Betty smiled ironically.
“Why did the young lady call you yesterday?” the Inspector asked Gustavo.
“To ask if she could visit. She was interested in the Scorpio picture, she said. I asked her to come at this time. I’ve been thinking about it: why would she warn me if she was coming to my house to steal the photographs?”
“Leave the hypothesizing to me. That’s my job,” Ericourt reminded him.
With his eyes fixed on the floor, Eidinger looked the sorry picture of a man who deep down is in turmoil.
“I’d better explain myself. I understand that it was a mistake not to do so sooner, but try to understand me. Frida was my wife.”
An impatient gesture from Ericourt told him he would do well to skip any unnecessary detail.
“What I mean is, I’ve tried to talk as little as possible to stop any publicity about things I wasn’t sure of. Frida’s guardedness and reticence had made me suspicious of late. I guessed she had a secret and I decided to watch her behaviour and her movements. Frida was keen to track down certain people who had emigrated from Germany, and I know it’s stupid but I was overcome with jealousy every time I saw her worry about one of them. All the same, events proved me wrong and I always ended up convinced of her fidelity.”
He paused.
“Carry on, Eidinger.” The Inspector’s voice was authoritative.
“I don’t know how or why it occurred to me afterwards to think she might have different motives to the ones I’d suspected up to then. Do you see? I was tortured by mistrust. It weighed on my conscience. I spent my days imagining scenarios and came to the conclusion that Frida’s apparently innocent curiosity was covering up a plan.”
“Amateur detectives,” Ericourt muttered through his teeth.
“Frida only brought her personal documents and those blasted photographs with her. She was vain, her desire to keep them seemed very straightforward.”
“Did you employ a professional to follow your wife?”
Eidinger shook his head.
“Why not? That would have been the most sensible.”
“They’re expensive,” Eidinger admitted humbly. “I couldn’t afford it.”
But Frida was a rich woman. Had she been tight-fisted with her husband? Was that the cause of their marital disagreements? Or had Eidinger felt it morally wrong to use his wife’s money as a weapon against her?
“You will recall,” Eidinger went on, “that in one of the photographs there was a door behind Frida bearing some insignia. She told me it belonged to a student body. I thought that perhaps if I knew more about that organization it would guide the thread of my investigation. I knew the photograph had been taken in Hamburg near a summer camp.”
“My God! All those investigations would be very expensive, too.”
“I have friends in Germany. I spoke with Czerbó and asked him to help me make an enlargement of the emblem. He was noncommittal.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“That he’d left the business. It was the day before Frida’s death. I was readier than ever to do the job. And now…”
“Why didn’t you tell us about all this before, señor Eidinger? Didn’t it occur to you that this might be of interest to the police?”
Eidinger was not in control of his nerves. He frowned and rubbed his hands against his thighs.
“I know I was wrong, but you have to understand, I couldn’t accuse Frida without being sure.”
This struck Ericourt as foolish, and foolish motivations invariably end up complicit in the criminal actions of others.
The doorbell rang. A car had stopped outside the house. A van was about to do the same. The “backup” had arrived. Ericourt went to let them in, leaving Betty with the female police auxiliary tasked with searching her clothing. The girl behaved herself. She seemed not to even blink.
A current of healthy activity began to flow around the house. Ericourt told Blasi to call Czerbó and say he would be stopping by. The fingerprinting team were beginning their nosy search of the past. The automatic thinking of the men whose job it was to construct an event outside its real place in time unleashed a chain of possibilities: climbing of walls, forced locks, fingerprints, footprints. Clues blossomed on powdered surfaces. The photographer ran back and forth.
The female police auxiliary planted herself in front of Ericourt:
“I haven’t found anything in the suspect’s clothing, sir. Should I take care of the transfer?”
The two women, Betty with her haughty reserve and the irritable, overbearing auxiliary, found each other intolerable. Betty waited behind the other woman, her pallor draining all the charm from her features.
“I’ll accompany the young lady,” said Ericourt.
Where had Blasi got to? He’d been keen to get out of there. Routine practices bored him terribly. Oh, yes! He would be calling the Czerbós’s apartment.
Blasi rushed down the stairs.
“Caramba, look where you’re going!” screeched one of the photographers.
Blasi’s agitation was disguised among the bustle of newcomers.
“Sir,” he said in a low voice when he was next to Ericourt. “I’ve just called. They found Czerbó dead in his room. There are officers already there.”
6
The Horsefly
Boris Czerbó’s body was lying in his bed. The curtains had been drawn back and the light of a cottony midday merged with the yellowish skin stretched over his prominent cheekbones. Brachycephalic skull, observed Ericourt privately, surrendering to an untimely thought that served to release some pressure in his overburdened mind. Purplish marks were appearing around Czerbó’s eyes and the slow draining of colour gradually high-lighted the imperfections of his face. On his left cheek was the pale button of a wart.
Lahore was also next to the bed.
“We received the call approximately an hour ago. His sister found him. She said she hadn’t woken him early because Dr Luchter advised her to let him sleep. Last night he came to see him.”
“Who rang the station? Did she?”
“No, Soler did. Señorita Czerbó ran to get help. Do you want to question anyone straight away?”
“Not yet.”
On a side table there was an ashtray with a cigarette stub, a used match and a strip of paper that was singed at one end. Next to the ashtray, the kind of cardboard box commonly used by pharmacies as a container for capsules and two glasses; in one of them discoloured prunes floated in brownish, cloudy water. The other was empty.
“What does it say?” said Ericourt, pointing to the paper.
“It looks like a rendezvous. Some words have been burnt. I can only read ‘you tonight’. It’s typewritten.”
“And what did the medical report say?”
“He died ten or twelve hours ago. Cyanide, just like the other case. I’m going to send the ashtray and everything else to the laboratory at once. Where were you? I sent for you.”
“Following the trail of some souvenir hunters. I’ve just witnessed the Argentinian version of The Mystery of the Yellow Room with a fifty-year-old Rouletabille weighing eighty-five kilos. That’s me.”
He covered Czerbó’s face with a sheet. Death had not disfigured him in its merciful prolongation of sleep.
They went into the adjoining room, the dead man’s study. Lahore drummed his fingers on the scratched leather of the desk as he listened to Ericourt’s account. The midday sun stripped the second-hand furniture of the mask of decency usually provided by the gloom in the Czerbós’s home.
“So far they’ve found no trace of the photographs or the thief. We’ll see if they come across any suspicious finger prints.”
“What do you think?”
“I’m a rationalist. I’ve never been tempted by three-legged tables.”
“The girl lied.”
“That’s the most likely. She had time to tear up the photographs and throw them down the toilet. Is Vera here? Send him to get señorita Iñar
ra, have him take her to the station. And tell Blasi to come here. He’s at Eidinger’s house. We’ll need him to interpret when we question Czerbó’s sister.”
Lahore went to call Blasi. In the living room he found Soler, Andrés and two officers. The caretaker’s expression, which seemed to say “I told you so”, puzzled the Superintendent.
When he returned to the desk he found Ericourt smoking with distasteful enjoyment.
“Do you believe it was suicide?” asked Lahore.
“Yes, two suicides in the same building and a girl who’s a compulsive liar. Some coincidence.”
Lahore squirmed gently in his seat, like a cat that feels someone is tying a dog to its tail.
“I don’t believe one word of that story about the photographs.”
“There could be someone else involved. Strangers who were threatening Frida and Czerbó. Maybe Czerbó sent Iñarra’s daughter to get hold of a compromising piece of evidence.”
“Why her, when she didn’t know him?”
“We can’t be sure of that. Rita will tell us who was in the apartment yesterday.”
“Luchter was there. I’ve sent for him. They didn’t find him at home or at the hospital.”
“He must be out on visits.”
“I don’t like this business.”
“There’s no need to be nervous. I’m just getting to like it.”
An officer asked to have a word with the Superintendent. Lahore called him in.
“You’d better hear this man out, Superintendent, sir. He says he’s not going anywhere until he’s spoken to you.”
“Who is it?”
“The caretaker.”
“Send him in,” advised Ericourt. “He’ll have nothing to say, mark my words. They never talk when they should.”
Andrés Torres appeared. There was a prologue that included the inevitable refrains, “women’s stuff ” and “mine never leaves me in peace”, while he repeatedly ran his hand over the back of his shaved head, his eyes glued to the floor.
But he did have something to say, after all. Soler and Czerbó had had an argument, months ago, in Soler’s apartment. His wife was there because she had been covering for Soler’s maid, who was unwell. The two men had shut themselves in the study because Czerbó insisted on “talking alone”. Soon after, Aurora heard raised voices and then saw Soler shoving the other man out. After the door had closed, she heard him say that one day “he was going to give himself the pleasure of squashing him like a cockroach.”
“What was the argument about?”
“My wife says they were talking about a woman, and this morning señor Soler came to see me and warned me not to tell anyone about the episode. He said it was silly but he didn’t want any trouble.”
“You clearly took his advice,” said Ericourt mockingly.
“I thought, señor Inspector, that I ought to help the police. It’s our duty.”
“And you’ve done yours. You can calm down now.”
He imagined Czerbó’s motionless body as he had seen it a few moments earlier. An unfortunate soul who only ever attracted bad feeling. He had slipped like a reptile into the others’ lives. A blackmailer, Ericourt said to himself—I guessed as much.
Rita entered the room. The life had drained from her pinched and faded features, not even fear remained. She dragged her feet as she walked and her arms hung limply at her sides. Blasi remembered how she had followed him into the hall the day of his visit with Muck. Then, even her listless obedience and her slavish automatism had indicated some spirit. Now it was worse. Rita Czerbó has become a ghost, a shadow outliving its body.
All the same, she responded to the questions with extraordinary fluency and precision. She stated that the previous day her brother had seemed nervous and irritable. These crises, which were followed by sleepless nights and bouts of deep nervous depression, were familiar. At Boris’s request she had called Dr Luchter. The doctor had come at eight p.m. He prescribed some tranquillizing capsules and personally took the prescription to the pharmacy to have them prepared. He came back with them at ten p.m. and advised Rita to go and get some rest, saying he would stay with Boris until the medicine took effect. He warned her that Boris would probably sleep for a long time, so she should not worry if he stayed in bed later than usual.
Rita did as she was told and went to her room. She always locked the door and that night she did so trusting that her brother would not need her again. She did not hear Dr Luchter leave the apartment because her bedroom was at the end of the hall, separated from Boris’s by an anteroom, the study and his bathroom.
That was all. She got up early. She served Boris’s breakfast. She was not surprised that he had not called for it. She did the cleaning and then went out to run an errand.
“Where did you go?”
“To the laundry. The previous day I’d had an incident with Boris…”
Boris had been very nervous lately and told her not to let any strangers in. The previous morning the young man from the laundry had called by. It was not their day but he explained that a ticket had been lost which he assumed she had not given back. He asked her to look carefully for it to avoid any trouble with his employers. She looked for the ticket to no avail. When she returned to the kitchen (the lad had called at the service entrance, of course) there was no one there.
“I didn’t think anything of it,” Rita went on, “but I told Boris all the same. He called the laundry and they told him the lad hadn’t turned up that afternoon. They had the ticket. Boris blamed me, saying I would be responsible for whatever happened.”
Always the same droning voice, stripped of any nuance of tone, innocuous as a stream of distilled water, echoless as a punch thrown at a feather cushion.
“The young man still hadn’t turned up this morning. I went home. It was time to make lunch. I thought I should tell Boris. I always told him everything. That was when I found him.”
The slow, monotonous wave stopped. Rita was still staring at the interior window. On the opposite side there was a greyish wall with long teary streaks of soot and rain.
“Get the number for the laundry and find that young man,” Lahore ordered Blasi.
The questioning started up again. Blasi mentally classified the missing information as something that would have to wait to be resolved because he was busy with the task at hand.
“Did anyone ever visit your brother at night?” asked Lahore.
Blasi repeated the question in German.
“Oh, yes!”
Almost at the same time as he heard the answer, Blasi had to formulate the next question. A clerk was writing constantly.
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“How do you know?”
Rita pointed to the door leading to the hall.
“You spied on them?”
She nodded.
“Did you know who the woman was?”
Blasi was trying hard to remain professional.
“Señorita Iñarra,” he translated unnecessarily. The name had been perfectly clear.
“Tell señorita Czerbó she’s free to go.”
Rita muttered a few words in a language Blasi did not understand.
“What’s she saying now?”
“I don’t know. She’s not speaking German.”
“Ask her.”
The angry drumming of Lahore’s fingers accompanied Rita’s explanation.
“She’s afraid to be left alone.”
“An officer will go with her. Get her out of here. Bring señorita Iñarra in. You, go and do what I asked.”
Blasi hesitated. Which was worse, silence or an ill-timed explanation? He decided to keep quiet. Betty passed him in the hall while he was instructing one of the officers to stay with Rita.
“She’ll say no more than she wants to,” he thought. He now knew it was the young woman’s strong will bubbling below the surface that made her eyes shine.
Ericourt also identified in her gaze the energy of an i
nstinct for self-preservation that gradually pushes the soul to its last defences. It was he who began the interrogation.
“Señorita Iñarra, señorita Czerbó has told us you’d been visiting her brother late at night, is that true?”
“Yes,” said Betty, very sure of herself.
“When did these visits start?”
“About a month ago.”
“Did you come here every night?”
“No, only occasionally.”
How could one explain her apparent repulsion at hearing such a simple question?
“Did señorita Czerbó know about your visits?”
“I didn’t think she did, until now.”
“So you kept your visits a secret.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Betty bit her bottom lip.
“For the same reason such visits are usually kept secret,” she said with the air of superiority adopted by those who aim to strip all importance from something they know will be viewed badly. “My family didn’t think highly of Czerbó.”
“And was that how you learned from señor Czerbó about señora Eidinger’s engraving?”
“Yes.”
“That is to say you saw señor Czerbó after the 23rd of August.”
“I only saw him once.”
“Did you arrange to meet him yesterday?”
With a look the girl measured up the two men who were scrutinizing her words and gestures.
“A rendezvous typed on a slip of paper… Yes, that was me. I told him I wanted to see him last night. I sent him the note in a pack of cigarettes Rita came to get for him. I thought it was a good way to tell Boris I wanted to talk to him.”
“When did you write it?”
“In the afternoon.”
“Did you always arrange to meet that way?”
“Sometimes, when we couldn’t use the telephone. Because of my father,” she clarified.
“Why didn’t you send the note as soon as you’d written it?”
“I was waiting for an opportunity to send it to him. Rita often came to us for help to get out of scrapes. She’s very forgetful. I didn’t absolutely need to see Boris that night, after all. If I didn’t get a chance to announce my visit I could leave it for another time.”
Death Going Down Page 7