Bertlef, whom the inspector kept addressing, shrugged his shoulders.
“Let’s go on to other suspects. There’s that trumpeter from the capital. It was here that he became acquainted with the deceased, and we’ll never know to what point their relations went. In any case they were close enough for the deceased to ask him to pass himself off as the father of the fetus and to appear with her before the Abortion Committee. Why did she ask him rather than someone from around here? It’s not hard to guess. Any married man living in this little spa town would be afraid of trouble with his wife if word got around. Only someone from somewhere else could have done Ruzena that favor. What’s more, the rumor that she was expecting the child of a famous artist could only be flattering to the nurse and could not harm the trumpeter. We can therefore assume that Mister Klima heedlessly agreed to do her the favor. Is that a reason to murder the poor nurse? It’s highly improbable, as the doctor has explained to us, that Klima was really the child’s father. But examine even that possibility. Let’s assume that Klima was the father and that this was extremely disagreeable to him. Can you explain to me why he would kill the nurse when she had agreed to terminate the pregnancy and the operation had already been authorized? Now, Mister Bertlef, do you really want to say that Klima is the murderer?”
“You’re misunderstanding me,” said Bertlef calmly. “I do not wish to send anyone to the electric chair. I only wish to exonerate Ruzena. Because suicide is the greatest sin. Even a life of suffering has a mysterious value. Even a life on the threshold of death is a thing of splendor. Anyone who has not looked death in the face does not know this, but I know it, Inspector, and that is why I tell you I will do everything I can to prove that this young woman is innocent.”
“I’m trying to do that too,” said the inspector. “And actually there’s still a third suspect. Mister Bertlef, an American businessman. He’s admitted that the deceased spent the last night of her life with him. One might object that this is something the murderer probably wouldn’t voluntarily admit to us. But that objection doesn’t pass scrutiny. Everyone at the concert yesterday evening saw Mister Bertlef sitting next to Ruzena and leaving with her. Mister Bertlef knows very well that under such circumstances it’s better to admit something promptly rather than to be unmasked by others. Mister Bertlef claims that Nurse Ruzena had a very satisfying night. That shouldn’t surprise us! Mister Bertlef is not only a fascinating man but above all he’s an American businessman who has dollars and a passport with which you can travel all over the world. Ruzena is walled up in this place, looking in vain for a way out. She has a boyfriend who wants only to marry her, but he’s just a young local repairman. If she marries him her fate would be sealed forever, she will never get out. She has nobody else, so she doesn’t break up with him. But she avoids binding herself to him permanently because she doesn’t want to give up her hopes. And then suddenly an exotic man with refined manners appears, and he turns her head. She believes that he’ll marry her and that she’ll permanently leave behind this forsaken corner of the world. At first she knows how to behave like a discreet mistress, but then she becomes more and more of a nuisance. She makes it clear that she will not give him up, and she starts to blackmail him. But Bertlef is married and, if I’m not mistaken, he loves his wife, who is the mother of his one-year-old boy and is expected to arrive here from America tomorrow. Bertlef wants at all costs to avoid a scandal. He knows that Ruzena always carries a tube of tranquilizers, and he knows what the tablets look like. He has a lot of connections abroad, and he has a lot of money. For him it’s no problem to have a poison tablet made that looks the same as Ruzena’s medicine. In the course of that wonderful night, while his mistress was sleeping, he slipped the poison into the tube. I think, Mister Bertlef,” the inspector concluded with a solemnly raised voice, “that you are the only person with a motive to murder the nurse and also the only person with the means. I ask you to confess.”
Silence pervaded the room. The inspector looked Bertlef in the eye for a long while, and Bertlef returned the look with equal patience and silence. His face expressed neither amazement nor irritation. At last he said: “I am not surprised by your conclusion. Since you are incapable of finding the murderer, you have to find someone to assume reponsibility for the offense. It is one of the mysterious laws of life that the innocent must pay for the guilty. Please do arrest me.”
22
The countryside was suffused with soft twilight. Jakub halted in a village only a few kilometers from the border crossing. He wished to prolong the last moments he would be spending in his country. He got out of the car to take a little stroll down the village street.
It was not a pretty street. Lying around in front of the low-roofed houses were rolls of rusted wire, an old tractor wheel, pieces of scrap metal. It was a neglected, ugly village. Jakub told himself that the scattering of rusted wire was like a coarse word his native
