Garden of Beasts

windows were eight feet off the ground, a tough climb. Most were closed but Paul saw one was open and the apartment it let onto appeared deserted.
    Morgan noticed Paul’s glance and said, “We could hide there, yes. Pull the blinds. But how do we climb up?”
    “Please,” Paul called to one of the boys who’d been pitching rocks, “do you live here?”
    “No, sir, we just come to play.”
    “Do you want to earn a whole mark?”
    “Greet God, sir,” one said. His eyes went wide and he trotted over to the men. “Yes, we do.”
    “Good. But you must act quickly.”
    •   •   •
    Willi Kohl paused outside the courtyard entrance.
    He waited a moment until he was sure Janssen would be in position in the back and then turned the corner. No sign of the suspect from Dresden Alley or the man with the suitcase. Only some teenage boys standing around a pile of wooden milk crates across the courtyard. They glanced up uneasily at the officers and began to walk out of the courtyard.
    “You, boys!” Kohl called.
    They stopped, looked at each other uneasily. “Yes?”
    “Did you just see two men?”
    Another uncomfortable shared glance. “No.”
    “Come here.”
    There was a brief pause. Then simultaneously they began sprinting, vanishing from the courtyard, raising puffs of dust beneath their feet. Kohl didn’t even try topursue them. Gripping his pistol, he looked around the courtyard. All of the apartments on the ground floor had curtained windows or anemic plants resting on the sills, suggesting they were occupied. One, though, was curtainless and dark.
    Kohl approached it slowly and noticed that on the dusty ground below the window were indentations—from the milk cartons, he understood. The suspect and his companion had paid the boys to carry the crates to the window then replace them after the men had climbed into the apartment.
    The inspector, gripping his pistol tightly, pressed the button for the building’s janitor.
    A moment later a harried man arrived. The wiry, gray janitor opened the door and glanced with a nervous blink at the pistol in Kohl’s hand.
    Kohl stepped inside, looking past the man into the dark corridor. There was motion at the far end of the hall. Kohl prayed that Janssen would remain vigilant. The inspector had at least been tested on the battlefield. He’d been shot at and had, he believed, shot one or two enemy soldiers. But Janssen? Though he was a talented marksman, the boy had fired only at paper targets. How would he do if the matter came to a gunfight?
    He whispered to the janitor, “The apartment on this floor, two to the right.” He pointed. “It is unoccupied?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Kohl stepped back so he could keep an eye on the courtyard in case the suspects tried to leap out the window and run. He told the janitor, “There’s another officer at your back entrance. Go fetch him at once.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    But just as he was leaving, a stocky old woman in a purpledress and blue head scarf waddled toward them. “Mr. Greitel, Mr. Greitel! Quickly, you must call the police!”
    Kohl turned to her.
    The janitor said, “The police are here, Mrs. Haeger.”
    “Ach, how can that be?” She blinked.
    The inspector asked her, “What do you require the police for?”
    “Theft!”
    Instinct told Kohl that this had something to do with the pursuit. “Tell me, ma’am. Quickly now.”
    “My apartment is in the front of the building. And from my window I noted two men hiding behind the stack of milk crates, which I must point out you have been promising for weeks you will cart away, Mr. Greitel.”
    “Please continue. This matter could be most urgent.”
    “These two were skulking. It was obvious. Then, just a moment ago, I saw them stand and take two bicycles from the rack next to the front entrance. I don’t know about one of the bicycles but the other was clearly Miss Bauer’s, and she has had no male companion for two years, so I know she would not have been lending him the bicycle.”
    “No!” Kohl muttered and hurried outside. Now he realized that the suspect had paid the boys simply to drop a couple of the crates beneath the window to leave the marks in the dust but then to return them to the pile, behind which the men had hidden. The boys then were probably told to act furtive or uneasy, making Kohl think this was how the suspects had gotten into the building.
    He burst from the courtyard and looked up and down the street, seeing living proof of a