Flickers of spite, self-pity, even hopelessness cut across Vogt’s face, until all that was left was a kind of muted resignation. There might even have been a relief in it. “It’s not as petty as that, Herr Chief Inspector.”
“It never is.”
Vogt sat silently staring across the desk. His eyes dipped to the floor for a moment. Then, without warning, he was on his feet. He reached across for Hoffner’s glass. “Nineteen twenty-five,” he said as he set the glass down. “That’s when the first full-length talking picture was made, Herr Chief Inspector. Would you like to see it?”
THE STEPS TO THE CELLAR were worn through, the light from above a single bulb as Hoffner followed Vogt down into a storage basement. The smell of disinfectant and rat poison collided with something sweet as they reached the bottom.
“She grows tobacco,” said Vogt, pushing aside a few mops, a saw-horse with a half-filled tin of paint teetering on its top. “Fräulein Edelbaum. Rolls it herself, although I can’t understand how she manages to keep the plants alive down here. The whole thing’s a bit bizarre, but people are buying it, so if she can make a little extra money, why not.”
There was an opening in the back wall—less a doorway in the brick than the work of a sledgehammer—and Vogt led them through to a second room. The damp now outstripped the smells as Vogt felt along the wall. He flicked on another bulb to reveal a space wider than the first, its low ceiling forcing the two to hunch their way back. Standing alone against the far wall was a tall metal cabinet. Vogt pulled a set of keys from his pocket and opened it.
Less than five minutes later, Hoffner was seated in front of a small screen as Vogt continued to thread a reel into what Hoffner imagined was the second of the three newly developed projectors. Finished, Vogt stepped over, turned off the bulb, and made his way back through the darkness. There was a loud click, and the screen filled with light.
A girl stands on a street corner amidst the hustle and bustle of cars and traffic, the hum of pedestrians walking to and fro, cars honking.
“Buy some matches!”
Her voice rings out as the scene shifts, a Santa guiding a child through a Christmas market. Somewhere, a hand organ plays—other sounds, other voices—until the child begins to make her way across a snowy field to a wooden statue of Mary and the crèche.
Hoffner felt his hand moving toward the screen as if to touch it, something unnerving in hearing the crunch of feet on snow, but Vogt’s voice held him back.
“You think it’s there, don’t you? That somehow your fingers will feel the cold. Amazing how sound can do that.”
The child reaches the statue, knocks gently on the wood—the raps perfectly hollow—when an old woman appears. She speaks with the child for what might be only seconds, but the passage of time is now irrelevant. Other figures emerge, other conversations, entire scenes, but all there is are the words, the sounds, the tremors of life, and it is impossible not to ask, How can this be? In a sudden flash, the screen is white and black, and then silent.
Hoffner sat in the darkness, certain he could still hear them. The bulb flicked on, and Vogt said, “It’s the first reel. There are five others.”
Hoffner was now acutely aware of the silence. “Yes” was all he could manage.
“What you just saw is a thousand times better than anything Mr. Jolson will be doing. He’ll have a few songs on disc, maybe a line of dialogue here and there, but nothing like that, nothing continuous, unrelenting—sound in perfect combination.”
Hoffner nodded, his eyes on the empty screen as his mind raced to process it all. Last night, the bouts at The Trap had been too short, the images too raw. The girl’s screams had lingered, but nothing else. This, however, held a truth that, in its simplicity—maybe because of it—was something he could claim as his own. And it was that, and that alone, that gave it a power beyond the cries of even the anguished.
“Without sound,” said Vogt, “all you have is shadow and light. Flat, soulless, barren. Sound is the third dimension. Sound is what gives it texture. Sound is what makes it real.”
Hoffner finally turned to face him. “Then why wouldn’t they want it? Why not take this?”
Vogt was removing the reel. “Because it made more sense to destroy it.”
Hoffner hesitated. “But you have the film, this projector?”
“Not the thing itself. Not the technology.” Vogt slipped the reel back into its canister. “The idea of it. That was enough.” He snapped the top on and looked at Hoffner. “And that, Herr Chief Inspector, is what they took from me.”
Hoffner tried to understand. “The idea?”
Vogt started to answer, but had trouble finding the words. Finally he said, “We were asked to make a film—a film for Ufa. They knew what we’d done in ’19. They’d been at a screening we’d had in ’22—a series of short sound films at the Alhambra dance hall downtown. Very big news. By ’23 they wanted something bigger. Continuous sound, scene to scene, full-length. Naturally, we were desperate to do it, but they said we’d have to work under someone at Ufa—a man named Guido Bagier—chief music advisor, or something like that. Of course we didn’t like it. We worked on our own. But then Guido turned out to be a real artist, the only one at Ufa who understood what we were trying to do. And he let us do anything we wanted. If we needed sound booths with absolute silence, he created them. New microphone instrumentation, he found the technicians. Film developers, they were there. All he wanted—all he ever said—was a few reels. A few perfect reels.”
“And where’s this Bagier now?”
Vogt ignored the question. “Guido became our great champion. Even when the idiots at the top pressured him, he always kept them away. You can’t imagine how difficult that must have been. And by ’25—October or early November, I don’t remember which—we had it. Six reels. The Little Match Girl. Not brilliant with story or acting, but astounding with everything else. Of course we didn’t know the whole thing was falling apart at the time.”
Hoffner needed only to narrow his gaze for Vogt to explain. “Ufa,” Vogt said. “We’d been kept in the dark the whole way through. They never bothered to tell us that the studio was on the verge of bankruptcy. Oh yes. No one knew it then—no one knows it now—but Ufa had been losing money for years, going so far over budget on films that entire months of bookkeeping had simply been thrown away. That, I imagine, is what you get when you try and compete with the Americans. Naturally we were going to be the ones to save them. Here we had it. Talking pictures. Ufa leading the way. Even the Americans would have to line up and pay.”
“But the Americans knew that.” It was the first moment of clarity Hoffner had experienced in the last half hour.
“Exactly.”
“And they knew they didn’t want to get in line.”
“Of course—but they were cleverer than that. Ufa was about to be ruined. It needed money. Sound looked to be the answer, but eliminate that—eliminate even the idea—and where would Ufa have to go for help?”
This was where Vogt had been leading him all along. “The Americans.”
“Exactly. It turns out the studio had been negotiating with Paramount and Metro as far back as ’25—millions of marks in loans—as long as Ufa signed over most of its distribution rights in Europe. They even came up with a little name for their agreement. Parufamet. Brilliant, don’t you think? The Americans wanted three-quarters of the market for their own films, and Ufa kept holding them off, waiting to see if our experiment would save them. And it would have, had the whole thing not been sabotaged.”
“You really don’t like the Americans, do you?” When Vogt said nothing, Hoffner asked, “You’re sure it was sabotage?”
Vogt’s silence became disbelief. “No, I’m sitting here with you in a damp little cave, showing you something you still can’t quite believe you saw, and yet maybe—just maybe—it didn’t work. Of course we tested it. For days, weeks. And each time it ran perfectly. All six reels. All sound equipment. Everything. But
then we get to Ufa—the great day in the Mozartsaal—and suddenly the storage batteries lose power. Suddenly the statophones start producing this dull roaring sound. Suddenly the potentiometer can’t get out more than a squeak of sound even at its upper ranges. And had any of this—even one of these things—ever happened before? Never. And yet the audience is laughing, hissing, and the Ufa generals are slinking off in humiliation, and we’re left to—” Even the memory was too much. “Four days later they signed their agreement with the Americans. Or at least that’s when they announced it. Never even a thought to give us a second chance. My guess, the ink was already dry before we’d left the building.” Vogt nodded his head. “Am I sure of it? Yes, Herr Chief Inspector, I’m sure.”
Hoffner admired the sincerity. “So the Americans took a piece of Ufa and eliminated the competition for their sound-on-disc technology all at once.”
“Very clever, these Americans. One day they’ll save the world.” Vogt had begun to fold up the projector. “Whether it needs saving or not.”
“You know a great deal about all this for a man who was kept in the dark for so long.”
Vogt slipped the projector into its case and slowly walked it over to the cabinet. “Yes. I do.” He placed it on a shelf and headed for the screen.
Halfway through the rolling up, Hoffner said, “All right, you have my attention. Why?”
“If they’d stolen six years of your work, wouldn’t you want to know why?”
“Wanting to know and knowing are two very different things. I’m guessing they didn’t sit you down and explain why they were stealing from you.”
“Well then, you’d be wrong.” Vogt had the screen in a tight roll and stepped over to the top shelf. He slid it in.
Hoffner said, “As some sort of threat, or just to be cruel?”
“There was no need to threaten us. They knew we still wanted to work in film. An accusation would have put an end to that. I don’t think they were clever enough to see the cruelty in it.”
“Then why?”
“Because they didn’t tell us—then.” Vogt finished stacking the canisters. “Had they, I would have bought a pistol and shot every last one of them. And then I would have shot myself. I believe they knew that.” He locked the cabinet. “No, they waited until three months ago, when Gerhard Thyssen—yes, that Gerhard Thyssen—came and asked us to create something even better for Ufa. Something to make the Americans pay. I believe Herr Thyssen is dead as well.”
Hoffner needed a moment. “And that’s why you didn’t want the police.”
“My partners are in Switzerland, Herr Chief Inspector. They told me I should go with them. They made a very strong case—the accountant dead last week, Thyssen yesterday, Fräulein Volker missing. It seems as if the Americans are playing a much more dangerous game this time round.”
Something didn’t fit. “How did you know about Thyssen and the girl?” It took Hoffner another moment to answer his own question. “Bagier.”
“He’s a good friend.”
“Is he involved?”
“No. You have my word.”
Again Hoffner needed to clarify. “So what did Thyssen say he wanted?”
“Something to make sound-on-disc look ridiculous.”
“But you’d already done that in ’25.”
“Yes—we had. He said it wasn’t enough.”
Hoffner heard something in Vogt’s voice. “Three months,” said Hoffner. “That’s not a long time to come up with something new.”
“We’d never stopped working,” said Vogt. “The gramophones were just a way to keep us afloat.”
“So you needed the time to work out the kinks, perfect your new device.”
Vogt hesitated before answering. “Yes. We did.”
“And that led you to the sex films?”
This was the question Vogt had been hoping to avoid. He stared across at Hoffner. “You’re expecting me to say it wasn’t my idea. It wasn’t, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Vogt accepted the rebuke. “You have to understand how careful we had to be, protective, especially after the sabotage disaster in ’25. Thyssen felt we needed something to cover us beyond the gramophones, something we could use to test the new technology without anyone wanting to take a look at it. Sex was ideal when it came to the Americans—they’re so terribly afraid of it even when they’re so desperate to see it. Give them a public whiff of pornography and they run screaming in the other direction. And Ufa—they were paying for the films. Thyssen needed to cover himself there as well. Funny how Ufa was willing to put money into sex films without batting an eye. And in typical Ufa fashion, they needed to see the books the whole way through. Hence your accountant. What they didn’t know was that we were using the films to perfect the new instrumentation.”
“But there’s no market for sex films. Why would Ufa fund them?”
Clearly this was not something Vogt had ever really considered. “People want sex films.” He was barely convincing himself.
“Not on this scale,” said Hoffner. “And not this brutal. Where would they show them?”
His hesitation grew. “I—I don’t know.”
Neither did Hoffner. It was pointless, though, pressing Vogt for an answer. “So you had no trouble with the content?”
Vogt’s eyes snapped back into focus. “Of course I had trouble with it. What do you want me to say? That I thought Thyssen was wrong to go down that route, that he might actually have had a real interest in these films? Fine. Yes. He found the people—I think he might even have made one with the girl—I don’t know.” Vogt’s frustration peaked. “I wanted to get this right. I wanted to show them they had made a terrible mistake using us like that. I wanted the men at Ufa who had sold us out to look foolish. And I wanted the Americans to beg for my new work. Maybe that’s why. Let it all come out. Ufa the sex peddlers. In the end I would have had my system—something so far beyond what you’ve just seen that I wouldn’t have cared what kinds of films we were making.”
Hoffner gave Vogt a moment to regain his composure. “And did you?”
“Did I what? Not care?” Vogt’s eyes wandered to the floor. There was no point in answering.
“No—did you have your system?”
Vogt’s eyes froze. Almost imperceptibly, he began to nod.
Hoffner said, “Thyssen had it.”
Vogt looked over. He nodded again.
“Blueprints or actual device?”
Vogt’s regret was palpable. “Both, of course. We were ready to show it. Thyssen said he needed everything together. I’m not a very clever man.”
There was no need to make him feel any worse than he did. “You should be in Switzerland.”
“As I said, I’m not a very clever man.”
Hoffner got to his feet. “That depends on what your new device does.”
Vogt let out a nervous laugh. “No worries there, Herr Chief Inspector.”
“Would the girl know what to do with it?”
“Impossible.”
“Anyone at Ufa?”
Vogt shook his head. “I just figured the thing out myself. Ufa isn’t even thinking in these terms.”
“It’s that remarkable, is it?”
Vogt was holding the keys to the cabinet in his hand and began to swing them gently in his palm. Without warning, he hurled them to the far corner of the room. The metal slapped against the brick and the chain fell to the ground.
Vogt waited for the silence. “That,” he said. Hoffner shook his head, and Vogt explained, “Sound has movement, Herr Chief Inspector. One place one moment, another the next. A train in the distance, a voice behind you. Even with sound-on-film, it’s sedentary. Place the speaker by the screen, and there it sits. But find a way to capture sound in motion—then you have the fourth dimension. The passage of time through sound. There’s no greater reality than that.”
The man’s certainty was almost enviable. “And you manage
d that?” Hoffner needed only to look at Vogt’s eyes to have his answer. “You should get yourself to Switzerland, mein Herr.”
“And you, Herr Chief Inspector, should get me my device.”
OUTSIDE, HOFFNER LIT UP. For the first time in days, the sky seemed forgiving, if no less sterile.
Going through the last hour in his head, he wanted to believe that things had come clearer, but Vogt had only raised more questions. What exactly had been going on out at Ufa to prompt Thyssen to hide the research in the first place? Vogt had seemed certain that the Americans were involved again, but why? They had made their killing a year and a half ago with the loan agreement, and the Jolson film was about to place their sound process at the top. What was there to be gained by destroying a new component—remarkable as it might be—to a system no one was using anyway? And why had they been willing to put money into sex films when there was no market for them?
And yet, Thyssen was dead and the Volker girl was missing. And that left Hoffner right back where he started.
He took a pull on the cigarette. At least he had convinced Vogt to take the next train out of Berlin. He was also now in possession of a drawing of the device, the thing oddly similar in both look and dimensions to a kerosene lamp. Hoffner folded the sheet of paper and slid it into his pocket. It rubbed up against the ledger, and he pulled the two out. Slipping the sheet inside, he stopped for a moment.
It was the little book that focused him. He stared at it, following its path back—from Vogt, to the accountant, to The Trap—when he suddenly realized where he had let himself go wrong. It was the ledger that had brought him here, the ledger that had been left behind—and that made no sense. If Vogt was even remotely on track, no one would have been stupid enough to leave the thing simply lying around. It was too perfect a piece of bait to send someone off on the hunt.
And that meant Hoffner had to go back to Leni.
THE SPEAKER
RITTER WAS ONLY TOO HAPPY to lace in with a nice earful when Hoffner finally got through: something about important men having important things to do, far more important than wasting their time waiting for some inspector to show up. Ritter even managed to get in a little jab about Georg, his disappointment and surprise there as well. Hoffner took it all, tossing in that perhaps a double homicide in Prenzlauer Berg (no one had actually died in Prenzlauer Berg today) might just have taken precedence over the inconvenience of those very important men. Ritter’s silence on the other end of the line gave Hoffner the opportunity to ask about Leni.
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