Shortly before eight o’clock on May 10, 1932 a gunshot shook the tranquil spring evening. Gábor Ruttkay, a lieutenant guard of the Hungarian Crown, had committed suicide, shooting himself in the head. At the time of the tragedy, Ruttkay, a married man and a father of two, was at the apartment of his lover, Mrs. Littke, a famously beautiful lady who still went by the name of her previous husband. The most likely reason for Gábor Ruttkay's suicide was severe debt, presumably owed to Mrs. Littke, and possibly others. Later on, however, various newspapers recounted almost all of the events differently, always changing crucial details such as the position and type of the gun, and location of the body. All add to the mystery of this tale, even 85 years later.
Soon after Gábor Ruttkay took his own life, Mrs. Littke gave a brown envelope to Ms. Buttyán, a barber‘s wife who lived at her apartment and worked for her, instructing her to go to the Hotel Bristol in Budapest and get lieutenant-colonel József Fömötör immediately. At the hotel, Fömötör, a good friend of Ruttkay’s, opened the envelope that Ruttkay had addressed to him. It was empty. The pair then rushed back to the apartment at Szent János Square 2, where the uncontrollably shaking and sobbing Mrs. Littke said simply: “Gábor shot himself in the head”.
As Fömötör later explained, when he entered the drawing room his friend was sitting on the floor, leaning his shoulder against an armchair, his blood-soaked head laying lifeless on the chair. In his first statement, the lieutenant-colonel said that Gábor Ruttkay’s military gun was next to him. Fömötör took his 39-year-old, six-feet-two-inches tall, 230-pound friend in his arms and laid him on the floor. Gábor Ruttkay was still alive. Fömötör then left to get a doctor who lived nearby. In her later statement, Mrs. Littke said that she herself had dragged the man to the middle of the room from the armchair. However, evidence of her doing this was never found on the carpet, so her tale seems to be unlikely – but this did not prevent a newspaper trying to support her story by saying that the huge shock might have given the fragile lady extraordinary strength. Either way, the doctor found Ruttkay lying on the floor.In his statement, he said that Ruttkay had been seated in a red armchair in the drawing room when he pushed the gun hard against his head and pulled the trigger. He then lost consciousness and slipped from the chair to the floor. Someone in this story was lying.
A few minutes after the doctor arrived, a line of military cars appeared outside Szent János Square 2, as József Fömötör had notified everyone about the extraordinary news that a guard of the crown had committed suicide. Mrs. Littke was helpful in answering all kinds of emerging questions. She said that Ruttkay had arrived at her apartment at around 3pm that afternoon, and four hours later he put on his sword as they were about to head out. Ruttkay complained about a terrible headache. He told her that they had to talk and that he needed some fresh air, so asked her out for a walk. Mrs. Littke went to the bathroom to freshen up, but when she returned she could tell that something was wrong. Ruttkay was pale-faced, staggering towards the armchair.
“Mrs. Littke thought he looked unwell, so she wanted to go and get some water, but as she took a closer look she saw blood bursting from the front of his head,” was how the Újság newspaper put it.
In the meantime, the police were eagerly investigating the case, calling in an examining magistrate and a university professor as there were just too many mysteries involved. The suspicion of murder grew stronger. Everyone who had anything to do with the suicide was interrogated, bringing even stranger details to the surface. According to their accounts, Mrs. Littke did not hear the gunshot from the bathroom, and neither did Ms. Buttyán, although she was in another part of the house, separated by a glass wall. The Pesti Hírlap newspaper explained this by saying that Ruttkay had pressed the gun so hard against his head that it did not make too much noise. This was obviously nonsense. Only one newspaper questioned why Mrs. Littke had not screamed or rushed to get a doctor. Her answer was that, “in that case, journalists would have come and written about it” – something they would have done anyway… Another striking suspicion is why Ruttkay was fully dressed, even with his sword hanging by his side, when he was about to commit suicide. The Est evening paper explained this away by suggesting that Ruttkay wanted Mrs. Littke to leave the room, which is why so he had asked her out for a walk.
Every newspaper changed the details of the murder weapon. At her first interrogation, Mrs. Littke said that Ruttkay did not bring a gun over to her apartment. So why did József Fömötör say he saw Ruttkay’s military gun by his body? Mrs. Littke stated that the murder weapon did indeed belong to Ruttkay, but he always kept it at her apartment, in the drawer of the coffee table. The police found out that the gun was Ruttkay’s. Three days later, Újság wrote the following: “This revolver was not a military type as previously misstated in other newspapers, but a so-called lady’s gun that belonged to Mrs. Littke”. While in some articles the gun was a Browning, in others it was a Hungarian Frommer. Even its location is uncertain. Some articles had it placed it on the table and on the sofa, but ultimately it seems that the revolver was found in a corner of the room, away from Ruttkay, while its leather case was in the drawer of the coffee table. Did Ruttkay take the gun out from its case that he left in the drawer, strike a hole into his forehead and then take one last huge throw across the room – or onto the table or the sofa?
Another missing detail is the lack of a suicide note, though in fact Ruttkay seemed to have written several letters to various people. The brown envelope addressed to Fömötör was empty. However, an article later stated that the envelope was not, in fact, empty, but contained a letter with unpleasant information about a certain someone. Either way, there was no suicide note in it. There seems to have been a letter lying by Ruttkay’s body that simply said: “My dear József”, withouta single word more. There was yet another letter found on Ruttkay when he died, addressed to his wife, but that was not a suicide note either. One article spoke about the existence of yet another letter addressed to Fömötör, but he never told anyone its contains, even though a suicide note would have put an end to the investigation there and then.
It has always been unclear whether it was Ruttkay who had been living a double life, wanting to leave his wife and children for his lover, or vice versa. Ruttkay’s wife said that her husband had long been telling her that he would leave his lover, something he had also promised his close friend, Gyula Gömbös – who was a Hungarian military officer at the time and later served as Prime Minister.
Ruttkay’s brother, Elemér, a lawyer, referred to Mrs. Littke as an obsessive who had only moved to Budapest when her lover had to relocate there for work. She moved right opposite the garrison where Ruttkay had been posted. Elemér even warned his brother not to use the front entrance as Mrs. Littke might shoot him one day. Mrs. Littke often begged Ruttkay to leave his family for her, and Ruttkay’s wife said that her rival had even issued death threats.
Detectives and reporters suspected that the whole tragedy was a cover-up, yet the official outcome of suicide has never been changed. Later, however, detectives found out that Mrs. Littke had indeed been in the room at the time the gun was fired – contrary to what she had first said. Furthermore, in the armchair where Ruttkay may or may not have been sitting, there was a hole made by another bullet, one that has mysteriously never been found. Mrs. Littke explained that she had been trying out a new gun that Ruttkay had brought home from Vienna, and even said that the pair of them had shot at the armchair together. It is doubtful if that was something a lieutenant-guard of the Crown would do. The lady was known at times to be temperamental. Is it possible that Ruttkay wanted to end his relationship with Mrs. Littke, who then simply couldn’t handle the break-up?
Mrs. Littke’s passport was taken away from her by the authorities as she wanted to travel to Vienna right after the event. It seems as if everyone has always suspected Littke to be the murderer, but suicide was the convenient verdict. Did Mrs. Littke’s aristocratic father, himself a general, have anything to do with it? A review of several original documents surrounding the case does cast a suspicious shadow over Littke. It seems likely that Ruttkay went over to her apartment that afternoon to end their relationship as he had promised to his wife and friends. Littke may have thought, “If you’re not mine, you won’t be anybody’s”, pulled the trigger, then got away with murder.
The theories of journalist Noémi Kovács, who carried out thorough research on this case, go beyond the notion of jealous murder. In 1922 Gyula Gömbös was preparing to come to power, and asked his friend Gábor Ruttkay to help him. At the time of the tragedy ten years later, he was already close to being Prime Minister, picking people for his future government from among his closest friends. Supposedly he was holding a highly influential position – maybe secretary of state – for Ruttkay, so he asked his friend to end his tawdry romance with Mrs. Littke, as it was a breeding ground for scandal. This is why Ruttkay had promised him that he would indeed end the relationship. Therefore, it might be likely that he did try to break up with Littke, who took the news badly and fired the gun. Maybe she got away with murder because she knew about Ruttkay’s possible upcoming promotion and could have caused tremendous scandal by revealing that the future Prime Minister was about to appoint an indebted and indecent adulterer in a highly influential position…
Although these are only assumptions concerning a story that happened almost a century ago, the truth will almost certainly never come to light. What does seem likely, though, is that lieutenant guard of the Hungarian Crown, Gábor Ruttkay, did not take his own life.
