The Hanging Artist

by Jon Steinhagen

  “Leave the room,” Franz said, drawing the bedsheet to his chin.

  “There’s nothing you’ve got I haven’t seen,” Beide said, “or am not personally well acquainted with, if you know what I mean. Hurry up. I have a car waiting for us outside.”

  “Well, I’d hardly expect it to be waiting inside.”

  “Oh, you’re one of those people. I suppose I deserve that. At any rate, hurry.”

  “If you’re in such a hurry, why did you waste time playing those wine glasses you brought in?”

  “I didn’t bring them in. They were here, set up and ready to go. I assumed you’d been practicing. Aren’t they yours?”

  “They are not.”

  “You’re passing yourself off as a verrilionist,” Beide said. “They must be yours.”

  Franz swung himself out of bed and reached for his socks and underthings. “Oh, that’s just terrific,” he said, dressing. “A verrilionist…”

  “Plays the glass harp,” Beide said. “Is there no room to pace in this room?”

  “You don’t need to pace when you’re impatient. Did you say glass harp? It’s just a bunch of wine glasses filled with… dare I ask what’s in them?”

  “Wine, of course,” Beide said. Franz reached for one and drank, and promptly spat the mouthful into the washbasin.

  “That wasn’t wine,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t be drinking this early in the morning,” Beide said. She sat on the bed, watching Franz with fascination as he put on his shoes.

  “You put on your shoes before your put on your trousers?” Beide asked.

  “Stop looking at me. If you need to busy yourself until I’m ready, begin by removing that…”

  “Glass harp.”

  “…from my room.”

  “I told you, it’s yours. You told that woman you were a verrilionist; suppose she comes in one day and finds there’s nothing here but your clothes and piles of manuscripts? With your real name right under the titles?”

  “But I can’t play the thing,” Franz said.

  “Then you shouldn’t have told her you could.”

  Franz was about to place the blame on Gregor, but caught himself just in time. He wondered where the vexing creature had gone. Nothing but silence came from beneath the bed. Franz took his trousers from the foot of the bed and carefully pulled them on.

  “Incredible,” Beide said. “I ask again: why put your shoes on before you put on your trousers?”

  “In case there’s a fire,” Franz said, turning away to button his fly.

  “So it’s better to be fully shod as you escape from a burning building than trouserless?”

  “Look,” Franz said, putting on the rest of his clothes, “why don’t you forget about me, my habits, and my lack of musical ability and tell me what’s happened? Has there been another murder?”

  “Indeed there has,” Beide said.

  “Good grief,” Franz said. “That’s the second night in a row, isn’t? There was one on Wednesday night, now last night. Who was it this time?”

  “She was what some Victorian novelists referred to as a ‘woman of easy virtue.’”

  “A prostitute.”

  “Well, not exactly.”

  “Explain.”

  “She didn’t walk the streets.”

  Franz buttoned his vest as fast as he could, discovered he’d misbuttoned, and started over again. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Talk of sex making you nervous?”

  “No. And we’re not talking of sex, we’re talking about a… a whatever-you-want-to-call-her. She was known to you?”

  “Let’s just say she was a familiar figure to the local constabulary.”

  “‘To’ or ‘with’?”

  “That’s another line of inquiry altogether. Regardless, they identified her right away. She is—was—Immerplatz Inge.”

  “Because she lived on Immerplatz, no doubt. What a creative nickname.”

  “Well, she began her career on Immerplatz, but she’s been operating out of a rather elegant address on the Flumstrasse these last few years.”

  “Who found her?”

  “Not a who, a what.”

  Franz had a feeling he did not want to know what Beide meant by that, but asked anyway.

  “A cat,” Beide said.

  “And this cat reported it to the police?”

  “Inge Hersch employed a charwoman. You know what a charwoman is?”

  “Of course I do. There’s one plays a prominent role in one of my stories, the one—”

  “Oh, yes, the one about the poor fool who turns into a big bug. Anyway—”

  “That hardly does the story justice, Inspector; in fact, it—”

  “At six o’clock this morning, the charwoman arrived by way of the rear entrance to the property and house by unlocking the wooden door into a small yard behind the house. She found several cats gathered at the back door all agitated. She assumed they were her mistress’s pets—”

  “Why did she assume that? Didn’t she know whether Fraulein Hersch had pets?”

  “She told the police that the deceased was a whimsical woman whose purchasing habits emphasized impulse over necessity, and anything could have been purchased since she had last seen her the morning before.”

  Franz shuddered. “May I guess the rest, even though the thought disgusts me?”

  “You may.”

  “The charwoman opened the door, the cats ran in, the charwoman busied herself with the fires and the preparation of a morning meal and, after an unusually long interval, went to look for the lady of the house… I take it the cats were not Fraulein Hersch’s pets?”

  “As far as we can ascertain, they were not domesticated creatures.”

  “And thus hungry.”

  “And not picky about what they ate,” Beide concluded. “Perhaps it’s a good thing you’ve missed breakfast.”

  Franz grabbed his pocket watch. Ten minutes past eight; Frau Alt had told him breakfast was at seven.

  “Why did you let me sleep so late?” Franz asked.

  “Because you were asleep,” Beide said.

  “That’s not a rational answer.”

  “It is, and besides, you can’t go visiting people at an indecent hour.”

  “People? Me? Visiting? What people?” Franz poured water into the basin and stooped to wash his face.

  Beide smiled. “I’ll bet you regret throwing away that third envelope now, don’t you?”

  “You and that envelope. Who are we visiting?”

  “You said you needed to talk to people, and I agreed. I thought we’d begin with Hannah Bickel, as she’s the freshest link we have to this case.”

  “Did she know this Immerplatz Inge?”

  “No, no,” Beide said. “Fraulein Bickel was at the theater with Herr Herbort on Wednesday night. She has nothing to do with Immerplatz Inge.”

  “And did Fraulein Bickel find Herr Herbort in his, um, posthumous state?”

  “Oh, God, no. He was found by a couple of whores.”

  Franz bumped his head on an unexpected shelf, cursed, then realized he didn’t know if there was a washcloth in the room or, if there was, where it was. Blinded, he groped for the curtain, walked into something, and heard the smashing of two dozen wine glasses as the delicate table hit the floor.

  “Bravo,” said Beide.

  BEIDE’S AUTOMOBILE WAS everything Franz expected: sleek, black, and driven by an unseen driver.

  Franz asked if he could roll down the opaque window that separated them from the front seat.

  “You can’t,” said Beide, “and you shouldn’t bother the driver while he’s driving. What did you think of The Hanging Artist?”

  “I didn’t meet him.”

  “You saw his act.”

  Franz considered his response before he gave it. “And I never want to see it again,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “He displayed a certain disrespect for death,” Franz said.
“I suppose I expected someone more morose. Someone closer to my concept of a death’s figure. And yet Henker was a very pleasant fellow. Nothing sallow or gaunt about him, as if he’d just enjoyed a good meal and was ready for parlor games. And then there was that infernal music from the gramophone. ‘Ev’rybody shimmies now,’ and all that.”

  “Did you volunteer when he solicited the audience?”

  “I wasn’t going to,” Franz said, “but the vexing thing is that I found my hand in the air, just like everyone else. I can’t account for it.”

  Beide became animated. “Oh, please tell me he chose you!” she said.

  “He did not,” Franz said. “That would have been a little too convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Then I would have known for certain this has all been staged for my benefit.”

  “All this?”

  “Every last minute of it, from the time I awoke fit and able on Wednesday morning until now. Had I been picked from the crowd on my first visit to The Hanging Artist, well… then I’d have no doubt I was in some other hellish realm instead of the hellish realm I’m used to living in.”

  “Be that as it may—who was the volunteer?”

  “Some fellow in a loud suit.”

  “Loud?”

  “Checkered. A broad check, too, like the store-bought suits you see bumpkins purchase when they decide to make a big splash in the city.”

  Beide laughed. “You certainly are a snob,” she said. “But go on. You were criticizing Henker’s performance.”

  “No, I wasn’t. As far as I could tell, it was flawless. I was explaining why I have no desire to sit through it again. There was the unsettling show of that rope flying up and entwining itself around the gallows, and him smiling all the while, talking about justice and judgment and… and it was all rather confusing.

  “And that ghastly finale. Henker, just hanging there.”

  “And the crowd?”

  “No one moved. No one said a word. How could we? The curtain came down, we just sat there. We knew it was an act, that it had to be an act, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t seem all too real. And no comfort of rectitude; no parting of the curtains to reveal Henker unsullied and smiling.

  “It was awful.”

  “Yes,” Beide said, her voice growing coarse, “awful is the word for it.”

  “I DON’T KNOW anyone who didn’t adore Hermann,” Hannah Bickel said to the Inspector and Franz. “I’ve said that so many times since Wednesday night and, truly, I’ve given it much thought, too. I simply can’t think of anyone who wanted to do him the least bit of harm, let alone…” She put her hand to her throat.

  Beide had changed to his masculine self during the ride across town to the notions shop at which Hannah Bickel was employed, much to Beide’s own chagrin, as “…women are more comfortable around me when I’m… well, let’s just say I wish I had some control over this.” Franz hadn’t known what to say.

  Fraulein Bickel had shown them nothing but cordiality, however, and had seemed to be especially taken with the handsome, boyish Inspector. “It’s the uniform,” Beide remarked later when Franz pointed it out to him.

  Franz had been relieved to learn he wouldn’t have to continue his masquerade as Monsieur Choucas while speaking with the—what, exactly? Witnesses? Suspects? He could be plain old Herr Kafka, an insurance investigator.

  “All I need to know, Fraulein Bickel,” Kafka said to her, “is what went on Wednesday evening, particularly at the Traumhalle.”

  “Why particularly there?” Hannah asked.

  Franz caught Beide looking at him as if to caution him not to tip his hat to The Hanging Artist; it was unnecessary: Franz had no intention of leading the girl down that path. He felt, for some reason, that too much emphasis was being placed on Henker and his novel, albeit disturbing, act.

  “The music hall is a public place,” Franz said, “and, as such, a hub of humanity. Someone could have seen Herr Herbort at the theater, or followed him there, or followed him afterwards.”

  “You mean like a thief, or…?”

  “I don’t know what I mean until I hear your account of the evening; that is, up until the time he left you.”

  “He didn’t leave me; I left him,” Hannah said.

  Franz forgot what he was going to say when he heard this, and tore off in another direction.

  “I was told he escorted you to your home,” Franz said.

  “He did.”

  “And yet you say you left him, not the other way ’round?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Franz thought a moment, and decided to correct himself. He had been thinking of her as a girl, when in fact she was a woman, and now he wondered what it was had made him think of her as a girl; possibly the sharp aroma of licorice she exuded.

  Or the mixture of eagerness, fear, and sadness she displayed whenever she spoke of the late Hermann Herbort. It was the way she put things: “adore,” and “I left him,” even “Hermann,” when “Herr Herbort” would have been appropriate in this semi-official interview.

  “You fancied him,” Franz said. “I understand.”

  Hannah waited before she spoke. “All of us did,” she said. “But Adeline and Frieda—my other friends who I was out with that night—were only interested in his looks.”

  “You didn’t care about his looks,” Franz said. “You felt something deeper. Less superficial. And you didn’t realize that until you got him to kiss you, and it frightened you, a little. I understand.”

  “How can you understand?” Hannah asked.

  “Because you said you left him,” Franz said, “when, in fact, if you were already home, it would have meant that he would have left you. But you kissed him, and you had that troubling realization, and you fled from a feeling you’d never encountered before—you felt that if you lingered with him any longer, you couldn’t be responsible for your actions…”

  “I’ve never done anything—”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Franz said. “You’ve told me as much without actually saying it. I’m not scolding you or anything; as I say, I understand. You left him because you felt that anything further that night would have caused you to compromise yourself, or at least give him the idea that you could be compromised.”

  Hannah studied her lap. She looked up, her eyes wet.

  “And what does any of that have to do with insurance?” she asked.

  Beide interrupted. “You’d be surprised. Herr Kafka is very… modern, and, um, well, the details of the evening are what we are after. For Herr Kafka’s benefit.”

  Hannah sighed, shrugged, and repeated the events for Franz: how the seven of them had decided to go to the Traumhalle to see The Hanging Artist—

  “Seven?” asked Franz.

  “Yes, seven of us,” Hannah said. “Us girls and the Bank Boys.”

  “The Bank Boys?”

  “They work at Citizens Bank. We call them the Bank Boys, which I suppose means we’re not too original when it comes to… well, anyway, that night it was myself, Hermann, Adeline, Frieda, Peter Schussler, Georg Jaeger, and—oh, yes—Prinsky. Robert Prinsky.”

  “Was someone unable to join you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It sounds to me,” Franz said, “as if your little theatre party was meant to be an octet, not a septet.”

  “Why do you think there was supposed be eight of us?”

  “The division of sexes,” Franz said, ignoring Beide’s inquisitive stare. “Three women, four men. A couples’ evening out. Which leads me to believe that there was another woman who couldn’t make it, or…”

  “…Or?” Beide asked.

  Franz sat back, blushing. “I’m sorry,” he said to Hannah. “Perhaps it’s better if you told the story, not me.”

  “You’re suggesting there was some sort of matching up going on,” Hannah said. “I suppose, in a way, there was. But, then again, there wasn’t.”

/>   Beide cleared his throat and said, “So you all went to the theater, bought your tickets, sat down…”

  But Franz wouldn’t let go of the thread.

  “I don’t mean to be personal about this,” he said, startling Hannah as he leaned forward again, “but this is a very personal business, you understand, I mean it should be considered a very personal business, what happened to Hermann. If there was no intentional matching up going on, then it was unintentional. And if there wasn’t a fourth girl—and I see now that there wasn’t, since you so charmingly intimated that the evening was simply meant to be a group of young people out to have a good time and, underneath, to see if things naturally sorted themselves out amongst you by evening’s end.”

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” said Hannah.

  “It wasn’t a question,” Franz said, “I’m just piecing the picture together, in my mind, based on the odd way you’ve put things.”

  “Odd?”

  “Not odd, that’s the wrong word, forgive me. Unique. Not just unique to you, but unique to the situation. And judging by the look on your face, I’m making this worse that it already is. I’ll stop there.”

  Hannah blinked and looked to Beide for help, but Beide only shrugged and asked her to continue recounting the evening’s events. She backtracked to how everyone had taken supper together and walked to the theater, had chatted out front before going in—

  “How did you go in?” Franz said. Beide sighed at the new interruption.

  “By the front door, of course,” Hannah said.

  “I mean, did all seven of you go in together? At the same time? As a group?”

  “Oh. No, as a matter of fact, we didn’t.”

  “Ah. How, then?”

  “Is it important?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Adeline and Frieda and Georg and Peter went in, but Hermann didn’t. I started to go in, but I saw that Hermann hadn’t joined us, so I turned back, and there he was.”

  “Why hadn’t he gone in?”

  “He just hadn’t. He seemed lost in thought.”

  “About what?”

  “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”