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

there were so
many others listening, people refused to come out of their shell. He ought to take each of them separately,
then he could give them a real grilling. He looked from
one to the other. Blank faces. Behind them, at the small
table, Bohnenblust with the darned pullover and bushy
moustache was sitting, a contented expression on his
face, glad that he seemed to have been forgotten. He
was breathing so gently the wheezing from his chest
was no longer audible. Don't worry, thought Studer,
your turn will come. Perhaps, however, it won't be
necessary. He was still hoping things would turn out all
right. Though the fact that it was a man's voice ...

    "Tell me, Jutzeler, were you still in the vicinity of the
telephone while the Director was talking?"
    "Yes."
    "You didn't listen, of course. But you might have
noticed something? A change of tone in the Director's
voice, say?"
    Jutzeler thought, then nodded. "At first he was very
curt; he seemed to be furious and slammed the
receiver down. But it rang again straight away and the
Director answered. He smiled. . ."
    So Ulrich Borstli had spoken to two people on the
phone. It was starting to look as if this might be a murder investigation, even though at the moment it was
only the disappearance of a patient - Pieterlen - that
was on the agenda. Wasn't it still possible the Director
had simply taken himself off, gone on a trip somewhere? But there were so many things that contradicted that. Studer walked up and down the dormitory,
several pairs of eyes following him.
    Three doors in one of the longer walls. He tried the
handles - they were locked. To open them you needed
just a passkey, not a triangular key.
    "We have to get on, Studer," said Dr Laduner,
standing up. "I'll get the senior nurse ... Weyrauch, give the sergeant a passkey and a triangular key so he
can go where he likes. I assume you don't need to go to
the female ward, Studer?"

    Studer shook his head. "Just one more question. Is
Irma Wasem in the building?"
    It was the corpulent senior nurse who answered. "It's
her day off," he said, with a wink from behind his hornrimmed spectacles.
    So they'd discussed the case during the morning
reports, thought Studer, going over to the last door,
the one next to the raised cubicle with the bathtubs. It
was less than three yards from the side room. From the
other side came the hum of voices.
    "By the way," Studer asked, "do you happen to know
where Pieterlen's accordion is?"
    Jutzeler blushed, which looked rather odd, and
stammered a little as he answered in a low voice that
the accordion was not to be found.
    "Then I suppose Pieterlen will have taken it with
him, wherever he's gone," said Studer, shaking his
head. He simply could not picture this Pieterlen in his
mind, whom Laduner had described as a classic case. A
classic case! Why?
    "If you're going to stay in 0, Studer," said Dr
Laduner, "then I'll introduce you to my friend Schul. A
poet, is our Schiil. Not the most beautiful sight; a hand
grenade exploded right in front of him during the war.
Made quite a mess of his face. But he's a very intelligent man, I think you'll get on well with him. Also, he
was a great friend of Pieterlen, the vanishing patient."
    With demonstrative thoroughness, Studer took his
little notebook out of his pocket and wrote down:
Wasem, Irma, nurse,
    "How old was she?" he asked, and when Weyrauch
told him, he added: 22 years old.

     

Matto and the redhead
    Like all the corridors in the clinic, the main corridor
smelt of floor polish and dust. A narrower one
branched off to the right, leading to the kitchen. This
was painted a light blue and wasn't really a kitchen,
just a large room for washing up. There was a sink in
one corner, with hot and cold taps over it, and two
huge windows at right angles to each other, one looking out onto the central block, the other onto a lower
building in the middle of the courtyard with a chimney
rising up at