Fatal Lies

by Frank Tallis

  “Perhaps,” Liebermann pressed, “you would care to explain why you did this?”

  The deputy headmaster held his fixed attitude and said nothing. It was as if his private torment excused him from any further obligation to speak.

  “Dr. Becker?” Rheinhardt took a few steps toward the deputy headmaster. “Are you… well?”

  Becker's head slumped forward. “Stay away from me, Inspector,” he cried. “I don't want your pity! Do you hear? Stay away from me. I will not be humiliated. I have been humiliated enough. Enough, I say, enough!”

  The cupboard was suddenly open, and two bottles fell from the deputy headmaster's hands. They smashed on the floor, throwing up shards of colored glass. Liebermann and Rheinhardt watched in dumb amazement as Becker dashed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. A key, turning in the lock, filled the laboratory with the sound of percussive engagement, its grim reverberations evoking the closure of a vault.

  Liebermann leaped into the aisle, intercepting Rheinhardt as the inspector instinctively began his pursuit. They collided and both of them almost fell.

  “What in God's name!” Rheinhardt gasped. “He'll get away—”

  “Hold your breath,” Liebermann commanded, grabbing Rheinhardt's arm and dragging him to the back of the laboratory. “Or you'll die!”

  Liebermann tried to open one of the windows, banging the frame furiously—but it held fast. He then tried another, which, after repeated blows, gradually yielded. Throwing the window open, he clambered onto the sill and pulled himself up. Grasping the frame for support, he offered Rheinhardt his hand. The inspector was difficult to lift; however, drawing on some inner reserve, Liebermann heaved, and Rheinhardt scrambled out.

  When the inspector became fully conscious of their precarious situation, he clutched at a projecting mullion and, looking down at the ground, was moved once again to invoke the deity: “God in heaven!”

  Liebermann eased the window down and shut it with the heel of his shoe.

  “You can breathe now,” he said.

  “Max! Why… what…” There were simply too many questions to articulate. Liebermann rested a calming hand on his friend's shoulder.

  “The two bottles Becker threw to the floor contained cyanide and an acid of some description. When the two combine, hydrocyanic gas is produced: freshly created, one sniff can be fatal.”

  “That's how he killed Zelenka?”

  “Yes,” said Liebermann. “Potassium cyanide looks like sugar. Vinegar is an acid. The chemistry assignment that he set the boy was fatal. Zelenka would have followed Becker's instructions and—”

  “Monstrous,” Rheinhardt interrupted, shaking his head.

  Beyond the hem of his trousers and the welting of his shoes, the inspector could see their carriage and the statue of Saint Florian. This unusual perspective made him feel quite unsteady, and he pulled back.

  “Perhaps you had better not look down,” said Liebermann.

  “Haussmann?” Rheinhardt bellowed. “Haussmann?”

  The door of the carriage did not open.

  “Haussmann?” he cried again—inquiry turning into irritation.

  In the distance, swaths of fir were turning olive-black in the failing afternoon light.

  “The driver seems to have vanished too,” said Liebermann.

  “That foolish boy!” said Rheinhardt desperately. “Where on earth has he gone!”

  “Let's try calling together,” said Liebermann. “After three: one, two, three.”

  “Haussmann.”

  Liebermann shifted slightly, and a small wedge of masonry broke from the ledge. It plummeted through the air and landed on the gravel, far below, with a barely perceptible whisper. On closer inspection, Liebermann noticed that the stonework around his feet was webbed with numerous tiny cracks. He did not draw the parlous state of the ledge to Rheinhardt s attention. Instead, he counted to three, and they both called out again:

  “Haussmann…”

  “Haussmann…”

  “Haussmann!”

  56

  HAUSSMANN AND THE DRIVER were standing in the courtyard listening to Albert, whose rambling speech concerned his involvement with what the young men assumed must be a famous military campaign.

  They had been waiting by the carriage, smoking and discussing the driver's intention to marry a flower girl called Fännchen in the spring, when the old soldier had appeared under the archway. He'd beckoned them into the courtyard and suggested that they might continue their conversation in the cloisters, where they could escape the wind and derive more pleasure from their tobacco. The two young men had been touched by the old man's thoughtfulness and, not wishing to offend him, had accepted his hospitable suggestion. Albert had lowered himself onto his favorite bench, hawked a soapy pellet of chartreuse phlegm onto a flagstone, and touched his medals with shaky liver-spotted fingers. The sensation of silk and metal between his thumb and forefinger had evoked memories of his youth and he had subsequently embarked on an epic (and seemingly interminable) tale of martial folly and eventual salvation.

  The old soldier's reminiscences were incoherent and digressive, but the two young men listened politely. He spoke of the Austrian occupation of Buda and Pest, a dreaded Hungarian general called Görgey a bloody siege, a meeting with the czar, and the arrival of two hundred thousand Russian troops.

  “We would have been in trouble without them,” said Albert, gazing across the courtyard at the chapel but obviously seeing something quite different—a host of ghostly Cossacks, perhaps, heaving into view over a flat steppe. “We were overconfident,” he continued. “We underestimated Görgey! A terrible misjudgment, that's what it was—a terrible misjudgment. Thank God for the old czar! God bless him! Although—it has to be said—he was only helping out because of the Poles. See, they'd sided with the revolutionaries, and that had him worried—”

  A door suddenly opened with considerable violence, banging against the wall. The deputy headmaster appeared, looking harried and overwrought. He tripped, recovered his balance, and came to an undignified, stumbling halt. Looking anxiously from side to side, he caught sight of Haussmann's group and froze. The attitude that he struck was unnatural, as if balancing on the tips of his toes in readiness to jump. Becker's elbows were crooked at an acute angle and held away from his torso, extending his gown transversely like the wings of a bat: these peculiarities of posture and dress created an illusion of supernatural visitation—something hellish preparing for flight.

  The deputy headmaster, however, did not make a vertical ascent. Instead, he composed himself and marched purposefully toward the small gathering.

  As he approached, the old soldier stood to attention.

  “Permission to report… invited these security office gentlemen inside, sir, because of the wind. And then I—”

  “Very good, Albert, very good,” said Becker brusquely, holding his hand up to show that he did not require further enlightenment. Then, turning toward Haussmann, he said, “If I am not mistaken, you are the inspector's assistant?”

  “Haussmann, sir.”

  “Yes, that's right, Haussmann.… I remember you, of course. Inspector Rheinhardt wishes to see you immediately. Albert, take these young men to the infirmary, please.”

  Haussmann's companion looked somewhat embarrassed.

  “Not me, sir. I'm just the driver.”

  “No,” said Becker. “You are to go too.”

  “Me?” said the driver, touching his chest in disbelief.

  “Yes. That is what Inspector Rheinhardt said: ‘Tell my men to come up here at once.’

  “Has someone been injured, sir?” Haussmann asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what is he doing in the infirmary?”

  “At this precise moment, I believe he is conversing with Nurse Funke. Now, I trust you will excuse me, gentlemen. Albert, the infirmary, please.”

  Becker bowed, turned sharply on his heels, and walked off toward the courtyard entrance. A
lbert muttered something under his breath. It sounded like an obscenity, but was rendered unintelligible by the abrasive grinding of a persistent cough.

  “Permission to report,” he uttered between rasps. “This way, sir.”

  Haussmann did not follow the old soldier but stood quite still, watching the receding figure of the deputy headmaster. He felt uneasy, troubled. Why did the inspector want the driver? Did he need to lift something heavy? And there was something about that message… “Tell my men to come up here at once.” It wasn't the sort of thing that Rheinhardt would say. Rheinhardt almost always phrased his orders as if he were simply making a polite request: “Would you be so kind… I would be most grateful if…”

  “Are you coming?” It was the driver.

  Haussmann did not reply. His gaze remained fixed on the deputy headmaster, whose pace seemed to be quickening. Once he was through the archway, the wind caught his gown and it rose up, billowing and flapping. Haussmann cocked his head to one side. He thought he could hear something—a tonal inflection—that dropped with the soughing. At first he wondered whether he was imagining things, but then it came again, this time more clearly: voices—a faint cry.

  “Haussmann…”

  “Haussmann…”

  “Deputy headmaster! Dr. Becker!”

  Through the archway, only the sky and hills were visible. The bellying sail of the deputy headmaster's gown was gone.

  Haussmann ran.

  “Dr. Becker…”

  He could hear the jangling of the horses’ bridles, the distinctive clop of restive hooves. He ran beneath the arch, and cursed as he saw Becker climbing up onto the driver's box. A whip cracked, and the carriage began to move. Haussmann rounded the statue of Saint Florian and reached out, his fingers almost touching the back of the escaping carriage. But it was too late. The horses were gathering speed and the gap widened.

  “Dr. Becker,” he called out, helplessly.

  The carriage pulled away—and Haussmann reluctantly abandoned his pursuit. Bending forward, with his hands resting on his thighs, he tried to catch his breath. He was immediately startled by the sound of Inspector Rheinhardt calling his name.

  “Haussmann!”

  The assistant detective stood up and spun around. But there was no one there.

  “Haussmann!”

  He looked up—and gasped in disbelief.

  57

  AS HAUSSMANN MADE HIS WAY back to the statue of Saint Florian, Rheinhardt and Liebermann watched Becker's progress. The deputy headmaster was whipping the horses with pitiless ferocity. Tracing a wide arc, the carriage careened as it rumbled toward the school gates. Rheinhardt turned away and sighed: a loud, operatic sigh that demonstrated the magnitude of his frustration.

  “Never mind,” said Liebermann. “He won't get far. I doubt he is carrying very much money, and as soon as we're back on terra firma, you can use the headmaster's telephone and notify the security office.”

  “I fear that you have forgotten the commissioner's memorandum,” said Rheinhardt bitterly. “Brügel will be disinclined to spare me any men this weekend.”

  “What? Not even to assist with the apprehension of a murderer?”

  Haussmann arrived back at the statue of Saint Florian as the driver and Albert emerged from beneath the stone arch. The inspector cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted down: “Dr. Becker has filled the laboratory with a poisonous gas. He has locked the door, but he might not have removed the key. Ensure that no one can enter. Albert will guide you to the laboratory. Leave him there to stand guard. No one must be admitted—do you understand? No one. Please notify the headmaster of our… situation. Then return with a ladder.”

  Haussmann's face was a pale oval.

  “It was Dr. Becker? He did it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry I let him get away.”

  The young man expected his apology to be answered with a strongly worded reprimand; however, the inspector, studying Haussmann's pitiful expression from his godlike vantage, merely shrugged and replied: “Better luck next time, eh, Haussmann?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the assistant detective, humbled—once again— by his superior's humanity. The young man took Albert by the arm and, lending him robust locomotor assistance, set off for the laboratory.

  A gaggle of boys appeared over the crest of a nearby hill. They were trudging across open country and were led by a man with a limp. The man had taken his cap off, and even from a distance it was easy to make out the color of his cropped blond hair.

  “I think that's Lieutenant Osterhagen,” said Rheinhardt. “The gymnastics master.”

  The boys were not marching in an orderly fashion but following their leader in a loose band, with a few stragglers trailing behind. They had clearly been on some kind of exercise, and their uniforms were covered in mud. It was not long before one of the more observant youths noticed Liebermann and Rheinhardt. Several boys started waving, pointing, and gesticulating, and Osterhagen stopped to raise his field glasses.

  In due course, the bedraggled troop arrived, and Osterhagen stepped forward.

  “What are you doing up there?” he demanded.

  This remark was bluntly delivered and caused considerable amusement among the boys. Osterhagen glared at the worst offenders, silencing their laughter.

  “All will be explained,” Rheinhardt shouted, “but now is not the time. Lieutenant Osterhagen, would you be so kind as to get a ladder so that my colleague and I can get down.”

  “Why don't you just smash the window if it's stuck.”

  “The window is not stuck,” said Rheinhardt, impatience creeping into his voice. “With respect, would you please get a ladder.”

  “That may not be easy,” said Osterhagen. “I don't know where the ladders—if we possess any at all—are kept.”

  “Then might I suggest,” Rheinhardt returned, “that you start looking.”

  At this point, a section of the ledge—directly beneath Rheinhardt's left foot—gave way. His arms flailed around as he desperately sought to recover his balance. The rotations became more frantic— but he was unable to achieve the necessary redistribution of weight. Slowly, he began to lean into the void. Liebermann—reacting with reflexive speed—grabbed Rheinhardt's coat and pulled him back, steadying his wild movements in a tight embrace.

  “It's all right, Oskar. I have you.”

  Rheinhardt took a deep breath and emptied his lungs slowly, producing as he did so an attenuated whistle.

  “Dear God,” he expostulated. “That was close!”

  Liebermann looked down and saw Lieutenant Osterhagen contemplating the fallen masonry. It had landed perilously close to where he was standing.

  “The ledge won't hold for much longer,” Liebermann cried. “Please hurry.”

  Osterhagen—roused from an impromptu meditation on the contingent nature of fate and his own mortality—issued various instructions to the boys, who then began to disperse in pairs. He looked up and said: “I'll be back shortly.”

  The lieutenant vanished from sight, his asymmetric stride creating a hissing sound on the gravel as he dragged the weaker of his two legs behind him. Only the driver remained, his gaze oscillating between the shattered block of stone and the crumbling ledge.

  “Well, Max,” said Rheinhardt, “I am indebted. You might have gone over with me. You saved my life.”

  “But it remains to be seen how much of your life I have actually saved,” said Liebermann. “Unless we get down soon, your gratitude may prove excessive.”

  “Then perhaps we should get back inside?”

  “The gas will dissipate over time—but hydrocyanic gas is deadly. I think we had better take our chances out here.”

  Rheinhardt shook his head. “Max,” he said with great solemnity, “why did you ever let me eat so many cakes? If I were a more lissome fellow, then perhaps this ledge might hold a little longer.” Liebermann smiled at his comrade, who was penitently contemplating the
curvature of his stomach. “If we survive this, I swear to you, I'm going on a diet.”

  Another piece of stone—about the size of an apple—fell to the ground. The sound of its impact startled the driver. His worried face showed that he had already calculated the effect of such a drop on the human body.

  Rheinhardt reached into his coat pocket and took out his notebook and pencil. Leaning back against the window, he began scribbling furiously.

  “Oskar?” asked Liebermann. “What are you doing?”

  Rheinhardt held out the notebook so that Liebermann could read what he had written:

  My dearest Else,

  I love you. Kiss Therese and Mitzi for me—and tell them how much I love them too. My heart, my all, my everything! You have given me so much more than I ever deserved.

  Eternally yours,

  Oskar

  “Do you think it's enough?” asked Rheinhardt.

  “If you had time enough to write a whole book,” Liebermann replied, “you could not say more.”

  “Perhaps you would like to…”

  Rheinhardt offered Liebermann the notebook—but the young doctor did not take it. What could he write, and to whom? There was no obvious recipient. Trezska was his lover—but were they really in love? His relationship with his father had never been very good. His mother adored him, but he always experienced her presence as vaguely suffocating. He was very fond of his youngest sister… but he could hardly write to her alone.

  The imminence of death exposed an uncomfortable truth: there was no one special in his life. In his firmament, there were no stars that constellated true happiness, no bright lights to compare with Rheinhardt's wife and daughters. For a brief moment, he found himself thinking of Miss Lyd gate, of the times they had spent in her rooms discussing medicine and philosophy, of the companionate closeness they had shared.

  Another piece of masonry fell.

  “Hurry, Max,” Rheinhardt urged.