I came out of the church and stepped straight onto a number six heading south down Karlsplatz. I like trams. You don't have to worry about filling them up with gasoline, and it's safe to leave them parked down some insalubrious backstreet. They're great if you can't afford a car, and in the summer of 1949, there were few people, other than Americans and the Baron von Starnberg, who could. Also, trams go exactly where you want them to go, provided you're wise enough to choose a tram that's going somewhere near where you're going. I didn't know where Wolfgang Stumpff was going, or where he was coming from, but I figured there was a better chance of seeing him on one of those trams instead of some others. Detective work doesn't always require a brain the size of Wittgenstein's. I rode the number six as far as Sendlinger-Tor-Platz, where I got off and caught a number eight going the opposite way. It went up Barer Strasse, to Schwabing and I rode this one as far as Kaiser-platz and the Church of St. Ursula. For all I knew, there were more sculptures by Ignaz Gunther in there, too, but seeing a thirty- seven coming along Hohenzollernstrasse, I hopped on that one.
I told myself there was no point in riding each tram to its terminus. My chances of spotting Wolfgang Stumpff were improved by riding them around the center of Munich, where there were many more people getting on and off. Sometimes being a detective involves playing statistician and figuring out the probabilities. I rode them on top and I rode them down below. Up top was better because you could smoke, but it meant you couldn't see who was getting on and off inside, which was what people called that part of a tram that wasn't upstairs. It was nearly all men on top because nearly all men were smokers, and if women did smoke they preferred not to do it on a tram. Don't ask me why. I'm a detective, not a psychologist. I didn't want to take a chance that Stumpff wasn't a smoker, but I figured the baron's daughter would never have seen Stumpff if he had been upstairs on a tram. Not from the window of a Porsche 356--it was too low. She might have seen him on the top deck if she had been in a cabriolet, but never from a coupe.
Why am I going into such detail? Because it was these little, routine things that made me remember what it was like to be a cop. Sore feet, some sweat in the small of my back and on the inside of my hat, and exercising my peeper's eye. I had started to look at faces again. Searching apparently standard faces on the seat opposite for a distinguishing characteristic. Most people have one if you look hard enough.
I almost missed him coming downstairs. The tram had been full inside. He had intense dark eyes, a high forehead, thin mouth, chin dimple, and a canine nose that he carried in a way that made you think he was on the scent of something. He reminded me a lot of Georg Jacoby, the singer, and, for a brief moment I half expected him to break into 'The Woman Who's My Dream.' But Wolfgang Stumpff's distinguishing characteristic was easy. He was missing an arm.
I followed him off the tram and into Holzkirchner railway station. There he caught a suburban train south to Munchen-Mittersendling. So did I. Then he walked about a mile west along Zielstattstrasse to a pleasant, modern little villa on the edge of some trees. I watched the house for a moment and then saw a light go on in an upstairs room.
I didn't care if Vincenz von Starnberg spent twenty years in Landsberg or not. I didn't care if they hanged him in his cell with weights tied to his ankles. I didn't care if his father died of a broken heart. I didn't care if Stumpff was inclined to give his old university comrade a character reference or not. But I rang the doorbell all the same, even though I had told myself I wouldn't. I wasn't going to make a pitch for the sake of SS Sturmbannfuhrer von Starnberg, or for his father the baron. No, not even for a thousand marks. But I didn't mind making a pitch for the sake of the peach. Being considered as some kind of angel in the pale blue eyes of Helene Elisabeth von Starnberg was something I could live with.
SIX
Three days later I received a certified check drawn against the baron's personal account at Delbruck & Co. for one thousand deutschmarks. It had been a while since I'd made any real money of my own, and for a while I just left the check on my desk so I could keep my eye on it. From time to time I picked it up and read it again, and told myself I was really back in business. Feeling good about myself lasted for the whole of one hour.
The telephone rang. It was Dr. Bublitz at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. He told me that Kirsten was ill. After developing a fever her condition had worsened and she had been transferred to the city's General Hospital, near Sendlinger-Tor-Platz.
I ran out of the office, jumped on a tram, then hurried across Nussbaum Gardens to the Women's Clinic on Maistrasse. Half of it looked like a building site; the other half looked like a ruin. I walked through a gauntlet of cement mixers, around a redoubt of new bricks and timber, and up the stone stairs. Builder's dust ground under the soles of my shoes like spilled sugar. Hammering echoed loudly in the hospital stairwell with monotonous force, as if some prehistoric woodpecker was making a hole in an even larger tree. Outside, a pair of jackhammers were finishing a battle for the last foxhole in Munich. And someone was drilling the teeth of a very long-suffering giant while someone else was sawing off the leg of his even more long-suffering wife. Water was splashing into the courtyard outside, as if in some subterranean cavern. A sick coal miner or injured steelworker would have appreciated the peace and quiet of that place, but for anyone else with eardrums, the Women's Clinic sounded like hell with all the windows open.
Kirsten was in a small private room off the main ward. She was feverish and yellow. Her hair was matted against her head as if she had just washed it. Her eyes were closed and her breathing rapid and shallow. She looked extremely ill. The nurse with her was wearing a face mask. From what I could see of her face it looked like a good idea. A man in a white coat appeared at my elbow.
'Are you the next of kin?' he barked. He was stout, with a center part in his fair hair, rimless glasses, a Hindenburg-size mustache, a stiff collar you could have cut corns with, and a bow tie off a box of chocolates.
'I'm her husband,' I said. 'Bernhard Gunther.'
'Husband?' He searched his notes. 'Fraulein Handloser is married? There's no record of that here.'
'When her family doctor referred her to the Max Planck, he forgot about it,' I said. 'Maybe we didn't invite him to the wedding, I don't know. These things happen. Look, can we forget all that? What's wrong with her?'
'I'm afraid we can't forget it, Herr Gunther,' said the doctor. 'There are regulations to be considered. I can only discuss Fraulein Handloser's condition with her next of kin. Perhaps you have your wedding certificate with you?'
'Not with me, no,' I said, patiently. 'But I'll bring it with me next time I come here. How's that?' I paused and endured the doctor's indignant scrutiny for a moment or two. 'There's no one else but me,' I added. 'No one else will be visiting her, I can assure you of that.' I waited. Still nothing. 'And if all that leaves you uncomfortable then answer me this. If she's unmarried, why is she still wearing a wedding ring?'
The doctor glanced around my shoulder. Upon seeing Kirsten's wedding ring still on her finger, he searched his notes again as if there might be some clue as to the proper course of action to be taken. 'Really, this is most irregular,' he said. 'However, given her condition, I suppose I will have to take your word for it.'
'Thank you, Doctor.'
His heels came together and he nodded curtly back at me. I was quickly getting the impression that he had obtained his medical degree at a hospital in Prussia, somewhere they gave out jackboots instead of stethoscopes. But in truth it was a common enough scene in Germany. German doctors have always regarded themselves as being as important as God. Indeed, it's probably worse than that. God probably thinks he's a German doctor.
'My name is Dr. Effner,' he said. 'Your wife--Frau Gunther--she is extremely ill. Gravely ill. Not doing well. Not doing well at all, Herr Gunther. She was transferred here during the night. And we're trying our best, sir. You may be assured of that. But it's my opinion that you must prepare yourself, sir. Prepare yourself for the worst. She may not survive the night.' He spoke like a cannon, in short, fierce bursts of speech, as if he had learned his bedside manner in a Messerschmitt 109. 'We will make her comfortable, of course. But everything that can be done, has been done. You understand?'
'Are you saying she might die?' I asked, when, at last, I was able to get a shot back at him.
'Yes, Herr Gunther,' he said. 'I am saying that. She is critically ill as you can see for yourself.'
'What on earth's wrong with her?' I asked. 'I mean, I saw her only a few days ago and she seemed fine.'
'She has a fever,' he said, as if this was all the explanation that was required. 'A high fever. As you can see, although I don't advise you to get too close to her. Her pallor, her shortness of breath, her anemia, her swollen glands--these all lead me to suppose that she has a bad case of influenza.'
