Rosa

“Why not indeed?” said Manstein. “Perhaps Herr Braun would like to answer that one?” Braun had given up trying: he sat with a vacant stare. Manstein continued: “Braun underestimated you. He convinced us it would take you several months to find Wouters. By then the city would be in a panic, the murders would be front-page news every day. You had managed to keep the case hidden throughout the revolution. We needed time to build the hysteria, to let Frulein Luxemburg be our crowning jewel, the focus of the conspiracy to come. Unfortunately, you tracked down Wouters too quickly.”

“So why not stop Wouters from taking his victim to the Ochsenhof that night?” Hoffner pressed. “I don’t catch him and the killings go on.” Manstein waited for Hoffner to put it together himself. “You didn’t have Wouters by then, did you?”

“The Koop girl,” Manstein said. “Once you took her, there was nothing to bring him back to the site. The little engineer Sazonov was cleverer than we thought. And once Wouters was gone, he needed to be dead. Tossing Luxemburg out after that, without a captivated public-and with you a hero-would have meant nothing. She would have been the victim of a crime already solved, and without any link to Nepp.”

Something didn’t sit right. “But she was tossed out. The Kripo found her floating in the Landwehr Canal.”

Hoffner had hit a nerve. Again Manstein’s expression soured. “You can thank Rifleman Runge for that.” Manstein shook his head. “The boy got overexcited. Killed her too quickly. The knife work had to be done directly after death, otherwise the skin would have lost its elasticity. I managed to get to him in time, but then that mob you’ve been hearing so much about actually stumbled upon us. Down by the river. No choice but to find an embankment and hide her. Your comrades discovered her before we could get back. Braun was actually something of a help there.”

Hoffner’s mind was racing. Everything to set up Ebert’s government. Everything to place the blame where it least belonged.

“And Eisner?” said Hoffner. “The assassination? Berlin hysteria wasn’t enough? You had to bring it home to Munich, as well?”

“That,” said Manstein, “had nothing to do with us. We wouldn’t have sent a Jew to do our dirty work.”

No need for a coup, thought Hoffner. No need for an assassin’s bullet. With Nepp in place, it had all been much subtler than that. Hoffner said, “And then the digging went too far.”

“Yes,” said Manstein, lingering with the word. “Your trip to Munich was something of an eye-opener. Not that it was as much of a problem as you might think. It was time to start leaving bodies again, build up the hysteria.” Manstein peered directly into Hoffner’s eyes. “That was where we managed two birds with one stone, Herr Oberkommissar. Your wife seemed the perfect choice.”

There was something dead inside Hoffner, and no amount of goading could stir it to life. He said, “You’re taking this all very calmly, Herr Doktor.”

“As are you, Herr Oberkommissar.”

Hoffner said nothing.

“In fact,” Manstein added, “if you think about it, I’m handing it to you, Detective, not taking it.”

Again, Manstein was leading him. “And why is that?” said Hoffner.

“And here I thought you were so much cleverer than Herr Braun and his Polpo.” When Hoffner remained silent, Manstein spoke more deliberately: “As I said, you have her. And without Frau Luxemburg-”

“Yes. No conspiracy,” said Hoffner. “I understand that.”

“Yes, I think you do.” Manstein waited before adding, “But if you arrest us. .”

Hoffner listened to the tone in Manstein’s voice, and allowed himself to see beyond all of this: to the press meetings, the newspapers, Manstein paraded out in front of all of them. And it suddenly became clear. “Too many questions,” Hoffner said, almost to himself. “And ones you’d be only too happy to answer. Either way it would lead them back to Nepp.”

“Precisely,” said Manstein. “And from Nepp to Ebert. The larger picture, Herr Oberkommissar. Obviously, you’re going to dispose of Frulein Luxemburg, so you and I seem to be at an impasse. My friends and I have nothing to ignite our scheme, and you can’t take the risk that exposing us wouldn’t ultimately fall in Ebert’s lap. Your finding all this out-or, rather, your having it spoon-fed to you-stops you from doing anything. Too much to lose. A final safeguard, if you will, even if Herr Braun here didn’t quite understand that. Shame it had to come to this.”

Hoffner thought for a moment. “So why not kill you?”

Manstein was no less poised. “You’re not going to do that, Herr Oberkommissar. It’s not who you are.” Manstein waited. He then let out a long breath and, with surprising candor, said, “So I think we’re done here.” He turned to Zenlo. “You can remove the ropes now.” Manstein jiggled his wrists in Zenlo’s direction.

Hoffner said, “You’re forgetting we still have a murderer on the loose.”

“Oh, you’ll find someone to take the fall for that, Herr Oberkommissar. The Kripo always does. And it’s not as if it would be the first time, now would it?” Manstein turned again to Zenlo. “A knife, please. It’s becoming uncomfortable.”

Hoffner watched as Pimm and Zenlo shared a glance. They were no better prepared for this than Hoffner was. Hoffner said, “And everything goes on as it was? Is that the idea, Herr Doktor?”

For a moment, Manstein looked truly baffled by the question. “‘Goes on as it. .?’ Let me ask you this, Herr Oberkommissar-how long do you think the German people will suffer a Friedrich Ebert Germany? The man’s already talking about ru

The cavern became uncomfortably quiet. Hoffner tried to find something to say, but he had no answer. If the men in Munich had come this close, this time. . Manstein had him either way. What choice was there?

Hoffner looked over at Zenlo and held out his hand. “Give me your knife,” he said. Again Zenlo looked to Pimm, and again Pimm said nothing. “Your knife,” Hoffner repeated. With no recourse, Zenlo stepped over and placed the knife in Hoffner’s hand. Hoffner was now directly in front of Manstein. He knelt down and said, “You’re right, Herr Doktor.” Without so much as a nod, Hoffner plunged the blade deep into Manstein’s gut. “I do need someone to take the fall.”

Manstein’s expression was less anguish than shock. He coughed once, and Hoffner twisted the knife as he drove it higher and deeper into the flesh. He watched as the eyes searched his own for an answer, the throat choked and silent. “Very few things are inevitable, Herr Doktor. This happens to be one of them.” Hoffner held him there, waiting for the life to drain from him. Manstein’s body jerked once and became still.

Hoffner turned to Braun. The man sat cowering in disbelief as Hoffner let go of the knife and said, “Congratulations, Herr Oberkommissar.” There was nothing in Hoffner’s tone. “You’ve just caught your second carver. What a proud day it is for the Polpo.”

Braun managed to find his voice. “What have you done?”

Strangely, Hoffner felt nothing: no relief, no sense of retribution. All he noticed was a tackiness on his hand-a bit of blood that had caught between his knuckles-and he pulled out his handkerchief. “I’ve made you a hero of the Republic,” he said as he concentrated on the stain. “You’ll have to be careful how much you let out. How far you let the press dig. Otherwise, who knows what they might discover?”

Fighting to find his composure, Braun said, “And why would I do any of this?”

“Because,” came a voice from across the cavern, “you could always be a dead hero, Herr Oberkommissar.” Kriminaldirektor Gerhard Weigland stood just outside the opening to the tu