I nodded. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Don’t mention it, Commissar. I certainly won’t. If you receive my meaning.’
‘We had better go up there and take a look for ourselves.’
We all three stood up and moved, simultaneously, for the Morning Room door.
‘By the way, Major Thummel,’ I said, remembering the letter I had received from Berlin that morning. ‘Does the name Geert Vranken mean anything to you?’
‘Geert Vranken?’ Thummel paused for a moment and then shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why, should it?’
‘There was a murder investigation in Berlin this summer. The S-Bahn murderer? Vranken was a foreign worker on the railways who was interviewed by the police as a potential suspect and he mentioned a German officer who might be prepared to stand as a character witness for him.’
‘And you think that was me?’
‘I just received a letter from his father in the Netherlands and he said that his son had met a Captain Thummel, in The Hague, before the war, in 1939.’
‘Well, there you are, Commissar. It must be another officer called Thummel. Last time I was in The Hague was 1933. Or maybe thirty-four. But certainly not in 1939. In 1939, I was stationed in Paris. You know, Thummel is not an uncommon name. The maître d’ at the Adlon Hotel is called Thummel. Did you know that?’
‘Yes sir. I do know that. You’re right, it must be another officer called Thummel.’
Thummel grinned cheerfully. ‘Besides, I’m hardly in the habit of giving guest workers a character reference.’ He nodded upstairs. ‘But I don’t mind showing you those loose floorboards, Commissar.’
After Thummel had left Kuttner’s bedroom, Kahlo climbed into the space in the floor and waited patiently while I replaced the boards. Then I took them up again.
Kahlo climbed out, covered in dust.
‘Well, it’s possible, all right,’ I said. ‘But hardly probable.’
‘Why do you say that, sir?’
‘The amount of dust on you. If someone had been hidden there on Friday morning I’d have expected a little less dust than there is in there now. Or at least, was, until you got in there.’
I handed Kahlo the clothes brush I’d picked up from the top of the dresser.
‘Lucky it’s not a good suit,’ I said.
Kahlo growled an obscenity and began to brush off his jacket and trousers.
‘Depends on how much dust there was down there before, doesn’t it?’ he muttered.
‘Maybe.’
‘And with all of the cauliflower still pissed in their rooms, any one of them might have hidden himself in there and no one would have been any the wiser.’
‘I’ve looked at the rug, too, and I can see no means whereby someone drew the rug back over the boards while he was hidden down there. No fishing line; no nails on the skirting.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Kahlo, ‘the murderer has been back in here and removed them.’
‘Perhaps. Anyway, if the murderer did manage to conceal himself down there, that puts Kluckholn in the clear. Immediately after the murder, he was here in the room, remember? With you and me.’
‘Pity. But I still like him for it. And like you said yourself, it’s hardly probable, is it? That the killer would have hidden in here.’ Kahlo shook his head. ‘No, you’re right. Kluckholn must have done it some other way. It might just be that he turned himself into a bat.’
I grinned and shook my head. ‘He couldn’t have done it that way, either. The window was closed, remember?’
‘So the General says. We all assume that because he’s the General his evidence is one hundred per cent. What if he made a mistake about that? What if the window was open after all?’
‘Heydrich doesn’t make mistakes about things like that.’
‘Why not? He’s only human.’
‘Whatever gave you that impression?’
Kahlo shrugged.
‘It’ll be lunchtime soon,’ he said. ‘You could ask him then.’
‘Why don’t you ask him yourself?’
‘Yeah sure. I meant what I said about that promotion, you know.’
He handed me the clothes brush and then turned around.
‘Do you mind, sir?’
I brushed the worst of it off his jacket and thought of Arianne brushing off my own jacket the previous day. I liked that she had been so particular about my appearance, straightening my tie, adjusting my shirt-collar, and always picking my trousers off the floor and tucking them under the mattress so that they might keep the crease. It was a caring touch I was missing already. By now she was probably across the Bohemian border and back in Germany and a lot safer than she was in Prague. I knew what Thummel had been talking about; there was something about Prague that I didn’t care for at all.
‘I’m looking forward to lunch,’ said Kahlo. He was sniffing the air like a big hungry dog. ‘Whatever it is smells good.’
‘Everything smells good to you.’
‘Everything except this case.’
‘True. Look, you go ahead, to lunch. I’m going to stay here for a while.’
‘And do what?’
‘Oh, nothing much. Stare at the floor. Listen to that crow outside the window. Shoot myself. Or perhaps pray for some inspiration.’
‘You’re not going to miss lunch, are you?’
Kahlo’s tone made this sound as serious as if I really was planning to shoot myself. Which wouldn’t have been so very far from the truth.
