under inquiry here. We should be very interested to hear about those, and anything else you have to tell us.’
Probst dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘I have come armed with all the relevant information, Sir Wilfred. The murders I’m about to describe have a distinct “signature”, one you may find familiar. Should that be the case, we are ready to offer any assistance we can in bringing this man to justice. I speak not only for my superiors in Berlin, but for the Bavarian police as well.’
‘The Bavarian police?’ Bennett was taken aback.
‘Yes, two of the murders I’m talking about were committed there. The other four were in Prussia. They took place in a period of a little over two years between December 1929, and April of this year, since when there have been none reported: none, that is, until we received word of your inquiry to the international commission.’
‘So there have been six in all?’ The assistant commissioner was still coming to terms with the grim figure.
‘Six, yes… though there may have been more.’ Probst lifted his glance to theirs.
‘Why do you say that?’ Holly spoke up.
‘For two reasons, Chief Superintendent. Firstly, this murderer hides the bodies of his victims afterwards, or attempts to. Our belief is he aims to leave a cold trail – to be well away by the time the body is found. So it may be there are other corpses still awaiting discovery.’ Probst shrugged. ‘Are there young girls missing, then, you ask me? Children unaccounted for? Sadly, the answer is yes, but the reasons for this are many, and not necessarily connected to this or any other criminal case.’ The inspector paused, his brow creasing in a frown.
‘I’m sure you’re all aware that my country has been through difficult times since the war ended. First, there was the collapse of our currency, next the Depression. We have had reparations to pay. All this is reflected in our political situation. German society has been disrupted, and one effect has been the breaking-up of families. We have seen begging… young people cast out on the streets. I need not go on. If this man was seeking victims unlikely to be missed he could hardly have chosen a better hunting ground than Germany in recent years.’
‘Yes, quite, Inspector…’ Bennett stirred uneasily beneath the Berlin policeman’s cool, unaccusing gaze. ‘But could you not give us some details about these murders? We need to decide whether they resemble our own cases.’
‘I believe they do.’ Probst’s reply was prompt. ‘Even from what little we have gleaned from your inquiry to Vienna, it seems almost certain we are dealing with the same killer. But I will let you decide this, Sir Wilfred.’ While he was speaking the inspector had produced a pince-nez of antique manufacture from his lapel pocket, which he donned now as he consulted the papers from his file, the gold-rimmed lenses, perched on the bridge of his nose, lending further colour to his schoolmaster’s air and making him seem older than he was.
‘The victims in Germany have all been young girls, aged between ten and thirteen. None had reached puberty. Rape and strangulation occurred in each case and were followed by an assault on the victim’s face in which, according to our pathologists’ findings, the same weapon, or an identical one, was used by the killer.’
‘A hammer, would that be?’ Sinclair put the question in a low voice.
‘Yes, an ordinary stonemason’s tool.’ Probst looked up. ‘It is the same with the victims here? Your query to the commission was not specific on that point.’
Before Sinclair could respond, Bennett intervened. ‘Our conclusions are very similar to yours. I think we can say there’s every likelihood we’re looking for the same man. We have two cases under investigation here. More of those later. Continue, if you would…’ He caught the chief inspector’s eye.
Probst bent to his file again. ‘What evidence we have been able to gather leads us to believe the children were picked up, usually on a road, and taken by car to the murder site, which presumably had been selected in advance. In the first two instances, the girls appeared to have been either choked or stunned into submission prior to the sexual assault. But in the four subsequent cases traces of chloroform were discovered in the lungs of the victims.’
The inspector looked up. ‘This evidence of a refinement in the killer’s technique, if I can put it that way, seemed particularly sinister to us, as no doubt it will to you. As policemen we are well aware of how dangerous such men become once they develop a method in which repetition predominates.’
He paused, moistening his lips, and then spent the next few moments rearranging the papers in his file. Observing him, Sinclair realized that the Berlin policeman’s dry, precise manner was to some extent a mask: that although engaging in a bald recital of facts, he was in reality deeply disturbed by what he was telling them.
‘Our first two killings took place in Prussia, neither of them very far from Berlin itself.’ Probst resumed his account. ‘The third occurred in Bavaria, in the Munich region. Unfortunately, the connection between these three murders was not noted at once. As I’m sure you know, Germany has no unified police force, nor any central organization like Scotland Yard, which can coordinate inquiries. The states and Lande act on their own account. Regrettably, we have been slow in exchanging information.
‘However, with the fourth and fifth murders, which were again in the vicinity of Berlin, it finally became clear that we were looking for a single killer and since then the Prussian and Bavarian authorities have been cooperating closely. And it was the sixth murder, in April this year, also in Bavaria, that provided us at last with a lead of some substance. Though I fear that whatever advantage we gained has turned out to be at your expense.’ He favoured his listeners with a wry look.
Bennett frowned. ‘I take it you mean this man has now transferred his activities to England?’
‘Yes, to us it seems likely that the inquiries we set in motion may have forced him to seek his victims elsewhere. But even here the situation is unclear.’ Probst tapped the table once more. ‘There is a mystery surrounding this man.’
In the silence that followed this remark the long drawn out, mournful note of a foghorn sounded from the river below. Sinclair sensed Bennett’s growing discomfiture at the direction the conversation was taking. He stepped in.
‘A lead of substance, you said. Tell us about that, Inspector. What happened with the last murder? In Bavaria, was it?’
‘Yes, the victim in this case was the child of a farmer in the Allershausen district, north of Munich. Her body was found in a wooded area not far from the main road. The crime came close to being witnessed. A woodcutter’s wife was walking through the forest and heard the child’s cries, followed by the sound of heavy blows. Guessing that some act of violence was taking place, she was on the point of running back to her house to seek help when she heard someone approaching. Terrified, she hid herself, lying face down, too frightened even to lift her eyes as whoever it was went by. When it was quiet again, she looked up and saw the figure of a man a little way off. He was on his knees, with his back to her, bending over a stream that the woman had just crossed herself. He was naked from the waist up.’
‘Naked!’ Arthur Holly came to life with a growl.
‘He had taken his shirt off…’ The inspector hesitated. ‘One must understand this woman’s state of mind at that moment. Complete terror would not be too strong a term to describe it. She saw only that his arms were spattered with blood and that he was washing himself off in the stream, both his arms and his chest, though of course she couldn’t see his front.’
‘Nor his face, either, I imagine?’ Sinclair sensed, rather than heard, Bennett’s faint sigh of relief at that point.
‘No, alas! A moment later she ducked her head down again and remained like that, unmoving, until she heard him coming back along the path where she lay, hurrying, but not running. Only when she was sure he was no longer anywhere near did she get to her feet and run back to her own house, which was a mile away.’ Probst looked up and caught Sinclair’s eye. ‘When we received a report of this incident from the Bavarian police – I mean those of us in Berlin who have been concerned with this investigation – we felt despair. It seemed a golden opportunity to identify our man had gone begging. But in fact the woman saw more than she realized.’
The chief inspector grunted. ‘I’ve known that happen,’ he remarked.
‘Under repeated questioning by Munich detectives this woman was able to add some crucial details to what she had first said. Interestingly, from the start she referred to the man she saw as a “Herr” – a gentleman, if you like – and finally it came out that the reason she thought so was because of his clothes. She had caught a glimpse of his jacket, which was on the ground beside him, with his shirt, and also his shoes, and they must have impressed her as being of good quality.’
Probst raised his hands in a weighing gesture. ‘It wasn’t much to go on, but the detectives went to work all the same. Since the murder took place near a main road – in fact, it’s the most direct route from Munich to Berlin –
