The Master of the Day of Judgment (12 page)

I explained that I had called in order to seek information about a fellow-tenant of his. I had felt justified in seeking aid from an ex-officer, for I was a captain (retired) in the 12th Dragoons. The mistrust vanished from his face. He asked a trifle uncertainly whether I had called on behalf of some business and, when I told him that it was a purely private affair that had led me to him, his reserve disappeared. He regretted he could not offer me a glass of schnapps, a good Kontuczowka he had from Galicia, but his wife had gone out and taken the key with her. He couldn't even offer me a cigarette, as he was a pipe-smoker.

I described the man I was looking for exactly as the engineer had described him to me. The major was surprised to hear that the building in which he lived harboured anyone of such extraordinary physique. He had never heard of the monster.

"Strange, strange, strange," he muttered. "I've lived here ever since I left the army. The whole street is a gossip shop and, if Frau Dolezal from no. 6 has ox tongue with caper sauce for lunch, every child in the street knows it the same afternoon. You say he never goes out? But one would have heard something about him, no-one could have remained so completely hidden as that. Do you know what I think, captain? Someone has been taking you in. If you will forgive me for suggesting such a thing, captain, I think some humorist has been pulling your leg."

He stopped and thought for a while.

"On the other hand," he went on, "didn't you say he's an Italian? Just a minute, just a minute, just a minute. Until last year a Serbo-Croat lived in this house, his German was very bad, I was the only one who could talk to him in his mother tongue because for two years I was stationed at Priepolje, a kind of sin-bin, you know, it gives me the creeps to think of it, the stories I could tell you about Novibazar, but never mind about that now. He wasn't really fat, quite the reverse in fact. His name was Dulibic, I now remember, and he was the nephew of a parliamentary deputy, they're all traitors, if you ask me, and if I had my way — but you can't mean him, because he moved to Budapest last year. Dulibic his name was, that's right, Dulibic. But just a minute, just a minute. There is someone I haven't seen for two or three weeks. What has happened to Herr Kratky? I asked the caretaker's wife, one never sees him any more. He had inflammation of the middle ear. He's going out again now, he's still rather pale and weak, it takes time to get over a thing like that. But for one thing he's not an Italian, and for another he's not really what one would call fat."

He thought again for a while, and suddenly he seemed to have an idea.

"Supposing the man you want is Herr Albachary, after all," he said, lowering his voice, and he smiled cautiously and understandingly. "There's really no need for you to feel any embarrassment with me, why should you, we're both old soldiers, after all, and I myself was young once. Herr Gabriel Albachary lives at no. 8 on the second floor. You've no idea of the people who go up and see him, many of them are men of breeding and proper gentlemen, after all anyone can find himself in a situation in which he needs Herr Albachary, I think nothing of it. Also he's said to be a highly educated man, a great connoisseur and collector in the face of the Lord, pictures, antiques, theatrical relics and relics of old Vienna, all sorts of things, he's an old gentleman, always elegant, always smartly dressed, the only thing is that he takes ten, twelve or fifteen per cent, all depending, and sometimes more."

I had no desire to be considered a moneylender's client, so I decided to take the major into my confidence so far as the circumstances required.

"I am not in financial difficulties, major," I told him firmly, "and I am not interested in Herr Albachary. To put it in a nutshell, I am here because of the actor Eugen Bischoff, of whom you have heard, perhaps, major. In the past few days he was here a number of times, and by all appearances there is a connection between those visits and his suicide. Last night he shot himself at his villa."

The major leapt from his chair as if he had had an electric shock.

"What did you say? Bischoff, the court actor?"

"Yes, I very much want to find out ..."

"Killed himself? Impossible. Is it in the papers?"

"It's bound to be."

"The court actor Bischoff? Why didn't you tell me straight away? Of course he was here. The day before yesterday, no, wait a minute, about twelve o'clock on Friday ..."

"Did you see him, major?"

"No, but my daughter did. The things you say! The actor Eugen Bischoff. What do the papers say? Money troubles? Debts?"

I did not answer.

"It must have been nerves," he went on. "An artist nowadays, over-worked and over-strained — that's what my daughter thought too — he looked distracted and distraught, he didn't realise at first what she wanted of him — yes, these brilliant people — my daughter — we both have our hobbies. I collect jubilee stamps and special issues. When I've completed a collection, I sell it, one can always find an enthusiast willing to buy. My daughter's more interested in autographs. She has a whole album full of them. Painters, musicians, excellencies, actors, singers, all sorts of celebrities. At midday on Friday she came dashing in. 'Whom do you think I ran into on the stairs, papa?' she said excitedly. 'Eugen Bischoff, just imagine it.' She picked up her album and dashed out again. An hour later she came back looking radiant, she had had to wait all that time on the stairs, but she got him, and he wrote his name in her book."

"And where had he been all that time?" I asked.

"At Herr Albachary's, where else would he have been?"

"Is that just an assumption, or ... ?"

"No, she saw him come out. Herr Albachary accompanied him to the door."

I rose and thanked the major for his information.

"Do you want to go already?" he said. "If you've got a moment to spare, you might be interested in my collection. I've no great rarities, only what comes my way."

And he pointed with the stem of his pipe to the open album and said:

"Honduras. The latest issue."

A few minutes later I was at the door of Herr Albachary's flat and rang the bell.

A red-haired youth as long as a bean pole and in his shirtsleeves opened the door and let me in.

No, the gentleman was not at home. When would he be back? That was impossible to say. Perhaps not till the evening.

I could not make up my mind whether or not to wait. From the half-open door of the room I heard footsteps and the sound of someone impatiently clearing his throat.

"That's another gentleman waiting to see Herr Albachary," the young man explained. "He has been waiting for half- an-hour."

My eyes fell on the clothes rack, where a raglan and green velour hat were hanging, and a black polished walking stick with an ivory handle was leaning against the wall. Good heavens, I said to myself, I know that hat and coat and stick. Someone I know is here. The idea of being greeted in a moneylender's waiting room by an acquaintance was the last straw. I must clear out fast, before he had the idea of looking to see who the new arrival was.

I said I would come back another time, perhaps next day at the same time, and hurried out.

Down in the entrance hall I suddenly remembered where I knew that hat and coat and ivory-handled stick from. So great was my astonishment that I stopped in my tracks. It was incredible. How could he have found his way here before me? But there was no doubt about it. The man whose overcoat was upstairs in the waiting room was the engineer.

THIRTEEN

It was raining in torrents when I walked out of the entrance hall. The street was practically deserted, and the driver, wrapped in a mackintosh, was sitting at the wheel reading a dripping newspaper. I felt uneasy. I could not see how the engineer had managed so quickly and so certainly to follow Eugen Bischoff's invisible trail but, to tell the truth, I quickly gave up worrying about it. All I knew was that my sleuthing had been totally superfluous. The inquiries at the police station, my questions to the driver, my call on the old major had been a useless waste of energy. It had been a wasted afternoon. I felt hungry and tired, I was shivering with cold, and the rain blew in my face. All I wanted was a dry change of clothing and a warm room. I must get home as quickly as possible.

The driver, who had been having some sort of trouble with the petrol tank, stood erect. "Myrthengasse 18," I called out to him — that was my address. But just when we were moving off I had an idea that completely changed my mood. I had been thinking that the trail I had been following had led me up a blind alley, but that was not the case, it led further. That accident had happened in the Burggasse. Strange that it struck me only now, but the Burggasse was not on Eugen Bischoff's way home. Why had he gone so far out of his way?

I told the driver to stop, and I started questioning him in streaming rain in the middle of the road.

"Where was the gentleman going on Friday when you had that accident with the tram?"

"To the Myrthengasse," he replied.

This annoyed me.

"Why don't you listen?" I exclaimed angrily. "Didn't you hear what I said? The Myrthengasse is where I want to go now, Myrthengasse 18. What I asked you was where that gentleman was going on Friday."

"He was going to the Myrthengasse," the driver calmly replied.

"What? To no. 18, where I live?" I exclaimed in surprise.

"No, sir, not to you, to the chemist's."

"What chemist's? The Archangel Michael's?"

"I only saw one chemist's shop in the street, it may be called that, sir."

What could be the meaning of this, I wondered as we drove on. He goes straight from the moneylender's flat to a chemist's, and to one that was not on his way home. That was strange, but there must have been a reason for it. There was no doubt in my mind that there was a connection of some sort between Eugen Bischoff's visit to the moneylender and his taxi ride to the chemist's. What a triumph it would be if I discovered what it was. I assured myself that perhaps this would not be so very difficult, I had been intending in any case to buy some bromine, and I would simply go to the chemist's and there would be no difficulty in striking up a conversation. Confidentiality? Pharmacists were under no obligation of confidentiality — or perhaps they were. Never mind, I would have to go about it tactfully, I'd ask the elderly chief pharmacist, who always cringed to me so abjectly — your humble servant, baron, I hope to have the honour again soon — or the proprietor himself, or . . .

I had been racking my brains all day, and now, by this chance — but of course it wasn't chance that had led Eugen Bischoff to the Archangel Michael's Pharmacy, he had gone there for her sake, he had known her from her childhood and entrusted himself to her. And I had seen her every day from the windows of my flat hurrying to lectures at the university with her briefcase full of books, small, fair-haired with a reddish tinge, always in a hurry and always excitable, and not long ago I had seen her in the vestibule at the theatre — that was why her voice on the telephone had struck me as so familiar, and now I realised why it had reminded me of an unusual odour, ether and turpentine, of course, the pharmacy smell.

I was beside myself with excitement, for I realised the importance of my discovery. I couldn't help thinking of the engineer wasting his time sitting and waiting in the old moneylender's flat — while I — in two minutes I would be with the girl who had used that strange phrase the Day of Judgment, the obscure meaning of which was somehow connected with Eugen Bischoff's suicide. The moment when the answer to the tragic riddle would be revealed seemed imminent, and I looked forward to it with vague apprehension and uneasiness, and at the same time with impatience and hope.

Her name was Leopoldine Teichmann, and she was the daughter of a great actress who had died young, a woman of unforgettable beauty whose name was never mentioned without passionate admiration in the world in which I grew up. The girl had inherited from her mother her reddish fair hair and a certain restless way of life, and perhaps also a burning ambition, for she had dabbled in many arts. She painted. I remembered an oil painting she once exhibited, a still life of long-stalked asters and dahlias — incidentally a very mediocre work. She made many appearances as a dancer in performances for charity, and she once surprised Eugen Bischoff with a proposal to take drama lessons from him, but this never got beyond the stage of preliminary discussions. Some time after this she disappeared from the circles in which she had played a certain role. Faced with the necessity of earning a living, she had qualified as a pharmacist and, as I had completely lost her from sight, I was very surprised when one day she turned up as an M. Pharm, at the Archangel Michael's chemist's shop.

It was still raining when I reached the Myrthengasse. I stopped in front of the chemist's window and, while contemplating through the rain-dimmed windows the display of liniment bottles, tubes of toothpaste and powder boxes, I thought about the best way of opening the conversation. I ended by deciding to introduce myself to the girl as a friend of Eugen Bischoff's and asking whether I might talk to her alone.

The chief pharmacist grovelled almost as soon as I opened the door. "My respects, baron," he said, "please step this way, I'm at your service, what can I do for you?"

The shop was full of customers. A bank clerk was trying to find a prescription in his wallet, two housemaids were waiting to be served, a pale young man in horn-rimmed spectacles was reading an illustrated weekly while waiting, a barefooted small boy wanted ribwort sweets, and an old lady with a shopping bag wanted eye drops, marshmallow tea, Prague ointment, and "something to clear my blood". The proprietor was sitting at his desk in a neighbouring room. Fräulein Teichmann was nowhere to be seen.

"What dreadful weather," the chief pharmacist complained, pouring spirit of soap into a bottle. "I expect you've caught a cold, baron. I always recommend a glass of mulled wine, preferably with a stick of cinnamon, and nutmeg and cloves, well sweetened, goes down very nicely. Then inhalations at night — that will be eighty heller, Herr von Stiberny, it's an honour, sir, thank you very much, good-bye, Herr von Stiberny, always at your service."