Free Phantoms of Breslau by Marek Krajewski Page A

gouged out.
    “Write this down,” Lasarius said, turning to him. Blood was slowly filling the cavity in the body. “Internal bleeding into the right lung cavity. Perforations on the lungs made by a sharp instrument …”
    The legs and arms of the corpse began to jerk. Lasarius’ assistant was sawing into the skull, causing the body to move. Mock swallowed and went outside. Mühlhaus and Smolorz were standing bare-headed in the morning sunshine, staring at the brick buildings of the university’s Department of Medicine and at the yellowing leaves on the old plane tree. Mock removed his bowler hat, loosened his buttoned collar and approached them.
    “An angler found the body under the Scheitniger sluice,” Mühlhaus said. He extracted a pipe from the pocket of his frock coat, an anachronistic garment that was the object of much teasing in the entire Police Praesidium.
    “Was a note about me, or to me, found on him?” asked Mock.
    “‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” Mühlhaus extended his hand, holding in a pair of tweezers an ordinary sheet of paper torn from a squared exercise book. He pressed his pince-nez to his nose, brought the note closer to his eyes and read: “‘Mock, admit your mistake, admit you have come to believe. If you do not want to see more gouged eyes, admit your mistake’.” He handed the page to Mock. “Did you know this man, Mock?”
    “Yes, he was a police informer, a man by the name of Ollenborg.” Mock slipped on a glove and scrutinized the scrap of paper. The writing was crooked and uneven, as if traced by somebody who was illiterate. “He was well acquainted with the people and the goings on in the port. I questioned him yesterday in connection with the Four Sailors case.”
    “The writing is different,” Smolorz said. “Different to yesterday’s.”
    “You’re right,” Mock looked at Smolorz with approval. “The piece of paper found on the four sailors was written in a neat hand by someone who went to school. The one on Ollenborg was written unevenly, messily and …”
    “Which could mean they were written by the victims themselves. One of the ‘sailors’ went to secondary school … Explain something to me, Mock” – Mühlhaus filled all his respiratory passages with tobacco so as to kill off the odour of the mortuary – “How is it you’re here? I was informed by Duty Officer Pragst and I forbade him to tell anyone else about it. Only the angler, Pragst and myself know of the murder. Most strange.” He pondered for a few moments. “Yesterday the bodies were found several hours after the murder. The same thing today. Perhaps those boys yesterday and now the angler were somehow directed by the murderer … We ought to question them more closely …”
    “Smolorz, show the Commissioner” – Mock made way for a hefty orderly who was pushing through another body on a squeaking trolley – “what I received today …”
    “A letter was found in the Police Praesidium letterbox,” Smolorz stuttered. “Somebody dropped it in last night. Addressed to Criminal Assistant Mock. This was in the envelope.” He held a page from a maths exercise book under Mühlhaus’ nose.
    “Don’t bother to read it to me,” Mühlhaus said, furiously sucking air into his pipe, which was going out. “I know what it says.”
    “The same words are on the piece of paper in the envelope as werefound on Ollenborg’s remains,” Mock said. “And there’s a short footnote: ‘Location of body – Scheitniger sluice’. He’s telling us where he’s leaving the corpses.”

BRESLAU, THAT SAME SEPTEMBER 2ND, 1919
TEN TO NINE IN THE MORNING
    The hot September sun broke into the Murder Commission’s briefing room at the Police Praesidium. The clatter of horses’ hooves, the grating of trams and the parping of automobiles rose up from the traffic on Schuhbrücke into the cloudless sky. Schoolchildren drifted along the narrow pavements, each with a