Foreign Bodies Page 5

  Ulla deplored the masculine indifference of the police, but Holst had to explain that there was nothing they could do in this case.

  ‘And if he murders her?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, then we must arrest him,’ said Holst. ‘But let us hope he won’t.’

  ‘And you call that police work?’

  Holst shrugged his shoulders. ‘We can’t put people in custody for things they might do.’

  Ulla could not understand that; but women do not understand everything, least of all matters relating to the police. Countess Wolkonski despaired; however, her despair did not express itself in any violent outburst. Holst explained to her that the police could not take her into custody, since she had not committed any unlawful act, nor could they act against her brother-in-law, for the same reason. But he was willing to help her to leave the country.

  ‘To be hunted to death like a wild beast?’ was all she replied.

  She calmed down, however. It was almost as though she had conceived some plan. She thanked Ulla warmly for all her kindness, kissed Holst’s son, and wept as she patted his curls. Holst got her a cab. She refused his offer to accompany her, and drove away.

  Ulla was very angry, and Holst not altogether at ease. He hurried back to the police station to keep an eye on the Russian.

  At three o’clock the police station in Antoniestraede received a report that an elegantly dressed foreign lady had been arrested in a jeweller’s shop on Købmagergade while attempting to steal a diamond ring. Holst was in his office: the Russian had not yet arrived. Holst had told him that the Chief of Police was unlikely to be available before three-thirty, since there was a parade at three.

  A police van arrived, and Holst stood at the window as it rolled into the gloomy yard. A plain-clothes policeman stepped out, followed by a lady in grey.

  It was Countess Wolkonski, arrested for attempted theft. Holst was slowly beginning to believe her story.

  When she was brought into the station he went to meet her. She greeted him with a melancholy smile. ‘Now you will have to take care of me,’ she said.

  Holst bowed.

  As he did so, he noticed through the window the figure of the Russian standing in the gateway of the yard. At once, with a quick word to the astonished desk sergeant, he ordered the Countess to be taken to the Inspector’s office.

  A few moments later Count Wolkonski entered and asked in German for the Chief of Police.

  He was asked to take a seat.

  Holst withdrew into his office to formulate a plan. If Countess Wolkonski had resorted to so desperate a measure as shoplifting to get taken into custody, her fears could not lightly be dismissed. In any case, it would be unpardonable under the circumstances to leave her to her own devices. There was no knowing what she might do next. Besides, now she was under arrest she could be placed under observation; the magistrate would certainly order this, and in the meantime one might, through official channels, obtain at any rate some information which might throw light on this complicated affair. And the Count was sitting outside. He would certainly demand to be allowed to see her.

  A cold shiver ran down Holst’s spine. It was a momentary thought, a stupid, crazy, insane notion, but if—if that Russian was a fanatical revolutionary, an avenger—God knows, the whole business might have come out of a Russian novel, but in Russia, as one knew from the newspapers, anything was possible. Certainly a Copenhagen police officer had no right to believe all that is in the newspapers; he has no right to believe that novels can come to life; he must act soberly and professionally. But—Russia is, when all is said and done, Russia, and it cannot all be lies. Suppose that Count Wolkonski before the very eyes of the Chief of Police were to draw a pistol from his pocket and shoot his sister-in-law, or—suppose he took out a bomb, a bomb, that might blow the whole police station with its lord and master into the air?

  Of course it was totally impossible, idiotic, crazy, insane. This was Copenhagen, a.d. 1905. But the notion had got inside Holst’s head, and was beating away with impish hammers in a way to drive any man from his wits.

  He could not possibly say all this to anyone. The Inspector would think he had lost his reason. And so he had; it was an obsession, a foolish obsession from which he could not free himself. In ten minutes the parade would be over, and the case would be on the carpet. The Countess, now a shoplifter caught red-handed, would be confronted with the Count. A flash, an explosion, and the Chief of Police himself might be flying skywards.

  Then Lieutenant Eigil Holst, of the Copenhagen police force, on his own responsibility, and at his own risk took a decision which branded him not as a sober, reliable and trained officer but as a man of dangerous fantasy.

  He summoned one of the youngest and most slavishly obedient of the station’s constables, went to the window where Count Wolkonski was seated correctly on a bench, formally charged him with being implicated in an attempted robbery committed at a shop in Købmagergade by a woman calling herself his sister-in-law, had the amazed Count marched into an adjacent room, had him, despite some considerable resistance, searched, and found in his right trouser pocket a small American revolver containing six sharp bullets.

  Holst drafted a stylish report to his Chief of Police, with the result that the sun set that evening over a cell at Nytorv in which Count Dimitri Ivanovitch Wolkonski sat sadly with sunken head, following a highly suspicious interrogation. And, it must be added, when the sun rose over the same cell, Count Dimitri Ivanovitch Wolkonski was found hanging by his braces dead on a gas bracket.

  It is well known that it is easier to enter the clutches of the law than escape from them. Countess Wolkonski had found great difficulty in persuading the police to put her under their protection. She had resorted to a radical method. She had succeeded; but she remained in custody. The Chief of Police dared not set her at liberty. Her theft had been barefaced and her explanation, however truthful it might seem, buttressed by Holst’s evidence and a quantity of bonds and jewels in her possession valued at a considerable fortune, at the least required a closer investigation.

  She was arrested, to Holst’s distress, and Ulla Holst was less than respectful in her comments upon her husband’s superior. The Countess spent the night in a cell, not far from the place where her enemy had met his death. The next day she was freed, Count Wolkonski’s suicide having weighed powerfully in her favour.

  Not everything that was written in the newspapers about this affair was untrue, but the full facts of what happened have not previously been revealed. The Embassy bestirred itself and obtained further details concerning the background of the case. Countess Wolkonski had in fact betrayed her husband. She was not a heroine, and could never be one.

  But she was certainly beautiful, and now she had found peace of mind. Count Dimitri Wolkonski was a revolutionary, and as such was entitled to his due share of sympathy from all good and peace-loving Danish citizens who cannot bear to think of a butcher slaughtering a calf but support with all their hearts the bomb-throwing barricade heroes of darkest Russia. In truth, this Dimitri Wolkonski was one of the blackest villains upon whom the sun of Russia has ever shone. His conscience was so heavy with evil deeds that it is a wonder that the gas bracket in the cell at Nytorv did not break beneath his weight.

  This must serve as some excuse for the pretty Countess, and may explain why her brother-in-law, once he found himself in the hands of justice, settled his account with his Maker, whether the bill was right or no.

  Yet Holst had a lingering suspicion that the Countess’s life had never in fact been in danger, nor that of the Chief of Police; and that the Count had been carrying the pistol only in case his own life was threatened by his enemies. And he shared the doubts later drily expressed by the coroner as to whether his arrest and search of the Count had been justified.

  Countess Helena stayed for some time in Copenhagen and was a frequent visitor at Ulla Holst
’s. Ulla enjoyed her company, and refused to believe that she had behaved wrongly in any way regarding those revolutionaries. Ulla was, after all, a policeman’s wife, and was therefore opposed to any movement whose activities threatened the lives of policemen anywhere. When the Countess finally left Denmark, accompanied by Ulla’s best wishes, the latter expressed her opinion of the affair to her husband. ‘It may well be, Eigil,’ she said, ‘that you had no right to search that Russian, and that as you say it was a stupid idea you got into your head that afternoon in the station. But if you want my opinion, I think you took a very sensible course of action.’

  Strange Tracks

  Balduin Groller

  Balduin Groller was the pen-name of Adalbert Goldscheider (1848–1916). He was born in Arad, which then belonged to Hungary but became part of Romania four years after his death. He studied philosophy and law in Vienna, worked as a journalist, founded a magazine which failed and resulted in his bankruptcy, and even had a spell as a magician. This versatile man is one of the few crime writers to have enjoyed a career as a senior sports official, with an organization that was the forerunner of the Austrian Olympic Committee.

  Groller’s reputation as a crime writer rests on the creation of Detective Dagobert, whose cases were recorded in half a dozen short volumes from 1910–12. As Sir Hugh Greene said, Groller ‘somehow managed to preserve in his usually rather gay little stories something of the overblown charm of Vienna on the edge of the precipice’. His story ‘Anonymous Letters’ was televised in 1973, with a cast including Ronald Lewis as Dagobert, Nicola Pagett, and Francis De Wolff. This story, translated by N.L. Lederer, also features Dagobert. Like ‘The Swedish Match’, it merited inclusion in a famous early crime anthology, The Great Detective Stories (1927) edited by W.H. Wright, better known as the then best-seller S.S. Van Dine. Whilst it does not present an ‘impossible crime’ puzzle, the storyline foreshadows that of ‘Footprint in the Sky’ by impossible crime specialist Carter Dickson, aka John Dickson Carr.

  At six o’clock on a beautiful Saturday morning in September Dagobert was roused by his valet. His friend, Andreas Grumbach, President of the Industrial Club, had sent an urgent message asking him to come with all possible speed. A murder had been committed.

  Immediately Dagobert leaped out of bed, and rushed into the bathroom. No matter how urgent the occasion he would never forget his matutinal routine. He took his usual cold shower, had his customary rub-down by his valet, and then went through the gymnastic exercises with which he always started his day. As he hurriedly drew on his clothes, with the able assistance of his valet, the messenger, Grumbach’s chauffeur Marius, reported the details of the murder.

  A trifle pale from fright and excited by his mad rush, he poured forth the following facts: The Grumbachs were spending their vacation at their château on the Danube, near the old historical city of Pöchlarn. The château was part of an estate so extensive that it embraced the villages of Palting, Hiersau, Eichgraben—

  ‘Go on, go on,’ Dagobert interrupted. He knew these details better even than did the chauffeur.

  ‘Yesterday evening,’ continued the messenger, ‘Mathias Diwald, the forester, came to the château, as he did every Friday, to receive the money for the game-keepers and wood-cutters and take it to the estate office for the Saturday pay-roll. But Diwald never returned to the office. They waited for him there until eleven p.m., and then the head game-keeper and two assistants went out to search for him. At three o’clock in the morning he was found at the edge of the forest, murdered and robbed of the money. The head keeper then hurried to the château and informed his master.’

  ‘Did Frau Grumbach hear the details?’ asked Dagobert. He was anxious that the gruesome details should be kept from her.

  ‘Yes. She rose at once, and it was she who asked Herr Grumbach to send immediately for Herr Dagobert. I do not know, of course, how the murder happened, but I believe the circumstances were—’

  Dagobert stopped him. He did not wish to hear any more. It was an old principle of his never to listen to second-hand testimony before beginning an investigation.

  ‘When did you leave?’ he asked the chauffeur.

  ‘Four o’clock, sharp, Herr Dagobert. And I was here at six to the minute.’

  ‘What is the distance?’

  ‘Ninety-six kilometres.’

  ‘In two hours. Not so bad. Of course, we’ll have to do better on the way back.’

  ‘But, Herr Dagobert—’

  ‘Do better, I said. That is hardly asking too much of a sixty-horse-power Mercedes. I am taking a stop-watch along, and shall time you. Listen, Marius: for every minute under two hours in your running time back to the château, I will give you two kronen. If ever time is money, it is in these cases.’

  Marius, from his own standpoint, agreed with this view; and they reached Palting castle in one hour and thirty-two minutes. Marius, with undisguised satisfaction, collected his merited reward of fifty-six kronen.

  Frau Grumbach, who was waiting on the terrace, ran down the wide stairway when she saw Dagobert’s patriarchal head rise from the big car, welcoming her old friend even more cordially than usual. She was pale and very much upset by the terrible occurrence. Dagobert’s presence calmed her somewhat,—she knew that now everything would be done to exact full atonement for the crime.

  ‘I have waited breakfast for you,’ she began. ‘But we have only twenty minutes in which to eat. At half past eight the Judicial Commission will meet here to begin the investigation. My husband has gone to get the Commission together now.’

  Dagobert enjoyed his breakfast. He had not taken time for such trifles before leaving home.

  The Commission, led by the master of the house, arrived punctually. Grumbach made the necessary introductions, and immediately the proceedings were begun. There were present: the District Judge with his secretary; the District Attorney’s representative; the County Surgeon, Dr Ramsauer; the chief of the local gendarmes; and the head game-keeper.

  The District Attorney’s representative was not a state dignitary. He was the local barber, who merely functioned by proxy at such occasions and made the necessary motions for the instigation of the judiciary proceedings. The case under investigation, on account of its gravity, would not come under the jurisdiction of the District Court, but would be brought before the Circuit Court. The District Attorney and the Examining Magistrate would not arrive until the following day; and it was the duty of those assembled to prepare the report as accurately as possible so as to give a clear presentation of the case. Also, it was incumbent on the Commission to take any precaution to preserve intact all the circumstances that might tend toward a solution of the crime.

  The preliminaries of the meeting occupied but a short time. The Commission had met at the château merely that they might approach the site of the crime together. Their preliminary examination was to take place at the actual scene of the murder, and the minutes were to be drawn up afterwards in accordance with their findings. There had, however, already been considerable activity in connection with the case. The head game-keeper, when he had found the body, had placed his two assistants near the corpse to prevent anyone from approaching it before the Commission arrived. He had then summoned the District Judge and the chief gendarme; and, after some discussion, two gendarmes and two armed foresters had been sent out to search the woods.

  Grumbach had informed the members of the Commission that a famous detective had been called upon to take charge of the investigation, and now they were eager to know if Dagobert approved of their preliminary methods.

  ‘So far, all’s in order,’ Dagobert said. ‘But now we must get to the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. Every minute counts.’

  The outskirts of the wood where Diwald had been murdered were a quarter of an hour’s walk from the château. Grumbach asked if they should ride or go on foot. In any event the carriage stood
ready; but it was suggested that if they walked they might discover some clues on the way. Dagobert decided, however, that they should ride, announcing that the investigation was to begin only after they had inspected the body.

  The Commission drove off in two carriages. Frau Grumbach and Dagobert took the automobile, which, driven by Marius, brought up the rear of the procession. They had been on their way scarcely two minutes when Frau Grumbach halted the car and, descending, threw a few coins into the hat of a beggar sitting at the side of the road.

  ‘You might have thrown the money without getting out,’ Dagobert objected, when she returned to the car.

  ‘No, Dagobert. Look at him. What would he do if I should miss the hat? He can hardly move.’

  Dagobert looked. The cripple was of monstrous and loathsome physique. He had an ugly, abnormally large head which showed every sign of hydrocephaly. His shoulders were powerful, and his arms abnormally long and strong, though the lower part of his body was terribly stunted, the legs being like those of a child of four years, and strangely twisted and crippled. It was difficult to imagine how he could move at all.

  ‘Drive on, Marius,’ ordered Dagobert when Frau Grumbach had resumed her seat in the car. ‘We must be the first to arrive.’

  In a short time they had caught up the others. Frau Grumbach reverted to the subject of the cripple.

  ‘He was the only beggar in our district,’ she said, and added by way of excuse: ‘We would have placed him in an institution so that he would not have had to beg, but I’ve always felt that it would be cruel to deprive him of his profession. As he is, he can sit at the roadside, and at least he can see the world about him. Since he cannot move, it would be heartless, I think, to lock him up in a room. Now if he shows himself at the roadside every passerby gives him something.’