Fever (3 page)

Now Studer pushed his chair back too, propped his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands and, in slow, measured tones, began his questioning.

“Two women? Your brother hadn't committed bigamy by any chance?

“No,” said Father Matthias. “He got a divorce from his first wife and married her sister, Josepha.”

“Did he now? Got a divorce?” Studer repeated. “I thought that didn't exist in the Catholic religion?” He looked up and saw that Father Matthias was blushing. A wave of red swept down from his high forehead over his sunburnt face. When it faded, it left peculiar grey blotches on his skin.

“I converted to Catholicism when I was eighteen,” said Father Matthias in a low voice. “As a result I was disowned by my family.”

“What was your brother?” Studer asked.

“A geologist. He prospected for ore in the south of Morocco: lead, silver, copper. For the French government. Then he died in Fez.”

“You've seen his death certificate?”

“It was sent to his second wife in Basel. My niece has seen it.”

“You know your niece?”

“Yes. She lives in Paris. She had a job here with my late brother's secretary.”

“Now,” said Studer, taking his notebook out of his pocket – it was a new ring binder that gave off a strong scent of Russia leather, a Christmas present from his wife, who was fed up with the cheap jotters bound in oilcloth he used. He opened it.

“Would you be so good as to give me the addresses of your two sisters-in-law?”

“Josepha Cleman-Hornuss, 12 Spalenberg, Basel; Sophie Hornuss, 44 Gerechtigkeitsgasse, Bern.” The priest was slightly out of breath as he spoke.

“And you really believe the two old women are in danger, Father?”

“Yes . . . really . . . as I hope to be saved, it is my belief that that is the case.”

Again Studer felt like telling him to stop speaking in such an affected manner, but he couldn't do that, so he just said, “I'm staying here in Paris for the New Year's Eve celebrations, then I'll take the overnight train and be in Basel on the morning of New Year's Day. When are you going to Switzerland?”

“Today . . . tonight.”

“Then,” came Godofrey's parrot voice, “you've just got time to get a taxi.”

“My God, you're right. But where . . .?”

Commissaire Madelin dipped a sugar lump in his rum and, sucking his
canard
, called out to the snoring landlord, who leapt up, rushed to the door, stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. It was so piercing Father Matthias put his hands over his ears.

Then the storyteller was gone.

Commissaire Madelin growled, “There's just one thing I'd like to know. Does the man think we're little children? I'm sorry, Studère, I thought he would have something more important to tell us. He came with a recommendation. From above. He has friends in high places – and he didn't even pay for a single round! It's him who's the child, really, a little child.”

“Excuse me,
chef
,” said Godofrey, “but that's not true. Children can talk to the angels, but our White Father's certainly not on speaking terms with the angels.”

“Eh?” Madelin stared, wide eyed, and Studer, too, gave the over-elegant manikin a look of astonishment.

Godofrey remained unperturbed.

“You can only talk to the angels,” he said, “if you're pure in heart. Our White Father's heart is full of deviousness. You haven't heard the last of him. But
now we're going to drink the health of our inspector's grandson.” He waved the landlord over. “In champagne!” And he repeated the German words of the telegram, “greetings from young zhakoblee to old zhakobbe.” Studer laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks, then he raised his glass to his two companions.

And it was a good thing Commissaire Madelin had his police identity card on him, otherwise the three of them would have been arrested for disturbing the peace at two in the morning. Studer had taken it into his head to teach his two friends the song of “The Farmer from Brienz” and a uniform policeman was of the opinion that a Paris boulevard was not the place for a singing lesson. He withdrew his objection, however, after he had established their profession. Thus it was that Sergeant Studer was able to continue to regale his colleagues from the Paris Sûreté with jewels of Bernese culture. He taught them “I Know a Vale So Fair and Merry” in which the word “Emmental” gave him the opportunity to expound on the difference between Emmental and Gruyère cheese. For the French subscribed to the heresy that all Swiss cheese came from the Gruyère region.

Gas

After Sergeant Studer had stowed his scuffed pigskin suitcase in a compartment of the Paris–Basel overnight express, he pulled down the corridor window to say goodbye to his friends. Grunting and groaning, Commissaire Madelin extricated a bottle wrapped in newspaper from his coat pocket. Godofrey handed a neat little package, doubtless containing a terrine of
pâté de foie gras
, up to the carriage window, whispering, “
Pour madame
.” Then the train pulled out of the Gare de l'Est and Studer returned to his third-class compartment.

A young woman had sat down opposite his corner seat. Fur jacket, grey suede gloves, grey silk stockings. She lit a cigarette, a decidedly male brand: Gauloises. She held out the blue packet to Studer and he helped himself. Then she told him she was from Basel and was going to see her mother. For the New Year. – Where did her mother live? – On Spalenberg. – Really? On Spalenberg? – Yes.

Studer let it go at that. The young woman, a girl really, was at most twenty-two or twenty-three and the sergeant found her enormously attractive. Not that there was anything more to it than that. After all, he was a grandfather, a respectable citizen . . . It was just that it was nice chatting to the girl . . .

Then Studer grew drowsy, excused his yawns by saying he had had a very busy time in Paris. The girl smiled, a slightly impudent smile, but so what? He rested his heavy head on his grey raincoat in the corner
and went to sleep. When he woke up the girl was still sitting opposite him, she hardly seemed to have moved. Only the blue packet of cigarettes, which had been full in Paris, was lying, empty and screwed up, in a corner. And Studer had a headache from the blue smoke filling the compartment.

He carried his own suitcase and hers to the customs, then said goodbye and almost ran straight into a man wearing a cap that looked like a misshapen flowerpot; his skinny body was wrapped in a white monk's habit and he had open sandals on his feet – his bare feet.

If Sergeant Studer expected a hearty greeting, he was disappointed. There was a sad, apprehensive expression on the face with the sparse goatee, and his lips – how pale they were! – mumbled, “Ah, Inspector. How are you?” Then, without waiting for an answer, Father Matthias turned to the young woman who had shared Studer's compartment and took her suitcase. Outside the station the pair of them got into a taxi and drove off.

The sergeant shrugged his broad shoulders. Surely it cast serious doubt on the prophecies of the clairvoyant corporal with which a White Father had regaled three members of the police in a bistro by Les Halles in Paris? If the priest believed them, it would have been his duty to keep watch over . . . what was she called? No matter . . . over the woman living on Spalenberg, to protect her from a death that had something to do with hissing. Hissing? What things made a hissing noise? An arrow . . . a dart from a blowpipe . . . What else? A snake? They all belonged in detective stories by Conan Doyle, who had joined the spiritualists. There was one of those stories . . . What was it called? Something with speckled . . . the speckled . . . Oh yes, “The Speckled Band”. In it a snake wrapped itself round a bell-pull.
Well, Conan Doyle was certainly full of imagination, but Sergeant Studer's cigar case was empty. Charming and hospitable as the French were, Brissagos were unknown to them. So the sergeant had his long, slim leather case filled at the station kiosk. But he denied himself the pleasure of lighting one straight away, instead he went to the buffet first, where he had a substantial and peaceful breakfast. Then he decided to visit a friend who lived on Missionsstrasse.

On the way there, on Freie Strasse first of all – it was still early in the morning and he was going the long way round so as not to disturb his friend at too unearthly an hour – Studer shook his head. It didn't matter, there were no people in the street to get worked up about a man shaking his head and talking to himself. So Sergeant Studer shook his head and muttered, “He's not on speaking terms with the angels.” Father Matthias did seem to be a man whose heart was full of deviousness.

In the Market Square he shook his head once more and muttered, “Greetings from young Jakobli to old Jakob.” A strange woman, Hedy! Getting on for fifty now, and a grandmother, but still she insisted on finding amusing ways of putting things. It used to annoy Studer, but after twenty-seven years of marriage you learn to ignore things . . . Hedy! She'd not always had an easy life. But she was a brave lass – a brave grandmother now.

A grandmother . . . Studer looked up and stopped. The road was going uphill. Of course, Spalenberg! And a house number shone out.

Then a door was flung open, a girl came dashing out and, since the sergeant was the only person in the street, she grabbed him by the arm and gasped, “Come with me, please . . . My mother . . . There's a smell of gas . . .”

And Jakob Studer, a detective sergeant with the Bern police, followed his destiny, which this time had appeared in the person of a young woman who liked strong French cigarettes and wore a fur jacket, grey suede shoes and grey silk stockings.

“Stay out on the terrace,” Studer said after he had panted his way up three flights of stairs. No doubt about it, there was a definite smell of gas. No latch, no key in the door. A plain pine door and a weak lock.

Studer took six steps run-up, no more, but a plain pine door cannot withstand the impact of sixteen stone. It dutifully yielded – not the wood, the lock – and a cloud of gas poured out, enveloping Studer. Fortunately, his handkerchief was large. He tied it round his neck so it covered his nose and mouth.

“Stay outside,” Studer shouted to the girl. Two steps and he was across the tiny kitchen. He pushed open a door. The living room was a whitewashed cube. The sergeant flung open the window and leant out, and his handkerchief came off like a carnival mask.

A jumble of roofs, chimneys peacefully puffing out their smoke into the cold winter air. Hoar-frost gleaming on the dark tiles. A pale winter sun was slowly creeping along the highest roof-ridge. The draught blowing in swept the poisonous gas away.

Studer turned round: a desk, a sofa, three chairs, a telephone on the wall. He strode across the room into the corridor-like kitchen. The two taps on the little portable stove were open and there was a hissing noise of gas coming out of the burners. Mechanically, Studer turned the taps off. It wasn't easy, because there was a chair in the way, upholstered in green velvet. In it an old woman was sitting. She looked strangely at peace, relaxed, as if she were sleeping. One hand was resting on the arm of the chair. Studer took it, felt for the
pulse, shook his head and carefully replaced the hand on the carved wood.

The kitchen really was tiny. Six foot by five, more of a corridor. On the wall over the gas rings was a wooden shelf with enamel containers, originally white, now stained brown, chipped: “Coffee”, “Flour”, “Salt”. Everything was shabby. And beneath the faint smell of gas that remained another was clearly discernible: camphor.

A smell of old woman, of lonely old woman.

It was a quite specific smell, with which Studer was familiar. He was familiar with it from the tiny apartments in Metzgergasse, where now and then an old woman got too bored or too lonely and turned on the gas-tap. Sometimes, though, it wasn't boredom or loneliness, it was poverty . . .

Studer went out. On the left-hand doorpost, under the white bell-push, was a nameplate:

Josepha Cleman-Hornuss

Widow

Widow! As if widow were a profession.

He called out to the girl, who was leaning against the balcony rail. It was a funny building – even though the apartment was on the third floor, the terrace led into a little garden. There was a wall round the garden with a door in it. Where would the door lead to? Presumably into a side street. He called to the girl and she came over.

Gently – of course – the sergeant led the girl to the armchair where her mother was sleeping peacefully. But as she took out her tiny handkerchief and dried her tears, something struck Studer: the old woman in the armchair was wearing a red dressing gown covered
in coffee stains, but on her feet she had lace-up boots. Not slippers at all, outdoor shoes!

Then Studer looked for the gas meter. It was sitting on a shelf up on the wall by the door to the flat. With its dials it looked like a podgy, green, sneering face.

But the lever that served as the mains tap wasn't straight! It was sloping at an angle. At an angle of forty-five degrees, to be precise.

Why was it only half open? Why not fully open?

Basically the case was none of his business. He was a detective sergeant with the Bern police, it was up to the Basel police to deal with it. Anyway, it looked like suicide, suicide by gas, nothing unusual, nothing they weren't used to dealing with.