“Ridiculous! Your imagination has run away with you, Preiss!” Otto scoffed.
“I’m not finished, Herr Otto. There’s much more to the story. Armed with what he regarded as damning evidence against Schramm, Grilling immediately dashed to Karla Steilmann, expecting to enlist her as an ally, the plan being that the two of them would present the letter to Wagner. And that would put a speedy end to the career of Hershel Socransky alias Henryk Schramm, Jewish tenor from Minsk. Karla retained the letter, perhaps on the pretext of wanting to study it further, but the fact is that Fräulein Steilmann was very much taken with Schramm. Indeed, Herr Otto, you saw the man, you heard him sing. What female wouldn’t be attracted to him?”
Again Otto interrupted. “Really, Inspector, one moment you speak of hard evidence, the next moment you throw imaginary darts at imaginary targets. As a citizen I would hate to think that this is how law enforcement is conducted in a civilized city like Munich. Perhaps in some rural backwater — ”
“In a civilized city like Munich people do not steal private mail in order to sully someone’s reputation — ”
“Damn it, Preiss, the man’s a Jew!” Otto shot back. “What’s a Jew doing in an opera by Richard Wagner? Steilmann was wrong, I tell you. She flatly refused — ”
“Flatly refused what?”
“To co-operate. The woman was a fool. She took the letter to Socransky. I suppose she did so because she was in love with him, or thought she was. With his true identity exposed, what would you expect the man to do? It’s obvious, isn’t it? Socransky confronted Grilling, then killed him. Then, in an act of betrayal, he did away with Karla Steilmann. That would account for those torn bits of the envelope. As for the letter itself, God knows where it’s ended up. Probably Schramm burned it or tore it to pieces and tossed them down a sewer. What motivated him to murder poor Sandor Lantos is beyond my understanding, Preiss. You’ll probably have to throw your precious darts into the air once again and pray that you hit upon the answer. Now then, I trust I am free to leave.” Without awaiting my response, Otto stood and put on his hat.
“For the moment,” I said, “you are free to leave. I must tell you, however, that you remain subject to further investigation, Herr Otto, as an accomplice.”
“An accomplice! To what crime?”
“Theft of private property. I’m referring to the letter, of course. By your own admission, Herr Otto, you participated to some degree in that rather shoddy business.”
“And this … this is how you demonstrate your gratitude? This is my reward for helping you find your way through this maze? It’s this fellow Socransky you should be subjecting to further investigation. He’s your culprit. Who knows what further disasters he’s out to create!”
Seizing his coat, Otto threw it roughly over his arm, as though the garment somehow were as guilty of offending him as I was. Barely in control of his anger, he said, “It’s the Socranskys of this world who pollute the divine, Preiss … the divine, do you hear? Opera, sir, is purity. An opera is proof that God exists!”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But the more I see of it, the more I’m persuaded that the stage manager is the Devil. Good day, Herr Otto.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"What news, Brunner?”
“Some good, some bad,” Detective Franz Brunner replied. “Which do you want first?”
The session with Friedrich Otto had left me morose. I had wanted so much to believe that whoever Hershel Socransky was, acts of violence couldn’t possibly be committed by a man possessing such copious gifts of talent and charm. Nevertheless I said to Brunner, “The bad first.”
“Very well, then,” Brunner said. “A few minutes ago I was spotted by Commissioner von Mannstein on his way to a meeting with Mayor von Braunschweig. Pulling me aside, he demanded to know what progress has been made with regard to what he terms ‘the case against Wagner.’ I suggested that the proper protocol was for an up-to-date report to come from the officer in charge, namely yourself, Preiss. ‘To hell with protocol!’ the commissioner shouted in my ear, practically splitting my eardrum. The commissioner was not happy when I told him that we are still gathering evidence, that nothing at this precise moment is conclusive. ‘Inform Chief Inspector Preiss that I want a full report by this hour tomorrow … and it had better be one that I can proudly present to the mayor!’”
“What about the good?”
Brunner removed from his coat and placed on my desk a small black velvet box. “Take a look inside, Preiss,” he said.
I opened the box. “Well well, where have I seen these before, eh?” I turned the box upside down. Out fell a pair of cufflinks, the stones black opals. “Rotfogel’s cufflinks. Pawned, I suppose.” Brunner nodded. “And the person who pawned them? Let me guess: Cornelia Vanderhoute.”
“Well, she gave a false name. No surprise there, of course. But the pawnbroker’s description leaves no doubt. I confiscated these, but there are numerous other items still at that shop, pawned by the same woman. There’s for instance a sterling silver cigarette case with the initials TR, and a pocket-size brandy flask with the same initials engraved on the silver cap. I checked on the address she gave. False as well. A rooming house. They had never heard of her.”
I said, “A professional thief would have tried to sell these things outright to an underground dealer rather than deal with a legitimate pawnbroker. Obviously Fräulein Vanderhoute is not a professional thief, only clever enough to provide false identification. So the problem still exists: where to find her.”
“That may not be too difficult. Here’s why, Preiss: When I entered the shop and showed him my badge, the pawnbroker became very uneasy. Probably thought I was there to charge him with some impropriety and revoke his licence. When I spotted the cigarette case and flask I swear the old man openly began to perspire. He said to me, ‘Of all the pawnshops in all the world, why did she have to walk into mine … and not just once but twice!’ The fact that she made two trips to that particular shop, the most recent only yesterday … and remember, Preiss, there are at least a dozen pawnshops scattered throughout Munich … well, odds are she must live somewhere in the neighbourhood of Simon Regner. That’s the owner of the shop in question. Trouble is, there’ll be ice storms in hell before Vanderhoute returns to Regner’s to redeem these items. Whatever money she managed to get from the pawnbroker she has probably already used to buy passage out of Munich bound for God-knows-where. She would have to travel by train. Riverboats are few and far between this time of year. We can set up surveillance at the railroad station immediately.”
“You may be right, Brunner,” I said, “but something tells me this woman is on a mission and that she has unfinished business which she means to attend to here in Munich.”
I related to Brunner what I’d heard in the course of interrogating Friedrich Otto and my doubts about Otto’s version of events leading to the deaths of Grilling and Steilmann. “That there is something profoundly suspicious about the man I now know as Hershel Socransky, I am certain,” I told Brunner. “That he is capable of murder, however, I cannot imagine.”