J. Jones: The Silence

Werthen looked hard at his colleague. ‘You told him, didn’t you?’

‘Karl,’ said Berthe.

‘No, no. It’s quite all right, Frau Meisner. Your husband is correct.’

Herr Meisner’s attention was taken away from his granddaughter by this discussion.

‘But why?’ the father-in-law asked. ‘Playing God?’

Gross sighed; he suddenly looked very tired.

‘As I said, I knew Praetor would seek personal vengeance. Were we to be successful in bringing Frau Steinwitz back to Vienna to stand trial, it is doubtful any jury in the empire would convict her of killing her unfaithful husband and his catamite. You knew that as well as I, Werthen.’

‘True. But still-’

‘And attempts to link her to the death of the unfortunate Huck are proving equally difficult. Drechsler has found three witnesses who can attest to her presence on the platform that day, but none who saw her shove Huck under the oncoming train. Beyond that, any defense attorney worthy of the name would be able to discredit those people by a simple reference to the picture in Kraus’s Die Fackel article. How can one be sure after all this time where the witness saw Frau Steinwitz?’

‘Also true,’ Werthen averred.

‘So, found innocent, Frau Steinwitz would surely have come into Doktor Praetor’s sights at some time. Better then to end it in Switzerland than Austria.’

‘I don’t follow the reasoning,’ Berthe said.

But Werthen did. It was suddenly clear to him. ‘You mean because the Swiss banned capital punishment there a few years ago?’

‘Exactly,’ Gross said. ‘My reasoning was that it is preferable for Praetor to stand trial for murder in Switzerland than in Austria. That is why I told him the whereabouts of Frau Steinwitz. Of course I had no way of knowing if or when he would arrive. I was only certain that he would try to take her life.’

‘Unlike the gallant Herr Beer,’ Werthen said.

‘Beer played his role quite nicely, as did your Fraulein Metzinger,’ Gross said.

‘I still say you were playing God,’ Herr Meisner said to Gross.

Gross ignored this. ‘I have secured the best defense attorney in Switzerland for Doktor Praetor. A man well respected and well connected. I am also supplying the attorney with all our case notes on Frau Steinwitz so that he can plead extenuating circumstances and perhaps win a reduced sentence. It is better than facing the gallows here in Austria.’

At which point little Frieda emitted a burp of startling intensity.

Werthen looked from Gross to his daughter, and then to his wife. Were someone to harm them, who was to say what he would or would not do.

There are some things about which one would rather remain silent.

Two stonemasons were at work high up in the central spire of the Rathaus. They stood on a wooden platform over the huge clock and felt every vibration from the gears of the monumental timepiece. They had labored all morning carrying blocks of stone and mortar up the three hundred and thirty-one steps to the observation window, and they were now carefully laying stone upon stone to seal the opening.

‘Seems a shame,’ said one of the men, more loquacious than the other.

His companion made an unintelligible grunt at this comment.

‘I mean, what a view from way up here. Like you was king of all Vienna. Why would you ever want to go and block it up?’

The other stonemason, a much older and stooped man, gazed out at the vision of Lilliputian Vienna beneath him. He shook his head.

‘Lueger’s the mayor,’ the older man finally said. ‘He knows best.’