Fatal Lies

The door opened and his assistant stepped over the threshold. “Sir?”

“We shall be needing the services of a photographer again.”

8

THEY HAD PERFORMED SOME POPULAR songs by Carl Loewe— Edward, Prinz Eugen, Archibald Douglas—and were tackling his setting of Goethe's Erlkonig. It was a competent piece of lieder writing, although somewhat melodramatic. Even so, the two friends surrendered their musical sensitivities to the spirit of the work, and Liebermann was pleasantly surprised. Rheinhardt's baritone was particularly expressive, finding qualities in Loewe's arrangement that had previously escaped the young doctor's notice. When the final chords descended over a mysterious, rumbling bass, Liebermann was thrilled by the effect.

“Bravo, Oskar,” said Liebermann, clapping his hands together. “Exceptional. I haven't heard a better performance on the concert platform.”

Rheinhardt considered feigning modesty, but decided that this would be ungracious.

“Yes, it was rather good. The Heimlich passage in particular.”

“Indeed—I was utterly convinced. Chilling. Chilling!”

Rheinhardt rifled through the music books and found a volume of Schubert: Der Doppelganger?

“Yes, why not?”

Rheinhardt placed the book on the music stand—but it was not open at the right page. Instead of Der Doppelganger, the song title was—once again— Erlkonig.

Liebermann smiled at his friend and pointed out the error.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” said Rheinhardt. But the inspector did not correct his mistake. Instead, he looked mischievously at his companion and said, “What do you think?”

Schubert's setting of Goethe's Erlkonig had a notoriously taxing part for the pianist: relentless octaves and chords played by the right hand and executed at breakneck speed.

Liebermann flexed his fingers.

“My wrist feels a little tired, but I think I can get through it.”

“Excellent.”

Liebermann launched into the torturous triplets of the introduction. Immediately the atmosphere in the room altered, a musical spell was cast, and they were both transported.

Storm clouds and the descent of darkness.

Merciless cold.

A galloping horse—its frantic hooves throwing up clods of turf.

“Wer reitet so spat durch Nacht und Wind?”

Who rides so late through night and wind?

A father and his son.

The boy buries his face in his father's cloak. When the father asks him what is wrong, the child replies that he has seen the elf king.

Liebermann attacked the keys of the Bosendorfer, manipulating the pedals to create an expansive—almost orchestral—sound.

The father tells the boy that he is seeing mist, but the elf king is calling— and the boy clutches even more tightly at his father's cloak.

“Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind.”

Be calm, keep calm, my child.

Rheinhardt's voice shook with authentic terror. Liebermann glanced up to see his friend gazing into the distance—his eyes searching for a spectral crown and train. Inhabiting the skin of the doomed child, Rheinhardt cried out: “The elf king has hurt me!”

Liebermann imagined an icy, clenched fist squeezing the child's heart. He struck a pianissimo chord—and, holding it, waited for the last, devastating line of the song to be delivered.

But it did not come.

Rheinhardt was still gazing into the distance, now seemingly insensible of his actual surroundings.

Liebermann waited patiently until the inspector started again and finally produced the delayed recitativo.

“In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.”

In his arms the child was dead…

The words were half-spoken, loosely timed, and heavy with despair. The sound that Rheinhardt produced was hollow—empty and croaking. Thus released, Liebermann played the forceful two-chord cadence that brought Schubert's Erlkonig to a precipitate end. Its abruptness left a bleak silence—as if the music had been snatched away like the boy's life in Goethe's poem.

“I do apologize,” said Rheinhardt. “I think my last entry was a little late.”

“A little,” said Liebermann, “but your performance was…” He paused to select an appropriate superlative. “Operatic!”

As was their custom, the two men retired to the smoking room for brandy and cigars. After enjoying a few moments of quiet contemplation, Liebermann said: “This evening, you will—of course—be wishing to present me with the facts relating to the mysterious death of a young boy.”

Rheinhardt coughed into his drink. He had never quite got used to his friend's habit of telling him what he was about to say.

“Your performance of Loewe's Erlkonig,” Liebermann continued, “was curiously committed, given that it is not great music. This suggested to me the presence of a memory—or memories—finding a sympathetic correspondence in Goethe's poetry. My suspicions were confirmed when you placed Schubert's Erlkonig on the music stand instead of Der Doppelganger. As Professor Freud has explained, such bungled actions often have a deeper significance.

“Once again, your performance was compelling; however, by the time you had reached the final bars, the contents of your unconscious—stirred by Schubert's genius—were rising from the depths.… You became distracted, and subsequently missed your entry. Indeed, you were so preoccupied that your silence lasted for two whole measures!”

“Two?” said Rheinhardt, skeptically.

“At least!” Liebermann insisted. “The Erlkonig describes the unnatural death of a child. One does not have to be a very great psychologist to connect the subject of Goethe's ballad with events that might have transpired in the real world. I simply supposed that your premature departure from the ball on Friday evening was for the purpose of investigating a child's death—and most likely under mysterious circumstances.”

Rheinhardt produced a smoke ring, through which he observed the flames of the fire.

“Well, Herr Doctor—you are absolutely correct. On Friday evening I did investigate the death of a child. A fifteen-year-old boarder at Saint Florian's military school.”

“Saint Florian's? Where's that?”

“Up in the woods.”

“Ah,” said Liebermann, showing evident signs of satisfaction. “That makes perfect sense.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Erlkonig. The father and son ride through a wood.”

Rheinhardt stubbed out his cigar.

“Please, do continue,” Liebermann added.

“Saint Florian's is situated close to the small village of Aufkirchen—built on the site of a religious foundation of the same name. Some of the original building still survives behind the new Gothic facade—old cloisters, a chapel,