Garden of Beasts

the man’s state or country of origin, perhaps something more specific. But it was worth noting, which Willi Kohl now did in his well-thumbed notebook, after a lick of the pencil tip. “And his food?”
    “Our sausage and cabbage plate. With much bread and margarine. They had the same. The big man ate everything. He seemed ravenous. His companion ate half.”
    “And the third man?”
    “Coffee only.”
    “How did the big man—as we’ll call him—how did he hold his fork?”
    “His fork?”
    “After he cut a piece of sausage, did he change his fork from one hand to another and then eat the bite? Or did he lift the food to his mouth without changing hands?”
    “I . . . I don’t know, sir. I would think possibly he did change hands. I say that because it seemed he was always placing his fork down to drink the beer.”
    “Good, Johann.”
    “I am happy to aid my Leader in any way I can.”
    “Yes, yes,” Kohl said wearily.
    Switching forks. Common in other countries, less so in Germany, like whistling for taxis. So the accent may have indeed been foreign.
    “Did he smoke?”
    “I believe so, sir.”
    “Pipe, cigar, cigarette?”
    “Cigarette, I believe. But I—”
    “Didn’t see the brand of the manufacturer.”
    “No, sir. I didn’t.”
    Kohl walked across the room and examined the suspect’s table and the chairs around it. Nothing helpful. He frowned to see that the ashtray contained ash but no cigarette stubs.
    More evidence of their man’s cleverness?
    Kohl then crouched and struck a match over the floor beneath the table.
    “Ah, yes, look, Janssen! Some flakes of the same brown leather we found earlier. Indeed it is our man. And there are marks in the dust here that suggest he set a satchel down.”
    “I wonder what it contains,” Janssen said.
    “That does not interest us,” Kohl said, scooping up these flakes and depositing them in an envelope. “Not at this point. The importance is the bag itself, the connection it establishes between this man and Dresden Alley.”
    Kohl thanked the waiter and, with a longing glance at a plate of wiener schnitzel, he walked outside, Janssen behind him.
    “Let’s inquire around the neighborhood to see if anyone saw our gentlemen. You take the far side of the street, Janssen. I’ll take the flower vendors.” Kohl laughed grimly. Berlin flower sellers were notoriously rude.
    Janssen removed his handkerchief and wiped his brow. He seemed to give a faint sigh.
    “Are you tired, Janssen?”
    “No, sir. Not at all.” The young man hesitated then added, “It’s just that it seems our work sometimes is hopeless. All this effort for a fat dead man.”
    Kohl dug his yellow pipe out of his pocket, frowning to see that he’d put his pistol into the same pocket and had nicked the bowl. He filled it with tobacco. He said, “Yes, Janssen, you’re right. The victim was a fat middle-aged man. But we’re clever detectives, aren’t we? We know something else about him, as well.”
    “What’s that, sir?”
    “That he was somebody’s son.”
    “Well . . . of course he was.”
    “And perhaps he was somebody’s brother. And maybe somebody’s husband or lover. And, if he was lucky, he wasa father of sons and daughters. I would hope too that there are past lovers who think of him occasionally. And in his future other lovers might have awaited. And three or four more children he could have brought into the world.” He rasped a match on the side of the box and got a smolder going in the meerschaum. “So, Janssen, when you look at the incident in this way we don’t have merely a curious mystery about a stocky dead man. We have a tragedy like a spiderweb reaching many different lives and many different places, extending for years and years. How sad that is. . . . Do you see why our job is so important?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    And Kohl believed that the young man did indeed understand.
    “Janssen, you must get a hat. But for now, I’ve changed my mind. You take the shady side of the street. It will mean, of course, that you must interview the flower vendors. They’ll treat you to some words you won’t hear outside of a Stormtrooper barracks but at least you won’t return to your wife tonight with skin the shade of fresh beetroot.”

Chapter Eight
    Walking toward the busy square to find a taxi, Paul glanced behind him from time to time. Smoking his Chesterfield, looking at the sights, stores, passersby, once again searching for anything