"What will be my identity?" I asked Holmes while assembling my baggage, in which I had only thought to pack normal clothes.
"You needn't worry, Watson, because you will be entirely yourself—a doctor among doctors is instrumental to my plans. I will be parts of myself, as well, but we will not see much of each other for the next few days."
Inactivity doesn't suit me. I felt a great weight lifting when Holmes and I shouldered our bags and walked out to catch the early-morning train to the German metropolis. We traveled second-class, and after Holmes satisfied himself that none of our neighbors had any English, we talked freely though in low voices.
"Your schedule has already been set by telegram, my friend," the detective said, "and I'm afraid you're going to be very busy talking to your medical confreres."
"I do hope we can understand each other. What are we to talk about?" I inquired.
"Perhaps we should discuss what I have learned in Bremen," he saw my hopeful expression, "which is the most frustrating species of nothing."
"Nothing? You were certainly busy."
"Sometimes nothing is the most instructive result of all," Holmes said as if unconvinced. "Certainly when it comes to spending five days trying to gain entry to Bremen's venues for men like us."
I coughed, thinking of Father Emil and his family unknowingly watching their guest come and go to these specialized establishments. "That's where you were every night?"
Holmes gave a withering glance. "I could have given a cursory look into ten such establishments and been done with it in two days."
"What took so long then?"
"It takes much longer to establish that something isn't than that it is." He made a frustrated sigh. "There are no places. Or else they are so hidden behind personal introductions and countersigns that they are not revealed to outsiders. Think, Watson, when you were trailing me and Bruno at the beginning of our relation. You found out which places likely catered to our sort of people, only you couldn't get in if you tried. This is a blankness."
"Well, perhaps there aren't any German Treachers in Bremen. It's not the premier city. Is that why we're going to Berlin?" I asked.
"Perhaps Watson. Yes, that is one way of looking at it." Holmes dug in his bag. "I used my considerable powers to comb every inch of the city but found no trace of these men or their amusements. What I did find was this." He opened his notebook to reveal a dirty, torn-off piece of a sign that looked as though it had been papered over and then unstuck.
"What I needed, Watson, was data about the Bremen Bruno had encountered when he was in Bremen, which we heard was several occasions in the last three years. No one from the Utrimque could say anything useful, and we don't speak the language. In my frustration, I began looking deeper, as it were, to the sort of advertisements Bruno would have seen when he was here. As in London, these are papered many layers deep, so they are an excellent archeological record of city life. It was tricky work cutting into many strata and then examining them as you saw me do. This particular sample could have been from over a year ago, maybe two, depending on the damp."
I was relieved that Holmes had been working to a purpose since we came to Germany. All my attention focused on the remnant that must be more than a piece of trash. The lettering was faded away in places, but the translation was written on the facing page:
"Vorbeugen ist besser als heilen—An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
"It's merely a folk saying, of which we have many in England," I said, handing back the notebook.
Holmes pushed the book back in my lap. "Yes, we have many expressions; every culture does. Father Emil could instantly fill in the holes in these sayings because they are so familiar. He claims that civic-mindedness is a very German trait, and sometimes these sort of posters will appear when someone doesn't take care of their own rubbish or neglects the façade of a house." He turned the page. "Keep reading."
I kept flipping the pages of these decayed signs with their accompanying translation.
"Schälke muss man mit Schälken fangen—Set a thief to catch a thief."
"Wie du dein Bett macht, so magst Du darauf schlafen—As you make your bed, so you must lie."
"Wo Rauch ist, da ist auch Feuer—Where there is smoke, there is fire."
"Vorbeugen ist besser als heilen—It is better to prevent than to cure."
"Natur geht vor Lehre: Nature is beyond all teaching.
"Man kann die Natur nicht ändern. One cannot change nature."
"I should prefer not to meet some of these signs when I walk out of the house, but they are merely aphorisms, not even personal threats!" I exclaimed.
"You may be right, Watson, but the last three were of especial interest to me. Particularly when I was making my inspection of the city's tavern toilets."
My eyebrow inched up.
"They are time-honored places for exchanging the sort of information men would otherwise never speak aloud. Here, too, I looked for what might be underneath the current layer of penciled admonitions of women's company to seek or avoid. None-too-honest schemes that might need helpers. A contact offering exotic intoxicants. You know the sort. In one tavern the most recent layer of paint was peeling up, and when I helped it along its way I found parts of the aphorism 'Vorbeugen ist besser als heilen' and one name: Doctor Zollmer."
I was beginning to tire of these slender clues and fear for my friend's stability once more. "He must be a doctor who claims to cure men of social diseases, Holmes. This can't help us find Bruno."
"I have found other 'Z's' scrawled around town," the detective said. "And that is why we are going to Berlin." He sat back in his seat.
"But this means nothing! He could be an ordinary surgeon."
Holmes wheeled around with all of his usual vigor. "If that is the case, my friend, why would no one know anything about such a doctor? Father Emil hasn't heard of him, nor his family, nor anyone I asked around town, nor did a telegram to Berlin or any other major city reveal anything. But there were a few more blurred remnants from older specimens almost illegible that might have said Zollmer, or in some cases a rough Z shape. You can see it on the back of two of the better preserved aphorisms in my collection." He lifted up two of the folk sayings to reveal a scrawled Z.
"I've been scratching up the plaster at some peril to myself, because in one of my disguises I found someone who spoke Italian. One of the very men who settles his watch chain-adorned paunch in the private lounge at the Utrimque bakery, in fact. I then asked the owner, who very kindly helped facilitate a meeting within this inner realm that is as close to the heart of Bremen as a foreigner is likely to get.
"I told this man that an English client had engaged my detective services to find a relation, a Spaniard, who had last been seen in these parts. All I had to go on was the last entry in his diary, four months previous: "Dr. Z." Alleging my relative had health difficulties, I suggested he had gone to visit this doctor to cure him of a longstanding nervous condition.
"'If that's the case, then your friend will surely be difficult to find,' the man said with his face flushed by drink. Then he seemed to catch himself. 'A Spaniard doesn't stay long in our climes. Their temperament finds Germany disagreeable in short order.'"
My companion held up his hand. "Yes, it was the slightest pause, not enough to go on. But the very next day, someone inquired about a Sherlock Holmes with the local telegraph clerk, whom I've bribed rather handsomely to keep track of this sort of interest."
"Was this an official inquiry?" I asked somewhat nervously, remembering how we had been watched during the case of the princess' ear.
"I think not, but it doesn't matter, Watson. I am a detective of some renown, and thus my movements have been merely watched rather than curtailed by any sort of questioning."
"Do you think they are following us to Berlin?" I looked around.
"No. The inquiry with the telegraph office was meant to lay one finger on me to say, perhaps you will receive more resistance if you continue to look around in Bremen. My leaving for Berlin suits the Bremen authorities very well, and makes me seem to have good manners in a foreign land. Berlin has much bigger fish to fry than two eccentric Englishmen. And it was always the next step, for Bruno could hardly have traversed Germany without going there."
The fact that someone cared enough to react to Holmes' questioning made me feel there was something to it after all. Eager to help, I read over the programme of interviews with doctors that Holmes had contacted for me. I was to express in the vaguest terms my fears for the health of one of my occasional London patients, introducing the name of Dr. Zollmer as a recommendation from some colleague whom I could not recall.
Pleased that I would be able to take a more active role, I alighted from the early morning train and settled us into a centrally located hotel not far from the streets where the best doctors had their practices. Then I set about meeting Berlin's prominent medical men who spoke either English or French.
It felt rather strange to be investigating members of my guild, so to speak. Most of the men were specialists in nervous conditions, and it was easy to explain a version of the tormented Bruno and express my concern about his having run off.
"He's not a danger, you understand, except perhaps to himself. His condition was deteriorating, but he would have moments of clarity. It must have been in one these moments that he latched on to this doctor he'd heard about, and convinced that this would be his savior, he ran off with only this note in the last sheet of his diary," I told them with the fabrication that came so easily when I was speaking professionally.
"I wish I could be of help, but there is no such doctor practicing medicine in Berlin, or any of the other major cities, that I have heard," the answer would invariably be. With a few more commonplaces and a thank you, the interviews ended there. These were German doctors who had practiced in the city for a number of years, so I was getting more and more discouraged about this slim lead we were following.
The fifth and last meeting for that day followed the same lines, except this doctor, a Frenchman, happened to have spent some time working at the Nantes sanatorium before Holmes's stay. It must have been this shared subject that prolonged my stay in excess of mere politeness. Because this man, a Doctor Dupont, was much more helpful.
"If you like, Doctor Watson, I can facilitate your entry to any of the sanatoriums in Berlin, should you wish to check for your patient. Sometimes people are interned whilst they are too ill to identify themselves. And some use false names, as I'm sure you know."
Holmes' first errand in Bremen, and again in Berlin, had been to inquire at hospitals, nervous or otherwise, looking for Bruno, so late that afternoon when we met up in late afternoon and I told him my intent to take up these invitations, he stopped me.
"My labor was wasted at Berlin's clinics, Watson. It was prudent to look, but Bruno is not ill. If he were he could still find a way to get word to me."
The idea that his lover had chosen not to put out a message hung in the air. He got up to pace. "Tomorrow I will better spend my energies."
"I'm going to go anyway," I told him. "If the story I told all day today were true, that's exactly what I would do. It makes sense to do what these doctors would expect." I paused. "If Bruno is in very rough shape, they may not know who he is, or where he's from. We don't know how forthcoming the hospital personnel would be to an outsider."
"Quite right," Holmes said absently. I telephoned two sanatoriums from Dupont's list and arranged visits for the next day.
When I returned from the call, my friend had gone out on one off his unnamed errands and had not returned the next morning when I left.
The first facility was clean and orderly and much like how I imagined Holmes's stay in Nantes, which Dr. Dupont had described as being on the cutting edge of mental science. I saw a few of the more modern techniques like hypnosis, and there were music rooms and painting studios, and a lovely garden. I went through the motions looking for my supposed patient and then made all the expected remarks about the workings of the hospital.
It was mere chance that had the doctor leading me around was called away to deal with a patient in a fit. While I stood watching the patients paint, one of them asked me in the French I had been employing with my host, "What is your name?"
On impulse I said, "Dr. Zollmer."
I might as well have said I was the devil himself to one of the other men painting. He flung down his brush and sat shaking and making little shrieks of anguish. So much the better that the instructor didn't seem to identify me as the cause of the upset, and simply sprang into action after ringing a bell that brought two more attendants.
I stood back and was soon reclaimed by the doctor. "I thought these were all the calmer patients," I asked.
"Neurasthenia, hysteria and melancholy, things of that order. Not dangerous, but certainly sensitive to suggestion. I've taken a particular interest in that man, a very withdrawn person who suffered a complete nervous collapse over a year ago. Would you like to observe while I question him?"
I stayed long enough to see that this man's mind was in utter disarray. The whole time I was kicking myself for not being more careful among vulnerable patients.
Finally, I was able to excuse myself. It was too late to cancel my next appointment, so I tried the same experiment again in two pavilions. Except there I was careful not to say that I was the doctor in question.
Using my French, I began telling the inmates the truth, of a fashion. "A patient of mine has gone missing. The only clue I have is the name Dr. Z from his diary."
"You should be very worried, monsieur le docteur," a pale man said. And he withdrew me to a more secluded section of the garden to tell me why.
"He couldn't have gotten to Bruno, Holmes," I tried to reassure my friend that evening. "Apparently Doctor Zollmer died six months ago. I saw Bruno three months ago, and he couldn't have suffered anything like this patient described.
I had told Holmes about a sort of internment camp the good doctor had been running for sexual deviants. Unlike other such establishments, he did not propose to cure them, however. Doctor Zollmer wished to find any physical traits that would signal an underlying quality that produced men and women who liked their own kind. The man was collecting information so that he might someday determine which families might be passing on this dominant trait that was corrupting the gene pool, and help breed it out of existence.
Of course, Zollmer's methods were vile and inhumane, and his ideas without foundation. All that he succeeded in doing was traumatizing his subjects into wrecks or killing them outright. What was most chilling about this case was that public knowledge had heard about at least some of what went on in this lodge set out in the German countryside not far from Bremen.
The patient who told me all this had not been one of the unfortunates rounded up by Zollmer, but his lover had been. The man I spoke to had been very discreet about his leanings, and thus able to get somewhere when he first started questioning what the specialty of this well-known but obscure Doctor Zollmer might be, and how someone might become his patient.
"I told people I had a suspicion about a neighbor. You know the sort of thing, Doctor, a vague allegation and people know what type of suspicion you mean," the man said, his eyes lingering on me. "In not so many words, I was told that the 'problem' was probably already being dealt with by a specialist who was soon to stamp 'these people' off the face off the earth."
The patient's face clouded.
"You said the doctor has died, so his lodge is not operating anymore," I said soothingly.
"Yes, the 'good doctor' died recently. Died in disgrace, in fact." The man perked up.
"I'm not sure how he was discovered, but the doctor was unmasked as a great deviant himself. Zollmer claimed that he had been infected by the creatures he was trying to prevent from coming into existence. But his exacting nature had led him to document—all manner of unwholesome 'experiments' among his patients, which were found to be forced sexual encounters of the most varied nature. There were numerous sketches and photographs of his own participation as well, with a fervor that would be difficult to coerce."
The man had given a worn smile. "My Ernst chose not to live very long after the doctor's experiments were closed down. I think what has done it for me is the silence. No one has claimed these victims as their own. No one will discuss what happened at that lodge. This is my third asylum. Not even here," the man gestured to the tranquil gardens at one of Berlin's best facilities. "No one will talk about a doctor gone wrong, whether out of professional loyalty or by government pressure, I can't be sure. Yet somehow the silence here is more bearable than out there."
"I appreciate your talking to me," I said, suddenly aware of what a risk the patient had taken. "My patient is also a friend, and he has a great sense of injustice. It could be that he was making his own investigation into the Zollmer case. In any event, please know that your information is safe with me."
"I know it is, doctor," the man said.
And for a moment we exchanged some communion between strangers whom life had decided to treat the same.
"This is excellent work, Doctor Watson," Holmes said as we mulled over the day's events in our hotel over a good cigar. His voice was distant, however. "I believe you are quite right in what you said to the helpful patient. Bruno is aroused to fight against any and all injustice."
He jumped to his feet and began walking up and down while beating against the side of his skull with one fist. "It's all in here, Watson, how could I have ever tried so hard to ignore the very information that could help me protect Bruno? If you weren't such an inferior hypnotist we would have located him by now! Perhaps I should check myself into one of these German sanatoriums and do just that!"
I let him vent his frustration at me for a few more minutes before I offered him a pencil and paper.
"Why don't we give it another try? Perhaps we'll have better luck this time."
Sherlock Holmes sat down and scratched out a list of things I should ask of his subconscious. He handed it to me and laid back against the arm of the couch, as stiff as could be.
"Maybe we should ask a few questions about someone other than this doctor," I said gently. "These questions are all about Bruno saving people from the likes of Dr. Zollmer. Bruno was much more concerned about you than himself when I saw him last, so this deceased mountebank can't have been the most salient thing on his mind."
The detective sat up. "Why do you say this? Tell me everything he said again."
This I did, as I had done several times before.
"Bruno didn't say anything about me being in danger. Why did you mention he was concerned about me?" the detective asked.
"I don't know. It was more of a feeling," I answered, suddenly very tired. Too tired to resist when Holmes arranged me on the couch in preparation for hypnosis.
"Holmes, I've never done this. What do you hope to find?" The last thing I wanted was for my most private yearnings to be exposed to Sherlockian categorization.
"Your instincts were right about visiting the sanatorium, doctor, in visiting several and being honest about the nature of your visit. You have a clearer mind than I at the moment, since I have been walking aimlessly about the city feeling Bruno just out of reach."
"I'm sure your efforts will bear fruit soon," I said comfortingly.
"And you were the last person to see Bruno. I should have thought of this earlier, Watson. You are sure to pick up the technique easier than I, who am far less suggestible."
I said nothing about the detective's amorous disclosures on each previous attempt, and resigned myself to my own dip into murky waters.
Holmes told me later that I had succumbed very quickly to hypnotic suggestion. He took me through the entire evening with Bruno.
"You were most insistent on several points, Doctor," Holmes reported when I was conscious again. "Number one, when Bruno took his rosary out of the case, that he took out one of his picture stamps of holy figures. I've seen him with many such engravings of the Virgin or several saints, so when you said in earlier reports that he kept it out of the case, rather than returning it, while he prayed, that seemed perfectly natural."
"I've seen him keep a holy card in view on most of the occasions when we've attended the rosary together," I said. "He always had many on his person because he said he brought these blessed cards back from Italy to leave them with the Utrimque." I didn't think anything of this practice. But under hypnosis, Holmes had thought to ask which saint was on the card I saw that night.
"It was the one with the keys. St. Peter, you said, Watson. San Pietro. Your antennae were right again," he said shyly. "My man was praying for me. You said he kept the card tightly clasped between his fingers while he prayed. I wish he had told me specifically why he was concerned. There are so many possibilities."
Letting Sherlock Holmes rifle through my mind had me feeling a bit dizzy. I poured a fresh drink and then asked, "What do you mean, 'specifically'? You were aware of some threat?"
"Come now, Watson, every country in Europe boasts several people who would prefer me dead, or at least inactive. London has an especially high concentration. It's why my Bruno changed his mind about Mr. Treacher."
This revived me. "I had thought that one thing Bruno and I had in common was an aversion to the famous Treacher."
"Watson, you may dislike him, but the man has an incredible reach, far beyond England. He maintains the type of network Bruno is building for the Vatican. It's a profane comparison, but it's true. Both worlds are insular, yes, but they are actually beneficial for insiders. One needn't even offer anything to enjoy the protection of such a society. Bruno discovered that Mr. Treacher had been easing his way across Europe, and my man had left no doubt about his mistrust of the little businessman."
"'Easing his way'? Exactly what does that entail?" I asked.
"As I told you before, Bruno has to keep up certain appearances as he travels with the other Vatican operatives. He discovered that his compulsory appearances in Europe's pleasure centers had been predicted by Mr. Treacher. A man answering to Bruno's description was to be treated as someone under Mr. Treacher's especial protection, no matter what this man did or did not do in these establishments. Up to, and including, offering the sacrament of confession without church authority."
"He knows about that?" I gasped, not wanting to think of Bruno being blackmailed.
"He predicted it, Watson. The entire scenario was projected and defused before it even crossed my mind, or Bruno's. Treacher wouldn't be where he is without an excellent grasp of human nature. Certain people enjoy his unasked-for respect, you and Bruno among them. I number among the select as well, because when Bruno confronted Treacher about the eventual cost of such protection, my man said Treacher was very obviously hurt.
"'I've steered a few threats from Mr. Holmes' door, and sent many useful tidbits his way,' Treacher told him. 'And I'll continue to do so, no matter what understanding you and I come to. Everyone needs someone to admire, even someone like me. You, sir, I see your clear heart, your sense of right and wrong, even if mine is a bit more changeable.'"
Unconsciously, the detective had been imitating the oily little man's intonations and mannerisms, and he delivered the last word with a movement of his hand that perfectly evoked the species of gangster at the center of London's men's community. The mixture of discretion and vice sat so oddly upon Holmes that I burst out laughing.
"Thus it does not surprise me, Watson, that there are any number of nefarious plots against me. I believe Bruno and Treacher correspond about my welfare." He laughed as well. "Which is why tomorrow I will send a telegram to our illustrious friend in London, and ask him if he knows of a particular threat Bruno may have been concerned about."
I rose with a yawn. "I'm glad we've made some progress today, but I need to sleep on it all." I moved towards my room of the suite.
"Agreed." Holmes stubbed out his cigarette. "What do you plan on doing tomorrow, Doctor?"
"I think I'll know tomorrow," I said sleepily. I barely had the wherewithal to undress for bed. Then I slept very deeply, though I was sure I dreamt and forgot several dreams that yet left be better off for having had them.
