A Philosophical Investigation: A Novel (24 page)

‘Well,’ said Jake.

He nodded. ‘Despite Nietzsche’s reservations about the dialectical method, that it is nothing more than a rhetorical play, our inquiry into truth, with its question and answer structure, has its origins in the Socratic form of dialogue. If confusion does arise it is because, to an inexperienced eye, it might seem that we are always looking for answers; but just as often, we are looking for the question. The real crux of what we both do is to attempt to see the anomaly in what appears familiar and then to formulate some really useful questions about it.

‘In its purest form, ours is a narrowly intellectual activity, involving a dialogue with the past. And where we fail it is more often because of some false assumption or conceptual error in that cognitive, explanatory activity of ours.

‘Of course, lack of proof is a recurrent problem with both of our activities. Much of our best work fails because we are unable to prove the validity of our thinking.’

Jake smiled. ‘Yes. And yet it seems to me that I have one great advantage over what you do, Professor. I may occasionally lack proof for my theories. But I can always trick a suspect into confessing. And sometimes, worse than that.’

‘Philosophers are not without their intellectual tricks,’ said Lang. ‘However, I take your point.’

‘Now I see how you managed to make a detective out of Plato,’ said Jake. ‘And how it works as well as it does. I wonder what he would have thought about us.’

‘Who, Plato?’

Jake nodded.

‘Oh, I am sure that he would have approved of you, Chief Inspector. As an auxiliary guardian, in the service of the state, you are pretty much what he suggested.’

‘Except that I’m a woman.’

‘Plato was generally in favour of equality between the sexes,’ said Lang. ‘So I guess that it would have been all right, your being a woman. On the other hand, I don’t think there can be any doubt that he would not have approved of me.’

‘Oh? And why’s that?’

‘A philosopher and a novelist as well? Unthinkable. Plato was enormously hostile to art of any kind. That’s what made writing a novel about him such fun.’

Lang stood up and fetched the sherry decanter.

‘Top you up?’ he asked.

Jake held out her glass.

‘But look here, I’m diverting you, Chief Inspector. I’m sure you didn’t come all this way for a philosophy tutorial.’

‘Oh, but I did, Professor. But not on Plato. I’m interested in Wittgenstein.’

‘Isn’t everyone?’ he said darkly, and sat down again. ‘Well, of course you’ve come to the right place. No doubt you already know that Wittgenstein was a member of this college. So what do you want to know about him? That he was a genius, but that he was wrong? No, that’s hardly fair. But this is too exciting, Chief Inspector. I’m as fond of reading conspiracy theories in the newspapers as the next man, but you’re not going to tell me that he was murdered, are you? That sixty-odd years ago, someone bumped him off? You know, from everything I’ve read about him, he was rather an irritating, punctilious sort of fellow. An ideal candidate for murder.’

Jake smiled and shook her head. ‘No, it’s not quite that,’ she said. ‘But before I tell you, I must ask for your undertaking to treat this matter as confidential. There are people’s lives at stake.’

‘Then consider it given, on one condition. That you tell me about it over lunch.’

‘Well, if you’re sure it’s no trouble.’

‘No trouble at all. Mrs Hindley always makes too much, just in case I invite someone back.’

Jake thanked the professor and they adjourned to the dining room where Sir Jameson Lang’s housekeeper served them with chicken broth, Spam fritters with baked beans, and then creamed rice with tinned mandarin oranges. While they ate, Jake told him what she knew: about the Lombroso Program, and of how someone, codenamed Wittgenstein, was eliminating all the other men who had tested VMN-negative. And then, over the coffee, she played him the disc.

Lang listened to the killer’s voice with a look of rapt concentration. Occasionally he noted something down on a pad he had produced from his jacket pocket. And sometimes, frowning with what perhaps was horror, he shook his head slowly. When side one had finished, Jake played him side two. Lang sneered silently at some of the arguments, but when it too was finished he nodded emphatically.

‘Fascinating,’ he breathed. ‘Quite fascinating. And you say that this disc was found in the mouth of his last victim: Socrates?’

‘That’s right.’

Lang pursed his lips. ‘I suppose that could in itself be symbolic.’ He gave a brief snort of astonishment. ‘But the whole case is ripe with symbolism. Only you’re not here to talk about that, are you? I presume you have questions which relate to this fellow’s pretensions to being a philosopher himself. Perhaps even to the extent of believing that he is himself Wittgenstein. Am I right?’

‘Yes,’ Jake admitted. ‘I can see the obvious parody of Wittgenstein’s
Tractatus.
But concerning the content, I need your help.’

‘All right then,’ he said, and glanced down at the notes he had made. Then he got up from the table and opened a box of Havanas, which lay on the sideboard, and from which he took out a silver tube. ‘But first I must have a cigar. I think more clearly when my lungs are clouded.’

Jake took out her own cigarettes, and poked one between her lips. Removing both cigar and its wafer-thin lining, Lang dipped the latter into the fire with which he lit first Jake and then himself. He puffed happily for several moments, walking round the creaking oak-floored room and, from time to time, glancing at his notebook. Finally he sat down once again, removed the Churchill from his mouth, sipped some of his coffee, and then nodded.

‘First, he refers to his brother. Wittgenstein had brothers, one of whom killed himself. That might be significant.

‘Then there is the relation between the covert, hidden aspect of what cannot be said to Wittgenstein’s supposed homosexuality.’ Lang shrugged. ‘The theory that Wittgenstein was an active homosexual has been discounted by all but one of his biographers, an American.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘That he was homosexual is certainly possible. What is more likely is that he was simply asexual.

‘Clearly, as you say Chief Inspector, he seems familiar with the style and structure of the
Tractatus.
Indeed, I should say that he knows it quite well.

‘He recommends that you consider your grammar. Well, of course “Philosophical Grammar” was the substance of Wittgenstein’s work between 1931 and 1934 and this was published posthumously, in the mid-1970s.

‘It’s interesting that he signs off as “yours bloodily”. That’s how Wittgenstein himself often signed off in his correspondence with friends and colleagues.’

Lang sucked some more at his cigar and then surveyed the darker brown end that had been in his mouth.

‘Next, you mentioned the possibility that he might wish to concentrate on killing those other VMN-negative men whose codenames are the names of philosophers. I think you could be right, Chief Inspector. Wittgenstein himself believed that in the
Tractatus
he had found all the answers to the problems of philosophy. That he had done away with all that went before. For instance, he believed he had disproved most of what Bertrand Russell had written. So it’s entirely characteristic that your killer should have eliminated him.’

Jake nodded and sucked hard at her cigarette. With no nicotine it was hard to find much satisfaction in anything other than the sensation of the smoke itself. Nevertheless, the sucking and blowing of smoke always helped her to concentrate.

‘From what you’ve heard,’ she said, ‘do you think it’s possible that he might have read Philosophy as a student?’

Lang smiled. ‘Chief Inspector, you’ve no idea the kind of strange people who apply to read Philosophy. Especially here, at Cambridge. To paraphrase Keats, they are the kind of people who would clip an angel’s wings. So, to answer your question, yes, it’s possible. And if a young philosopher wanted a role model, then Wittgenstein would certainly be your man. His work has a turbo-charged quality, rather like Nietzsche’s, and is always influential on students. That comparison with Nietzsche is useful because in the same way that he went mad, there’s a madness that’s also apparent in Wittgenstein’s writings. Remember that crappy old saying about the thin dividing line between genius and madness? Well, all his life Wittgenstein, who was certainly aware of his great abilities, was also terrified that he might cross that imaginary line and lose his mind. I can well see how he might have an extraordinary appeal for a mentally unbalanced individual as much as for a logician.

‘But it’s also worth remembering that Wittgenstein came to regard the early work contained in the Tractatus as fundamentally mistaken. Perhaps you should consider the possibility that the killer might similarly be persuaded of the error of what he is doing. He promised to communicate with you, did he not? Yes indeed, he seemed to imply that you and he might have some sort of a dialogue. That might present you with a real opportunity to argue with him and, utilitarian considerations notwithstanding, maintain a logical position at odds with his own. If he’s in any way sophisticated, he ought to respond to that challenge.’

Jake nodded thoughtfully.

‘I don’t suppose you might consider helping me out with that as well?’ she asked.

‘Frankly, I’d be delighted,’ he said. ‘I was rather hoping you would ask me. The idea of engaging a murderer in a philosophical dialogue is certainly an intriguing one. Contemporary philosophy in action, so to speak. But tell me, Chief Inspector, do you have any idea how he will make contact with you?’

Jake shook her head vaguely. ‘However he does it, you can bet he’ll be too clever for us to trace him. My guess is that he’ll try and use a portable phone from a car he’ll have stolen. If he called us while he was sitting in some multi-storey car-park in Central London it could take forever to find him.’

‘Then hadn’t we better give consideration to where you and I will be when he calls. If I’m to help you, then I ought to be at your side. And I regret that I am presently unable to leave Cambridge. At least for the next week or so, anyway.’

‘I don’t suppose that you have any video-conferencing facilities here?’ she asked. ‘A pictophone, maybe.’

The professor shook his head. ‘No, we do not. Trinity finances are no longer what they were. It’s the same for the whole university: thus we have monstrosities like Yamaha. Trinity has already been obliged to sell its unique wine cellar.’

‘Would you be willing to have a pictophone installed here, Professor?’ said Jake. ‘I can have my people set up a permanent telecommunications link between us. That way, when the killer calls, you can participate in our conversation.’

Sir Jameson Lang shrugged. ‘Just as long as I wouldn’t have to do anything technical. Unlike Wittgenstein, who was rather good with his hands, I have no practical skills whatsoever.’

‘All you’d have to do is press a button to open the conference.’

‘Very well then. I’d be happy to.’

‘Then I’ll arrange it immediately. The sooner the equipment is installed, the better.’

It was time for Jake to leave.

‘You can leave the disc with me, if you like,’ Lang suggested. ‘I’d like to listen to it again, if I may. There may be something that I missed. Incidentally, it might interest you to know that Wittgenstein had a real fascination for detective stories. The hardboiled, American variety. When you conduct your own investigations, Chief Inspector, it might be useful to remember that he himself placed little reliance on the so-called deductive science of Sherlock Holmes. He liked his detectives to be rather more intuitive. If one assumes that your killer is of the same frame of mind, trusting your own intuitions might ultimately prove to be very useful. To that end, I wonder if I could suggest something, while you’re here.

‘Perhaps’ - he said hesitantly — ‘perhaps, while you are here, you might like to take a look at Wittgenstein’s old rooms.’

‘I’d love to.’

‘Yes, I think you’ll find them interesting.’ He glanced round his own quarters and smiled. ‘They’re not at all like this, of course. No, he was much more simple. As a professor he would have been entitled to have something rather grander. You know he came from one of the richest families in Austria, and reacted against everything that reminded him of that former privileged, luxurious existence. Even to the extent of having a brief fling with Communism. I shan’t accompany you. I’ll probably give you his whole biography if I do. No, I’ll get someone to take you.’

The Master went to the telephone and called the Porter’s Lodge. Then he wished Jake goodbye.

By the time Jake re-crossed Great Court, a man in a raincoat, not the Chinese, but another man, was standing on the steps of the Porter’s Lodge to conduct Jake on her tour.

‘Right then, miss,’ he said, ‘I believe the Master said it’s K10 that you want to see.’ He led the way back out the Great Gate and onto the street. ‘That’s in Whewell’s Court,’ he explained as they passed through another ancient doorway set in a wall beside the post office. ‘So who was this bloke? The one who lived here?’

‘Ludwig Wittgenstein,’ she said. ‘He was a great Cambridge philosopher.’

The porter nodded.

‘Do you get many visitors wanting to see his old rooms?’ she asked, wondering if the killer might have made some sort of similar pilgrimage.

‘Well,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been here over ten years, and you’re the first in my memory.’

They came to the foot of a small staircase, with red-ochre painted walls.

‘It’s at the top,’ he said, going on ahead. ‘Saw a philosopher on the telly once. Near enough a hundred years old, he was. And the bloke says to him: Having lived for so long, do you have advice for mankind? Anyway the philosopher laughed and said that he did have some advice. He says: “Yes. Don’t ever help your own children.” What about that, eh? “Don’t ever help your children.” What a mean old bugger, eh?’ The porter laughed derisively. ‘Philosophers eh? What do they know about real life, I ask you.’