“It’s not my fault, Herr Studer! It was Ernst, he gave me the slip. I know I should have kept watch, but I was so tired, Herr Studer, so tired. I’ve been concentrating all day, I wanted you to be pleased with me. But I fell asleep, Herr Studer, after Herr Wottli locked us in again. Ernst went to bed too and snored like anything. Now I know he was just pretending, but at the time I thought he was really asleep. Really. God knows, it wasn’t my fault.”
The sergeant sat down astride a chair, rested his forearms on the back and said nothing. If confusion reigned, then he was going to think everything through calmly first of all and then decide what was to be done. Paul Wottli had begun the fumigation at six; at six-fifteen he’d finished. Then he’d taken the two lads – why was it he’d only talked about Ernst and not mentioned Ludwig? – anyway, he’d taken the two lads back to the sickbay and locked them in. Yes, but he’d told Studer he’d gone to fetch Ernst at half past five. Even assuming the preparations for the fumigation took a quarter of an hour, that still left a quarter of an hour unaccounted for. Hungerlott claimed he’d met his father-in-law at a quarter to six at the railway station, so the earliest he could have arrived, if he’d driven fast, would have been at five past six. Since, however, it had been foggy, he would certainly have taken longer and probably not reached Pfründisberg until around half past six. Studer recalled that the station clock had said ten to seven when he had driven past and that it had been a quarter to nine when he had finished his dinner. So he had taken at least fifty minutes on his motorbike to get from Bern to Pfründisberg. Ten minutes for his conversation with Wottli outside the inn; thirty minutes to eat his dinner; fifteen minutes for his cigar and the evening paper. So he must have arrived between half past seven and a quarter to eight . . .
“Sit yourself down, Ludwig,” he said and, turning to the waitress, “Huldi, bring him a beer.”
And Studer waited until the lad had finished his beer before telling him to wipe his brow. “You rushed over as fast as you could?”
“Yes, I did.” Ludwig nodded a few times. He said he’d thought it was urgent.
Studer shrugged his powerful shoulders. Urgent! Once someone was in a place filled with hydrogen cyanide gas, getting him out wasn’t urgent. Three minutes, that was enough. After that any attempt to rescue him would be in vain.
“Now tell me exactly what happened. It was not necessary to hurry.” Ludwig Farny opened his blue eyes wide in astonishment and stared at the broad-shouldered sergeant. It was the first time he had heard him speak formal German. He tried to follow suit.
“I heard this racket,” he said, paused then corrected himself, “I heard a loud noise and that woke me up. It was dark in the room. Old Wott . . . Herr Wottli had locked us in at half past six. I’d gone with them before, when they went to fumigate the glasshouse. You told me to keep an eye on my brother, didn’t you, Herr Studer?”
Ludwig Farny paused. He was still out of breath and wide-eyed. Then he went on:
“It was a quarter after six when they’d finished, and the teacher turned the key in the lock. There was a lamp on inside, and I looked in through the glass. There’s panes in the top half of the door, you know, and you can see inside the glasshouse, a tray with orchids on the left, tall palms in the middle and small larkspur – delphinium chinese the teacher called them, he said he grew them for special occasions.
“On the way back to the school building Herr Wottli asked us lots of questions. He wanted to know what you’d found in Ernst’s locker, but my brother held his tongue. He said nothing, he kept looking this way and that, as if he was waiting for something. I asked him if he was looking for someone, but he just shook his head. Then we were in the sickbay, listening to the teacher going away. The only odd thing was that he didn’t lock the door. Ernst went to the window and looked out. Suddenly he said he had to go and just get something from his desk. And he went. I was going to go with him, but he asked me not to. He was away half an hour and he came back empty-handed. He was hardly back in the room when Wottli opened the door and said, ‘If you’re going to be walking round the building by yourself, I’ll have to lock you in. I will, of course, report your absence.’ Ernst shrugged his shoulders, and we heard the key turn in the lock. Ernst got undressed and went to bed. Me too. Then my brother put the light out and I fell asleep straight away.”
“What?” asked Studer in astonishment. “You went to sleep at seven o’clock?”
“I think it was later. I can’t say exactly when it was because there’s one thing I forgot. The teacher came back with some dinner for us: roast sweet corn, stewed prunes and coffee. Yes, that was it. We ate and then we went to bed.”
Why . . . Why were the warden and the principal of the college still in the next room? The door was still closed.
“Go on,” Studer growled. “And don’t keep forgetting half of it.”
“Yes, of course. Suddenly I heard a noise and I woke up with a start. I got out of bed and switched the light on. Then I realized I was alone – and the window was open. I leaned out. There was something white hanging down from the lower hinge of the green shutter. Ernst had tied two sheets together. They reached the ground, and he’d climbed out of the window. So I thought, if he can do it, so can I. I got dressed and climbed down. Then I ran over to the glasshouse because I could see that the light was still on, and I remembered clearly that the teacher had switched off the light when we left earlier. I went into the vestibule – there was a light burning there and in the section we’d fumigated. Ernst was in there, lying on the floor, his head was on his arms and his legs all twisted . . . I dashed out and ran and ran to fetch you, Herr Studer. You see, I’d noticed something: I tried to open the door to help Ernst, but it was locked – and the key was in the lock on the inside. I can swear to that. I thought Ernst had committed suicide. What do you think? Is that what he did? He knew the glasshouse was full of hydrogen cyanide and he knew it would be fatal to go in.”
Silence. Studer sat astride his chair, his chin on his forearms, which were crossed and resting on the back.
“So . . .” He raised his head and nodded, nodded. “So Ernstli’s dead.” He felt partly to blame for the lad’s death. He remembered his face with a nose sticking out that was so long it looked like a caricature. Had the lad killed himself because a detective had searched his locker and found a pair of bloodstained pyjamas?
“Go and fetch the principal, Ludwig,” Studer said wearily, jerking his thumb at the door to the neighbouring room. The young man knocked shyly.
“Come in.”
“You’re to come and see Herr Studer.” A muttering was to be heard, a chair being pushed back, then steps and a voice asking, “What do you want, Sergeant?”
“You’ll have to come to the glasshouse with me.”
“Has there been an accident?”
“Yes. Ernst Äbi’s dead. He’s in the glasshouse. Have you got a thin pair of pliers?”
“Pliers?” Herr Sack-Amherd repeated. “I think there’s a pair in the toolkit in the corridor outside the . . . outside the departments that . . .”
“Let’s go,” Studer sighed and stood up. It felt as if he had a heavy weight resting on his shoulders and he was cold. Shivers ran down his back like icy water. But he pulled himself together.
“You’re coming with us, Ludwig,” he commanded and went out into the corridor. As he stopped to wait for the others he heard Huldi tell Ludwig to be careful and make sure nothing happened to him. Ludwig did not reply.
At the bottom of the steps Studer paused again. “Where’s Hungerlott?” he asked.
“He wished me good night and went home by the terrace. He said he wasn’t interested in all that. He had more important things to do. His friend, Münch, was waiting for him. He told me he’d arranged a meeting with him. About Farny’s will . . .”
Sack-Amherd sighed. It sounded like a sigh of envy. Presumably the principal of the horticultural college begrudged his friend Hungerlott his good fortune in coming into an inheritance that would make him rich. Studer wondered whether he had interpreted the sigh correctly, so as they set off he asked, “Do you know any details of the will?”
Sack-Amherd sucked in the night air and breathed out stertorously, then told Studer that after the death of Frau Hungerlott, James Farny had changed his will and named the warden as heir.
“Did he now?” said Studer, drawing out the words.
There was the glasshouse. Three steps led up to a corridor, the left-hand side of which was taken up by a long table with a cement top that was let into the wall.
On it were three heaps: sand, peat and fine compost. Studer began to play with them, peat in his left hand, sand in his right. Then he opened his fingers. Gradually his hands felt lighter; it was a strange sensation to feel the weight disappear. And when would he be freed of that other burden, the guilt that weighed on him? Had it really been a mistake to absent himself from Pfründisberg that afternoon?
Studer turned away from the table and brushed his hands clean.
“Where is he?” he asked, for he could see two doors. Silently, Ludwig pointed to one. The upper part was of glass while the bottom consisted of tin that was painted green. Studer went up to it and stared for a long time through the panes, which were slightly misted, then took out his handkerchief to clear them, but the tiny drops were on the inside. That was why the body lying on the floor looked so strangely distorted. The sergeant bent down. He could see the key sticking out of the lock on the inside; it was blackened and covered in little red spots of rust. Studer turned round and asked Sack-Amherd:
“I suppose we can’t go in? It’d be too dangerous, wouldn’t it? Can it be ventilated?
Oh, yes, it could be ventilated, said the principal, pointing to a handle. With the crank it was possible to open the skylights in the roof, thus creating a draught.
Since the principal showed no desire to carry out the task, the sergeant told Ludwig to do it.
The crank screeched, an eerie sound in the silence.
“Now we must wait five minutes,” said Sack-Amherd.
Studer went back to the cement table and played with the compost and peat, like a little boy in a sandpit. He smoothed out the heaps, drew runes on them, crosses, circles, zigzags – until a voice called from the door:
“Who opened those windows? What about my orchids? And my palms?”
Without looking up from his childish amusement, Studer said very quietly:
“There’s a dead man in there, Herr Wottli.”
“A dead man? What dead man? No one could get into the glasshouse, I’ve still got the key in my pocket.”
“Have you?” the sergeant said wearily. “You carry the key in your pocket? May I see it?”
“There you are.”
The key Studer had in his hand was exactly like the one in the lock: it too was blackened and had a few tiny specks of rust.
“Meerci,” said Studer in his broadest Swiss accent, slipping the key into his trouser pocket. “Have you got a key, Principal?”
“Me? No.”
“Where have you been just now, Herr Wottli?”
“Is that of interest to you, Sergeant? Well first of all, I accompanied the father of . . . of . . . the dead man to the poorhouse. Neither of us knew Ernst Äbi was dead. How could we?”
Studer lowered his head, dropping his chin onto his chest, and peered up at the teacher. Could he be mistaken? It seemed to him that Wottli was cowed, more even: apprehensive. As if the man was trying to hide something . . .
“And then?”
“Then I came back and got the students, who were standing outside the inn, to return to the main building. They had no business down there. But that was all I could do. They absolutely refused to go to bed. They’re all downstairs in the classroom now, taking part in endless discussions. I stayed with them for a while, but then I looked out of the window and saw that there was a light on in the glasshouse, so I came over to see what was going on. I remembered – quite clearly remembered – that I had put the light out.”
“And none of the students told you there was a dead body in the glasshouse? That’s odd. They all heard Ludwig when he shouted up to me with the news.”
Wottli was not so easy to catch out. Ah, he said, now he understood. Now he understood why they all wanted to take the path past the glasshouse when they came back. “But I didn’t want them to do that because I knew it was dangerous, being filled with hydrogen cyanide gas. That’s why I took one of the paths . . .”
“One of the paths from which you couldn’t see that there was a light on in the glasshouse?”
“It was foggy . . .”
“No!” Studer spoke sharply. “No, the wind dispersed the fog ages ago.” Then he smiled, raised his head, gave the teacher a long look and said, “You should read what old Gross has to say about witness statements.”
Five minutes is a long time when you have to wait, but this time it had passed quickly. Studer found the toolkit, but the small pliers were missing. Strange. But he still managed to push the key out of the lock; it fell to the ground inside the glasshouse. The sergeant took Herr Wottli’s key, opened the door and went in.
Ernst Äbi was lying on the floor, his shoulders convulsed. The sergeant went down on one knee, turned the body over and felt under his waistcoat – there was no heartbeat. To be absolutely sure, he held a round mirror to Ernst’s lips – the glass did not mist over.
Only then did he start to search through the dead man’s pockets. In the jacket pocket he found a catapult such as boys use to shoot at birds. The sergeant slipped the toy into his pocket. In the inside pocket was a wallet, filled with documents; that too, the sergeant pocketed. In the right trouser pocket: a purse. Contents: a twenty-franc note, a five-franc note, coins. In the left pocket: a box with white pills. Studer stood up. He sniffed at the pills, picked one out, licked it with the tip of his tongue . . . It tasted bitter. He held the box out to Sack-Amherd. “Do you recognize this?” he asked. The principal shook his head. But then Wottli broke in. The Herr Direktor must remember, he said, it was Uspulun, the new disinfectant for cyclamen seeds the German chemical firm had sent for testing. Three weeks ago. Ernst Äbi had been given the task of carrying out the tests – what concentration was best, how long the seeds should stay in the liquid. The . . . the dead man had drawn up a table, it was sure to be in his desk . . .
And what, Studer wanted to know, did Herr Wottli think the disinfectant contained?
“Arsenic, it’s an organic arsenic compound . . .”
“Is it indeed?” Studer nodded. “Arsenic! Are you quite sure?”
“Quite sure, Sergeant.”
Silence again. The buzzing of a winter fly could clearly be heard. Once more Studer kneeled down, placed his forefinger and ring finger on the dead man’s lids and closed Ernst’s eyes.
He stood up, brushed the dust from his trousers – and then he heard a voice behind him:
“It can’t be! My son! My son!”
Studer turned around abruptly. In the door was his Jass partner, his long nose glowing red . . .
“What are you doing here?” the sergeant snapped. “It’s my son!
It’s my son!” The man had taken his handkerchief out and was rubbing his eyes, blowing his nose.
“Stop making a scene,” said Studer curtly, for the man’s eyes were dry, even the blowing of his nose was not really convincing. “Who let him in?”
“I followed all the rest,” said Arnold Äbi in a tearful voice, “and I don’t know how I’m going to break the sad news to my wife . . .”
“If you don’t feel up to it” – Studer still sounded impatient – “I’d be happy to ring Bern and get an officer from the City Police to go to Aarbergergasse and break it gently to Ernst’s mother. But perhaps Ludwig would like to do it? Eh? When did you last go to see your mother?”
Ludwig, his eyes brimming with tears, shook his head. “First my uncle,” he said in a strained voice, ‘then my brother. Will it be my mother next?”
“Don’t say such stupid things.” growled Äbi. Studer turned his head in surprise. When had the man crept over there? Only seconds ago he had been in the vestibule, now he was by the dead man’s head.
“What are you doing there?”
“Doing? Nothing.” Again Arnold Äbi shot him a venomous glance, then he headed for the steps; he walked silently because he was wearing rubber soles. Studer returned to the section where the dead body was lying – and there was a surprise in store for him. He went to pick up the key he’d pushed out of the lock, bent down . . . Instead of the blackened key with the flecks of rust, he found a new one on the floor, bright and shiny. He checked the door. The old key Wottli had given him was still in the lock on the outside.
Studer weighed the shiny key in his hand, making it gleam in the lamplight, then grasped it between thumb and forefinger and waggled it. Why had the rusty key been replaced with this one? Why? The answer was easy if one assumed it was not suicide but murder. But if it really was murder, it was difficult to see how it had been carried out. Ernst Äbi must have been forced to leave the sickbay; the two sheets knotted together had been left there, so he must have thought he would need them to get back into the room. And then? Who did he meet? Whoever it was, Ernst Äbi must have gone with him, so it must have been a man who had power over him. Very great power for, if you continued the train of thought and assumed the student had been taken to the glasshouse and pushed into the section filled with poisonous gas, he could easily have broken the glass in the top half of the door with his fist. One sharp blow would have saved him. Why had he stayed in the place with the lethal gas? Why had he allowed himself to be locked in?
Just a minute. He had no proof whatsoever that Ernst Äbi had been locked in. No proof? Some suspicious circumstances, though. Firstly: someone had exchanged the rusty key for a new one? Why? Secondly: Arnold Äbi, the dead man’s father, possessed a vice that was attached to the kitchen table and was covered in iron filings. And there was something else, a third suspicious circumstance. Studer thought and thought, his brow furrowed in concentration. Then the furrows cleared. “Aah!” was all the sergeant said. He remembered that Frau Äbi had complained about some tablets that were missing. Tablets that were clearly narcotic.
Studer gave Arnold Äbi a hard look, but when he saw the expression on the man’s face, he realized he would get nowhere at the moment. There would be no point in searching his pockets, presumably by now the key had long been concealed somewhere. There were enough places here where it could be hidden: large flowerpots, a pile of sand in one corner, peat in another; the table running down the middle of the glasshouse was in two parts and one part was enclosed with six-inch planks and piled up with soil; there were plants growing that Studer didn’t even know the name of; and sawdust everywhere. Impossible to tell if the sawdust had recently been used to conceal something. Studer was sure he wouldn’t find anything in the drunkard’s room either (‘drunkard” was what Studer called Äbi in his own mind). The “narcotic” had probably been dumped with the rubbish by now – and the three locales had no lack of that.
Despite the expression that covered the old man’s face like a mask – his lips and eyes were full of scorn – the sergeant decided it was worth one attempt. He said out loud, “I would very much like to search Ernst Äbi’s desk.”
“What? Tonight?” the principal asked, and Paul Wottli protested as well. Indeed, he protested so strongly it aroused Studer’s suspicion, for he had clearly seen the somewhat questioning looks both of them had given Äbi as they spoke. Arnold Äbi’s expression changed almost immediately. The scorn vanished; his eyelids were lowered. Then he shook his head, his cheeks had turned pale. Was the man afraid?
“I insist on it,” Studer said. “And I have one further question, Herr Wottli. How many copies of the glasshouse key are there?”
“Which key do you mean? The one to the main door? There’s only one of that, this one here.” Wottli took his key ring out of his pocket and held up a middle-sized key.
Studer shook his head. “I mean the key to this door,” he said, pointing at the door to the section that had been fumigated.
“Two,” said Wottli quietly. Why did he keep looking at Äbi out of the corner of his eye? “The principal has one, and I have the other.”
“Where is your key, Herr Direktor?”
“In my office. In one of the desk drawers.”
“And to whom does this one belong?”
They both spoke at the same time, pushing forward – and Arnold Äbi hid behind them. What was the old drunkard doing there? Why was he hiding? Studer just had time to see that the man was wearing gloves.
“It could be mine.” – “That’s the principal’s.”
A duet is only pleasant to hear when it’s a song that’s being sung; words spoken by two voices, on the other hand, make your ears ache.
“Just a moment.” Studer raised his hands. “One at a time, please. You are sure the key is yours, are you, Principal? Quite sure? When was the last time you used it?”
“That I couldn’t say. A few days ago – perhaps a week . . . Oh, now I remember. I gave it to Ernst Äbi exactly a week ago, last Thursday. He didn’t give it back to me until Sunday, claiming he had simply forgotten.”
“And yours, Herr Wottli?”
“It’s been in my pocket all the time.”
“Why not on your key ring?”
“Because I have to give it to a student now and then. No one needs the one to the outside door, that’s always open, except during the holidays.”
“Ludwig,” Studer called. The young man was hiding in a dark corner. Now he came over. “Can you remember what the key you saw in the lock inside was like?”
Silence. Ludwig’s eyes went from one to the other. Arnold Äbi’s head appeared over the principal’s shoulder, his eyelids wide apart. How he was staring at the lad!
“I . . . I don’t know . . . It . . . it looked old and rusty.”
“Older than this one?”
“But that one’s new.”
“Silence.” – “Shut up.” – “Liar.” – “Just what you’d expect from someone who’s been in the reformatory.”
“Quiet!” Studer roared. Then he said, with a malicious smile, “Strange how people can get worked up over a simple key.” While they were shouting at Ludwig, Arnold Äbi’s face had gone bright red; at Studer’s words it went pale. The sergeant just managed to register that before his head disappeared behind Sack-Amherd’s back once more. The two others also seemed to realize they had made a mistake. Fear crept into their minds and changed their expressions.
“This is more than a body can bear, Sergeant, you’re making us quite nervous. Do you think we are enjoying this? First of all you suspect one of our students, search his locker and find bloodstained clothing so that it looks as if the lad must at least have been party to a murder, even if he didn’t commit it himself. You make Ernst Äbi so worried that he commits suicide that very same evening. And what are you trying to make it into now? Even the first case here you made into – er . . . made out to be a murder, despite the contrary opinion of the local doctor. And now you’re saying Ernst Äbi was murdered? By whom? I saw myself that the key was in the lock on the inside. It’s impossible for someone to have locked the door from outside when the key is on the inside – I repeat: on the inside. Is that not so?”
“Then why are the small pliers missing?” Studer asked, so quietly that the principal leaned forward and put his right hand behind his ear. The sergeant repeated his question a little louder.
“Small pliers? But we haven’t got that kind of pliers. Moreover, Sergeant, you cannot prove that some other key was used. Or are you maintaining that the key that was found on the floor had been exchanged by someone? If that is what you think, then I must beg to differ. In my opinion, the matter is clear: Ernst Äbi returned the key to me and saw where I put it away. What is more likely than that the student took it from my desk this evening – in order to commit suicide?”
The Principal had hardly finished than the sergeant saw the drunkard reappear. He stood directly underneath the light, crossed his arms and stared at Studer with wide-open eyes.
Studer began to have doubts. Strange: Arnold Äbi was respectably dressed, you could tell that his wife kept everything neat and tidy. His suit was old, but the collar of his jacket wasn’t greasy, it had been well brushed, and his light blue shirt was clean. And yet . . . and yet . . . There was an expression on the man’s face . . . It was no longer scornful, yet there was something of the poorhouse about it.
But – you can dislike the way a man looks, that doesn’t prove he murdered his son. To prove that you would have to assume the key had been exchanged. Who by? It didn’t have to be Arnold Äbi. It could just as well have been Sack-Amherd, Wottli or even Ludwig. The three of them had been there all the time, and two had protested strongly against the suggestion of an exchange.
He needed to find a motive strong enough to make one of them commit murder. Was there such a motive?
God forbid! It wouldn’t be the first time Studer heard of a father killing his son. The reason? Ernst Äbi would surely have been named in the Chinaman’s will. If he were eliminated, the other heirs would profit by it. The others? It was not only the drunkard who had an interest, through his wife; there was also Hungerlott, the warden, through his dead wife. Ludwig would have to be included too. And then Ernst’s teacher, Wottli.
The sergeant was tired. He saw that it was already a quarter past eleven. Most of all he would have liked to arrest all those standing around in the glasshouse, without a by-your-leave – or to tell them to go to the devil. But that was out of the question, so he asked Sack-Amherd to take him back to the college building for a moment. There were two things he wanted to see, he explained: the drawer where the other key had been kept and the dead man’s desk. Paul Wottli was asked to accompany Ernst’s father back to the poorhouse and then to go home.
“Ludwig,” he said, finally turning to Ernst’s stepbrother, “you’re to stay here. You’re to guard the glasshouse until I come back to fetch you. Understood? And you, Herr Wottli, will give me the key to the outside door? Take it off your key ring. Meerci. And now let’s go, Herr Sack-Amherd . . .”