The Hangman's Daughter

“I don’t understand it at all,” said the young physician at last. “We have a dead boy with a witches’ mark on his shoulder and sulfur in his pocket. We have a midwife as a prime suspect, from whom a mandrake has been stolen. And we have a gang of orphans who know more than they will admit. None of this makes sense!”

“Above all we have very little time,” mumbled the hangman. “The Elector’s secretary is coming in a few days. Between now and then I have to make the Stechlin woman the culprit, otherwise the council will be on my back.”

“And what if you simply refuse?” asked Simon. “Nobody can demand that you…”

Kuisl shook his head. “Then they’ll send another, and I can look for a new job. No, it’ll have to be like this. We must find the real murderer, and right soon.”

“We?”

The hangman nodded. “I need your help. People don’t like talking to me. The fine people turn up their noses as soon as they see me in the distance. Although…” he added with a smile, “they would turn up their noses at you now.”

Simon looked down at his spotted, foul-smelling doublet. It was still covered with brown spots. A tear in his hose ran from the knee down the left leg. A faded lettuce leaf hung from his hat…to say nothing about the splotches of dried blood. He would need new clothes and had no idea where the money for them would come from. Perhaps if the murderer was caught the council might contribute a few guilders.

Simon thought over the hangman’s proposition. What had he to lose? Not his reputation anymore; that was already ruined. And if he wanted to continue seeing Magdalena in the future, it would be an advantage to be on good terms with her father. And then there were the books. Just now there lay next to the monocle on the table a tattered work of the Jesuit Athanasius Kirchner, who wrote of tiny worms in the blood. That priest had worked with a so-called microscope, which could magnify things many more times presumably than Kuisl’s monocle. The possibility of reading this book at home, alone in bed with a hot cup of coffee…

Simon nodded. “Good, you can count on me. By the way, the book on the…”

The doctor’s son got no further in expressing his wish. The door flew open, and Andreas the jailer staggered into the room, panting for air.

“Forgive me for disturbing you so late,” he gasped. “But it’s urgent. They told me I would find Fronwieser’s son here. Your father needs help!”

Andreas’ face was as white as a sheet. He looked as if he had seen the devil incarnate.

“What in all the world can be so urgent?” asked Simon. Privately he wondered who could have seen him going into the executioner’s house. It seemed that you could not take a step in this town without being observed.

“Grocer Kratz’s son, he’s dying!” exclaimed the jailer Andreas with his last bit of strength. He kept reaching for the little wooden crucifix that hung round his neck.

Jakob Kuisl, who up to that moment had listened in silence, became impatient. He slammed his hand down on the rickety table, so that the monocle and Athanasius’ masterpiece jumped up a little. “An accident? Tell us, then!”

“Everything covered in blood! Oh, God, help us, he has the sign! Just like Grimmer…”

Simon sprang from his stool. He felt fear rising inside him.

Kuisl stared at the physician’s son through clouds of tobacco smoke. “You go there. I’ll have a look at the Stechlin woman. I don’t know if she’s really safe in the prison.”

Simon grabbed his hat and ran out into the street. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Magdalena, who waved to him sleepily from the attic window. He had a feeling they would not have much time to see each other in the next few days.

The man stood at the window, his head only a hand’s width away from the heavy red fabric of the curtain.

Outside night was falling, but what difference did that make? Here in this room it was always dusk, a depressing gray twilight, where even by day the sunlight was feeble. Through his inner eye the man saw the sun over the town. It would rise and set, again and again, nothing would stop it. The man would not let anything stop him either, even if delays occasionally occurred. These delays made him…irritable. He turned around quickly.

“What a useless ass you are! Good for nothing! Why can’t you manage to finish anything properly?”

“I’ll finish it all right.”

In the half-light a second figure could be seen sitting at the table and stabbing about with a knife in a pie as if it were the stomach of a slaughtered pig.

The man at the window drew the curtains still closer together. His fingers clutched the fabric like claws. A wave of pain overcame him. He didn’t have much more time left.

“That business with the children was totally unnecessary. The talk is just beginning now.”

“Nobody will talk. You can count on me.”

“Some people have already become suspicious. We can only hope that the midwife will confess. The hangman has already begun asking stupid questions.”