"What are you getting at, Adam?" he said, his voice like the whisper of a blade as it slides out of its sheath.
"I know what happened, Mathias. I know who killed Franz."
Mathias took a final pull on his cigarette, dropped the remnant on the ground, and crushed it with his shoe. “Ludwig killed Franz. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?"
I had been too nervous to smoke since I’d asked Mathias about his mother, and my cigarette had burned nearly all the way to my fingers. I flicked it away. “That’s what I thought yesterday, but I was wrong. I know the truth now."
"Are you sure about this, Adam? Because in that case, the Lageralteste might decide to kill you after all."
"Only if you tell him, Mathias, and I don’t think you will. Because then he might decide to kill you."
Mathias looked ready to tear my throat out. There was fire in his eyes, and his scar had turned purple. "Are you threatening me, Adam?"
"Not at all. I just want to know the truth. All of it."
"You better not be thinking of telling lies about me. I have an ironclad alibi, remember? I couldn't kill Franz."
"I don’t think you did. But you were involved."
"Involved? You think this was some kind of conspiracy?"
"That's exactly what it was."
"Let me guess—you think I hatched some plot with Rolf? That he lied about my alibi, is that it?"
"No. It wasn’t with Rolf."
"With whom, then?"
I told him.
Mathias laughed. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?"
"I don’t believe I have." And I told him who had killed Franz.
Mathias laughed again, but this time his laughter was brittle and unconvincing. For the first time, I saw the glint of fear in his eyes. "You have gone crazy.”
I shook my head. “It’s the only thing that makes sense."
"Why can't it be Ludwig, like you thought yesterday?"
"Because Ludwig had no real reason to kill Franz. I see that now. Franz was already out of his way. And Ludwig didn’t know the first thing about using a knife. But the biggest clue that Ludwig hadn’t done it was that he would never have taken the murder weapon with him. He would have left it by the body."
I paused to draw in a breath and try to slow my galloping heart.
"You see," I went on, "that’s the thing that bothered me the most from the start. I couldn't see a reason for the killer to take the murder weapon. You might say that a knife is a valuable thing to have here in Auschwitz, and you'd be right, but there's a problem with that explanation. You don’t know this, Mathias, but Franz was carrying two pieces of bread on his person when he died. A prisoner I know who came by the body that night took them. Which was what the killer would have done if he’d been a regular prisoner, the sort who couldn’t get a replacement knife easily. But the bread was still there."
Mathias said nothing. His lips were parted and his brow furrowed. I could tell he was making an effort to keep his expression as flat as usual, but he failed to banish a small quiver of anxiety from his face.
"You didn't know about the bread, did you, Mathias? Franz had planned on giving it to a prisoner he knew. Every few days he would bring that prisoner a single piece of bread. Only that day, he was going to give him two. There’s only one reason that explains why Franz would do so. He knew that would be the last time he would deliver the bread. Because he knew he was going to die that day.”
Mathias’s shoulders sagged, and I knew I had called it right.
"But something happened," I said. "The prisoner who was supposed to get the bread couldn’t meet Franz, so Franz died with the bread still on him. You didn’t know that, so when you took the knife, you left the bread where it was.”
Mathias shook his head, but it was a cursory gesture, with no real conviction behind it. "You’ve got it all wrong. I didn't take any knife. The first time I was at the murder scene was when I found the body the morning after Franz died. I have an alibi, remember? I was with the Lageralteste the entire evening, and before that I was with Rolf."
"You arranged that beautifully," I said. "You spent the afternoon with Rolf inspecting the camp, and later you got the Lageralteste so drunk that he passed out and didn't call Franz to his room. So Rolf and Otto thought Franz was with the Lageralteste, and you had the perfect alibi."
"Which means I couldn’t have taken any knife from the murder scene," he said.
"Yes, you could. Because you weren't with Rolf throughout that afternoon. There was a short time you were apart, and I know when it was."
"What are you talking about?”
"Do you remember Pista, the man with the bloody shirt? Rolf saw him get splattered with blood that afternoon when you and he were supposed to be together. But you didn't see it happen, did you? Otherwise, you would have said something when Rolf told the Lageralteste about it."
Mathias was quiet. He was barely even breathing.
I said, "The shooting that got Pista splattered happened not far from the latrines, just a short distance from the ditch where Franz had died. What happened is that you made some excuse and slipped behind the latrines to get the knife. It would have taken you no more than two or three minutes, and you figured that short interval wouldn’t be enough for Rolf to say that you two were ever apart. After all, he had an interest in giving you an alibi, because it meant he had one himself. And you weren’t gone long enough to kill Franz. Not without changing your clothes, which were free of blood."
Mathias said nothing. Fresh sweat beaded his forehead.
"It would have worked,” I continued, “if not for what happened to Pista. I’m guessing that by the time you came back from the ditch, the prisoner who got shot had already been dragged away, so you didn’t know it had happened until Rolf told us about it. Maybe you didn't hear the shot because an incoming train was blowing its whistle. Or maybe a selection was taking place on the train platform and all the shouting and screaming masked the report. Or maybe you did hear it but were too involved in what you were doing to pay it any mind. It’s not as though gunfire is all that rare around here. This is all pure conjecture, of course, but if I were to ask
Rolf, I’m positive it would evolve into a certainty."
"Even if I had gone to take a leak or something, it doesn’t mean I took the murder weapon,” Mathias said.
"Someone saw you do it. A muselmann called the Mumbler. Do you know who I’m talking about?"
Mathias didn't answer, but I could tell that he did.
"I guess you didn't see him, but he was there, and he saw you. The Mumbler's mind was very muddled, so the story he told me was pretty confused. He said he saw a knight in shining armor with a sword in his hand. A sword he quickly sheathed. That was you, putting the knife away as you were climbing out of the ditch."
"A knight? Why on earth would I be a knight?"
"Partly it was the knife, which the Mumbler remembered as a sword. And partly it’s your clothes. You’re dressed very well, very elegantly, compared to the rest of us. I think that's why the Mumbler imagined you as a knight in shining armor. He also said the knight had been to war. That's because of your scar, I think. In his befuddled mind, that translated to a war injury."
Mathias shook his head and gave a small chuckle. Some of his confidence had returned. "You're basing your case on what a half-witted muselmann said? Are you serious?"
"Completely. Let’s cut with the pretense, Mathias. I know you took that knife, and I know why you took it. Because it was the only way to make sure the Lageral-teste did not entertain the notion that Franz killed himself."