Sydney Jones - The Keeper of Hands

Gross was sitting on a straight-backed chair; his eyes had adjusted to the weak light in the flat. He looked closely at the small, compact man sitting across from him, gun in hand, examining him for any distinguishing characteristics. The only thing he could notice were the little fingers, sticking out stiffly from his hand. Gross’s own pistol lay on the table next to the man.

‘I am sorry to disappoint you, Herr. .?’

The man simply nodded at him.

‘But I badly wanted to talk with you.’

A smirk on the man’s face. ‘So you knew I would be here?’

‘Eventually. Rather sooner than I had planned, I must admit.’

‘And what is it that’s so urgent for us to discuss?’

‘Your murders, to begin with. You have been a busy man, Herr. . I must call you something.’

‘Schmidt will do.’

‘Ah, the man of no name. Well, Herr Schmidt, you have been active around the capitals of Central Europe. I have a litany of deaths attributable to you.’

Schmidt lost the smirk momentarily, to be replaced by a quizzical look.

‘Your signature removal of the left little finger,’ Gross added.

Schmidt nodded. ‘Glad you noticed.’

‘A bit of revenge for your own fingers, one assumes.’

This seemed to hit home. The muscle in his left jaw worked. ‘You may assume whatever you want. I can only say I am grateful for your visit. It saves me the trouble of calling on you one final time.’

‘And what business do you have with me, Herr Schmidt?’

‘The same you have with me. Murder. You really should not pry so deeply into other people’s affairs, you know. It shows a basic lack of courtesy.’

‘I investigate murders, Herr Schmidt. If you do not want your affairs, as you call them, gone into, then I recommend you refrain from engaging in homicide.’ He paused an instant. ‘Herr Moos was correct about you, you know.’

‘And who would this Moos fellow be?’

‘You see that is the tragedy of such wholesale killing as you engage in. You even forget the names of your victims. Fräulein Mitzi’s father. You paid him and his family a visit in the Weinviertel, I understand. Checking to see how much the family knew, I would assume. A man like you wants no loose ends that might start unraveling.’

‘You said he was correct about me.’

‘Well, in that your accent is neither Austrian nor German. No, there’s a trace of the salt of the Baltic states about your speech, Herr Schmidt. And I see, by the sudden dilation of your eyes, I have hit home with that.’

‘You’re a smug one, aren’t you? Very satisfied with yourself. I expect you know all about this matter.’

‘You mean about you and your creature, Forstl? One must tire of cleaning up the messes of others. Especially when the others are so much less talented.’

‘Please, Doktor Gross. None of your primitive psychological games. But yes, it is a tiresome business.’

He stood suddenly, an action abrupt enough to cause Gross to inhale deeply.

‘Nothing to worry about. . Not yet, at any rate, Doktor Gross. But there is something you should see. Someone who would like to meet you.’

Werthen put the receiver back on its cradle.

‘He’s not there,’ he told Berthe. ‘The desk sergeant said Drechsler went out earlier this morning.’

They hovered over the telephone as if expecting it to make a decision for them.

‘I’ve got to go there,’ he finally said.

‘No,’ Berthe replied ‘ We’ve got to go there.’

‘There is no sense in putting both of us in harm’s way,’ he reasoned. ‘Think of our daughter.’

‘I am. But I am thinking of you, too, Karl. My husband. Now where is that cane of yours? The one with the blade inside.’

He knew it was useless to argue with her. ‘I love you,’ he said.

‘Of course you do. So let’s arm ourselves.’

‘If only the Baroness von Suttner could hear you now.’

She pecked his cheek in response, grabbed the cane from the umbrella stand, and watched as he tucked Gross’s second Steyr pistol into the waistband of his trousers. She hoped the criminologist had taken its twin with him for protection.

Berthe told Frau Blatschky that they would be back for lunch, then hurried into the nursery where Frieda was just waking up. She gave the child a kiss and a hug and told her that Frau Blatschky, Baba, would play with her this morning. This brought a radiant smile to Frieda’s face, and she nuzzled her mother’s hair for a moment.

Werthen and Berthe were just going out of the door when Fräulein Metzinger arrived, ready to reclaim the study and get some office work done. But when she saw the determined look on their faces and the swordstick in Berthe’s hand, she knew something was afoot.

‘You’re going back there, aren’t you?’

‘Gross may have gotten himself into a bit of trouble,’ Werthen explained quickly.

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘Not you too!’ Werthen all but groaned.

‘What if the door is locked, Advokat?’ she said. ‘Have you thought of that contingency?’

‘Alright, alright.’ He held out his hands in supplication. ‘But let’s be off now, before more reinforcements arrive.’

The scene before him explained the heavy brass smell he had noticed upon first entering the apartment.

Schmidt had turned on the gas light in the bathroom and it made the scene even more garish, the water in the bathtub a brilliant crimson against the whiteness of the porcelain and the alabaster of Forstl’s skin. At least he assumed it was Forstl’s corpse he was staring at. The wrists rested languorously on the edges of the tub, ribboned gashes were apparent on each. A cutthroat razor had been left on the tiled floor by the bathtub, to give it the appearance of having fallen from the dead man’s hand.

‘So you were just in the process of tying up further loose ends when I interrupted you,’ Gross said, taking his eyes from the body.

‘Indeed.’ Schmidt smiled at him. ‘And you know, your arrival is the most fortuitous event I could wish for.’

Schmidt pointed at him with the stiff little finger of his left hand, a flicker in his eye.

‘Take your clothes off.’

Forstl’s apartment was only minutes away, close to the baroque Palais Schönborn, which housed the supreme district court. He had taken part in trials there. Its gardens were now open to the public; Frieda often went there to play.

Werthen occupied his mind with these quotidian matters rather than face his fears about Gross. If Forstl was not at the Bureau this morning, that meant it was highly probable he was at his apartment. Would he be armed? Would his accomplice perhaps be with him? What had kept the man from his post at the Bureau? Should they look for a member of the constabulary on foot patrol and explain their fears?

To continue with these endless questions would sap him of courage, he knew. Thus, as they approached the apartment building in question, he told the women to get behind him and blindly charged up the stairs, quite unaware of Inspector Drechsler and two constabulary officers hiding behind a row of metal garbage bins deeper in the entrance.

He was up to the mezzanine before he heard Drechsler’s voice calling to him.

‘Werthen. Stop, man. You’ll spoil everything.’

‘Werthen?’ Schmidt said, turning his ear to the shouting coming from the stairwell. ‘Would that be your ally, Advokat Werthen, come to the rescue? And then whose is the other voice?’

Schmidt lifted the pistol level to Gross’s eye, his forefinger tense on the trigger.

‘You have arranged quite a little party, haven’t you, Doktor Gross?’

Gross took a deep breath. He would not beg. That was beneath him.

The man’s finger began to squeeze the trigger. Gross felt sweat roll down his spine.