The Devil's Lieutenant [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEOn the afternoon of November 17, the last day of his life. Captain Richard Mader left his office at the Ministry of War an hour earlier than usual. Anna Gabriel had promised to be at his flat at six, and he needed time to change and relax before she came. There lurked a hint of anxiety under his pleasure at seeing Anna again. Several times during the day he had been tempted to send a porter with a message to Anna, then was afraid the letter might fall into her husband's hands.As a rule, Richard Mader was even-tempered and in full command of his emotions. Women liked him because he was thoughtful and handsome and men, because they could trust him. As a soldier, he possessed the kind of quiet courage that under certain circumstances might prove a man a hero, but never a swashbuckler. Throughout his life he had known very little pain, mental or physical, and enjoyed a fair amount of success. To be a captain in the Kaiserliche und Königlichethe Imperial and Royal^Austro-Hungarian Army and assigned to the General Staff Corps at the age of thirty was quite a remarkable accomplishment for the son of an obscure Viennese bureaucrat.Fate had spared him the disappointments and dilemmas that often take the steel out of the best of men. His sex life was satisfactory and uncomplicated. Over the years he had been in and out of love with nice girls, married women, minor actresses, and onceonly once at sixteen, with a prostitute. He gave his feelings the romantic definition of love, although they were nothing more than a young man's lust, curiosity orat best infatuation. With the nice girls he held hands, took long