Doctor Death

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  Was it Cecile? It was hard to determine because the block letters and the obvious difficulty the writer had had in forming them blurred any personal characteristics. It had very little similarity to the handwriting I had seen in the burning diary, but if she was ill and desperate, it might be possible. Or could it be Emile Oblonski? He could both read and write and must have his own reasons to think about the natures of men and animals.

  In Revelation, a single passage was marked, not with the precise and straight line I had assigned to Vabonne but with a much less tidy undulation: “. . . and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”

  And again there was a note in the same clumsy block letters as the first. This time a sincere prayer: HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE HELP ME PREVAIL NOT SUCCUMB FILL MY MIND WITH WISDOM GIVE ME COURAGE.

  Were those Cecile’s words? Or Emile’s? And what kind of beast was it that had to be conquered?

  The last underlined passage I did not find until I noticed that someone had torn a page from the Good Book and concealed it between the dust jacket and the cover. A hidden message, I thought, and hoped to finally find something I could definitively say came from Cecile Montaine.

  I unfolded the page with eager fingers, but it was not essentially different from the others. It was from Leviticus, and again it was the messy hand that had done the underlining: “And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” The word “death” was underlined twice and repeated in the margin: DEATH DEATH.

  My brain was slower than my spine. The skin along my vertebral column contracted so that I would have raised my hackles if human beings had still been equipped with fur. And only afterward did rationality catch up with base reflexes.

  Blood, feces, and wolf hair on Mother Filippa’s stomach and the inside of her thighs. And Sister Marie-Claire’s choppy and reluctant narration:

  “It lay . . . someone had placed . . . You understand . . . as when a man and a woman . . . and I could not . . . could not let others see . . .”

  I suddenly knew as surely as if I had done it myself why Mother Filippa had been killed. This was the reason. The dead wolf between her legs was both punishment and accusation, like the sign they used to hang around the necks of people chained in the stocks, proclaiming their sin for all the world to see.

  An unclean woman who had lain with animals and had to be put to death for it.

  That was how the murderer had seen it.

  My senses expanded, and all at once I perceived every rustling in the thicket, every gust of wind, the warmth from the sun against my skin, the chill in my stomach.

  The murderer had written these words. And Cecile had been dead for more than a month when someone had tried to cleave Mother Filippa’s head and chest in two. Cecile was not the one who had written this. It could be the other of the cabin’s temporary inhabitants. It could be Emile. Or . . . it could perhaps also be the man who now had the official right to the cabin and the hunt there. Monsieur Leblanc, who had a dog that attacked horses.

  Soft hoofbeats approached along the lane. The carriage rounded the curve by the stand of budding beech trees, and I saw the Commissioner’s robust and familiar form on the box.

  I was glad to see him.

  “M’sieur? There is this gentleman and a young lady as would like to see you . . . He says he’s a commissioner.”

  Old Vabonne’s maid did not have the polished manners that someone like Madame Montaine, for instance, would have demanded. Very young and clearly a country girl, she spoke with a patois so pronounced that I could barely understand her, and she was probably more at home plucking a hen than announcing visitors. We could hear her clear through the house because she had left all the doors open behind her.

  “Well, show them in, then, Marie,” said Vabonne with some exasperation.

  She came trotting back, almost at a run.

  “Mad’moiselle, m’sieur. Come in. Come in. Master’s on the terrace.”

  Old Vabonne sat in a wicker chair similar to the two in the cabin in the woods. A straw hat shaded his lined face, and a checkered blanket had been tucked around his legs. He made no attempt to get up.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “The legs. They are not what they used to be.”

  “Good evening, monsieur,” said the Commissioner. “And forgive us for disturbing you. This is Mademoiselle Karno, daughter of Doctor Albert Karno. And I am Varbourg’s Commissaire des Morts.”

  “So. Have you come to get me?”

  You had to look closely to catch the slight, crooked smile that lifted the right corner of the old man’s mouth, half hidden as it was by his thick gray beard. But there was a glint in his dark eyes, and the Commissioner had no trouble recognizing the dry humor behind the comment.

  “Not yet, monsieur. But I can reserve a good spot for you.”

  “Hah.” Vabonne gave a brief barking laugh. “Heh. Have a seat, Monsieur le Commissaire, and let us enjoy the wait. Marie! Bring the port. And perhaps a pitcher of lemonade to quench our thirst? Mademoiselle?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That would be lovely.” I was well aware that I looked like someone who had barely survived a few weeks in the wilderness.

  Old Vabonne’s property was not a great estate, but not so long ago it had been a large farm with wheat fields, fruit orchards, a small vineyard, and significant incomes from hunting and forestry. But since Vabonne had no sons and his two daughters had both married men from the city with no interest in agriculture, most of the land was leased or sold off, he explained. “And I sit here in my loneliness and am not of much use. But the view is beautiful.”

  The terrace faced the garden and the vineyards that sloped down toward the river. At this time of the year, the vines were brown and dry and had not yet started their new growth, but the river’s shining curve and the soft hills and the woods beyond had a natural symmetry on which the eye could rest without tiring.

  “Monsieur, you are perhaps aware that two young people have been using your cabin by the lake as a refuge for several weeks?”

  “Yes. I know now. Carreau, that’s my gamekeeper . . . but that’s right, you have already met him . . . Carreau helped them find the Wolfman the day before yesterday.”

  “The Wolfman,” I said. “Is that what they call him?”

  “You have not heard? Terrible story. Raised among wolves, they say, and he never really became a human being even though the nuns did what they could. First he abducted the young girl and kept her imprisoned for weeks, and when she managed to escape, she was so weakened that she died. Except . . . there are now those who claim that she committed suicide out of shame?” He looked questioningly at the Commissioner. “You must know whether that is true, Commissioner?”

  “She did not commit suicide,” said the Commissioner. “I can assure you of that.”

  “If you say so. But it is certain that he then raped and killed the convent’s abbess. There are even those who claim that he violated her while in the shape of a wolf . . . if the young lady will pardon me.”

  There was another glint in the dark eyes that were almost hidden by his drooping eyelids, and I had no doubt that he was setting me a challenge.

  “You hardly believe all that yourself, monsieur,” I said. This was, after all, the same man who had expressed his wonder at God’s myriad creations in the margins of his Bible—or so we thought.

  “Hah. No. Man does not require such supernatural excuses to behave worse than any animal would. I have always thought it odd that priests claim an immortal soul for man, while they say the animals have none.”

  “ ‘For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath,’ ” I quoted.

  “Ah,” he said, “you found my Bible. I never had the chance to bring it home. I would be pleased to have it back.”
>
  The Commissioner placed it on the table between us.

  “And so you shall. But unfortunately, it must remain in our possession yet awhile, since it may prove to be of great import in a homicide case. Monsieur Vabonne, would you tell us if there are among these notes some you did not write?”

  “Notes?” He fumbled for his waistcoat pocket and found a pince-nez, which he placed on his prominent nose. “They are just observations . . .” He flipped through the pages. “Hmmm. This is not my writing . . .”

  While Marie brought the port and—more appreciated—a large pitcher of pleasantly tart lemonade, he found the various discrepant notes and confirmed that they were written by someone else. All except the page torn from Leviticus. This was now in the Commissioner’s pocket, and there it would remain. As the Commissioner had put it, there was “no need to show our full hand.”

  “Do you recognize the handwriting?” he asked.

  “No. No, there is nothing familiar about it.”

  “Monsieur Vabonne . . .”

  “Yes, little mademoiselle?”

  “You know Monsieur Leblanc?”

  “Yes. His property, Les Merises, borders on mine.”

  “The cabin lies in the area where he bought the hunting rights, is that correct?” added the Commissioner.

  “Yes.”

  “How would you describe him as a man?”

  Old Vabonne observed the Commissioner with his head tilted.

  “What has he done?” he said.

  “It is merely a general question,” said the Commissioner. “We have no reason to accuse him of anything.”

  “Yet—you mean?”

  The Commissioner did not answer.

  “Very well. You cannot comment on that. But I can tell you that I have hunted with Antoine Leblanc for most of a lifetime, and he is not a bad man. He can be a bit blustery, and he is not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he is a good hunter. Not one of those idiots who blasts away at anything that moves. Always waits until he has a clean shot. No creature is left to suffer when Antoine Leblanc kills it. He cares about the wildlife and treats his dogs with kindness, even though he does not give them silly pet names or invite them to lie on the furniture. He is a good neighbor and a good man. You will not persuade me to say a word against him.”

  “But you have had certain clashes with him?” I said carefully.

  “What are you referring to?”

  “His dog attacked a horse, I understand . . .”

  He stared sternly at me for a few seconds. “You have also looked in my almanac,” he said.

  “Yes. Would you explain what occurred?”

  It had happened nearly eighteen months ago, at the beginning of November during a wild boar hunt.

  “That kind of hunt requires dogs with nerve and guts,” explained Old Vabonne. “Particularly if you are working with hunting dogs who are required to come to grips with the boars. That must have been why he brought it. His dog attacks everything he sets it on, and it is afraid of nothing. Iago, he calls it, yes, that’s right. Iago. Big, rough-coated hulk of a dog, also useful for hunting wolves, but it has been a long time since we have had the need to do that around here; the Vosges, now, that is different. You can pick up a pelt or two in the mountains there. Anyway, we had had quite a good day; bagged a couple of good-sized young ones and an überläufer, and the plan was for us to have a good meal here, and that is when that devil Iago goes straight for the hocks of Mario Ponti’s brown gelding. It does not like horses; we have had the problem before, but not as bad as this. The gelding kicked out so that the dog went flying—six or seven meters, you would think that would have frightened it off; but it just went right in again and tried for the groin. Ponti whacked it with a rifle butt and was so angry that he would have shot it, one word followed another, and we had to separate both men and dogs. Leblanc stormed off with the brute and refused to give Ponti his hand in reconciliation, and I, too, got a blast of abuse for my troubles. But he came round that same evening to apologize, and we shared a good bottle of burgundy. He is a widower like me, so there is no one to scold us if we come home late.”

  “Mario Ponti? Do you mean Ponti the manufacturer?” I asked.

  “Yes. Made a fortune on some kind of orange fizz and married a burlesque dancer, I believe. But he is not so bad. He can actually hit what he is aiming at—unlike certain other people.”

  The Commissioner and I looked at each other. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Father Abigore had turned up at Ponti’s? If it was Leblanc who had set his dog on the hearse to steal the corpse, he might have felt a certain schadenfreude by hiding it in the cellar of a man with whom he had had such a clash.

  “Can you describe Leblanc’s dog?” the Commissioner asked.

  “Huge, like I said. Almost the size of a wolfhound, but not a purebred. Gray and rough coated, with ears like a German shepherd or some kind of spitz.”

  The Commissioner nodded.

  “Thank you for your help, monsieur. I will make sure that your Bible and almanac are returned to you when the investigation is concluded.”

  When we once again sat in the gig we had hired for the day’s excursion, the Commissioner held back the horse—similarly hired—while I adjusted the traveling rug so that it covered my ruined skirt.

  “Are you tired, Madeleine?”

  “Not at all,” I lied. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Just that we drive by Les Merises and have a look at this Iago, and ask Antoine Leblanc a few polite questions if he happens to be home. Since we are practically just around the corner.”

  “An excellent plan,” I said, unaware of what this lighthearted comment would lead to.

  “Hello?”

  The Commissioner’s shout echoed from wall to wall. There was no reply. No dogs barked, no stable boy came out to see to the horse. All in all there was a sense of abandonment and disrepair about Les Merises. Weeds shot up unchecked between the yard’s flagstones, and one stable door hung open, rattling in the wind. Somewhere you could hear a solitary horse neigh, and our hired horse—not much bigger than a pony—raised its head and offered a single shrill whinny in response.

  “Stay with the carriage,” the Commissioner said. “I’ll take a look around.”

  “Do be careful,” I said and thought of Iago, the great devil of a dog that did not like horses, and might not care much for commissioners, either. But if it had been there, then surely we would have heard it bark?

  “Don’t worry, Madeleine. I shall bring this with me.” He swung his powerful black walking stick almost jauntily and headed up the main building’s staircase, where he employed it to rap resolutely on the door.

  As we had come to expect, no one appeared. The place seemed to be entirely abandoned.

  The Commissioner walked around the corner and disappeared. I sat in the gig, waiting. The pony was apparently happy to have the chance to stand still, because it did not move a muscle and did not even bother to answer when the other horse whinnied again. If only I could be so phlegmatic, I thought. I was not at all calm. I wished the stable door would stop rattling. I wished the Commissioner would return. I wished the unseen horse would stop whinnying in such a lonely manner.

  I do not know exactly how much time passed, but the shadows certainly lengthened. And finally I could not stand it any longer. I made sure that the carriage brake was on, looped the reins around the back of the seat, and climbed down. The pony stood with its head hanging, one hind leg tucked up beneath it, and barely flicked an ear as I walked away.

  “Commissioner?”

  I did not call too loudly, affected as I was by conflicting instincts: I wanted him to hear me—but not anyone else.

  The garden behind the house was just as neglected as the courtyard. Fallen leaves still covered the lawn in a thick blackish-brown carpet, now half rotted. The perennials had not been cut back—the yellow and brown stalks poked up sadly amid delicate green shoots. Behind me the house squatted, an inelegant
boxlike structure with dead and empty windows. The Commissioner was nowhere to be seen, but at the bottom of the garden, between some tall chestnut trees, I could see a stone wall and a garden gate, which stood ajar.

  “Commissioner?”

  I opened the gate all the way and followed the path into something that must once have been an orchard but was now so overgrown that it seemed more like a jungle. Tall yellow grasses, nettle stalks, and blackberry brambles sprawled under crumbling apple and pear trees, and an irregular growth of willow, poplar, and hornbeam shot up between the rows and veiled the symmetry that had once reigned here. Only the path itself revealed that someone still came here—the grass had been cut with a scythe and the blackberry brambles trimmed back to allow passage.

  Yet another stone wall and yet another gate. And on the other side of the wall the outline of something that looked like an old chapel, with a corbie-step gable, a small bell tower, and a rusty iron cross that caught the last rays of sun at the top of the tower’s pointed profile. Trimmed yew hedges stood like a dark wall against the real forest, which began right behind the chapel.

  The door to the chapel was open, but I hesitated to go in. There was something incredibly private about this place. It had been made for solitary worship, not for official demonstrations of piety.

  “Commissioner?”

  “Madeleine?”

  He was there. Some of the uneasiness I had attempted to repress turned into relief. I walked up the worn stone steps and into the small vaulted room.

  “It took so long,” I said. “I began to . . .”