Deadly Communion

by Frank Tallis

  Rheinhardt and Haussmann entered the manager’s office. The balding man shooed the attendant away, rose from his chair, and bowed.

  ‘Ralf Grosskopf. At your service.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt and my assistant, Haussmann.’

  ‘Please sit down, gentlemen. I’d offer you some tea, but my secretary hasn’t arrived yet. Forgive me.’

  As Rheinhardt lowered himself into the chair, he could not stop himself from glancing back at the closing door.

  ‘Yes, they are a striking pair.’ Grosskopf’s hands travelled in opposite directions from a central point in the air, successfully conjuring an imaginary billboard headline: ‘The Two Darlings: the largest brothers ever seen.’

  ‘Where are they from?’ asked Rheinhardt.

  ‘Tibet. Well, that’s what they claim — but who knows, really.’ The manager laughed. ‘They were a real draw last year. They can lift seven men above their heads, break iron bars in two, and juggle with three-hundred-kilo weights.’

  ‘They didn’t look very happy,’ said Rheinhardt.

  ‘Oh, they’ll come around — a little misunderstanding over the terms of their engagement, that’s all. It’s their agent’s fault. Nestroy. He’s an honest man but not very good on detail. Now, how can I help you?’

  ‘Cäcilie Roster … ’

  ‘Zilli? Dear Zilli? What about her?’

  ‘When did you see her last?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘She performed here?’

  ‘Yes. She sang some songs between The Osmond Troupe and Bastian Biedermeier, the illusionist.’

  ‘Did she go home after the performance?’

  ‘No. I think she said she was going to Löiberger’s. He stays open late, you see. She often goes there after shows.’

  ‘Was she meeting someone?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  Grosskopf shook his head.

  ‘It’s hard to keep track of her admirers. She’s a popular girl.’ The manager winked before leaning forward and lowering his voice. ‘Last week I found her in The Two Darlings’ dressing room. They were throwing her across the table as if she was a ball. She said she was developing a new stage routine with them …’

  Grosskopf raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

  The thought of the young chanteuse abandoning herself to the eccentric pleasures of the two giants robbed Rheinhardt temporarily of the power of speech. He imagined the arc of her trajectory: hair in disarray, skirts billowing — Cäcilie Roster, manhandled into the air by arms capable of shearing iron. It was some time before the image receded, with its troubling erotic implications.

  ‘You are not painting a very ladylike picture of Fräulein Roster.’

  ‘True. But I haven’t said anything that would offend her. She abhors convention, its part of her charm.’ Grosskopf wiggled his fingers in the air. ‘She’s a fascinating woman.’

  ‘Does she have a following: gentlemen who always attend her performances?’

  ‘Not just gentlemen,’ said Grosskopf, producing a burst of suggestive eyebrow movements.

  Rheinhardt produced a weary sigh.

  ‘Would you recognise any of these … supporters?’

  ‘Yes, some of them. There’s a fellow who wears a fur coat and carries a cane — and another who looks a little like the mayor.’ Grosskopf leaned back in his chair. ‘Has Zilli done something wrong? If so, I sincerely hope you don’t intend to arrest her. She’s still under contract.’

  ‘Tell me more about Fräulein Roster’s supporters.’

  ‘There’s not much more to say. They come to see her sing and then they leave. Sometimes they wait for her by the stage door.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘We sell postcards of our artists in the foyer. They like to get them signed. And some of them give her small gifts: bunches of flowers, jewellery.’

  ‘Do you know if she was given a hatpin recently?’

  Grosskopf shrugged.

  ‘Look, my friend, if you want to know what Zilli gets up to after shows, I’m not the person to ask. You should talk to Löiberger.’

  38

  BLACK SMOKE WAS RISING from a factory chimney that towered over the roofs of a begrimed terrace. Further down the road and in front of some railings a group of children, barely out of infancy, were playing on a pile of rubble. One of the urchins noticed Liebermann’s approach and stood up, observing the stranger with earnest curiosity. Liebermann acknowledged the boy’s interest with a smile; however, this was not reciprocated. Instead, the boy’s expression became more intense. Liebermann turned a corner and found himself in an avenue of better-maintained larger properties. A few trees added a splash of colour to the prospect, but not enough to relieve the atmosphere of pervasive gloom. The trees swayed in a breeze redolent with the dank fetor of the Neustadter canal.

  In due course, Liebermann arrived at his destination — a two-storey house with four windows. The simplicity of the building reminded him of a child’s drawing. The curtains on the ground floor were drawn and Liebermann could not see anything through the upper windows. He crossed the road to get a better view but gained no benefit from the change of vantage. Liebermann became conscious that he was standing under a gas lamp — presumably the very same gas lamp under which Erstweiler had seen his doppelgänger. The young doctor touched the cast-iron post as if to confirm the reality of its existence.

  Liebermann returned to the other side of the road and knocked on the house’s front door. He waited. No reply. He knocked again, knowing that there would be no answer.

  A cart loaded with barrels passed by.

  The young doctor stepped backwards and glanced at the upstairs windows one last time before deciding on which of the neighbouring houses he would try. The presence of a window box made him veer to the right.

  As soon as he had struck the knocker, a dog started barking. He heard the sound of a woman’s voice: ‘Quiet. Be quiet, Prinz.’

  The door was opened by a middle-aged woman who was accompanied by a lively Dobermann pinscher.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Forgive me for disturbing you. I am a doctor and need to speak with Herr Kolinsky, who I believe lives next door. He is not at home. Do you have any idea when he will be back?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him or his wife for weeks. I think they must have gone away.’

  ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘Not really. He’s not very friendly … and her: she has a very high opinion of herself.’ Liebermann nodded sympathetically. The woman was encouraged: ‘I’m glad they’re away. They make a lot of noise — arguments — and it upsets the dog.’ She extended her hand and stroked the pinscher’s head. ‘Good boy, Prinz.’ The dog licked her fingers.

  ‘They have a lodger — is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Herr Erstweiler. A very pleasant gentleman.’

  ‘You are acquainted with him?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. We met a few times when I was walking Prinz. I haven’t seen him recently, either. He may have found somewhere else to live. It wouldn’t surprise me. They can’t expect to keep lodgers if they’re going to carry on like they do.’

  Liebermann smiled.

  ‘Thank you for you assistance.’

  ‘Shall I tell them that you called — if I see them?’

  ‘Yes. If you see them.’

  ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Herr Doctor Liebermann.’

  The woman nodded and closed the door. The dog started barking again.

  Liebermann gazed at the street lamp on the other side of the road.

  His conversation with Freud came back to him. It was possible for material offensive to the ego to be projected outwards onto something foreign. But such material could not be completely disowned.

  The object into which this undesirable material is incorporated might take the form of another self …

  But what was the nature of that undesirable ma
terial?

  Liebermann knew the answer. Herr Erstweiler’s dream of the English fairy tale had been so very revealing.

  39

  AMELIA LYDGATE HAD MADE an informal arrangement with Professor Mathias, the terms of which were dictated by Mathias’s neurotic illness and satisfied by the peculiarity of Amelia’s character. In return for tidying his instruments Professor Mathias was happy for Amelia to sit in the morgue and observe him at work. It was an arrangement that had been negotiated, for the most part, without the use of language. The Englishwoman and the old professor enjoyed a curious and unexpected rapport. Indeed, the understanding that they had reached could not have been achieved using words alone, with their hard edges and explicit meanings. The indelicacy of such a conversation would have required Professor Mathias to admit the severity of his condition, which was something he was not prepared to do.

  When she entered the morgue Amelia found the professor sitting on a stool, contemplating the body of a young woman: too young, she thought immediately, to have died naturally.

  ‘Another victim?’ she asked.

  The professor nodded and without taking his gaze from the corpse, said: ‘Cäcilie Roster. A singer. Inspector Rheinhardt found her this morning in the gardens of the Belvedere palace. This …’ he picked up a retort containing a metal object ‘… had been inserted into her brain.’

  ‘Another hatpin?’

  ‘Yes. Although of a different design to those used by the perpetrator to kill Adele Zeiler and Bathild Babel.’

  Amelia took off her coat, hung it up, and crossed the floor. The woman’s body was covered with sheets but her head was still exposed. It was as if she was in bed, sleeping. The woman possessed an attractive face with well-proportioned features and a mane of yellow curls.

  ‘When will it end?’ said Amelia pitifully.

  The professor sighed and presented her with a few sheets of paper. ‘Here is my report. Read it if you are interested.’

  Amelia sat down next to the professor and studied his findings. When she had finished, she discreetly rearranged the instruments on his trolley before positioning herself at the head of the autopsy table. Mathias joined her and lifted the dead woman’s chin with a crooked finger.

  ‘I liked that gay young wench, Her two cheeks so red, Her mouth and her handsome brow, Her hair, so blonde and curly …’

  ‘A poem?’

  ‘“Early Love” — by Ludwig Heinrich Christoph Hölty.’

  ‘I am afraid, Herr professor, I am not familiar with his work.’

  ‘He was the most gifted lyric poet of the Göttingen circle. You are English. I would not expect you to be conversant with our great poets.’ Overcome with sentiment, the professor took a comb from his pocket and began to run it through the dead woman’s hair. ‘Hölty also wrote a rather lovely “Dirge to the Moon”. The last verse is very affecting: Soon, dearest friend, Oh, soon will beam, Your silvery sheen, Over the tombstone mine …’

  If Amelia was impressed by the lyric genius of Hölty, she did not show it.

  Mathias finished styling the dead woman’s curls but before returning the comb to his pocket he noticed that a few strands had become caught in its teeth. He began to pick them out. The routine ease of his movements came to a halt when he discovered a darker hair. He held it beneath the electric light.

  ‘Black,’ he said, flatly.

  The professor and the Englishwoman looked at each other.

  ‘Someone else’s?’

  Mathias pulled the extremities of the black hair to make it taut. Then, turning to Amelia, he made her party to his thinking by means of an impromptu lecture: ‘The shaft of a hair is covered with a close-set layer of transparent scales — the cuticle — and beneath these are the differentiated cells of the cortex and medulla. The structure of a hair shaft resembles that of a pencil. The paint or varnish corresponds with the cuticle, the wood of the pencil corresponds with the cortex, and the central column of lead corresponds with the medulla. Hair pigment, which gives the hair its colour, is distributed through the medulla and cortex.’ The professor paused and his eyes appeared to expand behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. ‘A head of hair is not always uniform with respect to colour. Take your own, for example. It is quite clearly comprised of many shades of red.’

  ‘But a black hair among blonde?’

  ‘It happens’

  ‘Are there tests to determine whether two different-coloured hairs belong to the same person?’

  ‘Indeed there are. Two hairs from the same head might be different in colour, but they will show marked morphological similarities — for example, breadth, scale pattern, or shape of tip. Further, one can observe the contours of transverse sections, together with the character and proportions of the various layers.’

  ‘How very interesting.’

  Professor Mathias touched the black hair very gently, bending the shaft. He then did the same with a blonde hair.

  ‘The black hair is more bristly than the blonde.’ His expression showed that he considered that black hair’s resistance a promising indication. ‘Miss Lydgate. Your eyesight is superior to mine.’ He tapped the lenses of his spectacles emphatically. ‘Would you set up the microscope and prepare two slides: black and blonde.’

  Mathias passed her the black hair and one of the blonde hairs which she took with great, almost exaggerated, care.

  Amelia did as she was instructed and switched on an electric lamp. She bent over the eyepiece of the microscope and rotated the turret until she had found an appropriate objective.

  ‘Let us begin with breadth,’ said Professor Mathias. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘The black hair is thicker.’

  ‘And the tip of each hair?’

  ‘The black hair is sharper — the blonde hair more rounded.’

  ‘Now the cuticle. Can you see the scales?’

  Amelia increased the magnification.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are there differences in scale size — or distribution?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now the bulb. Although the bulb has fewer differentiating features than the shaft, it can also provide us with very valuable information. A plump bulb — and the presence of traces of the ruptured hair sheath — is typical of a healthy hair that has been detached by force, while a shrunken and wrinkled bulb — without any sheath — is typical of dead or diseased hairs.’

  ‘Herr professor?’

  Amelia’s voice contained a note of excitement.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There is something rather odd … a reflection perhaps.’ She changed the position of the lamp without lifting her head. ‘No. It is not a reflection. How strange.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The black hair. The shaft is entirely black — but just above the bulb … it is blonde.’

  ‘May I see?’

  Amelia stepped aside and allowed Professor Mathias to look down the barrel of the microscope.

  ‘It has been dyed.’

  ‘Oh …’ said Amelia.

  ‘You sound disappointed, Miss Lydgate.’

  Mathias turned to look at her.

  ‘I was hoping,’ said Amelia, ‘that we had chanced upon a piece of useful evidence, a hair from the head of the perpetrator. But now we must suppose that this hair belongs to another female entertainer.’

  ‘Must we?’ said the professor.

  40

  AFTER ATTENDING PROFESSOR MATHIAS’S autopsy Rheinhardt had returned to Löiberger’s. He had visited the coffee house earlier in the day, but it had been closed and a sign in the window had informed him that the establishment would not be open again until six; however, it was nearly half past that hour when a man appeared, striding down the middle of the street, jingling a set of keys in his hand. He was a portly fellow, with a round face and snub nose, which, taken together with his black curly hair and steel-rimmed glasses, made him look very much — so Rheinhardt thought — like Schubert.

  ‘Herr Löiberger?�
��

  ‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘I’m Löiberger.’ Then he laughed, for no apparent reason.

  ‘Inspector Reinhardt — security office. May I come in?’

  ‘Of course. My regulars won’t be here for hours yet.’ Again, the laugh. It didn’t seem to be a nervous laugh but merely a welling-up of good humour.

  Löiberger unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  ‘Please sit down, inspector. I’ll get you something to drink.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘No, I insist. You look as though you’ve been waiting. You must be cold.’

  For once, Rheinhardt didn’t object. The day — which had started so early — was beginning to catch up with him. Löiberger disappeared through a doorway behind a counter piled high with pyramids of Turkish delight and punschkrapfen. Rheinhardt sat at a window table and looked around the dark interior. It was a shabby little coffee house. Yet it had a certain bohemian charm. The walls were hung with Venetian carnival masks and photographs of famous actors. A bust of Goethe stood on a pedestal outside the toilets.

  Löiberger returned with a tray on which he balanced a bottle of schnapps and two shot glasses. He took the seat opposite Rheinhardt and poured the drinks.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘You are most kind.’

  ‘Prost!’ said Löiberger, raising the glass before throwing his head back and emptying the contents down his throat.

  ‘Prost!’ returned Rheinhardt.

  It was good schnapps.

  ‘So, inspector,’ said Löiberger, refilling the glasses. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Do you know who Cäcilie Roster is?’

  ‘Yes, of course. She’s one of my regulars.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘Last night. She stayed late — as usual. And left just after midnight.’

  ‘Was she with anyone?’

  Löiberger laughed: ‘Was she with someone? She’s always with someone. She caused a stir last week by arriving with two giants. I’m not joking, inspector, two giants.’