“Go on, Smolorz.” He heard Mock’s hoarse bass. “Tell me what’s happened to my father!”
“There were noises in the house last night,” Smolorz mumbled. “He went to check and fell down the stairs. Fractured his leg and injured his head. The dog barked and woke the neighbours. A certain Mr Dosche took him to St Elisabeth Hospital. He’s in good care. Unconscious. On a drip.”
“Call Doctor Cornelius Ruhtgard immediately on seventeen sixty-three. If he’s not at home, call the Wenzel-Hancke Hospital. Tell him I want him to take care of my father.” Mock fell silent. Smolorz did not say anything either and, staring at the tube into which he had just spoken, wondered at the fundamental nature of telephone communications. “How’s our investigation going?” Smolorz heard Mock say.
“Twenty young female invalids in wheelchairs in the whole of Breslau. We visited them with Frenzel …”
“Frenzel has turned up?” Smolorz could hear the hoarse bass voice tremble with joy at the other end of the receiver.
“Yes. He’s a gambler. He was betting at Orlich’s. Arm-wrestling. He lost, and two days later went home broke.”
“And what? You showed Frenzel those women? Discreetly, I hope?”
“Yes. Discreetly. From a distance. Frenzel in a car, the women in the wheelchairs on the street. He recognized one of them. Louise Rossdeutscher, daughter of the physician Doctor Horst Rossdeutscher. The father is a big fish. Commissioner Muhlhaus knows him.”
“This Rossdeutscher, was he questioned?”
“No. Muhlhaus is prevaricating. Big fish.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, damn it, ‘big fish’?” growled the voice in the receiver. “Explain, Smolorz!”
“Commissioner Muhlhaus said he’s ‘an important person’.” Smolorz could not help being amazed by the fact that here he was, grasping all of Mock’s emotions over the telephone, even though the latter was hundreds of kilometres away from Breslau. “‘We have to proceed carefully. I know him.’ That’s what he said.”
“Is Rossdeutscher being watched?”
“Yes. All the time.”
“Good, Smolorz.” The crack of a match resounded in the receiver. “Now listen. I’m arriving in Breslau tomorrow, at 7.14 in the evening. At that very hour you’re to be waiting for me at Main Station. Wirth, Zupitza and ten of their men are to be with you. You’re going to show the girl I’m with — you know, it’s that red-headed Erika — a photograph of Louise Rossdeutscher … If you don’t have a photograph of her, get in touch with Helmut Ehlers and pass my request on to him: he’s to take a photograph of Louise Rossdeutscher’s face by tomorrow. Remember — tomorrow, 7.14 at the station. And don’t plan anything else … For the whole evening and night you’re to be at my disposition. By tomorrow you’re to have gathered every scrap of information you can about this doctor. I know it might be difficult, officially we’ve been removed from the investigation and Muhlhaus is treating the suspect like a rotten egg, but do whatever is in your power. Any questions?”
“Yes. Is Rossdeutscher suspected of all these murders?”
“Think, Smolorz.” Cigarette smoke expelled from Mock’s lungs hit the telephone membrane. “The four sailors were stuffed with morphine before they died. Who has access to a lot of morphine? A physician. I don’t know whether Rossdeutscher is a suspect, but I do know that he and his daughter were probably the last people to see those dressed-up men. I want Rossdeutscher with his back up against the wall.”
“One more question. Why Wirth and Zupitza?”
“How would you describe Muhlhaus’ behaviour as regards Ross deutscher?” This time Smolorz heard the voice of a kind-hearted teacher examining a dull-witted pupil. “He’s afraid to interrogate him, he speaks of him as ‘an important person’ and so on … How would you describe such behaviour?”
“I’d say he’s fluffing about.”
“Good, Smolorz.” Mock had stopped sounding kind-hearted. “Muhlhaus is fluffing about. We’re not going to fluff about. That’s why I want Wirth and Zupitza.”
BRESLAU, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
7.14 IN THE EVENING
The train from Stettin pulled into Breslau’s Main Station. Erika Kiesewalter held her head out of the window. Through tears forced from her eyes by the rush of air she watched the fleeing platforms, the flower kiosks, the mighty iron columns holding up the glass vault, and the tobacco and newspaper kiosks. White columns of steam blew onto the platforms and enveloped the people waiting there in a warm cloud. On the whole they stood alone, most of them elegantly attired gentlemen wearing velvet gloves and holding bunches of flowers wrapped in coarse parchment. There would also generally be a few dignified ladies amongst them who, at the sight of much-missed and long-awaited faces at the carriage windows, would suddenly open their parasols or tear their hands away from their lips to send kisses into the distance. There was no shortage of similar types on the platform now. But the group of thirteen glum-looking men, most with peaked or soft caps pulled down to their ears, formed a clear contrast. The sleeper carriage stopped practically in front of them. The men looked like bandits and Erika watched them anxiously, but she was soon reassured by the sight of the familiar face framed by wiry red hair that belonged to Mock’s subordinate. Mock himself, entrusting their suitcases to a porter, stepped off the train and — much to his colleague’s surprise — slipped his hands beneath Erika’s arms, spun her like a child and stood her on the platform. He shook the hands of the red-headed man and of two other men who, though diametrically opposite in height, had one characteristic in common: both were repulsive.
“You have the photograph, Smolorz?” Mock asked.
Smolorz looked drunk. He was swaying on his legs and grinning inanely. Without a word he pulled a large photograph from his briefcase and handed it to Erika. She looked at the girl in the photograph and said without prompting:
“Yes, I recognize her. She’s the one who came with her father to the apartment on Gartenstrasse.”
“Good,” Mock muttered, casting a critical eye at Smolorz. “And now to business. Are Muhlhaus’ men tailing Rossdeutscher? And where is my father?”
“At Wenzel-Hancke Hospital in the care of Doctor Ruhtgard,” Smolorz said, answering Mock’s questions in the order of their importance. “I don’t know how it stands with Rossdeutscher. There’s nothing about him in our archives. Nothing at all. Only his address. Carlowitz, Korsoallee 52. Here’s what I found out about him.” He handed Mock a piece of paper covered in even writing.
“Good, Smolorz,” Mock said, and his expression changed as he read on. “It appears our Rossdeutscher was accused by the Breslau Chamber of Medicine of practising the occult on his patients … He successfully defended himself against the accusations … And he is extremely well connected …”
Mock looked about him. Their party had drawn attention to itself. A newspaper vendor was staring at them, a beggar was pleading for a few marks.
“Get rid of them, Wirth.” Mock glanced at the short man in the bowler hat who with one gesture passed on the instructions to the giant standing next to him. The latter lurched towards the gawpers and they dispersed in clouds of steam.
“Smolorz,” Mock said, nodding towards Erika, “take Miss Kiesewalter to the apartment on Gartenstrasse. You’re to keep an eye on her until I send somebody to relieve you. And not a drop more today, understood? The rest of us” — he looked at Wirth — “are off. First to the hospital, and then to Carlowitz to pay Doctor Rossdeutscher a visit.”
He approached Erika and kissed her on the lips.
“Thank you for saying ‘Miss Kiesewalter’,” she whispered, returning the kiss, “and not simply ‘take her, Smolorz’. Thank you for not saying ‘her’ …”
“Did I really say that?” Mock smiled, and ran his rough hand across her pale cheek.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Smolorz unlocked the door to the sailors’ apartment, stepped
inside first and slammed the door in Erika’s face. He switched on all the lights and carefully inspected the rooms, and only then did he re-open the door. He took Erika by the elbow and led her in, bolting the door behind them, and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. He produced a bottle of Danzig Losos liqueur from his briefcase and poured a sizeable shot into a clean glass. As he sipped the burning liquid he watched Erika hang up her coat in the hall and then, dressed in a hat and a tight, cherry-red dress, enter the main room, bend over the bed and straighten the tangled sheets which nobody had changed for three weeks. Erika’s hips and the crumpled sheets from which, Smolorz presumed, her scent still emanated fuddled his thoughts for a moment. He remembered the Baroness writhing among the damp sheets and her husband standing next to the bed with an expression of curiosity, and then Baron von Bockenheim und Bielau sniffing some white powder and scattering acrid clouds all around himself with his coughing.
His next sip of Losos liqueur did not taste as good. He blamed this on the image of the polite, haughty Baron before his eyes. To make the drink taste better he turned his thoughts to the people who stirred warm feelings in him. What was his little Arthur doing now? Was he playing with his toy car? The liqueur was excellent. Was he kneeling on the kitchen floor in his thick trousers, reinforced on the backside with a leather patch, and pushing the little model Daimler along one of the well-polished floor-boards? Cleanliness in the kitchen made him think of his wife, Ursula Smolorz. There she was, kneeling on the kitchen floor scrubbing the smooth floorboards with Ergon powder. Her strong arms, her gently swaying breasts, her tearful, freckled face, her rending sobs as Smolorz, pushing her aside, slammed the door and made his way blind drunk towards the stately villa on Wagnerstrasse, where the Baroness was waiting for him in velvet sheets, clammy with sweat. Little Arthur had cried when his furious mother explained to him in a lowered voice that Papa didn’t love him any more, that he loved some trollop instead. “What’s a trollop, Mama?” “An evil viper, the devil in human flesh,” she had explained. Arthur Smolorz had run from his father when he wanted to pick him up, and had yelled to high heaven: “I don’t want you, go to the trollop!” The Criminal Sergeant reached for his bottle. He knew what worked best on a guilty conscience.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Sister Hermina, on duty in the surgical ward at Wenzel-Hancke Hospital, replaced the telephone receiver. She was as aggravated as an angry wasp. Yet again that day she had received instructions from Doctor Ruhtgard, and yet again, in the confines of her heart, she expressed her disapproval. What was it supposed to mean? Since when was she receiving instructions from a doctor in another department? She decided to complain to her immediate superior, Doctor Karl Heintze, Head of Surgery. What impudence! This Ruhtgard, as a dermatologist, ought to restrict himself to his rotting prostitutes and his lustful middle-class men devoured by tertiary syphilis! Sister Hermina chased away these bad thoughts, incompatible as they were with her gentle, understanding nature consolidated by years in the service of others. Through the glazed panel of the duty room, she watched as two orderlies pushed a wheelchair in which pot-bellied Herr Karl Hadamitzky, dazed with morphine, travelled towards the operating theatre, to encounter the drainage tube and scalpel that were destined to cut away the cancerous growth from his kidney.
The wheelchair was followed by a man who was running. His jacket was unbuttoned and he was fanning himself with a bowler hat. Sister Hermina stared at him for a while, her attention drawn to his sallow skin darkened by a considerable five-o’clock shadow, his broad shoulders and his black, wavy hair. He passed her duty room without a word of explanation as to who he was or what he was doing there. That was too much.
“Hey, my good man!” she shouted in a loud, almost masculine voice. “Are you visiting one of our patients? You have to report to me first!”
“Eberhard Mock,” the man said in a deep, hoarse voice. “I am indeed. I’m going to visit my father, Willibald Mock.”
Saying this he donned his bowler hat and then removed it, bowing to Sister Hermina. This greeting was as ironic as it was courteous. Without waiting for her permission, and disregarding any reaction she may have had, he walked briskly down the corridor.
“Mock Willibald, Mock Willibald,” the irate nurse repeated, running her finger down the column of names. A moment later her finger stopped short. “Ah, he’s the one who found himself on our ward on Doctor Ruhtgard’s instructions. He’s the patient requiring special care! What’s that supposed to mean, ‘special care’? They all require special care! Not only the elderly Willibald Mock! I’ll soon put a stop to this!”
Sister Hermina reached for the telephone and dialled Professor Heintze’s home number.
“Doctor Heintze’s residence,” said a well-spoken male voice at the other end of the receiver.
“It’s Sister Hermina from Wenzel-Hancke Municipal Hospital. May I speak to the doctor, please?”
The butler did not deign to reply and placed the receiver next to the telephone. She knew he always behaved like this when he heard someone introduce themselves with a name not preceeded by a scholarly title. She heard the strains of a piano, merry voices and the tinkling of glasses. The usual sounds of a party being held at the professor’s on a Saturday evening.
“Yes, sister,” Doctor Heintze’s voice was none too friendly.
“That Doctor Ruhtgard from the Department of Contagious Diseases, Professor, is bossing everyone around and giving me instructions as to that …”
“Ah, I know what this is about, Sister,” Doctor Heintze interrupted her snappily. “Please listen to me carefully. You may regard all of Doctor Ruhtgard’s instructions as if they were my own. Do you understand me, Sister?” The receiver crashed onto its cradle.
Sister Hermina was no longer annoyed, but curious. Who was this old man with concussion and a double fracture of the leg? Most certainly someone important. That’s why Ruhtgard had told them to transfer him to a private room and look after him night and day, despite the shortage of staff. And now this son of his … Elegant and arrogant.
Sister Hermina made her way down the corridor towards the private room where the older Herr Mock lay. The rustle of her starched housecoat and the sight of the broken wings on her bonnet animated the patients and filled them with hope. They propped themselves up in bed and paid no heed to their pain, certain that in a short while, with a single injection and an understanding glance, Sister Hermina would take them to a land of gentleness and peace. Their hopes, however, were in vain. Sister Hermina knocked on the door of the private room and, getting no reply, entered. It was hardly surprising no-one had invited her in: the older Herr Mock was lying unconscious while his son was pressing his father’s hand, riddled with needle marks, to his lips. She looked at the younger Herr Mock and was disgusted. She was always disgusted at the sight of a grown man crying.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 27TH, 1919
ELEVEN O’CLOCK AT NIGHT
Sister Hermina, urine bottle in hand, approached the door to the private room and opened it wide, certain she would see the two men asleep again. One of them, as Sister Hermina told herself somewhat bombastically, had been lulled by physical pain, the other by spiritual. This time Sister Hermina’s otherwise faultless intuition had let her down. Neither of them was asleep. The older Herr Mock interrupted some lengthy utterance when he saw her and took the bottle with visible relief. The younger Herr Mock, obviously not wishing to disturb his father, went into the corridor and lit a cigarette. Sister Hermina carried out the embarrassing object and, remembering Doctor Heintze’s harsh words, restrained herself from pointing out to the smoker the unsuitability of surrendering to such a pernicious addiction in a place like this. The younger Herr Mock, as if reading her thoughts, extinguished the cigarette with his shoe, wrapped it in a scrap of paper and went back into the room. The sister slid the urine bottle onto the lower part of her trolley that was stacked with clean shee
ts, removed her impressively large bonnet and pressed her ear to a gap in the door.
“If you’d been at home at the time,” she heard the sick man’s muffled moan, “you’d have scared off that burglar who made such a racket in the night …”
“It wasn’t a burglar, Father,” the hoarse, bass voice interrupted him. “Burglars don’t make a noise … If you’d agreed to move out of the house, if you weren’t so stubborn, this accident wouldn’t have happened …”
“If, if …” The older man must have been regaining his strength since he was aping his son so well. “What a louse … Telling me it’s all my fault… Is that it? My fault? Who was it who went off with some whore to God knows where, and left the old man alone without any help? Who? Father Christmas? No, my own son, Eberhard … No-one else but he … And you, old man, you can snuff it, it’s time for you to go … That’s how grateful he is to his father …”
“And what, in truth, should I be grateful to you for, Father?” Sister Hermina had heard that tone many times before, that suppressed timbre. This was the way people spoke who, on learning of the death of someone close to them, were trying desperately not to show their weakness. Intonation through the whole range of notes, like in an adolescent boy.
Silence. Steam hissed in the sterilising units, patients groaned in their sleep, the kidney-shaped metal dish containing Herr Hadamitzky’s cancerous tissues clattered against the flagstones of the operating theatre; the hospital was falling asleep; the cockroaches under the sinks and in the damp crannies beneath the sewer pipes were waking.
In the gap of the door left ajar appeared the eye as well as the ear of Sister Hermina. The sick man was gripping his son’s hand tightly. The two hands with their short, fat fingers were identical.
“You’re right.” The older man’s voice wheezed like that of a dying man. Pain crossed his face in waves. “Any ass can have it off and spawn. You’re right … That’s all you have to be grateful to me for …”
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