The Defeated Aristocrat (12 page)

‘I’ll talk to Gunther. There must be a way of making the estate self-supporting again as it was in my father’s day.’

‘Curtailing Franz and Gretel’s expenditure would be a start.’

‘Speaking of Gretel, I want my marriage annulled and full custody of my son.’

‘Easily arranged given the circumstances but it might take a couple of months.’ Johanna made another note. ‘I doubt Franz or Gretel will contest your application as it would make their child a bastard. What about the castle? Do you intend to live there?’

‘Not in the immediate future. I told Franz to move into the Post Office as soon as Martha moves out, which hopefully will be today. I warned him I’d charge him and Gretel the same rent for the place that they charged Martin for Gebaur Strasse.’

‘If they can’t pay?’

‘As Franz is family I suppose I could offer it to him at a peppercorn rent, say one mark a year provided he waves all other rights to the estate. That way he can run the business, take the salary it offers, and I’ll have fulfilled my obligation to him under the terms of my father’s will.’

‘Considering his behaviour, you’re being magnanimous.’ She handed him an envelope. ‘Proof money has been paid into your account with Baumgarten’s. If you need more money, I could loan …’

‘Thank you, but no. I’ll manage. If you need me to sign papers I’m staying with Martin.’

‘Even if you live rent-free you’ll need money for food and clothes for yourself and your son once the money in Baumgarten’s account runs out. Will you return to the castle and estate then?’

‘I don’t think so. If the life of a country gentleman ever held any attraction for me, I lost it in the war.’

‘There won’t be a great deal left for you and your son to live on after you’ve signed away those rentals and that’s supposing the estate doesn’t need the money.’

‘Then I’ll have to do what every returning soldier has to do. Find a job.’

‘If you can’t?’

He gave her a disarming smile. ‘Look at me: tall, blue-eyed, good-looking, well-educated, someone’s bound to snap me up.’

‘If you need anything, come to me first. Our firm has dealt with your family’s affairs for over two hundred years. We value your custom. I’m sorry I can’t spare you more time now, but come to dinner tonight so we can discuss any matters that arise from the counter claim to Franz and Gretel’s. I’ll get my clerk to lodge it with the court today. Eight o’clock, upstairs.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be there.’ He left his chair.

‘The first topic of conversation will be that kiss you mentioned. I look forward to renewing our acquaintance, Wolf.’

He looked for signs of humour but failed to find any. ‘Thank you, not just for this,’ he held up the envelope, ‘but the advice you gave Martin and Lotte.’

‘I admire them. Martin has built a successful medical practice in two years. Quite an achievement considering the number of doctors in this city. As for Lotte, not many women would have looked for and found work so quickly after losing home and income.’

‘Lotte’s working?’

‘Didn’t she tell you? She’s editorial assistant at the
Konigsberg Zeit
. Lilli Richter thinks highly of her.’

Hermann knocked the door. ‘Colonel Dorfman is here, Fraulein Behn.’

‘Show him in and Herr Mau out please, Hermann.’

‘Colonel von Mau,’ Colonel Dorfman stalked in, head high, shoulders back, chest out, every inch a Prussian officer. He extended his hand to Wolf. ‘It’s a privilege to meet you again. I commanded the regiment after you were captured.’

Wolf recalled the rumours he’d heard about his successor. That Dorfman had sold off the regiment’s food and drink supplies for personal gain. That he’d ordered men out of the trenches on suicide missions at gunpoint. That he’d refused the sick permission to visit the hospital tents. Truth – or the complaints of soldiers driven to breaking point by war?

Had the rank and file said the same things about him when he’d been in command? He gave Dorfman the benefit of the doubt and shook his hand. ‘I trust the men continued to conduct themselves bravely under your command.’

‘Once they recovered from the shock of losing you and so many senior officers in a single action they behaved well enough.’ Dorfman bowed to Johanna. ‘Fraulein Behn, I trust you completed the arrangements to transfer my donation to the French convent?’

‘It’s not easy at the moment given the state of the banks and bureaucracy here and in France but I have made some progress, Colonel Dorfman.’

Wolf was surprised. ‘You’re donating to a French Catholic charity, Colonel Dorfman?’

‘You find that odd?’

‘Frankly, when so many are starving and in need in Konigsberg, yes.’

‘The sisters nursed me and my senior officers when we were wounded. Unlike you, we were not fortunate enough to be captured and cared for by the British.’

Wolf reined in his irritation at Dorfman’s assumption that German POW’s incarcerated in Britain had been cosseted. ‘I assure you, no one who’d been captured could possibly regard themselves as fortunate, Colonel Dorfman.’

‘Then perhaps we were the fortunate ones to be nursed by French nuns, Colonel von Mau. They gave us their own food and blankets. Such compassion and self-sacrifice is rare. I am merely sending the order a small payment in return for our lives.’

‘Small, Colonel Dorfman?’ There was an edge to Joanna’s voice that suggested Wolf wasn’t the only one who found Dorfman’s donation odd.

‘It’s a matter of perspective, Fraulein Behn. I am not sending more than I can afford.’

‘I’m glad to hear you returned to find your affairs in good order, Colonel Dorfman.’ Wolf bowed to Johanna. ‘Good morning and thank you, Fraulein Behn.’

Wolf walked into Behn’s outer office to find Peter waiting for him. ‘Police headquarters are that way.’ He pointed east.

‘I’ve been there and seen my father-in-law …’ Peter frowned. ‘Are you listening?’ he demanded, when he realised Wolf’s mind was elsewhere.

Wolf had moved on from considering Dorfman’s donation to Johanna’s revelation that his sister was working for the
Konigsberg Zeit
. He’d never known Lotte to evince the slightest interest in anything other than balls, social gatherings, and domesticity. But as he’d changed out of all recognition during the past five years, he shouldn’t be surprised that she had.

‘You’ve seen your father-in-law,’ Wolf repeated mechanically to prove he’d heard Peter.

‘He wants to talk to you.’

‘He won’t take you back into the police force without a reference from your old commanding officer?’ Wolf raised his eyebrows.

‘He’s already taken me back and moved me up a grade. You’re talking to Kriminalobersekretar Plewe.’

As they were still in the hall of Johanna’s offices, Wolf bowed and clicked his heels.

‘Don’t be an ass. There’s been another murder.’

‘Martin told me.’

‘That there were two?’

‘Including Anton, yes,’ Wolf agreed.

Peter glanced around the outer office and lowered his voice. ‘There’s three. Another body was found this morning. The identity hasn’t been released because next of kin haven’t been informed, but the kriminaldirektor said all three victims were members of our regiment.’

‘Martin mentioned the name of the second victim …’’

‘Nils Dresdner,’ Peter supplied.

‘I don’t recall him.’

‘Eselköppe?’

‘Donkey-brain? Why did we call him that?’

‘Possibly because of his monumental stupidity.’

‘Anton was in the regiment. If this latest victim was as well …’ Wolf raised his eyebrows. ‘Georg Hafen really believes there’s a connection?’

‘Like all good policemen he considers facts, not thoughts. He’s waiting for us in an inn in Kohlmarkt.’

‘Odd choice of meeting place.’

‘It wasn’t the kriminaldirektor’s choice,’ Peter said, ‘but the murderer’s.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Konigsberg, Saturday January 11th 1919

Peter circumnavigated the cathedral, leading the way through narrow, winding, snow-iced streets crammed with buildings that had been old when Napoleon had waged war against the Prussians and King Frederick William had sought sanctuary in the city.

Wolf took time to absorb the sights. On the bridge, the riverbank, the houses, shops, and inns with their carved wood and stone embellishments, and as they approached Kohlmarkt, even the stalls piled with vegetables, potatoes and the morning’s fish catch. He wasn’t the only one walking at a leisurely pace. The streets were full of dawdling people, most of them thin and pale, all shivering. He suspected they were out because a walk in the cold was preferable to sitting in a house they couldn’t afford to heat.

‘You trying to break the record for the slowest stroll from Honig Brucke to Schmeide Brucke?’ Peter demanded when Wolf stopped again, ostensibly to light his pipe, but really to admire the carved stone knights’ and lions’ heads over the portal of an eighteenth-century house.

Wolf dropped the spent match into his pocket. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful this city is and how much I love it.’

‘I’ll love it better after the snow’s melted. It’s too damned cold to hang about.’

‘Five years in France have made you too soft for an East Prussian winter.’

‘Soft! There might not have been much snow but I suffered enough trench foot to last a lifetime.’ Peter took Wolf’s tobacco pouch and proceeded to fill his own pipe. ‘Do you think it’s odd …’

‘That everything here has remained unchanged when we’ve changed so much?’

Unnerved by Wolf’s ability to read his thoughts, Peter said, ‘We shouldn’t keep the kriminaldirektor waiting.’

Kohlmarkt was full of police officers who’d evicted the traders and resettled them at the Hundgatt end of the street. The area in front of the inn was swarming with uniformed men poking snow drifts with sticks, rakes and brooms. Below them, a dozen more were examining the river bank from a flotilla of rowboats.

Peter turned down an alley before they reached the hub of the activity. Wolf trailed behind him and found himself in a stable yard at the back of an inn. Peter opened a side door. They crossed a deserted kitchen and entered a passage that led to a servants’ staircase. Halfway up Peter knocked on a door Wolf had assumed was a cupboard. Georg Hafen opened it to reveal a comfortably appointed room.

A chair stood in front of the lace-covered window, which enabled an occupant to view the street without being seen. The room was furnished with a bed, sofa, washstand, large mirror, table, and four chairs. The walls were red, the drapes and bed hangings green. It looked like a standard room in any modestly priced hotel.

‘Freiherr von Mau, good to see you alive and looking well for a dead man.’ Georg Hafen shook Wolf’s hand. ‘Please, sit down. Beer?’ He indicated a table that held a jug and three steins.

‘Thank you, sir.’

Georg filled the steins. ‘Has Peter told you why I sent for you, Freiherr …’

‘Wolf Mau, Kriminaldirektor. He said there’d been a third murder.’

‘Another of my officers and yours. All three had recently returned from the front and all were in the regiment you commanded.’

‘I was promoted by default. Given a colonelcy for surviving after my superiors had been killed.’

‘That’s not what Peter told me. Here are the names of the victims. What can you tell me about them?’

Wolf looked at the paper Georg had given him. ‘Anton von Braunsch was a captain in the regiment and my brother-in-law. Dedleff Gluck a lieutenant, as was Nils Dresdner. I wouldn’t have recognised Dresdner’s name if Peter hadn’t told me his nickname.’

‘Dresdner was christened Donkey-brain in Police HQ before the war. But you’ve told me nothing that’s not on their records. I asked what you knew about them.’

‘Are you ordering me to give you a formal statement that can be quoted in a court of law?’

‘I understand your caution, Mau. I assure you, this conversation is informal. Three men have been brutally murdered. They were all police officers who’d recently returned from your regiment, and as if that isn’t connection enough, there are these.’ He handed Wolf the notes that had been delivered to Lilli. ‘I put the date and approximate time each arrived on top of the page along with the victim’s name. They were posted through the home, not office, letterbox of the editor of the
Konigsberg Zeit
within an hour of the respective killings.’

Wolf read the notes.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. For the wages of sin is death.

10 Wasser Strasse, Room 14. So the last shall be first and the first last.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. For the wages of sin is death.

4 Koggen Strasse, Room 9. The fourth is second.

Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. For the wages of sin is death.

The Kneiphof, 15 Kohlmarkt, Room 2 The second is third.

‘The murderer knows his Bible.’

‘He does, Mau,’ Georg agreed. ‘He’s also implying there will be at least five victims. I have no wish to see another of my men slaughtered. Any information you can give me about these three might prove helpful.’

Wolf continued to look at the names while he sipped his beer. ‘If you’ve made enquiries about them you don’t need me to tell you that Dresdner and Anton von Braunsch were womanisers.’

‘I’ve heard it said of von Braunsch. Dresdner was a bachelor and entitled to see as many women as he wanted, but what about your sister? Did she know her husband had a wandering eye?’

‘Our father tried to discuss Braunsch’s reputation with Lotte before her wedding. She wouldn’t listen to him so I saw no point in bringing up the matter with either von Braunsch or my sister afterwards.’

‘Not even when he was under your command?’

‘Especially when he was under my command. I had no desire to incite a mutiny among my officers by declaring brothels off-limits or lecturing them on abstinence.’