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

outside, so
was left open all night.
    " Schiil," Studer asked, "what time was it you heard
the cry?"
    "Half past one," Schiil said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"The clock in the tower struck immediately afterwards.
Here's the poem."
    It wasn't a poem in the usual sense, rather a passage of rhythmical prose, written out in Schul's neat
handwriting.

    Sometimes, when the Fohn spins the mist into soft threads, he
sits by my bedside, whispering and telling me things. Long are
the green, glassy nails on his fingers, and they shimmer as he
waves his hands in the air ... Sometimes he sits on the top of
the clock tower, casting threads, coloured threads, far and
wide over the villages and towns, and over the houses that
stand alone on a hillside ... His power and glory stretch far
and wide, and no one can escape him. He waves and throws
his coloured streamers and War sails up like a blue eagle; he
flings a red ball and Revolution flares up to the heavens and
explodes. But I committed the murder in Doves' Gorge, at least
that's what the police say, I know nothing about it. My blood
was spilt on the battlefields of the Argonne, but now I am
locked away and ifI did not have my friend, Matto the Great,
who rules the world, I would be alone and might perish. But
he is good to me and he digs his nails of glass into the brains
of those who torment me, and when they groan in their sleep,
he laughs ...
    "What's all this about the murder in Doves' Gorge,
Schiil?" Studer asked, that being the one sentence that
fell into his own area of expertise. The rest sounded
quite good, especially the bit about Matto being
responsible for the war breaking out, but he also felt it
was rather overblown.
    It was Gilgen, the nurse with the rolled-up sleeves,
who answered. It was just an idea SchfAl had, he said.
Old SchfAl never hurt a fly. Then he asked Studer if he
would like to go with him to the day room, it was eleven
o'clock and he had to relieve a colleague, lunch was at
half past, did the sergeant fancy watching a few rubbers of jass, or even joining in?

    Studer shook Schul's scar-covered hand and
thanked him for the lovely poem; the patient promised
him a copy for the following afternoon. Then Studer
followed his guide.
    As they were going out of the door, Schul called after
them in his hoarse voice, "Matto looks after his own,
you'll see. He freed Pieterlen. And he came for the
Director. . ."
    So what, Studer thought. The only thing he found
slightly disturbing was Schiil's claim that Matto had set
up his headquarters in the very attic that lay above the
guest room.
    The wide corridor ended in a glass door, which led
into the day room, in which everything was painted a
dark orange: the tables, the chairs, the benches with
the high backs on which were fixed wire-mesh holders
with pot plants - asparagus fern - interspersed with
vases of dahlias. Although two windows were open -
they looked out onto D1 - the room was filled with
thick smoke. As Studer looked round, he thought
about the nurse accompanying him, Gilgen, the first
person he had met in the clinic to whom he had felt
unreservedly attracted.
    He couldn't have given a reason. The front half of
Gilgen's head was a bald, shiny sphere, the red hair
behind it was cut short and gleamed like copper that
had just been polished with Brasso. His neck was
brown and his face covered in freckles. It was a friendly
face, despite the lines at the corners of the eyes and
across his forehead, presumably caused by worry. He
was short, only coming up to the sergeant's shoulder,
but there was a warmth about him which the patients
in the day room also seemed to feel, greeting
his arrival with "Ah, Gilgen" or "Griiess di, Gilgen". The skin of his bare forearms was covered in freckles
too...

    "We're going to have a few rounds of jass," said
Gilgen, "and I've got a visitor here who has business in
the clinic and who'd like to join in. Who's