The Master of the Day of Judgment (8 page)

Felix raised his head. His expression had changed. He had recovered his composure.

"The police commission," he said in an entirely altered tone. "Waldemar," he said, "you obviously don't realise into what realms of fantasy you have soared. No, your theories don't hold water. You must excuse me now, I want to talk to these gentlemen alone."

He went over to Dr Gorski and shook his hand warmly.

"Good night, doctor," he said. "I shall never forget what you did today for Dina and me. What would we have done without you? You thought of everything. You kept your head, doctor."

Then he turned to me.

"I must again assure you, captain," he said casually, "that nothing has changed in this affair. Our agreement stands, doesn't it?"

I bowed silently.

NINE

The rest of what happened at Eugen Bischoff's villa that evening can be quickly told.

As we walked through the garden we met the police commission, which consisted of three gentlemen in civilian clothes, one of whom had a big brown leather briefcase under his arm. The deaf gardener led the way with his lantern. We stood aside to let them pass, and one of them, an elderly gentleman with a full face and a grey moustache — he was the district medical officer, as it turned out — stopped and exchanged a few words with Dr Gorski.

"Good evening, my dear colleague," he said, holding his briefcase in front of his face. "Rather cold for the time of year, isn't it? Were you called in?"

"No, I happened to be here."

"What's it all about? We know nothing yet."

"I don't want to anticipate your findings," Dr Gorski replied evasively, and as I walked on I didn't hear the rest of the conversation.

No-one seemed to have entered the music room since I had left it. The chair that had been knocked over was still in the doorway, my score sheets were scattered all over the floor, and Dina's shawl still hung over the back of a chair.

A cold, damp night wind came in through the open window, and I shivered as I buttoned up my jacket. As I bent to pick up the music my eyes fell on a sheet that bore the title "Trio in B major, Op. 8", and I felt as if we had only just finished the scherzo, and the final chords on the piano and the long- drawn-out final passage on the cello rang in my ear. An agreeable vision enabled me to imagine we were still sitting round the tea table, that nothing had happened, that the engineer was blowing blue smoke rings into the air, that Dina's even breathing was coming from the piano, and that Eugen Bischoff was pacing slowly up and down accompanied by his shadow gliding noiselessly across the carpet.

I started suddenly when a door slammed. I heard loud voices in the ante-room, my name was mentioned, the engineer and the doctor were talking about me, they seemed to think I had long since gone home.

"I could credit him with anything," I heard the doctor say emphatically, "there's no act of violence or wickedness I think him incapable of — good gracious, it's half past ten already — I even think him capable of murder, it wouldn't be his first. But lying on his word of honour? No."

"It wouldn't be his first?" said the engineer. "What do you mean by that?"

"Good gracious, he's a cavalry officer, isn't he? Am I to give you my views on duelling standing here in this draught? He's capable of ruthlessness to the point of brutality, I could tell you a tale about that — your overcoat's hanging on the rack over there — he can be in love with a horse or a dog, but I assure you that the life of a human being who stands in his way doesn't mean very much to him."

"I think you're quite wrong about him. My impression ..."

"Listen just a minute, I know him — wait a moment — I've known him for fifteen years ..."

"But I know a little about human nature, too. He has never given me the impression of ruthlessness or brutality. On the contrary, he strikes me as a very sensitive individual, living only for his music, basically shy and retiring ..."

"My dear engineer, which of us can be summed up in a few simple characteristics? You can't sum up the whole character of a human being in a few catch-phrases. Human character is not such a simple thing as one of your green bobbins, charged with either positive or negative electricity. It may be perfectly true that he's sensitive or over-sensitive, and he may be shy and retiring, but there's room for plenty of other things too, believe me."

I was standing bent over a sheet of music and I dared not move, as the door was ajar and the slightest movement might betray my presence. I wasn't interested in their discussion, all I wanted was that they should go away as quickly as possible, for having to play the eavesdropper was painful to me. But they went on talking, and I had to listen, whether I wanted to or not.

"But telling a lie on his word of honour, no," the doctor said. "There are inner moral imperatives that even the greatest cynic does not infringe. Social status, family tradition, sense of honour — no, a Baron von Yosch does not tell a lie on his word of honour. Felix is wrong."

"Felix is wrong," the engineer repeated. "That was obvious to me from the first moment. We find an old trail, and instead of following it right back to its source, instead of taking the most obvious course, the course that lies nearest to hand ..."

"What on earth has the baron to do with the suicide of that Academy student? That's a question Felix ought to have asked . . . Eugen Bischoff is dead, I still can't grasp the fact."

"We'll get to the bottom of it, doctor, it's our duty. Are you willing to help me?"

"Help you? What can we do except to let things take their course?"

"Oh? Let things take their course?" the engineer exclaimed loudly and excitedly. "No, doctor, that's something I've never done in my life. To me letting things take their course has always been the most loathsome of the disguises assumed by sloth. Letting things take their course means saying: I'm too stupid, too lazy or too heartless ..."

"Thank you," said Dr Gorski. "You really are a good judge of human nature. "

"Perhaps, doctor. You see, the baron whom you call a ruthless man of action, a man without conscience or inhibitions — believe me, doctor, he strikes me as being like one of our Russian borzois. Do you know the breed? Slender, proud, not very active mentally, but thoroughly aristocratic, they look as if you ought to be wary of them, though actually if their life is threatened in any way they are utterly helpless. We must think for him, doctor. Do you really propose to leave him in the lurch? If things are left to take their course, they'll inevitably turn against him, and at the end of that road there's the revolver, bear that in mind. Haven't there been enough sacrifices, doctor?"

Dr Gorski did not answer. For a whole minute I heard him rummaging about, and then something crashed to the floor. This was followed by some angry muttering, which gave way to a series of very expressive curses.

"What are you looking for?" asked the engineer.

"My stick, where on earth did I leave it? The worst of it is that it isn't mine, it's my caretaker's. Here's my rheumatism again. I should have gone to Pistyan for the waters a long time ago. It's a brown stick with a thick horn handle, have you seen it anywhere?"

This alarmed me, because a brown stick with a horn handle was leaning against the wall next to the fireplace.

I had been hoping that the two of them would go away without noticing me, but there was no hope of that now, for the doctor was bound to come and look for his stick here. So I had to anticipate him.

I rose and casually dropped the music sheets on the table. Then I went to the piano and noisily shut the lid of the violin case. Let the two of them realise that I was there and had heard every word of their careless talk.

Dr Gorski's angry muttering stopped immediately, and all I could hear was the ticking of the clock; no doubt the two were looking aghast at each other. I imagined their dismayed and embarrassed faces, and for a moment I vividly pictured the doctor, a gnome turned into a Biblical pillar of salt in his caped cloak and galoshes.

Eventually they seemed to regain the power of speech.

Excited whispering began, and then I heard the engineer's firm and energetic footsteps.

I went to meet him very casually indeed, for the situation was far more embarrassing for him than for me. I was just about to open the door when the telephone rang next to me.

Quite automatically I picked up the receiver. It did not occur to me until later that the call could not possibly have been for me.

"Hallo," I said.

"Who's there?" said the voice at the other end of the line. It was a voice that I knew; I immediately had the impression that I was talking to a quite young girl, and that idea was associated with the memory of a strange perfume, the odour of ether or ethereal oils. For a second I wondered where I had heard that voice before.

The lady on the line became impatient.

"To whom am I speaking?" she said irritably, and I became confused, because the door had been pushed open and the engineer was standing in the doorway in his overcoat and with his hat in his hand. He looked at me inquiringly.

"This is the Bischoff villa," I said eventually.

"There's my stick," Dr Gorski exclaimed with great satisfaction. He had forced his way past the engineer in the doorway and was standing in the room rubbing his leg.

"Is the professor there?" asked the lady on the telephone.

"The professor?" I could not think whom she meant. My first thought was that it was a wrong number, and I remembered that Dina had once complained that her number was always being confused with that of the senior registrar at the eye hospital.

"Here it goes again," the doctor complained. "What I need is a couple of weeks of sulphur baths but, believe it or not, this summer I couldn't manage that even once."

"Whom do you want?" I asked.

"Professor Bischoff, Eugen Bischoff."

I now remembered that Eugen Bischoff taught drama at the Academy of Interpretive Arts. It was extraordinary that I had not thought of that before. Presumably this was one of his pupils, but I could not explain why her voice reminded me of the smell of ether.

"The professor is not available," I said to her.

"For heaven's sake hurry up," Dr Gorski said to the engineer. "How much longer am I to wait in this draught with my rheumatism?"

"Oh, stop it, the clothes rack fell on your shin, that's what your rheumatism is," the engineer whispered to him.

"Nonsense," Dr Gorski exclaimed angrily. "What nonsense you talk. I ought to know what muscle pains are."

"Not available? Not even for me?" the lady said in a very self-assured manner — she seemed to think it quite unnecessary to mention her name. "Not even for me? But he's expecting me to call."

This nonplussed me, and Dr Gorski's continual interruptions increased my confusion. What was I to say to her?

"I'm afraid the professor is not available to anyone," I replied, and suddenly remembered the tartan rug and the pallid face that it covered — a cold shudder went down my spine and my hands trembled.

"Not available to anyone?" said the voice on the telephone in a tone of surprise and disbelief. "But he's expecting my call."

"Look, I think it's raining again," said the doctor. "It'll be the death of me. No chance of getting a cab, I know that already."

"For heaven's sake keep quiet for a minute," the engineer told him abruptly.

"What's the meaning of this? Has there been an accident?" the voice on the telephone exclaimed.

"The pain's in the side and the back too, this is a fine kettle offish," the doctor, now completely cowed, whispered. Then he fell silent.

"What has happened? Tell me, for heaven's sake," the voice on the telephone said.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," I answered, and the question: how can she possibly know, where can she have got it from? flashed through my mind. No, no-one would find out from me, only Felix had the right . . . "Nothing has happened," I said, trying to make my voice sound completely natural, but the staring eyes in the pale, distorted face would not go away. "The professor has retired to work, that's all," I said.

"To work? Oh, good gracious me, the new role, of course. And I thought . . . What a stupid idea. I was afraid ..."

She laughed quietly to herself. Then she went on in the same self-assured tone as before:

"I wouldn't want to disturb the professor, of course. May I ask whom I'm speaking to?"

"Baron von Yosch."

"Don't know you, I'm afraid," she answered very decidedly, and again I had the feeling that I had heard that voice more than once before, though I still had no idea when and where. "Will you please be kind enough to tell the professor — he should have called on me this afternoon, but suddenly, at midday, he put me off. Please tell him that I expect him at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning. Tell him that everything's ready, and, in case he has no time again tomorrow, tell him I'm not in the mood to postpone the matter again."

"And whom am I to say this message is from?"

"Tell him," and now the voice was very ill-humoured, like that of a spoilt child who has failed to get something it wanted, "tell the professor that in no circumstances am I prepared to wait any longer for the Day of Judgment. That's all."

"The Day of Judgment?" I said in surprise and with a feeling of slight discomfort for which I had no explanation.

"Yes, the Day of Judgment," she said emphatically. "Please give the professor that message. Thank you."

I heard her ring off and I put back the receiver. At the same moment I felt my shoulder being grabbed. I turned my head — the engineer was standing beside me staring me in the face.

"What was that?" he stammered. "What was it you just said?"

"It wasn't me, it was a lady, the lady on the telephone, she said she wouldn't wait any longer for the Day of Judgment."

He let me go and grabbed the receiver. His hat had dropped to the floor. I picked it up.

"It's too late, she has rung off."

He slammed down the receiver.

"Whom were you talking to?"

"Whom? I don't know. She wouldn't give her name. But I thought I knew her voice. That's all I can tell you."