J. Jones - The Third Place

‘Who is it?’ he hissed.

She shook her head. Then: ‘Quick. Follow me.’

They moved quietly down the hall to a large ballroom. It was in darkness, but he could make out a book-lined wall opposite the floor-to-ceiling windows giving off to the Ring.

She went to the bookcase, put her hand over a volume and suddenly a small door opened revealing a tiny room in back. ‘My magic cabinet. Get in.’

He hesitated, but then could hear the voices coming closer.

‘I must call my mistress,’ the maid was saying.

‘Quickly,’ Lisette said.

He went in and the door closed behind him. It was dark; dark as a tomb.

Werthen saw Princess Dumbroski moving down the hallway toward them.

‘And what, may I ask, are you gentlemen doing here at this time of night?’

‘Good evening, Princess Dumbroski,’ Werthen said. ‘We have reason to believe that a most dangerous man might be in residence here.’

‘I beg your pardon. Have you been drinking?’

‘Klavan by name,’ Gross thundered. ‘A former colleague of yours.’

‘Has the world gone mad? Get out of here this instant or I shall send for the police.’

‘Madam, we are the police,’ Gross said, stretching the truth for dramatic effect. ‘Now take us to Herr Klavan, please.’

‘This is an outrage! Leave at once.’

Gross ignored this. ‘All right, men, search the place.’

Werthen had been closely watching as Gross confronted the woman, but she showed no sign of fear, only anger at the intrusion. He began to get a bad feeling about this visit.

Two hours later the small door opened again and Klavan was all but blinded by the candle Lisette held.

‘They’ve gone. Now you disappear as well.’

‘I’ll get my things.’

She held a revolver in her hand. ‘I don’t think so. I told them they belonged to a long-lost cousin come for a visit and forgotten at departure. If they check again, I want them to still be in place.’ She waved the gun. ‘I won’t be afraid to use it. Now leave. There’s no one about – I checked.’

‘Dear Lisette, thoughtful as ever. But I did enjoy my time in your little magic cabinet. Every apartment should have one.’

‘Happy you approved. I had it installed myself. Now, I won’t say it again. Out of here. And do not come back. They know who you are. They even seemed to know about us, but I denied it all.’

‘Who were they?’

‘Military. And three others. I heard one of them being called Doktor Gross and another was addressed as Advokat Werthen.’ She laughed. ‘I know his wife.’ Then her smile faded. ‘The tall one didn’t have a name, just a scar on his face, and he stared at me like I was meat hanging in a butcher shop.’

Klavan nodded and did as he was told, not because of the gun. He could disarm her easily.

No, he needed the safety of the dark now. So close. And Werthen and Gross were on his trail. Just like last time.

But he thought, as he slipped into the night, his pockets full of money and death, they won’t stop me this time. They are too late.

‘And so you decided to take matters into your own hand,’ Prince Montenuovo said.

‘You were not available, Prince,’ Werthen said. ‘And we had it on the highest authority that Princess Dumbroski and Klavan were connected.’

‘The highest authority?’

‘Well, from His Highness, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.’

‘Yes, the archduke. His Majesty the emperor has heard of this fiasco and he is none too pleased, I might add.’

‘But Klavan means to kill the emperor,’ Werthen insisted.

‘Again on the very highest authority, I assume. No. It won’t do, gentlemen, it simply won’t do. You cannot go about like Cossacks storming into private residences-’

‘Actually, we rang the bell,’ Gross said.

Montenuovo shot him a withering look. ‘This Klavan appears to be a common criminal. A thug who murders waiters and landladies.’

The remark, so closely echoing Gross’s, would normally have brought a smile to Werthen’s face. But matters were too serious for that.

‘He is a hired assassin,’ Werthen pleaded. ‘He was traced to Belgrade. The former attempt on the emperor’s life surely came from that quarter …’

‘So you say,’ Prince Montenuovo replied. He sat back in his chair, sighing. ‘Look, gentlemen, I am as concerned about the life of our emperor as you are, but you simply cannot go off willy-nilly like this, not when you are in my employ.’

‘He was there,’ Gross said with finality. ‘There was a man staying in one of the servants’ rooms.’

‘A distant relation, the princess tells me, just as she explained to you last night,’ Montenuovo said. ‘Since gone back home to Czernowitz. Were you not once posted there, Doktor Gross?’

The implied threat of sending him back as penance to the university in Bukovina was clear. But Gross, happy with his current posting in Prague, still did not blanch at the remark.

‘I have heard from very important people on behalf of Princess Dumbroski,’ Montenuovo continued. ‘And they are none too happy with this heavy-handed approach – treating her like a common criminal.’

‘Which she is,’ Gross said under his breath, but just loud enough for the prince to hear.

‘Enough.’ Montenuovo suddenly rose. ‘Do not make me regret commissioning you two. Find this Klavan fellow if you must, and leave Princess Dumbroski alone.’

Werthen controlled his temper enough to remember to ask the prince to arrange an interview with the elusive Czerny. This seemed hardly important now. The hunt for Klavan was the primary focus, but after all, he had promised Berthe.

He arrived at the men’s hostel a little after ten that morning. Hermann Postling was at his usual table and alone, as always. Klavan was exhausted, having spent the night in a small stable for fiaker horses not far from Lisette’s. Easy enough to break in and then slip out again before first light. But the chill had kept him awake most of the night. No matter, he thought as he approached the old man. After this delivery I will find a fine men’s clothier, buy new clothes and rent a suite of rooms. And he knew just the place.

They will never look for me there.

‘Good morning, Hermann,’ he said as he approached the old man’s table.

Postling looked up, annoyed. ‘It’s about time. I’ve been waiting all morning. I have other appointments, you know. Now what is so important?’

‘Just a final thought,’ Klavan said. ‘Something for the emperor tomorrow.’

Later, as he made his way from the men’s hostel, Klavan felt the second bottle in his coat pocket.

Better safe than sorry, he told himself.

Professor Doktor Hermann Nothnagel was in his office at the bacteriological institute at Vienna’s General Hospital. He wore a formal long black coat and his equally long white beard gave him the appearance of an Old Testament sage.

Gross thanked him heartily for seeing them on such short notice, then got right to the point. ‘How can plague bacilli be used to kill?’

The doctor stared back at him with fierce blue eyes. ‘Is this about Office 3G?’

Gross nodded.

Nothnagel squeezed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. ‘Not again.’

He looked again at Gross. ‘I warned them this could happen.’

‘I have not come to apportion blame,’ Gross said. ‘I simply need to know how it can be used if in the wrong hands.’

‘In the air. This is the pneumonic not bubonic plague. First is human transmission, human fluids or breathing the bacilli in. Contaminated or undercooked foods is also a possibility. But breathing it in is the most typical manner of transmission. Those infected cough and sneeze and spread the bacteria in that manner. Onset is relatively rapid: a couple of days, sometimes only hours. At first its symptoms are the same as any respiratory complaint: headache, weakness and coughing. Quite rapidly, however, the patient begins spitting or vomiting blood. Within a week, almost one hundred percent of sufferers succumb to the disease.’ He shook his head. ‘Was it an anarchist?’