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Chapter Eleven

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« on: May 09, 2023, 11:23:39 am »

NIEHL, Chief of Police and Hambledon’s immediate superior, had been too close a friend of Roehm to emerge unscathed from the Purge. He was not executed but removed from office, and made a Provincial Governor far enough from Berlin to keep him out of sight as well as out of mind. When Klaus Lehmann congratulated him on his appointment, the new Governor made a wry face, shrugged his shoulders, and remarked that he had long wished to retire from the whirl of city life to grow vines, and now was his chance.

“How happy you must be,” said Lehmann enthusiastically.

“If I were an American,” said Niehl, who was a film fan, “I should say ‘Oh, yeah?’ ”

“How I envy you your command of English. I wish I had been more attentive at school.”

“It is a gift, my dear Lehmann, the power to assimilate foreign languages is a definite gift.”

“How very true,” said Lehmann without a smile.

So Niehl left, and Klaus Lehmann became Chief of Police in his stead. It was he, therefore, who was sent for to the Wilhelmstrasse when the plans and specification of the magnetic mine disappeared.

“Not only,” said the stout figure behind the enormous desk, “have these plans got to be found at once, but the man who took them, and anyone else to whom he may have talked about it, must be silenced. I suggest a sepulchral silence, Lehmann.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You see, the point is this. Even the plans, important as they are, are overshadowed by the importance of keeping secret even the idea that such a thing exists. A clever man could be found in any civilized country, no doubt, who could design a magnetic mine if it were suggested to him. Nobody must suggest it, Lehmann.”

“I see the point.”

“Ninety-nine men out of every hundred, if they learn something really important, must tell somebody. For this reason, when you have found him you must also find his associates and ask yourself to whom a man would disclose such a secret. To his friends?”

“As he would almost certainly have to admit also that he was plotting against the Party,” said Lehmann, “he would choose his friends very carefully, I think.”

“You are right. His wife, then?”

“I am myself a bachelor, but I thought that men usually discussed with their wives matters concerning housekeeping, cookery and children.”

“Not necessarily in the earlier days of married life. He talks of such things later on, but perhaps you are right again. His sweetheart then?”

“As I have said, my experience is limited,” said Lehmann modestly, “yet I can imagine an innumerable list of matters to discuss with a personable young woman before one reached the subject of magnetic mines.”

“You are a dry old stick, Lehmann,” said the big man good-naturedly. “I’d love to see you going all romantic over some expensive blonde.”

“I shall never dare to ask for my salary to be increased after that suggestion.”

“For fear I come to see if she’s worth it, hey? But we are positively flippant. I leave this matter---this very important matter, Lehmann---in your hands with the utmost confidence. I am sure you will deal with it effectively.”

“I endeavour to give satisfaction, sir,” said Lehmann, and took his leave, devoutly trusting that his huge companion had never heard of Jeeves.

The field of inquiry was limited. The papers had disappeared between 12 noon on Wednesday, August the 25th, 1937, when they were marked in as having been returned by Goering, and 10.30 a.m. on Friday, August the 27th, when the same clerk who had receipted them two days earlier was told to send them over to the Admiralty. In the meantime they had been deposited in a locked drawer of the writing-table used by the Civil Service Head of the War Office section concerned. Immediately the loss was discovered, a strong breeze blew up through the Department and troubled the waters.

Herr Julius Weissmann, head of the Filing Section, said that if the folder had been returned to files, as was proper in the case of so important a paper, the loss would not have been incurred. Never in all his thirty-one years’ experience had he seen such a gross and unpardonable infringement of procedure. Even the most recently joined messenger-boy would know better, but some there were who thought themselves so great as to be above rules.

Herr Marcus Schwegmann, in whose bureau drawer the papers had been left, became completely unstrung under Klaus Lehmann’s unpleasantly pointed questions and stated that (a) he had locked the paper up safely; (b) he could not remember ever having seen it; (c) the office charwoman had taken it; (d) Weissmann had taken it, thrown the blame on him, Schwegmann, and sold the papers to the British; (e) Goering had never returned it; (f) he, Schwegmann, was not at the office that week at all; (g) it was a plot to ruin him, and (h) he wished he were dead. He was at once compulsorily retired.

All six of the clerks in his section denied ever having touched, seen or even heard of the papers, and as they weren’t supposed to anyway, this seemed quite likely to be true. After Lehmann had had their homes searched for incriminating evidence and found only proofs of interest in girls in three cases, music in two, and esoteric Buddhism in the last, he crossed them off the list.

The charwoman went for him like a tigress. She said she had six rooms to clean out, dust and rearrange every night and only two hours to do it in; if the police thought a poor hardworking woman had time to do all that and go snooping round into what didn’t concern her at the same time, it was a pity they didn’t give up accusing persons as innocent as the babe unborn and do an honest day’s work occasionally instead, that is, if any of them had ever known what an honest day’s work was, which she took leave to doubt judging by their faces, most of them looked as though they had something nasty in their pasts such as she would not demean herself to describe, and had only joined the police to be on the right side and have no questions asked which would be awkward to answer. She paused for breath, and Klaus, finding he had involuntarily bowed his head to the storm, straightened up again to say that there was no question of throwing aspersions upon her moral----

The charwoman said there had better not be, since there was a law to protect poor honest widows from insult, defamation of character and probably assault, and if anyone, even a policeman, laid so much as the tip of one finger----

“Be quiet!” shouted Klaus. “Stop it! Hold your tongue. Nobody wants to assault you. Nobody would want to, anyway, you---you awful woman. Answer my question. Did you, on the evenings of Wednesday the 25th or Thursday the 26th, notice anything or anyone unusual?”

The charwoman shook her head. “Nothin’, bar Frau Kronk speaking civil for once, which is a nine days’ wonder I’m sure, never having known it happen----”

“Who is Frau Kronk?”

“The woman who does the rooms at the end of this passage.”

“Does she come in here?”

“What? Into my rooms? To see if I done ’em properly like? Not---something---likely. Know what I’d do to her if she did?”

Before Klaus could stop her, she told him. He shuddered, mopped his brow, and tried again.

“What I want to know is this. Did you, or did you not, see anything or anyone unusual in this room on the two nights I have mentioned?”

She paused for thought. “No, bar the electricians makin’ even more mess than usual.”

“Electricians?”

“Putting in wires for a ’lectric fire in ’ere for fear Lord High What’s-’is-name gets cold toes, pore dear.”

“Speak civilly of your superiors or you will regret it. Anything else?”

“Ho, speak civil----”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“Go. Get out. Hop it. Buzz off, and don’t come back. Merciful heavens,” said poor Lehmann, wiping his forehead, “I didn’t know there were such women. What a---well, never mind. Now, about those electricians.”

Upon inquiry it transpired that Herr Schwegmann had successfully applied to have an electric fire installed in his office, and the work was being done by two electricians. One was a permanent employee of the War Office who looked after the lighting and was absolutely above suspicion, the other had been sent by the firm supplying the electric fire in question. It was the duty of the War Office employee not only to assist the other man technically as might be required, but also to keep watch on him to see that he did not do anything irregular or pry into what did not concern him. The stranger was not to be left alone for a moment within the sacred precincts.

“Oh,” said Lehmann. “Sounds all right, doesn’t it? Can I see these two fellows?”

“Certainly. Heller is on the premises, I’ll send him in to you. The other shall be sent for.”

“No,” said Lehmann thoughtfully, “don’t send for him yet, I’d like to talk to Heller first. Does he know there’s anything missing?”

“I shouldn’t think so, but I should hate to swear to it. The whole affair has been treated as very secret and confidential, but you’ve no idea how news flies round in a big office like this. No one, of course, ever talks, but you’d think the walls ooze it out. Most extraordinary.”

“I expect so. Let me have the other fellow’s name and address, will you? Thanks, now if I might see Heller?”

Heller came in, a capable-looking workman with an honest face. “Tell me,” said Lehmann, “you were working in Herr Schwegmann’s room on the second floor on Wednesday and Thursday nights this week, were you not?”

“Yes, sir. We was puttin’ in an electric fire, and as there was no points near the floor we was takin’ out the skirtin’-boards and runnin’ the wire behind them. We’ve done now, sir.”

“So I see, and a very neat job too. Are there any more jobs like that to be done just now?”

“Yes, sir, Herr Britz, on the floor above, wanted another put in his room, so it seemed best to do both jobs at once while Hauser was still with us. We start up there to-night.”

“Who’s Hauser?”

“The man the Elektrische Gesellschaft sent with their fittin’s. They won’t guarantee ’less their own people fit them.”

“I see. Now tell me, was there any trouble of any sort on either Wednesday or Thursday night? Anything unusual?”

“No, sir. Excuse me, might I ask if there’s anythin’ gone wrong?”

“There is a little trouble, but it is in no way connected with you. I have to question everyone who was in these rooms then, but there is nothing for you to fear.”

“Thank you, sir. No, nothing went wrong bar the fuse blowing. That’s the second time that fuse has gone in three days, there’s a short somewheres on this floor. Devil of a job---beg pardon, sir---awkward job to find a short sometimes. Might be anywhere in the circuit.”

“What happened then?”

“I reported it, sir, and the firm who did the wirin’ must come and look for it. I haven’t the instruments; besides, it comes under their guarantee.”

“Yes, exactly. What happened on Thursday night---was it Thursday night? The night before, then, when the fuse went?”

“All these lights went out and we was left in the dark. I says---well, I won’t tell you what I says, but I told Hauser it was that fuse again and he’d better hang on while I went and replaced it. So he said all right and off I went.”

“Leaving him alone in the dark?”

“Yes, sir. I had a torch, he hadn’t.”

“How long were you away?”

“Quarter of an hour, sir, quite. You see, there was no fuse wire in the box on this floor, I’d used it up when it blew before. So I had to go down to my store in the basement to get it and then fit it in. Took some time, all that.”

“Of course. What was Hauser doing when you came back?”

“Nothin’. Just sittin’ where I’d left him. Strictly speakin’, I shouldn’t have left him accordin’ to the rules. I ought to have took him all round with me trailin’ about after fuse wire, but who would?”

“Exactly, who would? Especially as he was all in the dark. How did you know he hadn’t a torch?”

“He said so, sir.”

“I see. Thank you, Heller, that’ll do.”

Otto Hauser, the Elektrische Gesellschaft’s fitter, had a room in a small house in the poorer quarter of Berlin, and while he was out that night putting in the second electric fire for the chilly Herr Britz, there came two callers to his lodgings. A woman opened the door, asking who was there, but shrank back into the passage when she got the answer, “Police.”

“Which is Hauser’s room?” asked Lehmann.

“First back.”

“Stay there till I come down again. Come with me, Muller.”

They went upstairs and Lehmann turned the door-handle.

“Locked,” he said. “Open this door, Muller.”

Muller bent over the keyhole, there came a few clicking sounds, and the door opened. Inside the room the only locked receptacle was a suit-case under the bed. “Muller!” and the suit-case also opened.

“Stand outside the door, will you, to make sure no one comes near,” said Lehmann, and started on the suit-case as soon as he was alone. There was a flat parcel at the bottom.

“This is too easy,” murmured Lehmann, untying the string. “Either this fellow’s a complete novice, or this is only a photo of his best girl, or some poisonous reptile will leap out and bite me and I shall have only time to utter a hoarse, strangled cry before I---ah!”

He drew out a War Office folder containing some correspondence, two or three pages of close typescript and half a dozen engineer’s drawings of a globular object. Under these there was a neatly-written copy of the typing and four unfinished tracings of the drawings. There was also some spare tracing-paper, enough to finish the job.

“I see,” said Lehmann. “We make a copy and then replace the original after having, as I suspect, arranged another short in the War Office electric wiring. Quite good so far, Otto, but you do want some hints about putting your work tidily away. Since there isn’t a chimney I should have looked for a loose board under the carpet, Otto, and I think somehow I should have found one. By this means, Otto, my boy, I should continue to live longer than you look like doing.”

He replaced the papers precisely as they were in the packet, tied the string with the same knots and repacked the suit-case.

“I hate to interrupt an artist in the middle of a master-piece, and really, Otto, you do copy quite nicely. So I think you shall be permitted to finish it before I gather you in. I should think you’d do the other drawings to-morrow.”

Lehmann opened the door and told Muller to relock the case. “There’s nothing here yet,” he said, “but I might want to have another look to-morrow. I’m not quite satisfied somehow. Lock the door while I go and speak to the lady of the house.”

He went downstairs to find the woman still standing exactly where he had left her.

“What’s your name?” and she told him.

“You know who we are, don’t you?”

“Police,” she whispered.

“That’s right. Why are you frightened by the police?”

“I’m not.”

“I think you are. Now, listen. No one has been here to-night, not even the police, and no one has been anywhere near your lodger’s room. Do you understand?”

“Y---yes.”

“If you forget all about the police I will forget about you, but if your lodger hears one word, one hint, about this, I shall remember you at once and come back to see why you are so frightened of the police. Then I shall find that out too, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?”

She did not answer, but Lehmann appeared to be satisfied, for he nodded at her and went out with Muller, shutting the door behind them.

On the following night Otto Hauser was arrested as he reached home after finishing the second job at the War Office. The missing papers were found intact in his suit-case, but the Chief of Police made no mention of any copies although he had searched the premises himself. It is hardly necessary to add that Hauser didn’t mention them, either.

The Chief of Police went home that night with the uplifted heart which rewards a duty well done; before he went to his office in the morning he wrote out a brief message and took it along to Reck’s room.

“Wake up and take notice,” he said. “Half-past eight of a lovely summer’s morning and you’re still snoring? Wake up.” He threw the curtains back, pulled up the blinds and flung both windows wide open. “My hat, what a fug. I don’t wonder you’re always thirsty.”

“Oh, go away,” said Reck indistinctly, because he was burying his face in the pillow. “Can’t a man have a little peace without your bursting in at dawn with your horrible League of Youth ideas about air and sun and all that rot? You’ll be expecting me to take cold baths next.”

“Couldn’t be done,” said Hambledon unkindly. “When you hopped in there’d be a loud fizz and the water would boil. Now then, Reck, that’s enough joking. I want this message coded and sent off to-night.”

“One of these nights,” said Reck defiantly, “one of those extra superchromium-plated American cars with a wireless set in them will come cruising down this street at 3 a.m. full of bright young things on their way home from a party, and when they find they’re completely deafened by a spark transmitter at close range somebody will tell somebody about it. Then somebody will begin to think, and one day somebody will come----”

“ ‘My heart is sair,’ ” hummed Tommy Hambledon, “ ‘I daurna tell, my heart is sair for somebody.’ ”

“Yes,” said Reck bitterly, “and the last somebody will probably be me. But you’d better be careful of me, you know.”

“Why?”

“Because the code isn’t written down and I’ve no intention of writing it. You won’t kill the goose that lays the golden----”

“Pips. Cheer up, old goose, I’ll look after you.”

The message ran: “Agent carrying current number La Vie Parisienne and examining death of Charlemagne Kaisersaal Aachen Town Hall Monday Sept. 1st at 3 p.m. will exchange copy with friendly tourist to advantage.”

Ginsberg, ex-trunk-maker’s assistant, was justly proud of the fact that he was sometimes selected to do a little job for German Intelligence, though he was only an undistinguished member of the S.A. Usually the work consisted only of secreting papers in travellers’ luggage for transmission to our clever agents in foreign countries, but this time it was different and rather more exciting. He was actually to go and meet someone, and give him a copy of a highly coloured French comic paper in exchange for a similar one which the stranger would be carrying. There was something a little unusual about Ginsberg’s copy because the pages wouldn’t open, but he was told he could read the one he would receive in exchange. Aachen Town Hall; though he lived in Aachen he had never entered that building. A big room called the Kaisersaal with pictures on the walls, one of a king dying.

Ginsberg stared at the frescoes with round eyes, very fine pictures no doubt, but hardly in his line, and a stranger with a colorful periodical under his arm seemed entertained by the German’s puzzled stare.

“Wonderful works, aren’t they?” said the stranger.

“I suppose so,” said Ginsberg. “I was told they was worth seein’, so I came.”

“Do you like them now you’ve seen them?”

“Very fine, no doubt, but I must say I like somethin’ a bit more lively, myself.”

“Something more like this,” said the stranger with a laugh, indicating his paper. “I see you’ve got one too.”

“Yes,” said Ginsberg, “but mine’s an old one, I had it given me. I expect you’ve seen it.”

“Let’s look. No, I haven’t. I’ve done with this, would you care to have it?”

“Let’s swap; then, if you’d care to?”

So the affair was neatly arranged, and Ginsberg walked out of the Town Hall naturally pleased with himself. He was, therefore, proportionately horrified when on returning to barracks he was pounced on by a couple of Storm Troopers, summarily arrested, and taken to prison.

The Chief of Police received daily a list of Party members arrested for non-Party activities of various kinds, and usually he gave it a purely formal perusal. On this occasion he ran his eyes casually down the list as usual till he was brought up with a jerk by the name Ginsberg, address Aachen, arrested Sept. 1st. Klaus Lehmann leaned back in his chair.

“Now I do wonder,” he said to himself, “exactly why he was arrested, and where, and at what time?”

He glanced at the clock for no particular reason except that the beat of the pendulum seemed to be louder than usual, and was horrified to find it was his own heart he could hear thumping.

“Well,” he said philosophically, “I’ve had a damn good run, anyway.”

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