‘You mean he didn’t kill Valerie at all?’

‘No, I don’t think he did.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ Norah yelled. ‘You’re lying!’

Balder shrugged.

‘I shot him,’ Norah said in the same toneless voice as before.

‘Indeed,’ said Balder deliberately, as if he could scarcely believe it himself, ‘you shot him. You weren’t exaggerating in that article of yours; you really are a fantastic shot!’

For a moment he said nothing.

‘I don’t understand,’ Norah cried. ‘Why him? If he was innocent…Why Arthur Grimm?’

Balder looked at her indulgently as if she were an obtuse child.

‘We looked for men who were living near your friend at the time of her death and had since moved to Vienna—men who might possibly have known Valerie. We weren’t exactly spoilt for choice; finding Grimm was a real stroke of luck. He was just the job. That face! Undeniably good looking. But sinister, too, don’t you agree?’

‘And he had to die because of that?’

‘I didn’t shoot him,’ Balder cried in mock outrage. ‘You did.’

He bared his teeth again—his version of a smile.

‘In Berlin it would have been Leon Weiss,’ he added.

‘What?’ Norah asked, confused.

‘Yes!’ said Balder. ‘I had it all worked out; you very nearly foiled my plans. The whole thing was originally supposed to take place in Berlin: On February 11 you will kill a man called Leon Weiss. And so on. Then you moved away in a rush and that was the end of that. We had to improvise. But in the end, Vienna was the better backdrop. Death is at home in Vienna, don’t you agree?’

‘And that was what you were aiming for?’ Norah asked, pointing vaguely in the direction of Grimm.

Balder was silent.

‘You’re just as guilty of his death as I am!’

‘All I did was make a prophecy. Nobody forced you to do anything,’ Balder replied calmly.

‘You gave me reason to believe he’d murdered Valerie.’

Balder spread his arms, but said nothing.

‘Why me?’ Norah asked. ‘Why do you hate me so much? Because I attacked you in the press? Is that it? Because I took Coco’s side?’

‘Please! That would be despicable.’

‘Then why?’

Balder’s look of amusement gave way to a more pensive expression.

‘I don’t know,’ he said at length. ‘Who can say why one topic interests us more than another. Why we prefer Mahler to Mozart. Why we’re drawn to one person in a room of thirty. I’m an artist; I trust my instincts.’

‘You call this art—this sick game?’

‘Sick game,’ Balder repeated, smiling indulgently, like a fond father disappointed by his daughter. ‘You say that now because you’re so close-up. If you want to see the work as a whole, you have to take a step back. Well worth it, I must say. It’s great art.’

He stopped for a moment and considered.

‘Hasn’t death always been the greatest work of art?’ he added at length.

When Norah didn’t reply, he continued.