Unfortunately, none of them turned out to be of any help. “No, I’m quite certain, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar. No clients within the film industry.” The moment of hope slipped back into Hoffner’s pocket along with the book, leaving him with only the routine, useless questions: Anything untoward in the last few weeks? Ledgers gone missing? Odd behavior from any of the staff? How one might be able to determine behavior odder than what was already on display, however, was beyond Hoffner’s grasp.
“Nothing missing, no.” The man thought a moment. “A bit of rough news last week, but I wouldn’t say odd. I suppose one might have seen it coming.” Hoffner waited. “One of our juniors,” said the man. “Something to do with drink or gambling. Seems it was a bit too much. And then, of course, he’d fought in the war. Battle fatigue, that sort of thing, although he was a top-rate accountant. Very talented. Wrapped a rope around his neck. There was mention of a girl, but I don’t involve myself with personal matters.”
An accountant killing himself, thought Hoffner: what startling news. He nodded and placed his card on the counter. “Well, if you think of anything else . . .” He was about to head out when he noticed a single pair of eyes peering up at him from the third row. If not for the sameness everywhere else, he might have missed them, but the man seemed to know that a glance would be enough. The eyes went back to their ledger, and Hoffner said to the chief accountant, “You wouldn’t have a recommendation for lunch, would you, mein Herr?” He spoke just loudly enough to be heard beyond the counter.
“Lunch?” It was clear the man had never considered anything other than the wax-papered sandwiches and pieces of fruit his wife sent along with him every day. “I suppose one could eat at one of the cafés, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar. I think there’s one across the street.”
“Across the street,” Hoffner said with a little more volume. “Thank you, mein Herr.”
Five minutes later, Hoffner watched from his table as Glancing Eyes emerged from the firm. The man darted across the street, made his way inside and over to the counter. Pulling a brown paper bag from his pocket, he ordered a schnapps.
“The same,” said Hoffner as he drew up. The barman poured out a second while the man reached into the bag and removed a banana. Two cigarettes followed, placed neatly on the counter.
“Not much of a lunch,” said Hoffner.
“It manages.” The man lit the first.
“Bit hard to find—bananas.”
“Used to be, but the Americans love them. Can’t seem to go anywhere without them. Berlin’s a regular jungle now.” The man took a wedge into his mouth. “He wouldn’t have killed himself.” He was no less direct.
“Drink and girls and gambling notwithstanding.”
The man was oddly intent on his chewing. “No girls, trust me.”
Hoffner heard the faint strains of disdain. “That might have been reason enough.”
The disdain now surfaced in a single nod and snort. “Maybe before the war,” he said. “But not now. Why do you think so many Americans are here?”
Hoffner watched as the man swallowed and took a second bite. “So your friend had no reason to kill himself?”
“My friend,” the man echoed. “Yes, Grauer was happy, homosexual, and very talented with a ledger. He was making senior before thirty, and no one makes senior before thirty.”
“Then why is he dead?”
“That’s your job, isn’t it?”
Hoffner never imagined an accountant with so much life—with any life, for that matter. Still, the banana was odd. He pulled the ledger from his pocket, opened it, and placed it on the bar. The man needed only a glance.
“It’s his,” he said as he took a last bite.
“But he wasn’t working with any film companies.”
“Gramophones.” The man produced a card and placed it on top of the ledger. The word “Tri-Ergon” and an address were written in red ink. “It was in his file. He was working with them for the past six weeks.” The man used the last of his cigarette to light the second and then tossed back his schnapps. He stared a moment too long at the empty glass: it was the only gesture to betray him. “You might want to ask them why he had to die.”
Not waiting for an answer, the man grabbed his paper bag and headed for the door.
FORTY MINUTES LATER, Hoffner stepped from a tram and into the faint aroma of hacked flesh. The card had sent him east to the edge of the slaughterhouse district, not so far in as to taste the blood in the air, but close enough to recognize its acrid sweetness. White-aproned men—clothes and skin stained a pale pink—stood outside the few remaining factory-like halls, sucking on cigarettes and talking to one another about knives and bones and girls and money. Hoffner remembered having come here as a boy—spätzel und sonne, now long gone—a paper package strangled with rope and stuffed with fat sausage and chops, every Thursday with his father when the meat had been at its cheapest. Spätzel had been an old Jew—not the religious kind, but enough of one to speak a German Hoffner had never fully understood. The place retained a distant sense of that unknown, though not enough to save it. Now it was just a few buildings lost to the rising wave that was the new Berlin. In a few years’ time it would be gone, and even its smell would be washed away.
He found the address. Soot covered the brass lettering, common enough this close to the rail yards, but even then, the place had the look of a building not meant to be found.
He rang the bell, and a minute later, a woman appeared, her hair pulled back in a taut bun, her stare no less severe: remarkable how quickly the sourness of schooldays could settle in one’s throat.
“Yes?” she said.
Hoffner produced his badge.
The woman grew sharper. “About time, isn’t it?” She stepped back and ushered him through. Hoffner knew not to ask and followed her into a large workroom that was empty save for perhaps a dozen long tables with tools spread across.
A stairway and narrow corridor later, he stepped into an office overwhelmed by floor-to-ceiling shelves. Each was crammed with electrical detritus that defied organization, although there seemed to be some kind of symmetry to it all. Hoffner imagined there was a code somewhere, the man kneeling at the center of the floor no doubt its sole proprietor. His back to them, the man was intent on a collection of tubes and wiring, muttering something that sounded like “loose potatoes.”
The woman cleared her throat, and the man let out a frustrated groan. “Yes, Fräulein Edelbaum?” He spoke without turning.
“A policeman, Herr Vogt, is here to see you.”
The man turned, his face wider than Hoffner expected. The high forehead and sunken eyes nested above a neatly cropped mustache and beard. It was always small men who stumped Hoffner when it came to age.
Vogt looked pained, then quickly recovered. “I thought I made it clear, Fräulein.” He turned his attention to Hoffner. “A misunderstanding, mein Herr. Totally unnecessary. We . . .” He suddenly realized he was still on his knees. He placed a hand on the desk and hoisted himself up. “Herr . . . ?”
“Hoffner.” Hoffner’s tone was steady, reassuring. “Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner.”
“Yes.” Herr Vogt was no more reassured. “Herr Chief Inspector. It’s just some foolishness. I’m sure it’ll pass.”
The Fräulein was not so convinced. “They come almost every week, Herr Chief Inspector. Always the same place. It shouldn’t be allowed.”
Hoffner nodded even if he had no idea what she was talking about.
“I can show you the area.” She started for the door.
“No, no.” Vogt jumped in. “You have your work to get to, Fräulein. I can show the Herr Chief Inspector.”
“Make sure he sees—”
“Yes, Fräulein. The bit by the fence. I won’t forget.”
She did her best with a smile. “Very good, mein Herr.”
Vogt motioned Hoffner to the door, and four minutes later, they stood outside the building in a wide alleyway. The words j
ews out! were painted in white across the brick.
“The building there,” Vogt said, pointing to the next door down. “They make skullcaps and little boxes for prayers.” He seemed uneasy out-of-doors.
“Phylacteries,” Hoffner said.
“Yes.” Vogt lacked the depth in his face to hide his surprise.
Hoffner said, “And the boys who do this don’t realize your building ends here and theirs begins there.”
“I suppose not. How does a police inspector know to call them phylacteries?”
“So what do you want me to do, Herr Vogt? Send the boys a copy of the city building plans so they can paint on the right side?”
Vogt’s expression hardened. “I’m also a Jew, Herr Chief Inspector.”
“Yes,” said Hoffner easily. “I know. As is your Fräulein Edelbaum, I imagine.” Hoffner let Vogt’s confusion take hold. “I didn’t come about the boys. The same reason you didn’t want the police coming at all, even for this. I came about a dead accountant.”
Vogt’s eyes widened. He began to shake his head nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Something to do with sound. For film. Rather unpleasant films at that. Does that jar the memory, Herr Vogt?”
The shaking turned to blinking. It was as if Hoffner were watching a bell slot machine ticking toward payout. Without warning, Vogt turned and headed for the door.
UPSTAIRS, VOGT LOCKED THE OFFICE and found two chairs in and among the electrics. Rummaging through the desk, he unearthed a bottle of something brown, two glasses—a quick blow into each—and handed one to Hoffner. They sat.
Vogt seemed to find comfort in the pouring. “He kept a file on us?” It was the first time he had spoken since the alleyway.
“There was a ledger.”
Vogt topped up Hoffner’s. “Of course there was. Typical Ufa lunacy.”
Vogt placed the bottle on the desk and settled into his chair. The two men sat silently, glasses in hand, as Vogt rubbed the back of his hand against his beard. He seemed to be debating whether to take a drink: maybe he hadn’t earned it just yet, thought Hoffner.
“The audion tube,” Vogt finally said. “You’ve never heard of it, but that’s why you’re here.”
“It’s a triode vacuum for sound amplification.” Hoffner gave him no time to ask. “They’re using them in the latest riot wagons. We had a training. I’m told the speakers can be heard for miles. Quite remarkable. You were saying?”
Vogt seemed less impressed than slightly bruised. “Oh. Yes. Well . . . the audion. Since you’re familiar with it.” He took a drink and placed the glass on the desk. “About twenty years ago an American—a man named De Forest—invented the thing. Very important in the development of sound. Ten years later—1919 or so—he went one better and came up with something truly astounding. He called it Phonofilm. Not just amplification, but a system that could record sound directly onto film as a parallel line. An optical sound-on-film process.”
“Fascinating, mein Herr. And this is leading me to the accountant how?”
Vogt seemed to lose his place. “The accountant . . . ? Oh yes. The accountant.” He nodded and pressed on. “Sound on film. Rather stunning if you think about it. The basics of the thing were that these parallel lines could photographically record electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were then translated back into sound waves when the film was projected. Imagine that—photographically recording from a microphone. Remarkable.” Hoffner now realized he was in for the duration. There was nothing to do but nod.
“You see where we’re going?” Vogt said eagerly. “To play it back, the film simply had to pass across a sensor inside the film projector, which then translated the sound-wave images into electrical impulses that came out through the loudspeaker, like a phonograph.” Vogt didn’t seem to care that this was now flying right by his guest. “The beauty of the thing was that it could do both image and sound simultaneously. Brilliant. Except it couldn’t. Synchronization was the key, and De Forest couldn’t find it.”
Hoffner saw Vogt waiting for some kind of response. “How sad for him.”
“Yes. But there were these three very clever Germans—exceptionally clever—who came up with a way to find absolute synchronization.” Vogt reached over to the desk, sifted through a few piles, and tossed over a little gadget. “A ‘glow lamp light modulator for variable density sound.’ ” Vogt arched his eyebrows as if to say, “Impressive.” “That little flywheel mechanism you’re holding—that was the key. Film has a tendency to speed up or slow down when it’s feeding through a projector, and when it does, the sound gets garbled, or even slips a cell. That little piece prevents variations in film speed and therefore eliminates any possibility in the distortion of sound. Faultless synchronization.”
“Thank goodness for those Germans.”
“Yes.”
“And how long did it take you to come up with it?”
Vogt gave in to a meek smile. “About two years. But then, we’d already been in the business of sound-on-film for quite some time. Since 1919, to be exact, when we developed our own process. Funny that, don’t you think? The same moment De Forest hit on his system.”
Hoffner was glad to hear the edge in Vogt’s voice. It gave the man a hint of spine. “So you’re saying the American filched it?”
Vogt shrugged, then bent over to the desk’s bottom drawer and pulled out a stack of papers. Halfway through he found a sheet and passed it to Hoffner.
It was a Berlin patent imprint, official stamps, a date—“February 7, 1919”—and signatures.
“The second paragraph,” Vogt said. “Give it a read.”
Hoffner obliged: “ ‘The “Tri-Ergon Process” relies on the use of a photoelectric cell to transduce mechanical sound vibrations into electrical waveforms and then convert the electrical waveforms into light waves. These light waves are then optically recorded onto the edge of the film through a photographic process to create a “Sound track.” ’ ”
“I came up with that,” Vogt cut in. “ ‘Sound track.’ It’s quite good. Neat. Precise. And less than three centimeters wide.” He nodded for Hoffner to continue.
Hoffner glanced back at the page, but then stopped. Three centimeters, he thought. That’s what it had been last night at Pimm’s. He looked over at Vogt. “That’s why it wouldn’t fit.”
Vogt shook his head. “Why what wouldn’t fit?”
“Your film. Into a projector. The sound track. It’s too wide.”
Vogt understood and smiled. “It’s not just a new recording mechanism. You have to have new projectors as well.”
“How many did you produce?”
“Three. Why?”
Hoffner now wondered where the other two had been last night at The Trap.
Vogt nodded again at the page. “Keep reading, Herr Chief Inspector.”
Again Hoffner read: “ ‘Another photoelectric cell is then used to transduce the waveform on the film into electrical waveform during projection.’ ”
“Sound familiar?” said Vogt.
Hoffner set the page on the desk. “So De Forest stole the blueprints but missed taking the little flywheel thing, and couldn’t get it to work.”
“Or maybe he did hit on it by himself. Who knows?” A bitterness crept in. “Leibniz and Newton managed to find calculus at the exact same moment. Maybe De Forest’s another Newton. Or maybe he just didn’t see the need for the flywheel.”
Hoffner tossed the device back. “You seem rather cavalier about it.”
“Phonofilm went bankrupt last year. I’m guessing Herr De Forest has other concerns right now.”
“You’re not very fond of the Americans, are you?”
“Are you?”
“They haven’t stolen anything of mine, just yet.”
“Give them time.” Vogt finished the last of his drink and set the glass down.
Hoffner said, “This wasn’t the first time they’d managed to take something of yours,
was it?”
Vogt’s face seemed to numb, the weight of the silence drawing his eyes farther off even as he spoke: “They’re going to change the world later this year. October, I think. It’s called The Jazz Singer. Mr. Al Jolson singing and dancing and talking and talking and talking. A talking picture, except—”
“Except it isn’t,” Hoffner cut in.
Vogt’s gaze snapped into focus. “No. It isn’t.”
“Someone should tell Mr. Jolson.”
Vogt tried another weak smile. “They think they’ve mastered it. They’re not even using the right process.”
“Something else of yours?”
“Pfff.” Vogt shook his head dismissively. “Remember, this is all about synchronization, Herr Chief Inspector, not something the geniuses at Western Electric fully understand. They’ve managed to develop a completely meaningless technology—Vitaphone. Even the name is ridiculous. Somebody sneezes and the whole thing goes off kilter. But that’s what the great minds at Warner Brothers wanted, so now they have it.” Vogt saw Hoffner’s confusion and began to spin his finger as if around an old wax cylinder. “Jazz Singer is sound-on-disc. The projector is connected to a recording disc that gets scraped by a needle, and then gets played back at the same time. Two completely separate components, so when the film slows down or speeds up, the disc doesn’t, and synchronization goes out the window. Genius.”
Hoffner was liking Vogt more and more. “Not that you’re terribly bitter about all this,” he said, “but what do you care? If it doesn’t work, all the better for you.”
“Oh, but they’ll make it work. They’re the Americans. And the infuriating thing is that it should have been ours. Tri-Ergon’s. Sound-on-film. Had Ufa shown even the slightest bit of backbone, none of this—not Mr. Jolson, not your dead accountant—neither of them would have been an issue. But Ufa didn’t. And that’s that.”
Hoffner heard the rawness in Vogt’s frustration, and as much as he needed to see the connection between the studio and the accountant, he knew there was more to be found elsewhere. “So what was it the Americans took from you?”
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