A Quiet Flame

“No? You should be. If this July election doesn’t prove conclusive one way or the other, there might be another putsch. And you and I could find ourselves floating in the Landwehr Canal, just like poor Rosa Luxemburg. Be careful, my young friend. Be careful.”

“It won’t come to that,” I said. “The army won’t stand for it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t share your touching faith in our armed forces. I think they’re just as likely to fall in behind the Nazis as they are to stand up for the republic.” He shook his head and grinned. “No, if the republic is to be saved, I’m afraid there’s just one thing for it. You’ll just have to solve this murder before July 31.”

“Fair enough, Doc. So what have you got?”

“Death was from asphyxia, caused by chloroform. Anita Schwarz swallowed her tongue. I found traces of chloroform in her hair and in her mouth. It’s a common enough death in hospitals. Heavy-handed anesthesiologists have killed many a patient in this way.”

“That’s a comforting thought. Any sign that she was interfered with sexually?”

“Impossible to tell, given her lack of plumbing. That could be why he did it, of course. To conceal evidence of intercourse. He knew what he was about, too. A very sharp curette was used calmly and confidently. This was no frenzied attack, Bernie. The killer took his time. Perhaps that’s why he used the chloroform. In which case, her fear was not a factor in his motivation. She was probably unconscious and almost certainly dead when he butchered her. You remember the Haarmann case, of course. Well, this is something very different.”

“Someone with medical experience, perhaps,” I said, thinking aloud. “In which case, the proximity of the state hospital might be relevant.”

“Very likely it is,” said Illmann. “But not for the reason we’ve just been discussing. No, I’d say it’s the pill you found near the body that makes it relevant.”

“Oh? How? What is it?”

“It’s nothing I’ve seen before. In chemical terms, it’s a sulfone group connected to an amine group. But the synthesis is new. I don’t even know what to call it, Bernie. Sulfanamine? I don’t know. It certainly doesn’t exist in the current pharmacopoeia. Not here. Not anywhere. Which means it’s new and experimental.”

“Have you any idea what it might be for?”

“The active sulfa molecule was first synthesized in 1906 and has been widely used in the dye-making industry.”

“Dye-making?”

“My guess is that there’s a smaller active compound that’s contained inside the dye-making molecule. About fifteen years ago the Pasteur Institute in Paris was using the sulfa molecule as the basis for some kind of antibacterial agent. Sadly, the work came to nothing. However, this pill would seem to indicate that someone, possibly here in Berlin, has successfully synthesized a sulfa-based drug.”

“Yes, but what could you use it for?”

“You could use it against any kind of bacterial infection. Any streptococci. However, you would have to test the drug on some volunteers before publishing any results. Especially given the Pasteur’s previous failures using dye-based drugs.”

“An experimental drug being tested at the state hospital, perhaps?”

“Could be.” Illmann finished his cigarette, stubbing it out in a little porcelain ashtray made for the Police Exhibition of 1926. He seemed about to say something and then checked himself.

“No, go on,” I said.

“I was only trying to think what might make Berlin interesting to someone conducting a drug trial.” He shook his head. “Because there are no drug companies based here in Berlin. And it’s not like we suffer from anything more than anywhere else in Germany.”

“Ah, well now, that’s where you’re wrong, Doc,” I said. “You want to read your police gazette, instead of worrying about the shit that’s in Der Angriff. There are more than one hundred thousand prostitutes working in Berlin today. More than anywhere else in Europe. And that’s just the straight ones. God knows how many warm boys there are in this city. My sergeant, Heinrich Grund, is always going on about it.”

“Of course,” said Illmann. “Venereal disease.”

“Since the war the figures have gone through the roof,” I said. “Not that I’d know, never having had a dose of jelly myself. But the current treatment is neosalvarsan, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. It contains organic arsenic, which makes its use somewhat hazardous. Even so, in its time it was such an important discovery and efficacious remedy—no proper remedy had existed before—that neosalvarsan was called ‘the magic bullet.’ That was a German discovery, too. Paul Ehrlich won the Nobel Prize for it in 1908. An exceptionally gifted man.”

“Could he—?”