The Master of the Day of Judgment

by Leo Perutz

  The young man who came into the room at that moment created the impression of being one of those extremely insignificant persons who preside and play the part of arbiter elegantiarum at suburban cafés. "My name is Karasek. This is an honour, gentlemen," he said. He drew his hand across his carefully flattened hair and offered us cigarettes from his alpaca cigarette case.

  "It's very kind of you to have found time for us after the events of a day such as this," the engineer said. "First of all may I ask you how the young lady is?"

  "Certainly, certainly," young Karasek replied. "I am fully aware of the duties and responsibilities of the press — never off duty, night or day. My late father had a great deal to do with you gentlemen, he was Hermann Karasek, chairman of the 18th district, municipal architect, one of you gentlemen may perhaps have . . . yes, my cousin, unfortunately they wouldn't let me see her."

  He bent forward and said in a low voice, as if he were betraying an official secret:

  "The professor is now trying ethyl chloride."

  "Inhalations, presumably," Dr Gorski remarked.

  "Ethyl chloride," the young man repeated. "They are leaving nothing untried."

  "Did you talk to the doctor?" the engineer asked. "Do you think it's possible that the young lady may be well enough to see visitors tomorrow morning?"

  "Tomorrow morning? Hardly, hardly," the young man said, shaking his head. "The doctor thinks — the professor, as you can imagine, was very busy and didn't have time, but I talked to his assistant — he said one must never give up hope, but unless there's a miracle, and the sister also said that probably she won't survive the night."

  "Is it as bad as that?" said the engineer.

  Young Karasek regretfully raised his hands and dropped them again. Dr Gorski rose and picked up his hat.

  "Are you leaving already, gentlemen?" the young man said. "Won't you stay a few more minutes? I know that for you gentlemen it's after dinner, but a cup of black coffee, it won't take two minutes, I'll order it straight away. I also wanted to ask which of you gentlemen it was with whom I had the honour of talking on the telephone, I should be interested to hear."

  "It was I who called you," said the engineer.

  "How was it that you knew? That perplexed me, as they say. Yes, she was a heavy smoker, twelve or fifteen cigarettes a day, she often had a cigarette in her mouth before breakfast — girls nowadays — it happens. My grandfather mustn't be told, he's an old gentleman, an octogenarian, a gentleman of the old school. But how did you know that immediately beforehand — less than five minutes before ... I was amazed. How did you know that?"

  "The explanation is very simple," the engineer replied. "Your cousin's attempted suicide was not voluntary but enforced, as I can tell you. There have recently been three quite similar cases of enforced suicide, the last of them barely twenty-four hours ago. In all these cases the same person was involved, and in all three cases the method was the same. So immediately beforehand the young lady asked you for a cigarette?"

  "No, she did not ask me for a cigarette. She had a whole boxful on her desk. What she asked for was a cigarette paper."

  "A cigarette paper?" the engineer exclaimed excitedly. "Of course, I should have thought of that. Do you now see why Eugen Bischoff took that pipe? One more question before we go, Herr Karasek, and perhaps you will think it a strange one. Did your cousin recently mention the Day of Judgment? Do you understand what I said? The Day of Judgment."

  "Yes, Herr . . . What did you say your name was?"

  "Solgrub, Waldemar Solgrub," the engineer replied impatiently. "And in what connection did she mention it? Think, and perhaps you'll remember."

  "In what connection? In connection with painting. That was her idea when she was with Ladstätter and me a few days ago — but first I must explain that Poldi is engaged to an office- friend of mine, a very decent fellow who comes and sees her every day, they wanted to get married in the spring. They don't have a great deal of money, but he has a good job, and she has a profession and earns too — she has a trousseau and the furniture and everything is ready, and grandfather has given his blessing. Well, on Thursday last week a small party of us, a few girls and a few men colleagues, had supper at the Stag, one of the men was celebrating his name day, and on the way home — the three of us, Poldi, Ladstätter and I, went on ahead, Ladstätter had his guitar with him, and suddenly Poldi once more started talking about how unhappy she was at the chemist's and how much she wanted to go back to painting and, instead of letting her talk, Ladstätter stopped and started squabbling with her. 'Poldi,' he said, 'if you're serious, you must know what you are doing, but if you don't mind about our getting married in March — you know I don't have much money and that I'll have to count on what you earn too, at any rate at first, and if you give up your job at the chemist's . . .' 'And who says I won't earn far, far more from painting?' Poldi answered, and Ladstätter said: 'You've had two exhibitions and haven't sold a single picture. It's no good banging one's head against a brick wall, and unless one has connections . . . ' and Poldi said quite calmly that this time she was going to be successful. 'Why should you be?' Ladstätter asked, and Poldi answered calmly that this time she was going to do much better work. She could rely on the Master of the Day of Judgment for that."

  "The Master of the Day of Judgment?" the engineer interrupted. "Who in heaven's name is that? Do you know him?"

  "No, I don't, and Ladstätter too wanted to know who the devil he was. 'Another painter who asks you to his studio?' he said, and Poldi laughed and said: 'Are you jealous, Ludwig? You have no need to be, really you don't. If I told you how old he is . . .' But Ladstätter flushed scarlet. 'Whether he's old or young, Poldi, I want to know who he is, and I have a right to know,' and Poldi looked at him and said: 'Yes, Ludwig, you have a right to know, and when I'm famous I'll tell you. I'll tell you, Ludwig, and nobody else. But only when I'm famous and not before,' and by that time the others had caught up with us, and nothing else was to be got out of her the whole evening."

  "Doctor," the engineer said, "we now know all about his methods, don't we? We know the trap and we know the bait. The only remaining puzzle is the motive. What does he gain by his mischief? But please go on, Herr Karasek. What happened next?"

  "At midday next day Poldi came home with a strange gentleman, and that reminded me of the whole thing. A tall, well- built gentleman, smoothly shaven, no longer very young and already greying slightly, and Poldi went past me straight to her room without introducing me, which is not Poldi's usual behaviour, and I said to myself that Ladstätter certainly wouldn't like Poldi being alone with that strange gentleman, on the other hand I didn't want to be intrusive, I decided it would be better to wait till the gentleman left and then stop him and ask him straight out what he wanted of Poldi. But when I looked into the room half an hour later the gentleman had gone. The book was lying on the table, and I pointed out to Poldi that the gentleman had forgotten it, it was a fat dictionary that was worth something, after all ..."

  "He left a book here?" the engineer interrupted. "Where is it? Can I see it?"

  "Certainly, there it is," the young man said, and the engineer picked it up from the desk. It was the book I had idly leafed through half an hour before. He looked at it, and let out a cry of surprise.

  "It's Italian," he exclaimed. "An Italian dictionary. So who was right, doctor? The monster speaks Italian, that proves it. Eugen Bischoff had it with him to make himself intelligible to the monster. But what's that? Look, doctor, what does that mean?"

  Dr Gorski bent over the book.

  "Vitolo-Mangold. Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Italian Language," he read from the title page. "Rather too compendious. Difficult to handle. A real reference book," he said.

  "Doesn't anything else strike you?"

  Dr Gorski shook his head.

  "Really? Are you sure?" said the engineer. "Then look at it more carefully. Herr Karasek, you saw the gentleman coming. Are you sure he didn't have another book w
ith him?"

  "He only had that one. I'm sure of it."

  "That's very remarkable. Look, doctor, it's an Italian- German dictionary. There's no German-Italian section. To all appearances Eugen Bischoff didn't need the German-Italian section. What's the explanation of that? Eugen Bischoff didn't talk to the killer, but listened to him in silence. Just a moment, don't disturb me. One talks and the other remains silent and listens and translates. What's the meaning of that? Let me think."

  Suddenly I heard a high, tremulous, old man's voice from the door. "Frau Sedlak is sitting and weeping in the kitchen. What has happened to Leopoldine?"

  Court Councillor Karasek, Agathe Teichmann's father, whose noble Goethe's head remained vividly in my memory from the past, had greatly changed. An old, old man of spectral thinness, the very personification of frailty, was standing in the doorway, leaning on his stick and staring at the floor. His face was completely expressionless.

  Young Karasek had jumped to his feet.

  "Grandfather," he stammered, "nothing has happened, what do you think could have happened? Poldi's asleep on the sofa, as you can see, the poor girl has been on night duty."

  "I'm worried about her," the old man sighed. "She has a mind of her own and she won't listen to me or anyone else. She has that from her mother, you know, Heinrich, from Agathe. First there was all that trouble about the divorce, and then there was more because of that rogue of a lieutenant. I came home, smelled gas, it was pitch-dark in the flat. 'Agathe' I called out ..."

  "Grandfather," young Karasek said imploringly, and on his generally so vacuous face there was now a touching expression of affectionate concern, "don't go on with that, heaven knows how long ago it all happened."

  "I've got it," the engineer suddenly exclaimed quite loudly, as if he were alone in the room. "Doctor, we can go, there's no more for us to do here."

  The old man raised his head.

  "Have you got company, Heinrich?" he asked.

  "A few colleagues from the office, grandfather."

  "That's good, Heinrich, a little distraction, a little entertainment's always a good thing. A game of cards? I ask your pardon, gentlemen, for not having greeted you. My eyes are still not right. I've always been short-sighted, they told me it would get better with age. That's the opposite of what happened to me. But what has happened to Poldi, where is she? I've been sitting and waiting for her to read the paper to me."

  "Grandfather," said young Karasek with a bewildered and despairing glance at us. "She's tired, let her sleep, don't wake her. I'll read the paper to you this evening."

  SIXTEEN

  Dr Gorski was in a foul mood. As he groped his way down the steep staircase in the dark he grumbled and swore.

  "Where the devil is Solgrub?" he wanted to know. "He has my pocket torch, and he goes ahead and leaves me in the lurch. What sort of manners is that? Careful, more stairs. Baron, where are you? Go on ahead, I've lost my way. Do I turn right or left? If at least I had some matches, but I haven't. I know you can see in the dark, I've always said there was something cat-like about you. That silent bow of yours upstairs was priceless, what did you think you were doing? Didn't you realise that the old man's blind? Completely blind. Heaven forbid that I should ever get as old as that. Light at last. Hallelujah, the Lord be praised, we're down at last."

  A thin mist lay over the street, the sky was overcast, the gas lamps threw feeble gleams of light on the wet pavement. People were waiting for admission to the cinema, someone opened the door of the wine bar, and for a moment I heard hoarse voices singing and the doleful music of an orchestrion.

  The engineer came towards us.

  "Where have you been all this time?" he said. "I've been waiting for you for ages. It's ten past nine, too late to go and see the Spanish Jew today."

  "Gabriel Albachary?" said the doctor. "Why on earth do you want to see him again so soon?"

  "Why do I want to see him? Doctor, you're slow in the uptake, a schoolboy would be quicker than you. I want to see the Master of the Day of Judgment again. This afternoon . . .

  Why are you looking at me like that? The monster. Don't you realise what I mean? Eugen Bischoff's murderer."

  Dr Gorski shook his head.

  "You think the old man was the killer?"

  "What old man?"

  "The Spanish Jew."

  "God in heaven, doctor, you have an infernal capacity for confusing things. Listen to this. First of all, there's the cigarette paper. It's not difficult to see the part it played. Then there's the book, the dictionary. I opened it and saw that it was the key to the problem. That made it necessary to think, to concentrate, but then the old man, the court councillor, appeared and started asking questions — I didn't listen to him. Systematic thinking, doctor, is no mere empty illusion. The murderer didn't listen, he only spoke — what did that mean? Now I know. It's all in order now. That's nothing to brag about, the whole day has been full of mistakes. He really is a monster, a colossus, and I sat facing him for an hour without realising it."

  We were walking slowly down the street. Dr Gorski nudged me. "Did you understand?" he said.

  "Not a single word," I replied.

  The engineer looked at me crossly.

  "There's no need for you to understand," he said. "Why should you, what for? Everything's in order, be satisfied with that. You can sleep peacefully tonight. You won't be going away. There won't be any shooting accident. There'll be no cross against your name in the Almanach de Gotha, at any rate for the time being — you follow me so far, don't you?"

  "Won't you stop being semi-intelligible and tell us precisely what you have found out?" Dr Gorski asked.

  "Not tonight, doctor. I've only a vague idea of what happened. A very vague idea, and besides — there are still gaps in the logical sequence of events. I still don't know for whom Eugen Bischoff's first shot was meant, and as long as I don't know that ..."

  "Will it ever be possible to find out?"

  "It may be, doctor. What prevents me from repeating Eugen Bischoff's experiment? I may be able to give you information as early as tomorrow that should be useful to you too, baron. That's all I can tell you tonight. Be patient with me."

  "If you're being serious, Solgrub — and you seem to know what you're saying — if it's an experiment you have in mind, for heaven's sake be careful, take good care of yourself."

  "All right, doctor," the engineer said calmly. "Do you think I walk blindly into danger? I know exactly what I'm up against. Look ..."

  He took from his pocket a small revolver of foreign make.

  "This is a good friend of mine from the old days, it was my companion on many a night patrol in the hilly country between Kirin and Gensan, but now it's no use to me, and we must part. Take it, doctor, I shall want it back. The monster up there in the Spanish Jew's flat — you know he doesn't kill, he enforces suicide: so long as I am unarmed he has no power over me."

  "And what do you propose to do with him, Solgrub?"

  "He must be destroyed," the engineer said quietly and grimly. "Into the fire with him. The poor girl whose life the doctors are fighting for tonight must be his last victim."

  "Into the fire with him, you said? Into the fire? Then if I've understood you correctly the monster ..."

  "Ha!" the engineer exclaimed. "Doctor, I think you're beginning to understand. You've taken your time. No, he's not a human being of flesh and blood. He died long ago, but he still lives and insinuates himself into people's minds. And I'm going to put an end to the spectre. But that's enough, you'll see for yourself."

  We had at last reached a livelier neighbourhood in a part of the city in which I knew my way about. We were in a wide street, brightly lit by arc lamps, with acacia trees on either side of the roadway. The barracks of the 23rd Regiment cannot have been far away.

  "Where have you led us?" Dr Gorski complained. "We've made a quite unnecessary detour, I could have been home long ago.''

  "I've no intention of letting you go home yet,"
said the engineer. "That's the Gulliver Café over there. Won't you take an Allasch with me?"

  Dr Gorski declined the offer for both of us without consulting me.

  "I'm going home by tram," he announced. "Yes, by tram," he continued with a glance at me. "I'm not an officer, and have no status to live up to. You two can stand and wait here till a taxi turns up."

  "Oh, nonsense, come in with us," the engineer said. "If you're lucky you'll meet an interesting man. My friend Pfisterer is a regular here, he's a true polymath, a man with a Barnum circus memory, a historian as well as a dancer, a painter, an engraver, actor, barman, Jack of all trades, paragon — and he's an expert in keeping his creditors at bay, though there are at least five hundred of them."

  "Thank you, but I don't like long-haired geniuses," the doctor said grumpily.

  "My friend Pfisterer is of the porcupine variety, besides being just the man I need today. Come on, I've no desire to go home alone tonight."

  We went into the café. It was a rather dubious sort of place, and our arrival made a definite impression on the few customers. The engineer seemed to be well known here, as the young woman at the pay-desk greeted him with friendly condescension.

  A reluctant waiter approached and asked for our orders.

  "Is Dr Pfisterer still here?" the engineer asked him.

  "Hasn't been anywhere else all day," said the waiter with a gesture implying contempt and well-justified mistrust.

  "How much does he owe here?"

  "Twenty-seven kronen, not counting tips."

  "Here are twenty-seven kronen plus a tip," the engineer said. "Where is Dr Pfisterer?"

  "He's over there in the billiard room as usual, busy writing."

  A tall, thin, red-haired man was sitting at one of the marble tables with a half-empty beer bottle, an egg cup he was using as an ink pot, and a pile of handwritten pages in front of him. A quite young girl with hair dyed bright yellow was sitting silently by his side, making cigarettes. A dirty sheet of paper, fixed with a drawing-pin to the wall facing him, was covered with closely written pencilled handwriting. On closer inspection this turned out to be a document of far-reaching significance. It was as follows. "Announcement. The undersigned regretfully withdraw the charge of theft against Dr Pfisterer of stealing two illustrated weeklies and an illustrated supplement as he has threatened to take proceedings against us. (Signed) The table of the four."