Bentink poked a finger at one of the faces, pushing Pettigrew, the grocer’s son, out of line. “Hard to judge at this age, of course, before the features are sufficiently developed but-speaking purely as a participant in a parlour game-I’d keep an eye on this little thug, Sandilands! A client in the making, if ever I saw one.
“Number three-a tragedy-is a mongoloid type,” he rattled on, enjoying himself. “They don’t have much of a hold on life, you know. A goner by now? This snap wasn’t taken yesterday.
“Number five is ill. Possibly tubercular? I’d have him seen to.
“Number eight-troubled face. Haunted. He’s not seeing what we see. Has he-what’s your phrase? — got form, commissioner?”
“Arsonist,” Joe said, and the response seemed to please the professor.
“Quite a rogues’ gallery. Wouldn’t breed from any of ’em-apart from number seven, who looks perfectly normal.”
“Lucky you’re taking this as a game,” Joe said with asperity, “or I’d have to think that, in your eyes, the last-century views of Cesare Lambroso still held good. The bony forehead, the large jaw, the prominent eye ridges: sure signs of a born-in-the-bone criminality.” He allowed his gaze for the briefest moment to skate across Bentink’s uncompromising features.
The professor almost smiled. “I think Charles Goring refuted all that,” he replied easily. “But you would know more than I on that subject. Never forget, Sandilands, you and I both have this in common with Socrates: We’re neither of us oil paintings. Could both scare the horses if the light was right. But you, I’d judge, were at least born attractive. Fate clearly took a scalpel to those handsome features, but by then you’d learned that appearance is related to self-worth and behaviour. Handsome is as handsome does. I often note that.”
“In fairy tales, perhaps,” Joe mused. “Not necessarily in the street or the laboratory.”
“Certainly not in Parliament. And that’s a pity. We must be forwards-looking, Sandilands, if we’re to maintain our position in the world. To be the best, we must breed the best.”
He cut himself short, sat back, and fixed Joe with a suddenly weary look. He waved a hand over the photographs. “Interesting, but-in answer to your question-I haven’t bumped off any of these boys.”
“I don’t believe I asked that question.”
“Oh, come on! Met Officers don’t carry around photographs of boys who are alive and well and toasting crumpets for tea this Saturday afternoon. They’re missing, presumed dead, and you’re investigating. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”
He slid the pictures roughly into a pile like cards with Spielman on top. “This boy. The most recent? Epileptic? Sad. Had the child been brought to us here, we would have been able to treat him, I’m sure. But-‘lost,’ you say? An ‘unknown’ hospital? I find this difficult to understand. An odd set of circumstances, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, and imposed by the vagaries of the English weather. February. Telephone lines down, roads blocked. The boy’s family is about to return to Germany, and they’re finding their plans disrupted. Various people have involved themselves in lending a hand. You see before you a selection of those Good Samaritans.”
“A German family, you say … Spielman.…”
“Diplomatic service.”
“Not just any child, then. Embassy involved? Guaranteed to whip up a froth. I begin to see why they’ve got you chasing about the countryside, Sandilands. Our German cousins are exercising an ever stronger influence over our top brass. Hah! Gosling! I know you’re understaffed in the Cromwell Road, but you’re also blinkered. Focused on the Red Menace and the Green, Russia and Ireland. Have I at last got through to your superiors with the suggestion that they give more attention to the old enemy? Germany! I was over there last year with a delegation, on a professional visit. Cozying up, breathing admiration, swearing eternal friendship, meeting their top scientists. Not being classed as a top scientist myself, I was paired with a policeman. A certain Rudolph Diels. Heard of him? No? You’d better do some homework, then. Because you will hear of him. Impressive fellow! Young and vigorous, gallantly scarred face of a duellist, and head of the Prussian Political Police. We had a long conversation about the work he is commissioning from men like me-from my German confrères, that is.”
“Work for which the National Socialist government sees a need?” Joe asked.
“Ah, yes. All spies cozily together as we are, I suppose I may divulge these things. Just a few days into his new office-the thirtieth of January, wasn’t it, the election victory? Mere days! Chancellor Hitler is sweeping through government. Heads are rolling. Resignations being tendered, appointments being made. That’s probably what your Spielman is up to. Been recalled to do his patriotic duty at the side of his new master. And we see changes already in the university psychology departments. Jews-or those who merely have a Jewish wife-who have been at the forefront of research are packing up and coming to England or crossing the Atlantic. Before any lecture can begin in the universities-you’ll find this hard to believe-the academic giving it is now required, on pain of instant dismissal, to salute and say the words ‘Heil Hitler!’ ”
He gave a low rumbling laugh. “Just imagine! If I were to stand before a hundred students in a London lecture theatre, raise my right hand, and proclaim ‘All hail MacDonald!’ ”
“The outcome would be much the same, professor,” Joe said easily. “You’d lose your post. But the charge in England would be one of imbecility.”
“And well deserved!” Bentink agreed. “But over there-you know how it is. You’ve fought these fellows. Highly efficient, but soldier ants. No sense of the ridiculous.”
“Not all, sir,” Joe murmured. “Not all.”
“Oh, yes. If it’s exceptions you look for, look no further than the director (for the present moment!) of the Berlin Psychological Institute. Wolfgang Köhler is finding all this saluting rubbish a bit hard to comply with. He performs the action but with all the eager anticipation of a vegetarian who’s just been served with a juicy steak. But most have accepted the situation-politics and leanings in a country that has never been democratic are less compelling when large grants are on offer to any prepared to stick their arms in the air and make a Roman salute.”
He sighed and shook his shaggy head. “It seems what we have now is a Ganzheitpsychologie. The larger unity, the nation-the Volk, if you like-overrides the interests and rights of the individual. The plan is to put German applied psychology to the service of the National Socialist government, which values it.”
“A science-backed Nazi ideology,” Joe murmured. “Interesting. You are well informed, professor.”
“And shall be even better informed when I return from the Dresden conference in April.” He gave Gosling a knowing look. “Confidential exchanges over the port with your top brass on the cards, young Gosling? I think so. As Miss Joliffe will confirm, the Prussians are more generously funded, less heavily supervised by government, and more adventurous in their approach. Imaginative, ruthless and productive-they are most impressive. And they are not our friends. No matter what the Times leader writers tell us.”
Puzzled as to where he was going with this, Joe picked up an odd point that had intrigued him. “You are not regarded as a topranking scientist, you say?”
“Not quite yet. And certainly not in our own country. Psychology? What’s that? Ask a selection of people in Piccadilly, and one third will say it’s to do with the spirit world, one third will say it’s to do with sex, and the remaining third will say it’s a load of bollocks. Ask the same question on the Kurfürstendamm, and they’ll tell you it’s a practical science that will solve the nation’s problems.”
He was wasting their time deliberately with the useless generalities of a man propping up the bar at his local pub. In five minutes he’d look at his watch and claim he had to bustle off to his next appointment, so sorry not to have been of more help. Joe decided to push things along.