have simply turned to the chief of a particular department in the Police Praesidium for information. Now, there was no question of it. The Chief of Gestapo, Erich Kraus — the right hand of the notorious chief of Breslau’s S.S., Udo von Woyrsch — hostile as he was to Mock, would sooner own up to being of Jewish descent than to pass even the tritest of rumours beyond the purlieus of his department.
How to obtain facts about Erkin and then arrest him was where Mock’s and Anwaldt’s plans — identical to this point — diverged. The Director’s thoughts tended to the chief of Breslau’s Abwehr, Rainer von Hardenburg; Anwaldt’s hopes focussed on Doctor Georg Maass.
Remembering the warning he had received that morning — that one of the telephonists was the lover of Kraus’ Deputy, Dietmar Fob — Mock left the police building and, crossing Schweidnitzer Stadtgraben, made his way to the square near Wertheim’s Department Store. Suffocating from heat in the glass telephone kiosk, he dialled von Hardenburg’s number.
In the meantime, Anwaldt, wandering through the Praesidium building, tried in vain to find his chief. Impatient, he resolved to take the decision into his own hands. He opened the door to the Criminal Assistants’ room. Kurt Smolorz was quick on the uptake and followed him into the corridor.
“Take one man, Smolorz, and we’ll go and get Maass. Maybe we’ll sit him in the dentist’s chair.”
Mock and Anwaldt simultaneously felt the heat turn tropical.
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 16TH, 1934
FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON
An indescribable mess reigned in Maass’ apartment. Anwaldt and Smolorz, tired after their hurried search, sat in the games room and panted heavily. Smolorz kept going to the window and peeping out at the drunk who, glued to the wall, swept his strangely sober eyes all around. Maass was not coming yet.
Anwaldt stared at the typing paper, covered in handwriting, which lay in front of him. It was something like an unfinished draft of a report, two chaotic sentences. On the top of the paper was written: “Hanne Schlossarczyk, Rawicz. Mother?” Underneath: “Investigation in Rawicz. Paid to Adolf Jenderko Detective Agency: 100 marks”. Anwaldt no longer paid attention to either the heat, or the sound of a piano upstairs, or the too-tight shirt which clung to him or even the throbbing pain caused by the extraction of the tooth nerve. He sunk his eyes into the sheet of paper and desperately tried to remember where, in the not too distant past, he had come across the name “Schlossarczyk”. He glanced at Smolorz, who was nervously shuffling the papers which lay on the cake platter, and emitted Archimedes’ cry. He knew: the name had appeared in the dossier of von der Malten’s servants, which he had gone through the previous night. He sighed with relief: Hanne Schlossarczyk would not be an unknown factor, as was Erkin. He muttered to himself:
“I’ll find everything out from the Adolf Jenderko Agency.”
“Pardon?” Smolorz turned from the window.
“Oh, nothing. I was simply thinking aloud.”
Smolorz peered over Anwaldt’s shoulder. He read Maass’ note and burst out laughing.
“What are you laughing at?”
“It’s a funny name, Schlossarczyk.”
“Where is the town of Rawicz?”
“In Poland, some fifty kilometres from Breslau, just across the border.”
Anwaldt fastened his loosened tie, put on his hat and glanced with distaste at his dusty shoes.
“You, Smolorz, and your pseudo-drunk are to take turns and sit in Maass’ apartment until he returns. When our scholar appears, please keep him here and inform Mock or myself.”
Anwaldt carefully closed the door behind him. After a while, he returned and looked at Smolorz with interest:
“Tell me then, why did the name Schlossarczyk make you laugh?”
Smolorz smiled, embarrassed.
“It reminded me of the word Schlosser — ‘locksmith’. Just think: a woman has the name ‘locksmith’. Ha, ha … what kind of a locksmith is that, without a key … ha … ha …”
BRESLAU, THAT SAME JULY 16TH, 1934
SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
Teichacker Park, behind Main Station, was seething with life at this time of day. Its coolness was sought by travellers changing trains in Breslau, and white-collar workers from the Railroad Administration, working overtime before their longed-for holiday in Zoppot or Stralsund; children made a noise by the ice-cream kiosks, servants made room for themselves on the benches using their huge bottoms as wedges, the less sick from Bethesda Hospital reclined, fathers of families, refreshed by a shower in the shower baths and time spent with newspapers in the reading room on Teichackerstrasse, smoked cigars and leered at the prostitutes lazily passing. A one-legged veteran played his clarinet outside Our Saviour’s Church. Seeing two elegantly dressed, middle-aged gentlemen taking a walk, he played a couplet from an operetta, expecting more generous alms from them. They left him behind with indifference. He heard only a fragment of one statement expressed in a fairly high, sure voice: “Alright, Criminal Director, we’ll check up on this Erkin.” The veteran adjusted his sign-board “Verdun — we will avenge” and stopped playing. The men sat on a bench vacated by two teenage boys, watching for a while as the boys in brown shirts and armed with shovels walked away. They were talking. The musician-beggar strained his ears. The falsetto of the very distinguished tall gentleman interwove with the bass murmurs of the shorter, stocky man in a suit of pale cord. The veteran’s excellent hearing easily picked out the high-toned lines which penetrated the street noise; the bass tones, on the other hand, were lost in the clatter of cabs, the roar of cars and the screech of trams rattling on the corner of Sadowa and Bohrauer Strasse:
“I’ll find out, if you wish, whether the man we’re looking for speaks … What? Ah, fine … Kurdish.”
“… ”
“My dear Criminal Director, our lamented Emperor Wilhelm already called Turkey his ‘Eastern friend’.”
“… ”
“Yes, yes. Military relations were always very much alive. Just imagine, my father was a member of the military mission led by General von der Goltz, who helped — probably in the ’80s — the modern Turkish army. Following him, Deutsche Bank marched triumphantly into Turkey and built the new section of the Baghdad Railway.”
“… ”
“And today, we Germans remember that in 1914 the highest spiritual leader of Islam declared a ‘holy war’ against our enemies. So it is not surprising that higher Turkish officers get their schooling from us. I knew some myself when I was in Berlin.”
“… ”
“Rest assured. I don’t know when, but I will certainly hand you that Erkin on a plate.”
“… ”
“Think nothing of it, Criminal Director. I rest in the hope that you will kindly repay me.”
“… ”
“Until we meet again in that pleasant place we both know so well.”
The veteran lost interest in the two men who were at that moment shaking hands for he had seen a group of tipsy teenage lads with rubber truncheons approaching. As they passed by, he played “
In the meantime, at Freiburgstrasse 3, Franz Huber, joint owner of the Adolf Jenderko Detective Agency, had suddenly stopped being mistrustful or refusing stubbornly to co-operate. In a flash, he had ceased wanting to see Anwaldt’s police identification, no longer wanted to call the Police Praesidium to confirm his identity, had stopped examining the detective from a Criminal Department staff which spread over eighteen police precincts under Breslau’s Criminal Police Station. Franz Huber had suddenly become very helpful and extremely polite. Staring into the black hole of a muzzle, he replied exhaustively to all the questions:
“What did Maass want exactly? What instructions did he give you?”
“He found out from the Baron’s old caretaker about the illegitimate child whom Olivier von der Malten had fathered with a chambermaid. The only woman who had served the Baron now lives in Poland, in Rawicz. She’s
