J. Jones - The Third Place

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Berthe unconsciously wiped her lips with the linen napkin.

‘That’s all?’ Werthen intuitively sensed that his wife was holding something back.

Berthe shook her head. ‘Nothing else worth sharing. She is an odious woman. And clever to boot.’ She was not about to tell her husband of the shaming kiss.

They sat in silence for a moment, waiting for Gross to share his information.

‘I may have had more luck,’ the criminologist began, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his well-fed stomach. ‘Anton Kiss is doubtless conflicted about his mother and her relationship with the emperor, but I do not believe he is responsible for the missing letter. There was something, however, that I felt he wanted to say but could not bring himself to do so. Instead, he directed me to another of his mother’s admirers, Count Wilczek.’

‘The leaping lord,’ Berthe said brightly. The count had been a high jumper of international repute in his youth and was known to practice his jumping prowess at any moment. Those strolling down the Herrengasse might very well be treated to the sight of a tall, lean man in his sixties leaping from the second-floor window of his city palace to the cobbled street below instead of using his front door to exit.

‘I was not aware of that distinction,’ Gross said, irritated at Berthe’s comment. ‘I know of him only as a rather rare form of nobility – a man who actually exhibits noble behavior. You know he fought as a common soldier at Koniggratz when he should have been officer class. Carried a wounded captain out of a hail of bullets, they say. Awarded the Medal of Honor for his troubles. He personally funded the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition-’

‘Yes,’ Werthen interrupted, ‘and he served at court, formed the first volunteer ambulance society and is refurbishing his castle at Burg Kreuzenstein. All very well, but what did the good count have to tell you?’

‘We are skittish tonight, aren’t we?’ Gross said.

Werthen pulled a face at this.

‘Very little and quite a lot,’ Gross said, assuming his irritating mysteriously imperious air.

‘Oh, come now, Gross,’ Berthe chided. ‘No reason for cryptic statements. Did you discover anything or not?’

‘You tell me. The count merely stated that Frau Schratt is the most wonderful, sincere and sensitive person it has ever been his good fortune to know. He also said she was most grievously disappointed following the death of the empress.’

Werthen thought about this for a moment. ‘Because of the subsequent intrigue at court against her?’

Gross shook his head.

Berthe gasped as if seeing a ghost. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘She expected a marriage proposal.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ Werthen began, but then he saw the smile on Gross’s face.

‘Too true, Frau Meisner. The poor woman actually expected a morganatic marriage.’

‘She must have been horribly disappointed,’ Berthe said. ‘After all those years …’

‘Indeed,’ Gross said. ‘She has been out of the emperor’s life for a pair of years, only lately returning to Vienna from her travels.’

‘Revenge?’ Werthen asked, understanding the import of the count’s information.

‘Perhaps,’ Gross allowed.

‘Or a cry for attention,’ Berthe added.

Werthen could only think of how incestuous all such matters were in Vienna. He had not been aware of the liaison between Frau Schratt and Count Wilczek, but it was merely one more indication of the village-like nature of Vienna. The count’s wife had been the former maid of honor to the Archduchess Sophie, mother of Emperor Franz Josef, the very man who the count had cuckolded with Frau Schratt. Plus, it was rumored that Count Wilczek had the ear of the willful Crown Prince Rudolf, son of the emperor, who would not listen to a word of advice from his own father.

Werthen imagined there was little love lost between the emperor and the count.

THIRTEEN

The man who now called himself Herr Wenno, Pietr Klavan, was most at ease in the night, even one as bitterly cold as tonight. The darkness suited him. He sheltered in the doorway of a tobacco shop across and just up the street from the Cafe Burg. The street had electric lighting, but Klavan had made sure his sentinel position was between the lights; he was in the shadows in the recessed doorway with an unobstructed view of the cafe entrance.

He had been here for almost an hour. He could not read his pocket watch in the gloom, but intuiting the time was one of those skills he had, like sensing where a man carried a hidden weapon or knowing how long a man’s reach was before engaging him in battle. One of those skills that cannot be trained. Enhanced. Polished. But never trained.

He had left the unfortunate Dimitrov at the pension, sleeping and fitfully coughing. The man took enough cheap Spanish brandy to put an elephant to sleep. Klavan had aided the process by slipping laudanum into his drink.

It felt good to be away from the walking corpse. The outdoors smelled fresh tonight with the slight breeze off the Danube Canal. It was near freezing, but Klavan was not uncomfortable. He kept his hands in his pockets, felt the revolver in the right one and the garroting noose in the left. There was a blade strapped to his left leg.

Light spilled out into the street from the cafe doors opening. He tensed, ready for action, but it was only the last of the customers leaving for the night. His man would be coming presently, he hoped.

This was not his usual method of operation. Klavan was someone who planned well and wisely, who knew the lay of the land, who appraised himself of routines, timetables and routes in advance.

Christ, he was not even sure that the junior waiter would be closing up tonight, but it made sense: if he was second to Herr Karl, he would be taking over that man’s responsibilities. So much for his usual operating methods.

This was no longer a usual operation, however. Since realizing he had left a possible loose end, he knew he had to sew it up or cauterize it. There was no time for subtlety. But the one thing he had to avoid at all costs was drawing attention to the man’s death. This must appear accidental. It must go unremarked. Or undiscovered.

It would be soon now, he thought. He needed to be ready, to strike like a snake and disappear into the night like shade. This was a test mission for him and for future employers. Botch this and he would be hard pressed to find such work again. Klavan had gone from government agent to freelance, and the generals in Belgrade were his first employers.

After making his way out of Russia, Klavan had wanted to stop off for a time at his home by the Baltic, but he had been warned off. His old grandfather was outside the house playing the role of living beacon, wearing a red vest he reserved only for funerals. This let Klavan know something was amiss before approaching; then he had seen the Russian soldiers tucked away behind outbuildings in the nearby ditch. He made no attempt to turn into the lane to his family home, his heart aching to say farewell properly to his people.

He’d robbed a bank in Riga, taken a train through Poland and ultimately made his way to Brussels, where Monsieur Philipot ran his little business. During his years as a Russian agent, Klavan had used Philipot’s men several times when short-handed on operations. They were generally reliable though not always the best at their job – killing. He’d had to step in for the third such young freelance and finish the job, wringing the neck of a dowager of seventy. But she was a woman with a head full of secrets she was trying to flog to the highest bidder.

Monsieur Philipot, a man as round as he was tall, was not happy to see him, knowing that he was on the run from the Russians. But when he learned that Klavan had come to him for work and not for help, the man brightened.

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