HS01 - Critique of Criminal Reason (15 page)

‘Why was there no explanation of how the victims had died? Why was no mention made of the weapon used? Why was no hypothesis offered which might suggest a common motive behind all those murders? There was no question of theft or of passion, no apparent connection linking one victim to another. You cannot fail to have realised that what was happening in Königsberg had something peculiar about it. A magistrate of Herr Rhunken’s fame was unable to resolve the enigma. Oh, I’d not deny that Rhunken did his job. He did what he was capable of doing. But his heavy feet never left the ground. His plodding intelligence was no match for the killer’s. Sometimes such magistrates are fortunate, I have no doubt, but not in this instance.’ He looked at me inquisitively.

‘If you want to understand what is going on here, my young friend, you must learn to soar. You must pay attention, even to the most obscure and mysterious of sources available to you. Even to the likes of Vigilantius. If you continue to dig for reasons, to look for explanations, to chase proofs – as you began to do the minute you arrived in Königsberg – you’ll get no closer to the truth than your predecessor did.’

His voice gradually faded away as he spoke. He was disappointed, I could tell. I had failed him in some way, though I was unable to say exactly how I had fallen short of his expectations. But suddenly, he shifted in his seat and changed his course, like a fish you think you have safely caught in your bare hands that darts away in another direction, leaving you with just an empty swirl in the water.

‘By the way, how is your father?’ he asked.

It was dark inside the carriage, and I was glad of that. I felt the blood drain instantly from my face. It was the second time that he had referred to the tragedy in my family. What strange association of ideas brought the question to his lips just then? And why was he so lacking in curiosity about the
new
family I had made? Were my wife and my children of no interest to him? I had baptised my only son in his honour. It was as if that part of my life did not exist. Instead, he harked back continually to the old life, the old me, the Hanno Stiffeniis that he had helped to exorcise seven years before.

‘I have heard, sir, that he is somewhat better,’ I replied, though Kant did not appear to be listening. He seemed to be following a delicate pattern that his mind had already traced out for him. He waved his forefinger in the air, following the movement with his eyes, as though his mental and his physical states were wholly separated, and equally fascinating, the one to the other.

Just then, fortunately, the coach began to slow down.

‘At last! We have arrived!’ he exclaimed, interrupting his private reflections with sudden animation. ‘Let’s waste no more time.’

Johannes pulled down the folding steps, and helped his master into the dark lane. I had no idea where we were, but then I caught a glimpse of the towering bulk of the Fortress again. We seemed to have circled around the defensive walls and come at the Fortress from another direction, standing beside a miserable hovel that flanked an approach road to the portcullis. The building might have been used centuries before as a customs post. It was in a remarkable state of dereliction and ought to have been pulled down. I was baffled, wondering what had driven Herr Professor Kant to choose such a forlorn place to work upon his final masterpiece?

With an eager nod from his master, Johannes Odum produced a large key from his pocket, and proceeded with some difficulty to unlock the ancient, worm-eaten door.

‘Wait here,’ Kant said to his man. ‘Now, Stiffeniis, if you lend me your arm, perhaps Sergeant Koch could step inside and strike a light? There’s a lantern hanging just inside the door.’

The cobbled road was slippery underfoot with packed ice and snow and a thin top-sprinkling of frost, as treacherous as a road could be. If I needed proof of Immanuel Kant’s age and physical frailty, I had it then. He rested his feather-like weight on my arm as we stepped inside the door, where Koch was waiting with a storm-lantern raised high above his head.

‘Do not touch anything,’ Kant warned.

We were in an abandoned store-room of some sort. Broken armament boxes had been dumped in a large, careless heap on one side of the room. Cobwebs hung like shimmering shrouds from the ceiling. Dust lay in a thick blanket over everything else. In the centre of the room, a large rat caught by the neck in a trap had been stripped to a skeleton by its luckier fellows.

‘Go ahead, Koch,’ Kant ordered. ‘We will follow you.’

He pointed towards a narrow, vaulted tunnel, whose once-white walls were stained and black with mould and smoke. Dropping my arm as if possessed of a demonic energy, he set off at a shuffling trot behind Sergeant Koch, and I was obliged to accelerate to keep pace with him. Our passage through this tunnel was made more difficult by the lowness of the brick vault, which grazed the top of Kant’s three-cornered hat, whilst Koch and I were obliged to stoop. My nose tingled with the pungent odour of rot, and there was a sharp, acidic smell underlying it. If Doctor Faustus and his familiar, Mephistopheles, had leapt out to welcome us in the gloomy depths of the place, I would not have been in the least surprised.

As we entered a large room at the end of the corridor, and Koch held up his light, I caught my first glimpse of the voluminous alembic jars and the serpentine glass-tubes which gleamed upon the shelves, together with a neat pile of boxes set in an orderly stack on a workbench.

‘Feel the cold,’ Kant enthused. ‘Siberia is closer than you think!’

He ordered Koch to take a spill from his lantern and light the lamps which were hung at intervals around the walls. As the sergeant added light to light, the objects assembled in that room began to stand out more clearly from the gloom.

Professor Kant turned towards the far wall.

‘Now, Stiffeniis, let me introduce you to those who are obliged to dwell down here in this unwholesome twilight world,’ he said.

From the darkest corner of the room, vacant, watery eyes stared fixedly back at us in the pale, flickering glow of the lamplight.

‘Can you guess who they are, Stiffeniis?’

Immanuel Kant’s voice was hoarse with the cold. There was a strident, triumphant note in it which robbed me of the power of speech. I could not drag my eyes away from the large glass jars lined up on the shelf, where four human heads floated in a pale, straw-coloured liquid.

‘Draw closer,’ Kant invited, taking me by the arm. ‘Now, let me introduce you to Jan Konnen, Paula-Anne Brunner, Johann Gottfried Haase and this one here, a newcomer that you probably recognise, having seen him last night in the cellar at the Court House. Would you bring down the exhibit on the far left, Sergeant Koch, and place it on this table?’

Stunned horror written on his face, Koch obeyed without a word.

I was incapable of forming any coherent thought as I stared at the gruesome contents of the glass jar that Koch set before us on a table, while Kant was the soul of affable sociability. He might have been arranging the chairs for a tea party.

‘Bring another lamp, Sergeant Koch. That’s it, yes. And place it there. Just there!’ Kant’s voice battered painfully on my inner ear. ‘Now, tell me, Stiffeniis. What can you see inside this jar?’

The lights on either side threw the human lineaments into sharp relief.

I swallowed hard, my voice little more than a whisper: ‘It is a…a head, sir.’

‘This was Jan Konnen, the first victim of the murderer. Now, I would like you to describe precisely what you are able to observe, and with all the accuracy at your disposal. Come, come, Stiffeniis!’ he encouraged. ‘A head?’

‘A human head,’ I corrected myself, ‘which belongs…that is, which
used
to belong to a man aged about fifty. Despite the distorting effects of the glass jar, the facial features are regular, and…’

I stopped short. I knew not what to say next.

‘Describe what you can
see
,’ Kant pressed. ‘I ask no more. Start at the crown of the head, then slowly work your way down.’

I attempted to shake off the numbing sense of inadequacy which had taken possession of me. ‘His hair is tinged with grey. It is thin on top, almost bald, and worn long around the ears.’

‘Covering the ears,’ Kant corrected me.

‘Covering the ears, yes. The forehead is…’

I baulked again. What in the name of God was I supposed to say?

‘Don’t stop! Go on!’ Kant prodded impatiently.

‘The…forehead is broad and it is without wrinkles.’

‘And that vertical split where the eyebrows meet? Was it there before the man died? Or did it appear at the moment of his death?’

I took a step forward and peered closely.

‘I have no way of knowing, sir,’ I mumbled.

‘Use your intuition!’

‘It looks like a puzzled frown,’ I suggested, examining the furrow closely.

‘Would you not expect such a frown to fade away after death?’

‘But it has not,’ I said at last.

‘This was the final expression on his face. It appeared at the moment of his death. The victim’s facial muscles were paralysed in that precise expression. This is a well-known phenomenon. Any soldier with experience on the field of battle has seen a similar expression a hundred times before. It is of some importance,’ added Kant. ‘Now, what have you to say about the eyes?’

I looked into the unseeing eyes inside the jar. If Man has a soul, the ancients say, its light is visible there. If the body has a vital spirit, the ghost manifests itself through those windows. What so disconcerted me about the detached head of Jan Konnen was the sensation that he was watching us as intently as we were studying him.

‘The victim’s eyes have rolled up in their sockets, exposing the whites,’ I forced myself to say.

‘Could there be an explanation?’

I was bewildered. ‘There is no literature on such matters, sir. I…Anatomy texts exist, of course, but not in a case like this one. Not concerning murder.’

‘Very good, Stiffeniis. You see the tricky ground we are on? We have no authority to guide us. We must use our eyes, trust our observations, and make the deductions that logical inference suggests. This will be our method.’

‘Perhaps the blow came from above?’ I suggested. ‘He glanced up when he was struck?’

Kant made a sound of approval. ‘Did the blow come from above, or from behind? We are uncertain as yet, but we will not allow ourselves to be distracted by the question. Now, look at that nose, Stiffeniis! What can you read in it?’ he quizzed, though he did not wait for an answer. ‘That it is long, thin, and utterly undistinguished? And so we come to the mouth. How would you describe that?’

‘Open?’ I offered.

‘Wide open?’

‘Not entirely,’ I said, defending my choice of word.

‘Would you say that he was screaming when he died?’

There was something in Professor Kant’s hungry expression that caused me to quake. For a moment, my head began to spin and I thought I was about to faint.

‘Screaming, sir?’ I echoed.

‘An open mouth suggests that he was screaming in the instant that he met his death, wouldn’t you say?’

I forced myself to look more carefully. ‘No, sir, I would not. I would say that he was not screaming.’

‘What was he doing, then? What kind of sound could have come from his mouth?’

‘A gasp of surprise? A sigh?’

‘Would you say that something dramatic and violent happened to produce that expression?’ Kant went on.

‘No, sir.’

‘And I would agree with you. Now, Stiffeniis, the cause of death. Can you suggest what might have been the death stroke?’

‘There is no unsightly wound to the face itself,’ I floundered. ‘Was clear evidence found elsewhere on the body?’

‘The body does not interest us. It is the
head
, the
head
, which has its story to tell. Would you turn the jar, Sergeant?’

The candlelight cast a jaundiced sickly glow as the head rolled lazily in the cloudy liquid. ‘Observe, Stiffeniis. Here at the base of the cranium. There was no resistance. The instrument went in like a hot knife cutting lard, But it was not a knife…’

These were the words with which I originally began this narration. At that time, I intended to celebrate the incredible versatility of the genius of Immanuel Kant, and hoped to reflect my own small part in the resolution of a mystery which held the city of Königsberg in thrall. But those words marked the first clear signpost on my personal road into the maze of corruption, treachery and evil that had been so carefully mapped out for me.

‘Can you see it?’ Kant bent close and pointed. ‘The mortal stroke was delivered here. Death came quickly and it was unexpected. It was not a violent blow, there is no unsightly penetration. Something sharp and pointed entered Konnen’s neck just here, and he was dead on his knees before he even realised what was happening. This tiny spot is all the evidence that remains of the attack.’

He paused for an instant, as if to emphasise the vital importance of what he said next.

‘If I have understood you well, among the variety of weapons that Ulrich Totz claims to have used, he made no mention of anything which would leave a mark such as this.’ His eager eyes darted quickly at me, and I felt a drowning sense of nausea, as if I had just received a violent blow to my own head.

‘Koch, bring down another. Any jar will do.’ Professor Kant’s voice was tremulous with excitement as he picked up the nearest lamp and moved it closer to the second severed head. ‘The same mark is evident here,’ he said, rapping his forefinger sharply on the glass. ‘Do you see it now?’

The scalp of Paula-Anne Brunner had been shaved away at the back, long red hair remaining on the crown and at the sides only. To my young eyes, there was something foul in such a desecration, the bare nudity of the woman’s skull somehow suggestive of the stealthy violence by which she had met her death.

‘There is an identical mark on Tifferch’s neck,’ he concluded flatly. Then with a sigh he added, ‘If you had stayed to watch Vigilantius at work last night, you would have known straight away that Morik was not killed by the person you are here to chase. Totz is not the killer we are looking for.’

‘Is this the work of Vigilantius?’ I asked in a whisper.

In the dim light I thought I saw an expression of satisfaction settle on Kant’s hungry face. ‘The doctor is the
crème de la crème
of European anatomists!’ he confirmed with pride, as if he had done the disgusting work himself.

The ingratiating smile on the necromancer’s lips flashed before my eyes, taking on a new and more sinister significance. ‘You may have finished
your
business, sir,’ he had said with scorn the night before. ‘But I have something more to do.’

I imagined him, pulling out the instruments from beneath his large mantle. What could they have been? Sharp knives, a medical saw, pointed scalpels, as he bent over that anatomical table and assaulted the corpse, cutting mercilessly away at the vulnerable remains of Lawyer Tifferch.

My anger flashed at Kant’s lavish praise of the man.

‘This proves that he’s a charlatan, sir. He had no need to ask the spirit of the dead man to tell him how he had been killed. He knew the answer already!’

Kant placed a pacifying hand on my sleeve. ‘You are unjust, Stiffeniis. The doctor had not performed the first dissection when he suggested in that histrionic and slightly irritating manner of his that the cause of death was to be found at the base of the dead man’s head. The corpse had already spoken to him. The cutting came later.’

The dead man spoke?

‘Professor Kant…’ I began to protest.

‘How did you guess, sir?’

Koch’s question took us both by surprise.

‘Excuse me, Professor Kant,’ the sergeant said, and flushed with embarrassment, ‘I did not mean to interrupt your speculations, but I am puzzled. How did you understand so quickly the significance of the murder of Jan Konnen? At that time, there was no way of knowing that similar crimes would follow on.’

Kant half closed his eyes, a contented smile illuminating his face.

‘I have been collating vital information regarding the incidence of death in Königsberg for many years, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘About a year ago, I received my weekly report from the local police. A corpse was mentioned for which no evident cause of death had been identified. Now, that was
most
irregular. The physician called to certify the death had failed to notice that tiny perforation in the neck of Konnen. Cause of death – unknown. How was I to include such a death in my statistics? Had the man died, or had he been killed? I asked for the body to be donated to the University, and, by a fortunate turn of events, Doctor Vigilantius was lecturing at the Collegium Albertinum that very week. Having learned in conversation that he was also an experienced anatomist, I took advantage of the circumstance in two ways. Firstly, I was curious to see how a Swedenborgian communicates with the spirits of the dead. Secondly, I wished to preserve the evidence that you have just seen. When a similar murder occurred some months later, I saw the link, asked for the corpse, and sent for Doctor Vigilantius to repeat the operation.’

‘Did Procurator Rhunken know of this place, sir?’ asked Koch, making a sweeping gesture with his hand to indicate the whole laboratory.

Kant dismissed the idea with a flash of annoyance.

‘Your master was not prepared to consider the utility of the evidence I was assembling here. He ridiculed my findings as the ramblings of senility! By using standard police procedures, he would never have caught the killer. The murderer’s taste for his work was gaining in momentum, terror was mounting in the city, the King was worried about a possible French invasion, and he wanted the case to be solved without delay,
I
suggested to His Majesty some weeks ago that Procurator Rhunken be removed from his post. Special talents were needed here. Talents such as those of Augustus Vigilantius…’

‘And myself,’ I added.

Kant placed his hand on my arm and smiled warmly. ‘Now you know why I sent for you, Hanno,’ he said. ‘Only someone who has visited the land of shadows can cope with what is happening here in Königsberg. As you are well aware, the darkest impulses of the human heart go far beyond Reason and Logic.’

Impulses of the human heart which go beyond Reason…

I froze. I had used that very phrase myself, the first time that we had met.

‘That’s why I sent you to The Baltic Whaler,’ he said, his eyes sparkling mischievously. ‘It seemed to be the obvious place to start. That inn had been the scene of the first murder, and rumours were rife that the owner was a sympathiser of Bonaparte. Morik, the serving boy, aroused his master’s suspicions, I’m afraid. Now, that I did
not
foresee,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Still, Totz killed him, and he used a hammer to do the deed, as he confessed to you. In doing so, he eliminated himself from our investigation. That must be clear to you by now, I hope.’

‘Why did you not tell me at once, sir? You let me go blundering on in the name of Logic.’

I had been too easily persuaded of a political cause. That is, I had too easily convinced myself of it. Everything had fallen into place: the lurid contents of Herr Tifferch’s cupboard, Morik’s idle gossip, all that I had seen and heard at the inn, Ulrich Totz’s confession, his poor wife’s smile! I had twisted the facts to suit my theory. And in doing so, I had proven myself to be a mindless fool in the eyes of the very person who had trusted so much in my good qualities.

‘You believed that you had definitive proof,’ Kant continued. ‘You would not accept anything else to the contrary, even when it was as plain as the nose on your face. Remember what I told you, Hanno. Your investigation must aim to reconstruct
how
things happened. It will not tell you
why
they happened in that way. The motivation is still hidden in darkness. Logic and Rationality do not guide the human heart, though they may explain its passions.’

He extracted a document from one of the files, and laid it on the table.

‘Look at this,’ he said.

Koch and I bent close in the flickering light. It was nothing more than a sheet of paper, on which an image had been sketched. There was not a trace of art in the drawing, just a vague outline of a kneeling body propped against a wall. There was a ghoulish contrast between the technical imperfection of the picture, and the simple figure that it portrayed. As if a child, distracted from daubing flowers and fairies, had chanced upon a scene of the most irresistible horror and innocently tried to capture the image on paper.