“Well, Max,” said Rheinhardt. “This is most unexpected.”
Liebermann rose and they shook hands firmly.
“Please, sit.”
Before they had settled, the waiter seemed to materialize out of a vortex of cigar smoke.
“Another schwarzer,” said Liebermann. “And a turkische for my friend.”
“Strong-with extra sugar,” Rheinhardt added.
The waiter retreated into the yellow-brown fug.
“It's extraordinary,” Liebermann began. “He must be unique… peerless in the annals of abnormal psychology. We are dealing with a most remarkable individual. A mind of singular peculiarity.”
“Max,” said Rheinhardt, halting his friend with an expression that demanded moderation. “Slowly, please. And from the beginning.”
Liebermann nodded. “I am quite feverish with excitement.”
“And I do not doubt that you have good reason to be; however…”
“Yes, of course. Slowly, and from the beginning.” Liebermann sat back in his chair and loosened his necktie. “This evening I went to the opera.”
“It must have been uncommonly short.”
“I left early.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Not at all-Director Mahler's Magic Flute.”
“Then why-”
“Do you know it?”
“The Magic Flute? Not very well… I haven't seen it in years.”
“Nor have I.”
“Well?”
“The characters, Oskar-can you remember the characters?”
“There's a prince-Tamino… and a princess, Pamina. The Queen of the Night, who has that glorious aria-the famous one in which the melody hops about on the very highest notes.”
“Yes, the Queen of the Night! Now think, Oskar! Does that name-the Queen of the Night-not sound to you like a certain colloquialism?”
Rheinhardt twisted the right tip of his mustache between his thumb and forefinger. “Lady of the night?”
“Or, as the French would say, fille de nuit. Meaning what?”
“A prostitute, of course!”
“The Queen of the Night has three attendants-or serving women…”
The inspector's eyes widened until he began to resemble an exophthalmic patient whom Liebermann had examined earlier the same day.
“Good heavens,” Rheinhardt gasped. “Madam Borek and the three Galician girls.”
“Exactly! And then there is Papageno, the bird catcher. Who is punished for lying. Can you remember the punishment, Oskar?”
“Dear God! His mouth is sealed with a padlock!”
“Now think of the Wieden murder. The black man.”
“Why, he must correspond to the Moor.”
“Monostatos.”
Suddenly Rheinhardt's expression changed. It vacillated on some nameless cusp before collapsing into unequivocal despondency.
“Oh, no, no, no.” The inspector groaned as if in physical pain.
Liebermann was puzzled at his friend's unexpected response. “Oskar?”
Rheinhardt placed his head in his hands.
“What a fool I've been. What an absolute fool!”
Liebermann felt rather deflated by his friend's response. “It wasn't that obvious, Oskar. The recognition of these correspondences did require some imagination.”
“Forgive me, Max. I did not mean to belittle your achievement. But it really should have been obvious… to me!”
“Why? You are a policeman. Not a Mozart scholar.”
The waiter arrived with the coffees. The inspector lifted his head, tasted his turkische, and dropped two pieces of crystallized sugar into the cup. His melancholy sagging eyes looked close to tears.
“It begins with a snake, doesn't it?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Liebermann, somewhat confused.
“The Magic Flute: it begins with the slaying of a snake.”
“Yes.”
“Well, so did this series of murders.”
Liebermann slid the remains of his Mozart torte across the table toward the dejected inspector. On numerous occasions he had witnessed Rheinhardt's spirits rallying after a few mouthfuls of pastry. Almost unconsciously, Rheinhardt plunged the fork through the invitingly pliant sponge.
“Before the Spittelberg atrocity,” said Rheinhardt, “a giant anaconda was killed at the zoo.”
“Hildegard.”
“That's right-did you read about it?”
“Yes. I recall that the animal was supposed to be a favorite of the emperor's.”
“Indeed. I investigated the incident myself. It was a highly irregular crime, but in the light of subsequent events, it paled into insignificance. The Spittelberg murders occurred the following day… and I simply forgot about the emperor's prize snake. Even the life of the most exalted royal animal should not be valued above the life of a human being-however wretched-and with that thought in mind I transferred all my attention from one case to the other. But now, of course, I can see the error of my ways. How stupid of me!”
Rheinhardt mechanically deposited a corner of Mozart torte into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and continued: “The anaconda was cleanly sliced into three sections with a large weapon-most probably a sabre. The perpetrator entered the snake-pit and made his exit without leaving a single mark in the soil. Madam Borek and two of her girls were also killed with a sabre… and even though the brothel had been flooded with blood, the perpetrator escaped without leaving a single footprint on the floorboards. It was clearly the same man.”
Rheinhardt examined the remnants of sponge on his plate. “Mozart torte? Is this your idea of a joke, Max?”
“It seemed appropriate but I discovered that I wasn't very hungry.”
Rheinhardt took another mouthful and for the first time exhibited his usual appreciative response.
“Very good-are you sure that you don't want some?” Liebermann shook his head. The inspector sampled a pistachio square and continued speaking. “Now that you have discovered his method, Max, what does this tell us about him? Is he a devotee of Mozart, do you think? A fanatical student of his operas?”
“Oskar, no one who appreciates Mozart could possibly commit such atrocities.” The young doctor straightened his back. “Mozart is an entirely civilizing influence.”
“Yet the perpetrator is certainly very familiar with Mozart.”
“Yes, but I find it difficult to believe that an individual truly fond of Mozart's singspiel could divine within its plot and characters a program for murder. Indeed, I suspect that the very opposite is true. The perpetrator is no friend of Mozart and very probably despises The Magic Flute.”
Rheinhardt scraped some chocolate curlicues from the outer circle of his plate. “Yet I can't think of a less offensive opera.”
“It is, without doubt, a work of incomparable charm. But in the perpetrator's mind The Magic Flute has become shadowed by the darkest of emotions: hate, fear, envy.” Liebermann pressed his hands together. “It would not surprise me to discover that something very bad happened to him in early childhood-perhaps while listening to Mozart's music.”
“But would such an experience-however unpleasant-have predetermined that this unfortunate child should in due course become a monster?”
“No, not at all. Professor Freud insists that psychopathology arises when the mental apparatus draws power from a primal source, or origin. I would suppose that The Magic Flute acquired terrible significance during the perpetrator's infancy; however, it has since become a means of organizing and directing his current violent impulses. To understand them we would have to have knowledge of his history-and the contents of his unconscious.”
A waiter passed the table and discreetly removed Rheinhardt's empty plate.
“There's a legend, isn't there?” said Rheinhardt. “Connected with an Italian composer accused of murdering Mozart. What was his name?”
“Salieri,” Liebermann replied. “Although some say that Mozart was murdered by his Masonic brothers for revealing their secrets in The Magic Flute.”
“A suitable sobriquet for our perpetrator-don't you think? Salieri?”
“Salieri.” Liebermann savored the exotic combination of vowels and consonants. “Yes, very apposite.”