“Helena, what would I do without you?” I said. ‘You have a way of making me feel humble, and God knows, a man needs a healthy dose of humility now and then.”
Offering me a chair, Helena said, “Now that you've gotten that lie off your chest, what really brings you here?”
“This brings me here,” I replied. I took a large white handkerchief from my coat and unfolded it to reveal a tuning fork, which I laid carefully on a table between us.
“A present for me?” Helena said.
“Hardly,” I said.
“Just as well,” Helena said. “It's rather badly stained, isn't it?”
“Those are bloodstains.”
Helena bent to take a closer look. “How fascinating,” she said without a trace of enthusiasm.
I said, “What you're looking at happens to be a murder weapon.”
Helena's eyes glazed over. “Tea or coffee?”
“I've no time for either. What I need are your ears and your cello.”
“You do sound desperate, Hermann.”
“I'm under extraordinary pressure, Helena. The Commissioner, you understand.”
She laughed. “That toothless old dinosaur?”
“That toothless old dinosaur would love nothing more than a good excuse to sack me. He says I'm a thorn in his side. Go fetch your cello, because we have an urgent experiment to perform, you and I.”
I watched her remove the honey-coloured cello from its case, seat herself, and set the instrument between her legs, her bow at the ready.
“Now what?” she said.
“Let me hear your ‘A’,” I said.
Helena lifted her bow from the strings. “Please, Hermann,” she protested, “not this Schumann thing again!”
She shrugged as if to say I, not Schumann, was the person going mad, then brought the bow across the thinnest of the four strings. “I think I'm a bit flat,” she said, frowning, and began to twist the tuning peg for that string with her left hand while continuing to bow with her right, the resulting changes of pitch sounding like the wailing of an alley cat. At last she was satisfied that the ‘A’ was where it ought to be.
“Now listen carefully, please,” I said. I took the tuning fork and struck it hard against the marble mantle of her fireplace. “Well?” I said.
Helena's frown returned. “Sounds sharp to me. Not by much, but just enough to be annoying. Are you sure it's a tuning fork and not the kind you eat with?”
“Listen again, just once more.” I struck the fork even harder.
“You can strike it from now till doomsday,” she said, “but that's not a true ‘A’. Granted, it's off by just a touch, but sharp is sharp.”
“How good is your memory?” I said. “Think back to the musicale at the Schumanns’. Would you say it's the same ‘A’?”
“Let me tune my string to it,” Helena said. “Strike it again.”
Again Helena gave me the same response. “It's very much like the ‘A’ we tuned to at the Schumanns’ that night, but what's it got to do with a murder?”
I tucked the tuning fork back into the handkerchief. “I'm sorry, my dear,” I said, putting on the most officious airs I could manage, “I cannot possibly divulge the facts and circumstances of a case while it is under investigation. Anyway, I thought you found all this rather tedious.”
“What has the tuning fork got to do with a murder? Stop torturing me, Hermann!”
“Very well,” I said, “but not a word of this gets out until I say so. I found this tuning fork under Georg Adelmann's body. I had reason to believe it belonged to Schumann and that he used it as a kind of weapon to attack Adelmann in a fit of rage.”
“But what would drive a man like Schumann to do such a terrible thing?”
“He learned that a monograph Adelmann was writing about his life and career contained references-rather specific references, in fact-to some early homosexual activities Schumann engaged in. To make matters worse, Schumann was convinced Adelmann stole the Beethoven manuscript from Schumann's home, possibly on the night of the musicale.”
“You say, Hermann, that you had reason to believe Schumann was the assailant-”
“Yes, but now I believe Robert Schumann did not kill Adelmann.”
“Then who did?”
I picked up the bloodstained tuning fork. “The owner of this,” I replied.
“And that would be?”
“Wilhelm Hupfer.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I couldn't confront Hupfer solely on the strength of the tuning fork revelation. That single item of evidence, for the moment at least, had to be regarded as purely circumstantial, and certainly not enough to induce a voluntary confession of guilt. I had to satisfy myself as to Hupfer's motive for slaying Georg Adelmann. I have to admit that I owed a debt of gratitude to-of all people-Walter Thüringer. It was he who had given me the key: Hupfer's craving for money. The man must have been receiving, one way or another, substantial sums of cash. But from whom? And why?
I took a fresh page from my notebook and wrote down the following list of names in alphabetical order:
Adelmann
Brahms
Liszt
Möbius
Schumann (Clara)
Wieck
I propped up the notebook against a pile of books atop my desk, sat back, and stared at the list. Had I omitted anyone? Any artist of Robert Schumann's stature was bound to have numerous rivals, enemies, critics; yet it seemed to me that only the persons whose names I had set down on paper would have had sufficient connection to be taken seriously. One by one, I began to consider the suspects.
Adelmann? Would he have bribed Hupfer to so undermine Schumann that the poor fellow would eventually be driven to attempt suicide? Adelmann was about to publish what would doubtless quickly become a highly-readable (not to mention profitable) biography of Schumann. Surely, it would behoove him to do everything to prolong, not curtail, the composer's life. I dipped my pen into its inkwell and ran a thick line through the first name on the list.
Brahms? No. Too young, and therefore too impecunious to be in a position to lavish large sums on Hupfer. Besides, perhaps he was being truthful with me about the limits of his feelings for Clara Schumann, after all. Brahms's name was therefore struck from the list.
Franz Liszt? A bitter enemy for artistic reasons, yes. But much too full of his own eminence to risk being caught up in shabby criminal activity. Though the great man was no stranger to the civil courts-breach-of-promise suits and claims for unpaid bills had turned him into a professional defendant-the thought that Liszt would engage in any conduct that would render him liable to a term in prison was simply too preposterous. His name, too, was ruled through.
Dr. Paul Möbius? I strongly suspected that someday, probably after his time and my own, the world of medicine would come to regard this physician as an unpardonable fraud. But that wasn't the point, was it? The point was that, at this moment in time, many of his colleagues took him seriously, and no one took him more seriously than he himself. Consumed with his so-called theory of mental illness and its relationship to creative endeavour, he would regard Robert Schumann as his experimental animal, his guinea pig, so to speak. His remark to Helena Becker came to mind, about how fears have a way of becoming realities. Obviously, the doctor was intrigued by this idea, especially as it pertained to Schumann. I concluded, therefore, that Dr. Möbius would benefit more by Schumann's life rather than his death, and his name, too, was deleted with the stroke of my pen.