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

to be seen.
    Down the steps into the courtyard they went, the two
unequal companions: the sergeant in his off-the-peg
suit beside Dr Laduner, white, clean, with a spring in
his step and still determinedly brisk, as if to say, "Come
on, come on, I've no time to spare, I've got things to
do. Even if the Director's been killed ten times over,
what's it to do with me?"
    But perhaps he was mistaken in imputing such
thoughts to the psychiatrist?
    They passed the casino on their left and crossed over
to the corner between P and T wards. The sun was
still high in the sky, reflecting off the windows, which
dazzled like tiny spotlights.
    Studer hunched forward a little and squinted up
at the window above his guest room from which, according to the war invalid Schiil, Matto darted out
and in, out and in. A superstitious belief, definitely.
That morning Studer would have laughed if anyone
had told him he would come to fear Matto. But now,
after what he had found in the boiler room? It put an
entirely different complexion on the situation.

    They went through the door to the basement.
A corridor, long and echoing, with a vaulted roof, a
cement floor ... A door painted with grubby yellow
gloss paint ...
    "Give me your passkey, Studer," Dr Laduner commanded. He put the key in the lock, turned the
handle, pulled the door open and went in. His movements, his steps, were as swift and precise as they had
been that morning. He went down the iron ladder. On
the fifth rung from the bottom, he stopped. The feet
of the corpse were in his way. Resting his right hand on
a rung at shoulder height, Laduner balanced on the
balls of his feet, jumped off and landed with a perfect
knee-bend. Then he straightened up, tall, broad
shouldered and white in the grey dust. Studer stood at
the top, following the slim man's every movement. He
could see the dead body, too, and the thought that
came to him was that in a report he would never be
able to convey the impression the dead Director made.
    The old man was lying on his back because he had
fallen down backwards, and his legs were stuck up
against the iron ladder. His trousers had slipped back
to the middle of his calves ... grey woollen socks, linen
long johns, the white tapes at the bottom holding his
socks up ...
    Not a man for elegant suspenders, old Director
Borstli, despite his penchant for young nurses. His face
was covered with a dusting of yellow ash and his eyes
had rolled up under his half-open lids.

    Dr Laduner was standing over the body, arms
akimbo, his hands on his grey leather belt. Then he
bent down, put out one hand and gently lifted one of
the Director's lids.
    "Sure-ly," he said softly. "He's dead. Do you want to
photograph him?"
    He spoke with a pronounced hiss, presumably
because he was having difficulty getting the words out
through his clenched teeth.
    "No," Studer replied, "I don't think that will be
necessary. If. . ." he paused, "if someone really did. . ."
    " ... knock the Director down," Laduner finished
for him, "then it happened up there, where you're
standing. In that case it's really unnecessary to record
the position of the corpse."
    That consciously matter-of-fact tone! Studer
couldn't help shaking his head slightly. After all, Dr
Laduner had worked together with the old Director
for years, which made his "record the position of the
corpse" sound a little odd. There was something about
Dr Ernst Laduner MD that irritated the sergeant -
though he wouldn't have found it easy if he'd been
asked to explain what it was. He both repelled and
attracted him. He repelled him in the way masked
faces sometimes repel us. But that wasn't the only
thing about it: there was also the desire to see the real
face hiding beneath the mask. The mask: Laduner's
smile. How could he see behind the mask? Above all it
called for time, it called for patience. Well, patience
was one thing Sergeant Studer had plenty of, he'd had
to learn the