The Hanging Artist

by Jon Steinhagen

“He was happy with his accommodation,” Fautz said, “and pleasant to everyone. He was generous to the waiters, the chambermaids; everyone. He was a model guest.”

  “Until this morning.”

  “I ask you, Herr Kafka,” Fautz said, turning to the loud suit on the bed, “would you think a man capable of suicide who wore a garment such as this in public?” He picked up the coat as if it were somehow woven out of excrement. “Someone with taste as wretched as this wouldn’t have the brains to kill himself, although he might cause others to wish he would.”

  A folded sheet of paper fluttered from the coat to the floor.

  Franz picked it up, unfolded it, and read it.

  In the same clear, blocky handwriting found in the notebook, the following words were written:

  Thank You

  Hanging Artist

  “What is it, Herr Kafka?” Fautz asked.

  “Another piece of a pictureless puzzle,” Franz said.

  “Come again?”

  Franz pocketed the note. “You’ve helped me beyond words,” he said, “so I’ll not bother to try to come up with any. Thank you, Herr Fautz. I’ll do my best to see that all of this is cleared up.”

  “Please do,” Herr Fautz said as Franz escorted him to the door. “I don’t wish to seem unfeeling, but… well, an unoccupied room is…”

  “Yes, yes,” Franz said, closing the door on him, “money waiting to happen.”

  Fautz gone, Franz faced the silent, empty suite; empty, save for the sheeted corpse at the foot of the bed.

  He sat in the chair that Leo Kropold had used as his makeshift scaffold. So many things were bumping around in his brain, things that were doing their best to be noisy and elusive at the same time. He had the dizzying impression that everything he was experiencing was adding up and subtracting simultaneously; one fact led to a possible answer, while another led away from it.

  What did he have?

  A rope of handkerchiefs.

  A note directly referencing The Hanging Artist.

  A notebook filled with the words of another man.

  A bottle of mercury bichloride.

  And the stiffening corpse of Leo Kropold.

  “And don’t forget the boots,” said a raspy voice.

  Gregor was there, brandishing a pair of dirty boots.

  Franz sighed.

  “Boots?” he asked. “What boots? And what have boots got to do with anything?”

  “You tell me, Herr Detective,” Gregor said.

  “Where’d you find them?”

  “In the alley. Chucked out.”

  “Whose are they?”

  “Smart money says they belonged to the dead body.”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “The way they were chucked out.”

  “All right,” Franz said. “Explain.”

  “I’ll do better than that,” Gregor said, lifting the bottom of the sheet over Leo Kropold. He began to force the boots onto the feet, and when Franz protested, he hushed him. “I’m being useful,” he said. “And… hold on a minute… he’s not as flexible as I’d hoped… there… I’ll just have to force him a little to get the foot… damn…”

  “Gregor,” Franz said, “leave it alone.”

  “They’re his,” Gregor said, continuing his work with the other boot.

  “You don’t know that. And he has a pair of boots.” Franz pointed to a pair of polished black leather boots resting neatly at the foot of the wardrobe.

  “He had the boots he came with,” Gregor said, grunting, “and bought the other pair when he bought the new clothes. Makes perfect sense.”

  “He’d been here three weeks,” Franz said. “Wouldn’t he have pitched out the old boots when he bought the new?”

  “Who says he didn’t?”

  Crack.

  “I think I broke him,” Gregor said, holding a limp foot.

  Franz groaned. “Listen, just because you find dirty old boots in the alley—”

  “Among the dustbins, which are regularly cleaned, from the taste of them—”

  “Gregor!”

  “—but not actually in any of the bins. And the bins are directly beneath that window. He’s been keeping these old boots, for some reason, and then last night, as he prepared to off himself, he opened the window and tossed them out.”

  “Why would he do something like that?”

  “That’s your department,” Gregor said, his task complete. “There. Look. Boots. They fit. They’re his. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  The boots did indeed seem to fit.

  “Just because they fit doesn’t mean they’re his,” Franz said.

  “You are exasperating,” Gregor said. “I apologize for saying that, but somebody has to tell you. Can’t you just accept the fact that these were his boots and that he got rid of them much later than anyone else might have done?”

  “A pair of dirty boots only means that the boots were dirty!”

  Gregor yanked the boots off the corpse. “For Heaven’s sake,” he said, lifting one of the boots to what Franz assumed was his mouth. “I’ll settle this once and for all,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” Franz asked, aghast, but it was too late.

  Gregor had taken a good long taste of the filth. He sat there making smacking noises for a moment or two.

  “Dung,” he said.

  “I’m going to vomit,” Franz said.

  “Then look the other way,” Gregor said, then took another taste of the dried muck on the boot. “Yep,” he said, “cow dung, and enriched soil. Field soil. Herr Kropold was a farmer. A remote farm, I’d say, if there’s cow dung involved. He grew his own food, from beets to beefsteak.”

  “Gregor, how in the world can I—”

  “Just a moment,” Gregor said, and tasted a sample from the other boot. Franz watched as the great insect made savory noises as it took its time with the filth. “I’d say—and this is just my opinion based on ten years as an insect at large, mind you—that Kropold’s farm can be found south of Vienna—no, southwest—in the… yes, I’d place it as west of Schwechat.”

  “Schwechat?”

  “West of it. Yes, definitely west of Schwechat.”

  “Gregor,” Franz said, “I can’t go to Inspector Beide—or anyone, actually—and tell them that I know where Kropold comes from based on the taste of the cow shit on his old boots!”

  “Sure you can,” Gregor said.

  “How? ‘Oh, by the way, a decidedly outsized vermin that’s been following me around the past few days was rummaging about in the trash and happened to find…’ Oh, yes, that’ll go over well.”

  “You’re a writer,” Gregor said. “Come up with something.”

  “I’m not a writer,” Franz said, wishing he could throw something at the beast.

  “You’ve written stories, yes?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Then you’re a writer.”

  “This is not the sort of thing I usually…”

  “Well, no kidding.”

  Franz gave up. He wanted someone to come in and tell him his services were no longer needed. He wanted to return to Prague, to Dora, to his friends, to certain members of his family. He wanted to never again sit alone in a room with a corpse. He wanted lunch.

  “All right,” he said, “here’s what we’ll do. Take those boots and put them back where you found them. I’ll tell Beide that a search should be made of… well, I don’t know, they’ve already searched the room. I’ll suggest the trash bins should be searched, to see if Kropold disposed of anything before he hanged himself.”

  “But this dried mud is important,” Gregor said.

  “No doubt,” Franz said, “but what am I to do about it? Tell them to have the mud analyzed, once they find the boots? Even if they have the science for that, I doubt it will go so far as to pinpoint its source, as you’ve done.”

  “I keep telling you…”

  “I know, I know,” Franz said, “but you have to unders
tand the limits of my participation in this godawful mess. Right now, I only have your word that Kropold comes from a farm west of Schwechat, where the unexplained murders began in conjunction with Henker’s first appearance as The Hanging Artist, and while I am happy to take you at your word, no one else is likely to do so, because you are a damned insect!”

  He rose, went to the corpse, yanked the boots from its feet, went to the window, and pitched the boots down into the alleyway.

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it,” Gregor said, adopting the best hurt tone he could—but he didn’t finish, because he had gone.

  Which was just as well, as at that moment the door to the suite opened.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  TOO MANY THEORIES

  “YOU LOOK LIKE death warmed over,” Beide said. The four silent officers, who had returned with him, set about removing Kropold and anything related to Kropold from the room.

  “That’s because I probably am death warmed over,” Franz said.

  “Do you say that in resentment or in fun?” Beide asked.

  “I’m too tired for resentment.”

  “Good. Was your interview with Fautz successful?”

  “In a roundabout way.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  The officers were executing their duties swiftly, which caused Franz to say, “Before we go any further, may I make a request?”

  “Of course?”

  “I’d like your men to do a thorough search.”

  It happened so fleetingly that it was hard to tell if the men paused in their labors, but they paused.

  “I can assure you,” Beide said, “that they’ve performed the most thorough search imaginable of this room; however, if you suspect they’ve missed something…”

  “Of this room, perhaps, although I’ve found something they didn’t—”

  “Oh?”

  “—but I meant of the premises. Anywhere Kropold could have gone around the hotel itself. Inside, outside; specifically, the bins.”

  “The trash?”

  “While he seems to have left plenty in the room for us to consider,” Franz said, “there’s always what he did not that should be considered, too.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything,” Franz said. If he could only direct them to the boots without tipping his hat to the infuriating-yet-useful Gregor.

  Beide shrugged, turned, snapped his fingers, and one of the men clicked his heels, saluted, and left the room.

  “Now, then,” Beide said. “What did you find that my men had not?”

  Franz took the folded note from his pocket and showed it to Beide.

  Thank You

  Hanging Artist

  Beide studied the note for several moments, turned it over several times, and held it up to the light.

  “And how did this come into your possession?” Beide asked.

  “It fluttered to the floor,” Franz said.

  “From where?”

  “Kropold’s coat.”

  “What made you examine the suit in the first place?”

  “I didn’t. It was Fautz who handled the coat. Does it matter?”

  Beide glanced at the men, whose increased activity barely masked their keen interest in the note. Beide took Franz by the arm and steered him from the room.

  “There’s a communal guest parlor across the corridor,” Beide said. “We’ll talk there.”

  The inspector led him out of the room, taking care to leave the door to the suite wide open. They stepped across the hall to a paneled room littered with overstuffed furniture gathered around a fireplace. The room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

  Franz sat on a settee. Beide sat next to him, so close that Franz noted, for the first time, that he smelled of orange blossoms.

  Beide unfolded the note again.

  “How do you interpret it?” he asked.

  Franz, somewhat intoxicated by the fragrance, said, “I don’t.”

  “You don’t? Of course you do. You can’t look at a thing like this and not go leaping to all sorts of conclusions. Kafka? Stay with me, man.”

  Franz closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. “I’m going to faint again,” he said.

  “No, you’re not. You’re not a fainter. Well, yes, you fainted earlier, but…”

  They watched as two of the officers carried the corpse from the suite.

  “Are you better?” Beide asked, looking into Franz’s eyes.

  “I’m fine,” Franz said. “The note. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “What you mean is, you don’t want to commit yourself to a supposition.”

  “Whatever you say. Look, I’m having difficulty processing all of this.”

  “This note fluttered to the floor, you said,” Beide said, “when Fautz held up Kropold’s coat. So it wasn’t in a pocket, as that would have required a search—and remind me to rake those idiots over the coals for not doing so earlier—or shaking out the coat. No, it just fell out. That’s interesting.”

  “It’s all interesting, Inspector,” Franz said, “and it’s all confusing, too. My question—”

  “Yes?”

  “—is why a note like this was left in a way it could be eventually found rather than where it could be immediately found.”

  “You mean why didn’t Kropold leave the note out in the open?”

  “Or better hidden.”

  “Assuming he wrote it.”

  Franz sighed. “Yes, I suppose there’s always that concern,” he said. “I imagine his rather basic handwriting would be easy to imitate… but if someone else wrote this note, why not leave it in a prominent place, like pinned to the body?”

  “Kropold wasn’t wearing any clothes,” the inspector pointed out. “No place to pin it.”

  Franz laughed. “So you think we have a delicate, sensitive killer on our hands? One that doesn’t mind hanging his or her victims, but draws the line at harming freshly murdered flesh?”

  Beide was staring at him.

  “What did I say?” Franz asked.

  “Do you really think Kropold was murdered?”

  Franz had to think about that for a moment. What had he said? He hadn’t been aware of it when he was saying it, but that was exactly what had slipped out. He shook his head.

  “No,” he said, “I don’t think the man was murdered. I don’t really know what I’m saying or why I’m saying it. No, I think this is a genuine suicide. As for this note, we have to consider the way it was written.”

  Franz took the note and showed Beide its curious construction:

  Thank You

  Hanging Artist

  “There isn’t any punctuation,” Franz said.

  “Should there be?” Beide asked.

  “Yes and no. It depends on what it’s trying to say. Was he, Kropold, thanking Henker, the performer? If so, there should be a comma after ‘you.’”

  “Why would Kropold thank Henker?”

  “I don’t know. Another possibility is that it’s a signature. That Kropold is the one you’ve been after all this time, and this is his way of saying farewell.”

  “What?”

  “Bear with me a moment while I talk this out,” Franz said with renewed energy. He stood and began pacing back and forth in front of Beide. “You’ve admitted yourself that despite thorough investigation of and a constant vigil on Henker, you’ve no way to pin any of these killings on him. Well, who haven’t you been suspecting or tailing, all that time? Everyone else in the world—including Kropold, while he was still among the living.

  “It’s clear that Kropold has been studying Henker—those obsessive notebook entries are evidence of that. And he’s certainly been in contact with Henker at the theater, as I saw him last night, and not just by chance—the man was onstage as a volunteer!

  “We know from Fautz and the clerks that Kropold has been in residence at the hotel for three weeks, which means he was in town and within walk
ing distance of the Traumhalle for at least that long, if not longer.”

  “But that would only explain—”

  “Just a moment,” Franz said. “If you will only give me a chance to follow my line of thought, we might get somewhere. Kropold was the killer. Last night was the last of his killings. He knew this; he had planned this. And when he had finished, he planned to put an end to himself, as well. He was ill and couldn’t bear the idea of suffering from that dreaded disease for however long it would take to finally kill him off.

  “I’m saying he was a murderous soul from the very beginning; that he discovered Henker, either by observation or reading about him in the newspapers, and conceived of a plan that would throw suspicion onto The Hanging Artist, as a public, sensational figure.

  “It explains the notes, transcribed from Henker’s act. It explains his residence at this hotel and the pleasant, affable demeanor that Herr Fautz claims he always displayed. It explains the absence of a noose every time a body is discovered—Kropold fashioned his own from handkerchiefs, used it on every victim, took it away when he was finished, and, ultimately, used it on himself.

  “And think—the sheer symbolism of the thing!”

  Beide, stunned, managed to muster a quick, “The what?” before Franz barreled on.

  “Kropold’s noose!” Franz said. “He made it of twenty-four silk handkerchiefs, didn’t he? Twenty-four! One handkerchief for each murder!”

  They were interrupted by an officer at the doorway; this one, at last, evidently had a name, which Beide now used.

  “Well, Gründlich? What did you find? Anything unusual?”

  “These, sir,” Gründlich said, and handed Beide two square blue boxes.

  “Is that all?” Franz asked. Where were the boots?

  “They were the only items of note, Herr Kafka,” Gründlich said. “All else was refuse from the kitchen.”

  Judging from his smell and appearance of his uniform, Gründlich had been thorough.

  Beide had opened the boxes and was studying a bit of paper he had found in one of them. He passed it to Franz.

  “Another note?” Franz asked, taking it. It was a sales slip.