In a gently chiding tone she said, “You have no hesitation when it comes to inquiring about — or perhaps I should say prying into — the private lives of others. But the least you could do, in return, is grant us a peek into your own.”
“I am a public servant, Madam Wagner,” I said. “As such I do not have a private life.” I hoped this glib remark would close the topic.
“Not true, Inspector. Not true at all.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand — ”
“You ought to have brought along your friend, the cellist — ”
“Helena Becker, you mean. Unfortunately she isn’t here. She lives in Düsseldorf, you see.”
“Now you’re being coy, Inspector. Or simply dishonest. Friends of ours saw her earlier in the evening. They happened to be in the lobby of the Empress Eugénie and saw her signing the guest register.”
“Your friends must be mistaken.”
“Not at all. They recognized her from her performance recently with the Bavarian Quartet. But why do you go out of your way to keep her hidden?” She gave me a teasing smile. “I think I know why. The word is that men find her most attractive … with or without the presence of her instrument. Still, Inspector, it’s not right that you should be so possessive. It does you no credit, you know. Treasures are made to be shared.”
I smiled back through gritted teeth. “Obviously you are very generous when it comes to sharing your pearls of wisdom,” I said. With a slight deferential bow, I added, “I will try to be a better man in the future.”
Chapter Forty-Six
"H elena, what the devil is going on?”
“Why Hermann Preiss, what a nasty way to say hello!”
“Very well, I’ll begin again. Welcome to Munich. Now what the devil is going on?”
Opening wide the door of her room, Helena Becker made a sweeping gesture, her arms extended invitingly, and curtsied like a ballerina. “Perhaps you’d like to step in … unless of course you want every single person in the hotel to overhear your ranting and raving.”
I waited until she closed the door behind me. “Once more, then, Helena — ”
“- just what the devil is going on?” she said finishing the question. “I’m here to attend tonight’s premiere.”
“Without so much as a word to me in advance?”
“I didn’t know I required permission, Hermann. In case there’s some doubt, I am a German citizen. Let me take your hat while you examine my papers.”
“I fail to see the humour in all this,” I said. “Nor do I have time for your charming little guessing games, Helena.”
“Then I take it you won’t be staying long,” Helena said. “Well, perhaps it’s just as well, seeing you’re in such a foul mood, Hermann.”
“You would be in a foul mood too if you’d been made a fool of.”
“Are you suggesting that somehow I made a fool of you?”
“Apparently people who are total strangers knew of your arrival in Munich while I–I of all people — knew nothing.”
“The way I hear it, Hermann, if anyone made a fool of you it was you yourself. It seems there were two things you couldn’t resist last night: Champagne and Cosima Wagner. You indulged in far too much of one, and couldn’t get enough of the other. In fact, as she was bundling you into a carriage for your ride home you embraced her so effusively even the horses snickered!”
“Nonsense. Besides, you weren’t there, so you could not possibly know what — ” I halted in mid-sentence. In the few moments of awkward silence that followed, I found myself staring at Helena as though she were part of a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces were suddenly and strangely falling into place. In a quiet voice I said, “He told you all this, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation.
“Are you lovers then?”
“Lovers? I’m not sure what that word means. Looking back on our past, yours and mine, I would say ‘lovers’ is impossible to define … something on-again, off-again … here today, gone tomorrow, who-knows-what the day after.” Helena looked away, a wistful smile on her face. She seemed to be reflecting. “Remember that night at Maison Espãna — ”
“I remember it all too well. Soon after, you said to me, ‘He is everything you are not … kind, considerate, charming, not to mention handsome.’ Your exact words. Hard to forget. So now, Helena, I have acquired a new title: Hermann Preiss, Inadvertent Matchmaker. I suppose I have only myself to blame. After all, I did throw the two of you together. But I never dreamed it would come to this. It’s all wrong, you know. The man isn’t who he says he is. Worse still, he hasn’t the slightest compunction about making promises and breaking them. He’s a master of obfuscation. He’s convinced his own moral code is all that matters. Hardly ideal credentials for a lover, wouldn’t you say?”
“Say what you will, Hermann. The fact is all of us — even you — bend the truth from time to time when it suits us.”
“So let’s speak of the truth then. I suppose Schramm was honest enough to reveal all about the Vanderhoute woman, the one you were so incensed about the night he broke his appointment with you? How she was an obstacle lying directly in his path of revenge? And how very convenient for him was her sudden death?”
“I don’t understand what you mean by convenient, Hermann. What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that getting rid of an obstacle is not what I would call bending the truth. In my circles it’s called murder, pure and simple.”
“And in my circles, Hermann, people are more concerned about the kind of brutality Wagner inflicted on Hershel Socransky’s father. So whatever Hershel has done, allowances must be made.”
“But he has no right to take the law into his own hands, Helena. None!”
Angrily, Helena said, “Please, Hermann, spare me your policeman’s sermon about right and wrong, and especially those off-duty musings of yours about the artist being one thing and his art being quite another! There is no distinction! When will you ever learn this truth? If Hershel Socransky brings the opera crashing down tonight, then he brings Richard Wagner crashing down with it. The two are inseparable, and that is exactly as it should be.”
“You said, ‘If Hershel Socransky brings the opera crashing down — ’ You mean when, not if, don’t you, Helena? Crashing down can only mean one thing: in the final scene … the ‘Prize Song’ … the defining moment, according to Wagner … he’s deliberately going to foul up the ‘Prize Song,’ sing it so badly that the entire opera will be turned into a laughingstock, and Wagner along with it.”
With a coldness I had never before witnessed in her, Helena gave a contemptuous laugh. “Well, why not? Anyway, that hardly amounts to a crime. My God, Hermann, if singing a song badly were a crime, half the tenors and sopranos in the country would be in prison.”
“I’m not an idiot, Helena. Of course ruining a song is not a criminal offense.”
“Then why do you care what he does tonight? For God’s sake, Hermann, let him be! Let him do what he must do.”
“We’re not speaking here merely about ruining an opera, Helena. If Socransky killed once as part of his mission here in Munich, he will likely kill again. This time his victim will be Richard Wagner. I’m sure of it.”
“Then so be it, Hermann. Look at it this way: by leaving Hershel Socransky alone to do what he has to do, you, Chief Inspector Hermann Preiss, will actually be looked on as a hero in the eyes of the mayor and police commissioner. You complained to me not long ago that they had — as you put it — dumped the future of Munich on your doorstep, remember? Well, beginning tomorrow, perhaps the shadow of Richard Wagner will no longer darken Munich. And whom will the grateful population of Munich have to thank for this happy turn of events? Inspector Hermann Preiss! Who knows? Maybe they’ll appoint you von Mannstein’s successor. Commissioner Hermann Preiss … how does that sound to you?”