In Matto's Realm: A Sergeant Studer Mystery Read Online Free Page A

brief
interval. When Studer set the desk chair back on its
legs they flew away.
    First of all he sat down, took out his oilclothbound notebook and wrote, in his tiny handwriting
that somehow recalled Greek letters: Caplaun,
Herbert: the Colonel's son, anxiety neurosis, Dr Laduners
patient.
    Then he sat back, a satisfied expression on his face,
and had a look at the devastation.
    Blood on the floor, that was true. But only a little, a
few separate drops that had dried to dark scabs on the
gleaming parquet. They went in a line from the broken
window-pane to the door. Perhaps someone had put
his fist through the glass and cut himself.
    The little table to the left of the window was presumably intended for the typewriter, while the desk - large,
wide, ornate - took up all the space in the corner to
the right of the window. Studer stood up, went over
and picked up the typewriter. Surely there was no need
to look for fingerprints here. For the moment they
didn't even know whether there had been a murder, or
whether the Director had just gone off on a little jaunt. If that were the case, you would have expected him to
inform the other doctors, but old men sometimes got
these fancies ...

    On the wall above the desk was a group photograph:
surrounded by young men and women in nurse's uniform was an old gentleman with a broad-brimmed,
black hat on his head, a rampant, curly grey beard on
his chin and cheeks, and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles on his nose. Written in white ink underneath the
photograph was: To the Director, with the respectful good
wishes of all the participants on the first course.
    Hmm, they looked like a class of overgrown model
schoolboys, all those young men in their black suits
and stiff, high collars with ties slightly askew. To the
Director... No date? Oh yes, there it was, in the bottom
corner: 18 April 1927.
    On the green blotting pad underneath the picture
was a letter folded in the middle. Studer read the first
few lines: We would most urgently remind you that it is
over two months since we requested a report on the mental
condition of...
    Hm! He certainly took things at his own pace did
Herr Direktor Borstli with his loden cape and broadbrimmed hat. Bet he wore a swallowtail coat ... Yes,
got it in one! There it was on the picture, a grey one as
far as he could tell, and the trousers were baggy at the
knees. An old man, a gentleman of the old school.
How had he got on with someone as businesslike as Dr
Laduner, though? He still didn't know that much
about Herr Direktor Ulrich Borstli, apart from the fact
that he liked pretty nurses and got them to call him
Ueli. And why ever not? He was answerable to no one,
a little king in - what had Dr Laduner called it? - yes,
that was it, in Matto's realm. He really ought to get to
know that Schul who had thought up the spirit of madness. Matto! Brilliant. Matto meant crazy in Italian.
Matto - it had a ring to it.

    Had he been married, the old director? Must have
been! Widowed? Probably ...
    There was nothing for him in the office. Why then
had Dr Laduner sent him here? The man did nothing
without reason. What was he afraid of? Studer felt
slightly inhibited. He liked Laduner, genuinely liked
him. Above all he could not forget that scene, the
scene in the Oberhollabrunn reformatory. And then
he had offered him bread and salt, too. Chabis! A load
of nonsense really, but then things usually were.
    Where could the Director be hiding? The best idea
would probably be to have a word with the porter.
Porters were usually chatty people, not to say downright gossipy. At least they always knew what was going
on.
    And so Studer, to the sound of a monotonous voice
trickling through the closed door to the neighbouring
room, the doctors' room, slipped out of the office like
a schoolboy trying to keep out of the teacher's way.
The teacher? In this case Dr Ernst Laduner, senior
consultant, deputy director.
    Dreyer, the