“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.