HS01 - Critique of Criminal Reason (17 page)

‘In truth, sir,’ he added, ‘I do have a…a minor confession to make. It means breaking faith, but…I…well, you ought to know of it.’

He set the lantern on the ground, rubbed his hands together, bunched them over the flaps of his pockets in tight fists, then stared unhappily into my face.

‘Professor Kant could be in grave peril,’ I reminded him.

‘I…I was afraid to tell anyone, sir. Especially Herr Jachmann. I thought I’d lose my place if I told him. Herr Jachmann instructed me never to leave Professor Kant alone.’

‘Quite right,’ I said.

‘And I have followed his instructions to the letter, sir. Except…’

‘Except for what?’

‘Except for Professor Kant himself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He asked me to leave him alone for an hour last night, sir. He gave me permission to visit my wife. You might say that he…insisted.’

‘Alone, Johannes?’ I was shocked. ‘Why should he wish to send you away at night?’

‘He’s working on his book, sir. He said that he wanted no distractions. I tried to dissent, but he told me to make the most of the opportunity. Indeed,’ he added, ‘it has happened a number of times, sir.’

‘When was the last time?’

‘Why, yester-night…’

‘Before
that
!’ I hissed.

‘A week, ten days ago, sir. He has released me from his service five or six times in the past month.’

I trembled to think of the mortal danger to which Professor Kant had exposed himself. I imagined the murderer spying on him alone in the house. Like a spider watching the fly that had fallen into its web. ‘How could you?’ I seethed. ‘Alone in the house at night? At his age?’

Johannes was now in tears.

‘What was I to do, sir?’ he protested, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. ‘Herr Professor was so kind to me. It would have been ungrateful to refuse him. I can’t deny it, sir, living in this house I miss my wife and children.’

‘You should have informed Herr Jachmann,’ I said. ‘It was your duty. He administers Professor Kant’s domestic affairs.’

‘I know it, sir. But Herr Jachmann comes no more.’ He hesitated for a moment, then with peasant practicality he insisted, ‘And Professor Kant
is
my master, sir. I had to obey
him
. It’s put me in a very difficult position.’

He bowed his head and began to sob again like a child.

‘You know what is happening in Königsberg,’ I said, placing a hand on his shoulder to calm him. ‘There is a murderer in the city. You must never forget it!’

Johannes bit his lip and choked back his emotion.

‘I swear to you, sir! I’ll never leave him alone again…’

‘He is alone at this moment, is he not?’ I said. ‘Go back inside, Johannes. I will finish here. I’ll send a squad of soldiers from the Fortress the instant that I arrive.’

He turned to go, then stopped. ‘You won’t tell Herr Jachmann, will you, sir?’ he begged, looking back over his shoulder.

‘I expect to hear from you at the first sign of danger,’ I said, making no attempt to reassure him. ‘Do not hesitate. Call the soldiers!’

I watched him return along the path to the front of the house. As I followed him some moments later, I heard the entrance door close behind him, the heavy bolts sliding into place. As I hurried away in the direction of the town, the urgency of danger prickled at my scalp. Servant and master were alone in the house, while a killer was stalking the streets of the city. He had set his sights on Professor Kant, and the soldiers had yet to be sent. Again, I felt the overwhelming burden on my shoulders. Before it had concerned the safety of the whole of Prussia. Now, the person that I loved and admired more than any other in the world. Except for my wife and my children.

I left Magisterstrasse, and turned down the dark lane which led towards the city centre and the Fortress. As I strode purposefully through the deserted, tree-lined streets, I was aware that the person who had dared to violate the
sancta sanctorum
of Immanuel Kant must have followed the same route that I was now treading. He could be hiding behind any one of those trees. I glanced around anxiously and increased my pace, the image of a large glass jar flashing before my eyes, my head floating inside it, while Doctor Vigilantius casually washed my sticky blood from his hands and put his knives away.

Slipping and falling on the icy surface more than once, my frantic progress matched the furious thundering of my heart. I did not pause to catch my breath until the flickering lanterns outside the Fortress appeared through the gloom on the far side of Ostmarktplatz. But as I began to advance again, more slowly now, a sudden movement in the shadows caught my eye.

A man was standing near the main gate in the freezing cold.

He looked up, saw me, and began to run in my direction, mindless of the ice and the snow which covered the cobblestones.

A sensation of helplessness possessed me then. I felt like a wooden puppet with a human brain. And an unknown, malignant hand had just jerked tightly on my strings.

Sergeant Koch came slithering to a halt in front of me. His face was pale, drawn, his mouth gaping, puffing out clouds of milk-hued air as he fought to catch his breath.

‘What’s wrong?’ I gasped, my heart racing like a cornered hare. My nerves were raw. The mysterious footprints in Kant’s garden. The palpable sense of danger in the city which came with darkness. Each new fear was greater than the last.

‘There’s been a mishap, sir.’

‘What’s happened?’ I shouted, catching at the lapels of Koch’s pea-coat and shaking him.

He grasped my wrists with a strength that I did not expect and lifted my hands away. ‘We could do nothing to save them, sir,’ he said.

‘To save
whom
?’ I cried.

‘Totz and his wife, sir. Half an hour ago. They killed themselves.’

The implications of this news flashed upon me. Two people whom I had accused of murder, conspiracy and sedition, two people whom I had thrown into prison, intending to torture the truth out of them, had taken the final decision into their own hands.

‘I gave instructions to keep them apart,’ I managed to say.

Koch took me by the arm and led me towards the gate. ‘And so they were, sir. I spoke to Stadtschen. He vowed that your order had been obeyed to the letter. When Totz was taken down, he was obliged to pass the cell where his wife was being held. They must have exchanged some sign, a signal. It was all decided in an instant.’

Koch banged on the entrance, the gate swung open, and we stepped into the torch-lit inner court. ‘I instructed the guards to bring the bodies up before the other prisoners catch on,’ he said. ‘They have six senses down there, they smell death like starving wolves. At all costs, we must avoid a riot. General Katowice won’t stand for it. He’ll hang the lot of them. Fortunately, the ship that’s taking them to Siberia is on its way, Herr Procurator. It should arrive tomorrow, depending on the weather. Stadtschen is making arrangements for the Section D prisoners to be taken to the port in Pillau. They’ll pass the night there. It’ll be a darned sight safer than keeping them here in the Fortress, sir.’

I nodded, unable to find my voice.

‘We have been lucky. Really, sir, if the word might be permitted,’ he went on. ‘Totz was in a cell by himself. His wife was with two women, and they were both asleep when she took her life. She didn’t make a sound. A guard found the husband first, then went to check…’ He stopped suddenly and looked beyond my shoulders. ‘But here they come.’

Soldiers were crossing the courtyard with two heavily laden, grey blankets slung between them.

‘They’ll be buried in the morning,’ Koch added.

The fixed expression on Gerta Totz’s lips flashed through my mind. Had she smiled in that same ingratiating fashion while taking her own life? The urge to see was irresistible. I strode across the courtyard.

‘Lay them on the ground!’ I ordered. ‘Throw those blankets off.’

The signs of violence were written clearly on the corpses. Gerta Totz’s face was black, swollen to bursting, her eyes popping out, as if she had just been told something very rude. The strip of dress she had used to hang herself was tightly knotted round her throat, sliced above the knot when they had cut her down from the cell-grating. Her nostrils were still ringed with the blood that my punch had drawn. Otherwise, the distorting hand of death had wiped everything familiar from her features. That hideous grin was gone forever.

Ulrich Totz’s face was a bloody mask.

‘He smashed his head against the cell wall with extraordinary violence,’ Koch explained.

‘More than once to produce such devastation,’ I added with a shiver.

A river of dried blood cascaded from his crushed nose to his white linen shirt-front. He had succeeded in smashing his pate or breaking his neck. I stared at the bodies for some moments, then turned away. How should I consider them? As the fifth and sixth victims of the monster of Königsberg, or, like Morik, were they the victims of my own bungling?

‘Take them away,’ I murmured. I watched the soldiers frog-march across the yard with their burden, and struggled to shake off my depression. ‘Send a patrol at once to Magisterstrasse, Sergeant,’ I ordered. ‘Someone has been prowling in Professor Kant’s garden. It could well be the murderer.’

Koch knit his brow. ‘Kant’s not been harmed, I hope?’

‘He’s well. But not safe. He won’t be out of danger until this affair is over,’ I muttered, grinding my teeth. ‘It seems that the killer is growing bolder.’

‘Do you really think he’d try to kill the Professor sir? This monster has always chosen his victims at random. That was his strength. No one knew where or when he would strike next. So, why decide to attack a specific target all of a sudden?’

‘Perhaps he has changed his strategy,’ I replied helplessly. ‘The killer is faceless, hidden by anonymity, yet he knows who we are. Clearly, he knows that Kant is involved, and also where he is to be found at any hour of the day or night. He rarely leaves the house.’

‘I’ll give orders to the duty officer, Herr Procurator,’ said Koch. He ran away across the yard and an armed patrol left by the main gate at a half-trot a few minutes later. Relief swept over me like a massive wave, but I felt no better when that sea subsided. All that had happened that day in Königsberg, and all that might still happen, seemed to weigh on me like a granite tombstone. Darkness crowded in upon me. Darkness, and a terrible sense of responsibility. Three people were dead, and the fault was mine. I closed my eyes to block the awful vision out.

‘You do look pale, sir.’

Koch was standing before me, an expression of concern on his face.

‘You must keep your strength up. It’s been a long day, sir, there’s food in the regimental kitchen. You have not eaten a bite since breakfast.’

‘Thank you, Koch,’ I said, and attempted to smile. ‘You are better than a wet-nurse.’

His imperturbable face relaxed a little. ‘Follow me, sir.’

I was beginning to think that, if nothing else, I had made
one
wise decision in the past two days. Sergeant Koch had shown the better side of himself after the difficulties of our first few hours together. Throwing open a door, he led me into a large, vaulted room which was excessively heated by a ceramic stove of gargantuan proportions.

‘The garrison refectory,’ he explained.

Human sweat and the odour of boiled mutton hung ripe in the air, but I felt at home with the stench. After the pungent stink of methyl alcohol and human decay in Kant’s laboratory, this smell was healthy. It came from living beings doing vital things: working, eating, drinking, protecting the city and its inhabitants.

Koch sat me down, then went out again, returning some minutes later with a young soldier in a white apron who laid a tray on the table before me. A bowl of mutton broth with knobs of fatty gristle, black bread, red wine. A soldier’s repast. I fell on it with appetite, while Koch stood looking on like a proud restaurateur.

I felt brighter almost immediately.

‘Not for a delicate stomach, Koch,’ I said between mouthfuls, ‘but the most invigorating dish I ever ate in my life. Now, what have you to report about this woman who found the first corpse and about the gendarme who spoke to her?’

I gulped another spoonful of broth. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Lublinsky, sir.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

He nodded. ‘A most singular person, Herr Procurator,’ Koch replied.

I stopped eating and looked up at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’d better see for yourself, sir,’ he smiled uncomfortably. ‘It was a mistake to leave such delicate business in the hands of rough soldiers, in my opinion. Give them a battle, they know exactly what to do. Ask ’em to speak to a woman, you cannot guess what might come of it.’

‘Is he quartered here?’ I asked, sipping wine.

‘He’s in the infirmary, sir.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘Not
ill
, as such. One of the walking wounded.’ Koch jabbed a finger at his cheek. ‘Just about here, sir. He looks as if he’s been stabbed.’

‘Been duelling, has he?’

‘Lublinsky would probably deny it, Soldiers deny everything as a rule.’

‘I want to speak with him straight away.’

Koch indicated the tray. ‘Don’t you want to finish your meal first, sir?’

‘He is one of the investigators, Koch. The sooner I see him, the better.’

‘I’ll go and get him from the Infirmary, sir.’

Koch went away, while I finished what was left on my plate. I felt like a new man by the time he returned in the company of Officer Lublinsky.

I did not pay the soldier any immediate attention as he entered the room, but poured myself more wine and drank it down, the warm liquid melting the cold of a dreadful morning and a worse afternoon from my frozen bones.

‘Stand there,’ I heard Koch saying. Then, he came around the table to stand at my shoulder like a guardian angel.

Lublinsky clicked his heels and stood to attention. Only then did I glance up, and my stomach churned on the food I had just consumed. A cry of revulsion rose to my lips, though I managed to stifle it. Never in all my life have I seen a man more horrible to behold. Every inch of his rough, red skin was pitted, potted with lumps, holes, every sort of excrescence that distemper could inflict. From his forehead to his chin, he had lost any resemblance to Nature. Among the peasants working on my father’s land I had seen what smallpox could do to a human being. What it had done to Lublinsky was beyond description.

His uniform had a collar cut high to cover the livid pockmarks and festering boils which plagued his neck and his throat. A black, blood-ringed wound gaped in his left cheek. He deliberately wore a forage-cap two sizes larger than he required, in order to cover his face.

‘Take off your cap in the presence of Herr Procurator,’ Koch ordered brusquely. The man obeyed, and his baldness came to light with all the starkness of harsh deformity, the crown of his head as pocked and cratered with boils and scars as his face. Had it not been for his height and build, and his ability as a soldier of the King, he would have found employment in a travelling freak-show and nowhere else. He glanced beyond me, challenging Koch to meet his eye. Those eyes were large and black, and darted around with fiery energy. He would have been handsome if Fate had dealt him a better hand. With those high cheekbones, aquiline nose, square jaw and strong chin, he might have been an artist’s model or the lover of a baroness in a better world.

‘Shall I remove the plates, sir?’ Koch enquired.

‘Leave them be.’ I had no wish to diminish Koch in the eyes of this man. ‘You have been assisting in the investigation of the murders under the direct supervision of Professor Kant, have you not?’ I said, addressing Lublinsky.

His eyes darted from me to Koch, then back again, and he opened his mouth to speak. If I had been shocked by his face, his voice horrified me. A spluttering wild baboon seemed to have been let loose in his oral cavity, a beast he had great trouble in taming. I must have shown my difficulty, for he suddenly stopped short, then started up again, pronouncing his words more slowly to avoid the nasal and guttural emissions that made his speech so difficult to comprehend.

‘Professor who?’ he whined, the words whistling from a severely cleft palate. ‘I did what I was told. Reports, they wanted. Reports, they got.’

‘But you were also paid to make drawings for Professor Kant.’

‘Oh,
him
!’ he exclaimed. ‘Was he a professor?’

‘Who did you think he was?’ I asked.

Lublinsky shrugged. ‘I wasn’t paid to think, sir. I didn’t care. I gave him what he asked for. The world is full of old men with strange tastes.’

I forced myself to look at him, and tried to imagine what was going though his mind. Everything in Königsberg seemed to be tainted, sick, removed from the normal light of day. In that instant I felt oppressed by the necessity that obliged me to be a part of it. What ‘talent’ had Professor Kant divined in this improbable man?

‘Tell me about yourself,’ I said, and soon I wished I had not asked.

A great deal of patience was needed to make sense of his babble. His name was Anton Theodor Lublinsky. He was a native of Danzig. He had enrolled in the light infantry ten years before, and seen fighting in Poland. For three years he had been stationed in Königsberg, where, he chose to specify, he’d been happy until quite recently.

‘Are you not content here, Lublinsky? What changed your mind?’ I asked, thinking that he had a perfect right to be unhappy wherever he might happen to find himself.

‘I’d rather be fighting, sir.’ He seemed to smoulder at the idea, then added gruffly, ‘On the battlefield you see your enemy face to face.’

His coal-black eyes blazed defiantly, then looked away.

What had he seen to induce him to prefer military action and the risk of being killed? I leaned across the table, slammed my fist down hard, then stared into his eyes. The sharp odour of his person mingled with the stench that had impregnated the room. I had to force myself not to look away.

‘I have read your official reports, Lublinsky,’ I said. ‘I found them less than complete. Tell me exactly what you observed at the scene of the murder near The Baltic Whaler. You were the first to see the body, were you not?’

He shook his head.

‘That’s not exact, sir. I was with another gendarme. Then, there was the woman…’

‘One year ago,’ I recapped, ‘you were sent to the scene. You spoke with the woman who had found the body. Is that exact? I want to know precisely what was said on that occasion.’

Lublinsky began to speak in a gabble. Had I closed my eyes, I might been listening to some mysterious Greek oracle, or a voice conjured up from beyond the grave by Vigilantius. I studied the man’s lips in the hope of understanding, while Koch prodded, corrected and interpreted.

That morning, he reported, a cold wind was sweeping in from the sea. He had risen at four to assume command of the guard. As he was relieving the night officer, word came in that a body had been found near the port. He and Kopka, his second-in-command, went off to examine the find, leaving the night-officer at his post. They both welcomed the opportunity to be out and about, instead of hanging around at the Fortress with nothing to do. At the scene, they found a corpse and a woman. There was no one else. The sun had not yet risen, the streets were still deserted.