“Rotfogel,” I called out, quite sharply. “It’s us — Inspector Preiss and Detective Brunner — ”
We were past a small entrance hall and into the sitting room now. Not a thing was out of place. Obviously Thilo Rotfogel was as much a perfectionist when it came to housekeeping as he was when it came to playing the French horn. Every piece of wooden furniture was polished almost to a mirror finish. Down-filled cushions and pillows on the sofa and side chairs had been puffed to fullness, as though they had never been sat upon. There was even a white vase at the centre of a small round dining table filled with fresh flowers, a rarity at this time of year in Munich and not cheaply purchased. Only one minimal sign of neglect appeared: an open bottle of plum brandy on a silver tray next to the flower vase, the bottle half empty, cork next to it, and next to the cork two fine crystal snifters both seemingly abandoned while still containing small amounts of the liquor.
I pointed in the direction of a closed door at the far side of the sitting room. “Something tells me,” I said to Brunner, speaking just above a whisper, “that our friend has company and they’re both asleep there.” I moved across the room, placed my hand on the doorknob, looked back at Brunner, and said, again in a low voice, “I hate to do this but duty calls — ”
I opened the door. “Brunner,” I called back, “come here … take a look at this — ” Now I understood why our “host” had failed to respond. When a man’s throat has apparently been crudely pierced by some long sharp object it is entirely excusable if he fails to greet his “guests” in a hospitable manner.
It is one thing for a person to die before his or her time, but quite another thing for a person to die without dignity. Rotfogel died without dignity. He lay sprawled across his bed, on his back, naked, the sheet in the immediate area of his neck blood-soaked. His clothing — trousers, jacket, shirt, neckwear, footwear — was neatly arranged on a nearby chair, suggesting that the shedding of his garments was not all that spontaneous an act, that perhaps this was all part of an established rituaclass="underline" first a copious amount of brandy, then a few minutes of amorous talk, arousal, followed by a trip to the bedroom.
Whoever was admitted and participated in this ritual with Rotfogel — and I was certain it was none other than Cornelia Vanderhoute — left not a trace in the bedroom, not so much as a hair or a thread as far as Brunner and I could see after a quick survey. Similarly the sitting room afforded no clues.
“If you’re right and it was Vanderhoute,” Brunner said, “she certainly did a meticulous job of tidying up after herself.”
“I think she had nothing to tidy up,” I said. “I think Rotfogel let her in, she saw to it that he had plenty to drink, lured him to the bedroom where, it appears, he very methodically undressed despite the effects of the brandy, and while he lay on the bed anticipating the joy to come, she finished him off more or less the same way she finished off the others … all without so much as removing her hat!”
“But why? She couldn’t have known Rotfogel was going to lead us to her,” Brunner said. “What reason would she have to kill him?”
We were back in the bedroom. “There’s the reason,” I replied, indicating a heavy polished mahogany jewellery case, which sat atop a matching chiffonier. The case had been thrown open and, except for a handful of inexpensive shirt studs and what looked like a child’s ring, its contents had been removed, tray by tray. “She was meticulous all right,” I said.
Brunner looked crestfallen. “So with Rotfogel dead, how do we find her?”
“Simple,” I said. Then, in a rare moment of biblical inspiration, I added, “Whither Rotfogel’s jewellery goeth, there also goeth Cornelia Vanderhoute.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"So, Helena,” I said, “what have you got for me?” It was the morning after her evening with Henryk Schramm.
“What have I got for you, Hermann?” Helena pretended to be searching for a thoughtful answer. “Well now, let me think. What have I got for you? A great deal of contempt? Yes, I would say that sums it up quite nicely.”
“Look, Helena, I apologize if my question wasn’t subtle — ”
“Wasn’t subtle, you say? It was the kind of question you’d put to a whore! You ask a favour of me, I comply, and then you don’t even have the decency to inquire where we went, what we ate, what we did afterward, was it pleasant or unpleasant, how I felt playing the role of your sneaky little helper.”
“There will be time for me to show my appreciation, Helena,” I said, reaching out to grasp her hand, and having my hand thrust aside.
“Oh, yes, that empty promise of yours about a holiday in Lucerne. In June was it? Should I begin packing my bags, Hermann? No point waiting to the last minute.”
With every word Helena’s voice was rising, her temperature too. We had been seated across from each other at a small table in a fashionable coffee house a few doors from the Eugénie Palace and by now Helena’s vociferous indignation was beginning to attract the attention of nearby patrons. I rose and took up my coat and hat. “You’re tired, my dear. Let’s continue this later when — ”
“Sit down, Hermann!” So loud was Helena’s command that several of our neighbouring coffee drinkers, witnessing what they took to be a lovers’ quarrel, smirked. Embarrassed, I met their smirks with a shrug, as if to say, “Women — what do you expect?” Nevertheless, I obeyed, laid aside my coat and hat, and settled into my chair again.
“I have something to tell you, Hermann — ”
“Please, Helena, lower your voice — ”
“I have something to tell you — ” To my relief, she repeated this in a half-whisper. “His real name isn’t Schramm.”
“Ahah! So my suspicion was not misguided after all. I knew there was something behind that façade of his.”
“If you’re not too busy congratulating yourself,” Helena said, “would it interest you to know how I found this out?”
“I’m not sure I want to hear the details,” I said.
“There are no ‘details,’ Hermann,” Helena said, speaking quietly but eyeing me coldly. “But I will tell you this: I would not have resisted — not for one moment — if it had come to ‘details.’ He is everything you are not, Hermann … kind, considerate, charming, not to mention incredibly handsome.”
“You’ve forgotten to mention one other thing,” I said. “The man is very likely a fraud, an imposter of some sort. I’m not sure exactly what he’s up to but I wouldn’t trust him from one side of this table to the other. So, how did you learn that he’s living under a false name?”
Helena looked away. “I’m so ashamed — ”
I reached out, took Helena’s face in my hands as gently as I could given that I was quickly losing patience, and said, “Helena, look at me. I have no time for shame, yours, mine, anybody’s. I am a policeman. I do what I have to do.”
Helena pulled my hands away. “But I am not, and I hate what I did.”
“Which was — ?”
“Which was to spy, to violate the man’s privacy, to do something to him which I would never want anyone to do to me, Hermann. Never!” Helena paused, as though preparing to make some dark confession, then said, “We were in his sitting room, and he left and went into this tiny kitchenette to open a bottle of wine to go along with a small cake he’d bought. And while he was busy there, I used the time to look about the sitting room. There was a small writing table in one corner. And that is where I saw it.”
“Saw what — ?”
“A letter. Just a single page. Written in Yiddish.”
“Yiddish? How could you tell, Helena?”