Death in Breslau Read Online Free PDF Page A

his men had questioned at least fiftybrothel residents. One of them had stated that she knew a professor who liked to pretend he was quartering her with a sword while shouting in some foreign language. The policemen were surprised that this information seemed to make no impression on their Chief. Thanks to statements made by Detective Reinhardt’s prostitutes, they drew up a list of fifteen sadists and fetishists careless enough to invite “little girls” into their own apartments. Seven of these were not at home and eight had cast-iron alibis: indignant wives, every one of whom had confirmed that their uglier halves had spent the whole of the previous night in the marital bedchamber.
    Mock thanked his men and designated them similar tasks for the following day. When they had said goodbye to him, none too pleased at the prospect of a working Sunday, he said to Forstner:
    “Please come and see me at ten. We’ll pay a certain well-known person a visit. Then you will visit the university archives. Don’t be surprised – they’ll be open. One of the librarians is on special duty tomorrow. You will make a list of all those who have had anything to do with Oriental Studies: from one-term students to doctors of Persian Studies and Sanskrit specialists. A propos , do you know what Sanskrit is?”
    Without waiting for a reply, Mock left his office. He walked along Schweidnitzer Stadtgraben towards Wertheim’s Department Store. He turned left into Schweidnitzer Strasse, passed the imposing statue of Wilhelm II flanked by two allegorical figures representing State and War, made a sign of the cross at the Church of the Sacred Heart and turned into Zwingerplatz. He walked past the local state school and dropped into Otton Stiebler’s coffee roasters. In the crowded room, dark with tobacco smoke and filled with a strong aroma, swarmed a fair number of aficionados of the black beverage. Mock entered the counting-room. The accountant immediately interrupted his sums, greeted the Counsellor and left, allowing him to talk freely over the telephone. Mock did not trust thepolice telephonists and often dealt with conversations demanding discretion from this receiver. He dialled the number of Mühlhaus’ home and, introducing himself, listened to the necessary information. Then he called his wife and justified his absence from dinner on account of an enormous work load.
    BRESLAU, THAT SAME MAY 13TH, 1933
HALF-PAST THREE IN THE AFTERNOON
    The Bishops’ Cellar in the Schlesischer Hof Hotel in Helmuth-Brückner-Strasse, in pre-Nazi times the Bischofstrasse, was famous for its exquisite soups, meat roasts and pork knuckle. The walls of the restaurant were decorated with oil paintings by the Bavarian painter, Edward von Grützner, depicting scenes from the somewhat unascetic lives of monks. Mock liked best the side room lit by a green, hazy light falling through the stained-glass window just below the ceiling. He came here very often at one time to surrender to dreams among rippling shadows, lulled by a subterranean silence, the quiet breath of the cellar. But the growing popularity of the restaurant had spoiled the sleepy atmosphere so enjoyed by the Counsellor. The shadows rippled still, but the slurping of the shopkeepers and storekeepers, as well as the yelling of the S.S. who swarmed the place of late, made the fictitious ocean waves fill Mock’s imagination not with solace so much as with silt and rough seaweed.
    The Criminal Counsellor was in a difficult situation. For several months now, he had observed worrying changes in the police. He knew that one of his best policemen, the Jew Heinz Kleinfeld, was regarded with disdain by many; one policeman, newly engaged by the Criminal Department, had refused outright to work with Kleinfeld, with the result that – from one day to the next – he had stopped working for the police. But that was at the beginning of January. Now Mock was not at all surehe would have thrown that Nazi out of