The Minotaur's Head: An Eberhard Mock Investigation (Eberhard Mock Investigation 4) Page 18

  The office was located on the first floor and its windows gave onto a small courtyard. Miss Klementyna Nowoziemska, informed over the telephone of their visit by Popielski, was already waiting for them. She was a corpulent lady of about fifty, with carefully styled hair and neatly painted lips, and wearing an expensive suit of striped wool. At her neck was a lace collar similar to that worn by the dove. Her voice was quiet and soothing, her smile subtle, yet full of dignity. It was hard to imagine a more suitable person to run the Matrimonium bureau. She sat at a solid mahogany desk, behind her a large cabinet full of files, their corners reinforced with elegant gilded ferrules. The official atmosphere was sweetened by two vases of carnations.

  Since Miss Nowoziemska did not speak German, Mock wanted to leave right away to wait for Popielski in some nearby tavern, and there extinguish the flame of his hangover with an Okocim beer, which he found greatly to his taste. Even though they had drunk to eternal friendship, Popielski did not know Mock very well and could not be sure that he could trust him to stop at one or two beers. On the contrary, he believed the German might really get going and disappear off again somewhere as he had done the day before. He therefore entreated Mock to stay. Miss Nowoziemska, noticing Popielski’s concern, had the brilliant idea of interesting his “German friend” with the offer of single women. Mock willingly agreed, sat down in the small, bright parlour filled with the scent of perfume, and began to look through the announcements and photographs of available women with great interest.

  “Thank you for such an excellent idea,” smiled Popielski, truly pleased.

  “Oh, men are just like children,” said Miss Nowoziemska, reciprocating with a beautiful smile. “Give them an album full of attractive women and they immediately calm down like little boys browsing through a stamp collection.”

  “Yes … yes …” Popielski crossed his legs. “You know what brings me here, don’t you? I explained over the telephone. Criminal Director Eberhard Mock from Breslau and I are looking for a dangerous criminal who, calling himself an aristocrat, charms modest, decent working-class girls. Has anyone like that visited your establishment?”

  “I’ve possibly misunderstood.” The smile disappeared from Miss Nowoziemska’s face. “But when you called I deliberately didn’t raise your hopes that I’d betray confidential information concerning my clients. And in spite of this you’ve come to ask about them! Well, let me put this clearly to you now: I am not going to give you any information. That’s it.”

  Miss Nowoziemska stood up, indicating to Popielski that she considered the meeting at an end. The commissioner rose too, certain that he had asked the wrong question. It was stupidly long and vague; he should have made it briefer, and simpler. This is what he now did.

  “Was Maria Szynok, a woman of twenty, one of your clients?”

  “I don’t think you’ve understood what I said, Commissioner, sir,” the owner of the bureau replied coldly. “I am not going to pass on any information regarding my clients, male or female! Goodbye, sir!”

  “Is that so?” Popielski could barely control himself. “Then I won’t ask; I’ll just requisition the files. I’ll take them to police headquarters, look through them and find out everything I need. That’s what I’ll do” – he raised his voice – “and right this minute! I can tell by your reaction that you’re hiding something! And I’m not going to continue this conversation any longer because I suspect you would lie! I’m taking the files, and that’s it! And all this could have been quite straightforward and peaceful …”

  “If you’re going to requisition my files” – Miss Nowoziemska did not raise her voice one decibel, but barricaded the glazed cabinet with her plump body – “you’ll have to use force. Because I’m not going to give you anything of my own free will! And I’ll call the police! Any police officer not from Silesia has nothing to say here!”

  Popielski slapped his freshly shaven head. He did not know what Commissioner Holewa looked like, but he could well imagine. He was no doubt fat, glum, and quick to fly into a fury. He wore collars which were too tight for him and carried a gold-plated watch chain. Right now he was probably wiping his whiskers after a glass of beer with his breakfast and sharpening his teeth in preparation for a police officer from Lwów who was poking his nose into what was not his business on what was not his territory. Popielski imagined the following scene: he and Mock enter Commissioner Holewa’s office. They are laden with Miss Nowoziemska’s files and she, no doubt a highly respected citizen, follows them, yelling and flinging herself at the throats of her persecutors. Then Popielski says to Holewa: we’re going to conduct this investigation together. He shook off this grim vision. Nowoziemska was smiling triumphantly and Mock was craning his neck to peer in from the parlour, intrigued by his colleague’s raised voice. On his knees lay an album containing details of the women on offer. Popielski looked at Mock and sat down on the couch. He lit a cigarette and smiled at Miss Nowoziemska through the smoke.

  “What’s your fee, Madame?” he asked. “The fee for finding a match for someone like me.”

  “Are you trying to bribe me?” The owner of the bureau sat down too, despite her stern expression.

  “No. I want to be your client. I’m a very good party. A lonely, rich widower, fifty-two …”

  “And then what?” A faint smile appeared once more on Miss Nowoziemska’s face.

  “Precisely! Then what…” Popielski blew smoke at a palm standing in the corner. “I propose a deal. I’ll allow you to put me on your books and I look through the album which the criminal director is browsing at this moment. Maybe I’ll chose a woman. Maybe I’ll meet her here, in this tastefully furnished parlour. I’m well placed. I’ll pay well for future marital happiness … But first you’ll have to know a bit more about me. Please, go ahead and ask! But after each question you ask I’m going to ask one too, and you’re going to reply. A question for a question, my dear lady.”

  “But you’re not going to believe me anyway! I’ll say: I don’t know, I don’t know, to all your questions. And what are you going to do to me then?”

  “I’ll be your client only if your answers are going to be in the affirmative. You’re not risking anything. Either you help me and I give you the opportunity to find me a match, or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  Miss Nowoziemska stared at Popielski in silence. Meanwhile the telephone on her desk began to ring but she did not pick up the receiver. Mock was bored at this stage, and set aside the photo album. Snow was falling outside, covering with a white shroud the heap of coal which a man was shovelling through the cellar window. The telephone rang again. Nowoziemska picked up the receiver and spoke briefly in French.

  “Excuse me, Commissioner, but I must make a phone call. I have a very important meeting today.” She dialled and again spoke the language of Descartes for a few minutes. She then sat down and clasped her hands.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Commissioner. A certain foreigner has just arrived in Kattowitz. He’s looking for a Polish wife and I think I’ve got something for him.” She smiled coyly. “I also have something for you. Important information, I believe, about Maria Szynok. But I won’t disclose it until tomorrow evening at six. After the three meetings you’re going to have with my three clients. We have to give Cupid a chance.”

  “But you don’t know anything about me,” Popielski protested. “How are you going to introduce me to those clients?”

  “I know all I need to know about you, Commissioner.” Miss Nowoziemska was once again sweet and gentle. “Do you think that after twenty years of working in this profession I don’t know men? Well, how about it? Come at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. The first lady is Doctor Fryderyka Przybilla, a forty-year-old dentist. I’ll just show you her photograph, and those of the other ladies.”

  Popielski got up, extinguished his cigarette and approached the owner’s desk. Like a dog, he could raise his upper lip and bare sharp teeth; he could squint so that his face looked like a mask of fu
ry; he could even flare the nostrils of his broken nose so that his face was like that of a gorilla. He could do all these things at a moment’s notice, something which had often amused little Rita. Now these skills presented themselves involuntarily.

  “There’s one thing you don’t know about me, Madame.” The voice emerging from his throat sounded like a strange wheezing. “And that is that I’m not going to leave here now. Either you tell me everything, or I’ll smash this cabinet to pieces! Understand me, you old bawd?”

  So Miss Klementyna Nowoziemska told him about Maria Szynok and the man who was interested in her. She knew what would happen if she refused. In her twenty years of working in the field, she had certainly got to know men.

  KATTOWITZ, THAT SAME FEBRUARY 1ST, 1937 NOON

  There were many similarities between Mock and Popielski: both were prone to anger and were pedantic; both spoke Latin and Greek, and adored chess, bridge and gluttony, and neither avoided the company of fallen women. They had yet one more characteristic in common: impatience. This usually manifested itself when they had to wait a long time for their orders in a restaurant. They would then huff in annoyance, smoke numerous cigarettes, drum their fingers on the table, keep calling the waiter, scratch themselves nervously on the back of the neck – in a word, they would be on the verge of exploding.

  Now, however, as they sat in the Eldorado Restaurant on 3rd Maja Street, they had not only forgotten about the passage of time, but did not even remember what they had ordered. Mock stared at Popielski, trying not to miss a word of what he was saying:

  “Maria Szynok brought Miss Nowoziemska some savings in her pouch and asked that her name be entered in the register and an announcement along the following lines be put into the national press” – and here Popielski glanced at one of two sheets of paper which the owner of the marriage bureau had lent him – “‘Cinderella seeks fairy-tale prince. Modest, hardworking and handsome maiden aged twenty seeks stable, wealthy and well-mannered gentleman to whom she is willing to give everything most valued by a lover of the family hearth.’ Two weeks later this letter arrived at the bureau.” He began to read a page from a letter pad covered with typed text. “‘Dear Madame, I was greatly interested in Cinderella’s announcement, entry 142/37. I would very much like to meet this maiden. Since I have been searching for several years for the right candidate to be my wife I am well acquainted with the many forms of deception to which crafty and determined young individuals resort in order to win a husband like myself, a man with connections, a fortune and a noble title. This would not, in all certainty, apply to your reputable marriage bureau, yet I would rather save myself a long and tedious journey and future disappointment. I am therefore obliged to put to you, dear Madame, two questions. One: Is ‘Cinderella’ an orphan? Two: Is she pure and untouched physically? In order to have the pleasure of beholding your own countenance and making Cinderella’s acquaintance I would need to receive a positive answer to both these questions. Otherwise I will be forced to forego this tremendously interesting offer of marriage. Please forward your reply to poste restante at your nearest post office. Yours faithfully, Count …’” – and here Popielski pronounced a peculiar, German-sounding name, then smacked his lips in surprise.

  “Why so surprised?” asked Mock.

  “Nothing, nothing …” said Popielski, pondering a while.

  “Where was the letter sent from?”

  “We don’t know. Miss Nowoziemska found it under her office door. Somebody had slipped it in from the corridor.

  “‘Long and tedious journey …’” Mock pensively repeated the words in the letter.

  “Wait, this is where it gets going.” Popielski pushed himself up from the chair like a sprinter on the starting line. “Nowoziemska replied to both questions in the affirmative …”

  “And how did she verify the girl’s virginity? Did she ask the caretaker for a favour?”

  “No.” Popielski burst out laughing. “I asked her the same question. She told me that this was the least of her worries … I think we can take her word for it. In spite of her immaculate manners she looks like a brothel madame … So she wrote to the Count saying that the girl was an orphan and a virgin and he arrived a few days later …”

  “And?” Mock was concentrating so hard he did not so much as glance at the waitress as she stood a tankard of Żywiecki beer in front of each of them.

  “Short, thin, about forty years old, elegantly dressed …”

  “The perfect Mr Nobody,” interrupted Mock. “A man without qualities.”

  “You’re wrong.” Popielski took a sip of beer. “Miss Nowoziemska was worried beyond words when she saw him. When he entered her office she realized straightaway that she would make no money on this man. ‘Incredibly ugly’, that’s what she said. Let me quote her again. I noted down everything she said. So: ‘A man doesn’t have to be beautiful. He should be a little better-looking than the devil, but he shouldn’t be the devil.’ That’s how she characterized him. And here’s a more accurate description: ‘Thick, greying hair that started just above his brow like a hat. Bluish shadow from shaven facial hair reached right up to his eyes, which were small and sunken. Square jaw, uneven teeth, narrow lips.’ She took his registration fee and arranged for him to meet Maria Szynok that same day, not believing for a moment that the meeting would result in a successful marriage. She even breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t appear, and she never saw him again.”

  “He didn’t come …” repeated Mock, deep in thought.

  “Now listen carefully: the meeting between the Count and Klementyna Nowoziemska took place on 30th August, 1936 … He was to meet Maria Szynok that same afternoon. Does the date mean anything to you?”

  “That’s when she was found. Gnawed.”

  “Yes!” Popielski thumped the table, spilling their beer. “It’s him, Ebi! He went to that meeting but he didn’t go into the office. He waited until the girl left and followed her. And maybe she was crying, because she was disappointed that he hadn’t come. She walked out, unable to see anything through her tears, and in her shabby bag she carried alum, which was to restore her lost virginity. That monster followed her … and attacked her somewhere …”

  The waitress came and set down their plates. The men broke off their conversation, but did not take their eyes off each other. They were not interested in the crunchy skin that parted a little from the pink, moist meat, nor the pale heaps of Silesian dumplings, nor the little mounds of peas and thick, steaming red cabbage. Neither so much as gave a glance to the waitress, who had not left their table and was waiting expectantly.

  “What does she want?” Mock could not bear it. “A tip? Give it to her, Edward, I don’t have any change!”

  “I’m not waiting for a tip,” said the waitress in German, her face full of umbrage. “I’ve found out what you wanted.” She now addressed Popielski in Polish. “My colleague, the one who once served that ugly gentleman, has just arrived.”

  “Could you call him?” Popielski handed her a fifty-groszy tip.

  “Helmut!” she called. “Oh go yourself, sonny!”

  “What’s this about?” Mock speared a dumpling with his fork and held it in mid-air. “I saw you discussing something with her when we entered … I thought you were asking for an empty table … Maybe you could finally explain …”

  Popielski shifted his eyes to Helmut the waiter, who was nearing their table. He was a broad-shouldered young man with a pox-scarred face.

  “At your service, sir.” Helmut stood officiously next to them.

  “Have a drink to my health, Helmut,” said Popielski, handing him fifty groszys too. “Can we speak in German?”

  “Speak yes, drink no,” the waiter stammered in German, looking around the room, and he slipped the coin into his pocket. “I’m not allowed to drink right now.”

  “Who said anything about right now?” Popielski cut himself a thick slice of pork knuckle and slid a knife over it, leaving a thick layer of horserad
ish. “You can have a drink later and tell us something now instead. Your colleague mentioned that six months ago a customer came here who was repulsively ugly. And you served him … This could be extremely important; the man might be a dangerous murderer …” Popielski almost whispered these last words and showed the waiter his police badge. “You could be in possession of exceptionally valuable information. Would you like to share it with us?”

  “There’s one word I don’t understand. What’s ‘repulsively’?” Helmut was clearly perplexed.

  “As ugly as an ape,” interrupted Mock.

  “I remember him.” The waiter’s face lit up. “He really was as ugly as an ape, and he dirtied the whole tablecloth … He wrote something on it … I gave him a talking to. He apologized and even paid for it to be washed. That’s all I remember.”

  “Eh, my good man,” said Popielski, smiling amicably. “I’m sure you remember a good deal more … Sit down with us, have a beer, or some vodka …”

  “I’m not allowed to sit with customers.” Helmut looked towards the bar again.

  “What did that customer order?” asked Mock.

  “I don’t know, but probably the usual. Silesian dumplings and meat roll. And then he left. I can’t remember any more. It was such a long time ago …”

  “And what did he write on the tablecloth, can you remember that?” Popielski brought a piece of quivering skin, brown with mustard, to his lips.

  “No, no I don’t. He wrote all over the tablecloth. We couldn’t use it any more.”

  “Well, what? A letter? Words?” Unlike Popielski, Mock had not swallowed a mouthful.

  “Nothing like that!” Helmut rubbed his forehead. “No, he was working something out. Jotting numbers down! And using ink, too! It didn’t want to come off the tablecloth!”

  “And you threw it away, no doubt?” asked Mock, resigned.

  “Well, yes. What were we supposed to do? Excuse me, but I have to see to other customers.”