Phantoms of Breslau Read Online Free PDF Page B

crime and then, on Mühlhaus’ orders, had been present at the postmortem and taken down minutes of the proceedings. Smolorz and Mock settled on either side of their chief, Councillor Ilssheimer, while to the right and left of Mühlhaus sat his own most trusted colleagues: Kleinfeld and Reinert. Tea in Moabit porcelain was set out in front of the men.
    “This is what happened, gentlemen,” Lasarius began as he extracted a cigar from a tin carrying the logo of Dutschmann tobacconist’s. “At about midnight, what was probably a horse’s dose of drugs entered the bodies of these four sailors, all aged between twenty and twenty-five. This is indicated by traces of opium on their fingers. There was so much it could have put them to sleep for a good many hours. As a result it acted as an anaesthetic while their limbs were being broken. Let us add that allthese men were, most likely, drug addicts, as demonstrated by their emaciated bodies and numerous scars along their veins. One of them had even injected morphine into his penis … So nobody would have had much trouble persuading them to smoke a pipe containing a large quantity of opium.”
    “Were they homosexuals?” Kleinfeld asked.
    “An examination of their anuses does not support this theory.” Lasarius did not like to be interrupted. “We can be certain that none of them had anal intercourse over the past few days. Returning to my interrupted train of thought … At about midnight, while they were under the influence of the drug, their eyes were gouged out and their arms and legs broken. The perpetrator broke sixteen limbs, all more or less in the same place, at the knee joint and the elbow joint.” Lasarius passed the police officers an anatomical atlas and pointed to the elbows and knees on an ink drawing of a skeleton. “I’ve already mentioned that the contusions are the imprints of a shoe …”
    “Could it be a shoe with a print like this?” This time it was Reinert who had interrupted. “I made this drawing at the scene of crime.”
    “Yes, it’s possible,” Lasarius said without bridling at the policeman. “These contusions are the result of significant pressure, conceivably applied by somebody wearing shoes jumping on their limbs. Gentlemen” – he drew on his cigar and extinguished it in an ashtray, scattering sparks – “it is as if the murderer jumped onto their arms and legs while they were propped on a bench, stone or some other object …”
    “But surely that was not the cause of their death?” Mock asked.
    “No, I’m just going to read you my findings,” Lasarius sighed with evident annoyance. He began: “The cause of death was stab wounds to both lungs as well as a haemorrhage of the left pulmonary cavity and a clot in that same cavity.” Lasarius looked at Mock and said in a hoarse voice: “The murderer stuck a long, sharp instrument between their ribsand then practically pierced the lungs all the way through. They would have been in agony for several hours. Now, please ask your questions.”
    “What kind of instrument could that have been, Doctor?” Mühlhaus asked.
    “A long, sharp, straight knife,” the pathologist replied. “Although there is another instrument which seems even more likely to me …” He passed his hands – their skin devoured by chemicals – over his bald pate. “No, that would be absurd …”
    “Go on, Doctor!” Mock and Mühlhaus shouted almost simultaneously.
    “Those men’s lungs were pierced with needles.”
    “What sort of needles?” Kleinfeld leaped from his chair. “Needles for knitting socks?”
    “Exactly.” Lasarius hesitated briefly, then formed an elaborate conditional sentence: “Were I to examine these remains in the context of a medical error, I would say that some quack had made a bad job of tapping their lungs.” Lasarius slipped his cigar stump into his waistcoat pocket. “That’s exactly what I’d say.”
    Silence descended. The steady, powerful voice of an