J. Jones: The Third Place

And then Frieda whispered in her ear that Opa had a whisker in his ear, and she remembered all over again why she had to leave Vienna, and she hugged her young daughter to her tightly as the carriage bumped along the macadamized road.

‘I say we have lunch first at the gasthaus across the road from the house,’ Herr Meisner said. ‘I’ll bet they have some of their famous venison stew today.’

His thought was seconded by the von Werthens and Frau Juliani.

Berthe joined in the chorus of approval, buoyed up momentarily by the good cheer. They will capture him, she told herself. They’re bound to. It will be fine. You’ll see.

They left the Lower Belvedere later that morning, taking a fiaker to the hospital where young Brigitte Huber was still being held for observation, as she was near hysteria from her ordeal. The doctor allowed them to speak with her for only a few minutes, but it was all they needed to ascertain that the girl knew nothing of her captor; he had not even spoken as he abducted her and took her in unseen in the back entrance to the Hotel zur Josefstadt. She had no idea even why she had been abducted.

They wasted no more time there but instead took another fiaker to Neulerchen?felderstrasse and the Kubit Men’s Hostel. Postling was their only other human link to Klavan.

The same insolent attendant was on duty at the front desk.

‘You again?’ The illustrated sports newspaper was again spread out in front of him.

‘The ledger, if you please,’ Gross said, not wanting to engage the man.

‘Be my guest,’ he said, shoving the large book toward Gross. ‘But he’s not here.’

‘Herr Postling?’ Werthen said.

‘Right. Out on his rounds.’

‘Rounds?’

‘Begging,’ the attendant said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Gross turned and stumped out of the building.

‘Your friend’s got a serious problem with anger,’ the attendant said.

‘Yes,’ Werthen said. ‘He does have a short fuse. I don’t suppose you know where Herr Postling might be found?’ Beggars often had their own pitch they returned to, Werthen knew.

The man eyed Werthen, scratched his cheek then nodded slowly.

‘Old Hermann, he’s got his sacred ground, all right. Take a bottle to anybody who tries to crowd him out.’

‘And where might that be?’ Werthen asked pleasantly, but all the while wanted to grab the man around and choke the information out of him. Time was dear; with no further word from Klavan the situation seemed even more desperate, as if he expected them to figure out how to get in touch with him. Just as with the hidden note to Gross. Like a challenge, a puzzle for the great criminologist to solve.

‘It’s on the Wienerberg in Favoriten, near the park. That’s where you’ll find Hermann.’

Reaching the street, he saw Gross striding toward the fiaker rank. He had to run to catch up with him. ‘I know where he is,’ he said.

‘Well, bravo for you,’ Gross said, and then thought better of his ill temper.

‘I apologize, Werthen. This matter has well and truly got my dander up.’

Thirty minutes later a fiaker delivered them near the gates to the park on the Wienerberg. The weather was fair this Saturday and the park was filed with families; the sports fields were also in full use with kite flyers and some amateur teams were busy on the football pitch. It did not take them long to spot Hermann: he was squatting with his back against the park gates, a tin dish on the pavement in front of him.

He spotted them as they approached. ‘Stay away from me, you two. You’ve already cost me my twenty pieces of silver.’

‘That’s what we’ve come about,’ Werthen said, improvising. ‘We have spoken with the emperor and he does not think it fair that you should lose your reward simply because of your association with Herr Klavan.’

Postling’s face screwed up in a question. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Sorry. The man you knew as Wenno,’ Werthen explained.

‘Man’s got a curious taste in names. Wenno, Klavan. Not Austrian, that’s for sure. Not German.’

‘No,’ Werthen agreed, eager to steer the conversation back on track. ‘How did you meet Herr Wenno, if I might ask?’

‘Well, take a coin out of your pocket, tip it into my plate and you’ll know.’

Werthen began digging into his coin purse, but Gross stopped him.

‘I believe Herr Postling means that Wenno put a coin into this very plate. Is that correct, sir?’

The last word made Postling thrust his shoulders back and sit up straight. ‘That I do. Dropped a half crown into my plate with a rattle that woke me right up. Told him that was all well and good but not to expect any thanks.’

‘How did you come to make the arrangement for Maundy Thursday?’ Werthen asked.

‘So maybe now you might practice some of that coin tossing.’

‘Go ahead, Werthen,’ Gross urged, as usual playing free with the money of others.

Werthen put in a ten-heller piece, but Postling just glared up at him.

‘Really, Werthen,’ Gross grumbled.

He added a twenty-heller piece, and when Postling continued to glare, he dropped in a second twenty-heller piece. ‘That should satisfy,’ Werthen said. ‘After all, it’s the same that Wenno gave you that day, by your own admission.’

He knew better than to antagonize witnesses, but the old man could get under one’s skin.

Postling scooped up the coins and shoved them into his coat pocket. Then he stood with some effort, stretching his legs and arching his back.

‘It was me that gave him the idea, wasn’t it? Told him when I got my bag with twenty pieces of silver from the emperor there’d be no more begging for me. He was curious about that. And so I told him. Why, the man had never even heard of the foot-washing ceremony. That should have been my first clue he was a bad one. Any man calls himself an Austrian knows about that. Well, he gets all excited, buys me lunch, takes me back to the hostel in a fiaker. Treated me like a lord.’

Another rueful laugh. ‘Another clue. I should have known. I mean I figured he was out to get something too, but I wasn’t going to let him get his hands on my twenty pieces of silver.’

‘Did he ever speak about himself?’ Gross asked. ‘Tell you what his business was.’

The old man shook his head.

‘Nothing?’ Werthen said.

‘I wasn’t interested. What would it matter, anyway? Most men are liars. Actions don’t lie, though. He had time on his hands.’

‘How do know that?’ Gross asked.

Postling looked again into his empty plate.

‘Werthen,’ Gross said.

‘I don’t suppose you bother with such mundane details as carrying change with you,’ Werthen said.

Gross scowled at this comment, and once again Werthen dropped a half crown worth of change in the dish.

‘Lovely sound, that is,’ Postling said.

‘You were saying that Wenno was a man with time on his hands,’ Gross reminded him. ‘And what makes you think that?’

‘I saw him out here often enough, didn’t I? Wandering about, gazing out over the hillside like he was some kind of lord himself. Took a particular interest in that water tower, he did.’

Postling pointed a dirty finger to the massive water tower sitting atop the Wienerberg.

‘Used to come up here quite a bit. Just sit and gaze out over the city. I’m sure he never knew I was watching him. Always by that water tower.’

‘My God, that’s it, Werthen. The water tower. That’s where he means to dump it.’

‘Dump what?’ the old man squawked as Werthen and Gross ran toward the tower.

They were contented after a filling lunch at the gasthaus. As Herr Meisner had predicted, the proprietor had prepared venison stew for the menu. Now they walked down the country lane toward the house; the carriage, after depositing them at the gasthaus, was to leave their luggage at the front door. A slight breeze played through early wild flowers to each side of the dirt track leading to the house.