Frank Tallis: Death And The Maiden

‘What are you going to do?’

The inspector turned to his friend and said, ‘I keep thinking of the Crown Prince.’

‘Another suicide,’ said Liebermann with suggestive emphasis.

‘Did you know he was seen at the opera shortly before his demise? The overture had already begun when the curtain was pulled aside and his father joined him in the royal box. A significant occurrence: the emperor rarely patronises the opera. They say the two of them were whispering throughout the performance. The conversation they were having was apparently very serious. Expressions were grave. After the second act the emperor rose abruptly and departed. A week later the troublesome prince was dead.’ Rheinhardt emptied his brandy glass and placed it on the table. ‘I think, on this occasion, I will obey orders.’

The silence that followed was deep and protracted. Liebermann could still hear the Schubert melody, endlessly repeating. Beneath it he discerned the beat of his own heart. Liebermann offered Rheinhardt a cigar but the inspector refused.

‘Another brandy, perhaps?’ Rheinhardt ventured.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Liebermann, obliging.

The inspector took the replenished glass and swirled the contents. ‘I have some news that will make you happy,’ he said, without turning. ‘I have received authorisation to exhume the body of David Freimark.’

Low, dark clouds hung over the St Marxer cemetery. Everything seemed colourless, bleached to a vapid greyish monochrome by an obstinate drizzle. Two gravediggers and their assistants were standing in a hole, only the upper halves of their bodies visible. Although spades descended with mechanical regularity, progress was slow. The ground was so wet that it was necessary to shore up the sides of the grave to prevent the walls from falling in. Clots of viscous mud oozed through the vertical timbers, creating an alternating pattern of faecal extrusions.

Rheinhardt and Liebermann had tired of watching this dismal scene, and had walked the short distance to the Mozartgrab . Beneath the stretched fabric of their umbrellas they smoked cigars and made some desultory conversation about the composer’s genius. The truncated column and the statue of the despairing cherub, his hand pressed pathetically against his brow, had never appeared more poignant. They returned to Freimark’s grave, made some encouraging remarks to the men (even though the hole didn’t look any deeper) and then walked up and down an adjacent pathway, stopping occasionally to read headstones.

Eventually they heard a cry. Turning, they saw one of the gravediggers waving his spade in the air like the pendulum of a metronome.

‘Come,’ said Rheinhardt.

They hurried towards the swinging blade, their route necessitating a disrespectful leaping over the final resting places of the dead. When they arrived at their destination they stood on some planks that had been placed at the foot of Freimark’s grave and peered down. The distinctive shape of a coffin had been revealed. A section of the lid had rotted through, and Liebermann thought that he could see something white inside. He also fancied he could smell corruption, decay, the release of foul vapours, but he checked his imagination and realised it was only the fetor of waterlogged earth.

The exhumation continued under a pall of silence. In due course the coffin was heaved out of the grave. Liebermann could see, quite clearly now, a fixed, skeletal grin through the aperture.

‘The top’s rotten,’ said the chief gravedigger. ‘But the rest is sound. We could carry it to the mortuary van.’

Rheinhardt nodded.

The rain intensified and the gentle background susurration, hitherto ignored, suddenly increased in volume, becoming a continuous thrumming. There was something minatory about the downpour. Liebermann should have felt eager, excited, but the bleakness of the landscape and the miserable weather had lowered his spirits. The grave looked as if it had been violated rather than simply opened. He was filled with terrible doubts about the entire enterprise.

‘Well,’ said Rheinhardt, demonstrating remarkable perspicacity. ‘It’s too late to put him back again.’

‘There won’t be much left of the poor fellow,’ said Professor Mathias. ‘Putrefaction and maggots: they eat everything.’

Liebermann and Rheinhardt helped the old man take the lid off the coffin. Inside were Freimark’s jumbled bones and some shredded remnants of fabric. A considerable amount of soil had accumulated around the skeleton. Where it was deepest, the surface trembled on account of the activity of burrowing insects. One of them, a creature with a ribbed carapace and agitated flagella, was crawling along the ridge of Freimark’s hip.

Mathias stood at the head of the coffin and, assuming a solemn expression, began to recite a poem.

‘“The warder looks down at the mid-hour of night, on the tombs that lie scatter’d below.”’ He raised his hand up, like an actor, and added, ‘“The moon fills the place with her silvery light, and the churchyard like day seems to glow. When see! First one grave, then another opes wide, and women and men stepping forth are descried, in cerements snow-white and trailing.”’ Behind the thick magnifying lenses of his spectacles, Mathias’s eyes seemed to be floating outside his body. They fixed on Rheinhardt and the professor issued a challenge. ‘Well, Inspector?’

‘That was the first stanza of Goethe’s Totentanz,’ Rheinhardt replied.

‘Too easy, wasn’t it?’

‘There’s something in the coffin,’ said Liebermann.

‘Yes, the remains of David Freimark,’ Mathias responded with alacrity.

Liebermann ignored the remark and pointed at an object half-buried in the soil. His extended finger directed the gaze of his companions through the baroque curves and arches of Freimark’s ribcage. ‘Look.’

Mathias craned over the coffin’s edge. ‘So there is.’ He reached under the sternum and pushed the soil aside, uncovering a long wooden box. A tiny rusted key projected from the lock.

The three men exchanged glances. Professor Mathias gave the box to Rheinhardt, who turned it over and examined it from all sides. The surfaces were unmarked. There was no beading or inlay. It looked, to the inspector, like an elongated pencil case.

‘Oskar?’ said Liebermann, impatient to discover what was inside. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Rheinhardt sat down on a stool and placed the box on the bench in front of him. The key resisted the force of his knuckle for a few moments, then suddenly capitulated. Its rotation produced a click that sounded disproportionately loud — amplified by the morgue’s commodious acoustics. Rheinhardt raised the lid. Liebermann was aware of a faint breath of air and registered a fragrance, the merest trace of lavender. Inside the box lay a cylinder of paper, speckled with musical notation and tied with a piece of red ribbon. With great care, Rheinhardt removed the roll and slipped off the binding before flattening it out on the bench.

‘A song,’ said Rheinhardt.

The staves were arranged in groups of three, a vocal part and piano accompaniment. The tempo indication was Langsam, andachtig . Slowly, devoutly, Rheinhardt read the title: ‘Nearness of the beloved.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Professor Mathias. ‘I know it well. Once again, Goethe, I believe.’

‘Schubert also wrote a setting,’ said Rheinhardt.

Without looking at the text, Mathias began to recite, ‘“I think of you when the sun’s shimmer gleams from the Sea: I think of you when the moon’s glimmer is mirrored in streams …”’

‘Yes. That’s it.’

‘Are you sure it’s not a copy of the Schubert song?’