Liebermann shook his head. “I’m sorry, Professor Gandler…”
“Once again, I would urge you to reconsider. This situation could easily escalate, and if it does, you will be sorry.”
Liebermann ignored the chancellor’s thinly disguised threat.
“Where did this article appear, Professor Gandler?”
The chancellor opened his drawer and pulled out a folded newspaper. He tossed it across the desk, and it landed so that the masthead was exposed. It read: Das Vaterland. At once Liebermann understood what was really going on. He looked up at the chancellor, and for a moment was consoled by a glimmer of sympathy.
29
The two men had finished their music-making and taken their customary places in Liebermann’s smoking room. Somewhat unusually, though, it was Rheinhardt who spoke first. “You seem a little preoccupied, Max.”
“Yes,” Liebermann replied. “I do have a lot on my mind. Something happened at the hospital a few weeks ago that has had unforeseen consequences, and I now find myself in an invidious position.”
He told his friend about the death of the young Baron von Kortig, his-Liebermann’s-alleged forceful obstruction of Father Benedikt, and of his unhappy interviews with the chancellor. Throughout, Rheinhardt’s solicitous expression was constant. Occasionally he muttered “outrageous,” “appalling,” or “intolerable.” When Liebermann had finished, the detective inspector blew out a great cloud of cigar smoke and asked, “What do you think will happen?”
“I have no idea. But I simply refuse to make an apology. This would be tantamount to an admission of improper behavior.”
“Indeed. As far as I can see, you acted irreproachably-thinking first and foremost of your patient. The old baron should have been grateful that his son’s dying moments were spent in the care of such a scrupulous physician.” Rheinhardt sipped his brandy and added, “Who do you think contacted the journalist?”
“I don’t know. It could have been anyone: Father Benedikt, the old Baron von Kortig, one of the committee members… even the nurse or the aspirant.”
“Someone is clearly trying to turn an inconsequential incident into a scandal-and, sadly, their motivation is all too transparent.”
“Yes. I tried to resist the obvious conclusion, but the article in Das Vaterland soon brought an end to my doubts. The author repeatedly stressed that fewer and fewer doctors in Vienna understand the importance of the Christian sacraments.”
They spoke for a little while longer about Liebermann’s situation, until the young doctor seemed suddenly to grow impatient and tire of the subject. He made a gesture with his hand as if to brush the matter away. After a short pause, Liebermann said in a more animated voice, “I stopped for coffee at the Cafe Museum this afternoon and saw the late editions.”
Rheinhardt nodded his head solemnly.
“Burke Faust,” Liebermann added.
“Councillor Burke Faust,” said Rheinhardt, emphasizing the man’s title. “His remains were discovered next to the plague column by the church of Maria Geburt in Hietzing. Death was caused by decapitation, and the method employed was exactly the same as before. His head had been torn from his body. He was dressed in the kind of clothes a gentleman usually wears in his study: a smoking jacket, loose trousers, and a pair of slippers. It was obvious that he hadn’t been walking the streets dressed like that. He must have been knocked unconscious before being transported to the plague column. Professor Mathias found evidence of a blow delivered to the back of the head, and later we learned that his Hietzing villa had been broken into.”
“Did you find any signs of a struggle?”
“No.”
“The obituaries in the late editions suggested that he was a rising star at the town hall.”
“He certainly was. In fact, he was the prime candidate for a plum job in the mayor’s office. Some believed he might, in due course, have been selected as a future mayoral candidate. As you would expect, Faust’s political instincts were not dissimilar to Lueger’s, although Faust was thought by many to be more extreme.”
“As exemplified by his recent article in which he referred to Jews as a plague.”
“Good heavens,” said Rheinhardt. “Have you read it?”
“No,” said Liebermann.
“Then how-”
“I assumed, under the circumstances, that such an article must exist.”
Rheinhardt frowned and continued, “When we were interviewing Faust’s colleagues at the town hall, one of them mentioned that the councillor had written a piece for Die Reichpost, and that it had impressed the mayor. It’s full of the usual rhetoric but is distinguished by Faust’s espousal of a carefully constructed three-phase plan for eliminating Jews entirely from public life-and the professions.”
“And who did he think the good people of Vienna would consult when they became ill?”
“Faust was exercised largely by the problem of how elimination of the Jews from the professions might be accomplished, rather than by its actual consequences.”
Liebermann poured more brandy and stared into the fire.
“Was he married?”
“No. He lived alone.”
“What about his staff?”
“They live in an apartment building near the train station. He would have had no one to call upon for assistance when he was attacked.”
Liebermann turned his brandy and contemplated the flames through the repeated motif of the cut glass.
“Apart from the obvious commonality of the plague columns, were there any other similarities between our two murder scenes?”
“Yes,” said Rheinhardt, extending the syllable and sounding somewhat hesitant. “Once again there was a great deal of mud in the vicinity of the body, and once again it seemed to have been purposely put there rather than dislodged from a vehicle. There were no tracks, other than those on the main road.”
“Did you have the mud analyzed?”
“I did, and it proved to be entirely unremarkable. You might collect it anywhere on the banks of the Danube or up in the woods.” Rheinhardt twisted one of the horns of his mustache, and added, “Oh, I almost forgot to say, there was another similarity. Maria Geburt, like Maria Treue Kirche, has a school close by.”
Liebermann continued to turn his glass, seemingly entranced by the patterns of light.
“Who discovered the body?”
“A hapless fellow called Octavian Quint. He’d lost all of his money playing cards and had been ejected from the table. On his way home he went to relieve himself behind the church and fell asleep in a doorway. He claims to have been awakened by a noise that he described as a whirring, clicking sound… like a giant insect.”
The young doctor stopped looking into his brandy glass, and his head slowly rotated to reveal, degree by degree, an expression of such profound skepticism that it might just as easily have been provoked by an insult.
“A giant insect?”
“That’s what he said,” Rheinhardt replied gruffly. “And whatever it was, I’m sure it frightened him.”
“Had the man been drinking?”
“Almost certainly.”
Liebermann gestured as if to say, Well, there you are, then.
“How many plague columns are there in Vienna?” asked Liebermann.
“The Graben, Saint Ulrich’s, the Rochuskapelle Pensingerstrasse-a considerable number.”
“Too many to be kept under observation?”
“The Karlskirche, Dornbach.” Rheinhardt was raising his fingers. “Yes, far too many.”
“What about if you restricted observation to those plague columns close to schools?”
“That is a possibility.”
