HS01 - Critique of Criminal Reason (3 page)

‘I hope the honour falls to me of taking you home when this affair has been successfully resolved,’ he said, leaning close. ‘I pray sincerely that I am wrong and you are right, Herr Stiffeniis. If not, God spare us all!’

‘You seem to doubt my capacity to plumb these murders,’ I returned with acid irritation.

‘I would not dare so far, Herr Procurator. Indeed, I think I begin to understand why so much hope has been placed in you,’ he said, and looked away.

I rubbed my nose, and took the plunge. ‘My concerns are practical ones, Sergeant Koch. No mention is made in these reports of the cause of death. What am I supposed to do? Divine the nature of the weapon with which the victims were killed? The passage from life to death is not merely a religious question. It is a hard and fast fact, and there are very few facts here,’ I said, holding up the papers in my hand and shaking them. ‘I don’t know how you go about your business in Königsberg, but we in Lotingen believe that if an egg has disappeared, someone has stolen it.’

Sergeant Koch ignored this barb.

‘I’ve no idea what you may have read in those reports,’ he said.

‘Have you seen the bodies, Koch? Do you know how they died?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So, even you, a trusted employee of the police, have no idea how these people were killed? Doesn’t the population talk of such things? Were the victims stabbed, strangled, beaten to death?’

‘You mean to say no mention is made of the weapon used?’ He looked genuinely surprised. ‘I can understand the need for discretion, but the fact that even you have not been let in on the secret’s hard to credit, sir. The town’s full of rumours, as you can imagine.’

‘What sort of rumours, Koch?’

‘I hardly dare speak of such things to a rational thinker like yourself, sir,’ Koch replied with an archness which seemed affected.

‘Do not humour me!’

‘I did not mean to offend, sir.’ The sergeant took off his hat and looked penitent. ‘The folk in Königsberg say that the Devil did it. Word’s out that death came quick and mighty cruel.’

‘What else?’

‘This is wagging tongues and nothing more,’ he said with sudden seriousness. ‘What good will gossip do you, sir?’

‘Wag your tongue, Sergeant Koch. Let me be the judge.’

He sat back against the seat and considered for a moment before he spoke.

‘They say the woman who found the body of Jan Konnen saw the weapon.’

‘She did?’

‘They
say
she did,’ Koch corrected me.

‘What do they say she saw? What was this weapon that the Devil used?’

Herr Sergeant Koch looked at me and an embarrassed smile graced his lips.

‘His claws, sir.’

‘Claws, Koch. And what is
that
supposed to mean?’

Again, he seemed reluctant to speak his mind. ‘I think you’d better talk to Procurator Rhunken, sir. I’m hardly qualified to say.’

‘I want to know what
you
think, Herr Koch. I will ask Procurator Rhunken for his opinion of the matter when the opportunity presents itself.’

‘I can only tell you what I’ve heard, Herr Stiffeniis.’ Koch shifted uneasily in his seat and replaced his hat. ‘These murders have been committed in a strange fashion. Everything points to it. All the facts…’

‘Which
facts
, Koch?’ I interrupted. ‘I have not lighted upon one, single
fact
in all that I have read!’

He regarded me coolly for a moment.

‘That’s just the point, Herr Stiffeniis. Is it not? It’s mystery which opens the gate to wild speculation. The word going the rounds didn’t say that Konnen was stabbed, throttled, or beaten to death. Just that he was murdered by the Devil. And that the Devil used his claws to do the deed.’

‘Claws, indeed! I say again, this is superstitious nonsense!’

‘But if the authorities won’t even tell
you
what caused the deaths, sir,’ he hissed, pointing at the sheaf of official papers I held in my hands, ‘it only leaves two alternatives.
They
don’t know, or they don’t want
us
to know! In either case, it leaves the door wide open to superstitious nonsense, as you call it.’

Koch fell back against the seat, his eyes clenched shut, clearly disturbed by what he had told me. I returned to my reading, making more pretence of work than progress, disconcerted by the sergeant’s suggestion that the authorities were less than willing to reveal precise details of the murders even to myself, the magistrate appointed to direct the investigations. I was almost as much in the dark as I had been the day before when I knew nothing of the case.

I decided to skip the third report for the moment and look at the evidence that might have surfaced the previous day, hoping that the local police had established some method in their working and that the latest affair would be more illuminating than the first two.

The account was so short as to be ludicrous. The name affixed to the report was that of Anton Lublinsky alone. Could the officer find no more to say about how or why the man had been butchered? I rested my forehead against the cold window-glass and closed my eyes, which burned and ached from reading in the failing light. When I opened them again, we had entered a wood. Still, the rain poured down. A group of peasants had taken shelter beneath the trees waiting for the storm to end. The coach splattered them with mud as we passed. Silently, I prayed to the Lord our God, asking Him to protect both those poor people and myself. I realised that I would need to humble myself, I would need to pay the most careful attention and listen with a new ear to what the people in Königsberg might say. I would have to try to comprehend what they were truly thinking and interpret their beliefs, no matter how extravagant or superstitious their thoughts might strike me as being. I bent close to the window again, using the little light that remained to read a note which had been pinned to the report: ‘
Asked if she had seen any persons near the place of the murder, Hilde Gnute replied that only the Devil could do such a deed
.’

There it was, written in black on white, the possible identity of the murderer. Satan himself. That was to be my starting point. I could only wonder where such a beginning might lead. Was it simply a matter of faith? Perhaps, after all, the name of the murderer
was
truly known, and all that was lacking was my own willingness to suspend disbelief.

I cannot say how long I sat staring out of the window at the bleak landscape. The rain had ceased and snow began to fall heavily again. Slowly, the fields transformed themselves before my eyes from turgid grey to sparkling white, the moon a pale, shallow disc on the black horizon, and wolves began to howl in a chorus somewhere in the woods. I cannot recall what thoughts crossed my mind, but I must have fallen asleep at some point. Whether in pleasant dreams or foulest nightmares, the journey passed.

Suddenly, I felt a light tap on my shoulder.

‘Our destination, sir,’ Sergeant Koch announced. ‘Königsberg.’

The sky above our heads was an immense, dark sheet, furled, rippled and corrugated by the driving wind. Shards and shooting splinters of the Northern Lights shimmered low along a silver-edged horizon that I knew to be the Baltic Sea. The snow had ceased to fall. It lay on the ground in a sparkling carpet as we approached the city.

‘The weather seems to be easing,’ I began to say, as the coach drew up before a massive Gothic arch which marked the western entrance to Königsberg.

Sergeant Koch made no reply as a troop of heavily armed soldiers came running out of the gate and quickly surrounded the vehicle. Opening the window, he leaned out to face them. ‘I am an employee of the Court. This gentleman is the new Procurator of Königsberg,’ he stated boldly to the guards, inviting me to show my face at the window.

The soldiers looked at us, then at each other, their muskets at the ready, while one man ran back in through the gate. Not a word was said until he returned a few moments later in the company of an officer.

‘Which one of you’s supposed to be the magistrate?’ he asked sharply.

The dark blue of his cape, his leather kepi and tall purple plume, the impressive array of silver decorations criss-crossing his uniform jacket lent little dignity to the man as he scrutinised my face. His eyes were bagged and bovine, his waxed moustache sagged heavily, his expression a disconcerting compound of mocking incredulity and alert tension. His podgy right hand, formed by Nature for the purpose of turning heavy clods in some secluded village out in the wilds of Bory Tucholskjie, pointed a percussion pistol in my face. Clearly, he would not hesitate to unload it.

‘I am Procurator Hanno Stiffeniis,’ I said, holding up my bag for him to see. ‘I have a letter here which is signed by the King himself…’

‘You are obstructing the Procurator in his duties,’ Koch said suddenly, an unexpected authoritative tone in his voice.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I must see your
laissez-passer
,’ the officer insisted. ‘I have got my own instructions to follow. General Katowice’s order-of-the-day. No one is to enter Königsberg by land without authority. Haven’t you heard? There was a murder…’

‘That is why I am here!’ I snapped, handing him the commission which Sergeant Koch had delivered to me that morning.

The officer read it over, looked at me again, then handed the document back.

‘Don’t lose that paper, sir,’ he warned, waving the guards back. He saluted, then called to the driver to proceed.

‘What was that all about, Sergeant?’ I asked as the coach rumbled over the cobblestones in the direction of the centre of the town. It was not yet four o’ the clock, but all the shops were closed and shuttered, the streets empty, except for squads of soldiers marching through the town or standing guard with bayonets fixed at almost every corner. ‘Has martial law been declared?’

‘I’ve no idea, sir,’ Koch replied. Indeed, he said nothing more for quite some time, until the vehicle came to a stop in a tree-lined square before a large, green, barn-like building.

‘Ostmarktplatz,’ he announced, skipping down from the carriage with surprising agility and pulling out the folding step for me. ‘Herr Rhunken is expecting you, sir.’

I ought to have guessed that Herr Procurator Rhunken would wish to speak to me immediately. But why had Sergeant Koch not told me beforehand? I took a deep breath, and did my best to smooth my ruffled plumage, telling myself that all would soon be revealed. After all, Rhunken was the person best placed to instruct me in my duties. I hoped to obtain from him by word of mouth the essential facts which were missing in the documents I had been reading during the journey.

‘You said that he was in no fit state to speak, Koch.’

The sergeant did not reply, but busied himself giving orders to the driver, whose oilskin and leather gauntlets glistened with crystals of hoar-frost in the gathering gloom. I had to repeat myself twice before I could manage to catch Koch’s attention.

‘Procurator Rhunken has suffered an apoplexy of the brain, has he not?’

‘Indeed, he has, sir,’ Koch replied. ‘Herr Rhunken was an excellent magistrate to work for.’

I chose to ignore the implications of this compliment. ‘Has he been ill for long?’

‘Always in the best of health ‘til yesterday, sir. Herr Rhunken collapsed in his office, and the physician diagnosed an apoplexy as the cause.’

Koch pointed beyond the ugly green building to a pretty pink villa with a tiny snow-covered garden set back from the road. ‘That’s his house, sir. It stands opposite the Fortress on the other side of the square, as you can see. The Court House is in there. Work was everything to him.’

My eyes followed the direction indicated by Koch’s stubby forefinger, as it swept the vast, snow-strewn space and ran the length of an enormous building in soaring grey stone. Battlements, keep and watchtowers in bewildering display. A massive central doorway with a steel portcullis bore a marked resemblance to the rat-traps used throughout Prussia. Narrow pill-boxes on either side of the doorway were occupied by sentries wearing grey winter capes and black fur busbies. They stared fixedly ahead, long muskets frozen to their broad shoulders.

‘I suppose I’ll be spending much of my time over there,’ I said warily. The building was an architectural horror. At the same time, I recollected, it represented the limitless power and authority that I would be free to wield in my new position.

‘I’ll take you over at the appointed hour, sir,’ Koch said shortly, striding away along the pathway towards the villa, slipping and almost falling in the knee-deep snow in his haste. As I reached the door, the sergeant gave three short raps on a large brass knocker to announce our arrival. The door did not open for quite some time, and not before Koch had been obliged to knock again.

‘Herr Stiffeniis to see His Excellency,’ Koch announced to the pale young chambermaid who opened the door.

The serving-girl raised her watery blue eyes to mine for just an instant, then quickly looked down again. ‘Doctor Plucker is with my master,’ she murmured.

‘How is Herr Rhunken today?’ Sergeant Koch enquired, a note of genuine concern in his voice.

The girl shook her head. ‘He’s in a sorry state, Herr Koch. He was always such a fine, proud, handsome man…’

‘Take Herr Stiffeniis through. I’ll wait with the driver,’ Koch said to me, rudely cutting in on the girl, whose words dissolved in sobs.

Closing the door, the maid looked uncertainly at me, as if she knew not what to do with me.

‘Your master is expecting me,’ I said, too sharply perhaps, taking my cue from Koch.

‘This way, sir,’ the girl mumbled timidly into her handkerchief, before leading me through a series of small connecting rooms, the walls of which were lined with glass-fronted bookcases full of leather-bound volumes. All the tables were piled high with books and papers, sofas and armchairs forced to do the camel’s work of accommodating on their backs what would not fit on the crowded shelves. Procurator Rhunken seemed to have transformed his house into a private library. With the exception of the maid, there was no other indication of a female presence, no suggestion of the tempering influence of a mother, wife or daughter.

The girl stopped short before a door which stood ajar. A low voice could be heard murmuring inside, and suddenly a drawn-out whimper shook the air. I laid my hand on the wench’s arm before she could knock.

‘Can the Procurator speak?’ I asked.

‘Doctor purged him twice this morning. He’s going to do it again…’ She stopped to wipe her nose and dab her eyes. ‘Sent me down the port this morning, he did, sir. To fetch those…creatures.’ Her shoulders shook with fear or revulsion, or just possibly with the cold. The temperature inside the house was lower than the air in the street.

‘A ship came in last night. The sailors laughed and told me to carry the bucket with care. If I touched one, it would suck my life out, they said.’ She looked up at me with fear in her eyes. ‘I did not know such creatures existed, sir. I did it for my master,’ she whispered, sniffling into her handkerchief again.

I had no idea what she was muttering about. The sailors? The creatures, whatever they might be?

‘If he has truly seen the Devil,’ she added, ‘all the physicking in the world won’t save him.’

I did not shift myself to reassure her, reflecting only that the Devil’s name enjoyed great popularity in Königsberg. Just then, the door was thrown open and a tall, gaunt man stepped out into the dimly lit passage. He was wigless, his head recently shaved. A tight, dark suit made him seem even taller and thinner than he really was. He saw the maid and his face lit up with some private satisfaction. But then he saw me, and his manner changed.

‘Who are you, sir?’ he barked in an uncouth manner. Without waiting for my reply, he turned on the girl and hissed, ‘His Excellency is in no condition to receive visitors. I told you that before!’

‘I am the new Procurator,’ I announced. ‘I have business with your patient, sir. Urgent business, which cannot wait.’

The doctor drew himself up like a hooded serpent preparing to strike. His eyes gleamed like points of light in the dim corridor.

‘So,
you
are the person who is the cause of this distress!’ he snapped in a blunt and accusing fashion. ‘Herr Rhunken has been in a state of nervous anxiety all the day regarding you. I confess my surprise,’ he continued, staring rudely at me. ‘I was expecting someone altogether…
different
. An older man, let’s say. A more…experienced magistrate.’

‘I will not keep him long,’ I said.

‘I should think
not
!’ he replied. ‘I have work to do.’

If the doctor was rude, I put it down to strain. I was on edge myself as I followed him into the sick-room. Procurator Rhunken was not confined to bed, as I had expected, but lay on a leather chaise longue close to the far wall, his legs naked and raised on pillows towards an open window. This ice-cold chamber was more cluttered than the rest of the house put together. Three thin candletapers wedged together in a single candle-holder lit up books and papers scattered everywhere, great piles of them tottering like drunkards against the walls on either side of a four-poster bed which stood in the darkest corner.

If Doctor Plucker had been expecting someone older, His Excellency, Herr Procurator Wolfgang Rhunken, was far younger than I had anticipated. He could hardly have been forty-five years of age. I recalled the chambermaid’s description of him as fine and handsome, but I could find no evidence of those attributes. He was propped up in a sitting position, large cushions at his back, a dark woollen shawl draped around his shoulders, his careworn face hollow with suffering, his naked legs raised to the freezing night air. Drawing nearer, I observed the sickly colour of his face, his mouth drawn tightly into a thin black slit, eyes half-closed like a man looking into the next world. Large beads of sweat stood out on his pale brow like condensation on a warm glass, his hair drenched, despite the glacial cold. He turned like a blind man as my boots clattered on the stone pavement.

I looked uncertainly at the doctor.

‘Closer, sir. Go closer,’ he urged. ‘Let’s get it over with, and quickly!’

As I approached the patient, I heard the doctor out in the passage, calling to the maid. ‘Bring a stool for the
new
Procurator! And bring in that bucket!’

Rhunken’s feverish eyes flashed open at the rude note of irony in the doctor’s voice. He glared at me, though he did not speak. The stool arrived and was placed beside the couch. I hesitated for an instant as the sick man raised his quivering right hand with what seemed to be a superhuman effort, then let it fall with a heavy thump on the stool.

I took a deep breath and sat down, as the maid placed a large oak bucket covered with a linen cloth on the floor beside her ailing master. The sharp odour which I had at first taken to be the musty smell of a little-used room intensified. A heady compound of sweat, faeces and urine dosed with camphor and other medicines, it was the ethereal vapour of the magistrate’s volatilising decay.

‘I hope you’ll soon recover your health, sir,’ I began, uncertain what else to say, my voice lower than I might have wished.

Procurator Rhunken’s mouth fell open, his lower lip trembled, the left side of his face twitched frantically. He struggled against the rebellious muscles, grasped my arm and pulled me close to that vile stench. Then, gasping desperately for air, he fell back against the cushions without having managed to say a word. For one moment, I thought that he was going to expire before my eyes. A violent tremor shook his body as he attempted to raise his head again.

‘Do not exhaust yourself, sir!’ Doctor Plucker exhorted. ‘This gentleman has excellent young ears and patience aplenty. Now, stay still, sir, while I apply the remedy,’ the doctor muttered. ‘A ship came in last night from Rio del Plata. I had to fight for these with Surgeon Franzich from the Fortress infirmary. You’d baulk, Herr Rhunken, if you knew how much they cost.
Haementaria ghilianii
,’ he announced, whipping the cloth cover from the bucket and raising it to his nose. ‘Hmmm! The primal stench of the Amazon forests! You can almost see the dark, musky swamps where it creeps and crawls. These will do you the world of good, sir. They’re a hundred times more effective than the hiruda worms that Monsieur Broussais brought back from Egypt. Military authorities throughout Europe are stocking up before the outbreak of war.’

I watched in awe as the physician extracted a massive black worm from his bucket with a pair of callipers. The creature squirmed and wriggled, trying to wrap itself around the doctor’s arm. The instant it touched his patient’s naked flesh, all the fight went out of it. Doctor Plucker stretched the massive leech out along Herr Rhunken’s calf from the knee to the ankle, and left it there to feed.

‘If I can help in any way,’ I offered weakly, my gaze horridly attracted by the massive Amazonian slug. It was thirty centimetres long, at the very least. As it began to siphon off the invalid’s blood, it seemed to surge and swell. ‘I am…’