The End of the World in Breslau by Marek Krajewski Read Free Book Online Page B

with pure pleasure washed away the stubborn aftertaste of nicotine. True to the maxim primum edere deinde philosophari , † he thought neither of Sophie nor of the investigation, and got to work on the dumplings drenched in sauce and the thick slices of roast meat.
Before long Mock sat smoking a cigarette, an empty glass and a wet tankard with froth dripping down its sides in front of him. He reached fora napkin, wiped his lips, pulled a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket and began to fill it with nervy, slanting writing.
“Two macabre crimes. One murderer?” he wrote. In his mind he answered his own question in the affirmative. The fundamental argument supporting this hypothesis was neither the cruelty of both crimes nor the degenerate extravagance of the murderer, but his attachment to dates, his desire to mark the day of the crime in a calendar, his attempt to write his deed down in history. As Mock had been informed by Doctor Fritz Berger, Head of Evidence Archives and an expert in forensic science, the page found on Gelfrert dated September 12th, 1927, had been torn from the victim’s wall calendar. Doctor Lasarius had suggested that this might have been the date of Gelfrert’s death. A pocket diary had been found that day in the room of Berthold Honnefelder, a twenty-two-year-old unemployed locksmith; the murderer had scored through the date November 17th with the victim’s blood. Doctor Lasarius had no doubts whatsoever that this was when Honnefelder had died. “And so two men, both sadistically murdered, are found,” thought Mock, as if explaining to an imaginary opponent in his mind. “Next to each, the date of death is found marked in a calendar. If, on the scene of two equally elaborate murders, a rose, a page from the Bible or from a calendar has been left, then the perpetrator of both is one and the same person.”
Mock gratefully accepted a slice of apple cake, a coffee and a glass of cocoa liqueur from Max. There was nothing in the preliminary reports and findings to link the walled-in alcoholic and virtuoso French horn player, supporter of the Brown Shirts and amateur historian, with the quartered teetotal communist activist. Nothing, that is, apart from the date of death, clearly and eagerly given by the murderer. “The murderer wants to tell us: ‘I killed him on precisely this day. Not a day earlier, nor later. Right then’,” Mock thought, swallowing the delicious cake with its duvet of whipped cream. “Let us therefore assume that the victim is incidental; only the day on which he died is not incidental. Question: why is it not incidental? Why does the murderer kill on some days and not on others? Perhaps he is simply waiting for a favourable opportunity: when it becomes possible, for example, to convey a bound man past a drunken caretaker to his place of execution. And then, triumphantly, he leaves a note as if to say: ‘Today is a big day. Today I was successful.’ But to all intents and purposes, an opportunity presents itself at every step. One can kill on any day, stick a page from a calendar onto the victim’s forehead, wall him in somewhere or chop him up. And if that opportunity is not out of the ordinary, then is it worth proudly proclaiming to the world when it took place?”
Mock carefully wrote his thoughts down in his notebook and realized he had arrived once more at his starting point. He was not, however, depressed. He knew he had clarified the field of his search and was ready to conduct the investigation. He felt the excitement of a hunter who, in the clear, brisk, fresh air, loads his double-barrelled shotgun and buckles on his cartridge belt. “Old Mühlhaus was wrong,” he thought. “We don’t need many men on this. Smolorz and Meinerer can carry on with the cases I have assigned to them.”
This thought pleased him so much that, after the sweet liqueur, he ordered a glass of dry red wine. Instead of bringing it to his table, however, Max produced a