Mortal Mischief

'Yes, of course, but—'

'You were in a terrible rush. I made an educated guess – nothing more psychological than that, I'm afraid.'

Rheinhardt leaned towards his friend.

'Incidentally, thank you again for allowing me to requisition your cab. Did you get very wet?'

'Yes. Very.'

'Oh, I am sorry . . .'

Rheinhardt looked inordinately pained – his sagging, melancholy eyes expressed considerable anguish and pity.

'It really wasn't that bad, Oskar,' said Liebermann, embarrassed by his friend's contrition.

Rheinhardt smiled weakly and continued to puzzle over Liebermann's deductions: 'Max, you said that I had to break a door down – to get into the apartment. Did you guess that, too?'

'No. You've been rubbing your right shoulder in a distracted fashion for most of the evening. You always do that after you've broken a door down. I expect it's quite bruised. Might I recommend that you use your foot next time?'

Rheinhardt paused for a few moments before allowing himself to laugh. 'Remarkable. That really was very perceptive, Max.'

Liebermann leaned back in his chair and drew on his cigar. 'But,' he added, 'what I haven't been able to work out is why you need my help? There must be something different – or special – about this case?'

Rheinhardt's expression darkened.

'Yes. There is.'

Liebermann turned to face his friend.

'Go on . . .'

'The victim,' said Rheinhardt, 'was a spiritualist, a medium called Charlotte Lowenstein. We discovered her body on Thursday afternoon in an apartment in Leopoldstadt, overlooking the market square.'

Liebermann assumed his listening position, his right hand pressed to his cheek, index finger flat against his temple.

'Apparently,' Rheinhardt continued, 'she had been shot through the heart. However, the room in which we found her body had been locked from the inside and there was no murder weapon. There was also no means of escape.'

'You're quite sure?'

'In the annals of detection, there have been a number of cases of this kind – a body found in a locked room. Usually, the effect is achieved through concealment. The murderer waits in a secret compartment, and then leaves when the door is finally opened. The walls of Fraulein Lowenstein's apartment were completely solid and the floor was sound.' Rheinhardt exhaled a billowy cloud of cigar smoke before continuing. 'Moreover, when Professor Mathias conducted a post mortem examination, he was unable to find a bullet. There was no secondary wound – showing where the bullet might have exited from her body – nor any evidence to suggest that a bullet had been removed.'

Rheinhardt paused to gauge Liebermann's reaction, and recognised in the narrowing of the young doctor's eyes the suspicion he had expected. Liebermann's index finger tapped against his temple.

'It's a trick – isn't it? An illusion.'

'I suppose it must be.'

'Why suppose? How fascinating, that someone should go to so much trouble . . . I mean, what sort of a person would—'

'There's more, Max,' Rheinhardt cut in. 'We found this by the body.'

Reaching into his pocket, Rheinhardt produced Fraulein Lowenstein's note and handed it to Liebermann.

'God forgive me,' Liebermann began reading, 'for what I have done. There is such a thing as forbidden knowledge. He will take me to hell – and there is no hope of redemption.' His voice was steady and without inflection.

'Well,' said Rheinhardt. 'What do you make of that?'

Liebermann inspected the note closely before answering.

'Clearly, this is the rather pleasing hand of a woman. I've never seen a man's handwriting in which dots are executed as small circles.' Liebermann then turned the note over and looked at the reverse side. 'She was extremely tense when this was written. The nib of the pen was pressed hard into the paper. She paused when she had completed the final word. I know this because the paper has absorbed more ink here.' He pointed to a specific area. 'Then, I imagine, she got up in a hurry, producing the arc that runs off the page . . .' Liebermann's eyes glinted in the firelight. 'But what I'd really like to know,' he continued 'is the identity of the third person.'

Rheinhardt almost choked on his brandy.

'Third person? What do you mean, third person?'

Liebermann gave a sly smile.

'When this note was written there were three people in the room. Fraulein Lowenstein, her murderer, and a third person who – we must assume – accompanied her on her journey to hell.'

Rheinhardt shook his head.

'That's preposterous, Max! How can you possibly know such a thing just by looking at that note?'

Liebermann rose from his chair, and after a swift examination of his bookcase returned with a volume that he held out for Rheinhardt to inspect.

'The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,' read Rheinhardt. 'By Doctor Sigmund Freud.'

'Yes,' said Liebermann, sitting down again. 'I can't recommend it strongly enough. As you know, Freud suggests that mistakes such as slips of the tongue can be very revealing. But so can inadvertent actions, such as slips of the pen while writing. Now, take a look at Fraulein Lowenstein's note.' He handed it back to Rheinhardt. 'Do you see anything interesting?'

'You are, of course, referring to this crossing-out before the word me.'

'Exactly. Look at it closely – what word do you think she started to write before she crossed it out? Hold the note up in front of the fire – the ink becomes more transparent.'

Rheinhardt did as he was instructed.

'It's difficult to say . . . but I think – I think she started to write the word us.'

Liebermann smiled.

'Exactly. She had started to write He will take us to hell when she meant to write He will take me to hell. Now, why should she make a mistake like that?'

Rheinhardt looked somewhat disappointed.

'You know, Max, sometimes, a mistake is just a mistake.'

Liebermann executed a silent scale on the arm of his chair and began to chuckle.

'Yes, you're probably right, Oskar. Like many who enjoy Freud's work, I am inclined to spoil things by going just a little too far.'

12

AS NATALIE HECK passed the brightly coloured marquees of the Volksprater, she found herself stopping, yet again, to look up at the Riesenrad. It was a miracle of engineering. The circumference of the wheel was an approximate circle, achieved by the continuous linkage of bolted iron girders, while the space inside the circle was filled with a reinforcing webbing of immense metal cables. Natalie imagined a Titan's hand, strumming them like the strings of a giant harp. The most eye-catching feature of the Riesenrad, however, was its fleet of red gondolas, each the size of a tram and each carrying a fragile human cargo high above the city.

Natalie's friend Lena had actually ridden on the Riesenrad. She had been taken by her father four years earlier in 1898. Natalie knew the exact date because the wheel had been erected to commemorate Emperor Franz Josef's golden jubilee and Lena had been among the first to step into one of its gondolas. Lena's description of the ride had frightened Natalie. The juddering ascent, the gasps of the passengers, the groaning and creaking of the stressed