by John Burke
“You mean you hope it isn’t.”
“Naturally. Another unsolved murder would hardly be good for my prestige in Vandorf.”
“Ah. So you will make sure that this one is solved.”
“Yes,” said Kanof forcefully. “You may rely on that.”
Namaroff’s lips curled into a mocking grimace that stayed frozen on his mouth while his pallid grey eyes stared into and through Kanof. The bleak scrutiny made the policeman shuffle uneasily. Finally Namaroff allowed himself a whimsical nod.
“You think you know who did it?”
“A young man. Staying at the old millhouse and carrying on with the girl. Lovers’ quarrel—that’s the way I see it.”
“Very plausible.”
“Lovers do quarrel.”
“Of course they do, my dear fellow. Does the young man confirm this theory of yours?”
“He’s still missing.”
Namaroff’s grave expression retained a hint of the earlier mockery. “Unfortunate. Most unfortunate. But you know who he is?”
“His name is Bruno Heitz. An artist—the son of some professor at Berlin University.”
The mockery faded. Namaroff whistled softly. “Professor Jules Heitz,” he said. “I know him. We were students together. You’ll be getting in touch with him?”
“Immediately, Doctor.”
Namaroff pondered, then said: “I suggest not immediately. Wait until you find the young man.”
“You may be right.”
Namaroff suddenly became aware that Carla was still in the laboratory. He gazed at her with piercing intensity, then softened into a smile which she found even more repulsive than his anger, and said:
“Carla, my dear, perhaps you’ll wheel the corpse in. It’s time I examined it.”
Carla went halfway along the corridor and waved to the attendant, who began to push the trolley towards her. The attendant was Ratoff, a swarthy little man who belonged to this part of the country, but who had freed himself from his background and become a devoted servant of the Institution. He had a streak of callousness that stood him in good stead in this job. His respect for Dr. Namaroff bordered on adoration.
They steered the trolley into the laboratory. As it turned, it jarred slightly against the door jamb. A hand that protruded from beneath the sheet wavered for a second, and the middle finger dropped off.
There was a scream that rang through the building.
Carla, watching the finger drop to the floor and lie there, unnaturally grey and hard, thought at first that it was her own voice crying out, resounding in her head. But Ratoff had turned and was racing back along the corridor. Namaroff brushed past Carla and followed.
The two men flung themselves through the doors at the end of the corridor. The doors swung to and fro as though in a high wind. The scream came again, and again, rising and falling.
Carla reached the hall as Namaroff started up the main staircase.
Above them a crazed woman was struggling to free herself from two attendants. Ratoff had just joined them, but was in danger of being kicked or elbowed down the stairs again.
It was Martha. Oh, God, poor Martha, thought Carla. This time he won’t be lenient. This time it won’t be curative treatment for her—it’ll be punishment.
The woman’s hair hung down over her face. Wildly she tossed her head to free her eyes so that she could see to gouge and kick and spit. Her scream sank to a breathless sob as she doggedly wrestled with her captors. It was an imploring sob, a plea for understanding that was beyond anyone in the universe.
Her struggles weakened. There were three strong, practised men against her now. At last they subdued her and she sank exhausted against the stair rail.
Sister Grethe came out on the landing. She had two gashes down her left cheek, bleeding furiously, as though Martha’s nails had struck savagely with the intention of marking her for life. The fury of the attack must have been overwhelming, and Sister Grethe had been glad to leave the final battle to the men.
She cautiously descended a few steps.
Namaroff was white with rage. “How did this happen?”
“She pounced on me, Doctor. As soon as I got to the door of her cell—her room, that is.”
“This is the second time. Put her in a straitjacket . . . and keep her in it.”
Martha whimpered and began to sag, her knees giving way until she was a crumpled heap on the stairs. Ratoff stood above her, taking no chances.
Carla felt a sickness that turned her stomach over. She knew all too well what it felt like to be lost. She remembered the bewilderment, the groping uncertainty, the yearning to cry out and beat one’s fists against something or somebody. Namaroff had helped her through the worst phase and she had come back to the clean, clear world; but supposing she hadn’t been able to respond—supposing she had collapsed into the fog as Martha had done? Would Namaroff have been so patient then, or would he have condemned her to the imprisonment he was now prescribing for Martha? If Namaroff hadn’t fallen in love with her he might not have persevered.
She turned to him, wanting to plead with him as he came down the stairs, but Sister Grethe spoke first. As Martha was half led, half carried past her, she shrank back and said:
“It was the full moon again. The same as last time.”
“Sister!” Namaroff’s voice cracked like a whip. “That’s quite enough of that. Go and get those cuts of yours attended to.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Namaroff turned away. He indicated that Carla should accompany him, and they went through the doorway where Kanof had been viewing the proceedings with sadistic interest.
The corpse lay in the stillness of death, shrouded and remote from all the agonies and shoutings of life. Carla mutely indicated the finger on the floor. Namaroff made a quick, hissing intake of breath and then twitched the sheet from the body.
Kanof approached. “You’ll perform an autopsy, of course, Doctor?”
Namaroff ran his fingers over the solid, unyielding head of what had once been an eager, vital young woman.
“On a body that’s turned to stone?” he said.
4
The journey from Berlin had been a long one. The frontier of Bohemia was not impossibly far, but there was no direct route to Vandorf or indeed to any major town in the vicinity. These people had lived in seclusion with their own customs and their own gruff dialect too long to want to make things easy for visitors.
The wretchedness that had clung to Professor Jules Heitz from the moment the news reached him now became worse. He could see why his younger son had been stirred by this sinister countryside and why his youthful romanticism should have brought him back here time and time again. In his creative imagination there might well be a unique splendor to be captured from these surroundings. But this was no consolation to Professor Heitz. Here there could never be any loveliness. For him this place meant only death: the death of a girl he had never met, and the death of his son Bruno.
It was made very plain to him as soon as he reached Vandorf that he was not welcome. When he had announced his intention of coming to the inquest he was warned that he should not attempt to put up at the local inn, as the dead girl’s father was capable of violence. After he had used what influence he had with a local dignitary whose son was studying with him—a remote contact, and one which took some pains to establish—he was found accommodation in a town five miles away, over the ridge and out of sight of Castle Borski. He would have to be driven in for the inquest. And perhaps that was best. Walking down Vandorf’s shabby, dispiriting main street, he saw the stunted men of the district nudging each other and pointing him out, and the women twitching back curtains to glare at him. Whatever charm Bruno might have found here, Bruno’s father was not one to be charmed by old ways and inbred backwardness.
On arriving at the damp little courtroom in which the inquest was to be held, Heitz was peremptorily told by a wizened little clerk that the coroner was likely to call on him as a w
itness. Before the Professor could protest that he had only just come to the district, the clerk added, “A character witness, of course,” and fussed away.
The courtroom was crowded. Surrounded by these dour men and women in their dark, shabby clothes, Heitz was reminded of nothing so much as a congregation of ragged vultures. They had come for the pickings. They would scratch over the dead—and drive the living away.
The coroner was a lean-featured man with a pouchy jaw. It was clear from the start that his mind was made up on the fundamentals of the case. He wanted to hurry it through and be done with it. Heitz had hoped to learn something of what had really happened—something more than the bare, terrible facts which had brought him here from Berlin—but he realized that there was going to be no deep, analytical probe into the truth.
Inspector Kanof was the first witness. He reported the finding of the girl’s body by a woodcutter who, skirting the forest in the early morning, had seen a flash of color in the dark undergrowth and, after a brief fearful inspection, had hurried down to the village to notify the police. There followed a search for the young man who was known to have been spending a lot of his time with the girl.
He was found hanging from a tree not far from the scene of the crime.
Professor Heitz lowered his head. He was a man whose dignity and self-control meant a great deal to him, and he did not wish these people to see the tears in his eyes.
The drone of voices went on—question and answer, perfunctorily exchanged by men who did not want to stir up too many dark elements.
“When I broke the news of the girl’s death to her father,” Kanof was saying, “he said it was no surprise to him.”
“What did you deduce from that?”
“That he had personal reasons for knowing of Bruno Heitz’s bad reputation.”
“And had you any such personal experience, Inspector?”
“Yes, sir. There were certain incidents . . .”
“Describe them, please.”
“Drunkenness, bad behavior in public. Singing in the streets, starting arguments in the inn—it became so bad that the innkeeper had to throw him out. Many of his opinions verged on blasphemy . . .”
It was too petty, too dreary. The natural exuberance of youth was something alien to the people of Vandorf. Had any of them, Heitz wondered, ever been young? He looked round the room. The faces were sullen and secretive. All right, Bruno had been a young fool—but he was a generous young fool who gave himself rapturously to life and wanted to share his joy with others. Little they would understand of conviviality and friendship!
Then Heitz started. One face stood out from the rest. It was a face which certainly did not belong here. He recognized it, but for a moment could not visualize it in its proper setting. Then he remembered. Namaroff. An educated man, a surgeon, a scientist. He had visited the Heitz home during his days in Berlin, and the Professor had been impressed by the range of his mind. A trifle cold, perhaps—undoubtedly ruthless if the need arose—but the detachment of an educated man was what was needed here at this stage.
Heitz felt a flicker of hope. Something was wrong, but one civilized, knowledgeable voice might begin to put it right. The coroner might not find it so easy to rush over the opinions of Dr. Namaroff.
“Call Janus Cass . . .”
The innkeeper was a great barrel of a man, with all the marks of his trade save the essential one of jollity. His heaviness was that of brutality and a limited imagination. In the witness stand he was like a huge animal, lumbering and unapproachable.
“You are the father of the deceased girl, Sascha.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And landlord of the Saracen Inn.”
“Right, sir.”
“Will you please tell the Court what you know of the relationship between your daughter and the deceased young man.”
“My girl took to him, unfortunately. Said she loved him,” growled Cass. “He took advantage of her and then didn’t want to face the consequences.”
“When you say ‘took advantage of her’ you mean—”
“It’s my belief she was pregnant by him. A thoroughly bad lot. I told Sascha to have nothing to do with him—knew from the time he stayed in my place he was no good—but she wouldn’t listen.”
“She disobeyed you.”
“She did. He talked her into it. A sly tongue he had, that one.”
The coroner nodded, accepting, jotting down a few notes. He asked: “Did you personally observe this man’s addiction to alcohol?”
The invitation to confirm the picture of Bruno Heitz as a drunkard and a wastrel was unmistakable. The coroner was not so much questioning the witness as urging him to say what was required of him. Professor Heitz had difficulty in restraining himself. As a scholar, accustomed to the sifting of evidence and the meticulous checking of every fact before he would even dare to formulate the beginnings of a theory, he was appalled by this perversion of justice. But he knew how little weight his word would carry in this place. They would be glad of the excuse to turn on him.
“Nobody ever had a better chance than I did,” Cass was saying with vicious relish. “Didn’t he stay with me those first few times, before I got on to what he was at? Getting the inn a bad name, he was.”
“A tendency to violence in his cups?” the coroner suggested.
“Well, sir . . .”
If Cass was baulking at this one, he got no chance to make his meaning clear. The coroner briskly dismissed him without waiting for the answer, and went on to the next witness.
“Call Dr. Namaroff.”
Heitz sat up. He looked at the Doctor’s ascetic, arrogant features and almost begged the man to turn and recognize him. He wanted to convey a plea to him—a plea for decency, for the intellectual honesty that must be shared by men of goodwill from the civilized world.
“Will you tell us, Doctor, what in your opinion was the cause of this girl’s death.”
“It was undoubtedly the result of violence,” said Namaroff calmly. “I observed deep abrasions round the forehead as though she had been struck from the front by some sharp instrument. There were indentations in the skull . . .”
He paused. Heitz willed him to go on. Surely any marks on the skull could have been caused when she fell. How had she fallen—what sort of abrasion had there been on the forehead—where was the murder weapon and what was there to ally it with Bruno or with anyone else?
“A violent attack,” the coroner prompted Namaroff.
“Undoubtedly.”
“From the front. Carried out, would you say, by someone she knew and from whom she didn’t try to run away?”
“A sound point,” said Namaroff politely.
“Thank you, Doctor. You may step down.”
Again Heitz almost rose from his seat. But even the suggestion of a movement brought a scowl from his neighbor.
Then his name was being called. They were waiting for him to make his way to the witness stand. His hands shook as he took up his position. He was not a short-tempered man but he knew that he was liable to burst out in a rage today; and knew also that it would achieve nothing.
“You are Professor Jules Heitz.”
There was a formal attempt at respect in the coroner’s manner, but it was veiled by a more characteristic indifference.
“I am.”
“Father of the deceased man, Bruno Heitz.”
“Yes.”
“You have heard the evidence before this Court?”
“If you can call it evidence.”
There was a whisper of indrawn breath. The coroner frowned, and went on sharply:
“Did you know the girl concerned?”
“No, sir.”
“From the evidence before me I have the impression that your son was somewhat of a profligate. Would you agree with that?”
Heitz said: “He was a talented artist. His life was of his own choosing.”
“The life of a libertine,” the coroner nodded.
&
nbsp; “No. Possibly he had a number of young women in his life. That doesn’t make him a libertine.”
“There was at any rate one particular girl whom he betrayed.”
“I cannot believe that.”
“You are his father.” The coroner shrugged. If it was meant as a comment on the situation, it was either insulting or meaningless.
Heitz said: “There is no clear evidence that my son intended to shirk his obligations to the girl. No evidence that he killed her. The medical report”—he glanced reproachfully at Namaroff, who averted his gaze—“was singularly inadequate. The police findings were no more than—”
“If you have nothing further to contribute to this inquiry,” said the coroner, “you may stand down.”
“I am not ready to stand down.” Heitz lifted his head so that he did not have to meet the savage eyes of the hunched creatures in the courtroom. “We are not considering one isolated case—or, rather, we ought not to be considering just one case. I have read the newspapers, and I am a student of human nature. I have read about the unsolved Vandorf murders . . . and from my brief contact with human beings here I have no doubt at all that everything I have seen and heard has been generated by fear. Particularly what I have heard in this courtroom.”
A bestial snarl rose from the well of the court. The coroner hammered for silence, but his expression made it plain that he sided with his fellow citizens.
He said: “Professor Heitz, in assessing the evidence before us—”
“Evidence which is circumstantial, prejudiced, and contrived,” said Heitz. “Evidence which would never be accepted in any civilized community.”
“Professor Heitz, I must ask you to stand down.”
Bruno’s name would be stained so that this sinister matter could be brought speedily to a close. He had been a stranger, so let him be the scapegoat. The verdict was a foregone conclusion: murder followed by suicide.
“I will say no more.” Heitz stepped down. “But believe me, I shall not rest until I have cleared my son’s good name.”
He went back to his seat like a man running the gauntlet between ranks of savages waiting to pounce.
The coroner made a show of sorting out papers. He then picked up his pen and began to write. When he looked up he said:
