Sydney Jones - The Keeper of Hands

They hurriedly tidied up after themselves and were at the door when they heard footsteps on the stairs outside.

‘Captain Forstl!’

He turned abruptly on the stairs just below his landing. It was the old lady from Frau Novak’s. What now?

‘Captain Forstl!’

‘Yes. What is it?’ His voice had a sharp edge.

‘Your package,’ she said, her voice echoing in the stairway. ‘You forgot your package.’

They could hear Frau Ignatz’s voice. She had said Forstl’s name twice, as an obvious warning. Now or never, Berthe thought, opening the door as silently as she could and making sure the lock was in place before the three of them slipped out into the hallway, closing the door behind them.

There was nothing for it but to brazen their way down the stairs. If Forstl came up the last steps now and saw them moving towards the upper floors, he would surely know they had been in his apartment. Descending the stairs, however, there was no way for him to know where they had come from.

And it worked, Berthe was amazed to discover, as she passed the tall, thickset officer on the stairs. The three of them looked straight ahead as they passed him and Frau Ignatz, and quickly made their way to the vestibule and out on to the bright street.

Berthe breathed in a long draught of fresh air. None of them spoke as they waited several houses away for Frau Ignatz to appear. She did so several moments later and joined them.

‘Well,’ she said as she approached her friends. ‘That was a waste of time.’

Berthe looked at her, puzzled.

‘He is most definitely not the man I saw in the stairwell at Habsburgergasse the night before the explosion.’

‘I think you will find it was far from a waste of time,’ Erika told her, taking her arm as they hurried along the street to safety.

‘You could have been killed!’

‘We did not really consider that,’ Berthe said. Werthen had gone from relief to anger as she told him her story of discovery.

‘And how are we supposed to get the authorities to search the man’s premises?’

‘You men will think of something, I am sure,’ Berthe said, her voice sounding bolder than she felt. The adrenalin was wearing off, the moment of excitement passing, and she realized that Karl was right: they all could have been killed had Forstl caught them in his apartment.

Gross had remained silent throughout Berthe’s recitation of events. Frau von Suttner and Frau Ignatz had left earlier, but Erika continued working in the study. She came in now as she heard raised voices.

‘It was my fault, Advokat Werthen,’ she said. ‘I was the one who suggested we do something concrete.’

‘Well, to be completely truthful,’ said Berthe, regaining some of her former fearless giddiness, ‘it was actually Frau Ignatz who suggested we break into the man’s flat. She’d read stories about such endeavours.’

‘Proves once again the danger of an education in the wrong hands,’ Gross muttered.

Berthe finally said. ‘I am sorry this has given you a fright, Karl. But you must stop wearing a funereal face, both of you.’

‘It’s the fruit of an illegal search,’ Gross said. ‘You broke into the man’s apartment.’

‘But you’re the only ones to know that,’ Berthe insisted, suddenly tired of having to apologize for breaking the case wide open.

Karl smiled at her, then turned to Gross.

‘She’s right, you know.’ Then swinging back to Berthe, ‘Not that I condone such an action, but we had apparently come to a standstill in the case. This puts the murders squarely on Forstl’s shoulders.’

‘But Frau Ignatz did tell us he was not the man she had seen on the stairs that evening,’ Erika reminded them.

‘And who is to say that was the man who set the lethal charge?’ Werthen replied.

Gross made a sound somewhere between clearing his throat and moaning. Was he actually growling? Berthe wondered.

‘May I point out the results of the investigative work your husband and I have done today?’ Gross said this as if speaking to a classroom of first-year students.

‘Point away,’ Berthe said.

He quickly filled her and Erika in on the conversation with Moos.

‘Then we know that Forstl was in charge of the Bower operation,’ Berthe said. ‘It all fits.’

‘And what of this other man, the nondescript one who visited the Moos farm, who would also seem to fit the descriptions given by Frau Ignatz and the good Duncan? It would make sense that he is running Forstl for St Petersburg. And protecting him, keeping him undiscovered.’

‘Then why that horrible collection in Forstl’s flat?’ Erika said.

‘Ah, I was hoping you would ask about that,’ Gross said, looking awfully pleased with himself. ‘Now, a professional — and I assume our man, shall we call him Herr X, is a professional — would never keep such a collection. That is the sort of perverse action that bespeaks a neurosis. I do see a connection with such macabre ornaments and Herr X, however. The way the man holds his fingers. . Moos was quite insistent about that. It indicates that the injuries to his little fingers were quite savagely applied. One does not like to make surmises on such scant facts. .’

‘Please, Doktor Gross,’ Berthe interrupted. ‘feel free to do so.’

Werthen shot her a look, but Gross was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he did not hear the sarcastic tone to her voice.

‘Well, in point of fact, our Herr X might have suffered a most grievous injury that set him on the path of becoming an agent provocateur .’

‘You are right, Gross,’ Werthen said. ‘Scant facts for such a surmise.’

Gross eyed Werthen with something very close to disdain. ‘An agent must be among the fittest of the fit. Able to use brains and brawn. Able to kill with gun or knife, and even with his bare hands. Herr X appears to have a disability in that regard. It’s doubtful whether an intelligence service would actively recruit such a man. Ergo, Herr X was able to overcome such a seeming disability by sheer force of will, perhaps inspired by the injuries done to him. To convince skeptical professionals that he could perform the tasks of a secret agent as well as, or better than, others.’

The three of them listened closely to Gross’s argument.

‘You have been giving this some thought,’ Werthen said.

‘You must become one with your nemesis in order to conquer him.’

‘And what if Herr X is imaginary? And Forstl is the one responsible for all of this?’ Berthe asked.

Gross did not bother with this question, but instead plunged on.

‘There is one way to make Herr X become visible,’ Gross said. ‘It appears that his task is to protect Captain Forstl, to keep him from being exposed. If he were to suspect that Forstl was in imminent danger, he might come out from under his rock, might expose himself. He has been following us, of this I am sure. Watching our every step as we get ever closer to dropping the net on Forstl. That, Werthen, was what the bomb at your office was about. An attempt to stop our investigation before it reached the door of Forstl’s office at the Bureau.’

‘Not much of a professional,’ Berthe said. ‘Killing the wrong man.’

Gross nodded. ‘Exactly, Frau Meisner. He should have known about the Portier ’ s brother, but time was running out. He could not undertake a meticulous operation. Urgency was his undoing. And I am counting on that for my plan, as well.’

They saw little of Gross the rest of that day. He kept to the study, displacing Fräulein Metzinger. The only communication Werthen or Berthe had was via Frau Blatschky, who complained mightily about the prodigious amounts of coffee being consumed by the criminologist.