The Devil's Opera(127)
“Halt!” Gotthilf barked, as a pair of patrolmen just dropped a corpse to the ground next to the forming line, leaving the limbs splayed any which way. They looked up in surprise as he stormed over. “You will treat these men with respect.”
“They can’t feel anything,” one of the patrolmen protested.
Gotthilf reached up, grabbed the man’s collar, and yanked his head down to his level. “Maybe these men can’t, but they can.” He motioned to where a crowd of mostly weeping women were gathering outside the cordon. “You will give these men respect, for their own sakes and the sakes of their families, or I will give you cause to regret the day you were born. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sergeant!” the patrolman responded, echoed by his mate.
Gotthilf looked around at where the other patrolmen were watching what was going on. “Got that?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” “Yes, Sergeant.” “Yes, Sergeant.” The answers came from all around.
“Good. Now, get after it.”
* * *
Bill Reilly looked over at Byron. “Is he ready yet?”
Byron had a small smile on his face. “Almost.”
* * *
“What did you say?” Andreas Schardius couldn’t believe he’d heard what he thought he’d heard.
Johann Westvol flinched.
“I…I said that the steam crane at the construction site blew up, destroyed some supplies, and killed a bunch of the workmen.”
Schardius could feel rage swelling within him. His teeth were gritting together so strongly he was surprised they didn’t crumble. He surged to his feet and threw his chair across the room, to clatter against the wall and land on its back. He leaned forward, face dark, fists planted on his desk top.
“What happened?”
* * *
Georg Schmidt hurried back to his office, trying not to think of anything. He burst through the front door and hurried past Stephan’s desk and into his own office, slamming the door behind him.
He didn’t even take off his coat; just settled into his chair behind the desk and clasped his hands together tightly before him on the desktop.
* * *
After hearing the jumbled account from Westvol and Kühlewein, Schardius thought long and hard, waving the pair silent every time one of them tried to speak. At length, he stirred.
“This is disastrous. If we are going to have a chance of recovering from this, we’ve got to take steps.”
A long forefinger pointed at Kühlewein. “You contact the insurance underwriter who wrote our accident policy. Make certain they know about this, and put them on notice that a claim will be filed. Make it very clear to them that they will not be allowed to fold up and disappear on us.”
Now the finger pointed to Westvol. “You get in touch with our good friend Mayor Gericke, and tell him that if he wants his precious hospital project finished, he’d best find some ways to help us out of this hole. Tell him to get this Lieutenant Chieske on top of the matter, now, so we can sue someone!”
The finger dropped, but the eyes now bored into the two councilmen.
“I am convinced that someone is doing this to us. I can feel it, even if I can’t prove it…yet. So both of you will start asking questions of your fellow members of the Rat, and start thinking of anyone who might be responsible for this. I want names, and I want them now.”
The two councilmen hurried out of the room and Schardius rubbed his hand over his face.
Chieske again. He was really starting to dislike the man. First, right after he started with the Polizei, he shot Lubbold Vogler. Granted, Vogler was a fool and ordinarily would have been no great loss to Magdeburg in particular or the earth in general. His plan to teach children to pick pockets and become thieves had proven particularly idiotic. But the fool had also been Schardius’ only contact with certain families in Hannover who used to facilitate the…exchange…of certain previously-owned assets from time to time—a contact he had not been able so far to replace.
Then there was the Bünemann affair.
And then Frau Linder revealed that he was her brother-in-law.
Now he was involved with investigating one of the biggest disasters to ever occur to one of Schardius’ business ventures.
No, if it was all the same to God and the universe, he’d rather not have any more personal contact with the good lieutenant.
* * *
Georg Schmidt was still dazed.
He had never dreamed that what the two Italians had planned would be so deadly. He’d just thought the machine would be broken, maybe one or two men hurt or killed. He would never have allowed them to take it this far, if he had known what would happen.
And now the detectives were going to be looking for him. They didn’t know about him yet; he’d hidden his tracks well and there were only a few of them, so hopefully they never would find him.