'It's a long walk from Herr Uberhorst's,' he said apologetically.
'I've never had the pleasure.'
'He has a small workshop in Leopoldstadt.'
'Then you should have hailed a cab!'
Holderlin applied the handkerchief to his forehead.
'The weather is improving – I thought it would be pleasant to walk.'
'The taking of regular constitutionals is undoubtedly a good habit and it aids digestion, so I'm told.' Bruckmuller lifted his glass and took a sip of his
'Hot, that's all.' Holderlin interrupted. 'I think I overdid it.'
Bruckmuller nodded and gestured towards the Blavatsky.
'May I?'
'Of course.'
Bruckmuller picked up the volume and let the pages fan beneath his thumb, stopping occasionally. When he had completed this cursory examination he lifted his head and looked at his companion.
'Was it some demon, do you think?' Bruckmuller's voice was a confidential rumble.
'The spirit said so.'
'Yes . . . but I'm asking what
Holderlin looked around the square uneasily, as if trying to locate any eavesdroppers. The area was empty.
'I think such things are possible. However—' He paused and toyed with his teaspoon. 'I suspect that Herr Uberhorst would no longer subscribe to such a view.'
'He cannot accept that Fraulein Lowenstein dabbled in the black arts,' said Bruckmuller sagely. 'How naive.'
'Indeed. But there's more to it than that, I feel.'
'Oh?'
'In his workshop I noticed numerous lock mechanisms. In vices and on the table. He had been dismantling them . . . and there were instruments everywhere.'
'The man's a locksmith, Holderlin! What did you expect?'
'Tweezers? Knitting needles? Magnets? There was even a hospital syringe. It was like a laboratory.'
Bruckmuller shook his head: 'I don't understand . . .'
'I think,' said Holderlin, 'that Herr Uberhorst is trying to work out how it was done. I think he's trying to solve the mystery of the locked door.'
45
ELSE RHEINHARDT HAD been shopping in Leopoldstadt, where everything was so much cheaper. She had ordered a roll of fabric from a draper in Zirkusgasse that was at least half the price she would have paid on Karntner Strasse. Her expedition had taken her as far east as the Prater, and she decided to reward herself with lunch at the Cafe Eisvogel. She had a particular weakness for their honey-and-almond tart.
Else lingered for a while, watching the people come and go, observing the little dramas that constituted the affairs of the world: a couple in the corner were clearly enjoying an assignation; a group of gentlemen at the next table looked like conspirators; and a solitary young man by the window was writing what she imagined to be a poem on his napkin. In Vienna, the cafe had replaced the theatre. One could learn as much about human nature in the Eisvogel as one could by reading all the plays of Goethe, Moliere or Shakespeare.
Else noticed the time and felt her conscience nettle. She had to return home. She had only accomplished the first three items on the crumpled list that occupied one of the pockets in her purse.
The sun was burning in a cloudless sky, and Else opened her parasol. She walked across a wide, open concourse in the direction of the Riesenrad. The giant wheel dwarfed the other buildings, even the four towers of the water chute. As she approached the Prohaska restaurant, Else was surprised to see her husband sitting at one of the many outside tables. Her instinct was to call out and run over. Her step had already quickened when the automatic smile on her face froze and disintegrated.
There was a woman sitting next to him – and they were both laughing.
Else did not recognise her, and judged her, even at a distance, to be quite attractive. She and Oskar seemed perfectly at ease together. Rheinhardt was smoking a cigar, and the woman seemed to be entertaining him with an amusing story.
It did not look like a police interview – or any other kind of professional engagement.
The woman leaned forward and, reaching over the table, rested a flirtatious hand on the sleeve of Rheinhardt's jacket. The gesture was confident enough to suggest an atmosphere of relaxed intimacy – and enough to shake the ground beneath Else's feet.
Else turned abruptly and walked back in the direction of the Cafe Eisvogel. She was utterly confused and proceeded in a daze. The Riesenrad, like the great wheel of fortune itself, turned slowly and impartially as the first angry tear rolled down Else's cheek.
46
KARL UBERHORST HAD got as far as the police station on Grosse Sperlgasse. He had stood outside the modest building for almost an hour, pacing, deliberating, doubting, questioning, before finally heading off towards the centre of town.
Since the ill-fated seance he had experienced considerable difficulty sleeping – and even when he did sleep there were the nightmares to contend with. The visitations from a now familiar company of vengeful demons and repulsive succubi; the shocked awakening followed by an icy trickle of sweat; the lingering terror that paralysed his body; and the hypnopompic presences that melted into darkness. As a result Uberhorst preferred to eschew sleep and spend the small hours wandering the streets of the Innere Stadt. The comforting monotony of his night-time tread on the cobbles helped to calm his troubled mind.
It was approaching midnight when Karl Uberhorst found himself walking across the Graben. He slowed as he approached the plague monument – a mountain of writhing, tumbling bodies. There was something orgiastic in its excess, its unfettered, hysterical mass of swirling cloud, saints and putti. Indeed, it was as though the monument itself was diseased and had started to become excrescent, an amorphous mass of weeping chancres and swollen nodules. Climbing a few steps, he rested his hands on the balustrade and contemplated Faith and a winged cherub gleefully impaling the old hag Plague.
'Good evening, sir.'
She was suddenly standing next to him – a woman wearing a long flared coat and a veiled hat. He had not seen her standing behind the monument on his approach, and was startled by her appearance.
'Good evening,' he replied, stepping down.
'Lonely, are you?' Her voice was coarse and accented but her question was curiously penetrating.
Uberhorst wanted to answer:
He missed their little conversations, the smell of her golden hair as she examined the lines on his palm.
'I'm sure a man like you has a few krone to spare.' He couldn't place her accent – was she a Ruthene or a Pole? 'Why don't you walk me to my room, over in Spittelberg? It's a long walk, but by the time we get there we'll have got to know each other really well. How about it?'
As he looked at her, the woman's face blurred. Her eyes became enlarged and her lips more full: Fraulein Lowenstein's smile shimmered across the whore's broad features.
Perhaps he could ask this woman to sit with him, to hold his hand, like
The whore laughed and came closer, reaching out and rubbing the collar of Uberhorst's coat between her thumb and forefinger, like a tailor establishing the quality of the cloth. She was taller than him and he found himself staring into her bosom.
