‘Working out what happened after the curtains were drawn is now child’s play. (Incidentally, it’s the infantile aspect of this burlesque machination that gives it its sinister aspect. It makes one think of the sick games of a retarded child.) Anyway, it’s obvious that the “corpse” gets up, accompanies the “murderess” to the bathroom, and helps her climb up to the skylight. That’s where she loses the famous hair that’s later discovered on the dressing-gown. She slides through the opening – after all, she’s young and fit – grabs the overhang of the roof, launches herself outwards and lands on the ground outside the grass strip surrounding the bungalow, where she would have left footprints. You can see what happens next: Hoenig closes and locks the skylight and it’s done. It’s only taken a few seconds. As for the front door, I think Hoenig probably locked it just after the visitor came in. By the time the two agents arrived at the bungalow, nobody could get in or out. The “murderess” is already a long way away. She gets back to her car, puts it in neutral so as not to make a noise, gets rid of the wig in a dustbin and returns calmly to the hotel.
‘Hoenig only has to wait for the people from the Albergo to arrive. He lies down on the carpet, at the spot where he fell down earlier, makes sure that the handle of the fake knife is still attached to his back, and plays dead. And everyone falls for it.’
A voice spoke from the audience.
‘Not so fast!’
Mestre had stood up on his chair. He was trying to control himself but he appeared very agitated.
‘There are several of us here who were in the bungalow. We know what we saw. The corpse lay there in front of us for at least ten minutes, motionless as a log. Not the slightest flutter of an eyelash. No sign of breathing. I’m asking all those who were there: can any one of you honestly say you thought for even a second that the doctor was still alive? Come off it! Not even the greatest actor who ever lived could have played dead with such perfection.’
‘If you would be good enough not to interrupt me before I’ve finished, that would save quite a bit of time,’ replied Sir Arthur stiffly. He continued:
‘I admit that objection had me floored for a minute. But I found the answer in Hoenig’s bag: a flask of trichloroethylene.’
He repeated the word “trichloroethylene” as if savouring a sweet.
‘If there are any doctors among you, they will know it is a powerful anaesthetic perfected two or three years ago by a German laboratory. It’s taken intravenously. Do I need to list the symptoms it induces in the patient? Eyes rolled upwards, breathing slowed almost to a stop, pulse almost imperceptible. That is the state in which the good doctor was found: perinde ac cadaver… in the manner of a corpse. That explains, with the fake bloodstain on the dressing-gown and the glasses broken when he fell on the floor – an unpremeditated accident which happened when he mimicked his own fall – the perfection and the realism of the set-up… Are you convinced yet, young man?’
‘Excuse me, Maître, I won’t interrupt any more,’ murmured Mestre, sitting down.
‘If not,’ continued Sir Arthur, ‘I can show you the autopsy report that confirms the presence of the product in the victim’s bloodstream. In view of the delay for it to take effect, I believe Hoenig must have given himself the injection shortly before he welcomed his visitor. The poor fool! He must have known that the product could also cause heart arrest. And, in fact, someone else made sure it was arrested by a different method….’
‘Oh! My God!’ cried Pierre spontaneously, like Archimedes proclaiming “Eureka.”
‘Well,’ said Carter Gilbert gently, ‘is it possible that the solution has occurred to Monsieur Garnier? What finally put you on the right path, my boy?’
‘Your allusion just now to Israel Zangwill’s novella, Maître. I’ve just remembered the method.’
‘And what was it?’
‘As you said, Maître, it’s extremely simple. Two people appear simultaneously at the door of the crime scene; one breaks the door down and goes in first; he announces in horrified tones that someone has slit the victim’s throat; taking advantage of his companion’s bewilderment – the two or three seconds where he is struck dumb and blind in amazement – he does the deed unnoticed.’
Pierre ran his hand nervously through his hair, then whispered in a low voice:
‘Does this mean that we know the murderer, Sir Arthur?’
‘We’ll talk about the murderer in a few moments. The problem which should occupy us, the problem that we should solve before even asking how the murderer did it, is still the motive. In other words, who had an interest in seeing Dr. Hoenig dead?’
Sir Arthur leant forward. For the first time, he spoke with a smile on his calm face.
‘Look here, good people,’ he said, looking yet again around the auditorium, ‘you’ve only considered events from their phantasmagorical aspect and you’ve forgotten the great old adage: is fecit cui prodest – the guilty party is the one that benefits. When I read the statements made to the police, it seemed to me that I should limit my suspicions to two people: young Strahler and Freyja Hoenig. Only those two really had a motive. You’ve all remarked, while apologising for spreading gossip, about the way those two behaved like turtledoves. However, they had a cast-iron alibi: at the time of the crime they were sitting at the back of the bar, hand in hand in the half-light. And also, I have to confess that as a creator of criminal fictions, I was very disappointed by the banality of that solution. The secretary who kills his employer is, after nearly fifty years, the most frequent murderer in detective literature, followed by the impeccable butler and the fake invalid in the wheelchair. And, of course, in a good detective story, when A is killed it is out of the question that B, to whom all evidence points, is guilty; it must be the innocent-seeming C.
‘Now we get to the accidental part of the affair, the bit that wasn’t premeditated. A few moments ago I spoke about a situation being handed to the criminal on a plate. At the start, Hoenig asks Stahler to get him a trick knife; what’s the next thing he asks him to do? It’s not difficult to guess, in the light of what we now know. He tells him: “I need you to do something else. You’re going to be the one who examines the body in front of several witnesses, and you’re going to pronounce me dead.” There’s an obvious question that arises here: why is Hoenig so sure that Strahler will play his part in this sinister drama? We know the young man is poor. He can’t afford to upset his master. One word from Hoenig and he can say farewell to any chance of a career. But I don’t think that’s the real explanation. I’m going to tell you the reason he has a hold over Stahler, and it will surprise you. You see, the husband was perfectly aware of the idyll between his wife and his secretary. Don’t think he was jealous. Jealousy is a human sentiment. For this perverse and theatrical creature, the romance is a golden opportunity to manipulate the two lovers like marionettes.’
‘Just a second!’ came Brenner’s voice from the back of the hall. ‘If I understand correctly, you’re suggesting this was a crime passionel: the lover kills the husband for his mistress’ sake. But why go so far as to commit murder? What stopped the two of them disappearing one fine morning to go and do their cooing somewhere else?’
‘For one very good reason,’ sighed Sir Arthur. ‘Her maiden name. Frau Hoenig is Sarah Goldberg. She’s Jewish.’
He himself appeared startled by the theatrical tone of this last revelation, and he proceeded more calmly, although not without a degree of vehemence:
‘Nobody suspected. Being tall and blonde, she could easily pass for an Aryan. And with the German goddess’s name her husband had saddled her with – Freyja, the wife of Odin – it’s easy to see the hold he had over her. He could force her to do his will. All her family is in Germany so you can imagine the reprisals if she had fled with her lover. She also had a personal fortune from which her husband profited brazenly, another reason why he would never have let her go.
‘We’ll never know how long Strahler had waited to kill him. But he’d ne
ver had the means to do it. And now the opportunity to commit the perfect murder falls into his lap, provided by the very person he wants to eliminate. Who wouldn’t see that as the hand of fate? The lovers talk and decide to act. Strahler buys a second knife similar to the first, but a real one that will serve its proper purpose. At the time the doctor has arranged for his “murder,” they arrange to be seen together by a dozen or so witnesses. No, they aren’t demon lovers. What they’re doing is extremely simple. They’re just profiting from the Machiavellian trap created by that devil Hoenig and hoisting him on his own petard.
‘Allow me to address those of you who were there at the crime scene and yet didn’t see what was happening under their own eyes. Remember: Strahler rushes forward to examine the victim, just as any doctor would have done. He kneels – turning his back towards you – and performs the habitual tasks. Then he announces the death. At that point Madame Hoenig throws a fit. All that is so normal, so expected, that Sherlock Holmes himself wouldn’t have found anything suspicious. Everyone crowds around the poor woman. Straher has at least a minute when nobody’s paying him any attention. He removes the fake knife, brings the real one out from under his jacket, and plunges the blade up to the hilt in exactly the same spot. Did the corpse shudder? I don’t know. Whether or not, you can be sure the victim, already unconscious, didn’t feel a thing,’
During the awful silence that followed, Pierre glanced at his neighbours. Mestre rolled himself a cigarette. His hands trembled a little and he spilt some of the tobacco. “Plaudite cives: applaud, citizens,” murmured Lippi through clenched teeth. But nobody felt like applauding. Sir Arthur’s brilliant little eyes behind the thick lenses; the rabbit smile under the drooping moustache; in fact the whole silhouette with him sitting, fingertips touching like one of the judges of Hell weighing the souls of the dead, inspired in everyone a mixture of respect and fear. He lit up another cigar and the flame was reflected for an instant in his lenses. Not a single muscle in his face moved.
‘Now, let’s look at what happens next,’ he continued in a voice dripping with a nonchalant irony. It’s particularly unpleasant, although it does offer some limited interest from the point of view of deduction. I shan’t retrace the plan conceived by Dr. Hoenig. Whatever its ingenuity, it didn’t entirely satisfy him. He wanted, not only to show that a locked room problem could occur in life just as in a novel, but also to meet the challenge laid down by Professor Lippi.
‘Remember: “Shut yourself in the grotto and... disappear.” A mediocre enough puzzle, truth be told, not at all worthy of appearing in a self-respecting novel because it relies on the old trick of the underground passage. By consulting a few old maps, the doctor has little trouble in discovering the secret and decides to crown his dramatic opus by an effect which, though simple enough, is sufficiently spectacular to appeal to the charlatan in him. I shall only mention as a matter of form the banal exchange of keys that will enable him to get out of the locked bungalow – an elementary piece of hocus-pocus that, mystified as you already were, good people, you fell for like a ton of bricks. In short, he’s ready to play at zombies and to enter the grotto by what one might regard as the emergency exit, a grotto in which he fully expects to be discovered the next day. As he needs to be sure about that, and as he is – to put it bluntly – not altogether impressed with your perspicacity, he reveals his hiding place to young Garnier by means of a secret message of a disconcerting simplicity whose key is borrowed from a children’s story by Edgar Allan Poe!
‘Imagine his triumph if and when he appears on this very platform where, today, I have the humble privilege of addressing you. Think of it! An auditorium chock full of erudite academics, eminent specialists, authors of learned tracts and scholarly theses will have allowed themselves to be duped by a practical joke that would put a first year student to shame! See him licking his chops at the prospect of your complete humiliation!
‘But throughout this affair the farcical gets mixed up with the tragically horrible. Strahler has botched the job. The blade – as the autopsy shows – has only just touched the cardiac muscle. A mortal wound, but not immediately fatal. It causes internal bleeding, but the handle of the knife blocks the wound and prevents the blood from oozing out externally. Hoenig is now alone in the bungalow. The effects of the anaesthetic are starting to wear off. He’s gradually regaining consciousness. He feels no pain. He has no idea he’s dying and his brain orders him to finish the job at hand.
‘He leaves the bungalow, locks it behind him with the good key he hid under the awning and puts it back in place. He walks straight ahead, the knife firmly planted between his shoulder blades, with the steady and regular step of a robot or a sleepwalker. His eyes are drenched by the rain. Without his glasses, he can’t distinguish anything more than two metres away. He bumps into trees and rocks. Blood leaks from his wound. But the draining of his force does not drain his willpower. The only idea that penetrates the fog in his brain is that he must follow his original plan. He reaches the fountain. He manages to displace the slab which pivots shut behind him. If only he can get down the small flight of steps leading to the aqueduct….
‘He can. He finds the flashlight which he’d carefully placed there. Almost as a reflex, he switches it on. Now, bent double, breathless, unsteady on his feet, scraping his head on the roof, he moves forward agonisingly slowly in the tunnel….
‘It’s hard to imagine the effort his body had to make. A normal man, mortally wounded like that would have succumbed almost immediately. But Hoenig is a man built to last, and a fighter. God knows how, he drags himself as far as the grotto. There, he starts to recover his senses. The anaesthetic has worn off completely. Pain grips him, dull and diffuse at first, then sharper by the second until it’s tearing him apart. He tries to seize the handle of the knife and, with a superhuman effort, succeeds in pulling it out. At that instant, he understood. When the blood burst from the wound as if from a severed hosepipe; when it flowed from his mouth; when his legs gave way under him and the world started to darken before his eyes. He tried to call out, in vain, because his throat was choked with blood. At that moment, Karl Hoenig realised something he had not thought possible: that all the hatred, all the planning, all the stage management had turned against him. He knew he was about to die.’
A long silence fell upon the audience. Pierre looked at his watch. He felt drained. His only thought was for his wife who was waiting for him in the hotel.
Sir Arthur removed his pince-nez and rubbed his eyes for a long time.
‘I’m exhausted. I need at least a week of solid sleep. I believe that’s the end of the story.’
‘Yes,’ said Brenner glumly. ‘Yes, it all fits together. I’ll send out an arrest warrant for Strahler and his accomplice. There’s one small detail, however. I know you went to see them. Why did you let them get away?’
Sir Arthur put his glasses back on and looked at him with astonishment.
‘Did I let them get away? Not exactly. I told them I was abreast of events and I told them the whole story. You probably won’t believe me, but they were smiling and holding hands. I added: “My friends, I’m going to leave the room now. You know where your duty lies, don’t you? I advise you to make a voluntary statement to the police.” He, still smiling, replied “Yes.” And I added: “Well, I’m going now. If I thought that your confessions would be taken seriously, I’d never have given you that advice. Personally, I could never tell a tribunal what I’ve just told you. I’d look as though I’d concocted a novel as unlikely as any the old man has written over the course of his career.” I think they understood.’
He stood up shakily, wobbled and clutched the table.
‘My friends, I’ve just committed a new crime,’ he said. ‘I’ve just given a lecture.’
***
Another conference ended the following evening, a date that History recorded as Friday, September 30th. It gave rise to the famous statement: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour . .
. you chose dishonour and you will have war." Pierre and Solange Garnier paid no attention. They found themselves in Venice and had better things to do than read the newspapers. Albert Mestre was mobilised the following year and fell in June 1940 defending a bridge on the Somme. His unfinished treatise on Non-Being and the Absolute, published by La Liberation, is regarded today as one of the fundamental works of post-war philosophy. As for Professor Umberto Lippi, an untimely quotation from Cicero (“How long, Catalina, will you abuse our patience?”) made in the presence of Il Duce at the opening of the congress of writers in Rome– although made in Latin – earned him an immediate dispatch to an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. He spent his time applying his theories of narrative to the composition of a vast and labyrinthine mediaeval detective story which turned out to be unreadable and achieved no critical or commercial success. Superintendent Brenner swore he would not be taken in again and devoted his career from then on to cushy investigations of minor housebreaking and domestic crimes.
On the day after the armistice, the Garniers left France for the United States where Pierre obtained a chair at Harvard University. They lived happily and had no children. Sir Arthur Carter Gilbert passed away in 1960 at the age of ninety-two. His body was found in his bedroom. It was hermetically sealed and no key was ever found.
Epilogue
The poulet Gabrielle Dorziat was bubbling slowly in the casserole. Solange dipped a morsel of bread in the sauce, brought it to her lips and took the time to taste it. “Maybe I used too much rosemary,” she murmured to herself. She judged that the sauce had sufficiently reduced and added mushrooms, tomatoes, olives and a handful of grapes. She stirred them with a wooden spoon and added a pinch of coriander and paprika. She tasted it again. “There, it’s perfect,” she announced appreciatively. She liked things to be perfect. She glanced at the clock. It showed half past seven. Pierre had promised to be there by eight. He had a meeting at the university – God knows the poor darling hated meetings! – and by the time they sat down to eat the sauce would be so velvety and its taste so subtle that only a true gourmet would be able to analyse it.
The Riddle of Monte Verita Page 21
