A Visible Darkness Part 29

'So what are your scientific plans for her?' Gurten asked sarcastically.

Heinrich did not flinch.

'I intend to publish a paper describing the rapid degeneration of her bones.'

'The French will welcome your contribution,' Gurten said with a cozening smile. 'No doubt they'll invite you to take her on a tour of French universities. A stravaganza lately come out of Germany. That would look good on the posters. What are you waiting for?'

Heinrich stared very hard at my a.s.sistant before he chose to answer.

'Is there a doctor who, in his own short lifetime, can mea sure the ageing pro cess in another human being throughout the course of that person's life? It is a rare opportunity, and I will not let it slip. Physiologically, Erika is in a state of decline. Her strength is failing, her bones are becoming friable, though her mind is as active as that of any girl of the same age. I have made drawings, and taken plaster casts. A number of scientific journals know of the work that I am doing here.'

Gurten took a step forward. Again, I had the impression of two dogs eyeing each other before the tussle.

But Heinrich struck again.

'I intend to dissect her the instant Nature takes its final toll,' he said.

At that point, he turned to me. 'Now, is there anything else, Herr Stiffeniis?'

'I'd like to see those drawings that you mentioned,' I replied.

Edviga had spoken about a mysterious stranger who had made proposals to Ilse, offering to draw her face. Had Ilse been telling the truth on that occasion? Might Heinrich have been the unknown artist?

He opened a drawer, took out a folder, placed it on the desk.

'They are highly technical, as you can see,' he said, pulling out a sheet of paper, laying it out on view, showing none of the reluctance that I expected. 'These are the finger joints,' he commented, while I admired the fine lines and delicate hatching of a life-sized sketch. 'I have made similar studies of her toes, knees, ankles, the wrists and . . . and so on.'

There was even a portrait of Erika's face-lined, wrinkled, babylike-but not the face of a baby, as I now realised. I put it aside, and asked to see the plaster impressions of her arms and legs.

'Have you made drawings of other people, too?' I asked him. 'The ambergirls, for example?'

Heinrich looked up, surprise clearly written on his face.

'Their injuries will hardly change the path of science,' he said. 'There are very few bodies such as Erika's to study. Plaster casts are not the best way to mea sure physical change,' the doctor continued, going over to a large wooden trunk in the far corner, throwing open the lid. 'But in a case like this one, alterations over a period of time are all too evident.'

He lifted out two large flat squares of white plaster, and laid them on a side-table beneath the window. 'Erika's left hand,' he explained turning the casts over, reading the dates which were written on the back. 'The first was made when she was ten. This one, instead, was made just a year ago.'

He looked at me for a moment, then he said, 'Well, Herr Stiffeniis, what would your untrained, but undoubtedly sharp, eyes lead you to say about these two casts?'

I studied the imprints for a moment.

'The later hand is smaller than the earlier one,' I said. 'Ageing of the ligaments, contraction of the knuckles, clear signs of arthritic complication, and a consequent shortening of the reach,' Dr Heinrich commented. 'This is the hand of an old woman. If you run your fingers over the surface of the plaster cast on the right, you may be able to tell me something else.'

I did as I was told, feeling the lines and the contours beneath my fingertips, unpleasantly reminded of the touch of Erika's skin as she tried to tear the piece of amber from my grip.

'It seems to be scratched, the surface b.u.mpy and uneven.'

'That is wrinkling, calcification, clawing of the finger joints . . .'

'This is all very well, Herr Stiffeniis,' Gurten suddenly burst out. 'But what is the point, except to say that Erika Linder is more and less than she appears?'

Dr Heinrich smiled, but there was no humour in it, as I quickly realised.

'More, and less,' he repeated. 'Now, sir, you have hit on something! The great question in teratology is exactly that. Is Erika more, or less, than one might expect? And how, exactly, does she differ from her contemporaries? Is she a throwback to an earlier, more primitive form of life? Or is she a precursor of an otherwise unknowable future human development?'

Gurten opened his mouth to reply, but Dr Heinrich held up his finger. 'Allow me to finish, if you'll be so kind. No living thing is a fixed, unchangeable ent.i.ty. Every creature alters in continuity from birth to death. One egg is much like another, but no two chickens are identical. What's so marvellous about Nature is its infinite variability. There seems to be an evolutional pro cess at work . . .'

'According to Lamarck!' Gurten interjected.

'You are well informed, sir,' Heinrich confirmed. 'His Fourth Law states that everything gained or lost by the circ.u.mstances to which a race is exposed over a long period of time is pa.s.sed directly to the new individual by the reproductive process . . .'

'Isn't this French atheism?' Gurten objected.

Dr Heinrich studied his opponent's face.

'How would you account for Erika's aberrations?' he asked. 'Her mother is normal, and the lady reports that her mate, let us call him, was a violent man, but physically average.'

'The heavenly plan . . .'

'Ah, Linnaeus,' Dr Heinrich murmured to himself, as if he had finally managed to plant his feet on firm ground in relation to my a.s.sistant. 'Are you a Linnaean, too, Herr Procurator?'

I did not have the time to reply.

'The heavenly plan,' Gurten repeated with insistence, 'is not invariably perfect. Indeed, Linne suggests that this is the basic cause of all natural differences. The casual encounter of random destinies, the source of all human imperfections, derives from the consequences of original sin . . .'

'Isn't this theology rather than science?' Heinrich asked him with a scowl.

'Are the two so very different?' Gurten replied. 'New species are always forming. They are an integral part of G.o.d's universal plan!'

Heinrich knitted his brow again.

'More perfect in being closer to G.o.d's final design for them? Is that what you are saying, sir?'

'Isn't that what you Lamarckians are looking for?' Gurten replied. 'An understanding of the mechanisms of perfection? Isn't that what you are looking for in Erika herself? Just as you are trying to trace it in the pieces of amber that she has added to your collection.'

'Amber?' Heinrich echoed, uncertainly, as if the whirlwind arguments of Gurten had spun off at a tangent.

'Amber containing insect insertions.'

Heinrich seemed not to know how he ought to answer.

'Such precious amber,' Gurten raced on, 'is destined for the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin. The French agreed to send it there, on the condition that Prussian scientists reveal what ever they may learn to the equivalent academy in France. Napoleon's financial needs are more immediate, however. War costs money. Today, Spain is eating up the profits from his amber, but a great deal more will be required tomorrow when he turns on Rus sia. And yet, there are men in Paris, I have no doubt, who would give their fortunes to establish the primacy of their scientific discoveries. Missing links in the chain of creation preserved in amber may be lost to them because of a treaty hastily signed. That is what they fear.'

'I do not see what that has got to do with me,' Dr Heinrich protested.

'The amber with insertions does not go to Berlin, sir. The local supply has suddenly dried up. No one seems to know where it is going. Except for Erika Linder.' Gurten pointed his finger at the doctor. 'The girl swears that some of the pieces she found are in your possession, sir.'

I looked aghast at my a.s.sistant.

He had gone too far, too fast.

That is, I had let him go beyond my control. He was like a strong dog, and I had let out his leash. I should have been conducting the investigation. I should have been asking the questions. If anyone were to threaten and cajole a witness, I would do it, but only if I judged his answers to be reticent or insufficient. But Gurten had stolen the initiative away from me. He had helped me greatly in the past two days, but he had overstepped the mark, and I could not let such interference pa.s.s unnoticed. It displayed an irascible weakness of character. In my report to the judicial authorities in Potsdam, I would be obliged to note these excesses.

'Dr Heinrich,' I said, stepping between them, determined to continue more calmly, 'let me rephrase the question. Did you purchase amber of a scientific nature from Erika Linder for your private studies? Erika claims that she has given you many pieces,' I countered, before Gurten should presume to do so in my place.

'Erika Linder is a congenital liar,' Dr Heinrich replied smoothly enough, 'along with her more serious congenital problems. It is true that she offered to sell me interesting pieces of amber. As a way of repaying me-so she quaintly put it-for my care and my attention. But the girl gives nothing away for free, I promise you, sir. And I cannot afford to pay what she is asking.'

Was Erika the congenital liar? Or was the doctor?

'Have you bought amber from any other patients, Dr Heinrich? When I came here the other day I showed you a piece that I had discovered hidden in the corpse of Kati Rodendahl. I know for certain that many other girls are selling pieces such as that one to dealers and collectors here on the coast.'

'I have bought nothing,' Heinrich said.

'And what about the amber stolen from the local church which once formed part of the collection of Jakob Spener?'

'I've no idea what you are talking of,' he said. 'I did not know that amber had been stolen from the church in Nordcopp.'

'Do you know Ilse Bruen, then, or any girl calling herself Megrete, or Annalise?' I insisted, despite his continuing denials, hoping to provoke him by the vehemence of my accusations. 'I suspect them all of having stolen the amber from the church. Such pieces would cut a fine figure in your collection . . .'

'My own is hardly a collection,' Dr Heinrich replied with a flash of irritation. 'I do have four or five pieces, but they came to me with my father's blessing. I did not purchase them from Erika Linder, or from anyone else.'

'May we see this collection, sir?' I asked.

'Most certainly,' he replied. 'I have so few, I keep them here on my desk.'

He turned away and opened up a little oak casket, from which he extracted a large magnifying gla.s.s with a horn handle. Then, he handed me a small orange lozenge.

'Look at it against the light,' he counselled.

The amber was less than a quarter of the size of the piece that I had removed from the corpse of Kati Rodendahl, and it was clearly imperfect. One half of it was a mottled, pitted, milky white, like a bad tooth.

I held it up, and studied it for a moment or two.

'It contains a common ant,' I stated.

'Quite the opposite,' the doctor countered briskly. 'It is uncommon, unlike any ant out there in my garden today. It is undeniable evidence of the progressive improvement which Nature has worked on all the primitive creatures which it first nurtured.'

He produced a second piece. 'Compare this one.'

It was larger, clearer, almost lemon-coloured, and shaped like a tear-drop.

How long had it taken for that lump to form, I asked myself, as the lymph of the tree imprisoned the miniscule creature that could just be seen as a small, dark blob at the core of the gem?

'Here we see the remains of another little tragedy,' he commented. 'This ant was drowned, embalmed, preserved for eternity. Just like the other one, of course. But they are not the same. Not at all! Concentrate your attention on the antennae. They are longer, finer, more similar to the ants that we see today. We may safely a.s.sert that the first creature is older in the Chain of Being. With the slow pa.s.sage of time, something has altered significantly. But what? That is the mystery which perplexes us.'

If tragedy there had been, as he suggested, the pa.s.sions and struggles of that event had been trans.m.u.ted into timeless immobility.

'I think of myself as a scientist,' he said, 'yet there is something truly magical in an amber enclosure. These pieces are tiny windows into the past.'

'They show the incredible variety of creatures that G.o.d has created since the Flood,' Johannes Gurten stated more calmly. 'Amber is G.o.d's gift to Prus sia. It allows us to see the simple perfection of the world as He initially conceived it.'

I had heard similar sentiments expressed by Edviga.

'What about the rest of this collection of yours?' I asked sharply.

Never taking his eyes from mine, Dr Heinrich felt around with his fingers in the casket. He pulled out two more humble pieces of amber, and gently set them down on the surface of his desk. He might have been a man who had just been ordered at pistol-point to drop his own weapon.

'This is it,' he said with a wry, challenging smile. 'And you are disappointed, I see. Is this the way you formulate your accusations, Herr Procurator? By taking literally the accusations of a wretch whose second nature is to lie? As if I were the criminal? Col o nel les Halles is convinced that he has caught the murderer, as I am sure you know.'

'The evidence he has gathered is worth as much,' I said dismissively, 'as the accusations Erika has made against you. And yet, I believe that you may have added weight to his flimsy arguments. He sent over something for you to a.n.a.lyse, he told me.'

He looked at me sharply. 'The bones from the Ansbach farm, you mean?'

'Exactly,' I replied.

There we were, three Prussians in the same room, each one vying to provide the French with the guilty party. Gurten would have handed over the doctor to them without a second thought. Heinrich was in a position to pull the noose tight around the neck of Adam Ansbach. I, on the other hand, was undecided. I wanted definite proof. I would have handed over either one of them, if only I could have demonstrated his guilt to my own satisfaction.

'Those bones are human,' he said.

My heart sank.

How many bodies had been buried in that pigsty? How many women had been slaughtered there?

Amber was uppermost in the mind of every person in the area, except for Adam Ansbach.

'Human?' I repeated.

'Without a doubt.'

Was les Halles right? Was Adam guilty? Or was Heinrich heaping coals on the fire, blowing hard on the flames which seemed intent on consuming the Ansbach farm, and the people who lived there, thus ensuring his own safety from the same accusation?

'Do you know what surprised me most of all?' Heinrich demanded energetically, as if he believed that the news should surprise me, too.

'What?'

I fully expected a cata logue of horrors about the way the bones had been smashed, or about the manner in which they had been severed.

'There was not a single female bone among them.'

I could not speak. My tongue seemed moulded to my palate.

'No female bone?' I said at last. 'Can you be sure?'

'Quite certain. Men's bones are quite distinct. And these were the bones of men who had not been walking on the Earth for quite some time,' he added. 'Marrow is the princ.i.p.al, nay, the only means of saying anything about the age of bones, whether human or animal. If marrow is still present, the creature died within living memory. By the time they've been in the ground for a century, say, all traces of marrow have disappeared. Consumed by worms and mites, presumably.'

'Are you saying that the bones are a hundred years old?'

'At the very least,' he replied. 'In ancient times, that pigsty may have been the centre of a battlefield. Or the chosen burial ground of our Teutonic forefathers. I am speculating, of course.'