The Mastersinger from Minsk

by Morley Torgov

  There was nothing sensible to do now but return to my own apartment, hoping by some miracle that something would occur to thwart Vanderhoute’s mission, and hoping by another miracle to get a decent night’s sleep. (And hoping, by a third miracle, that Helena Becker’s heart would reopen to me in the morning.)

  I hailed a cab, its driver and horse both looking drowsy, the former probably looking forward to his bed, the latter to its hay-strewn stall.

  I started to call out my address.

  Then I had a thought.

  “Never mind,” I said, and handed the driver more than the usual fare. “How fast can you get me to Wilhelmstrasse Number 17?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Within moments of my arrival at Number 17 Wilhelmstrasse I had slipped by the dozing night porter, bounded up three flights of stairs, and come, somewhat out of breath, to a door at the far end of a narrow dark hallway. A thin yellowish strip of light leaked under the doorway from within the apartment. Good, I said to myself, he’s home. Not wanting to disturb adjacent residents, I knocked gently. No response. A second knock, a bit firmer. Still no response. A third; same result. To Hell with it, I murmured, and my knuckles came down hard on the thickly panelled door.

  A muffled voice filtered through the door, the tone suspicious, unwelcoming. “Who’s there? Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Hermann Preiss.”

  I heard a key working in the lock, followed by a door chain being unlatched, both steps seeming to take forever. Finally, slowly, the door opened.

  Henryk Schramm stood aside by the open door. He was silent which I took as tacit consent to enter. The first thing that caught my eye was the yellowish glow throughout the place created by a half-dozen votive candles, an effect not unlike the chancel of a church, but more romantic. I thought I detected a hint of perfume which, despite the prevailing smell of burning candles, threaded its way through the thick air. I turned to Schramm. “I apologize for the intrusion,” I said. “Fact is, I happened to find myself in the neighbourhood and —” I pointed to a bottle of brandy and a collection of drinking glasses on Schramm’s small dining table. “Ah, what luck! You must be a mind reader, Schramm. Mind if I sit? It’s been a very long day.”

  “By all means, Inspector, make yourself at home,” Schramm said, his voice flat. “Let me get you a chair.” With little enthusiasm he dragged a wooden chair across the room to the table, all four legs screeching against the floor in protest. Seizing the bottle, he poured out a glassful of brandy. In his haste to hand it to me he spilled half the contents on the tabletop. “I beg your pardon, Inspector,” he said, rushing to sop up the spill with his handkerchief.

  “What’s the old saying, Schramm? The glass isn’t half empty, it’s half full? Anyway, it is I who should be begging your pardon.” I lowered myself into the chair and accepted the drink. “Will you join me?”

  “Thank you, no. I find it has a tendency to keep me awake at this hour.”

  “Well, it’s thoughtful of you to keep it on hand in case company drops in.” I leaned forward and said in a low tone of confidentiality, “Liquor is quicker, n’est ce pas?”

  Schramm pretended not to understand my little jest. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you something more substantial, Inspector.”

  “At this hour? No need, really. A good cigar would go well with this brandy, though.”

  “I don’t smoke, unfortunately.”

  “Fortunately, I happen to have a cigar on me. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Make yourself at home, as I said before.”

  From a leather case I extracted a cigar and clipped the end. With perfect timing Schramm produced an ashtray, which he thrust in front of me. “Oh, so you do smoke?” I said. “You know, Schramm, I’ve always considered a good cigar to be the second greatest pleasure a man can experience.” I gave him a wink. “I leave it to you to guess the first greatest pleasure.” This jest, too, fell on deaf ears. “I take it you must have matches, then.”

  Schramm reached inside a chest, produced a box of matches, struck one, and held the flame to the tip of my cigar, his hand trembling. I edged forward and placed a reinforcing hand over Schramm’s to steady the match, finally succeeding in drawing some fire into the tobacco.

  I sat back, took a few long puffs, my arms and legs stretched comfortably, taking my time, but watching my increasingly uncomfortable host. I sensed that Schramm was counting the seconds until my departure. “You seem a little distracted,” I said. “I suppose working with Wagner on one hand, and constantly bearing in mind this string of murders on the other, the strain must be overwhelming.”

  “Yes and no,” Schramm said. “I’m managing to carry on.”

  “Very good. You’ve probably heard rumours … I mean that we have a suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  “What have you heard, Schramm?”

  Schramm forced a smile. “Rumours, that’s all. You know what rumours are worth, I’m sure.”

  “For instance?”

  “Really, Inspector, I’d rather not say. You of all people must know how silly such talk can be. If idle hands are a source of evil, idle gossip is worse, don’t you agree?”

  “Oh, yes, absolutely. There’s much wisdom in what you say, my friend. But let’s put wisdom aside for one moment. Tell me, just one man to another, forgetting that I’m a policeman … what have you heard, Schramm? It’s something about a woman, isn’t it?”

  Schramm gave an unconvincing laugh. “It’s always about a woman, I suppose. Adam and Eve, and all that biblical nonsense. I couldn’t take this business about a woman seriously.”

  “You couldn’t? That makes it sound as though you may have changed your mind.”

  “I meant, I can’t take it seriously.”

  I kept my eyes on Schramm, as he kept his eyes on me, while I finished off the brandy.

  There was a pause. Then I stood and nodded in the direction of Schramm’s bedroom.

  “She’s in there, isn’t she?” I said.

  “Who?”

  Without replying, I walked with firm steps to the closed door of the bedroom and opened it.

  A woman lay on the floor, her head resting against the wrought iron railing at the foot of Schramm’s bed. A large hat with generous floral decoration lay on the floor beside her. Her eyes were open, but there was no need to kneel and search for a pulse. I had seen enough of death’s postures to know Cornelia Vanderhoute was dead.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  "Cornelia Vanderhoute? But she introduced herself to me as Celeste Vlanders. I don’t understand, Preiss. Why would she lie about her name?”

  I bent to shut the young woman’s eyes. I was close enough to detect a whiff of a very heady perfume with which she must have doused herself, its fragrance as potent as a siren song. In death she resembled a lush flower that had suddenly lost its bloom, and yet I had not the slightest difficulty imagining what men like Franz Brunner, and others more discriminating, like Wagner and Rotfogel, saw in her. Schramm too, for that matter.

  Schramm repeated his question. “Why would she deceive me by giving a false name?”

  “It’s despicable, isn’t it?” I said. “Makes you feel as though you’ve been made a fool of. But the worst thing is, people who make a practice of veiling their true identity turn out almost invariably to be involved in some kind of nefarious activity. At least, that’s been my experience, Schramm. Now tell me, how did this happen?”

  “Must we stay here like this? Can we not discuss this in the other room? I can’t bear to look —”

  “I’m sorry” I replied, “but I need you to tell me the exact details of what took place on this very spot. Obviously she was quite persuasive because I understand you were originally planning to have a late supper with Helena Becker and somehow you were enticed away and ended up here. You produced the bottle of brandy and glasses, a drink or two followed, one thing led to another, then the two of you found yourselves in your bedroom. Am I correct thus fa
r?”

  Schramm nodded, his head hung like a truant schoolboy.

  “So here you are, she and you, you in your partly unbuttoned shirt and shoeless — as you are at the moment, I see — and perhaps preparing to shed more. The woman has thrown her coat across the foot of your bed, but the bed is undisturbed indicating that matters hadn’t progressed all that much. She too is shoeless and the buttons of her blouse are undone. There is a smudge of her rouge on your shirt collar, Schramm, and another on your left cheek. The overture before Act One Scene One, I suppose. Still correct, Schramm?”

  “I swear to God, Preiss, I had no intention of killing her. None! You must believe me. The picture you’ve painted … it’s all true. But for some reason I found strange, she insisted on wearing her hat into the bedroom, and kept it on even while —” Schramm hesitated, then looking sheepish went on, “even while we were beginning to … well, you’ve already observed how far we got, haven’t you? I looked away for a moment. Actually, I was looking down at the floor. I’d dropped a shirt stud, you see. My back was turned to her. I stopped to pick up the stud, and as I rose and began to turn about … my God, Preiss, her right hand was plunging toward my neck with this enormous hatpin. I managed to seize her wrist and twist her arm back over her shoulder, pushing her at the same time with all my might. She fell back. Her head struck the bedpost. I was defending myself, Preiss, I swear!”

  “The hatpin … where is it?”

  “She dropped it as I was twisting her arm. It’s probably there —” Schramm pointed to the woman’s body “— somewhere under her.”

  Gently I raised the woman’s right shoulder. The hatpin was there, on the carpet, a thin but sturdy-looking piece of steel the length of a crochet needle, with a tiny knob at one end.

  I lifted the hatpin and held it up for both Schramm and me to examine closely. “Strange, isn’t it?” I said. “One moment the servant of a woman’s vanity, the next a potential murder weapon. The good and the bad, life and death … all in one, all at the same time.”

  Schramm said, not wanting to look further at what might have ended his life, nor at the person who brandished it, “I assume, by the way you’re wrapping it in your handkerchief, that you’re taking it to the Constabulary. Am I to be charged then?”

  “Charged? Charged with what, Schramm?”

  “Murder, of course.”

  “That depends,” I said.

  “On what?”

  “On how truthful you are.”

  “But I’ve told you the truth, Inspector. I swear!”

  “Yes yes, Schramm, so you’ve sworn, not just once but twice now. And I’m fully prepared to accept your account except — well, except for one rather important item.”

  “I don’t know what you’re referring to,” Schramm said. “I’ve hidden nothing.”

  “That is not quite true,” I said. “You have managed to hide your real identity up to this point. But as I said a moment ago, I despise people who play that game. So, my friend, here is how the game ends: I will report this incident as a case of self-defence, pure and simple. But you must first admit that your true name is not Henryk Schramm but Hershel Socransky.”

  “My name is what? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Inspector. Whatever gave you —”

  “Please, Socransky, don’t waste my time and yours. Be straight with me, or I promise you I will make life very difficult for you over this incident with this woman. I repeat … and I will tell you this once more only: admit who you really are, then I will file a report exonerating you from any criminal conduct. These are my terms.”

  The young tenor studied me for a full minute, his lips pursed as though deciding whether or not he could take me at my word. “How do I know I can trust you?” he said.

  “You don’t,” I replied flatly. “But you have no choice, do you?”

  “How did you find out … about my name?”

  “Ah, there you go again,” I said, “answering my questions with questions of your own. How I found out is neither here nor there. The business of a detective is to detect.”

  “And to solve murder cases,” Socransky put in. “So I assume Fräulein Vanderhoute’s demise is a kind of blessing in disguise. I mean, it’s obvious, is it not, that I was intended to be the next victim in her string of murders? You may recall I suggested this might happen the night we dined at your friend’s restaurant, Preiss, and you didn’t rule out the possibility. Come to think of it, Inspector, I’ve probably done you … you and the entire city of Munich … a great favour, even if it was inadvertent.”

  I felt myself at a crossroads. Socransky hadn’t denied the revelation of his real name. To that extent, and that extent only, the air had been cleared. But beyond that revelation lay deeper unanswered questions: What was Hershel Socransky’s purpose — his true purpose — here in Munich? And what would happen if his identity became known to Richard Wagner? Should I press these questions here and now? Or should I pretend that, with the death of Cornelia Vanderhoute, an immense burden had been lifted from my shoulders giving me cause to celebrate, and leave it at that for the moment?

  I decided on the latter course. Not for one second did I doubt that the man I no longer needed to call Henryk Schramm was on a mission to avenge the suicide to which the elder Socransky had been driven by Wagner. But a confrontation with Hershel Socransky at this point, without better evidence, would achieve nothing but denials and more denials.

  And so I chose instead to lay a trap.

  “Actually, Socransky, you’ve done me — or Munich, if you will — more of a favour than you think. The question of who wrote the note threatening Wagner is now put to rest. I had originally discarded the notion that Cornelia Vanderhoute wrote that note on the grounds that murderers don’t customarily announce their plans in writing, and well ahead of time. Well, I’ve changed my mind. I’m convinced that this was an amateurish attempt on her part to terrify not only Wagner himself but everyone connected with him and his latest venture.” I heaved a false sigh of relief. “We can write ‘fini’ to that ugly little chapter too.”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Socransky said a little too agreeably, as though he’d known all along about the note.

  But how could he have known? I had never mentioned it to him. I was certain Brunner would have had no reason to mention it, nor old Mecklenberg who first brought it to my attention.

  There was only one way Hershel Socransky could have known about the note threatening Wagner’s ruination on June twenty-first. Hershel Socransky was the author of the note.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Commissioner von Mannstein received the news of Cornelia Vanderhoute’s death with the look of a martyr whom God had forsaken. “Well, Preiss,” he said in a sepulchral voice, “thus perishes the one slim hope I cherished.” I was tempted to point out that Vanderhoute may have been a source of hope but that “slim” was not exactly an apt description — a quip that ordinarily would have elicited a comradely chuckle and wink, given his fondness for voluptuous females. But not this morning. Peering at me over his pince-nez, von Mannstein continued: “So now, the radical notions of this malcontent Wagner will go on fermenting. Richard Wagner … the one brewer Munich can do without! Tell me, Preiss, how could you allow this to happen?”

  “With all due respect,” I said, “I believe my report makes clear —”

  “Your report, Inspector Preiss, makes clear that you suffer from an apparently incurable attraction to these artist types. As a result, they seem to get away with everything from minor sins to major transgressions while you, sir, stand enchanted on the sidelines. I remind you, Preiss, that the whole point of assigning you to this Wagner business was that you were the one person on my staff intimately acquainted with the habits of these exotic hothouse flowers. Looking back at your record — I refer of course to the Schumann affair in Düsseldorf — I suppose I ought to have known better. And now you hand me a report which asks me to accept that a man possessing the physique of a gladiato
r overpowers a mere woman, kills her, and claims he did so in self-defence! Self-defence against what, I ask you? A heaving bosom? A suffocating embrace?”

  I leaned forward and pointed to a section of the report. “There’s the matter of the woman’s hatpin —”

  “You mean that ‘Fräulein Hatpin’ nonsense?”

  “It was you, Commissioner, who coined that name. As I recall, you considered her skill with that rather unorthodox weapon not only entirely credible but conveniently useful … if you get my meaning.”

  “Well, Preiss, that’s all beside the point now, isn’t it? That I hoped and prayed Richard Wagner would become her next victim, I will admit. God fulfills Himself in many ways; regrettably, this was destined not to be one of those ways. And now, to make matters worse you rub salt in my wounds by asking me to believe this fellow Schramm is innocent. Which, by the way, brings up another troubling matter: I’m given to understand that the man’s name is not Henryk Schramm, but Hershel Socransky. The man’s a Jew, Preiss … a Jew, of all things! Two questions spring to mind. Earlier this morning, as I was reviewing your report with your colleague Brunner —”

  “You reviewed my report with Brunner —?” I felt as though I had just swallowed an icicle.

  “Don’t look so astonished, Preiss. After all, Brunner is a senior man. I have to tell you, in all honesty, that Brunner on occasion is more assiduous when it comes to shedding light on the finer nuances of a case. It was he who informed me that Schramm’s real name is Socransky and that he’s a Jew. Why does this fact not appear in your report?”

  “Because I did not regard the man’s racial or religious origins to be germane in these circumstances, any more than if he were a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, or a Druid for that matter. You said there were two questions, Commissioner. The second is —?”

  “The second is: what the devil is a Jewish singer doing in an opera composed by the likes of Richard Wagner?” Suddenly von Mannstein, whose expressions up to this point had ranged from annoyed to profoundly annoyed, broke into a half smile. “D’you suppose, Preiss, that circumcision affects the voices of these people? Gives ’em some kind of advantage? Wagner is a menace, yes, but the man’s no fool. Maybe he’s learned their secret, eh?”