in the muffled room.

‘I was planning to adopt her,’ Frau Mutzenbacher said, looking up from her skirt. ‘This was all going to be hers.’

‘But she continued working?’

‘That was her decision. She was stubborn. Swore that she would keep working, that otherwise the other girls would think she had wormed her way into my affections and was using me.’ She permitted herself a sniffle.

Now she fixed Werthen with a look commingling ferocity and pleading. ‘She was special. You see?’

‘I am beginning to,’ he replied. ‘And as for my earlier question regarding any suspicions you might have. I cannot help you if you are not absolutely forthcoming with me.’

She touched the scar and then shook her head. ‘Everyone loved Mitzi. She had no enemies.’

He watched her carefully as she said this. After all, Frau Mutzenbacher was a woman paid handsomely for dissembling, as were all her employees.

‘No one client who was exceptionally attached to her?’

Another abrupt head shake. ‘As I said, she was beloved by all.’

‘Except for one,’ said Werthen. ‘The person who killed her.’

He met Fräulein Fanny in the parlor, and not in the company of Frau Mutzenbacher. He wanted candor from this young woman.

Fanny looked amused rather than concerned; her chalk-white face was still puffy from sleep, her black hair untidy but partially hidden under a shawl wrapped dramatically around her head. She held a cup of morning tea daintily between forefinger and thumb as if trained to do so.

‘Frau Mutzenbacher tells me that you and Mitzi were fast friends,’ he said, as the major-domo — still in his suspenders — left the room after delivering the young woman.

‘Well, aren’t we all working girls together?’

‘Did you know her well?’

‘I found her. If that means I knew her well, then yes.’

‘Found her?’

She nodded, giving a chirrup of laughter.

‘I saw her working the corner near the Naschmarkt. Bright-looking little pigeon she was, as I told Frau Mutzenbacher. She’d be tarnished soon enough working that corner, though. Obviously not very experienced in the trade.’