The Riddle of Monte Verita

by Jean-Paul Torok

  Lippi slowly climbed the platform steps. An enthusiastic audience, composed mainly of academics from Switzerland and neighbouring countries, students in the throes of writing their theses, several passionate readers and numerous professional and amateur writers – not counting the perpetual curiosity-seekers at the rear of the hall – noticed that the professor had not brought any notes and applauded him the more for that, except for a dozen or so specialists who hunkered down in their seats in chagrin.

  ‘Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, my dear colleagues,’ he started, getting immediately to the heart of the subject: ‘the criminal is an artist, the detective is only an art critic….’

  ‘Nothing new about that,’ hissed a specialist to his neighbour, sufficiently loudly that all could hear. ‘He took that from Chesterton’s Father Brown.’

  ‘… and the author of detective stories,’ continued Lippi imperturbably, ‘has to be criminal and detective by turns. He must be, at the same time, a Hyde who conceives the story of the crime and a Dr. Jekyll who writes the account. The former proposes the enigma and the latter provides the solution. For the novelist, that implies the necessity to penetrate the mentality of the criminal and the talent to do so; to enter truly into the criminal’s brain and to stay there long enough to organise the story into a coherent whole, until he himself appropriates the criminal’s plan. Once that is done, and only then, can he don the detective’s outfit and switch over to the account of the investigation that reconstructs the original story. But one must never lose sight of the fact that the true author of the novel is none other than the criminal, the creator of the work of infernal art, of the diabolical machination which remains a mystery to the reader; and that the detective is only there to expose the inner workings of the crime to the light of day.

  ‘If, as we were promised, the great Carter Gilbert were here amongst us, he would be able to explain better than I that he starts, before anything else, by working out the prodigious system of reasoning that allows a murderer to escape from a locked room – after which the novel is practically finished: from then on, the account will merely look for explanations of apparently impossible actions and situations; throw out more and more demented hypotheses; dangle red herrings in front of the reader; and provide him with clues sufficiently well concealed that he cannot find the solution before the final revelation of the story conceived beforehand. What sets the impossible crime novel apart as a genre of its own is that, contrary to other forms of literature, the account is not intended to tell the story but to disguise it until the last few pages. So as to –.’

  ‘Excuse me, professor,’ asked a soft feminine voice with a Swiss accent, from somewhere in the middle of the hall. May I ask a question?’

  ‘Silence, madam!’ remonstrated the president. ‘The public may only ask questions after the talk.’

  ‘Because the charming lady I can see in the third row asked me so disarmingly, I shall make an exception in this case and be happy to answer her question,’ said Lippi, all milk and honey.

  ‘I don’t understand the distinction you make between the story and the account. Aren’t they generally taken to mean the same thing?’

  ‘No, madam, and I’ll give you an example that will make it all clear. Perhaps you remember the story of the filmgoer who neglected to tip the usher. By way of revenge, she whispered in his ear: “The butler did it.” She had revealed the end of the story, so he lost all interest in the account of the film. Let that serve as a lesson. If your husband, speaking about a book he’s planning to read, asks you: “What’s it about?” please don’t tell him the story, unless you want to create a scene. Don’t tell him it’s about a giant ape that kills people in the Rue Morgue or, as in The Mystery of the Scarlet Room, the crime was committed by shooting a crossbow bolt through a keyhole....’

  A wave of laughter rippled through the audience. Lippi looked up ecstatically. He proceeded to cite a long list of categories of methods of killing in hermetically sealed rooms, affirming that locked room mysteries were the most interesting subjects in crime fiction.

  ‘But I do recognise,’ he said, raising his voice, ‘that there are a number of detractors including, no doubt, some of you. They don’t appreciate that kind of story, claiming that: “That kind of thing can’t happen in real life.” They only like situations which they call “realistic” and brandish the word “improbable” to express their disapproval. Now, that’s the very last word that should be used to express contempt for the impossible crime novel. Its devotees love the genre precisely because it is improbable. When B is found dead inside a lift he was seen entering alone and whose doors only open when the apparatus is at rest, it is indeed improbable that A could have killed him. When D is found stabbed at the top of a tower that nobody else could have entered, it is improbable that C could be the guilty party. If G has an alibi sworn to by a host of witnesses, it’s improbable that, with his innocent air, G could have done it. Yet he turns out to be the murderer! One must agree that, in all those cases, the word “improbable” is completely meaningless.

  ‘We are here in the domain of pure fiction where the events obey only the internal logic of the mechanics of the story, and the role of the writer – magister dixit – “is to tell, not what really happened, but what had to have happened in the order of narrative necessity.” Asking a man who writes detective stories to pay heed to improbability is as ridiculous as asking a mathematician to use a ruler to verify the accuracy of his calculations on an ironing board.’

  He paused briefly to assess the effect of the metaphor on the audience and, greatly encouraged, launched into further philosophical observations, all of which caused him to overrun his allotted time. The public was starting to become restless so he was obliged to cut short his peroration, and the applause that greeted the end of his speech was due more to relief than anything else.

  It was time for the debate, to the general satisfaction of those that had not left the hall. It proceeded as is customary at such events, with each participant asking a question more for effect than from a desire to advance the cause of knowledge. When it became obvious the discussion was winding down, the president, anxious to end the proceedings, looked around and asked without enthusiasm: ‘Would anyone care to ask one final question?’ A sonorous voice asked to speak.

  ‘Doctor Hoenig?’ said the president.

  The whole audience turned round to look at the criminologist, who was standing at the rear of the hall. So far, he had passed unnoticed by everyone but his immediate neighbours. What was he going to say? He walked down the aisle with a heavy tread and stopped in front of the rostrum.

  ‘I believe I heard you say,’ he started in a soft voice, ‘that a locked room mystery is the ne plus ultra of detective fiction and those who take a different view in accusing it of improbability are making a grievous mistake. And you added, if I remember correctly, that such stories don’t need to justify themselves by the fact that they could have happened in reality, in other words it’s not important that these kinds of situations cannot occur in real life.’

  ‘Quite so,’ snapped Lippi. ‘Your point being?’

  ‘My point being,’ repeated Hoenig, raising his voice, ‘the following question: are you the same Professor Lippi who expounded in his works the famous theory that narrative fiction only differs from true fiction in negligible ways and that each imitates the other?’

  Lippi did not answer straight away. He smiled as if secretly enjoying himself and nodded his head before replying.

  ‘Any scholar worthy of the name must rejoice at being found in apparent contradiction by his peers,’ he began, seeming not the least joyful. ‘I forgive you, as you are clearly not a specialist, for not knowing that the impossible crime novel is a genre entirely apart, with its own letters patent of nobility in the same way as the fantastic and the fairy tale. It doesn’t have to answer to reality, and its readers don’t give a fig about adherence to the norms of daily life. I fear you’re comparing it to
the realist school of crime fiction, where murder is treated as just another fact of daily life amongst so many others. You are, of course, perfectly free to derive your pleasure from the penny dreadful, but, for my part, I am incapable of allowing myself to be seduced by vulgar accounts of human turpitude.’

  ‘Leave my tastes out of it and answer the question: do you deny that a real criminal could perpetrate a murder in a hermetically sealed chamber?’

  ‘I didn’t say he couldn’t, I said he wouldn’t.’

  ‘And why, may I ask?’

  ‘Because it’s a horribly complicated way to kill someone,’ sneered Lippi, ‘and there are far more simple methods. Let us assume there is a murderer sufficiently mad to decide to stab a victim barricaded inside a house in the middle of a clearing in a forest, surrounded by snow, illuminated day and night by searchlights and under constant police surveillance – and without leaving any traces.’ He shot an amused look at the audience. ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, by great good fortune we have before us a specialist in criminal phenomena, and I’m sure he’ll be able to explain how such an individual would have gone about it in real life.’

  Laughter rang out on all sides of the audience, and the good doctor’s face turned purple. He opened his mouth to reply, but remained utterly speechless. He looked desperately at the young man sitting next to the seat he had vacated. The latter’s expression was inscrutable, but a close observer might well have concluded he was trying desperately not to laugh out loud.

  ‘I thank you for your eloquence,’ said Lippi, now playing shamelessly to the gallery. Pierre realised he was toying with the German, trying see how far he could goad him. It made him think of a thesis jury, unable to resist the pleasure of tormenting the unfortunate candidate.

  ‘Tell us at least, Doctor,’ continued the Italian, driving the nail home, ‘whether, in the course of your long career, you have ever found yourself face-to-face with a murderer who stabbed his victim with a piece of ice, or who shot him with a contraption concealed in a telephone, designed to fire a piece of rock salt shaped in the form of a bullet into the head of whoever picks up the receiver. I’m only mentioning here – and I can see that everyone in the hall except you understands – a few of the diabolical schemes dreamt up by the eminent Carter Gilbert. So, I ask you, can you cite a single case when such an extravagant method was used?’ He folded his arms and the audience held its breath. ‘Come now, sir, you must answer.’

  Hoenig squared his shoulders, folded his arms and, chin thrust out, announced in a firm voice:

  ‘I shall do it. I shall do it on Monday morning, when I present my paper.’

  ‘May we ask how you propose to answer?’

  ‘I shall describe a number of impossible crimes I have had to examine, which have never been explained.’

  ‘Why should we take your word for it?’

  ‘I shall provide dates and facts and I shall cite names. Even if that causes problems for certain people here,’ he added under his breath, so that only the attendees in the front row could hear, even though the words made little sense to them.

  He looked defiantly around the auditorium and Pierre had the impression the man paused briefly to stare at him.

  ‘And what then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You will merely be demonstrating the ingenuity of your interpretation. Nothing more. Didn’t Aristotle declare that a theory must conform to the experience of things as they are?’

  Hoenig’s face went red with anger as he realised his tormentor had no interest in any discussion where reason played a role.

  ‘Get to the point,’ he snarled in a harsh voice.

  ‘I’m getting there. Everyone here knows the endlessly repeated story of the miraculous grotto where poor Rosenkreutz disappeared… Well, because you claim that the same hocus-pocus can be performed in real life and that a man may indeed escape from a hermetically sealed area, are you prepared to submit to a conclusive experiment?’

  ‘That is to say…?’

  ‘Shut yourself in the grotto.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Disappear!’ shouted Lippi, guffawing helplessly. Hoenig unfolded his arms slowly and, with his hands shaking, marched at a glacial pace out of the hall, his long steps pounding the floor. On the way, he took the hat handed to him by the young man and rammed it down on his head without looking back. Although Pierre tried to convince himself it was all theatre, he thought of the menacing words the big man had uttered. In any case, Lippi had almost certainly not heard them; he appeared, quite the contrary, to be satisfied with his petty victory.

  III

  Friday 23 September

  It was only towards the end of the morning that it dawned on Pierre that a catastrophe was about to occur. The previous evening he had left before the last lecture, so eager was he to find his wife. She had, in fact, spent an excellent day, having risen late and strolled around the town window-shopping. (‘It’s amazing, the number of jewellers here. I’ve never seen so many watches in my life.’) After lunch, she had taken the funicular up to the shrine of the Madonno del Sasso: ‘A very Italian church, everything gilded, with some marvellous trompe-l'œil paintings that I’m sure you’d have loved. And guess who I met? The beautiful Madame Hoenig! Well, I admit she’s not as beautiful as all that, unless you like the valkyrie sort, but I found her very pleasant. Much more so than her husband, anyway. We stopped for tea at a charming little inn further up the mountain, with an absolutely sublime view of the lake….’

  While she was babbling in her bath and he was dressing for dinner, he decided he would not breathe a word about the dispute between Hoenig and Lippi and the unseemly way the latter had treated the former. These locked room stories were starting to get on his nerves and he was starting to believe that Solange was right: there was something unhealthy about the subject.

  Earlier that day, when the morning session had finished ahead of schedule, he had thought of going back to Locarno to join her, before remembering that she had arranged to meet Freyja Hoenig for lunch. He wasn’t all that happy with the idea of Solange pairing up with the woman, but after all she wasn’t responsible for her husband’s loutishness and it was hardly surprising if two bored spouses tried to find things to do together. So he headed to the bar and ordered a dry martini to fortify himself for the monastic custom of the communal meal.

  A noisy good humour reigned in the bar. Professor Harvey, moustache ruffled and tie askew, was brandishing his pipe and fulminating. A young French philosopher, squinting horribly behind round spectacles, addressed acerbic remarks to him over a whisky soda. The subject of their apparent disagreement seemed to be the new form of American crime novel to which Professor Lippi had referred the day before, and, in particular, stories dealing with gangsters and private eyes. In an unguarded moment, Harvey had allowed himself to be convinced by an ill-intentioned friend to read a couple of “hard-boiled” novels and had selected the works of one Dashiell Hammett. Harvey was not a tolerant man. His attempts at book-burning – he had managed to sprinkle the books with lighter fluid before throwing them on the fire – had fortunately not burnt his library down. Aside from a fire in the chimney, there had been very little damage.

  As Pierre listened to the taunts of the philosopher, his mind wandered elsewhere. He smiled serenely as he savoured his martini: he hadn’t a worry in the world. His paper tomorrow, which he had so carefully prepared, was bound to be a brilliant success and Solange would be there to see it. And yet… problems had a habit of appearing suddenly like bats out of a cave, just when least expected.

  All that stuff about disappearance from the grotto… Bah! Lippi had simply wanted to embellish a good story. All the same….

  ‘A Perrier citron and a lemonade, please,’ said a voice behind him, then added: ‘Would you care for a refill, Monsieur Garnier?’

  He knew without turning round who was speaking. Dr. Hoenig hauled his heavy weight up onto the barstool. Despite the broad smile on his
face, a malignant gleam lurked in his eyes. Pierre noticed that he was wearing a dark brown suit far too heavy for the time of year and was sweating profusely beneath his iron-grey hair.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he replied curtly.

  ‘My congratulations, you know how to limit yourself. Personally, I do not drink alcohol and I practise vegetarianism. It’s consistent with the hygiene we’re trying to instil in our people. Is that not so, Strahler?’ he said, turning towards the young brown-haired man who, were he not so thin, one would have said followed him like his shadow. The latter agreed without enthusiasm as he morosely contemplated the glass of sparkling water that had been placed in front of him.

  Hoenig presented him as his assistant, a psychiatry student who helped him in his work. That work, he added for Pierre’s benefit – even though Pierre had not enquired and was becoming suspicious of this new-found affability on the German’s part – was about the genetics of criminology and, specifically, the presence of a dominant gene in criminal pathology; the objective of this vast research, he explained passionately, being to eliminate pathological factors by a rigorous selection process and thus create a healthy race, rid of all moral tumours in the same way one eliminated physical tumours. Pierre, who was not gifted in scientific matters, listened politely and nodded his head. Having received a Catholic education, he did not believe in innate evil, but was not about to enter into a controversy on the subject.