best bratwurst you have ever tasted, Doctor.'
I winced. The German chief of police was as trim as a dancer despite an astonishing capacity for dark beer and rich food, whereas I. . . . But Holmes urged me to accept, and so it was that I spent the better part of two hours with von Shalloway and returned to his office feeling much the better for it. Holmes was waiting in the anteroom.
'I had a delightful time in your files, von Shalloway. The good Hammer offered to take me to see Hublein, but I felt that Watson's presence would be beneficial. Medical opinion, you know.'
'Of course,' I said, belching slightly. 'By all means, let us be off to the crazy house.'
The facility for the criminally insane was adjacent to the city jail. Holmes suggested that I have a discussion with the doctor in charge while he inquired amongst the personnel as to Hublein and his attitude during his incarceration. Sergeant Hammer was taking us to the man's cell when I reported my findings.
'A model prisoner, Holmes. Makes no fuss and actually says nothing at all, symptomatic of his mental disorder. He has become a mute.'
'Save on certain rare occasions, usually at night, when peals of laughter come from his cell,' said Holmes. 'One attendant I spoke to described the sound as devoid of mirth and of a mechanical nature, interrupted only by pauses for air.'
I shuddered instinctively. 'The man is not dangerous, in any case.'
'But silent. The worst kind for our purposes.'
We were at the cell door now, which Hammer unlocked for us.
Heinrich Hublein was as von Shalloway had described him. He was sitting erect on the cot in his room, staring at the wall in front of him with small, button-black eyes. I noted that his mouth twitched, but he made no notice of our entrance. Hammer closed the cell door and stood by it, alert. Hublein was classified as non-dangerous, but we were in a mental institution, and a complete reversal of temperament was possible.
Holmes remained motionless, studying the figure on the cot and possibly waiting for him to register on our presence. In appearance Hublein seemed fragile, with a flat chest and delicate, pipestem bones. I felt that his nervous system and sensory tissue had relatively poor protection, a contributing cause to what I diagnosed as a breakdown followed by a deliberately enforced withdrawal from a world that was unbearable. He seemed the type that would react dramatically to a shock or a situation from which he demanded escape at all costs. Like many who have fled from reason, he was youthful-looking.
'Hublein?' It was Holmes using a soft tone in an inquisitive manner.
The man nodded slightly, as though we barely existed on the periphery of his existence.
'The famous entertainer?' continued the sleuth. There might have been a sudden flash in those dull eyes. I could not be sure.
'This really will not do,' said Holmes. His voice had a faint, chiding sound to it. 'They will never know what you did.'
Hublein's eyes slowly, reluctantly abandoned the wall, and an inch at a time his face turned in our direction, the rest of his slight body remaining motionless. It was like a diver allowing the buoyancy of his body to bring him to the surface. When his head had made a forty-five-degree turn, he seemed to be looking through us and beyond.
'They don't think you stole the tablets, you know. They certainly don't know about your great performance.'
The dark eyes came slowly into focus, regarding Holmes's expressive face and, I felt, actually seeing him for the first time. The sleuth's words seemed to have drawn him from another dimension.
'It's never been done before, you know. Nobody ever thought of it but you.'
There was a flicker of understanding now, of interest.
'How do you know?' His voice was husky, as though rusted from lack of use. I was conscious of Hammer stiffening. Words from Hublein had startled him.
'I am Sherlock Holmes.'
The thin-boned, delicate face was fastened on the sleuth, and he pushed a lock of dark hair off his narrow forehead.
'To use the machine against itself. A revolutionary concept.'
The lips twitched again, and a half-smile forced itself shyly onto the pale face with almost translucent skin.
'It was a good idea,' he admitted. His words came easier this time.
'But you must have had to practice. How did you learn to use the jimmy?'
Now there seemed an actual desire to speak, to explain, to indulge a starved vanity.
'They had diagrams of the tool in the files. Besides, you meet all kinds of people when you work in cabarets.'
'So you got some tips from a swag man. Also some instruction on how to use a glass cutter.' Holmes might have been a professor congratulating a student on good marks.
'I can do things with my hands. I started out working with puppets.'
'Before you took up female impersonating.'
Irritation flitted over Hublein's face. 'There was more money in the impersonating. I could sing in a high key and dance enough to get by. Men in the audience used to try to grab me. They felt like fools when I took off my wig.'
'But you never liked it.'
'No. People thought I was a freak.'
'So you wanted to do something truly dangerous. Be a Robin Hood.' Holmes corrected himself: 'William Tell.'
The veil was completely brushed aside from the eyes now. They glowed.
'It wasn't wooden puppets or cosmetics and wigs. It was exciting, no make-believe. The darkness, the silence, and the thrill when you got away and knew that you had done it. You'd fooled them.'
'Fooled everybody,' commented Holmes factually.
'But I was fooled in the end.' The thought was a bitter one, and the shutters of Hublein's eyes started to close again. I sensed he was beginning to drift back into the catatonic escape, but Holmes was alert to this danger as well.
'What about Frau Mueller? That was the finest touch.'
This bait proved irresistible, and the performer was with us again.
'That was easy. No one suspected me.'
'Because you always impersonated beautiful women.'
The small face nodded jerkily.
'Frau Mueller was a crone. I blackened several teeth. Her wig looked like frayed hemp. I penciled in lines and used a wart right here.' A slender finger indicated an area between chin and lips. 'One look at Frau Mueller was enough. She was an unpleasant sight. I had to give up the cabaret work, of course.'
'So that you could pose as a night cleaning woman at headquarters. Not being an old or arthritic woman at all but young and agile, you could fulfill the duties of the job and have some extra time to search through the Meldwesen files until you found the cards you wanted.'
'The first four robberies were trial runs. I wanted to do something big. Something that would be in the papers and that people would talk about for years.'
'So you decided to 'steal the act' of Shadow Schadie.'
Holmes's show-business colloquialism pleased Hublein. 'I had to practice for months. But finally I mastered the suction cups. I am very light, you see. That helped.'
'And you turned yourself into a veritable human fly.'
Hublein nodded. 'The papers were full of the purchase, by Mannheim, of the golden tablets. I thought that would be the great robbery, the one that would cause the most talk. The tablets were so valuable that I could sell them and retire. No more cabarets and no more Frau Mueller either. But they were white gold. No fence would touch them.'
There was anguish in Hublein's face now and the suggestion of moisture in his eyes.
'I'd done it. I'd worked so hard and planned so carefully and I had ended up with nothing. When the
