Morley Torgov - The Mastersinger from Minsk

“I’ll come to the point,” I said. “This man Schramm … there is something about him that — ”

“That what — ?”

I paused. “No, Helena, I’m not going to say anything more. I don’t want to say anything that might influence your opinion of him.”

Helena gave me one of her carnal smiles. “Is he handsome and young?”

“Devilishly so.”

“Tell me more, Hermann.”

“No.”

“ Please — ”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re jealous of him, aren’t you, Hermann?”

“Teasing me won’t work,” I said. “I’m not saying another word about Schramm. I want your impression of him without being tainted in advance.”

“Tainted? You mean there’s a dark side to this tenor?”

“Enough, Helena.” I got out of bed, got dressed while Helena watched in silence, and reached for my hat and coat. “Good luck tomorrow night, my sweet,” I said, planting a kiss on her forehead.

Pouting, Helena said, “I think it’s positively beastly of you not to at least give me a hint of what I’m to look out for at this little supper of yours.”

I moved to the door, turned and blew her a kiss, then let myself out, calling back, “Sweet dreams, Helena.” Closing the door behind me, I heard something strike it. Whatever Helena threw, I hoped it wasn’t too valuable.

The hour was late and the night air sharp but I decided a walk from the Eugénie Palace to my rooms, a distance of a little over a kilometre, would condition me for a good night’s sleep.

No sooner had I stepped from the ornate front entrance of the hotel onto the deserted sidewalk than I heard a voice call out, “Inspector Preiss, thank God I’ve found you!” I turned to see a small figure hobbling toward me like a piece of fragile old crockery. “Thank God I’ve found you!” he repeated.

“Mecklenberg! What on earth brings you here?”

He appeared and sounded short of breath, which I was beginning to think was his natural state. “Your colleague Brunner was right, Preiss. He informed me that your cellist friend was in Munich. I learned that she is a guest at the Eugénie Palace, and here you are! I’ve got hold of you just in time.”

“Just in time for what?”

“There’s been a murder, Inspector … a man by the name of Sandor Lantos.”

"Sandor Lantos has murdered someone?”

“No, no,” Mecklenberg wheezed, clutching his chest as though he were in pain. “Lantos is the victim . He … uh … he — ”

I hooked an arm through one of Mecklenberg’s arms, fearing he was about to collapse. Though he was a small man, his weight, such as it was, anchored me to the sidewalk. “Come with me into the hotel,” I said. “You could use a comfortable place to sit and a good strong cup of coffee.”

Huffing and puffing, and waving his free arm impatiently, the old man responded, “There’s no time, don’t you see? Besides, I haven’t even told you who Sandor Lantos is … or rather was.”

“There’s no need to,” I said. “I happen to know.”

“Then you will understand that Maestro Wagner is beside himself, poor man. This is tragic for Wagner. Tragic!”

“Excuse me, Mecklenberg,” I said, “but aren’t you missing the point here? Tragic for Wagner ? What about Lantos’s wife and children?”

Abruptly the old man shook loose and stared at me as though I were out of my mind. “His wife and children? What about them? Who gives a damn, Preiss? It wasn’t their opera Lantos was working on. It was Wagner’s. That is what matters.”

Recalling for a moment my one and only conversation with Sandor Lantos and his concerns for his family, I was appalled by Mecklenberg’s utter lack of compassion, but for the moment police business came first. “How did you learn of Lantos’s death?” I asked.

“Earlier this evening,” Mecklenberg replied. “I was to meet the Maestro at the opera house. We had some urgent business to discuss. I found him in a terrible state of upset. I have to explain, Inspector: The final scene of Die Meistersinger takes place in a public square. The entire cast is on stage for the competition about to begin … the principal characters, a large chorus of townspeople, my God the entire population of Germany! In typical fashion, Wagner was busy with a tape measure; he was actually measuring the space available for this crowd scene, right down to the last millimetre. It turned out that the set designed by Lantos would not accommodate all these people and Wagner was having a fit, yelling, cursing, vowing to skin Lantos alive. He insisted we proceed straight to Lantos’s studio which, as you perhaps know, is no more than a stone’s throw from the opera house.”

“But wouldn’t Lantos’s studio be closed for the night?”

Mecklenberg gave me a sardonic smile. “Closed? That would mean absolutely nothing to Wagner. When you work for Richard Wagner there is only one time zone on this earth — Wagner Standard Time. Twenty-five-hour days and eight-day weeks. So off we went. When we reached the studio we found the front door slightly ajar. Wagner of course took this as an automatic invitation to enter without so much as a polite knock. I followed after him. None of the lamps had been extinguished and I took for granted that Lantos was working late. The place was a mess, papers strewn all over, many of them in shreds.”

“Yes yes, but what about Lantos?”

Shuddering, Mecklenberg replied, “You won’t believe your eyes, Preiss.”

“So it’s true after all,” I said, muttering to myself, “the pen is mightier than the sword — ”

“I beg your pardon?” Mecklenberg called, making certain to keep a respectable distance behind me and well away from Lantos’s body which lay sprawled in a chair behind his worktable.

“It’s nothing, Mecklenberg. I was just talking to myself.”

Lantos’s throat had been pierced by one of his sketching pens, pierced so deeply its long steel nib had obviously penetrated the man’s windpipe. His eyes were open, staring, as though he couldn’t believe this was how he was about to die.

Two young constables had arrived on the crime scene before me, dispatched by the night duty officer to stand guard and make certain nothing was disturbed. Fortunately two other constables had already ushered Lantos’s wife and children away from the premises. “They were screaming and carrying on something awful,” one of the guards reported, adding that an older man also had to be escorted out of the studio. “Kept shouting ‘Who could do this to me?’” the guard said. “I wrote down the man’s name here in my notebook. Wagner, Richard Wagner, or something like that.” The blank look on the constable’s face indicated Wagner’s name meant nothing to him.

Careful still to maintain a safe distance from the corpse, Mecklenberg called to me again. “What kind of monster could have done this?”

“No monster,” I said, “just a human being with inhuman strength.”

“But why? Lantos was an artist, a quiet decent hardworking man. I can’t imagine he had an enemy in the world.”

“I can,” I said quietly, again speaking to myself, not thinking old Mecklenberg could hear me.

But hear me he did. “You can?”

“Forgive me, Mecklenberg,” I said. “It’s just the cynic in me. A meaningless remark, the result of too many years of seeing this kind of thing.”

For the moment this lame excuse seemed to satisfy Mecklenberg’s curiosity.

I made certain that the next thing I said to myself could not possibly be heard by anyone in the room. “Wolfgang Grilling. Who else?”