Garden of Beasts

sir. Now, is there anything else you wish to tell me?”
    “Not a thing, Inspector. I’ll cooperate however I can.”
    “You may leave now. Take only your necessities. Uncuff him, Janssen.”
    The inspector candidate did so. Schumann walked to his suitcase. As Kohl watched carefully, he packed a shaving kit with a razor, shaving soap, toothbrush and dental cream. The inspector handed him back his cigarettes, matches, money and comb.
    Schumann glanced at the woman. “Can you walk me to the tram stop?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    Kohl asked, “Miss Richter, you live here in the building?”
    “The back apartment on this floor, yes.”
    “Very well. I’ll be in touch with you, as well.”
    Together, they walked out the door.
    After they had gone Janssen frowned and said, “Sir, how can you let him go? Did you believe his story?”
    “Some of it. Enough to allow me to release him temporarily.” Kohl explained to the inspector candidate his concerns: He believed that the killing here had been in self-defense. And it did indeed appear that Taggert was the killer of Reginald Morgan. But there remained unanswered questions. If they had been in any other country,Kohl would have detained Schumann until he verified everything. But he knew that if he now ordered the man held while he investigated further, the Gestapo would peremptorily declare the American to be the guilty “foreigner” Himmler wanted and he’d be in Moabit Prison or Oranienburg camp by nightfall.
    “Not only would a man die for a crime he probably did not commit but the case will be declared closed and we’ll never find the complete truth—which is, of course, the whole point of our job.”
    “But shouldn’t I at least follow him?”
    Kohl sighed. “Janssen, how many criminals have we ever apprehended by following them? What do they say in the American crime shockers? ‘Shadowing’?”
    “Well, none, I would guess, but—”
    “So we will leave that to fictional detectives. We know where we can find him.”
    “But the Metropol is a huge hotel with many exits. He could escape from us easily there.”
    “That does not interest us, Janssen. We’ll continue to look into Mr. Schumann’s role in this drama shortly. Our priority now, though, is to examine the room here carefully. . . . Ach, congratulations, Inspector Candidate.”
    “Why is that, sir?”
    “You have solved the Dresden Alley murder.” He nodded toward the body. “And, what’s more, the perpetrator is dead; we need not be inconvenienced by a trial.”

Chapter Thirty
    Accompanied by an SS bodyguard, Colonel Reinhard Ernst had taken Rudy back home to Charlottenburg. He was grateful for the boy’s young age; the child hadn’t completely understood the peril at the stadium. The grim faces of the men, the urgency in the pressroom and the fast drive away from the complex had been troubling to him, but he could not fathom the significance of the events. All he knew was that his Opa had fallen and hurt himself slightly, even though his grandfather had made light of the “adventure,” as he called it.
    The highlights of the afternoon for the boy, in fact, had not been the magnificent stadium, nor meeting some of the most powerful men in the world, nor the alarm over the assassin. It had been the dogs; Rudy now wanted one himself, preferably two. He talked endlessly about the animals.
    “Construction everywhere,” Ernst muttered to Gertrud. “I’ve ruined my suit.”
    True, she wasn’t pleased but she was more troubled that he’d taken a fall. She examined his head closely. “You have a bump. You must be more careful, Reinie. I’ll bring you ice for it.”
    He hated to be less than honest with her. But he simply would not tell her that he’d been the target of an assassin.If she’d learned that, she would implore him to stay home, no, insist. And he would have to refuse, as he rarely did with his wife. Hitler may have buried himself beneath corpses during the November ’23 rebellion to remain out of harm’s way, but Ernst would never avoid an enemy when his duty required otherwise.
    Under different circumstances, yes, he might have remained home for a day or two until the assassin was found, which surely he would be, now that the great mechanism of the Gestapo, SD and SS was in motion. But Ernst had a vital matter to attend to today: conducting the tests at the college with Doctor-professor Keitel and preparing the memo about the Waltham Study for the