Demain spluttered, ‘How dare you! Nothing of the sort ever happened.’
Jasper said, ‘I heard that you were very interested in her.’
Violet looked up at him. ‘Did you kill my father?’ Her eyes were wide in her lovely face. He wanted to reach out and cup her cheek in his palm and tell her that of course he would never ever do such a thing. But the atmosphere in the room was charged. If he but laid a finger on her, they might jump him and beat him to the ground.
‘Your silence says enough.’ Herziger sounded disgusted. ‘Next Jasper will prove you also killed Karl Müller. To have the golden mask of death for yourself. You planned it all along. An accident back then, now a murder here.’
Demain was standing in the heat again, listening to the cries of the trapped man, watching the workers digging to free him. Had he truly honestly wished for Müller to be saved? Or had part of him, the darkest part of him, thought that it didn’t really matter if he died, as he was dispensable?
‘So it was you all along.’
Demain turned his head to the voice. A face looked at him. The face of Karl Müller but younger. Sir Peter had told him before he died that he might get a shock. His bad heart and all.
Now that heart beat as if it was going to burst.
Demain grabbed at his chest and sank to the floor.
* * *
Violet screamed. Anton ignored her and leaned over the fallen man. ‘Murderer.’ His voice was strangled. ‘Murderer. You deserve to die.’
‘Step aside.’ Jasper pulled him away. ‘Marktherr! The doctor.’
The door into the room swept open and men rushed in. Anton didn’t want to be pulled away and almost came to blows with a uniformed policeman. Violet screamed again.
In a haze Anton saw her with that woman by her side, the companion she always leaned on when things became too much. They should have fled anyway. Just be away from all of this.
The doctor loosened Demain’s collar and listened to his heart. Then he asked for a glass of water. When it arrived, the doctor and a policeman propped Demain up and let him sip.
‘Just an act,’ Rohmann said in too loud a tone. ‘Nothing wrong with him. Thinks he can escape prison this way.’
Anton looked at Jasper. ‘You must let him be arrested. Weak or not, heart trouble or not. He is my father’s killer.’
Jasper looked at him. ‘I thought you thought it was Sir Peter.’
‘No. I told you it was Demain. We sent him the letter.’
‘And Sir Peter?’ Jasper held his gaze. ‘Why did you have to kill him? Because he was in your way? Because he would never let you have his daughter? He looked down on your father for being just a workman. Would you have been any better in his eyes? An illusionist, what is that? Just a traveling artist doing tricks. Could such a man provide for his daughter? For a girl who has been raised in wealth and comfort, had the best teachers, travelled the world? Sir Peter would have aspired to a bit more for her, don’t you think?’
Anton burst with rage. ‘An old man like him?’ He pointed at Demain. ‘Who can’t stand on his own two feet, let alone love a woman and father a child? Violet is young. She needs love and a family. Not more wealth and more travelling and all the things she always had and just about smothered her. All that care, all that talk of her being easily tired and… It was just to keep her dependent. But I’m now taking her away. I am.’
* * *
Iris Phelps hadn’t really understood what was happening, but it sank in now that this was the son of Karl Müller and he was claiming Violet. He was speaking of her as if he knew her, as if they had come to an understanding. She looked at Violet who eyed Anton with concern. ‘Child, you haven’t—’
Violet directed her eyes to Iris. ‘I love him. He is different from all the rest. He doesn’t think I am weak and somehow different. He loves me.’ She beamed.
Iris flinched. Poor girl. So deceived. Easily taken in by words, by the smooth talking of a man who only wanted her for his own purposes: to avenge himself on her family.
‘Don’t believe a word he told you. Think of who he is. He hates your father. Would he love you? No. He only used you. He needed you to gain access to your father and kill him. He is the murderer. He must be tried and hung.’
‘No!’ Violet jumped to her feet. ‘I can’t bear to lose him. I must have him. He must be mine.’
She screamed it with a piercing intensity. Everyone stared at her, including the doctor who had restored Demain to some sort of normality. ‘That lady is close to hysterics,’ he declared. ‘She needs a sedative.’
‘I won’t be treated like a lunatic. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
Iris tried to arrest Violet’s arm. ‘Hush now, child, you’re only making it worse.’
But Violet slapped her hand away. ‘I don’t need you. Stop treating me like a baby. I want Anton and then we can go away. I’m free now. My father is dead.’ She said it in an almost ecstatic tone.
The doctor looked at her with a frown and then said something to Jasper. Jasper nodded.
‘My father is dead,’ Violet repeated. ‘He can’t decide anything anymore. I’m free. I can leave.’
‘No.’ Iris grabbed her arm again. ‘Don’t say such things.’ She wanted to drag Violet to the chair and push her down on it. The stupid girl was ruining it all for herself. She was almost suggesting…
Jasper said, ‘If Mr Demain is recovered, we can continue. Although I fear the new revelations will provide another shock for him. Don’t you think, Miss Phelps?’
Iris stared at him. Everything inside her struggled for a way out of this, an answer so she could twist it around one more time and prove Violet was completely sane. No need to take her away and lock her up. They had to stay together.
Jasper said, ‘You know so much about Violet. About the dreams that plagued her since she was a little girl.’
‘She is just excitable.’
‘About the book her father forced her to keep, taking notes of all her dreams. Writing down those haunting images that would strike fear in any person. Fear for her stability. He was about to commit her into the care of a therapist.’
‘You make it sound like he was about to have her sent to an asylum.’ Iris spoke with strength although she trembled inside. ‘He only wanted a man who knew about dreams to look at her nightly imaginings and say something as to their meaning. Or lack of meaning. He wanted to prove to her it was all harmless and she need not fret about it.’
‘That’s not true, Miss Phelps, and you know it. Sir Peter had a specific purpose for the dream book and the therapy. He wanted to know the truth about the death of Jane Bell.’
The floorboards shifted under Iris’s feet. How did he know what Sir Peter had asked Baum?
* * *
Violet looked up. The name prodded her like a finger between her shoulder blades. ‘Jane Bell? How do you know about her? She died on my father’s estate. But that is ages ago. I was just four.’ She fought against the panic enveloping her. ‘It was an accident.’
‘Yes, lots of accidents happening around you, Miss Treemore. At the estate, at your boarding school, at the dig.’
Violet blinked. ‘They are just that. Accidents. No one could do anything about them.’ That’s what she had repeated to herself endlessly.
Jasper said, ‘No one might have been able to do anything about them. But your father’s death was no accident. Someone stabbed him and he bled to death.’
Blood running from the sockets of the mask. Blood on her hands. Violet tried to draw breath but the room was so stuffy. ‘Open a window,’ she said to Iris.
Jasper said, ‘Open a window to show that it had been a burglar?’
There was silence all around. Accusing faces. Suspicion, doubt. Even Anton eyed her like he didn’t really know her. Who was coming to her aid? No one?
Jasper said ‘You yourself asked me to keep an eye on your father. You told me a very convincing story of why he was in danger. Because of some letter he
had received claiming Karl Müller had been murdered and the killer would pay. Simultaneously suggesting to me that your father was indeed to blame for Müller’s death. How clever, how ingenious. In reality, that letter came from you. From you and your accomplice, Anton Müller.’
‘No,’ Iris said with a disbelieving expression.
Anton called out, ‘We only sent it to Demain.’
Demain stared at her and whispered, ‘Why, Violet?’
She pursed her lips and didn’t speak.
‘That is what you thought,’ Jasper addressed Anton. ‘Violet also sent the letter you had agreed on for Demain to her own father. To scare him and to have proof that he was under threat. She used you to her own ends. For the murder she wanted to commit.’
‘No,’ Anton said slowly.
Violet wanted to scream no no no but her mouth was dry and her limbs numb, like in one of her dreams.
Jasper continued relentlessly, ‘You wanted to kill your father because he stood in the way of your relationship with Anton, of your future and your freedom. Also because he had never loved you but was carrying on affairs with women here and there, and then all of a sudden, he wanted to marry Beate Herziger and rid himself of you, leave you behind. You could not bear it. You had to kill him.’
Kill, it whispered in the back of Violet’s mind, kill.
Jasper went on, ‘You killed him and only pretended to be shocked when we found him. You placed the mask over his face as a final accusation. He had always loved his artefacts more than you. He even wanted to marry for them, to gain access to Herziger’s connections. You couldn’t stand it. You had to do something about it.’
Violet wanted to shake her head, but any movement seemed impossible.
Jasper said, ‘You did it and you can’t deny it. Didn’t you send the letter to your father? If you didn’t, then who did? Anton knew the contents of the letter to Demain and you did. Nobody else. It was a plan made between you. One of you must have done it. Anton says he didn’t do it so…’ Jasper eyed Anton. ‘Or will you suddenly confess you did do it? To save Violet? Do you love her so much?’
There was a deep silence in the room. Everyone waited. Violet waited. She hoped he would lie to show her he loved her. But he didn’t.
There was nothing. Like there was nothing after a dream. Nothing but darkness and emptiness and fear that it would happen again and she could do nothing to stop it.
Jasper said, ‘You may also have killed your father to avoid the therapy. To avoid Mr Baum here knowing what your dreams meant and finding out about the past. How you also killed Karl Müller? Anton showed me a letter his father wrote before he died where he tried to warn someone against a woman who was dangerous and would destroy him, but he couldn’t see it, the blind fool. Did Karl Müller realise how dangerous you were? Did he try to warn your father?’
Anton said, ‘The letter didn’t say who the person he warned was. Or against whom he warned that person. It could have been someone other than Violet. Beate Herziger.’
Jasper ignored him. ‘You were afraid that the therapy would dig deep into the dreams you were having and would reveal far too much.’
Violet looked at the man who came forward with her dream book under his arm. He smiled enigmatically. ‘The dreams are very telling. They reveal a need to resort to violence. They reveal a troubled mind. They tell too much and therefore you had to silence your father.’
His blue eyes seemed to hold her with a mesmerising intensity. This was exactly what she had been afraid of. How he would make it look. How he would convince her that the things she had been afraid of were true and she would never be happy.
‘But her father didn’t know anything yet,’ Jasper said softly to Baum. ‘And the dream book had already been passed to you. What could Violet avoid by killing her father? Would such an action not have confirmed the very thing she sought to deny?’
Violet blinked. She didn’t follow. Suddenly it seemed Jasper was defending her. But that couldn’t be.
Baum blinked as well. ‘She wanted to avoid having to see me. She knew I would reveal all. I would see right through her frightened little girl’s act and reveal the cold-hearted criminal inside.’
Anton protested. ‘Violet is not a cold-hearted criminal.’
Baum snorted. ‘You read this dream book.’ He held it out to Anton. ‘Then decide if you want to marry her.’
‘No.’ At last she could speak. She said it again, louder. ‘No.’ A sob wrung from her throat and she sank to her knees. ‘The dreams can’t ruin it. They have always ruined everything. They can’t ruin my love of Anton. They can’t ruin my future. I won’t let them. I won’t let them.’
Iris leaned over her and put an arm around her. ‘Violet is not well. She must go home. She must rest.’
Violet wanted to shake her off. Why couldn’t that woman see that resting didn’t change anything? When would she understand?
Jasper said, ‘No, Iris. Violet is not going home.’
It sounded final. Like a judge’s gavel banging.
Violet shrank. She wanted to crawl away under the floorboards. Had he decided about her guilt? Would he deliver her to the police?
Would she be locked up to await trial?
She looked up through her tears to see Anton one more time. To imprint his face upon her memory to recall it when she was all alone.
He looked at her, desperate, not accusing. Still with a glimmer of love. That was what she needed to hold on to. Something to believe in. Something good.
* * *
Jasper said slowly, ‘The web seemed to close around Violet the more I learned about her. She had lost people she loved; she had lived through traumatising events; she had become what Iris calls impressionable or excitable. Were they nice words for what others might call mentally unstable, disturbed or even dangerous?’
He looked past the people. ‘Wasn’t it natural for a companion to want to protect the charge she has cared for ever since the girl lost her mother at two? Can we blame Iris for sugar-coating Violet’s condition? I’m an impartial outsider. I ask myself: what do we really know? That she has dreams. Not that she acted on them. Or that in fact those dreams are a representation of reality at all. There is still so much we don’t know about the subconscious. Not even our expert Herr Baum here would claim he understands everything about it.’
Baum said, ‘Uh, no, of course not.’
‘There you have it. We don’t understand. We try to understand. We interpret and we give meaning. We direct things in a certain way to suit our purposes. But we don’t really know. As in actually, objectively know. Still, Mr Baum helped me a lot with a statement he made.’
Baum puffed up his chest.
Jasper suppressed a smile. He said sternly, ‘Mr Baum, who at first seemed such a burden on my investigation. After all, you came to me with lies. You claimed to be with the police to research the relation between psychology and the criminal mind, and you didn’t tell me you had been asked to see Violet or knew about her dream book. You did mention in passing that you used to be a medical student. Someone who could with accuracy stab a man in such a way to cause instant death?’
There was a collective intake of breath.
Baum stared at him. ‘Are you mad? Do you now accuse me of the murder? What are you after? You just go round and round, pointing the finger at this person and that, without rhyme or reason.’
‘Trust me, there is a reason.’ Jasper eyed him coldly. ‘You wanted to get into my confidence for your own gain. This sensational case that could prove your theory. A girl with violent dreams, actually committing murder. Your career would be made. You didn’t shy away from using the dream book entrusted to you. You’re despicable. But you’re not a murderer. And you did help me with one statement you made. You said that love could turn to hatred and that was the thing in this case. You handed me the motive, although you didn’t connect it with the right person. In fact, several people handed me clues without even realising themselves.’
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br /> Now everyone was staring at each other, suspicious as to what might have been so revealing.
Jasper took a deep breath. He was almost there. It had hurt to accuse and see the responses, cut deep into people’s lives and show their weaknesses. But he was at last almost done. It all depended on whether he could now spring the trap on the murderer.
‘There was Anton Müller’s profession. Illusionism. Appearing and disappearing, in this room?’ Jasper gestured around him. ‘Could he have come in here, killed Sir Peter and vanished again? Perhaps. But why stay in Vienna? Why not leave right away? Because he loves Violet and wants to be with her? Perhaps. Or is his love an illusion as well? A clever trick to use her to his own end? Love, hatred so close together. So powerful. Also in the case of Demain? Loving Violet and wanting to marry her, but then finding she didn’t love him in return? Hating her and wanting to destroy her through her father? Or Iris Phelps. The loyal companion, the woman who’s always covered for Violet, who protected her until Violet fell in love with Anton and decided to leave, simply abandoning Iris, after all she had done for her.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Demain struggled to his feet. ‘It was Iris. You just said…’ – he gasped for breath – ‘that no one knew the contents of the threatening letter sent to me, no one but Violet and Müller. That one of them must have sent an identical letter to Sir Peter. But that is not true. The contents of the letter were known to Iris. I told her.’
‘You did no such thing.’ Iris’s eyes shot fire. ‘How dare you accuse me only to draw the attention away from your own sordid feelings for Violet? You never even wanted her for her, but just to get onward in life. To have access to more lectures at clubs like you do now. The murder gave you all you wanted. You did it. You!’
An Exhibition of Murder Page 21