Free Thomas Ochiltree by Death Waltz in Vienna Page A

beyond mere personal enmity. But what…?
    Von Falkenburg suddenly felt himself run into something soft.
    “Oh! Sir!” an indignant female voice exclaimed.
    He realized that he had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he had walked right into a girl.
    “Gnädiges Fräulein,”
he said, whirling around and touching his fingers to the brim of his képi, “I beg your forgiveness.”
    The girl was obviously, to judge from her clothes, just a shop assistant or something similar. But von Falkenburg felt he owed her the respectful
“gnädiges”
by way of an apology. Besides, he was respectful to all women, particularly ones as pretty as this one. He had knocked her hat to one side, and the cockeyed look it gave to her made her look appealingly fresh and impudent.
    Not that she realized it, for she was already straightening the hat, while saying, “the captain should realize that other people have to use the sidewalks too.”
    “
Gnädiges Fräulein,
I realize that what I did was quite inexcusable.” Then he added, “perhaps I can make it up to you.”
    She looked at him with a combination of suspicion and interest.
    “How?” she asked with a challenging tone. Von Falkenburg realized that her original genuine indignation at being bumped into was giving way rapidly to a purely simulated one. That was a promising sign.
    “By having dinner with me.”
    “What kind of a girl do you think I am?” she asked. The inevitable reply. Sometimes von Falkenburg wished that human relations were a little bit less automatic.
    “A very charming one.”
Oh well, play the game,
he thought.
    She pretended to think the offer over, then uttered the response von Falkenburg was waiting for.
    “All right” – the tone suggested that she was doing von Falkenburg an immense favor by accepting – “but it’s
just
dinner. I’m a respectable girl.”
    If she had answered differently, von Falkenburg would have looked up to see if the sky were falling.
    “Of course,” he said. “If I did not think you were a respectable girl, I would not have invited you.”
    The girl looked as if she actually believed that. Which was a pity. Von Falkenburg liked intelligence in his women.
    Her name was Lisa, and she had to get back to the milliner’s where she worked. He promised to pick her up at eight.
    Investigation or no investigation, he would have to eat anyway, and besides, so far his only productive ideas – confronting Röderer and discussing the latter’s case with Rubinstein – had come to him unexpected and unbidden. Maybe some champagne and associated enjoyments with a pretty girl would place his mind in a receptive state for new inspiration.
    Since at the present he had no ideas on further pursuing his search for the truth, and since he did not want any rumors to start at the barracks, von Falkenburg spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with his military duties.
    Before long, night had fallen. He caught a cab on the Ring and headed out to Sievering, where Lisa lived.
    Lisa looked pretty enough when he picked her up, although her too-flashy “best dress” diminished, rather than augmented, her looks. Annie, who had a natural sense of style, always managed to look good even though she had no money and would not ever accept any from him. But all that was long ago.
    “How do you like my dress?” Lisa asked.
    “Exquisite. It becomes you perfectly.”
    “Do you really think so? You know, it isn’t easy for a girl to look nice, what with material costing what it does today. Would you believe how much they charge for a meter of satin, and not top-quality satin, either…?”
    She was clearly a chatterbox, and without much of interest to chatter about, von Falkenburg realized ruefully. Instead of helping take his mind off his troubles Lisa was just an added irritation.
    Well, it was too late to do anything about that now, and it was his duty to show her a good time. When the waiter led them into the
chambre séparée,
or private