The Strangler's Waltz

by Richard Lord

  “Oh, Henninger – don’t tell anyone else in the department about this. We want to be sure how credible this guy is. We don’t want to be raising false hopes, do we?”

  “No, sir. I won’t breathe another word about this.”

  A short time later, Hitler was led into Interview Room No. 3 by Henninger. Stebbel was already waiting there; Dörfner walked in right behind Hitler. Stebbel rose from his chair and walked over to greet the witness. He offered a hand.

  “Good day, sir. My name is Inspector Stebbel, and you’ve apparently already met my colleague, Inspector Dörfner.’

  The man nodded. “Hitler … Adolf.” He then shook hands with the two inspectors. Stebbel was mildly surprised at the firmness of his grip and the ease with which he carried out this ritual of greeting. Stebbel then asked Hitler to take a seat in the witness chair while he and Dörfner sat down on the other side of the desk.

  “So, Herr Hitler, we understand that you were a witness to these killings of the young women.”

  “No, not all the killings. Just the first one. Frau von Klettenburg’s murder.” He then reached into his leather case and extracted his sketch of the killer. He placed it carefully on the desk. “And this is the man who killed her.”

  The two policemen looked at the drawing. It seemed to be a surprisingly good drawing, though they had no idea if it bore any resemblance to a real person.

  “Do you know the man’s name?”

  “No. I just know that this is what he looks like.” He then proceeded to recount the story of what had happened to him that night, the collision with the man as he came rushing out of the alleyway. Also, how he had gone home after that and sketched the man’s face.

  “But you didn’t actually see him kill Frau von Klettenburg?”

  “No. But when he banged into me, we looked at each other. Hard. And then I looked in his eyes. And I knew that he had just committed some awful crime.”

  “And how did you know that?”

  “I am an artist. A committed artist. I can look into a man’s face and see what lies deep within that man.” Hitler then took a mild gulp. He thought of what a number of art teachers and one of the examiners who had turned down his application at the Academy of Fine Arts had told him: that he had a certain amount of technical skill, but his work was clearly missing something. He never got below the surface of his subject.

  Stebbel then asked him what time this incident had occurred. Hitler did some quick reckoning. As he recalled, he was walking back to the hostel when the bells at St. John Capistrano church started tolling 10:00. So that would have put the collision somewhere between 9:30 and 9:45. Stebbel nodded and Dörfner just stared intently at Hitler. That was consistent with the estimated time of death.

  They asked Hitler if he had seen the dead body. He hesitated for a moment … and then lied. He told the inspectors that he was so shaken by the collision with that man with the ugly gaze that he quickly turned and headed home as quickly as he could. He didn’t actually see the strangler’s dirty work. But nonetheless, he was absolutely sure the man in the sketch was the man who had killed her.

  The two inspectors glanced at the sketch once more. Finally, Stebbel decided that they couldn’t just throw this lead back into the rubbish bin.

  “Herr Hitler, we need more information about this man. Now a few floors below, we have what we call the rogues gallery. It’s a collection of files filled with photos of most of the people who’ve been arrested in Vienna over the last … oh, ten years or so. It includes people who have been convicted as well as those later released or found not guilty in a court.

  “The big advantage for us is that these photos all have the name of the suspects pasted on the back. What we would like you to do is to go down there with us and go through these books. The chances are that the man you drew in this sketch will also have his photo in our files.”

  Hitler agreed immediately, and the two inspectors escorted him down to the rogue’s gallery. There, the officer responsible for the files greeted them, then went to haul out the files. As the first files were presented to Herr Hitler, Stebbel and Dörfner said they would be back shortly, then left him there alone with the rogues gallery.

  About half an hour later, Dörfner strolled back down to the gallery to see how the star witness was getting along. As he approached, he saw a sullen Hitler turning the page harshly, glaring down at the photo, then flipping over the next one just as harshly. Dörfner stood a short distance away, just observing Hitler for a minute. His own quick reading: this poor man was almost choking with a bitterness made that much more bitter by the fact that it had no outlet. Dörfner was no stranger to bitterness, including his own, but this seemed a unique, pure form of the affliction.

  He was still observing the witness when Hitler suddenly seemed to become aware of his presence and turned brusquely. Dörfner was embarrassed at being suddenly caught out like that. He pretended to have been just approaching as Hitler turned.

  “So, Herr Hitler – have you seen any face there you recognize?”

  Where he had been rigorously polite upstairs during the Q&A in the interview room, Hitler was now curt and contrary.

  “No, I don’t know any of these faces.” He then tapped the sketch, resting in the space above the files. “This is the killer here. This is the man you should be out there looking for.”

  “But this, this is just a sketch.”

  Hitler looked up with a cultivated glare. “It’s a careful drawing by a trained and highly respected artist.”

  “Mein Herr …”

  “And I can assure you, Inspector, that this drawing is a more accurate representation of the man’s appearance than most of these fuzzy, half-shadowed photos you’ve got in these books.”

  With that, he started swinging his arm wildly across the table, pushing two of the files to one side, two to the other, and one all the way off the table. That file went crashing to the floor. Hitler stood staring down at the file for several moments, breathing heavily. Then he seemed to press a button deep within, emptying out a stream of his anger.

  “I’m sorry. That was an accident. I should be more careful here. This is government property.”

  He bent down to pick up the file. Dörfner also bent over to help him get the file and place it back on the table. Hitler then took out a slightly ragged cloth and carefully wiped off the file, front and back.

  “Herr Hitler, I’m sure your sketch is a quite accurate representation of our killer, but it would help us even more if you could find that same face in our files.”

  Hitler just stared straight ahead and nodded. It was, however, the kind of nod that indicated inner resistance.

  “Besides, the drawing belongs to you. We can’t take it from you.”

  Hitler looked up. His mood changed fully. “It’s a copy actually. I copied it from the original drawing I made. This one you can keep.” He stood up and presented it to Dörfner with both hands. “I would feel honored if the police would accept this as my contribution to the capture of this criminal.”

  Dörfner took the sketch and gave a nod of gratitude. “Of course. We’ll use this to every advantage we can.”

  Then he escorted Hitler upstairs and out the front door of the building. He breathed a sigh of relief, glanced at the sketch again, and hobbled onto the paternoster.

  As he walked into the office, he saw Stebbel hunched over his desk, poring over an article as he sipped tea. Dörfner slid the sketch in front of him.

  “A present. From our star witness.”

  “Our only witness. If he really is a witness, if he didn’t hallucinate the whole thing.” He picked up the sketch and took another glance. “Did you get any address from him, or any other details in case we need to contact him?”

  “I did indeed. He lives over in that big men’s hostel in Briggitenau. You know, the one the city built.”

  “That’s where he lives today. Tomorrow, he could be somewhere else.” The inspector then turned back to the sketc
h. Within seconds, Stebbel went from a glance to a close look, to an intense stare. He looked up at Dörfner briefly before turning back to the sketch.

  “What is it, Steb?”

  “This drawing … I know this face.”

  “Where from?”

  “Yeah, that’s just the problem – where from?” His stare became even more intense and then he put his hands to his face.

  “Was he somebody we arrested? Someone I saw in here? How about our witness, Herr …?

  “Hitler”

  “Right. Hitler. Who did he match this up with down in the rogues gallery.”

  “Nobody. He got frustrated, gave up on the whole thing. I don’t even know how many files he slogged through before he gave up. You want to find this guy, you’ll have to go through the files yourself.”

  “I see. Thank you, Herr Hitler,” he said with a generous sprinkle of sarcasm.

  “Well, I don’t have anything better to do this evening. I’ll go down there after I finish this tea and see what I can find.” He picked up the sketch in both hands and again glared at it. “I’m sure I’ve seen this face before though. Just have to find out where.”

  Chapter 24

  Though he stayed at the task for almost two hours and went through each file assiduously, Stebbel was unable to see anyone with even a vague resemblance to the man in Hitler’s sketch.

  After he slapped the last file shut, his eyes were aching and he had taken a headache. The ceiling in this room is too low, the lighting poorly placed, and the ventilation stifling, Stebbel complained to himself. He needed a drink even more than usual.

  Stebbel took a tram to one of his favorite cafés, the Starnberg, and found a two-chaired table off in the back. When the waiter approached, he ordered a double brandy.

  Brandy was his preferred drink when he was feeling low – not just for its taste and generous alcohol content, but also because he could stare at its amber swirl in the glass and imagine a pure beauty, with no complications.

  Now holding the glass up and staring into it, he tried to sort out everything they knew about the murders so far. It didn’t amount to much. Not much at all. He had to sadly admit that the sketch Herr Hitler had given them was the most valuable lead they’d received so far – and even that wasn’t very helpful.

  Or maybe it was. He quickly downed the remaining brandy, enjoyed its fiery tickling of his throat as it streamed down, paid and headed out into the pleasantly cool evening.

  He made his way to the streetwalker district. Though they still didn’t know if they could put any faith in the testimony of this Hitler fellow, Stebbel was thinking – hoping actually – that he might see that face in the sketch prowling the district. Perhaps the killer spent a few nights on reconnaissance missions before deciding where to strike next.

  And what if he did see the man? After all, the only evidence they had was a sketch by someone who might himself be half insane. He could hardly haul the man in as a suspect just on the basis of that sketch.

  And he wouldn’t be able to haul him in by himself anyway. According to Dr. Gressler, the man would be rather big and quite powerful; Stebbel was no match for a man like that; he’d need to fetch other police officers to assist him in any arrest.

  Stebbel ambled through the seven or eight main streets where the streetwalkers trawled for customers. He was approached by several of the ladies, each one offering him a wonderful time, but he spurned them all with a polite smile and a raised hand. He acted like he was turning down an offer of food by street vendors.

  Some of the whores were rather pretty, Stebbel thought, most of them depressingly young, and all of them exuded a sense of desperation. But he spent more time studying the faces of the men prowling the streets looking for an easy round of sex than those of the ladies ready to supply the sex.

  He had gone through all the main streets of the district twice without any success in finding that suspect face. He felt even more frustrated than when he’d finished going through the rogues gallery photos.

  He was about to give up and start looking for a cab to take him home, when a young woman appeared out of the half-light on the Schrankgasse. There was something particularly vulnerable about her appearance; maybe it was her slight shape. But it was also her demeanor. In contrast to the other women he’d seen there, who were rather straightforward in peddling their wares, this one seemed demure. In fact, as he glanced at her, she looked away shyly, and then, as he was about to pass by her, she turned back and gave a hesitant smile before looking down.

  Stebbel slowed almost to a standstill and looked at her intently. She blushed, he thought, and then spoke for the first time.

  “Are you lost, mein Herr? Maybe I can help you find what you’re looking for.”

  “I’m … not really sure what I’m looking for.”

  “Oh, what a shame. Well, are you maybe looking for some companionship? I can help with that as well.”

  Stebbel had stepped closer to the girl and was now within a few inches of her. As she finished making her offer, she tentatively reached out and touched his hand lightly with her fingers. It was almost romantic, like a young girl approaching a potential boyfriend for the first time.

  “You look very kind, mein Herr. But also very lonely.”

  “That could be true.”

  “I understand loneliness. I’ve often been lonely myself. Would you like to come with me and we can help each other shed our loneliness?”

  “How much?” Stebbel asked. But he said it in a way that didn’t sound like the beginning of some crude business transaction; it was more like the sweet compliment of a man in the opening stage of infatuation.

  She took a demure breath before answering. “Ten kroners for an hour. Is that … too much?”

  “No. No, that’s not too much. That’s not too much at all.” And again, it sounded not like a prostitute and her client agreeing to the terms of the purchase of sex, but like two mildly infatuated people getting to know each other a little better. The girl reached out and gently took Stebbel’s arm, then gave him the warmest smile he had seen in … years maybe. He let her take him wherever she was going to take him.

  After they had finished, Stebbel went into the alcove with the sink and washbasin and sponged himself off lightly. Just enough so that he wouldn’t feel too grungy as he made his way back home. Then he pulled on his clothes. He turned and Carina, still mostly unclothed, gave him another smile. It was warm and seemed almost sincere. She said she would need to take some time to clean up and get ready for the rest of the evening. Stebbel bid adieu and left. As he stepped out on the landing, he heard the door close behind him and the click of a lock.

  Walking the three flights down to the street, Stebbel passed two other “short-term” couples going up the stairs, the first about five steps in front of the second. Both men bent their heads down and turned to the right (away from Stebbel) so that they couldn’t be seen. Stebbel also bent his head slightly, though he did try as much as possible to peek at the men’s faces.

  He was unable to catch much face, but neither of the two men appeared to be that big or that powerful. The two girls both gave Stebbel a highly friendly smile as they passed him; he took the looks as advertising for the future.

  Back on the street, he turned and headed towards the busy Neubaugürtel, thinking that would be the best place to find a taxi. But halfway down the street, his guilt grabbed at him and he turned back. He waited outside the building where he’s just had his liaison with Carina. (If that was even her real name, which Stebbel doubted.)

  When she emerged from the building, she turned and headed off in the other direction. Stebbel called to her and when she stopped, trotted over. She gave him another warm smile.

  “What is it, mein Herr? Do you miss me already? I thought with what you just gave, you’d be too tired for a while. Do you wish to go back upstairs?”

  Stebbel smiled and touched her cheek gently. She didn’t resist and after a few moments even put her hand o
n his. “Shall we, my friend?”

  “No, it’s just that I … wanted to ask you something. If you don’t mind.” She shrugged to indicate she didn’t mind too much.

  “I just wanted to ask … haven’t you heard about this killer? Three women already – two of them in your line of work. The other seemed to be. This monster seems to be targeting lovely young girls who work the streets. Aren’t you scared? Why don’t you … stop for awhile? Until we … until this beast is caught”

  “Should I also stop eating for awhile? Stop paying the rent on my room. Stop helping my family? I try to be careful. All my friends out here are trying to be careful. But as my friend Luisa said, “We could be struck by lighting walking down those same streets. But nobody stops walking around because of that.”

  Stebbel wanted to argue with her, wanted to do everything he could to get her off the streets until the killer was caught. But he realized that would be pointless. So he tried another tack to get her off the streets.

  “How much would it cost to spend the whole night with you?”

  “The whole night? For you, I would give a special price: 100 kroners. We could sleep with our arms wrapped around each other.” She then flashed a coquettish smile. “And I promise you that I won’t let you sleep the whole night through. I’ll wake you several times, and I’m sure you will be very happy every time I wake you.”

  Stebbel was tempted, but he did not have anywhere near 200 kroners on him. Even if he had raced back home and pulled out his savings box from its hidden nook, he knew it would be considerably less than two hundred. He apologized and said he was just asking for some evening in the future. She understood and told him that he could always find her on one of these streets here.

  She then turned and headed back the way she was going when he had called out to her. He watched her as she walked slowly, seductively. And still looking so innocent, so vulnerable. For a moment, he even considered arresting her on some trumped-up charge and tossing her into the safety of a police cell for the night. But instead, he just watched her walk away until she disappeared into the next narrow lane over.