The Mastersinger from Minsk

by Morley Torgov

  “Maestro, there’s this French horn player with whom you’ve had some differences, but it seems there is one thing you and he have in common —”

  “Maestro Wagner, I must tell you that allowing Thilo Rotfogel to return to his post in the orchestra could possibly save several lives, including your own —”

  Any one of these, or similar, openings would leave Wagner staring at me as though I were delusional. Of that I had no doubt. But having neither the time nor the temperament nor the talent for subtlety, I made an urgent appointment to meet with Wagner and determined that I would come directly to the point: like it or not, Thilo Rotfogel would have to be given back his position. My job was to find Cornelia Vanderhoute and find her without delay, and if the great man was forced to swallow his pride, well, to hell with him. There would be the usual thunder and lightning. But I was fully prepared.

  I was not prepared, however, for the scene that greeted me when I arrived at the Wagner residence. Ushered into the drawing room by the housekeeper, I found Wagner and Cosima huddled on a settee, he with his arms tightly around her shoulders, she appearing to have collapsed, her head resting against his, her eyes closed as though she were desperately attempting to erase some terrible sight. She was wearing a coat. A bonnet, gloves, and silk scarf lay carelessly at her feet.

  Wagner looked up at me with watery eyes. His complexion was ashen. His lips were parted but something unseen behind them was preventing words from emerging. A man accustomed to making others tremble, Richard Wagner was himself trembling!

  Not knowing what to say, I began with an apology. “I’m sorry … I seem to have intruded on a private family matter —” I took a step back, intending to withdraw.

  Wagner freed one of his arms and motioned vigorously for me to remain, which I did, standing awkwardly and hoping I hadn’t blundered into the midst of a Wagnerian domestic crisis. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have committed yet another act of infidelity, while she, having just found out, was now engaging in yet another act of forgiveness.

  At last Wagner spoke up, his voice unsteady. “You couldn’t have come at a more fitting time, Preiss. My wife has suffered a horrible fright … horrible!” There was a pause, and the two of them seemed to cling to each other more closely, as though they were alone and abandoned in a hostile world. Gently, Wagner said to his wife, “Cosima, do you wish me to tell the Inspector, or would it be better if —”

  Cosima Wagner’s head was pressed still against Wagner’s and her answer was muffled. “Give me a moment, Richard. I need to compose myself —”

  A moment later she looked up. For the first time I saw her face. Tears had smudged her rouge, the hair over her brow was unruly, the corners of her mouth drooped. Her expression was one of utter exhaustion. “You’ll have to bear with me Inspector —” was all she could say. A full minute went by, then she gathered herself up, sitting erect now. Once again she was the Cosima Wagner I’d met a few days earlier, fully in charge of herself, despite whatever had occurred that had so unnerved her prior to my arrival.

  “I was on a shopping expedition,” she began, quietly, slowly, “at Reichmann & Company, near Leopoldstrasse. I assume you are familiar with that establishment, Inspector?”

  Before I could answer Wagner interjected, “They are Jews, Preiss, but one can’t avoid shopping there. The plain fact is, they have the finest upholstery fabrics in Munich and, believe it or not, they don’t overcharge.”

  “Richard, please,” Cosima said sharply, “do not interrupt. Let me finish what I have to say.” As if to soften this rebuke she gave Wagner a pat on the cheek, then went on: “I was browsing on the main floor of the store, looking at window coverings — curtains, drapes, those sorts of things — and then at an assortment of lace antimacassars —”

  “Antimacassars?” I said, smiling curiously. “I thought they went out of fashion a century ago, Madam Wagner.”

  “Not at all, Inspector. You would be surprised at the number of guests, men mostly, who stain our chairs and sofas with their abominable hair oil and pomades. It offends my standards of housekeeping, I tell you. But we are digressing, are we not? I had completed my inspection of materials on the main floor where, incidentally, there were a number of customers, and had moved to the second storey to look at furniture coverings. There was only one other person on that floor, a woman who had followed me up the stairs. She was dressed in black, head to toe, wore a large black hat, and her face was heavily veiled, as though she were in mourning. I thought it strange that a woman in such funereal attire would be shopping at a store like Reichmann & Company but, as the French say, chacun à son goût. So I paid no further attention to her at first. But then it occurred to me that wherever I moved on that floor she followed … followed closely, almost tracing my steps. I began to feel a bit uncomfortable, as you can perhaps imagine, Inspector. After all, there were just the two of us; none of the store staff were present at the moment. So I turned abruptly and made as if to take the stairs back to the main floor but this woman blocked my way, not accidentally but very deliberately. I said, ‘Excuse me,’ but she stood rooted in such a way that I could not possibly get by. The stairway is narrow and she was forming a complete barrier. I repeated, ‘Excuse me.’ Still she did not budge. Then, without a word she pressed an envelope into my hand, turned swiftly, and practically fled down the stairs. I did not see her again.”

  “Give the envelope to Inspector Preiss, Cosima,” Wagner said, again displaying a gentleness I had not imagined him capable of.

  Cosima Wagner reached for a small leather handbag and extracted a plain white envelope, the kind one used to enclose a calling card. As she handed it to me her composure melted somewhat and she sank back on the settee, once again allowing Wagner to cradle her.

  I opened the envelope, took out a card, and read its message, the first time silently, the second time aloud. “Richard and Cosima … like Tristan and Isolde you will both very soon enter the realm of the Night.”

  “Did you manage to get at least a glimpse of the woman’s features?” I asked.

  “Not really, Inspector, I’m sorry to say. As I mentioned, she was all in black, and rather thickly clothed. The only thing that strikes me, now that I think of it, is that she was rather tall. And despite her apparel, it was evident that she possessed a rather imposing figure. Somewhat bosomy, one might say. The way she moved … I mean she flew down the stairs … I would judge her to be a young woman, perhaps in her twenties.” With a shudder, Cosima Wagner added, her voice trailing into a sob, “I hope to God I never see her again.”

  “Would this note have anything to do … any connection at all … with the note that was slipped under our door … the warning about June twenty-first?” Wagner wanted to know. The answer to that question was clear to me but I preferred to furnish it in Cosima Wagner’s absence. “Madam Wagner must be exhausted after such a frightening experience,” I said, addressing Wagner. “May I suggest she retire. There will be time for me to take a more detailed statement of this affair from her tomorrow, I assure you.”

  I was relieved that Cosima did not resist my suggestion. Holding her tenderly, Wagner assisted her as she made her way out of the drawing room. I heard him call to the housekeeper to escort her to their bedroom. On his return he wanted again to know if the two messages were related in some way.

  “Yes, I believe they are,” I replied. “I recognize the printing … the same crude block letters.”

  “And the writer is —?”

  “My guess is … Fräulein Cornelia Vanderhoute.”

  “Your guess? Is that the best you can offer at a time like this?”

  “Maestro Wagner, let me make one thing clear, if I have not already done so. I will not tell you how to write music. You will not tell me how to investigate crime.”

  “But if you suspect this Vanderhoute woman, why are you not arresting her? Good God, man, what more do you need?”

  I took a deep breath. “I need you to hire a certain Fre
nch horn player by the name of Thilo Rotfogel. And not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I mean today!”

  Wagner gave me a look of utter disbelief. “In a crisis like this you make jokes, Preiss?”

  “This is not a joke,” I said. “In fact, my reason for wanting to see you so urgently today is that you must agree to reinstate this man Rotfogel. Let me explain —”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I left the Wagner residence with the realization that a miracle of sorts had occurred, though one not entirely of my own making. In the face of tangible evidence that the life of his beloved Cosima was at serious risk, the Maestro agreed to allow Thilo Rotfogel to return to his post as principal French hornist in the opera orchestra, this concession nevertheless accompanied with a stern directive: “Tell that insolent bastard to behave himself or I swear I’ll throw him out again!” I promised to convey the warning word for word, though in truth I hadn’t the slightest intention of doing so. There is a time for everything, and this was not a time to ruffle Thilo Rotfogel’s feathers.

  In fairness to Brunner — after all, it was he who had produced the Rotfogel piece of the puzzle — I invited him to accompany me to the hornist’s lodgings to break the good news, following which Brunner and I would proceed as planned to apprehend the elusive Fräulein Vanderhoute with all due haste.

  Rotfogel occupied rooms in a quite respectable apartment building in the Old Town just off Marienplatz, close enough to the town hall that Brunner and I were able to check our pocket watches as the glockenspiel in the hall tower above the main entrance chimed six o’clock.

  “He may be dining out somewhere,” Brunner said. “Being a bachelor he probably takes all of his meals in restaurants.” I thought I detected more than a hint of envy in Brunner’s voice. (I guessed mealtimes in the Brunner household — what with a wife and four young children — were regularly the same kind of stomach-churning occasions as mealtimes in the household of Wolfgang Preiss during my childhood back in Zwicken.)

  According to the concierge, our man was at home. “Second floor, east end, last door down the hall. Name’s just above the door knocker. Oh, and don’t be surprised if it takes him a while to open up. He’s got more locks and chains on his door than the Bavarian State Prison.”

  We found Rotfogel’s door without difficulty, but several stout raps with the brass doorknocker brought no response. Annoyed, I said to Brunner, “Try the damned door. We don’t have all night —”

  “But you heard the concierge —”

  “Try it anyway, Brunner.”

  A single twist of the doorknob, as it turned out, was all that was required. No locks. No chains. “Well, that was easy!” Brunner said. He took the first step inside, I followed. “Herr Rotfogel?” Brunner called out. There was no reply. Again: “Herr Rotfogel?” Silence.

  “Rotfogel,” I called out, quite sharply. “It’s us — Inspector Preiss and Detective Brunner —”

  We were past a small entrance hall and into the sitting room now. Not a thing was out of place. Obviously Thilo Rotfogel was as much a perfectionist when it came to housekeeping as he was when it came to playing the French horn. Every piece of wooden furniture was polished almost to a mirror finish. Down-filled cushions and pillows on the sofa and side chairs had been puffed to fullness, as though they had never been sat upon. There was even a white vase at the centre of a small round dining table filled with fresh flowers, a rarity at this time of year in Munich and not cheaply purchased. Only one minimal sign of neglect appeared: an open bottle of plum brandy on a silver tray next to the flower vase, the bottle half empty, cork next to it, and next to the cork two fine crystal snifters both seemingly abandoned while still containing small amounts of the liquor.

  I pointed in the direction of a closed door at the far side of the sitting room. “Something tells me,” I said to Brunner, speaking just above a whisper, “that our friend has company and they’re both asleep there.” I moved across the room, placed my hand on the doorknob, looked back at Brunner, and said, again in a low voice, “I hate to do this but duty calls —”

  I opened the door. “Brunner,” I called back, “come here … take a look at this —” Now I understood why our “host” had failed to respond. When a man’s throat has apparently been crudely pierced by some long sharp object it is entirely excusable if he fails to greet his “guests” in a hospitable manner.

  It is one thing for a person to die before his or her time, but quite another thing for a person to die without dignity. Rotfogel died without dignity. He lay sprawled across his bed, on his back, naked, the sheet in the immediate area of his neck blood-soaked. His clothing — trousers, jacket, shirt, neckwear, footwear — was neatly arranged on a nearby chair, suggesting that the shedding of his garments was not all that spontaneous an act, that perhaps this was all part of an established ritual: first a copious amount of brandy, then a few minutes of amorous talk, arousal, followed by a trip to the bedroom.

  Whoever was admitted and participated in this ritual with Rotfogel — and I was certain it was none other than Cornelia Vanderhoute — left not a trace in the bedroom, not so much as a hair or a thread as far as Brunner and I could see after a quick survey. Similarly the sitting room afforded no clues.

  “If you’re right and it was Vanderhoute,” Brunner said, “she certainly did a meticulous job of tidying up after herself.”

  “I think she had nothing to tidy up,” I said. “I think Rotfogel let her in, she saw to it that he had plenty to drink, lured him to the bedroom where, it appears, he very methodically undressed despite the effects of the brandy, and while he lay on the bed anticipating the joy to come, she finished him off more or less the same way she finished off the others … all without so much as removing her hat!”

  “But why? She couldn’t have known Rotfogel was going to lead us to her,” Brunner said. “What reason would she have to kill him?”

  We were back in the bedroom. “There’s the reason,” I replied, indicating a heavy polished mahogany jewellery case, which sat atop a matching chiffonier. The case had been thrown open and, except for a handful of inexpensive shirt studs and what looked like a child’s ring, its contents had been removed, tray by tray. “She was meticulous all right,” I said.

  Brunner looked crestfallen. “So with Rotfogel dead, how do we find her?”

  “Simple,” I said. Then, in a rare moment of biblical inspiration, I added, “Whither Rotfogel’s jewellery goeth, there also goeth Cornelia Vanderhoute.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  "So, Helena,” I said, “what have you got for me?” It was the morning after her evening with Henryk Schramm.

  “What have I got for you, Hermann?” Helena pretended to be searching for a thoughtful answer. “Well now, let me think. What have I got for you? A great deal of contempt? Yes, I would say that sums it up quite nicely.”

  “Look, Helena, I apologize if my question wasn’t subtle —”

  “Wasn’t subtle, you say? It was the kind of question you’d put to a whore! You ask a favour of me, I comply, and then you don’t even have the decency to inquire where we went, what we ate, what we did afterward, was it pleasant or unpleasant, how I felt playing the role of your sneaky little helper.”

  “There will be time for me to show my appreciation, Helena,” I said, reaching out to grasp her hand, and having my hand thrust aside.

  “Oh, yes, that empty promise of yours about a holiday in Lucerne. In June was it? Should I begin packing my bags, Hermann? No point waiting to the last minute.”

  With every word Helena’s voice was rising, her temperature too. We had been seated across from each other at a small table in a fashionable coffee house a few doors from the Eugénie Palace and by now Helena’s vociferous indignation was beginning to attract the attention of nearby patrons. I rose and took up my coat and hat. “You’re tired, my dear. Let’s continue this later when —”

  “Sit down, Hermann!” So loud was Helena’s command that several of our nei
ghbouring coffee drinkers, witnessing what they took to be a lovers’ quarrel, smirked. Embarrassed, I met their smirks with a shrug, as if to say, “Women — what do you expect?” Nevertheless, I obeyed, laid aside my coat and hat, and settled into my chair again.

  “I have something to tell you, Hermann —”

  “Please, Helena, lower your voice —”

  “I have something to tell you —” To my relief, she repeated this in a half-whisper. “His real name isn’t Schramm.”

  “Ahah! So my suspicion was not misguided after all. I knew there was something behind that façade of his.”

  “If you’re not too busy congratulating yourself,” Helena said, “would it interest you to know how I found this out?”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear the details,” I said.

  “There are no ‘details,’ Hermann,” Helena said, speaking quietly but eyeing me coldly. “But I will tell you this: I would not have resisted — not for one moment — if it had come to ‘details.’ He is everything you are not, Hermann … kind, considerate, charming, not to mention incredibly handsome.”

  “You’ve forgotten to mention one other thing,” I said. “The man is very likely a fraud, an imposter of some sort. I’m not sure exactly what he’s up to but I wouldn’t trust him from one side of this table to the other. So, how did you learn that he’s living under a false name?”

  Helena looked away. “I’m so ashamed —”

  I reached out, took Helena’s face in my hands as gently as I could given that I was quickly losing patience, and said, “Helena, look at me. I have no time for shame, yours, mine, anybody’s. I am a policeman. I do what I have to do.”

  Helena pulled my hands away. “But I am not, and I hate what I did.”

  “Which was —?”

  “Which was to spy, to violate the man’s privacy, to do something to him which I would never want anyone to do to me, Hermann. Never!” Helena paused, as though preparing to make some dark confession, then said, “We were in his sitting room, and he left and went into this tiny kitchenette to open a bottle of wine to go along with a small cake he’d bought. And while he was busy there, I used the time to look about the sitting room. There was a small writing table in one corner. And that is where I saw it.”