The Werewolf of Mariahilf am Inn I.11
A Gothic Horror Novel
Book 1, Chapter 11: Dispossessed
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It was early June 1867. The heat of the morning combined with the warm dampness along his right thigh awakened Hermann. He thought it was perspiration until he drew the bedcovers aside and saw that Henrietta had wet the bed. He sighed. “Oh, my love”
It had been nearly a month and a half since the traumatic events of Holy Saturday, and his wife had never recovered from the shock. She swallowed porridges and soups and drank water in an automatic fashion. But no light shone in her vacant eyes.
The American mentalist, Marty, warned Hermann that it was unlikely she would ever awaken from this state of suspended animation. He had endeavored to read her thoughts. “But I’m shut out,” he lamented.
Hermann went to the cord at the door of the master bedroom and summoned Imogene’s granddaughter, Evangeline. Then he went into the lavatory to remove the damp nightshirt and clean himself. He heard Evangeline enter. He explained in a raised voice what had happened.
The maid set about attending to the sheets. To prevent Evangeline from seeing his nakedness, Hermann clutched a towel around his waist and walked behind the coromandel dressing screen with its Chinese painting of a palace intrigue that continued along the nine rosewood panels. Behind the screen was a chest-of-drawers containing his undergarments.
Imogene spoke to him. “Le Contremaître Maximilian would like to speak with you, Monsieur.”
When Hermann was dressed he went down into the valley where he found Maximilian, the factory foreman, in the large central building where the iron rims were bent and fashioned. Maximilian always carried two fob watches in case one stopped or was not wound up. He smiled sadly when he saw Hermann, an invoice in his hand.
“Could we speak in my office?” he asked.
“Of course.”
The door with the frosted window was shut. Maximilian threw the invoice on the desk and said, “I’ve tried to do as much as I could to keep things running since Berthold’s death, but I’ve got to be candid with you, Herr Tischler, things are not looking good.”
“If you need help, I’m ready to work. I wouldn’t mind being more engaged in the business. I need to focus on things I can control.”
“What I need you to do, Herr Tischler, is go to Oskar.”
“Why?”
“Let me start at the beginning. Do you know about the Kasten family?”
“Yes. They run our two exhibition houses in town.”
“Not anymore. The whole family has departed Cronenberg and returned to Silesia. And they absconded with the strongboxes.”
“What?”
“They left the inventory in place. So I’ve sealed the buildings and hired detectives to guard them.”
“Why would the Kastens do that? I stood as groomsman at their son’s wedding.”
“Herr Tischler, that’s only the beginning. Someone broke into the toolshed behind the blast furnace last night and stole hundreds of Vereinsthalers’ worth of equipment. . . I’ve had to pay the men half-wages for the last two weeks because the safe’s almost empty and Oskar won’t release funds from the bank.”
“Then use my name.”
“If it were that easy, I would’ve done that. You need to sort this out with Oskar. Have you even looked at the will?”
“I don’t understand that stuff.” He put his fists on his forehead. “Henrietta manages our accounts and papers.”
“Managed, you mean.”
“Maximilian, please. Don’t.”
“You need to consult Oskar, since he was Berthold’s solicitor. He’ll be able to explain what’s going on. He may even have a solution.”
A thought came to Hermann. Imogene hasn’t asked for money. And she and her relatives are executing their responsibilities even more efficiently now than they did before Berthold’s passing. I need to find out how the Alsatians are getting paid while the business is falling apart.
Oskar lived in a three-story townhouse with a small turret projecting from the corner of the block.
A Hungarian man with a pointy beard answered the door. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I didn’t know I needed one,” Hermann said.
“Now you do. Goodbye.”
Marty’s voice carried from inside. “Let him in, Gazsi.”
Hermann stepped inside. Marty was in the library by the entry hall. He was attempting to hold a half full wine glass between his thumb and index finger with his mutilated right hand.
“What are you doing?” Hermann asked.
“I’m trying to figure out how to grip a wine glass genteel-like mit meinem bum hand.” Marty spoke German in a highly idiosyncratic fashion with scant regard to the rules of gender, case, or declension. He had evidently learned the language from his mother (Oskar’s niece) but had never had any formal instruction in it; and peppered his talk with English phrases and American jingoisms that Hermann sometimes had difficulty following.
“Is that Herr Tischler?” Oskar called from the second floor.
“Yes, Uncle.”
“Send him up.”
Marty focused again on his two-digit act of legerdemain, but there was something apprehensive in his face as Hermann glimpsed it in the wine glass’s reflection.
Gazsi gestured for Hermann to follow him up the narrow staircase.
The bright study was belted round by a floor-to-ceiling circumvallation of legal tracts bound in buckram. The solicitor did not sit down (as he had asked Hermann to do) but stood at the window gazing pensively down at the street, hands clasped behind his back. He commenced his soliloquy in a droll voice that carried with it an undercurrent of exhaustion and irritability.
“Berthold was my friend. What happened to him was an unspeakable tragedy. But now that you are recovered it is imperative that I communicate to you the way the situation stands. I will not mince words. At the beginning of the year your father-in-law intimated to me that he was concerned you were going mad. I make no judgment on the matter.
“To guarantee his grandchildren’s security and future, your name was removed from the will. His accounts, investments and property, including the factory and warehouses in town, were to be given, devised, and bequeathed to Ursula as primary beneficiary with Henrietta as secondary. Your son Frank was tertiary with Charlotte registered as quaternary, should Frank predecease her.”
“Then it all goes to Henrietta,” Hermann remarked. “But as her husband, I need to be able to access funds and make decisions on her behalf.”
Oskar shook his head. “Neither you nor your daughter, Erika, were mentioned by name in the will. And since the baby perished in the catastrophe (may God have mercy on her soul), the absence of her name is immaterial. But the absence of yours is a complication. . .”
Hermann fidgeted in the chair. “My children’s bodies were never recovered.”
“But their death certificates have been drawn up and authenticated. . . The wording of the will states explicitly that Henrietta shall be declared heiress so long as she is of sound mind. Her cousin, Colonel Ludwig Landecker, has lodged a contestation, alleging that, since Henrietta is no longer of sound mind, he—as only surviving blood relative—is rightful heir to the estate. The courts in Berlin and Cologne have sided with him.”
Hermann cocked his head to one side. “I don’t understand what this means.” But as he said this, he sensed a grave hardship on the horizon.
“By the end of the month, you and Henrietta must vacate the premises. ”
“That’s impossible. Henrietta can’t leave in her condition. Ludwig wouldn’t throw his cousin out of doors. He doesn’t care for me; I realize that. But my wife is a victim. . . I’ll keep my distance if he wants. I’ll live in the valley. I can sleep in one of the outbuildings, like my father and I did when we first came here.”
“Hermann, you do not grasp the enormity of the matter. Ludwig has already transferred ownership of the Landecker Werke to the Prussian government. This happened three weeks ago. It’s being fitted out as a munitions factory. I’m sorry, but you are forbidden from setting up residence in the valley, since it is now Crown property.”
“There are men still working there! They’re expecting back pay!”
“They can expect all they want. They won’t get it. I told that fool, Maximilian, that I cannot authorize a disbursement from Berthold’s personal accounts until the probationary court has settled the estate. All of the production currently taking place should be put on hold pending this settlement.”
“Oskar, you can help us. You were Berthold’s friend. You know he would never have wanted this.”
“If you wish to challenge Ludwig’s claim you will need to find a disinterested solicitor. Or you can take it up with the Colonel himself. He arrives in ten days to lay claim to his inheritance. His family will remain in Berlin through the winter. He will be accompanied by a delegation of notaries and military men whose job it will be to ensure no pilferage takes place when you and Henrietta are obliged to leave.”
“Pilferage? I’m not a thief.”
“You misinterpret my words.”
“Why did you wait so long to share this with me? I had a right to know.”
“Strictly speaking, you have no right in the matter since you are not a party to it.” Oskar lifted the lid of the cigar box on the blotter and removed a Havana. “Before the town council elected a justice of the peace, Cronenberg had a state-appointed magistrate from Cologne. He was a hard-hearted man. He’s still alive and has become something of a tyrant in Dortmund. If he were here now, your continued occupancy of the mansion would constitute a trespass. . . Perhaps, when Colonel Landecker arrives he will be so moved by Henrietta’s condition so as to allow you both to remain. I really can’t say.”
Hermann rose from the chair and left the study. When he reached the bottom of the steps, Gazsi was holding the door open for him. Marty Fitzsimmons was no longer in the library.
Hermann wondered how much of what had just taken place the mentalist had known about before. Marty had admitted that there were limits to his capabilities. It was difficult for Hermann to conceive of the American withholding something so serious from him if he had known, since the man seemed to have an almost overweening fondness for Hermann.
When Hermann was outside, he saw the third of Imogene’s relatives, her younger cousin Jacqueline, knock at the solicitor’s door. Jacqueline was the gruffest and most elusive of the Alsatian trinity. She was charged with keeping the mansion stocked and provisioned. The Hungarian butler ushered her inside. She looked nervously over her shoulder before crossing the threshold. She did not see Hermann. The mystery of how Oskar had appeared to know so much about the current goings on in the house, and why the maids were getting paid but the factory workers were not, was solved.
Immediately upon his return, Hermann told Maximilian what had transpired during the interview with Oskar. The foreman’s face turned beet red. He fulminated and cursed and disappeared into the office, reappearing with sacks of coins in his fists. He climbed the foreman’s platform and rang the bell on the pole, summoning everyone into the main building. The machines stopped but the fires in the furnaces continued to burn. When the men in the outbuildings and surrounding yards had been gathered together and a roll call had been completed, Maximilian addressed them.
“Boys, the factory is closed. All I have to give you fine men for the work you’ve done is the cash I hold in hand. I’ll divvy it up as best I can. You need to know that Herr Tischler is not to blame in this matter. But I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the valley and not come back because it is now the property of the King of Prussia.”
Even as he spoke, the laborers yelled and hurled instruments into the belts. They insulted the memory of Berthold Landecker. They overturned a lathe and toppled an iron press in frustration. Though they raged, they kept their anger within bounds. When one of the teenagers proposed torching the buildings to make a point, Maximilian warned him that doing so could get him hanged.
The foreman removed one of his fob watches from his jacket and gave it to Old Man Pauli, who was too old to work anywhere else and would be reduced to beggary. When he had disbursed the last pfennig from the safe, he clapped his hands and turned a blind eye to the men who carried off whatever movables they could: scrap metal, iron hoops, sackfuls of screws and bolts, buckets of paint.
The next morning Hermann was awakened by the sound of Evangeline screaming. He raced down the steps and found her standing with Imogene in the tiled pump room looking out the back-door window. Half a dozen men were walking over the cobbles, heading to the steps that led down into the valley. The men had prised open the gate in the cloister wall and passed through the quadrangle between the mansion and Tischler House (which was still boarded up for renovation).
“What’s going on?” Hermann asked.
Evangeline wrung her hands. “I thought they were going to break into the mansion, Monsieur.”
Imogene did not seem concerned. “They are going into the valley to pluck the factory clean.”
So long as Berthold Landecker had been alive, the workers had not dared to cut through the estate grounds. Instead they took a long winding dirt path outside the perimeter wall that led down into the factory valley.
“Hmph!” Jacqueline said from the kitchen. She said in German that she was going into town to do some shopping. Then she and Imogene whispered to each other in French, since Alsatian was too close to German and they didn’t want Hermann to understand what they were saying. When they were done, the two cousins nodded and Jacqueline departed.
Shortly after noon, the sound of horses could be heard on the drive. Hermann was upstairs washing Henrietta’s hair in the lavatory. He sat on a stool with her head in his lap and a basin close by. When he heard the commotion, he dried her hair as best he could and wrapped the towel around her head. He carried her back to the bed and gently laid her down.
From the bedroom window he saw Jacqueline standing at the entrance, waiting for the three visitors to tether their horses to the hitching post. The men scraped mud from their boots on the decrottoir at the base of the steps leading up to the entrance. Hermann recognized the justice of the peace and Marty. But there was a portly young man carrying two rifles and a pistol at his hip whom he did not recognize.
Hermann met the men at the bottom of the steps.
The justice of the peace removed his hat. “I was told the factory is being ransacked.”
“I can’t say whether that’s the case,” Hermann replied. “All I know is that some men forced open the gate in the cloister wall and headed down the steps out back.”
Evangeline interjected. “Robbers have been walking up and down the steps all morning. They are carrying things away from the valley.”
Imogene seemed more concerned with the dirt the men were tracking into the house than the robbers.
“This is my son, Emil. He’ll be staying here with you to make sure order is maintained until Colonel Ludwig arrives.”
Hermann and the three men followed the maids through the dining room and kitchen. They exited through the back door in the pump room. They surprised two men carrying sacks of nails. The men recognized the justice of the peace, saw the rifles, laid the sacks down, raised their hands and ran off. The maids remained inside, but left the back door open so they could hear what was being said.
The Hermann and the three visitors went to the top of the steps.
A man and his son were in the valley carrying the door of a shed. There were other slats of wood stacked on top of it. They were making their way toward the dirt path, apparently having decided it was impractical to carry these items up the steps.
“Less than 200 meters,” the justice of the peace said. His son handed him one of the rifles. He aimed and fired.
The report was so loud that the maids and Marty screamed. The boards fell with a crash as the father clutched the mortal wound at his neck. He collapsed in the grass, kicking twice before he died.
“Papa!” the boy cried.
Emil handed his father the second rifle and the justice of the peace took aim. But as he pulled the trigger, Hermann raised the barrel and the shot whizzed through the treetops.
“You made your point,” Hermann said.
The justice of the peace was unfazed. “Yes, I did.”
The boy ran off into the woods, bawling. Marty staggered back toward the house and leaned on a barrel near the rubbish bins. Hermann saw him weeping.
“Emil,” the lawman said, “leave the body there as an example. It’ll deter the other thieves. But if the dead man’s family come to collect the corpse, let them do it. It’s dishonorable to fire on those tending to the wounded and the dead.”
The justice of the peace licked his lips and squinted at Hermann. “You might think I enjoyed killing that man, but I didn’t. . . I come from working-class stock myself. And I helped draft the founding charter of the German Workers’ Association. But bounds have to be set. If I allow the factory to be pillaged, it sets a precedent.”
When the justice of the peace was satisfied and had gone, Hermann entered the drawing room, where he found Marty alone in a chair, staring at the unlit fireplace.
“Did you know about the circumstances surrounding Berthold’s will?”
“No,” he affirmed. “In my Uncle Oskar’s library there’s a vent in the ceiling. I overheard you two talking. As soon as I learned what had happened, I went down the street and booked lodgings in a hotel. I think I’m going to stay there for the remainder of my time in Europe. I don’t feel much affection for my great-uncle anymore.”
Hermann exhaled. “You’re leaving?”
“I’ve overstayed my welcome here. Besides, my father suffered a stroke last year and it’s made things hard for my mother and siblings in Louisville.”
“God willing, your father will recover.”
“I have a feeling he’s already passed.” Marty glanced at Hermann with those haunting gray eyes. “Sometimes messages come to me across the ether faster than they traverse the Transatlantic Cable.”
When Marty left that day, the enormity of Hermann’s plight began to sink in. He felt surrounded by antagonistic forces. The motivations of the Alsatian maids were inscrutable. The swinish son of the justice of the peace had made himself at home and was sleeping on a military cot at the base of the steps. His snores shook the rafters.
Hermann rose from the bed, and contemplated Henrietta’s face in the pale moonlight. He paced the master bedroom, recalling how his father had labored under similar anxieties during that hard winter before the two of them departed Mariahilf am Inn. I have to channel his strength and courage, not only for my sake but for Henrietta’s.
Colonel Ludwig Landecker arrived on the appointed day shortly before dawn. The clopping of horses’ hooves and the sound of wagons filled the fog-bound drive. He drew away the curtain and saw a military vanguard carrying lanterns. A coach bearing the Hohenzollern crest swept out of the mist and stopped before the mansion’s entrance. Colonel Ludwig Landecker stepped down. He had certainly put on weight in the intervening years. But he moved with a confidence that belied his common Tyrolean origins.
Hermann had laid out on the chest-of-drawers a clean shirt and trousers. He had Imogene iron his waistcoat, which he planned to wear downstairs. He thought it would be important to give an impression of composure and poise, since Ludwig would be dressed in his officer’s uniform. He heard the jackbooted footfalls in the entrance hall and thought it promising that no one summoned him immediately to the Colonel’s presence. In fact, he heard Ludwig apologize to Imogene for showing up so early.
As the rising sun scattered the shadows on the walls, Hermann made his way to the top of the landing. Ludwig was conferring with one of the notaries who held loose papers in his hands. The Colonel looked up and said, “Good to see you, Hermann. When you have a moment, can we talk?”
“Of course,” Hermann replied. But no sooner had he said this than Ludwig gestured to the drawing room, making it clear that he wanted to talk now.
When the door was closed, the Colonel began.
“What happened was dreadful. I can’t imagine what you have been through. If my father had been alive, he would have died of grief the moment he heard that his dear brother had been murdered. You and I were never close, but the two of us have been through a lot together; and you’re the closest thing to a brother I shall ever have. . .
“But we live in stirring times, and I am a man of importance now. Berthold Landecker’s estate is going to be converted into a training academy for artillery officers. And the compound in the valley, as you know, has been donated to His Majesty, King Wilhelm, to be converted into a munitions factory.”
The fact that Ludwig had not asked to see Henrietta caught Hermann off guard. “Do you want to see your cousin?”
“No, I do not. Henrietta needs to be in an asylum.”
Hermann clenched his fists but spoke in an even voice. “Well, that will never happen.”
“Who’s going to take care of her? You? Are you ready to take on that burden alone?”
“It’s not a burden,” Hermann replied, eyes welling with tears. “It’s my privilege and obligation as her husband.”
“I’m afraid, Hermann, that you and Henrietta will have to leave. . .”
“By the end of the month. I know.”
“No. That won’t do.”
The drawing room door opened. “The movers are here,” one of the notaries said.
Hermann banged his fists on the side table. “What?!”
“My men will help you collect your things. But you will not take the items that belong to this estate.”
“We have nowhere to go!”
Ludwig exited the room without another word.
The remainder of the morning was a blur. He rocked back and forth on his heels in despair. He could not comprehend what was happening. The notaries gathered in the bedroom where Henrietta lay under Evangeline’s sad ministrations. They removed her garments from the wardrobe, keeping all of the silks, muslins, and furs. The whalebone corsets were taken away and the brass and ivory buttons were ripped off the dresses. Hermann’s clothes met with a similar treatment. And he was forced to hand over the jacket he was wearing, since it was no longer considered rightfully his.
Ludwig said, however, that one of the beds in the sewing room (the one that Frank had slept in) should be given to the Tischlers, since Hermann needed something to sleep on. It was presumed Henrietta would be bound to a cot or mattress. A small table and three chairs were also graciously given to them. The kit-bag containing Moritz’s straight razor and shaving mirror was checked to ensure there were no jewels or valuables concealed in it. Then it too was handed over to the movers to take outside to the dray carts that had pulled up in front of the mansion.
At one point, the wood panel painting of the Virgin Mother that Moritz had made was brought into the dining room, where Ludwig stood dictating to his adjutant.
“That’s mine!” Hermann snapped.
“It is an item of value,” the notary frowned.
“It’s his,” Ludwig remarked, glancing briefly at the painting. “His father made it.”
Grudgingly, the notary permitted the movers to haul it off as well.
Hermann was so overwhelmed by what was happening that he did not know at what point Marty Fitzsimmons appeared on the scene. He heard Evangeline screaming in the master bedroom, and sprinted up the staircase without a second thought.
Four men had pulled the corners of the mattress sheet up and were about to carry Henrietta out of the room. Hermann punched one of the men and back-kicked another. They backed away, as Hermann lifted his wife from the sheets and carried her in his arms from the master bedroom.
Marty saw him from the front door, shook his head in disbelief, and stepped back outside. Flushed and panting, Hermann reached the bottom of the staircase, where Ludwig stood with his bodyguards on either side of him.
“I suppose. . .” Hermann said, then he choked up, because he felt himself breaking down. “I suppose I should thank you for the courtesy of providing us with movers and wagons to take us away.”
“That wasn’t me,” Ludwig said, and walked away.
Hermann looked outside where he saw Marty climb onto the bench next to the driver of the lead wagon. Hermann carried Henrietta to the back of it and laid her on the cushions of the dismantled bed. Then he jumped up into the back and crouched down next to her, looking over his shoulder at the Colonel standing at the entrance of the Landecker estate as it receded from view.
Hours later, in the clean unfurnished apartment above the bakery in Cronenberg’s Old Town Square, Hermann sat across from Henrietta, who had been placed in a wooden chair in the corner. A rope was bound around her torso so she wouldn’t fall. Her head rested on a pillow propped against the papered wall. Marty stood at Hermann’s shoulder. The movers were finishing up. The bed had just been reassembled.
“I can’t afford this place,” Hermann said.
“Your rent is covered until next spring. And I left you a quantity of money on the table to cover your expenses until you can find a job.”
Hermann looked at him bitterly. “I can’t accept charity from a stranger.”
“Then accept it as a gift from a friend.”
Hermann collapsed against Marty’s waist and the American lifted him up to demonstrate there was no subordination between them. Hermann drew away and went to the painting of the Holy Mother, which leaned against a pile of crates.
“You would do me honor if you accepted this from me.”
Marty nodded and handed it to the last of the movers who carried it out of the room.
“I’m departing for America tomorrow. Will you walk with me downstairs?”
Hermann nodded. The two of them left the room, descending the steps beside the bakery.
Hermann believed the spirit of the Mother of Mercy was working through this strange American, because he felt again that calming influence that the man had seemed to exude on Palm Sunday when he had again felt so lost and forlorn.
When they were outside, Marty said, “Let’s shake hands.”
Hermann extended his right hand, but Marty smiled because he only had his index finger and thumb on that one. “I’d like to use my left hand,” he said, removing his glove. “It’s actually where the brunt of my gift lies.”
Hermann gripped his friend’s left hand and looked one last time into those gray eyes that now seemed perfused with a beatific light.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Marty said. “You never could have imagined you would be standing at this point in time, bereft of all you once held dear. But you must fight it, and never lose hope. . .” (Hermann recognized the words his father had said to him the night of the séance.) “Besides, you haven’t lost everything. Your sweet Henrietta is still with you. What was it she said to you when I found you downcast and aggrieved behind the church on Palm Sunday?”
Hermann lowered his eyes. “The Devil triumphs when a good man is brought to despair.”
“Well, you’re a good man, Hermann Tischler of Mariahilf am Inn. And I consider it an honor to have made your acquaintance. And perhaps our paths will cross again, if not here then in the Hereafter, by the will of Almighty God.”
With his right index finger, Marty touched the brim of his hat. Then he crossed to the movers on the other side of the square, climbed up into the lead wagon, and within moments they were gone.
When Hermann returned to the apartment, he saw the kit-bag containing Moritz’s straight razor and shaving mirror resting on the table. He opened it and removed these items. But something else was inside. A tear rolled down Hermann’s cheek as he removed the wooden memento mori that his father had made.
You know you’re invested in a great story as the events overwhelm the main character, who has already suffered so much, you can feel your own outrage and anger swelling at the sheer cruelty of it all. This is a wonderfully told tale, Daniel and I always look forward to the next chapter 👍🏼
Such intrigue! Another great episode! I’m always impressed by your consistent quality