The Melancholy Countess (Short Story) (4 page)

Once out of the Corvinus, he took the first narrow side street and made his way to the train station, where he purchased a one-way ticket to Strass-Sommerein. At Strass-Sommerein he could catch the connection to Budapest, and from Budapest he could get to the marches and the relative safety of the estate.

As luck would have it, the Strass-Sommerein train was about to leave. Hauke congratulated himself on his good timing. He was about to get into a first-class carriage, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round and saw a youth whose sharp features were vaguely familiar.

“Herr Hauke?”

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“My name is Haussmann. Inspector Rheinhardt’s assistant?”

“Ah, yes. Haussmann.”

“The inspector asked you to stay in Vienna.”

“Did he?”

“Most definitely.”

“Well, it must have slipped my mind.”

Haussmann gestured down the platform. “This way, please.”

Rheinhardt and Liebermann were walking purposefully toward the Corvinus.

“He was trying to get away,” said Rheinhardt.

“That doesn’t reflect well on him, I’ll grant you that,” Liebermann replied.

“He was happy to leave Vienna without making any provision for his wife’s burial or repatriation. Extraordinary. She’s still lying in the Pathological Institute.”

“That Hauke lacks ordinary sensitivities is beyond question.”

“But you don’t think he killed her?”

They entered the Corvinus and presented themselves at the reception desk. Shortly after, they were received by the manager, Herr Farkas. “Welcome, Inspector,” he declared with open arms. “I have set a room aside for your use.”

“That is very kind of you.”

The manager then led them to a spacious office on the ground floor. It had a desk, several chairs, and a stove that emitted a stifling heat.

Rheinhardt and Liebermann began by interviewing the senior members of the staff and gradually worked their way down the hotel hierarchy. Most had had nothing to do with the countess and her husband, but those who had, commented on her sad mien and Hauke’s haughty indifference. The maids confirmed that there had been arguments, but no one had heard raised voices or a struggle the night of the countess’s apparent suicide. At eight o’clock, Liebermann and Rheinhardt went to the lobby in order to stretch their legs.

“We’re not getting much further, are we?” said Rheinhardt.

“No.”

“Then perhaps we can go now. I’m beginning to get hungry—and there’s a coffeehouse close by, where they serve divine
mohnstrudel
.”

Liebermann ignored Rheinhardt’s remark and asked, “How many people are there left to interview?”

“Four.”

“What about him?” Liebermann pointed to the bellboy.

“You’re getting desperate, Max.”

Liebermann beckoned to the youth, who ran over.

“Good evening,” said Liebermann. “I am Dr. Max Liebermann, and this gentleman here is Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt of the security office.” The boy looked from one to the other with wide eyes. “What is your name?”

“Attila,” said the boy.

“I would like to ask you a few questions, if I may?” The boy nodded. “Do you remember the Countess Nadazdy-Hauke?”

“The old lady who died.”

“Indeed.”

“She wasn’t that old,” said Rheinhardt.

Liebermann threw his friend a withering look and returned his attention to the boy. “Did you ever speak to her?”

“Only once, sir.”

“When was that?”

“Saturday night, sir. The night she …” He made the sign of the cross in lieu of finishing his sentence.

“What was the time?”

“About nine o’clock, sir. I was going down the stairs. I’d taken a bouquet of flowers up to the third floor. Madame Delacroix, room fourteen. The countess was coming up the stairs as I was going down.”

“She was on the third floor?”

“No, sir. She was between the first and second.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Nothing, sir.”

Rheinhardt sighed. “But you just said you had spoken to her?”

“Well, I did,” Attila responded. “That’s true enough, sir. She didn’t reply.”

“What did you say to the countess?” Liebermann asked with gentle concern.

“I asked if she was all right.”

“Why was that?” The boy looked down at his shoes and seemed a little embarrassed. “Attila?”

“She … she was pulling faces.”

Rheinhardt and Liebermann exchanged glances. They both asked together, “What kind of faces?” The effect was quite comical.

“There was a girl who used to live on our street who used to do the same thing. Her face would jerk.”

“You mean a spasm. Like this?” Liebermann contracted the muscles on the left side of his face.

“Yes. Like that.”

“And what about the rest of the countess’s body?”

“She was shaking.”

“As if she were freezing cold? Or were the movements more violent?”

“No. She wasn’t cold.” Attila shook his head. “Her face was all shiny.”

“You mean she was perspiring?”

The boy merely repeated his initial observation. “Her face was all shiny.”

“So, Attila. You asked her if she was all right, but she didn’t reply?”

“No, sir. She didn’t.”

“Was that because she couldn’t reply?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“I want you to think very hard.”

“Some kind of seizure?” ventured Rheinhardt.

Liebermann beat the air several times to indicate that he wanted his friend to remain silent. “Attila, can you remember her eyes? What did her eyes look like?” The boy’s face was blank. “Recreate the scene in your mind. You are descending the stairs; she is coming up. She looks unwell, and you ask her if she is all right. You are looking directly at her. Now tell me. What do you see? Her eyes, what do they look like?”

Recollection illuminated Attila’s expression. “They were moving from side to side. It made her look shifty. She waved me away, so I didn’t stop.” After a moment’s reflection he added, “I didn’t do anything wrong, did I, sir?”

It was Rheinhardt who answered. “No, Attila. Your behavior was exemplary, and you have been very helpful.” He took a krone from his pocket and gave it to the boy.

“Much obliged, sir.” The boy bowed, clicked his heels, and returned to his post with a definite spring in his step.

Liebermann turned to face Rheinhardt. “I think you had better call Professor Mathias. I would suggest that he undertake an analysis of the contents of the countess’s stomach.”

“Why?”

“Tetanic spasm—hyperthermia—nystagmus. She was poisoned with strychnine.”

The low winter sun cast long shadows on the pavement outside the coffeehouse. Gazing through the window, Liebermann observed the passage, from right to left, of a Hasidic Jew, a Carpathian peasant, and two middle-aged women whose hats were decorated with enormous ostrich feathers.

Rheinhardt sipped his aromatic
türkische
coffee before addressing his companion. “You were right. Strychnine.” Liebermann did not react, and Rheinhardt continued. “This is what I think happened. Hauke poisoned his wife’s food—or her wine, perhaps? She felt unwell, retired early, and died alone. When Hauke followed her up later, he removed her clothes and deposited her lifeless body in the bathtub.”

“Oskar,” said Liebermann wearily. “Hauke might be a moral imbecile, but he isn’t stupid.” Rheinhardt tilted his head, tacitly requesting that his friend elaborate. “How could he have known that his wife would decide to retire at exactly the right moment?”

“He might have told her to go to bed as soon as she started to exhibit symptoms. She suffered from melancholia and was, by all accounts, very passive—at least in public.”

“Very well. How could Hauke have calculated precisely how long it would take for the poison to kill her? The time it takes for strychnine to cause asphyxiation varies from person to person. The countess might have died on the stairs, or alternatively, she might have taken hours to die. In which case a doctor would have been summoned, and he would have almost certainly suspected poisoning.”

“Isn’t there a relationship between dose and effect?”

“Yes, but it is modulated by so many factors: age, weight, and general health.”

“A rough estimate may have served Hauke well enough.”

Liebermann looked out the window again. A black carriage with the Habsburg crest on the door rolled by. “Strychnine poisoning is such a horrible way to die. The
victim remains conscious until the very end. There are more efficient ways of disposing of a wife.”

“He’s a monster. He wanted her to suffer.”

“I do not think he is that kind of monster. He is motivated by money, and inflicting an agonizing death, in this particular instance, was entirely surplus to his requirements. It introduced an unnecessary element of risk. I wonder …” Liebermann breathed on the window and drew a treble clef in the condensation with his fingertip. “Could it be that someone else—someone other than Hauke—wanted the countess dead?”

“I very much doubt it.”

“We know relatively little about her past.”

“True. But I think we know enough about her provenance and character to make some fairly respectable guesses. I would not say that she was a woman whose transgressions were of sufficient wickedness to merit such a vile end. She was a sad, tragic figure.”

“Then perhaps she was killed as a warning to Hauke?”

“Now you are being fanciful, Max.” Rheinhardt lit a cigar and pushed the box across the table for Liebermann. “I received a note from Commissioner Brügel earlier today. He wants me to be more decisive.”

“You mean he wants you to arrest Hauke.”

Rheinhardt opened his mouth and released a cloud of fulvous smoke. “Hauke didn’t do himself any favors by trying to abscond. And Haussmann tells me he spends all day and half the night gambling at his club.”

“Even so. Decisiveness requires decisive evidence.”

“I know that, and you know that,” Rheinhardt replied. “But I’m not sure that I can say the same for Commissioner Brügel.”

Frau Albert was in her early thirties, but she looked older. Her dress was a washed-out gray, and her undisciplined hair was wiry and tangled. She sat on the opposite side of Rheinhardt’s desk, clutching a copy of the
Illustrierte Kronen-Zeitung
, a rather disreputable newspaper that appealed to those with a taste for scandal. Frau Albert had drawn a ring around the article that she wished to bring to the inspector’s attention. It was only a small piece, tucked away on page eight, but it contained all the relevant facts: marriage to a much younger husband, melancholy, suicide. Hauke was named, and described as “a dashing cavalry officer who had been decorated by the emperor.”

“He was originally courting my sister,” said Frau Albert. “But when my father passed away, he became more interested in my mother. It was obscene how he flirted with her. To be frank, I don’t think she was herself; the grief had made her mad. They married in secret, and when she told my sister and me, we broke off relations with her. My mother died abroad, in a village just outside Naples. He buried her there too—and very promptly, I imagine. She was supposed to have died from tuberculosis, but an Italian doctor will say anything if you pay him enough. Needless to say, we had our suspicions. When Herr Hauke returned to Vienna, we employed a lawyer to contest the will, but nothing could be done.” Frau Albert’s eyes brightened with anger, and she clenched her fists. “My father built up his fortune from nothing. He loved us dearly and would never have neglected our interests. I beg you, Inspector, please bring this fiend to book. He is a ruthless predator and must be stopped.”

Rheinhardt puffed out his cheeks and let the air out slowly. He wanted to say something measured and dignified, but nothing suggested itself. “God in heaven” was the best he could do.

Commissioner Brügel had just finished reading Rheinhardt’s report. He was an imposing figure whose oversize muttonchop whiskers obscured most of his face. “Are there any other suspects?”

“None of the staff at the hotel had anything to gain from the countess’s demise,” Rheinhardt replied. “They are mostly Hungarian and doltishly loyal to the old families. A man entered the dining room and spoke to Hauke the night the countess died, but he couldn’t have tampered with her food without being noticed.”

“Who was he?”

“A gentleman named Pauli Tausig. He left Vienna with his family before we had a chance to interview him. It seems that he did so to escape creditors.”

The commissioner gathered Rheinhardt’s papers together, placed them in a buff folder, and said with blunt authority, “Arrest Hauke.”

“With respect, sir,” Rheinhardt began, “we can’t be sure that—”

Brügel did not permit him to continue. “This rogue probably murdered his first two wives. Let’s not let him get away with a third, eh?”

“Sir,” Rheinhardt tried again, “Hauke is a bad man. Of that, I am not in doubt; however, so far, all the evidence we have gathered against him is circumstantial. I believed every word that Frau Albert spoke. But none of her speculations can be proved.”

Brügel shook his head. “The countess will have relatives, and we must not forget that her first husband was a Nadazdy. As soon as these nobles learn that one of their number died in doubtful circumstances, questions will be asked. Rheinhardt, you don’t seem to appreciate the wider implications of this case.” Brügel gestured toward the large portrait of the emperor that hung behind his desk. “Hauke was a cavalry officer. Discharged with honors, no less. That won’t reflect well on the palace. Moreover, if we don’t arrest Hauke quickly, the Hungarians might allege that we were
reluctant to do so. They will say that we value the liberty of our military heroes more than the life of a Hungarian countess. This could get very political.”

“Dr. Liebermann is not convinced that Herr Hauke murdered his wife.”

Brügel’s expression darkened. “I really don’t give a hoot what Liebermann thinks. He doesn’t have to deal with palace aides. I have the reputation of the security office to protect—and so do you!”