Studer’s silence beside the body of the Chinaman, as he still called Herr Farny in his own mind, had presumably been so short that it did not strike the others. The recall of that July night had probably lasted only a few seconds. The events had run quickly through his mind, without the others being aware of what was going on there. And the sergeant did not want to tell either the old village doctor of Gampligen, with his profuse white hair tumbling over his ears and coat collar, or the elegant deputy governor, whose waspwaisted coat was very stylish but surely not very warm, about that night in July. So he asked an apparently naïve question.
“What’s the dead man called and where did he live?”
The deputy governor cleared his throat. “A stranger,” he said, “although he came from Gampligen. He ran away from home when he was thirteen and was taken on as a cabin boy. Later he did all sorts of things, but as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, most of his activities were in China. Originally his first name was Jakob . . .” That gave Studer a slight shock. “But he anglicized it and called himself James. He had a room in The Sun, though no one knew why he’d settled there. Was it the call of home, of Gampligen? Was he looking for relations? I suspect he has taken the answers to those questions to the grave with him.”
“What did I tell you, Sergeant? Won’t our deputy governor make an excellent member of the National Council? He can talk, talk, talk. Also, and this is the main point, he enjoys listening to his own prattle.”
“Doctor Buff, I would beg you . . .”
“Beg away, beg away.”
“I refuse to respond to any more of these insinuations. I have done my duty and brought in a man experienced in criminal investigation. The rest is none of my business.”
“You’re washing your hands of the affair, Deputy Governor. Of course – Pontius Pilate was a governor too.”
“Gentlemen . . . gentlemen.” Studer raised his hands, in their woollen gloves, to calm down both sides. “If you would allow me to point out one of the remarkable aspects of this case . . .”
“Point away, heehee, point away,” croaked Dr Buff.
“. . . then it would be” – Studer ignored the interruption – “the following. This case appears to be set in three locales: a village inn, a poorhouse and a horticultural college. The poorhouse seems to have the greatest involvement. Why was the body of the murdered man found on the grave of the late wife of the poorhouse warden, Herr Hungerlott?”
“You see, that just strengthens my theory of suicide,” said Dr Buff with an air of wisdom as he scratched his forehead. “Love! You know what a devastating effect love can have on the human heart, Sergeant. The warden’s wife was a beautiful woman. Perhaps – I say perhaps – this outsider fell in love with her. Perhaps her death was too much for him, and he killed himself . . .” The doctor’s face was a tangle of wrinkles.
“Did you hear that, Sergeant? For an hour I’ve tried everything I can to persuade this doctor we’re dealing with a murder, and what’s his latest revelation? Suicide caused by unrequited love!”
Studer stopped listening to the quarrelsome pair. He bent over the body and started to go through the contents of the pockets. While he was doing so, he could not resist talking in his mind to the dead man. “You got on my nerves because you kept insisting on us being ‘whisky brothers’. Forgive me, I didn’t take you seriously, thought you were putting on an act or took yourself too seriously. Why didn’t you tell me everything? Why didn’t you ask me to stay with you? Perhaps I could have protected you. I have to admit I thought you’d read too many adventure stories. I thought you might have had some kind of “Revenge is Sweet” going through your mind. And now someone’s shot you. What that doctor’s saying’s a load of rubbish. That natty deputy governor’s right – just as you were right . . .”
The pockets were empty, so Studer turned to the official present, who was wearing grey spats. “Did you look through his pockets?”
“No, I just had a look at the wound.”
“Me too,” croaked Dr Buff. “But there was something else I observed. A shot has been fired from the gun beside his right hand.”
Studer stood up and asked, “How do you know that, Doctor?”
“You only need to have a sniff at the muzzle, Sergeant.”
To himself Studer said, “I’d rather send for an ambulance from Bern and get the body taken to the mortuary there than have you do the autopsy.” What he said out loud was, “I’ll keep you informed, Deputy Governor. Goodbye, Herr Doktor.” Tapping the brim of his hat with two fingers, he left the graveyard. When he stopped at the gate and looked around he saw the two were once more arguing vehemently, while the village policeman was standing at the head of the grave, still as a statue. The three of them hid the body of the Chinaman, which lay on the freshly dug grave. The mist was thinning, sunlight poured through, making it shine like raw silk . . .