In Matto's Realm: A Sergeant Studer Mystery (29 page)

"Herbert knew Gilgen had debts. He knew the porter was a thief. He handed Gilgen four thousand
francs, and Gilgen went back to his ward."

Frau Laduner sighed.

"Then a certain Sergeant Studer was wanted on the
telephone. Then this sergeant was informed by the
porter that there had been a break-in at the admin
office. And Sergeant Studer was taken in by the porter.
He didn't see who the guilty party was, even though he
spoke to him. He believed him, too, and went off after
Gilgen. Did you know your husband called me a
bungler, Fran Doktor, and he was right."

Studer sighed.

"Little Gilgen ... You must have put your spell on
him, too, Herr Doktor. I can just imagine what the man
was thinking. He had looked after Caplaun on the
ward and met him again later when he took Pieterlen
out for walks on a Sunday. All this would have been
easier for me, Herr Doktor, if you'd told me just a little
more. They became friends, the neurotic and the
schizoid psychopath - you see I have made some progress in psychiatry. I can assure you, Herr Doktor, I
understand little Gilgen very well now. Two of your
problem children had been put in his care. One of
them goes off, comes back and hands him four thousand francs. Little Gilgen doesn't understand what's
going on. Then along comes a detective sergeant
who's a bungler. So what does little Gilgen do? He
wants to cover Dr Laduner. Actually, Dr Laduner is
supposed to be being covered by the police, but Gilgen
knows nothing about that. Little Gilgen had just one
thought in his simple mind: if I tell the cop I found Herbert Caplaun with the money in his hand, then
the cop will go and arrest Herbert. And that would be
a black mark for Dr Laduner, who is supposed to be
making Herbert well again ... But such a complicated
matter was too much for a simple mind. He knows he
must hold his tongue, but he also knows how weak he
is and that he will be forced to talk when he's brought
before the examining magistrate. It's the last straw for
him. I can imagine how he felt. Debts on his house,
his wife ill, his colleagues have told on him, the Board
of Governors knows about the thefts, the thefts he
didn't commit - it all became too much for him. He
gave me the photo of his wife and his two children,
and while I was looking at it, he jumped out of the
window."

Dr Laduner muttered, "I always said you were a
poetic detective, Studer."

Studer nodded. After a pause, he said, "The wallet.
Did you know that I found the wallet behind those
books there?"

"Behind those books?" Fran Laduner asked in
astonishment.

Studer nodded.

"Yes, on the morning that Gilgen came here. I knew
the Director had received 1,200 francs, but we were
both there when we established that his pockets were
empty. Then the wallet suddenly turned up behind
your books. Who had put it there? Gilgen? Naturally I
considered Gilgen. He went into my room that morning and took the sandbag I'd hidden in my suitcase.
And where did I find the sandbag on Saturday afternoon? Behind a pair of old shoes in Gilgen's wardrobe.
You, Herr Doktor, think like a psychiatrist, you know
how minds work ... What do I know? Well, I do know
my job, and part of my job is to follow up clues and arrest the people they point to. Did not all the clues
point to Gilgen? I'm a bungler, you said, but any other
detective would have done the same. You have to admit
that the atmosphere here in your clinic is unfamiliar to
me. Perhaps I know a little more about it than my colleagues, but still. I'm told about this Matto, and you
spend a whole evening explaining to me that murdering a child is an understandable crime, that murdering
a child, in other words, is an act of humanity. You confused me instead of giving me information. You
wanted cover, and yet I sensed very clearly that you
were afraid.

"For a long time I thought you were afraid of Pieterlen. And then, gradually, I realized Pieterlen was quite
harmless, that he was trying to cover for you. And every
time your two problem children met on their Sunday
walks (did Herbert tell you about those during analysis, too?) there was just one topic of conversation: how
they could help you become Director. And Gilgen listened. He probably expressed his opinion as well, he
probably agreed it was unfair; you did all the work and
the Director got all the glory ..."

Laduner broke in, saying in a quiet voice, "There's
another Chinese proverb, Studer: `Men get glory, pigs
get fat."' He gave a brief snort.

"You've always got a neat answer, Herr Doktor, and a
witty one, too. But I don't find the affair that funny.
You said that by staying silent I was to blame for the
death of two people. I'll tell you how Herbert Caplaun
died, but first you must answer me one question: do
you know why Caplaun pushed the Director down the
ladder?"

"Pushed him down?" Dr Laduner asked. "Let's stick
to the facts. In his confession he said the Director lost
his footing."

Studer gave a faint smile. "Do you really believe that,
Herr Doktor?"

"What I believe is neither here nor there, Studer. I
stick to facts. What Caplaun actually did is nothing to
do with me."

"I thought you wanted to know the truth, Herr
Doktor. I was supposed to seek out the truth -for us."

"You've got a good memory, Studer. And you seem
to know a bit about psychology, as well. But I can tell
you one thing: you're in danger of oversimplifying
psychological mechanisms. In your opinion Herbert
Caplaun had good reason to want the Director dead.
Sure-ly. But what is my role in all this? Won't you reveal
your psychological insight to me?"

Studer looked up. His elbows were resting on his
thighs, his chin in his hands. "Herbert Caplaun committed the murder out of gratitude. He was of the
bizarre opinion that he should be grateful to you ...
Grateful for treating him, grateful for protecting him
from his father ... Gratitude! A strange motive for a
murder."

Silence.

It was broken by Fran Laduner's Swiss dialect.
"You're sure, Sergeant?"

"I think so, Fran Doktor."

"My dear Studer, if you'll forgive me using one of
your favourite expressions, what you have just said is
Chabis, nonsense. I'm not denying that it is possible to
see gratitude as one element in the motivation. However, everything I know about Herbert Caplaun forces
me to the conclusion that the hatred he projected
onto the Director had a different determinant. His
fear of his father is important here. Not, however" - Dr
Laduner raised his hand, index finger outstretched,
and continued, like a professor giving a lecture - "the fear of being put away. He knew that, if necessary, I
would have taken every step possible to prevent such a
measure. The root causes lie deeper. You will know
that images we absorb during childhood live a life of
their own inside us; that the image of the father, as it
has been branded on the mind of the child, continues
to be active in the subconscious of the adult. For Herbert Caplaun the Director was nothing other than an
image of his father. I know from analysis that the wish
to kill his father was very much alive in Herbert
Caplaun. But his inhibitions about fulfilling that wish
by killing his own father were so strong they were
transferred to a person who could substitute for his
father, i.e. the Director. That what you call gratitude
did perhaps play some part" - Dr Laduner drawled the
words - "I will allow, to a certain degree. But-"

Studer interrupted him. "Then I'd better tell you
about the death of Herbert Caplaun."

"The house that plunged Gilgen into debt - everything
revolves around that house. And here you'll have to
admit that if I hadn't turned up at the right moment
there would have been another dead body.

"On Sunday I went looking for Staff Nurse Jutzeler,
but I couldn't find him. I kept Gilgen's house under
surveillance, then I eavesdropped on a conversation -
but that conversation is none of your business. When I
went back to the house after that, a window was open. I
looked in, and what I saw was ...

"When I went into the room, Herbert Caplaun was
sitting in one corner and on a chair opposite, rigid,
was Staff Nurse Jutzeler. Herbert had a small Browning
in his hand and was about to shoot Jutzeler. There was
another man in the room and he seemed very happy
with the idea of Jutzeler being shot.

"You walked past the porter every morning and I
don't know how many times during the day. He put
your telephone calls through, he sat there behind his
grille, selling cigars, cigarettes, in the morning he
swept the corridor, polished the offices ... A useful
man! ... He knew about things in the clinic ... Do you
know why I found him slightly sinister from the very
beginning? He had a similar smile to you, Herr Doktor.
But the deciding factor was the cut on his hand.

"You'll remember the Director's office and the window ... Dreyer had a bandage on his left hand. Later I
found out he'd had a fight with Staff Nurse Jutzeler in the office. But the reason the porter gave as to why he
had gone creeping into the Director's office at one
o'clock in the morning just didn't make sense to me.
And the more I thought about it, the more I kept
asking myself: who knew about the money from the
insurance company? Dreyer, the porter, he knew.

"In the room he was sitting next to Herbert Caplaun,
and it looked as if he was trying to get that young man
to pull the trigger. Why was Jutzeler to be shot? Most
probably because he knew something.

"That is the moment when I, Sergeant Studer,
entered the room. I'm not easily scared, Herr Doktor.
I'm not even frightened of a loaded gun. If you'd been
there you'd have had to laugh. I just went up to
Herbert and said, `Give me the gun.' Dreyer tried to
intervene, so I gave him a little tap on the chin. He fell
down."

Studer regarded his fist thoughtfully, looked up and
saw that Fran Laduner was smiling. The smile did the
sergeant good.

"Jutzeler didn't get worked up, either. He just said,
`Merci, Sergeant.' Then we turned our attention to
Herbert and made him tell us all about it. Did he never
tell you about the porter, Herr Doktor?"

"Analysis does not concern itself with such irrelevancies," said Dr Laduner in an irritated tone. "Usually
they are just evasions . . ."

"It might have been a good idea if you had concerned yourself with that particular evasion," said
Studer. "An irrelevancy for your analysis, perhaps ..."

"It could be interpreted as such," said Laduner,
placated.

" ... but I don't find the part Dreyer played in all
this the least bit irrelevant. It was the porter Colonel
Caplaun had to thank for the fact that he was so well informed about his son, about conditions in the clinic
- and about you, Herr Doktor ... Did you know that
the man had worked as a porter in large hotels in Paris
and in England? Did you know that he had become
involved in gambling there ... that he had lost a lot of
money? He hadn't got out of the habit. A telephone
call was all that was necessary for me to learn all about
your porter. He needed money. It wasn't difficult to
work out what he was looking for in the office: the
money from the insurance company.

"Jutzeler and I asked Herbert where he had phoned
the Director from on the evening of the harvest festival
... He'd slipped back into the clinic, through the door
in the basement of P Ward. Have you never lost a
passkey, Herr Doktor?"

Studer waited for an answer. He waited a long time,
then wearily shrugged his shoulders and continued.

"It looks as if I have completely forfeited your trust,
Herr Doktor. Well, here is the passkey; Herbert
Caplaun had it on him. I took it - as a little memento
for you."

Studer gently pushed the dully gleaming key across
the table, but Dr Ladunerjust dug his hands deeper in
his dressing-gown pockets, then stared at the window,
as if there was a draught coming from it.

"We can do without the sentimental gesture,
Studer," he said surlily.

"Sentimental?" Studer queried. "Why sentimental?
We're talking about a man who wanted to show you his
gratitude and is now dead. A week ago yesterday
Pieterlen and Herbert Caplaun met. Pieterlen had
brought the sandbag, they'd both decided to get rid of
the Director, both out of gratitude. Gilgen was there,
too, and he thought it was a crazy plan. He tried to talk
them out of it, but Herbert Caplaun just wouldn't listen. Herbert told me he had been out of his mind
that Sunday, and the previous Sunday too. He'd managed to convince Pieterlen. But Pieterlen refused to
leave all the glory to Caplaun, he wanted to show his
gratitude too. He decided to run away. He also had
reason enough to hate the Director. Hadn't your
would-be assassin drummed it into him that it was the
Director's fault that he - Pieterlen - couldn't be
released?

"I'm willing to admit that you're right when you say
it wasn't gratitude alone that was the motivation for
the murder plan. Each of them had his own, personal
reasons ... Little Gilgen was a weak man, and weak
people are dangerous when they're in a rage ... I'm
sure it was well known throughout the clinic that you
got on badly with the Director, that he would have
liked to destroy you ... Wasn't it? ... It seems to me
you were in a similar position to Chief Inspector
Studer when he started his campaign against Colonel
Caplaun. Perhaps that's why you remembered
Sergeant Studer and asked for him when you needed
cover ... Was that it?"

Silence. Then Dr Laduner said slowly, "It seems to
me your mind must be going, Studer. To be perfectly
honest, the few reports of yours I've seen were considerably more coherent than this story you've come
up with. You keep hopping from one thing to another,
you don't express yourself clearly. Might I, in all
politeness, ask you to put things more plainly? At least
to finish one story before going on to the next? For
example, who was it who hid the wallet with the
Director's passport and money behind my books?"