Free In Matto's Realm: A Sergeant Studer Mystery by Friedrich Glauser

through the glass
door in the central block. Jutzeler stopped the Director and started going on at him. He was obviously
furious. Then they both went into the office. I saw
them. Half an hour later he came out by himself and
went up to his apartment. When he came down he'd
put his loden cape on and he had a leather briefcase
under his arm. I asked him what he was doing with the
briefcase, but he waved my question away. `We're
going tomorrow morning,' he said. `Go back to your
room.' He accompanied me to 0 Ward and then went
back."
    "At half past one?"
    "Yes, it was around half past one. This morning he
was going to go to Thun with me. I waited for him at
the station for a long time."
    "And you didn't hear anything after he left you,
Nurse Wasem?"
    "No. That is, I did wonder, at around a quarter to
three or so, if someone had cried out for help. But we
have so many people crying out round here. . ."
    "You sleep by yourself ... ahem, er ... I mean, do
you have a room to yourself?"
    "No, there's another nurse who shares the room
with me."
    "And no one checks up on what time the nurses get
back?"
    "The others, yes, but me ... no!"

    Studer sighed. If you were the Director's sweetheart
even the Matron, or whatever title the old trout had,
would turn a blind eye to anything you did.
    In the corner between wards P and T ... A cry for
help ... Perhaps Matto, as Schiil called the spirit of
madness, had been plaguing one of his subjects with a
horrible nightmare.
    Studer stood in the middle of one of the paths and
looked round. An uneasy feeling crawled up his spine.
He was surrounded on three sides by the red-brick
walls of the clinic, and the fourth side was closed off,
too. That was where the kitchen was. He felt as if the
many windows, glittering with a multiplicity of tiny
panes, were insect eyes observing him. He had nothing
to hide, nothing at all. He was carrying out an investigation, it was his right to be with a lassie who might
have some information. But he felt uncomfortable all
the same. The windows were squinting at him, giving
him questioning looks. What was the man doing?
What's he going to do now? It would be better if he got
away from here and had a look at the corner from
where the cry for help had come the previous night;
the cry that had sounded like the squawk of a hungry
young crow.

     

The late Herr Direktor Ulrich Borstli
    Dr Laduner was playing tennis. The courts were beside
the railway line, on the other side of the village of
Randlingen.
    "Game," cried Dr Laduner. He sounded as if he was
in good spirits.
    He was playing with a woman. As Studer got closer
he saw that it was the assistant doctor who had not said
a word during the rounds. Without her doctor's coat
she looked slim, agile, only her legs were too skinny ...
    "Herr Doktor," Studer called out, sticking his nose
through the the wire-mesh fence.
    "Hey, it's you, Studer. What's new?"
    Dr Laduner came over, balancing his racket on the
ball of his hand. The "doctor-on-his-rounds" smile was
on his lips, the half-mask again.
    "I've found the Director," said Studer in a low voice.
    "Dead?"
    Studer nodded.
    "Have you told anyone yet?"
    Studer shook his head.
    "My dear girl," Laduner said to the woman, who was
standing at the net, staring at the ground, "I have to go
back to the clinic ... Listen, I told my wife I'd get some
sausages, but I haven't time for that now, would you be
so kind ... ?
    The woman nodded earnestly, ignoring Studer
entirely. He calls her "my dear girl," he thought to
himself, and remembers the sausages he's supposed to be getting, while in the boiler room, at the foot of the
iron ladder leading to the furnace door, the Director's
lying on the floor with a broken neck ... But perhaps
the errand's just an excuse to get rid of the lady ... ?

    "Excellent. Bye then ... Take my racket too, will
you."
    A white shirt, white linen trousers, white shoes. Just
his face was brown, and a