Sonnenfelsgasse 39
Vienna
At the Same Time
Adel Schiller thought at first that she had left her television on, the new color model that had replaced the old black-and-white stolen last year. She had been watching an American film when she had dozed off. Sometime later she had woken up, seen the movie was over, and gone to bed.
Then something had awakened her again.
The TV?
Slipping blue-veined feet into the furry slippers her grandchildren had given her this past Christmas, she pushed the covers aside. A longhaired dachshund hopped to the floor from the foot of the bed. Ignoring Fritzie's growl of displeasure at being disturbed, she stepped into the small living room. No, the television was off. Something else had awakened her.
With a clatter of hardware she undid the three chain locks and single dead bolt on her door and peered into the hall through the narrowest of cracks. She wasn't nosy, of course, didn't really care what her neighbors did, but after being robbed it simply made sense to know what was going on around her. That was why she peeped out into the hall every time she heard the door downstairs open, just for her own safety.
Oh, she had learned that Frau Grafner on the floor above had occasional visitors, all-night visitors, when Herr Grafner was out of town. That might have been the reason for the horrible fight she had heard right from this same doorway. And then there was that nice young man, Manfred Kellner, the one who always spoke to her. At least, she had thought he was a nice young man until she had stood at this very door and seen him kiss another young man leaving his apartment one morning!
But neither the Grafners nor Kellner had her interest at the moment. Instead, two men she had never seen before were standing in front of Herr Dr. Shaffer's door, using a key to get in. Dr. Shaffer never had guests. Oh, his Kinder paid infrequent visits on Sundays, but he never had night visitors. And even if he did, why didn't he let them in himself? She knew he was home, had seen him enter at an hour later than usual.
One of the men in the hall started to turn around, and she gently shut the door, puzzled. Where was Dr. Shaffer?
From Fritzie's low growl, he must be wondering, too.