The Hanging Artist

by Jon Steinhagen

  “Why shouldn’t we?”

  “Inspector,” Franz said, “it’s nothing like the others.”

  “Superficially, perhaps,” Beide said.

  “No,” Franz said. “In every way. For one thing, we can prove this man has been in contact with The Hanging Artist, which I’m sure will make you happy, as you are keen on assigning these crimes to Herr Henker.”

  “How can we prove that?” Beide asked.

  Franz led Beide into the bed chamber and pointed to the checked suit spread out on the bed.

  “Herr Kropold was at the Traumhalle last evening,” Franz said. “Furthermore, he was Herr Henker’s ‘volunteer.’ So that’s one difference from the other cases—Herr Kropold was actually on stage with the man.”

  “What’s the other difference?”

  Franz crossed to the corpse and pointed to the noose around its neck. “This is the first time,” Franz said, “that you have an actual murder weapon to examine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  TOO MANY CLUES

  FRANZ’S FIRST IMPRESSION of the late Leo Kropold was that he looked like a young man grown suddenly old, and not merely because the trauma of his hanging had twisted his features into a mask of torment.

  “This man was struggling with something,” Franz said. “Look at how care and worry have etched themselves into his skin—at the corners of his eyes, at the turning of his mouth. I’ve seen faces like his before.”

  “Live faces?” Beide asked. The voice now had a boyishness to it. Franz looked up to confirm that Beide had become male.

  “I wish I could get accustomed to that,” Franz said.

  “Accustomed to what?” Beide asked.

  “Never mind.”

  Beide looked at himself in the dressing mirror opposite the bed. “Oh,” he said, “that. If it makes you feel any better, I wish I could get accustomed to it, too.” He turned to the four silent officers. “If this is everything,” he said, as they came to attention, “you may leave us. One remains stationed outside the room. You others know what happens next.”

  The men saluted and left the room.

  Beide went to the two items his minions had placed on the vanity.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  The first item was a small, leather-bound journal or notebook. The second was a brown bottle with a paper label affixed to it. Beide ruffled the pages of the journal and handed it to Franz. “Words,” he said. “Your department.”

  Franz opened the journal. Page after page had been filled, in a sturdy, plain hand, that of someone unused to writing and only marginally schooled in the art. He selected a page and drew Beide’s attention away from the bottle.

  “Listen,” he said, “to this: ‘Who am I to judge myself and pass sentence? Who am I to take my own life? Why, I am myself, and who else would know better than I for what sins I must answer?’ Does that sound familiar to you?”

  Beide nodded. “The Hanging Artist,” he said.

  “Yes. The performance.”

  Franz ruffled through the pages. Over and over again, the words of The Hanging Artist were written in block letters, not always in order, but often repeated.

  “And again,” Franz said, “the very words of Hans Henker: ‘But are all of our internal demons just that—internal?’ And here: ‘Do I deserve to live? I leave that to you.’ And so on. Every word of the performance, Inspector, taken down several times over, as if Kropold were taking dictation.”

  “Assuming that’s his handwriting,” Beide said.

  “Can you find out?”

  “We can try.”

  “May we assume, for the meanwhile, that Kropold is the author of these notes?”

  “That’s an interesting way of looking at it, Kafka.”

  “What is?”

  “Kropold being the author of the notes. On the one hand, as we understand it, he isn’t the author of the notes, because these are the words of Hans Henker…”

  “…but on the other hand, who’s to say Kropold isn’t truly the author of the words?” Franz said. “Do you mean to suggest…?”

  “That Kropold wrote the act for Henker? It’s a thought.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It will if we tug at it long enough.”

  Franz placed the notebook on the vanity. “And what of the bottle?” he asked.

  Beide showed him the label. “Bichloride of mercury,” he said.

  “The man was ill,” Franz said, stealing a glance at Kropold’s corpse.

  “Syphilis,” Beide said. “A fresh bottle, too—dated yesterday, by a chemist’s hand. This is easily traced.”

  “Why would Kropold obtain a new bottle of mercury bichloride on the same day he hangs himself?”

  “Excellent question.”

  “I know it’s an excellent question, Inspector,” Franz said, “but what we need right now is an excellent answer.”

  “What’s your opinion?”

  Franz rolled his eyes. “Must you always do that?” he asked. “Don’t you have any opinions of your own?”

  “We do,” Beide said. “But I’d like to hear yours first.”

  Franz thought. “I’m not a doctor,” he said, “but from the looks of him, you wouldn’t think he was ravaged by the disease. It might have been his first time with the drug and, upon taking a dose, he decided he couldn’t abide ingesting poison for the rest of his life, no matter how foreshortened it was.”

  “So he decided to hang himself.”

  Franz nodded. “Or…”

  “Or?”

  “Or he’s been taking the stuff for some time now, and only bought a new bottle because…”

  “Yes?”

  “He knew it would be found.”

  “By whom?”

  “Us.”

  “Us particularly?”

  “Us as in people who are trying to piece things together.” Franz put his hand to his head and closed his eyes. “My head is throbbing. This is all giving me a migraine, Inspector.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And now it’s your turn. What are you thinking?”

  Beide put the bottle next to the notebook.

  “I’m very interested in how everything seems to point to The Hanging Artist, as I suspected,” Beide said, “and yet—at the same time—points away from him, too.”

  “God help us,” Franz said.

  “Yes, that would be nice, if such a being existed, but for our own good, let’s take a look at that noose.”

  Beide knelt next to the body.

  “May we remove it from his neck?” Franz asked.

  Beide drew on his gloves and nodded. Gingerly, slowly, as if handling a venomous snake, he eased the rope from Kropold’s neck.

  Franz regarded the ceiling. “Are all the rooms in this hotel the same?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Franz studied the room’s construction. “How tall would you say the late Herr Kropold was?” he asked.

  “I’d place him at just under six feet tall,” Beide said, concentrating on the removal of the rope. “Certainly no taller.”

  “And how high is this ceiling?”

  Beide spared a glance. “Twelve feet,” he said. “It’s an old building, Herr Kafka, it’s—”

  “You may call me Franz by now, surely,” Kafka said, his gaze wandering about the room. “Or simply ‘Kafka,’ if you like.”

  Beide stopped what he was doing, opened his mouth as if to reply, then thought better of it and returned to his work. “Why are you interested in the room’s dimensions, Kafka?” he asked.

  “I don’t know why I’m interested in anything,” Franz said, “only that I’m finding everything I encounter these past couple days to be of enormous interest, even when they may not be interesting at all. Why is that?”

  “It’s the nature of the murders,” Beide said, finally slipping the noose off the dead man’s head. “They’ve had the same effect on me. Now, please, go on. The ceiling?”
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  “Perhaps it’s not so much the ceiling as the beam,” Franz said, standing. “A massive oaken beam runs the length of the room, and we’re on the top floor of a hotel with a pointed roof. This wasn’t always a hotel, was it?”

  “I don’t know. I can summon the manager if you like; perhaps he can answer your questions.”

  “It’s an idea,” Franz said. “I’ll do it.”

  He went to the telephone, tapped the receiver for the desk, and asked the answering voice to send the manager to the room. He returned to Beide and the corpse.

  “Perhaps we should put a sheet over Herr Kropold,” Franz said.

  “The manager’s already seen him in this, um, state,” Beide said.

  “Doesn’t mean he has to continue doing so,” Franz said, looking around the room. “And perhaps the manager will be a little freer with his answers if he isn’t distracted by a dead naked body. I’d rather not disturb the bedding; let’s see if there are sheets in the wardrobe.”

  He opened the wardrobe. Gregor, eating something foul, waved at him.

  Franz started. “Damn you,” he said. “Get out of there!” He slammed the door.

  “Say that again?” Beide asked from the foot of the bed.

  “Nothing, just a minor observation,” Franz said, and opened the wardrobe door again.

  Gregor handed him a bedsheet. “Smashed one of my antennae,” he said. “Be a little more careful when you’re slamming—”

  Franz took the sheet and slammed the door again.

  After he and Beide covered the corpse, they took the severed noose to the window and pulled back one of the drapes. Beide held the noose up for inspection.

  “Silk,” he said.

  “I’m not going to touch it,” Franz said.

  “There’s nothing to fear.”

  “I’m not afraid of it, Inspector. It’s just that it’s an instrument of death.”

  “Yes. But it’s also central to these murders.”

  “No, it’s central to Herr Kropold’s suicide.”

  “Are you correcting me?”

  “Simply observing that the only death in which this object has been complicit is Herr Kropold’s, no one else’s. I’d go so far as to say we’re not even certain of that.”

  “A moment ago,” Beide said, “I was about to tell you how glad I was to at last be able to consider you a cooperative companion, and one who, now, appears to be readily, even eagerly, involved. But I refrained, because I thought you might either deny the observation or become emboldened and adopt a rather high-handed attitude towards me.”

  “For the past two days,” Franz said, “nothing has been as it should be, and you, more than most, have been symptomatic of that fact, so—no, I’m not being high-handed, I’m just telling you that we can’t take anything for granted. This room, this body, this hotel, that suit, this noose…”

  He grabbed the noose, then exclaimed.

  It had come apart in his hand.

  It appeared to writhe at his touch, like a mass of thick worms escaping from each other, but was shortly revealed to be nothing more than a mass of twisted cloth. Most fell to the floor; Beide stooped and retrieved one. Franz examined the cloth that remained in his hand.

  “See what I mean?” he asked, fluttering the twisted cloth. It unfurled just enough to suggest its original form.

  “A handkerchief,” Beide said, counting as he retrieved the rest from the floor. “Two dozen, Kafka,” he said. “Exactly two dozen silk handkerchiefs.”

  Franz caught sight of something from his vantage point at the window: an awkward, bumbling movement in the alley below. Gregor, crawling among the rubbish bins.

  “What do you see?” Beide asked, but Franz was saved from answering by the approach of Herr Fautz, the manager of the Hotel Das Gottesanbeterin.

  Beide said, “It just occurred to me that this man has only seen me in my ‘other’ state, and we’ve no time to go about explaining things or making up excuses. I’ll return when you’ve finished questioning the man,” and hid behind the door as the visitor entered, ducking out unseen once the man was in the room.

  Herr Fautz was a handsome man of middle age with only a few flecks of white in his black beard. He bore himself with unconditional dignity; Franz thought at one time he must have been with the military. His striped trousers had been crisply pressed, and his forest green morning coat bore an embroidered mantis on one lapel. If he had lost any composure at all at the discovery of Leo Kropold’s body, he showed no sign of it, and even now paid the sheeted corpse on the floor little attention. He accepted Franz’s introduction of himself as a special consultant to the police with a peremptory nod.

  “Then I assume the Inspector and her men are out making the necessary arrangements to remove this gentleman from the premises?” Fautz asked.

  “Exactly,” Franz said, hoping that was the case. “In the meantime, Herr Fautz, I’m wondering if you could spare me a few moments to clear up one or two points that may or may not have any bearing on the present situation?”

  “I’m at your service,” Fautz said, straightening cuffs that needed no straightening.

  “Thank you. How old is the hotel?”

  “One hundred and eighty-nine years old,” came the answer. “It was built in 1735. I think you’ll find my math correct.”

  “Was it always a hotel?”

  “It was not. It began life as the private residence of the Marschallin Klischat, who inhabited it from its completion until 1777, at which time it passed along to her nephew and his family. It remained in the Klischat family until the death of the wife of the youngest son in 1843. The following year, the property was sold to my grandfather, who converted it to its present state as the finest luxury hotel in Vienna.”

  “You’ve every reason to be proud of it, Herr Fautz.”

  Fautz clicked his heels and inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of the compliment.

  “Brahms once stayed with us,” he said. “A fortnight. A small portion of his ninetieth opus was extensively revised here during that visit. Several measures of the poco allegretto. Not in this room; on the floor below. I was a boy at the time, but I remember him vividly. Particularly the penny candy he would bring for me.”

  “What a sweet recollection,” Franz said, at a loss as to the identity of Brahms’s Opus 90 but not wishing to appear ignorant. Fautz did not laugh at Franz’s joke, but remained stoic, shoulders back, chin high. “Now then,” Franz said, “about the floors of this building, since you so adroitly referred to them, saving me much preamble… are the rooms here the only ones with angled ceilings?”

  “To the roof peak, yes,” Fautz answered. “When it was a residence, this floor was kept for the servants with storerooms above it. When my grandfather bought it, he removed the floors of the attic so that the rooms would have loftier ceilings.”

  “Ergo the strong beams that run the length of the floor.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “An unusual feature.”

  “Unique to the Hotel Das Gottesanbeterin. They are very well-known, sir.”

  “By whom? Guests who have stayed here?”

  “Naturally.”

  “How many suites of this kind are on this floor?”

  “There are two suites and two apartments.”

  “Apartments?”

  “The suites may be reserved for guests who are here for a luxurious but brief visit—say a fortnight—while the apartments are reserved for guests who are looking for more of an extended stay.”

  “Not unlike a tenant, eh?”

  “Precisely. An apartment may be leased monthly, biannually, or annually.”

  “Why was Herr Krolop given a suite instead of an apartment?”

  Fautz’s starchy demeanor creased a little. “Sir?”

  “Did he request this suite when you offered him an apartment?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Do you recall his registry?”

  “No. One of the under-m
anagers handled it.”

  “Did you ask your under-manager why he put a guest seeking an extended stay in a suite rather than an apartment?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re an excellent businessman, Herr Fautz, and you care about this building as much as you care about your family’s legacy of hospitality. That said, if the price tag on an apartment is higher than that of a suite, if you’d discovered your under-manager had booked Herr Krolop into the cheaper accommodation, I suspect that under-manager is no longer in your employ. What’s his name? I’d like to get in touch with him.”

  Fautz stiffened. “There is no need, Herr Kafka,” he said. “Since you press the point, I admit to handling Herr Krolop myself. Yes, he did tell me he wanted rooms for a month or longer…”

  “But you didn’t like the looks of him,” Franz said. “Not that he seemed—what? Unsavory? Disreputable? No, I’m guessing he seemed…”

  “Coarse,” Fautz said.

  “Yes,” Franz said, “but he had money—which he probably made sure you saw—so what could you do? Tell him you were full up, when you weren’t? And things being what they are, in the post-war economy…”

  “Herr Krolop’s death is most unfortunate,” Fautz said. “And, as such deaths are… unfortunate… I trust nothing need be said publicly about the location?”

  Franz smiled. “That’s not for me to say,” he said. “One man rewrites a few measures of a symphony, another hangs himself. Does it really matter where?”

  “I’m glad to see you take my view of it, sir.”

  “Did you look into Herr Krolop’s livelihood once he took up residence?”

  “I would never do something like that, sir. I took him at his word.”

  “That he was from Bern.”

  “Yes. Anyone could come from Bern. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  “And his attitude?”

  “Attitude, sir?”

  “His demeanor. When you saw him. Morose? Cryptic? A perpetual look of doom in his haunted eyes?”

  “You’re suggesting I have the ability to predict a man’s suicide based on how he behaved to me and my staff?” Fautz asked.

  “I just wanted to know what his attitude was like.”