The Horrific Sufferings Of The Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and his Terrible Hatred (27 page)

Such is an infant’s dream, he reflects, a fog in which the world is only very slowly acquiring any contours. No language, no feelings beyond those of hunger and thirst, a sense of well-being disturbed by colic pains. Good and evil are unknown, as are beauty and deformity. All this, life will teach her, little by little, and as always, of course, unasked.

He turns his attentions to those asleep in the opposite wing. Von Below’s sleep, he observes, is tranquillity itself. The baron rarely dreams, and when he does, his dreams are of a practical nature and conform to a clearly defined grammar. But the foreman, where is he? Not in his room.

Perplexed, Hercule turns round.

Where, then,
is
the foreman?

Suddenly he knows it. By the kitchen door!

And somewhere in the house, in a space he doesn’t recognise at all, is the monkey, together with a stranger. His heart beating wildly, he runs as fast as his dwarf legs will carry him back to the other wing, up the stairs, along the corridor where the trees perform their Indonesian shadow dance along the walls. Trips over the edge of a carpet, bumps into a chest of drawers. Something clumsy is moving about in a corner: one of the bejewelled tortoises.

His little lungs strain asthmatically, in his throat a gurgle rises up, the closest his deformed speech organs can get to letting out a scream, we imagine. The door is open, just as he left it. But the bookshelf, too, is open, exposing the passage leading to a secret stairway he never knew was there. On the bed, still wearing his mask, lies Henriette.

All this he sees in black and white, just as he had through the eyes of the raven, and for the first time in his life a real scream flies out of his throat, so blood-curdling it almost instantly brings the servants to the room. She’s lying there, not moving, curled up into half her size, looking like a masked dwarf.

On the floor lies a razor blade. A monkey, senseless with fear, is climbing up the curtains.

The girl’s throat has been slit to the bone.

CHRISTLISCHER ANZEIGER
, Ratibor, January 14, 1837

Over the last week a mysterious death has divided the citizens of this town into two factions and given rise to a furious debate about guilt and crime in our youthful epoch. On Twelfth Night, crofter J. Langenmüller found the corpse of an unknown male hanging from a tree in the churchyard of the neighbouring village, Jägerndorf. Deputy parish clerk Langenmüller, highly esteemed for his display of courage in the forest fire last year, summoned Constable Köhler who promptly arrived in the company of the parish dean, Heinemann. They were able to identify the deceased as being S. Moosbrugger, former watchman at the Ratibor lunatic asylum, reported missing by his brother since the day after Christmas.

As our readers know, a postmortem examination was carried out at the local mortuary. Barber-surgeon Jansen determined the cause of death as suffocation by noose, but also detected traces of external violence having been inflicted on the deceased’s body. Before the moment of death, Moosbrugger’s head had received several blows with a blunt instrument, which, however, according to Jansen, had in themselves not caused fatal injuries. Furthermore, his hand had been badly maimed: three fingers had been ripped from their joints, several lumps of molten lead had penetrated the bones of the hand, as also had a link from a heavy chain. Some signs resembling letters, deciphered by the constable as the words “seven years” were engraved into the deceased’s back. The date of death has been determined as around the first of the month.

Constable Köhler initiated a door-to-door search in the immediate vicinity of where the body had been found, but as our readers know, no-one had anything of import to relate. With the aid of the graveyard’s caretaker it was ascertained that the corpse had in all likelihood been hung up from the tree not more than a few hours before being discovered. It had not been there on the previous day when several people from the village had lit candles at the graves.

Because of the Twelfth Night festivities, the brother of the deceased and next of kin, K. Moosbrugger, was not summoned to a hearing at the Royal Gendarmerie until four days later. According to Constable Köhler he acted in such a nervous manner that a decision was made to take him into custody. The hearing was resumed in the presence of County Police Commissioner Brink, to whom Moosbrugger had in person reported his brother as missing at Christmas time.

According to the hearings held with Moosbrugger, the deceased had entertained notions of suicide ever since the brothers had been dismissed from the lunatic asylum last month following an anonymous letter – believed to be from a former inmate – which claimed that they had abused their charges, stolen their food, clothing and firewood, and through such cruel and neglectful treatment caused the deaths of many in their care. This scandal, as our readers may recall, has been reported in the
Anzeiger
.

On the day after Christmas, when

K. Moosbrugger last saw his brother, the latter was deeply melancholic and had spoken about his imminent suicide. Moosbrugger maintains that he took leave of his brother at an inn before returning home for his supper.

According to sources at the
Anzeiger
’s disposal, Herr Moosbrugger is as yet not suspected of having committed murder, although certain information indicates that he may have knowledge of the villain’s identity. Although it is quite clear that the body had been moved, the possibility of suicide, according to Constable Köhler, has not yet been excluded. According to the medical examination it is possible the deceased may first have committed suicide, then been maimed and moved to the graveyard by an unknown perpetrator. Meanwhile, the townsfolk are speculating about the motives for both murder and suicide. A sense of oppression has befallen us all. “This new era”, Commissioner Rau is reported as having said shortly before this edition went to press, “brings us not only manufacturers and railways, but also ever more heinous crimes.” The editor and the gendarmerie both welcome any information that may lead to the solution of this most tragic death.

CHRISTLISCHER ANZEIGER
, Ratibor, January 20, 1837

On Friday, County Police Commissioner Brink decided to take 42-yearold Karl Moosbrugger into custody, as reasonably suspected of the murder of his younger brother Stephan. As yet no admission has been forthcoming on the part of the detainee, but according to
Anzeiger
’s sources, witnesses have come forward with information pointing to Moosbrugger as a suspect. Constable Köhler has made a statement in which he promises to keep the public up to date with any new information that can throw light on the tragedy. A man said to have been in the vicinity of the churchyard on January 6 is being looked for by the district public prosecutor. Should this person be one of the
Anzeiger
’s readers, we ask him to contact the authorities or our editorial office.

CHRISTLISCHER ANZEIGER
, Ratibor, January 24, 1837

Over the last few weeks there has been much speculation in our town as to whether or not K. Moosbrugger is guilty of his younger brother’s death. According to the sworn statement from the man under arrest, Stephan Moosbrugger took his own life as a result of being dismissed from the lunatic asylum last year. How Herr Moosbrugger can be so confident that this is so is a mystery to the editorial office, since he claims not to have seen his brother since Christmas, when he was alone and patronising one of the local inns.

When the
Anzeiger
spoke to County Police Commissioner Brink two evenings ago, Karl Moosbrugger had as yet not confessed. He maintains that his brother had entertained notions of suicide ever since the scandal at the asylum came to light. To all appearances this information has been contrived by the suspect in order to obstruct the investigation.

CHRISTLISCHER ANZEIGER
, Ratibor, January 30, 1837

After two weeks in custody Karl Moosbrugger has finally confessed to the murder of his younger brother Stephan. According to Police Commissioner Brink, the case is extremely delicate, the deed having displayed a brutality which “seems symptomatic of our times”.

According to the minutes of the inquest, Karl Moosbrugger had, in fact, two days after Christmas looked in with his brother at the Three Anchors in our neighbouring village of Jägerndorf. A new witness recounts that a row had broken out about the thefts of firewood at the Ratibor asylum. At about ten o’clock, so the new witness reports, the brothers left the premises. What happened then was enough to shake any decent citizen in this part of the country. Nearby in a disused smithy Moosbrugger apparently knocked out his brother with a hammer before chaining him to an iron girder. The man under arrest then nailed his brother “through the tongue, to the wall”, as well as melting down a pound of lead and pouring it over the unconscious man so that “he was by now not only nailed to the wall by his tongue, but also fused together by his right hand with the iron girder and chain”. In this abhorrent manner Moosbrugger held his brother prisoner for four days and nights, submitting him to brutal torture, even going so far as to inscribe a “few words” in his back with a chisel. In the end, he strangled him with a noose, and then, under cover of night, carried the body to the nearby churchyard.

The suspect has as yet been unable to give a reasonable explanation for these acts of unprecedented cruelty. According to Constable Köhler he seems utterly confused and maintained throughout the interrogation: “It was the Devil himself who made me do what I did. He told me exactly what to do.”

The admission is confirmed by the depositions of several witnesses. A seamstress of the parish, Fräulein Rachel Mandelbaum, is said to have met the two brothers on the road to the smithy on the evening in question. The innkeeper of the Three Anchors who previously claimed he had no memory of the brothers being there has now changed his evidence. A third witness, a child, probably a boy, who is said to have been seen around the smithy on New Year’s night is still being sought by the prosecutor.

According to Police Commissioner Brink, the Moosbrugger case shows a clear indication of the dangers afflicting our modern era: “Corrupting publications are everywhere readily available, morals are dissolving, the move into cities is leading to divorces and anarchy.”

THE HOUSE WAS
built in the Italian style and surrounded by an overgrown garden. A light snowfall had powdered the grounds, but being dressed in furs – a cat’s dense fur, to be precise – Hercule didn’t feel the cold. More importantly, he was availing himself of the cat’s eyes.

Behind the windowpane the room lay in darkness. He could see so well in the dark that he could make out every detail. Large mahogany shelves filled with books lined the walls. Rows and rows of books like an unending keyboard: treatises, reference books, card indexes and legal documents.
Trials and Punishments of Animals
, he read on the spine of one tome bound in calf leather.
Delinquent Man
on another.

The cat’s eyes swept over the English-style armchairs, the grand piano regally placed in the centre of the room, the desk covered with piles of documents. It was all that he could do to keep the animal under control. It was only by the force of his hatred, he thought, which held in its icy grip all other feelings, as if at bayonet point. A hatred which had kept him sleepless through endless nights of self-reproach, a hatred that never gave him a moment’s peace, a hatred that compelled him to act.

At the far end of the room was a cabinet filled with naturalia. Engraved on a brass plate were the words
pantera unica
, or snow leopard. It was fastened to a plinth which was covered with sawdust that had been dipped in white paint, presumably to represent snow. The animal had been caught in an unnatural leap towards a stuffed Asiatic golden cat:
Felis temmincki
. A spotted hyena stood over something supposedly representing a carcass.

Where was his own body? Out in the overgrown garden, reclining in the dust. Snow was falling on his masked face; but his sleeping body was as unaware of the weather as of the contents of the natural history cabinet.

Above the bookshelves a couple of stuffed birds regarded the room.
Milvas milvas
: kite. And beside it, a black vulture the taxidermist had immortalised perching on a leafless branch. In its beak the vulture held a scrap of bloody meat. Just like the abbot in his cellar, he thought.

The door to the room opened and a housemaid entered carrying a paraffin lamp. The girl lit the wall-mounted lamps one by one and having done so crouched down on her haunches by the tiled stove, scraped out the ashes, put in more coal and blew life into the embers, opened the damper so that the fire would get going, then got up again and started walking around the room, curiously examining its contents.

From a ship’s captain’s table, superbly carved, she picked up a book and leafed carefully through its pages. She picked up a paperweight, and admired a porcelain ballet-dancer doll. Then she stiffened, her eyebrows raised in alarm, deftly replaced the objects in their rightful places. She smoothed her dress, checked the bow of her pinafore, quickly ran her hand over her hair and assumed a nervous smile at the very same moment as the door opened again.

A man came into the room. The years had deprived him of his hair, leaving a shiny tonsure in pledge. Locking the door behind him, he loosened his shirt collar and gestured absent-mindedly to the girl. She was very young, Hercule noticed, thirteen, fourteen at most.