James Farny led the sergeant to another room that was fairly full. The room with the gleaming silver aluminium stove must have been the landlord’s private parlour. In the bar the two had just entered there were four old men in greasy blue overalls sitting by the door round a table on which was a half-pint bottle filled with a light-yellow liquid. By the window were five more, dressed in similar dirty blue overalls, and these men, too, had low, thick-sided tumblers in front of them.
“Bätziwasser,” said Herr Farny contemptuously.
Sitting at a round table in the middle of the room were four young lads in city suits with incredibly loud ties, their collars all askew. There was one among them who struck Studer right from the beginning. He looked older than the rest. He had a thin face with a pointed nose sticking out that was so long it looked like a caricature. The four young men were drinking beer. The barmaid was sitting behind the bar knitting. Her two fat brown plaits were pinned round her head like a bizarre wreath. Herr Farny made his way to the table next to the one where the young lads were sitting. There was an old farmer sitting at it, quietly enjoying a glass of wine.
“Well then, Schranz, how’re things?” the Chinaman asked.
“Hmm,” the old man mumbled.
“What’s Brönnimann doing?”
“Playing Jass . . .” Herr Farny sat down, and Studer did so too. There was definitely an unpleasant atmosphere in the room. There was tension, although it was impossible to say what was the cause. The four in blue by the door and the five in dirty overalls by the window looked at the two new arrivals, contempt smeared all over their faces.
It wasn’t the storm that was causing the tension, nor Herr Farny’s elegant clothes. Studer clearly heard the words “bloody cops” but couldn’t tell which table it came from.
But how had the people found out there was a policeman among them? Of course! The police badge on his machine. But . . . why were the people from the poorhouse afraid of the police? And the lads in their city suits and crooked collars, who must surely be from the horticultural college?
“Brandy,” Herr Farny called out. “Huldi, two brandies. And make sure it’s the good stuff.” Shyly the barmaid came over. Her complexion was striking. It looked as if her skin were covered in mildew. “Certainly, Herr Farny,” she said and, “With pleasure, Herr Farny.”
But she never got around to bringing the order. All at once the four at the table by the door started bawling out “We don’t want any cops in Pfründisberg” to the tune of “We don’t want any Krauts in Switzerland”. They stood up. One picked up the bottle, the others armed themselves with the thick-sided tumblers, and they advanced from two sides on the sergeant’s table, still singing their stupid song.
The Chinaman balanced on the back legs of his chair, his red leather slippers dangling from his toes. He seemed to be enjoying the whole business.
“Afraid, Inspector?” he asked, stroking the white, silken strands of hair covering the corner of his mouth.
Studer shrugged his massive shoulders. But when the lads from the horticultural school decided to take part in the rumpus, and the one with the caricature of a nose grasped a beer bottle to join the men from the poorhouse, James Farny said, in a voice of command, as if he were talking to a dog, “Down, Äbi.”
The young man sat down again. Studer had stayed sitting in his chair, legs wide, elbows on his thighs, hands clasped, hunched forward. And, in fact, there was nothing to fear, since the door to the neighbouring room suddenly opened, and the four card-players came in.
It was strange how they appeared, one after the other, framed in the doorway. Each one looked like a separate picture.
Warden Hungerlott was the first and hesitated before crossing the threshold. The goatee on his chin made his face look pointed.
“What’s all this noise? Drinking schnapps again? Didn’t I forbid it?”
The old men in their greasy overalls retreated towards the door. Now Hungerlott was in the light from the lamp.
“Ah, Sergeant Studer. How are you, how are you?”
Studer muttered something incomprehensible.
A second figure, massive, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the blond hair on his arms, appeared in the doorway and immediately started to berate the lads. “How often have I told you not to come to the inn in the evening? Can’t you do what you’re told? Off you go now, quick march!”
That must be the principal of the horticultural college. A triple chin oozed down over his raw-silk shirt, a white-gold chain dangled over the curve of his paunch, the wedding ring on his right hand cut deeply into the flesh of his finger.
Only now did the little old man appear, bowed down and panting. He croaked, “What’s been going on, Huldi? Couldn’t you have called me?” A fit of coughing put a stop to his questions.
Following close behind was his Jass partner, Gerber, the farmer, who was such a nondescript little man no one paid him any attention.
All that was left of the men from the poorhouse in the almost empty room was the smell of Bätziwasser and cheap tobacco. Now even that disappeared when the barmaid obeyed the college principal’s command to open the window. Air cleaned by the thunderstorm poured into the room.
And then the miracle happened. All at once there were six crystal glasses on the table in the middle (crystal in a village inn!). Herr Farny poured the drinks and, with a wink to the sergeant, introduced those present: “Herr Hungerlott, warden of the poorhouse, you already know, Sergeant, but here, may I introduce Herr Ernst Sack-Amherd, principal of Pfründisberg Horticultural College. Then Herr Alfred Schranz, farmer; Herr Albert Gerber, farmer; the barmaid, Hulda Nüesch; and, finally, Rudolf Brönnimann, the esteemed landlord of the Sun Inn . . . – And this is Inspector Jakob Studer. Gentleman, raise your glasses.”
Studer recalled that at the time it had struck him this Herr Farny must have a remarkable memory. He had only glanced briefly at the sergeant’s identification but had not only remembered his surname but his Christian name as well. He did seem to have forgotten they were “whisky brothers”, since he had stopped addressing his guest by the informal “Du”.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Hungerlott, “but you cannot get the men to give up schnapps. I beg you not to tell the people in Bern what you’ve seen here, Sergeant. When all’s said and done, they work the whole week, and on Saturday they each get a franc and a packet of tobacco. It has to do them for the following week. What do they do to forget their wretched state? Brandy’s too dear for them, so they drink Bätziwasser. Pauperism, Sergeant, is the blight of our society. Do I have to explain the word ‘pauperism’?”
Studer stared at the table. He had put on a noncommittal expression and wore it like a mask. He raised his eyes; there was a blank look in them.
“Pauper,” the Warden began his lecture, “means ‘poor’ in Latin. Pauperism deals with the problem of poverty. Here in Switzerland, of course, we have to consider the whole question of the welfare system as well, which is just as complicated as . . .”
He was interrupted by Gerber. “But you didn’t note down the points for the king and queen in the last game.” Brönnimann retorted that it was a damned lie: of course he’d noted them down. And Studer said he’d asked for a can of petrol ages ago, might it be possible finally to get one?
“Exactly! The man asked for some petrol.” Gerber supported the sergeant’s request.
For a moment there was silence. Then Herr Sack-Amherd, the principal of the horticultural college, said that, yes, it wasn’t always that easy with the student nurserymen, most of the lads had already been self-employed and had no sense of discipline.
“And what can I say?” That was Hungerlott joining in again. “They allocate to me everybody they can’t send to Witzwil Labour Camp, to Thorberg Prison or St Johansen Clinic. There are some among them who’ve done ten years, and I’m supposed to keep them occupied. You should see the complaints, Sergeant! ‘We have to work for nothing; our work keeps the fine gentlemen in luxury.’ And that when, to be perfectly honest with you, we don’t even cover our costs. Each year the state has to stump up at least – at least, I say! – twenty thousand francs, or our accounts would be in a pretty mess. I’m starting to feel like a travelling salesman, I’ve even bought a car and have to make the rounds of our customers. The competition from the other state institutions! That’s the problem! The lunatic asylums, the prisons, they’re all supplying goods produced on the premises. The result is, we get the crazy situation where one institution is trying to steal the others’ custom . . .”
“It was a can o’ petrol he wanted,” Gerber interrupted.
“I’m going, I’m going,” the landlord snarled and stomped out of the room.
The rest clinked glasses, drank and stayed silent. Then Herr Sack-Amherd too started to moan bitterly about the government. In the old days the peasants revolted because they were required to pay tithes. And nowadays? Nowadays not a soul objected when they had to shell out twelve or even fourteen per cent income tax. And that, in his modest opinion, was more than a tithe. But who dared to complain about these infringements, these financial infringements? No one! And why . . .?
Brönnimann appeared in the door. He’d managed to find a can of petrol, would the Sergeant come and have a look but hurry up about it . . .?
Herr Farny stood up along with Studer. He’d see his guest out, he said. There was a general farewell. The handshake of Hungerlott, the poorhouse warden, was very sticky. It was as if he couldn’t free his fingers from Studer’s hand. Herr Sack-Amherd’s farewell was noticeably briefer, and the two farmers, Gerber and Schranz, simply muttered something incomprehensible. Then Studer was at the bottom of the worn steps. Brönnimann, the landlord, disappeared into a shed in order, as he said, to fetch some petrol. The Chinaman was the only one left with the sergeant.
“Now you’ve seen everyone, Inspector,” said Herr Farny. “Almost everyone. From what I heard today, there’s another young lad in the house whom I couldn’t introduce to you. He’s afraid of the police, if you understand what I mean. Otherwise . . . As I said, almost everyone was present.”
Herr Farny was silent for a while, then he jerked up his head and looked the sergeant in the eye. The lamp over the door to the inn – with, dangling above it, the sign with the spiky hair sticking out that was supposed to represent the sun – shone on their faces from above, casting dark shadows on them. The Chinaman placed his light, old-man’s hand on the sergeant’s powerful shoulder and said:
“So you’ll avenge me.”
Say nothing! Farny did not lower his eyes. “Avenge me,” he repeated. “You’ll think this is childish, Inspector. Perhaps you’re right. But I don’t want him to triumph.”
“Him?” the sergeant asked. “Which him?”
At that the Chinaman smiled. It was not a Bernese smile at all, almost non-European. “Who? If I only knew. I don’t know, that is something you will have to find out. But I have confidence in you. I can see what kind of person you are, Inspector, without having to see a sample of your handwriting, without knowing your date of birth. You, Inspector, are like a diesel engine running on heavy-duty fuel oil. It takes a long time for you to work up to full speed, but once you’re running, you take every obstacle like a tractor, like a tank. I know, you’ve been thinking this Farny’s mad, he’s suffering from paranoia. You’ll see that Farny was right. Tomorrow? The day after? In a month? In two? Three? Eventually you’ll see he was right, and then you’ll have some work to do. Good night, Inspector, sleep well. I hope you have a pleasant journey home.”
No handshake, no noise. James Farny, the Chinaman, had disappeared without a sound. Up the steps? Round the corner of the building?
Coughing and panting and spitting, the landlord came out of the shed with a gallon can of petrol. Studer filled his tank, paid, kicked the starter and drove off into the silent night. There were still lights on in a few of the houses in the hamlet of Pfründisberg; he left them behind him. The summer night was fresh.
All that had happened on 18 July.
And today was 18 November.
Three months was the maximum delay Farny had reckoned before his murder. He had been one month out. Four months had passed since 18 July.