J. Jones - The Third Place

‘Still …’ Werthen said.

‘Be my guest. I fear, however, that what we have is, as the Americans so charmingly say, an “inside job,” which pains me greatly. It means that someone on my staff is responsible for the theft. Someone I trust and treat almost as family.’

‘Let us examine things first before coming to that conclusion,’ Gross pronounced.

They did so for the next hour, closely examining all outer doors and locks for any telltale signs of forced entry or the use of picks. The same was true for ground-floor windows, all inspected for any suspicious scratches at hinges or latches. They also paid close attention to the inlaid Louis XVI escritoire in question, a fine specimen, Werthen thought, in oak with a pear wood veneer and inlays in the drawers below. Not something the one buys on the stipend from the Burgtheater. They examined the bottom right-hand drawer where the letter had been kept, careful to use a piece of silk cloth Gross always carried with him.

‘We’ll need to brush this down, Werthen, for fingerprints. I must confess I was in such a hurry this morning that I left my traveling kit back at the hotel.’ He pulled out a small magnifying glass from an interior pocket, eyeballed the outside of the drawer and made an explosive sound of disgust. ‘Though I doubt we will come up with any discrete set of prints. One wonders about the general condition of the Villa Schratt if this drawer is any indication. It looks as if it has not been wiped down in months.’

Later, examining the rest of the study where the escritoire was located, Gross quipped, ‘There is not even a chimney for the chap to drop down in.’

A bad sign, Werthen thought, for it was neither funny nor practical. It indicated the criminologist had come to the same conclusion as Frau Schratt.

‘We need to talk to the staff individually,’ Gross quickly added.

This took another three hours, twenty minutes of which were wasted in convincing Frau Schratt that her housekeeper, Netty, should be included in the list.

‘She will not be treated as a suspect,’ Gross finally argued, ‘but she is a most valuable witness with regards to the rest of the staff. She surely knows their little habits and quirks. Their weak points and strengths.’

In the event, Netty proved less cooperative than hoped, bristling at their questions, insulted that she be included along with the other staff. They were finally able to ascertain that she, along with Frau Schratt, possessed a set of keys to the bureau in question, but that she had not used the set in months. Indeed, the house had been closed up until recently, when Frau Schratt returned to Vienna.

‘Then the staff is quite new,’ Werthen said.

‘No. Frau Schratt kept them all on retainer during her travels. Not what I advised, of course. Idle hands and all that. But she is a good and loyal employer. She hardly deserves such treachery.’

Gross quickly pounced on this comment. ‘Then you believe it is one of the staff?’

‘I’m sure I could not say. You’re the famous detective. I leave it up to you.’

‘Do you always keep your keys on your person?’ Werthen asked.

Netty cast him a look as if he had just proposed an immoral act. ‘I most certainly do not. When not needed, they hang from the hook by the cupboard.’

She pointed in back of them. Seated around the pine table in the kitchen, both Gross and Werthen turned to see the large ring of house keys hanging just where Netty indicated.

Available to anyone who might want to use them.

They proceeded to speak with the gardener, who did not live on the premises – one Herr Johann Pinkl, whose gnarled hands and lumbering demeanor was at odds with the image of someone rifling through papers in a bureau drawer. Gross handed him a recipe that was lying on the kitchen table for today’s dinner.

‘Looks like fine fare tonight,’ Gross said with bonhomie.

Johann fiddled with the paper, turning it this way and then that, reddening as he did so. ‘I suppose so,’ he finally said. ‘I don’t go in much for fancy food.’

‘I hardly call boiled beef fancy,’ Gross replied.

‘Not something I care for,’ the gardener said with a scowl.

Gross dismissed him after another desultory question about his duties.

When he was gone, Gross turned to Werthen.

‘Not him. The man wouldn’t know one letter from another. He’s illiterate. Carp is on the menu for tonight, not boiled beef.’

And so they continued, through the parlor maid, the upstairs maid, the cook and the coachman, none of whom seemed anything less than honest, loyal and a bit plodding.

The kitchen assistant, Fraulein Anna, was a different matter, however. Twenty at most, she was a mousey little thing whose face went red at Gross’s first question and blazed on through his questioning about keys and proper etiquette for the staff – all of it oblique, for none of the staff aside from Netty knew of the missing letter. They had been told they were being interviewed by two gentlemen of the press for an article about their famous mistress. Anna squirmed and fidgeted through the entire affair, making Werthen, for one, most suspicious.

But when she too finished the interview, Gross only commented, ‘Simple soul.’

‘You saw how nervous she was, Gross,’ Werthen said. ‘Definitely makes me wonder.’

‘The girl would fidget if you said good morning. A simple country child.’

‘From Floridsdorf,’ Werthen insisted. ‘Hardly the country.’

‘Well, then, let us search her room. Netty will have to manufacture some excuse to get her out of the house.’

Once Anna was dispatched on an urgent trip to the market, Gross and Werthen went through her small room at the top of the house with the utmost care. Werthen was struck by the absence of anything of a personal nature – not even a Bible. And definitely no purloined letter from the emperor of all Austria.

‘As I said …’ Gross began.

‘She could have already passed it on to an accomplice.’

‘Accomplices now?’ Gross said. ‘Yes, I imagine there would have to be.’

He sat on the spare metal cot the young serving girl slept on. ‘Time may be against us, but I am afraid that it is the only avenue we have.’

‘Would you care to include me in this conversation, Gross? What avenue?’

‘I believe we need to insert someone into the staff. Someone who will pose as one of them, who will be able to gain the trust of the others. Someone, in short, who will be our spy.’

‘You were right with your first statement. We don’t have the time for such a maneuver. This could hit the newspapers at any moment.’

‘Which we cannot stop at any rate if the letter has already been handed on to your accomplice.’

‘Not my accomplice, Gross. Merely my assumption.’

‘At least it is a course of action, Werthen. What do you propose – thumbscrews for Fraulein Anna?’

Neither Frau Schratt nor Prince Montenuovo were enthusiastic about the plan, but finally agreed when Gross assured him that it would not be their sole means of investigation. He promised that he and Werthen would continue to look into the backgrounds of each of those on the staff and continue to collect any information from their associates – meaning connections Gross and Werthen had in the underworld who might have heard of someone trying to shop such a high-profile letter.

They returned to Werthen’s law office in the afternoon and began going over plans to insert someone in the Schratt household. Young Franzl brought in the afternoon papers as usual and listened in on their conversation for a moment.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said brightly. ‘Sounds like fun and I wouldn’t be in the office all day long.’

‘I didn’t know it was so painful for you to be here,’ Werthen teased.