5 October 1929
They found the first body at the end of his shift, in one of the byways outside Alexanderplatz, a five minutes’ walk in the wrong direction. There were reasons to let it fall to one of the other detectives. He’d been working nights all week, trying to catch up on paperwork, and he was tired. An early Saturday corpse likely meant the sinister continuation of a bar fight or a mugging; the call was a frantic one, but the SchuPo were known for being frantic. The walk he faced was five minutes northwest or twenty minutes southeast, and in the end he couldn’t ignore the gnawing sense that there was more for him at a murder scene than at home. So he went.
The sun had only just risen, and the night’s chill still lingered in the air. The sky was bright, tinted with pale hues of orange and blue, the promise of a clear, lovely day. The Inspector passed under a row of trees in the middle of the square; the leaves were rich autumnal shades of red and gold, and some of the fallen crunched satisfyingly under his shoes. Apart from this, the Platz was unusually quiet. He drew a breath of crisp morning air, allowing himself a rare moment of peace. Shopkeepers were opening up their storefronts around the perimeter of the Platz, and he nodded to them as he passed, moving beyond the square and toward the location of the incident, between two tall stone buildings.
A small contingent of SchuPo officers were standing at the mouth of the alley, ostensibly to keep the trickle of early-morning pedestrians out of the crime scene. Among them he recognized district officials Hans Biermann and Georg Blau, known well by the KriPo for their brazen decisiveness and general incompetence. Herr Inspektor knew what to expect from them, and overhearing a little of the muffled conversation, he knew they were keeping their distance out of staunch refusal to wander near the corpse. Perhaps it was worse than he’d imagined.
“Herr Inspektor,” said Biermann in a hushed voice, seeing him approach. “Thank God you’re here.”
“What are we looking at?” said the Inspector, peering into the alley, where he could see a crumpled form on the ground. He could tell, even at this distance, that there was a great deal of blood.
“It’s awful, I tell you,” said Blau, sounding almost like a nervous housewife. “Simply grotesque.”
Biermann nodded in tight-lipped agreement, his face ghostly pale.
Herr Inspektor didn’t take the assessment lightly; Biermann and Blau had been district officials for as long as he had been the Kriminalkommissar, and while neither of them had particularly strong constitutions, they had certainly seen a wide selection of the cruelties humans could inflict upon one another.
The Inspector drew his watch from his vest pocket and checked the time. The Captain wouldn’t be arriving at the police headquarters in Alexanderplatz for another thirty minutes.
“You’d better send word to the Alex,” he said. “The Hauptmann ought to know about this.”
“You think so?” said Biermann hesitantly.
“Technically, my shift just ended,” said the Inspector. “If I’m taking on a new case, the Captain should be informed.”
Biermann nodded and motioned to a subordinate, who left briskly to carry out this task. Herr Inspektor turned his attention back to the alley. It was perhaps a bit premature, deciding to take the case without having seen the body up close, but there was something about the situation that gave him a bad feeling, and he was not in the habit of ignoring his instincts. “What is the nature of the attack?” he asked.
“I couldn’t tell you,” said Biermann. “Haven’t been near the man. Georg found him.”
“Thought he was a drunk, at first glance,” said Blau. “Couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“He might still have been a drunk,” said the Inspector, raising an eyebrow.
“If so, he was a drunk with enemies,” said Blau, and he frowned slightly. “Looked like he was stabbed, don’t know how many times.”
Herr Inspektor nodded absently and said, “Excuse me a moment.” He pulled on his gloves and stepped into the alley. Statements could be taken later; for now he preferred to rely on his own observations.
The victim was a middle-aged man of average height and weight, and he had indeed been stabbed, brutally and repeatedly. Taking care to step around the blood, the Inspector crouched down to study the wounds. The man was sprawled on his back, the right arm tucked beneath him, the left splayed outward. There were defensive wounds on the palm, and numerous slashes up and down the chest and arms, but the Inspector could see that these were all shallow and rather superficial; the fatal wound was the man’s slit throat. Peering closer at the left arm, the Inspector saw that the elbow had been broken violently. He could see trace amounts of mud in the area, leading him to think the joint may have been smashed with a rock. He noted with growing perplexity that these injuries were not enough to account for the full amount of blood on the ground; most of it seemed to be pooled beneath his lower half. The Inspector shifted back slightly to examine the man’s legs, and saw that although there was dirt and grit crusted into the trouser fabric at his knees, there was no visible damage to the front of his legs. The blood was seeping out from the underside.
“What’s it look like to you, Herr Inspektor?” called Blau from the mouth of the alley, startling him from his thoughts. Herr Inspektor closed his eyes and drew a breath for patience, then stood, turning toward the officer.
“Do you know this man?” he called back. “Has he been identified?”
Wordless, Blau shook his head.
“Ah, natürlich,” he sighed to himself. He turned back, considering the victim. The man’s clothes were of course soiled with blood and dirt, but they looked old and worn. The hair along his jaw line was grizzled and unevenly shaven, and it may have been some time since the man had washed. This suggested he had been homeless, which made a crime of passion less likely. Herr Inspektor straightened up and pulled his coat a little tighter around himself. Anonymous murders always brought a chill to his blood, and this one was particularly grim. He could not imagine what had prompted such needless violence.
He turned back to Blau. “I need a camera, and some assistance,” he said.
Blau beckoned to a young officer with a camera, and the two of them approached reluctantly.
“I want a few pictures before we disturb the body,” said Herr Inspektor. “I need to turn him over.”
The young officer positioned himself at various angles around the body, snapping shots as efficiently as possible. Once this task was complete, the Inspector nodded to Blau, who helped him turn the victim onto his front. As soon as this was done, Blau stepped back a full pace, a hand over his mouth.
“Gott im Himmel,” he whispered. “Who would do a thing like this?”
“A question to which I should very much like an answer,” said the Inspector quietly. “Thank you, Blau. You may go back if you wish.”
Blau wasted no time doing so, taking the younger officer with him. Herr Inspektor gazed down at the victim, making a mental count of the slashes that covered the underside of his legs, from just above his ankles to the backs of his knees.
“Good lord,” he murmured to himself, frowning at the display as he tried to make sense of it. It must have been several minutes that he stood there turning over his thoughts; he was not sure how much time had passed when he heard a car pulling up, finally stirring him.
“Herr Inspektor!” called Biermann. “The Hauptmann has arrived.”
The Inspector turned and watched the older man stepping out of the car. The Hauptmann was sharply dressed and carried himself with his usual dignity, but he looked agitated; he did not appreciate being summoned to a scene so early. Herr Inspektor waved his superior over to the body, frowning slightly when he saw that the Captain was not alone: Doctorow had come as well.
“A little early for you, isn’t it, Göttingen?” said Doctorow by way of greeting. “Or are you stopping death around the clock now?”
“Hardly,” said Herr Inspektor coolly. He had never been able to dissuade the man from calling him by this unusual epithet, the name of his hometown. It was a name with which he would rather not be associated, not that this mattered to the former Kriminalkommissar. Doctorow was a gruff, forthright man, nearly ten years his senior, who seemed to hold little respect for his younger replacement. They had little in common. Doctorow was a veteran of the Great War, surviving with the loss of his right eye; Herr Inspektor had been exempted for reasons he did not care to divulge. It was no secret that Doctorow considered himself more experienced than the Inspector and seemed to feel that the Inspector’s neat and precise methods were somehow naïve. Herr Inspektor, while maintaining as much professional friendliness as he could, was perpetually ready to prove him wrong.
“Your shift has ended, though, correct?” said the Hauptmann, raising an eyebrow at the Inspector. “I’m sure Herr Doctorow wouldn’t mind taking over if you need to get home.”
“I’ll be all right,” said the Inspector. “As you can see, the situation is rather serious, and I feel it is my duty to see this one through.”
“You mustn’t push yourself too far,” said Doctorow in a faintly condescending tone, looking thoughtfully over the body. “Berlin needs her Kriminalkommissar to be alert, not falling asleep on the job.”
Herr Inspektor sighed with just a hint of impatience. “I assure you, my head is perfectly clear. This is my crime scene. Everything’s under control.”
Doctorow shrugged and looked away, feigning disinterest.
“What do you think, then, Herr Inspektor?” asked the Hauptmann, eager to move things along.
Herr Inspektor motioned for them to step back a little, and he began going over what he had already categorized in his mind, pointing out the various wounds.
“A small blade was used, perhaps a dagger or a folding knife,” he said. “The cuts are most numerous here on the legs, going no higher than the man’s knees. If we turn him over—” He did so, Doctorow hastily reaching out to assist him, “—here you can see the blood forming at his knees, and defensive wounds there, on the palm. There’s bruising to his face, and particulate dirt in the same area. All this suggests an order of events.”
He glanced up at Doctorow, whose eye was darting about the man’s body, taking all this in. He did not meet the Inspector’s gaze, but from the way he was nodding to himself it seemed so far that he was in agreement.
“Perhaps you could enlighten me,” said the Captain, drawing a handkerchief from his breast pocket.
“The man was found on his back with his left arm bent outward,” said Herr Inspektor. “You can see that his left elbow appears to be almost crushed. The most likely scenario is that the man was already running from his assailant when he took a turn into this alley. The attack on his legs brought him to his knees and then straight down onto his front, which would explain the blood on his knees and the bruising on his face. Then it seems the attacker forcibly turned him onto his back, breaking his elbow and attacking him frontally, finally slitting his throat.”
The Captain mopped his brow. “Dreadful,” he murmured. He had long ago been a man of greater action, but the years had taken their toll on him and dulled his tolerance for such brutality. “I haven’t seen anything like this since before the War.”
“What’s dreadful, sir,” the Inspector replied, “is what this pattern suggests about the killer. The cuts are not deep enough to imply a large amount of strength, and the positioning is so odd—that all the cuts should be located so specifically at this one area on the legs—it leaves us very few options but to suppose that the assailant was someone of rather small stature. Perhaps…” He paused, considering whether or not he really wanted to entertain this theory. “Perhaps even a child.”
Doctorow cursed under his breath.
“That’s absurd,” the Captain sputtered. “Do you want me to put out a bulletin throughout the city looking for a disturbed schoolchild?”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, Herr Hauptmann,” said the Inspector, frowning. “But it’s difficult to draw any other conclusion from the wounds. The killer simply couldn’t reach higher up than the legs to assault his victim until after he had fallen to the ground.”
“You’re not wrong,” grumbled Doctorow. “But I don’t like it. How do you want to proceed?”
“I’m not certain yet,” said Herr Inspektor. “I don’t want to make any rash judgments about exactly who or what we’re looking for until we can find out more. We should get him back to headquarters for a closer examination, and see if we can find out who he was, or if he had any enemies.”
“Looks like a bum to me,” said Doctorow bluntly. “Is he carrying identification?”
“I haven’t checked for it,” said the Inspector. “But I had also arrived at that conclusion.”
“Check for it now,” said the Hauptmann. “I’ll have the SchuPo transfer him to the car.”
Herr Inspektor knelt down to do a quick search of the man’s pockets while the Hauptmann returned to the cluster of officers, giving them clear, curt orders. Herr Inspektor was about to give up what he’d assumed was a pointless search when he discovered a lone card inside the man’s breast pocket.
“Find something?” said Doctorow, having noticed the change in the Inspector’s attitude.
Herr Inspektor drew the card out of the man’s pocket and stared at it for a few moments. It was not any sort of identification he’d ever seen before. It was roughly the shape, size and sturdiness of a business card, but it had the color and texture of a piece of aged parchment. There was nothing on it but a few flecks of blood and a single, illustrious letter E.
“Well?” said Doctorow. “What is it?”
“See for yourself,” said Herr Inspektor, holding it out to him.
The Inspector had not been elevated to the position of Kommissar for nothing; he had the same quick observational eye as his older colleague, the same talent for reading faces. He saw the way Doctorow’s expression changed as he took the card, before he’d even held it up for a proper look. He saw the traces of shock, of recognition.
“You’ve seen it before?” said Herr Inspektor, getting to his feet.
Doctorow looked at him and shrugged it off, the expression leaving his face as subtly and quickly as it had come. “Not sure,” he said, handing it back. “Not exactly proper ID, is it? Any thoughts?”
Herr Inspektor stared at the man for a moment before he accepted the card, struggling to find any justification for the apparent fact that Doctorow had just told him a bald-faced lie.
“None yet,” said Herr Inspektor slowly. “I’ll have to take a closer look at it.”
Doctorow nodded and turned away, moving quickly towards the Captain. Herr Inspektor looked at the card in his hand, still unable to find anything remarkable about it. Looking back up, he caught sight of Doctorow stepping away from the Captain, just having finished whispering something. The Hauptmann stood frozen for a moment, his handkerchief to his mouth. He regained his composure quickly, turning back to the Schutzpolizei.
“All right, Officers, let’s hurry this up,” he said, stuffing his handkerchief back into his pocket. “That body’s certainly not going to move itself.”
The body was lifted onto a flatbed and carried to the car, leaving the Inspector standing alone, still watching his superior. Doctorow, it seemed, had already left the scene, no doubt preferring to make the short walk back to the station than ride with the corpse.
The Hauptmann turned to the Inspector and waved him over. “Herr Inspektor? Doctorow mentioned you found something on the body.”
Feeling suddenly a little uneasy, Herr Inspektor moved forward and showed the card to the Hauptmann, who viewed it with practiced nonchalance and nodded without betraying any recognition.
“Hm,” he said. “Doesn’t seem very helpful, does it? But I suppose it’s better that we found something rather than nothing.” He turned to re-enter the car.
“Herr Hauptmann! Sir!” cried Blau suddenly, a note of panic in his voice. He ran to them from the cluster of SchuPo officers, holding what appeared to be a wired message.
“What is it now, Georg?” asked the Captain warily.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I just received word—there… there are more bodies.”
The Captain went quite rigid then. “What?” he said. “How many?”
“I’m not sure yet, sir,” said Blau. “There are reports coming in from all over the city. Perhaps six in total, all of them like this one.”
The Captain exhaled slowly, closing his eyes and gathering himself. Then he turned to the Inspector and said, “Are you certain you still want this case, Herr Inspektor?”
Herr Inspektor hesitated, frowning slightly. “You believe these murders are connected, then, sir?”
The Hauptmann inclined his head slightly; it may have been a nod, or it may have been a partial shrug. “We certainly cannot rule out the possibility,” he said. “But I don’t want you overworking yourself. Doctorow is perfectly capable of taking on the case.”
The Inspector was sure, now more than ever, that he did not want Doctorow to have this particular case. He nodded resolutely.
“Then I shall leave you in the capable hands of Herren Biermann and Blau,” said the Hauptmann. With an unusual note of severity, he continued, “I want the bodies brought to the coroner as soon as possible, and I do not want word of this getting out. Is that understood?”
This order was somewhat surprising to the Inspector, but he nodded again, choosing not to question it. Taking the mysterious card in a small evidence bag, the Hauptmann got into the car, which drove off quickly in the direction of the Polizeipräsidium.
The Inspector was silent as he got into Biermann and Blau’s car, staring out the window as they drove across town, thinking.
“Strange times these are, eh, Herr Inspektor?” said Biermann after a long silence. “Makes you wonder what the world’s coming to.”
Herr Inspektor said nothing, but nodded his passive assent.
