A Matter of Breeding Read Online Free Page A

peering at Gross with a curious expression.
    ‘By which I mean,’ the criminalist said, ‘that the murders have a staged appearance to them. Mutilations, fake clues like the puncture wounds on the last victim, signs left at the crime scenes.’
    ‘What sort of signs?’
    ‘The sort I have documented in
Criminal Investigations.
At the first crime scene, Thielman found poisonous datura seeds, the sign that gypsies have committed a crime. The gendarme who found these took them for rabbit droppings initially and was about to brush them off the victim before Thielman was able to still his hand. At the second crime scene, the young woman’s clothes were scattered about, and some taken away, which clearly indicates, as I have written, psychopathic superstition. And at the third I discovered human excrement kept warm by the victim’s bonnet. In northern Germany murderers believe that leaving excrement at the scene of the crime will prevent them from being discovered. And the crime itself will not be discovered so long as the excrement is kept warm.’
    ‘Thus the bonnet,’ Werthen said. ‘Not to conceal it but to keep it warm.’
    ‘Right,’ Gross said. ‘All three of these were mentioned in my handbook for inspecting magistrates.’
    ‘You believe these signs were left on purpose to arouse your attention?’
    ‘No belief about it. I know it to be so.’
    ‘I realize you are well-known in the world of crime, Gross, but really—’
    ‘It is not about ego, Werthen.’ He dug a slip of paper out of his coat pocket and handed it to Werthen.
    ‘Someone slipped it under the door of my hotel room this morning,’ Gross explained.
    Werthen read the message written in what looked to be a schoolboy’s hand:
    Let’s see how you deal with this investigation, Herr Criminalist
.

Four
    Berthe Meisner sat in front of the easel in her life drawing class. Try as she might, she just could not get the limbs correct. They were bent and straggly where they should be strong. Likewise the two orbs dangling so delicately on the model: in her painting they appeared to be glass Christmas ornaments not living, organic objects.
    She wondered again at the wisdom of taking these art classes, but her good friend Rosa Mayreder highly recommended the Vienna Art School for Women and Girls and its principal and main teacher, the painter Tina Blau. Berthe badly needed the distraction, needed to focus on other things than her own feelings of loss.
    Perhaps, however, she would be better off devoting more time to her daughter, Frieda, or volunteering to work again at the settlement house in Ottakring which helped to educate the disadvantaged youths of the city. Or even by returning to her early love for journalism.
    The last two she had neglected of late, too involved in family and in working with her husband, Karl Werthen, on his private inquiries. She felt a twinge of jealousy that Karl was off now in Styria with the Irish author without her.
    ‘That is a rather interesting interpretation.’
    The voice startled her. Tina Blau was looking over her shoulder at her canvas.
    ‘I’m not sure I am cut out to be an artist.’
    ‘Nonsense, Frau Meisner. Art is not merely about representation, but also about feeling. There is feeling in this.’
    They both looked at the model and then back to Berthe’s painting. The model in this case was not a human, but a small, potted, espalier apple tree with two apples in the middle. Blau was noted for her atmospheric impressionistic landscapes; for her, the tree was one of the noble forms of life.
    ‘You have made from this a crucifixion, if you look closely,’ Blau said. ‘Trust your heart.’
    Berthe could see now what the painter saw. But still she was little pleased with the result. She was hoping to find diversion in art, not further, albeit unconscious, reflection on her sadness.
    Berthe detested self-pity; she was rapidly becoming disgusted with herself.
    This must end, she resolved. You have a beautiful