enveloped Mock.
“Are you going to help me or am I to ruin your career? Are you going to do everything I tell you or am I to call von Woyrsch and Kraus?”
“I’ll help you, but I don’t know how. What am I to do?” he replied without hesitation.
“That’s your first intelligent question.” Anger still trembled in the Baron’s voice. “Come into the drawing- room. I’ll introduce you to somebody.”
As the Baron opened the door to the drawing-room, two men sitting at a side table immediately stood up. The not too tall man with curly, dark hair looked like a teenager caught by his parents in the act of looking through pornographic illustrations. The younger, slim, auburn-haired man, had the same expression of weariness and satisfaction in his eyes as Mock saw in his own on Saturday mornings.
“Criminal Director,” the Baron addressed Mock. “Let me introduce Doctor Georg Maass from Konigsberg and Criminal Assistant of the Berlin Police, Herbert Anwaldt. Doctor Maass is a fellow at the University of Konigsberg and an eminent Semitologist and historian; Assistant Anwaldt a specialist in crimes of a sexual nature. Dear gentlemen, this is Chief of the Criminal Department of the Police Praesidium in Breslau, Criminal Director Eberhard Mock.
The men nodded to each other, after which — following the Baron’s example — they sat down. The host continued ceremoniously:
“In keeping with his courteous assurance, the Criminal Director will give you any help you need. Files and libraries stand open to you. The Criminal Director has kindly agreed to employ — as of tomorrow — Assistant Anwaldt in the establishment under his command as Official in Charge of Special Affairs. Am I right, Criminal Director?” — Mock, astounded by his implied “courtesy”, nodded — “Assistant Anwaldt, having access to all files and information, will commence a highly secret investigation into my daughter’s murder. Have I omitted anything, Criminal Director?”
“No, you have omitted nothing, Baron,” confirmed Mock, wondering how he would assuage his wife’s anger when she found out that she would be spending the first days of her holiday alone.
BRESLAU, SATURDAY, JULY 7TH, 1934
EIGHT O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING
A uniform heat prevailed over Breslau. The hollow in which Breslau lay roasted in streaks of burning air. Sellers of lemonade sat under parasols on street corners, in shops and other places rented out for the purpose. They did not have to advertise their goods. All were employing helpers who supplied them with buckets of ice from the stores. Fanning itself incessantly, the sweaty crowd filled the cafes and pastry shops on elegant Gartenstrasse. Musicians, soaked in sweat, played Sunday marches and waltzes on Liebichshohe where, under the spread of chestnut and plane trees, the weary middle class breathed the dusty air. Squares and parks were peopled with old folk playing skat and angry nursemaids trying to calm over-heated children. Older pupils, who had not yet left for the holidays, had long forgotten about
The policemen sat in the briefing room without their jackets, their collars loosened. The sole exception was Mock’s deputy, Max Forstner, who — although sweating in his rather too tight suit and stiff collar — did not allow himself even the appearance of informality. He was not much liked. The reason for this antipathy lay in the conceit and malice which he dealt out to his subordinates in small yet virulent doses. Here he would criticize someone’s cut of hat as being unfashionable, there pick on someone’s badly shaven stubble or stained tie, or dispute yet other trivialities, which — according to him — spoke ill of a policeman’s image. But this morning the heat deprived him of any arguments in all eventual dispute regarding his subordinates’ wardrobe.
The door opened and Mock came in, alongside him a slim, auburn-haired man of about thirty. The new policeman looked like a man who could not get enough sleep. He was stifling his yawns, but his eyes betrayed him with their tears. Forstner grimaced at the sight of the pale beige suit.
Mock, as usual, started by lighting a cigarette, an action repeated after their superior by almost all the men.
“Good morning, gentlemen. This is our new colleague, Criminal Assistant Herbert Anwaldt, who until recently was working with the Berlin Police. Assistant Anwaldt, as of today, is employed as Official in Charge of Special Affairs in our Criminal Department and is heading an investigation. He is responsible solely to me for its progress and results. Please execute his requests scrupulously. For the length of this investigation, Criminal Assistant Anwaldt is, in keeping with my decision, as good as your superior. This does not, of course, include Forstner.” Mock extinguished his cigarette and remained silent for a moment; his men knew that the most important item of the briefing was about to follow. “Gentlemen, if Assistant Anwaldt’s instructions momentarily deter you from your existing cases, leave those aside. Our new colleague’s case is, at the moment, of prime importance. That’s all, please return to your duties.”
Anwaldt looked around Mock’s office with curiosity. Try as he might, he could not find anything in this room that might express any individuality, that might bear any mark of the person occupying it. Everything had its place and was clean to the point of sterility. The Director suddenly unsettled the balance of all this paraphernalia — he removed his jacket and threw it across the back of his chair. Between the blue braces with their singular pattern (naked female bodies entwined in an embrace) proudly protruded a rather prominent belly. Anwaldt, pleased to finally discern a man of flesh and blood, smiled. Mock did not notice; he had just asked for two cups of strong tea over the phone.
“Apparently, it’s excellent for quenching thirst when it’s so hot. We’ll see …”
He passed Anwaldt a box of cigars. Unhurriedly and methodically, he cut the tip of one with a small pair of tweezers. Mock’s assistant, Dietmar Krank, laid a jug and some cups on the desk.
“Where would you like to start, Anwaldt?”
“Criminal Director, I have a suggestion …”
“Forget the formal address. We’re not as ceremonious as the Baron.”
“Of course, as you wish. I spent last night reading the case files. I’d like to know what you think of the following reasoning: somebody made a scapegoat of Friedlander,
“My dear man,” Mock laughed. He liked Anwaldt’s naive enthusiasm. “Exceptional, superhuman powers can occur quite often in epileptics, after a fit, too. All such behaviour is the result of mysterious hormones, which Friedlander’s physician, Doctor Weinsberg, elaborated to me in detail. I’ve no reason not to trust him.”
“Exactly so. You trust him. But I do not trust anyone. I have to see that doctor. Perhaps somebody told him to tell you about the extraordinary gifts of epileptics, dervishes’ trances and other such …” Anwaldt could not find the word, “other such nonsense.”
Mock slowly drank his tea.
“You’re very categorical, young man.”
Anwaldt drank half a cup in one go. He wanted, at all costs, to show the Director how confident he felt in matters such as these. And it was precisely self-confidence that he lacked. He was behaving, right now, like a little boy who has wet his bed in the night and, on waking in the morning, does not know what to do with himself. (I was
