A dead man on a grave and two men arguing

Studer switched off the engine, dismounted from his motorbike and marvelled at the sudden silence all around. In the fog, yellow, greasy and matted like unwashed wool, walls appeared, the gleam of a redtiled roof. Then the sun pierced the mist, striking a round sign and making it shine like gold. No, it wasn’t gold but some other, much less precious, metal, a flat disc with two eyes, a nose and a mouth drawn on it and spiky hair sticking out round the edge. An inscription dangled below the sign: The Sun Inn. Well-worn stone steps led up to a door, in the frame of which stood a very old man. Studer had the feeling he recognized him, but the old man seemed unwilling to acknowledge the sergeant, for he turned away and disappeared inside the inn. A gust set the fog swirling, and once more inn, door and sign vanished.

Again the sun pierced the greyness. A low wall on the right-hand side of the street appeared, glass beads glistened on wreaths, gold lettering on gravestones shone, and box leaves gleamed like emeralds.

Three figures were standing round a grave: an officer of the rural gendarmerie in uniform, to his right a smooth-shaven, elegantly clad man, who looked young, and to his left an oldish man with an unkempt blond beard streaked with white. The bitter argument that was raging between two of them could be heard out in the street.

Studer shrugged his shoulders, pushed his bike alongside the worn-down steps, lifted it up onto its stand and went into the cemetery, towards the grave where two of the living were arguing while a third stood watch in silence.

And Sergeant Studer of the Bern Cantonal Police sighed despondently several times as he walked. He didn’t have an easy life, he thought.

That morning the deputy governor had phoned police headquarters from Roggwil. The body of a certain Farny, he said, had been found in the cemetery of the village of Pfründisberg. For the last nine months this Farny had been living in the Sun Inn, and it was Brönnimann, the landlord, who had found the body and informed the village policeman. Merz, the policeman, had reported that the cause of death was a shot to the heart.

“So far I have not been able to put an investigation in train, but it looks suspicious to me. The doctor maintains it’s a case of suicide. I do not agree! To be on the safe side, I feel it is important to have an experienced detective present. The cemetery’s opposite the inn . . .”

“I know that,” Studer had broken in as an unpleasant shiver ran down his spine. A July night had come to mind on which a stranger had foretold this murder . . .

“Oh, you know that, do you? Who is that on the line?”

“Sergeant Studer. The chief superintendent’s busy.”

“Ah, Studer! Good. Excellent. Come at once! I’ll be waiting for you at the cemetery.”

Studer gave another sigh, shrugged his powerful shoulders, scratched his thin, pointed nose and cursed silently. It would be just the same as always, of course. He wasn’t a celebrated criminologist, although in earlier years he had studied a lot. An intrigue had cost him his position as chief inspector with the Bern City Police; he’d had to start from the bottom again with the cantonal force and had quickly risen to the rank of sergeant. Yet, although he’d been demoted, although he had enemies, he was always the one who was sent when there was a difficult case. This time too. After the telephone conversation Studer had reported to the superintendent and mentioned what had happened that July night. “Off you go, then, Studer. But don’t come back until you’re sure, until the case’s solved. Right?”

“If I must . . . Cheerio.” Studer had got on his bike and set off. The July night had been exactly four months ago, the night when he had met the stranger with the Swiss name of Farny. A stranger who was now dead . . .

“You can thank your lucky stars, yes, you can thank your lucky stars, Herr Deputy Governor, that I’m about to retire from my practice. Otherwise you’d have a few awkward questions to answer. You may well laugh! Putting the whole of the cantonal police on the alarm . . . er . . . on the alert for an obvious suicide, yes, a suicide!”

That was the oldish man with the profuse blond beard, streaked with white, round his wide mouth. The elegant, smooth-shaven gentleman raised his hands, clad in brown kid gloves, to ward off these accusations.

“Herr Doktor Buff, I must ask you to moderate your tone. After all, I am here in an official capacity . . .”

“Official capacity! Hahaha! Don’t make me laugh.” Why are the two of them speaking High German and not dialect? Studer thought. “You say you’re an official? Any official could see at a glance that what we have here is a suicide, a suicide, Herr Deputy Governor.”

“A murder, Herr Doktor Buff, yes, a murder. If you can’t even distinguish between a murder and a suicide at your age . . .”

“At my age?! At my age?! A young mooncalf like you! Yes, a mooncalf, I stick by that word . . . trying to tell an old doctor like me what’s a murder and what’s not!”

“My instructions state that in cases of doubt an experienced detective must always . . .”

Studer had stopped listening. A little verse crept into his mind:

Things have happened on the Moon

That made the Mooncalf change his tune;

Honeymoon and Loondemyell

Both ran off with Mademoiselle . . .

But he called himself to order. It wasn’t respectful to be thinking of amusing nonsense poems beside a dead body.

The body: the face of an old man, a white moustache, drooping down over the corners of his mouth, soft, like the skeins of silk women use for fine needlework. Narrow, slanting eyes . . . It was the man Studer had met during a night in July four months ago. From the very first moment he’d called him “the Chinaman”.

While the old country doctor, looking shabby in his threadbare overcoat, continued to argue with the elegantly clad deputy governor, Studer recalled that night in July for the third time that morning. And if the memory of that remarkable experience had been vague the first two times, now it was clear, vivid, and he began to hear the words that had been spoken as well . . .

With a voice that sounded like the angel of peace as he interrupted the argument of the two fellow countrymen, he asked in his Bernese accent, “Who is it who’s buried here?”

It was Dr Buff who replied. “The warden of the poorhouse lost his wife ten days ago.”

“Hungerlott?”

The doctor nodded. His hair was rather long at the back and over his ears.

“Can you explain, Doctor Buff,” the deputy governor said, “how a suicide can shoot himself in the heart, when the bullet has not made a hole in his coat or his jacket, not even in his shirt or waistcoat? Is that a suicide, Sergeant? You can see for yourself, the clothes are all buttoned up. That’s the way we found the body. But he was shot through the heart.”

Studer nodded, his thoughts elsewhere.

“And the gun?” Dr Buff squawked. “Isn’t that the gun next to the dead man’s hand? Isn’t that suicide?”

Studer looked at the heavy gun, a Colt that he recognized. He nodded, nodded – and then said nothing more for five minutes because the night of 18 July was flickering through his mind like a film . . .