Free A Matter of Breeding by J. Sydney Jones Page A

carpet-chewing cretin,’ he thundered. Gross crumpled the paper into a ball and looked for a wastebasket into which to toss it. Seeing none, he thrust the crumpled mass into his jacket pocket.
    ‘Which carpet-chewer would that be, Gross?’ Werthen asked innocently.
    ‘Magistrate Lechner. A former colleague, and I use that world loosely. We were both investigating magistrates in Graz a decade and more ago. Seems Lechner has stayed at his post.’
    Gross said this with acid disgust, for he was a great critic of what he termed the professional bureaucratic class, even though he himself, as a professor at an imperial university, was part and parcel of that very class. Werthen remembered the man from his own time as a criminal defense lawyer in Graz. Lechner took the inquisitorial system to unexpected lengths, playing not only judge, jury, and prosecution, but also the ultimate determiner of the legal code, deciding what evidence could be permitted and what witnesses called on behalf of the defendant. With such weapons at his disposal, it was no wonder Lechner had the highest conviction rate in the province. Gross and Lechner had been oil and water; the criminologist at one point even penned a letter to the editor of the Graz
Presse
complaining of Lechner’s tyrannical judicial manner.
    ‘He has the temerity to order me back to Graz forthwith.
Order.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who does he think he’s talking to?’
    ‘As examining magistrate of the Graz region,’ Metzler chimed in, ‘he has the say so. I would catch the next train to Graz if I were you, Herr Gross.’
    ‘
Doktor
Gross.’
    ‘Otherwise I might have to bring you in myself.’
    ‘But why does Lechner want to see you?’ Werthen asked.
    Gross fumed for a moment longer, and finally shook his head. ‘It seems our friend, Inspector Thielman neglected to notify his superior that he was calling me in on the case. Lechner always was a territorial little ferret.’
    ‘A most interesting name,’ Stoker added, again turning philologist. ‘Lechner. Would that be at all derived from
lechen
?’
    The verb ‘to lick’ was used in all variety of less than salubrious descriptions of such bureaucratic types who curried favor by any groveling means necessary.
    Gross, however, was not amused.
    ‘There’s nothing for it, then. I suppose I must return to Graz.’ He focused on Werthen. ‘You will be able to carry on without me?’
    The implication of the question stung, but Werthen merely nodded assent.
    Metzler took out an old pocket watch as large as an unripe pippin, snapped the cover open and said, ‘You’ll just have time to catch the eleven-forty.’
    ‘Excellent,’ Gross said with dripping irony. He tipped his bowler to Werthen and Stoker. ‘Gentlemen, keep me informed of any progress you make. I shall be returning soon, or you can reach me at the Hotel Daniel in Hitzendorf.’
    The way Metzler looked at Gross as he said this made Werthen think there might very well be a third possibility.

Ten
    After Gross had taken his leave, Werthen continued to talk with the recalcitrant sergeant, who reluctantly let it be known that the first victim, Maria Feininger, was the daughter of a local dairy farmer near town, and that she was contemplating joining the Cistercian nuns. Indeed, it was that plan which placed the poor young woman on the path that fatal Friday, for she was on her way to a meeting with one of the nuns at the church.
    Metzler, still looking upon them with suspicion, finally added, ‘It takes a crazy person to do to that young girl what he did. The locals are talking of blood rituals. A gypsy passed through a few days before the killing. A Jewish trader came through not long after, they say.’
    Werthen recalled the description of the wounds on the young girl: in addition to the multiple stab wounds, the left breast had been severed and other mutilations had been performed. All of this in the late afternoon. Werthen also recalled from the report he