“Surely you’re not saying Jews are incapable of murder!” Brunner said.
I knew Brunner was baiting me. There was still enough spite in him that by tomorrow the word would have spread throughout the police force that Chief Inspector Hermann Preiss was a lover and defender of Jews. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Brunner,” I said, “but I am not saying anything of the sort. I am simply saying that this particular Jew, Hershel Socransky, in my opinion does not have the makings of a killer.”
“Then what does make you suspicious of him?” Brunner asked.
“The threat that was delivered to Wagner — ” I reached into a cabinet and produced the note from my file on Wagner. I read the message aloud: “JUNE 21 WILL BE THE DAY OF YOUR RUINATION.” I slid the note across my desk. “Here, Brunner, you read it aloud.”
Brunner obliged, then shrugged. “Cornelia Vanderhoute,” he said, as though the matter were beyond question.
“No, Brunner,” I said, “it makes no sense whatsoever that she would mark time until June twenty-first before carrying out whatever plan she had in mind.”
Brunner reread the note, this time silently. He looked across the desk at me, a faint smile turning up one corner of his mouth, nodding as though a sudden revelation had struck him.
“Yes, Brunner,” I said, reaching for the note and tucking it away in the file. “Only one person would write that note … Hershel Socransky, alias Henryk Schramm … the man I now call the Mastersinger from Minsk.”
Chapter Thirty
In the pale gaze of Commissioner von Mannstein I thought I caught a flicker of longing, in his voice a wisp of heartbreak. His grey eyes seemed to be straining for a vision of some unexplored horizon beyond the horizon immediately visible from the windows of his office. “You know, Preiss,” he said, “other nations are blessed. The British have penal colonies in Australia, the French have Devil’s Island, the Russians have Siberia. But what have we Germans got? Switzerland! A place of magnificent mountains, shining lakes, fine chocolate, and spotless chalets. What Germany needs, Preiss … needs desperately, is some lonely, out-of-the-way pile of rock set in the midst of a vast ocean so treacherous no captain worth his papers would sail a ship there more than once. And there … there … is where Richard Wagner should be deposited for the rest of his natural life. Correction: the rest of his unnatural life. Now then, Preiss, how close are we to realizing our dream?”
“Our dream?” I said. “You mean Germany’s dream about possessing a more suitable location for exiles?” Of course I knew exactly what “our dream” referred to, but every moment of delay was precious to me, given that the report I was about to deliver was not one that the commissioner would be able to present “proudly” (as he put it to Brunner earlier) to Mayor von Braunschweig.
“No no!” the commissioner said testily. “I’m asking you about Wagner.”
“Richard Wagner — ?”
“Good heavens, Preiss, how many Wagners are there?”
“Well, sir, as a matter of fact, I have been looking into that very question. Genealogically speaking, it seems the name can be traced back to the invention of the wheel, which of course led to the invention of wagons. Hence the name Wagoner, or Wagner. It is especially interesting to note — ”
“Damn it, Preiss, I didn’t summon you here to deliver a lecture.”
“Pardon me, Commissioner, I was only about to add that, in the course of peeling back the layers of history, I discovered that one Erich Langemann von Mannstein back in the late 1700s had married into a family of Wagners in the city of Essen, owners of the largest and most prosperous carriage business in that part of the country. Am I correct that Erich Langemann von Mannstein was your grandfather, sir?”
“I’ll thank you to keep that information under your hat, Inspector,” von Mannstein said. “The last thing I need is for word to spread to the effect that the name von Mannstein is tied to the name Wagner by even the thinnest thread of coincidence! Under your hat, Preiss!”
“Understood, sir. Under my hat. Absolutely!” I recalled that the commissioner had recently lauded me as a man of “exquisite discretion” after I had recognized him departing from Madam Rosina Waldheim’s whorehouse. I was comforted, facing the unpleasant task ahead of me at the moment, knowing that I now possessed additional capital in my mental ledger, another asset to fall back on, a card to be played, so to speak, in the likely event that von Mannstein, hearing the report I was about to give, threatened demotion (at best) or outright dismissal (at worst).
“Once again then, Preiss, where do we stand with Richard Wagner?” The chill in the commissioner’s grey eyes was palpable as he sat forward in his high-backed seat expectantly.
I began slowly. “Well, sir, perhaps the word ‘stand’ is not quite appropriate. I would have to say that … well, we are leaning rather than standing. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to describe our present posture as sitting … yes, that’s more like the reality of our situation regarding Maestro Wagner.”
Glowering at me, von Mannstein brought both fists down hard on his side of the desk. “Leaning … sitting … what the devil are you talking about, Preiss? No, don’t bother to answer. I’ll answer my own question. What I am hearing is the sound of failure, miserable incompetent inexcusable failure! Look here, Preiss — ” The commissioner drew a piece of stationery from a file that lay before him. I could see that the file bore the official gold seal of Mayor von Braunschweig. “This arrived this morning by special courier,” von Mannstein said, “marked ‘Urgent.’” Von Mannstein’s hands shook as he read aloud:
“It has come to the attention of the Government of Bavaria that the musician and revolutionary Richard Wagner is about to embark on a fresh course of attacks against the existing regime with ever more radical ideas about German unification that could lead to a loss of autonomy for our State as well as of our beloved traditions. It is therefore incumbent upon the City of Munich to deal with the Wagner crisis with utmost dispatch, failing which payment of certain appropriations set aside by the State, in particular to subsidize the completion of new waterworks and gasworks for the city, will regrettably be suspended for an indefinite period of time.”
“The letter,” von Mannstein said, “is addressed to the mayor and signed by the governor of the state. So what we have here, Preiss, is an abundance of communication — from the governor to the mayor, from the mayor to the commissioner, from the commissioner to the chief inspector Hermann Preiss. Meanwhile, it is apparent, Preiss, that your report to me this morning is as devoid of content as a … as a — ”
“Tabula rasa?” I offered.
“Damn it, Preiss, I don’t speak Italian — ”
“Tabula rasa is Latin, sir — ”
“I don’t care if it’s what Jesus Christ said to the Pope!” von Mannstein shouted. “Have you nothing you can report this morning?”
“I can report, sir, that we are getting closer to solving the question of who has committed the murders of Sandor Lantos, Karla Steilmann, and Wolfgang Grilling and may be out to do similar harm to the Wagners. You previously expressed doubt that such killings could be the work of a woman — ”
“You’re referring to that business about the hatpin — ”
“Exactly, sir. But the fact is, the female in question is more and more a suspect and I have good reason to fear that either one or both of the Wagners may be on her list.”
Suddenly the commissioner’s expression changed. It was as though he had just witnessed his first sunshine after days of rain. “Wait a moment, Preiss! Hold on! You say this woman may be out to do away with Richard Wagner? Is this a serious possibility?”