The Riddle of Monte Verita Read online

  Dr. Hoenig placed on the table the file which, to hear him tell it, the Berlin police had expedited to him by aeroplane. He took off his glasses and his pale eyes looked up at Pierre, who was listening expressionless and with apparent detachment.

  ‘Even supposing all that to be true, those are trifling matters,’ said Pierre, shrugging his shoulders.

  Having decided to hear Hoenig out, he was sitting in a wicker chair opposite the German, who had his back to the window and against the light, his massive head silhouetted by the dazzling glare from the sun-drenched lake in the background. What passed for the bungalow’s lounge was an inelegant room furnished in pseudo-rustic furniture. On one wall were framed photographic enlargements illustrating the daily life of the early inhabitants of Monte Verita. Men in tunics and women in white dresses could be seen eating a meal of rice and vegetables around a communal table, or, arms reaching for the sky, performing some kind of pagan dance in a sunny clearing. In the nearest photo Pierre could see a bearded, emaciated, vaguely Christlike figure standing outside a log cabin. In the background, between the trees, could be seen a lake and he wondered if it wasn’t in the same cabin, transformed and modestly improved, that they now found themselves.

  ‘You’re not paying attention,’ sighed Hoenig, ‘and yet we’re just about to get to the heart of the matter. I didn’t hear any more about the young lady until 1931 when chance again caused our paths to cross. At the time I was at the Ministry of the Interior as the principal medical expert. One Friday morning – it was in the month of March, but I don’t remember the exact date – we were notified that a businessman named Käutner had been found dead in his office on the top floor of a building in Kurfürstendamm Avenue. I went there accompanied by Commissioner Lohmann, now Deputy Director of the Geheimestaatspolizei. The body, which was already cold, lay behind the victim’s desk next to a chair that had been knocked over, and there was a dried trickle of blood from a bullet wound situated behind the right ear. The weapon – a military revolver that Käutner had brought back from the war, and which he kept in one of the desk drawers – had fallen onto the carpet less than a metre from the body. Only one bullet had been fired.

  ‘There was no doubt it was suicide. The door had been locked from the inside and the key was still in the keyhole. The windows, also locked, were in any case completely inaccessible. The locksmith sent to open the place had had the devil of a job to get in.

  ‘We questioned the widow who, according to the servants, had spent the entire evening and night at home. She had gone to bed without waiting for her husband after he had notified her he would be late. She shed such torrents of tears that even we, hardened investigators that we were, could not fail to be moved. She was so young and so delicate – and so seductive!’

  ‘And that woman,’ Pierre heard himself ask in an expressionless voice, ‘was….’

  ‘It was Simone Lantier, alias Solange Duvernois, who had become Frau Käutner. Yes. She had married a friend of her adopted father whom she had met after leaving boarding school. The inquest was concluded rapidly, even though no motive for the suicide was ever determined. Käutner’s business was booming, despite the economic crisis, and his marriage, despite the difference in ages, seemed to be a happy one.

  ‘The pretty widow, now in possession of a tidy fortune, disappeared. Vanished from the face of the earth. Then, two years later, one of those coincidences occurred that one imagines, wrongly, are more frequent in fiction than in real life.

  ‘Lohmann and I found ourselves in London for an international conference on criminology, during which someone had arranged a visit to Scotland Yard for us, under the auspices of a certain Inspector Parker. He told us, by way of conversation: “We’re working on a rather intriguing case at the moment: a man who killed himself in bed by stabbing himself in the chest with a kitchen knife. Really very curious. And yet, we’re going to have to close the case soon because there’s no doubt it was suicide.” Lohmann, naturally, asked him how they arrived at that conclusion, given that suicide candidates normally chose rope, the gun, or poison in preference to such a painful method.

  ‘The chief inspector replied that the room had been sealed from the inside, which ruled out any other hypothesis. “Really closed?” “Hermetically.” He explained that the man lived in the suburbs in a really isolated cottage and had a phobia of burglars. On the massive oak door there were two deadbolts that were absolutely impossible to manoeuvre from the outside. The only window had solid shutters, also made of oak, which had to be broken down with an axe to get in. And that wasn’t all….’

  Dr. Hoenig took the time to serve himself two large fingers of cognac and asked Pierre, who shook his head, whether he had changed his mind. Hoenig swirled the liquid in the glass in thoughtful contemplation.

  ‘You see, Monsieur Garnier, the officers at Scotland Yard found themselves in a dilemma impossible to resolve. On the one hand they had a suicide without a motive, and, on the other, they had a suspect with a motive but without any proof.’

  ‘What suspect?’ asked Pierre, afraid he already knew the answer.

  ‘The wife of the alleged “suicide,” much younger than he and the sole beneficiary of his will.’ He took a large sip of the cognac and rolled it around his tongue. ‘I don’t need to tell you that I asked to see her. Nothing could have been simpler: she was in one of the nearby rooms, being questioned. Inspector Parker opened the door and I shall never as long as I live forget the expression on Lohmann’s face as he turned to me and whispered: “Grosser Gott! It’s the same woman!” A cigar, Monsieur Garnier?’ he asked.

  ‘And naturally,’ growled Pierre, ignoring the offer, ‘you would have me believe –.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to believe anything, my poor friend. Those are simply the facts.’

  He selected one of the Havanas and removed the end with a small silver knife.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And so the police interrogated her once more.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She opened her beautiful eyes in horror and said she didn’t understand anything. She acknowledged her previous marriage but, according to her, it was nothing but a dreadful coincidence. Needless to say, nobody believed her and the police started over again.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘With the same result as in the Käutner case. She had passed the weekend with some friends and had returned on the Monday morning. Finding the door locked, she had called the police.’

  ‘So she had an alibi?’

  ‘If you want to call it that, but it wasn’t even necessary. We examined the problem from all angles and nobody could explain how that clever little lady had managed to fool the police of two continents.’

  He stopped and looked around for a box of matches. Not finding one, he heaved himself out of the chair and went over to search the pockets of his jacket, which was hanging on the window knob. The window was wide open and, when he straightened up, he appeared to have seen something, for he took the cigar out of his mouth and looked for a moment at the bungalow situated further down the slope. Then he closed the window and drew the curtains.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Pierre.

  ‘Nothing,’ replied the doctor, lighting the cigar and returning to his seat.

  ‘Fine,’ said Pierre, shrugging his shoulders and sinking down in his chair, which squeaked in protest. ‘Whichever way you look at it, they were suicides after all.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ conceded Hoenig in a conciliatory tone, ‘but it’s by no means certain. Naturally, Scotland Yard continued to observe her discreetly. But in early 1935 she applied for and received a visa for the United States. They tried to find a reason to prevent her leaving, but in vain. She hadn’t broken the law in any way. Inspector Parker, who was keeping me abreast of events, acknowledged that for his colleagues it was almost a relief. Let her get hanged somewhere else!’ He tapped the ash of his cigar so it fell on the carpet. ‘Do you think I’m inventing all this to amuse myself
? Get that idea out of your head. I’ve studied enough criminal psychology to know that that woman is fundamentally bad. I knew she would never stop, just as I knew that our paths would surely cross again. She belongs to that species I call recurrent murderers: those that cannot help themselves. For them, it’s a pathological need. The power over life and death… Ach! You can’t imagine what an inspiring feeling that is!’

  A host of objections sprang to Pierre’s lips but he was unable to articulate any of them. He could not rid himself of the idea that she had known other men and had pretended to love them. In his confused state, the fact that she was supposed to have killed them was not all that important. If only she hadn’t told him all those lies about her past….

  But she hadn’t told him any lies. She simply hadn’t told him anything.

  Hoenig was looking at him as though he could read his thoughts, with the same kind of interest and professional pleasure shown by a doctor at the bedside of someone with a complicated complaint. He was the first to break the silence:

  ‘Now try to see things from my point of view. I come here for the symposium, of course, but mainly to get away from the crushing daily burden I must carry in my own country. Also, because it’s an opportunity to study human nature and the behaviour of imbeciles.’

  Pierre was about to protest, then decided the German simply didn’t realise he could have given offence. To him, it was simply a matter of excising a malignant tumour as if he were a surgeon.

  ‘And then what happens? I suddenly see a criminal I’ve lost sight of since that business in London. Not only is she married, but she happens to tell my wife in casual conversation that her “first” husband (actually the third by my reckoning) was a brilliant chemist who died shortly before she married you. So please don’t tell me,’ he said, eyes rolling heavenward, ‘that, after everything I’ve said, the possibility that she’s gone back to her old ways hasn’t even crossed your mind.’

  ‘But he died of an illness,’ protested Pierre, feebly.

  ‘What kind of illness?’

  ‘Gastroenteritis, I think.’

  ‘Exactly the same symptoms as arsenic poisoning!’ sneered Hoenig triumphantly. ‘I can cable Baltimore and get all the details in less than twelve hours. Ach! She changes her modus operandi: first the revolver, then the knife and lastly poison. I wonder what scheme she has in mind for the next one, namely you,’ he concluded, pointing his cigar at Pierre and looking him straight in the eye.

  No answer.

  ‘You don’t believe me? Or do you think she’ll make an exception for you?’

  Pierre tried unsuccessfully to take control of the situation, but regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them.

  ‘That’s ridiculous. She wouldn’t benefit in any way from my death. I haven’t got a penny.’

  Hoenig looked at him condescendingly, with a mixture of pity and disdain.

  ‘If that’s true,’ he said, ‘it’s possible that this time she really is in love. But what happens when her amorous sentiments start to wane?’

  Pierre stood up. The room was unhealthily hot. The shabby furniture, the thick curtains, the horrible photos on the wall and Hoenig braying like some infernal creature: all combined to make his head spin. He wiped his hand across his brow. All he could think of was escape from the stifling atmosphere and from the voice tormenting his spirit and draining his mind of all thought.

  ‘You have the choice of two solutions,’ the German continued inexorably. ‘And your natural inclination will be to choose the first. You’ll try to get to the bottom of things, yes? You’ll tell her everything I’ve said and you’ll beg her on bended knee to deny the evidence, yes? And she will deny it, of course. And then you’ll find yourself facing a dilemma, given that either way you have nothing to gain. For, if I’m right, she’ll know she’s been discovered and you’ll lose her. And if I’m wrong, she’ll detest you for having suspected her and you’ll also lose her.’

  ‘What’s the other solution?’

  ‘The one that your good sense should tell you, if you have any left. The one I would choose in your place. Try to discover exactly who she is. Observe her closely. And stay on your guard. It’s a sort of bet, to which one of your great thinkers gave a quasi-mathematical form. If you bet on telling her everything, you lose – whatever happens. If you bet on keeping quiet, you might lose but you also might win. There is a slight possibility that I’m mistaken. So, if you bet on her innocence, you have nothing to lose and possibly everything to gain.’

  He crushed his cigar in the ashtray and got to his feet. He unbuttoned his shirt collar and breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘When I say you have nothing to lose, I’m not talking about your life, of course. It’s up to you to decide how much she means to you. And as for me, I might have the opportunity to discover how she carried out her crimes!’

  V

  Sunday 25 September

  At nine o’clock on Sunday morning the speakers and attendees assembled on the Ascona pier, the Swiss having organised an excursion to the Borromeo Isles. Pierre was not thrilled. He had been planning to go alone with Solange once the symposium was over, and the idea of visiting the enchanting spot – “created for the happiness of lovers”, to quote his beloved Stendhal – in a group of tourists filled him with revulsion.

  For a moment he had thought about pleading sickness as he had sometimes done during his military service to avoid some particularly tiresome or repellent chore. But Solange, no doubt with happy memories from college days, had declared it would be “wonderful to go all together,” and that “in any case, my poor darling, everything is closed on Sundays and we’re not going to spend the whole day in the hotel, are we?”

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she had added, a hint of concern in her guileless eyes as she had searched her husband’s face. ‘Why are you pulling that face? You’re not planning to spoil the fun, I hope?’

  He didn’t know whether to be pleased or upset by her attitude. Surely she wasn’t wishing not to be left alone with him! On the other hand, being together in a group would hopefully allow the awkwardness there had been between them since the day before to dissipate. It would allow him to collect his thoughts without feeling he was being deceitful. He had promised himself not to say anything even though he was burning to do so. So he hastened to assure her that all was well, that he had just been a little tired and that the boat trip would probably do him a lot of good.

  It became seared in his memory as an unmitigated disaster.

  The morning was fresh and clear as they boarded the vaporetto and just chilly enough to wish for the sun to climb into the sky. But it was not so much the sun that rose, but the mountains that appeared to fall away in its presence. As they crossed the liquid frontier separating Switzerland from Italy, its rays illuminated in magnificent clarity Lake Maggiore, stretching out before them in an almost infinite expanse to the south. Solange stood in the bow, her arms raised to clutch the rim of her hat. The gusts of wind moulded her white dress to her body. The fragrance of her perfume wafted as far as the two men perched in front of the deckhouse, prompting Lippi to joke: ‘“The Perfume of the Borromeo Isles,”’ referring to Boylesve’s beautiful novel. Freyja Hoenig came over to take Solange’s arm and steer her towards the stairway to the bridge. ‘We’re going for a coffee,’ said Solange as she walked past her husband, and he noted with surprise that she didn’t invite him to join them.

  The air was now gentle and warm, to the point that the infrequent breaths of wind felt like human caresses on his neck. Some girls who had worn light shawls and scarves because of the morning chill now removed them and stretched their necks with undulating movements. Pierre suggested to Lippi that they join the ladies but the Italian, eyes half-closed, shook his head nonchalantly and stretched out in the sun like a lizard. Pierre got to his feet and climbed the steps briskly.

  Freyja and Solange were standing in front of the bar. Strahler had joined them and the three had their heads together a
s if sharing confidences. He noticed how cheerful his wife looked. Strahler was talking quietly to Freyja who seemed to thrive on the attention.

  Solange sensed she was being watched and looked up directly at her husband, only to look down again immediately and emit a laugh as clear as a bell.

  He slipped away discreetly and went for a walk around the bridge. He passed close to a man with his back to the handrail who was trying to read a newspaper despite the pages flapping in the wind. Without attaching much importance to it, he recognised the nondescript individual he had first seen in the Albergo bar and then several times since, roaming around the terrace and between the buildings. The man gave him an expressionless look and Pierre had the impression he was following him with his eyes.

  He went towards the stern. As he was going around the poop he noticed Hoenig huddled in a deckchair up against the bulkhead to protected himself from the wind, a thick muffler around his neck and chin. He was either sleeping or pretending to, manifesting a complete disregard of the scenic landscape that was unfolding along the capricious contours of the lake.

  Pierre went to find shelter under the drum of one of the great paddle-wheels throwing up spray. He looked without seeing at the hotels with their jetties, by the side of which, on the esplanades, elegant folk nonchalantly took refreshments as they lounged on wicker seats; at the resplendent lakeside villas with their pink-flowered laurels; and at the bell-towers calling the faithful to Sunday service from one bank to the other. It felt strange not to have his wife at his side. The boat entered the magnificent channel in which lay the Borromeo Isles, steaming past the opulent green dome of Isola Madre behind its great pink palace. Almost immediately a handsome young Italian, at whom several muscular young German girls had been smiling, announced the name Isola Bella. And to Pierre it was as if he were suddenly confronted by the dazzling mirage of a pleasure boat anchored peacefully in the azure waters of the gulf.