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remind you that you are a human. That, like it or not, you belong to human society and that there are certain codes of behavior. You speak of Herr Doktor Reininger’s incivility as if you are a foreigner to such behavior yourself.’
    Gross slapped a meaty hand down on the table top. ‘That is the Advokat Werthen I know and respect. Bravo for a stirring oration. Your apology is accepted.’
    Werthen was about to further complain, but finally gave it up with a disappointed shake of the head.
    ‘I am going to send a telegram to Munich this very instant. I want to know the whereabouts of our dear friend, Reininger.’ He rose abruptly. ‘Meanwhile, you gentlemen should finish your breakfast. We leave once I return from the telegraph office.’
    Gross stuck the unfinished
kipferl
in his jacket pocket, swilled down the remainder of the coffee, and stomped out of the dining room like a man well shed of bad company.
    ‘Is he always like that?’ Stoker asked, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
    ‘No,’ Werthen assured him. ‘Sometimes he’s worse.’
    They had booked a closed fiaker for nine thirty. It was now a quarter to ten and still no Gross. Werthen and Stoker sat in the carriage, each poring over the morning papers.
    The vampire angle still prevailed in several editions, while the right-wing press opted for Jewish ritual murders. However, some enterprising reporter had spoken with Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vienna and author of
Psychopathia Sexualis,
the premier handbook on sexual deviation. Werthen knew the man well, as Krafft-Ebing had assisted them on more than one of their cases, helping to build a profile of the possible perpetrator from the very nature and specifics of the crime. In the current case of these Styrian murders, Krafft-Ebing opined – as quoted in Vienna’s foremost daily,
Die Presse
– that the perpetrator of these horrendous crimes displayed symptoms of ‘inversion’. The report went on, quoting the eminent psychiatrist: ‘Such brutal killings indicate that the killer, most probably a male, has a deep-seated neurosis, sexual in nature. However, the release of such a neurosis is apparently asexual. This means that the killer is able to keep his deviancy under control, to hide it from the world. Outwardly, he may appear the most mild-mannered of men. The police have their work cut out for them in this case
.
’
    Krafft-Ebing went on to note that often such individuals displayed an early proclivity to sadistic brutality toward domestic and farm animals, including mutilations, offering further quotes from
Psychopathia Sexualis
to prove his point.
    This reminded Werthen very strongly of the advice Krafft-Ebing had served up in the first case he and Gross had worked on together, a series of murders in the Vienna Prater for which the painter Gustav Klimt was so wrongfully accused.
    And one more thought: how had Krafft-Ebing gotten details of the killings? The local police had attempted to keep details of the mutilations from the press. But it was apparent that Krafft-Ebing knew something of the specifics of these hideous crimes.
    His thoughts were interrupted by Gross’s arrival. The criminalist threw the carriage door open in an apparent huff and got in, making the fiaker rock back and forth as he took his seat.
    ‘So much for Reininger,’ he said, gripping his hands together on his lap.
    Werthen feigned disinterest, staring blankly into his newspaper.
    Gross sighed dramatically. ‘I was able to make a trunk call to Munich at the railway station.’
    Still no response from Werthen or Stoker.
    ‘Well, don’t you want to know what I learned?’
    Werthen finally put down his newspaper. ‘I am sure you will inform us.’
    ‘Herr Doktor Reininger, despite his incivility, is not among the suspects. He died last year. Silly man, fell off an alp. What is a forensic scientist doing traipsing about in the mountains?’
    The fiaker took off with a jerk,