J. Jones - The Third Place

They knocked on the door of room twelve and it was opened by a small man. His squinched face with eyes and nose too close together gave him a porcine appearance.

‘May I help you?’

The man’s voice was high and whiney; there was nothing very prepossessing about him.

‘We are working with the police,’ Gross said. ‘My name is Doktor Gross and this is my colleague, Advokat Werthen.’

Kaufmann’s eyes brightened at this announcement. ‘Not the Doktor Hanns Gross? The eminent criminologist?’

Gross was rather taken aback by this at first, then smiled broadly. ‘None other,’ he said fulsomely.

‘I live and breathe for publication of the Archiv. Fascinating reading.’

Werthen realized that Kaufmann meant Gross’s semi-annual journal publication, Archiv fur Kriminal-Anthropolgie und Kriminalistik, in which the maestro published accounts of his famous cases, among other articles by jurists, criminologists and chemists.

‘And I’ve heard of you, too, Advokat,’ he said, beaming at Werthen. ‘Your cases with Doktor Gross.’

‘You’ll excuse me for saying so,’ Gross said, ‘but one hardly expects to find a reader of my little journal at the Pension Geldner. And may I extend my condolences for the loss of your aunt,’ he quickly added, remembering common civility for once.

‘Yes, Tante Emma will be missed,’ Kaufmann said. ‘But please, come in.’

His room was much better appointed than the others, with a large desk piled high in books and a pair of armchairs along with a real bed, not a cot, and a wardrobe of solid oak. On the walls were a collection of stories clipped from newspapers detailing crimes both petty and severe.

He followed their gaze to the cuttings. ‘Not to worry, gentlemen. I am a student of law at the university, not a criminal manque. Have a seat, please.’

They did so and Werthen offered, ‘We actually met your aunt once. Several years ago, in another investigation.’

Kaufmann took the desk chair. ‘One of her guests, I suppose. Tante Emma was rather emphatic about her political leanings.’

‘As you are, sir?’ Gross inquired.

Kaufmann shook his head, somewhat amused at the question. ‘No. I stay here out of financial necessity. My aunt is … was good enough to allow me to stay gratis during my studies. I wouldn’t be able to go to law school otherwise.’

‘And what happens now?’ Gross asked. ‘I mean, now that she …’

Kaufmann pursed his lips. ‘I’m not quite sure. I see what you might be getting at, though. Qui bono , no? Who stands to gain from her death? Not I, that I can assure you. She was most displeased with my bourgeois complacency. Perhaps she left the pension to the cause. It would be like her.’

‘You discovered the body, we understand.’ Werthen could find no gentler way to broach the subject.

‘I did. She wasn’t about for the morning coffee. I usually helped out with that, you see. My bourgeois way of paying back. Anyway, she was not in her room. I unlocked it after knocking. I was worried, you understand. Tante Emma was a woman of schedules despite her anarchist espousals. Well, I went looking for her, wondering if she were actually cleaning rooms on her own rather than waiting for Maria – that’s the daily houseworker, you see.’

‘Even on Sundays?’ Gross said.

A nod from Kaufmann. ‘Even on Sundays. There was no one about in the rooms – at least, no one answering their door.’

‘So how did you finally find her?’ Werthen asked.

‘Well, not to put too fine a point on it but it was the smell, you see, coming from that room. I could distinctly sense it when knocking at the door. I had no idea what I might find inside. I only knew that someone had made a mess and it was only going to stink more as the day progressed. Not the blood, you know. But the other … When a person dies, there is no more control …’

‘Quite,’ Gross said. ‘So you entered.’

‘Yes, and I immediately saw my aunt laid out on one cot, blood around her chest. I ascertained she was dead before I saw the second victim.’

‘Victim,’ Gross repeated.

‘Well, the other dead person.’

‘Not the killer.’

‘No. Hardly. That would be the other one. The man who was here first and then joined by the unfortunate second man. Herr Wenno, I believe he called himself. Very private sort, suspicious looking. Most of our guests are the private type, but Herr Wenno made a profession of it. And his hands. There was something quite odd about the way he held his coffee cup. I noticed it just the once and then he no longer took coffee with us at the pension. He held the cup in both hands and his little fingers stuck straight out as if they would not bend. Quite odd. But the police must have already mentioned this. I tried to tell them on Sunday.’

‘It seems to have been a professional kill.’ Doktor Starb at the General Hospital morgue closed the drawer in the refrigerated unit and Werthen was grateful for his brevity. Frau Geldner’s corpse was in fine condition; he had hardly been able to discern the incision above her drooping left breast, but it had been lethal.

‘Almost surgical,’ Starb said with a hint of admiration in his tone. ‘No hesitation cuts, just a quick and decisive thrust. Perhaps even a thrown blade.’

‘Is there a way to tell the difference?’ Gross asked.

Starb shook his head. ‘But either way, it’s the work of a professional. Whoever killed Frau Geldner has experience. He’s killed before. And it wasn’t the unfortunate Herr Dimitrov, that I can assure you. My hunch is it was his dying gasps that brought her to the room in the first place.’

‘Dying from what?’ Werthen asked.

‘Tuberculosis. Both lungs were riddled with lesions. Immediate cause of death was a hemorrhage. Poor fellow drowned in his own blood. I do not find him a likely candidate for murderer.’

And neither did Gross as they made their way from the hospital onto Alserstrasse. ‘I vote for the mysterious Herr Wenno,’ Gross said, tightening the collar of his coat against the chill late afternoon breeze. Winter was still maintaining a last round of fun in Vienna. ‘The absence of the murder weapon at the scene would indicate a third party.’

He stopped and pulled his derby low over his forehead. ‘Odd name that. One assumes it is a nom de guerre. ’

‘I thought so as well,’ Werthen added. ‘A warrior monk. Not a bad name for a professional killer.’

‘You impress me, Werthen.’

‘Why, because I have a smattering of history to remind me that Wenno von Rohrbach was the first master of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword?’

‘No. Because you did not faint when viewing the remains of Frau Geldner.’

‘Sorry to have disappointed you.’

‘Not me, Werthen. I believe Starb, however, was expecting more dramatics from you. His is a deadly dull job, you know.’

Werthen did not bother to respond to the pun. It was the sort of petty bantering Gross engaged in when contemplating a problem.

‘So, Wenno as the main suspect,’ Werthen said. ‘I think Starb was right about Dimitrov’s death-throws drawing the landlady into the room.’

Gross nodded, resuming his brisk walk. ‘A likely scenario. And Wenno comes back to find her there. Perhaps she had become curious about her tenants. Maybe he caught her rifling his possessions. She learned something she should not have.’ He paused for a moment, rubbing his chin. ‘But what are we to make of this length of pipe?’ He tapped the front of his overcoat where the pipe was secured in an interior pocket.

Werthen had been doing his own cogitating. ‘It’s a murder weapon.’