Vebekka did not seem even to be awake, but her hand moved closer to Hilda, and she said very softly: "Ma... angel."
While Helen was getting ready, the baron lit a cigarette, pacing the room, tormented by his wife's request. He picked up the late afternoon paper in the room, and a front-page article caught his attention: murdered man identified. He started to read the column. The man was called Tommy Kellerman, a dwarf, a circus performer, who had recently arrived in East Berlin from Paris. The Polizei requested anyone seeing Kellerman on or during the night of his murder to come forward.
Helen walked in refreshed and changed. Louis lowered the paper and smiled. "You look lovely!" He was about to toss the paper aside when he passed it to Helen. "Did you read this? A circus performer was murdered."
Helen glanced at the article.
"Yes, I was talking to one of the doormen, the hotel is only a few streets away from here. Apparently they have no clues, it happened late the same night we arrived. He was horribly beaten — the doorman was very keen to pass on all the gory details."
The baron put on his coat and said he would call down for a taxi. Helen opened the shutters to look at the weather, then felt a sense of déjà vu so strong she had to step back from the window... Helen saw Vebekka curled by the window. Helen recalled her exact words: "We have done something terrible"... and Helen remembered thinking she was referring to Louis. But now she recalled something else; she had seen a man, a tall man, passing in the street below. She was sure of it. "Good heavens, Louis, is there a description of the man they are looking for?"
Helen picked up the newspaper again, rereading the article. Something else jarred her memory, the word Paris leaped at her, and she turned to Louis.
"When we were at Dr. Franks's you said you remembered an incident with Vebekka and Sasha... something about a circus."
But Louis did not hear her, he was on the telephone. "There's a taxi waiting for us, I must tell Hilda we are leaving."
Hilda was told that should Vebekka awaken and need anything, she should call Dr. Franks. The baron thanked her profusely for being such a caring companion, and slipped some folded bills into her hand. She blushed, and replied that she was happy to look after the baroness. She added hesitantly: "I hope she will be helped by this Dr. Franks, that whatever demons torture and frighten her will be driven away."
The doorman ushered the baron and Helen into one of the regular hotel taxis: the same one that had just returned from the circus, having driven Ruda Kellerman back to her trailer. The driver kept up a steady flow of conversation about the price of the circus tickets, and said there were already lines of people waiting for them.
He was about to launch into telling them that an earlier occupant of his taxi was one of the star performers, but Helen and the baron began to speak to each other in French, ignoring him, and as he couldn't understand a word they said, he concentrated on driving to the address in Charlottenburg. It was a long drive, and he hoped the rain would hold off as they were about to get into the rush hour traffic. Suddenly, remembering that Ruda Kellerman had asked him to drive her the following day, he jotted down her name on his call sheet as he drove. The car swerved, but his passengers paid no attention. It was curious, he thought to himself, Ruda Kellerman had seemed just to want to stand outside the hotel. He'd watched her for a long time, standing almost as if she were listening to be called, a strange fixed expression on her face. She must have been waiting for someone, he thought.
Chapter 7
After Ruda Kellerman had identified her ex-husband at the morgue, Inspector Heinz returned to his run-down station in the slum area of East Berlin. He and Rieckert proceeded laboriously to type out all the information about the people they had interviewed.
Kellerman's immigration papers had not been found at Customs. All Torsen knew to date was that he had arrived from Paris, booked into the hotel, eaten a hamburger, and got himself murdered. Nobody seemed to have seen him, or seen anyone else enter his room, or leave it! Everyone who had known him from the circus felt his death was deserved. His ex-wife had not seen him since he had left prison, and was unable to describe the tattoo sliced from his left arm.
Rieckert put his typed report on Torsen's desk, and since it was almost one-thirty went to collect his raincoat.
Torsen watched him. "You know, a few nights we may have to work overtime on this..."
"I have a date tonight! You coming out for a sandwich?"
"No, but you can have a toasted cheese-and-tomato sent over for me, just one on rye bread — tell her I'll pay tomorrow."
Rieckert shrugged and walked out. Torsen completed his own reports, adding that the janitor from Kellerman's hotel should be questioned again. His stomach rumbled. He'd eaten nothing since breakfast, and he hoped Rieckert wouldn't forget his sandwich. He put the kettle on to make himself instant coffee and, waiting for the water to boil, he turned in his reports to the empty Polizei Direktor's office, and filed a second copy for the Leitender Polizei Direktor, who was away on holiday.
The coffee jar was virtually empty. He found some sugar, but no milk. He sighed, even thought about joining Rieckert when his cheese on rye was delivered, wrapped in a rather grubby paper napkin, but at least it was what he had ordered. He kept an eye on the delivery boy who hovered by the missing persons photographs, and not until he had left did Torsen return to his desk.
He chewed thoughtfully as he read the autopsy report. The heaviness of the blows indicated that more than likely they had been inflicted by a man — to have crushed Kellerman's skull took considerable force. Whoever killed Kellerman had also ground his false teeth into the carpet. A heel imprint, retained in the pile of the carpet, was still being tested at the lab. The print was of a steel-capped boot heel, again probably a man's because of the size. Samples of mud and sawdust found at the scene of the crime were also still being tested.
Torsen made a few notes:
a. Where did Kellerman go for his hamburger?
b. How many dwarfs performed at the circus?
c. Were any dwarfs missing from Schmidt's circus (just in case they lied about him not being employed there)?
d. Sawdust — was it from the circus?
e. Get the ex-Mrs. Kellerman to give a written positive ID so that burial may take place — (Rabbi).
f. Why was Tommy Kellerman in East Berlin?
Torsen wondered why Ruda still used Kellerman's name and not Grimaldi's. Then he remembered something that had been nagging at the back of his brain. He scrambled for his notepad and scrawled a memo to himself. "Check unsolved dossier — the wizard."
When Torsen's father had been detective inspector they had often discussed unsolved cases together. It had begun as a sort of test between the old policeman and his eager son, but the two men had eventually grown to enjoy discussing what they thought had happened, and why the case remained unsolved. One case they had nicknamed "The Wizard," because the murdered man had been an old cabaret performer. He too had been found brutally stabbed.
The Wizard — he could not even recall the man's real name — had been found in the Kreuzberg sector; he had been dead for many months, his decomposed body buried under the floorboards... and his left arm had been mutilated. It was suspected the mutilation had taken place because the discovery of a tattoo would have assisted police inquiries, might even have helped them identify him. They would have required a lot of assistance if his body had not been wrapped in a wizard's cloak. They had been able to trace him, but his killer had never been found.