Murder in A-Major (12 page)

M
y encounter with Professor Wieck and Willy Hupfer, though brief, struck me as bizarre, indeed so bizarre that I felt compelled to relate the scene to Schumann while the details were still fresh in my memory. I hoped that, though the Maestro might find the apparent acquaintanceship of these two disturbing, he might shed some light on it that would reinforce my newfound suspicions. Next morning, I decided to pay Schumann a visit. I expected that he and his wife would have returned from their “escape” to Bad Grünwald, and it turned out that I was right. What I did
not
expect, however, was to find that the Maestro was already fully (even rather nattily) dressed for an outing and emerging from the Schumann residence, a stout walking stick firmly in hand.

“Good morning, Preiss,” he called out as I alighted from my cab. “What a pleasant coincidence!” He seemed in unusually high spirits.

“Coincidence?”

“Yes. You're just in time to join me for a walk. A wonderful morning, eh?” With his walking stick he pointed to a cloudless sky. “Haven't seen sunshine like this for days. We must take advantage of it. Exercise, my friend: good for a man's body, mind and soul!”

I am a night person, and the prospect of physical exercise, even at mid-morning, was less than appealing. “Thank you, Maestro,” I said, “but the only time I take a walk at this hour of the day is when duty absolute requires it.”

“Then consider it your absolute duty to accompany me,” he countered with a cheerfulness I had never before witnessed in him.

“Very well,” I said, making no secret of my reluctance. “Once around the block then.”

“Nonsense!” he said, laughing. “I'm off on my favourite route. It'll do you a world of good on a brilliant day like today, Preiss. In fact, it'll do us
both
a world of good.” I began to protest, but he wouldn't hear of it. “Whither I go, there also goest thou!” he said with mock severity.

“It sounds as though you're off to St. Lambertus,” I said, referring to the famous thirteenth century church not too distant. ‘You're not going to try to make a religious man out of me, are you?'

“No indeed, Preiss. The very opposite. We're heading for the real heart of Düsseldorf, my friend.” I knew he meant Königsallee. Where else?

“I'm always up for a visit to Königsallee,” I said, though such a visit wasn't remotely on my agenda at the moment.

“I enjoy going there too,” Schumann said, as we headed west toward Königsallee, a distance of about three city blocks from Bilkerstrasse. “I call it ‘The Poor Man's Champs Elysées'…about the only place we have in the whole damn country that reminds me of Paris.”

I'd never been to Paris but had read enough to understand what he meant.

So much of Düsseldorf is marinated in the past. Many of its parish churches and cathedrals date back to the 1600s and even earlier. The Old Town takes up a square kilometre on the banks of the Rhine. Within its borders, one can hear history in every creak of its rusted hinges, every groan of its ancient floorboards, every clatter of a wooden wheel rim on its rough cobblestone lanes. I can look toward the Rhine from any street in the Old Town and have no difficulty imagining myself to be a fifteenth century farmer toting a burlap sack of onions over my hunched back to market, or a potter pulling a cart heavily laden with my latest earthenware for sale there, or a tattered follower of Martin Luther crying aloud from some makeshift street corner pulpit to passersby to turn their backs forever on Rome.

Königsallee, on the other hand, is the brightest, liveliest, most fashionable precinct in the whole of Düsseldorf. I fell in love with Königsallee the first time I walked its length years earlier as a penny-pinching recruit. Its luxurious offerings of clothes and jewellery and food were there to be looked at, and maybe touched, but nothing more at the time. To a young man from Zwicken, Königsallee was heaven on earth, and in the early days of my career in the constabulary, that one street had more to do with my burning ambition to succeed than all the homilies that rained down upon my youthful head from parents and teachers and clergymen, not to mention my superiors in the force.

“Shall I tell you something funny?” Schumann said as we began our walk, he setting a remarkably vigorous pace. “I'm not a particularly religious man, but I thank God regularly for creating Königsallee. Today I have a mission: for each of my children a small toy, nothing elaborate, just something to brighten their lives on these wintery days, the way they constantly brighten my life. Ah, but for Marie, the oldest, something special, a bracelet perhaps. Eight years old, Preiss, and already she's following in her mother's footsteps. You must excuse a father's pride, but the fact is my Marie is going to be another Clara. As for me, I'm in the market today for a box of good Dutch cigars, a bottle of Napoleon cognac, and one or two of those cravats that Spiegelman's imports from Milan, pure silk they are, much finer than the British. Oh, and a shawl for Clara, too, also from Italy.”

Schumann seemed excited about the prospect of these purchases, but I couldn't help wondering where he got the money to buy all these things. I said, “Maestro, you sound as though you've just won a lottery.”

He chuckled. “No, Preiss, no lottery. But Clara's recent concertizing has been profitable. Besides, a letter came in the post this morning from my publishers. Seems they like my latest suite for piano. Well, hell Preiss, what's money
for?
Come to think of it, with so much winter still ahead of us, I might treat myself to a new hat today, one of those fur ones that the Russians are famous for. I saw a beauty in the shop window of Menkes the Hatter. Looked like sable.”

Arriving at Königsallee, we carried on north and passed several outdoor cafés where coffee drinkers, bundled up in overcoats and looking almost desperate in their determination, were taking as much sun as they could this time of year.

Passing one of these cafés, my ebullient companion suddenly tugged at my sleeve, stopping me short. “Look there, Preiss, a fortune teller!”

“She's a palm-reader, Maestro,” I said, making no attempt to conceal my contempt. From past experience, I knew how these people plied their trade. They travelled in packs—
wolf
packs is how I referred to them. Magicians, acrobats, assorted freaks, people who'd seldom if ever done an honest day's work. They were clever, these masters of the art of distraction, and could skin alive anyone who came within reach of their practiced fingers, be he a poor unsophisticated villager or well-heeled man-of-the-world. I had prosecuted more than a few of the rogues in my time, and word was out that pitching their tents in my territory was risky business.

This fortune teller, a hag of a woman probably in her late fifties, apparently hadn't heard of me or, having heard of me, simply didn't give a damn. Looking first to me, she said, “Read your palm, sir? You strike me as a man with a bright future. Only fifty pfennigs, sir.”

I nodded in the direction of Schumann. “My friend here…
he's
your customer, not I.”

Squinting, she looked Schumann up and down. “Well, now,” she said, breaking into a smile of approval, “
there's
a distinguished-looking gentleman if I ever saw one. I can tell a senior public official a mile away. I'd bet my crystal ball—if I had one, I mean—that you're a retired general, sir. Do sit down.”

Schumann shot me a wide grin. He seemed, with good reason, to be gaining immense enjoyment out of being mistaken for a military man. Taking a folding chair across the small table from the woman, he asked, “Which hand, madam?”

“Which hand do you normally favour?” she said.

“I work with both,” Schumann said with a perfectly straight face.

“Of course, sir,” the palm reader said. “It's only natural in a leader of men.”

“You flatter me,” Schumann said. I could tell he was struggling not to laugh.

“Not at all, sir. I assume you are a skilled swordsman. So let me examine the palm of your right hand, if you will.”

Obediently, he offered his right hand to her, palm up. “Ah, yes,” she said after a moment or two, “the hand of a man who has seen many a battle for king and country and won 'em all. The palm of a hero. Well, sir, I'm happy to tell you this—” She traced with her index finger a long crease in the palm of Schumann's hand, one that extended from thumb almost to wrist. “This line,” she said, looking him soberly in the eye, “represents the reward that will soon come to you, sir. Before the year is out, you will receive a generous pension for meritorious service—”

Schumann interrupted her. “My God, a pension, you say! My prayers are answered!”

“Wait, sir, that is not all. You will inherit a château in the south of France—”

Murder in A-Major 121

“Do you hear that!” Schumann shouted to me over his shoulder. “A château!”

“Oh, but there is more,” the woman went on. “Your bachelorhood will come to a happy end—”

“And not a moment too soon!” Schumann said, going along with the palm reader with enthusiasm.

“Indeed, sir,” she said, “for you will marry a young woman of the Spanish royal family no less.”

Schumann was beside himself. “My cup runneth over!” he shouted. “Is there more, madam?”

‘Yes, but it will cost you an extra fifty pfennigs, sir.'

“To hell with the cost,” Schumann said, brimming with good nature. “I've not heard tidings of such great joy since Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo.”

“You were at Waterloo, sir?” the palm reader wanted to know. She seemed momentarily impressed, and I began to wonder who was fooling whom here.

“Yes,” Schumann said. “I was a young subaltern seconded to the British Army. On General Wellington's personal staff, as a matter of fact. You've heard of Wellington, no doubt?”

“Oh, yes,” the woman replied quickly. “Who hasn't? Well, in that case, I can tell you that, in addition to the honours I mentioned before, a square in the heart of Düsseldorf will soon be named after you. You said your name was—?”

“I didn't,” Schumann said. “It's Schumannheink. Major General Maximilian von Schumannheink…at your service, madam.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “I should have known. How stupid of me. The name Maximilian von Schumannheink is on the lips of Germans from Bremen to Berlin and beyond. An honour to meet you, sir! That'll be one hundred pfennigs, sir.”

“It's worth two,” Schumann said.

The palm reader's eyes narrowed. She gave Schumann a suspicious look. “Two what?” she said.

“Two
hundred
pfennigs,” Schumann said. “As a bonus, you understand.”

Her look of suspicion changed instantly to one of relief.

“That's very kind of you, General,” she said.

Schumann reached inside his jacket to fetch his wallet. Smiling benignly at the palm reader, he said, “It's a pleasure, I assure you.” Suddenly his face darkened. “What the devil!” he whispered hoarsely. “I'm sure I took my wallet with me when I left the house—” He looked over at me. “My money's gone! All of it!”

“Not really,” I said, and took a couple of steps to my left, where a young man who'd been watching us was beginning to move away. Seizing the man by the collar, I pulled him sharply toward me. “We'll have your wallet and money in a second or two, Maestro,” I said and roughly twisted the fellow's right arm up behind his back, forcing a scream of pain from him. “Cough it up!” I ordered the young pickpocket.

“You're breaking my arm!” he screamed again as I tightened my hold.

“I can break much more than your arm. Tell me where the wallet's hidden,” I said, giving his arm an extra twist for good measure.

Barely able to speak, he blurted out, “Back pocket, pants, right side.
Damn!
”

Not letting go of his arm, I reached with my free hand into the back pocket of his pants and pulled out the wallet.

The palm reader sat frozen in her chair, glaring up at the young man. “Tell him to let go,” he pleaded, looking over his shoulder at the woman. “He's killing me!”

“And so he should.” Her voice was pitiless. “You clumsy fool! How many times have I told you not to hang around after—”

The resemblance was unmistakable. The blackish hair, the sunbeaten complexion, the eyes that looked like black olives. These two were mother and son.

I handed Schumann his wallet, expecting, if not a glow of gratitude, at least a sigh of relief. Neither I, nor the culprits, were prepared for what came next. His face almost purple with rage, he gripped with both hands the small table at which he and the palm reader had been seated. With one mighty effort he sent it flying, a deck of playing cards that had been kept there scattering in the air like leaves blown by a sudden windstorm. The woman sat in horror, watching the simple implements of her trade disappear, in all likelihood never to be recovered. Indeed, the flimsy table, landing close to a group of startled spectators, disintegrated into dozens of fragments.

But Schumann was not finished. Now he lunged at the woman, his outstretched hands reaching for her neck. I had no choice. Letting go my grip on the young man, I threw myself between Schumann and the woman.

“Out of my way, Preiss, damn you!” Schumann demanded, straining to get at her. The force of his onslaught and my attempt to interfere caused us both to topple heavily against her, and her chair tipped backward, leaving her flat on her back, her arms and legs flailing the air.

Somehow my own physical strength prevailed, and I managed to put an end to the chaos in a minute or two, by which time the palm reader's accomplice had disappeared into the crowd. But at least I had his mother back on her feet and firmly under arrest.

And here is the strange scene that followed: instead of venting her rage at me—which I as a policeman had every reason to expect—she aimed her screaming imprecations at Schumann. No French château and noble Spanish bride this time. Now she had him rotting in hell, slowly and painfully.