Филип Керр - Metropolis

‘You know I clean his room,’ she said.

‘I wish you’d clean mine.’

‘You don’t pay me what he pays me. Anyway, look, I’m not worried about him so much as the rest of us. I was cleaning his room yesterday and I found this on the floor.’

She held up a bullet and then dropped it into the palm of my hand. It was a bullet for a .25-calibre automatic.

‘No law against carrying a gun,’ I said. ‘Even a Tommy’s entitled to look to his own self-defence.’

‘I understand that. But he drinks. He drinks too much. My old man used to say guns and alcohol don’t mix.’

I smiled and restrained myself from telling her that I’d probably drunk alcohol on every day of the four years I’d spent in the trenches. Sometimes being drunk is the only good reason to pull a trigger.

‘A man loading a gun while he’s drinking heavily,’ she insisted, ‘is a recipe for disaster. If it’s done at all, it’s best done well. And best done sober. Besides, I don’t like guns in the house. They make me nervous.’

‘I have a gun.’ I remembered that while I might have lost the Walther somewhere, I still had Reichenbach’s little pistol. It felt snug against my abdomen as we spoke.

‘That’s different. You’re a policeman.’

‘You’d be surprised at the number of complaints the police receive about us shooting innocent people.’

‘It’s not a joke, Herr Gunther. Besides, he’s English. They hate us, don’t they? Not him, maybe. But the rest of them hate us almost as much as the French.’

‘Very well. I’ll ask him about it when I next see him.’

‘Thank you. You might also mention that I don’t approve of his having women in his room at night any more than I approve of his having a gun. Specifically Fraulein Braun. I wouldn’t mind so much but they make a noise, which keeps me awake.’

‘Was there anything else, Frau Weitendorf?’

‘Yes, someone called Erich Angerstein telephoned. Twice. He asked you to call him back. But I didn’t like him. He sounded very common. I asked him for his number and he said you already had his business card, but that if you’d lost it you could find him at the Cabaret of the Nameless every night this week after midnight. Not that it’s any of my business, Herr Gunther, but I’ve heard that the Nameless is a place all respectable people should avoid.’

‘I’m not respectable people, Frau Weitendorf. I’m a policeman and that means I go to evil places so you don’t have to. When I’ve been to the Nameless I’ll tell you all about it and you can thank me then.’

I telephoned Angerstein’s number but there was no answer. Then I telephoned the Alex. This time I got through to Weiss and told him that nothing much had happened except that I’d broken the klutz wagon. There was a long silence. He seemed to be thinking.

‘That’s a pity.’

‘I was wondering if you wanted me to stay out on the street,’ I added, hoping that he would say no. ‘But without the contraption, I would have to adapt my look. Get myself a crutch and go begging with one leg instead of none at all.’

‘And what’s your feeling about doing that?’

‘I suppose I could do it.’

‘Really, it’s up to you, Gunther.’

‘But honestly? I’m beginning to think I’m wasting my time. Especially now that there’s been another murder. I do believe a change of tactics is called for.’

‘Well, it was a brave attempt. A noble failure, if you like. I still am convinced we have to try everything to catch this killer, even when what we are doing seems unusual or disagreeable. But perhaps you’re right. Maybe now is the time to change our tactics. To try something new. Whatever that might amount to. Grzesinski is tearing his hair out. We’re really short of ideas. The public has been less than helpful. I don’t have to tell you how many time-wasters we had in response to my own newspaper article appealing for help. You’d think Berliners don’t want this man caught.’

‘That’s certainly a possibility.’

He paused. ‘But you’re all right, in yourself. Feeling well?’

‘If you’re asking me if I’ve stopped drinking then yes, I have.’

‘That’s something, I suppose. What I mean is, you’re not getting tired of police work.’

‘Not in the least, sir. And I want to get this murderer as much as you do.’

‘Good, good.’

‘But I haven’t changed my theory that Winnetou and Dr Gnadenschuss are one and the same. For this reason, and with your permission, I’m going to have to speak to the minister’s girlfriend, Daisy Torrens. It seems that her previous boyfriend, a fellow named Geise, Rudi Geise, used to have a penchant for mutilating enemy corpses during the war. Cutting off ears and that kind of thing. Apparently he still carries a knife. So if you add that to the fact that by all accounts he hated women, then he might make a useful suspect. As I’ve said, it’s only a few centimetres from cutting off an ear to cutting off a scalp. Worth a look, I’d have thought.’

‘Very well. But please tread very carefully. Right now I’m not so popular with the minister. I do believe he would fire me if he could. It would certainly make him look good in front of his enemies if he could dismiss a Jew from the police. Especially as he’s a Jew himself. He can even produce a good reason to get rid of me. It seems that President Kleiber of the Stuttgart police has complained about my book. Accused me of settling old scores. Which simply isn’t true.’

If I’d ever got around to finishing his dry book I might have agreed with him, loyally. Meanwhile, I decided not to tell Weiss that I was half inclined to interview Fritz Lang about his first wife and his interest in Jack the Ripper. It might have sounded like one fishing trip too many. Instead I gave him something else.

‘This latest victim, sir: Johann Tetzel. I met him in the course of my investigations. Questioned him outside the Berlin Zoo aquarium not so long ago. It was Tetzel who gave me the tip about Prussian Emil.’

‘Prussian Emil is the one whose klutz wagon you were using, right?’

‘Yes, sir. As a matter of fact I’m going to follow up a lead on him tonight.’

‘Excellent. It might interest you to know that Gennat is currently working on a theory that the murderer is a member of the Steel Helmet. We found a membership stickpin in Tetzel’s dead hand. As if he’d grabbed it from the murderer’s lapel. Do you remember Tetzel wearing such a pin himself?’

‘No. I don’t, sir. And he didn’t strike me as a right-winger either.’

‘Well, we can talk more about this when you come in to the Alex. You are coming in tomorrow, aren’t you? I mean, if you’re not out playing klutz any longer.’

‘I’ll be in tomorrow, sir.’ If nothing else, I needed to report the missing Walther and put in for a replacement.

‘Good. We can catch up. Share some ideas. Then I wondered if you’d care to come for dinner with me one night soon.’

‘Thanks. I’d like to.’

‘My wife is keen to meet you, Gunther. I didn’t give her any details but I’m afraid I told her that you saved my life. She and I don’t have secrets from each other. Besides, I’m a terrible liar. Comes of being an honest cop, I suppose.’

‘Take my word for it, sir; we honest cops have to lie like all the rest. Sometimes that’s what keeps us alive.’

It was well past eleven but the Thomas Cook charabanc was collecting excited English guests from some of the more exclusive hotels to take them on a late-night tour of Berlin’s famous sex clubs: lesbian clubs like the Toppkeller in Schwerinstrasse, where there was a famous Black Mass featuring several naked girls; or the Zauberflöte with its separate floors for queer men and queer women. These sex tours were especially popular with the English, since it was certain that there was no sex to see nor any to be had back home.