Chapter Twenty-One
The prospect of Helena’s return to Munich and her presence throughout the coming weekend brought a smile to my face which was in place when I fell asleep that night, and still in place when I awoke next morning. In fact, it lasted all the way to the Constabulary. So evident was my buoyant mood that several of my junior officers, knowing my reputation for early morning irascibility, dared to wish me a good day, a risk they would never have taken most days.
And then Detective Franz Brunner showed up.
The look on Brunner’s face — not unlike the look of a hound that had lost the scent of the prey — made words unnecessary. In a flash, my good mood was over.
“Don’t tell me, Brunner. Your expression says it all.”
“I swear to God, Preiss,” Brunner said. “There isn’t a nook, there isn’t a cranny — ”
“Yes yes, Brunner, spare me the clichés. Fräulein Vanderhoute remains at large, yes? What more is there to say?”
“At large, yes,” Brunner said, “but there is more to say. I visited her last-known address … the one last-known to me, at least … in a rooming house not far, naturally, from the opera house. Fortunately, the landlady was forthcoming, by which I mean that she was a copious container of gossip. It seems Vanderhoute suffered no shortage of male attendants, the chief being one Thilo Rotfogel, who was a regular caller. Of course, the landlady, being as she put it a God-fearing Christian, made it clear that the pair could not carry on their affair on her premises. Presumably they did so at Rotfogel’s premises, which also happens to be in the vicinity of the opera house. How convenient, eh!”
“You looked up this fellow Rotfogel, then?”
“Yes. Thilo Rotfogel is a French horn player, Preiss. As a matter of fact, until recently he played French horn in the opera house orchestra.”
“Until recently, you say?”
“According to him, there was an incident which resulted in his dismissal. It occurred during a rehearsal when the conductor — Richard Wagner, who else? — became enraged over Rotfogel’s playing of a particularly crucial passage, so enraged in fact, that Wagner flung his baton clear across the heads of the other players and straight at poor Rotfogel. Luckily the missile struck Rotfogel’s instrument. It was then that Rotfogel made his second mistake. He rose and protested that he had played the passage exactly as Wagner had written it. That protest resulted in Rotfogel’s immediate expulsion. Excommunication is more like it, Preiss, because he claims Wagner shouted at him as he left the orchestra pit ‘Rotfogel, you will never play in this city again!’ Needless to say, Thilo Rotfogel is a very bitter man these days. In this respect, he and Vanderhoute are soulmates, you might say. Tell me something, Preiss: You seem to have a fair knowledge of music. Is there some peculiar quality about French horn players that makes them vulnerable to the sort of treatment Wagner meted out?”
Impatient to get on, I replied, “Look, Brunner, we don’t have time for a lengthy discourse on the subject. I will tell you this: of all the instruments in an orchestra, the French horn is the one untamed animal. Back in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds it was simply a coiled pipe with a mouthpiece at one end used as a hunting horn. These days it has innards that resemble human intestines, plus valves which supposedly produce notes more accurately. But it’s still a treacherous thing, treacherous for the hornist, treacherous for the listener. So what occurred with this fellow Thilo Rotfogel is the rule, not the exception. Now then, can he lead us to this Vanderhoute woman, or not?”
“Well, that depends, Preiss,” Brunner answered.
“Depends on what?”
“Let me explain,” Brunner said. “Of course, he was curious to learn why I’m seeking Vanderhoute’s whereabouts. I couldn’t come right out and inform him that she is a suspect in one or more murder cases, could I? I mean, tell him that and — who knows? — he might become as sealed as an oyster. So I took an approach that I assumed would appeal to him. I told him that we — the police, that is — are building a case against Wagner in connection with his alleged abuses of a number of women who have worked under him, including, of course, Cornelia Vanderhoute.”
“Good thinking, Brunner. That loosened Rotfogel’s lips?”
“Not quite. He knows where she can be located, but there’s a price for this information which he insists we must pay.”
“You mean he’s looking for a bribe? That’s totally out of the question, Brunner! I’m surprised you would even entertain such an idea!”
I’m afraid my colleague saw through me as though I were made of transparent glass. Smirking, he said, “This is hardly the time, and you, Preiss, are hardly the person, to become sanctimonious. Call it a bribe. Call it anything you want. The plain fact is, Thilo Rotfogel is prepared to co-operate, but first we must pay the piper.”
“Pay the French hornist is more like it,” I said, continuing to feign my disgust. “Very well, Brunner, what does the man want?”
“He wants us to see to it that he is reinstated as a member of the opera orchestra.”
“He wants what? Is Rotfogel mad? Are you mad, Brunner? There’s only one individual who can arrange to reinstate him and that individual is Richard Wagner. It would be like a dog chasing its tail. No, no, Brunner, totally out of the question!”
“No so fast, Inspector,” Brunner said. “Rotfogel has a card up his sleeve, one that could trump our friend Wagner, maybe once and for all. Like it or not, the Great Man might have no choice but to put Rotfogel back in the orchestra pit.”
“Please, Brunner, don’t waste my time with another blackmail scheme. It didn’t work when your friend Vanderhoute tried it. She achieved absolutely nothing with Wagner. The man has the ability to brazen his way through an avalanche of scandal if need be, as he has already clearly demonstrated.”
“Ah yes,” Brunner said, “but he will not brazen his way through the kind of avalanche Herr Rotfogel can stir up. Trust me.”
Trust Detective Franz Brunner? Now there was a challenge! But beggars can’t be choosers. Even if Brunner were grossly exaggerating the usefulness of this man Rotfogel, all for the sake of ingratiating himself with me, the plain fact was that I was desperately in need of whatever scraps of information I could possibly patch together, no matter whom they came from. I was a curator, not of a collection of tangible evidence, but of a collection of people — living curiosities, flesh and blood to the eye yet unfathomable, untrustworthy, conniving, everyone seemingly filing onto my stage carrying his or her own bundle of plots and lies, and at the centre of the stage, Richard Wagner himself, principal plotter and liar. Under the circumstances I had no choice but to go along with Brunner.
“Very well, Brunner,” I said with a pessimistic sigh, “fetch this man Rotfogel. I want to see him before he, too, somehow ends up a statistic in this whole affair.”
“No fear of that,” Brunner responded, suddenly looking pleased with himself. “Thilo Rotfogel is here, waiting outside in the hall. As you can see, Preiss, I am leaving no stone unturned. But a word of caution: Don’t be put off by Rotfogel’s appearance. He is not what you might expect.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
At first glance, Thilo Rofogle brought to mind an admonition delivered by my mother whenever, as a child, I expressed repulsion over someone’s physical appearance. “Remember, Hermann,” she would say, “we are creatures of God. He loves us all, each and every one. Therefore we too must love each and every one.”