The route from the horticultural college to the Sun Inn led past the entrance to the poorhouse courtyard. The sergeant stopped in the gateway and watched an old woman doing washing in a large wooden tub. Matted, grey-white hair fluttered round a tiny little head, her nose had been pushed over to the right and had huge nostrils. On the ground beside her were dirty sheets, shirts, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and a young cockerel was strutting round her feet, occasionally attempting to crow. The young rooster never quite managed it, the laborious cock-a-doodle-doo cracked in the middle – presumably the creature’s voice was just breaking.
“Good day to you, Mother.” Studer stopped and stuck his hands deep in his coat pockets. His right elbow was pressing the package he had found in Ernst Äbi’s locker to his hip.
“And to you, handsome fellow.” The old woman giggled, then coughed, winking at him with watery eyes.
“Hard at it?”
“What d’you think? Naught but work for Old Mother Trili, work, work, work.”
Three inmates in faded blue overalls were shuffling slowly, like bears, across the yard. Each had a besom and was brushing up the dust – but a sudden gust of wind came and scattered the pile they’d swept up. Then the brooms started once more scratching at the stamped earth.
Had Old Mother Trili always had to slave away like this? the sergeant asked. Presumably she’d had less work when Frau Hungerlott was still alive?
Her? Her get her hands wet? With her painted fingernails? The warden’s wife never came near any soapsuds. It was Old Mother Trili who’d always had to do the washing. “And that’s a fact, ain’t it, Hansli?”
The cockerel stretched and twisted its neck – just like Münch trying to get comfortable in his too-high wing collar, Studer thought – then laid its crimson comb to one side and blinked. “Cocka-oo-oo,” it said, which in its language presumably expressed its agreement with the old woman.
Then the cockerel ran across the yard, stopped at one of the piles of dust, scratched, pecked. The three inmates watched it, leaning on the handles of their besoms. Then they felt in their pockets and threw it crumbs of bread.
“Hansli!” the washerwoman called. The cock trotted over, tried to crow, shook itself and began to peck at the sheets lying on the ground. Old Mother Trili sang a folk song:
In my granny’s chamber there blows a hmhmhm,
In my granny’s chamber there blows a sharp wind.
I shiver and quiver all from the hmhmhm,
I shiver and quiver all from the sharp wind.
You take the begging bowl, I’ll take the hmhmhm,
You take the begging bowl, I’ll take the sack.
While Studer was wondering why the old woman was singing an Appenzell song instead of a Bernese one, he suddenly felt the package, which he held clasped under his elbow, fall to the ground. It broke open and the blood-soaked pyjamas shone in the sun, which came out between two clouds. At first the cockerel fluttered backwards in alarm, but then it came closer, dug its claws in the thin material and pecked and pecked, just as it had been doing at the dirty bed linen.
“Shoo, shoo! . . . Get away, will you?” The sergeant clapped his hands, but the cockerel just stood there and let out another “Cocka-oo-oo”.
“That’s a tame cockerel you’ve got there,” said Studer, astonished.
“You are, aren’t you, Hansli? We understand each other, you and me.” The old woman took some washing out of the tub, wrung it out and dropped it on the cobbles beside her. Studer bent down to pick up his package, but the bird had got quite excited. It jumped up and down, tearing at the paper with its beak. Then it let go and went back to pecking at the dust.
Finally Studer managed to wrap the pyjamas up in the brown paper again. Then he told the old woman she had a good voice for her age and asked her what the Frau Hungerlott’s illness had been like.
Old Mother Trili slapped her hand into the soapsuds – a dab of lather landed on the end of Studer’s thin nose. “Cruel it was, the way she had to suffer, poor Frau Hungerlott,” she said and sniffed. Then she rubbed her eyes with the back of her wet hand.
“Cruel?” Studer asked. “What kind of an illness was it?”
Now the old woman clapped her right hand over her mouth. There had been something not right about it, she said, but it was best to hold your tongue.
What had been mysterious about it, Studer wanted to know, and why wasn’t she to say anything?
You were always better off if you didn’t talk too much, she said.
The sergeant nodded. That was all well and good, he said, but she could trust him. She could rely on him not to go telling other people. A detective knew when to keep his mouth shut.
But that assurance did not seem to make much impression on the old woman. She hummed her song:
You take the begging bowl, I’ll take the hmhmhm,
You take the begging bowl, I’ll take the sack.
Hardly had she finished than something strange happened. The cockerel, that had pecked around in the dirty washing and had a go at Studer’s find with its pointed beak, fell down. Its eyelid came up over its eye, it gave a weak “cocka –,” stretched out its claws – and died.
The old woman broke out into lamentation: “Hansli, my little Hansli! What’s happened to you?”
The tears tumbled down out of her red-rimmed eyes. She picked the bird up and cradled it in her arms like a little baby, giving the sergeant reproachful looks, as if she thought he was responsible for the cockerel’s death. The three other inmates stood round Old Mother Trili, leaning on their brooms, one behind her, one to the right and one to the left. Studer was reminded of the scene that had greeted him at the graveyard when he arrived the previous day. Three men standing round a dead body.
How surprisingly quickly the cockerel had died. The sergeant remembered that the bird had pecked at the dirty washing lying beside the washtub, so he bent down started to look through the pile. Three handkerchiefs. They smelled unpleasantly of garlic. He turned each one over and over until he had found the monogram: two intertwined letters, A. Ä. – Anna Äbi . . .
Garlic? It didn’t prove much. Anyway, the cockerel had also had its beak in the package he now had clamped under his elbow. So he lifted that to his nose as well. No doubt about it, the brown paper also smelled of garlic . . . A vague recollection of the investigation into a poisoning came back to mind. In that case sheets and handkerchiefs had been tested and his friend at the Institute for Forensic Medicine, Dr Malapelle from Milan, had explained that a smell of garlic almost always indicated the presence of arsenic; and if the Marsh test produced a black arsenic mirror, he had gone on, then you had all the proof you needed . . . Anna Hungerlott-Äbi . . . Her handkerchiefs in the dirty washing smelled of garlic . . . but the brown paper addressed to a certain Herr Wottli also smelled of garlic . . . Wottli – a teacher at Pfründisberg Horticultural College.
Confusion reigned in Studer’s mind: the Chinaman’s body had been lying on the grave of Anna Hungerlott-Äbi; his coat, jacket and waistcoat had been undamaged and buttoned up, and yet he had been shot through the heart. The dead man’s pyjamas had been found in the locker of one of the students – wrapped in paper that smelled of garlic. And yesterday evening? Why had Münch, the lawyer, who had been visiting the Warden, kicked his friend Studer on the shin? Three times! Just because the sergeant had mentioned Frau Hungerlott’s death.
Wottli . . . Wottli . . . Why could he not get that name out of his mind? Simply because it was written on the wrapping paper with the strange smell? He needed to find out if the cockerel really had poisoned itself. Not even that was certain, it sounded too much like an over-elaborate theory. Although one must never forget that reality was often more unbelievable than products of the imagination.
Perhaps Münch was following up a lead, perhaps he was playing the private investigator because he was looking into a possible case of poisoning?
Suddenly the sergeant pulled a newspaper out of the inside pocket of his lined leather jacket. He wrapped the three handkerchiefs in one sheet and the dead bird in two others. He did have a struggle with Old Mother Trili, who refused to give up the body of her friend, but eventually Studer was clutching three packages in his arms. The way he made off with them looked almost like flight.
The three inmates stared after him as he left. When he reached the street that led to the Sun Inn, he looked around. Two dozen lads were standing along the boundary between the college and the poorhouse, with their mouths wide open, laughing, slapping their thighs and pointing with outstretched fingers at the running detective. A lean man, tall and clean-shaven, who was a little way away from the group (It must be Wottli! thought Studer), was unable to restrain their mockery. Again the sun broke through, shining on the façade of the college. At the far corner a window was open, and two heads could be made out. From there, too, came laughter, scornful laughter. The labourer from Amriswil and his stepbrother were mocking the fleeing detective.
“Just you lot wait,” Studer muttered, “I’ll show you.” He turned the corner by the inn, dashed up the steps, went into the bar and dropped onto a chair. Huldi was behind the bar. The sergeant wiped his forehead, ordered a large beer and asked for a long piece of string. When she brought it, he tied up the three packages he had on the table. And as soon as that complicated operation was finished, he stood up and left the room. Huldi heard the roar as an engine started – Sergeant Studer was setting off for Bern.