The Empty Mirror by J. Sydney Jones Read Free Book Online

a third killing happened on July 15, all of Vienna thought they could see the pattern of the crimes, for not only was this killing spaced fifteen days from the last, but it was also a person of the working class. This third victim, Hilde Diener, seamstress and mother of four, had taken the dog out for the night walk and never returned home. Her body was found in the Prater, like the others. (The dog had never been found.) Thus, all the deaths were fifteen days apart, the victims were of the working class, and they followed another pattern, as well: first a woman, then a man, then a woman.
    The gutter press had encouraged the populace to play detective, noting that the next crime was probably due on July 30, and that men should now be on guard.
    In the event, the night of July 30 had passed without incident, except for three separate cases of assault and battery. Lone men, self-appointed deputies, placed themselves as bait near the Prater. Each carried some weapon: a heavy truncheon, brass knuckles, or a walking stick with a stiletto hidden within. Approached by strangers, these three had gone on the attack. The result was the concussion of a schoolteacher from St. Pölten who was in Vienna for vacation and, having become lost, was seeking directions to his pension; the broken left arm of a petty thief and well-known pickpocket who worked the streets near the amusement park; and the stabbing injury of a constable who was dressed in street clothes in an attempt to apprehend the killer.
    Next morning, the city communally sighed in relief, thinking perhaps the killings were finished. Three days later, however, the killer struck again. This time the victim was indeed a man, but not of the working class. Alexander von Fliegel was a manufacturer who had gained membership in the nobility through his wealth rather than family. Werthen had no personal knowledge of him, but knew another lawyer who was acquainted with theman. Von Fliegel produced a popular face cream for women, Tender Skin, and had factories in Vienna, Linz, and Graz. He had been out for a night on the town with several colleagues. The last these friends had seen of him, he was a bit the worse for drink, wobbling down the Weihburggasse, lighting a cigar. He was going to walk off his inebriation, he told them. His body was found next morning, August 2, in the Prater.
    Klimt was frowning, attempting to recollect his whereabouts on those dates. Finally, he shook his head. “I’ll have to ask Emilie. Perhaps I wrote a postal card to her on one of those dates.”
    Gross and Werthen exchanged looks.
    “It’s our way of staying in touch, even if I do not have the time to see her. Beautiful cards. From our own Wiener Werkstätte.”
    “I am sure they are, Herr Klimt,” Gross said. “And I am sure you see the importance of such verification.”
    “Yes. Herr Werthen already explained that if we can show I didn’t kill the others, I didn’t kill Liesel. So these mutilations the press speaks of, there must be a consistency to the wounds, to the killer’s technique.”
    “Along those lines, yes,” Gross averred.
    “I would feel better about a positive defense.”
    “You seem to have a sense of the law, Herr Klimt. I mean, you knew me by name. And I am not such an egoist that I do not realize that the name of ‘Gross’ is hardly a household word.”
    “I do a fair amount of reading,” Klimt said with a bearish grin.
    “Including Lombroso, it would seem.”
    Klimt’s grin disappeared. “How do you know that?”
    Gross handed the sketch to him. “Found inside a copy of
The Man of Genius
at your … friend’s home.”
    Klimt opened the folded paper, looked at the sketch, chuckled lowly, then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it onto a rubbish heap in the middle of the floor.
    “Do you consider yourself a man of genius, Herr Klimt?” Gross asked.
    “Sometimes I do, yes. I confess. But at others, I feel a sham. Have you ever felt that way, Doktor Gross?”
    But