Death in Breslau Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 toprepare 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-à-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.-Hauptsturmführer 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 crudités 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 ofcrunchy pike with his fork and drank the remainder of his beer. “Off the record – I’m asking you for help, Hauptsturmführer. 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, Hauptsturmführer.” 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 Mühlhaus 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