Liebermann sighed heavily. Life was already becoming far too complicated. He allowed the card to slip from his fingers.
35
DIRECTOR MAHLER'S LIEDER EINES fahrenden gesellen-The Song of a Wayfarer-was better known as a concert work for full orchestra. But the piano arrangement, stripped of distracting colors and effects, revealed a musical essence of extraordinary power and intensity.
Such is the greatness of “German” music, thought Liebermann. So poignant, so stirring, so effortlessly superior!
Rheinhardt was in excellent voice. The apex of every phrase seemed to weaken, yield, and sink beneath an excess of sentiment.
“O Augen, blau, warum habt ihr mich angeblickt?”
O blue eyes, why did you look at me?
“Nun hab ich ewig Leid und Gramen.”
Now pain and grief are with me forever.
The rejected wayfarer bids farewell to his distant sweetheart, and in the dark of night sets out across a desolate heath, his mind filled with the tormenting memory of falling linden blossoms…
Liebermann found that the words had produced in his mind an image, not of Clara (whose eyes were brown), not of Ida Kainz (whose eyes were green), but of Miss Lydgate. This ephemeral portrait, fleetingly sketched and vaporous, aroused in him a complex set of emotions: desire, shame, and a pang of something that came close to physical pain. Liebermann bowed his head and, without looking at the notation, allowed his long fingers to search out the final, inconsolable bars. These were feelings with which Liebermann was not ordinarily familiar; however, their occurrence was becoming increasingly commonplace.
When the music-making was over, the young doctor and his guest retired to the smoking room. They sat in their customary places and enjoyed a preliminary cigar with some pale Hennessy cognac. Liebermann swirled the liquid in his glass and savored the subtle, penetrating aroma. Then, leaning to one side, he made a languid gesture in the direction of Rheinhardt's case.
“Photographs?”
“Yes,” replied the inspector. “The Ruprechtskirche murder.”
“I read the report in the Neue Freie Presse.”
“Not very informative, I'm afraid,” said Rheinhardt, lifting the case onto his knees. He released the hasps and removed a bundle of photographs. “The victim's name was Evzen Vanek. He'd been in Vienna only a few months but he managed to find himself a stall in the meat market where he sold chickens.”
Rheinhardt handed the photographs over to his friend. The first showed Vanek's body sprawled out on a cobbled street-a long shot with the Ruprechtskirche in the background, its steeple covered in snow.
“He was something of a loner,” Rheinhardt continued, “but he was known to a few of his countrymen at the Budweiser beer parlor. I met with one of them last week-a chap called Zahradnik. He wasn't able to tell me much. Well… apart from one thing.”
“Which was?”
“Vanek had been harassed by someone who didn't like Czechs.”
“What kind of harassment?”
“Taunts, jibes. He was accused of pricing his birds too high. And then told to go back to his own country.”
“Not so remarkable.”
“Indeed. Although, I must confess that I had no idea that anti-Czech feeling was so strong in some quarters.”
“Was Vanek politically active?”
Rheinhardt shook his head. “I doubt it. He had to streetcar out to a supplier in Ottakring to collect his chickens every day. He wouldn't have had much time for politics.”
Liebermann examined the next image: a close-up of Vanek's chest wound. Rheinhardt returned to his exposition. “He was stabbed through the heart. Professor Mathias said that the fatal blow was delivered by someone using a sabre.” The young doctor's head jerked up, light flashing off his spectacles. “Yes,” continued Rheinhardt, reading his friend's mind. “Of the same type used to kill Madam Borek-and the two frauleins, Draczynski and Glomb. Now, take a look at the final photograph.”
Liebermann did as he was instructed. “A padlock?”
“Professor Mathias noticed some abnormalities: some bruising, a swollen Adam's apple. His attention was drawn to Vanek's throat.”
“And he found this?”
“Yes. It had been pushed down Vanek's esophagus and had to be pulled out with forceps.”
“That wasn't mentioned in the Neue Freie Presse article.”
“No, the censor finds such details… distasteful. The lock is manufactured by a company called Sicherheit. They have a large factory in Landstrasse. Unfortunately, they supply half the empire- so we have no idea where this particular lock was purchased.”
Liebermann slumped down in his chair, his chin finding support on his clenched fist. “Was anything else concealed in the body? The key, perhaps?”
“No.”
“Mathias searched?”
“Yes.” Rheinhardt's shoulders shivered as a memory of the mortuary cold returned to tickle his upper vertebrae.
“The concealment of a closed padlock in the throat,” said Liebermann, “suggests that the perpetrator wanted to emphasize that the victim had been silenced. Now, if Herr Vanek had been a celebrated orator, then such a gesture would make sense. But clearly he was nothing of the sort.”
The young doctor stared into the flames of the fire. His right eyebrow lifted, suggesting that his train of thought had continued beyond the point where he had stopped speaking.
“I have something else to show you,” said Rheinhardt. “Take a look at this.” Liebermann turned. It was a pamphlet, of a type usually produced by small political presses. The paper was coarse and the print left dark smudges on Liebermann's fingers.
Gothic lettering proclaimed: On the secret of the Runes-a preliminary communication by Guido von List.
Beneath this announcement were two concentric circles. The inner ring enclosed a crooked cross, and the gap between the inner and outer rings was filled with primitive angular characters. They looked as if they had been scratched into the bark of a tree with a fork.
“The swastika,” said Liebermann.
“I beg your pardon?”
“That's what it's called-the crooked cross. It's an Indo-European symbol representing goodness and health. Professor Freud looked it up for me in a volume of Sanskrit.” Liebermann waved the pamphlet. “Where did you get this?”
“It was left at a table in a beer cellar. Haussmann found it.”
“Where?”
“Mariahilf-it's near where he lives.”
Liebermann flicked a few pages and began reading: “The runes were more than letters are today, more even than mere syllables or word signs-that is, they were holy signs or magical characters. They were, in a certain way of thinking, something similar to the spirit sigils of later times, which played a conspicuous role in the notorious hellish conjuration of Dr. Johann Faust…” Liebermann's upper lip curled. “It's nonsense, Oskar. Gibberish.”
“Not quite. It purports to be a treatise on the origins of the German language. The author, Guido List-”
“Von List,” Liebermann said, correcting Rheinhardt and tapping the author's poorly defined ink-splotched name.
