tormented his constricted bronchi.
“A sabre wound,” he said softly. “A common sabre, not a Turkish one-which has a much more pronounced curvature. The blade was pushed through the sternum, through the pericardium, and reached the back of the heart.” The professor opened his eyes and withdrew his fingers. They trailed a gory mucoid residue.
“The same as in Spittelberg.” Rheinhardt's voice was flat.
“What?”
“The Spittelberg murders. The women… you said that their wounds were most probably inflicted with a sabre.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
Mathias seemed distracted-unwilling to make eye contact.
“Do you think it was the same weapon?”
“Poor Evzen,” said Mathias, looking up at the Czech's solemn, almost noble mask of repose. The pathologist's movements were now less fluid, and his limbs seemed to have become ossified. He froze in an awkward attitude, as if-by some strange fluke of nature-he had contracted rigor mortis from the corpse.
“Professor Mathias?” Rheinhardt ventured.
“How many more times?” snapped the old man. “Always trying to rush me!”
Mathias's expression slowly changed. The lines of his face created mosaics that shifted to suggest first compassion, then surprise, and finally curiosity.
The pathologist edged up the table and peered more closely at the dead man's face. His head swung over the corpse, and immediately traced a large figure of eight. There was something feral about his sudden agitation-like a forest animal sniffing out a buried winter hoard.
“Professor!” Rheinhardt insisted. “I would be most grateful if-”
“Look there,” Mathias interrupted, completely indifferent to Rheinhardt's rising impatience. “Some slight bruising around the neck.” Then, more quietly, to himself, “But he hasn't been strangled.”
In a louder voice he added, “There is also something wrong with the cervical region. The laryngeal prominence is somewhat distended.”
Rheinhardt did not possess a great deal of medical knowledge but he knew enough to try. “Goiter, perhaps?”
Mathias responded with a disdainful look and returned his attention to the corpse. “Pardon me, sir,” he excused himself, and proceeded to feel under the dead man's stubbly chin. He pressed the throat on both sides and suddenly withdrew his hands as if he had been burned. “Good heavens!”
Not wishing to invite yet another admonishment, Rheinhardt suppressed the urge to ask the professor what he had discovered.
Mathias removed a rubber stop from the cart and handed it to Rheinhardt. Then he pried open Vanek's mouth, an action that produced a loud, liquid “clop.” Holding the maxilla and mandible apart with both hands, Mathias said, “Inspector, could you please wedge the jaw open?”
The dead man's rotting teeth appeared as his lips retracted. Rheinhardt could see the pink roof of his mouth and a pendulous uvula. He did not want his fingers to make contact with the lifeless flesh.
“Come on, Inspector!” huffed Mathias.
As it was the professor's frequent habit to chastise Rheinhardt for being hasty, the Inspector's impulse to make an acerbic comment was almost overwhelming. Fortunately, good sense prevailed, and Rheinhardt obediently pushed the rubber stop between the Czech's teeth.
“Thank you,” said Mathias.
“My pleasure,” said Rheinhardt, producing a profoundly disingenuous smile.
The old man shuffled over to his cart and found some oddly shaped forceps. Then he returned directly to the head of the table and peered down Vanek's throat.
“So…,” he said, producing a puff of condensation. “Let us solve this mystery.”
Mathias inserted the forceps into Vanek's mouth and tutted a few times, seemingly frustrated by the complexity of the action he was trying to perform. After a few abortive attempts, his expression relaxed and he began to withdraw the instrument.
“Extraordinary,” said Mathias, raising the forceps up to the light.
Rheinhardt blinked. He could not have been more surprised. Not even if he had been standing in an exhibition tent on the Prater bearing witness to a particularly impressive piece of prestidigitation. For there, gripped between the closed bills of Professor Mathias's forceps, was a common padlock.
“Well, what do you make of that, Rheinhardt?”
The inspector was speechless.
“I dare say,” continued Mathias, “that the presence of this object might explain the phenomenon you described earlier. Perhaps it allowed the gases to pass more freely past the vocal cords.”
“What on earth does it signify?” Rheinhardt gasped, a note of panic shaking every syllable of his exclamation.
Mathias shook his head. “Of course, if the murderer were deranged enough to secrete one object…”
The pathologist raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips together, and produced a long interrogative “Mmm?”
“I'm sorry?” said Rheinhardt, recovering just enough firmness of purpose to simulate composure. “What are you suggesting?”
“Merely,” said Mathias, “that it would be prudent to examine our unfortunate friend more thoroughly. We should take a look in his stomach-and inspect the contents of his rectum, of course.”
Rheinhardt coughed. “If you don't mind, Herr Professor, I would prefer to take a cigar outside while you…”
“Complete the autopsy?”
“Indeed.”
“Do as you please-it's all the same to me. I'll call you if I find anything interesting.”
Rheinhardt walked across the stone flags, but before leaving, he stole a quick glance back into the morgue. There was Mathias, standing in his circle of icy light, preparing to embark upon a bizarre corporeal treasure hunt. Misty exhalations poured out of his mouth like dragon's breath. The pathologist had become quite animated, his movements quickened by an eagerness-a childlike enthusiasm and excitement-that made Rheinhardt feel distinctly uncomfortable.
In the corridor outside the mortuary, Rheinhardt rested his back against the damp wall and took out a Trabuco cheroot. He struck a match and allowed the end to burn.
Sabre wounds… a crooked cross… a padlock.
This is the work of the same man.
Karsten Krull is entirely innocent, and the maniac is still at large.
For the first time, Rheinhardt worried about the safety of his family.
29
THE ROOM WAS OPULENT: chandeliers, heavy drapes, gilt furniture, and a selection of Biedermeier oils. Gustav von Triebenbach was standing by a plinth, which supported a white marble bust of Richard Wagner. There were many guests-not all of them fully fledged members of the Richard Wagner Association but all committed to the cause. In the far corner of the room was a gleaming Steinway piano. Behind it sat Hermann Aschenbrandt and another young musician. They were playing a four-hands arrangement of Strauss's Morgenblatter.
Von Triebenbach sipped his champagne and surveyed the scene. He recognized several important dignitaries, including some close associates of the mayor and a minister belonging to the Christian Social party. Standing by the fire was a tall, distinguished-looking lady wearing a long black dress and a ruby necklace. This was Baroness Sophie von Rautenberg-Olbricht's patron. Von Triebenbach made a mental note that he should pay her a compliment by the end of the evening. Though in her fifties, she was still an attractive woman. To his knowledge, since the death of
