“No, in Mannswörth, also in Schwechat.”
“I see.”
“Herr Furst was a reasonably prosperous merchant of fifty-five years—that is, his age was fifty-five at the time his body was discovered, he wasn’t in business that long. Regardless, members of his family discovered his corpse on the floor of his study one morning, five days after the death of Ulla Stach. Everything about his death echoed that of Fraulein Stach: time of death placed at between midnight and one in the morning, signs of strangulation assigned to a thick, heavy rope of a type that would be used in an execution, and no sign of said rope. And no note confessing suicide.”
“Were either Fraulein Stach or Herr Furst known to suffer from melancholy?” Franz asked. Beide beamed at him.
“You are too good to be true,” Beide said. “You know just what to ask. No, Herr Kafka, neither of them were given to melancholia, nor had they at any time to anyone expressed a desire to take their lives.”
Franz considered this. “I suppose not every suicide is required to blab about it before it happens,” he said. “The less said, the better, right? I mean, if you’ve really got your heart set on taking your own life, you don’t want people on alert, watching you, worried about you. Or am I just making things up?”
“Three days after Walter Furst… Emmanuel Buchner,” Beide said.
“How old?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Occupation?”
“Custodian.”
“Schwechat again?”
“Yes.”
“And the same…”
Beide nodded. “Every circumstance the same as Stach and Furst.”
Franz went to his wash basin and looked for the hair pomade he hadn’t used in well over six weeks. Had it been thrown away? In answer to his search, Gregor slid the jar to him. I hope Beide didn’t see that, Franz thought.
“Three murders staged to look like suicides in less than a fortnight,” Franz said.
“Five.”
Franz paused in his grooming. “Come again?”
“Five,” Beide said. “The fourth two days after Buchner, and the fifth the day after that.”
Franz put down his brush and turned away from the mirror to face Beide.
“That’s monstrous,” he said.
“Yes,” said Beide.
“By then, the whole of Schwechat must have been in an uproar.”
“A very nervous uproar.”
“I don’t doubt it. There was a madman on the loose.”
“That was the impression.”
“Was?”
“It still is, but it’s only one of the speculations at present, and more are posited as the body count climbs.”
“Climbs? Inspector, how many people have been killed in this manner?”
Beide stopped smiling.
“As of this morning, Herr Kafka,” Beide said, “twenty-three.”
Franz was not given to whistling in astonishment, but on this occasion, he whistled.
“Yes, Herr Kafka,” Beide said, and repeated the whistle.
It was then that April tenth flipped a switch in Franz’s memory.
“I didn’t do it,” Franz said, feeling his breakfast begin to rise in his gorge. He stood, trembling. “I didn’t do any of them,” he said, his voice rising in fear. “Dear God, man, how can you suspect… how did you come to think I had anything to do with one death, let alone twenty-three? Why, I’ve been here, in this sanatorium…”
“Since April tenth,” Beide finished, quietly. “Yes, I know, Herr Kafka. You checked in on Thursday, April tenth, 1924, at a little past noon. You were taken directly to this room.”
“I’ve been tremendously—”
“—ill. Yes, we know.”
“Would you let me finish a—”
“—sentence? Please calm yourself, Herr Kafka—I do wish you’d let me call you Franz—you are not believed to be the author of these crimes.”
“I’m not a suspect?”
“No.”
“Then who—”
“—do we suspect?”
“—sent you to me? I asked you to let me finish my sentences.”
“That’s a difficult question to answer. May I answer it later?”
“This is maddening. Twenty-three murders in Schwechat and you’re here, in Kierling, giving a man who has just survived—although heavens knows how—a fatal disease the runaround.”
“Only five of the murders occurred in Schwechat,” Beide said. With a swirl of his cape, he sat gracefully on the chair.
“Where did the others occur?” Franz asked. Please don’t say within one mile of the sanatorium, he thought.
“I think,” Beide said, “that now would be a good time to introduce The Hanging Artist. Please, relax. Have a seat.”
Franz couldn’t. “The Hanging Artist?” he asked.
“Yes,” Beide said. “The Hanging Artist.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
A HANGING ARTIST
“YES?” HENKER ASKS.
The door to his sitting room opens. An impressive woman, her dyed hair done up in a towering, cobweb fashion popular some fifteen years ago, enters.
“A gentleman to see you, Herr Henker,” she says. Henker notes that she seems genuinely pleased to announce this caller. Still, he must ask.
“Another policeman?” he asks.
“No,” the woman says, her stays stiffening along with her posture. “Herr Spindler.”
Ah. Henker thinks, It’s about time, but he plays with the woman.
“Spindler, Spindler…” he says, feigning a deep search of his memory.
The woman can’t hold to decorum any longer.
“Max Spindler,” she says.
“Of course,” Henker says. “By all means, Frau Alt, show him in.”
Frau Alts departs.
Henker adopts an informal attitude on the shabby settee. He picks up yesterday’s newspaper and pretends to read.
Frau Alt ushers in a prosperous-looking gentleman. She gives a slight curtsey, casts a glance at Henker, and leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.
Max Spindler doffs his hat.
“Good afternoon, Herr Henker,” Spindler says.
Henker returns the cordial greeting.
Spindler indicates the stump of a cigar in his mouth.
“This bother you?” he asks.
“Not if you’ve another and are a fellow given to sharing,” Henker says, tossing the newspaper aside.
Spindler produces a cigar from his breast pocket.
Henker approves of the cigar.
Spindler offers Henker the use of his cutter.
Henker cuts the cigar.
Spindler lights Henker’s cigar.
Henker admires the lighter.
“Gold,” he says.
“Gold leaf,” Spindler corrects. “The good things in life, Herr Henker, not the ostentatious and impractical. Yes?”
Henker nods, puffs away.
“You know who I am?” Spindler asks.
“Of course. You were announced.”
“I mean… you know who I am.”
Henker nods again, smiles. “Who in the theatrical profession doesn’t know who Max Spindler is? Won’t you take a chair? I’ve been expecting you.”
Spindler raises his eyebrows as far up on his bald head as he can manage. “Have you?” he asks, sitting.
“Merely the natural course of events,” says Henker, “which is to say, natural for my own particular course: a sensation in a backwater like Schwechat is one thing; an unheard of move to the Traumhalle—the largest music hall in Vienna—in a fortnight is another; and it’s only the first week of June. I feel safe saying that, because I’ve also been expecting that contract in your right inner coat pocket, Herr Spindler.”
Spindler adopts a sly look, reaches into his right inner coat pocket and extracts a folded contract.
“I was told you’d be a mystifying fellow,” Spindler says, and hands the contract to Hen
ker. “A cool customer, too.”
Henker reads the contract, unmoved. The atmosphere in the small room begins to cloud with cigar smoke.
Spindler notices two cups on the table. “Is Frau Henker at home?” he asks.
Henker follows his gaze to the cups, smiles, and returns to his perusal of the contract. “There is no Frau Henker, only a Fraulein Henker. My sister.”
“Ah. It will be a pleasure to meet her.”
“I’m sure it will, one day. She’s resting at the moment. And before you probe any further, she’s unwell. Not ill, unwell. She is often unwell. And therefore she rests, often. This says I’ll receive a bonus if I begin next week. How much of a bonus?”
“In my personal opinion,” Spindler says, “that’s a princely sum of money for any artist, established or otherwise. But your act—if you can call it an act—”
“Call it anything you wish,” Henker says.
“—will be worth it.”
“No questions asked?”
“About?”
“My act.”
“You mean the police business.”
“Yes.”
Spindler gives the slightest of pauses and says, “No.”
Henker crosses his legs and fans himself with the contract. “I’m glad to hear it,” he says. “It’s all an unfortunate coincidence, anyway. So you have no hesitations?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“About the nature of my Art,” Henker says, making sure Spindler recognizes the capital A in his inflection.
“I know three things, Herr Henker,” Spindler says. “One: whatever it is you do fills seats, and I have nine hundred seats to fill—nine hundred and three, to be exact. Two: you have the potential to become an international sensation, and I’d like to be a part of that.”
“And the third thing you know?”
“Nothing can stop you from realizing that potential.”
Henker smiles. “That may be true,” he says.
“Only one caveat,” Spindler says.
“Yes?”
“Two a day.”
Henker scans the contract, finds the clause.
“Yes, I see it here,” he says. “You want me to die twice a day.”
“So to speak. Will that be a problem?”
“Your left inner coat pocket, Herr Spindler,” Henker says, reaching out a hand.
“My what?”
“Your fountain pen, sir.”
Spindler hands him the pen. Henker signs the contract.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Spindler says. “Will twice a day be a problem?”
Henker hands him the pen and contract.
“I wouldn’t have signed if I thought it would be a problem,” Henker says. “No, Max—and I will call you Max—this is exactly what I was hoping for.”
CHAPTER NINE
A PLEA
“AND PEOPLE PAY to see that?” Franz asked after he had paid close attention to Beide’s description of The Hanging Artist’s performance.
“Night after night,” Beide said. “Packed houses.”
“Standing room only, eh?”
“Henker won’t allow standees.”
Franz chanced a glance at Gregor, who was now prone on the floor, resting his unwieldy bulk.
“I’d pay to see it,” Gregor said.
“Let me get this straight,” Franz said to Beide. “This man, this nobody who goes by the name of Hans Henker, comes out on stage, plays a phonograph record, and gives a little speech about the history of killing—”
“No; the history of execution,” Beide said.
“Then produces a noose—”
“Of silk.”
“Yes, all right, a silken noose, puts it around his neck, sends the end of the rope flying—you did say flying, correct?”
“Flying, yes. It’s quite graceful, actually.”
Franz continued to try to picture the scene. “The rope coils itself around the gallows,” Franz said, “Henker climbs atop a chair, fastens the noose around his neck, kicks the chair away, and snap goes his neck, the record plays out, all is silence, and he’s just hanging there, dead.”
“And then the curtain comes down,” Beide said.
“To thunderous applause.”
“To no applause whatsoever, actually. The audience can’t believe what they’ve seen.”
“They must know it’s a trick.”
“One would assume. Still, it does something to them,” Beide said, rubbing his smooth chin, as he searched somewhere above Franz’s head for exact words. “It unsettles them. You’d have to be there to experience the effect this performance—if you can call it that—has on every man, woman, and child who sees it.”
“Good grief,” Franz said, “children see this as well?”
“They’re not supposed to, but they get in, somehow. They dress like adults. The management can usually spot the youngsters, but a few slip through.”
Gregor, from the floor, said, “Don’t forget the volunteers.”
“That’s right,” said Franz.
“That’s right, what?” Beide asked.
Franz reminded himself to be careful about Gregor. “The volunteers,” he said. “One per show.”
Beide nodded. “And not shills, either. He asks if someone wants to come up on stage to inspect the rope and noose, pat him down to see if he’s wearing hooks or braces or who knows what all; he comports himself not unlike your typical third-rate magician.”
“And he always gets a volunteer?”
“You should see the hands shoot up when he asks,” Beide said. “I don’t know if it’s morbid curiosity, or fascination with the macabre, or the tone of Henker’s voice, or the music, or a combination of all those things, but everyone wants to get their hands on the rope, on him. Even I, when I saw the show after the sixth victim was found, found myself fairly leaping out of my seat in an effort to get Henker to pick me.”
Beide shook the memory of his actions out of his face; Franz sensed at once that his babyish features were, in fact, edged with a certain hardness, and thought for a moment that Beide was changing, somehow, from the inside out. He lost this observation in an instant when Beide leapt from his chair and resumed his bouncy, sunny perambulation about the room.
“So that’s it,” Beide said. “The parallel phenomena. Bodies begin piling up at the exact same time this Hanging Artist begins performing his grotesque act, first in Schwechat, then in Vienna…”
“There’s a music hall in Schwechat?” Franz asked.
“Tiny place,” Beide said, “not much more than a hallway with a stage on one end, can’t seat more than seventy at a time. Now, at the Traumhalle, which can seat three hundred, he’s now reaching more people.”
“And you think he’s the killer,” Franz said.
This put a stop to Beide’s energy. He turned to Franz, looked him full in the eye, and said, “It would be wonderful it was as easy as that.
“Everyone thought the same: The Hanging Artist arrives, people are found hanged. Makes sense. Henker was brought in for questioning. Insisted he had nothing to do with any of the deaths, didn’t know any of the people, and had no reason to murder his public, as he put it. He’s quite the fellow, let me tell you: cheerful, cooperative, bland… rather like one’s Cousin Karl—and everybody has a Cousin Karl—that one unremarkable relative who goes through life affable, friendly, and totally forgettable. There’s nothing memorable about the man at all.
“That aside, there’s no proof that he had anything to do with these murders. Not a shred. He’s been followed. He’s been searched, subtly, by some of the best pickpockets in our employ.”
Beide enumerated the facts on his fingers. “All of his actions are accounted for. He is always accompanied to the theater by at least one person. He always returns to his lodgings in the company of others. He doesn’t even live alone, but with his sister, Mathilde, who is an invalid. He dines in beer halls or at the communal dinner table at his boa
rding house, which caters to artists and performers. And he never has the rope on his person. He doesn’t take it to the theater; he doesn’t take it home. As far as anyone can tell—and we’ve done our best to ascertain this—the only time Henker comes in contact with the rope itself is when he is on stage with it!”
Franz coughed. At first, he thought nothing of it; then he remembered that one little cough, years ago, had led to…
…what?
He had nearly thought “his death,” but his death hadn’t happened.
And this one little cough, now, after Beide’s litany of measures against this ludicrous grotesque Henker, signified… what?
Perhaps it was just a cough.
He looked at Beide, who seemed to be expecting him to say something.
“I understand why you think I might have killed these people,” Franz said. “I know I cut an… unusual figure in society, so to speak, and my few published works”—he raised an eyebrow at Gregor, who was attempting to clean away the dirt he had collected on his shell—“are not of the normal strain of fiction and could be considered to come from a mind of a troubled person… and I admit that my admission to this place of healing on the exact same day as the discovery of the first victim is too coincidental to overlook… well…
“I can’t account for my actions thereafter. Yes, I was here, confined to this room, or sometimes on the open-air gallery in a vain effort to afford my taxed, infected lungs some chance at healing or respite from pain… But most of the time, I was languishing. Too weak to take food. Starving, in the end…
“But the end didn’t come. I’m here, now, talking to you, thinking, feeling, eating, miraculously cured…”
It then occurred to Franz that he had perhaps better shut his big fat mouth.
He didn’t. He looked sharply at Beide, and a new panic filled his body.
“Of course!” Franz said. “I’m perfectly fine! These past months—you think it was all an act! Of course you do! After all, I wasn’t supervised the entire time, no one watched over me twenty-four hours a day, there were great dark patches of time when I received no visitors, no immediate care, not even so much as someone barging in only to find it was the wrong room. In the dead of any night, I could have slipped from this place, travelled to any of the places you’ve mentioned, carried out my nefarious work, and returned to this room before dawn, and no one would be the wiser!
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