by F. R. Tallis
Rheinhardt gave the rabbit a final scratch and walked out into the corridor. There, he found Hoover and said, “It would seem that the code will not be broken today.”
“What are you suggesting?” Hoover had become extremely irritable.
“Shall we release these good people—allow them to go home?”
“What?” He made various abortive gestures before finally clenching his fist and bringing it down with swift violence. “No. We must learn the contents of that letter!”
“They are very tired. If they get some rest they might work more efficiently tomorrow.”
“An army cannot absent itself in the heat of battle.”
“This cannot go on indefinitely.”
“It will go on until we accomplish our task.”
Liebermann emerged from the laboratory. He walked directly up to Hoover and said, “Is there anything—absolutely anything—you haven’t told us about Mephistopheles?”
Hoover snorted. “You are in possession of all the facts.”
“Remind me.”
“You must have a very poor memory, Herr Doctor.” Liebermann communicated his readiness to hear the facts again by raising his eyebrows. Hoover obliged with obvious reluctance. “Some say that he is a communard.”
“Go on, please, captain.”
“Others say that he is the disaffected son of a Russo-German noble family.”
“And didn’t you tell us that he was a scientist?”
“These are only rumors, Herr Doctor.” Hoover’s irritability made his answer sound dismissive. “Rumors.”
“Please. If you would? Humor me.”
“Yes, there is some evidence—albeit scant and probably unreliable—that Mephistopheles is a Swiss biologist.”
“And that’s all you know.”
“That is the sum of our knowledge,” said Hoover.
Liebermann tapped his lips with his forefinger, looked up, then down at his shoes, then addressed the wall: “You see . . . he’s not a mathematician.”
“Max?” Rheinhardt thought that his friend looked quite distracted.
“How would a biologist think about a code? What is the biological equivalent of a code? What is a code?” Hoover frowned. “I mean,” Liebermann continued. “In the natural world, under what circumstances does one thing pretend to be another?”
“Herr Doctor,” said Hoover, “you are talking gibberish.”
Liebermann shrugged and returned to the laboratory.
“See?” said Rheinhardt. “They are in need of rest!” He turned on his heels and walked away.
“Where are you going?” asked Hoover.
“To my office,” Rheinhardt muttered without looking back.
Rheinhardt descended the stairs, and trudged past a long row of identical doors until he came to his destination. He let himself into his office, sat down behind his desk, and checked his drawer to see if there were any biscuits left, but the biscuit tin contained only a few crumbs. He pinched the sugary particles between his thumb and forefinger and sprinkled them onto his tongue. The taste of his wife’s baking kindled a strong desire to be close to her, and his mind filled with recollections: her warmth, her scent, the softness of her body. He picked up the telephone receiver and called home.
“Unfortunately, my dear,” he apologized, “I’m going to be quite late.”
Else seemed a little confused. “But you’re always late . . .”
“Yes, that’s true. But tonight, it is highly likely that I will be unconscionably late.”
“Is everything all right, Oskar?”
Rheinhardt hesitated for a few seconds before replying. “We’re not making much progress”
“With the letter?”
“Yes. That’s right. With the letter.”
He didn’t want to alarm his wife, but he also wanted her—and his daughters—to be safe. “The present situation is potentially very serious. As you go about your business—be vigilant. Look out for any suspicious packages left in shops or by the roadside. If you see one, leave it alone and notify a constable. And try to avoid any strange characters.”
“In Vienna?”
They both laughed.
“Just be careful—that’s all I’m saying. How are the girls?”
“Finishing their homework.” Else lowered her voice slightly. “You know, Mitzi has been so much happier since you had your talk.”
Rheinhardt’s baritone ascended an octave: “Really?”
“Yes. What did you say to her?”
“Oh, nothing really,” Rheinhardt replied. “A little praise, a little encouragement. The sort of thing I might have said to a dispirited young constable.”
“Well, whatever it was—it worked—and rather well.”
“Good, good.” Rheinhardt quickly changed the subject. They talked about domestic matters for a while and then, after noticing the position of the hands on the wall clock, Rheinhardt said, “I’m sorry. I have to go now.”
There was a beat of silence. “Oskar . . . ?”
“Yes.”
“If you discover the whereabouts of this attack . . .”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be very careful.”
“Haussmann is lucky to be alive. And so are you.”
“I’ll take care, I promise. I’ll be fine. Goodnight, my love—and kiss the girls for me.”
After he had placed the receiver back in its cradle he felt apprehensive. His farewell had been bluff and cheerful but Else would remember those words if anything bad were to happen. The gods of fate could easily misinterpret his reassurances as hubris and they were famously fond of dramatic irony. He got up, left the office, and made his way back to the laboratory.
Liebermann was standing outside in the corridor, looking up at the electric light. He seemed transfixed and didn’t turn at the sound of his friend’s approach.
“What are you doing, Max?”
The young doctor’s hand rose slowly and he pointed at the bulb. “A moth.”
Rheinhardt joined Liebermann under the shade and looked up. The fluttering insect was bouncing against the hot glass, seemingly intent on singing its wings and hastening its demise. “Yes,” Rheinhardt agreed, somewhat bemused. “A moth.”
“A melanic moth.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A dark moth. See?”
Rheinhardt tapped his foot and then switched his attention from the moth to his friend. “You will forgive me, I trust, for presuming to offer you—a psychiatrist—counsel concerning your mental state. But I can’t help feeling that it would be a very good idea if you sat down for a while and relaxed that excellent brain of yours. Can you relax the brain? I wouldn’t know. But if it is possible, then I would suggest that the time for relaxing your brain has most definitely arrived.”
The young doctor did not move and the moth continued its suicidal flirtation with the bulb.
“We take it for granted,” said Liebermann. “We think it ordinary—a common exemplar of the order Lepidoptera; however, melanic moths were unknown in the early years of the last century. Since then, our cities have expanded and new industries have flourished—furnaces and factories spew smoke into the atmosphere and our buildings have become covered in grime and filth. Only after the furnaces and factories darkened our world, did the melanic moth appear.”
“I’m sorry, Max,” said Rheinhardt. “Even judged by your own very high standards of oblique reference, that was an exceptionally obscure disquisition. If the circumstances were different I would confess to being quite impressed by its sheer irrelevance. But alas, I regret to say that I am merely experiencing a combination of concern and mild irritation.”
Liebermann blinked a few times and continued. “Today, dark moths outnumber pale moths. The metamorphosis and growth of the melanic moth population is a near perfect example of evolution by natural selection. Darker moths are less vulnerable to predation in a filthy city. They survive, mate, and produce increasingly darker progeny.”
Rh
einhardt nodded. “You definitely should sit down. Come to my office and I’ll find some schnapps.”
“Camouflage, Oskar!” Liebermann ignored the invitation. “One thing pretending to be another thing. It’s the same in dreams of course—according to Professor Freud’s system. Symbols, cyphers . . .” And then he turned around and marched briskly into the laboratory. Rheinhardt followed and watched as his friend ploughed through the cigar smoke, creating diminutive cyclones in his wake. Liebermann snatched up the original letter—still positioned between sheets of glass—and held it close to his face.
“What’s the matter with him?” Hoover asked Rheinhardt. “For the full duration of your absence he was standing outside staring at a moth.”
“Yes,” said Rheinhardt. “The good doctor is prone to small eccentricities.”
Hoover rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Psychiatrists . . .”
Liebermann’s agitation attracted everyone’s attention. He was holding the letter in one hand while raking his hair with the other. This had the effect of making his bangs stand on end—which made him appear quite absurd. He hadn’t shaved and his stubble-covered chin made him look more disheveled than the bearded academics and cryptographers. He paced, muttered, held the letter up to the light, then stood on a stool and pressed it against the bulb.
Amelia looked concerned. “Herr Doctor Liebermann . . . Max?”
Rheinhardt joined his friend. “Well? Would you care to explain?”
“Nothing!” Liebermann’s voice was slightly hoarse. He was both angry and disappointed. “Absolutely nothing!” He got down off the stool, produced a box of cigars, and made a fumbling attempt to remove and light one. During the course of his attempt the letter slipped from his grip and the glass sheets shattered into small pieces.
Hoover tutted. “Psychiatrists . . .”
“Max.” Rheinhardt’s patience was wearing thin. “Please sit down. I’ll get someone to clear this up.”
Liebermann made repeated movements in the air, as if he were pushing Rheinhardt away. Then he said, a little too petulantly for a grown man. “If he’s a biologist, then he’ll think like a biologist! He won’t think like a mathematician or a code breaker!”
Rheinhardt was expecting his friend to stamp his foot like a child, but instead, the young doctor bent down and picked up the letter. Liebermann brushed away some shards of glass and began to feel the paper as if he were trying to determine its thickness and quality. He turned the sheet over, held it up the light again, and then sniffed it, before initiating a second attempt to light his cigar. The letter was perilously close to the flame. He suddenly stopped puffing and froze, his eyes opening very wide—wide enough to confirm all Hoover’s prejudices. The flame licked the paper.
Rheinhardt snatched the letter away. “Do be careful, Max.”
“Oskar. Give the letter back to me! Please?”
“It’s evidence. We can’t have evidence going up in flames!”
Rheinhardt was aware of a blur—something oscillating between them. And a second later the letter was back in Liebermann’s possession. Rheinhardt conceded defeat. He took a step back, smiled bashfully at Hoover, and then addressed his friend through gritted teeth. “Max, you are being exceedingly . . . difficult.” Liebermann struck another match and held it next to the paper, passing the fitful flame along each line of code, as if reading in the dark. He blew the match out when the flame reached his finger tips and lit another. “Observe, Oskar.” Rheinhardt stepped forward and craned his head over the letter. As the flame made horizontal passes, dark yellow writing appeared between the lines of code. It came into being and then faded as if by magic. The script was small and neat; the sentences constructed in telegraphic German.
“God in heaven!” cried Rheinhardt.
“What is it?” Hoover demanded.
“Camouflage,” said Liebermann. “The code is simply a screen, quite brilliant, a perfect piece of misdirection, just what you’d expect from a man who understands Darwinian principles.”
Liebermann lit a Bunsen burner and held the letter behind it. Everyone crowded behind him. He began reading. The contents were clearly an invitation to the bomb-maker to assist with a planned act of propaganda by deed. Liebermann read faster, “Georg Weeber. Location, Palais Khevenhüller, Vienna. A function to be held in his honor—3rd of March. Time: 8 o’clock.”
“Who is Georg Weeber?” asked Professor Urban.
“I believe he is a judge—recently retired,” Rheinhardt answered.
“The third of March . . . ,” said Professor Hoemes.
“Isn’t that today?” asked Amelia.
Nobody replied. They all looked up at the wall clock. It was five minutes to nine.
“Shit!” Hissed Hoover.
SIXTY-SIX
As the first movement of the A Major Sonata filled the grand hall of the Palais Khevenhüller, Razumovsky studied the faces of all the guests. They had already consumed large bowls of potato soup and after the musical interval, there would be tenderloin with onions. The royals loved plain fare. It was well known. Presumably that’s why the menu was so desperately dull.
Razumovsky’s gaze circled the horseshoe of tables: a priest wearing a cassock, lawyers and their bejeweled wives, representatives from the town hall, some right wing politicians, a contemporary of Weeber’s called von Behring and a pretty brunette—perhaps his daughter? The lord marshal. Georg Weeber and next to him, a darkly glittering creature of black lace and parchment—Frau Weeber, no doubt. And at the apex of the horseshoe, Archduke Ferdinand Karl. Could it have worked out any better? Probably not.
The archduke had dressed in his military uniform and his tunic was covered with decorations. An archduke, Razumovsky reflected, did not have to be very heroic to collect medals. The royal’s face was long, with the additional length extending the upper rather than the lower parts of his face. This imbalance created an impression of weakness around the chin. He also sported a small, waxed, turned-up moustache, so finely sculpted it might have been artificial.
Beyond the archduke, the social order descended: chamberlains, more politicians, and more inhabitants of the Palace of Justice.
The first movement reached its peculiar, precarious conclusion, and Razumovsky turned a page. When the pianist leaned forward, drops of sweat fell onto the keys. The Poco Adagio that followed was complex and ornamented. Only a few bars into the movement the composer asked for thirteen semiquavers to be played against four quavers. The pleasing density of the notation was translated into equally pleasing music. While listening to Curtius rehearse, Razumovsky had been seduced by its subtle charms and discreet melancholy. He found it mildly irritating that he was developing a fondness for Weeber’s favorite style. In places, the music approached the sublime uplands of a Mozart piano concerto. He turned to observe Weeber and for a moment, their eyes met. Razumovsky smiled—and the judge smiled back. Two connoisseurs, agreeing: Yes, my friend, we are in the presence of greatness, but a form of greatness that eludes those with blunted sensibilities; we, however, are refined, and can appreciate such things. . . . Razumovsky supposed that, in the future, he would listen to C.P.E. Bach and experience a deep sense of satisfaction. With the exception, perhaps, of his masterful manipulation of Luchini, this daring coup would be remembered as his crowning achievement.
Archduke Ferdinand Karl was looking bored and he started to talk to one of the chamberlains. Nobody would ask him to be quiet, because he was an archduke. Even Weeber pretended his boorish behavior was acceptable. The archduke was talking so loudly one could hear the Habsburg affectations all too clearly—the lugubrious, nasal whine—like a Frenchman having difficulty pronouncing his German.
The world would be a much better place without them.
Razumovsky thought of Vala Feist and all of his old comrades who had laid down their lives for the cause. And then he imagined Weeber’s head, parting company with his shoulders, and flying upward, carried by the blast, and shattering in a starburst against
the bas-relief pineapples and pendants. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh so much he had to make a concerted effort in order to maintain a straight face.
He reached out and turned another page.
SIXTY-SEVEN
They had tried to telephone the Palais Khevenhüller, but nobody had answered.
“Call the nearest police station,” Hoover roared. “We need men at the Palais without delay!”
“We are the nearest police station,” Rheinhardt replied.
There was a moment of panicky confusion. Liebermann dropped the letter and addressed Rheinhardt. “Come on. We have to try.” The young doctor stood up, planted a quick kiss on Amelia Lydgate’s lips, and ran for the door—grabbing his astrakhan coat as he exited the laboratory. As he leapt down the stairs he heard Rheinhardt puffing behind him. “I saw that.”
Without reducing the speed of his swift descent, Liebermann called out, “I’ll explain later.”
They reached the ground floor and sprinted through the foyer, past a bemused duty sergeant and out onto the busy Ringstrasse. There was a great deal of traffic on the road—large closed carriages, fiakers, carts, and two red and white trams. The air was alive with the sound of bells, the continuous rataplan of hooves, and the rumble of iron wheels rolling over cobbles. Street vendors were shouting and the air was scented with roast chestnuts and sausages.
Rheinhardt turned one way, then the other. “Thank God, a cab.” He stepped into the road and raised his hand. The cab slowed down and when it halted Rheinhardt shouted up to the driver, “Take us to the Palais Khevenhüller, as quickly as you can.”
Rheinhardt and Liebermann were about to climb into the cab when the sound of footsteps preceded a hard shove and both men went flying in opposite directions. The breath was knocked out of Rheinhardt’s lungs as he hit the ground. He heard Hoover hollering. “The Palais Khevenhüller. On behalf of His Royal Highness the Emperor Franz Josef, I requisition this vehicle. Refusal to cooperate will be judged an act of treason.” Hoover’s military uniform and menacing command afforded him considerable authority and the frightened cab driver nodded obediently. As the wheels began to turn, Hoover thrust his head out of the window and shouted at Rheinhardt, “This is a bureau matter now. Send your men on.”