Part 29

“Ah, that depends upon the examining counsel.”

“Well then, he ought to be here. It is shameful that a well-known artiste like me should....”

“You see, unfortunately everything must take its prescribed course. ‘Without respect of individuals,’ as the legal phrase runs. I cannot promise you any more than my own help.”

“You are going away again? And without me?”

“For the moment I cannot do anything else.”

The dancer turned away.

Wenk went to the scene of the crime. He had previously studied the list of those living in its vicinity, and especially those in the Finkenstrasse. He took two plain-clothes policemen with him, one of them being the constable who had pursued the criminals as far as the park wall. They examined the wall by daylight; it showed scratches from the tips of shoes, and on the top was a trace of blood. Possibly someone had been lifted up who grasped the top with his hands. In the clear February day the light fell pitilessly on that trace of the murdered Hull.

Wenk entered the houses, many of which, he perceived, led at the back to the park. He spoke to all their occupants separately. Some had heard a noise in the night, but they did not consider that anything unusual, and in the houses themselves, as they told Wenk, they had heard nothing.

He examined the park on the other side of the wall. There was nothing to be seen there beyond a trace of many footprints in one spot, where they had apparently jumped down, for some of the impressions were fairly deep. But this spot had been raked, and carbolic acid thrown upon it. There was an empty tin near, which from its smell had evidently contained carbolic. This precaution was doubtless taken in case the police hounds should be requisitioned, and it might have been put there beforehand, but he did not quite understand the reason, and decided to test it by means of a hound. It took up the scent in the Jägerstrasse, ran to the wall and jumped up on it, but when they lifted it on the other side it went no further. It turned away in disgust at the smell of the carbolic, ran up and down the wall and then back again, always in the same direction, and yet always as if irresolute. It tried to spring into the air.

Wenk had it lifted over the wall again, but when the hound was on the top, and the man on the other side ready to receive it, it escaped from him and ran, barking furiously, along the top. It did not run far, but remained in one spot, barking, with its head downwards, towards the yard of one of the houses, trying to jump down there. Then with one spring the hound was over, running towards the house, where it stood still at the outer wall. This Wenk examined closely, perceiving marks of scratches occurring at regular intervals upwards. Here undoubtedly people had climbed up by means of a ladder, and the tracks led to a window on the first floor. The room it belonged to was empty, and he asked the people of the house how long it had been so. Then all the other lodgers were astonished, for they said it was occupied. One of them exclaimed, “But Georsh is living there!”

Wenk’s heart gave a sudden leap.

“Who?” he said quickly. “What was his name?”

Again the answer was “Georsh.”

“Did you know him?” he asked of one woman.

“Certainly I knew Georsh!” she replied.

“Was that his surname?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who used to call him that?”

“The fellows who were always coming to see him.”

“So his name was George?” went on Wenk, desirous of being quite certain.

“No, he was called Georsh,” answered one of them.

“Has he lived here long?”

Nobody knew exactly; some thought it was about a year, but he was hardly ever at home. He tried to get a description of the man, but then a curious fact came to light. Even about the colour of his hair they could not agree. One said he was blue-eyed, another declared his eyes were dark. He was rather tall and thin, and dressed like a sailor. Again, he looked rather like an athlete.

“What was he then? What was his calling?”

“They said he was a commercial traveller.”

It was curious that there was no mention of this Georsh as an occupant of the house; he was not on the list given to Wenk.

Wenk went to the Town Register Office, and with the help of the officials he ascertained that one occupant of the house had been a George Hinrichsen from the Elbe district. He had left the place about a month before, and said he was going to Ravensburg, and after that the room had been taken by a commercial traveller named Poldringer.

It was quite clear to Wenk that Hinrichsen and Poldringer the traveller were one and the same person. It was just a month ago that Hull had had that memorable conversation with Wenk. And Hinrichsen and Poldringer were the same individual as the murderer of Hull, or at least the person who directed the murder, and it was his name that the dancer had called out. Possibly the direction Hinrichsen had taken in departure also agreed with this, for Constance lay near Ravensburg, and Switzerland could be reached from there.