Checking into the Palace Hotel Russia House helped to lift my spirits a little. After a week in police custody, I had the taste for a good hotel. Then again, I had the taste anyway, and now that I’d decided to overcome my scruples and cash Noreen’s check, I also had the money. After a light supper in the hotel’s Königs Café, I walked three quarters of a kilometer east, on Rottendorfer Strasse, to a quiet suburb near a reservoir to see the widow Rubusch.
It was a substantial two-story house—three if you counted the dormer window in the high mansard roof—with a curving bay-front door and a long white picket fence atop a substantial granite wall. It was painted the same color of yellowish beige that had been used to paint a small Star of David on the similar garden wall of the house on the opposite side of the street. There were one or two cars parked in front, both new and both made by Daimler-Benz. The trees had been recently pruned. It was a nice German neighborhood: quiet, well kept, solidly respectable. Even that yellow star looked as if it had been painted there by a professional decorator.
I mounted the front steps and tugged on a bell pull as big as a ship’s cannon, and almost as loud.
A light came on and a maid appeared in the door—a big pig’s-trotter of a girl with red braids and a stubborn, almost belligerent, cast to her jaw.
“Yes?”
“Bernhard Gunther,” I said. “Frau Rubusch is expecting me.”
“I wasn’t told about it.”
“Perhaps Hitler’s telegram hasn’t arrived yet. I’m sure he would have wanted to let you know.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” she said, and, taking a large step backward, opened the curved door. “If you only knew how much I’m expected to do around here.”
I put down my briefcase and took off my hat and coat while she closed the front door and then locked it carefully.
“It sounds to me like you need a servant,” I said.
She shot me a high-velocity look.
“You had better wait in here.” She opened a door with the side of her foot and chopped at an electric light switch with the side of her hand. “Make yourself comfortable while I go and fetch her.” Then, seeing my hat and coat, she sighed loudly and took them, shaking her head at the inconvenience of finding herself with yet another duty to perform.
I went over to the fireplace, where a blackened piece of log was almost burning, and picked up a long poker. “Want me to bring this back to life? I’m good with fire. Show me a shelf of decadent literature and I’ll have you a blaze going in no time.”
The maid smiled back at me bleakly, although it could just as easily have been a sneer. It crossed her mind to say something tart until she thought better of it. I had a poker in my hand, after all, and she looked just the type who gets hit by one. I probably would have done it, too, if I’d been married to her. Not that being struck about the head with a poker would have troubled that girl very much, especially when she was hungry. I’ve seen hippos that looked more vulnerable.
I turned the half-burned log, heaped some embers next to it, and fetched another log from the basket by the hearth. I even bent down and blew on it for a while. A flame reached around the little pile of wood I’d made and then took hold with a snap as loud as a Christmas cracker.
“You’re good at that.”
I turned to see a small, birdlike woman wearing a shawl, and an uncomfortable smile on a freshly lipsticked mouth.
I stood up, wiped my hands, and made the same lame joke I’d made earlier, about decadent books, which didn’t sound any funnier the second time around. Not in that house. In the corner of the room was a table with a radio and a small photograph of Hitler, and a glass bowl of fruit.
“We’re not really like that around here,” she said with arms folded, watching the fire. “They did burn some books in front of the bishop’s palace about eighteen months ago, but not here. Not in East Würzburg.”
She made it sound like we were in Paris.
“And I suppose that yellow star painted on the house opposite is just mischievous children,” I said.
Frau Rubusch laughed but covered her mouth politely while she did, so that I wouldn’t have to look at her teeth, which were perfect and porcelain white, like a doll’s. And indeed a doll was what she most reminded me of with her penciled eyebrows, her fine features, her dainty red cheeks, and her even finer hair. “That’s not a Star of David,” she said through her fingers. “The man who lives in that house is a director of Würzburger Hofbrau, the town brewery, and that star is the company’s trademark.”
“Maybe he should sue the Nazis for infringing his copyright.”
“Which reminds me. Would you care for some schnapps?”
Next to the table was a three-tier wooden drinks trolley with bottles I was fond of. She poured a couple of large schooners, handed me one with her bony little hand, sat down on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet under her skinny little backside. I’d seen folded laundry that looked less neat than she did.
“So your telegram said that you wanted to see me about my late husband.”
“Yes. I’m sorry for your loss, Frau Rubusch. It must have been a terrible shock to you.”
“It was.”
I lit a cigarette, double-inhaled the smoke, and then swallowed half of my drink. I was nervous about telling this woman that I believed her husband might have been murdered. Especially when she had only just buried him with the belief that he’d died in his sleep of a cerebral aneurysm. I swallowed the other half.
She recognized my nervousness. “Help yourself to another,” she said. “Perhaps then you’ll feel up to telling me what’s brought the Adlon Hotel detective all the way from Berlin.”
I went over to the drinks trolley and refilled my glass. Next to the picture of Hitler was a photograph of a younger, thinner Heinrich Rubusch.
“I really don’t know why Heinrich put that photograph there. Hitler’s, I mean. We were never very political. And it’s not like we used to entertain very much and try to impress people. I suppose he put it there in case anyone did visit. So that they would go away with the impression that we were good Germans.”
“You don’t have to be a Nazi to be that,” I said. “Although it does help when you’re a cop. Before I was a house detective at the Adlon, I was a Homicide cop at Berlin Alexanderplatz.”
“And you think my husband might have been murdered. Is that it?”
“I think it’s a possibility, yes.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Heinrich always stayed at the Adlon when he was in Berlin. I thought maybe you thought he’d stolen some towels.” She waited for a moment and then smiled. “I was joking.”
“Good. I hoped you were. Only, your being a widow, I assumed your sense of humor might have gone missing for a while.”
“Before I met my husband, I ran a sisal farm in East Africa, Herr Gunther. I shot my first lion when I was fourteen. And I was fifteen when I helped my father put down a native rebellion during the Maji Maji War. I’m a lot tougher than I look.”
“Good.”
“Did you stop being a policeman because you weren’t a Nazi?”
“I quit before I was pushed. Maybe I’m not as tough as I look. But I’d rather talk about your husband. I was reading the case notes on the train and was reminded that he had a heart condition.”
“He had an enlarged heart, yes.”
“It sort of makes you wonder why he didn’t die of that instead of a cerebral aneurysm. Did he ever suffer from headaches?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But his death wasn’t exactly a surprise. He ate too much and drank too much. He loved his sausage and his beer, lots of cream, cigars, chocolate. He was a very German sort of German.” She sighed. “He enjoyed life in every way. And I do mean every way.”
“You mean besides his food and his drink and his cigars?”
“That’s precisely what I mean. I haven’t ever been to Berlin. But I hear it’s changed quite a bit since the Nazis came into government. I’m told it’s not the den of iniquity it used to be during the Weimar years.”
“That’s correct. It’s not.”
“Nevertheless, it’s hard to believe that it’s difficult to find the company of a certain kind of woman, if that is what one wants. One imagines that the Nazis can only do so much to change things. After all, it’s not called the oldest profession for nothing.”
I smiled.
“Did I say something amusing?”
“No, not at all, Frau Rubusch. It’s just that after I found your husband dead, I went to a lot of trouble to persuade the police to spare you some of the details when they informed you that he was dead. To leave out the fact that he had been in bed with another woman. I had the quaint idea that it might upset you unnecessarily.”
“That was very thoughtful of you. Perhaps you’re right. You’re not as tough as you look.”
She sipped some of her schnapps and put the glass down on a flame birch coffee table: the X-shaped base made it look like something from Roman antiquity. Frau Rubusch had a sort of Roman air herself. Maybe it was just the way she was sitting, half reclined on her sofa, but it was easy to imagine her as the influential and steely wife of some fat senator who had, perhaps, outlived his usefulness.
“Tell me, Herr Gunther. Is it normal for ex-policemen to be in possession of a police file?”
“No. I’ve been helping out a friend in Homicide. And, to tell the truth, I miss the work. Your husband’s case gave me an itch I simply had to scratch.”
“Yes, I can see how that might happen. You said you were reading my husband’s case file on the train. Is it inside that briefcase?”
“Yes.”
“I would very much like to look at that file.”
“Forgive me, but I don’t think that would be a good idea. The file contains photographs of your husband’s body as he was found in his hotel room.”
“I was hoping it did. Those pictures are what I’d like to see. Oh, you needn’t worry about me. Did you not think I would look at him before we buried him?”
I could see there was no point in arguing with her. Besides, as far as I was concerned, there were other things I wanted to discuss with her more important than the happy smile on her dead husband’s face. So I opened my briefcase, took out the KRIPO file, and handed it over.
As soon as she saw the photograph, she started to cry, and for a moment, I cursed myself for taking Frau Rubusch at her word. But then she let out a breath, fanned herself with the flat of her hand, and, swallowing an almost visible lump in her throat, said, “And this is how you found him?”
“Yes. Exactly as we found him.”
“Then I fear you are right to be suspicious, Herr Gunther. You see, my husband is wearing his pajama jacket in bed. He never wore a jacket when he was in bed. I used to pack him two pairs of pajamas, but he only ever wore the trousers. Someone else must have put the jacket on him. You see, he used to sweat a lot at night. Fat men often do. Which is why he never wore the jacket. Which reminds me. When the police returned his belongings, I received only one pajama jacket. Two pairs of pajama trousers but only one jacket. At the time I thought the police must have kept it or that perhaps they had lost it. Not that it seemed of any great importance. But now that I’ve seen this photograph, I rather think it must be important. Don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.” I lit another cigarette and stood up to help myself to a third drink. “If you don’t mind.”
She shook her head and carried on staring at the photograph.
“All right,” I said. “Someone must have put the jacket on him after he was dead, in order to make his death seem as natural as possible. But what prostitute would do such a thing? If he died while or immediately after having sex, any sensible party girl would have ripped a hole in the wall to get out of there.”
“Also, my husband was very heavy. So it’s hard to imagine a girl able to lift him up and put a jacket on him by herself. I know I couldn’t have done that. Once, when he was drunk, I tried to get his shirt off him, and it was almost impossible.”
“And yet there’s the evidence of the autopsy. The cause of death appeared to be natural. What else but a strenuous bout of lovemaking could bring about a cerebral aneurysm?”
“All lovemaking was strenuous for Heinrich. I can assure you of that. But what was it that first made you think his death might be a murder, Herr Gunther?”
“Something someone said. Tell me, do you know a man named Max Reles?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well, he knew your husband.”
“And you think he might have had something to do with my husband’s death?”
“It’s not much more than a slight breeze I have, but yes. I do. Let me tell you why.”
“Wait. Have you eaten dinner?”
“I had a light supper at the hotel.”
She smiled kindly. “This is Franconia you’re in now, Herr Gunther. We don’t do light suppers in this state. What was it? That you ate?”
“Just a plate of cold ham and cheese. And a beer.”
“I thought as much. You’ll stay for dinner, then. Magda always cooks far too much anyway. It’ll be nice to have someone eat properly in this house again.”
“Now that I come to think of it, I am rather hungry. I’ve missed quite a few meals of late.”
THE HOUSE WAS TOO BIG FOR ONE. It would have been too big for a basketball team. Her two sons were grown up and gone away, to university, she said, but my money was on Magda’s cooking. Not that there was anything wrong with it. But any man there for any length of time was taking a big risk with his arteries. I was in that house for only a couple of hours, and I felt as fat as Hermann Goering. Every time I laid my knife and fork together, I was persuaded to have another helping. And if I wasn’t eating food, I was looking at it. All over the place there were paintings of dead game and cornucopias, and bulging fruit bowls, just in case anyone got peckish. Even the furniture looked like they fed it extra beeswax. It was big and heavy, and whenever she sat or leaned on any of it, Angelika Rubusch resembled Alice down the rabbit hole.