Free A Matter of Breeding by J. Sydney Jones

said. ‘I should be taking money under false pretenses.’
    ‘Not at all, Werthen,’ Gross said. ‘Think of it. Who is paying you to protect our Irish friend?’
    ‘Well, officially the Concordia, but it seems to be coming from Court. Prince Montenuovo.’
    ‘Precisely. And if you discover you have the time to aid in investigations of a heinous murderer, who would be benefiting?’ But he allowed no time for a response. ‘The empire, of course. To solve such horrendous crimes is a public service, indeed a duty to the state. False pretenses, pahhh.’
    Their initial stop was the village of Judendorf-Strassengel, about six miles to the northeast of Hitzendorf where they were lodged; a little over an hour by carriage. It was a pleasant hamlet set amid rolling hills with the fourteenth-century pilgrimage church of Maria Strassengel overlooking it like a watchman from atop a stony outcrop. It was just off the path of a trail up to the church where the body of the first victim, Fräulein Maria Feininger, had been found on Friday, the fourth of October.
    As their carriage was pulling into the main square of the town, a train came chuffing into the nearby station. They had not taken the train from Hitzendorf as it would have necessitated a trip via Graz, where they would have had to change trains and head north for this village.
    Even in the twentieth century, Werthen decided, there are times when a horse and the direction a bird flies make more sense than steam power.
    The train added a sense of bustle to an otherwise sleepy village. Among the cluster of buildings near the main square was a large and sparely modern construction, the Styrian Park Sanatorium. Recently built, it was one of many water-cure establishments that were fast making Judendorf-Strassengel and other small Styrian villages well-known spa destinations.
    Despite the town’s name, there were not many Jewish folk in the town any longer. Only a few shops and the cement works on the edge of town were Jewish-owned, as Gross had informed them en route.
    When Stoker queried him regarding the source of such information, Gross had merely cast a haddock eye his way and said, ‘It is common knowledge for those who read.’
    For those who read the
Austro-Hungarian Statistical Yearbook
perhaps, Werthen had wanted to say, but thought better of it. Gross was sure to chide him for not making that tome
his
bedside reading.
    The carriage stopped at the local gendarmerie headquarters quite near the little hill atop which the church stood.
    Sergeant Alfred Metzler was on duty. A bluff man, as round as he was tall, with a lazy left eye, Metzler was full of suspicion at the arrival of strangers asking questions, until he read the letter of introduction Gross carried from Inspector Thielman.
    ‘Felix vouches for you,’ Metzler said, handing back the hastily perused letter to Gross, ‘that’s good enough for me. But I don’t see the need for calling in fancy Viennese detectives.’
    ‘Actually,’ Gross said, ‘I am from Graz originally. Perhaps you know of my work as magistrate inspector, or of my textbooks for inspectors?’
    Metzler blew air through puffed lips. ‘Can’t say I do. You don’t talk like one of us.’
    Werthen held back the urge to clap the good man on the back.
    But Gross ignored the remark.
    Metzler screwed up his mouth in thought now. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, looking with renewed suspicion at the criminologist. ‘Gross. Doktor Hanns Gross, would that be?’
    Now Gross began to puff up, exulting in advance at finally being recognized.
    ‘None other,’ he replied.
    Metzler rifled through a welter of papers atop a tiny desk and finally came up with a folded letter.
    ‘I was to give this to you if you came my way,’ Metzler said, handing the paper to Gross, who opened it eagerly.
    Werthen watched as Gross’s eyes scanned the message, at first showing surprise, but quickly followed by a squinting so fierce as to appear demonic.
    ‘That odious,