The Second Ring

Vienna, Josefstadt.

September 2026, 12:47 A.M.

Eva Winter had left the wardrobe until last. It was too heavy to carry out of the bedroom alone and too ugly to ask anyone to take it. In the six weeks since her mother’s death, she had been clearing out the apartment. Books, dishes, clothes, two rugs, and the piano no one had played in years had been sold, given away, or packed into boxes. Only the wardrobe remained against the same wall where it had stood in Eva’s childhood, concealing a strip of wallpaper probably no one had seen in decades.

The apartment was to be handed over the following morning. The man from the property management company had suggested an early appointment because he had to visit a construction site afterward, and Eva had agreed without thinking about how much time she might still need on her last night. She had planned to finish by two at the latest. Now the wardrobe doors lay on a blanket, its two side panels leaned against the wall in the entryway, and she still had the back panel to deal with.

When she finally worked it loose, yellowed wallpaper patterned with small dark leaves appeared behind it. Along the bottom ran a wide baseboard whose paint had turned almost the same color as the floor. In one place it stood a few millimeters away from the wall. Eva knelt, slipped the tip of her screwdriver into the gap, and expected resistance. Instead, the wood moved at once.

She carefully pulled the section free. Instead of solid wall behind it, there was a shallow rectangular recess in the plaster. Inside sat a bundle of papers tied with a faded ribbon and, beside it, a narrow envelope. A plain gold ring lay on the envelope.

Eva sat on the floor and picked it up. It was narrow, smooth, and had no stone. She found no engraving inside either, only a tiny irregularity near the rim, as though someone had failed to smooth the edge completely while polishing it. She set it beside her and opened the envelope.

The invoice inside came from a Viennese goldsmith. The date was May 1907. The printed lettering was still legible, the two handwritten lines beneath it less so. Eva held the sheet closer to the bare ceiling light and finally made out the words that mattered: two rings, identical design. She looked at the single ring beside her knee before reaching for the bundle of letters.

The top one began with neither a surname nor a polite form of address. Above the first sentence was simply: My Berta. Eva read the lines that followed, in which a woman named Helene wrote that she would be home late that evening and asked Berta to leave the kitchen light burning. After that came something about Ludwig, who had asked for money again. On the second page, a sentence began with a longing for two days together somewhere outside Vienna.

Eva unfolded no more of the letter. The apartment was empty, yet she looked toward the open bedroom door as though someone behind her might have noticed what she was reading. Then she picked up the next letter.

May 1907, after midnight

Berta Halm waited in the kitchen until the building fell quiet. A quarter of an hour earlier, the maid from the third-floor apartment above her had used the back staircase; after that Berta heard only an occasional creak from the pipes and the wheels of a carriage on the street outside. She had wiped the table and put the dishes away long ago, but she stayed in the kitchen because Helene had said she was going out again.

When the door finally opened, Helene came in without a light. She closed it behind her and stood for a moment with her back against the wood. Beneath her dark coat she wore the same blouse she had worn two hours earlier, when Berta served her dinner in the dining room. In there, they had addressed each other formally. Berta had set the plate before her and asked whether madam wished for anything else. Helene had said no and looked at her no differently than on any other evening when someone in the building might have been listening.

“You’re late,” Berta said now. Helene took off her gloves and said she knew. When Berta asked whether anyone had seen her on the stairs, Helene looked at her in surprise. “I live here.” Berta picked up the cloth still lying on the work surface and folded it, though there was nothing left to dry. “That protects you from a great deal. Not everything.”

Helene did not answer. Instead, she took a small parcel from her coat pocket and set it on the table. Berta could not see what was inside, but its size was enough to make her take her hands off the cloth. “No,” she said. Helene looked up at her. “You don’t even know what I bought.” Berta stayed on the other side of the table. “Then tell me I’m wrong.”

Helene pulled out a chair and sat down. “I had two made.” The paper rustled as she untied the string. Inside lay two narrow gold rings. They were smooth, with no engraving, no stones, nothing to tell them apart.

Berta looked at them for a long time without taking either one. “What am I supposed to do with it?” Helene slid the paper a little closer to her. “You know what.” Berta shook her head. Her hands were red from hot water; she had a small cut on one finger from the knife she had used to prepare vegetables that afternoon. “I can’t wear something like that. Mrs. Schenk would see it on the stairs, or someone at the market. An unmarried cook wearing a wedding ring has some explaining to do.”

Helene picked up one of the rings. “Then wear it only here.” Berta glanced at the window. The curtains were open; beyond them lay only the dark courtyard and the backs of the buildings opposite. All the same, she went over and drew the fabric together. When she turned back, Helene was standing beside the table, holding the ring out to her.

“Ludwig comes without warning,” Berta said. “He notices things that are none of his business.” Helene did not smile when she replied that her nephew mainly noticed things he believed would belong to him someday. Berta stopped in front of her. “That doesn’t sound reassuring.” Helene took her left hand and waited until Berta stopped trying to pull it away. The ring fit on the first try. Berta raised her hand a little and looked at the gold. Helene must have known her size without their ever discussing it.

“And yours?” Helene slipped on the second ring. For several seconds they simply stood facing each other. No light from outside came through the closed curtains; a single lamp burned in the kitchen. Berta put a hand on the back of Helene’s neck and kissed her. Helene stroked Berta’s wrist with her thumb before they drew apart. Berta left her hand against Helene’s neck a moment longer, lowering it only when she looked down at the rings again.

“If you mean this, a ring isn’t enough,” Berta said. Helene nodded, but when Berta asked whether she had spoken to the notary again, she shook her head. Berta looked up at once. Helene took a folded sheet from her pocket. “I don’t need a notary for this. I wrote it myself.” She did not hand her the paper. Berta could see only the upper part, Helene’s full name, and several closely written lines.

Berta asked what it said. “What we discussed,” Helene replied. When Berta mentioned the building, she nodded. Berta sat in the chair Helene had pulled out. “Then you’ll burn it again tomorrow.” Helene laid the sheet on the table in front of her and kept her hand on it. “No. Ludwig gets enough.” Berta was about to say that wasn’t the point, but Helene spoke first. “For him it is.”

Berta looked at the closed kitchen door. “And what am I supposed to do with a building if it makes everyone ask why you’ve left it to me?” Helene kept her hand on the paper. “You should be able to live here when I no longer can. That’s all I’m asking.” Berta studied her fingers on the sheet. “That’s quite a lot.” When Helene asked of whom, she did not answer.

Later they went into the bedroom together. Helene pulled the heavy wardrobe a little way from the wall while Berta held the lamp. Behind a wide baseboard was a shallow recess Helene apparently already knew about. She put the handwritten sheet inside, along with some older letters, and finally her ring, wrapped in a piece of paper.

“You should at least tell someone else where it is,” Berta said. Helene put the baseboard back. “I’ve told you.” Berta raised the lamp a little higher. “That won’t do me much good if I die with you.” The sentence hung between them. Berta wanted to take it back, but Helene had already turned toward her. She did not look hurt, only surprised that Berta had said something they both usually avoided.

“You know where it is now,” Helene said. Berta set the lamp on the nightstand and nodded. Before going to bed, she removed her own ring and slipped it into the little cloth pouch she wore beneath her dress. The next morning she put it back on as soon as the apartment door had closed behind the last visitor.

August 1921, 1:18 A.M.

Anton Sailer read the draft for the fourth time and still found the sentence wrong. Three files, two crime-scene photographs, and the papers for a police notice lay on his desk. The window was open. Warm night air rose from the street; an engine was running somewhere outside the building, its steady hum mingling with the rustle of papers whenever Sailer turned a page.

The case was headed Robbery-Murder. Beneath it were the names of the dead: Helene Winter and Berta Halm. Sailer had never seen the women. Another officer had conducted the initial inquiries when they were stabbed to death in an apartment in Josefstadt in November 1919. Sailer knew only what was left of that work: statements, inventories, handwritten additions, and two photographs showing part of the dining room and the edge of the bedroom.

He drew the inventory of items found at the scene toward him. The apartment had not been thoroughly ransacked. Silver cutlery remained, as did cash in the desk. Several pieces of jewelry that relatives could identify as belonging to the building’s owner had also been left behind. A single gold ring was listed as missing.

Sailer turned to the nephew’s first statement. On the morning after the murders, Ludwig Winter had said Berta Halm had worn such a ring. It had been plain, without a stone or any distinctive ornament. Presumably the killer had taken it. Later, that supposition had become almost a fact in the files.

Sailer rolled the pencil between his fingers and found a neighbor’s statement. The woman recalled occasionally seeing Berta Halm wearing a ring. Not while shopping or in the street, but inside the building, once late at night on the back staircase. She herself had added that she was not certain. An unmarried cook wearing a wedding ring would have given people something to talk about; that was precisely why she thought she remembered it. No one had asked why Berta might have worn the ring only inside the building.

Sailer picked up the inheritance papers. After Helene Winter’s death, the building had passed to her nephew. No will had been found. He leaned back and took off his glasses. He used to believe that a case file would improve if he spent long enough studying it. By now he knew files merely grew older. Witnesses forgot, people died, apartments were cleared out, and eventually a phrase survived only because no one remembered who had first used it.

He put his glasses back on and looked at the draft. The ring had already become loot, no longer an object about which someone wanted information, but the motive. Even so, Sailer did not cross out Robbery-Murder. He had no more evidence for a different description than for the one already there. Instead, he wrote in the margin: Source of this information?

Then he returned to Ludwig Winter’s interview. The nephew had stated that he had called briefly on his aunt the evening before. He had needed money, Helene had refused, and he had left after a quarter of an hour. The porter had not seen him. A woman on the second floor thought she had heard footsteps on the main staircase around eleven. A servant from a neighboring building had later seen a man leave through the street door but could not describe him. None of it was enough.

In the crime-scene photograph, a chair stood at an angle beside the table. A dark patch was visible on the wall. Neither woman appeared in the picture. Sailer put the photograph back and read the list of supposedly stolen items again. Then he wrote a second question beneath the first: Why only this ring? He left the pencil on the file. In the morning the police notice went forward all the same.

September 2026, 2:26 A.M.

Eva had counted twenty-six letters. Some consisted of only a few lines in which Helene announced she would be late, asked Berta to run an errand, or wrote that Ludwig had been in the building again. Others ran to several pages. In one, Helene described the two weeks Berta had spent with her sister and how unbearably quiet the apartment had been while she was away.

The further Eva read, the slower she went. The letters had not been written as anything that would one day be published or explained. That was precisely why the two women emerged more clearly from them than from the few old photographs her mother had kept. Helene complained about Berta’s habit of leaving unfinished books face down on the furniture. Berta wrote that Helene should stop smoking in the bedroom at night. Between such remarks came plans for summer weeks outside Vienna and repeated warnings about Ludwig.

Eva had put the will aside at first. Now she picked it up again. The handwriting was denser than in the letters, but the crucial sentence was legible: Helene Winter named Berta Halm as her heir. Eva remained sitting with the paper on her knees. Her family had told a different story. Aunt Helene and her housekeeper had been murdered during a robbery after the war; because Helene had no children, the building had passed to her nephew Ludwig. That was how Eva’s mother had told it, not as a secret but as one of those old tragedies that grew shorter with every decade.

Eva picked up her phone. The first searches produced nothing. Only when she used both names, Vienna, and the year 1919 did a digitized police journal appear. The page had been scanned at an angle; some letters were barely recognizable. Eva enlarged the text until it almost filled the screen. It concerned the double murder, a police notice, and a plain gold ring that appeared to have been the only thing stolen.

Eva looked at the ring from the recess. Then she read the heir’s name: Ludwig Winter. She knew it not from the letters but from a photograph that had stood in her mother’s study for years. Someone had written on the back: Great-Grandfather Ludwig, 1932.

Three boxes still waited in the living room. One was marked MOM — PERSONAL. Eva had not opened it because she had told herself she would have more peace and quiet for it later. Now she cut through the tape. Beneath photo albums and letters from the eighties lay her mother’s dark jewelry box. Eva had known it since childhood. Her mother had rarely worn jewelry, yet the box had always stayed in the bedroom.

Eva opened the lid. Beside pearl earrings and a brooch lay her grandmother’s wedding ring. Behind them, in a small separate compartment, was a second plain gold ring. Eva took it out and returned to the bedroom. Only there did she set it beside the ring from the wall.

They were the same width, with the same rounded profile. There was no visible difference in color either. Eva turned the second ring over and found the same small irregularity near the inner edge that she had noticed on the first. She picked up the invoice from 1907 and reread the two lines about the rings of identical design.

A few minutes later, among her mother’s remaining papers, she found a photocopy of the very police-journal page she had just opened online. The sheet was old enough for its edges to have yellowed. Ludwig Winter’s name was underlined in ballpoint pen. Beside it was a single word in her mother’s handwriting: Why? Eva sat back down on the floor. So it was not true that her mother had known nothing. She had simply stopped asking.

November 1919, 11:34 P.M.

Ludwig Winter took his time in the entryway before removing his gloves and laying them on the chest of drawers. Helene noticed, as did Berta, but said nothing at first. He waited several seconds for one of them to invite him in; when neither did, he went into the dining room himself and put his hat on a chair.

“I only need ten minutes,” he said. Helene followed him while Berta stayed in the doorway. “Yesterday it was five hundred crowns.” Ludwig glanced at her. “I haven’t come for money.” Helene kept her eyes on him. “You said that yesterday too.”

Ludwig looked at Berta. “This is a family matter.” Berta held his gaze and said he should speak to his aunt, then. He turned back to Helene. His clothes were neat, but the edge of his right coat sleeve was worn. Since his return he had asked for money several times: for a share in a business venture, for a debt that was supposedly only temporary. At first Helene had given him some, then less and less, and finally nothing at all.

“You said you were thinking about it,” Ludwig said. Helene went to the window and replied that she had. He waited while she drew the curtain aside a little and looked out. A streetcar passed along the next main street. Its muffled rattle came between the buildings and faded again. Helene let go of the fabric. “Berta is to have the building.”

Ludwig did not react at once. His face barely changed; only his gaze rested on Helene longer, as though he had not understood which part of the sentence she meant. He asked whether she meant the whole building. Helene said yes. “And what’s left for me?” She looked at him. “What belongs to you.” Ludwig looked down at the worn edge of his coat sleeve. “Nothing belongs to me.” She did not answer.

Ludwig looked at Berta. “My father helped buy this building.” Helene explained that his father had lent her money and she had repaid it. Ludwig did not let her finish. “And now you’re giving it to her.” He said the last word more softly than the rest. Berta took a step into the room and told him to go home.

Ludwig ignored her. “Where’s the will?” Helene was still by the window. “Not in your hands.” He looked straight at her now and asked whether she had written it, then. When Helene nodded, he took a step toward her. “You know what will happen if this gets out.” Helene did not move. “What exactly is going to get out?” For the first time, Ludwig said nothing.

Berta went to the door and opened it. “You should leave now.” As Ludwig turned toward her, his eyes fell on her left hand. The ring was visible. Berta noticed and immediately drew her fingers against her skirt, but he had already seen it. “What is that?” Neither she nor Helene answered.

Ludwig looked back at his aunt. She was not wearing a ring. Even so, something seemed to surface in his memory; his eyes moved back and forth between the women. “You’re both mad.” Berta held the door open and repeated that he should leave. He hit her.

The blow was not hard enough to knock her down, but Berta struck the doorframe. Helene was beside Ludwig at once, catching his arm. He wrenched himself free and shoved her back. When Berta came toward him again, the small table by the sideboard stood between them, with the knife she had used to cut bread that evening still lying on it.

Later, Ludwig could no longer say when he had reached for it. Berta stood close to him, one hand on the frame. Then she suddenly bent forward. Ludwig felt the blade meet resistance and pulled his arm back. Berta slowly sat down on the floor, as though she were merely looking for somewhere to rest.

Helene screamed his name. Instead of running for the apartment door, she went to Berta. When Ludwig tried to pull her away, Helene struck at him. He shoved her back, caught the fabric of her dress, and lost his balance for a moment. Afterward he remembered separate movements: Helene’s hand against his face, the table sliding into the wall, her breath as she tried to say something. The knife was still in his hand.

When everything fell quiet, Ludwig stood in the middle of the room. Berta lay near the door. Helene had collapsed onto her side a few steps away. Ludwig heard the clock in the next room. He went to the window and closed it. Then he washed his hands in the small washroom and inspected his cuff. Blood had soaked into one spot on the fabric.

He searched for the will, first in the desk, then in the chest of drawers and among the books. In the bedroom he pulled out two drawers but put them back. A thoroughly ransacked room would look different from an apartment where an argument had gotten out of hand. He did not find the paper.

When he returned to the dining room, his eyes fell on Berta’s hand. The ring was still on her finger. Ludwig crouched. The gold was difficult to pull off; the finger had already swollen. At last he worked the ring over the knuckle and held it in his hand.

He was not thinking of its value. He was thinking of his question: What is that? If the police learned that Berta had worn this ring, someone might ask why an unmarried housekeeper had a wedding band. Someone who asked about its meaning might come to Helene. And someone who came to Helene might eventually start looking for the will Ludwig himself had failed to find.

He pocketed the ring and left the other valuables behind. In the entryway he picked up his gloves from the chest of drawers and put them on. Before leaving, he listened once more to the apartment. Nothing stirred.

The next morning Ludwig told the police that, as far as he knew, hardly any of his aunt’s jewelry had disappeared. With Berta Halm, however, he had noticed that a plain gold ring was missing. Perhaps the killer had taken it. Later, little remained of that perhaps.

The ring stayed in the inside pocket of his winter coat for another three weeks. Several times Ludwig walked along the Donaukanal and meant to throw it into the water. He never did. Eventually he put it in a drawer, where it became family property.

September 2026, 5:38 A.M.

It was still dark outside. Through the bedroom windows Eva could see a few lit apartments across the street; a light was just going out on an upper floor. On the windowsill before her lay the two rings, the letters, the invoice from 1907, Helene’s will, and her mother’s old copy of the police-journal page. Her phone read 5:38. In less than half an hour the man from the property management company was due downstairs.

Eva had looked up the number of the Vienna City and Provincial Archives several times. Then a general police number. She had even begun a message explaining that she had found documents relating to a murder in 1919 and did not know what should be done with them. She had sent none of it.

Ludwig Winter had been dead for decades. Helene and Berta for more than a hundred years. No one would be arrested. The building no longer existed as it had then; parts had been sold, ownership had changed several times. The apartment where Eva sat was only what remained of a story her family had decided, at some point, to keep telling as a robbery-murder.

She could imagine what her mother had thought when she copied the old police page and underlined Ludwig’s name. Why now? Who does it help? What difference can it make anymore? Eva picked up one of the letters. In it Berta had written that she did not want to enter another family’s service after Helene’s death. If she had to be left alone one day, she at least wanted to stay in the rooms where she had decided for herself which door would be closed.

Eva put the letter down. There was her answer. It changed who this apartment should once have belonged to, why two women had died, and what her own family had made of it. She picked up her phone again. The draft of her message was still open. Eva read the first two sentences, deleted them, and set the phone on the floor.

Then she carried the documents back to the wall. The recess was smaller than it had seemed a few hours earlier. Eva placed Helene’s ring inside and, beside it, the second one, which Ludwig had kept. They lay almost flush with each other. The letters, invoice, and will went on top.

Last of all Eva held her mother’s old photocopy. At the top it still said Robbery-Murder. Her mother had known something was wrong with it. She had written down the question and then stayed silent. Eva folded the sheet and put it with the other papers.

The baseboard was difficult to replace. She had to take it out a second time and fit the right-hand side first before it sat firmly again. The wardrobe would no longer stand in front of it; anyone renovating the apartment later would be able to see the spot. Perhaps someone would pull the baseboard away again. Perhaps it would remain there for another hundred years. Eva rubbed her thumb across the wood until no dust was left on it.

She carried the remaining boxes and the wardrobe pieces down to the car outside the building. At 5:57 the doorbell rang. The man from the property management company wore a thin rain jacket and apologized for coming so early. He had to visit a construction site afterward and wanted to finish the handover first. Eva led him through the empty rooms. He checked windows, radiators, and water connections, recorded the meter readings, and compared the keys with his list.

He paused in the bedroom. Where the wardrobe had stood, the old wallpaper was lighter than the rest of the wall. His eyes traveled across it, lingered for a moment on the wide baseboard, and moved on. “They’re redoing everything anyway,” he said, and went into the entryway. Eva followed him.

He laid the handover form on the windowsill and showed her the marked sections. Meter readings, keys, existing damage. At the bottom was one last field. Next to “Items left in the apartment,” he had already written “none.” Eva took the ballpoint pen.

No sound came from the bedroom. Behind the wall lay two gold rings, a will, and the letters of two women whose murders Eva’s family had attributed to a robbery for more than a hundred years. Eva signed beneath it.