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Chapter Twenty-One

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Author Topic: Chapter Twenty-One  (Read 83 times)
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« on: May 12, 2023, 12:11:40 pm »

THE bedside telephone rang furiously. Tommy Hambledon awakened with a start and reached out for the receiver, throwing at the same moment a reproachful glance at the clock, which said with an air of apology that the time was 5.45 a.m. “Chief of Police,” grunted Hambledon into the telephone, and sank back on his pillow. “Did I what? Collect four prisoners yesterday from the concentration camp. No, why? I don’t collect prisoners, I prefer postage-stamps, and at the moment I am trying to collect a little sleep. Why, have you lost some? Well, inform the Commandant. Oh, you are the Commandant. Good morning. It is always a pleasure to me, Herr Commandant, to have any dealings with you, but my office opens for official business at nine every morning, and in the meantime surely the local police station---- Oh, you have. Well, you could hardly expect them to find the men in five minutes. No, I am not in the least annoyed, but I do try to keep regular hours, and 5.45 a.m. is---- Yes, but why ring me up? I can only tell the police to look for them, and I assume they are doing that already, you surely don’t expect me to leap out of bed and chase the men myself in my pyjamas. Sign the order? It is not necessary for me to sign any order for the pursuit of escaped prisoners; upon receipt of news that prisoners have escaped, the necessary action is taken at once. Did I sign an order yesterday? Yes, dozens. To remove four men from your camp? Certainly not.”

There came a bubbling noise from the ear-piece of the instrument, and Hambledon rolled over on his pillow and sighed patiently in a manner which he hoped would be audible at the other end.

“Let me see if I have got this clear,” said Hambledon eventually. “A sergeant and six men in the uniform of my police came to the camp yesterday morning---at 10.30 a.m. precisely. Well, that’s in the morning, isn’t it? They produced an order, purporting to be signed by me and bearing my seal, for the removal of four prisoners, whom you duly handed over. The sergeant signed a receipt and marched off with the prisoners, and you haven’t seen them since. Well, I’m afraid you’ve been had, and I will certainly look into the matter with my accustomed energy when I arrive at the office, but I cannot believe that the Reich will totter on its foundations if I get another two hours’ sleep first, what’s all the hurry about? Herr Goebbels? What the devil’s he got to do with it?”

The crackles at the other end explained that Herr Goebbels had happened to be on the premises when the prisoners had been taken away, and had appeared interested. That the sergeant in charge had explained that the prisoners were only required for interrogation and would be returned that evening if possible. That when they were not so returned, the Commandant had examined the order and thought there was something a little unusual about the Herr Polizei Oberhaupt’s signature, and finally, that Herr Goebbels had rung up in the small hours to ask if the prisoners----

“Will you please understand this,” said Hambledon in a tone of voice which silenced the other as by violence, “unworthy as I am, I hold my office direct from our Leader, and am not subjected to question, command, or comment from the Ministry of Propaganda or any other Ministry whatever within the Reich or outside it!”

He paused, but as the other end of the wire maintained a tactful silence, he slammed down the receiver and lay back on his pillows sizzling with anger. It was perfectly plain that what had happened was that Goebbels had faked the order and the sergeant’s guard of police; they had taken away four prisoners who would never, of course, be seen again, and Hambledon would be accused of having connived at their escape. Quite good, with only two mistakes. One, being so eager to see that everything went well that he had to be there in person at 10.30 a.m., and the other, forging the Chief of Police’s signature so clumsily that even the Commandant noticed it. No, that might not be a mistake. If Klaus Lehmann denied the signature, saying that anyone could see it wasn’t his, Goebbels would say that, of course, he wrote it like that on purpose, in order to be able to deny it. A typical Goebbels touch.

There remained the seal of his office, and there were two facsimiles of this. One was kept securely in safe-deposit by the Government in case Lehmann’s should be destroyed or irretrievably lost, the other was held by the Führer, who had duplicates of all seals of office. There was, however, one minor difference between them, and it was just possible, though unlikely, that Goebbels did not know this. The seal actually in use by each Government office was quite perfect; the copies held by the Führer had each one tiny dot in the angle of the left-hand arm of the swastika, and the copies in safe-deposit had two dots in the same place. One glance at the wax impression on the order would tell him which one Goebbels had used, probably the Führer’s, borrowed without permission. If so, the engineer would be hoist with his own petard indeed. Hambledon’s own seal never left him; even at night it was in his bedroom, so Goebbels could not possibly have got at that, and the one in official keeping was quite out of the question.

Hambledon, with a seraphic smile on his lips, fell peacefully asleep and did not wake till Franz called him at seven-thirty.

Hambledon breakfasted in haste, telephoned the office to say he would be there later, and drove himself to the concentration camp. To his annoyance, his car was stopped at the gates instead of being passed through at sight.

“What is all this?”

“New regulations, sir. Too many escapes lately; all cars to be searched.”

“Excellent. Though I never heard of anyone trying to smuggle himself into a concentration camp.”

“No, sir,” said the corporal stolidly. “But we was told to look for tools and such-like.”

Hambledon said no more, but sat fuming while the men looked under cushions and carpets. When he was allowed to proceed to the Commandant’s door, he found another man on duty there who quite openly took charge of his car till he should need it again. Hambledon remembered the escape of Lazarus three weeks earlier, surely no rumour of that had got back. Lazarus, with the two old ladies, Ludmilla and Christine, had been safe in Switzerland these ten days, but he would not have talked. No, this was just another of the Commandant’s systems.

The Chief of Police was shown into the office, where a wild-eyed Commandant greeted him in very much the manner of a dog who has torn up a sofa-cushion while master was out.

“I cannot describe to you,” babbled the Commandant, “how distressed I was to have had to---at such an hour---I did not know what---those prisoners----”

“My dear fellow,” said Hambledon kindly, “please don’t distress yourself. It is I who ought to apologize, I am always like a bear with a sore head before breakfast.”

“Your Excellency is too kind----”

“You were, of course, perfectly right----”

“Only the most imperative commands of duty would----”

“I know, I know. It was the doubt about my signature which rightly impelled you to communicate with me at once.”

“And the prisoners, Herr Polizei Oberhaupt.”

“And the prisoners, of course. Yours is a great responsibility, Herr Commandant. Now, if I might see this forged order, some idea might----”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the Commandant, snatching up a bunch of keys and attacking a safe with them, “but those two prisoners----”

“Two? I thought you said four.”

“There were four. I was thinking of the two whom you interviewed three weeks ago, I understood you to say you might wish to see them again.”

Hambledon turned perfectly cold. The Commandant, getting no answer to his remark, explained more fully.

“The Beckensburgs, you remember. Ludovic Beckensburg, the father, retired architect, and his son, Hugo Beckensburg----”

His voice continued for some time, but Hambledon did not heed it. Goebbels must have found out that the Beckensburgs had been friends of his, so he had taken them, partly, no doubt, to make the accusation seem more credible, but mainly to annoy; the rat-faced, crafty, sneering devil. Well, this time he’d overstepped the mark; Germany was no longer big enough to hold Goebbels and himself. Goebbels---- Hambledon awoke to the fact that he was being offered a paper, he shook himself together and took it.

“This is an unmistakable forgery,” he said mechanically, and went on staring at the paper while his mind was screaming questions. Where were they now? Alive or dead, or being tortured to make them talk about Klaus Lehmann?

“I fear Your Excellency is really not well,” said the Commandant, who was watching his face. “A little cognac, perhaps----”

“Thank you, no,” said Hambledon hastily. “A touch of indigestion; it will pass.” He thrust the Beckensburgs to the back of his mind. The seal, there was something to notice about the seal. Oh, yes, of course, a dot in the corner.

“This wax impression is very rough,” he said, and carried the paper to the window. It was rough, but there was definitely no dot where one should be, so it was not stamped with the Führer’s seal, but with his own, or with an exact copy.

“The seal is a forgery, too,” said Hambledon, and took his own from his pocket. “Look, Herr Commandant, it does not fit.”

He laid the seal gently upon the wax impression, but it did not bed down as it should have done. “You see? Another forgery.”

“But how could such a thing----”

“Quite simple, provided you have a good wax impression. You take a mould from the impression, warm modeller’s wax, or a softened candle will do. You take a cast from that in plaster of Paris, and cast it again in lead. Quite simple, but it won’t, of course, be so smooth and full of detail as the original.”

“The criminal was too clever,” said the Commandant happily. “His misguided ingenuity has resulted in entirely clearing Your Excellency of any complicity in the matter.”

“Who suggested I was an accomplice?” asked Hambledon coldly, and took his leave without waiting for an answer from the abashed Commandant.

“This is the same idea as the clumsily forged signature,” he thought, as he waited for the car to be searched again at the gate. “Goebbels will say I forged it myself in order to be able to disavow it.”

He passed a gloomy day at the office wondering how he was to tell poor old Frau Christine of the disaster; the only satisfaction he obtained was in arranging for Frau Magda Beckensburg and the children to be sent out of the country at once. “They shall have something saved out of the wreck,” he said, and sent two men he could trust to arrest the little party and put them over the Swiss frontier as quickly as possible. He was pleasantly surprised when this went off without a hitch, and still more astonished when several days passed without any accusation being brought against him. No police investigation into the matter produced any result at all, he did not suppose it would, nor were any of the prisoners recaptured.

Hambledon remained depressed by the whole affair, even when it began to seem possible that it held no evil consequences for him. He felt he had failed in his promise to look after the two men, and the idea that Goebbels had outwitted him was intensely irritating. The flat, too, was a dull place without Ludmilla there, and a letter from her including the phrase, “Dear Klaus, how kind and resourceful you are,” doubtless referred to the safe arrival of Magda, complete with babies. No doubt Franz noticed his master’s low spirits, and one night, when the servant brought in the evening whisky and soda, he hung about the room and coughed as he did when there was something he wanted to say.

“What is it, Franz?”

“I beg your pardon, sir. I thought you might be interested to hear that the four prisoners who escaped from the concentration camp are safe with their friends in Switzerland.”

What?

“Arrangements had been made, sir, to get the Herren von Maeder and Behrmann out, and it was as simple to get four out as two. The gracious Fräulein, sir, was grieving over the Herren Beckensburg. I could not bear, if I may say so, sir, to see so kind a lady unhappy.”

Hambledon’s glass slipped from his hand and rolled unheeded on the carpet.

“I seem to have surprised you, sir,” said Franz, picking it up and wiping it carefully.

“Surp---- Do you mean to tell me that you forged that order and faked up that sergeant’s guard?”

“My organization, sir.”

“Do you realize that I thought Herr Goebbels had done it to incriminate me, and that I’ve been expecting arrest any moment for the past fortnight?”

“I am extremely sorry, sir. Such an idea never occurred to me. I thought that since your seal was used you would conclude I had done it, but you would not, of course, inquire.”

“Well, I’m damned!”

“I trust not, sir.”

“How did you get hold of my seal?”

“Your Excellency,” said Franz with a faint smile, “has the inestimable blessing of being able to sleep soundly.”

“I’ll sleep with it round my neck in future. But, look here, it didn’t fit.”

“I soaped it, sir, to prevent its sticking, but the soap made the wax bubble in a most unexpected manner. Very disconcerting, sir. But when I realized how like a forgery it looked, I left it, thinking it would be easier for you to disown it if occasion should arise.”

Hambledon sat still in a reverie so profound that the servant prepared to leave the room, but at the sound of the door his master aroused himself.

“One moment, Franz.”

“Sir?”

“Get another glass out of the cupboard, will you? I should like you to drink with me.”

“It will be an honour, sir.”

“It will---but I am not sure to which of us,” said Tommy Hambledon.

---

Goebbels had been perfectly right when he told his friends of a Commission which was going to Danzig. Ostensibly they were to discuss conditions of trade with leading Germans in the Free City, actually they went to arrange with the Herren Foerster and Greiser for the complete Germanizing of Danzig, and the stamping out, by fair means or foul, of any opposition to the Nazi regime either from Polish sympathizers or from those who wished to see the once Free City remain free. It would be necessary for a coup d’état to have a large number of German troops in the City, yet it would be unwise merely to march them in. Danzig, and especially its seaside resort, Zoppot, cater for tourists. Very well, let there be tourists, thousands of them, some in uniform and some not, but all S.S. men ready for action, for who holds the gate against the carefree tourist? Very clever, and it worked admirably.

This, however, is anticipation, for when Klaus Lehmann was told to protect the Commission against the enemies of the Reich, Danzig had not yet capitulated and there was sometimes trouble in the narrow, ancient streets, for this was only July 1938.

The day before the Commission started for Danzig, Tommy Hambledon went to the Record House to obtain, if possible, photographs and an official description of the man Schultz for the information of his guards. Hambledon’s personal party consisted of Reck, acting secretary, and two reliable men selected by himself from the police under his command, besides a number of plain-clothes detectives whose business it was to look after the Commission. Schultz seemed to have gone to ground since he came to Berlin from Aachen, but information had trickled through to the police that he was going to Danzig at the same time as the Commission, together with one Petzer.

Hambledon was lucky; there were official records of both men. Petzer did not seem a particularly interesting person apart from his tendency to fight with a hock bottle---preferably full---as a weapon, but it was noted that he was a native of Danzig. Evidently he had been selected for his local knowledge, probably Schultz had never been there before. Hambledon took down particulars of the appearance and habits of the two men and waited, chatting with Herr Gerhardt, while copies of their photographs were found for him.

“You must have had a terrible task,” said the Chief of Police sympathetically, “reducing chaos to order after the disastrous fire four months ago.”

“I cannot describe to you how dreadful it was. It may sound a curious thing to say, but the task would have been easier if the destruction had been more complete. No one who watched that awful blaze would have thought that anything in the building would survive, and yet, strange to relate, there was really a vast mass of material comparatively undamaged.”

“That is odd,” agreed Hambledon, “yet we must all have discovered at some time how difficult it is to burn a book.”

“Exactly, exactly. When the floors gave way they seem to have crashed out the fire beneath them, and the immense number of valuable records were only charred at the edges, and, of course, sodden with water. The dirt, the mess, my dear Herr Lehmann, if I may call you so, words fail me to describe it. Believe it or not, I bought myself a set of workman’s overalls---several sets---and wore them for weeks and weeks. My good wife looked in horror at my black face and hands, and said she never meant to marry a chimney sweep.”

“Please convey my homage,” said Hambledon, wishing they would hurry up with those photographs, “to the charming Frau Gerhardt and your delightful family. I shall hope to renew my acquaintance when I return from Danzig.”

“When I tell her what you have said,” answered Gerhardt, beaming all over his round face, “her gratification will be beyond measure. How kind you are, Herr Lehmann, how condescending. But to return to the records, the labour was worth it. Only yesterday Herr Goebbels was good enough to congratulate me upon the amount we have saved.” He spoke rather acidly, and Hambledon gathered correctly that Herr Gerhardt did not like the sharp-tongued Minister of Propaganda, probably he had been snubbed.

“So Goebbels was here yesterday, was he?” said Hambledon in a careless tone. “I imagine there can be hardly one of the Government Departments which does not have to apply to you for help at some time or another.”

“That is so, and it is our pride as well as our duty to produce whatever information may be required accurately, fully, and instantly. There was an odd coincidence about Herr Goebbels’ inquiries which might interest you.”

“Indeed! What was that?”

“Your Excellency will remember that a short time before our fire you yourself sent us some fingerprints for identification if possible. One set were on a glass, I think. We identified one set as those of a certain Hendrik Brandt, a Dutchman, who during the last war had an importer’s business in Cologne. Herr Goebbels came yesterday with a set of prints which also proved to be those of Hendrik Brandt.”

Hambledon had naturally seen the course which Gerhardt’s story was taking, and was not even mildly surprised. “The coincidence is probably more apparent than real,” he said. “It is quite possible for the same man to attract the attention of several Departments at once---it all depends what he’s been up to,” he added lightly.

“Of course, of course. We had to have---it was very insubordinate of us, of course, but we experts must have our private jokes---we had to have a little laugh at Herr Goebbels. When he was told to whom his prints belonged, he stared and said he didn’t believe it; and when further we assured him that there was no possible doubt about it, he actually queried the reliability of the whole fingerprint system. He seemed to think we were making a fool of him, he was quite angry, we really had to have a quiet laugh about it---after he had gone, of course.”

“I think it was extremely funny and I don’t wonder you laughed,” said Hambledon truthfully, for indeed the idea of Goebbels getting hold of that damning piece of evidence and refusing to believe it was almost farcical. “Ah, here are my photographs, I think.”

He exchanged with Gerhardt the stately courtesies in which the German’s soul delighted, walked thoughtfully home and went along the passage to Reck’s room.

“When we leave to-morrow, old horse,” said Hambledon, “we’ll kiss Berlin a final good-bye. Goebbels has had my fingerprints identified.”

“The devil he has!”

“Yes, and the funny thing about it is that he didn’t believe it. Me, the Chief of Police, a suspected agent of a foreign power! Why, he’s known me for years. It does sound a bit tall, doesn’t it?”

“He’ll believe it when he comes to think it over,” said Reck with conviction.

“Doesn’t matter much now, he’s made arrangements with Schultz,” said Hambledon, “and an automatic in the hand is worth a dozen fingerprints in the Record House any day.”

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