“People aren’t black or white … they’re grey.”

Richard Mattinger’s observation that “people aren’t black or white … they’re grey” turns a discussion of Hans Meyer’s unknown killer and motive into a disagreement about how to judge people. The phrase resists Caspar Leinen’s uncomplicated description of Meyer as thoroughly decent, while Mattinger’s final defense of clichés leaves the remark suspended between stock wisdom and hard-earned experience.

The Remark in Context

Mattinger asks about the motive for Meyer’s murder, noting that newspapers report that nothing is known. Leinen confirms that he knows nothing either and says Meyer was a thoroughly decent man; he cannot imagine why anyone would want to shoot him. Mattinger’s reply shifts the exchange from the crime’s unanswered question to the difficulty of making absolute judgments about character.

Mattinger says that, in his sixty-four years, he has known only two thoroughly decent men: one has been dead for ten years, and the other is a monk in a French monastery. He then offers the line about people being grey rather than black or white. The remark does not identify either man or establish whether Meyer belongs among the rare exceptions. Instead, it complicates Leinen’s confidence by placing praise of Meyer alongside Mattinger’s insistence that genuine decency is uncommon.

Meaning and Exchange

Leinen calls the remark a stock phrase. Mattinger laughs and answers that clichés sometimes prove right as people grow older. Their exchange gives the expression two contrasting registers: Leinen hears a familiar formula, while Mattinger presents it as a judgment confirmed by experience. The line does not resolve the question of motive; it underscores how little either man can infer about the murder from a simple division between good and bad.