Garden Of Beasts

Just as he was bending down to drag it into the closet, though, the front door to the apartment opened. Paul looked up. It hadn’t been Käthe knocking. He found himself staring at two men. One was round, mustachioed, wearing a wrinkled cream-colored suit with a waistcoat. A Panama hat was in his hand. A slim, younger man in a dark suit stood beside him, gripping a black automatic pistol.

No! It was the very same cops who’d been dogging him since yesterday. He sighed and slowly stood.

“Ach, at last, is Mr. Paul Schuma

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Keep your hands still. Yes, yes, please, Mr. Schuma

The American was quite large, Kohl observed. Easily four inches taller than the inspector himself and broad. The street artist’s rendering had been accurate but the man’s face was marred with more scars than in the sketch, and the eyes… well, they were a soft blue, cautious yet serene.

“Janssen, see if that man is indeed dead,” Kohl said, returning to German. He covered Schuma

The young detective leaned down and examined the figure, though there was little doubt in Kohl’s mind he was looking at a corpse.

The young officer nodded and stood up.

Willi Kohl was as shocked as he was pleased to find Schuma

“So, are you one of those Gestapo police?” Schuma

“No, we are with the Criminal Police.” He displayed his identification card. “Janssen, search him.”

The young officer expertly patted every place that a pocket – obvious or secret – might be. The inspector candidate discovered his U.S. passport, money, comb, matches and a pack of cigarettes.

Janssen handed everything over to Kohl, who told his assistant to handcuff Schuma

“I didn’t kill Reggie Morgan. He did.” A nod toward the body. “His name is Taggert. Robert Taggert. He tried to kill me too. That’s why we were fighting.”

Kohl wasn’t sure that “fighting” was the right word to describe a confrontation between this tall American, with red calloused knuckles and huge arms, and the victim, who had the physique of Joseph Goebbels.

“Fight?”

“He pulled a gun on me.” Schuma

“Our Spanish Star Modelo A, sir,” Janssen said excitedly. “The murder weapon!”

The same type of gun as the murder weapon, Kohl thought. A bullet comparison would tell if it was the same gun or not. But he would not correct a colleague, even a junior one, in front of a suspect. Janssen draped a handkerchief around the weapon, picked it up and noted the serial number.

Kohl licked his pencil, jotted the number into his notebook and asked Janssen for the list of people who had bought such guns, supplied by police precincts around town. The young man produced it from his briefcase. “Now get the fingerprint kit from the car and print the gun and our friends here. Both the live one and the dead one.”

“Yes, sir.” He stepped outside.

The inspector flipped through the names on the list, seeing no Schuma

“Try Taggert,” the American said, “or one of those names.” He nodded toward a stack of passports sitting on the table. “He had those on him.”

“Please, you may sit.” The inspector helped the cuffed Schuma

And indeed they were. One passport was Reginald Morgan’s, the man killed in Dresden Alley. It was clearly authentic. The others contained pictures of the man lying at their feet but were issued in different names. One could not be a criminal investigator in National Socialist Germany these days without being familiar with forged documents. Of the others, only the passport in the name of Robert Taggert seemed genuine to Kohl and was the only one filled with apparently legitimate stamps and visas. He compared all the names with those on the list of gun purchasers. He stopped at one entry.

Janssen appeared in the doorway with the fingerprint kit and the Leica. Kohl held up the list. “It seems the deceased did buy the Modelo A last month, Janssen. Under the name of Artur Schmidt.”

Which still didn’t preclude Schuma

“I didn’t kill Reggie Morgan, I’m telling you. He did.”

“Please, say nothing now, Mr. Schuma

Reginald Morgan’s wallet was also here. Kohl looked through it. He paused and looked at the picture of the man at a social event, standing with two older people.

We know something else about him… that he was somebody’s son… And perhaps he was somebody’s brother. And maybe somebody’s husband or lover…

The inspector candidate proceeded to dust powder on the gun and then took Taggert’s prints. The young man said to Schuma

Schuma

Kohl pulled out his monocle. He examined the weapon and the men’s prints closely. He was no expert but his opinion was that the only prints on the pistol were Taggert’s.

Janssen’s eyes narrowed and he nodded to the floor.

Kohl followed the glance. A battered leather bag there. Ah, the telltale satchel! Kohl walked over and opened the clasp. He leafed through the contents – deciphering the English as best he could. There were many notes about Berlin, sports, the Olympics, a press pass in the name of Paul Schuma

So, the inspector thought, he’s been lying. The bag placed him at the murder scene.

But as Kohl examined it carefully he noted that, while it was old, yes, the leather was supple, not flaking.

Then he glanced at the body in front of them. Kohl set the case down and crouched over the dead man’s shoes. They were brown, worn, and shedding bits of leather. The color and shine were just like the ones they’d found on the cobblestones of Dresden Alley and on the floor of the Summer Garden restaurant. Schuma

“Search him now, Janssen,” Kohl said, rising. A nod toward the body.

The inspector candidate dropped to his knees and began examining the corpse carefully.

Kohl lifted an eyebrow at Janssen, who continued the search. He found money, a penknife, a packet of cigarettes. A pocket watch on a heavy gold chain. Then the young man frowned. “Look, sir.” He handed the inspector some silk clothing labels, undoubtedly cut from the garments Reginald Morgan had worn in Dresden Alley. They bore the names of German clothing manufacturers or stores.