The Judge and His Hangman Read online

  Barlach let out a startled laugh, but then he said: “Couldn’t it be the other G?”

  “No, that’s the Gendarmerie. Or do you think a gendarme had something to do with the murder?”

  “Everything’s possible, Tschanz,” replied the old man.

  And Tschanz struck a match, but in the strong wind that was suddenly shaking the poplars as if in a rage, he found it difficult to light his cigar.

  6

  “I cannot understand,” Barlach said, “how the police of Lamboing, Diesse, and Lignières managed to overlook this Gastmann. His house isn’t exactly hidden, it’s easily visible from Lamboing, in fact it would be impossible to hold a large party here without the whole village knowing about it.”

  Tschanz replied that he could not explain this yet either.

  Thereupon they decided to walk around the house. They separated; each took a different side.

  Tschanz vanished into the night and Barlach was alone. He went to the right. He turned up the collar of his coat, for it was cold. One again he felt the heavy pressure on his stomach, the violent stabs of pain, and there was a cold sweat on his forehead. He walked along the wall and followed its turn to the left. The house still lay in complete blackness.

  He stopped and leaned against the wall. He saw the lights of Lamboing by the edge of the forest. Then he walked on. Again the wall changed direction, this time toward the west. The back of the house was lit up, and bright light poured through a row of windows on the second floor. He heard the sound of a piano, and when he listened more closely, he noticed that someone was playing Bach.

  He walked on. According to his calculations he was about to meet Tschanz. He strenuously peered across the brightly lit lawn, and realized too late that a dog was standing a few steps away from him. Barlach knew a lot about dogs, but he had never seen one this size before. Though he could distinguish no details but only recognized the silhouette set off against the lighter surface of the lawn, the beast seemed to be of such terrifying proportions that Barlach instinctively froze. He saw the massive head turn slowly, as if accidentally, and stare at him. Its round eyes were bright, empty disks.

  The unexpectedness of the encounter, the massive size of the animal, and the strangeness of its appearance paralyzed him. He retained the coolness of his reason, but he forgot the need for action. He looked at the beast, unafraid but captivated. This was how evil had always drawn him into its spell, the great riddle that lured him again and again to attempt a solution.

  And as the dog suddenly leaped at him, a monstrous shadow hurtling through the air, a creature of pure raving murderous power, tearing him to the ground with such speed that he barely had time to raise his left arm to protect his throat, the old man did not utter a cry or so much as a sound, so natural did it all seem to him and in keeping with the laws of this world.

  But just before the beast could crush the arm it had gripped with its fangs, Barlach heard the whip-crack of a shot; the body on top of him jerked, and warm blood poured onto his hand. The dog was dead.

  The weight of the inert body pressed down on him, and Barlach stroked it with his hand, feeling a smooth and sweaty hide. Trembling and with an effort, he stood up, wiped his hand on the sparse grass. Tschanz came up to him, tucking the revolver back in his coat pocket as he approached.

  “Are you all right, Inspector?” he asked, looking with concern at Barlach’s torn sleeve.

  “Absolutely. He didn’t have time to bite through.”

  Tschanz crouched down and turned the animal’s head toward the light, which was refracted in the dead eyes.

  “Fangs like a wolf,” he said, with a shiver. “He would have torn you to pieces, Inspector.”

  “You saved my life, Tschanz.”

  “Don’t you ever carry a gun, sir?”

  Barlach touched the motionless mass with his foot. “Very rarely, Tschanz,” he replied, and they fell silent.

  The dead dog lay on the bare, dirty ground, and they looked down at it. At their feet, a large black pool had formed—it was the blood flowing from the beast’s throat like a dark lava stream.

  When they looked up again, the scene had changed. The music had stopped, the lighted windows had been thrown open, and people in evening clothes were leaning out. Barlach and Tschanz looked at each other, embarrassed at finding themselves arraigned before a tribunal, as it were, and in this godforsaken spot of all places—where the fox and the hare bid each other good night, as the inspector said to himself in his annoyance.

  In the middle one of the five windows stood a single man, separate from the others, who called out in a strange and clear voice, asking what they were doing down there.

  “Police,” Barlach replied quietly, adding that they needed to speak to Herr Gastmann.

  The man replied that he thought it peculiar that they should have to kill a dog in order to meet Herr Gastmann; and besides, he was in the mood to listen to Bach. Whereupon he shut the window again, with a motion that was like his manner of speaking: unhurried, deliberate, and supremely indifferent.

  A flurry of exclamations came from the windows: “Disgraceful!” “What do you think, Herr Direktor?” “Scandalous,” “Unbelievable, the way the police carry on.” Then the people withdrew, one window after another was shut, and all was quiet.

  The two policemen had no choice but to retrace their steps. At the entrance gate, on the front side of the garden wall, a solitary figure was pacing back and forth in great agitation.

  “Quick, flash your light on him,” Barlach whispered at Tschanz, and in the beam of the flashlight they saw above an elegant suit and tie a rather bloated face, with features that were not undistinguished but blunted by dissipation. A heavy ring glittered on one of his hands. Upon a whispered word from Barlach, the light was switched off again.

  “Who in the hell are you, fellow?” the fat man growled.

  “Inspector Barlach—are you Herr Gastmann?”

  “State Councillor von Schwendi, fellow, also known as Colonel von Schwendi. Good God in heaven, who do you think you are, banging around like that?”

  “We are conducting an investigation and need to speak to Herr Gastmann, State Councillor,” Barlach replied calmly.

  The state councillor refused to be so easily appeased. “You’re a separatist, aren’t you?” he thundered.

  Barlach decided to address him by his other title and cautiously suggested that the colonel was mistaken, this had nothing to do with the Jura problem.

  But before Barlach could continue, the colonel became even more incensed than the state councillor. “So you’re a communist! To hell with the lot of you! We’re having a private concert here, so take your target practice somewhere else! As a colonel, I will not put up with any demonstrations against Western civilization! I will have order restored, with the Swiss Army if need be!”

  Since the state councillor was evidently confused, Barlach was forced to enlighten him.

  “Tschanz, don’t put the state councillor’s remarks in your report,” he said in a dryly officious tone.

  The state councillor instantly regained his composure.

  “What sort of report, fellow?”

  As inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Bern Police, Barlach explained, he had to conduct an investigation of the murder of Police Lieutenant Schmied. It was his duty, he said, to keep a record of everything that certain persons may have to say in reply to his questions, but since …—and again he hesitated, unsure which of the man’s two titles to use—since the colonel had evidently misconstrued the situation, he would not record the state councillor’s words in his report.

  The colonel was taken aback.

  “So you’re with the police,” he said. “That’s another matter.”

  He begged their pardon. He had an awfully full day behind him, lunch at the Turkish embassy, in the afternoon he had been elected president of an officers’ club, the “Swiss Swords,” then he had to attend a celebration of his election at the H
elvetian Society, and earlier in the morning a special meeting of his political party, and now this get-together at Gastmann’s to hear a pianist, a world-famous one, true, but still, he was dead tired.

  “Isn’t it possible to speak to Herr Gastmann?” Barlach asked again.

  “What do you want of Gastmann?” von Schwendi replied. “What does he have to do with a murdered police lieutenant?”

  “Schmied visited him last Wednesday and was killed on his way home near Twann.”

  “That’s what you get,” the state councillor said. “Gastmann invites anyone and everyone, no wonder it ends up with an incident.”

  Then he fell silent and appeared to be thinking.

  “I am Gastmann’s lawyer,” he finally said. “Why did you come on this particular night? You could have at least called beforehand.”

  Barlach explained that he and his colleague had only just discovered Gastmann’s part in the case.

  The colonel was still not satisfied.

  “And what about the dog?”

  “He attacked me, and Tschanz had to shoot.”

  “Well, that’s all right then,” von Schwendi said, not without friendliness. “You really can’t speak to Gastmann tonight. Even the police occasionally have to respect other people’s social obligations. I’ll have a quick word with Gastmann tonight, and I’ll be in your office tomorrow. Do you happen to have a picture of Schmied?”

  Barlach took a photograph from his wallet and gave it to him.

  “Thank you,” the state councillor said.

  Then he nodded and went inside.

  Now Barlach and Tschanz walked back to where they had stood earlier, in front of the rusty bars of the garden gate; the front of the house was still dark.

  “You can’t get past a state councillor,” Barlach said, “and if he’s a colonel and a lawyer on top of it, he’s got three devils inside him at once. So here we are with our lovely murder, and there’s nothing we can do.”

  Tschanz was silent and seemed to be pondering something. Finally he said, “It is nine o’clock, Inspector. I think the best thing we can do is look up the policeman of Lamboing and find out what he knows about Gastmann.”

  “Right,” Barlach said. “You can do that. Try to find out why no one in Lamboing knows anything about Schmied’s visiting Gastmann. I’m going to that little restaurant at the edge of the gorge. I have to do something for my stomach. I’ll expect you there.”

  They walked back along the path to the car. Tschanz drove off and reached Lamboing after a few minutes.

  He found the policeman in the inn, together with Clenin, who had come up from Twann. They were sitting at a table apart from the farmers. Evidently they had something private to discuss. The policeman of Lamboing was short, fat, and red-haired. His name was Jean Pierre Charnel.

  Tschanz joined them, and soon the suspicion the two men felt for their colleague from Bern was dissipated, although Charnel minded having to switch from French to German, a language in which he felt himself on slippery ground. They were drinking white wine, and Tschanz ate some bread and cheese with it. He did not mention that he had just come from Gastmann’s house, but asked instead if they still had not found any clues.

  “Non,” said Charnel, “not a trace of assassin. On a rien trouvé, nothing was found.”

  Charnel went on to say that in this area there was only one person worth questioning, a Herr Gastmann, the one who had bought Rollier’s house, where there were always a lot of guests, and on Wednesday he’d had a big party. But Schmied hadn’t been there, Gastmann didn’t even know his name. “Schmied n’etait pas chez Gastmann, impossible. Completely impossible.”

  Tschanz listened to the man’s garbled talk and suggested questioning some other people who had been at Gastmann’s on that day.

  “I’ve done that,” Clenin interjected. “There’s a writer in Schernelz, above Ligerz, who knows Gastmann well and visits him often. He says he was there on Wednesday. He doesn’t know anything about Schmied, never heard his name, and he doesn’t believe Gastmann ever had a policeman in his house.”

  “A writer, you say?” Tschanz frowned. “I’ll have to buttonhole that one some time. Writers are a two-faced bunch, but I know how to handle a smart-ass.”

  “So tell me, Charnel,” he continued, “who is this Gastmann?”

  “Un monsieur très riche,” the policeman of Lamboing replied enthusiastically. “Has money like hay and très noble. He give tip to my fiancée”—and he pointed proudly at the waitress—“comme un roi, but not on purpose to have something with her. Jamais.”

  “What’s his profession?”

  “Philosophe.”

  “What does that mean to you, Charnel?”

  “A man who think much and do nothing.”

  “But he must make money somehow?”

  Charnel shook his head. “He do not make money, he have money. He pay taxes for the whole village of Lamboing. That is enough for us to make Gastmann the man most sympathique in the whole canton.”

  “We’ll still have to have a close look at this Gastmann. I’m going to see him tomorrow.”

  “Watch out for his dog,” Charnel warned. “Un chien très dangereux.”

  Tschanz stood up and patted the policeman of Lamboing on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I can handle his dog.”

  7

  It was ten o’clock when Tschanz left Clenin and Charnel to join Barlach in the restaurant by the ravine. But when he came to the spot where the dirt road branched off to Gastmann’s house, he stopped his car. He got out and slowly walked to the garden gate and then along the wall. The house still looked dark and solitary, surrounded by giant poplars swaying in the wind. The limousines were still parked in the garden. Tschanz did not go all the way around the house, but stopped at a corner from which he could survey the lighted windows in the back. Now and then the shapes of people were silhouetted against the yellow panes, and Tschanz pressed himself close to the wall to avoid being seen. He scanned the sparse patch of lawn where the dog had lain. It was no longer there. Someone must have removed it. Only the black pool of blood still glinted in the light from the windows. Tschanz returned to the car.

  Barlach was not in the restaurant when he got there. The proprietress said he had left for Twann half an hour ago, after drinking a brandy—he hadn’t stayed more than five minutes.

  Tschanz wondered what the old man was up to, but he was unable to pursue his speculations; the narrow road demanded all his attention. He drove past the bridge where they had waited, and drove on into the forest.

  And now something strange and uncanny occurred that put him in a pensive mood. He had been driving quickly when suddenly the lake flashed into view from below, a nocturnal mirror framed by white cliffs. He realized he had reached the scene of the murder. At that moment, a dark figure detached itself from the wall of rock and clearly signaled for the car to stop.

  Tschanz halted automatically and opened the right-hand door of the car. He regretted this immediately, for he realized that he was going through precisely the same motions Schmied had just moments before he was shot. He thrust his hand in his coat pocket and gripped his revolver. The touch of its cool steel calmed him. The figure came closer. Then he recognized who it was: Barlach. But far from relieving him, this realization filled him with a hot, secret terror that he could not explain to himself. Barlach stooped and they looked each other in the face—for hours, it seemed, though it was only a few seconds. Neither of them said a word, and their eyes were like stones. Then Barlach got into the car, and Tschanz released his grip on the gun in his pocket.

  “You can drive on, Tschanz,” Barlach said, and his voice sounded indifferent. But Tschanz noticed with a start that the old man had addressed him with “du” instead of the formal “Sie.” From then on, the inspector persisted in this more intimate form of address.

  Not until they passed Biel did Barlach break the silence and ask what Tschanz had experienced in Lamboing, “and let’s settle once and
for all on calling the place by its French name.”

  When Tschanz told him that both Charnel and Clenin thought it impossible that Schmied had been a guest at Gastmann’s, Barlach said nothing; and as for the writer from Schernelz whom Clenin had mentioned, Barlach said he would speak to the man himself.

  Tschanz spoke with more animation than usual. He was relieved that they were talking at all, and he wanted to drown out the strange agitation he felt, but before they reached Schupfen, they were both silent again.

  Shortly after eleven, they stopped in front of Barlach’s house, and the inspector got out.

  “Thanks again, Tschanz,” he said, and shook his hand. “It’s an embarrassing thing to talk about: but the fact is, you saved my life.”

  He stood on the pavement and followed the vanishing taillight of the speeding car. “Now he can drive as fast as he likes.”

  He entered his house by the unlocked door. In the book-lined hallway he put his hand in his coat pocket and pulled out a weapon, which he carefully placed on the desk next to the snake. It was a large, heavy revolver.

  Then he slowly took off his overcoat. Wrapped around his left arm was a thick cloth bandage, the kind animal trainers use to teach a dog to attack.

  8

  The next morning, the old inspector knew from experience that some “unpleasantness”—his word for friction with Lutz—was to be expected. “You know what Saturdays are like,” he told himself as he crossed the Altenberg bridge. “That’s when the bureaucrats bare their teeth just because they’re ashamed of not having done anything sensible the whole week.” He was dressed in solemn black, for Schmied’s funeral was scheduled for ten o’clock. There was no way he could avoid attending it, and that was the real source of his irritation.

  Von Schwendi appeared at police headquarters shortly after eight, bypassing Barlach and instead going to Lutz, who had just received Tschanz’s report about the previous night’s events.