Филип Керр - Metropolis

About the only thing I was still short of was a motive. Why would a man like him murder nine people? To embarrass the Murder Commission and Weiss in particular? To clean up the streets just like he’d said in the letters to the Berliner Tageblatt ? To put the blame on the Nazis? Somehow none of it seemed to be quite enough. And yet, lots of people had been murdered for less.

Of course this was all nonsense. Had to be. Reichenbach was a good cop. All the same, a cop who could afford a new Brennabor motorcar. And an expensive leather coat. Where did he get the money? Not from his wife; how much did a nurse at the Charité hospital make? No, the money had to be his. Could Reichenbach have been the source of the new ten-reichsmarks note I’d found in Eva Angerstein’s handbag?

It was all mostly circumstantial. I had no firm proof. But it seemed possible even if I couldn’t bring myself to believe any of it. Suddenly I had to get off the bus. I had to get back to the Alex.

Someone was still working at the firearms laboratory in the cavernous basement of the Alex. I knew who it was before I walked in. I could smell the cigarette. Paul Mendel was quiet but ambitious; the open copy of Commissar Ernst van den Bergh’s book, Police and Nation — Their Spiritual Bonds , told me that much. I knew he hadn’t ever read it and kept it there next to Weiss’s book and History of the Police by Dr Kurt Melcher to impress the commissars in case any of them came calling. He was gently spoken and bespectacled with lots of thick curly hair. He smoked foul-smelling Russian cigarettes that he always pinched twice to control the flow of the acrid-tasting smoke. He wore a lot of lime water — which is not my favourite cologne unless there’s plenty of good gin in it — and I suspected he was queer, but not enough to make it noticeable, which was probably wise around Berlin policemen; even the queer ones were difficult about that kind of thing. He might have been working late, but he still looked like he was about to go home. All three buttons of his jacket were done up and he was wearing a natty silk scarf against the evening heat.

‘I hate myself for bringing you some work this late.’

‘I know exactly how you feel. So don’t worry. I’m not staying.’

‘Come on, Mendel. It won’t take long. Besides, what else were you going to do this evening? It’s not like you had tickets for the opera. Besides, you love your work. Almost as much as I love mine.’

‘All right. I’m listening. What have you got for me?’

‘A chance to help me crack the Dr Gnadenschuss case.’

‘Hmm. That’s a big sell you’re making there. You’re not just saying this to persuade me to work late.’

‘No. I’m absolutely certain of it.’

‘So then. A .25-calibre automatic. Probably a Browning. No spent brass. Just the bullet. Last-known victim, Johann Tetzel: shot in the head at point-blank range. The case file with the bullet is still on my workbench. Has there been another killing?’

‘No. But I’ve got something better: a possible murder weapon.’

I laid the little automatic Reichenbach had given me on Mendel’s desk.

‘Safety’s on,’ I said. ‘And it’s loaded.’

‘Interesting,’ he said, picking it up and sniffing the barrel. ‘The Browning Vest Pocket pistol. Nice little gun. I have one myself. No real stopping power, but not bulky in the pocket. A Jew can’t be too careful these days. Did you hear that someone attacked Bernhard Weiss? You did. Of course you did. Yes, a lot of people think these guns are Belgian but in fact they’re American. John Browning was a Mormon, did you know? Born in Utah, of course. Several wives. Don’t know if he shot any. But he himself died in Belgium.’

‘I almost died there myself. Lots of Germans did.’

Mendel took off his jacket and removed his scarf, donned a brown cotton coat and rattled his pockets, which were usually full of ammunition. What Mendel didn’t know about guns could have been written on the back of a postage stamp. He ejected the Browning’s magazine, inspected the barrel, checked the number of rounds it contained and laid the gun down again.

‘This pistol has been cleaned, and recently, too. You can still smell the gun oil. If this is a murder weapon then the killer knows how to look after a weapon.’

‘So you’ll do it. A test.’

Mendel smiled. ‘As it happens, you’re in luck, Gunther. We just took delivery of a new piece of equipment and I’ve been dying to try it out.’

‘Oh, what? A human target? After the last meeting of the Schrader-Verband, I can think of a few people in this place I’d like to test a gun on. Even that one.’

‘Me too. But nothing so messy. No, we have an expensive new toy in the lab. Just arrived today. A comparison microscope.’

‘How does it work?’

‘Well, as you know, when a gun is fired, all imperfections in the gun barrel leave a unique pattern of marks on the bullet. Two bullets fired from the same gun bear identical characteristics. With the comparison microscope we can now view a test bullet side by side against a bullet from a cadaver without touching either one. One eyepiece, two microscopes. Very convenient for a man like me. We bought this one from America. It was a microscope like this that helped put Sacco and Vanzetti in the electric chair.’

‘That’s a cheerful thought.’

‘Do you think they were innocent?’

‘I don’t know. But a lot of other people do. Of course a trial like that could never happen here. German courts are rather more careful about proper legal procedure. Especially when it’s a capital crime.’

‘I’m glad you think so. Me, I’m not so sure.’

Mendel switched on a light that illuminated a shooting range and then produced something square and wobbly and wrapped in brown paper, which he laid on a table. He unpeeled the paper to reveal a slab of what looked like aspic jelly.

‘I get my local pork butcher to make these blocks of gelatin for me. They’re great for observing how bullets behave, and for retrieving them without too much trouble. Now then. If you’ll do the honours, Gunther. Someone’s stolen my spare ear mufflers so you’ll have to make the best of it, I’m afraid. Just shoot the pistol into the block.’

Using Reichenbach’s Browning, I fired off three test bullets. The shots were noisier than I’d expected and they left my ears ringing for several minutes. When I’d finished, Mendel cut the block open with a knife and retrieved a couple of spent rounds that could be examined underneath the comparison microscope, side by side with the bullet that had killed Johann Tetzel.

‘By the way, you’re the first person in here in a while who hasn’t made a joke about how it is that a Jew can handle pork gelatin. You wouldn’t believe how many anti-Semites there are in this building.’

‘ Is there a joke?’

‘Not a funny one. Besides, we’re only forbidden to eat pork, not to shoot it.’

‘You know what they say about anti-Semitism. It isn’t a big problem for Jews. It’s a bigger problem for Germans.’

‘Let’s hope you’re right. But if you are, who’s going to tell them?’

Mendel positioned one of the new rounds under the microscope and turned the focus bezel; but it wasn’t very long before he was frowning. The test was negative . The bullet retrieved from Johann Tetzel’s skull was not the one Mendel had cut from the gelatin block.

‘I’m sorry. But this is not the gun that killed him.’

‘That blows my theory out of the water,’ I said. ‘Pity. I was quite sure this was it.’

‘Not necessarily. You’re forgetting. This fellow shot more than one man. So let’s try a comparison with one of the earlier bullets that we have. Victim number two: Oskar Heyde.’