The Melancholy Countess (Short Story) Read online

  The tub was filled to the brim. So much so that it must have overflowed when its occupant climbed in the previous evening. The surface of the water was still and reflective, but the submerged woman was clearly visible. She was in her late fifties, and her gray hair spread out around her face in a state of static suspension. Rheinhardt noticed that she was still wearing jewelry. “Who discovered the body?” he asked.

  “Tinka,” Farkas replied. “The countess and her husband were in the habit of rising late. Tinka was bringing them their breakfast.”

  “Husband, did you say?”

  “Herr Hauke. The countess remarried after the death of Count Nadazdy.” Rheinhardt indicated that Farkas should continue. “Tinka found the door wide open. She called, but no one answered, so she went straight in. Herr Hauke was lying on the bed, asleep, and was still wearing his dress suit. Herr Rác, who waited on him last night, tells me that Herr Hauke drank three bottles of Tokay.” Farkas showed his disapproval with a frown that connected his eyebrows. “Naturally Tinka was curious as to the whereabouts of the countess. A trail of discarded clothes led to the bathroom. The poor girl ran down to my office immediately. She was so distraught, she could hardly get her words out.”

  “Where is Herr Hauke now?”

  “I don’t know. I told him that I was going to call the police and that he should probably wait here for you, but he seemed to find this suggestion …” Farkas paused for a moment before adding, “ridiculous.”

  “What was she like, the countess?”

  “A melancholy soul, although some would say that all Hungarians are melancholy. We don’t have your flair for frivolity.”

  Haussmann glanced at his superior and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. Fortunately, the hotel manager was looking elsewhere. Rheinhardt leaned over the side of the tub. There were oval patches of discoloration on the woman’s arms and shoulders.

  “Tell me, Herr Farkas, would you say that the countess and her husband were happily married?”

  “They hardly spoke to each other,” Farkas replied. “At least, not in public. Some of the maids heard Hauke shouting a few times. And using foul language.”

  “What? He was swearing at his wife?”

  “I believe so. Yes.”

  Rheinhardt went into the bedroom and opened the wardrobe door. One side was full of dresses, the other, suits. A chest of drawers contained some identification papers, money, and several pairs of gold cuff links. Rheinhardt continued questioning Farkas and learned a little more of the countess’s history. The hotel manager had obviously been very fond of her first husband, “the old count,” and he also mentioned a son who had died tragically young. Farkas had a tendency to digress, for the sole purpose, it seemed, of extolling the virtues of the Hungarian aristocracy.

  “Thank you for your assistance,” said Rheinhardt, perhaps a little too abruptly. “A police photographer will be arriving shortly. I would be grateful if you would escort him up here as soon as he arrives.”

  “Of course, Inspector,” said Farkas. “I’ll be in my office.”

  He bowed with unexpected flamboyance and left the room.

  “Well, Haussmann?”

  “ ‘Melancholy.’ ‘Unhappy marriage.’ It looks like she took her own life.”

  Rheinhardt nodded, but the movement was contemplative rather than affirmative. He made his way back to the bathroom and scrutinized the countess. The discolored areas of skin looked liked bruises. He took out his notebook and started writing.

  “Ah, you must be the policeman.” It was an attractive voice, a resonant tenor.

  Rheinhardt looked up and saw a handsome man in his mid-thirties addressing Haussmann. The man’s coat was hanging from his shoulders like a mantle, and he held a walking stick with a silver handle. Rheinhardt deposited his notebook in an inside pocket and called out, “Detective Inspector Rheinhardt. Security office.” He stepped into the bedroom and gestured toward his assistant. “This is Haussmann.”

  “Oktav Hauke.” It hadn’t occurred to Rheinhardt that this gentleman might be the countess’s husband. He seemed far too young. “Forgive me,” Hauke continued. “I went out for a coffee and a stroll. I needed to clear my head. Is she still …” He pointed at the bathroom.

  “In the bath? Yes.”

  “Have you made the necessary arrangements?”

  “Arrangements?”

  “For her removal?”

  “She will be taken to the Pathological Institute shortly. Please accept my condolences. I am very sorry.”

  Hauke looked at his nails for a moment and said, “Thank you.”

  “What happened, Herr Hauke?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? She drowned herself.”

  “Yes. But why?”

  “Because she didn’t want to go on living, I presume.”

  “Indeed. But why was that?”

  Hauke shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. She wasn’t very communicative.”

  “You must have some idea, Herr Hauke?”

  “She hasn’t been happy for a long time. I sent her to see a doctor last year. It cost a great deal of money, and the treatment didn’t do her any good at all.”

  “Did the doctor say she was suffering from a mental condition?”

  “He said that her spirits were low.”

  “And did he warn you that she might take her own life?”

  “No. But it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had.”

  “How was she last night?”

  “Last night …” Hauke tugged at his chin, and his eyes seemed to focus on some distant point beyond the walls of the hotel.

  “Herr Hauke?”

  “Last night,” Hauke repeated. He smiled, almost bashfully, and as he did so, his dueling scar became more visible. “This is terribly embarrassing, Inspector. I’m afraid I drank an awful lot of wine last night; however, if my memory serves me correctly, she was much the same as usual, which is to say that she was disinclined to make conversation. Rather flat. Sullen. We had dinner together, and she retired early.” He grimaced and added, “I think.”

  “You think?”

  “To be absolutely honest, Inspector, it’s all a bit indistinct. Blurry. I must have come up later and just fallen onto the bed. I was still dressed when I awoke.”

  “You didn’t enter the bathroom, then?”

  “No, of course not. I was very drunk, but even in my inebriated state, it is quite reasonable to suppose that the discovery of a dead wife in the bathtub would have given me good reason to review my circumstances.” He seemed pleased with this droll remark. “If you’re arranging for my wife’s body to be transported to the Pathological Institute, then there’s no need for me to consult an undertaker just yet, is there? You see, I need to be at my club by two o’clock. Is that all right?”

  3

  Professor Mathias switched on the electric light, and the autopsy table flared into existence. It seemed to be surrounded by an infinite darkness.

  “Who is she?” asked Professor Mathias.

  “The Countess Zigana Nadazdy-Hauke,” said Rheinhardt.

  “A countess?” Mathias was obviously impressed.

  “Yes. But not a very important one. I have been given to understand that her family lost much of its influence by the fourteenth century. Her first husband, however, was a minor noble with an estate located in the Transylvanian marches.”

  When they reached the autopsy table, Mathias put on an apron and tied a neat bow at the base of his spine with practiced ease. “Naked, but for her necklace and rings.” Mathias stroked the countess’s wrinkled skin. “Did she drown in her own bath?”

  “Very good, Professor,” said Rheinhardt. “She was found this morning by a maid at the Corvinus Hotel. Her second husband, a former cavalry officer, was asleep in the next room.”

  “I’ll drain the lungs and perform the standard procedures,” said Mathias, “but you don’t need a pathologist to tell you how she died if she was found submerged in a bath.”

  “T
he point of issue,” Rheinhardt replied, “is not so much the cause of death, but rather, the context.”

  “I see,” said Mathias.

  Beneath the harsh light, the countess’s body looked profoundly unattractive. She was horribly thin. Her white thighs were reticulated with purple veins, and her pubic hair was sparse and grizzled. Her breasts were flat, and the nipples so lacking in pigment that they barely showed.

  Mathias traced two triangles on her face with his forefinger, one on either side of her nose. “Good bone structure. She would have been very pretty when she was younger, so don’t sneer.”

  “I wasn’t sneering.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  Rheinhardt huffed, lit a cigar, and gestured at the areas of discoloration. “Bruises?”

  Mathias picked up a magnifying glass and examined each in turn.

  “Yes.”

  “She suffered from melancholia. Her husband says she committed suicide.” Rheinhardt squeezed the upturned ends of his mustache to make sure that they were still sharp.

  “But you think he held her down?”

  “They were known to have had arguments. The maids at the hotel heard raised voices. Insults. And he is a man of singular peculiarity. He seemed completely unmoved by his wife’s death.”

  “Well, it’s perfectly possible that these bruises were made by the husband. See here, the pattern is quite distinctive. This is where he grabbed her. The marks correspond with each digit.” Mathias demonstrated.

  “And when were they produced?”

  “The small hours of this morning. Or last night.” Mathias bit his lower lip. “Or sometime during the preceding two or three days.”

  Rheinhardt exhaled a cloud of smoke. “You cannot be more specific?”

  Mathias placed his magnifying glass down on the autopsy table. “No.”

  Rheinhardt considered the old man’s answer and then said, “Professor, may I use your telephone?”

  4

  Rheinhardt entered the General Hospital and walked briskly through its carbolic-scented thoroughfares until he came to the Department of Psychiatry. He found his young friend, Dr. Max Liebermann, sitting in a small, smoky office.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” said Rheinhardt. “And thank you so much for waiting.”

  Liebermann indicated the surface of his desk, which was covered with screwed-up balls of paper, textbooks, and academic journals.

  “Not at all. I’m writing up a case study for publication. Or trying to, at least—an eighteen-year-old woman who believes that she is a varcolac.”

  “A what?”

  “A wolflike being that eats the moon.”

  “Ah,” said Rheinhardt. He decided that this versatile monosyllable would have to suffice. “May I sit?” Liebermann cleared a space for him, and the portly inspector lowered himself onto a plain wooden stool. “I’d like you to interview someone for me.” Rheinhardt recounted what had transpired that morning and passed his friend some photographs. “Countess Zigana Nadazdy-Hauke. Age fifty-eight. She married her first husband in 1867. They had a son, Istvan, who died in a riding accident three years ago, and shortly after that, she lost her husband to scarlet fever. While visiting the thermal baths at Merano in 1902, she met Oktav Hauke, whom she married after a brief but passionate romance.” Rheinhardt handed his friend another photograph.

  “Was this taken recently?” Liebermann asked.

  “This morning.”

  “Herr Hauke is very young.”

  “Thirty-three.”

  “There is some connection, no doubt, between the loss of the countess’s son and her subsequent marriage to a man of similar age.”

  “Hauke says that she was suffering from melancholia and committed suicide. But there are bruises on her body and the marriage was not happy. Moreover, Hauke had been married twice before.”

  Liebermann smiled. “To mature women of independent means?”

  “Both of whom died prematurely. His first wife was the widow of a successful importer of leather goods, and her children, two daughters, contested their mother’s will. There was a whiff of scandal surrounding the proceedings, but the sisters’ challenge was not upheld. The second wife was also a widow. This time, a childless baroness.”

  “How did you come by this information?”

  “The newspaper archive.”

  “Where can I find Hauke now?” Liebermann handed the photographs back to Rheinhardt.

  “He’s still staying at the Corvinus. I have told him to remain there for the time being and not to leave Vienna.”

  A plaintive cry resonated down the corridor. This was followed by footsteps and the rattle and chime of bottles on a cart. Liebermann was not distracted. “How did he live before he embarked upon his career as a fortune hunter? Do we know?”

  “He was a cavalry officer. Honorably discharged after being shot in the leg during an operation in Serbia.”

  Rheinhardt offered his friend a cigar. Liebermann took it, and they both smoked for a while.

  “There was something about Hauke that troubled me,” Rheinhardt continued, “and it wasn’t until some time after talking to him that I was able to put my finger on it. He struck me as a callous, vain man, but his coldness and arrogance seemed to exceed the limits of normality. His lack of natural feeling was almost … pathological.”

  Liebermann leaned back in his chair. “Such individuals have been written about since ancient times. Theophrastus, a disciple of Aristotle, wrote of unscrupulous men; Lombroso has described born criminals; and in England they speak of moral imbecility. But I am not convinced that a lack of conscience can be classed as an illness, as such.”

  Rheinhardt was not inclined to be drawn into a philosophical discussion about diagnosis. He scrawled the address of the Corvinus on a scrap of paper and handed it to his friend. “If you could see Hauke tomorrow, I would be most grateful.”

  5

  It was one o’clock in the morning. Oktav Hauke was sitting in a wingback leather armchair at his club, sipping a chilled Unicum. The spirit glass was frosted and contained a dark concoction that possessed an arresting, bittersweet taste. Hauke had developed a weakness for it since the early days of his marriage to the countess. In Hungary, Unicum herb liqueur was something of an institution and was supposed to have medicinal properties. Court physicians had been known to prescribe it as a remedy for ailing kings.

  The flavor of the liquor revived memories of the countess’s castle and seigniory. It all belonged to him now. Unfortunately, he had rather neglected the maintenance of the castle, particularly the roof and plumbing, and as for the land, a great deal of it had already been sold off to service his debts. In fact, he wasn’t sure whether the countess’s estate represented an asset or a liability anymore. She, of course, had been blissfully unaware of their precarious financial situation. He had made sure of that. Don’t worry your pretty little head, he had said disarmingly. I’ll take care of things. And she had smiled and expressed her appreciation with a feeble squeeze of his hand.

  Perhaps he should go back and sort it all out? Auction the contents of the castle? Write some more promissory notes? Getting away from Vienna would also serve another purpose. It would interpose a substantial distance between himself and idiots like Tausig, bourgeois parvenus who had been too easily impressed by his aristocratic connection and too eager to invest in baseless schemes and enterprises.

  What had happened to all that money?

  It was remarkable how much could be frittered away on a baize table, at the races, or by making opportunistic wagers with like-minded individuals. And there were so many other costly activities. Actresses and singers had such high expectations these days. They always wanted the very best. He had become accustomed to their wit and beauty, their modern outlook, their worldly “talents,” so much so that he would never again find the company of foolish shopgirls diverting—even less the painted harlots who loitered beneath the gas lamps of Spittelberg.

  He was roused from
his thoughts by Van Campen, a fellow club member who had relieved him of five hundred kronen only the other day.

  “I am so sorry, Herr Hauke,” said Van Campen. “I just heard.”

  “Well,” said Hauke, doing his utmost to simulate the manner of a man stricken by grief but bravely accepting the exigencies of fate. “There it is.”

  “I never had the pleasure of meeting your wife, the countess,” Van Campen continued, “but I know that a light has gone out.”

  “Indeed,” Hauke replied.

  An awkward silence ensued.

  Hauke took out his wallet and counted the notes inside. He cleared his throat and said, in a slightly higher register, “I was wondering: Would you be interested in giving me the opportunity to win back some of my losses?”

  “At this sad time?”

  “It’ll distract me. Think of it as a favor, an act of kindness.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Yes. Quite sure. I’ve been sitting here thinking about the meaning of misfortune like a philosopher. What good does such thinking do? In the end, life has no purpose. But a game of cards …” Hauke raised himself from his seat, tipped the remainder of his Unicum down his throat, and looked eagerly toward the gaming room. “That is another matter!”

  6

  Although it was past midday and the smells of fragrant preparations were rising up from the kitchen, Hauke was still in his dressing gown. He had not attended to his toilet, and his chin was covered in stubble. His hair was an unruly mass of blond curls, and his sclera were so inflamed, they might have been infected.

  Liebermann introduced himself and explained that he was a colleague of Inspector Rheinhardt. There was a brief exchange of civilities, and Hauke gestured for Liebermann to enter. “Forgive me, Herr Doctor,” said Hauke, massaging his temples. “I have a splitting headache. If you mean to question me, might I lie down?”