Fritz returned to his building at eight o’clock that night, hungry, exhausted, anxious. Despite the Chief’s warning, Fritz had stopped at Hitler’s apartment again only to find Frau Reichert there alone with her ailing mother. She would not let him see her mother. She said she had not seen Hitler since the weekend, and swore that her mother had not either. Then she begged Fritz not to return again.
He made no promises.
But he went home after that. The meeting with the Chief had left him unsettled, and his inability to find Hitler without the help of the Political Police unsettled him even more. So much so that he failed to note the darkness in the hallway around his apartment until too late.
He pulled his key from his pocket, and fumbled in the dark, cursing the landlord’s inability to keep the building up, when a hand covered his.
‘Please, Inspector, just a moment.’
The voice was male and familiar, but Fritz couldn’t place it. The man standing close to him smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke. Fritz pulled his hand away and put the key back into his pocket.
‘Not here,’ the man said. ‘Inside, perhaps?’
‘No,’ Fritz said. ‘There is a beer hall on the corner. We will meet there in five minutes.’
‘It’s too public,’the man said. ‘Inside would be better.’
‘You may either speak to me in the beer hall or on the street. I would like to be able to see your face.’
‘What I have to say to you is not for anyone else to hear. Please, Inspector. Hear me.’
‘Then tell me why you put out the lights in the hallway.’
The man reached up and screwed the lightbulb back in. The sudden light made Fritz blink. The hallway was empty except for the both of them.
‘I don’t want to be seen talking with you,’ the man said. ‘It could get me killed.’
Fritz recognised him. The man still wore his suit, but it had rumpled with use. His wire-rimmed glasses made his eyes look owlish, a feature enhanced by his balding head. He had been the man Fritz had seen outside Hitler’s office in the Brown House that morning.
The man was not carrying a weapon, and the fear radiating from his body was palpable.
Fritz fumbled for his key, unlocked the door, and let the man inside. Then Fritz followed and locked the door behind them. He closed the curtains over the window before turning on the light inside. The man hovered near the door, his thumbs hooked on the pockets of his suit coat, marring its line.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
The man made no comment about the meagreness of the surroundings. Fritz folded the newspaper he had left open on the couch, and tossed his coat over his duffel. Then he went into the small kitchen and cut himself a slice of bread, offering the man a piece by waving his hand. The man shook his head.
‘I am Otto Strasser,’ the man said.
So the young Brownshirt had been right. A Strasser had been in the Brown House. Only it was the wrong brother.
‘I would like to talk about Geli Raubal,’ Otto said.
‘I know no other reason you would be here.’ Fritz took a bite of the bread. It was doughy and its crust had been baked with butter. He did not offer Strasser a seat. The man’s presence bothered him. It made him think of Hess, and Hess’s odd honesty. Otto Strasser was devious enough, Herr Schwarz had said, to plot against Hitler. Perhaps not for Strasser’s gain, but for his brother’s.
‘Why didn’t you talk to me this morning?’ Fritz asked.
‘I didn’t know who you were then.’
Fritz brushed some crumbs off his own coat. ‘You did well to find me so easily tonight.’
Strasser shrugged. ‘I have sources, Inspector. Your home is not secret.’
‘Your visit probably is not either.’
‘I realise that.’ Strasser spoke softly. ‘But I have some information you might need to know. I doubt anyone else might have it.’
Fritz took another bite of the bread, and leaned against the counter. ‘Were you at Prinzregentenplaz when Geli died?’
‘No,’ Strasser said. ‘I was in Berlin. I came here as soon as I heard.’
‘I thought you were no longer a member of the NSDAP.’
‘I am no longer a member of Hitler’s NSDAP.’
‘So you came to help your brother regain leadership of the party.’ Fritz finished the slice of bread. It would hold him until Strasser left.
‘I don’t think they realise the extent of the crisis at the Brown House yet,’ Strasser said.
‘And you do.’
He nodded. ‘I know who killed Geli.’
‘All the way from Berlin, you got this knowledge?’
‘No,’ Strasser said. ‘Please, Inspector. I know what Hitler was doing to her. It was only a matter of time.’
Despite himself, Fritz was interested. He opened his hand toward the couch. Strasser nodded, loosened his tie, and sat as if he had visited a hundred times before. Fritz remained in the kitchenette, leaning against the counter.
‘All right,’ Fritz said. ‘I’ll listen.’
‘I liked Geli,’ Strasser said. ‘I really did. She was a beautiful girl, and so lively. That she is dead –’ his voice broke ‘– that she is dead is a crime against life itself. She would never kill herself. Never.’
‘If you are accusing someone of killing her, you will need to be more explicit, Herr Strasser.’
Strasser looked down and nodded. His hands, resting on his knees, fidgeted with the legs of his trousers. ‘I took Geli to the Mardi Gras dance last year.’
‘I thought Hitler didn’t allow her to see anyone.’
‘He didn’t, usually, but he and I were having difficulties and he wanted to patch them up. Besides, Geli was keen to go, and he couldn’t take her. So he let me.’ He looked up, his eyes softening with the memory. ‘She was giddy with excitement. She would joke with me that I could drive her anyway and Hitler would not know. She drank a lot of champagne and instead of taking my car back to the apartment we walked through the English Garden. The air seemed to sober her up, and by the time we reached the Chinese Tower she clutched my arm and begged me to stop walking.’
Fritz studied Strasser closely. The man spoke softly and occasionally made eye contact, but mostly he gazed at a point to his left. Fritz had seen the technique before, mostly with witnesses trying to recall moments exactly.
‘Her wrap had slipped off her shoulder, and she had a whip mark on her shoulder blade. I remarked on it as I brought the wrap up to cover her skin, and she started to cry.’
Fritz had taken women to the Chinese Tower late at night in Mardi Gras. A woman’s wrap did not slip without help. But he was not going to interrupt the flow of Strasser’s story.
‘She said she didn’t want to go back. She said her uncle Alfie was a monster and she was afraid of him.’
Strasser stopped. Fritz waited, but when it appeared that Strasser wasn’t going to say any more, Fritz asked, ‘Did she say why she was afraid of him?’
Strasser nodded. He brought his right hand up and stroked his chin, covering his mouth as he did so, as if to keep the words inside. ‘She said … she said the whip wasn’t the worst of it. She was crying. She told me things I …’ Strasser shook his head. His fingers were over his lips. ‘… Things I knew only from college. Did you ever read Krafft-Ebing? Psychopathia Sexualis?’
‘I didn’t go to college,’ Fritz said, even though he had seen the book.
‘God,’ Strasser said. He stood and paced to the window, staring at the curtains as if he could see the street below. ‘This is going to be more difficult than I thought.’
Fritz waited silently, neither encouraging nor discouraging. He wished he had eaten another slice of bread. His stomach was growling.
Strasser continued to look at the curtains. He clasped his hands behind his back. ‘She said she couldn’t go back, that when she did, he would make her take off all her clothes and squat over him while he looked at her. Then he would … she would … he wanted her to … every night …’ Strasser leaned his head against the window frame. His voice was barely audible. ‘He wanted her to … to piss on him … and she would, and that would start it all.’ He shook his head, still pressing it against the wall. ‘She asked me to get her away from him. She said it was getting worse. He was thinking of more things, other things …’
He sighed and stood. The frame had left a small red mark on his forehead. He shook his head again, his cheeks flushed and eyes a bit too bright.
‘God help me, I was so disgusted. I took her home.’
Fritz didn’t move. He felt as if his own body were made of glass. Finally, he said, ‘Just because a man has unusual sexual practices does not mean he is a killer.’
‘My God, man,’ Strasser said. ‘She was afraid of him.’
‘But you took her back there,’ Fritz said. ‘She couldn’t have been that afraid.’
‘She was afraid,’ Strasser said.
Fritz crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Let me see if I understand this. You take a girl to the English Garden during Mardi Gras, get her drunk, and then kiss her. While you slide her dress off her shoulder, she winces when you touch a bruise on her shoulder blade. Then she tells you that she is sleeping with her uncle, a man you are having a conflict with, and that his sexual practices are so onerous that you need to rescue her?’
The flush in Strasser’s cheeks grew deeper.
‘And you expect me to believe this story because you have come to me of your own free will, all the way from Berlin. I should ignore the story in the Münchner Post that says your brother will lead the NSDAP, the party you were thrown out of a few short months after you “dated” Geli, and I should forget that you have disliked Hitler from the day you met him. I should also forget that you run political newspapers in Berlin and understand how important information is, especially in the right hands. I should forget that Hitler’s people are hinting that his enemies killed his niece to discredit him, and yet you come in here, to talk to me, to discredit Hitler.’
‘I am telling you the truth,’ Strasser said.
‘Perhaps you are,’ Fritz said. ‘But you have failed to connect Hitler’s undinism with your accusation of murder. It would seem to me, if the man is having sexual relations with the woman, that he would want her to live, especially if those relations call for participation.’
‘She was afraid of him,’ Strasser said.
‘A year and a half ago. Yet she continued to live with him, and you did nothing. If you were so convinced Hitler was going to kill her, why didn’t you help her get out? Her story of his appetites might have helped win the party back to you.’
‘He killed her,’ Strasser said.
‘Did he?’ Fritz asked. ‘He was in Nuremberg at the time.’
‘Are you so certain? Nuremberg isn’t that far away.’ Strasser pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. ‘Hitler’s people lie for him. They do it very well.’
‘If you have evidence that Hitler killed Geli, bring it to me and I will see that justice will be done.’
Strasser smiled. The look was cold and bitter. ‘Justice? Then you will have to pay Franz Gürtner a higher bribe than NSDAP does.’
‘If you believe that I will have such trouble convicting Hitler of any crime, why did you come to me?’
‘Because the fact that you were conducting an investigation at all gave me hope.’ Strasser tightened his tie and clicked his heels together in the Brownshirt manner. ‘I can see now that my hope was misplaced. Good night to you, sir.’
He went to the door and let himself out. Fritz waited a moment, half expecting Strasser to return with another story, another way to discredit Hitler. But he did not. Fritz locked the door and cooked himself dinner, before lying on his couch and dreaming of a beautiful brunette with a broken nose begging for his help.