HS01 - Critique of Criminal Reason (32 page)

I gazed at the murky window and tried to imagine what Martin Lampe had been thinking about. Had the murdering demon in his soul risen to the surface while his wife looked helplessly on?

‘Did he tell you what this work involved?’ I asked.

‘He said I wouldn’t understand. He and his master were exploring a new dimension. That’s what he said, sir. A new dimension.’

Martin and Professor Kant, I noted.
Not
Professor Kant and Martin. Was that how she had interpreted Lampe’s words, or had the husband presented the case to his wife in that light?

‘Has your husband ever studied philosophy?’ I asked.

‘Oh no, sir. But he learnt a great deal from his master. Martin was always going on about the new philosophers who’d been attacking Kant. He said they’d be obliged to eat their words when the book came out.’

There it was again. The final testament of Immanuel Kant. The book that no one had ever seen. Nobody, apart from Martin Lampe…

‘That book turned Martin into a different man,’ she continued. ‘He frightened the life out of me sometimes, sir. He was obsessed, driven, and it was all Kant’s doing.’

‘Your husband was only executing his duty,’ I suggested vaguely, ‘unpleasant as it might have been.’

‘Unpleasant?’ she hissed. ‘It was worse than that. Kant brought Martin to the verge of murder.’

‘Indeed?’ I said coldly, as if what she had just told me was a reasonable argument and not an obscene calumny.

‘Martin told me so. One day a young gentleman came to visit Kant. When Martin served them tea, he said that they were pleasantly engaged in a discussion of philosophy…’

The relationship Jachmann had mentioned earlier flashed through my mind. ‘Was the name of the visitor Gottlieb Fichte?’

Frau Lampe shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea, sir. After they’d finished talking, Professor Kant accompanied his visitor to the door and saw him out.’ She stared at me, a smile frozen on her face.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Kant told my husband to run after that young man and kill him with a knife.’

Here was the other side of Herr Jachmann’s coin. Not a mad Martin Lampe, but a mad and murderous Immanuel Kant.

‘Did your husband obey?’

‘Of course, he did, sir. It was his duty. But that young philosopher ran away before Martin could catch up with him.’

‘Would your husband have obeyed Kant up to that final point?’

She joined her hands as if she to pray. ‘I begged him not to listen,’ she whispered with a moan. ‘Kant is senile, I said. He’s demented. To tell you the truth, sir, I was glad when Herr Jachmann dismissed my husband. I thought he’d be out of harm’s way. But nothing really changed. Professor Kant sent a secret message, calling him to the house under cover of night.’

‘Frau Lampe,’ I said, turning the argument aside, pointing to a piece of embroidered linen draped over the back of a chair. ‘Are you interested in needlework?’

She glanced up in perplexity, then nodded.

‘Where do you purchase your materials?’

She looked at me as if I were deranged.

‘From a shop? A travelling draper, perhaps?’ I suggested.

‘There are two shops that I go to,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Do you know a man named Roland Lutbatz?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you bought anything from him recently?’

‘I do not know him personally, sir,’ she replied. ‘He supplies goods to shopkeeper Reutlingen. I’ve seen him there on one or two occasions.’ She stopped and frowned. ‘What has Herr Lutbatz to do with my husband’s disappearance?’

‘He says that he spoke to your husband recently,’ I answered. ‘Martin was interested in buying needles for carding tapestry wool.’

‘Carding wool?’ she repeated, as if she did not understand.

‘Did you instruct your husband to buy them for you?’

She did not reply. She was too frightened to answer, I could see that, calculating whether her husband would gain or lose by what she might have to say. I knew how I wished her to answer. I desired it with all the impelling force that Doctor Mesmer mentions when he speaks of the transference of thought. I wanted her to tell me that her husband had, indeed, bought those needles for her, and for no other purpose than that for which they were intended. I prayed with all my heart that the certainty I had felt in identifying the murderer would be dashed to smithereens. I wanted Lampe to be innocent. If Kant’s unwitting influence had driven him to murder, there would be no end to the scandal.

‘I did not ask my husband to purchase anything from Herr Lutbatz,’ she said at last. ‘He may have wished to surprise me with a gift. He sometimes does.’ She studied my face carefully. ‘Will this help you to understand what has happened to him, sir?’

‘You have been a great help to me, Frau Lampe,’ I said, standing up and preparing to leave, ever more convinced of the guilt of her husband. ‘Please contact me if anything else occurs to you. With your assistance the police will find him soon, I’m certain.’

‘There’s something else, sir,’ she said, stopping me on the doorstep. ‘I should have mentioned it before, but I hoped it would not be necessary.’

‘Of what are you speaking, Frau Lampe?’

‘I’ll show you, sir.’

She led the way quickly into the back garden, tramping through the deep, packed snow to the farthest corner of the enclosed land. It was a small plot in which Frau Lampe and her husband had managed to cultivate an apple tree and some rows of vegetables, the plants now frozen, black and withered with the frost. A dense, dark, untended wood stretched away up the hill behind the house. There was a vague, menacing quality about the place. Wisps of fog clung to the naked branches and the stark damp trunks. Dripping icicles hung from the trees like the stalactites in the gloomy caves of Bad Merrenheim.

‘Can you see these marks?’ she said, bending to the ground and indicating footprints in the frozen snow.

I knelt to examine them. They were little more than scuffs left by someone in a hurry wearing shoes unsuited to the weather and the terrain.

‘It was snowing the night that Martin disappeared. I saw these tracks the morning after, when I went to the shed over there to get some dried herbs. It has not snowed since.’

‘Why should he come this way?’ I asked.

‘It’s a short cut to Professor…to the town,’ she corrected herself.

Leaving her at the garden’s edge, I ventured further into the wood, following the tracks until I reached a wild plum tree. Enshrined in the frozen snow was the first clearly delineated footprint. I stared at it for what seemed an eternity of time.

‘Are you certain these traces were left by your husband?’ I called back.

‘I cut the soles of Martin’s shoes myself. The leather was worn. I did not want him to fall and injure himself.’

I had seen the distinctive cross-cut that Frau Lampe had made three times before. In the drawing made by Officer Lublinsky at the scene of the first murder. The previous afternoon in Professor Kant’s garden. And the night before, beside the lifeless body of Amadeus Koch in Sturtenstrasse.

After leaving Belefest, I returned to my office in a troubled mood.

I knew exactly what I ought to do. The killer had a name. Martin Lampe should be hunted down and prevented from striking again. Yet, there was something else that I had to do, something no magistrate should
ever
do. I determined to hide the identity of the killer. Professor Kant must never learn who he was, or know how close he had been. If the murderer could be stopped, if I could cover his tracks, I would lead the investigation away from him until it fizzled out. If any man spoke the name of Martin Lampe again, it must only be to remember him as Professor Kant’s valet. Anything else was a blasphemy.

I planted my elbows on the desk, pressed my head between my hands. I felt as though my brain might erupt from my throbbing skull. The first thing to do was to draw him into my net. He had murdered Sergeant Koch, but
I
had been the real target. Lampe had set his heart on slaughtering me, and he would not rest until he had eliminated the danger. Could I offer myself as a bait to entice him out of his hiding hole?

Suddenly, another course of action opened up before me, one which would set me for ever beyond the pale of the law.

Lampe had disappeared. His wife presumed that he was dead. She had come to the Fortress to report him missing. Could I turn the situation to my advantage? All I had to do was call Stadtschen, inform him that the man was nowhere to be found, provide a detailed description, and suggest that Lampe might have been murdered. A search would be set in motion. If he were found alive, he would be brought to me for questioning. Then, I would have him where I wanted him.

I poured myself a glass of wine, and drank it off in a single draught. As the liquid traced its acid path to my stomach, I realised with a shudder what would follow on once I had him in my custody. A terrible energy began to surge through my veins. My thoughts were swept up, invaded, conquered by the recollection of a cold grey morning ten years before. The intoxicating smell of blood as the blade scythed effortlessly through the neck of the French king. I clutched my fists to my eyes, trying to cancel that image from my memory.

I would kill Martin Lampe
.

I sat still for quite some time, seeking to reclaim possession of myself, struggling to remember who I was, to understand what I had become – what I was
about
to become. I could not risk a public trial. The manipulation of justice is no simple matter. If Lampe were forced to stand before me in the dock, I would have to prove his guilt in full. A magistrate is charged not only to condemn guilt, he must also demonstrate what led the felon to his error. Too much might be said in a courtroom debate of Professor Kant’s influence over his valet. But if I gave orders to take the man up for his own safety, who would question my motives? If something happened while he was in my care, would any man dare to accuse me?

A short time later, a knock came at the door, and a soldier entered carrying despatches. ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ he apologised, setting them down on my desk. ‘Officer Stadtschen sent these.’

I glanced at the two letters, waiting for the door to close. The larger one, a white envelope with an imposing red seal, brought a lump to my throat as I slit it open. It was one of those missives all Prussians in the civil administration dread to receive, an anonymous secretary informing me that I was to give a full account of myself. A report of my investigation to date was required for submission to His Majesty, King Frederick Wilhelm, the following morning.

I let the paper fall on the table.

What was I to do? Could I avoid the Royal Imperative? Postpone the task until I was in a better position to reveal to the King what I wished him to know of the situation in Königsberg? I picked the letter up, read it once more, let it drop back onto the table, turning my attention to the second despatch, which seemed less intimidating. This message bore no Hohenzollern seal. It was a single sheet of grey paper, folded in four, and closed with a loop of string. But as I read what Stadtschen had written, my heart began to race.

Another body had been found. Why had I not been informed at once?

My conception of the murders that Martin Lampe had committed was well-defined, precise in every detail. Whoever he was, the victim had not been killed by Lampe. But that did not diminish my impatience with Stadtschen’s interfering ways. With Koch dead, he had spotted an opportunity for his own advancement. He had taken upon himself the responsibility to have the soldiers collect the bones in a sack, and bring them to the Fortress. ‘The remains will be held for a day in case someone comes to claim the body,’ he noted officiously. ‘If no one does, burial in a pauper’s grave will follow on.’

A groan of angered exasperation escaped me.

Did he think I would tell General Katowice what a clever fellow he was? Did he hope that I would mention him by name in my report to the King? I read on, my annoyance flaring into white-hot anger as I neared the end.

‘Though not within the city walls, the place where the body was found still falls within the jurisdiction of Herr Procurator,’ Stadtschen continued, ‘being the abandoned hunting ground of the ancient feudal manor of…’

I jumped up from my chair, threw open the door, and called out the name of Stadtschen with all the force of rage in my lungs.

The empty corridor boomed with the sound. Footsteps clattered further off, and the echo of my cry was taken up by other voices, all of them calling the name of Stadtschen.

The man arrived at a gallop a minute later, his wig set lopsidedly on his head, the top button of his uniform loose, as if my summons to duty had caught him unprepared. His sweaty face might have been wiped with a knob of lard, and I took some pleasure in his discomfiture.

‘Sir?’ he said, breathing heavily after the exertion.

‘Where is it, Stadtschen? Where’s the body?’

He stared at me, his face a theatre of alternating expressions: surprise, shock, fear, anxious submission to my authority.

‘Body, sir?’

‘The man in the woods near Belefest,’ I snapped, waving his despatch in his face. ‘Who gave you permission to tamper with it? Are you blind to what is going on in Königsberg, Stadtschen? Someone is killing people. The only way to catch him is to search each murder scene for clues. But
you
decided to move the corpse! I suppose your men have trampled all over the place like a herd of cows.’

‘Procurator Stiffeniis,’ he interrupted, his voice trembling, ‘there was no reason to think that he had been killed by any man.’ He pointed his finger at the despatch in my hand. ‘I reported the fact there, sir. Near the end. “Ravaged by wild animals.” Wolves, most probably. They’d torn…’

‘What makes you think the wolves
killed
him?’ I shouted. ‘The murderer could have chased this man through the woods. The victim may have been dead before the animals got to him.’

The possibility had never entered the numbskull’s mind.

‘But, sir!’ he protested again. ‘The murderer always strikes
inside
the city walls. That’s why I thought…’

‘You
thought?
’

I mimicked him sarcastically, but his desperate reasoning struck a spark of hope in my heart. He was right. Martin Lampe had never killed outside the town. Yet Belefest was where he lived. Was he hiding somewhere near his house, or in the woods behind it? I had seen his footprints in the snow on the path that led from the village to Königsberg less than an hour before. His wife had verified them for me. Had Lampe killed someone else on his way home from town? Or had he himself been torn to pieces after murdering Sergeant Koch?

‘Is the body still in the Fortress?’

‘Indeed it is, sir.’ Officer Stadtschen seemed to grow before my eyes as he replied. Unlike the ones that had gone before, this question had not been prompted by anger, nor tainted by accusation. His massive chest swelled out, his back straightened, his puffy face relaxed once more, taking on its usual air of arrogant self-righteousness. ‘We can go there now, sir. If you wish, that is, Herr Stiffeniis,’ he added more cautiously.

‘Lead on,’ I said.

On the ground floor, not far from the main gate, Stadtschen lifted a flaming torch from the wall and handed it to me. He took another one for himself, opened a narrow arched door, and we went spiralling down the staircase that led to the dungeons and maze of passages lying beneath the Fortress. I had been there in the company of Sergeant Koch on the night of my arrival in Königsberg. On that occasion, we had met a necromancer, and heard his animated conversation with the lifeless shell of a murdered man.

This time, I intended the inspection of the body to be strictly factual.

At the bottom, we turned right and entered a narrow tunnel which had been hacked out of the solid rock at some time in the distant past. The rough walls were slick with damp, dark green with moss. Piles of broken chairs, tables, beds and stinking mattresses had been abandoned there to mould and decay. Stacks of ancient breastplates stamped with a double-headed eagle lay rusting and forgotten in a heap. Old-fashioned powder-muskets with blunderbuss barrels were ranged along the walls like fossilised flowers. Each object seemed malignly intent on tripping us up, blocking the way, or falling down and burying us alive. The flickering torchlight saved us from the dangers, but there was little the flames could do against the cold.

As Stadtschen said in utter seriousness: ‘We are in the impenetrable bowels of the Earth, sir. Long before Königsberg existed, before men made houses, this is where they used to dwell.’

It was hard to imagine any human being surviving there for very long. The cold was penetrating, it seemed to filter through my skin and take possession of my bones. The heavy woollen garments that had kept me warm – despite the freezing fog and icy winds that had lashed Königsberg since my arrival – were useless in that dismal cave. I might have been naked for all the good they did me. I am not averse to cold weather. A crisp winter’s morning, frost fresh on the grass, sparkling sun, clean air, is one of Nature’s delights, but the desolate chill of the cold earth has an unpleasant effect on my spirits. I was terrified by the odour of damp and organic decay while still a child. Every year on the anniversary of my grandfather’s death, Father would unlock the door and lead the family and servants down to the crypt to pray for the souls of our ancestors. I knew the smell of the tomb from a tender age. Indeed, I often asked myself in gaping terror whether the dead souls of my forebears would be condemned to breathe that musty stench for Eternity.

With a swoosh of his torch, Officer Stadtschen spun round to face me.

‘Here we are, sir,’ he said, indicating a heavy iron door. He seemed to have regained his mettle. Perhaps he hoped the visual evidence of his good work would convince me to revise my opinion of him. ‘Cold it may be, Herr Procurator, but a corpse will not last long down here. It’s the damp that does it. Rot sets in, then there’s the rats…’

‘I can imagine!’ I cut in sharply. I did not need a catalogue of horrors to compound my discomfort.

‘I only meant to say, sir, that bodies are kept in the charnel house as short a time as possible. Most of them have been exposed above ground to all sorts of horrible mis–’

‘How long has
this
corpse been here?’ I asked more forcefully, drowning out his evident delight in the mechanics of human decomposition.

‘I’d hardly call it a corpse…’

‘How long?’ I insisted.

‘Four hours, sir,’ he said. ‘Bills are being posted up around the town. I gave the word myself.’ He stopped, uncertain of my reaction. ‘Do you want me to stop them from being put up, sir?’

‘Let them be,’ I replied. ‘Someone may come forward with news of the man.’

‘I tried to tell you what I was about, sir,’ he went on. ‘But when I knocked at your door, you did not answer. They told me in the guard-room that you’d left the Fortress in the company of a lady. I wrote that note before I went to bed, and told them to deliver it the minute you came back. I’d been on duty all night, sir.’

I heard him, but I was not listening. I was doing my sums. If the body had been deposited in the charnel house four hours before, then it had probably been found two, three, or even four hours earlier. That is, the man had died at the very least eight, ten, or even more hours before. I glanced at my watch, and noted that it was twenty past nine. Midnight, then, was the likely hour of his demise, though it was possible he had died some hours before. Physical examination would give me a better idea of the state of preservation and the rigidity of the corpse, but the timing did suggest that this
might
be the body of Martin Lampe. If so, I calculated, some hours after killing Sergeant Koch, he had been ravaged by wolves while returning home along the forest path. Of course, he could have died at any time after three o’clock the day before (the hour at which Koch’s body had been discovered in Sturtenstrasse), but if, as I believed, midnight proved to be the more likely hour, where had he been hiding? What had he been doing in the interval?

Then again, I reasoned, if the corpse were not Lampe’s, but that of another of his victims – that is, having killed Sergeant Koch, he had chosen to attack someone else as he made his way to Belefest – then I was seriously in trouble. Had Lampe abandoned his chosen modus operandi and favourite weapon, and given himself up to casual slaughter? Two murders in one day. Was his homicidal fury growing? Was his lust for blood urging him to kill with greater frequency?

As Stadtschen pulled back the rusty bolt to the charnel house, the iron door grated noisily on the rough stone floor, covering the words of invocation that escaped from my lips. I prayed to God that the corpse of Martin Lampe would be waiting for me. Certain knowledge that he was dead would end the terror that had taken possession of Königsberg, and cancel the murderous obsession that had taken root in my own mind.