Part 41 (1/2)

Smoked fish, scorched wood, pickling eels could not hold me back. Like a prized red setter, I caught at the richer, more celestial, aroma floating on the warm air, and I rushed on down Schwartzstra.s.se. It pushed all other smells aside, persisting long after they had faded. Had I walked that street at night-had my eyes been blind-I would still have been able to follow it to its source.

Bright red letters on a white background, the hanging sign looked relatively new. I stopped and read again what was written on the trade-sign. DEWITZ WAXWORKS-DEATH MASKS ON REQUEST.

I breathed in deeply.

It did not smell like the beeswax that Frau Poborovsky probably used to polish the dining-table in her parlour. Nor did it have the clinging greasy odour of the tallow rushes that she certainly used to light her rooms. This stuff had a sharp, almost bitter, scent that anyone might have remarked upon if Vulpius carried it into his lodgings.

A handcart was parked in front of the door. Ready to depart at a moment's notice, I surmised. They must carry wax to a customer's home. It seemed unlikely that grieving relatives would bring a body all the way here to make an impression of the face alone. I decided immediately how I would present myself. I would invent an uncle, then sacrifice him. He had died that very morning; I wished to have a death mask made.

I pushed on the door. A dangling bell clanged and jangled as I entered.

I might have been stepping into a church. The warm wax worked its spell on me. Can any Christian soul resist it? It seemed to promise warmth and light and eternal life-despite the suggestion of death, and the hint of funerals that inevitably accompanies it. The low, barrel-vaulted ceiling of the workshop was made of ancient smoke-stained bricks, and it was as long as a country chapel. There even appeared to be side-altars sprouting off on either side. Light shone out of these openings, tracing elongated human shapes in stark silhouette upon the opposite walls.

'Is anyone there?' I called.

Large cubes of grey wax were stacked like blocks of ice against the walls on both sides of the entrance. Clouds of wood-smoke filled the air. As I called again more loudly, the figure of a man emerged from the swirling smoke, as from a fog, coming to meet me in an unhurried manner.

'May I help you?' he enquired.

He was tall, slender, rakish. Not yet fifty, I would have said. Wisps of long blond hair dangled in a goatee beard from his pointed chin. He had carelessly thrown a brown cloak over his shoulder like a French cha.s.seur, and wore a red wool cap pulled down tightly over his forehead. His bright blue eyes gazed into mine.

'I am looking for Herr DeWitz,' I announced.

'You have found him,' the man replied with a pleasant, welcoming smile. There was a croaking catch in his animated voice. He spoke German well, but clearly it was not his native tongue.

'You . . . you are not Prussian, sir,' I said, dithering about the best way to begin.

Having got so very close, I did not intend to startle Vulpius into flight.

'You have a good ear, sir. I am Dutch. From Delft. But no,' he apologised quickly, his face taking on a more lugubrious aspect. 'You have more urgent business certainly. A death in the family, I suppose?'

I toyed with my mythical uncle, then decided to be blunt.

'No, thank the Lord,' I replied. Then, lowering my voice, I took a step closer. 'I am a Prussian magistrate, sir. I am conducting an investigation. Is there somewhere we may talk in private?'

He did not seem surprised or alarmed at this request.

'Come with me,' he replied, turning away, walking into the smoky interior.

I followed him in silence, taking careful note of my surroundings. In the first vaulted room through which we pa.s.sed, two very young girls were sitting beside an open fire on a which a large pot of wax was bubbling. These children were making domestic spills, dipping long reeds one by one into the pot, then placing them in an upright rack to harden and dry.

'We're getting ready for the winter,' DeWitz informed me, turning to the right, leading me into another brick-vaulted tunnel, where an old man with a badly bent back and large, skeletal hands was feeding brushwood kindling into a fire beneath a large bra.s.s boiler. A set of long, slender candle-moulds were laid out on a work-bench beside him, the wicks pulled tight by dangling weights at either end of the mould.

I fought off the suggestion which rose immediately to my mind. Plaster casts of candles of differing dimensions hung from the walls. It was all too easy to make comparisons with the surgery of Dr Heinrich and the plaster casts of Erika Linder's arms, hands and legs. All too easy to reach a wrong conclusion, and see what I wanted to see.

I chased after DeWitz.

At the far end of this long low hall was a table and four stools. The proprietor of the waxworks sat down, made himself comfortable, and invited me to do the same with a sweeping gesture of his pale right hand. He poured himself a gla.s.s of water from a carafe, sipped from it, then he looked at me. 'Will this do you for privacy? You are very mysterious, sir.'

'I . . . I saw your sign,' I said, hesitating again. My greatest fear was that Vulpius was somewhere in the vicinity. 'Death masks . . .'

'A minor branch of the trade,' he replied. 'We don't do more than four or five a week. It is going out of fas.h.i.+on. Candle-making takes up the greatest part of the general business. All shapes and sizes. All qualities, of course. The denser the wax, the longer they burn, the more they cost.' He sipped again, apparently waiting for me. 'It is thirsty work.'

It was extremely warm in the manufactory. It would be a decent place to work in winter, I thought, but the numerous fires, the smoke, and the heavy scent of perfumed wax clogged the stifling air.

I leant over the table.

'I am looking for a man named Vulpius,' I said very quietly. 'I have been informed that he works for you.'

DeWitz stared hard at me. 'Vulpius sometimes works for me,' he replied.

'Is he here just now?' I asked.

'He is not,' he said.

'Do you know where he is?'

'Again, Herr Magistrate, I must say no.'

The tension drained out of me. Frustration took its place.

'But you know where I can find him, surely?'

DeWitz did not move, his gla.s.s poised close to his lips.

'I have no idea,' he said at last. 'To tell you the truth, I am beginning to lose my patience with him. He should be here, he should be working, but I haven't seen him for . . . what, a week? More, perhaps. What day is it today?'

'Thursday,' I replied.

'It is at least ten days since he was here,' he decided at last.

The deaths of Kati and Ilse fell within that time span. And Dr Heinrich had been in Nordcopp-not Konigsberg-as I could personally testify, in the same period.

'What does he do when he does come to work?' I asked.

'He is a modeller,' DeWitz replied.

'Of candles?'

The answer came after a while. 'He is employed in the laboratory.'

'The laboratory?' I repeated. 'And what is that?'

DeWitz looked at me, and he smiled more pensively. 'Have you a good, strong stomach, sir?' he asked.

I nodded mechanically, thinking that he was talking of mortuary masks. I had seen the operation done on two occasions in my youth: my father's mother first, then, a decade later when my brother, Stefan, died.

'I know that wax is applied to the cadaver's face . . .'

DeWitz shook his head. 'Not that,' he said dismissively. 'It might be better if I show you what we do here, rather than explain it. You are a magistrate, after all. You'll have seen sights that other men find shocking. Is that not so, sir?'