Death and the Maiden (25 page)

Liebermann handed the letter back to Mahler. ‘The tickets will be more than adequate recompense for my time. Thank you.’

He began to stand.

‘Forgive me,’ said Mahler. ‘But we are not quite finished. How am I to proceed? Perhaps you have an opinion?’

* * *

When Liebermann arrived back at the hospital he was surprised to find Rheinhardt waiting outside his room.

‘Oskar? What on earth are you doing here?’

The inspector answered his question with a blunt statement.

‘We must return to the town hall.’

‘I can’t go to the town hall. Not now – I have patients to see. And there’s a ward round this afternoon with Professor Pallenberg.’

‘I have taken the liberty of negotiating your release from clinical duties for the rest of the day.’

‘You did
what
?’

‘The professor was very accommodating. Come, there is a carriage waiting outside and the mayor is expecting us at eleven-thirty.’

Liebermann noticed that his friend was less composed than usual. Indeed, his eyes were wide open, giving him a slightly wild look.

‘What’s happened?’

‘We found something. I’ll tell you on the way.’

T
HIS TIME THERE WERE
no delays. Liebermann and Rheinhardt were escorted straight to the antechamber adjoining the mayor’s private apartment in the town hall. At eleven-thirty precisely, one of the double doors opened and they were ushered in by Pumera. Again, Lueger was sitting behind his desk, but this time he had abandoned the pretence of industry. He was smoking a cigarette and he watched their approach with predatory interest.

‘Good morning, Inspector.’

‘Good morning, sir.’

The mayor silently acknowledged Liebermann but did not trouble to greet him personally. He then dismissed Pumera with a hand gesture.

‘Thank you for your note, Inspector. Please, do sit down.’

Liebermann and Rheinhardt bowed before taking their places.

‘It is very good of you to see us at such short notice,’ said Rheinhardt. The mayor accepted the compliment but felt it necessary to add, ‘Regrettably, I can only spare a few minutes.’

‘We appreciate,’ said Rheinhardt, ‘that for one who occupies so high an office there can never be sufficient hours in the day.’

The mayor flicked the ash from the end of his cigarette and said, ‘Some new evidence has come to light?’

‘Another search was made of Fräulein Rosenkrantz’s villa in Hietzing and some burned letters were recovered from a stove.’ The inspector reached into his pocket and produced a blackened scrap of
paper sandwiched between two rectangles of glass that had been taped together. He handed the object over to the mayor.

‘What’s this?’

‘Part of a letter.’

Lueger peered at the scorched remnant and grunted.

‘How do you know it’s a letter?’

‘Look closely. Some writing has been preserved. Do you see it?’ The mayor opened his drawer and took out a magnifying glass. He studied the carbonised paper though the hoop of silver. ‘Would you confirm for us that the writing is yours? It appears to say:
From your dearest Karl.’

The mayor set the magnifying glass aside.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘That is my handwriting.’ Lueger’s deviating eye made his expression difficult to interpret. ‘Were any other letters recovered?’

‘Yes.’

‘Intimate letters?’

‘That is what they appear to be.’

Lueger drew on his cigarette and allowed the smoke to escape through his nostrils. ‘Then you must return them to me.’

‘I’m sorry. I am afraid they must be retained by the security office.’

‘Why?’

‘Ida Rosenkrantz’s case is still open – ongoing.’

‘Really, Inspector,’ The mayor shook his head. ‘You were already aware that Fräulein Rosenkrantz and I were … friends. Is it so very remarkable that we corresponded? If you are in possession of what are, in effect, my private papers, then I demand that they be returned.’

‘Strictly speaking, the letters I have in my possession belong to Fräulein Rosenkrantz.’

‘She is dead, Inspector.’

The mayor said these words with an air of finality, as if this stark
declaration obviated further discussion. He was breathing heavily. Liebermann leaned forward to capture the mayor’s attention.

‘The letters seem to have been burned close to the time of Fräulein Rosenkrantz’s death ...’

The sentence hung in the air, suspended, oddly incomplete.

‘She was obviously unwell, Herr Doctor,’ said Lueger. ‘Isn’t that just the sort of thing that suicides do?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Liebermann. ‘The typical suicide composes a brief explanatory note and begs for forgiveness.’

The mayor shrugged.

‘It seems to me that this
discovery
supports everything I have already told you. Ida was a sick woman. She got herself into a state – burning old love letters – and then killed herself.’

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

Rheinhardt took out his notebook and turned a few pages.

‘Mayor Lueger, are you absolutely sure that the last time you saw Fräulein Rosenkrantz was in the summer?’

For the first time, the strain of interrogation began to show on Lueger’s face. The illusion of handsome nobility that he was so adept at creating suddenly dissolved. He appeared haggard and drawn. A slight tremor shook the yellow smoke-stained fingers. Liebermann almost felt sorry for him.

‘Inspector,’ said the mayor. ‘What, precisely, are you trying to make of all this?’

Rheinhardt feigned surprise. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘What manner of story are you attempting to piece together here? That I compromised her? That she then died of a broken heart? That I am responsible for her death? Before you and your associate proceed any further I would strongly suggest that you review your thinking. May I remind you that the election is approaching.’ He struck the table with a clenched fist. ‘I cannot –
will not
– tolerate a scandal.’

‘With respect,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘It was not our intention to imply—’

The mayor stood up and pointed an accusatory finger at Rheinhardt.

‘Don’t treat me like a fool, Inspector!’ His voice was loud and his eyes glittered with fury. ‘Better men than you have done so before and suffered the consequences.’ A thin thread of spittle escaped from his mouth and clung to his beard. The door behind the mayor’s desk opened and Pumera appeared. ‘The inspector and his companion are leaving,’ said the mayor.

Rheinhardt rose from his chair and with surprising elegance removed the letter from the mayor’s desk and dropped it into his pocket. The bodyguard stepped forward but the mayor extended his arm, halting his progress.

‘Show them out, Pumera.’

A
RIANNE
A
MSEL WAS LYING
in a vast four-poster bed, her eyes wide open, gazing into the darkness. The air was redolent with cigar smoke, the pungency of which failed to smother a feral undertow of post-coital fragrances. Floating in space, somewhere vaguely above her line of vision, was the glowing terminus of the cigar. It flared and crackled, revealing the aquiline nose and shrewd eyes of the lord marshal. His expression was typically severe. There was no slackening of the jaw, no benign indifference, no sign of the inebriate idiocy which stuns the spent male into satisfied silence before the precipitate onset of sleep.

They had originally been introduced by the lord chamberlain. The occasion had been a celebration of German culture at the palace, in the presence of His Majesty the emperor, Franz-Josef.

How long ago was it now?
Arianne asked herself.
Two years?

A few memories flickered into existence. Glamorous women, the Bosnian Guard, and the
Hochmeister
of the Teutonic Knights in his gleaming white cape. She had been invited to the function with other eminent members of the Richard Wagner Association, Baron von Triebenbach and a charming young composer called Aschenbrandt. It seemed to her that an age had passed since those heady days when she was loved by everyone.

At that time she’d had no idea how the lord marshal’s office served the emperor, but she had quickly guessed from the lord marshal’s manner (and the sycophantic behaviour of those around him) that he
occupied an elevated station in the imperial hierarchy. He was certainly more commanding than the lord chamberlain. However, unlike Prince Liechtenstein, the lord marshal knew almost nothing about opera and his manner was rather cold and stiff. She had flirted with him, albeit in a rather half-hearted way, and when Aschenbrandt had appeared, providing her with an excuse to leave, she had welcomed the opportunity.

Flowers had followed and in due course the lord marshal had come to hear her sing in
The Flying Dutchman
. Friends told her how powerful he was, but even then she had only responded with polite interest to his romantic overtures. It wasn’t until Rosenkrantz had sung at the mayor’s birthday party that Arianne had cause to review her position with respect to the lord marshal. It wasn’t until then – far too late, in fact – that she came to appreciate the extent of Rosenkrantz’s iniquity.

When, finally, Arianne and the lord marshal did become lovers, their illicit couplings were an unexpected success. Even so, their assignations took place infrequently. The lord marshal exercised extreme caution in all his affairs and he made no exception when it came to the management of his private life.

‘Have the police been again?’

Arianne was aware that he had said something, but she was so deeply submerged in reminiscences that she was unable to identify the exact words.

‘I’m sorry? I was drifting off,’ she lied. ‘What did you say?’

‘The police? Have they been to the opera house again – asking questions?’

‘They haven’t spoken to me.’

‘What about the others?’

‘The police doctor, I’ve forgotten his name, he’s been back a few times to talk to the director.’

‘You saw him?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you—’

‘It’s the opera house!’ said Arianne, sitting up. ‘We make it our business to know such things. Nobody enters the director’s office without news spreading.’ She paused before adding, ‘I hate him!’

‘Who?’

‘The director.’

‘Why? What’s he done now?’

‘The roles he has given me for the spring season are … demeaning. More Mozart! Who wants to sing Mozart! He does not give me the roles I deserve.’ Arianne turned on her side and nestled against her lover’s body. ‘Couldn’t you speak to Liechtenstein?’

‘I did.’

‘No, again, I mean.’

‘He said that Mahler doesn’t listen to anybody. He’s completely inflexible.’

‘But surely …’

‘The palace doesn’t like to be seen interfering.’

Arianne sighed and let her fingers play on the lord marshal’s inner thigh.

‘But the palace
does
interfere, doesn’t it?’

Arianne felt the lord marshal’s leg muscles tightening.

‘Whatever do you mean by that?’

‘People try to please the emperor, don’t they? And I’ve heard that, privately, His Majesty has said things about the director. He doesn’t approve of the way he runs the opera house.’

The lord marshal relaxed again. ‘That’s probably true.’

‘Well then …’

The lord marshal drew on the cigar and closed his hand around one of Arianne’s large breasts. The flesh only began to resist further compression when he was squeezing quite tightly. Arianne gasped.

‘I’ll think about it,’ said the lord marshal.

Arianne was not convinced that he would. Consequently, she disappeared beneath the bedclothes, where she began to perform an act which would ensure his compliance. She had come to accept, belatedly, that a singer’s career depended on more than just a good voice. Ida Rosenkrantz had obviously reached the same conclusion, but many years earlier.