J. Jones - The Third Place

The maid scowled at this, closing the door in his face. He waited another couple of minutes, unsure if the stupid woman was doing as he requested. He was about to knock again when the door swung open.

‘What is the meaning of this-’

She stopped when she realized who it was.

‘Nice to see you again too, Lisette,’ Klavan said to the tall, elegantly appointed woman. ‘Or should I say, Princess Dumbroski.’

Detective Inspector Bernhard Drechsler was at the canal waiting for him as he had said he would be on the phone, just below the Stephanie-Brucke. Very secretive he was, and Werthen couldn’t help but conclude that this must be damned important to be called out on a sacred Sunday.

It had been some time since he’d last seen the inspector, and as Werthen stood momentarily at the top of the stairs leading down to the dock running beneath the bridge, he could discern little physical change in the lean, hawk-nosed policeman. Drechsler and two uniformed police officers stood over what appeared to be a body on the quay, draped in a canvas cover.

It had been a brief spring: last night’s relative warmth was replaced today with a cold front out of Siberia. The sky was low and gray; ravens wheeled overhead, making their annoying gurgling croak of a call. A flutter of snowflakes was carried in the piercing breeze. Werthen took the steps slowly, fearful there might be icy patches.

‘What have we got, Inspector?’ Werthen asked as he approached the three men. He already had a suspicion but hoped he was wrong.

Drechsler tipped his derby at Werthen. ‘Sorry to draw you away from your family on a Sunday, Advokat, but I need an identification.’ He nodded to what was now very obviously a corpse at their feet.

‘Why me?’

Drechsler took out a sodden bit of card from his coat pocket.

‘It’s badly damaged from the water, but you can still read the name on it.’

He held it out for Werthen to see. It was one of his business cards.

‘I assume it’s a client,’ Drechsler said. ‘There was no other identification on the body, no wallet. No telling how long it’s been in the canal. Herr Doktor Starb can help with that later at the city morgue, but for now it would be nice if we had a name.’

Werthen breathed deeply. ‘Let’s see.’

Drechsler nodded at the policeman to his left, a young man who did not look old enough to even be out of school, his cheeks rosy like a cherub’s in the brisk morning air.

The young policeman leaned over, grabbed a corner of the canvas drop cloth and drew it slowly back. He let out an audible gasp and began retching, moving away in horror.

Werthen felt the hair at the back of his head bristle as he watched a small eel squirm and writhe out of the corpse’s left eye socket.

He showed no emotion, and nor did Drechsler, who had obviously seen worse.

He took in the corpse in a glance, noting the strange angle of the man’s head, the sack of cobbles belted around his middle, the bloated stomach cavity.

Werthen nodded casually, but was feeling anything but. ‘Yes. I know him. His name is Falk. A waiter at the Cafe Burg.’

The young officer’s dry heaves had now turned liquid as he vomited into the canal. Drechsler nodded to the other policeman to cover the corpse again.

‘Must have taken a fall,’ Drechsler said, eyeing Werthen closely.

‘I doubt it,’ Werthen said.

Drechsler slightly cocked his head, questioning this assertion.

‘I don’t have to tell you your business, Drechsler. You saw the angle of his head. Somebody’s broken the man’s neck. And you don’t get cobbles tied around your waist by a simple fall into the Danube Canal.’

‘A jumper?’ Drechsler offered. But it was clear he was just angling for information and Werthen wanted to forestall the next question.

Instead, he asked one himself. ‘How was he found with all that weight to hold him down?’

Drechsler looked over his shoulder in the direction of a stone bench on the quay tucked right under the arches of the bridge. An old pensioner sat there, a small bottle of schnapps in hand. A thick cane fishing pole leaned against the bench.

‘Going for carp, the old fellow was,’ Drechsler said. ‘Bottom feeders. Thought he had snagged the granddaddy of them all. It was quite a shock for him when he finally managed to tug up your client, but luckily he didn’t just run off. He found a policeman on his rounds and they managed to fish the body out.’

Drechsler continued eyeing Werthen. ‘He was a client?’

Werthen nodded.

The ravens swept low over the corpse as if they meant to spirit it off.

‘Law firm or inquiries?’

Here it comes, Werthen thought. It didn’t matter to Falk anymore, but for him there was the matter of not reporting a murder to the police. A serious matter, in fact, especially if Drechsler’s superior, Chief Inspector Meindl, got wind of it. Meindl was no friend of private inquiry agents, and held a special animus for Werthen as the sometimes colleague of Doktor Hanns Gross. Like Werthen, Meindl had been mentored by Gross while in Graz. Meindl was now repaying Gross’s infernal pomposity with his own as head of the Vienna Police Praesidium.

‘A friend brought Falk to me a little over a week ago,’ Werthen finally replied. ‘He had witnessed the murder of his superior at the cafe-’

‘Stop right there, Advokat. You mean to tell me this man witnessed a murder and did not go to the police?’

Another nod. ‘He was afraid he might become a suspect.’

Werthen explained the situation to Drechsler and his promise to keep it a secret for the time being while he investigated the death of Herr Karl. ‘Then came another investigation that could not be refused and I had to put the waiter’s murder on the back burner-’

‘You’re losing me, Advokat. You seem to be a very busy man. Why didn’t you at least contact me once you had to put the murder investigation on the “back burner,” as you put it? And why can’t you tell me about this other investigation of yours?’

Werthen tried to redirect the conversation. ‘Herr Falk went missing last Wednesday. His wife has been frantic.’

‘But I assume she did not go to the police, either.’

Werthen could merely shrug at this. His attempts at misdirection were for naught.

Drechsler shook his head and sighed. ‘And I thought you were the sensible one of the pair.’

An obvious reference to Gross, but Werthen did not bother to respond.

‘Perhaps then, you will at least do me and the city of Vienna the favor of sharing what you have learned thus far about the first murder, this Herr Karl fellow.’

‘Of course, Inspector. I’ll bring my files to the Praesidium tomorrow.’

‘I think not,’ Drechsler said with what was for him a degree of emotion. ‘I’ll expect you this afternoon.’

‘Well, you do seem to have entangled certain parts of your anatomy in the mangle,’ Gross said later that morning after Werthen had explained his situation.

‘You needn’t appear so gleeful, Gross. If Meindl finds out-’

‘That poison pigmy,’ Gross spluttered. ‘He’s far too busy playing the sycophant to the wealthy and powerful to take notice of your misdeeds, Werthen.’

Werthen only wished that were so, but previous run-ins with the chief inspector had proven otherwise.

‘I shall accompany you, of course,’ Gross said importantly.

‘I don’t need my hand held.’

‘Oh, it’s not for your sake, Werthen. But we must ensure our investigations on behalf of the emperor are kept out of it.’

‘And I cannot be trusted to keep my mouth shut, is that it?’

Gross shrugged in response.

‘Not encouraging, Gross. Nor helpful.’