Death And The Maiden

10

They could hear her long before they arrived outside the red room. She was repeating the same line. Even though the director had expressed the view that Amsel’s gift had, in the past, been over-estimated, she was still an operatic diva, and the proximity of such a powerful voice made Liebermann’s heart race. The fragment of melody that she was practising ascended to a beautiful high note that she sustained before gradually introducing a gentle, warm tremolo.

Przistaupinsky knocked on the door.

When the singing stopped, they entered.

The red room was clearly so called on account of its overwhelming redness. All four walls were covered with a bright red paint and the large Persian rug laid out on the floor was also red. The effect administered a violent shock to the eye.

At the far end of the room was a grand piano at which a youthful accompanist was seated. Next to the piano stood a woman, and beside her was a short olive-skinned man with a pointed black beard. Przistaupinsky introduced Rheinhardt and Liebermann and then said a few words concerning the purpose of their visit. On hearing Rosenkrantz’s name, the olive-skinned man made the sign of the cross and bowed his head.

An arrangement was made to resume the rehearsal in thirty minutes, and Przistaupinsky, the accompanist, and the olive-skinned gentleman left the room.

Liebermann studied the soprano.

She was in her late twenties and possessed an abundance of dark hair, the extremities of which had a tendency to twist into coils. Her eyebrows were high, forming almost semicircular arches, and her nose was, if a little too long, finely cast. The lips beneath the nose were wide and coloured a shade of red that matched the brightly painted walls. She was not overly large, as the critics had implied, but she was certainly tall and had an imposing appearance. The loose-fitting dress that she wore was green and cut from a material that shimmered. Even her smallest movements created vivid coruscations that intimated the contours of her figure beneath — the curvature of her hips, and the full swell of her breasts. A silver and emerald crucifix hung from her neck.

Rheinhardt looked at the score on the music stand. It was an aria from Verdi’s Aida.

‘Do you read music, Inspector?’ asked the soprano, seating herself on a chair by the piano.

‘Yes.’

‘And do you sing?’

‘Well,’ said Rheinhardt, his cheeks flushing. ‘I would hesitate to make such a claim in present company.’

Amsel accepted the compliment tacitly by rippling her fingers.

‘Actually,’ said Liebermann, ‘he’s rather good for an amateur. A very competent lyric baritone.’

The diva’s eyebrows, already naturally elevated, found further scope for ascent.

‘Then perhaps we should try a duet, Inspector.’

‘I think not,’ said Rheinhardt, lowering himself onto the piano stool. ‘Much as I would deem it a great honour.’

Rheinhardt fancied that although Amsel’s suggestion wasn’t wholly serious, it wasn’t made entirely in jest, either. What a story it might have made, in years to come: how he had sung a duet with the celebrated prima donna. Rheinhardt dismissed the thought and returned the conversation to the subject of Ida Rosenkrantz.

‘Yes, poor Ida,’ said Amsel, touching her crucifix. ‘How dreadful, to turn away from God, to rebel against one’s maker.’ Then, looking from Rheinhardt to Liebermann and back again, she added, ‘But I’m not sure that I can help you. We were not … friends.’

‘You must have been acquainted.’

‘Well, yes … But … ’ Amsel’s ample bosom rose and descended as she produced a lengthy sigh. ‘I do not wish to speak ill of the dead.’

‘No one ever does. I will not judge you unkindly for being honest.’

‘We were not friends,’ Amsel repeated. ‘Indeed, it is no secret that our relationship was somewhat strained. We rarely spoke. I am sure that von Mildenberg, Forster-Lauterer, Slezak or even Winkelmann would be much better informed concerning Fraulein Rosenkrantz’s circumstances and state of mind.’

Rheinhardt removed his notebook and scribbled down the names.

‘Why was your relationship with Fraulein Rosenkrantz strained? What was so contentious?’

‘Are petty opera house squabbles really of interest to the police, Herr Inspector?’ Rheinhardt did not respond and as the silence intensified Amsel was obliged to supply an answer: ‘She turned people against me.’

‘Who?’ Rheinhardt asked.

‘I trust this conversation is confidential?’

‘Of course.’

‘The other singers — some of the critics — even Director Mahler. I do not want to speak ill of her, especially now, and I have remembered her in my prayers.’ Again the singer touched her crucifix. ‘But there was something about her … something about her appearance, a kind of fragility, the illusion of childish innocence, that she used to her advantage. She found it easy to manipulate men. And men run the opera house.’

‘Why would she want to turn people against you?’

‘Jealousy, Inspector.’ These words were spoken with decisive finality. Amsel clearly believed that her vocal superiority was indisputable and that only a man whose musical instincts had been horribly corrupted by Rosenkrantz’s perfidious charms could possibly think otherwise.

Liebermann crossed the Persian rug and leaned back against the piano, his arms folded.

‘Why,’ he began, ‘did you say that Ida Rosenkrantz turned away from God?’

‘Because she took her own life,’ the singer replied, a little perplexed. Then, looking narrowly at Liebermann, she added, ‘In the Catholic faith, Herr Doctor, self-slaughter is considered a mortal sin.’

‘Indeed,’ said Liebermann. ‘But why do you suppose she committed suicide?’

‘I am not supposing anything, Herr Doctor. I read that she had committed suicide in the Zeitung and the Tagblatt.’

‘The newspapers reported that Fraulein Rosenkrantz could have committed suicide. It was also suggested that Fraulein Rosenkrantz’s death might have been accidental. The reports were inconclusive.’

Amsel shrugged. ‘I formed the impression that she had killed herself.’

‘Do you think that is what happened, then? Do you think she took her own life?’

The diva lifted her hands, her expression showing exasperation. ‘I don’t know. And what does it matter what I think? My opinion on this matter is surely of little importance. I didn’t know her well enough to pass comment.’ Then, quite suddenly, Amsel’s lower lip began to tremble and she produced a loud sob, an anguished spasm of grief that might easily have reached the upper balcony of the world’s largest opera houses. The sob was so theatrical that Liebermann could hardly accept it as sincere, even though tears had begun to course down Amsel’s cheeks.

‘Madam,’ said Rheinhardt, offering her a starched white handkerchief.

‘Thank you, Inspector. I’m sorry.’ She dabbed at her eyes and spoke between mighty heaves of her chest. ‘We were not friends — quite the contrary — even so — it is a terrible thing … a terrible, terrible thing … One would … one wouldn’t wish such a thing to happen to anyone.’

Liebermann glanced at Rheinhardt to make sure that he had registered the slip.

The inspector leaned forward and asked softly, ‘Where were you on Monday evening, Fraulein Amsel?’

‘Monday evening?’

‘It was very foggy.’

‘Oh, yes, Monday evening. I was at home, entertaining some friends.’

‘Who?’

‘Herr Eder and his wife, Herr Brunn … old friends. I sang for them after supper.’

‘And what time did they leave?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember exactly.’

‘Early? Late?’

‘About ten o’clock.’

Rheinhardt nodded.

Amsel mopped up the last of her tears and held the handkerchief out, still neatly compressed, for Rheinhardt to take.

‘You can keep it,’ he said.

It was early afternoon when Rheinhardt and Liebermann finally left the opera house. In addition to interviewing Arianne Amsel, they had interviewed the soprano Bertha Forster-Lauterer, the tenor Leo Slezak, and Rosenkrantz’s Czech voice coach Herr Janda. All confirmed that Rosenkrantz had demonstrated no signs of significant mental anguish in the months preceding her death. There was also unanimity concerning Amsel, whose resentment of Rosenkrantz’s success was judged to run deep, even by opera house standards.

Rheinhardt and Liebermann retired to the Cafe Mozart where they discussed all that had transpired over coffee and pastries. Preliminary remarks and observations were succeeded by a lengthy hiatus during which the two men were absorbed by their own private thoughts. In due course, Liebermann lit a cigar and signalled his readiness to share his conclusions.

‘Very interesting,’ he said, still only half extricated from the inner world.

‘Arianne Amsel?’ Rheinardt queried.

‘All those tears, all that remembering of Rosenkrantz in her prayers … and then her splendid and very revealing verbal slip! She must have spent the greater part of the last two years wishing Rosenkrantz dead.’

‘Wishing Rosenkrantz dead, yes,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘But would she have acted on those wishes? Would she have plotted her rival’s destruction?’

‘It must have been difficult to bear, the humiliation, her decline in popularity.’ Liebermann smiled knowingly. ‘And they are hot-blooded creatures, these opera singers. I was once told of an incident that occurred in a provincial Italian theatre, near Naples, I believe. An ageing tenor was so mortified by the ovation his colleague received after performing a bravura aria that he stabbed the younger man in the back as he took his bow.’

‘Italians,’ grumbled Rheinhardt wearily. Then, finishing the dregs of his coffee, he said, ‘I suppose you must be getting along to the hospital now.’

Liebermann shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. Where does Schneider live?’