In Matto's Realm: A Sergeant Studer Mystery by Friedrich Glauser Read Free Book Online

about half
past two. Then I pressed the alarm bell and Jutzeler
and Hofstetter and Gilgen came. Through the middle
door, which was still locked, as were the other two. And
my passkey and my triangular key were still in my
pocket."
    Once more Laduner turned to Studer with an
explanation. "To open the doors, our nurses have a
passkey and a triangular key. When they leave they
hand in their keys to the porter - at least they're supposed to. But half the time they just keep them in their
pockets, so they can get in if they happen to come back
late because they've been playing a few too many rubbers of jass down in the village ... Isn't that so,
Jutzeler?"
    The litany he has to go through every time!
thought Studer. We'll never get anywhere like this.
Five medics - the two assistants, the two women, Dr
Laduner - were they all blind? Had they never seen
the marks caused by a blow to the head? Without
wanting to boast, he, Sergeant Studer, only had to
glance at the bump on Bohnenblust's head to know
what he was dealing with. He'd bashed his "noddle"
against something, the edge of a table, a door, a cupboard, a projecting wall even. But he had certainly
not been hit.
    Should he keep his head down and let the oh-soclever Dr Laduner get on with his game of questionand-answer in peace?
    "And the noise didn't wake Schmocker, then?" Dr
Laduner asked. "You lay there unconscious in the next
room for two hours and Herr Schmocker did not wake
up? No one in the dormitory noticed anything? You know there are a few patients there who don't sleep
well - they didn't notice anything?"

    Studer decided to intervene. They were never going
to get anywhere like this. "I think we can leave that for
the moment. If you're agreeable, I'd like to try and
form an overall picture of the affair. Could I see the
room Pieterlen shared with Schmocker?"

    Studer got up and went into the next room. Two
windows. One looked out into the garden, the other
onto the two storeys of D1. Two beds. A dozen charcoal
sketches on the walls: heads, male, strangely stiff, obviously drawn from photographs; ghostly looking trees; a
large head, like something out of a dream, with a wide
mouth, froglike. And the head of a girl ...
    The head of a girl. Chocolate-boxy, like those postcards people like to send to their boy- or girlfriends.
But it was clear that it hadn't been drawn from a
photograph. One by one Studer pulled out the four
drawing pins, folded up the picture and put it in his
pocket. Then he lifted first one mattress, then the
other. Underneath the second he found a square piece
of some tough, grey material. He picked it up, feeling
the texture between his fingers. It was firm. Studer
shook his head and put the piece of cloth in his
pocket. There was nothing else of interest in the room.
One drawer he pulled out contained pencils, sticks of
charcoal, chalk, a bottle of fixative ... He went back
into the dormitory.
    The others had not moved an inch, apart from
Neuville, who was practising a difficult tango step,
turning and going forward at the same time. He
couldn't quite master it, his weasel face was screwed up
in an earnest frown.

    "This piece of cloth," Studer said, "can anyone say
where it comes from?"
    It was Jutzeler, the slim staff nurse, who answered
first. He was surprised, he said, that the sergeant had
found that scrap of cloth. Did he consider it significant? It came from one of the linen sheets they used in
D1 for patients who liked to tear everything up. Pieterlen had been given part of one - quite a large piece, by
the way - to dry his paintbrushes. Why was the sergeant
so interested in it?
    No reason, Studer replied, apart from the fact that
he had found it underneath the mattress, in the middle, fairly well hidden. Perhaps there was nothing to it.
    "But let's get on. Pieterlen was at the harvest festival
yesterday?"
    "Yes."
    "How long did it go on for?"
    "Until midnight," Jutzeler said, crossing