Self's Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

think he did, otherwise he’d never have left me standing there.”
    “When was this?”
    “Just now.”
    I put another call through to the bank, but was again told that Herr Welker was away. Now my curiosity was piqued, and I drove over to Schwetzingen. The sun was shining, the snow was gone, and little snowdrops were blossoming in the gardens. Spring was in the air. On the Schlossplatz in Schwetzingen the first strollers were out and about; young men casually draped their sweaters over their shoulders, and the girls’ short blouses revealed their navels. The cafés had put out a few tables where people with warm coats could sit.
    I sat outside until the sun disappeared and it grew colder. I smoked and drank tea, Earl Grey, which goes well with my Sweet Afton cigarettes. I could see everyone who entered or left the bank, and all the bustling about in the large office area on the second floor: the back-and-forth, people getting up and sitting down. In Welker’s office the metallic chain curtains were drawn shut, revealing nothing. But as I got up to go inside the café to sit by the window, the curtains parted and Welker opened the window, leaned on the sill, and looked out over the square. I darted into the café, from where I could see him gazing into the distance. He shook his head, and after a while closed the window. The curtain was drawn shut again and the lights went on.
    There weren’t many pedestrians in the streets. The bank’s few customers mostly pulled up in their cars; they drove up to the gate, which swung open to let them in, and about half an hour later let them out again. At five o’clock, four young women left the bank, and at seven, three young men. In Welker’s office the lights remained on till nine thirty. I worried that I might not make it to my car fast enough to be able to tail him. But I stood on the square waiting in vain for the gate to swing open and for him to drive out or to emerge from the door within the gate. The bank lay in darkness. After a while I sauntered across the square and around the block. I didn’t find another entrance to the bank, but from a neighboring yard that was accessible from the street I got a rear view of the bank’s roof. It had been built out, and the windows and balcony door were brightly lit. I could make out paintings on some of the walls, and I could tell that the curtains were made of fabric. These weren’t more offices; this was an apartment.
    I didn’t head back home right away. I called Babs, an old girlfriend, a German-and French-language teacher. She never went to bed before midnight.
    “Sure, come by,” she said.
    She was grading papers, sitting over a second bottle of red wine and a full ashtray. I told her all about my case and asked her to contact a detective agency in Strasbourg for me and have them look into lawyers bearing the initials
C
,
L
, or
Z
who had lived in Strasbourg between 1885 and 1918. I don’t know any French.
    “What’s the name of the detective agency?”
    “I’ll let you know tomorrow morning. I once worked with them on a case back in the early fifties. I hope they’re still there.”
    “How did you manage to get by without knowing French?”
    “The guy I was working with knew German. But he was already of a certain age, so he can’t possibly still be with us. A young man from Baden-Baden had gotten involved with the Foreign Legion—he’d been abducted, by all accounts—and we managed to find out his whereabouts. It wasn’t us, though, who got him out. Heaven and earth had to be set in motion, ambassadors and bishops. We did, however, give thought to how we might give it a try. Can you imagine a German-French commando going out on a mission just a few years after the war?”
    She laughed. “You miss the old times? When you were young and strong and on a roll?”
    “On a roll? Even during the war I wasn’t on a roll, let alone afterward. Or do you mean I’m preoccupied with growing old? In the past I used