“Dr. Benno,” I said, “where have you been? The reporters have been looking for you everywhere.”
“Makes no difference where I’ve been,” he gasped. “Spät, leave this trial alone. I beg you.”
“What trial, Dr. Benno?” I asked.
“The one you’re trying to drag me into,” he said in a hoarse voice.
I shook my head. “No one is trying to bring you to trial, Dr. Benno,” I explained.
“You’re lying,” he shouted. “You’re lying! You’ve set Lienhard on me, Fanter, Schönbächler, Feuchting. And you’ve got the press at my heels too. You know that I could have had a motive for shooting Winter.”
“Kohler shot him,” I replied.
“You don’t believe that yourself.” His whole body was trembling.
“No one doubts it,” I said, trying to mollify him.
Benno stared at me, wiped his brow with a dirty handkerchief. “You’re trying to bring me to trial,” he said softly. “I’m ruined, I know it, I’m ruined.”
“Really now, Dr. Benno,” I replied.
He staggered to the door, opened it slowly and left without bothering any further with me.
*
The Alibi: Was interrupted again. Fate struck. This time through Lucky. Accompanying him, a personage whom he introduced as “the Marquis.” (To the extent that I am now stepping out of the disastrous tale I am writing about, a tale in which I am involved as a participant, I must show my colors: In a criminal world I have become a criminal myself. I am confident that you will agree with that observation, Herr Prosecutor, though of course with the qualification that I also count you, and the society you officially represent, as part of that criminal world, and not just Lucky, the Marquis, and myself.) As far as this personage with some resemblance to a human being goes, he had been flushed this way from Neuchâtel. Along with a Jaguar convertible. A visage with a smile, as if the fellow belonged to the moral majority at Caux, with the manners of a salesman for expensive soaps. It was close to ten o’clock at night. It was a Sunday (I’m writing this report at the end of July 1958, a weak attempt at setting my papers in order). There was a thunderstorm going on outside, incredible booming explosions, the rain still roaring, but without having brought any relief, it was sultry and oppressive. Beneath me psalms were rumbling: “Sink, O world, in Jesus’ arms, perish now rejoicing” and “Holy Ghost, with bolts and claps, lead us sinners to collapse.” Lucky was tugging somewhat embarrassedly at his moustache, seemed a little nervous to me, and his apostolic eyes even had an introspective shimmer about them that I had never noticed before: Lucky was apparently mulling things over. They both had on raincoats, though they were practically dry.
“We need an alibi,” Lucky said dejectedly, “the Marquis and I. For the last two hours.”
The Marquis smiled unctuously.
“And two hours ago?” I asked.
“We’ve got a watertight alibi,” Lucky assured me with a sly look. “We were with Giselle and Madeleine at the Monaco.”
The Marquis nodded in agreement.
I wanted to know if they had got in here without anyone seeing them. Lucky was as always an optimist. “Nobody recognized us,” he declared. “Umbrellas are useful.”
I considered this. “Where are your umbrellas?” I then asked, getting up from my desk and locking up my papers.
“Downstairs. We left them behind the door to the cellar.”
“Do they belong to you?”
“We found them.”
“Where?”
“At the Monaco.”
“So you’re saying you pilfered them two hours ago?”
“It was raining.”
Lucky was worried, he sensed I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about his answers. But full of hope, he pulled a bottle of Napoléon cognac from his coat, and the Marquis conjured up a second one and put it on the desk.
“Fine,” I nodded, “I call that a humane gesture.”
Then each of them put down a thousand-franc bill.
“We’re top-notch businessmen,” Lucky observed.
I shook my head. “My dear Lucky,” I said with regret, “it’s one of my principles not to do time for perjury.”
“Got it,” Lucky said.
They came up with another thousand apiece.
I wasn’t about to be softened up. “This business with the umbrellas is just too stupid for me,” I remarked.
“The police aren’t looking for us on account of those umbrellas,” Lucky objected, although he was obviously uneasy about it.
“But they could pick up your trail on account of those umbrellas,” I reminded him.
“Got it,” Lucky said.
They sacrificed another thousand each.
I marveled. “Have you both turned into millionaires?”
“A fellow has his sources of income,” Lucky said. “When we get hold of the rest, we’re beating it. Getting out of the country.”
“What rest?”
“The rest of our fee,” the Marquis declared.
“What fee?” I asked with suspicion.
“For a job we did,” Lucky said, getting down to details. “Once we’re in Nice, I’ll pass Giselle and Madeleine on to you.”
“I’ll pass my girls on to you too,” the Marquis assured me. “Neuchâtel is a good market.”
I carefully examined the bills, folded them and stuck them in my back pants pocket. Lucky wanted to provide details, but I interrupted him. “For once and for all: I don’t want to know why you need this alibi.”
“Sorry,” Lucky apologized.
“Fork over your cigarettes,” I demanded.
Lucky was stuffed full with cigarettes: Camel, Dunhill, Black and White, Super King, Piccadilly. The packs were heaped up on the desk.
“A girlfriend runs a kiosk,” he apologized.
“And what does the Herr Marquis smoke?”
“I seldom smoke,” he lisped in embarrassment.
“You haven’t got any cigarettes on you?”
The Marquis shook his head.
I sat back down behind the desk. We had to act. “Now we’re going to smoke for a half hour,” I decreed, “as much and as fast as we can. I’ll take the Camels, Lucky the Super Kings, and the Marquis the Dunhills for chrissake. Smoke the cigarettes down to where the brand can still be seen, then put them out, and all in the same ashtray. When we’re done we’ll each take the open pack with us.”
We puffed away as if our lives depended on it. We soon figured out to light four cigarettes at once, then let them burn down on their own. Outside the thunderstorm started rumbling away again, and the psalms came howling up from downstairs: “Crush, O Lord, our adder’s nest, shatter, Christ, our wealth ill-gained; Thee we slaughtered, of hopes the best, the Holy Ghost we have disdained.”
“I normally don’t smoke at all,” the Marquis groaned. He was feeling so queasy he seemed almost human.
A half hour later, the cigarette butts built a mound in the ashtray. The air was toxic, since we had kept the window closed. We left the room and ran down one flight of stairs, right into the arms of the police, but their visit was intended not for us but for the Saints of Uetli. Neighbors, desiring to go to hell unaccompanied by psalms, had complained. Fat old Stuber from the vice squad rattled the door, his two companions, cops from the beat, eyed us mistrustfully, we were well-known characters.
“My good Stuber,” I said, “you’re with the vice squad and saints are no concern of yours.”
“Just you take care of your own saints,” Stuber growled and let us pass.
“Shyster, hooker-shyster,” one of the cops from the beat called after me.
“The best thing would be to march right down to the precinct,” Lucky moaned. The police had demoralized him. The Marquis seemed to be praying for sheer terror. I had a hunch I had got myself into some ticklish business.
“Nonsense.” I bucked them both up. “Best thing that could have happened, having the police run into us.”
> “The umbrellas…”
“I’ll get rid of them later.”
The fresh air did us good. The rain had stopped. The streets were busy, and when we got to Niederdorfstrasse we went into the Monaco. Giselle was still there, Madeleine was gone (I know her name now), but in her place were Corinne and Paulette, the new girls in Lucky’s employ, just imported from Geneva, all three of them dolled up in their best, to match their prices, and with several tricks already behind them.
“The Marquis looks green around the gills,” Giselle cried out and waved. “What did you do to him?”
“We played poker for two hours,” I explained, “and made the Marquis smoke along with us. As punishment for thinking he could take you away from Lucky.”
“Je m’en suis pas rendue compte,” Paulette said.
“Deals are best done on the sly.”
“Et le résultat?”
“I’m your lawyer now,” I explained. That took Paulette by surprise. I turned to Alphons, the bartender. He had a harelip and was washing glasses behind the counter. I asked for whiskey. Alphons set three Sixty-nines in front of us. I chugged mine, told the bartender, “These gentlemen are paying,” and left the Monaco. I was barely ten steps from the door when I heard a car stop. I saw the commandant enter the bar with three detectives from the homicide squad. I slipped around the nearest corner and into the next bar. And I had a piece of good luck later too (for once at least): Stuber and the two cops were no longer in the house on Spiegelgasse when I returned an hour later. It was quiet, even the Uetli brethren must have made themselves scarce. I found both umbrellas behind the cellar door. I was just about to descend into the cellar to hide them there when I got another idea. I climbed the stairs. It was quiet at the door to the sect’s premises. It wasn’t locked; if it had been I would have opened it with the house key, which, as is often the case with old houses, fit all the doors.
I entered a vestibule. The only dim light came from the stairwell. Next to the door was an umbrella stand with several umbrellas. I put both damp umbrellas with the others, carefully closed the door, and climbed on up to my apartment. I turned on the light. The window was wide open. The commandant was sitting in the armchair.
“Somebody did a lot of smoking in here,” he said and glanced at the ashtray full of butts. “I opened the window.”
“Lucky and the Marquis were here,” I explained.
“The Marquis?”
“Some guy from Neuchâtel.”
“What’s his name?”
“I prefer not to know.”
“Henry Zuppey,” the commandant said. “When were they here with you?”
“From seven to nine.”
“Had it rained yet when they arrived?” the commandant asked.
“They arrived before the rain started,” I answered. “To keep from getting soaked. Why?”
The commandant regarded the ashtray. “Stuber from vice saw you, Lucky and the Marquis leaving your digs at nine. Where did you go from here?”
“Me?”
“You.”
“To the Höck. I had two whiskeys. Lucky and the Marquis went to the Monaco.”
“I know,” the commandant said. “I just arrested them there. But now I’m going to have to let them go. They have an alibi. They were here smoking with you. For two hours.” He regarded the ashtray again. “I have to believe you, Spät. A man who cares so much about justice doesn’t provide two murderers with an alibi. That would be absurd.”
“Who’s been murdered?” I asked.
“Daphne,” the commandant replied. “The girl who pretended she was Monika Steiermann.”
I sat down behind my desk.
“I know you know all about that,” the commandant said. “You paid a visit to the genuine Monika Steiermann, who then dumped the false one, and so Daphne Müller ended up working the streets. Without having made arrangements with Lucky and Zuppey. And now they found her dead in her Mercedes in a parking lot on Hirschenplatz. Around eight-thirty. She arrived at seven, but stayed in her car. It was raining cats and dogs. Well, Lucky and Zuppey have an alibi now and they didn’t have a weapon on them, and their raincoats were dry. I’ll have to let them go.” He fell silent. “A damned beautiful woman,” he then said. “Did you sleep with her?”
I didn’t answer.
“It’s of no importance,” the commandant remarked and lit one of his Bahianos, coughed.
“You smoke too much, Commandant.”
“I know, Spät,” the commandant answered. “We all smoke too much.” He looked at the ashtray again. “But I notice you have a certain amount of concern for me. Well, now I’m going to show a certain amount of concern for you: I’ve never come across such an enigmatic person as you. Do you have any friends at all?”
The Execution of Justice Page 12