The Master of the Day of Judgment

by Leo Perutz

  The engineer shut the window and turned to me again.

  "He was no coward," he said. "No, by heaven, he was no coward. He didn't make things easy for his killer."

  "His killer?"

  "Yes, his killer. He was hounded to his death. Look, this is where he stood, and that's where the other man stood."

  He pointed to the place on the wall on which he had been concentrating when I came in.

  "They stood facing each other," he said slowly, looking at me as he did so. "They stood facing each other eye to eye as in a duel."

  Once more I felt uneasy and the lump in my throat returned.

  "And who do you think the killer was?"

  The engineer looked at me without speaking and slowly, very slowly, shrugged his shoulders.

  "Are you still here?" someone suddenly exclaimed in the doorway behind me. "Why don't you go?"

  I turned, startled. Dr Gorski was standing in the doorway, and his eyes were on me.

  "Go, for heaven's sake," he said. "Go, quickly."

  It was too late to go now. It was too late.

  Dina's brother appeared behind Dr Gorski, whom he pushed aside and then confronted me.

  I looked him in the face. How like his sister he was at that moment. The same strangely shaped oval face and the same spirit of independence in the shape of the lips.

  "Are you still here?" he said with an icy politeness that contrasted alarmingly with the doctor's passionate outburst. "I wasn't expecting to find you still here. How very fortunate. That will enable us to clear things up straight away."

  SEVEN

  I had pulled myself together. It was immediately clear to me when Dina's brother came into the room that I was faced with a mortal enemy, that the confrontation could not be avoided and that the battle must be fought out, though I could not have said at that moment what it was about. All I knew was that I must stay and face up to this enemy whatever the consequences.

  Dr Gorski made a last-minute attempt to prevent what was going to happen.

  "Felix, please remember where we are," he said, with an imploring and reproachful gesture towards the tartan rug that had been spread over the body. "Must this take place here and now?"

  "It's better that it should, what's the point of postponing it, doctor?" Felix replied without taking his eyes off me. "It is really most opportune that Captain von Yosch is still here."

  He referred to me, contrary to his usual habit, by my military rank, and I knew what that meant. Dr Gorski stood between us for a moment, undecided. Then he shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the door in order to leave us alone.

  But Felix stopped him.

  "Please stay, doctor," he said. "A situation could arise in which the presence of a third party might turn out to be useful."

  Dr Gorski did not seem immediately to see the point of this observation. He looked at me with an embarrassed expression, as if he wanted to apologise for being a witness of this confrontation. He ended by sitting on the extreme edge of the desk in an attitude that implied that he was ready to leave the room at any moment if anyone wanted him to. Nobody had asked the engineer to stay, but to him this was a plain indication that he too should sit down. He appropriated the only chair in the room, lit a cigarette with a flourish, using only two fingers of his left hand, and acted as if his remaining in the room was a matter of course that needed no justification from any quarter.

  I watched all this with a detached and purely objective interest. I was now completely calm and master of my nerves and waited coolly for whatever was going to happen next. For a minute nothing whatever happened. Felix was standing bent over Eugen Bischoff's body, I could not see his face, but it seemed to me that he was struggling with his feelings, as if he were unable to sustain any longer his mask of unnatural calm. For a moment I thought his feelings were about to get the better of him, that he was going to fling himself on the dead body, and that the scene was going to end with that emotional outburst. But nothing of the sort occurred. He straightened up and when he turned to me the expression on his face was one of complete control. I now saw that all he had done was to cover the dead man's head with the rug, which had slipped to the floor.

  "Unfortunately we don't have much time,': he began, and there was neither grief nor agitation in his voice. "The police commission will be here in about half an hour, and I should like this matter to be settled before they arrive."

  "In that our wishes coincide," I said, glancing at the engineer. "The number of witnesses present is completely adequate, in my opinion, as both these gentlemen have been kind enough to put themselves at our disposal."

  Dr Gorski moved uneasily on his desk-edge, but the engineer coolly nodded assent.

  "Solgrub and Dr Gorski are friends of mine," Felix went on, "and I attach importance to their having as clear as possible a picture of the matter, and I shall not withhold from them any of the circumstances that belong to that picture, including the fact, captain, that four years ago Dina was your mistress."

  I was unprepared for this revelation, which took me aback. But my dismay lasted only for a few seconds, and then I had my answer ready.

  "I expected to be attacked when I agreed to this discussion, but not to have to listen to slurs directed at a woman of whom I think highly. I cannot permit that, and I must ask you to withdraw the expression that you used ..."

  "Withdraw it, captain? And pray why should I do that, as it coincides in every respect with Dina's view of the matter, of that I can assure you?"

  "Am I to understand that your sister authorised you to say that?"

  "Yes, captain."

  "Then please continue."

  A boyish self-conscious smile of satisfaction at the first round having gone so completely in his favour flitted across his lips. But it promptly disappeared, and the tone in which he continued remained unfailingly formal and courteous and even cordial.

  "This relationship, on the nature of which we are now in full agreement, lasted for just under six months," he went on. "It ended when you chose to make a trip to Japan. I am saying that it ended, though you for your part no doubt thought of it as a mere interruption ..."

  "I went, not to Japan, but to Tongking and Cambodia," I interrupted. "It was not a pleasure trip, but was on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture," I added, and behind that correction of entirely unimportant statements of fact, I concealed my amazement at his so easily and indifferently passing over the fact that his sister had been my mistress. What was he getting at? I wondered. If he wanted satisfaction, I was ready and prepared for it. Why did he not come to the point? What else did he have up his sleeve? A slight feeling of anxiety, a premonition of an unknown danger approaching, crept over me and would not let me go.

  "So you went to Tongking and Cambodia," Felix went on, making a slight gesture of apology with his bandaged hand. "Where you went is in fact irrelevant. But when you came back after about a year you found a changed situation awaiting you for which you were not prepared. Dina had become another man's wife, and you had to face the fact that you had become a stranger to her."

  Yes, that had been the situation, and now, as he spoke, the old pain and bitterness of disappointment flared up in me, together with a new feeling I had not had before, hatred of this boy standing in front of me and sticking his finger in things I had kept deeply concealed inside me. Was I accountable to him? Was that why I was here? Was I to stand by while he exposed what had been my secret for years to the inquisitive eyes of others? Enough, enough, I screamed silently, and wanted to attack him and put an end to this scene. But there was this anxiety inside me, the vague and undefined fear of something unknown the threatening closeness of which I could feel — it lay upon me like a nightmare and paralysed me and reduced me to impotence.

  Dina's brother went on talking in that completely dispassionate manner of his, and I had to go on listening to him.

  "The thought that a woman you believed to be inseparably bound to you had left you and now belonged to ano
ther seems to have been intolerable to you. You had suffered your first defeat, you felt challenged, and your supreme objective in life became to win her back. Everything you have done since then, even the most trivial things, served that exclusive purpose."

  He paused, perhaps to give me a chance to say something or reply, but I said nothing, and he went on:

  "I have been watching you for a long time, for years in fact, watching with passionate interest as if the whole thing were a sporting event or an exciting game of chess, as if it were the race for the Gold Cup and not my sister's happiness that was at stake. I watched you drawing slowly nearer by devious routes, overcoming or evading obstacles, making circles round this house while the circles drew closer and closer. You managed to get yourself sent for, and one day you were there and stood between Dina and her husband."

  Now it was coming, the moment was close. I felt my hands trembling in nervous excitement, I couldn't breathe, the silence in the room was so oppressive. It was a relief when Felix started talking again.

  "Today I can tell you, captain, that to me the outcome of this battle was never in doubt. You were the stronger, for you had one aim and one aim only, in comparison with which everything else in your life dwindled into insignificance. That made you invincible. To me it was clear that this marriage was going to break up because you wanted it to."

  Again he paused, and the fear inside me became unendurable. Perhaps half a minute passed, and my eyes wandered to Dr Gorski — he was leaning against the desk in an attitude of nervous tension, with an expression of utter bewilderment on his face. I could see that no hope was to be expected from him. The engineer was sitting in his armchair in a cloud of cigarette smoke, contemplating his fingertips in bored fashion as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

  Felix at last broke the agonising silence.

  "That is all over now, and you have lost the game, baron. Your decisive mistake — do you understand what I mean? — Dina will never for one moment tolerate in her presence a man who has her husband's death on his conscience."

  So that was it. That was the threat that had been hanging over me and made me tremble. Now that it had been spoken aloud it suddenly struck me as ridiculous and absurd. My confidence returned, my anxiety had vanished. I was faced with an adversary who had fired his shot and missed, and now it was my turn. I felt immensely superior to this boy who had dared to get involved with me. Now I was the stronger, and I knew what to do.

  I went up to him, looked him in the eye, and said:

  "I hope it has not seriously occurred to you to attribute responsibility for this unhappy event to me or to anyone else?"

  This had the effect I expected. He did not sustain my gaze, became embarrassed, and stepped back a pace.

  "You surprise me, captain," he replied. "The last thing I expected was that you would deny your part in this. To be quite frank with you, I don't understand you. Aren't you afraid your denial will be wrongly interpreted? Hitherto I have never noticed any lack of courage in you."

  "Let us leave the question of my personal courage to a later occasion," I said in a tone that could leave no possible doubt about my ultimate intentions. "In the meantime be kind enough to tell me straight away what role in your opinion I played in this matter."

  His embarrassment had been genuine, but by now he had recovered his composure.

  "I had hoped you would spare me this, but as you insist, very well," he said. "To put it in a nutshell, you found out, I don't know how, that my brother-in-law had put his savings as well as my sister's small capital in the Bergstein bank, whose failure is reported in today's newspapers. You also knew, or suspected, that Dina wanted to keep this disaster from her husband as long as possible. In your hands knowledge of these two things became a weapon. During the afternoon you repeatedly tried in one way or another to bring the conversation round to the matter. You aimed several times at Eugen, but each time you lowered your weapon when you noticed that Dina and I were watching you. You decided that the opportunity was not good enough, so you waited for a better one. Do I have to go on? When Eugen left the room, you followed him here. At last you were alone with him, there was no-one to help him. You pitilessly told him what we had kept from him. Then you left him, and two minutes later, as you expected, a shot was fired. You had an easy task. You knew he had long since lost belief in himself and his future. "

  "There were two shots," the engineer said suddenly, but no-one took any notice.

  It seemed to me to be time to end this discussion.

  "Is that all?" I asked.

  Felix did not answer.

  "Have you informed Frau Dina of these conjectures of yours?"

  "I have talked to my sister about them."

  "First of all you will explain to your sister, and today, if you please, that your assumption is wrong. I have nothing to do with any of this. I did not speak to Eugen Bischoff and did not enter this room."

  "You didn't enter this room ... ? No, Dina is no longer here. We took her to my parents half an hour ago. You say you did not enter this room?"

  "On my word of honour."

  "On your word of honour as an officer?"

  "On my word of honour."

  "Your word of honour," Felix slowly repeated. He was standing in front of me, bending forward slightly, and he nodded two or three times. Then his attitude changed. He stood erect and stretched, like a man who has successfully completed a hard and troublesome task. For a brief second a smile flitted across his firmly closed lips and vanished again.

  "Your word of honour," he said again. "That of course creates a different situation. A word of honour like that greatly simplifies the matter. If you will give me your attention for another moment — an unknown caller left behind something in the room here, something of no particular value which he may perhaps not even have missed yet. Look, here it is."

  He had a shiny, reddish-brown object in his bandaged hand. I went nearer, not recognising it at once, and then, horror- stricken, I felt in my jacket pocket for my small English pipe which I always had with me. The pocket was empty.

  "It was on the table," Felix went on. "It was there when Dr Gorski and I came in. Look out, doctor!"

  Everything started going round and round. Inside me it was dark. It rose in my mind like a long-forgotten memory, as if it had happened years ago. I saw myself walking through the garden, along the gravel path, past the fuchsia beds. Where did the path lead? What did I want in the pavilion? The door creaked when I opened it. How pale Eugen Bischoff went at the first words I whispered, how he looked at the newspaper in dismay and leapt to his feet and then sank back again. And the frightened look that followed me as I left the pavilion and carefully closed the creaking door behind me. There was light on the terrace — that was Dina — I must go up to her — but then — a cry — a shot — down below there was death, and I had summoned it.

  "Look out, doctor, he's falling."

  No, I was not. I shut my eyes and sat in the armchair.

  "It's your pipe, isn't it?"

  I nodded. He slowly lowered his white-bandaged hand.

  I rose to my feet.

  "You want to go, baron?" Felix said. "Well, yes, the matter's settled, and I mustn't take any more of your time. A word of honour, an officer's word of honour, is not one of the things on which we differ and, as we are hardly likely to meet again, I just want to tell you that basically I have never felt hostility to you — never, not even today. I have always had a certain feeling for you, baron. In a strange way I have always felt attracted to you. Liking? No, that would not be the right word. It was more than that — I really am my sister's brother. You are entitled to ask why in spite of such feelings I have put you in a situation in which, as matters stand at present, there is only one way out for you. Well, one can gaze in fascination at a wild cat or a pine-marten, one can be captivated by the grace of the creature's posture and movements and the boldness of its leaps, and yet shoot it down in cold blood because it is a beast of prey. It remains f
or me to assure you that you are under no obligation whatever to carry out in the next twenty-four hours the decision that you have no doubt already made. I shall in no circumstances inform the court of honour of your regiment of this business, should that step turn out to be necessary, before the end of the week. That is the only thing I still wanted to tell you."

  I heard all this, but my mind was on the dark muzzle of the revolver that lay on the table. I saw it with two big round eyes staring into my own, coming closer and closer and getting bigger and bigger and swallowing up the whole room, and I could see nothing else at all.

  Suddenly I heard the engineer's voice. "You are doing the baron a grave wrong," he said. "He had as little to do with the murder as you or I had."

  EIGHT

  I have only an indistinct memory of the moment when my head cleared again. I heard myself sighing deeply; it was the first sound that broke the silence of the room. Then I became aware of a slight gnawing sensation in my head. It was not really painful, and the discomfort soon went away.

  The first feeling I can describe was one of amazement. What had I landed myself in? What was it, what madness had seized me and held me in its grip? Then a feeling of depression took over.

  How is it possible, I asked myself in astonishment and alarm. I had seen myself walking into this room, heard myself whispering words I never spoke. I myself believed in my own guilt. How can that be possible? A hallucination, a waking dream had led me astray. A strange will had tried to force me to confess a crime I did not commit. No, I had not been here, I did not talk to Eugen Bischoff, I am not a murderer. All that had been dream and illusion that had risen from hell and had now been banished.

  I breathed again in liberation and relief. I had not given in, but had fought back. The inexplicable power that had weighed down on me had been broken. Inside me and all round me everything had changed, and I had returned to the world of reality.

  I looked up and saw Felix towering over me. The same obstinate hostility was still on his lips. He seemed determined not to be deprived of his victory, and he turned and angrily faced the engineer as if he were a new and dangerous enemy. He glared at him irritably from beneath knitted brows as if ready to assault him, and he raised his bandaged hand in a gesture of furious surprise that failed to intimidate the engineer.