Death in Breslau

past.

Nicotine always clarified Mock’s mind. And so it was now: a brilliant idea came to him — the perpetrator commits suicide in his own cell and a speedy funeral follows. (The Nazis will not then be able to force me to prepare the criminal’s anti-German biography. I will tell them that he is already dead and I have no time to play at bureaucracy and invent protocols of interrogation. I will also be justified vis-a-vis the Lodge because even if Hitlerite newspapers concoct the appropriate curriculum vitae for him, I will truthfully say I had nothing to do with it.) That would save him.

A moment later, however, he grew dispirited; he had not taken into account another disagreeable eventuality: what would happen if he simply failed to find the murderer?

The waiter stood a litre, stoneware tankard of Kipke beer before him. He was on the point of asking whether, perhaps, the Counsellor needed anything else when the latter turned his unseeing eyes on him and said emphatically: “If I don’t find that bastard, I’ll create him myself!” Paying no attention to the surprised waiter, Mock grew thoughtful: the faces of possible murderers began to flit in front of his eyes. Feverishly he wrote several names on the napkin.

He was interrupted in this catalogue by the person he had arranged to meet. S.A.-Hauptsturmfuhrer Walter Piontek of the Gestapo looked like a good-natured innkeeper. He squeezed Mock’s small hand with his enormous, beefy paw and sat down comfortably at the table. He ordered the same as Mock — pike with spicy crudites of turnip. Before getting to the point the Counsellor composed a character profile of his interlocutor: an overweight Brandenburgian, bare, freckled skull pasted down with clumps of red hair, green eyes, beefy cheeks; a lover of Schubert and underage girls.

“You know everything,” he said without introduction.

“Everything? No … I know no more than that man over there …” Piontek indicated a man reading a newspaper. On the first page of the Schlesische Tageszeitung could be seen a huge headline: Baron daughter’s death in Breslau-Berlin train. Counsellor Mock in charge of investigation.

“Much more, I should think,” Mock rounded up the last piece of crunchy pike with his fork and drank the remainder of his beer. “Off the record — I’m asking you for help, Hauptsturmfuhrer. There is no greater expert on religious sects and secret organizations in the whole of Breslau, maybe the whole of Germany. The symbolism is clear to you. I am asking you to find an organization which uses the symbol of a scorpion. All your wisdom and advice will be welcome and most certainly reciprocated in the future. After all, the Criminal Investigation Department — and I personally — have also information at our disposal which might be of interest to you.”

“Do I have to yield to the requests of higher C.I.D. officials?” Piontek smiled broadly and half-closed his eyes. “Why should I help you? Is it because my chief and yours are on first name terms and play skat every Saturday?”

“You aren’t listening to me, Hauptsturmfuhrer.” Mock did not intend to lose his temper any more that day. “I am offering you something profitable: an exchange of information.”

“Counsellor,” Piontek devoured his pike with gusto. “My chief told me to come. I am here. I have eaten some tasty fish and carried out my chief’s instructions. Everything is in order. The case is no concern of mine whatsoever. There, you see,” he pointed a fat finger at the page of the paper spread out in front of him: Counsellor Mock in charge of investigation.

Mock bowed once again in his thoughts to his old chief. Criminal Director Muhlhaus was right — Piontek was a man who had to be stunned and made breathless. Mock knew that any attack against Piontek would involve great risk, which is why he still hesitated.

“Did your chief not ask you to help us?”

“He did not even suggest it,” Piontek’s lips were stretched into a smile.

Mock took a few deep breaths and felt the sweet sense of power gather within him.

“You will help us, Piontek, with all the strength at your command. You’ll set every last grey cell to work. If needs be, you’ll study in the library … And do you know why? Because it is not your chief who’s asking for this, or Criminal Director Muhlhaus, or even I myself … You are being implored by the delightful eleven-year-old hussy, Ilsa Doblin, whom you raped in your car, paying her drunken mother generously; you are being asked by Agnes Harting, that chatterbox with bunches whom you embraced in Madame le Goef’s boudoirs. You even came out quite well on the photographs then.”

Piontek’s broad grin never wavered.

“Give me a few days,” he said.

“Of course. Please contact no-one but me. It is, after all, Counsellor Mock in charge of the investigation.”

II

BRESLAU, SUNDAY, MAY 14TH, 1933

TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING

Baron Wilhelm von Kopperlingk occupied the two top floors of the beautiful, art-nouveau, corner building on Uferzeile 9, not far from the Engineering College. In the doorway stood a young butler with gentle eyes and studied manners.

“The Baron is awaiting you in the games room. Please follow me.”

Mock introduced himself and his assistant. The Baron was a slender and very tall man of about forty, with the slim, long fingers of a pianist. The hairdresser and the female manicurist had only just taken their leave. The Baron tried to draw the Counsellor’s attention to the results of their labours by performing numerous gestures with his hands — but in vain. Because Mock was not watching the Baron’s hands. He was looking around with interest at the enormous room. His attention was drawn to various details of the decor in which he could not make out any sense, detect any central idea, any predominant feature, not to mention style. Nearly every piece of furniture contradicted the purpose of its existence: the wobbly gold chair, the armchair from which grew a huge steel fist, the table with embossed Arabian ornaments rendering it impossible to stand even a glass on it. The Counsellor did not know much about art, but he was sure that the enormous paintings depicting the Lord’s Passion, the danse macabre and orgiastic cavortings were not the work of a person in their right mind.

Forstner’s attention, on the other hand, was drawn to three terrariums full of spiders and myriapods. They stood on metre-high legs by the French windows leading to a balcony. A fourth terrarium next to the blue-tiled stove was empty. It was home, usually, to a young python.

The Baron finally managed to attract the policemen’s attention to his manicured hands. They noticed, with surprise, that he was using them to lovingly caress that very python, which was now wrapped around his shoulder. The servant with beautiful eyes set out the tea and shortbread on an art-nouveau plate with a stand in the shape of a ram’s horns. Von Kopperlingk indicated some soft, Moorish cushions scattered on the floor to the policemen. They sat down, cross-legged. Forstner and the servant exchanged quick glances, which did not escape either Mock’s or the Baron’s attention.

“You have an interesting collection in the terrariums, dear Baron,” Mock panted as he got up again from the floor to inspect the specimens. “I never thought myriapods could be so large.”

“That’s a Scolopendra gigantea,” the Baron said with a smile. “My Sarah is thirty centimetres long and comes from Jamaica.”

“It’s the first time I’ve seen a scolopendra.” With relish, Mock inhaled the Egyptian cigarette handed to him by the butler. “How did you bring this specimen in?”

“There’s a middle-man in Breslau who — to order — imports various, all sorts of …”

“Vermin,” Mock cut in. “Who is it?”

On a sheet of letter-paper decorated with his family crest, von Kopperlingk wrote a name and address: Isidor Friedlander, Wallstrasse 27.

“Do you also rear scorpions, Baron?” Mock did not stop watching the scolopendra harmoniously shift the segments of its torso.

“I used to have several at one time.”