“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.”