murder in the series. As I read the name of the victim, a jolt of electricity raced through my veins. Johann Gottfried Haase ? How I cursed myself for my ineptitude! While travelling towards Königsberg in the coach that day, I had purposely skipped the name of the most important man to die at the hand of the assassin. Johann Gottfried Haase was a scholar of wide international fame, and a frequently published author. Some years before, I had read a pamphlet he had written. A Professor of Oriental Languages and Theology at the University of Königsberg, Haase had caused a sensation when he asserted that the Garden of Eden was by no means fictional. Adam and Eve had, indeed, been tempted by the Serpent, the scholar claimed, more or less on the very spot where we were standing. According to Haase, the city of Königsberg had been built on the original site of the Biblical garden. Who would dare to kill such an eminent man?
Looking down the page, eager for details, I had to laugh. Indeed, I laughed out loud, while Sergeant Koch regarded me with an expression of serious concern.
‘What an idiot I’ve been!’ I said.
‘Sir?’
The victim’s name was Johann Gottfried Haase, but he was not the person I had been thinking of. It was a simple case of two men sharing exactly the same name! The Johann Gottfried Hasse who had been murdered was a destitute halfwit. He eked out a miserable existence begging crumbs of stale bread and cake from the city bakeries, and asking for money on the streets from casual passersby. Everyone in the city knew him by sight, but no one knew him well. Procurator Rhunken remarked that no written record had been found regarding his birth – he was not so much as related to the scholar. No one could say whether he had ever been to school, passed a night in a poorhouse, a month in an orphanage, or a year in jail, though enquiries had been made by the police on all of those questions. Herr Haase was, to all effects, an utter nobody. ‘NOT OPENLY POLITICAL’, Rhunken had noted. He had not even made the obvious connection with the unknown victim’s eminent namesake. Still, the perplexing question that I had asked myself before returned to my mind, and even more forcibly this time. Why kill such a poor and apparently useless creature? An Oriental linguist-theologian might provoke animosity in some quarters, but a penniless beggar? Again, the protocol number ‘2779’ appeared at the foot of the page.
It was a recurrent theme. I could only ask myself what had prompted Procurator Rhunken to decide that the murders were politically motivated. The only common factor that I could find was the absence of anything even remotely political in the victims’ lives. Had their apparent indifference to politics seemed to him to be a blind? He had made a note to the effect that Konnen might be a secret agent. Did he believe the same of the others, too? And if so, which foreign power did he suspect them of spying for? Perplexed in my own mind, I turned slowly to the next sheet of paper.
Though not in sequential order, I found it to be the deposition of the midwife who had discovered the body of Jan Konnen. In all that I had read before, this witness had been referred to only in terms of her trade and but never by name, which was very odd. I glanced quickly through the information. Again, no name was given. Early that morning, this mysterious midwife declared, while on her way to minister to a fisherman’s wife who lived on the quayside, she came across the body of a man who appeared to have slumped against a wall. The only detail which added to the scant account that I had read in the coach was of some importance. ‘I knew that there was evil in it,’ she declared. ‘Satan used his claws.’
I paused. Sergeant Koch had used the same expression when first he told me of the crimes, but what exactly was she referring to? This superstitious woman had seen the dead body with her own eyes. Why use those particular
Looking down the page, eager for details, I had to laugh. Indeed, I laughed out loud, while Sergeant Koch regarded me with an expression of serious concern.
‘What an idiot I’ve been!’ I said.
‘Sir?’
The victim’s name was Johann Gottfried Haase, but he was not the person I had been thinking of. It was a simple case of two men sharing exactly the same name! The Johann Gottfried Hasse who had been murdered was a destitute halfwit. He eked out a miserable existence begging crumbs of stale bread and cake from the city bakeries, and asking for money on the streets from casual passersby. Everyone in the city knew him by sight, but no one knew him well. Procurator Rhunken remarked that no written record had been found regarding his birth – he was not so much as related to the scholar. No one could say whether he had ever been to school, passed a night in a poorhouse, a month in an orphanage, or a year in jail, though enquiries had been made by the police on all of those questions. Herr Haase was, to all effects, an utter nobody. ‘NOT OPENLY POLITICAL’, Rhunken had noted. He had not even made the obvious connection with the unknown victim’s eminent namesake. Still, the perplexing question that I had asked myself before returned to my mind, and even more forcibly this time. Why kill such a poor and apparently useless creature? An Oriental linguist-theologian might provoke animosity in some quarters, but a penniless beggar? Again, the protocol number ‘2779’ appeared at the foot of the page.
It was a recurrent theme. I could only ask myself what had prompted Procurator Rhunken to decide that the murders were politically motivated. The only common factor that I could find was the absence of anything even remotely political in the victims’ lives. Had their apparent indifference to politics seemed to him to be a blind? He had made a note to the effect that Konnen might be a secret agent. Did he believe the same of the others, too? And if so, which foreign power did he suspect them of spying for? Perplexed in my own mind, I turned slowly to the next sheet of paper.
Though not in sequential order, I found it to be the deposition of the midwife who had discovered the body of Jan Konnen. In all that I had read before, this witness had been referred to only in terms of her trade and but never by name, which was very odd. I glanced quickly through the information. Again, no name was given. Early that morning, this mysterious midwife declared, while on her way to minister to a fisherman’s wife who lived on the quayside, she came across the body of a man who appeared to have slumped against a wall. The only detail which added to the scant account that I had read in the coach was of some importance. ‘I knew that there was evil in it,’ she declared. ‘Satan used his claws.’
I paused. Sergeant Koch had used the same expression when first he told me of the crimes, but what exactly was she referring to? This superstitious woman had seen the dead body with her own eyes. Why use those particular
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