The Mastersinger from Minsk (21 page)

"C
ornelia
Vanderhoute? But she introduced herself to me as Celeste Vlanders. I don't understand, Preiss. Why would she lie about her name?”

I bent to shut the young woman's eyes. I was close enough to detect a whiff of a very heady perfume with which she must have doused herself, its fragrance as potent as a siren song. In death she resembled a lush flower that had suddenly lost its bloom, and yet I had not the slightest difficulty imagining what men like Franz Brunner, and others more discriminating, like Wagner and Rotfogel, saw in her. Schramm too, for that matter.

Schramm repeated his question. “Why would she deceive me by giving a false name?”

“It's despicable, isn't it?” I said. “Makes you feel as though you've been made a fool of. But the worst thing is, people who make a practice of veiling their true identity turn out almost invariably to be involved in some kind of nefarious activity. At least, that's been
my
experience, Schramm. Now tell me, how did this happen?”

“Must we stay here like this? Can we not discuss this in the other room? I can't bear to look —”

“I'm sorry” I replied, “but I need you to tell me the exact details of what took place on this very spot. Obviously she was quite persuasive because I understand you were originally planning to have a late supper with Helena Becker and somehow you were enticed away and ended up here. You produced the bottle of brandy and glasses, a drink or two followed, one thing led to another, then the two of you found yourselves in your bedroom. Am I correct thus far?”

Schramm nodded, his head hung like a truant schoolboy.

“So here you are, she and you, you in your partly unbuttoned shirt and shoeless — as you are at the moment, I see — and perhaps preparing to shed more. The woman has thrown her coat across the foot of your bed, but the bed is undisturbed indicating that matters hadn't progressed all that much. She too is shoeless and the buttons of her blouse are undone. There is a smudge of her rouge on your shirt collar, Schramm, and another on your left cheek. The overture before Act One Scene One, I suppose. Still correct, Schramm?”

“I swear to God, Preiss, I had no intention of killing her. None! You must believe me. The picture you've painted … it's all true. But for some reason I found strange, she insisted on wearing her hat into the bedroom, and kept it on even while —” Schramm hesitated, then looking sheepish went on, “even while we were beginning to … well, you've already observed how far we got, haven't you? I looked away for a moment. Actually, I was looking down at the floor. I'd dropped a shirt stud, you see. My back was turned to her. I stopped to pick up the stud, and as I rose and began to turn about … my God, Preiss, her right hand was plunging toward my neck with this enormous hatpin. I managed to seize her wrist and twist her arm back over her shoulder, pushing her at the same time with all my might. She fell back. Her head struck the bedpost. I was defending myself, Preiss, I swear!”

“The hatpin … where is it?”

“She dropped it as I was twisting her arm. It's probably there —” Schramm pointed to the woman's body “— somewhere under her.”

Gently I raised the woman's right shoulder. The hatpin was there, on the carpet, a thin but sturdy-looking piece of steel the length of a crochet needle, with a tiny knob at one end.

I lifted the hatpin and held it up for both Schramm and me to examine closely. “Strange, isn't it?” I said. “One moment the servant of a woman's vanity, the next a potential murder weapon. The good and the bad, life and death … all in one, all at the same time.”

Schramm said, not wanting to look further at what might have ended his life, nor at the person who brandished it, “I assume, by the way you're wrapping it in your handkerchief, that you're taking it to the Constabulary. Am I to be charged then?”

“Charged? Charged with what, Schramm?”

“Murder, of course.”

“That depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“On how truthful you are.”

“But I've
told
you the truth, Inspector. I swear!”

“Yes yes, Schramm, so you've sworn, not just once but twice now. And I'm fully prepared to accept your account except — well, except for one rather important item.”

“I don't know what you're referring to,” Schramm said. “I've hidden nothing.”

“That is not quite true,” I said. “You have managed to hide your real identity up to this point. But as I said a moment ago, I despise people who play that game. So, my friend, here is how the game ends:
I
will report this incident as a case of self-defence, pure and simple. But
you
must first admit that your true name is not Henryk Schramm but Hershel Socransky.”

“My name is
what
? I don't know what you're talking about, Inspector. Whatever gave you —”

“Please, Socransky, don't waste my time and yours. Be straight with me, or I promise you I will make life very difficult for you over this incident with this woman. I repeat … and I will tell you this once more only: admit who you really are, then I will file a report exonerating you from any criminal conduct. These are my terms.”

The young tenor studied me for a full minute, his lips pursed as though deciding whether or not he could take me at my word. “How do I know I can trust you?” he said.

“You don't,” I replied flatly. “But you have no choice, do you?”

“How did you find out … about my name?”

“Ah, there you go again,” I said, “answering my questions with questions of your own. How I found out is neither here nor there. The business of a detective is to
detect
.”

“And to solve murder cases,” Socransky put in. “So I assume Fräulein Vanderhoute's demise is a kind of blessing in disguise. I mean, it's obvious, is it not, that I was intended to be the next victim in her string of murders? You may recall I suggested this might happen the night we dined at your friend's restaurant, Preiss, and you didn't rule out the possibility. Come to think of it, Inspector, I've probably done you … you and the entire city of Munich … a great favour, even if it was inadvertent.”

I felt myself at a crossroads. Socransky hadn't denied the revelation of his real name. To that extent, and that extent only, the air had been cleared. But beyond that revelation lay deeper unanswered questions: What was Hershel Socransky's purpose — his
true
purpose — here in Munich? And what would happen if his identity became known to Richard Wagner? Should I press these questions here and now? Or should I pretend that, with the death of Cornelia Vanderhoute, an immense burden had been lifted from my shoulders giving me cause to celebrate, and leave it at that for the moment?

I decided on the latter course. Not for one second did I doubt that the man I no longer needed to call Henryk Schramm was on a mission to avenge the suicide to which the elder Socransky had been driven by Wagner. But a confrontation with Hershel Socransky at this point, without better evidence, would achieve nothing but denials and more denials.

And so I chose instead to lay a trap.

“Actually, Socransky, you've done me — or Munich, if you will — more of a favour than you think. The question of who wrote the note threatening Wagner is now put to rest. I had originally discarded the notion that Cornelia Vanderhoute wrote that note on the grounds that murderers don't customarily announce their plans in writing, and well ahead of time. Well, I've changed my mind. I'm convinced that this was an amateurish attempt on her part to terrify not only Wagner himself but everyone connected with him and his latest venture.” I heaved a false sigh of relief. “We can write ‘fini' to that ugly little chapter too.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Socransky said a little too agreeably, as though he'd known all along about the note.

But how could he have known?
I
had never mentioned it to him. I was certain Brunner would have had no reason to mention it, nor old Mecklenberg who first brought it to my attention.

There was only one way Hershel Socransky could have known about the note threatening Wagner's ruination on June twenty-first. Hershel Socransky was the author of the note.

C
ommissioner
von Mannstein received the news of Cornelia Vanderhoute's death with the look of a martyr whom God had forsaken. “Well, Preiss,” he said in a sepulchral voice, “thus perishes the one slim hope I cherished.” I was tempted to point out that Vanderhoute may have been a source of hope but that “slim” was not exactly an apt description — a quip that ordinarily would have elicited a comradely chuckle and wink, given his fondness for voluptuous females. But not this morning. Peering at me over his pince-nez, von Mannstein continued: “So now, the radical notions of this malcontent Wagner will go on fermenting. Richard Wagner … the one brewer Munich can do without! Tell me, Preiss, how could you allow this to happen?”

“With all due respect,” I said, “I believe my report makes clear —”

“Your report, Inspector Preiss, makes clear that you suffer from an apparently incurable attraction to these artist types. As a result, they seem to get away with everything from minor sins to major transgressions while you, sir, stand enchanted on the sidelines. I remind you, Preiss, that the whole point of assigning you to this Wagner business was that you were the one person on my staff intimately acquainted with the habits of these exotic hothouse flowers. Looking back at your record — I refer of course to the Schumann affair in Düsseldorf — I suppose I ought to have known better. And now you hand me a report which asks me to accept that a man possessing the physique of a gladiator overpowers a mere woman, kills her, and claims he did so in self-defence! Self-defence against what, I ask you? A heaving bosom? A suffocating embrace?”

I leaned forward and pointed to a section of the report. “There's the matter of the woman's hatpin —”

“You mean that ‘Fräulein Hatpin' nonsense?”

“It was you, Commissioner, who coined that name. As I recall, you considered her skill with that rather unorthodox weapon not only entirely credible but conveniently useful … if you get my meaning.”

“Well, Preiss, that's all beside the point now, isn't it? That I hoped and prayed Richard Wagner would become her next victim, I will admit. God fulfills Himself in many ways; regrettably, this was destined not to be one of those ways. And now, to make matters worse you rub salt in my wounds by asking me to believe this fellow Schramm is innocent. Which, by the way, brings up another troubling matter: I'm given to understand that the man's name is
not
Henryk Schramm, but Hershel Socransky. The man's a Jew, Preiss … a Jew, of all things! Two questions spring to mind. Earlier this morning, as I was reviewing your report with your colleague Brunner —”

“You reviewed
my
report with Brunner —?” I felt as though I had just swallowed an icicle.

“Don't look so astonished, Preiss. After all, Brunner
is
a senior man. I have to tell you, in all honesty, that Brunner on occasion is more assiduous when it comes to shedding light on the finer nuances of a case. It was he who informed me that Schramm's real name is Socransky and that he's a Jew. Why does this fact not appear in your report?”

“Because I did not regard the man's racial or religious origins to be germane in these circumstances, any more than if he were a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, or a Druid for that matter. You said there were
two
questions, Commissioner. The second is —?”

“The second is: what the devil is a Jewish singer doing in an opera composed by the likes of Richard Wagner?” Suddenly von Mannstein, whose expressions up to this point had ranged from annoyed to profoundly annoyed, broke into a half smile. “D'you suppose, Preiss, that circumcision affects the voices of these people? Gives 'em some kind of advantage? Wagner is a menace, yes, but the man's no fool. Maybe he's learned their secret, eh?”

Just as suddenly, von Mannstein turned serious again. “Less than two hours from now I am going to find myself standing before Mayor von Braunschweig stumbling and mumbling through a string of pitiful excuses. There'll be damned little rejoicing when I announce that the one good thing to come out of this … if one can call it a good thing … is that a murderer is no longer loose among us. But I will not compound this unsatisfactory turn of events by fixing my stamp of approval on a report which labels this tenor of yours innocent. You forget, Preiss, that there is a moral dimension to what we do, you and I. If we yield to hypocrisy, to concealment, to favouritism, where are we, Preiss?
Where
, I ask you?”

A moment went by, and then I heard a voice uttering the following response to the commissioner's question: “You ask where are we, sir? We are in places and situations which we prefer not to be made public, such as a certain house in Friedensplatz operated by one Rosina Waldheim, or a certain relationship — albeit it distant — to a family by the name of Waggoner.”

Much to my amazement, the voice that spoke those words was mine!

“Damn it, Preiss, I could have you sacked for such impertinence!” von Mannstein shot back through clenched teeth.

“Indeed you could, sir,” I admitted, “but then this discussion would have to come to light, wouldn't it? Not a pleasant prospect for either of us … with all due respect.”

For the next minute or two I found myself participating with von Mannstein in a silent game I hadn't played since I was a child. The two of us sat staring uncompromisingly at one another, neither one of us daring to blink.

It was Commissioner von Mannstein who blinked first.

“Very well, Preiss,” he said, eyeing me coldly, “we will consider the case of Fräulein Vanderhoute officially closed. We will attempt to put the best complexion on it that we can. ‘A deranged murderer has fortunately met her just end' … that's how my report to the mayor will read. For what it's worth, I shall also have to add, distasteful as it is, that with her death the threat to Wagner has died as well. As for your man Schramm, or Socransky, or whatever his name is, and as for all the rest of these artistic pests … well, Preiss, enough is enough. Your orders are to return immediately to
real
police work. This Wagner business is over, Inspector. Understood?”

“Perfectly, sir,” I replied.

Returning to my own office I set the Wagner file squarely before me on my desk. I leafed through numerous pages of notes, clippings from newspapers and magazines, official and unofficial reports, several state documents, until I came across a single sheet of inexpensive stationery upon which, written in a crude hand, was the message:

JUNE 21 WILL BE THE DAY OF YOUR RUINATION

I sat back, holding the paper at arm's length.

I read the message over and over, aloud but in a quiet voice.

Then I replaced the sheet of paper in the file. I locked the file in a private drawer of my desk.

This Wagner business may have been over for Commissioner von Mannstein, but it was far from over for me.