Apothecary Melchior and the Ghost of Rataskaevu Street (18 page)

‘And what led you to the chapel?' asked Dorn, drawing the pleasant scent of the rose oil into his nose.

‘The corpse of that poor man your guards found three days ago on Rataskaevu Street.'

Dorn cleared his throat. ‘Well now, I could have taken poison on it that you wouldn't leave
that
case alone – all the more so since the men said you were called straight away.'

‘Don't take poison,' recommended Melchior cheerfully then screwed his face up because the smile had so stretched his muscles that the pain flared up again. ‘Poison is no joke. But you're right, though. If someone's killed on my street, where my wife lives and where my children play, I'm likely to be just a little interested in both the victim and the killer. All the more so if it happens in front of the Unterrainer house and other deaths and events seem to be mixed up in it somehow.'

‘I see. So once again you've got several deaths all mixed up together.'

‘And in a very odd way. Three people have said they'd seen a ghost on this street, and all three died very soon afterwards.'

‘Three?' exclaimed Dorn, amazed. ‘What ghost? The Ghost of Rataskaevu Street?'

Melchior shrugged warily. ‘First of all, the unfortunate Master Grote. You said that when he died he had a face that looked as if he'd seen a ghost.
He had.
I visited the Dominicans and talked to Brother Hinric. On the day he died Grote had come to him asking for advice about ghosts. He had told Hinric that at the end of Rataskaevu Street a ghost had come to him, bringing a message from the realm of the dead with the voice of Death. Those were his words, and he was very afraid.'

‘May Holy Mary and God the Father have mercy,' murmured Dorn. ‘And the next morning he was dead.'

‘Exactly. And he also told Hinric something about Master Laurentz Bruys. Hinric didn't remember what exactly, but he's supposed to have invoked a blessing on Bruys from the angels or something. Hinric had put that story down to too much beer because Grote was very confused, but the late Tower-Master had mentioned that he had to go and talk – he must have meant he had to talk to Master Bruys.'

‘But Bruys was by then already … dead?'

‘Pay attention, this is very important,' said Melchior. ‘At the time Grote visited the monastery Master Bruys
may
have been dead already because he did die on that day, but that happened at Marienthal, and the news only reached town the following morning. So Grote didn't know it at the time. He fell from the tower that same night, and by that time Bruys definitely was dead.'

‘That is a bit strange,' conceded Dorn, ‘but I don't see any crime in it. Tobias Grote really did drink a lot, and he and Master Bruys were old friends. They say that Grote had once saved the lives of his son Johan and his wife when he was a trooper on a ship.'

‘Yes,' said Melchior, sinking into thought for a moment, ‘that they do.'

‘You said that three people had seen the ghost …' Dorn pressed

‘Yes, three,' said Melchior, roused from his thoughts. ‘Three that I have heard of. The first was a woman, Magdalena. You remember
how we pursued that wandering quack down near the limestone quarry last spring.'

‘I think I do,' muttered Dorn. He remembered very well all those he had caused to be tortured, beaten or led to the gallows under the laws of Lübeck. He remembered all those faces, and sometimes he dreamed of them, and in the morning he would always wonder where, when and how the kings and the masters of the Order and the councils had been granted the power of life and death over anyone. But this mood would quickly pass, because robbers and murderers needed to be punished.

‘While we were away a prostitute, Magdalena, fell into the well on this very street. The day before she had told the women in the
saun
at the Zeghen Tower that she had seen a terrifying ghost on Rataskaevu Street and that she feared her end was near.'

‘Ha! Women's chatter,' snorted Dorn.

‘Keterlyn
told me. She heard it with her own ears.'

‘Well, that's all right then,' said Dorn quickly.

‘And what's interesting is that Magdalena had previously been a housekeeper at Master Bruys's house but had become a whore to earn more, and Master Bruys was very angry about this – pious man that he was – and had driven Magdalena out on to the street. After that she'd entertained men at the Red Convent until one day she saw the ghost and the next she was dead.'

Dorn could say no more to this than that it was indeed strange.

‘Again, this story is bound up with Master Bruys, isn't it?' remarked Melchior. ‘But, listen, there's more. Now I'm talking about a third person, a foreigner named Gillis de Zwarte, a painter from Flanders. You must have heard of him.'

Dorn nodded, and Melchior carried on, ‘He painted pictures of saints in churches and probably portraits for councillors, too. On his last night here, as he was about to board a ship and sail away, he was heard at Frückner's Tavern saying that Tallinn was a terrible town and that it was good that he would finally be free of the Rataskaevu Street Ghost which had been pursuing him day and night. But he didn't get away because the next morning he
was found by the bulwark, his head smashed, dead as a doornail.'

Dorn smacked his lips for a while and admitted that he knew the story. The harbour guard had come to the Council the following morning to announce that such a man had fallen to his death in a drunken state. The Council Clerk noted it down, but the corpse was already bound for Antwerp. Such things happen often.

‘But they don't simply happen like that,' said Melchior gravely. ‘Women of pleasure don't simply dive into a well. Tower-masters don't simply fall out of towers. Drunken painters don't simply break their heads open by themselves and die on the spot. Human life is tenacious, and it doesn't simply desert a person. You must know that, surely. And what is even harder to believe is that on three occasions there were these bizarre deaths of people who had seen a ghost right here on Rataskaevu Street. Stranger still is that two of those people were closely connected to the blessed Master Bruys. About that painter I can't say, but I almost believe that he had also come into some sort of contact with Laurentz Bruys when he was painting holy pictures in the town.'

For a moment Dorn stared straight at Melchior and shook his head in wonder. ‘I knew that painter,' he declared. ‘Yes, he came to the Council to complain that the Pastor of the Church of the Holy Ghost didn't want to pay him as much as had been agreed –'

‘Gottschalk Witte? The man who lives in the Unterrainer house?'

‘The very same, but I don't know whether de Zwarte would have known Bruys.
And yet,'
he continued meaningfully, ‘de Zwarte
did
visit the merchant Arend Goswin on Rataskaevu Street to paint
his
portrait. And Goswin and Bruys have – or rather had, I suppose – a grudge, or –'

‘De Zwarte went to paint Goswin's portrait?' Melchior asked slowly. ‘I didn't know that.'

‘Not only his but the Knight Kordt von Greyssenhagen's, too, because it became fashionable on Toompea for every person of importance to have his picture painted in the manner of a saint – like St Victor with his sword and so forth.'

‘Greyssenhagen …' muttered Melchior. ‘That knight with a
not very important
pedigree, as they say?'

‘Seems his father was an ordinary squire on Teutonic Order lands somewhere down Colberg way,' Dorn answered, ‘but for his bravery he was given a larger fiefdom. Young Kordt was able to increase the family's riches with his smart deals, and in the end he bought himself the Jackewolde Estate.'

Yes, Melchior had heard something of the sort about his neighbour. Relations between the governing Order and the noblemen, though, were something outside of Tallinn, far from his everyday activities and concerns. He did know, however, that these days an old and worthy family tree didn't count for much. Money was what counted and the qualities of the man himself. Some noblemen with an old and fine lineage kept a low profile, while others with a lower title might be diligent and zealous, making themselves useful to the greater masters and thus gaining favour. And that must have been what happened with Kordt von Greyssenhagen, because now he, with his little fiefdom of Jackewolde, seemed to be a great confidant and favourite of the Order. And if the great and good have their portraits painted then their favourite underlings must be painted, too.

‘Greyssenhagen is supposed to have squabbled with Master Grote about the wall,' said Melchior. ‘A few days ago, by Quad Dack Tower.'

‘Pah! The Commander of the Order recommended him to the Council as some great expert on positioning cannons and defensive towers, and the Council got him to look at the wall by the nunnery where it's at its weakest.'

But he got into an argument with Grote, thought Melchior, and that tramp died right in front of his door.

Dorn continued, ‘About that painting at the Holy Ghost, Witte said that he certainly wouldn't pay such a price for a bad wall painting. They were squabbling in front of the Council, but in the end it was decreed that what had been agreed had to be paid, and Witte paid up.'

Melchior lapsed back into thought. His eyes glazed over. Dorn knew that look. It happened when Melchior's mind was following all sorts of trains of thought, where he often divined things that wouldn't occur to a regular person. But the Magistrate had to admit that things had taken a strange turn when several people had seen a ghost, talked about it and then met unfortunate ends. And he said so to his friend.

‘What did you say?' Melchior asked with a start. ‘What?'

‘I said it's a queer business when three people see a ghost and then die,' Dorn repeated.

‘No, that's not what you said,' stammered Melchior, excited. ‘You said that it was odd that several people saw a ghost,
talked about it
and then met unfortunate ends. Three people
talked
about it. They said they had seen the Rataskaevu Street Ghost and died. One talked in a bathhouse, one in a tavern and one in a monastery, although God alone knows where else they might have mentioned it. But do you know what Keterlyn told me? There are supposed to be people who have
heard
the ghost, but they are still alive. And, strangest of all, there has been talk of a ghost at the Unterrainer house for decades now, but I still haven't found out whose ghost it's supposed to be. One says it's a monk, another a woman … some say both. Terrible things once happened in that house, but who killed whom, and whose ghost is supposed to be haunting it? That's a mystery to me.'

‘And to me,' admitted Dorn. ‘It's been called an accursed house, but as for anyone becoming a ghost after death and anyone seeing a haunting there, that I've never heard. There is talk, but people are always talking.'

‘Somebody did die,' Melchior reminded the Magistrate. ‘Three days ago an unfortunate tramp was killed in front of that house. This was no ordinary score-settling between beggars. He was stabbed three times with a knife, hard and deep, killed in a rage. As the deaths connected with Rataskaevu Street happened one after another, that makes me suspect there is some sort of connection between them.'

‘I know. I saw that corpse, too. Odd little chap. His prick cut off and as thin as a rake. Amazing that he stayed alive at all.'

‘Who was he?' asked Melchior. His salve now seemed to be drawing. He took some of the yellow-green ointment on his finger and smeared it on his forehead. If it was working, he didn't show it; he simply screwed up his face.

‘I don't know,' replied Dorn. ‘No one knows. I had the men investigate and ask around, but not a single town guard or tower-master had seen such a fellow coming through the gates. Simply no one has seen him before. My men even brought a couple of beggars and people from the almshouse to look at him, but none knew anything. He must be from somewhere in the countryside, come to the town to beg. Or … Do you know what?' The Magistrate's face came alive. ‘Didn't a lot of cripples and tramps come into town for Master Bruys's funeral? He might have been one of them.'

‘The word about Bruys's death reached the town that same morning,' Melchior pointed out. ‘This chap was murdered that night. If he came for the funeral he must have moved quickly, but a cripple like that can't move quickly.'

Dorn shrugged. ‘Well, we asked the beggars, but none knew anything. My first thought was that some Tallinn beggars might have bumped him off, as a stranger coming to muscle in on their patch. There have been a few scuffles between town beggars and those from elsewhere in the past couple of days.'

‘I saw one of those,' said Melchior. ‘But when have Tallinn beggars killed anyone before – and, what's more, murdered with a knife and with such ferocity?'

‘That's what I was thinking, too. They squabble and fight, they even fight in the almshouse sometimes, but not with knives, at night, secretly and to the death … That's never happened before. Of course, there's always a first time. Maybe that little chap had something valuable or had some long-standing grudge hanging over him.'

‘Indeed, anything is possible,' agreed Melchior, ‘but it is very strange. First, the poor man had his tongue cut out – and a long
time ago. Second, there were many wounds and wheals on his body, his arms were chafed and his legs, too, as if he'd been kept in chains. His teeth were very poor and half of them had fallen out, which means that he was very badly fed. The wretch was barely alive, Dorn. He was so feeble that he would certainly have died if no one had taken care of him. Why kill such a man? Who could be so enraged about such a pitiful creature? As for him having anything valuable on him, that is hard to believe. For him the thing of greatest value – at the same time his greatest misfortune – was that he was alive.'