The ground floor of the school was brightly lit, and there were still some lights on up on the second floor. As Studer entered the vestibule with the principal, it made him think of an enormous beehive. The whole building was filled with a loud buzzing that was muted, but not completely silenced, by the closed doors of the classrooms.
Sack-Amherd went into his office and switched on the light. A huge desk by the window, an iron safe by the door and shelves on the walls filled with box files . . . Sack-Amherd, disgruntled, sat down in the chair at his desk, pulled out an unlocked drawer and started to rummage round in it. Papers fluttered to the floor. Then he opened a second drawer, searched through it, and a third . . .
“The key’s gone,” he sighed.
Studer nodded silently.
“But that’s clear proof,” the principal went on, “that the dead man came into my office and stole the key because he intended to commit suicide. Isn’t it?”
Studer shrugged his shoulders and plunged his hands deeper into his trouser pockets.
“Proof?” he murmured. “I see no proof. First of all we have to establish when Äbi took the key. This evening? Or earlier on? During the day? And are you quite sure your key was new, Herr Direktor? Was it really this key?” He took the shiny object out of his pocket and held it under Sack-Amherd’s nose. The principal yawned.
“How should I know? I haven’t seen the key for ages. – Ah, now I remember. When Äbi asked for it last week, I simply told him to go and fetch it and explained which drawer it was in. He brought it back and put it away himself and only told me he’d done so afterwards. I can’t waste my time on minor matters like that. Do you still want to go and see his desk?”
They went out into the corridor and headed for a door diagonally opposite the principal’s office.
“Just wait a moment,” he said quietly, putting his hand on the principal’s arm to stop him.
In the classroom a voice was saying, “Do you really think that sergeant, that copper, is going to find anything, Baumann? Instead of asking us, he tacks on to the old man and Wottli. As if either of them had any idea about Äbi. I know more about Äbi than the rest of the college put together, believe you me.”
“Shh! Shhh!” the others chorused. “Not so loud.” – “If someone should be listening!” – “I’ll just open the door and have a look . . .”
Studer didn’t wait but turned the handle.
It was bright as day in the classroom, the four lamps in the ceiling must have had very strong bulbs. Three rows of desks with seats attached; immediately opposite the door a long, wide table for the teacher; the blackboard on the wall with something sketched in chalk on it, the plan of a building – good God, it was the glasshouse. Beside it was a smaller sketch that excited Studer’s curiosity.
“What’s this you’ve drawn here?” he asked drumming his fingers on the blackboard. The reply came from a chorus of at least twenty voices: “the heating system.”
“Which heating system?”
“The glasshouse’s.”
Of course! The lads weren’t stupid. They’d thought of the heating system – and a trained detective felt ashamed of himself because he’d forgotten such an important factor. Studer did not hesitate.
“I don’t need you any more, Herr Direktor. I can see you’re very tired, off you go to your bed. I can handle these students, don’t you worry.” – Studer spoke very softly, close to Sack-Amherd’s ear and holding his hand by his mouth. – “And I’ll make sure they go up to the dormitories afterwards.”
“Fine. If you say so.” The principal gave another wide yawn. It was so quiet in the room a knocking could be heard that came from the ceiling. “Yes, that’s my wife calling me. I’m sure she’s worried. So . . . I wish you all good night. And – don’t make too much noise.”
Herr Sack-Amherd closed the door quietly behind him, the sound of his steps faded. There was silence in the classroom.
“Right,” said Studer, taking off his coat, “let’s do this investigation together. Who was it talking to Baumann before I came in?”
“Me.” A tall fellow stood up in the back row, right at the top. His hair gleamed red, and his face was covered in freckles.
“What’s your name?”
“Amstein. Walter Amstein.”
“Right then, Wälti – I presume that’s not what your teachers call you, but that’s the way I do things. I presume you don’t mind?”
“No, not at all. In fact, I prefer it.” And the redhead laughed, showing a row of fine teeth.
“What did you mean, Wälti, by saying you knew more about Äbi than the rest of the college put together? I heard that out in the corridor.”
“You see, I was right,” a small, brown-haired lad shouted to Amstein. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
“Are you Baumann?” Studer asked.
“Mmm.” The lad nodded. The muscles at his elbows were tensed; he had his hands clasped round his chin. “I know you, Sergeant. I was in The Sun on the eighteenth, and I saw the poorhouse lot try to beat you up.”
Studer took that up and questioned Baumann. “What was the reason? I never really got to the bottom of it. After all, it was pure chance that I’d forgotten to fill up and –”
He was interrupted by three students at once: by Baumann, Amstein and a third, whose hair was almost white like an albino’s. He had horn-rimmed glasses, and the lenses were so strong, the eyes behind them were completely distorted. His name was Popingha, and he spoke German with a strong Dutch accent. He ordered the others to shut up and told the following story:
On that evening Ernst Äbi had suddenly come into the classroom and said he needed four men. He (Popingha) and Amstein and Heinis and Vonzugarten had gone with him. On the way Ernst had told them that his brother – his stepbrother – had arrived that morning. Some time before, the Poor Board had sent him to the poorhouse, but he had run off with a girl. The stranger, Farny, had taken him under his wing, but with Hungerlott you never knew what the man had up his sleeve. That morning he’d agreed not to do anything about his brother, Ernst had said, and he’d promised Farny that too. But in the evening a policeman had suddenly turned up, perhaps he was going to arrest his brother. He’d managed to get some of the poorhouse inmates together, but he needed a few more he could rely on, which was why he’d come to us. We were to frighten the cop, he said, so he’d go and leave Ludwig in peace.
“That’s the way it was, Sergeant, that’s why we behaved as if we were going to attack you.”
How simple it was when you knew the story! And how brave the lad had been, the lad who was now lying dead in the glasshouse, guarded by his stepbrother.
The glasshouse . . . what was the point of the plan of the heating system?
This time it was Amstein who answered. His bed, he explained, was next to Äbi’s in the dormitory. He had noticed that recently Äbi had been sleeping badly. Often he had lain awake almost the whole night and when he finally dropped off towards morning, he had talked in his sleep. He kept going on about the boiler room. The boiler room and the glasshouse. A few times Ernst, Baumann’s best friend – “that’s right isn’t it, Buuma?” – “Sure!” – a few times Ernst had skipped evening study. They had study in the college in the morning from half past six until breakfast at half past seven – earlier in the summer – and in the evening from five until half past six and from half past seven until ten. He just mentioned that to put the sergeant in the picture . . . So Baumann had told him that Äbi was sometimes missing, and since Baumann was shy he, Amstein, had followed Äbi. And what had he discovered? Ernst had met his father out in the graveyard.
“The two of them were standing by the grave of Frau Hungerlott, who had died a fortnight previously. I knew that she was Ernst’s sister, what I couldn’t understand was why he should be meeting his father there. Afterwards the two of them went to the glasshouse. At first I stayed outside, then I went in. There was no one there, but I could hear them whispering, down in the boiler room. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, though. Then I slipped away. There was just one strange thing: the bulb down in the boiler room was off all that night, but last Monday I saw a light down there. It was around nine, and Äbi was on duty that week; in the morning he had to clear out the grid and in the evening build up the fire for the night . . . I thought Äbi must have a spare bulb, which he took out when he left the boiler room and replaced with another, an old one that didn’t work. Why he should do that I’ve no idea.”
A second discovery. Studer deliberately did not make notes. There is nothing more off-putting than pedantic note-taking – and while you’re doing that, you can’t look up and you lose completely the rapport with the person you’re listening to. For a while there was silence. All the students were flushed, their eyes sparkling.
“Anything else?”
Popingha, the Dutchman with the thick glasses, gave a short laugh and nodded. He knew something else, he said, but he didn’t think it was important.
“Come on then, tell me.” Actually Studer was surprised how well he was getting on with these students who were strangers to him. They should have hated him because that morning he had searched Äbi’s locker and found a piece of incriminating evidence. They all seemed so devastated by the death of their fellow student that they had overcome their natural reserve and wanted to help.
Popingha came out with his revelation: he regularly used to see Frau Anna Hungerlott out walking with their teacher, Herr Wottli, and he was willing to bet they’d been in love with each other.
Studer was about to smile, he could feel the corners of his mouth twitch, but suddenly he felt a shiver, even though it was stiflingly hot in the classroom. He felt he’d caught hold of the end of the thread and now he could unravel the tangled, knotted skein.
“Off you go to bed now,” he commanded. “And go up the stairs quietly.”
The students followed him. He put out the lights, waited on the second floor until they were all in bed, then put out the lights in the dormitories as well.
“Goodnight, sleep tight.”
When he left the building it was a quarter to one. The glasshouse was still brightly lit.