Admin
|
 |
« on: May 11, 2023, 11:15:12 am » |
|
HAMBLEDON walked slowly home thinking over Bluehm’s disclosures. So Reck had done it, Reck the wireless operator of Mülheim, the transmitter of other men’s words, the person of no importance, the drunken little beast, he had babbled and Bill Saunders had died. Men who knew the Chief of Police met him in the street that night, took one look at that grim face and abstracted gaze and did not venture to greet him. “Did you see his face?” they said. “Someone is going to catch it for something, heaven forbid he should ever look like that at me.”
He went up the stairs to his flat, entered his study and wrote a few lines on a sheet of paper, after which he walked heavily down the passage to Reck’s room and handed the paper to him.
“What’s the matter?” asked Reck, staring.
“Code and transmit that message to-night.”
“Has anything happened? What’s the matter with you?”
“Read the message, damn you.”
Reck dropped his eyes to the paper and read aloud: “T-L-T. Hambledon to F.O. London. Murderers of Saunders discovered and dealt with stop Kaspar Bluehm of Köln and Reck of Mülheim.”
“My God,” said Reck, dropping the paper, “you must be mad. I never even knew that he was dead.”
“Nevertheless, you helped to kill him. So you will code and transmit that message and then you will die.”
“I swear to you I am completely innocent. I’m a drunken old waster, but I’d shoot myself before I’d---why, he was one of our men. I don’t know anything---when did he die?”
“About thirteen years ago,” said Hambledon. “He was shot by that fool Kaspar Bluehm---remember him?”
“Yes---no, I don’t think I ever met him. Wasn’t he Marie Bluehm’s brother?”
“Yes. You met him once anyway, he came to see you in your retreat at Mainz you’re always wanting to go back to, the mad-house, you know.”
“Did he?” said Reck, rubbing his head. “I don’t know---I can’t remember. Why did he come?”
“He came,” said Hambledon very deliberately, “to ask you for information about Bill Saunders because he had a private grudge against him. He asked for Dirk Brandt, of course, you told him he was Bill Saunders, a British agent----”
“No!” shrieked Reck. “I didn’t do that, don’t say it, I----”
“You told him Saunders had gone back to England----”
“Stop, for God’s sake, you’re torturing me. On my honour----”
“Your honour!” said Hambledon unpleasantly. “I expect you told him he was Michael Kingston of the Hampshires, too. Anyway, you told him enough to enable him to walk in on Bill one quiet night and shoot him. So Bluehm died an hour ago, and I don’t think you’re fit to live, do you?”
“No,” said Reck with dignity. “If this thing is true, I am not.”
“Of course it’s true, who else could have told him? He traced up Bill’s contacts till he came to you, quite simple. He thought he’d been awfully clever. He told me I was a British spy, too, that’s what he called me, apparently Bill told him that, since I was dead it didn’t matter. He informed me about Denton, too.”
“What year was it, d’you know, when he came to see me?”
“Bill died in ’24. ’23, I suppose.”
“I was very ill then,” said Reck. “I nearly died, I wish I had. They wouldn’t give me a drop of real drink of any kind, you know, you don’t know what it’s like when your brain is full of liquid fire and you can smell, drink and taste it, but they won’t give you any. But I can’t remember anyone coming to see me, why should they? I do remember once dreaming that Marie Bluehm came to see me to ask about Dirk, I knew she wasn’t real because she was dead, I might have talked to her. She gave me some schnapps, or I thought she did. It was a nice dream, most of them----” Reck shuddered.
“Listen,” said Hambledon, who had been watching him closely. “Can you remember how she was dressed?”
“In men’s clothes,” said Reck without hesitation. “I told her it wasn’t decent.”
“Yes,” said Hambledon slowly. “Even now the likeness is striking.”
“Do you mean to say that it really happened, and I took this man for Fräulein Marie?”
Hambledon nodded. Reck leaned back in his chair and there was silence for a space.
“It’s getting late,” said Reck, glancing at the clock. “The message will take a little time to code and transmit, will you leave me alone to do it? I can’t work with anyone in the room. When I’ve finished I’ll come and tell you, unless you’d like to lend me your gun.”
“I don’t think so, now,” said Hambledon quietly. “I don’t think it’s necessary.”
He picked up the paper from the floor and tore it into small pieces, piled the fragments into an ash-tray and set light to them.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I lost my temper and I owe you an apology. Now I know how it happened I don’t think you were so much to blame.”
“Then I----” said Reck, but suddenly covered his face with his hands and burst into tears. Hambledon amused himself by poking the burning fragments with a match-stick till they were all consumed, and then patted the old man on the shoulder.
“Pull yourself together,” he said, “it’s all right. I ought to have known you’d never do it deliberately. Come along to my study and we’ll drink to Bill Saunders, God rest his soul.”
“As you wish,” said Reck, struggling up from his chair, “but that’s the last drink I’ll ever have, I’m going teetotal. If schnapps could turn me into a traitor once it might again.”
“Great idea,” said Hambledon, opening the door, and if he smiled a trifle incredulously he did not let Reck see it.
In the study Hambledon rang for Franz, and told him to bring whisky and soda-water; when the servant returned he said, “If you please, sir, the Fräulein Rademeyer rang up and told me there would be four to dinner to-night, she had invited two friends for eight o’clock. I was to tell you, sir.”
“Eight o’clock and it’s seven-thirty now. Who are they, d’you know?”
“The gracious Fräulein did not say, sir.”
“Oh, Lord, that means a stiff shirt, Franz. Black tie.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’ve got some new stiff shirts, Franz, one of those. The old ones have got whiskers on the cuffs.”
“As you wish, sir. But the gracious Fräulein took the new ones to mark for you, sir.”
“Snatch them back then, and don’t make difficulties.”
“Very good, sir,” said Franz, and left the room.
“I shall have to pour this down my throat and rush, here’s yours, Reck. Well, Bill Saunders, rest in peace, I have paid one debt to-day.”
“Bill Saunders,” said Reck solemnly, “and some day I will repay the other, God helping me.”
“Upon my soul,” said Hambledon, regarding him curiously, “you look as though you would.”
“Don’t stand there staring at me as though I were a museum specimen in a glass jar,” said Reck testily, “you’re spoiling my last drink.”
“Heaven forbid. Take it slowly, it’ll last longer. Would you like a sponge to suck it through?”
“Oh, go and dress up,” said Reck.
---
Hambledon walked into the sitting-room on the stroke of eight to find Ludmilla already there with two tall men whose backs were towards him as he entered. “Klaus, my dear,” she said as they turned, “Mr. Alexander Ogilvie, Mr. Dixon Ogilvie.”
The room went black for an instant before Hambledon’s eyes as he advanced to meet their guests, when the mist cleared he found himself shaking hands with a white-haired man who was courteously taking pleasure in the honour of his acquaintance in careful grammatical German. Hambledon replied suitably and turned to the younger man.
Dixon Ogilvie was not so lanky as of old and his thick brown hair was tidier, but otherwise his likeness to the schoolboy he had been was so strong that Hambledon expected instant recognition in return, till he reminded himself firmly how much he himself was scarred and changed. Still there was a puzzled look in the young man’s eyes as though some bell were ringing in his memory, so Hambledon became instantly and increasingly German. “What a day,” he said to himself as they went in to dinner. “First Bill Saunders, and now this.”
Fräulein Rademeyer explained that she had met the Ogilvies at a friend’s house after that afternoon’s recital, and had been so bold as to ask them to dinner as a faint and inadequate return for the immense pleasure their music had given her.
Alexander Ogilvie said that they were more than delighted to accept, not only for the pleasure of making Fräulein Rademeyer’s further acquaintance, but for the privilege of meeting one who was regarded in Britain as typifying all that was best in the Nazi Party, a remark which made Hambledon want to giggle. Dixon Ogilvie said nothing but “Sehr treu,” at intervals, and looked amiably at everyone, Hambledon gathered that not even a German prisoners-of-war camp had been able to teach him the language. In fact, his uncle said so.
“My nephew,” he said, “has not the gift of tongues.”
“Sehr treu,” said Dixon.
“It is a great pity, because he misses so much of the amusement to be gained by talking to strangers in their own tongue,” his uncle went on.
“Any more gifts,” said Ludmilla kindly, “showered by Providence upon your nephew would be positively unfair.”
Dixon Ogilvie started to say “Sehr treu” again, but grasped the sense of the remark at the last moment and stopped just in time.
“One meets such interesting people when one travels, doesn’t one?” said Ogilvie senior to Hambledon.
“It is many years,” said Hambledon truthfully, “since I had the means or the time to travel beyond the boundaries of the Reich.”
Dixon Ogilvie turned inquiring eyes upon him, and asked with difficulty whether he had ever been in England; Tommy Hambledon looked him straight in the face and said “Never,” without a blush.
“You should come,” said Alexander Ogilvie, and Ludmilla said, “You hear that, Klaus? I think I should like to go to England some day.”
“Some day, perhaps, we’ll go,” said Hambledon. “I will take a holiday, some day.”
“Nearly three years ago,” said Alexander Ogilvie, “I travelled from Basle to Paris with a delightful young couple who were married there the following day, they did me the honour to ask me to be one of the witnesses. I gathered that it was something of a romance; they had stayed in the same hotel in Basle for about a fortnight, and I don’t think they had met before. Oh, yes, they had travelled from Berlin on the same train. Charming fellow named Denton and a delightful German girl. Apparently a baritone singer with the lovely name of Waltheof Leibowitz in the hotel orchestra had also realized the lady’s attractions and used to sing at her, so one day Denton hit him in the eye at one of the afternoon performances. They left for Paris the same night and were married next day.”
Hambledon roared with laughter, since the detail about the baritone was news to him, and Dixon said that it was safer to be a pianist.
“Have you ever,” said Hambledon, “met the romantic couple since? One wonders how such an impulsive marriage would wear.”
“Oh, frequently,” said Ogilvie. “I see quite a lot of them when I’m in town, Dixon knows them too. Contrary to what one would expect, they are ideally happy.”
“Mrs. Denton is an---is not ordinary,” said Dixon.
“How so?”
“She never asks questions.”
“She deserves to be happy,” said Hambledon enthusiastically.
“I hope they always will be,” said Ludmilla, “they sound delightful. Shall we go in the other room? Franz, coffee in the drawing-room, please.”
Later on, the talk turned upon music, and Dixon Ogilvie went to the piano to illustrate some point which he had been discussing with Fräulein Rademeyer, with his uncle acting as interpreter whenever the younger man got bogged. Hambledon, who was only musical enough to recognize a tune which he had heard six times before, was not interested and picked up an evening paper. He found something to read in it and sat down with the unscarred side of his face towards the pianist; presently the talk ceased as young Ogilvie played to amuse himself, with his eyes wandering occasionally to the face of his host. He passed from one thing to another, much as a man will look through a pile of photographs in search of one which will tell him what he wants to know. Presently Hambledon laid down the paper and stared idly into the distance, wondering what train of thought had suddenly reawakened a memory of a class of boys with highly variegated voices singing French songs in approximate unison. The idea was to interest them in the language by providing a change from the pen of the gardener’s aunt, but he had always been dubious as to how far the idea was successful. The proper way to teach boys languages, of course, was to send them to live with a family abroad for a year at least and let them work, play, eat, drink and sleep in German or Italian or whatever it was. If they went young enough this method was unfailing, provided a boy had the smallest aptitude----
Hambledon woke from his musings with a start to realize that Dixon Ogilvie had changed from “Sur le pont d’Avignon” to
“Il était une bergère, Et ron ron ron, petit patapon, Il était une bergère Qui gardait ses moutons, ron ron, Qui gardait ses moutons.”
He was playing with infinite delicacy, not looking at Hambledon at all, and presently the music changed again to another from the same little red French song-book. “Au clair de la lune,” hummed Ogilvie, “mon ami Pierrot----”
“He is just doing it to amuse himself,” said Hambledon reassuringly to himself, “it has no connection with you at all. One tune suggests another from the same period.”
“Yes, it has,” himself insisted. “He tried to remember of whom you reminded him, he tried through music and he’s got it. You’re unmasked, Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon.”
“Nonsense,” said Hambledon to himself firmly. “You are getting the wind up, your nerve’s going. You’d better retire and take up crochet.”
Just then a flicker of pure mischief curled the corners of Ogilvie’s mouth as with a few inspiring chords he broke into that touching ballad of the English home, “Tommy, make room for your uncle.”
“Blasted cheek,” said Hambledon almost audibly. “That settles it, he does know.”
“School songs,” said Dixon Ogilvie in English, “are rather nice to remember sometimes,” and looked to his uncle to translate while he played another marching song.
“Forty years on, growing older and older, Shorter in wind as in memory long,”
and finally wound up the concert with the Hymn for the End of Term.
The player rose from his seat to be delightfully thanked by both his hosts, though there was a gleam in Tommy Hambledon’s eye while he murmured “Reizend! Ergötzlich!” which ought to have warned his former pupil.
Less than half an hour after the departure of the guests Hambledon’s telephone rang: he went to answer it and returned laughing.
“These musicians,” he said, “are really not of this world. You would think they might read the simple directions for complying with police regulations, wouldn’t you? Not a bit of it. Then they wonder why they’re tenderly reprimanded.”
“What has happened?” asked Ludmilla.
“Uncle Ogilvie rang up all in a flutter to say that nephew Ogilvie has been arrested, something wrong with his papers, apparently.”
“Oh, Klaus! How dreadful for them! Can’t you order him to be released?”
“How can I, if he’s broken the law? I am paid a substantial sum quarterly to see that people keep it. No, I won’t do that, but I have rung up the authorities to ensure that the prisoner is nicely treated, I told old Ogilvie I would. What is more, I’ll see the boy myself in the morning and see if I can get him out of this little mess. Probably a small fine will meet the occasion.”
“But, dear Klaus, I can’t bear to think of that nice young man spending the night in jail.”
“Do him good,” said dear Klaus unkindly. “Teach him to respect authority. I’ll give him Tommy,” he added to himself.
The next morning Dixon Ogilvie was brought before the Chief of Police, who sent the escort away, looked sternly at the prisoner and said, “Come here.”
Ogilvie advanced to the desk and Hambledon looked him up and down. “You know why you have been brought here, don’t you?”
“No, sir,” said Ogilvie in English, with exactly the schoolboy’s air of pained innocence. Hambledon’s sternness wavered, he bit his lip but failed entirely to suppress a grin.
“If you try that on me,” he said in the same language, “I’ll give you two hundred lines, and they will be legibly written, Ogilvie.”
“Oh, but, sir----”
“Come off it. No, listen, Ogilvie. You’ve stumbled on a secret which is literally a matter of life and death to me. They know at the F.O. in London that Hambledon is still alive and doing a job of work in Germany, but not even they know that I’m the Chief of Police. Only one other man knew that till you spotted me to-night, and I may say that if I’d known you were coming I should have been detained at the office, by heck I should, even if I’d really had to stay there all alone with the charwoman. I didn’t even know you’d come back to Berlin.”
“They seemed to like me,” said Dixon Ogilvie, “when I was here two years ago, and I certainly like them, so when another tour in Germany was suggested I was very pleased to come. Though I certainly never expected to meet an old friend in such an exalted position.”
“And now you have,” said Hambledon with all the emphasis at his disposal, “you will please forget it completely and utterly. Put it right out of your mind, never allow your memory to dwell upon it for a single instant. Speak of it to no one, not even your uncle---incidentally, that was why you were arrested in such a hurry last night, so that you shouldn’t have time to tell him.”
“Of course not, sir----”
“You see, it’s not only my personal safety that’s at stake, though I admit that’s a matter in which I take a delicate and restrained interest. The really important thing is that I’m useful to the Department here, so it’s desirable I should live as long as possible.”
“The Department?”
“Ironmongery, at the Army & Navy stores. Occasionally we transfer to the Chemist’s section and sometimes to the Books, Maps, etc. We all deal in Blinds, of course, but never, never---or practically never---in Fancy goods. Sit down, Ogilvie, why are you still standing?”
“You didn’t tell me I might sit,” said Ogilvie with a laugh.
“Great heavens, does the awe I tried so hard to inspire last so long? And when I’m eighty, if I live so long, which is very dubious, will hale old men of sixty-five spring alertly to attention from their club armchairs as I dodder past, leaning on the delicate arm of my fair-haired granddaughter?”
“Have you got a granddaughter, sir?”
“Heaven forbid!”
“Well, they wouldn’t allow her in the club, anyway.”
“Then I shan’t pay my subscription. You know, Ogilvie, it is a damn long time since I sat like this and said the first thing that came into my head. Not since Bill and I parted off Ostende, you remember him?”
“Bill?”
“Michael Kingston to you. Ever see him after the war?”
“No, but I met his widow once or twice.”
“Oh, really? What’s she like?”
“Tall willowy woman who looks at you soulfully out of large eyes. They call her Diane the Wise.”
“Is she so clever?”
“No. Because she asks such a lot of them.”
“Why---oh, I see. Whys. Bill would have loved that, no wonder they parted. Well, look here, I hate to sling you out but I’ve got some work to do. I shall see you again---how long are you staying?”
“May I stay on, sir?”
“Of course, why not? Lor’, I’ve caught it now. Ogilvie, you will remember what I said about my identity?”
“I will, sir. Uncle Alec and I were hoping you and Fräulein Rademeyer would dine with us one night?”
“Delighted. Ring us up, will you?”
Hambledon stared at the door for some moments after his guest had gone out. Nice fellow, that, very. Got a nice line, too, a musician like that could wander into any country and meet all sorts of people without anyone thinking twice about it, he might be very useful. Hambledon shivered slightly, useful, till he slipped up or somebody let him down, and then a great musician would be destroyed because of The Job, a pity, that, couldn’t be done. But he had wonderful opportunities.
“No,” said Hambledon firmly, “it wouldn’t do anyway, he’s far too unpractical. One must be practical. Now, if only Denton could play a concertina----”
|