Филип Керр - Metropolis

Also around his editorial table were a number of men whose names were more familiar than their faces: Rudolf Olden, Ernst Feder, Fred Hildebrandt, Kurt Tucholsky and, most famously, Alfred Kerr.

I shook hands with Wolff, nodded at the others as he made the introductions, and then pointed at the letter, which lay flat on the table in front of him, next to the envelope it had arrived in, the medal it had also contained and a typewriter that someone had probably already copied it on.

‘Is that it?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many people have handled this, sir?’ I asked.

‘Three, I should think. The postboy. My secretary. And me. As soon as I saw what it was I called the Alex.’

I put on the surgeon’s rubber gloves I’d brought from the Alex and pulled a pair of tweezers from my pocket. I drew the letter carefully across the table, sat down, and checked that it had been typed on a machine with the capital letter G printed to the right. Then I read it to myself.

Dear Editor,

I am the killer of Walther Frölich over by Oberbaum Bridge. I shot him just once through the forehead with a Browning .25-calibre automatic pistol. To prove this, here is the medal I removed from the dead man’s tunic and a lock of bloodstained hair I cut from the back of his skull. This gives you an excellent indication of how much time I had to carry out this murder and how little I was concerned that I might be apprehended by the police. They can check the blood type on the hair, and the brooch-back Iron Cross First Class, and they will know that I am telling the truth. I am the same man who killed the other three parasites, who also called themselves disabled veterans. And I am enjoying myself.

You could easily help put a stop to this, of course. You need only publish an editorial calling on the government to remove these rats and lice from our streets. If they heed your words and do this — might I suggest that these vermin all be arrested and taken somewhere outside the city and disposed of hygienically; or accommodated in special camps or hospitals, perhaps? This would render our capital city’s streets fit for patriotic Germans to walk in. At the present moment it’s impossible to take any pride in a country where there are so many living reminders of our national shame begging for coins on every street corner.

One day Germany will thank me for prompting it to clean up our cities. When I am done with Berlin’s cripples I will perhaps move on to some others I have on my little list; yes, I have a little list — pestilential nuisances we wouldn’t really miss. Gypsies perhaps. Street urchins. Whores. Freemasons. Communists. Or queers — they certainly wouldn’t be missed. I shall certainly enjoy killing them, too.

Meanwhile, the police are not going to catch me, but please understand that this is not arrogance on my part; it isn’t that I am too clever for them, but that they are too stupid. The Murder Commission run by the Jew Bernhard Weiss has a great deal in common with my victims in that it is crippled and has already outlived its usefulness; indeed, you might think that Bernhard Weiss had a hole in his own head the way he goes about running that department. The self-serving article he wrote for your newspaper was as badly written as it was ill-advised. Mark my words: All that his so-called journalism will succeed in doing is giving the police a lot more to do as they attempt to deal with those misguided Berliners who wish to take false credit for my work. Take my advice and don’t give him any more space in your paper.

But to prove to you how useless Kripo is I am providing you with a very nice thumbprint — mine! — so that the fingerprint people at the Alex can spend a great deal of time trying to match this with something they already have on file. This will be in vain, of course, for the simple reason that I am not a criminal but a patriot. Long live Germany.

Heil Hitler.

Yours,

‘Where’s the lock of hair?’

‘Still in the original envelope,’ said Wolff. ‘Untouched by anyone around this table. The letter was posted in Humboldthain.’

‘Are you going to print this?’ I asked.

‘We’re a newspaper. Not a church magazine. And that’s front-page news.’

‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I, sir?’

‘I can see that you don’t think we should print it. But this is Germany. Not Soviet Russia. Unlike the Bolsheviks we don’t practise press censorship in this country. It’s what makes our readers know they can trust the Tageblatt . News is news. The minute we start deciding on what news we choose not to print, then people might as well subscribe to Pravda .’

‘That’s a nice speech, sir. And on the whole I agree with it. All I’m asking is that you delay printing the letter until we’ve had a chance to read and digest it. To give us time to check this fingerprint. In case that or something else here gives us a lead.’

‘How long would you suggest?’

‘Seventy-two hours.’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘Forty-eight.’

‘Thirty-six.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. If you don’t mind, maybe you could leave out the make of the gun and the fact that it was an automatic. It’s important for us to know just a little more than your readers. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

‘Agreed,’ said Wolff. ‘What about that fingerprint? Think it’s genuine?’

‘Oh, it’s a genuine fingerprint, all right. The question is, who does it belong to? Emil Jannings, Gösta Ekman or Werner Krauss; Hindenburg perhaps. But I’ll stake my life on the fact that it doesn’t belong to the good doctor. I’ve got a feeling this fellow likes wasting police time the way the Nazis like beating drums and waving flags.’

I picked the letter up with the tweezers and carefully slid it into a thin manila file: I repeated the procedure with the enclosing envelope and the medal before glancing around the smoke-filled room and asking myself a question. I knew what I thought about the letter, but I was curious what they thought.

‘I’m not often in such illustrious company,’ I said. ‘I wonder if any one of you distinguished gentlemen might care to speculate on why someone would do something as heinous as killing four disabled men? What’s his motive?’

‘Seriously?’ said a voice.

‘Of course.’

‘Now?’

‘Now, this minute, yes. If you can do it sooner I’d appreciate it. Look, thousands of people already pay attention to your daily opinions. So why not give me the scoop on your thinking. On what you’re going to write in the paper. I’m a reader. But I’m also a listener.’

‘He sounds quite intelligent,’ said someone.

‘He means the killer,’ said someone else. ‘Not you, sergeant.’

I smiled at the general laughter that followed this remark. ‘I’m not very handsome, either. Next time I’ll comb my hair, brush my teeth, wear a clean shirt and bring a nice sharp pencil.’

‘You’re rather assuming Dr Gnadenschuss doesn’t actually believe the reasons he provides in his letter,’ said Wolff.

‘I’m a cop, there’s a lot I don’t believe. I think that letter is just him ringing a few bells at the funfair. That’s right. The ones he thinks people like us want to hear. Frankly, I’m not convinced by any of that monkey talk.’

‘Surely you’re just saying that to undermine our resolve to publish it,’ said Wolff.

‘No, not even if I thought I could. But I’ve heard this kind of political testament before. It’s the sort of crap that people write when they’re pulling a stretch in Landsberg Prison.’

‘He signs off with Heil Hitler . That’s all we need to know, isn’t it? Surely it’s obvious the murderer’s a Nazi.’