Ficciones: 12. Death and the Compass Summary & Analysis

This story is a detective story, centered around detective Erik Lönnrot, who solves a series of crimes. The first crime happens at a hotel. Dr. Marcel Yarmolinsky is found stabbed in a hotel room. Lönnrot and Commissioner Treviranus investigate the crime. Treviranus believes that the murderer was trying to steal some jewels from the Tetrarch of Galilee (who was staying in the room next to Yarmolinsky) and entered Yarmolinsky’s room by mistake. Lönnrot, on the other hand, believes the answer to the murder is more complicated than that. Because the victim is a rabbi, Lönnrot tells Treviranus that he prefers a rabbinical explanation to the crime rather than one of chance. In Yarmolinsky’s room, a police officer finds a paper that says, “The first letter of the name has been spoken.”

Lönnrot takes Yarmolinsky’s books about Judaism home to study them. He becomes fascinated with the Jewish theories about the name of God that he finds in them, focusing on the tetragrammaton, which is the name for the four Hebrew letters that make up God’s name (two of which are the same letter). When the editor of the Yidische Zeitung (a Jewish newspaper) approaches Lönnrot to discuss the murder, Lönnrot is only interested in discussing the names of God.

A month later, another crime occurs: the body of thief and informer Daniel Simon Azevedo is found stabbed and naked on a deserted street. Nearby, on a wall, are the words: “The second letter of the name has been spoken.” Lönnrot and the Commissioner go investigate the death.

Another month passes, and a third crime occurs. A person who says his name is Ginzberg calls the Commissioner, saying he can explain the two previous murders of Azevedo and Yarmolinsky—for a price. The owner of the pub to which the police traced the call says the caller’s name is actually Gryphius. Gryphius, according to witness reports, was last seen leaving the pub speaking Yiddish with two people dressed as harlequins. On a nearby shed, the police find the words: “The last of the letters of the Name has been spoken.”

When the Commissioner investigates Gryphius’s room, he finds a Latin book about Hebrew philology. The Commissioner shares this book with Lönnrot, who translates an underlined passage as “the Hebrew day begins at sundown and lasts until the following sundown.” Meanwhile, the media discusses the case, with some journalists positing that it is an antisemitic plot.

A few weeks later, the Commissioner receives a letter saying that there will not be a fourth crime and that, on a map, the three existing crime scenes make an equilateral triangle. Upon viewing this, Lönnrot believes he has solved the crime by understanding that there actually will be a fourth crime. He thinks this because of his theories surrounding the tetragrammaton, which, after all, has four letters. With this in mind, he thinks he knows where and when the fourth crime will occur, thinking that the location will create a rhombus with the other locations and that it will occur the next day. On the night of the predicted crime, Lönnrot takes a train to an abandoned villa south of the city. He suspects that the fourth victim might be Red Scharlach, a criminal associated with Azevedo and who has long wanted to kill Lönnrot himself.

In the observatory of the estate where Lönnrot thinks the fourth crime will take place, Lönnrot confronts Red Scharlach. Lönnrot asks Scharlach if he is looking for the secret name. Scharlach replies that he is looking for Lönnrot. Scharlach reveals that he orchestrated the trap for Lönnrot out of revenge—Lönnrot had arrested Scharlach’s brother. He also explains that he didn’t intend to kill Yarmolinsky—he only wanted to steal his jewels. The message in Yarmolinsky’s typewriter (“The first letter of the name has been spoken”) was something Yarmolinsky himself had written. Later, though, Scharlach read in the Yidische Zeitung that Lönnrot was investigating the clues left in Yarmolinsky’s room, so Scharlach decided to take this opportunity to ensnare Lönnrot, whom he knew would latch on to a complex religious interpretation of the events.

The two men discuss when they will meet in the next life, the next time Scharlach will kill Lönnrot. Lönnrot requests that, the next time Scharlach hunts him, Scharlach should create a labyrinth that is “a single straight line” rather than three lines. The distance between each point on the line (or each place that Scharlach commits a crime) should decrease by half each time. Scharlach promises he will do this in the next life. He then steps back and shoots Lönnrot.