The Riddle of Monte Verita

by Jean-Paul Torok

Carter Gilbert uttered a gently mocking laugh.

  ‘Murderers always return to the scene of their crime, that’s practically a given.’

  Brenner blushed and took a deep breath before going on.

  ‘As I was saying, she returned to the bungalow. She opened the door with the key, pulled the body outside, locked the door and then….’

  ‘And then she dragged a corpse weighing more than two hundred pounds over thirty or forty metres, hoisted it over the rim of the fountain and up to the tunnel entrance, then dragged it again in the dark as far as the grotto. After which, she came back by the same route to place the key on the lintel for the sole purpose, presumably, of giving us the pleasure of discovering it. Doesn’t anything about that reasoning strike you as absurd, my friend?’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘Can you imagine anything more insane in terms of criminal behaviour? You’re going to tell me she had an accomplice. A likely story! But even if she had, that wouldn’t explain why they went to all those lengths.’

  ‘It’s beyond me,’ replied Brenner, whose evident despair was painful to see. ‘Every time we think we’ve solved one problem, along comes another. And don’t try to tell me you’ve any clearer idea than I have,’ he growled, pointing his finger at the old man, just as the other turned to cross the bedroom, headed for the bathroom.

  The sound of heavy steps could be heard in the outer room. The superintendent turned to see a policeman enter the lounge and salute.

  ‘The lab on the phone, Superintendent. They’ve finished the analyses and want to know where they’re to be sent.’

  ‘To the Albergo, of course, idiot!’ barked Brenner, sending him away with a flea in his ear.

  He went to join Carter Gilbert, whom he found standing on a stool trying to open the skylight.

  ‘We’re going to be getting the lab results,’ he announced.

  ‘I can tell you what they’re going to say,’ replied the Englishman in a smooth voice.

  ‘I’d have been amazed if you couldn’t,’ muttered Brenner. ‘But what are you doing on that stool, for heaven’s sake? It’s already been determined –.’

  ‘ – lots of things have been determined.’ He stuck his head outside. ‘Except that the overhang of the roof juts out below the opening here.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He drew his head back inside, took off his pince-nez and used them as a magnifying glass to examine the dusty edges of the frame.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Anything at all: a piece of material, a hair like the one you found on the body. Unfortunately, your men bungled the job and if there were any clues, they were destroyed a long time ago. Help me down.’

  Once his feet were on the ground, he dusted himself off and continued.

  ‘I’ll tell you what the lab report contains. In the first place, the hair from the dressing-gown is indeed Solange Garnier’s. It’s up to you to show how, at the same time, it can belong to the woman in the bungalow despite the testimony of witnesses who swear she had dark hair and was smaller. I can probably help you with that.

  ‘Secondly, as must be expected, only the victim’s fingerprints were found on the knife. Thirdly –.’

  He stopped and looked around the bathroom.

  ‘Tell me, am I right in thinking Dr. Hoenig had a doctor’s bag?’

  ‘Naturally,’ confirmed Brenner. ‘We left it in the bedroom.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  The superintendent shrugged and led him in to the room. A black leather case sat on a low table among a mess of ties, cuff-links and clip-on collars. It had not been properly locked and was untidily open.

  ‘It was like that,’ said Brenner. ‘We just took a quick look inside.’

  ‘May I?’ enquired Sir Arthur.

  ‘I don’t want to stop you, but there’s nothing interesting there.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. The usual shambles: medicines, stethoscope, hypodermic syringe….’

  ‘The syringe has been used recently,’ murmured the old man, holding it up to the light. He put it back in its case and pulled out a brownish bottle with a hand-written chemical formula on the label. He uncorked the stopper and sniffed.

  ‘Trichloroethylene,’ he mumbled.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Brenner.

  ‘A new serum that the Bosch have perfected.’

  He re-corked the bottle, put it carefully back in place and turned to face the policeman. The expressive eyes under the bushy brows gleamed behind the pince-nez.

  ‘There’s no need to wait for the autopsy results, Superintendent. It’s exactly as I thought: Dr. Hoenig was under the influence of a powerful barbiturate at the time of his death.’

  ***

  All the foregoing happened on the eve of the masterful discourse given by the phenomenal Arthur Carter Gilbert in which the maestro, like a star shining in the night, dispersed with blinding clarity the shadows engulfing the enigma of Monte Verita. During the fifteen hours preceding that event, he made himself scarce, going first to visit Freyja Hoenig in the clinic to speak at length with her and with Strahler, after which he returned to the hotel. Having tipped the hotel staff lavishly to ensure he would not be disturbed and, as an added precaution, hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign outside his room, he disappeared from view, thus concealing the spectacle that this writer would have wished to describe to his avid readers as proof of the scrupulous attention, penetrating shrewdness and relentless concentration with which the great man conducted his investigation, surrounded as he was by stacks of reports supplied by Brenner.

  Pierre Garnier had promised himself a few quiet moments of escape from the seemingly unending series of tortured moments spent peering into dark mirrors, in the hope of seeing the light. When he returned to the hotel with his wife, he came, wholly unexpectedly, across a new element in the case. It almost handed him the key to the mystery, and launched him on a chase which lasted the whole evening and half the night.

  The envelope, on Albergo Monte Verita letterhead, was crumpled and folded in two. Standing there in the lobby and turning it around in his hands, Pierre Garnier felt an uneasy sensation. There was no stamp and no address, only his name printed in large letters. Nothing to indicate the sender. The concierge who had handed it to him had told him it had been found that same afternoon in the pocket of a jacket that had been sent out for dry-cleaning. It transpired that the letter had been delivered by a messenger the previous Sunday at ten past nine. He had noted the day and the hour in pencil on the back of the envelope and it was still readable, although barely. “You and your wife had just left for an excursion on the lake and I must have given it to you Sunday evening on your return,” said the man apologetically, “and –.’

  ‘—and you put it in your pocket and forgot about it,’ said Solange, who then added:

  ‘Excuse me, it’s my fault: I gave your suit to the maid the next day without checking the pockets which, as you well know, my poor darling, is what I make a habit of doing.’

  ‘That, I can’t forgive.’

  He dropped the frivolous tone:

  ‘Let’s not make a fuss about it. The letter is probably of no importance.’

  Nevertheless he continued to rack his brains trying to understand what was happening as he fiddled with the letter in his hand. He had an uneasy feeling that it contained something abnormal and menacing. He didn’t think he could handle that.

  Solange looked at him inquisitively.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it? You seem to be strange, all of a sudden.’ She paused and started to laugh. ‘Maybe it’s a love letter from one of your admirers….’

  ‘Look out, here’s Lippi,’ said Pierre abruptly.

  The Italian came out of the lift and walked past them with his nose in the air, acknowledging them with the merest tilt of the head.

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Pierre. ‘We weren’t very polite with him this morning.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ ag
reed Solange. ‘I’m going up to change for dinner. Don’t stay too long, darling.’

  She left, blowing him a kiss on the way. Pierre joined the professor just as he was about to enter the bar.

  ‘Do you have a letter for me, my dear fellow?’ said the Italian affably, and Pierre realised he was still holding the envelope in his hand.

  ‘It’s addressed to me,’ he replied. ‘I was given it at reception. Let me see, what day is it? Wednesday? It arrived last Sunday.’

  ‘There’s no post on Sunday,’ said Lippi pompously.

  ‘Let’s go and have a drink and I’ll tell you about it.’

  The bar, which had recently been redecorated in the style of an ocean liner, was the most elegant spot in Locarno and boasted a barman who was said to have done his apprenticeship at Fouquet’s in Paris. It was the cocktail hour and the pastel outfits of the town’s prettiest women formed a charming picture to which Pierre, in other circumstances, would not have been indifferent.

  ‘I’ll have a Turn of the Screw,’ announced Lippi, perching himself on a barstool, ‘and I recommend you try one, too. This barman is an artist, a true artist. This cocktail he’s created is an absolute marvel and I’m hoping he’ll let me have the recipe. After all, it was I that baptised it, in view of its complexity and in homage – as you will already have guessed – to the late lamented Henry James, subtle inventor of so many elegant labyrinths. Here, try it for yourself.’

  The barman placed two glasses containing a frosty rose-coloured liquid in front of them.

  ‘It’s terrific, as you say,’ said Pierre. ‘After two or three of these, one’s got to be --.’

  ‘One can safely go to four. But start by opening the letter you’ve been incessantly twiddling in your hands. You said it arrived on Sunday?’

  As Pierre told him about the envelope inadvertently left in the pocket of a jacket sent out for dry-cleaning, the other’s growing interest made him uncomfortable.

  ‘Let’s see now,’ said Lippi. ‘It’s Sunday, the day of the excursion to the islands. It’s the morning. Somebody – let’s call him X – sends a letter to you from the Albergo. It must be urgent because he uses a courier. Nevertheless, it doesn’t get to the Grand Hotel until ten minutes after you’ve left. X, who knows about the excursion and is probably in the party, cannot be unaware of this. Given that it must take, at the very least, twenty minutes by bicycle to go from the Albergo to the Grand Hotel, even going at maximum speed, one can infer mathematically that X sent the letter at least ten minutes before going down to Ascona to board the vaporetto. That way, he could be sure that you wouldn’t get it until after your return. But your absent-mindedness throws a spanner in the works, and derails his carefully conceived plan. You forget the letter, which you leave in your jacket pocket, and your charming and attentive wife sends it out the next day to the pressing – if you’ll forgive the use of the Anglicism. And so the letter doesn’t reach you until three days after the intended date. Quod erat demonstrandum,’ he added smugly. ‘Now, it only remains to open it.’

  ‘You’re a constant source of amazement, Professor,’ said Pierre, who was starting to find the whole business rather amusing. He was on his second glass and his anxiety was starting to evaporate. He was motivated by mere curiosity as he opened the envelope, taking care not to tear it, under the watchful eye of Lippi who could barely conceal his impatience.

  The thin piece of paper was covered with symbols written in purple ink. There was no signature, nor any other identification of the sender. In the upper left-hand corner was a sketch of something vaguely resembling a skull, but the rest of the page contained nothing but an incoherent string of numbers and signs without spaces, forming a single paragraph. Pierre handed it to Lippi without a word.

  The Italian emitted a low whistle and proceeded to examine the contents of the page:

  08*=*9=(;+5*)08*5=)+?;45?95;?(38=?780?6!?65006808750>56(8505108?(+8)56*;83?+?085;(5>8()805748(=*;5(6.5(05.=(;8+805*:9.488.?6)88578*;>6*3;.68+)*=8*063*8+5286008+?.5>600=*+?28*3508

  ‘Well,’ he said, handing the paper back, ‘I assume you’ve guessed it’s a coded message. I think our Mr. X has issued a challenge and wants to play with you.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ sighed Pierre. ‘Now he’s even doing it after death.’

  ‘Hoenig?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Why would he have sent you this cryptography sample? It’s infantile,’ exclaimed Lippi.

  ‘Infantile is the word. Behind that adult façade there was something childish about the man. Childish and monstrous. An impressive intellect captive to the sadistic impulses of a viciously evil child, the kind that pulls wings off flies and puts birds’ eyes out. As he grew older, his technique got better. Psychological torture gave him a more refined satisfaction. The exquisite pleasure of playing on the weaknesses and anxieties of others. But it’s over; I’m not playing any more. I’m not going to give him posthumous pleasure. I’m going to throw this obscenity of a message into the fire and that’ll be the end of it.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Lippi. ‘We need to talk about this, but not here. Somewhere quiet.’

  He ordered two more cocktails and Pierre followed him to an isolated table near the windows overlooking the terrace. Several couples were dancing outside to the tune of Such Sweet Thunder, being played on a gramophone.

  If the Italian had been surprised by Pierre’s outburst, he tactfully didn’t show it. But the despondency that followed the angry declaration hadn’t escaped his notice.

  ‘Don’t get so upset. Give me the paper and think for a moment: it’s not altogether out of the question that he’s handed us the solution to the problem.’ He held his hand out for the paper, but Pierre threw it on the table.

  ‘Here, take it, if it amuses you to play the detective. You’ve done nothing else for the last three days. You, Mestre, Prokosch and even Harvey, who fancies himself as Sherlock Holmes. What are you trying to prove? That you’re smarter than the police? All you’ve done is transform a banal and mediocre little murder into an inexplicable and terrifying mystery. As I told you just now, you can count me out. Tomorrow morning, my wife and I are leaving this lunatic asylum. Carter Gilbert may have solved the problem by then, or maybe not. In any case, I don’t care any more.’

  The waiter arrived with the cocktails.

  ‘Drink!’ ordered Lippi.

  Pierre drank. The Italian took the paper once more and leaned forward to examine it. After a while, he looked up and stared hard at his friend.

  ‘Listen, Garnier,’ he said slowly, ‘just one more question. Why would Hoenig draw a skull? He obviously did it for a reason. What does it bring to mind?’

  Pierre shrugged.

  ‘The skull, or death’s head, is the symbol for a pirate. But I don’t see the connection.’

  Lippi kept looking at him, a mocking pout on his lips.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What is it now?’ snapped Pierre. ‘Why do you all try to find some dark meaning in every little thing? Doesn’t it ever occur to you that there are things in life that happen without any explanation?’

  ‘Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,” announced Lippi with an almost comical intensity. ‘Happy was he who was able to learn the causes of things.’

  ‘Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probet. A wise man states as true nothing he cannot prove,’ retorted Pierre.

  ‘Touche,’ replied the Italian.

  They smiled at each other.

  ‘So,’ said Pierre, who was starting to feel better. ‘Hoenig drew a skull. What of it? Suppose he wanted to add a sinister touch to his mysterious text. But I don’t see how the death’s head gets us any closer to an answer. If the prize for deciphering these hieroglyphics was the equivalent of Captain Kidd’s treasure, I still couldn’t do it.’

  ‘And supposing it was just that, Captain Kidd’s treasure? You disappoint me, my friend. I was expecting more from a noted scholar and devoted reader of Poe.’


  Without averting his gaze he took another sip of his cocktail.

  It seemed to Pierre as though a veil had been lifted from his eyes.

  ‘Give me that paper,’ he almost snarled.

  After a few moments he looked up.

  ‘I’ll be damned!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s not a skull it’s a scarab.’

  ‘Obviously. Hoenig did it in such a way that this coleoptera looked like a death’s head, not just by the shape but by the disposition of the spots on the insect’s back. I sensed straight away that it was a clue pointing in some way to the cipher key. I’m not claiming any special merit for that: if you’d kept your head, you’d have arrived at the same conclusion sooner or later. It was actually rather clever on his part. He could create a puzzle that looked insoluble at first glance, but which would be a piece of cake for a connoisseur like you to decipher. There can have been no doubt in his mind that it would be child’s play for a Poe expert to compare the present cryptogram with that invented by the author of the most famous of the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque….’

  ‘The Gold Bug!’

  ‘Precisely. The story of the discovery of a mysterious parchment that put the hero on the trail of Captain Kidd’s treasure. Every child has been thrilled by the idea of a key that can unlock a secret code.’

  ‘Wait! Let me think: it was a key based on the frequency of letters in the given language which, since the message was addressed to me, must be my own. All we have to do is to determine the most frequent characters in the text and compare them with those most frequently used in French. Obviously, in the text it’s 8, so therefore –.’

  ‘We can start by assuming it represents the most frequent in French, which is e.’

  ‘So the 8 is e.’

  He took his pen and tore several pages out of his notebook.

  ‘It’s preceded by the sign 0, which is presumably l, assuming the text starts with the definite article le. So we have: 8 = e and 0 = l. Now, what are the next most frequent characters in French….’

  They worked enthusiastically for several minutes, taking it in turns to guess and to write down the next discovery. It was Lippi’s turn to write and, as he was about to do so, his hand froze in mid-air. A whirlwind of colours and perfume, accompanied by the clicking of high heels, descended the steps to the bar and hastened towards them.