The Iron Angel

by Edward D. Hoch

  “Where was he standing when this happened?”

  “Over here,” the magistrate said, taking several long strides toward the door. Myra Rapnell unlocked the door and Michael peered down a dim hallway perhaps twenty feet in length. He followed Myra and the magistrate into the house, with Becker behind him. The hallway ended at a blank wall and they turned right to enter the kitchen.

  “We ran in the front door, down the hall and in here,” Becker explained, “right after he threw the knife. Myra’s father was in the kitchen slumped at the table where he’d been eating dinner. The knife had struck him right through the heart. It must have killed him instantly.”

  “This table?” Michael asked, studying the kitchen.

  “Yes. He was facing the door.”

  “But –” Michael shook his head not comprehending “– I don’t understand this. If he was seated at the table, a knife thrown from the front door couldn’t have hit him. It would have had to make a right turn at the doorway just as we did.”

  “Now perhaps you see the reason for my actions,” the magistrate said. “The reason why I have returned to the old laws. Arad Bercovia must be executed by another Gypsy, the first one encountered along the road, because Bercovia killed Marco Rapnell with a Gypsy curse that guided his knife around a corner to its target.”

  Black thunderheads had appeared over the top of the mountains blotting out the sun and casting a brief pall over the village. Michael heard murmurings from the crowd in the street and knew they had taken this as a sign that the hour of the execution was drawing near. He stood in the doorway for a moment studying the clouds and then turned back to face Konrad Kanici.

  “I do not believe in Gypsy curses,” he said quietly. “This man is innocent.”

  “There are witnesses –”

  “Witnesses who saw him throw a knife.” Michael strode back down the corridor and stood in front of the blank wall. “There is not a mark on this wall not a dig from a thrown knife. What happened to it?”

  “The knife lodged in the chest of Marco Rapnell.”

  “After turning a corner and entering the kitchen.”

  “Yes.”

  Rapnell’s daughter Myra said, “The Gypsy killed my father. There was no one else in the house.”

  “Do you believe in curses too?” Michael asked staring down into her dark eyes.

  “My father might have been hit by the knife in the hallway and staggered into the kitchen to die.”

  The magistrate shook his head. “I saw the body. The knife penetrated the heart. Your father could not have taken more than one or two steps before he died. He certainly could not have crossed the kitchen and seated himself behind the table. And there was no blood on the floor.”

  “The knife in the wound might have prevented much external bleeding,” Michael speculated. “Still if the dead man was actually seated at the table it’s doubtful he could have been stabbed in the doorway.” He turned back to Myra. “How do you know the house was empty?”

  “We searched it,” Hans Becker said. “As soon as we found Marco. There was no one here but the dead man.”

  Michael stopped to the kitchen door which led to a back porch and a small yard with a garden. “That door was locked,” Kanici told him. “I checked it myself.”

  “Locked from the inside?”

  “Yes. The key was turned and the bolt was thrown.”

  “And the windows?”

  “All these downstairs were locked. There was a breeze coming in through several upstairs.” He stared hard at Michael. “But why do you ask these questions? The case has been decided. You prowl and pry like a detective but there is no mystery to solve.”

  “Bercovia says he is innocent.”

  “Did not Cain say he was innocent in the Garden of Eden?”

  “The man is beside himself with fear, crying and carrying on like a doomed soul. Is that the attitude of a cold-blooded murderer?”

  “I have seen all sorts in my time,” the magistrate said.

  “What of motive?”

  “Talk to Myra Rapnell. She will tell you the motive.”

  Myra had slipped away while they talked and Michael found her in the back garden pulling a few weeds with her dainty hands. “That is a dirty job,” he observed.

  “Someone must do it now that my father is dead.”

  “Did you live here with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your mother –?”

  “She ran away years ago with a carnival man who was passing through the mountains. That was when I was very young. My father never forgot it. I think that was one reason he hated Arad so much.”

  Michael looked at the sky. The thunderheads were passing to the south and the storm seemed to have avoided them. “Why?” he asked. “What was the reason he hated Arad?”

  “Because of the carnival. When I met Arad he was a knife-thrower in a traveling carnival. He left the show and stayed here because he was in love with me. For my father it was history repeating itself. That’s why he asked Hans Becker to visit us. He wanted Hans to win me over, make me forget about Arad.”

  “Was he succeeding?”

  “All too well. And my father didn’t stop Hans and me.” She brushed some garden dirt from her hands. “He had Hans track down the carnival where it was playing in Bucharest and bring the woman here who had worked with Arad in his act.”

  “She’s here now?” Michael asked.

  Myra nodded. “She’s here. Hans knows where, but he won’t tell me.”

  The magistrate came to the kitchen door. “In thirty minutes you must do your duty, Gypsy,” he called out. “Do not try to escape or you will join your brother with a noose around your neck.”

  “I will be there to see justice done,” Michael promised.

  He found Hans Becker, the Leipzig cattle buyer, on the road in front of the house. “Are you satisfied we tell the truth?” the bearded man asked Michael.

  “I am satisfied of nothing. I must hear the story once more, of what happened when Myra’s father died.”

  “I was coming to the house with a visitor. As I approached, I saw that the Gypsy was standing by the open front door.”

  “You’re certain the door was open?”

  “Yes. People sometimes leave them open in this warm weather.”

  “Go on,” Michael urged.

  “He shouted for Myra’s father to come out, to face him. He was wearing his bright Gypsy carnival shirt as if to taunt the man. Myra told you about her mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he brought his arm back in a throwing position and I saw the knife in it.”

  “What sort of knife?”

  “A slim balanced throwing knife without the guard or crosspiece. The sort used in knife-throwing acts. The sort that killed Rapnell.”

  “Go on.”

  “He hurled it into the house with a shout as we came running up.”

  “Who was with you?”

  “I – a visitor.”

  “Myra has already told me you located the woman who worked with Bercovia in his knife-throwing act.”

  “Yes,” Becker admitted. “She was with me. Her name is Dora Gitano – I found her with the carnival in our nation’s capital. We were coming to see Rapnell. The magistrate was with us.”

  “Kanici?” This news surprised Michael. “He was with you at the time of the murder?”

  “Yes. We entered the house together.”

  “And who was the first into the kitchen? Who reached the body first?”

  “Kanici and I entered together. I kept Dora back so she wouldn’t see Rapnell. We could tell from the doorway that he was dead.”

  “Where is Dora Gitano now?”

  “At the inn by the crossroads. She wants to see Bercovia again before the hanging.”

  “And I want to see her,” Michael said. “Take me to her.”

  “Only if the magistrate approves,” Becker answered uneasily.

  Michael saw Konrad Kanici waiti
ng for him down the road. “It is time to get back,” the magistrate said as Michael approached. “It is almost noon.”

  “One last thing, sir” Michael said. “I must speak with Dora Gitano, the woman who knew the Gypsy at the carnival.”

  “That is impossible. There is not enough time remaining.”

  Michael stepped very close facing the man in black. “Listen to me. You found me by chance on the road, driving through your village. Perhaps you have heard of King Carranza who rules us.”

  “I have heard the name,” Kanici admitted. “But he is crippled.”

  “Exactly. And so I carry out the orders in his place. I conduct the Gypsy courts, and I pass judgment among my people just as you do here.”

  “Then you know you must respect our laws.”

  “I do respect them. But I will never respect a belief in superstition, not even Gypsy superstition. Knives cannot be thrown around corners, even by the most skilled performers.”

  “I agree, but Arad Bercovia was not performing when he hurled that knife. He was bent on murder and he brought all his Gypsy powers to bear. He willed that knife to seek out his victim. Call it a curse call, it what you wish.”

  “If you believe such Gypsy powers you must believe he could escape from your noose if he wished.”

  “Not if another Gypsy tightens the knot.”

  Michael sighed. “Allow me to speak with this woman, Dora Gitano.”

  Kanici took out his pocket watch. “It is ten minutes to twelve. You will find her with the condemned man.”

  Dora Gitano was a lithe, sensuous woman who moved like a cat about the large meeting room never taking her eyes from Bercovia’s face. She treated Michael as an unneeded intruder and precious minutes slipped away before he finally managed to get through to her. “I was stopped on the road an hour ago and pressed into service as Arad’s executioner,” he said.

  “You would kill a fellow Gypsy?”

  “I seem to have no choice unless you can help me.”

  She slowed in her prowling. “I am not a Gypsy, if that is what you think. Arad and I only worked together in this carnival.”

  Michael glanced at Bercovia who now seemed paralyzed with fright. “He threw knives at you?”

  She nodded, wetting her lips with a darting nervous tongue. “I stood against a board and he outlined my body with knives. It was a trick, of course. He didn’t really throw them. The knives shot out of the back of the board around my body. We were very good at it – until he met her.”

  “Myra?”

  “Yes. The carnival was playing in a nearby town a few weeks back. He left it to stay near her.”

  Michael glanced over at Arad. “Do you love him?”

  She hesitated for an instant. “No, no I don’t love him. But I feel sorry for him. We were very close.”

  “You were there when the murder was committed. Do you think Arad killed that man with his knife?”

  “No, of course not. He had dozens of those throwing knives. Anyone could have stolen one to frame him for the crime.”

  “But if I cannot prove it within the next five minutes, I am the one who must tighten the noose around his throat.”

  “There is another way,” she said her voice barely a whisper so that the guard wouldn’t overhear.

  “What?”

  She turned her back to the guard and slipped a hand into her purse. It came out holding a tiny American made pistol. “Only two shots,” she whispered, “but it would be enough for you to escape with him.”

  Michael reached out to take the weapon and slip it in his pants pocket, wondering if he could bring himself to use it, even to spare the life of an innocent man.

  The door of the meeting room swung open and Konrad Kanici stood out-lined against the leaden sky. “It is time, Gypsy,” he intoned.

  The guard tugged Bercovia to his feet. “It’s not fair,” the doomed man complained. “I never threw the knife that killed Marco Rapnell.”

  They led him outside and Michael followed along with Dora Gitano. He saw Myra standing in the crowd of spectators along with Hans Becker. As Michael reached the road, he glimpsed the noose hanging from the pine tree and stopped frozen in his tracks until the magistrate poked a finger in the small of his back.

  “Do your duty, Gypsy, or you will join him up there.”

  Michael climbed onto the table and helped the condemned man up. The crowd moved a little closer, hemming them in. He felt the weapon in his pocket and wondered what use it could be to him now. The two bullets might do more to infuriate the crowd than to scatter it. For all he knew the gun might not even be loaded. An unloaded pistol might be the perfect weapon for a Gypsy who didn’t throw knives.

  Didn’t throw knives –

  Michael asked the condemned man a single question, making himself heard above the increasing roar of the crowd.

  Arad Bercovia turned his sad eyes to Michael’s and answered. The fight had suddenly gone out of him. “It isn’t fair,” he insisted. “It isn’t fair to hang me because of a foolish superstition. I have no magical powers.”

  “The verdict wasn’t fair,” Michael agreed, tightening the noose around the Gypsy’s neck. “But it was just.”

  Captain Segar sat up staring at Michael as he finished his story. Do you mean you hanged the man Michael? A fellow Gypsy?”

  “I hanged him because he was guilty. If I had rescued him from that mob it would only have been to deliver him to the State executioners. One could hardly expect a Gypsy to be spared in a murder case.”

  “But he swore he was innocent. You told me the man was sobbing with fear, saying it wasn’t fair.”

  “He never said he was innocent of the murder. He said he had not thrown the knife that killed Rapnell and he didn’t. The question I asked him on the gallows was whether he had stabbed Rapnell. And he had. He stabbed him at the kitchen table.”

  “But he never entered the house,” Segar objected.

  “We only had his word for that. The house was empty except for Rapnell, and he was dead. I believe Bercovia went to the house to argue with Rapnell over his daughter. Rapnell had recently brought Hans Becker to the village to induce his daughter away from the Gypsy, and this must have infuriated Bercovia. They had words, and he stabbed Myra’s father at the table. Then as he was leaving the house he spotted Becker and Dora approaching with the magistrate. He was caught in the act, unless he could make them believe he’d never entered.”

  “Then all that business of hurling the knife through the open door was only pretense?”

  “Yes. When I noticed how securely locked the back door and windows were, it seemed strange that the front door would be standing open alone. If it had been open for ventilation, Rapnell would have opened a window or the back door as well. When Bercovia was spotted at the open door he pretended he’d found it that way and acted out his stunt of hurling a knife into the house. But as Dora Gitano told me he didn’t really throw the knives in his carnival act. They sprang out of the board behind her, giving the illusion they were thrown with great skill. Bercovia didn’t really throw the knife through that doorway either – he palmed it and slipped it into the sleeve of the fancy Gypsy shirt he was wearing. He knew Rapnell would be found with the knife in his chest but he also knew there was no way the knife seen to be thrown by him could have traveled around the corner to reach his victim. By presenting them with impossibility he hoped to shroud the real circumstances of the killing and gain freedom for himself.

  “When I remembered that Bercovia only pretended to throw knives in the carnival act, it tied in with the fact that no knife or mark of a knife had been found in the wall opposite the front doorway. The knife never hit the wall because Bercovia never threw it. Yet the vanishing of that knife plus the knife in Rapnell’s chest was too much of a coincidence. Bercovia must have known the dead man and the method of murder. He could only have known if he’d already been in the house to kill Rapnell.”

  Captain Segar nodded. “In the city he migh
t have gotten away with it. The police would agree that the knife could not have turned a corner and they would have concluded that Rapnell must have been killed by someone else. But in these superstitious mountains where Gypsies are still thought to possess magical powers, the magistrate simply concluded that the Gypsy magic had directed the path of the knife. No wonder Bercovia cried and carried on so, insisting that it wasn’t fair. He’d presented them with an impossibility which they simply ignored because he was a Gypsy.”

  “He was right,” Michael Vlado said, “It wasn’t fair.”

  “If I had been with you, this never would have happened. I would have taken charge of the prisoner and forbidden the execution.”

  “But then justice would not have been done. Perhaps it’s better the way it happened – better for everyone except Arad Bercovia.”

  THE GYPSY WIZARD

  Michael Vlado had traveled some seven hundred miles across southern Europe to reach Milan, having left his wife and Captain Segar and the people of Gravita with only a few days’ warning of his impending journey. Crossing from Romania to the west was not an easy task, even for a Gypsy. He’d gone by way of Yugoslavia rather than Hungary because the border crossing was a bit easier. Perched between east and west, the Slavs asked fewer questions and their gates were open to wanderers.

  The few who questioned him along the way saw nothing unusual in a Gypsy like Michael traveling to Milan. After all, Gypsies were born to move about. He felt no obligation to correct their false impression. The Gypsies of Michael’s tribe traveled little, content to farm the land and breed horses in the Romanian hills, as they had for a hundred years.

  But Josef Patronne was different. He’d left the region of the Carpathian Mountains in his youth to settle in northern Italy shortly after the end of the war. And become a wizard.

  Michael found him at a table in a little outdoor cafe near the Galleria Vittoria Emanuele. He was easily recognizable with his bristling black moustache and the gold chains and rings he wore. When Michael joined him at the table, he said simply, “You are a Gypsy.”