Franz sat back and scratched his chin. What was he trying to achieve with these questions? What, in fact, difference did it make how these young people had taken their seats that night? These half dozen people, these…
No, he was wrong. Seven, not six. Why had he forgotten the seventh already?
“Because you didn’t mention him,” he said aloud.
“Who didn’t I mention?” Hannah asked, startled.
“The seventh fellow. What was his name? Pinksy or something like that?”
“Oh,” Hannah said. “Prinsky. Yes, I’d forgotten. He may have gone in with the others, he may have hung back or gone to the gentleman’s lounge or done any number of things, I didn’t notice.”
“Prinsky,” Beide said to Franz, “was chosen as Henker’s volunteer at that night’s performance.”
“Yes,” Franz said. “Tell me about that.”
“There’s nothing much to tell,” Hannah said. “When the time came for The Hanging Artist to request a volunteer to come to the stage and inspect the… rope… and his person, we all raised our hands; that is, all of us except myself and Hermann, and…”
“Why didn’t you raise your hands?” asked Beide. Franz smiled at him.
“Oh, Inspector, don’t embarrass the girl,” he said. “It’s obvious.”
“It is?”
“Their hands were otherwise occupied.”
“Herr Kafka!” Hannah said.
“I mean you were holding hands, ma’am,” Kafka said as she turned the color of a beet. “Am I right?”
“You don’t have to answer that,” Beide said. “Herr Kafka isn’t trying to rattle you, he knows that would be disrespectful, not to say counterproductive. Now, then. How did The Hanging Artist come to choose Herr Prinsky?”
“He just did,” Hannah said.
“How many in the audience had raised their hands?” Franz asked.
“Most.”
“And it was a full house that night?”
“Oh, yes. Packed. Awful hot, too.”
“And where were your seats?”
“Our seats?”
“Were they close to the stage?”
“Oh, no, we were about three-quarters back. It was the only section we could find six together.”
“Seven,” Franz said. “See? You’ve forgotten Herr Prinsky again.”
“I just don’t have a habit of thinking that much about him.”
“You don’t like him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. Every time you refer to him, you call him ‘Prinsky.’ Not ‘Robert,’ nor even ‘Herr Prinsky,’ which would at least be polite, if coldly formal.”
“I never said I disliked him.”
“But there’s something about him that causes you to dismiss him,” Franz said. “And I think the others do, too. ‘Prinsky’—maybe you picked up that way of referring to him from the other men?”
Hannah thought about that. “Perhaps you’re right, sir,” she said.
“Did you find it odd that Henker picked Prinsky, considering he was sitting so far back?” Beide asked.
“I don’t think she was considering anything other than Herr Herbort,” Franz said. “But you paid attention to Prinsky when he went on stage?”
“Well, yes, of course; there he was, fiddling around with the rope and looking like a baboon.”
“How did he handle the rope?” Beide asked.
“He took it from The Hanging Artist,” Hannah said slowly, intent on recollection, “and held it with both hands, turned it this way and that… and then The Hanging Artist coiled the rope and put it on the chair… and he turned back and asked Prinsky to search him. Oh—he took off his coat before he asked.”
“And Herr Prinsky searched him.”
“I suppose,” she said. “He fumbled a bit, but I guess he got a bit more comfortable and made a thorough job of it. The record was playing, you see, and that made things a bit more cheery. And The Hanging Artist laughed once or twice, said Prinsky was tickling him. It was all very light and silly, you see. We didn’t see what all the fuss was about—I mean about The Hanging Artist.”
“And then?”
“He asked Prinsky if he was satisfied. Prinsky said yes. And he returned to his seat.”
“And then?”
Hannah’s expression darkened.
“Have you seen the act, sir?” she asked Beide.
Beide nodded sympathetically.
Hannah concluded her account of the evening by reporting that after the show they all went their several ways, everyone much quieter and more sober than when they had gone in. As for her, she had walked home with Hermann Herbort, although both of them were silent for much of the time.
“We didn’t really know what to make of what we’d seen, sir,” she said.
She affirmed that when she and Herr Herbort had arrived at the door, the scene was just as Franz had described. It was the last she saw of Hermann.
She began to cry.
“It was an awful night in every way, wasn’t it?” she asked, as Beide gave her his handkerchief. “I’ll never forget it as long as I live.” She blew her nose and said, “Although God knows I’ll keep trying.”
“THAT WAS QUITE an original line of… questioning,” Beide said to Franz as they rode away from the shop.
“Are you being critical?” asked Franz.
“No,” Beide said as carefully as possible.
“I told you I’m no detective,” Franz said. “But you insisted—begged—I get involved in this.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re having second thoughts. I don’t blame you.”
“About your involvement? Not at all. If I’m having second thoughts about anything, it’s about this Prinsky person. You seemed to keep circling back to him.”
“Only because she kept circling away from him.”
“Do you suspect him? The man has an airtight alibi for the time of Herbort’s death.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Beide attempted to not bristle at the suggestion. “A tavern full of people can swear to it,” he said.
“All strangers to him? I find it hard to believe that so many people, at that time of night, and in varied stages of inebriation, could recall a person who, from the impression I’ve been getting, is one of the most overlooked and unmemorable people on this planet, let alone in Vienna.”
“Herr Prinsky became quite drunk and spent the bulk of his evening singing bawdy songs at the top of his lungs.”
“I see.”
“But you still think he somehow managed to kill Herbort.”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“Yes, you do.”
Franz braced himself as the car lurched around a corner.
“I’m thinking of Prinsky—of what it must be like to be him,” Franz said. “And I’m hesitant to admit that I don’t find it too much of a stretch to know what it must be like.”
“A nothing, a nobody… as you described yourself yesterday, as I recall.”
“Yes,” Franz said, turning his head and gazing out the window. “Something like that.”
“But why would Prinsky want to kill Herbort?”
“Why would such an unremarkable, unprepossessing person, who is clearly viewed as an annoyance by the people he thinks are his friends, who is probably always the odd man out on the few social occasions where he finds himself in the company of women and seen in comparison with a Hermann Herbort, who is—was—tall, handsome, aloof, and the object of all feminine attention? Why would he kill someone like that? The question, Inspector,” Franz said, “is why wouldn’t he kill someone like that?”
“We’ll talk to him again, if you like.”
“I think we should.”
Beide, as brightly as possible, asked, “Shall we go see a corpse?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A CONVERSATION OVER A CORPSE
FRANZ’S FIRST TWO thoughts w
ere that Inge Hersch did not look peaceful and that he was glad that he had not eaten breakfast.
Franz had been met by two medical attendants in the morgue, the more senior attendant much younger than the junior, which ought to have surprised Franz, but life was fresh out of surprises for him. The senior—and younger—attendant noticed Franz’s greenish complexion and drew the sheet over the corpse.
“Perhaps you’d like some water, Inspector Kafka,” he said. “Enzel, get the inspector some water.”
“I’m fine,” Franz said, looking around. There were three more sheeted figures in the morgue. He braced himself on the slab and took a deep breath. “Coming in from the heat like that,” Franz said, “I suppose I haven’t adjusted as well as I ought.”
Enzel had gone for the water anyway, and returned now with a glass for Franz.
“Inspector,” he said, glancing at his superior.
“You don’t listen,” the young man said. “The inspector said he didn’t want any. Or maybe it’s that you don’t hear. Eh?”
Enzel didn’t answer. The younger man shook his head and shrugged to Franz. “These new recruits, they’re all alike. What can you do?”
Beide had left Franz at the entrance, citing an urgent telephone call, which Franz had suspected was a lie. Beide had practically pushed him through the door, saying, “I’ve already seen her, and I want you to do your thing without me breathing over your shoulder.”
“My thing?” Franz had asked.
“Go,” Beide had said.
As for the two attendants, they had accepted Kafka as the insurance investigator he said he was, and had shown him the cold remains of Immerplatz Inge without batting an eye.
Franz collected himself, and thought of the best questions to ask.
“You put the time of death as just after midnight?” he asked the young man.
The young man consulted his wristwatch. “It’s my opinion that, as of this moment, this woman has been dead for not more than twelve hours and not less than ten, which means the time of death what just before midnight or just after midnight.”
“But not at midnight,” Franz said.
The young man gave Franz a dry look, but managed to say, “It could be exactly at midnight, yes, of course. But we’ll never know, for certain. That’s how it is. Unless the murderer tells us.”
“Then she was definitely murdered?”
The young man motioned to Enzel and the old man drew back the sheet again.
“She sure as hell didn’t do that to herself,” the young man said, referring to the twisted, bruised neck.
“I beg your pardon, Dr. Wolberg,” Enzel said, “but you said yourself earlier that she could do that to herself.”
Wolberg gave his assistant a withering look.
“Did I say those exact words, Enzel?” he asked. “Or did I speculate?”
Enzel looked down. “You speculated, sir,” he said.
Wolberg turned to Franz. “You must understand,” he said, “they bring these bodies in here, I take a look, I say ‘Oh, suicide!’ because of the marks, you know, and then they tell me they didn’t commit suicide, and I say it’s not possible, and they say ‘Oh, really?’ and I say if it’s not suicide then someone made it look like suicide, and then everybody gets very officious and starts harrumphing and I’m told to keep my mouth shut and told to do an autopsy anyway.”
“Autopsy?” Franz asked. He looked down at the Y-shaped stitching across the corpse’s chest. He braced himself on the slab again.
“I’m sure you’ve requested thousands yourself,” Wolberg said, “in your line of work, that is. Even when the corpse in question hasn’t been hanged… or chewed, as it turns out.”
Franz remembered the cats and blanched. “Yes, of course, so many,” he said, piling on another lie to the many he’d told that day. “May I ask what, if anything, you found?”
“You mean like stomach contents?” Wolberg asked.
“Only,” Franz said, closing his eyes, “if there was anything unusual.”
“Oh, there’s something unusual all right,” Wolberg said. “Perhaps not particularly unusual for a woman in her—ahem—profession, that is, but… Well, she was riddled with syphilis.”
“Syphilis?”
“You know what syphilis is, right?”
“Yes, but…”
Wolberg looked down at the remains of Inge Hersch as if appraising a ruined beefsteak dinner. “How old would you say this woman was, Inspector? Even if you already know, take a glance and give me your first impression.”
Franz looked. Gray and washed, denuded of paint and powder, he guessed fifty-five.
“Thirty-one,” Wolberg said. “And it is my opinion that she wouldn’t have lasted the rest of the year, not in her condition. Wouldn’t you agree, Enzel?”
“I, er…”
“I forgot, you don’t have an opinion yet,” Wolberg said, winking at Franz.
“And she knew of her condition?” Franz asked.
“I don’t see how it could have escaped her notice. Not with that face.”
Inge Hersch’s face looked hammered, sunken. There was practically nothing left of her nose.
“And am I to understand that this woman, um… earned her living by…”
“Entertaining gentleman?” Wolberg asked, grinning.
“That’s a much more delicate way of putting it, yes.”
“Give him the nose,” Wolberg said to Enzel, who nodded and went to a side table, returning with a triangular hunk of white material which he handed to Franz.
“Keep it as a souvenir,” Wolberg said.
“What is this?” Franz asked.
“What’s it look like?”
“A nose.”
“You’d make a fine anatomist,” Wolberg said, chuckling, and allowing his elder assistant what must have been a rare communal laugh. “It is indeed a nose. Carved ivory. A beautiful job, too, I might add. You see,” he said, drawing Franz’s attention to Inge’s sunken face, “tertiary syphilis causes superficial and deep ulcerations, along with destruction of the bony framework of the nose and shrinking of the fibroid tissues. Sufferers have been using false noses for centuries. If she kept her lights low and her cosmetics thick and balanced, she could still receive her illicit lovers without much fear of detection. Although there’d be quite an uproar if she ever sneezed.”
Wolberg and Enzel laughed heartily at that. Franz didn’t much care for the men’s flippancy.
He returned the false nose to Enzel. “Then she had every reason to commit suicide.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you say that she couldn’t have done that to herself,” Franz said, gesturing at the dead woman’s twisted neck.
“You insurance people,” Wolberg said, “are all alike. You always want it to be suicide. Never want to pay up, do you? Listen, I stand by what I said. She couldn’t have done that to herself and then disposed of the rope.”
“How many of these ropeless suicides…”
“…murders…”
“…have come through your morgue, sir?”
Wolberg looked at Enzel and raised an eyebrow. Enzel was slow to get the hint, then said, “Oh,” and walked over to a corner desk, where he flipped through pages of a thick ledger for a few moments. “Eleven,” he said eventually.
“Eleven,” Wolberg answered.
Something occurred to Franz, and for a full second he thought that he was about to be brilliant.
“Tell me,” he said, “about the murderer.”
“The murderer?”
“In your opinion, could the murderer have come up behind her, slipped the rope or noose around her neck, and choked her from behind?”
Wolberg appeared stupefied.
“I’ve no idea,” he said.
“No,” Enzel said, approaching the slab. “This woman was clearly hanged.” He pointed an arthritic finger at the impressions on the neck. “The rope always leaves a trace of its path of execution. Notice how the marks
are here, tight across her throat, up under the chin and behind the ears. Asphyxiation from behind, well, you get the entire neck, like a collar, it’s generally uniform. But here—and with the others—they were hanged from above. Yanked off their feet, by the looks of it.”
Wolberg blinked at Enzel. “And how,” he asked, “do you know this, Enzel?”
“I used to work at the prison,” Enzel said. “I had to cut them down after they swung.”
Wolberg smiled at Franz. “Well,” he said, “that certainly kills the conversation, doesn’t it?”
“Thirty-one,” Franz said thoughtfully, gazing at Inge Hersch. “I, myself, am only forty.”
“Beg pardon?”
“I used to think that was old,” Franz continued, “that it was ten years more than I should have been allowed. May I?” He took the sheet and drew it over the corpse. “Had things gone as I expected them to go, I’d be staring down at myself, and you’d be pulling the sheet over me.”
“Inspector?” Enzel asked.
Franz looked at them. “Musings of a Lazarus,” he said. “I apologize. You see hundreds of dead bodies, you never get used to it.” And he would strive to never see one ever again, let alone hundreds.
“Oh, you get used to it,” Wolberg said. “Somewhere around the sixth or seventh, I’d say. At any rate—is there anything else we can do for you, Inspector?”
“I can’t think of anything. You’ve been very helpful.”
“Did she carry a great deal of insurance, Inspector?” Enzel asked.
“How’s that?”
“On her life.”
Franz glanced for the last time at the impersonal sheet drawn over the wasted figure. “Let me put it to you this way,” he said. “No matter how much, it’s never enough, is it?”
His words echoed in the cold chamber.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AN IMPROVISED INTERVIEW
FRANZ KAFKA STOOD in front of the morgue, thankful for the heat, and cursing Inspector Beide. The inspector was nowhere to be found—in either form—nor the sleek black automobile.
He wished he was more familiar with Vienna, but he also wished he knew what he was supposed to do next. He knew what was expected of him—to put an end to the murders, or at least lead the authorities to the culprit so they could.
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