Part 3 · Chapter 47
Monday, Inspector Escherich’s Great Day
But what if we find some piece of evidence in his apartment that convicts him straight off, that makes it impossible for him to deny his guilt?
Summary
Inspector Escherich moves with sudden speed, sealing off the Krause & Co. furniture factory and driving there with Obergruppenführer Prall at the wheel. He demands a full staff list with addresses, hoping to match a name to Chodowiecki, Jablonski, or Christburger Strasse, but no one on the shift list qualifies, because Otto Quangel, filling in for the injured foreman Kampfer, isn't on it. Escherich insists on checking the personnel list name by name despite Prall's impatience, until Quangel's address on Jablonski Strasse turns up and Escherich recognises him at once as the Hobgoblin. Over Prall's demand to 'rough him up' immediately, Escherich argues for a quiet search of the flat first, to catch the family unaware.
Analysis
Escherich's newly efficient method, list-checking over brute force, pays off exactly where Zott's theorising failed, showing what competence under fear looks like. His insistence on a quiet search rather than Prall's instant violence is the chapter's real suspense, buying the Quangels one last hour of ignorance.