Requiem in Vienna Read Online Free Page B

home today, suffering from a severe sore throat. He asked for, and, due to his title of lawyer, was given Mahler’s home telephone number. A call there was answered by a female, who turned out to be one of the musician’s sisters, Justine Mahler. She was chief housekeeper and, it would seem, bodyguard, by the manner in which she so closely questioned Werthen about the purpose of his proposed interview. He had pleaded the importance and privacy of his proposed meeting—and ultimately was able to secure an appointment for two this afternoon.
    “Gustav should be up from his nap by then,” the sharp voice on the other end said. “Otherwise, you will have to wait.”
    He took leave of Berthe, who was off to her afternoon work at the children’s care center in Ottakring. The day was perfect for walking: a light breeze with high scudding clouds in a robin’s-egg blue sky, like something out of a Bellotto view of the city.Strolling through the peaceful cobbled lanes of the Inner City, Werthen felt well with himself and the world. It was all he needed for now: the love of a good woman, a fine lunch under his belt, a day made for walking, and at the end of the stroll, a possible case.
    Mahler’s apartment was just outside the Ringstrasse on Auen-bruggerstrasse, a short lane that led into Rennweg, the diplomatic quarter near the Belvedere. As he made his way up the Schwar-zenbergplatz, he was reminded of the morning he and his old friend, the criminologist Hanns Gross, had left that same palace, the uninvited guests for the night of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
    Mahler’s apartment, in fact, stood on the corner of Rennweg, a few paces from the Lower Belvedere. It had been built by Otto Wagner, and this apartment block bore the architect’s signature early style of recessed decorative panels at the corners and lines of similar friezelike ornaments underlying the windows of the third and fourth floors.
    A modern building, this one had a lift, which Werthen decided to take, as his leg was acting up after the walk here. He rubbed his stiff knee as the lift carried him to Mahler’s fourth-floor home. The door was opened at the second knock by a female version of the composer himself. Her hair was equally unruly and rather thin, the nose was hawklike, eyes lightly veiled and somehow predatory. She wore a broad tie on her off-white blouse, a wide white belt, and a full skirt that looked as if it were constructed of canvas.
    “You’ll be Herr Werthen,” she said.
    “Yes.” He was unsure how to address her:
Gnädige Frau
? Unwritten rules turned a
fräulein
into a
frau
if they were still unmarried after the age of thirty or so. It was the “or so” that always confused him. He opted for a brief handshake instead of verbal salutations.
    “I suppose you’ll want to come in.”
    With that, she turned, leaving the door for him to close after entering. Short, dark corridors led off in both directions from theentry with several rooms attached. Justine Mahler proceeded through mahogany double doors directly in front. These opened, Werthen soon discovered, into an inner hallway that was much longer and brighter, giving off to a second section of rooms. The Court Opera director was obviously doing very well for himself to be able to afford such a suite of rooms for just himself and his sister.
    He continued to follow Justine Mahler as she turned left. He passed an open door to his right, and looked in as he walked by. A formal dining room with a quite elegant and very modern geometrical-styled dining table and chair. Obviously designed by the Werkstätte, the fine arts wing of the Jugendstil and Secessionist artists gathered around Klimt. Light spilled from the large street-side windows into the room.
    She opened double doors to the next room and they entered a spacious sitting room, a glorious Bösendorfer grand piano gracing the middle of the parquet, its enamel freshly waxed and shining. In a far corner he thought he saw a pile of