Murder in A-Major (20 page)

E
scorting me to the massive oak doors at the front entrance of his mansion, where his valet stood holding my coat, Baron von Hoffman abruptly brought me to a halt. “I hope you'll not take offense, Preiss,” he said, “but I cannot help observing that you look exhausted. I insist you take one of my carriages back to the Constabulary.” I began to protest that his offer was much too generous. “Nonsense! Not another word!”

The carriage turned out to be one of those fine English-built four-wheel coaches with oversize shackles and luxuriously padded seats that cushioned the passenger against the winter-ravaged cobbles. I sat back, silently congratulating myself on my good fortune. I had managed to learn—albeit by accident—that at one point during the evening of the Schumanns' musicale, Georg Adelmann had been observed by the Baron in Robert Schumann's study standing alone; he would have been entirely free to steal the precious Beethoven manuscript which so obviously entranced him. There was now not the slightest doubt in my mind: Adelmann had lied to me about the manuscript having come into his possession as a gift—a bribe, really—from Schumann.

But the Baron was right. I
was
exhausted, and it did not take long for the steady clip-clopping of the horses and the gentle swaying from side to side of the driver perched up front to mesmerize me. My eyelids were growing heavy and beginning to close. I was aware that I was falling asleep there, in the comfort of that splendid vehicle, when suddenly—as though the coachman's whip had flicked across my face—my eyes snapped open, I sat up, and heard myself sharply call out, “Stop! Please stop!”

Obeying instantly, the driver turned about in his seat, a worried look on his weather-beaten face. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, “I did not mean to drive so fast. Please excuse—”

“No, no,” I said, “that's not it at all. I need to walk.”

“But, sir, the Constabulary is at least three kilometres—”

Paying no heed to the fellow, I abruptly dismounted. “Kindly convey my thanks to the Baron.”

“But, sir,” the driver said, rolling his eyes skyward, “any moment now those clouds are going to open up and—”

I dug into my coat pocket and found several coins, which I pressed into the driver's palm. “Rain does not dare to fall on police inspectors, but I thank you for your concern.”

I watched him turn about, shaking his head as though I were mad to make him abandon me under a threatening sky. I began to walk, at first with a slow, measured pace; then, gradually, the pace accelerated until, a half-kilometre from the Constabulary, I had launched into a full march. So absorbed was I in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed that my hat and coat were soaked and the insides of my shoes wet from sheets of water being flung across my path by winds off the Rhine.

Reaching the Constabulary, I ignored the perfunctory greetings from the guards posted at the entrance and bounded up the four flights of stairs to my office in record time. To an orderly stationed in the corridor outside my office I called out that I was not to be disturbed for the next hour under any circumstances.

“Does that include the Commissioner?” the startled orderly inquired.

“It includes God!” I shouted back, slamming my office door behind me. Then, on second thought, and to make certain I was left alone, I locked my door, something I rarely if ever did.

I removed my soaked hat and coat and tossed them carelessly over the nearest chair. Who cared that, once dry, they would look slept in? I could feel my stockinged feet swimming inside my shoes but this, too, did not matter.

I sat myself down at my desk and found a large sheet of stationery, which I laid flat before me. I reached for a pen, dipped the nib deeply into the well for an ample supply of ink, and printed out in large block letters:

ROBERT SCHUMANN MURDERED GEORG ADELMANN

I sat back staring at what I had just written, the pen still in my hand. I pondered the words, holding the paper now at arm's length, feeling for a moment as though I were a child who had just learned to write and was staring in wonderment at my first-ever sentence.

I placed the paper flat in front of me again, replenished the ink on the nib, and ran a heavy line through the sentence. Underneath it, I then printed, again in large block letters:

ROBERT SCHUMANN KILLED GEORG ADELMANN

It was all beginning to make sense to me now.

I recalled that Schumann had agreed with Liszt about the piano having been mis-tuned. To prove it to himself, Schumann somehow must have got his hands on Hupfer's tuning fork, probably lifting it from the unsuspecting technician's tool bag. Satisfied that the fork had been deliberately tampered with, Schumann must have fallen into one of his rages, the fires within him ignited beyond extinguishing when he next discovered that his Beethoven treasure was missing. Clara would have stoked the fires further by pointing to Adelmann as the culprit, based on the information I had passed on to her about the journalist's penchant for stealing. The sequence of events led to one conclusion and one conclusion only.

Another dip of my pen into the inkpot. Another fresh sentence:

FLORESTAN
KILLED GEORG ADELMANN!

Florestan: Robert Schumann's inner man of action. Or so Schumann would have me believe if, at this moment, he were standing in my presence grimly facing a criminal charge. But Schumann was
not
here, was he? No, he was cooped up in a secure private room in an asylum in Endenich. Or was he? Cooped up, that is? Perhaps it was more to the point now to think of him as being conveniently tucked away. Oh yes, he had protested mightily against being taken away the other morning, begging me to intervene, no doubt knowing full well that I could not or would not interrupt the process of his removal. I recalled the sudden acquiescence as he was escorted by his two attendants to the carriage, the way he made such a point of rushing back into the house to retrieve his own tuning fork, making sure this did not escape my notice. As he rode off that morning, was Florestan contentedly smiling to himself?

Slowly, deliberately, I folded the sheet of stationery in half, then in quarters. I began tearing the paper into strips, so many strips that when I was finished I had created a small pile of thin paper noodles, not unlike the thin noodles that lingered in what passed for soup in my threadbare childhood. I threw the pile into an envelope which I stored in the inner pocket of my suit jacket, next to Hupfer's tuning fork.

On a fresh sheet of paper, in my most meticulous penmanship, I wrote the following report to the Commissioner:

March 12, 1854

Sir:

I beg to report that, to date, the identity of the person responsible for the slaying of Georg Adelmann has not been ascertained. Unfortunately no suspect has come to light nor has a murder weapon surfaced. Nor have I located any witness or witnesses despite a thorough canvass of the immediate neighbourhood. In the absence of scientific means of detecting how crimes of this nature are committed, I can only pledge to you that I shall continue with all due diligence and despatch my investigations in the hope that the perpetrator is apprehended and brought before the bar of justice for due conviction and punishment
.

Respectfully
,

Preiss, H., Senior Inspector

Despite the discomfort, I donned my hat and coat, still damp right through to their linings, and left my office, brushing past the orderly, curtly informing him that I would be gone for the remainder of the day, and instructing him to deliver my report.

A fog had begun drifting across the city from the river, coiling itself around the ancient buildings that lined my route to the same bridge from which Robert Schumann, or Florestan, or Eusebius…make your choice…had leapt into the chilly waters of the Rhine. Once at the bridge, I determined with satisfaction that not a soul was in sight. It was as if the inclement weather had been made to my order.

From the inner pocket of myjacket I took the envelope and Hupfer's tuning fork, the latter still carefully wrapped in a handkerchief. I paused for one more glance from one end of the bridge to the other to assure myself that I was alone. I leaned over the cold, wet masonry of the railing, holding the envelope and tuning fork (now unwrapped) in a firm grip. I opened the palm of my hand and released the contents. I watched the metal fork touch the black rain-pocked surface of the river without so much as a ripple and immediately disappear. The envelope also touched the water unceremoniously, but it was captured by a wave and swiftly carried away, reminding me of paper boats I made as a child. Before long, it too was out of sight.

I
left the bridge at a brisk pace, each clack of my heels against the paving stones like the sharp steady beat of a metronome, the tempo reflecting a sense of urgent unfinished business. I flagged down the first cab that came in view and called out my destination. The driver, noticing my bedraggled appearance, gave me a skeptical look, as though I couldn't possibly reside in the fashionable neighbourhood to which I had directed him.

“You
live
there, sir?” he asked.

Insolent bastard.
“Of course I live there,” I replied.

Properly silenced, the driver returned to his business. I settled back in the cab, grateful at last to be out of the unrelenting downpour, and began pondering the acts I had just committed back at the bridge. That I had willfully broken the law by doing away with incriminating evidence was of course beyond question, and yet in the expected tide of self-condemnation, I felt not the shallowest ripple of remorse. Instead, what consumed me more than anything else at the moment was the irony of my situation. I was drifting without restraint from the safe narrow confines of inspection into the dark uncharted spaces of introspection, searching for reasons that would justify not only what I had done…but what I was about to do.

Inner truths.
I smiled ruefully to myself, recalling how resolutely I had dismissed, even scorned, the idea as nothing but romantic foolishness, the stuff of poets, not policemen. Motive, opportunity, means…that was all that mattered. Or so I told myself until my path was crossed and re-crossed by this man Schumann, alias Florestan. I wanted nothing more now than somehow to right the wrongs done him. To accomplish this, one further item remained on my agenda: I must get rid of Adelmann's papers, his draft monograph on the life of Robert Schumann exposing details the Maestro was so desperate to suppress.

A block short of Adelmann's address, I ordered the driver to stop, paid the fare and waited on the sidewalk until the cab rounded the next corner and was out of sight. I had earlier appropriated a key to Adelmann's apartment from his landlady, citing “official police business,” and was able to let myself in without being noticed. Fortunately, there was sufficient light, despite the gloom outdoors, to permit a thorough search. I began, of course, in his study, ransacking his desk, an unruly depository of just about every shred of paper the man had ever touched, or so it seemed. But there was not so much as a tittle about Schumann. I then went from room to room, sparing nothing. I probed every stick of furniture, and poked behind curtains, under carpets, even upturning the bedding upon which the man had slept. Not a single nook or cranny escaped my scrutiny.

The papers were nowhere to be found.

I found it hard to imagine that out of some rare spirit of charity or compassion, Georg Adelmann would have voluntarily destroyed his work in response to Schumann's bidding. Besides, as a renowned journalist, Adelmann no doubt took pride in his research and had scruples about expurgating what he regarded as essential facts, even if they were potentially ruinous to someone's reputation. Nor did I overlook the probability that a literary exposé of Robert Schumann's private sex life would have found a wide audience and stuffed Adelmann's pockets with cash…those pockets which were not already stuffed with stolen valuables, that is.

But there was another possibility. What if Adelmann's monograph had fallen into the wrong hands, perhaps those of some professional gossipmonger, and was destined to be widely circulated in the press? Apart from the legitimate newspapers and periodicals in the country, a growing number of scandal sheets had sprung up like poison mushrooms in major cities like Berlin and Hamburg and Frankfurt, places where prurience knew few limits, not only among the masses but among the newly wealthy as well. I could not bear the thought that two personalities like Robert and Clara Schumann, geniuses who once upon a time had lit up the pluperfect realm of music, overnight would become objects of public ridicule and shame. I felt an overwhelming compulsion now to warn Clara about what I feared lay in store for her husband and her. Letting myself out of Adelmann's rooms, and making certain to lock the door behind me, I made straight for No. 15 Bilkerstrasse.

M
adam Schumann is practicing,” the Schumanns' housekeeper said, “but I will let her know you are here, Inspector.”

“Never mind. I know where to find her, thank you.” I went directly to the drawing-room, parted the heavy oak doors, and boldly entered to find Clara seated at the older of the two grand pianos. She did not bother to look up, nor did she stop playing, though she had to know I was there (I am, after all, not a small man, nor was the Schumann drawing-room all that spacious). She was bent over the keyboard, her head almost touching the keys, in what I had come to know as her customary posture at the piano. Player and instrument, it seemed, were as one. Her fingers did not strike the keys; rather they squeezed them. Under the touch of her hands—which for the first time struck me as surprisingly large for so compact a woman—the piano responded in a way that I did not think a piano was capable of responding: it sang, as though it possessed a human voice.

Suddenly, she halted in the midst of a phrase. I quickly apologized for the intrusion and for my dreadful appearance. She gave me a critical look, indicating that I had failed to pass inspection. I began to stammer a second apology only to be interrupted with a firm “
Please
…” followed by a flickering smile. “No need to make excuses, Inspector,” she said. “It appears that Düsseldorf has been chosen as the site of the second Great Flood—” she paused, and her smile warmed a bit, “though I must say, you
do
look as though you were on Noah's ark and fell overboard.”

“May I ask what you were playing?” I said. “It doesn't sound familiar to me.”

“It is my own composition, something I've been working on for several months…a set of variations on a theme of Robert's that I'm especially fond of.”

“Pardon my ignorance, Madam Schumann,” I said, “but I was not aware that musical composition was among your many talents.”

She smiled ruefully. “Then you must have been listening to my husband, Inspector. Robert went out of his way to discourage my attempts at composition, though from time to time he would allow that something I'd written was, as he put it, rather
charming
. Have you any idea, Inspector, what it feels like to be told something you've worked on is ‘charming'?”

“I cannot possibly imagine,” I said. “Certainly in
my
line of work, a word like ‘charming' has never cropped up nor, I expect, will it ever.”

Rising from the piano, she beckoned me to join her at the fireplace, where the two of us sat facing one another, she looking unexpectedly serene, I on the other hand feeling a deep sense of unease.

“I wasn't born yesterday, Inspector,” she said. ‘You didn't come here merely to listen to the bleating of a frustrated female.”

“I hardly know where to begin,” I said.

“Well, I suppose one ought to begin at the beginning. You've satisfied yourself that our friend Hupfer is guilty of the murder of Georg Adelmann?”

“I'm afraid not,” I said. “You see, ‘our friend' Willi Hupfer did not murder Georg Adelmann, as it turns out.” As I said this I watched for Clara's reaction. I thought I noticed her eyes narrow slightly. “The fact is, madam…the fact is that I am now quite positive that Adelmann was killed by someone wanting it to look as though it was the work of Willi Hupfer.”

“Well now, Inspector,” Madam Schumann said, “you surprise me. I thought the whole point of that demonstration you so cleverly staged…I'm referring to the business with the tuning fork…was to prove beyond doubt that Hupfer was Adelmann's slayer. You even arrested the man right there, before our very eyes! Now you're telling me the entire exercise was in vain?”

“Not entirely. One mystery
has
been resolved as a result of that arrest. Willi Hupfer confessed to being partly responsible for a series of deliberate mis-tunings over a period of some months which exacerbated the hallucinations your husband suffered. So there's now no doubt whatsoever about the legitimacy of your husband's complaints.”

“Is that your way of making me feel smitten with guilt because I doubted Robert's complaints were real rather than imagined? If so, then you've succeeded, Inspector.”

“I'm only stating established facts,” I replied. Your feelings? Well, I suppose those are entirely up to you, aren't they?”

“You say Willi admits to being
partly
responsible. Only partly?”

“There was a collaborator, madam, a man whom I'd describe as the mastermind behind the plot. This ‘mastermind' was well aware of the frightening damage these heightened auditory hallucinations could inflict. In Hupfer he found the perfect man to carry out the technical part of the plot. And he saw to it that Hupfer, who made no secret of his bitterness over the scant rewards of his trade, was handsomely paid for his efforts.”

“And are you at liberty to disclose who this collaborator is?”

“Unfortunately, there is no tactful way to tell you this. He is none other than Professor Friedrich Wieck…your father.”

I had expected this announcement to elicit from Clara Schumann some highly emotional response. And who would have blamed her at this point if, like a prima donna in some melodramatic opera, she had heart-wrenchingly sworn bloody revenge against the evildoers? Instead, after a full minute or so of silence, with incredible calmness, she said, “So you are completely satisfied that Hupfer has told you the truth about my father's role in all this?”

“When one has been in my profession long enough, one develops what people in your profession call perfect pitch. Hupfer was telling the truth.”

She paused again, then in that same unruffled manner, said, “So you will now travel to Endenich and arrest Robert.”

I found it strange that she put this in the form of a statement rather than a question. There was even a hint of resignation in her tone, as though the facts had emerged plainly in black and white: Who else but Robert Schumann would have had the reason, the opportunity, and the strength to murder Adelmann?

I was not at all prepared for her next remark. “That would be a grave mistake on your part, Inspector,” she said, her gaze intently fixed on me, “a very grave mistake.”

“How so?”

“Robert did not kill Georg Adelmann.”

“You know this for certain?”

“Yes.”

“You mean you have some
opinion
in the matter?”

“Not an opinion, Inspector. Call it knowledge.”

“Knowledge? Your own, or someone else's?”

“First-hand knowledge, Inspector. I killed Georg Adelmann.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It was
I
who killed Adelmann.”

I said, “It is very noble of you, Madam Schumann, to want to protect your husband's honour, but the powerful blow that took Adelmann's life could not possibly have been administered by someone of your physical stature.”

She took this as an insult. “Look at these hands!” She extended her hands, the long fingers splayed. “Do you have any notion at all how strong a pianist's hands are? How strong our arms and wrists must be? Even our shoulder and back muscles? I choose to avoid pounding the keys the way Franz Liszt pounds them, but I assure you my hands and fingers are every bit as steely as any male's, pianist or otherwise. A single blow is all it took for me to dispatch Adelmann.”

“There were marks on his temple suggesting that whoever struck him—”

“Not ‘whoever', Inspector. It was I who struck him—”

“—used a tuning fork or an instrument very much resembling—”

“Again I have to interrupt you, sir. The tuning fork you found is the instrument I used.”

“Hupfer's tuning fork?”

“Yes. Why do you find this so hard to accept?”

“How did you manage to acquire Hupfer's tuning fork? Don't ask me to believe that it suddenly materialized out of nowhere, madam. Tales of coincidence do
not
sit well with police inspectors.”

Clara Schumann gave me a faint smile. “Inspector Preiss, I would never insult your intelligence by offering you some fantasy about how it came into my possession.”

“The truth had better be simple. I have no time for anything else.”

“The truth is always simple, isn't it, Inspector? Think back, if you will. You recall, I mentioned that Willi Hupfer is a creature of rigorous habit. One might say his life is set in stone. You've seen how meticulous he is, everything in its place, a place for everything, as they say. And proud too. You've seen ample evidence of his pride. But pride leads to smugness, and smugness leads to carelessness, doesn't it?” I had the uncomfortable feeling that Clara Schumann's point wasn't confined to Wilhelm Hupfer, that she was aiming her barb at me as well.

“To answer your question fully about Willi's tuning fork, I have to take you back to the night of the musicale here in our house. The last thing Franz Liszt said as he was leaving was that the piano I'd played on was out of tune.”

“Yes, and you and your friend Brahms protested—rather vehemently, I must say—and continued to protest even after Maestro Schumann appeared on the scene and acknowledged that Liszt was right. Frankly, it was my impression that you and Brahms were chiefly concerned with allaying any suspicions about yourselves, and to hell with Dr. Schumann.”

You're
half
right, Inspector,” Clara Schumann said. “My denial was not aimed at allaying suspicions about
me;
rather, I was anxious to shield Johannes from suspicion. After all, when you consider Robert's temperament, it would not have taken much for him to conclude that Johannes was a participant in the conspiracy. And I say this despite Robert's deep affection for Johannes. So, yes, my protests were, as you put it, vehement. And with good reason.”

“But the
tuning fork
, Madam Schumann—”

“Bear with me. I mentioned that pride, smugness and carelessness inevitably follow one another. And here—” She reached for a sheet of stationery that lay on the lid of the Klems. “Here is proof.” She handed me the sheet. At the top, the printed letterhead read, “Wilhelm Hupfer, Master Piano Service Technician.”

“You will notice,” she said, “the date, which is the Saturday of the musicale. It is an itemized list of work done by Willi Hupfer that afternoon. This was one of Willi's many habits. After every visit, he would leave behind a detailed record of each item of service he'd performed, no matter how routine. It was his way of impressing us with his thoroughness. It was also his subtle way of attempting to make us feel guilty because he considered himself underpaid. His penmanship, like his workmanship, is impeccable, so you should have no trouble reading it.”

I began silently to read.

“No, Inspector,” she urged, “please read it aloud.”

I read:
Klems exhibits premature wear and tear due to secondary quality parts and construction!

Cleaned keybed, polished pins, checked all hammers and tapes
.

Tightened all action screws
.

Polished action brackets
.

Checked damper lever springs
.

Regulated and eased keys wherever necessary
.

Re-strung A above Middle C (original strings too slack to pull up)
.

I looked up. “I'm no technician, but one question immediately jumps out of this report: isn't it curious that, for a piano that is supposedly cheaply constructed, among all eighty-eight keys and over two hundred strings the only strings, that required replacing were those for A above middle C?”

“That is not the only peculiar thing,” she replied. “Suppose one must order a new set of strings. The closest manufacturer of strings suitable for our Klems piano is in Berlin. It can take up to two weeks before such an order is delivered. So one must produce strings from scratch in an emergency. It is a highly skilled and time-consuming process. I've watched Hupfer make them. First, he takes a length of thin but very strong steel wire, hammers both ends flat and forms them into loops, then hooks the wire onto a spinning contraption, something like a woodcraftsman's lathe. Then he wraps a length of copper wire around the steel core and spins the two, feeding the copper one very deftly between his thumb and forefinger so that it spirals down the steel wire to form a covering. As you can appreciate, Inspector, piano wires don't grow on trees.”

“Which means Hupfer wouldn't have been capable of producing the new A strings on the spur of the moment,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“Which also means he must have planned to replace the A strings in advance…
well
in advance. Whether or not it needed restringing was beside the point. But I'm not sure if it was carelessness or just plain stupidity that made him refer to it in the list.”

“It was both,” Clara said, “but it was also greed. In his anxiety to make certain he collected every possible pfennig for his labour and material, he made the mistake of listing the A-string replacements. As soon as I read the list, I realized in a flash that something foul was going on.”

I asked, “When did you first see the list?”

“After everyone had departed, the night of the musicale, Robert flew into one of his worst tantrums. Naturally, he was outraged by Liszt's patronizing response to our music. He was angry with me because he felt that I hadn't adequately supervised the tuning of the Klems or at least tested it after Hupfer was finished. He professed again and again that the A sound was constantly ringing in his ears. I'm ashamed to admit that I finally resorted to giving him a tumbler of schnapps large enough to put a regiment to sleep. It worked. Then I came back down to Robert's study, found Hupfer's list and request for payment. As soon as I saw the last item…well, you can imagine the rest.”

“May we return, then, to the matter of Hupfer's tuning fork?” I said.

“Ah yes, the tuning fork. I
did
warn you, Inspector, that we would have to go back in time.”