In Matto's Realm: A Sergeant Studer Mystery (31 page)

"I did it openly, my colleagues knew about it, it was
discussed at the staff meeting a year ago. It was no
more dangerous than narcosis, for example. In those
we reckon with a mortality rate of five per cent. It was
never higher in the typhus experiments.

"As I said, the matter was discussed at a staff meeting; the late Director had given his approval. To
explain the behaviour of the Director during the last
few months, I would have to give you a course on
arteriosclerosis - hardening of the arteries, that is -
and a mental illness we call senile dementia - mental
decay in old age. It is difficult to diagnose in the early
stages; it starts insidiously. It was impossible for me to
draw up a medical report on Ulrich Borstli, MD, Director of Randlingen Clinic. We couldn't have the man
put away. We did try to persuade him to take his pension and retire, but he wouldn't. Obstinacy, a refusal to
see reason, is one of the standard symptoms of senile
dementia - but you do also sometimes get a persecution mania. The director felt he was being persecuted
by me. Earlier on our relationship had been excellent.
He was glad I took so much work off him, he agreed
when I suggested innovations. But recently he had
started to think I was trying compromise him, to oust
him, to have him put away. That's why he hated me so
much.

"What should I do? It was just at the time when the
signs of mental illness in the Director were becoming
clearer that I made the acquaintance of Herbert
Caplaun. Jutzeler, who helped you yesterday, was distantly related to him through his wife. Jutzeler asked
me to take Herbert on. I wanted to think about it, but I told Jutzeler he could bring the man round so I could
see him. Herbert was a musician. He'd composed
songs. On that first visit he brought a song with him;
verses by a German writer he'd set to music. We liked
it, didn't we, Greti?"

Fran Laduner gave a weary nod.

"He was like Leibundgut, the man I showed you,
Studer. Herbert drank. I kept him on 0 Ward for three
months, as you discovered. You found out about his
friendship with Pieterlen, his friendship with Gilgen.
He was a nice lad, Herbert Caplaun. Then I took him
on as a private patient. I couldn't help him hearing
about the tension between the Director and me. You
believe Caplaun tried to pay his debt of gratitude to
me by murdering the Director, and all the indications
are against him: the sandbag Pieterlen got for him, the
telephone conversation on the evening of the harvest
festival ... But, Studer, doesn't something strike you?
Do you really believe the Director, given his distrustful
nature - and his illness had made him even more distrustful - do you believe the Director would have
agreed to go and meet someone just like that? Given
how distrustful he was? Do you really believe that,
Studer?"

Silence. Fran Laduner's eyes were wide, she was
staring anxiously at her husband.

"Someone helped. Who? Three men come into consideration, three men who could have talked to the
Director between the telephone conversation and him
going to the heating plant ... Three men - and one
woman. No, we can rule the woman out. That leaves: 1:
me - no, don't protest, I had an interest - 2: Jutzeler
and 3: Dreyer, the porter.

"My wife can confirm that during the night of the
first of September I left the apartment at a quarter to one and only returned at about half past two. Which
was still early enough for me to be called out to 0
when it was discovered Pieterlen had disappeared.
What was I doing during all that time? A nightwatchman saw me at the door to the heating plant. I was
chasing someone - Caplaun, obviously. You really
ought to have made me your prime suspect after
the nightwatchman told you that, but you refused to
entertain the idea ... OK.

"The second possibility is Jutzeler. He'd had an
argument with the Director - about Gilgen. Jutzeler
could have been the one who said whatever it was that
lured the Director to the heating plant. But we can
eliminate him because. . ."

Dr Laduner paused for effect. He slowly lit a
cigarette.

"Because after I had abandoned my unsuccessful
pursuit of my problem child, I came across a man in
the basement corridor who was locking the door to the
heating plant. Do you know who?"

Studer nodded. Suddenly everything was clear. He
felt ashamed. He had understood nothing ...

"Dreyer, the porter," Laduner said softly. "I'm convinced it was Dreyer who persuaded the Director to
meet Herbert, though we can only guess at the arguments he employed. However, I didn't know what had
happened in the boiler room, so I didn't stop him. I
followed him quietly. He didn't see me. When, then,
the news came that the Director had disappeared and
his office looked as if a struggle had taken place there,
I considered what would be the best thing to do. I
knew Caplaun was involved in some way or other ...
That was when I remembered a man I'd met some
years ago, a man I knew was interested in psychological
puzzles, so I said to myself, I'll get them to send that man, then I can go on treating my patient with an easy
mind. Herbert Caplaun's worth taking trouble over
and there'll never be a better time to let his resentment play itself out. If there should be complications,
I'll have a certain detective sergeant to hand who will
help me.

"Caplaun lied to you from beginning to end, Sergeant. His confession was false, his claim that he said
nothing during analysis untrue. You don't know what
terrible pressure silence can exert - my silence, for
example, when I'm sitting at the patient's head and he
can't see me. During that session on the second of
September, when you came barging in and saw
Caplaun crying, he'd already confessed everything:
that he'd pushed the Director down the ladder, that
he'd done it to help me. I said nothing ... I knew
better. I knew Caplaun was incapable of such a deed, I
knew his inhibitions were too strong. It was possible
that he had met the Director in the heating plant, but
he'd neither hit him over the head (at that point I
knew nothing about the sandbag) nor given him a
push. I'd seen Dreyer coming out of the boiler room. I
knew what had happened.

"All the time you assumed he was pushed, Studer. I
knew when I saw the body, when I examined the position it was in more closely, that the Director had been
pulled down. Remember his spectacles. On the ground
beside him! If he had fallen down backwards, they
would never have come off. Didn't you notice the
abrasions on his nose? His face hit the edge of the
platform, his spectacles were knocked off and only then
did he fall down backwards and break his neck.

"One foot steps over the edge. A man hidden under
the platform grabs the foot. A little tug ...

"But that's all detective work. I'm a doctor, Studer, as I've told you before ... I try to heal minds ... Can you
imagine the power that is given me? You don't understand what I'm talking about, do you? A man comes to
me, his mind broken, twisted, and I'm supposed to
straighten it out, to heal it. This man imagines he's a
murderer, he admits it to me because he knows I can't
betray him, I'm his father confessor. Now I could
reassure him with one word, I could prove to him that
he's not a murderer. Why don't I? Because the idea
that he's a murderer can accelerate the healing process. It gives me a lever: his mind is like a door with
bent hinges and I can use the lever to straighten out
the hinges.

"I thought you'd understood that, I thought you
remembered Eichhorn, the scene with the knife ...

"Dreyer wasn't going anywhere, I could leave him
until you found him.

"You even believed Caplaun when he told you he'd
hidden the wallet in my room.

"I hid it myself ... I found it in a drawer of the desk
in the Director's office, in the morning, before I set off
to pick you up in Bern. Dreyer looked for it, but he
didn't find it. I wanted to have the wallet within reach,
so that I could show it to Caplaun. In analysis you have
to drop a little bomb now and then.

"Unfortunately, you didn't understand anything,
Studer. That's why I was so annoyed. I suppose
Caplaun's death was fated ...

"Greti, you must sing the sergeant the song, our
song ... as a way of saying goodbye." Dr Laduner
smiled, a tired smile, then added softly, "It was the
song that made me accept Herbert for analysis ...
Come along to the drawing room, Studer."

It was the strangest concert Studer had ever heard. The drawing room was cold; the window looked out
onto the courtyard, at the back of which was the chimney pointing up into the sky, red as a butcher's thumb.
Grey light filtered in through the glass.

Dr Laduner was sitting on the round piano stool, a
handwritten sheet of music in front of him. Beside
him, erect, stood his wife. Her red dressing-gown had
stiff folds. The doctor played the accompaniment
quietly, Fran Laduner sang:

And Studer saw the apartment on the first floor, the
cigar stubs in the ashtray, the bottle of brandy, the
book open on the desk ... There were withered leaves
on the branches of the birch tree outside the window.

The kitchen window in 0 Ward. And Pieterlen
standing at the window, staring across at the women's
ward, where Irma Wasem was standing at the window
looking across at him.

Little Gilgen sitting on the edge of the bed, little
Gilgen taking the photo of his wife out of the drawer of
the bedside table, then suddenly disappearing ...

Caplaun, Herbert Caplaun had hidden in Gilgen's
house. Hidden from his father and his psychiatrist. And then, and then - Studer put his hand over his eyes
- the water splashing up in the dull starlight ...