Master of the Day of Judgment by Leo Perutz

Author:Leo Perutz [Perutz, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Mystery, Fantasy, Suspense, Thriller, Fiction
ISBN: 9781559701716
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 1994-10-29T22:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

I do not find it at all easy to explain why I did not carry out my intention to leave by the next train. It was certainly not the thought of Dina that kept me in Vienna because, however much I was struck by what the engineer told me, after a moment's calm reflection I attached no importance to it. She believed me to be her husband's murderer. Was it really possible that she wanted to see me again? I saw through the engineer's purpose. He had invented the story to dissuade me from leaving Vienna, and I was furious with myself for having been taken in by it; if only for a second.

The reasons that made me give up the idea of going away were by no means of a compelling nature, they resulted from a change of mood brought about by the engineer's visit. Hitherto I had been quite inactive. An absurd incident had put me at the centre of an event to which I did not feel I had the slightest connection. I had been so stunned by the sudden turn of events that I had hardly tried to defend myself. I had completely withdrawn into myself, left everything to the chance that was governing events and, in an inexplicable reversal of feeling, had wanted only to remain unaffected by memories of the events of the previous day.

That had now changed. The conversation with the engineer had roused in me the desire to take up my own cause myself. Eugen Bischoff's murderer must be found, and I did not know where to look for him. I imagined a dreadful, sluggish, monstrously fat creature craftily waiting for his victim between his four walls. The idea that this murderous horror was more than a figment of the engineer's imagination, that he might be living in my immediate neighbourhood, that I might confront him and call him to account — it was this last thought in particular that spurred me to action. I had wasted far too much time already, now I mustn't waste another minute. I must find out where Eugen Bischoff had been between twelve and one o'clock on three days of the past week, that was the point from which everything else would follow, and I set about the task with the impatient zeal that had prompted me to make preparations for leaving town during the night.

By now it was one o'clock. Vinzenz had laid the table, but I left untouched the meal that he fetched as usual from a neighbouring tavern when I was at home. I paced up and down the room in a state of nervous excitement, made plans, dismissed them as useless or impractical or too time-consuming, considered all sorts of possibilities, but obstacles kept cropping up, I embroiled myself in a hundred different schemes, lost patience and began all over again, and not for a single moment did I doubt that I would end by hitting on the right one.

Inspiration came suddenly, when I least expected it.

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