Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 12, 1967

Quentin Reynolds The Bluebeard Murderer

The Bluebeard Murderer, “a fiend in human form,” had strangled to death seven young women in the past month. They seemed such senseless murders — without rhyme or reason.

The late Quentin Reynolds, one of the last great trenchermen in an age when dieting is the fashion, was a many-faceted man and personality — heavyweight boxing champion in college, newspaperman, lawyer, sportswriter, foreign correspondent, renowned war correspondent, writer of best-sellers, highly publicized adversary of Westbrook Pegler, much-sought-after after-dinner speaker, radio and motion picture commentator, biographer, writer of juveniles (including a book on the F.B.I.), friend of most of the famous men and women of his time — and did you know that his first book, PARLOR, BEDLAM AND BATH, was written with S. J. Perelman?

But at heart Quentin Reynolds remained a reporter, and his instinct and integrity for the truth, for accuracy and realism, shined throughout all his fiction...

As we sat down to dinner some-one jokingly remarked, “But there are thirteen of us. How awful!”

“Baron von Genthner phoned to say he’ll be a bit late,” I told them. “But he’ll be here soon and that will make fourteen.”

“I hope,” Sefton Doames sighed, “that he has some news of that Bluebeard Murderer — as I have so aptly named him.”

“You mean ’fiend in human form’ who is ravaging Bavaria,” I said. “You wouldn’t laugh if your paper were playing the story up as mine is,” Doames grumbled. “It was my own fault, I suppose, for calling him the Bluebeard Murderer. It develops that there have been some eighty or so other Bluebeard Murderers in the last hundred years and my paper has been running a series on them. That’s why they are so interested in his capture.”

“How can you look at this beautiful table and even mention anything about murderers?” The Nightingale sighed.

So we sat down, thirteen of us, and when I looked around I couldn’t help but feel proud. It was, for Berlin, a rather notable gathering, but of course, most notable of all was The Nightingale. Her first full-length starring picture was to open in Berlin the following night and this dinner was in the nature of an anticipatory congratulation.

Franz Woolwerth, director of the picture, was present, looking like a chubby and very amiable bear cub. You’d never know that he was probably the greatest film director living. There was Walter Duran, the brilliant Moscow correspondent, just out of Russia, and of course Hubert Nicholas, who traveled all over Europe for an American newspaper syndicate. There was Margaret Cane, the beautiful and gifted English girl who wrote novels with one hand and newspaper features with the other. There was the exuberant Ernst Hanfstaengl.

There were others, too, but first and foremost there was The Nightingale. It was her night and she sat there at the head of my table and, young as she was, she dominated that table as the sun dominates the early dawn. Brilliant, beautiful, mysterious — none of us really knew The Nightingale. She spoke perfect German and beautiful French and her Spanish was good and she spoke very cute English. She had emerged from nowhere a few months before, a discovery of Woolwerth’s, and who she was or what her nationality was apparently only Woolwerth knew; and he wouldn’t tell.

“She is a voice,” he would say, “not a person.”

I knew The Nightingale as well as anyone did but she had told me no more. It was hard to take one’s eyes away from her. I caught hers and saw a reproach in them. At the moment it puzzled me.

Our first course was Aalsuppe, which is eel soup, and laced with claret it was delicious. With it I served Vodka which Duran had brought in from Moscow — vodka in small individual carafes which were imbedded in ice. After that we had baked rolled salmon in which oysters cut finely and spiced with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and parsley were hidden. Margaret Cane raised her eyebrows at this dish. It was strictly an English way of preparing salmon. Once after a particularly dull meal at my place she had reproachfully sent me a cookbook called, aptly enough, Good Things in England. From that I had taught my cook how to prepare the rolled salmon. With the salmon, need I add, we drank Rudesheimer, 1923.

“Whatever made von Genthner take that job?” Doames asked. “I can think of no man who seems less like a detective than von Genthner. Yet here he is heading an organization which is a great deal like our own Scotland Yard.”

“It is a strictly nonpolitical organization,” I told Doames. “It isn’t connected with either the secret police or the Berlin police force. It is entirely independent of them. When a crime or a series of crimes is committed outside of Berlin and the local police are making no headway, they may ask for von Genthner’s help. He took the job because he has always been more or less interested in the study of criminology.”

“If anyone can solve those murders he can,” The Nightingale spoke unexpectedly. “He is so brilliant.”

“Why, I never realized you knew von Genthner,” I said in surprise.

“Well, I... I have met him,” she faltered, “and of course everyone has heard of von Genthner.”

That wasn’t true. Not fifty people in Berlin knew that von Genthner was in charge of a special squad of detectives. I gazed a bit coldly at The Nightingale. Always one ran up against a wall of mystery when one tried to get close to her. And yet... there were times...

The capon livers en brochette were being served when von Genthner made his appearance. Urbane in his white tie and with his monocle seeming as permanent a part of his face as the dueling scar he carried on his cheek, the baron made suave apologies for his lateness.

“You know everyone, von Genthner?” I asked.

“Except the lovely lady of the films.” He smiled.

The Nightingale looked up for a moment in sudden panic. Then she dropped her eyes. There was an embarrassed silence around the table for a moment. Knowing von Genthner, I had sense enough to say nothing.

“I mean, of course,” he went on as though unconscious of either her frightened look or the silence, “that no one could really know such beauty. The nightingale is a bird you bear about but never really know. I have met The Nightingale many times but each time I feel as though I know her a little bit less... But my friend,” he turned to me, “I am hungry and thirsty, and I hope that your excellent Martha has saved some soup for me. She had better, or I’ll tell your guests that it was I who taught her how to cook it.”

He sat down and now it was he who dominated the table. The Nightingale kept looking at him and I sensed an undercurrent beneath their banter. She had never looked so lovely. Most brunettes are highly colored. Her hair was dark, and it was brushed back from a very white face. Her eyes were large and they seemed made for laughter, but she seldom laughed. She may have been twenty-two or thirty-two. She was wearing a very simple black silk dress and she was the only woman present who was wearing not a single jewel. In her hair she wore a gardenia.

I was aroused from my contemplation of her by the voice of Doames: “...then you captured him this afternoon?” Doames asked eagerly. “Tell me all the gory details, von Genthner. My paper is hungry for that story.”

“There isn’t much to tell. Just that he is captured and that he confessed fully.”

“Please,” Doames pleaded, “give me the story.”

Doames worked for the London Express and I knew that he had been playing up the murders which had been occurring lately in Bavaria. They seemed such senseless, useless murders. Seven fairly young girls had been strangled to death by a man. The murders had come at irregular intervals. Without rhyme or reason this madman would appear, sometimes in the midst of a crowd, and grab the throat of some girl and strangle her. Only a miracle had kept him from being captured until now.

For some reason or other von Genthner didn’t seem anxious to give any information. But when Doames asked him again, he said “All right.” Then he put down his glass and gazed for a moment surprisingly enough at Woolwerth, the director. A curious look passed between them and I thought I saw Woolwerth shake his head almost imperceptibly. But perhaps I imagined it.

“Here’s the story, Doames, and then let’s forget it,” von Genthner began. “As you know, during the past month seven girls have been strangled to death in the region located roughly between Schwanburg and Ansbach. One girl managed to escape from the murderer. This afternoon she happened to be attending a moving picture in Schwanburg when she recognized the man who had tried to murder her. She screamed. He was seized. He was absolutely mad. We could... the police could,” he corrected himself, “get no clear story from him at all. Evidently he was a lunatic of a particularly peculiar kind. Now and then an impulse seized him and he had to strangle someone.

“The fact that all his victims happened to be girls is apparently a mere coincidence. Further investigation revealed that the poor fellow was a badly shell-shocked war veteran who had lately escaped from the veterans’ hospital in Nurnberg. His name was never known even to the hospital authorities. He was put in a cell in the Schwanburg police station and a few moments later the police heard a shot. The man was so obviously insane that the police had neglected to search him. Evidently he had a gun concealed on him. With it he killed himself.

“And that,” von Genthner said firmly, “is the last word on what you so quaintly called the Bluebeard Murderer.”

“That is rather an anti-climactic story,” Doames grumbled. “I’d built this fellow up as a supermurderer of all time and he proves to be nothing but a poor scared devil, a hangover from the war. Without even a name.”

As a newspaperman my sympathies were all with Doames. I felt somehow that von Genthner was holding out a bit.

“Doames, if he won’t give you more details we’ll have to supply them ourselves,” I suggested. “Now here’s an angle. Whatever made that poor madman go to that moving picture house in broad daylight? What brought him there? Could it have been the picture that was showing? What was the picture, von Genthner?”

I saw von Genthner stiffen. Once more I saw him look toward Woolwerth and I noticed an almost imperceptible frown on the director’s face.

“I have no idea of the picture that was showing,” von Genthner said coldly.

“I have a brilliant idea, Doames,” I cried. “Why not say that the theater was having a preview of The Nightingale’s picture, Der Traum? It opens here tomorrow anyhow and in London next week. It will be a magnificent send-off for her in London. Say that the madman had seen The Nightingale before and had conceived such a passion for her that when he saw in the papers that her picture was to appear he risked his very life to see it. It will be gorgeous publicity for her.”

Doames arose and his eyes were shining. “My friend, you are too, too wonderful. That makes the story. Nightingale, tomorrow your picture with that story will be on the first page of the Express and one million nine hundred and eighty-six readers will see it. They will become Nightingale-conscious...”

He rushed from the room to phone. London correspondents in Berlin always phone their stories to London. It costs less than cabling and it is much easier to evade the censor.

The Nightingale was laughing now and her laugh was just a little less sweet than celestial music and her smile was only a trifle less than a glimpse of heaven.

“How thrilling!” she said.

“What I like about English newspapermen is that they never fake stories,” Nicholas said.

Everyone was laughing at the supreme impudence of Doames in thus “faking” this story. Well, there’s no harm in faking a story if it doesn’t hurt anyone and even Nick, Duran, and I, brought up in the sterner American school which considers “faking” to be very reprehensible, were amused by the exuberant Doames. He soon returned with a broad smile on his face.

“My office is crazy about the story. It is absolutely exclusive, I told them. Beautiful lady, you’ll be famous in four hours.”

“You darling,” she said, but she said it to me. “It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

“It was indeed,” I told her blithely, “and in return I expect you to love me madly from now on.”

“But I always have,” she said simply.

“May I have some more wine?” von Genthner broke in, and I was startled to see how stern he looked. “And for heaven’s sake let’s forget this silly Bluebeard business.”

So we had more wine.

Then someone asked The Nightingale to sing. She seemed reluctant. “After that lovely dinner,” she protested, “how could anyone sing?” But we all insisted and she said she’d sing one song.

She sat down and they were quiet. Then she began to play and in a moment I got up and walked out on the balcony. I had a large balcony overlooking the Tiergarten and it was a lovely night, with a moon that was the biggest moon that ever I saw. Her voice drifted across the room inside and filtered through to my balcony.

A soft breeze was coming from across the street, a breeze which had been dallying with the tulips and the young spring flowers which were just beginning to appear. It was the scent of those flowers, I guess, that made me homesick for a moment.

The moon is mysterious, I told myself, until we realize that it is a dead, lifeless thing. It is glamorous until we know that it borrows its light from the sun... Music is like that too... Music is a craft, not an art... That girl who is singing that beautiful song. Her voice is merely a trained voice and the feeling I imagine in it is mere technique.

Her voice trailed away and I walked back into the room.

“Whatever made you sing that song?” Woolwerth asked, puzzled.

“Why,” she said softly, “I like Irish songs... A good friend of mine taught me that song. He sang it to me one night.”

“Now, how about a little Liszt for a nightcap?” I broke in harshly. “What do you say, Putsey?”

Hanfstaengl was nominally the Press Chief and as such was useful to foreign correspondents. He was always a valuable adjunct to any dinner party too, because he was willing at all times to play or sing in practically any language. He was probably at his best when playing American college songs. I don’t think there was one he didn’t know. He himself had written a Harvard song when he was an undergraduate there. Yes, he was amusing all right — but not when he played Liszt.

He sat down and put his elephantine hands on the keys. I tell you that Hanfstaengl could play Liszt. He played the Piano Concertos in E Flat, and in A. It left us all breathless.

Then suddenly my party was over. They were filing out and saying “Wiedersehn.”

The Nightingale said, “Aren’t you taking me home?”

“Jerry Young has begged for the privilege,” I smiled. “You are lucky. You shall be taken home by the future British Ambassador to Berlin.”

So they went — all but von Genthner, and I knew that he wasn’t going just yet. I knew that there was something — something important — he wanted to tell me.

“Let’s have one brandy on the balcony,” I suggested, and then I called Martha.

She brought the bottle and two glasses and we sat on the balcony.

“Now tell me, von Genthner,” I turned to him, “what’s on your mind?” He looked up, startled.

“Come now, friend,” I told him laughingly. “What were those curious looks that passed between you and Woolwerth? Why were you so reluctant to give Doames the details of the capture of that madman in Schwanburg? Why were you so dismayed when I suggested that Doames fake the story and say that the madman was enticed by a showing of her new picture? There were undercurrents passing between you and Woolwerth and The Nightingale. I don’t like mysteries, von Genthner. Tell me about it.”

“Are you in love with The Nightingale?” he asked suddenly.

I yawned. “Love is a big word for a little guy like me to use. It’s too big a word to play with and that’s my business — playing with words.”

“There are men who will do almost anything for love,” he said savagely.

“Sure; some will even marry for it.”

“And,” he said unexpectedly, “they go mad because of it and they’ll murder for it. You’re right, of course, I do want to tell you a story.”

“I’m listening,” I said — and waited.

“You knew, I suppose,” he began, “that I originally came from Bavaria. I was born just a few miles outside of Schwanburg on the Danube. After the war I was a bit sick of living and of watching men die, so I went back to my old home and I stayed there studying my music and playing with my science. My two nearest neighbors, old friends of mine, were Anton Leiber and Peter Schultz. Leiber died some fifteen years ago leaving a brilliant young son, a man of twenty-five then, whose name too was Anton Leiber. Peter Schultz, a widower, had a daughter, a daughter named Bertha, who was then about eight.

“Eight years ago Anton Leiber was the most brilliant young scientist in Germany — perhaps in the world. He took degrees in medicine and chemistry at Heidelberg and at Goettingen and then, being well off, decided to spend the rest of his life in research work.

“Now perhaps you don’t know how closely chemistry and medicine are aligned. Life itself is of course a chemical function. Each cell in the body is a separate little chemical factory which is supported by the salts, the water, the nourishment, and the oxygen which the arterial blood brings to it. When the supply of nourishment is cut off or when such a cell is bruised the result is — pain.

“Leiber had imposed this task upon himself. He would eliminate pain. Such a job, of course, is within the province of a biochemist. People outside of surgery, medicine, and chemistry think that pain has been eliminated. Sir Humphry Davy, Faraday, and the American, John D. Goodman, were the first to introduce the medical world to anesthetics, and later Dr. Crawford Long performed an operation with the help of ether. Ethyl chloride, nitrous oxide, scopolamine, cocaine, and eucaine all followed, but they were mere pain soporifics. You tossed one of these drugs to pain and you said, ‘Chew on that a while, my friend,’ and while the pain was doing that the cells of the body were free from its ravages. But once pain lost interest in the drug, it returned.

“Practically all drugs take their toll, too; cocaine, for instance, is a powerful cardiac depressant. All drugs merely compromise with pain — they do not kill it. Leiber intended to go beyond all this. He would find a chemical that would absolutely kill pain.

“ ‘Pain is a useful servant — but a harsh master,’ he once told me. ‘Pain as a warning signal that something is wrong is excellent — but the trouble with it is that once it has warned us, it insists upon taking possession of us. There is no need for this. I will kill pain — physical and mental pain.’

“Leiber was the most gentle soul I ever met — except when on the subject of his specialty. Then his deep-set eyes blazed and his hands clenched. He talked of pain as though it were an, enemy.

“One night he came to see me. This was about eight years ago. His eyes were shining and he was trembling.

“ ‘I’ve got it!’ he cried. ‘I’m on the right track. I’ll have the whole answer within a year. My theory holds good for mental pain, too. I’ve gone beyond Fourneau and his stovaine, beyond the others with their tropacocaine and alypin. They and their drugs merely compromise with pain. I will kill it entirely. If a cell is paining I will kill that cell — and, von Genthner, I will replace it with a new cell, a complete, live, healthy new cell. I have done it in animals already. If we can replace one cell, we can replace a thousand or ten thousand cells.’

“ ‘How,’ I asked, ‘can you segregate such cells and have them ready at all times? How can you keep them alive?’

“ ‘Alexis Carrel kept a chicken heart alive for twenty years,’ he rasped. ‘He put me on the track. We will kill pain not with temporary stop-gaps, such as drugs, but by surgery, by chemical surgery.’

“He walked up and down my study, his hands clenching and unclenching. His eyes were flashing and his dark hair fell over his forehead.

“ ‘And mental pain?’ ” I asked.

“ ‘The same theory holds no matter what Krafft-Ebing and Freud say,’ he shouted. ‘Look here, von Genthner. I walk in my garden. I see a snail on the ground. The sight of a snail sickens me, causes me acute mental distress. Should I go to Krafft-Ebing or Freud and let them dig into my mind for months and months to find out why it is that the sight of a snail causes me mental pain? Nonsense,’ he snorted. ‘Instead I kill the snail. My mental pain dies at the same time.’

“ ‘In short, to eliminate mental pain, or as you say to “kill” mental pain,’ I asked, ‘you would eliminate or kill that which is the cause of it.’

“ ‘Yes,’ he said calmly.

“ ‘I am glad, my friend, that I do not cause you any mental anguish,’ I laughed. ‘Or to be consistent you would have to eliminate me.’

“ ‘Exactly,’ he said softly. ‘That of course is where my theory will ultimately lead.’

“I felt a bit uneasy. ‘Stick to your biochemistry, Leiber. Your theory there sounds interesting, sounds more than interesting. But leave the mind alone. Leave mental pyrotechnics to the men who specialize in such things. A surgeon’s scalpel cannot cut away memory or kill remorse or fear — without killing the mind; and the duty of a medical man, even a biochemist, is to build and cure, not to kill... Leiber,’ I looked at him closely, ‘you’ve been working too hard. Take a rest. Go on a walking tour. Climb a mountain. The Danube is a hundred feet away. Get into a boat and paddle for a week. But rest a while.’

“ ‘I have no time for rest,’ he said sharply. ‘And there is another thing I wanted to ask you — about Bertha Schultz.’

“ ‘What has she to do with biochemistry?’ I laughed.

“ ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Von Genthner, I am in love with her. I want to marry her. I want you to talk to her father — he is a good friend of yours, I know. Convince him that I am not a lovesick fool, von Genthner. Convince him that I love his daughter tenderly, devotedly.’

“I got up and I am sure my face must have expressed my utter amazement. ‘Little Bertha? My Lord, Leiber, she is a child. She is only sixteen,’ I gasped.

“ ‘But older than her years,’ he said. ‘Have you ever heard her sing? Of course you have. Yes, it was you who taught her to love music. A month ago I was passing her home and I heard her singing. Until then she had been merely a child to me, too, a neighbor’s child. But that voice, von Genthner, entered my heart and my soul and my brain. That voice possessed me; it was as though a thousand skylarks had made their nests in my brain. I can hear nothing else. And I love her, von Genthner.’

“ ‘You are what? Thirty-five? She is sixteen. To her you must seem a middle-aged man. Wait, Leiber. Wait two years.’

“ ‘I cannot wait,’ he interrupted, ‘I need her.’

“ ‘You, one of the world’s great scientists, need that sixteen-year-old girl? Come now, Leiber, just because she sings prettily, you think you’re in love with her. You’re in love with her voice—’

“ ‘That voice has come between me and my work,’ he shouted. ‘Can’t you understand? For a thousand years the world has been waiting for my discovery. Now I am on the verge of revealing it and at the critical point the voice of this girl has taken possession of me. When she is not around I find myself listening for her voice. My work is suffering — and my work must not suffer.’

“He left. I sat up half the night thinking. Then I made up my mind.

“I hurried to see Peter Schultz the next morning. Frankly, I was frightened. Why, I don’t know. I told Peter the whole story. Of late years he had been feeble and had leaned on me much, especially in the upbringing of the child.

“ ‘Leiber,’ I told him, ‘is brilliant. He may well be the world’s most brilliant man. But, friend, I do not think that he is for our Bertha.’

“ ‘Nor do I,’ Peter said.

“ ‘The man is close to a nervous breakdown — or worse,’ I said.

“I nodded and he knew what I meant. ‘I suggest that we send Bertha to Berlin. She shall stay with my sister there; and, Peter, it is time that we really recognized her talent. She has a remarkable voice. Let me have it trained by the masters in Berlin. Let us send her to Berlin tomorrow.’

“He nodded and we called in Bertha. She was a lovely child, slim and, through the heritage of an English mother, dark, and her eyes were very large and very dark too. They lit up when she saw me. Always I had enjoyed the status of a favorite uncle with the child. I had introduced her to music, had myself taught her French and English. She was overjoyed at the prospect of going to Berlin. And so we sent her.

“A week after she had gone Leiber stormed in to see me. He was in a dreadful state. He looked as though he hadn’t slept for weeks and his eyes were the eyes of a hunted wolf.

“ ‘They have taken Bertha away,’ he cried. ‘Where is she? You know where she is. I will find her, von Genthner, if I have to go to the ends of the earth. Can’t you see how I love that girl? Am I leprous that you forbid me to see her? Am I immoral? Am I tainted? You have told me that I will one day take my place in the first ranks of science. Why am I unworthy of that girl?’

“ ‘Steady, steady, Leiber,’ I soothed. ‘Wait, wait another year or so. We have no objection to you. But she is a child. She will be a woman soon enough. Then she can listen to your pleading.’

“ ‘I cannot wait,’ he said. ‘Her voice haunts me. It hurts me except when I can hear it. Her voice is in my consciousness. I must get it out of my brain. It causes me mental pain...’

“Suddenly his eyes opened wide but he looked ahead blankly, not seeing me at all and he whispered, ‘All pain must be killed. To kill pain you must eliminate the cause of the pain. Pain must be killed... her voice causes me pain... I must—’

“ ‘Leiber, Leiber!’ I said. ‘Steady!’

“ ‘Pain must be killed,’ he repeated in the tone of a man walking in his sleep. Without another word he rose and walked out into the night. And I knew now that what I had suspected was true. He was mad, quite mad.

“The next day his servants called and asked if I had seen him. He hadn’t reached home and they were worried. We made a thorough search of the surrounding countryside but could find no trace of him. Three weeks later he turned up. He was walking along a street in Ingolstadt when, without warning, he seized a young girl by the throat, crying, ‘Pain must be killed. I will kill your voice. I will kill your voice...’

“Luckily there were strong men in the crowd and they grabbed him. He was hopelessly insane now and was immediately confined to an asylum.

“Meanwhile what of Bertha? Her teachers in Berlin were delighted at her progress. ‘She can be a great actress,’ they told me. ‘She can be a superb singer. Send her to Rheinhardt. Send her to Bellini in Milan. We have taught her all that we know.’

“Bertha in three years had grown up. Now she was tall and slim and her eyes were even larger, but to me she was still a child. Her father had died and had made me her guardian. And day and night I was tortured by one thought, one fear. What if Leiber should escape? In one of his rational moments he would be clever enough to escape from any asylum.

“I came to a sudden resolution. Leiber would never destroy Bertha. I myself would. I would kill Bertha and replace her with a totally different personality. Bertha should die and a glamorous, mysterious being take her place, with no resemblance to the child Leiber knew.

“I told Bertha my plans. ‘I want you to study abroad for two years. You say you would rather sing and act in films than study either opera or concert work. Very well. For two years I want you to disappear completely from Germany. For two years you are not even to speak German or think it. You are to drop the name of Bertha Schultz now. Never are you to tell anyone who you are or from where you came.’

“ ‘It seems so silly,’ she laughed. ‘But of course I will do what you say.’

“ ‘Child, it isn’t silly,’ and she now realized how much in earnest I was. ‘I have a definite reason for this. It is an important reason. I ask you to do this — the first favor I have ever asked you.’

“She was worried now. ‘Of course,’ she said slowly. ‘Bertha Schultz dies tonight. Until you give me permission I shall never reveal to anyone who I am or from where I came.’

“ ‘You shall be mysterious,’ I told her. ‘For two years you shall not even see me or write to me. You shall have all the money you want. Your whole time shall be spent in study. But you are to form an entirely new personality. You are to take a new name. My child, I want you to be a voice, not a person. You shall be like a bird in the forest, heard but not seen... A rare bird with a beautiful voice... a bird so rare that none may know it.’

“ ‘Like... like a nightingale,’ she laughed. ‘It is such a pretty word, too. In French and even in English it is a pretty word. I shall be...’ ”

“Von Genthner, von Genthner,” I cried, leaping up and grasping his arm, “then The Nightingale and Bertha Schultz are one and the same. That is why she is so mysterious, why she has built a wall around herself. That is why—”

“Of course,” von Genthner said, “have you only guessed it now?”

“Does she know... about Leiber?” I asked.

“If you mention Anton Leiber to her he would be a mere name out of her childhood. No, she doesn’t know why I have made her create a new personality. Knowing me, she trusted me. She knew that I had some good reason for it. Now let me finish the story, though the rest of it must be obvious to you.

“Bertha, or The Nightingale as I shall call her from now on, studied faithfully during the two years she was away. Seven months ago I brought her back and turned her over to Woolwerth — in my opinion the only real genius the talking pictures have yet produced. I told him the whole story and his sense of the dramatic made him fall in with my idea of making a mysterious creature of our Nightingale.

“ ‘Just a voice,’ he said. ‘Not even a name. Not even a person. Merely a voice.’

“He gave her comparatively small bits in two pictures and, as you know, she was sensational. She remained virtually a recluse. She attended but one social function — a dinner Woolwerth gave. I wasn’t there. You were. In fact,” von Genthner added dryly, “I made up the guest list and had you included.

“It was a month ago that the first of the so-called Bluebeard Murders occurred. When this murderer’s victims had reached the number of five, I was asked to take charge. The first thing I did, just as a matter of routine, was to ask for pictures of the dead girls.

“I took one look at them and my heart turned to ice. Each girl was slim and dark and each bore a faint but nonetheless, unmistakable resemblance to The Nightingale. I phoned the insane asylum and my worst fears were justified. Leiber had escaped three weeks previously!

“This threw me into action. Unknown to The Nightingale I put a heavy police guard around her. Twice more the madman struck and each time he got away; a third whom he had attacked miraculously recovered. All the murders occurred in the region of Schwanburg. We tried everything but no trap worked. Then I conceived a desperate plan.

“I received Woolwerth’s cooperation. There is one large picture theater in Schwanburg, the Ufa Palazt. I planned for a showing of The Nightingale’s new picture for that theater. During the past week we advertised in every newspaper in the region. Each day we ran a large picture of, not The Nightingale, but of Bertha Schultz as she was eight years ago, on the first page.

“Thousands and thousands of these papers and additional posters were printed and distributed everywhere. They were posted on trees and on barns and on fences. You couldn’t walk fifty yards in the vicinity of Schwanburg without seeing a picture of Bertha Schultz with the announcement that she would appear in person at the preview of her new picture which would be shown for just one performance at the Ufa Palazt. If Anton Leiber was in the vicinity he must see that picture. Would it draw him to the theater? I had staked everything on that. I had even revealed The Nightingale’s true name. If this plan failed she would be in double danger henceforth.

“I stood outside the theater with the one girl who had escaped from him. Of course it was a fifty-to-one chance that he would appear, but I had to take that chance. He did appear and even before the girl with me gave a frightened cry I recognized him.

“We closed in on him. He came quietly enough, not recognizing me at all. At the police station he gave only vague, disconnected replies to our questions. Then suddenly, as though a film had been removed from his eyes, he stared at me and cried, ‘von Genthner, what are you doing here? What am I doing here?’

“ ‘You are here because you have murdered seven girls trying to drown out the sound of a voice which rings in your mind,’ I said.

“ ‘Yes, yes,’ he answered, ‘a voice rings in my mind. Sometimes it gets very, very loud; and then... then things are confused. I hear it now... I feel that it is going to get louder...’

“ ‘You can’t still the sound of that voice. Only death can do that,’ I told him. ‘While you live you shall hear it and be tortured by it and, worse still, inflict pain on others. As long as you live you shall try to kill that voice by killing those who remind you of it.’

“ ‘No... no...’ he cried. ‘It is better that I die.’

“ ‘Only then will the pain leave you,’ I said sternly.

“He looked at me quietly and in his eyes I could see the beginning of a struggle. His lucid moment would soon be over, though now he was trying desperately and consciously to prolong it. ‘Quickly,’ he pleaded, ‘let me be alone and give me something to make me sleep.’

“I looked into his eyes and for the moment they were clear and there was a message in them that I was able to read.

“ ‘Put him into a cell,’ I told the police.

“We walked to a cell. I went in first. Then he followed. I told the police not to enter. Then I walked out.

“ ‘Leave him alone,’ I told the police. ‘I have given him something which will make him sleep.’

“A moment later we heard a shot and we ran back. Leiber had sent a bullet into his poor, mad brain.

“ ‘But,’ the police chief protested, ‘I searched him thoroughly. I found no weapon on him.’

“I looked at the police chief. ‘No, it was I who searched him. I myself. And I found no gun on him. So the responsibility is entirely mine.’

“The police chief saluted. ‘As you say, Herr Baron.’ ”

I stood up and reached for von Genthner’s hand. “Then he is dead and she will never again be in danger?”

“That is true. So you see why it was I didn’t care to discuss the murders at dinner. You see why I felt dismayed when you all unwittingly stumbled on part of the truth. It is a story that we had all better forget. It has caused enough torture, especially to The Nightingale.”

“But she knows nothing of it. Why should it have tortured her?”

Von Genthner rose. He looked very angry. “You fool,” he rasped. “Don’t you realize the torture she had been through? You yourself have been full of suspicions of all kinds. Who was she? Where did she come from? You asked her these questions — you of little faith. She couldn’t answer because of her promise to me. And she knew how you felt and, being a woman now and not a child, your pain was her pain—”

“Has she told you this? How do you know, von Genthner?” I grabbed his arm impatiently.

“What a beautiful dawn,” he said softly. “Look at the sun rise over those poplars. I tell you our Tiergarten is the most beautiful park in the world. And do you know that flowers smell more fragrant in the dawn? I have a theory—”

“Von Genthner,” I cried. “Tell me. How do you know she cared whether I was in agony with my suspicions?”

“Because I am not a fool,” he said. “I have eyes that see and ears that hear. And tonight I heard her sing an Irish song. And as she sang it there were tears in her eyes. Now she has never been to Ireland and so it must have been an Irishman who taught her that song. I have not spent a hundred nights in your company without hearing you sing or hum Kathleen Mavourneen dozens of times. So I knew it was you who taught it to her...”

“And so...?” I asked softly.

“And so, my friend,” he yawned, “it is time that an old man went to bed. But you are young... and she is young, too, and I think that if you phoned her now she would not mind it. I am sure that she is still awake. For I told her to remain awake until she heard from me.”

But I wasn’t listening. I was giving her number into the phone to a very sleepy telephone operator.