Mortal Mischief (46 page)

'But why was he discovered by his mother? In reality he was discovered by von Bulow. Surely, Max, you aren't going to tell me that Hölderlin's mother represented von Bulow?'

'Professor Freud has suggested that significant dreams often reproduce scenes from infancy. It may be that the whole edifice of Hölderlin's dream is founded on a real memory of discovery involving his mother but now deeply buried in his unconscious. However, to uncover the secret of what really happened in the nursery all those years ago would necessitate many hours of psychoanalysis.'

Rheinhardt shook his head.

'This is all very well, Max, but I can't see Brügel being very sympathetic to your interpretation.'

'Perhaps not,' said Liebermann, sitting up and turning to look at his friend. 'But I can promise you now, Oskar, that von Bulow will not extract a confession from Hölderlin, no matter how long he keeps the wretched man locked up!'

74

'T
HE
M
AYOR'S ABSOLUTELY
right,' said Councillor Schmidt, dabbing his lips with a table napkin. 'Doctors, lawyers, teachers, opera-house directors – they're everywhere. Something has to be done.'

'Indeed,' said Bruckmüller. 'People have become so complacent. I tell you, Julius, we need another Hilsner. That would get people talking.'

Cosima von Rath, who had been staring wistfully at the last of the chocolates, turned to face her fiancé.

'Does he work in the town hall too?'

Bruckmüller and Schmidt looked at each other for a moment and then laughed.

'Good heavens, no, my love. He's not one of us – he's one of them. Surely you've heard of Leopold Hilsner?'

Cosima shook her head and the pendulous rings of flesh around her neck wobbled like blancmange.

'Hans,' she cried, pursing her lips together and producing a rather ugly moue. 'You know how unworldly I am.'

'Do you never read the papers, my dear?' asked Schmidt.

'Never,' she replied.

'I've seen you read the society pages,' said Bruckmüller.

Cosima ignored him.

'I would have thought,' continued Councillor Schmidt, 'that as a connoisseur of arcane rituals and practices the Hilsner case would have interested you a great deal.'

'Oh? Why's that?'

Cosima extended her hand towards the solitary truffle, seduced by its alluring sprinkle of cocoa powder.

'Hilsner was a ritual murderer,' said Schmidt.

Cosima's hand stopped above the chocolate where it hovered like a bird of prey.

'Was he?' She turned to look at Schmidt, her piggy eyes glinting in their pink pouches.

'See?' said Schmidt to Bruckmüller. 'I knew we'd get her interested in politics one day.' He raised his glass in a mock toast and sipped his brandy.

Bruckmüller smiled and placed a patronising hand on Cosima's shoulder.

'He was a Jew, my love. A shoemaker's apprentice. He was tried for killing a girl – she was only nineteen, I believe.'

'Yes, nineteen,' Schmidt asserted.

'Her body was found near the Jewish quarter of Polna. Her throat had been cut.' Bruckmüller dragged his forefinger across his Adam's apple. 'And every drop of blood had been drained from her body.'

Cosima's hand swiftly withdrew from the chocolate and clutched her jeweled ankh.

'Oh, how dreadful,' she piped. 'But why did he do it?'

'He needed Christian blood for that bread of theirs.'

'Matzoh,' said Schmidt, with an exaggerated expression of disgust. 'Dreadful stuff.'

'They've been doing it for centuries, apparently,' said Bruckmüller, pouring himself another brandy.

'Ahh yes . . .' said Cosima, suddenly making a connection between the subject of the conversation and her pool of abstruse knowledge. 'I've read of such things. I think it used to be called the blood libel.'

Schmidt shrugged: 'I wouldn't know.'

'But I had no idea that these rituals were still being performed in the modern world,' said Cosima. 'It is quite extraordinary.'

'Indeed,' said Schmidt. 'Hilsner's behind bars now, thank the Lord. But by rights he should have swung.'

'He wasn't sentenced to death?' said Cosima, theatrically placing both hands over her mouth.

'No, my dear,' Schmidt replied. 'Thanks to the vociferous liberal minority – mostly Jews – he was tried again. The business of the ritual murder wasn't even mentioned the second time around! It was all suppressed. Even so, they didn't have it all their own way. Hilsner was found guilty again, of course. He was sentenced to life imprisonment – but he should have swung.'

Cosima tutted and looked from Schmidt to Bruckmüller. Again, her features puckered to form a disgruntled pout.

'What is it, dear?' said Bruckmüller.

'I don't understand.'

'What don't you understand?'

'Why on Earth did you say that we need another Hilsner?'

'Politics, my dear,' said Bruckmüller, tapping the side of his protuberant nose with a thick, big-knuckled finger. 'Politics.'

75

L
IEBERMANN HAD COMPLETED
the C-major fugue and had begun to pound out the C-minor Prelude. Playing Bach's 'forty-eight' was an exercise he performed with increasing regularity. Somehow, the purity and elegance of Bach's counterpoint helped him to think. He was so familiar with Bach's epic circumnavigation of the tonal world that his fingers arrived on the correct keys without conscious effort. For Liebermann, performing the forty-eight was like a spiritual discipline – a Western equivalent of the transcendental devotions practised in the East.

Liebermann was confident that his interpretation of Hölderlin's dream was correct. The banker was not Fräulein Löwenstein's lover – nor had he murdered her. There would be no confession.

Melodic lines chased each other at different intervals, and became entangled in dense episodes of invention.

So who, then?

His left hand began to toll the repeating tonic of the D-minor Prelude – above, the semiquaver triplets fell like lashing rain.

The god of storms!

It seemed to Liebermann that the Löwenstein case was like a labyrinth. He and Rheinhardt had been blindly stumbling through its dark corridors, occasionally grasping clues and following them for a short while, only to find themselves rudely deposited beyond the structure's walls. And at the centre of the labyrinth was the personification of an ancient evil, mocking their ineptitude.

Whoever had killed Fräulein Löwenstein – and very probably Uberhorst too – had succeeded in sustaining a prodigious disguise. As long as the mystery remained, the case would not be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The crime might as well be imputed to Seth.

Doors locked from the inside.

A gunshot wound – but no bullet.

How did the illusion work?

As Liebermann played on, it occurred to him that Bach's keyboard works were also a species of illusion. They sounded spontaneous, improvisatory and inspired, yet every fugue was driven by a ruthless internal logic. The magic, as such, could be reduced to the diligent application of musical rules and mathematical principles. Be that as it may, although Liebermann could lift the veil of Bach's enchantment he could not penetrate the illusion of Fräulein Löwenstein's murder. The machinery of deception remained invisible – its levers and gears thoroughly concealed.

The investigation had reached a sorry impasse.

Liebermann was forced to confront an unpalatable but self-evident truth. Neither he nor Rheinhardt could determine the solution alone. They needed help. By the time he had reached the fifteenth prelude, Liebermann knew what he had to do. He did not stop playing but remained at the keyboard and completed the whole of Book One. Then, closing the lid of the Bösendorfer, he stood up and walked to the hallway where he collected his coat from the stand. He would tackle Book Two on his return.

Outside it was still quite light, and the evening was pleasantly warm. The air was fragrant with lilac. He set off briskly, crossing Wahringerstrasse and walking downhill towards the Danube. He slowed as he passed Berggasse 19 and was tempted to go in. Professor Freud would be happy to offer him an opinion on Hölderlin's dream, and might even comment on the mental state of the murderer. But Liebermann already knew that this would not be enough. The Löwenstein mystery required a different approach. He quickened his step.

When Amelia Lydgate opened the door, her eyes widened slightly with surprise.

'Herr Doctor.'

Liebermann bowed.

'Miss Lydgate. I am so sorry to disturb you – I was passing, and thought I might pay you a visit.'

'How very kind of you, Herr Doctor. Do come in.'

Before ascending the stairs, Liebermann paid his respects to Frau Rubenstein. He discovered her dozing in an armchair, a volume of poetry resting on her lap. The exchange of pleasantries did not detain him long. Liebermann accepted Miss Lydgate's offer of tea, and they were soon seated in her small reception room.

Liebermann began by asking the young woman some questions about her health. She responded in a matter-of-fact way, describing her progress with clinical detachment: her appetite had returned, she was sleeping well, her right arm remained responsive and her fingers had suffered no loss of dexterity. Liebermann felt slightly uncomfortable in assuming this outward show of concern while secretly wishing to move the conversation on to areas closer to his purpose; however, a transition was not difficult to achieve. When he invited her to talk about a recent visit to the Pathological Institute, she was soon detailing the methodology of a possible research project that she had discussed with Landsteiner: a microscopic analysis of haemophiliac blood plasma.

'Miss Lydgate,' Liebermann ventured, with more timidity than was usual, 'I was wondering – could I ask for your opinion? On a technical matter?'

Amelia Lydgate registered the equivocation.

'Technical?'

'Yes. You see, it is my good fortune to be a close friend of Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt of the Viennese security office . . .' He briefly explained his association with Rheinhardt and then attempted to introduce the topic of murder without alarming his companion: 'Forgive me for raising such a distressing matter, but six weeks ago the body of a young woman was found in a Leopoldstadt apartment. The circumstances surrounding her discovery were extraordinary – and the results of her autopsy were unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. You are a woman possessed of remarkable analytic skills, Miss Lydgate, and I would be much interested in your view of the facts. However, if the subject of murder is one that you find distasteful then I fully understand . . .'

As Liebermann's faltering enquiry stalled, the young woman proudly stated: 'Herr Doctor – I intend to study medicine. The fact of human mortality does not disturb me. I have conducted many animal dissections under my father's guidance and I fully expect to repeat these procedures on human corpses, should I gain a place at the university.'

'Of course,' said Liebermann. 'Please accept my apology.'

'I am perfectly happy to hear more of this remarkable case. Indeed, you have already aroused my curiosity. I fear, however, that you have overestimated my knowledge and deductive powers.'

Amelia Lydgate's pewter eyes glowed in the dying light.

Liebermann graciously accepted that he might be mistaken and then set about describing the crime scene: Fräulein Löwenstein, reclining on the chaise longue, her heart ruined by an impossible bullet. The note on the table, and the Japanese box with its demonic occupant. He did not describe any of the suspects, nor how the investigation had proceeded to date.

When he had finished, Miss Lydgate remained silent. Then, noticing the failing light, she rose from her chair and lit the nearest gas lamp. She performed these actions without speaking to or so much as glancing at Liebermann. She seemed wholly absorbed, her forehead lined by a customary frown.

'I could take you to the apartment,' said Liebermann, 'if it would help.'

She sat down and poured herself another cup of tea.

'What kind of lock was it?'

'On the sitting-room door?'

'Yes.'

'I don't really know.'

'A warded lock? A lever tumbler? A detector?'

'I'm sorry. . .' Liebermann raised his hands helplessly, indicating that he had no further knowledge to declare.

'Never mind,' said Amelia Lydgate. 'You noticed nothing remarkable about its design? There was nothing odd about it?'

'No. It was just an ordinary lock.'

'Good.'