As the sergeant was driving through Burgdorf, it suddenly occurred to him that he had omitted to make the acquaintance of Wottli. And there was another thing he’d forgotten. He should have had a word with his friend Münch to find out what the lawyer from Bern could tell him about the murdered man’s will and how much he had left. If the teacher from the college, Wottli, was to inherit something, then an unknown person had suddenly appeared in the case who was no less a suspect than, for example, his pupil, Ernst Äbi. The latter had concealed the dead Chinaman’s bloodstained pyjamas in a locker that bore the number twenty-six . . . twenty-six – twice thirteen! Why that number? Studer shook his head, perhaps to clear it of the superstitious ideas connected with numbers, perhaps because the rain, which the wind was driving into his face, was stinging his cheeks and nose.
He knew that the body of James Farny had been taken to Forensic, so after the railway station he turned left. Dr Malapelle, whom he knew from previous cases, welcomed him effusively. He had not found much, he told the sergeant, on the body of the murdered man. Studer asked to see the body and was taken into a dazzlingly white room. The expression on the Chinaman’s face seemed to be one of scorn, perhaps because his lips were no longer hidden by his moustache, so the corners of his mouth were visible, turned down towards his chin.
“I’ll spare you the technical details, Ispettore. The bullet pierced his heart, the man was dead on the spot.”
“Was there much blood?”
“Sicuro! There was no internal bleeding.”
“From what distance did the shot come?”
“To estimate is molto difficile . . . very difficult. No scorch marks . . . probably twelve or fifteen feet.”
“Calibre?”
“I guess 6.35.”
“What?” Studer blinked in astonishment. “But that’s a tiny bullet. Did you know, Dottore, that a large-calibre revolver, a Colt, almost a pocket machine-gun, was found beside the body? And that a shot had been fired from it?”
Dr Malapelle only called the sergeant “Ispettore” when he was pleased with him. When, however, he was annoyed with Studer, he changed to “Sergente”, rolling the “r” as he pronounced the word.
“No, Sergente,” Malapelle said. Then he launched into the sergeant, telling him he was not a good detective, nor an intelligent one, for if he had been he would have seen from the bullet wound that it had been caused by a small-bore gun.
Studer scratched his neck, and the skin round his pointed nose wrinkled. He was embarrassed and furious with himself for not having examined the body more closely. But, after all, a simple detective sergeant is not expected to have the knowledge of a doctor; it was that Pfründisberg doctor with the beard that had not been trimmed for years who ought to have pointed out the discrepancy to him. Studer shrugged his shoulders and let his hands slap against his thighs.
But then he remembered the package he had tied to the pillion of his motorbike. He turned away from the dead body and dashed to the door, then paused and looked back at Dr Malapelle, telling him to wait for him upstairs in the laboratory. He’d brought a few things, he said, that looked as if they needed analysing.
“Bene, bene, Ispettore,” said the Dr Malapelle, once more content with the detective sergeant. He had a great liking for this policeman, whose massive build almost gave him the look of a clumsy peasant, because he spoke such excellent Italian. And not only that, he didn’t ask boring questions; indeed, he was well informed on many scientific matters.
It was only a short time before Studer appeared in the laboratory on the second floor. He was panting because he’d taken the stairs two at a time.
“Here it is, Dottore,” he said. He placed the package on the table, took out an army knife and cut through the string.
“Un gallo!” Malapelle exclaimed, weighing the cockerel in his hand. “But why? What do you want me to do with it, Ispettore?”
“An autopsy,” Studer commanded. “Then examine its intestines. I believe you’ll find arsenic. Then I’ve got this” – he showed him the three handkerchiefs – “and this here” – he pointed to the brown wrapping paper with Wottli’s name on it – “and, last of all, a pair of pyjamas.”
Dr Malapelle’s colourful tie was tied in a tiny knot between the points of his stiff collar. He fingered it as he examined all the objects in astonishment.
“Test them for arsenic? For ‘As’?” he asked, using the chemical symbol for the element.
“Yes,” said Studer with a nod, “for ‘As’.”
Quickly the Italian took off his jacket, slipped on a white laboratory coat and got down to work. Hansli, the feathered friend of a poorhouse woman, was opened up with a lancet, the contents of its crop deposited in a retort and covered with water. The flame of the Bunsen burner licked like a blue tongue at the wire gauze on which the globe of the retort stood, the water began to boil, the neck, with damp cloths wrapped round it, filled with steam. Now Dr Malapelle turned off the gas, the Bunsen burner withdrew its blue tongue, the damp cloths were taken away: the black arsenic mirror was clearly visible.
“Hmmmm,” Studer muttered. “A poisoned cock, eh?”
Malapelle nodded. “Senza dubbio – no doubt about it.”
Next it was the turn of the handkerchiefs. They, too, showed the presence of arsenic. Then came the wrapping paper – the arsenic mirror gleamed in the retort. Studer was confused. And his confusion was only increased when the last object, James Farny’s pyjamas, was tested. The trousers had been in water for half an hour, and when the water in the retort was heated the neck remained clear. Drops of water formed on the inside, but no gleaming mirror. When the water, in which the pyjama jacket had been soaking for almost three-quarters of an hour, was heated, all that appeared was a transparent film, which hardly gleamed at all. Dr Malapelle said he presumed the brown paper the material was wrapped in was what had caused the weak reaction.
When Studer took out his watch, he realized he had taken up far too much of the poor man’s time. He had arrived at the Institute for Forensic Medicine at half past eleven and now it was gone two o’clock. So the sergeant did the only sensible thing and invited the Italian to lunch. The motorbike roared across Bern. From time to time Dr Malapelle shouted pertinent remarks in Studer’s ear from his seat on the pillion. But Frau Hedwig Studer was used to her husband’s irregular mealtimes. The table was already set, and it took her no time at all to lay a third place.
The Italian stirred his soup with his spoon and kept on praising the aroma until Studer, in a tone of irritation, put an end to the compliments. He had not invited the Dottore to lunch, he said, to waste his time listening to idle flattery but to discuss . . .
The Italian cut him short. “I do not discuss when I am eating,” he said.
Only when the black coffee had been served did he finally allow Studer to get a word in. The sergeant’s wife, however, withdrew to the kitchen. She had some washing-up to do, she said, and anyway, she had no wish to hear about yet another murder. It was terrible being married to a detective, she went on, he was always late for meals, and when he did come he had nothing but deaths or thefts or robbery and murder on his mind.
“It was murder but not in the course of robbery this time,” Studer said, still irritated, and began to recount the story of the Chinaman. He told Dr Malapelle about the dead body lying on a grave – the murderer obviously trying to make it look like suicide. But that was impossible, not only because the dead man’s clothes were done up and undamaged, despite the shot to the heart, but also because, according to Dr Malapelle, the shot must have been fired from a distance of at least twelve feet.
“You remember that case in Gerzenstein, Malapelle, when we got to know each other? There it was the exact opposite. Suicide would have been a possibility because Witschi had stuffed the barrel of the pistol with cigarette papers to avoid any scorch marks. But eventually I established that someone else had shot the dead man from a distance of at least six feet, while everyone in the village assumed it was suicide. Even the examining magistrate who was dealing with the case still thinks so today. Apart from you and me, Dottore, there is only one woman who knows what really happened.”
The Italian nodded. “The Witschi case.”
“This one’s even worse,” said Studer. “There’s not just the one name that ends in ‘I’, but three: Äbi, Wottli and Farny . . . Farny’s what the dead man was called. Wottli teaches at a horticultural college, and his mother lives in Bern. She used the brown paper, which you showed had traces of arsenic, to send something to her son, probably his washing. Why was there arsenic on that paper, that brown wrapping paper? If you could answer me that question . . .”
“Pazienza!” Giuseppe Malapelle told him. Then he asked where the cock and the three handkerchiefs fitted in. Studer told him what had happened that morning.
“Perhaps you’re barking up the wrong tree entirely, Ispettore,” said the Italian. “You mustn’t forget that all these things have happened in the vicinity of a horticultural college.”
“What has a horticultural college to do with arsenic?”
“A great deal. In the first place a college like that will certainly have a chemistry course . . .”
“Aha!” said Studer, surprised. “That’s right. Wottli teaches chemistry, amongst other things, the principal told me that this morning.”
“There. You see? In the second place I am sure students at a college like that will be taught how to eradicate pests from plants. The pesticides that are used are all poisonous. Nicotine is used for lice, and preparations with arsenic to destroy caterpillars. Maybe the teacher – what did you say he was called? Wotschli? The names you have in Switzerland! What? Ah, Wottli. Good. – Maybe this Wottli opened the parcel somewhere where the pesticides are kept, in the store perhaps. So the paper came into contact with such a substance and that was why we saw the arsenic mirror. Do you see that? Yes?”
Studer nodded. There was a lot to be said for the explanation; perhaps it was even the right one. The only thing against it was Frau Hungerlott’s handkerchiefs. These had certainly not come into contact with a pesticide for caterpillars. So the sergeant rejected Dr Malapelle’s argument. The Italian merely shrugged his shoulders.
“You must continue your search, Ispettore. You must go and see Wottli’s mother and see if you can find the mother of Frau Hungerlott and Ernst Äbi, who was her brother, was he not?”
Studer nodded.
“Perhaps you will find out something important from both the mothers. Afterwards you must go back to Frundisbergo, for that is where you will find the solution – as you did in our first case together. There the answer was in the village. Forget ‘As’ for a while.”
While Dr Malapelle said goodbye to Frau Studer in the hall, Studer stayed in his armchair. He had his hand over his eyes, but he wasn’t asleep, he was thinking. What was the significance of the kicks his friend Münch had given him?