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Title: Pray Silence
U.S. title: A Toast to Tomorrow
Author: Coles, Manning [pseudonym of
   Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891-1959)
   and Cyril Henry Coles (1899-1965)]
Date of first publication: 1940
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Garden City, New York: Doubleday, [1959]
   ["A Toast to Tomorrow"; part of omnibus
   "The Exploits of Tommy Hambledon"]
Date first posted: 23 March 2021
Date last updated: 23 March 2021
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1671

This ebook was produced by Al Haines, Cindy Beyer,
Mark Akrigg & the Online Distributed Proofreading
Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained.

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.






PRAY SILENCE

by Manning Coles




    All of the characters in this book are
    fictitious, and any resemblance to actual
    persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.




    To A. M. Y.
    Remembering the Free City of Danzig




CHAPTER 1


He walked into his study, switched on the reading-lamp, drew the
curtains and threw more logs on the blazing fire, for it was very cold
in Berlin that evening in March 1933. He pushed an armchair in front of
the fire, a huge padded leather one which looked much too large for his
short spare figure, and put beside the chair a table with a box of
cigars on it, matches and a thick wad of papers in a cardboard cover
with a label inscribed, "_The Radio Operator_, A Play, by Klaus
Lehmann." He had the air of a man who is preparing to enjoy a
long-expected pleasure and does not intend small discomforts to spoil
it. Every few moments he glanced at the clock. Finally he opened a
cupboard door and looked inside, scowled, and rang the bell; a
manservant answered it, a man as long, thin and melancholy as his master
was short and cheerful.

"Yes, sir?"

"Franz, did I not say there should be beer?"

"I could not say for certain, sir."

"When in doubt, Franz, provide it."

"Very good, sir."

"I rather think, Franz, that I have told you that before."

"If you say so, sir."

"Of course I say so, haven't you just heard me? Don't stand there
arguing, go and get it."

The servant's long wrinkled face assumed exactly the expression of a
pained bloodhound, and he slid out of the room leaving the door ajar and
admitting an icy draught. "Now I've annoyed him, Franz always leaves the
door open when his feelings are hurt."

Franz came back with a tall jug, put it on the table and prepared to
leave, but his master said, "Just a moment," took two glasses from the
cupboard, filled them both and handed him one.

"Drink success to _The Radio Operator_, Franz," he said. "This is a
great moment, when one hears one's first play being performed for the
first time."

Franz's ugly face lit up. "It must be, sir. _Prosit! The Radio
Operator._"

They drank with appropriate solemnity, and Franz put his glass down.

"I know how you feel, sir, if I may say so. I felt like that myself
once."

"I didn't know I had a fellow-author in the house."

"It was only a little thing, sir. It went:

    _'Though she was old,_
    _Her heart was never cold._
    _I'll never see another_
    _Like my grandmother.'_

My parents put it in the paper, sir, when she died."

"I see," said the successful playwright. "An epitaph, and very nice,
too. I always think epitaphs must be so difficult. Either you delight
the family and nobody else, or else you delight everybody except the
family."

"Yes, sir," said Franz. "Excuse me, it is time."

"Heavens, yes," said the author, springing at the wireless set and
switching it on, to be rewarded with the closing bars of a Beethoven
concerto. Franz left the room, shutting the door this time, while his
master poured himself out some more beer and settled down in the big
armchair with the manuscript upon his knee to listen to his very own
play.

"You are now to hear," said the announcer, "the first broadcast of a new
play, _The Radio Operator_, by Klaus Lehmann. There is only one
character, the radio operator himself----"

The play opened with the usual background of morse, starting very
softly, growing louder and more insistent, then dying away again to a
whisper as the only character began to speak. It would seem that even
the morse, unintelligible jumble of letters though it was, delighted its
author, for he snuggled down into his chair and a self-satisfied smile
illuminated his scarred face even before the speech began.

"To-night I sit for the last time," said the radio operator, "in the
little cabin they call the wireless room, surrounded by the familiar
instruments----"

"I hope to goodness that's right," muttered the author. "Don't believe I
was ever in a wireless room in my life."

"--the table before me, for to-morrow we reach Hamburg and I go ashore
for the last time. Next voyage another man will sit here in my place
listening to the myriad voices of the air----"

"Nice touch, that."

"--instructing, warning, comforting----"

The morse rose in intensity again, drowning the operator's voice for a
moment, and again the author smiled.

"For my life at sea is ended, and to-morrow I retire. How well I
remember when I first went to sea!"

The operator had started his career in a Jewish-controlled shipping
line, where starvation wages, revolting food, and disgusting
accommodation had combined with the slave-driving habits of the owners
to make his young life a misery. "Cockroaches," said the operator, in a
tone quivering with emotion, "cockroaches in my bunk, cockroaches in the
wireless room, even cockroaches in the coffee, and if a free-born German
dared to complain he was met with hectoring disdain and bullying
laughter."

"Not a good phrase," said the playwright, frowning. "I meant to alter
that and I forgot. Hectoring something else and disdainful laughter
would be better."

Then the war came, the wireless operator joined the Imperial Navy, and
was wounded at the battle of Horns Reef. He seemed to have had the
singular gift of being in several different parts of the North Sea at
once, but what of that?

"On that great day," he said, "I saw with my own eyes numerous gallant
destroyer actions between the bull-terriers of our Fleet and the
darting, stinging wasps of the enemy; I saw our cruiser squadrons sweep
the English ships out of their way as a broom scatters autumn leaves; I
saw the proud English battleships blow up with a thunderous roar and
become as it were dust in a moment, while their cries for help came to
my ears over the air."

Again the morse rose and sank again, and the author took a pull at his
beer.

"And I sincerely hope that makes the English sit up and listen," he
said.

When the operator came out of hospital he was sent to the shore station
at Ostende, where the U-boats, returning from their nocturnal
adventures, reported arrival in the chilly dawns--or did not return nor
report. The war came to an end and there followed the dreadful years of
defeat, when the mark slumped, food was bad or unobtainable, and the
people perished.

"I walked the streets of Hamburg," said the wireless operator, "out of
work, out of money, out of hope, starving, destitute, wretched. 'Will
this go on for ever,' I cried, 'will no one deliver Germany from her
chains?' But heaven was merciful and sent us a Deliverer."

"Came the Dawn," commented the author, lighting a cigar.

"Our Leader," continued the voice from the radio set, "had an uphill
task indeed, such as only a superman could have performed, but he has
done it, and what do we see to-day? A Germany free, powerful, respected
and feared. Her sons walking the world with stately tread and unbending
necks, her ships, well found, well provisioned and equipped, sailing the
seven seas again with ships' companies proud to serve in them, and the
tramp of her armies shaking the earth. At home her people are busy,
contented and happy, and her children grow up healthy, strong and fair.
We know to whom we owe all this, to whom all praise and honour is due,
and we shall pay it, we and our children and our children's children; in
days to come the whole world shall pay it too, saying as I do, 'Heil
Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil!'"

The morse broke in again, rising to a staccato climax, only to be
drowned in its turn by the strains of the Horst Wessel Song. The author
closed his manuscript and relaxed in his chair.

"That ought to please Adolf," said Klaus Lehmann, Deputy Chief of the
German Police.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The S.S. _Whistlefield Star_ was a biggish cargo boat six hours out of
Hamburg for Cardiff, and she carried two wireless operators. The senior
operator was approaching middle age, red-haired, stocky and freckled. He
had seen service in destroyers in the Great War and was a little too apt
to tell people all about it. The second mate, on the other hand, was the
possessor of a wireless set which he claimed would bring in anything
except the morning's milk, and he kept it in the saloon. The wireless
operator came in off duty, looking for supper, and found the second mate
producing hyena-like noises varied by cat-fights in an attempt to tune
out an over-powerful German station which was broadcasting a Beethoven
concerto.

"For the love of Larry," said the operator, "pipe down. Can't a man get
a bit of peace from the blasted wireless in his spare time?"

"I shall in a minute, if I can't get anything but this high-brow stuff.
Give me something with a tune to it."

"You might know you can't get anything but Hamburg off here. Ow! Oh,
Lord, don't do that, you're turning the sardines liverish."

The concerto drew to its close and there followed an announcement in
German. "Sounds like the end of the concert," said the second mate,
"perhaps we'll get something decent now." The next item started with
morse, at first very soft, working up in a crescendo and then falling
quiet again.

"Here, Sparks," said the unfeeling second mate, "something to amuse
you." But the wireless operator was too busy telling the steward what he
thought of the tea to pay any attention. A voice on the radio started to
talk, and after waiting a moment in the hope of something better the
second mate was just beginning to tune away from it when the morse broke
in again. "Taa," it said, "tit--taa--tit--tit, taa. Taa,
tit--taa--tit--tit, taa." This time the wireless operator sat up
listening.

"Here," he said, "hold that a moment. T-L-T. T-L-T. Where have I heard
that before? It's a call-sign. I used to know it."

The morse died out when the German voice went on talking, talking, while
the wireless operator scowled with thought, till the second mate got
fidgety.

"I'm fed up with all this yap," he said, "I'll have a look round to see
if I can't find something else."

"I have it," said the wireless man suddenly. "One of our people in
Germany. We had a list of call-signs to listen for, and I'm sure that
was one of 'em. T-L-T."

"What?" said the mate. "Britishers broadcasting from Germany? When?"

"During the war."

"But did they? Who were they? What were they doing?"

"Spying, like. Intelligence work they called it, an' I'll say they had
to be pretty intelligent to get away with it. There was a few of them
used to transmit with spark sets, used to get messages out that way. In
code, of course, couldn't make head nor tail of what the message----
Listen!"

The morse began again, and the wireless operator snatched a pencil and
an old envelope from his pocket and jotted down letters as they came.
"T-L-T. RKEHO----" When it ceased again he looked mournfully at the
result.

"Well, there you are," he said, "and what it all means I've no more idea
than a blind kitten."

"P'raps it doesn't mean anything," said the second mate. "Just
trimmings, like, like what you get on the National sometimes."

"Don't believe it, not starting T-L-T like that. I don't know if I ought
to do something about it, but I don't know who to send it to now. Now,
when I was in the Service----"

"Oh, Lor'," said the second mate, and unostentatiously quitted the
saloon.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Young Emsworth settled himself down in his chair before the receiving
set in the Foreign Office, pulled the earphones over his head and
listened with pleasure to the last movement of a Beethoven concerto,
magnificently rendered. "If only we could always hear stuff like that,"
he murmured, "instead of all the awful tosh we have to listen to." He
glanced with distaste at the programme. A play by Klaus Lehmann called
_The Radio Operator_, doubtless some of that dreadful propaganda stuff,
news, a talk on the Hitler Youth movement, a concert of light music. He
sighed and drew a writing-pad towards him, for it was his business to
listen to what Germany was being told, and report upon anything rich and
strange. Also within his reach was the switch of the recorder, an
instrument which would, if required, make a record of what was said, so
that the exact wording could be studied at leisure. The German
announcer's voice ceased, and the play began with a crackle of morse.

An expression of speechless amazement crossed Emsworth's face, he shot
out one hand automatically to switch on the recorder and then took his
headphones off, looked at them and put them on again, an idiotic gesture
sometimes seen when a man cannot believe his ears.

"To-night," said the guttural German voice, "I sit for the last time in
the little cabin they call the wireless room, surrounded----"

Emsworth pressed a bell-switch and after a short pause a messenger came
in, but Emsworth held up his hand for silence because the morse had come
on for the second time. When it ended, he said, "Is Mr. Wilcox still
here? Go and see, if he is ask him to be good enough to come to me
here."

Wilcox came in, an elderly man, heavy and pallid with years of sedentary
employment.

"What's the excitement, Emsworth? You only just caught me, I was putting
my coat on."

Emsworth slipped one headphone forward in order to hear what Wilcox said
with one ear and the German broadcast with the other. "D'you remember
telling me the other evening about people transmitting messages from
Germany during the war? You quoted three or four call-signs, wasn't
T-L-T one of them? Yes--well, here it is again in a morse background to
a German radio play about a wireless operator."

"Got the recorder going? Good," said Wilcox, snatching up another pair
of headphones and plugging them in. "Oh, he's still talking, I dare say
we'll get some more in a minute. Yes, I had your job in those days, but
it was a bit more interest----"

He broke off and listened intently, jotting letters down on a slip of
paper. "T-L-T. RKEHOSWR39X--" When the morse had ended again, he said,
"How many times has that come in?"

"That's the third. Once at the beginning, quite short and nothing but
the call-sign repeated, and once since, before this."

Wilcox nodded and went on listening. "More talky-talky, lots of, my hat,
how these propagandists do gas," he said. "No, I can't remember exactly
what this fellow was after all this lapse of time. After all, it's
sixteen years, but I can tell you right away it's not the same fellow
transmitting. I remember he had a distinctive, rather pedantic style. I
always put him down as a rather elderly self-taught amateur. You know,
of course, that men in the habit of listening to morse come to recognize
the touch of other operators they are in the habit of hearing, much as
you recognize a man's voice or his handwriting."

"B--but," spluttered young Emsworth, who found Wilcox's calmness
positively inhuman, "do you really think it's the same man? After all
these years? Do you think it's real?"

"Yes, I think it may be real, but we can tell better when it's decoded.
No, I don't think it's the same man, I've said so already. As for 'after
all these years,' stranger things have happened and will again. When
it's all over I'll have those old codes turned up an---- Sh!"

The morse came in for the last time and was finally drowned by the Horst
Wessel Song. The two men waited till it was clear that the play was
over, and Wilcox took his headphones off and got up.

"Now I'll leave you in peace to listen to the news," he said, taking the
thin steel strip out of the recording machine, "while I go and see if I
can worry this out."

The next morning there was a conference on the subject attended by
Wilcox and his immediate superior, also an elderly Colonel called up by
telephone from the Sussex cottage to which he had retired when he left
the War Office years before.

"The code in which these messages were sent," said Wilcox, rustling
papers, "was used during the late war by an agent of ours named Reck,
who was science master of a school at Mlheim, near Cologne."

"I remember," said the Colonel. "A queer dry old stick. I only saw him
once or twice. He never came to England unless it was really urgent, he
had become so German that he could hardly speak English at all--he had
forgotten it. Very useful man on his job."

"Where is Reck now?"

"Dead. He took to drink, was removed to an asylum at Mainz, and died
there," answered Wilcox.

"Either Reck is not dead," said Authority, "or he was careless enough to
leave his code behind him and somebody has found it."

"He went out of his mind," said the Colonel. "I am sure of that, for I
kept an eye on him. Denton went to see him once and said the poor old
fellow complained of bright seraphim crawling up the walls."

"Dear me," said the senior officer present, "how very superior. I
thought it was usually snakes in bathing costumes wearing straw hats and
playing banjoes."

"He may well have mislaid his code," said Wilcox. "I am sure it was not
he who was transmitting. In any case, the question remains, who sent the
message? Because at the best of times he only coded and sent messages,
he did not originate them."

"If it is genuine," said the Foreign Office man, "it is probably
somebody who was in touch with Reck in the old days. Is there anyone who
went missing without trace and may have turned up again?"

"Plenty," said the Colonel sadly, "but not, as it happens, connected
with Reck. Let me see. Hall died in England after the war. Inglis is in
an asylum in the Midlands, poor devil. Saunders was shot in Hampshire.
Beckett runs a chicken farm in Dorset. Denton is in the Balkans, and has
been for the last couple of years. Hambledon was drowned. MacVicar is in
an engineering works on Tyneside. Thorpe is married and living quietly
in Salisbury. No, none of Reck's contacts are what you'd call missing.
May I hear the messages again?"

"The message was in four parts, in intervals in the play, you
understand," said Wilcox. "The first was merely the call-sign repeated.
Next came, 'T-L-T. British agent in Germany begs to report thinks he may
be of assistance.' Then, 'Your agent Arnold Heckstall will be delivered
at Belgian frontier April 5th.' Finally, 'Information in diplomatic bag
reaching London April 6th.' That's all."

"April 5th," said Wilcox's superior, "is Wednesday next; to-day's
Saturday. I have instructed the British Embassy in Berlin to watch their
diplomatic bag like a mother brooding over her sick child. They may find
somebody trying to do something to it."

"Otherwise," said the Colonel, "there's nothing for it but to wait and
see what what's-his-name--Hinkson?--has to say, that is, if he turns
up."

"Heckstall," said the Foreign Office man. "We knew, of course, that they
had gathered him in. We did not expect--er--a happy issue out of his
afflictions."

"I'll believe it when I see it," said Wilcox.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In Berlin there had been another conference between the heads of the
police. "This fellow Heckstall," said the Chief, "is a nuisance. I am
perfectly certain he is an English agent."

"Shoot him, then," said the Deputy Chief cheerfully.

"I would with pleasure, but there have been too many Englishmen dying of
heart-failure in Germany lately. They will not always believe it, and
our Leader does not wish for trouble over it. There was that curate, who
would have believed he really was?"

"The curate rankles with you, my dear Niehl."

"I do not like to be misinformed," said Niehl stiffly.

"Had I been in office at that time it would not have occurred," said his
subordinate soothingly. "In future we will be more careful with curates.
Returning to Heckstall, leave him to me, I will manage him."

"I should be very glad, my dear Lehmann. What plan had you in your
mind?"

"If a man is put over the frontier at a quiet spot and found shot on
Belgian territory in the morning, what business is it of ours?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

The third footman at the British Embassy brought a scuttle of coal into
the Ambassador's room, and made up the fire during His Excellency's
temporary absence. There were a number of papers on the table, some
already tied into bundles for the diplomatic bag for London. The footman
glanced hastily at the door, drew a long envelope from inside his coat,
pushed it into the middle of one of these bundles, and immediately left
the room as the Ambassador returned to it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The conference at the Foreign Office was resumed in the evening of April
6th with one addition to the previous company, the British agent, Arnold
Heckstall, who had flown from Brussels that afternoon.

"I was picked up in Berlin on the evening of the day I got there," he
said, "and consigned to gaol. That was on Wednesday, March the 22nd.
They came and hauled me out for questioning occasionally, but it was not
too drastic. Then yesterday evening some S.S. men came in, an officer
and three others, and removed me. I thought I was going to be bumped
off, of course, but they pushed me into a car and we drove to the
Tempelhof Aerodrome. A plane was all ready, so we took off and flew for
about two hours and came down near Aachen. There were some more S.S. men
there, and we all got into Mercds cars, four of them, with the
officer, two others and myself in the second, and started off again. It
was then something after midnight and perfectly dark, but we went
through Aachen, which I recognized, that was how I knew where we were.
They had refused to answer my questions, or, indeed, to speak to me at
all except to give me orders. Some time later the cars all came to a
standstill, and in the headlights of the first I saw a frontier marking
post at the side of the road just ahead. The officer got out and ordered
the cars to be turned round to face the way we had come, which was
done."

Heckstall paused for a moment with an odd little smile and then
continued.

"They came and told me to get out of the car, which I did. As there were
about six of them pointing automatics at me, there did not seem to be
much I could do about it. Two of them took me by the arms and marched me
along the road towards the frontier, with the officer following behind.
At the mark post he sent these two men back and told me to walk on, with
him just behind prodding me with his automatic.

"When we were out of earshot of the rest of the party--we must have been
out of sight too, in the darkness--he said, 'Keep on moving ahead of me,
don't look round. When you hear two shots behind you, run like blazes.
Remember what I'm saying, it's important. _Don't come back._ Officially
you're dead, so don't let anyone at home see you, either. Go somewhere
quiet and keep silkworms, and give my love to the Only Girl in the
World!' He spoke the last five words in English with a strong German
accent."

"Silkworms," said the retired Colonel thoughtfully.

"He said silkworms, sir."

"Go on, please."

"Then he fired two shots and I ran like blazes, as he said. I glanced
back once or twice and could see him walking back to the cars, he was
silhouetted against the lighted road. I did not know where I was except
that it must be Belgium, but after wandering about for miles in the dark
I reached Limburg at about 4 a.m., got an early train for Brussels and
flew back by the first available plane."

"Yes," said his Foreign Office chief slowly, "we were hoping you would."

"B-but----"

"We were told you would be released on the sixth."

Heckstall merely stared at him.

"Tell me, did you see this officer plainly? What was he like?"

"Oh, quite plainly. Rather a nondescript little man, grey eyes, rather
ginger hair going grey, short but not fat, thin face with duelling scars
across his right cheek, quick, energetic walk, rather a pleasant voice,
cheerful-looking fellow, looked as though he could see a joke. Short
nose, wide mouth rather thin-lipped, square jaw. He was evidently
someone very important, his men fairly jumped to it when he spoke."

"Duelling scars," said Wilcox. "Evidently a pukka German."

"Which year," asked the Colonel, "was that song about the Only Girl in
the World popular?"

"'The Bing Boys'? Oh, about '16," said Wilcox.

"I am sorry to have come back without the information, sir," said
Heckstall.

"We got that to-day," said his chief unexpectedly.

The startled Heckstall stared at him for the second time and slowly
coloured to his eyes. "It came in the diplomatic bag from the British
Embassy in Berlin to-day," the Foreign Office man went on. "It was
written--or rather, typed--on British Embassy notepaper, enclosed in an
official envelope, and tied up with a number of confidential documents
about another rather important matter which we'd rather they hadn't
read. And all this in spite of the fact that not only was the bag not
tampered with--and it was not left unwatched for a single instant--but
no attempt was made at any time to approach it. The King's Messenger
assures me of that."

"Reminds me of Maskelyne and Devant," said the Colonel.

"I suppose," said Wilcox, who had been rubbing his hand over his head
till his hair stood straight on end like a scrubbing-brush, "the
Messenger is all right?"

"I'll have him watched, shall I?" said his harassed superior. "And the
Ambassador too, while I'm about it? Wilcox, I haven't seen you do that
since '17."

"I've had no occasion," said Wilcox. "Any suggestions, Colonel?"

"No," said the War Office man slowly. "Only--Reck used to keep
silkworms."




CHAPTER 2


There was a German Naval Hospital at the top of the Avenue de la Reine
in Ostende in the latter part of the Great War, and in January 1918 a
man was brought in, completely unconscious, and clad only in his
underwear. He had been picked up on the beach, having evidently swum or
floated ashore, and in addition to suffering from exhaustion and
exposure, he was wounded in the head. When they had cleaned, dried and
patched him up they stood round his bed and looked at him.

"The injury at the back of the skull," said the senior house-surgeon,
"may give us trouble, it is impossible to say how much damage has been
done to the brain. The facial injuries are trivial."

"He'll have a couple of lovely duelling scars when they heal up," said
the medical student. "Simply too Heidelberg for words."

"One is prompted to wonder how he received them," said the ward sister
in her prim voice. "The contused wound in the occipital region is more
easily explicable."

"He can hardly have been fighting a duel in the sea," said the surgeon,
who had a literal mind.

"Oh, I don't know," said the student. "Two fellows desiring to shun
publicity while they settle their differences, what could be better? Hop
on a raft and shove off, loser's body is automatically and hygienically
disposed of by the conger of the deep, winner paddles happily ashore,
what?"

"He would appear to have thrown both the seconds to the conger-eels too,
my good Muller," said the surgeon.

"Of course, and while he was dealing with one of them, the other clouted
him with the paddle, hence the contused wound in the occipital region."

"One is perhaps permitted to doubt whether the explanation is meant to
be taken seriously," said the ward sister.

"No doubt at all, it isn't," said Muller, "but it's a dashed good one."

Their patient stirred suddenly, mumbled something, and then said in a
clear, commanding voice, "Look at that, you insubordinate hound!" He
shifted uneasily, and the sister slipped her arm behind his shoulder
lest he should slide down and disarrange the dressings on his head.

"If he is going to be restless," said the surgeon, "he will have to be
watched. He may have a morphia injection."

"Yes, sir," said the ward sister.

"He is certainly an officer," said Muller. "All that insubordinate hound
business is quite definitely Potsdam."

"I think he may have received his injuries from a bursting shell," said
the surgeon, "when there was all that firing from the coastal batteries
early this morning--a mysterious light offshore, I understand. As to how
he came to be swimming about out there, I have no conjecture to offer,
unless he was washed off a submarine."

"Or escaped from Donington Hall and just swam across," suggested Muller.

"I think your remarks are regrettably frivolous," said the
house-surgeon, who always disciplined with difficulty. "No doubt he will
tell us all about himself in the morning."

But the surgeon was wrong, for his patient was quite unable to give any
account of himself in the morning. While he was being dragged
unwillingly back from the fringes of pneumonia, he talked incessantly in
the German of the educated classes, but there was never enough
continuity in his remarks to give them any clue as to what or who he
was. In fact, apart from telling them in a wonderful variety of
well-chosen phrases what he thought of some gunners and their shooting,
he did not refer to his past at all. So things went on until the day
came when the stranger opened his eyes and looked about him
intelligently.

The ward sister was informed of it and came to bend over him and give
him the usual encouragement. "There now," she said cheerfully, "you are
a lot better this morning, aren't you?"

Her patient made an effort to speak, and she expected the usual "Where
am I?" but to her surprise he said, "Who am I?" instead. She thought she
must have misunderstood him, and answered, "You are in the Ostende Naval
Hospital. You'll have some nice soup now and go to sleep again, you'll
be----"

"I see it's a hospital," he whispered feebly. "What I said was, 'Who am
I?'"

"Never mind that now," she said, "you'll remember presently when you are
stronger."

The nurse who brought his soup smiled at him and said, "I'll help you to
drink it, shall I?" but instead of thanking her he stared at her and
asked, "Who am I?"

"You poor dear," she said. "Don't worry about it now. Drink this and go
to sleep. I expect you'll remember when you wake up again."

He obeyed her and dropped at once into the sudden easy sleep of
weakness, but neither when he awoke again, nor the next day, nor for
very many days to come did he remember who he was. He soon left off
asking his pathetic question, but there remained in his eyes the
puzzled, hurt expression of a child to whom some inexplicable unkindness
has been done, though he was plainly a man in the late twenties. Once
the senior house-surgeon, Lehmann, passing through the ward very late at
night, heard small uneasy sounds from the direction of the stranger's
bed, and discovered him awake and struggling with a frightful attack of
panic.

"My dear fellow," said Lehmann kindly, "what is the matter?"

"I don't know--I'm frightened. I don't know who I am. Oh, God! Tell me
who I am!"

"Hush, gently," said the surgeon, taking a firm hold of the hot hands
which clung to him for comfort. "Don't wake the others. Try to calm
yourself; you will make yourself ill again. There is nothing to be
afraid of."

"But there is! You see, I don't know what I've done, do I? I may be some
criminal--and some day somebody may walk up to me and say, 'Ha! Got you
at last!' and they'll put me in prison for years and perhaps hang me,
and I'll never know what it's all about. Oh, God----"

"Listen to me," said Lehmann in a tone of authority. "You are
frightening yourself with shadows. Do you think that we, whose lives are
spent in seeing mankind in its worst moments, do not know good from bad?
I don't know who you are, but I will stake every penny I have that you
are perfectly all right. Even when you were most delirious you never
said anything brutal or base, and in your utmost weakness you were
courteous and unwilling to give trouble. You a criminal? Nonsense! Turn
over and go to sleep again, you are torturing yourself for nothing,
believe me."

"But," objected his patient, still only half-convinced, "some criminals
are delightful people, I believe. Even a murderer might be. It doesn't
mean you're all evil if you have killed somebody--if you have killed
somebody you--I can't remember----"

"Stop that at once," said Lehmann. "As for killing somebody, since there
is a war on and you are of military age, I should think it's quite
probable you have. You must pull yourself together. I am going to get
you something to drink, and then you will lie down and go to sleep
again, and we will have no more of this. In the meantime, think this
over. You may or may not have killed somebody, has it occurred to you
that it's more likely that you have married somebody?"

In the abysmal silence which followed this appalling suggestion, Lehmann
disengaged himself and went away. When he returned with a glass in his
hand he found his patient lying quietly back on his pillows murmuring to
himself.

"Margareta. Marie. Julie. Helene. Susanne. Elsa--Elsa. No, I don't think
so. Klara. Anna." He looked up with a sparkle of fun in his eyes. "Do I
look married?"

"Not particularly," said Lehmann, "and you don't wear a wedding-ring.
But men don't always wear one, and besides you might have lost it. Drink
this."

"Fancy me with a wife," said the stranger, between sips. "This stuff is
rather nice. I wonder what she's like."

"I should think you'd be a good picker," said the surgeon judicially, "I
have noticed you betraying a certain discrimination in the matter of
nurses."

"You are extraordinarily good to me. I wish I had a name, though."

"You can have mine if you like," said Lehmann diffidently, "till you
find your own. I am quite sure it will be safe with you."

"If you're so damned decent to me," said his patient chokily, "I shall
blub on your shoulder in a minute. I say, d-do you think I've got a
family?"

"I should say at least eight," said the surgeon, patting his shoulder.

"All with noses that want blowing?"

"Oh, go to sleep--Lehmann," said Lehmann senior, and went away laughing
to himself.

The next day a committee of nurses round the stranger's bed christened
him, after discussion, Klaus, because he came from the sea and Nikolaus
is the patron saint of sailors, and Klaus Lehmann, feeling already that
he had the beginning of an identity again, started life afresh.

When he was well enough to be discharged from hospital they sent him to
Hamburg on the assumption that if, as seemed likely, he had been in the
Imperial Navy, he was more likely to come across someone who knew him in
a Naval base than anywhere else in Germany. He said good-bye to the only
people whom he knew in all the world, and set out for Hamburg in a state
of trepidation which he knew he had felt before somewhere, and when he
was thinking of something else the memory returned to him. He had felt
like that when he was a small boy and was sent, all by himself, to the
dentist.

This was so wonderful that his spirits rose with a leap. Then his memory
was not destroyed, only stunned, and one day some door would re-open in
his brain and he would be a person again, with a home and friends and
relations of his own. He still shied at the thought of a wife, probably
because he was still too weak to bear the thought of responsibility. He
tried to remember more about the dentist, but that was a failure. Never
mind, it was a beginning. "When I was a little boy," he said to an
imaginary hearer--the carriage being empty--"I used to be sent to the
dentist all by myself. Spartan training, what?" Splendid.

He was so uplifted that he stepped out of the train at Hamburg with his
chin well up and his chest thrown out, and began to run up the steps
which led to the road level, when suddenly to his rage and disgust his
knees bent beneath him and he found himself sitting abruptly and
watching his little suit-case bumping away down the stairs again, right
to the bottom, miles away.... He closed his eyes and clutched the
banisters. Six people rushed instantly to his assistance, three of them
tried to pick him up while the other three patted him and told him to
sit still and take it easy. Four more people brought him his suit-case,
and a porter came with a glass of water.

"Thank you a thousand times," said poor Klaus, feeling horribly
conspicuous. "I am sorry--so stupid of me, my legs gave way."

"It is no wonder, my poor man. You have been wounded."

"But only in the head, gracious lady."

"The head controls the legs, or should do so. Lean on my arm."

"Let me help you on this other side."

"Take it easy, these stairs are steep."

"I have your suit-case, it is safe with me."

"My brother has attacks, just like this."

"My sister's husband also, but he turns quite blue."

"There we are at the top. Would you like to rest a moment?"

"Where do you wish to go?"

"I think you should have some coffee. It is a stimulant."

"I think he should go and lie down quite flat. My brother always does."

"My sister's husband, on the other hand----"

"I think I will take a cab," said Klaus, who felt he would really like
to be alone, "the air will restore me."

"You may be right, if the movement does not upset you."

"Have you far to go?"

"Are you going to friends?"

"It is plain to me, gracious lady," said Klaus, "that in the city of
Hamburg everyone is a friend."

They chose him the cab with the steadiest-looking horse on the rank,
commended him to the personal surveillance of the driver, and Klaus at
last drove away.

He was given employment in the Naval depot and spent wearisome days
filling up forms indenting for vests, singlets, jumpers, trousers and
socks, Naval ratings, for the use of, in the intervals between
devastating headaches, but he never met anyone who had known him. He
lived in the Naval barracks at Hamburg where men came and went
continually, but still no one said, "I remember that fellow. He was with
me in the so-and-so."

As the summer of 1918 drew to its close and the news from the Western
Front grew steadily worse, the morale of the Navy deteriorated.
Discipline became slack and finally bad, little groups of idle men stood
about and were harangued by Communist agitators, and ratings were
covertly or openly insolent to their officers. Unpleasant scenes were
continually occurring, where frayed tempers, undernourishment and
despair combined to make men lose control of themselves; on one of these
occasions Klaus heard a Naval officer call a seaman "you insubordinate
dog." At that the little door in his mind opened for an instant, and he
heard himself saying, "Look at that, you insubordinate hound," something
to do with petrol, a dump somewhere, and men in field grey. The door
closed again at once and he could remember no more, but that must have
been in the Army, not the Navy. No wonder the life here seemed
unfamiliar and no one ever knew him, he must have been a soldier, not a
sailor.

Work in the depot petered out, and in October he was discharged. In
pursuance of a plan he had formed in his mind, he left Hamburg just
before the rioting broke out and drifted down towards the Western Front
to look for his lost identity somewhere in the German Army. He wandered
through Hanover, Dortmund, Elberfeld, and Dusseldorf towards Aachen,
sometimes stopping several days in one place if he liked the look of it,
and sometimes going on again next morning. He stayed for nearly a
fortnight at a tiny place called Haspe among the forests northeast of
Elberfeld, because there was an old lady there who said that Klaus
Lehmann strongly reminded her of her brother at about that age, and he
had left a son who had been reported missing. She did not know the son,
and Klaus might, conceivably, be he. She produced a photograph of the
late Herr Rademeyer to prove her point.

"There you are," she said. "You can see it for yourself, a child could
see it. The same forehead, the same nose, one ear sticking out more than
the other, the likeness is ludicrous. You are thinner, of course, my
brother was well covered."

Klaus looked with awe at the presentment of a portly gentleman with a
stuffed expression, and suppressed an impulse to describe him mentally
as a pie-faced old sausage-maker--after all, this might be his
father--and said, "He has a kind face, kind but firm."

"You might have known him, to say that. Of course, since he was your
father you probably did. I mean, since he was probably your father, you
did. Georg was a great character, quiet but unyielding. You will stay
with me till Thursday week when his widow, your mother, comes to visit
me. She ought to know."

So Klaus Lehmann stayed on at the white house among the trees in Haspe,
and was introduced to the local worthies, among them the old doctor, who
had known Herr Rademeyer well.

"Quiet but unyielding," he said, when Klaus quoted this. "Obstinate, she
means. Dumb and stubborn as an army mule was Georg Rademeyer, and the
more he dug his toes in, the dumber he became. Heaven forgive me, he is
now dead."

"You do not seem to have been one of his admirers," said Klaus, much
amused.

"There was this to be said for him, he was no chatterbox. He had nothing
to say and he didn't say it, heaven rest his soul."

Klaus waited in Haspe for a possible parent, and was fussed over and
made much of by a possible aunt. He was well fed for the first time for
years, or so it seemed, since, though beef and mutton were almost
unobtainable, there were still chickens scratching in the weedy
stable-yard and wild-looking pigs ran about in the woods. The storeroom
shelves of the white house were still full of jams, pickles and
preserves, and there was wine in the cellars. Klaus would come out on
the verandah after lunch, with a pleasantly replete feeling, and sit in
a warm corner in the late sunshine with an overcoat and a book,
listening to Hanna singing in the kitchen and the dry beech leaves
whispering in the hedges till he fell asleep and dreamed of things he
could not recall when he awoke. An idyllic existence, and he grew
stronger and better every day, but still he could not remember who he
was.

At the time appointed Frau Rademeyer came and dispelled the illusion of
peace.

"Nonsense, Ludmilla! The young man is no more like Georg than he's like
the Shah of Persia, and he's even less like my Moritz. You must be in
your dotage, Ludmilla."

"Nonsense yourself," said the old lady stoutly. "There is a strong
resemblance."

"Besides, Moritz had scars on his left knee ever since he fell against
the staircase window. Young man, show me your left knee."

"I fear I am not the Herr Moritz Rademeyer," said Klaus, pulling up his
trouser-leg. "Quite unblemished, as you see. Well, I must go on looking,
that's all---- For pity's sake, Frulein Rademeyer!"

For the gallant old woman had crumbled into a heap in her chair and
burst into tears.

"I wanted him for my nephew," she wailed. "I am so much alone."

"Let's pretend I am," suggested Klaus, and kissed her hand. "It will be
just as nice."

"You are a fool, Ludmilla, to let yourself be imposed upon by some
good-for-nothing from no one knows where, but what can one expect from
an old maid but folly?"

"Leave my house, Mathilde! I will not be insulted!"

"I shall be only too pleased----" began Frau Rademeyer, rising from her
chair, but at that moment the servant Hanna burst into the room.

"Oh, Frulein! Oh, Herr Lehmann! The postman has been and he says the
war is over!"

"Control yourself, Hanna," said her mistress. "Go and fetch old Theodor
with his truck for the luggage, the Frau Rademeyer is leaving us."

"But, _gndige Frulein_, the war----"

"Hanna!"

Hanna went, and so did Frau Rademeyer.

Klaus stayed on for a few days, but the news had made him fidgety.
Somewhere out there, beyond these prison-walls of pines, great events
were stirring, and he in this backwater----

"I must go," he said. "I will come back, but I must go and see what is
happening. Perhaps I shall find myself, and I'll come back to tell you
I'm no longer a good-for-nothing from nobody knows where."

"If you quote that vixen to me," said Frulein Rademeyer, "I will throw
the inkpot at you. Yes, go, my dear boy, but do not be away too long."

Klaus Lehmann reached Aachen in time to see the German Army coming home.
There were triumphal arches across the streets and the people tried to
cheer, but the soldiers dragged their feet and walked dispiritedly
along, sometimes not even in step, tired, shabby, defeated. They fell
out as the evening came on, and people took them into their houses to
sleep, the inns also were full of them, and Klaus went about trying to
make them talk. They talked willingly enough, but not about the war,
that was too recent and too hopeless, they spoke only of their homes and
the quickest way to get there, and grumbled about their bad boots and
the food, the weather and the mud. Still no one recognized Klaus out of
all those thousands, nor did the Army customs and the Army slang awaken
any response in his mind, he felt no more at home there than he did in
the Navy. "I must have belonged to one or the other, surely," he said to
himself, "unless I was in the Air Force. Perhaps that was it, and I made
a forced landing in the sea, and that's how I came to swim ashore. It's
a reasonable solution. I will go and look for the Air Force--what's left
of it."




CHAPTER 3


Klaus Lehmann went by stages from Aachen to Darmstadt. He passed through
Cologne on the 18th of December, 1918, that was the day the British
troops marched in. No German would care to see the Army of Occupation
come in, and Lehmann's heart was as heavy as any other man's as the
Leinsters' pipes sounded in the Cathedral Square.

At Darmstadt aerodrome he found a number of German war planes waiting to
be surrendered for demolition, but very few men about, only just enough
for a maintenance party, and to hand over to the British with sufficient
ceremony. Klaus drifted on to the aerodrome and leaned against the
corner of one of the sheds, looking gloomily at nothing in particular,
since that seemed to be the only occupation of such men as were to be
seen. Presently he was observed--one of a group of mechanics, after
obvious discussion about him, went into a building which looked like an
officers' mess, presumably to report. In due course a long, thin officer
emerged, and walked towards him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Klaus with perfect truth.

"What is your name?"

"Lehmann."

"Rank?"

"I have no rank now," said Klaus with mournful resignation.

Several regiments of the German Army had mutinied and torn the badges of
rank from their officers' uniforms. The flying man jumped to the
conclusion that Klaus' case was one of those which called for tact, so
he introduced himself in the correct manner. "Flug-Leutnant Becker,
sir," he said, saluting.

Klaus returned the salute casually. "Anything happening here?"

"No, sir, nothing. What should happen? We are waiting for the Allied
Commission to come and burn the planes."

"Of course, of course. I cannot think why they do not take them over
instead of destroying such valuable machines."

"They have so many already that they don't know what to do with them,"
said Becker bitterly. "Why should they bother with ours? Will you not
come along to the mess, sir?"

"Thank you. Any news?"

"No, none. Only Goering's escapade. Of course, you have heard about
that, sir."

"Richthoven's successor. No, what's he doing?"

"Refuses to be demobilized or to surrender his machines in spite of
orders from High Command. I don't know where they are now."

"Good," said Klaus judicially. "A little more of that spirit and we
should not have lost the war."

"There was plenty of that sort of spirit," said the flying man
reproachfully. "It was motor spirit we were short of. Many machines were
grounded because there was nothing to put in their tanks."

"I know, I know. Your morale was excellent," said Lehmann hastily. "When
I said that I was thinking of other branches."

The Flight-Lieutenant thought it advisable to preserve a sympathetic
silence. The two men had just reached the doorway of the mess when they
heard the distant roar of aeroplanes approaching, and turned to look in
the direction from which it came.

"The victorious Allies, I presume."

"No, sir, ours! They must be Goering's lot," said Becker excitedly. Five
planes drew nearer as they spoke, circled the aerodrome, touched down
and taxied up to the sheds. "Excuse me, sir," said the
Flight-Lieutenant, and sprinted towards them while Lehmann followed more
slowly in time to hear a man in the leading machine shouting, "Got any
petrol?"

"No, sir, none," yelled Becker in reply, at which the new-comer
signalled with his arms to the other four pilots, they all switched off
their engines and quiet descended again on the aerodrome. The men
climbed out of their machines and their leader strolled with Becker
across the grass towards Lehmann. He was a big man with a booming voice,
and Klaus distinctly heard him say, "Who the devil's that? One of the
demolition squad?"

Becker apparently gave some satisfactory explanation, for when they met
the stranger was cordial. Becker introduced them.

"How d'you do?" said Goering, shaking hands. "Met you before somewhere,
haven't I?"

Klaus' heart leaped up, but all he said was, "It is possible," in
guarded tones. He was not, of course, prepared to tell complete
strangers about his troubles, but Goering disregarded the reserve which
Becker had respected.

"What were you in?"

Lehmann felt a little annoyed. The question was natural enough, but it
was a sore point with him. "Oh, I just made myself useful here and
there," he said.

Goering stared, then an idea struck him. "Oh, I see! Intelligence, eh?
Do you still have to be so hush-hush about it now it's all done with?"

"Is it?" said Klaus, and left it at that.

Goering looked at him with something approaching respect; as for Becker,
his round eyes and awestruck expression were almost comic. "Well, well,"
said the Flight-Commander, "I know you fellows did awfully good work. I
couldn't do it. Give me action." He glanced over his shoulder at the
motionless aeroplanes, his face darkened and he relapsed into silence.
As for Klaus Lehmann, his brain was busy. It seemed there was no need to
tell people things about one's self; if one just preserved an enigmatic
silence, people would always find an explanation for themselves,
believing it all the more firmly because the idea was their own.

While they were still thirty yards from the mess, a figure appeared in
the doorway, a square solid figure which Goering appeared to recognize,
for he paused in his stride and said to Becker, "That fellow there! Is
that Lazarus?"

"That is Squadron-Leader Lazarus, sir. He has been in command here since
Squadron-Leader Fienburg left last week."

Goering muttered something which the tactful Becker thought it wiser not
to hear, and walked on again. Becker dropped back a little and Lehmann
joined him.

"Look out for squalls," muttered Becker.

"Why?"

"Can't stand each other. Always squalls."

"Good evening, Goering," said Lazarus from the doorstep.

"Evening, Lazarus," said Goering, without attempting to salute. "Got any
petrol in this dump of yours?"

"You will address me as 'sir,'" said Lazarus, his long nose reddening.

"Oh, suffering cats, they've started already," said Becker under his
breath.

"I asked, sir, whether, sir, you had any petrol, sir," said Goering
impertinently.

"What for?"

"To put into the tanks of my machines. Not to wash in, though to be sure
it gets the grease off," said the Flight-Commander, staring at his
superior's rather oily complexion.

"A painful scene," murmured Klaus sympathetically, to which Becker only
replied, "You wait."

"I have no petrol," said Lazarus, "and if I had you would not get it.
Your machines are grounded by order of the High Command."

Goering stated what he considered to be the appropriate ultimate
destination of the High Command.

"I cannot hear this," said Lazarus, who had the infuriating quality of
becoming cooler as the other became more heated. "Your agitation is
understandable, Flight-Commander, though your expression of it is
unfortunate in the extreme. The Allied Commission is expected to arrive
here this afternoon--at any time now," he added, glancing at his watch.
"You will be good enough to control yourself and not give the enemy an
opportunity of saying that a German officer does not know how to behave
in defeat."

"You lousy pig-faced Jew," began Goering, but the doorway was empty.
"Some day," promised Goering, "you shall pay for that." He stalked in at
the door, disregarding entirely his enthralled audience behind.

"Will they meet again inside?" asked Klaus.

"No. The skipper will go to his room, to await, with dignity, the Allied
Commission. Goering will go to the bar, to drown his sorrows. I suppose
we ought to do what we can for these other fellows," said Becker,
referring to Goering's fellow pilots, who were coming up. "It is a bad
day for them, you know."

"Can't we get them away before the--the bonfire starts?" suggested
Klaus, who was beginning to feel that he had known Becker for years.

"Doubt if they'd go. Like all great performers, a trifle
temperamental--all bar one, that is."

"Who's that?"

"Udet. Sh, here they come."

About an hour later the Commission arrived, to be received with the
utmost formality by Lazarus, while Goering and his men simmered in
silence. The machines were taken over, receipted, entered up in
triplicate, and destroyed by fire, after which the Commission went its
way again in two staff cars and an Army lorry. Becker and Lehmann,
united by the comradeship which arises between strangers sheltering in
the same doorway from the same storm, looked at each other.

"What happens now?"

"Heaven knows. I can't stand a lot more," said Becker, who looked white
and shaken. "Those machines----"

"I know," said Klaus, and took him by the elbow. "A foul sight. Come and
have a drink."

They found the rest of the party in the bar, talking in quiet tones and
covertly watching Goering, who was sitting by himself on a high stool
with his elbows on his knees, glowering at everyone and drinking
heavily.

"What are you going to do now, Kaspar?" one pilot asked another.

"Oh, go back to my bank, I suppose, that is if there's any money left in
it to count. Funny, being a bank clerk again after all this. What about
you?"

"Back to school, I expect, I was a schoolmaster in Berlin. I shall
probably get a job somewhere, money or no money there will always be
small boys. What does it matter?"

One of them was evidently a good deal older than the others, a quiet man
with resolution in his manner. "Someone," he said in low tones, "ought
to speak to Goering. There will be a frightful scene if he goes on
drinking and brooding like that."

"You do it, then," said Kaspar. "Life isn't particularly sweet just now,
but I don't want to end it by being brained with a bottle by my
Flight-Commander."

The quiet man nodded, picked up his glass, strolled across to Hermann
Goering, sitting alone, and asked him if he had any orders for them.

"None," said Goering sullenly. "You can go and take orders from the
French now. They might find you a job burning aircraft elsewhere, there
are still a few left to destroy."

His senior pilot continued to look at him calmly, without speaking, till
Goering lifted his head and his almost insane expression softened.

"I beg your pardon, Erich, I am beside myself to-night. No, I have no
orders to give you any more--at least, not yet." He paused, and drew a
long breath. "There will come a day when we shall meet again, and there
will be orders to give and men to carry them out and machines to--to
carry them out in." He slipped from his stool and stood erect against
the bar, a magnificent figure of a man in those days, with his head
thrown back, defiance replacing despair. "They think they've got us
down, but we shan't stay down," he cried. "Germany shall rise again and
we with her, we'll have the greatest Air Force in the world. Then let
them look out, these beastly little people who burn aircraft they are
unfit to fly!" He turned to find his glass and staggered. "Drink to the
new German Air Arm, invincible, innum--" he stumbled over the
word--"innumerable, unbeatable. Hoch!"

His men cheered him and Goering smiled once more. "We'll have no Jews in
it next time, boys. No oily Hebrews for us. I'll see to that, because I
shall lead it myself. Then it'll all be all right. You'll see."

"Rather distressing, what?" said Becker to Lehmann while Goering was
being helped to bed. "I think he'll probably pull it off, too, one of
these days. I shall be too old to serve then, I expect. I do dislike
that braggart manner, though, don't you?"

"A trifle hysterical, perhaps," said Klaus. "One could not wonder if
that were so."

"No worse for him than for the rest of us, but Goering was always like
that. One of those get-out-of-my-way-blast-you fellows. Now, Udet is
different. Udet----"

It was made plain to Klaus that Udet was something quite exceptional,
but not all Becker's enthusiasm and friendliness could make Lehmann feel
that the Air Force was where he belonged. Perhaps Goering's wild guess
was correct, and he had belonged to German Intelligence. If so, he had
no idea what steps he could take to establish contact, it would be
necessary to wait until somebody recognized him and fell on his neck
with ecstatic cries of "Ah! The famous X37! We thought you were lost to
us." A pretty picture, if a trifle improbable. None the less, he went to
Berlin to look for his lost background.

Here he found for the first time people looking to the future instead of
the past, which is a pleasant way of saying that everyone was furiously
talking politics. This bored him unendurably because he never got a
clear idea of who was who and what they wanted, nor why they had split
into such violently opposing parties since they were all Socialists. He
gathered by degrees that one party was led by Ebert, the saddle-maker
from Heidelberg, and they were moderate in tone, not so much red as a
hopeful shade of pink. Then there was Karl Liebknecht, who called
himself Spartacus, whose party was as red as raw beef and demanded a
soviet republic immediately, a working-class dictatorship with all
necessary violence. Between these two came a rather nebulous minority
party who also wanted a soviet republic, but were prepared to be a
little more genial in their methods. Klaus' private opinion was that
they all made his head ache, but that Ebert's Social Democrats were
faintly less offensive than the others. Klaus was addressed on the
subject one day early in January, by the elderly scarecrow from whom he
bought his daily paper.

"That there Spartacus," said the old man, "regular upsetting firebrand.
Wants to turn everything upside down as though they wasn't bad enough
already."

"Just so," said Klaus.

"Him and his Rosa Luxembourg! Huh!"

"Oh, quite."

"And them left-wing minority lot, neither soap nor cheese as they say.
Minority's all they'll ever be, in my opinion."

"It sounds probable," said Klaus, only deterred from walking away by the
fact that he had nowhere particular to walk to.

"Ebert's the man for me," said the paper-seller. "Parliamentary
democracy on the votes of the whole community. What could be fairer?"

"What indeed?"

"I only hope that when we has the elections at the end of the month they
gets in with a thumping majority. Show them rowdy Communists where they
gets off, that will."

"Yes, won't it?"

"Something we've never had before, that is, parliamentary democracy on
the votes of the whole community. I says to my old woman----"

Klaus drifted off, for something had just occurred to him as strange. A
democracy based on universal suffrage was something Germany had never
had before, yet to him it had seemed so natural as to go without saying.
Where, then, had he been brought up? Was it possible that he was not a
German after all? No, that was an absurd idea.

The next man he talked to, or rather, who talked to him, was a young
workman waiting for a tram, to whom Liebknecht was the builder of the
New Jerusalem and Rosa Luxembourg a greater Joan of Arc.

"I think I will go back to Aunt Ludmilla in Haspe for a little while,"
thought Lehmann. "I will if I don't get that post office job," for his
money was running short and he was looking for work.

Two days later the Spartacists revolted and there was savage fighting in
the streets, flaring up and passing, leaving crumpled bundles, which
till that moment had been men and women, lying in the road or crawling
painfully to shelter. Ebert's Government called up the remnants of the
old Imperial Army, and a fortnight of hideous terror followed in Berlin
till the revolt was put down with the strong hand. Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxembourg died at the hands of the police on their way to prison.
Klaus Lehmann's headaches became so insupportable that he could not have
taken the post office appointment even if it had been offered to him, so
he went to Haspe again. Here the great news was that Hanna had become
engaged to the postman, and under the fallen leaves in the garden were
snowdrops showing white. Here it was only as a rumour of half-real
happenings that Ebert won his elections and there was established the
well-intentioned Constitution of Weimar.

Eventually Klaus obtained a post teaching mathematics in a school at
Dusseldorf, where for a couple of years he was not unhappy. He was
earning enough to keep himself and to take the old lady presents when he
went home--he had learned to call it home--to Haspe at week-ends and in
the holidays. Hanna married the postman, fat smiling Emilie took her
place, and the world was not too bad till the mark began to fall in
value.

"I cannot understand it," said Frulein Rademeyer. "The price of
everything is rising so rapidly that one's income cannot keep pace with
it. I think it is very wicked of people to be so greedy and charge so
much."

Klaus tried to explain that the currency was being inflated so that
German goods might sell more easily abroad, but the old lady would not
have it.

"Nonsense. All I know is that once I was comfortably off on the money my
dear father left me, and now I am growing poorer every day. Now you tell
me they are doing this so that the foreigner may buy more cheaply. Why
does the Government wish to benefit the foreigner at the expense of its
own people? Nonsense. They ought to be turned out of office."

"Perhaps there will soon come a turn for the better," said Klaus
hopefully, but he was wrong, for things went from bad to worse. Early in
1922 Frulein Rademeyer's income dwindled to vanishing point, and she
sold the white house in Haspe with most of its contents and moved into
Dusseldorf to share Klaus' lodgings. The sale took place during the
holidays, so Klaus was at Haspe to see it through and to stand by
Ludmilla Rademeyer as the auctioneer's men carried the old-fashioned
furniture out on the lawn in the cruelly bright sunshine. The old lady
sat very upright in a chair under the verandah and watched proceedings,
although Klaus begged her to come away.

"I wish you wouldn't stay here," he said. "Come to the doctor's house
and rest there till it is over, it will be too much for you."

"I would rather stay, or these people will think I am a coward. Besides,
what does it matter? It is only old furniture, and the people who loved
it are all dead except me."

"Who cares what people think?"

"I do, my dear, one must set a good example."

Klaus bit his lip.

"How curiously shabby the things look, my dear, I had no idea that
tapestry was so faded. It is time they were turned out."

Her voice was perfectly steady and her face calm, but the thin hands in
her lap were twitching, and Klaus turned away his head so as to avoid
seeing them. He caught sight of the old doctor making his way round the
crowd, excused himself, and went to meet him.

"How's she taking it?"

"Very well. Too well. I've been trying to persuade her to come away to
your house, but she won't, she only sits there and gets older every
moment."

"I'd like to put her under chloroform," grunted the doctor.

They were fairly comfortable at first in Dusseldorf, though every day
saw prices higher and food and clothing scarcer, but the real blow fell
when Lehmann's school closed because the parents could no longer pay the
fees, and Klaus found himself unemployed. This was the time when the
mark soared to an astronomical figure, and people took attach cases to
collect the bulky bundles of worthless notes which constituted their
wages. Klaus tramped the streets looking for work, occasionally getting
a week's employment sawing timber or loading bricks, while Ludmilla,
when his back was turned, trotted out and sold her mother's watch or the
gold cross and chain she had worn for her first communion. They moved
into cheaper rooms, and then into cheaper ones again, and Klaus almost
reached breaking-point the day he went to look for her and found her
patiently scrubbing his shirt in the communal wash-house.

"But, my dear boy, it's the only place where there is any hot water. One
must be clean."

"I will not have you there," he stormed, "among all those rough women. I
can wash my shirt myself."

He said "my shirt," you notice, not "my shirts." As for the rough women,
he need not have worried. Apart from a tendency to call a spade a spade
not one of them would ever have used a word deliberately to distress or
embarrass Ludmilla. Still matters grew worse. There followed the
communal kitchen, the soup-kitchen, and the bread queues, the gnawing
hunger and, as the winter came on, the cold, and even Ludmilla's courage
sank.

"I think I have lived rather too long," she said.




CHAPTER 4


Frulein Rademeyer came back one day to the two bleak rooms they tried
to call home, and Klaus lifted his head in surprise at her air of
unmistakable triumph. She shut the door carefully behind her, put her
bag down and took out of it half a cabbage, perfectly fresh, a wedge of
cheese, a small piece of steak, a loaf, a twist of paper containing
alleged coffee, and another containing several spoonfuls of brown sugar.

"Wait," she said. "That is not all."

She brought out of the pocket of her cloak a small parcel wrapped in
greaseproof paper.

"Butter," she said in awed tones, "real butter."

"Have you been going in for highway robbery," said Klaus, "or merely
petty larceny? Not that the result is petty----"

"There is a man outside the door," she interrupted, "with a bundle.
Would you bring it in, my dear?"

Klaus returned with a small sack containing firewood on the top and coal
underneath--not much, but some.

"For heaven's sake, explain," said Klaus. "Have you met Santa Claus, or
what is it?"

"I met a schoolfriend of mine, that is all, though it is true her name
is Christine. Let me come to the fire, dear, I want to make it up. She
and her husband have just come to live here. Give me three sticks--no,
four. He was one of the architects or master contractors or something
who have just built the new Deutches Museum at Munich. Now the coal.
They came to live here because her mother's house--would you like to
come and blow this while I prepare the stew?--because her mother's house
was empty and her husband has retired, and they thought they might as
well live here as anywhere else. Oh, dear, how I do run on, I haven't
been so excited since--I think I will sit down a moment, I don't feel
well."

Klaus abandoned the crackling fire and sprang to help her to the
battered old sofa on which he slept at night.

"For pity's sake lie down and keep quiet a minute," he said. "I'll put
the kettle on, we'll have coffee and bread-and-butter while the stew
cooks. I shall buy a collar and chain for you, you run about too much."

"No. The coffee is for later on. We shall overeat ourselves if we are
not careful. I will lie still while you peel the potatoes. Peel four."

They feasted at last and were warm at the same time, an almost forgotten
luxury, since as a rule one could either buy food or fuel, but not both.
Ludmilla went on with her story.

"I told Christine all about you and what a burden I am to you----"

"Then you told her a pack of lies, and the wolf will get you."

"No, for if it were not for me you could go wandering off and find work
somewhere."

This was perfectly true, but Klaus had hoped it had not occurred to her.

"Rubbish," he said stoutly. "If it were not for you I should have turned
into a filthy tramp, all holes, whiskers and spots."

"Spots?"

"Where I had entertained visitors," he explained kindly. "Go on about
Christine."

"She has a son-in-law. Do you know anything about"--she pulled a leaflet
from another of her numerous pockets and read from it--"transport by
land, road and railway, construction of tunnels and bridges, ships,
aeronautics, or meteorology?"

"No, but I jolly soon will if it means work. Why?"

"Because her son-in-law is in charge of the section of the Deutches
Museum which deals with all those things, and he wants steady, reliable
men to look after them."

"I think I could manage that. You only have to walk about and tell
people not to touch."

"You have to explain things to children when they ask you questions."

"Oh, that's easy," said Klaus happily. "You just tell 'em they'll
understand all these things better when they are a little older."

"That wouldn't have satisfied me when I was young," said Ludmilla.
"Perhaps the young folk of the present day are less tiresome than I
was."

"Even now you haven't told me where all the food came from."

"Out of her larder. We went into her house to talk, and then we went
into her larder while she put all these things in my bag. Then I said I
must go, so she sent their servant to carry it, and the coal. Also, we
are going to dinner there to-morrow."

"Can you cut hair," asked Klaus anxiously, "if I sharpen our
nail-scissors?"

They went to Munich in the spring of 1923, a year almost to the day
since the auction at Haspe, and found two tiny bedrooms and a
sitting-room in the upper half of a workman's house in Quellen Strasse,
close to the Mariahilfe Church in the old part of the city. From here it
was only a short walk for Klaus through the Kegelhof and by Schwartz
Strasse and the outer Erhardt Bridge, to the Isar island which is nearly
covered by the immense buildings of the Deutches Museum. The pay was
desperately little in those days, but permanent, and as Lehmann came to
know the Museum personnel, some of the unmarried members of the staff
were glad to have Ludmilla to darn socks and vests for them. Gradually
they got a home together, with chairs replacing packing-cases, and
blankets on the beds instead of coats and sacks and strips of carpet.
They were always hungry and usually cold, but they had occupation.

Klaus was fortunate in the man who worked in the same part of a section
as he did. Herr Kurt Stiebel was an elderly man who had been a partner
in a firm of solicitors of some repute in Munich; in common with the
rest of the professional classes in Germany he had been brought to
absolute penury in the slump, and thought himself fortunate to have
obtained a post which would provide him with a fireless attic in a
narrow turning off the Hhe Strasse, and almost enough food to keep him
from starving. Klaus brought him home to Quellen Strasse one evening
after the Museum closed, to drink watery but hot cups of "Blumen" coffee
and eat a few leathery little cakes Ludmilla had saved up to buy for the
party.

"You are our first guest, Herr Stiebel," said Frulein Rademeyer, "you
are very welcome indeed."

"I am honoured," said the old gentleman, and kissed her hand. "It is
long since I had the pleasure of being entertained."

"Take this chair," said Klaus. "That one has a loose leg, I have learned
the art of sitting on it."

"It is as well," said Ludmilla. "It will cure you of your regrettable
tendency to lounging. Have you had a good day, Herr Stiebel?"

"I was not asked more than twenty questions of which I did not know the
answers. There was a small boy who asked who invented the arch, and when
I said the Romans did--I believe that is right--he asked who the Romans
were. I directed him to the Ethnological Section."

"He didn't go," said Klaus. "He came and asked me why bricks are usually
red and what makes the veins in marble. Even that wasn't so bad as the
young man who asked me to explain in simple language the Precession of
the Equinoxes. I swivelled him off to what's-his-name in Astronomy."

"We are learning," said Stiebel dryly, "to cope with these emergencies.
When I was a solicitor and found myself confronted with a poser I used
to say I would consult the authorities. Now my clients do it instead."

"My father used to say," said Ludmilla, "that you can't teach an old
hand new tricks, but I have learned many things this last year or so."

"We all have, my dear lady, even to seeing a saddler of Heidelberg
Chancellor of a German Republic, and a house-painter from Vienna leading
a march on Berlin."

"Where is he now, what is his name--the house-painter?"

"Hitler. Serving a sentence of five years' detention in a fortress."

"Did you ever see him?" asked Klaus. "I have heard much about him.
General Ludendorff was behind that, I understand."

"Certainly he was, there is no secret about that; Ludendorff, in my
opinion, wanted to turn out Ebert and did not care what tools he used
for the work, but as you know, the scheme failed ignominiously. Yes, I
have seen Hitler several times and have been to one or two of his
meetings. You know," said Stiebel, as one apologizing for a lapse, "one
goes anywhere when one has no occupation, it serves to pass the time. To
my mind, he is just a stump-orator, I doubt if we hear any more of him."

"He obtained a considerable following, did he not?"

"Among the more excitable and despairing elements, undoubtedly,
Frulein. Unhappy young men, seeing no future, neurasthenic
ex-servicemen, Army officers with no pay and no prospects, older men
with their life's work ruined, such as these are tinder to his spark.
But when prosperity returns to our Germany, as return it must, there
will be no place for such firebrands as Hitler."

"Apart from Ludendorff," said Klaus, "did any of the more conspicuous
war figures support him?"

"Only Goering, so far as I can remember. He was very severely wounded in
the shooting, and smuggled out of the country, I hear. He may have died,
I do not know."

"Goering? The air ace? I met him at Darmstadt," said Klaus.

All through the year 1923 the mark, already so low in value that fifty
would not buy a box of matches, dropped and dropped until ordinary
figures lost their meaning, and English soldiers in the Occupied Area
bought good cars for the equivalent of a few shillings, and a factory in
full production for a few pounds. Men and women, and especially young
people, sold all they had or could give for the price of a meal or a
taste of ordinary civilized comfort, and every street, almost every
house, had its tragedy when vice, as always, walked hand in hand with
despair, saying, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry--or pretend to be--for
to-morrow we die." It was so horrible as to be incredible, had it not
been so oppressively real, this condition of a nation where nobody at
all had any money which was worth anything at all, it was like the awful
catastrophic ravings of some inspired prophet of evil.

"Surely," said Klaus to Stiebel, "things must take a turn for the better
soon, this cannot go on. Something must happen or we shall all die."

"Do you recall," said Stiebel in his precise way, "what someone said
during the war about the gold-red-black of our Flag? Gold, they said,
for the past; red for the present; and black for the future. Well, this
is the future, and I see no end to it."

He put his glasses on his nose and they immediately fell off again, he
caught them with a bitter little laugh. "I could wish our agonies were
not so frequently absurd also. My nose is so thin my glasses will not
stay in place."

"Give them to me," said Klaus, and spent ten minutes cutting thicker
cork pads and fitting them in the slides. "Perhaps that will be better."

"It is admirable," said the old gentleman, trying them on.

"I wish I could fill all our voids with a little cork and a sharp
knife."

"Then there would be a shortage of cork," said Stiebel acidly. "It is
evident to me that Heaven is tired of Germany."

In the early autumn someone asked Klaus whether he was going to hear
Hitler speak.

"I thought he was in prison," said Lehmann casually.

"Where can you live not to have heard the news? He has been released and
is speaking at a meeting on Saturday."

Klaus went, since the hall would be warmed and the entertainment free,
besides, he had by this time heard Hitler described alternatively as a
gas-bag, a great leader, a firebrand, a stump-orator, a Messiah, a
poisonous little reptile, the Hope of Germany and the Curse of Munich,
and Lehmann was mildly curious. He hardly knew what he expected--some
loud-voiced professional ranter, full of stock phrases and fly-blown
arguments. He saw instead a pale young man with a nervous manner and
very little self-control. Hitler spoke of Germany as she was and as she
might be. He laid the blame for the present appalling condition of
affairs on the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar Government, the Jews,
the profiteers, and the foreigner, and worked himself up into a state of
hysterical excitement, screaming and weeping and losing the thread of
his arguments in a manner which rather repelled Klaus, though there was
no doubt that the man was sincere and he carried the meeting with him.
Klaus returned home in a thoughtful mood, and Frulein Rademeyer asked
what he thought of the little Austrian.

"I don't know. I can't admire a man with so little self-control--when he
gets excited he yells like a madman. But there is no doubt he can sway
the crowd, and it is possible that if he were well advised he might yet
do something for Germany."

"My dear, have another potato, you have eaten nothing. He is quite a
common little man, is he not?"

"He might be a clerk or a shop-assistant, yes. He is neurotic and
unbalanced, yes. He shouts and weeps and contradicts himself, but he can
make people listen to him."

"So you said, Klaus, but does he say anything worth listening to? What
does he want to do?"

"He wants to turn out all the old men who have brought us into this
mess, he says that in future Youth shall lead Germany. He blames the
Jews and the profiteers for the fall of the mark."

"Very possibly he is right, but what exactly does he propose doing in
the matter? Is he a financier?"

"I don't know," confessed Klaus. "I suppose he will have to have
financial advisers. As to what he proposes to do, he wants to run
candidates from his party at the Reichstag elections, and when they have
a majority they will reform the country."

"Ever since I was old enough to read the papers," said the old lady,
"leaders of political parties have been saying that. I expect they said
it in Ur of the Chaldees."

"Yes, I know," said Klaus, thumping the table, "but this time somebody
has got to do it, or we shall all die. I am not overmuch impressed by
this fellow Hitler, but at least he is someone fresh. He has ideas----"

"God forbid that I should throw cold water on the smallest spark of
hope, but we have been disappointed so often. Neurotic, unstable,
incoherent, it does not sound promising."

"I admit it doesn't, but at least here is someone prepared to try and
save us."

"And you think he has a chance?"

"I don't know, but I shall make a point of seeing him again. I have come
to that state where I would support a convicted murderer or an
illiterate village wench if I thought either could help Germany. Hitler,
after all, is more probable than Jeanne d'Arc, and look what she did!
She raised France from the gutter----"

"Have another potato, dear," said the sardonic old lady.

A week or two later Klaus strolled into a caf one evening to drink a
glass of cheap beer and exchange views with his fellows, a mild
extravagance he sometimes permitted himself when the monotony of his
life became more than he could bear. On this occasion there was a group
of men gathered closely about one table listening to two of their number
who were arguing hotly.

"But you must base the mark upon some definite asset, and we have no
gold. Gold is the basis of all reputable currencies."

"That is the way the capitalists talk, and the Jews, who have ruined our
country between them. The real wealth is in the land, in fields and
mines and forests, and in the good work of our people in factories, not
in the pockets of the rich."

"I have heard that voice before," said Klaus to himself, for he could
not see the speaker over the shoulders of the men surrounding him. Klaus
said "Gu'n'abend" to one or two who were known to him, and they made
room for him in the circle; he was right, the speaker was Hitler.

Lehmann sat sipping his beer and listening to the discussion, which
became increasingly one-sided as Hitler worked himself up and harangued
his hearers without staying to hear what was said in reply, and it
seemed to Klaus that Hitler had all the drive, fire and enthusiasm, and
personal magnetism too, while greater intelligence and reasoning power
remained with the two or three who opposed him. Why must they be
opposed, Klaus wondered, if knowledge and skill could be harnessed to
the service of this little human dynamo? Something might yet be done,
even now.

He was introduced to Hitler that evening and made a point of seeing a
good deal of him in the weeks that followed. He remained unimpressed by
the little man's mental capacity, but there was no doubt of his
sincerity nor of his uncanny power of gaining adherents, in ever
increasing numbers, to his party. Undoubtedly the man could be useful,
and Klaus joined the National Socialists to be welcomed for his sturdy
common sense and resourcefulness. Their leader came to rely upon him as
a man whose advice was worth attention and whose reliability was beyond
question.

One night in winter Klaus invited his new leader to coffee at the house
in Quellen Strasse, and Hitler came. Frulein Rademeyer welcomed him
with the old-fashioned courtesy natural to her.

"It is my greatest pleasure," she said, "to welcome my nephew's friends
to our house. Will you sit here by the fire, Herr Hitler?"

He made her a stiff bow, but hardly glanced at her, and immediately
addressed Klaus. "Are you coming to the meeting to-morrow night,
Lehmann? Good. I shall speak on the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of
Versailles. These clauses have already been broken by every signatory to
the Treaty except, possibly, England, and even that may not be true. I
expect they have something up their sleeves."

"Will you take sugar in your coffee, Herr Hitler?"

"Thank you. I shall show that a treaty already broken can no longer be
binding upon Germany, and I shall announce that an immediate programme
of rearmament will be the first care of the Party when it comes to
power. It will solve the unemployment problem----"

"Where is the money to come from for all this?" asked Ludmilla
innocently.

"The Party will attend to that, you would not understand if I told you,
Frulein. While we are rearming----"

"The first step of all," said Klaus to Ludmilla, "is to stabilize the
currency. Herr Hitler is dealing now with what happens in later stages.
You were saying----"

It took some time for Hitler to get into his stride again, but
presently, in a pause of his flood of talk, Frulein Rademeyer asked
whether there were any women in his Party and, if so, what they did to
help him.

"There is no place for women in the Party, Frulein, their place is in
the home. The three C's," he added in a lighter tone. "Cookery, church
and children."

"Usefulness and piety."

"Precisely, Frulein. Now, with regard to the Ruhr----"

When he had gone, Klaus and Ludmilla looked at each other and burst out
laughing.

"I am sorry----" he began.

"Please don't, dear, I haven't been so entertained for a long while.
Your saviour of Germany is the funniest little man I have ever met."

"I have never seen him in a lady's company before, though it did not
occur to me till now. There are stories going round of his rudeness to
women, but----"

"Not so much rudeness as--I don't think there's a word for it. Like the
way you treat a tiresome fly, shoo! Be off!"

"I will not bring him here again."

"Probably it is the fault of his upbringing. His mother should have
slapped him oftener, and a great deal harder. My dear, what a lot he
talks."

"That won't matter if he can induce people to act. But--it is a great
pity that it's bad manners to slap one's guest. There is a lot to be
said for one's nursery days when one would have simply hit him on the
head with a tin engine!"




CHAPTER 5


During the next ten years Klaus Lehmann worked for the National
Socialists and was rewarded by seeing Germany rise from the dust and
stand again among nations as an equal among equals. Prosperity returned,
though slowly, step by step, wages meant something again, food was a
thing one had every day, and once more the children laughed in the
streets. Lehmann was not altogether happy, he disliked heartily many of
his colleagues and distrusted their methods and their motives. Hitler he
regarded not so much as a leader but as a useful tool for the
regeneration of the country; it did not matter who led so long as the
right road was taken and the people followed. Lehmann was trusted and
relied upon, but not always confided in, not when the action proposed
was morally dubious, for there was a sturdy uprightness in him which
abashed villainy. He looked with cold distaste upon Goebbels' poisonous
invective, Goering's unscrupulous violence and Rosenberg's sham
mythology; at present these men served their turn, if they became too
much of a good thing steps would have to be taken in the matter and he,
Klaus Lehmann, would attend to it in person. He was still a sufferer
from headaches and still could not remember who he had been, but he had
acquired another personality long ago, and was much too busy to bother.

By 1933 he was a deputy of the Reichstag, high in the more reputable
councils of the Party, and living in a flat in Berlin with Frulein
Rademeyer to look after him. She had been greatly aged by the hard
years, but was now comfortably stout, increasingly forgetful, and
completely wrapped up in Klaus. They sat over the fire one night in late
February, and Ludmilla told him the news of the day.

"I saw Christine this morning," she said. "She has been staying with her
daughter in Mainz, and who do you think she met?"

"Heaven knows," said Klaus sleepily. "Von Hindenburg?"

"Mathilde. My excellent sister-in-law."

"What, the lady who examined me for birth-marks or something at Haspe?
Still as incisive as ever?"

"More so. Christine says she is more like a weasel than ever. She asked
after me, it appears."

"Nice of her. I hope Frau Christine told her you are getting younger
every day and dance at the Adlon every night?"

"She told her I was living with you in Berlin, and Mathilde was most
indignant."

"Why?"

"She said it wasn't respectable."

"The foul-minded old harridan!" exploded Klaus. "How dare she?"

"My dear, if you lose your temper like that you will make your head
ache."

"I won't have you insulted," stormed Klaus. "Why--what are you laughing
at?"

"It is very depraved of me, Klaus, but--oh, dear--it is such a long time
since I was considered a danger to morality!"

"You awful woman," began the horrified Klaus, but at that moment the
door opened and the servant Franz came hurriedly in.

"Frulein--mein Herr--the Reichstag----"

"What about it?"

"It is all in flames. They say the Communists have fired it."

"Great heavens, I must go. My coat, Franz. Don't worry, Aunt Ludmilla,
there is no danger. Go to bed, I shall not be out long. Yes, I will come
and speak to you when I come in. Yes, Franz, you may go out provided
Agathe does not, I will not have the Frulein left alone."

He found the trams were not working, so he ran through the streets till
he was stopped by the police cordon in Behren Strasse, and had to show
his card. Even from there the glare of the burning building lit up the
sky, he ran down the Wilhelmstrasse to avoid the crowds he expected to
find in the Konigsgratzer Strasse and turned into the Dorotheen Strasse.
Here the press was so great that it was not until he had passed the
President's house that he was able to force his way to the front of the
excited crowd, and for the first time the great fire became a visible
reality. He could feel the heat upon his face. He turned suddenly faint,
staggered, and clutched at the arm of the man standing next to him.

"Lean on me," said the man, who recognized him. "You have hurried too
much, Herr Deputy Lehmann."

"I--this is a frightful sight," gasped Klaus, but in his mind he was
seeing another fearful blaze, a country house burning among trees, and a
dead man on the floor of a laboratory reeking with paraffin.

"Then I am a murderer," he thought, but had enough self-control even in
that moment not to say it aloud. "I have killed somebody, who was it?"

He closed his eyes and did not hear the man suggesting that if His
Excellency would but sit down on the pavement a moment----

"Hendrik Brandt," thought Lehmann. "I remember now, I am Hendrik Brandt
from Utrecht, with an office in the Hhe Strasse in Kln."

His knees trembled so much that he sat down upon the ground regardless
of kind people, glad to be doing something, who passed the word back for
a glass of water, a deputy was taken ill--a judge of the Supreme Court
had fainted--the President of the Reichstag was dying. His mind raced
on.

"I am not really Hendrik Brandt either, I am Hambledon, an agent of
British Intelligence. Bill, where is Bill?"

There was a crash and a roar of flame as one of the floors fell in, and
Hambledon looked up. That was the Reichstag burning. "Good God," he
thought, "and now I am a member of the Reichstag. It's enough to make
anybody feel faint, it is indeed."

Somebody handed him a glass of water, he sipped it and began to feel
better, which was as well since in a few moments he was pulled to his
feet and dragged back with the recoiling crowds as more fire-engines
came rocketing down the Dorotheen Strasse and swung into the Reichstag
entrance.

"If the Herr Deputy is feeling better," suggested his anonymous friend,
"perhaps Your Excellency could manage to pass back through the crowd and
a cab could be summoned----"

"You are too kind," said Hambledon, pulling himself together, "but there
is no need. It was a momentary weakness--I ran all the way here. I will
rest a few minutes longer and then I must go in and see the President."

"I wonder who could possibly have done such a wicked thing," said the
man.

"They say it was the Communists," said another voice.

"They will be found out and punished whoever they are," said Hambledon
authoritatively, wondering, as he spoke, whether perhaps Bill had done
it himself, Bill Saunders, who fired the Zeppelin sheds at Ahlhorn. He
thrust the idea from him, mustn't think of things like that just now, he
was Klaus Lehmann, a member of the Reichstag, and he had to go and see
Goering, the President.

Brown-shirt guards at the gate directed him to a spot near the
President's house, where stood a group of men which included Franz von
Papen, Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag, and the new
Chancellor of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, talking earnestly together; they
looked round as Lehmann came up and greeted them.

"This is a frightful thing," he said.

"It is indeed a monstrous crime," said the leader solemnly.

"Yes, isn't it?" said von Papen cheerfully. "The same thought occurred
to me as soon as I saw it," and Goering burst out laughing.

"Is it known who did it?"

"The Communists did it, of course," said Goering. "One of them has been
caught--a Dutchman, I believe."

Lehmann's heart almost stopped. A Dutchman--Bill Saunders had passed for
a Dutchman when they were working together for British Intelligence in
Cologne during the war. Klaus had been Hendrik Brandt, the Dutch
importer, and Bill his young nephew Dirk Brandt from South Africa.

"Who is he--is anything known about him?"

"His name is Van der Lubbe, I understand," said Goering, indifferently.
"A member of some Communist gang in Holland, according to his papers. I
don't know any more about him."

"Lubbe," said von Papen in his light way. "A stupid name, it means 'fat
stupid' in English, you know."

"Perhaps the English sent him," suggested the Chancellor.

Hambledon felt that if he had just a little more of this he would be
uncontrollably sick, yet he must hear more. "He must have been rather
stupid to be caught," he said casually. "What was he doing?"

"Oh, running about with a torch," said Goering. "The police saw him
through one of the windows and collared him as he came out."

That didn't sound like Bill, who was never seen if he didn't want to be,
and would certainly not walk out straight into the arms of the police,
unless he had lost his cunning and taken to drink or something, men did
who had lived his life, and he had a slight tendency that way...

"Lehmann," said the Chancellor in a tone of authority.

Hambledon looked at him in the light of the fire and noticed as though
for the first time his insignificant form, his nervous awkward gestures,
and his mean little mouth set with obstinacy. "You moth-eaten little
squirt," he thought, but all he said was, "Yes, Herr Reichkanzler?"

"I expect a large majority in the elections at the end of this week,
there is no doubt of it whatever, and the natural indignation of the
people against the Communists on account of this horrible outrage will
only serve to augment it. I am, therefore, making arrangements already
to fill the principal posts in my Government. You will, I hope, accept
the office of Deputy Chief of Police."

Police--the ideal post. If this fellow Van der Lubbe was Bill----

"I am honoured, Herr Reichkanzler," he said with a bow.

"That is well, you may regard the appointment as settled and you will
take office to-morrow. I am anxious to reward my faithful friends as
they deserve, and to surround myself with men I can trust. I know no one
upon whom I place more reliance than I do upon you, my dear Lehmann."

"I shall continue to deserve it," said Lehmann untruthfully, "and I
thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"We are all sure you will know how to deal with the Communists," said
von Papen. "Rout out the rats' nests, what?"

Goering broke into another of his uproarious peals of laughter, and
Klaus Lehmann took his leave.

He walked slowly home, thinking deeply, and indeed he had so much to
think about that six minds at once would not have seemed enough to deal
with the whole matter. As soon as he started one train of thought,
another would present itself and confuse him again. His reawakened
memory presented him with innumerable disconnected pictures from his
past, von Bodenheim at the Caf Palant, the guilty faces of four small
boys caught smoking behind the fives court at Chappell's School, Elsa
Schwiss saying, "We love each other," Bill in the antique dealer's house
in Rotterdam saying, "Must I wear these boots?" and a free fight on the
station platform at Mainz between a drunken German private and an
official courier. He stood still in the deserted Unter den Linden and
said sternly to himself, "Think of the future, you fool, not the past.
If Van der Lubbe is Bill----" He shook himself impatiently and
remembered that he himself would be dealing with Van der Lubbe in the
morning and nothing could be done before then, so there was no object in
thinking about it now. Hitler's plans, which he had so often heard
discussed, the reoccupation of the Rhineland and the Saar, the push to
the East, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, the Ukraine, the Balkan
States, one foot on the Black Sea and the other on the Baltic; then
turning West again, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, the subjugation of France
and finally the conquest of the British Empire--Lehmann had often
thought the plans too grandiose to be practical, but as a German they
had seemed more than admirable. As an Englishman--he walked on again--as
an Englishman they were definitely out of the question and must be
stopped at the earliest possible moment.

He admitted quite frankly to himself that he had immense sympathy with
Germany, he had lived there for years and had shared in the piteous
unmerited suffering of millions of quiet, decent people. He had worked
for ten years to rehabilitate Germany and had succeeded, and he told
himself defiantly that if he had known all the time that he was a
British agent, he would have worked to that end just the same. The
people were all right, they were fine, it was only their rulers who were
so impossible to live with internationally, first the Kaiser and now
this fellow Hitler. Someone had said that nations got the governments
they deserved; if that were true there was something the matter with a
race which could throw up and support a succession of fanatical
megalomaniacs.

At this point he stopped again and actually blushed, for he suddenly
remembered that few men had had more to do with promoting the rise of
this fellow Hitler than he himself.

"The trouble is," he said, "that I'm thinking like an Englishman with
half my mind and like a German with the other half."

He regarded this unpleasant predicament for a moment, and came to a
decision.

"Since this is largely your fault, you interfering chump, it's up to you
to put a spoke in their wheel. And I will."

After which the British agent went home, reassured his adoptive aunt and
went to bed. The last thought that occurred to him as his head touched
the pillow was a comforting one.

"But oh, what a marvellous, incredibly heaven-sent position I'm in. And
to think Hitler's paying me for this! Money for old rope----"

He slept peacefully.

In the morning it was his first care to interview Van der Lubbe at the
earliest possible moment, an enthusiastic newly appointed Deputy Chief
of Police naturally would, anyway. Van der Lubbe turned out to be about
as different from Bill Saunders as was possible within the limits of
humanity. The prisoner was a fat, unhealthy, over-grown oaf, practically
sub-human in intelligence. Hambledon sighed with relief. On the other
hand, it was obvious at sight that this moron could never have thought
out a scheme for firing the Reichstag; he did not look capable of
lighting a domestic gas-ring without burning his fingers. Then the
question arose, if Van der Lubbe wasn't responsible, who was?

At the time of the fire, the police had thrown a cordon round the
Reichstag and its environs, and arrested everyone who might conceivably
either have had a hand in the crime or have seen something significant
which they could be induced to tell. These unlucky ones numbered some
hundreds, and Lehmann spent many days in his new office examining
suspects. Among their number was a frowsty old man who sold newspapers
on the streets; he was well known to the police in that capacity and
would not have been the object of the slightest suspicion had it not
been for his state of almost uncontrollable nervousness. Why should he
be so frightened if he had a perfectly clear conscience?

The old man stood before the desk at which Lehmann was sitting and
replied unwillingly to the questions which were fired at him. An S.S.
man in the famous brown uniform, who had brought in the prisoner, now
stood by the door, and the news-vendor shot agitated glances over his
shoulder at the man from time to time.

"What is your name?" asked Lehmann.

"Johann."

"Surname?"

The man hesitated, and said, "Schaffer."

"Johann Schaffer. Address?"

"Haven't got one."

"Where do you sleep?"

"Anywhere."

"No fixed abode. What were you doing on the night of the Reichstag
fire?"

"Nothing. Only walking along selling papers."

"Walking along where?"

"Konigsgratzer Strasse."

"At what time?"

"Just before ten."

"Very late, wasn't it, to be selling papers? Surely the last edition is
much earlier than that?"

"I had some left," said Johann Schaffer, and looked for the first time
straight at the questioner. What he saw in Lehmann's face did not appear
to reassure him. He looked first puzzled, then incredulous, turned even
a more unpleasant colour than he had been before, swayed forward against
Lehmann's big desk and placed his hands on it for support. He continued
to stare and Lehmann, mildly surprised, stared back.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing. Nothing whatever."

Johann began to drum nervously with his first finger on Lehmann's desk.

"What did you see of the fire?"

"Nothing."

"Don't be absurd, man! You were within a few hundred yards of one of the
most spectacular fires in history, and you saw nothing of it! Why not?"

"No business of mine. I always mind my own business. Don't like being
dragged into things."

The irritating drumming on the desk continued, rhythmic but irregular,
dactylic. Lehmann, who had not noticed it at first, suddenly found
himself listening to it with interest.

"What was your profession before you sold newspapers?"

"I--have seen better days."

"Heaven help us, I should hope so. I said, what was your profession?"

"I was a schoolmaster," said the old man, slowly and reluctantly.

Lehmann leaned forward across the desk till his face was near the
other's, stared into his eyes, and said, in a low tone that could not
reach the ears of the S.S. man by the door, "Not a wireless operator?"

Johann Schaffer gasped, closed his eyes and slid to the floor in a dead
faint.

"Take him away," said Lehmann as the guard sprang forward. "Tidy him up.
Wash him--de-louse him if necessary, and I expect it is--and bring him
back here at ten o'clock to-morrow."

At the appointed hour a clean, tidy old man, with his scrubby whiskers
shaved off, was brought into Lehmann's room. Klaus looked him up and
down, and said to the guard, "Are you sure this is the same man?"

"Quite sure, Excellency," said the man with a grin.

"Merciful heavens, what a little soap and water will do."

"You should have seen what we took off him," began the man, but Lehmann
said with a shudder, "Thank you, I would so very much rather not. You
may go, I don't think this prisoner is dangerous."

The man saluted and went. Lehmann beckoned the old man up to his desk,
and said, "Next time you are asked for your name, think up a nice one,
don't just read one off an advertisement calendar on the wall. It
arouses suspicion in the most credulous breast."

"I--my name is Schaffer----"

"It is not. It is Reck. If you are going to wilt like that you had
better sit down, there's nothing to be afraid of. You know me, don't
you?"

"No, I don't," said Reck, clutching at a chair and dropping into it.
"Never seen you before."

"So? Perhaps I can help you to remember. Your name is Reck, before and
during the last war you were science master at a school at Mlheim, near
Kln. There was a tower to the school buildings with a lightning
conductor on it, do you remember now? You were something of an amateur
wireless enthusiast in those days, and you had a small wireless
transmitter, you used the lightning conductor as an aerial. You knew
enough morse to send out messages in code, I will say for you that you
were pretty hot stuff at coding messages. Does it begin to come back to
you now? No, don't faint again, because if you do I shall empty this jug
over you, and it's full of cold water. You remember on whose behalf you
sent the messages, don't you? British Intelligence."

Lehmann paused, largely because poor old Reck looked so dreadfully ill
that it was doubtful whether he could take in what was said to him
without a short respite.

"Well, I think after that a drink would do us both good," said the
Deputy Chief, and rang the bell.

"Bring some beer, Hagen, will you, and a bottle of schnapps and
glasses."

"Drink this," he said, when his orders had been carried out, "it will do
you good. You always liked schnapps, didn't you? I'm sorry I'm not the
red-haired waitress from the Germania in Kln, but I----"

"Stop!" shrieked Reck. "I can't stand it--who the devil are you?"

"I think you know," said Tommy Hambledon. "I think you knew yesterday
when you tapped out T-L-T on the table. What sent your mind back to that
if you did not recognize me? Incidentally, that's what gave you away,
for I certainly didn't recognize you. It's true we have both changed a
good deal in fifteen years, but--who am I?"

"I thought you were Tommy Hambledon," said Reck, with the empty glass
shaking in his hand, "but you can't be, because he's dead. If you are
Hambledon, you're dead and I'm mad again, that's all. I was mad at one
time, you know, they shut me up in one of those places where they keep
them, at Mainz, that was. Not a bad place, though some of the other
people were a little uncomfortable to live with. I was all right, of
course," went on Reck, talking faster and faster. "It was only the
things one saw at night sometimes, but they weren't so bad, one knew
they weren't real, only tiresome, but you look so horribly real and
ordinary, and how can you when you've been in the sea for fifteen years?
Perhaps you don't really look ordinary at all, it's only my fancy, and
if I look again," said Reck, scrabbling round in his chair, "I shall see
you as you really are and I can't bear it, I tell you! Go away and get
somebody to bury you----"

"Reck, old chap," said Hambledon, seriously distressed, "don't be a
fool. I wasn't drowned, of course I wasn't. I got a clout on the head
which made me lose my memory, but I got ashore all right. Here, give me
your glass and have another drink. I'm sorry I upset you like that, I
never meant to, look at me and see, I'm perfectly wholesome. Drink this
up, there's a good fellow."

Reck drank and a little colour returned to his ghastly face. After a
moment a fresh thought came to alarm him and he struggled to his feet.

"Here, let's go," he said, "before he comes back and finds us in his
office. I don't want to face a firing-squad."

"He? Who d'you mean?"

"The Deputy Chief of Police," said Reck. "They told me I was to be taken
to him."

"I am the Deputy Chief of the German Police," said the British
Intelligence agent.

"Don't be absurd," said Reck testily. "The thing is simply impossible."

"It isn't impossible, because it's happened. Here I am."

"I don't believe it."

"Why not? There was one of our fellows on the German General Staff all
through the last war, you know. This is comparatively simple."

"Let me go back to the asylum," pleaded Reck. "Life is simpler in there.
More reasonable, if you see what I mean."




CHAPTER 6


"I'm afraid I can't let you go back to the asylum yet," said Tommy
Hambledon. "I want you to help me. I don't yet quite know how, but some
scheme will doubtless present itself. You see, I have to get in touch
with London, and----"

"Not through me," said Reck with unexpected firmness.

"Eh? Oh, you'll be all right, I'll look after you. I think I had better
find you a post in my house--can you clean knives and boots? You shall
have a bedroom to yourself, and food and wages. Isn't that better than
wandering about the streets selling papers and sleeping rough?"

"No. Not if I've got to be mixed up in espionage again at my age."

"Don't be a fool," said Hambledon. "Anyone would think I wanted you to
run along and fire the President's palace."

"From what I remember of you," said Reck acidly, "that is precisely the
sort of thing you would suggest."

"Listen," said Hambledon patiently. "D'Artagnan is not the character
which naturally rises to my mind when I look at you. Definitely no. If I
wanted someone to go leaping in and out of first-floor windows with an
automatic in one hand and a flaming torch in the other, I shouldn't
offer the job to you first, I shouldn't really. What you're going to do
is to obtain from various sources the component parts of a spark
transmitter----"

"I've forgotten what they are----"

"Assemble it in your lonely bedroom--thank goodness we've got a top
flat--and stand by to send out messages to London in the dear old
Mlheim code. That's all."

"No," said Reck obstinately.

"You see, normally I could get messages through in various ways, but
they might be slow. If I wanted to get a message through quickly,
wireless is the obvious method."

"Doubtless. But with some other fool operating it."

"It will also be useful," said Hambledon, disregarding this, "for
confirmatory purposes. 'What I tell you three times is true.'"

"I have already told you four times that I won't have anything to do
with it, and that's true, too."

"You obstinate old fool," exploded Hambledon, "will you take this in?
You--are--going--to--do this, or by Gog and Magog I'll make you sweat
for it! Ever heard of a concentration camp?"

Reck winced.

"I am not the Deputy Chief for nothing, you know, and I haven't been in
the Nazi Party for ten years without learning how to persuade people,
believe me! Now then?"

"Listen," said Reck with unexpected dignity, "I was born in England of
English folk, but I have lived in Germany since I was a boy. I worked
for England in the last war--yes, I was paid for it, you need not remind
me--but Germany is my home, I have almost forgotten how to speak
English. Ever since I worked for you I have been afraid, afraid somebody
would find out or somebody would talk, afraid of the police, afraid of
my old friends, afraid to drink for fear I might talk, afraid to sleep
for fear I might dream aloud. Let me alone now, I will not be troubled
by you any more. I am tired of being afraid."

The old man sank back in his chair and the animation died in his face
and his manner. "Leave me alone," he whimpered. "I do very well, selling
papers----"

Hambledon's face softened. "Look here," he said, "where could you be
safer than with me? You shall be housed and fed and paid, and who looks
twice at my servants? No one would dare suspect you. I am sorry, but it
is necessary that you should do this. Necessary, you know what that
means? Better men than you or I have died because it was necessary, and
I'm only asking you----"

"And I refuse," shrieked Reck, shaking with passion. "I will not, I tell
you. I'll tell everyone who you are----"

"And who'll believe you? Don't be a damned old fool! Go to the British
Government and tell them Winston Churchill's a Nazi agent, and see what
happens. It would be nothing to what will happen if you talk about me
here. You must agree, I'm sorry, but I need you and you must. Well?"

"I won't. I don't believe it. Tommy Hambledon's dead and you're just
trying to make me incriminate myself. I won't work against the Nazi
Government, Herr Deputy Chief, I am a good German, I am really. I talk
nonsense sometimes but I can't help it, I was mad once, you know, it
doesn't mean anything. I wouldn't do a thing like that----"

"Reck! Stop it at once. You will do as I tell you or take the
consequences. Well?"

"I won't."

"Very well." The Deputy Chief rang the bell and the Storm Trooper
returned.

"This man's explanations do not satisfy me, but I can't waste any more
time over him now. He will go to a concentration camp for ten days,
perhaps he will be more willing to talk after that, eh, Hagen? Take him
away."

About a week later Gustav Niehl, who was Klaus Lehmann's Chief in the
German police, came into his room and said, "There's a man coming to
Berlin to-morrow whom I want you to arrest, please. He is an Englishman
named Heckstall, and pretends to be an innocent traveller in brewery
fittings, but I have reason to believe that he is an English
Intelligence agent. He has been over here a good deal in the last year
or two without being suspected, but he's done it once too often."

"How very interesting," said Lehmann truthfully. "It enthralls me to
have even the smallest contact with enemy espionage, one's boyhood
storybooks come true! When is he expected and where does he stay in
Berlin?"

Niehl gave him particulars, and added, "He is clever. We have always
kept an eye on him, of course, but he never gave us the smallest grounds
for suspicion and I had no idea there was anything shady about him."

"Then what makes you suspect him now?"

"Our agents in London report that he is in close touch with British
Intelligence. Of course, it may be that the Foreign Office and the War
Office in London have secret beer engines installed in every cupboard
and he merely goes in to see that they are working properly, but somehow
I doubt it, Lehmann, I doubt it."

"The idea seems to me so excellent," said Lehmann laughing, "that it
might well be adopted in the Wilhelmstrasse."

"You might suggest it to the Fhrer," said Niehl, "and see what he
thinks of the idea."

Instantly Lehmann's laughter vanished. "Our Fhrer's views on the
subject are well known," he said stiffly, "and have my unalterable
respect. I spoke in the merest jest."

"I know, my dear Lehmann, I know," said Niehl soothingly, and took his
leave.

"Trying to trap me into speaking disrespectfully of the all-highest
Adolf," thought Hambledon indignantly, "and then you'd run to him with
the whole story embellished with ornate embroidery, you lop-eared lounge
lizard, would you?"

Hambledon lit a cigar and sat down to do a little hard thinking. So the
German agents in London reported Heckstall to be in touch with M.I.;
German Intelligence must have some fairly good men. Hambledon's first
idea had naturally been to report to London by the earliest possible
means, but the more he thought about it the less he liked it. His own
position was so desperately dangerous that one unguarded word, one
careless exposure of his name, would destroy him at once, apart from
these clever agents of whom Niehl spoke, and goodness alone knew who
they were. By degrees it became clear to him that he dared not let
anyone whatever know his secret, not even the head of his Service in
London. "Three may keep a secret," he murmured, "if two of them are
dead." Only Reck knew and he was safe, since even if he talked nobody
would believe him.

Then the problem arose as to how he was to communicate with London. It
would be a sound scheme to give them something dramatic the first time,
such as the release of this fellow Heckstall for example, "with brass
band _obbligato_," said the unmusical Tommy. Suitably heralded by a
fanfare of trumpets, the rescue of Heckstall should impress even M.I.
His return should be announced beforehand, Heckstall himself should have
a little story to tell, and there must be a follow-up of some kind just
to round it off, to make the third act in the little drama.

Drama. Why not write a play and broadcast it? A play on the Prodigal Son
theme. He went into a far-off country among strange people, so did
Heckstall, and returned without tangible results, again Heckstall's
case.

Too obscure, they'd never understand it in London. Something definite
was wanted. "Heckstall returned to stock undamaged Thursday next," that
sort of thing, but one couldn't put that in a play unless it was in
code. Code. Reck. A play with morse coming into it. Then the play could
be about anything, a wireless operator was the most obvious choice, some
of that propaganda stuff, all "O beautiful Hitler, O Adolf my love, what
a wonderful Fhrer you are, you are, you are," besides, that kind of
thing would be much more acceptable to the Austrian in Germany than a
story about another young man who went into a foreign country and came
to horrid grief...

Hambledon stretched his arms over his head and yawned. Reck was coming
out from his ten days in camp on Friday, three days hence, probably in a
more malleable mood, it should at least be possible to persuade him to
code the messages as soon as one knew exactly what one had to say.
Arrangements must be made about Heckstall, first for his arrest, which
was easy, and later on for his release. This last could be announced in
the morse accompaniment to the broadcast play. For the finishing touch,
there could be nothing better than to supply whatever information
Heckstall was sent to obtain, if one could discover what it was.

On Friday afternoon Reck was ushered into the office of the Deputy Chief
of Police, and Hambledon greeted him cheerfully.

"Welcome, little stranger," he said genially. "Sit down and have a
cigar. Or a bag of nuts. Forgive the implications of the alternative,
but you really do look remarkably agile."

"Agile," said Reck scornfully, but he accepted the cigar.

"No, really, you look years younger--you may go, Hagen--what have you
been doing?"

"Working. Shovelling concrete, look at my hands. Physical drill,
insufficient food and no schnapps."

"Insufficient food," repeated Hambledon. "Then I take it you collected
an appetite?"

"I wish to complain of the soap. Bright yellow, smelt disgusting, and
stung, too."

"I dare say, but that wouldn't kill you," said Hambledon, with a slight
stress on the pronoun. "Anything else?"

"There was an inaccurate notice to the effect that purity of the soul is
won through labour. It was displayed where we could see it while
shovelling. I find I am not, by nature, a shoveller, and the notice is a
lie."

"I take it you don't want to go back?"

"Am I a fool? Besides, it is unjust, I haven't done anything to deserve
punishment, it is not a crime to sell newspapers."

"No," said Hambledon coldly, "but it is a crime to refuse to serve your
country when it is in your power to do so. Your next visit may not be
quite so pleasant."

"Pleasant!"

"Comparatively pleasant. Will you code three or four simple sentences
for me?"

"If that is all," said Reck unwillingly, "I will agree this once."

"It is all at present," said Hambledon significantly, and went on in a
lighter tone. "So that's settled, good. Will you dine with me to-night
and we'll try to remove that hollow feeling?"

Early in the following week Niehl sent for Hambledon and complained
bitterly of the difficulty of getting definite evidence against
Heckstall. "I am sure he is an English spy," he repeated more than once,
"but there is no evidence to prove it apart from Niessen's statement.
But he is a good man."

"Niessen?"

"Carl Niessen, a Danish importer who lives in London and is a friend of
Herr Heckstall's. His real name is Schulte, but they do not know that in
London. He has lived there many years, he knows a number of people in
Government circles and they talk to him, my goodness how these English
talk--thank heaven!"

Tommy Hambledon winced inwardly, for he knew this was perfectly true.
"But hasn't Heckstall done anything? Not even asked questions about
anything?"

"Oh, yes. Pipes--the kind water goes through, or gas. In lengths with
screwed connections, you know. There are probably some in your bathroom.
They are also used extensively in breweries, so Heckstall may be quite
justified in asking about them. Only, he started asking at such an
awkward time, you know, just when we were short."

Klaus Lehmann nodded comprehendingly, and said, "It looks fishy,
certainly, I should be inclined to assume him guilty. Would you like me
to try and make him talk?"

"What's the good? If he's made to talk we shall have to shoot him
anyway, or there will be a fuss when he gets home, and we want no more
of these fusses."

Eventually Lehmann offered to deal with the matter himself, and Niehl
gratefully accepted. "I should like an official order to deport him
across the frontier," said Klaus, "just in case our bona fides are ever
called in question."

"You are very wise," said Niehl. "You shall have it."

Hambledon took himself off with a feeling of good work well done, for he
knew now what the information was for which Heckstall had come.
Hambledon returned home with a light heart and drafted three short
messages which Reck coded for him as a background to his propaganda
play.

The play itself was broadcast on Friday, March 31st, as in the case of a
monologue very little rehearsing is necessary. It is possible that that
is why the author wrote a one-character play in the first place, though
to those who commented upon this he said seriously that he was
experimenting with a new art-form, a reply which can be relied upon to
silence ninety-nine people out of every hundred, and no wonder.

On Sunday evening he said to Frulein Rademeyer, "I am sorry to have to
leave you alone for an hour or so to-night. I have business to do at the
office."

"What, on Sunday night?"

"I have some papers to study before to-morrow morning."

"Papers, dear?"

"Yes."

"Blonde or brunette, Klaus?"

"Good gracious," said Klaus, horrified, "what an idea!"

"I understand," said the old lady, "that when a man has business at the
office out of hours, it's usually feminine."

"You've been reading the comic papers," said her adopted nephew
accusingly, and left the house.

In his official capacity he had access to certain confidential
documents. He took out a folder from the safe where it was kept, and
spent an uninterrupted half-hour copying a sketch-map and a page of
notes. He put his copies in an envelope the flap of which was embossed,
curiously enough, with the Royal Arms of England, and added a covering
letter thumped out, like the page of notes, with one unskilled finger on
a typewriter. "It will be time enough," he said to himself, "if I speak
to Johann the footman on Tuesday night." He paused, while a gentle smile
illuminated his scarred face. "And he thinks he's such a clever Nazi
agent, bless his little striped waistcoat!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

There was a meeting in London in the evening of Thursday, April the 6th,
when Wilcox of the Foreign Office, his immediate superior, and a retired
Colonel from Sussex came together to hear a curious story from the lips
of Arnold Heckstall. When the British agent from Germany had told all he
knew, he was dismissed with kindly words, and the three men remaining
settled down to discuss the further enigma from the British diplomatic
bag.

"This map," said the Foreign Office Head of Department, "shows the
frontiers of Germany with France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Holland in
detail, merely indicating the others. Along these frontiers, starting at
a point near Karlsruhe where the Rhine ceases to be the boundary between
Germany and France, and going westward, there appears a line of red ink
in places where the land lies low. Where the land lies low," he
repeated, and glanced at his hearers. "The notes make this clear. They
refer to numbers marked on the map, and in several instances, at points
where the red line is gapped, they say, 'Broken for such-and-such a
ridge of hills.' In the next valley the line begins again. The notes are
headed 'Galvanized iron pipe half-inch, screwed connections.' At the
bottom there is 'Laid by draining-plough.'"

He paused and addressed the Colonel. "You may not have heard the rumour.
It was whispered that Germany was laying a pipe-line along her western
frontiers to supply gas. Gas, hissing softly through the soil, to drench
the valleys through which an invasion must pass. Those valleys might be
death to every living thing for months on end."

"So Heckstall went to find out if this were true," said the Colonel,
"and was dropped on."

The Foreign Office man nodded, and Wilcox said, "I am a Londoner. This
business of a draining-plough?"

"I am a countryman," said the Colonel modestly. "A draining-plough
carves a deep but narrow slot in the earth in which drainage-pipes may
be laid, deep enough to be out of danger from the ordinary plough. A
quick and easy method, and on arable land leaves no trace at all."

"The Rhineland and the Saar are, of course, demilitarized zones," said
Wilcox.

"Yes, but there's nothing in the Treaty to prevent a simple but
industrious peasantry from tillin' the soil," said the Colonel.

"Sowing dragon's teeth," commented Wilcox, "and what will the harvest
be?"

"Dead men," said the Colonel grimly, for he was at Ypres in '15.

"So our anonymous correspondent has done us a good turn," said Wilcox,
with a slight shiver.

"He has done us another," said the superior, "at least, if what he says
is true. There is a covering note, I'll read it to you.

    "Information required herewith. Also Niessen, Danish importer,
    real name Schulte, is agent of Germany. He it is who on
    Heckstall the gaff stridently has blown. Passed to you for
    action, please!"

"I am beginning to know," said the Colonel, "what women feel like when
they go into hysterics. It can't be true, it's fantastic. I think I'm
getting old. In my day we had a cupboard which contained
restoratives----"

"I beg your pardon," said his host, rising hastily, "so do we. Soda? Or
just straight?"

"After a letter like that," said the Colonel, "I think I won't dilute
it, thanks. My soul, I needed that. Who is this fellow who uses a German
construction one moment and a Civil Service formula the next?"

"A man might easily do that," said Wilcox, "who had lived in Germany so
long that his English was rusty."

"All we can suggest about him," said Authority, "is that he is possibly
a friend of Reck's."

"Reck's been dead these twelve years," said Wilcox.

"I don't know what you propose to do," said the Colonel, "but Denton
used to know Reck personally."

"Am I to recall Denton from the Balkans to hunt for a dead man?"

The Colonel made a gesture of despair. "There's Niessen too," he said.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In Berlin, the Deputy Chief of Police made a report to his superior in
the matter of the British agent.

"I regret to inform you, sir, that there was trouble at the frontier. I
passed Herr Heckstall through on our side in accordance with your
orders, but when the Belgian guard challenged, the prisoner, instead of
stopping, ran like a hare. As you know, there has been a lot of trouble
thereabouts with smugglers, and the guards have been told to be
exceedingly firm. They fired, and the prisoner fell dead--on the Belgian
side."

"Most unfortunate," said Niehl smoothly. "Very unfortunate, but no one
can say it was our fault. A traveller so experienced as poor Heckstall
should have known better than to behave so foolishly. Well, it's no use
crying over spilt milk, the incident is closed."

"Yes, I suppose so," said Lehmann hesitantly.

"Why, what is the matter? You have no reason, have you, to expect
any--er--repercussions?"

"None in regard to Heckstall. I did have a little talk with him in the
course of which he gathered that our decision was final, and though his
immediate departure rather depressed him he still seemed to be
unpleasantly pleased about something. He rather hinted that two
Governments could play at that game."

"Can they possibly have found out about Niessen?"

"I wondered that myself, sir."

"I will recall him at once."

So Herr Niessen packed his suit-cases and left London in haste, but two
horribly calm men in plain clothes met him at Dover and took him back
again, protesting volubly. It appeared that Niessen had been the leading
spirit in an organization which smuggled drugs into England, and though
he declared with tears that he did no more than sniff occasionally, he
retired from public life for a very long time indeed.




CHAPTER 7


Charles Denton returned from the Balkans without regret and presented
himself at the Foreign Office at the end of a fortnight's leave.

"Glad to see you, Denton. Sorry to come away?"

"Not at all," said the young man in a tired voice. "Those people are too
damned energetic by half, fight on the smallest excuse. The Younger
Nations, what? Simply too nursery for words."

"Perhaps your next job will be more to your liking. I want you to go to
Germany to look for a man who is almost certainly dead."

"Do I have to provide my own spade?"

"Do you remember a man named Reck? He used to code and dispatch messages
for our Cologne agents during the war."

Denton nodded. "He went bats and died in the giggle-house in Mainz."

"Are you sure?" The Foreign Office man unfolded his tale, ending with,
"This has been going on for more than a year now, sixteen months to be
exact. We get reports of German rearmament and aviation developments
which, so far as we can check them, are scrupulously correct, our agents
are assisted in inconspicuous ways and their agents here are identified.
One of his best efforts, conveyed in the passport of a commercial
traveller in artificial silk stockings, informed us last July that
Germany would resign from the League of Nations in October, which, of
course, they did. We know where and when to find messages because we are
informed by radio in the code Reck used. We are inconceivably grateful,
but we do feel we should like to know our benefactor."

"Does he sign his communications? Or just put 'A Well-Wisher' at the
end?"

"Nothing at all."

"Is he English, do you think?"

"The form of his sentences is sometimes rather German, verbs at the end
and capitals to all his nouns and so on. But once he said, 'If I ask for
news, will you put a paragraph in the papers for me sometimes?' and at
the end of yesterday's was 'How stands the old Lord Warden? Are Dover's
cliffs still white?'"

"You'll answer that in to-morrow's _Continental Daily Mail_, of course,
'Dear old boy, it depends on the weather!' Has he asked any others?"

"Not yet."

"I take it you want me to find out who he is. Has it occurred to you
that in some way he must be fairly well in with the Nazis, and that
consequently it would be very dangerous for him indeed if anyone knew
who he was, even you, sir?"

"Yes. In fact, your errand is not so much to find out who he is as to
put yourself in a position to be useful to him if he desires help. If
you fail, it will be because he does not desire it, that's all."

"Then you really have not the faintest idea who he is?"

"Absolutely none. We assume, from his knowledge of procedure, that he
has served at some time in British Intelligence, so we looked up
everyone on our lists who is still alive. It is none of them, so it must
be someone who is officially dead. I have here the photographs of every
British agent who was missing or killed during and after the war,
perhaps you would like to look at them. It is only a guess that he is in
touch with Reck because he uses that code, but the code may have been
written down and Reck may be dead, as you say. I have no guidance to
offer, though you will be put in touch with the usual contacts. I only
suggest that he must be in Berlin."

"I see," said Denton, "figuratively speaking. In point of fact I don't
see an inch ahead in this affair and I doubt if I ever do. May I brood
over those photos for a secluded half-hour or so?"

"You can brood in here," said his Chief. "I am going out for an hour and
the whisky is in the cupboard."

Accordingly, Herr Sigmund Dedler of Zurich arrived in Berlin towards the
end of June 1934 armed with magnificent photographs of beauty spots in
the cantons of Zurich, Luzern, Unterwalden, Schwyz and Zug, in search of
printers who would reproduce them as postcards in six colours for sale
to tourists. He stayed in an inexpensive hotel of the commercial type
and prosecuted his inquiries diligently but without haste, he was
difficult to please as regards price and quality, and it looked as
though his mission would take him some time. Among the people he
interviewed was a very German-looking individual who kept a
tobacconist's shop in Spandau Strasse near the Neue Markt. The
tobacconist was a friendly soul, and invited Herr Dedler to sit with him
sometimes in his stuffy little room behind the shop, a room even more
stuffy than it need have been, since they talked with the window and
doors shut though the summer days were hot. The tobacconist's daughter,
in reply to a thirsty howl from her parent, used to come in with wine,
and glasses on a tray, and look at Herr Dedler with frank interest.
Since she was undoubtedly a comely wench, Herr Dedler also displayed
appreciation, but as her father invariably turned her out again at once
and locked the door after her, the acquaintance did not progress.

"I have no suggestions to offer," said the tobacconist. "The Department
asked me more than a year ago to look into this, but I am no further
forward than I was then. I know some of the Nazi leaders personally,
being a good Nazi myself," he smiled gently, "though my unfortunate
health prevents me from taking an active part in their affairs--thank
goodness. But several of them are kind to me and buy their tobacco here
since I take the trouble to stock the blends they prefer. None of them
look to me at all likely to be honorary members of British Intelligence.
I hope you will have more luck."

"I don't suppose so for a moment," said Denton gloomily. "I have merely
been sent over because I used to know Reck. So I am walking about
looking for him regardless of the strong probability that he's been in
his humble grave at Mainz these twelve years. Reck. Have you ever heard
the name?"

"Never."

"I don't suppose you would. If he's still alive he probably calls
himself Eustachius Guggleheimer now. Does anyone in Berlin keep
silkworms?"

"Silkworms?" said the startled tobacconist. "Shall I open the window a
moment? It is true that the weather is hot, but----"

"No matter. I have walked about this blasted city in this infernal heat
till my legs ache in every pore and my feet feel the size of Grock's,
and I'm not a bit the wiser, at least, not about that. There's something
up though, Keppel, there's an uneasy excitement about which I don't
like. Something's going to happen, what is it?"

"You are perfectly right. There is a lot of jealousy between the old
Brown Guards and Hitler's new S.S. men, and I wouldn't be surprised if
there was trouble."

"So. Well, it's no business of mine, at least I hope not. At the first
sound of alarm I shall go to bed and stay there, I shall at least rest
my feet. I'll come and see you again shortly. You wouldn't like a nice
picture of the Lake of Lucerne in six colours, would you?"

"I'd rather have a water-colour of the Pass of Brander as the sun goes
down," said Keppel wistfully.

Denton lit his pipe and strolled towards his inconspicuous hotel as the
evening was drawing on, and noticed at once that the streets were
curiously empty of people. He displayed no interest at all in what he
saw, but merely slouched along with his eyes down and his hands in his
pockets as one wrapped deeply in thought. He came at last within sight
of the turning to his hotel and saw, with an odd pricking sensation in
the tips of his fingers, that there was a line of S.S. men across the
end of the street who were stopping cars and pedestrians and asking them
questions.

Denton quickened his pace slightly and walked on past the picketed
turning only to find another line of guards across the road fifty yards
ahead. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that a third detachment had
formed up behind him. He was trapped.

He decided that nobody could possibly be expected not to notice all this
display of armed force, however tactful they might be, so he abandoned
his nonchalant manner and scurried along like all the rest of the
scattered handful of people whom ill fortune had sent abroad on the
night of the Nazi purge.

He saw that the front door of a house opposite to him was ajar, so he
ran across the road, dived in, and shut the door after him. In the
passage he encountered a gentleman who was presumably the master of the
house, for he blocked the way and said "_Wer da?_" in an authoritative
tone.

"Sigmund Dedler from Zurich," answered Denton, introducing himself. "I
beg ten thousand pardons for inflicting my uninvited presence upon you
in this abrupt and ill-bred manner, but if you would permit me to occupy
some inconspicuous corner in your house till the streets are a little
less unhealthily exciting, my immeasurable gratitude will outlast
several reincarnations. I suggest the cupboard under the stairs."

"Impossible," said his host firmly, "my wife is there already.
Nevertheless, no one shall say that Hugo von Einem turned out a stranger
into a storm more pitiless than the wrath of God, come in."

"Thank you, I have," said Denton.

"Yes," said von Einem absent-mindedly. "Yes, I suppose you have.
Listen!"

Running footsteps approached the door, but passed by without pausing.

"Did you shut the door?" asked von Einem in a low voice.

"Yes," answered Denton in the same tone. "I thought it made the house
seem more home-like, don't you know? Did you want it left open?"

"I left it open for a friend, but I doubt if he will come now. He said
he would try and come to me if this happened."

"What, exactly, is happening?"

"There is trouble in Berlin to-night."

"I thought they were playing 'Nuts in May,'" said Denton sarcastically.
"Perhaps they are, only it's June and the wrong sort of nuts."

Von Einem stared. "'Nuts in May'? What's that?"

"A childish game little girls play in my native canton of Zug."

There was the sound of rifle fire from farther down the street. "There
is nothing childish about this game, Herr Dedler. Where are you
staying?"

Denton told him and von Einem said, "But that is quite near."

"It is in theory, but there are two cordons of S.S. guards between,
which in practice makes it rather far off."

"How true. You might, however, reach it across the gardens at the back
if you would not mind climbing a few walls."

"Not at all, a pleasure, believe me. May I look?"

Denton walked through to a room at the back of the house, threw the
window up, and looked out. There was a drop of about five feet to a dull
little town garden, bounded by the walls of which von Einem spoke,
beyond them were more gardens and more walls; one of that row of houses
half-right must be his hotel.

He went back to the hall where von Einem was still listening for a
footstep he knew, and said, "I think your idea is excellent--I propose
to act on it at once. I am very grateful----"

"Listen," said von Einem. The steps of several men were heard outside in
the street, they stopped, and there came a quiet knock at the door.

"At last," said von Einem, and opened it as Denton retired modestly to
the back of the hall. Three men with automatics in their hands entered
hastily, pushed von Einem back against the wall without saying a word,
and one of them shot him dead.

Denton was through the back room and out of the window before his host's
body had slumped to the floor. "Just a garden wall or two," he thought,
"and I'll be----"

As his feet touched the ground something hit him on the back of the head
and he fell through millions of roaring stars into unconsciousness.

He awoke again with a splitting headache to find himself lying on a
mattress on the floor, he felt the rough cement, in some place which was
nearly dark except for a faint light which trickled in through a barred
horizontal slit high above his head. He puzzled over this for some time
before he realized that he was in a cellar and that the light came
through a pavement grating, probably from a street lamp. His head
cleared gradually and he realized that he was desperately thirsty. He
sat up, setting his teeth as the darkness whirled round him.

"In all the best dungeons," he said unsteadily, "the prisoner is
provided with a jug of water and a mouldy crust of bread."

He felt cautiously about, found a jug of generous size and took a long
pull at the water; he soaked his handkerchief and dabbed his head with
it, a refreshing moment, though it revealed that the back of his skull
was horribly tender.

"I've been sandbagged," he said, and lay back to think things over as
clearly as his aching head would permit.

"I remember," he said at last. "They shot von Einem. Wonder what they're
going to do with me?"

He felt in his pockets. His automatic had gone and so had his electric
torch, but so far as he could tell everything else was there, even his
money and his watch.

"Of course, they can always collect the cash from my unresisting corpse
afterwards," he said aloud. "Delicate-minded people, these, evidently."

There came a pleasant voice in the darkness from somewhere high up in
the wall opposite his feet. "I do hope you are feeling better," it said,
in English.

"Thank you," said Denton with a slight gasp. "I survive--so far."

"I hope you will many years survive--survive many years. You must excuse
my awkward English, it is so many years since I spoke it."

"Please don't apologize----"

"I do not want to tease you," said the voice, jerkily and with pauses,
as of a man recalling a language long disused. "I hope to get you out of
this mess, unless they liquidate me next, which seems quite likely."

"Heaven preserve you," said Denton with feeling.

"_Danke schn._ I am sorry we had to hit you quite so hard, but we
should not have got you away had they not you dead--thought you dead.
Only dead men pass unquestioned to-night."

"But how did you know I was there?"

"I did not, till you looked out of the window. I came to--to succour von
Einem."

"Then you were the friend for whom he was waiting?" asked Denton,
unconsciously reverting to German.

"I was, but I was too late. Would you mind speaking in English, it is
such a pleasure to me to hear it--especially to-night."

"Of course. May I ask who you are?"

"I cannot answer that. I wish I could, but you understand that it would
not be safe for anyone to know."

"You are the man I was sent to find, are you not?"

"Yes. I think that stupid a little, you must all know that it would
endanger me, and what is worse, spoil my usefulness."

"My instructions were not to seek you out but to place myself where you
could find me if I could be of service. I was to say that the Department
is inconceivably grateful----"

"But devoured by curiosity, eh?" said Hambledon with a laugh. "I am
afraid they must eat themselves a little longer, but tell them that one
of these days I will come back and report, if Goering doesn't scupper me
first. My English is reviving. Tell me some news, will you?"

A little whisper of suspicion rose in the back of Denton's mind. Set the
victim's mind at rest and then question him.

"Certainly," he said cheerfully. "What sort of news?"

"Is Jos Collins still alive?"

"She was last week, I saw some mention of her in the _Sphere_. And a
photograph."

"I daren't be seen reading the English papers," murmured Hambledon. "Do
you know Hampshire?"

"Parts of it."

"Is Weatherley much changed?"

"No. They've turned the Corn Exchange into shops on the corner of the
Market Square. There's a certain amount of building in the county, on
the slopes of Portsdown Hill for example, and all round Southampton and
places like that, but the country is unchanged."

"The country is unchanged," repeated Hambledon dreamily. "You asked just
now if you could help me. There's one man I should like to help me if
the Department would send him out--Bill Saunders."

Denton bit his lip and said nothing.

"Perhaps you don't know him."

"Yes," said Denton, slowly and distinctly, "I knew him very well
indeed."

There was a short pause, and Hambledon said sharply, "What happened and
when?"

"He was found shot. That was in--er--in '24. He ran a garage in a
Hampshire village after the war, and one morning the woman who looked
after him went in and found him dead. It was apparently accidental, he
had been cleaning his automatic."

"So you didn't get anybody for it?" said Hambledon in a savage tone.

"No. There was no evidence to show that anyone had done it. Suicide or
accident was more probable. He was not a very happy man."

"Not married? You said a woman went in----"

"Yes, a village woman to do the housework. Yes, he was married, but
separated from his wife."

"Not Marie Bluehm?"

"Marie Bluehm?" cried Denton, starting up. "Who the devil are you--oh,
of course, I know now. You must be Hambledon. Marie Bluehm was killed in
the rioting in Kln just before the British marched in, I--I saw it
done. I think it broke him. That's why I think it may have been suicide,
he just didn't care for anything much any more."

"Suicide six years later? Don't believe it. Who did he marry?"

"Some colonel's daughter, don't know who, never met her. Tiresome wench,
I believe."

"Were you with Bill, then, after I disappeared? What's your name?"

"Denton, sir. I was sent on to Kln from Mainz."

"I remember. Bill mentioned that you were there. Well, I think I've
heard enough news for to-night. You can tell the Department that Tommy
Hambledon is not dead, that is, unless they call on me in the next few
days. Goebbels loathes me, but Hitler still thinks I have my uses, so I
may survive. I dare not tell you who I am here, don't try to find out."

"Of course not, sir."

"And don't 'sir' me every second word, I am not in my dotage yet.
Besides, it reminds me of Bill. Denton, there's something fishy about
that business. I'm going to look into it. If it was arranged and I find
out who did it, God have mercy on the man, for I won't."

Denton said nothing.

"The most brilliant brain in the Service, shot like a dog. What were you
all about to let it happen? Wasn't he guarded?"

"The police, I understand, had the usual----"

"Police!" exploded Hambledon. "The village constable, no doubt, had
instructions to keep a look out for suspicious characters, as though
such men ever look suspicious! My God, if I'd been there----"

He stopped and sighed deeply. "I suppose you think I'm making a fuss
over nothing, because it was an accident. Well, perhaps it was, but
somehow I don't believe it."

"Perhaps you will be able to clear it up," said Denton, just biting off
the "sir" in time.

"I'll have a damned good try. Now about you. I'm sorry I daren't bring
you out of that foul coal-hole to-night or, probably, to-morrow, it's
the only place I know of which is even approximately safe at the moment,
but I'll bring you some creature comforts and try to make it a little
more bearable. To-morrow night I'll try and get you across the frontier.
Wait a bit, I'll go and fetch some rugs and something to eat and drink.
And you are not going to see my face, either, I have no wish to be
recognized as the Lord High Panjandrum of All the German Armies or
something equally spectacular. I don't look very like Tommy Hambledon
now, you know, so it won't be any use digging any of my late scholastic
colleagues out of their retirement at Bath or Bournemouth to come over
and give the Nazi Party leaders a look over, because they won't
recognize me if they do. I have a false nose grafted on, a thick bushy
beard, and plucked eyebrows. How my English inconceivably improved has,
even during this short interlocutory or what-have-you, ain't it? Is old
Williams still alive, I wonder?"

"Who?"

"Williams. At one time Headmaster of Chappell's."

"I could not possibly say, sir, I was at Winchester myself."

"Never mind, these things can be lived down. I will go and fetch your
ameliorations."

There was a faint sound of departure, and silence sank again upon the
cellar.




CHAPTER 8


The cellar was not completely dark even at night when one's eyes became
accustomed to it; by day light came in through the pavement grating and
even a shaft of sunlight, and at night there was a patch of light upon
one wall from a street-lamp near by. Sounds also entered by the grating,
traffic noises, and voices talking. It was even possible, if people
passed close enough, for Denton to get a worm's-eye view of part of them
from the feet up. He noticed how men and women alike made a little
detour to avoid his grating, and this rather annoyed him. There was a
church clock somewhere in the neighbourhood which struck the hours; when
sleep would not come he found it companionable.

He slept, or drifted into unconsciousness, for most of the first night
after Hambledon had made him as comfortable as possible. The next day
passed easily with the help of a basket of provisions and fruit and a
feeling of lassitude so intense that he was glad to be away from
everyone somewhere where there was not even need to speak. Towards
evening he began to recover a little and to wish for a break in the
monotony of his imprisonment. He did not desire the dark, either, there
were too many spiders in that cellar, and in his weak state he had a
morbid horror of their crawling upon him.

Soon after nine o'clock, when it was still daylight, suddenly the
traffic ceased and there came a stillness which reminded him of one
Armistice Day when he had been in London and the Two Minutes' Silence
had caught him unawares. Denton rose on his elbow and listened.

From somewhere farther down the street there came a hoarse command,
another, and then a short crackle of rifle fire. Immediately, as though
a spell had been broken, followed the sound of running feet, irregularly
running as if those who ran looked over their shoulders as they fled.
Some passed over his grating, several men and a woman or two, one was
leading a child who fell down wailing, and was snatched up and carried
on. One woman came to a stop just above him and leaned against the wall
gasping for breath and sobbing, "Oh, Jakob, oh, Jakob, oh, Jakob," over
and over again. Denton fumbled for his automatic, and felt naked to the
storm when he remembered it was not there.

Next came the sound of disciplined marching, coming nearer, and the
weeping woman ran away. A voice outside cried, "Here, you there! Halt!"
and a man stopped just where the woman had been. Charles Denton could
see part of a grey tweed trouser-leg and one brown shoe, a well-to-do
man, evidently. He said, "Do you mean me?" in a quiet, steady voice.

"That's the man," someone said. There followed another command, again
the sound of shots, four in rapid succession. "Automatic," said Denton
to himself. The man above crumpled, and suddenly the cellar was
completely dark, for his body covered the grating.

Denton sat up shaking, and fumbled for the cigarettes and the matches
Hambledon had left him on his promise not to strike one in Hambledon's
presence, and on no account to allow a light to be seen from outside.
There was no need to worry about the light now, the aperture was
effectively blocked and shut out sounds as well, but Denton listened
intently for a moment before striking the match. All he could hear was a
trickling noise like the sudden overflowing of a gutter during a storm.
"Rain," he thought, "that'll calm them down." Then he remembered that a
moment earlier the sun had been shining...

He scrambled back into the corner farthest away from the window
regardless of spiders and loose lumps of coal, and with eyes open only
the merest slits, enough to see his own fingers and nothing more, lit
his cigarette. He had some difficulty in keeping both match and
cigarette steadily together long enough to light it.

The trickle slowed after a little and became a steady drip--drip--drip,
irritating enough to the nerves even if it had only been water. He
desperately wanted a drink, but it took all his courage to go forward in
the dark and fetch it for fear there should be pools of wetness on the
floor and he should put his hand in one of them. More courage, after
that, to subdue attacks of panic prompting him to hammer on the door and
yell to someone, anyone, to let him out, let him out, let him out before
the tide rose.

When Hambledon came an hour later, an interminable hour which seemed
like days, he found his prisoner perched on a box in the corner with his
feet up, repeating the _Lays of Ancient Rome_ to himself aloud.

    _"'The harvests of Arretium, this year old men shall reap,_
    _This year, young boys in Umbro shall plunge the struggling sheep,_
    _And in the vats of Luna, this year the must shall foam_
    _Round the white feet----'_

Damn! Can't I think of anything that doesn't suggest blood?"

"My dear fellow," said Hambledon hastily, "I am most frightfully
sorry--I had no idea this had happened. Are you all right?"

"Oh, quite, thanks," said Denton in a rather cracked voice. "Quite
chirpy, thanks. I can't see to read so I was repeating poetry to myself,
that's all. Habit of mine, always done it since a kid, when I couldn't
sleep, you know." He laughed, and Hambledon did not like the sound of
it. "When's the funeral going to be, d'you know?"

"You are coming out of this, whatever happens. Will you excuse me a
moment while I write a note? I will come back again at once."

"Please don't hurry," said Denton airily. "Not that I am not delighted
to see you--hear you, I mean--at any time, but don't let me be a
nuisance. It's quite all right down here--quite home-like when you're
used to it."

"_Du Gott allmchtig_," said Hambledon, and left.

He came back a little while later and said, "Have you ever eloped with
anyone, Denton?"

"Not exactly eloped," said Denton cautiously. "Why?"

"Because in about an hour's time you will be en route for Switzerland
with a charming lady whom you have persuaded to--er--fly with you is, I
think, the correct phrase. You will travel in haste, her enraged father
is upon your trail."

"You do think up some lovely parlour games, don't you?" said Denton
admiringly. "First you slog me on the head and lock me in a cellar with
a dripping corpse overhead, and then marry me off to one of your
girlfriends. Come to Germany and see life. What's she like?"

"Quite a credit to be seen with, believe me. She will travel into
Switzerland with you and then she can go to her aunt's for a holiday.
She will be no trouble to you. You have seen her, by the way, Frulein
Elisabeth Weber."

"What, the tobacconist's daughter? A sightly wench, I agree with you.
More, I commend your taste, sir."

"I told her to come at once--shall we speak English now for a little if
my lack of fluency does not worry you? I expect she will an hour require
her baggages--to make up her baggages."

"Does the baggage make up?" murmured Denton. "Look a bit undressed,
nowadays, if they don't, don't they?"

"I shall be obliged to leave you before she comes. She knows me, I
permit myself English cigarettes sometimes which the good Weber stocks
for me. Besides, I cannot be absent from home too long to-night, they
might think I had hidden myself, and that would not seem well, you
understand."

"Oh, quite, quite. Tell me, what is all this uncivil disturbance?"

"The Purge," said Hambledon solemnly. "You will understand that in the
body politic, as in the human body, undesirable elements
agglomerate--accumulate--of which we wish to rid ourselves. So we take
the necessary steps."

"Lead pills, eh? Couldn't you have done anything to prevent it?"

"On the contrary, I architec--engineered it. There are some people the
Government would be better without. In fact, most of the Government
would be nicer in a state of peace. So I thought."

"D'you mean to say you're responsible for that unpleasantness in the
window? Surely not, von Einem----"

"Von Einem was my friend," said Hambledon harshly, "and those who killed
him will pay, do not be afraid. This Purge has gone wrong a little. I
thought the Brown-shirts would do best, but the Black Guards have done
best instead. So many things have happened I did not intend. In fact,
every step I hear on the stairs, I stroll out to meet them with both my
hands in my pockets, you understand? If I go I will take an escort with
me."

"Splendid," said Denton approvingly. "Two-gun Sid in the flesh. I beg
your pardon, sir!"

"Not at all," said Hambledon, laughing. "If you knew how nice it is to
meet someone who is not afraid of one! I am so tired of people who
either bully or cringe. Look, I must go or your so charming lady will
catch me, and then the cat would be in the soup, eh? Best of luck, and
tell the Department I will come back and report some day, please God.
Good-bye."

Denton was left alone in the dark again, but when he had time to notice
himself he found that he had entirely left off shaking, and that the
obstruction on the grating was no longer an obscene horror but just some
man he didn't know. It seemed only a short time before he heard steps on
the stairs and a light appeared in a broken fanlight over the door.
Denton stood up as there came the rattle of a key in the lock.

"Herr Dedler, are you there?"

"Yes, Frulein Weber," he answered, and bowed politely, which was a
mistake, for he immediately turned giddy and staggered straight into the
girl's arms.

"Oh!" she said, pushing him off. "How could you when I've only come to
help you?"

"I beg your pardon, I do indeed. The action was quite unintentional, it
was really."

She turned her torch on his face, which was quite white where it was not
streaked with coal-dust, and saw that he was really ill.

"Come out of this horrible place," she said, taking him by the hand.
"Can you walk up the stairs?"

"Yes, rather," he said, "you watch me," but she had to help him to the
limit of her strength before they reached the top. They emerged in the
hall of a small house of the artisan type, which appeared to be
untenanted, although there was furniture in the rooms.

"Come and sit down a moment."

"No," he said, looking at his filthy hands, "I'd like to wash first if I
may."

"You are in a mess, aren't you? There's water in the scullery if that
will do, and here's your suit-case if you'd like to change."

"The scullery is luxury, Frulein Weber, believe me. Thanks, I can
manage quite well. No, I can wash my own face, I've done it myself for
years now. You go and sit in the front room, I shan't be long."

He emerged twenty minutes later, washed, shaven, changed, and refreshed,
to find her waiting by the luggage in the hall looking at her watch.

"We have just half an hour," she said, "to catch the train for Basle. Do
you think we shall do it? How are you feeling?"

"Positively dewy. Shall I leap out and catch a taxi?"

"No, I will," she said, and was out of the door before he reached it and
running like a hare down the street.

"How very sudden," he said languidly, and demonstrated his independence
by carrying three suit-cases across the pavement, after which he was
glad to sit on them. She was back in five minutes with a taxi and they
drove through a frightened, silent town to catch their train with a few
minutes in hand, in spite of having been stopped three times by S.S. men
at cross-roads. Elisabeth Weber showed these men a card, at sight of
which they saluted and stepped back. Each time she glanced at Denton
with an air of pride, and looked disappointed when he made no comment.

"Don't you wonder how it's done?" she said at last.

"Frulein, I never cross-question guardian angels," said Denton blandly,
but he was thinking of Hambledon and not the lady as he spoke.

The interminable train journey ended at last with the customs officials
at the Swiss frontier. At Basle the travellers got out, Denton swaying
slightly with a line of pain between his brows as he stood waiting for a
porter.

"You are tired," said Elisabeth Weber.

"I have got the most damnable headache," he said slowly, "and the train
is running round and round on my brain. I should like to go to bed for a
week and be delicately nurtured by silent-footed houris. Let's go to
Albrecht's."

"What's that?"

"Albrecht's Private Hotel."

"Do they keep houris there?"

"You are the houri in question, Frulein Liese. You won't desert me just
yet, will you?"

"Of course not. My father told me to take care of you. Here's a cab.
Albrecht's Private Hotel, please. I hope they'll have room for us."

"Albrecht will make room. Tell me, Frulein Liese, how did you hear that
I was in that cellar, and who induced you to come?"

"My father told me that Herr Dedler had been accidentally hurt and was
hiding from the Black Guards, and that I was to go and get you out. He
said we were travelling to Switzerland, he had the tickets all ready,
and your suit-case too. But I think there was somebody else----"

"Thank heaven here's Albrecht's. How wonderful to be in something that
stands still and doesn't make noises. _Guten Tag_, Albrecht. Two single
rooms with bath, please, and lead me to it."

Albrecht's was a small hotel as hotels go in Switzerland, white, with
balconies on every floor and a roof of thick green glazed tiles which
caught the sun and reflected the sky. Albrecht himself was short,
diplomatic, and a born htelier. He started his career by inheriting
Albrecht's from his father; now, at the age of fifty-seven, he owned two
other hotels in Basle, large decorative hotels with large decorative
managers to match, outwardly omnipotent, but in private clay in the
hands of the inconspicuous little man who came, saw and scolded.
Albrecht himself regarded these ventures as money-making concerns only,
the real passion of his life was Albrecht's. Rich and sumptuous tourists
went naturally to Albrecht's palaces, the wise and discerning traveller
to Albrecht's itself.

Charles Denton went to bed in a darkened room and stayed there for a
week, suffering from delayed concussion. Elisabeth Weber saw to it that
the doctor's orders were carried out, at least as far as was possible
with a thoroughly cross patient. At the end of two days she had
discovered that the way to make him stay quietly in bed was to say,
"Don't you think it would do you good to go out for a little while?" and
if it was desirable to renew the cold compresses on his head she had
only to forget to do so. Having discovered this, she smiled when he was
not looking, and proceeded to enjoy herself.

Albrecht's served a five o'clock tea at about six, with tea slightly
unusual to English palates, but marvellous cakes. At this time, and also
after dinner, a small orchestra, embowered in pot palms, played in a
corner of the lounge music of the cheerful type called "light
orchestral." In case even this should become, in time, monotonous to
patrons, Albrecht had engaged a singer also, an Austrian baritone who
sang of love and springtime, of maidens and of partings. Occasionally,
in more robust mood, he sang of hunting, battle, and honourable but
regrettably premature decease. He was a stout young man with dark curly
hair, he would have been improved if his mother had added a cubit to his
stature, and generally speaking his appearance was gently reminiscent of
a prize shorthorn bull. He had creamy manners, a really fine voice which
had been immortalized on a number of excellent gramophone records, and
modesty was not his most outstanding virtue.

There was a noteworthy shortage of personable young women among the
patrons at the time when Liese Weber arrived, and Herr Waltheof
Leibowitz would have been blind and dumb if he had not noticed her. He
was neither. Besides, owing to the regrettable illness of her escort,
the poor girl was all alone, and it is a pious duty to brighten the
lives of our fellow-creatures.

His eyes wandered round the room as he sang, and ceased to wander when
they reached Liese. When she applauded, with the rest, at the end of his
songs, he had a special little bow for her among the gestures with which
he graciously accepted these natural tributes to his excellence. After
the concert was over, as he walked through the room on his way out, he
passed near her table and made her a little bow in passing, with the
early rudiments of a smile. So ended the first day.

On the second day he met her in the passage just before dinner and said,
"_Gu'n'abend, gndige Frulein_," and after dinner, when she was on the
terrace watching the setting sun all rosy upon some distant alp, he
approached and asked if this was her first visit to Switzerland, and she
said it was.

On the third day he did not see much of her because Charles Denton was
ill, and restless if she was long out of his sight.

On the fourth day Liese was again in the lounge, and Herr Waltheof had
somebody to sing to, which is always such a help to the artistic
temperament. "Im Monat Mai," he sang, "In the month of May a maiden
passed by, a maiden so unsophisticated that she had never been kissed,"
or words to that effect.

Liese Weber was fairly unsophisticated and had travelled very little,
certainly she had never stayed in a hotel practically by herself before.
Nor had she ever been singled out for attention from among a number of
people before, and she found it pleasant.

By the end of a week Charles Denton had recovered sufficiently to sit up
in a chair on his balcony, look at the view, and enjoy a little cheerful
companionship.

"That's a sizable little hump over there, surely," he said, indicating
an outstanding peak in the far distance.

"That's Rigi," said Liese. "Waltheof says it's five thousand nine
hundred feet high."

"Waltheof?"

"Herr Leibowitz."

"Oh. The song-bird. Your Austrian hedge-warbler."

"He has a beautiful voice."

"And is full of instructive information too, evidently, thus combining
beauty and usefulness. Like an antimacassar. Let's talk about something
interesting, shall we?"

"Just as you like, Herr Dedler."

"Do you think you could leave off calling me Herr Dedler? Try saying
Charles."

"Car-lus," she said.

"Charles."

"Charlus."

"Much better, Liese. Does Waltheof call you Liese?"

"Have you had your soup? It's past eleven."

"No, thanks, I'm tired of soup. Does what's-his-name call you Liese?"

"You're tired of being up here," she said, "and no wonder. Come down to
the lounge for a change."

"Don't know that I want to," he said. "But don't let me keep you.
Frightfully boring for you up here."

"Don't you want me to stay?"

"Of course I do. Don't you want to go down?"

"No, I don't."

"You know," he said judicially, "you've been pretty decent to me and
I've been rotten to you."

"Father told me to look after you."

"Did you only do it because Father told you to?"

"I'll ring for your soup," she said.

"Damn the soup. Put your hand on my head again as you did when I was
ill."

"Does it ache still? There, is that better?"

"Keep it there a little. What nice soft hands you have, Liese. I
remember a girl once who had soft hands like yours, her name was Marie."

"Did you have headaches in those days?"

"Don't take your hand away. No, but Marie would have tried to cure it
for me--unless Bill's little finger had ached, then she'd have forgotten
my existence."

"Who were they, Char-lus?"

"Friends of mine. They were--well--rather fond of each other."

"What happened to them?"

"They died. I'll tell you some other time."

"Did they die together, Char-les?"

"You're getting my name better every time. No, she died in Cologne and
he in England, years later."

"Perhaps they're together now, Char-les."

"You're rather a dear. Would you really like me to come down to the
lounge with you?"

"Yes, I would, please."

"Why would you?"

"Well, it's a little awkward, sometimes, being the only person here
who's all alone."

"Good Lord, why didn't you say so before? I'd have made an effort
instead of lounging here. I ought to have thought of it. Not but what
making efforts is thoroughly alien to my character----"

They went into the lounge, which was nearly empty at that time in the
morning, and presently Herr Leibowitz strolled through, ostensibly to
put his songs in order, but actually to look for Liese. He sheered off
when he saw the long-legged Denton lounging in the next chair. Liese
nodded to him and said, "That's him."

"Who? Your tame linnet?"

The two men looked each other up and down as Waltheof walked out, and
Denton said, "Umf. I've seen things like him at agricultural shows. In
pens, with a rosette on their curly top-knots. He reminds me of a polled
Angus."

"But he sings much better," said Liese.

Next day she brought a pile of magazines into Denton's room to amuse him
while she went for a walk, and among them was a photograph, signed "With
homage from Waltheof Leibowitz." Denton found it when he was alone, and
seethed within.

"The blue-nosed, hairy baboon! Not that I'm jealous, of course, the
girl's nothing to me, but she's a nice kid and I won't see her being
made a fool of by a fat Austrian crooner, blast him! He's no good to
her, probably regards her as a passing amusement. She'd better go home
to her father." However, when Liese came in he did not refer to the
photograph, nor suggest her returning to Berlin. Instead, he came down
to tea, and Waltheof sang, "Ah, can it ever be, That I must part from
thee." In spite of friendly overtures from several kind ladies who
thought the tall languid young man such an interesting invalid, Denton
said he was tired and went to bed early. No, he didn't want to be read
to, thank you.

On the following afternoon he tapped at Liese's door to borrow their
mutual ink, and found her looking through a little pile of gramophone
records. "Hullo," he said, "been shopping?"

"No, I had these given to me, they're Waltheof's. Look, here's 'Im Monat
Mai.' It's a lovely one."

"Oh. When did you hear it?"

"On his gramophone, last night."

"Did you go to his room to hear it?"

"Why not? I had nobody else to talk to."

"I see."

He fidgeted about the room.

"You didn't stay so late as one might have expected, did you? Thought I
heard you come up rather early."

"No, I--I didn't stay long."

"Why not?"

"Well, if you must know, he kissed the nape of my neck and I didn't like
it."

"He did, did he? Well, if you will ask for that kind of thing, my girl,
you'll probably get it."

Denton stalked into his own room and slammed the door.

It was a peaceful scene in the lounge of Albrecht's Private Hotel at
tea-time. There was a cheerful clink of tea-cups, the orchestra played a
selection from "L'Arlsienne" above a subdued but happy chatter, which
was only stilled when Waltheof strolled to the front of the platform.
The pianist struck a few preliminary chords, and at the same moment the
swing door of the lounge opened, and Denton entered.

Waltheof did not notice this. He clasped his hands lightly in front of
him, fixed his eyes soulfully on Liese Weber, and began, "Im Monat Mai."

Denton walked delicately between the tables till he was face to face
with the singer, when he stopped, and so did the song.

"I'll teach you to remember the month of May, you pie-faced choir-boy,"
he drawled, and landed the unhappy Waltheof a jolt to the jaw, sending
him flying into the grand piano, which complained with a long singing
noise. Denton, completely unhurried in the excitement, wandered across
to Liese's table and said, "Come on upstairs, we'd better start
packing."

"Packing----"

"Come on," he said, and she got up and followed meekly.

"Did you see that girl's face as she went out?" said one elderly lady to
another. "Outrageous little minx! I believe she was laughing."

In the cab on their way to the station, Liese said, "Where are we
going?"

"To Paris, of course, Lieschen. Good heavens, I've forgotten something."

"What, d-dear?"

"I meant to send your father a picture-postcard of the hotel--in six
colours."




CHAPTER 9


They had a rush to catch the train, and, of course, they had no
reservations, so it was necessary to resign themselves to spending the
night in an ordinary railway carriage till they arrived in Paris at
three in the morning.

"But why are we going to Paris, Char-les?"

"Charles."

"Charles. Why are we going to Paris?"

"Because it's the nearest place I know where I can marry you."

"_Herr Gott!_ Suppose I don't want to?"

"If you don't now, you will when you've known me another seven hours."

"Who told you that, lordly one?"

"My unconquerable soul," said Denton magnificently. "Come and--no. We
are not married yet, so I'll approach you. I want to sit next you, not
opposite."

"Shall I have to come when I'm called if I marry you?"

"Running."

"Oh. Just like living with Father," she said in a flat voice.

"Not in the least like living with Father----"

"'Liese! Fetch my slippers!'"

"A very good idea, but----"

"'Liese! Fill my pipe!'"

"I wouldn't trust you to. It's a fine art----"

"I have acquired it, sir. 'Liese! Bring the beer!'"

"Better and better. In fact, better and bitter. I always knew I was a
good picker, but you exceed expectations."

"'Liese! Bring me the English _Times_!'"

"Does your father read that?"

"Yes. He says that when he was a schoolboy he learned English, and
reading the English _Times_ is the best way to keep it up."

"I dare say he's right. Can you speak English, Liese?"

"A little," she said. "I read it quite easily, but to speak it is much
more difficult. Father made me learn poetry," said Liese, and quoted:

    _"'To be, or not to be, that is the question:_
    _Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer_
    _The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune----'_

That is by Shakespeare, but it is very hard to say. There were some
other things Father taught me that I like better. Do you understand
English, Charles? Then listen to this:

    _'So through the strong and salty days,_
      _The tinkling silence thrills_
    _Where little lost Down churches praise_
      _The Lord who made the hills.'_
      
Father says that there are some hills called Downs in England. Father
has been there I am sure, though he never talks about it. Have you ever
been in England, Charles?"

"Listen to me, my darling. You're going to marry me to-morrow, God help
you, and you don't know the first thing about me. I am English,
Lieschen."

She looked at him with round eyes and parted lips.

"My name is not Dedler, it is Denton. Charles Denton. So you will be
Mrs. Denton, not Frau Dedler. D'you mind?"

"Charles."

"Yes?"

"Was it very dangerous for you, being in Germany?"

"Not at all," he lied stoutly. "Whatever makes you think that?"

She shook her head in disbelief. "Father had so many queer people come
to see him----"

"Including me?"

"Yes, dear. They used to talk in that little room at the back of the
shop with the doors and window shut, just as you did. I never did
believe they all sold pipes or tobacco. I think there was something
funny about Father, too."

"'All the world is queer, dear,'" quoted Denton in English, "'excepting
thee and me, dear, and even thee's a little queer, dear!'"

"You see," she said, refusing to be put off, "Father's a good Nazi, and
goes to meetings and things and pays all his subscriptions, but
sometimes they come into the shop and talk about how wonderful they all
are, and when they've gone he looks amused. I don't think the Nazis
would amuse a real Nazi, would they?"

"You notice too much. Tell me," he went on in a serious tone, "have you
ever spoken of this to anyone else?"

"Never. And I wouldn't to you, only you're English."

"That's right. Don't talk about it at all, even to me."

"Why not?"

"Somebody might overhear you. Let's talk about something else now, shall
we?"

"Is it as serious as all that?"

"Yes, quite."

She nodded understandingly, and presently her eyebrows went up. "Isn't
it funny?"

"What is?"

"To think that this time to-morrow I shall be an Englishwoman."

The corners of Denton's mouth twitched, but all he said was, "An
Englishwoman who's never seen England. Well, we'll go straight on there
and look at it. Are you--aren't you----"

"What?"

"Aren't you really just the least bit scared?"

"Why?"

"It's a long way from home."

"Home is where you are, _liebchen_," she said. "So long as you're there
it will be quite safe. You won't leave me, will you?"

"Not more than I can help, my darling. But even if I do, Liese----"

"Even if you must, Charles, what then?"

"Even then, it will still be quite all right, because my heart stays in
your little hands, Lieschen, my wife----"

The train slowed down and stopped at Strasbourg, and Denton promptly got
up and spread their luggage all over the unoccupied seats of the
compartment.

"What's that for, darling?"

"So that people shall think all the seats are taken and we can keep the
place to ourselves," said the true-born Englishman. "Try and look as
though the stuff didn't belong to you."

Liese wrinkled up her nose and glanced disdainfully at three suit-cases,
a hatbox, and two brown-paper parcels, one of them flat.

"Is that the right expression? Oh, but the gramophone records are mine!"

"Feathers from the pet canary."

"He was really very nice, and it was very wrong of you to hit him so
hard."

"But it did me such a lot of good," said Denton plaintively, "my head
hasn't ached since."

"I think it was horrid of you, Charles. Are you often violent like
that?"

"Whenever the moon is full on a Thursday, I grin like a dog and run
through the city banging people over the head with lengths of lead
piping. Why?"

"Why, indeed," said Liese.

"Oh, just to release my inhibitions. Cheers, the train is moving off and
nobody has got in here. See what a clever husband you're going to have,
dozens of people looked in at the window and all went peaceably away
again, it always works."

A shadow darkened the door into the corridor, and a tall old man with a
thick brush of hair entered apologetically.

"I beg a thousand pardons, but could you tell me if all these seats are
taken? The rest of the train is so----"

The carriage lurched violently over the points, the old gentleman
staggered, clutched at the rack and missed it, and sat down heavily on
the flat parcel. Denton let out a yell of delight.

"God bless my soul," said the agitated stranger in English. "What have I
done?"

"A noble deed, believe me," said Denton in the same language, "yet one
which I should not, myself, have dared. Waltheof's voice is cracked."

"I beg your pardon?"

"The canary has gone off song."

"Dear me," said the old gentleman, gathering up his umbrella and a
music-case he had dropped, and making for the door. "How very
distressing. I think I----"

"Please don't go away," said Denton, controlling himself. "I didn't mean
to alarm you. I get like that occasionally. They are gramophone records
in that parcel."

"Are they, perhaps, your wife's?" asked the stranger, with a bow to
Liese. "I could, no doubt, replace them."

"She's not my wife yet, but she will be as soon as we get to Paris."

"God bless my soul. May I wish you many years of happiness?"

"_Danke schn_," said Liese, her English deserting her. "_Sie sind sehr
gtig._"

"Thanks awfully," drawled Denton, "please inaugurate them by not
replacing the records. I shall get the bird for that, I expect, but I
prefer it to the other bird."

Liese made a face at him, and the old gentleman said, "Some secret,
evidently. May I sit here?"

"I do beg your pardon," said Denton, springing up. "Please. Let me
remove our truck." He opened the window, and with a simple gesture
hurled the records far into the night.

"I'll go and fetch my violin, if I may," said the stranger. "I cannot
allow it to travel in the van." When he returned he introduced himself.
"My name is Ogilvie, and I am a third-rate fiddler."

"I doubt the adjective," said Denton, looking at the long sensitive
fingers. "This is Frulein Elisabeth Weber, and I'm Charles Denton."

"Have you come far to-day?"

"Only from Basle."

"I have had two days in Strasbourg," said Ogilvie, "but before that I
was in Rome. My nephew gave a recital there on Monday, and another in
Strasbourg last night. In fact, we have made quite a tour, but he is
staying a few days with friends while tiresome business calls me home."

"I am completely uncultured," said Denton, "but somehow the name of
Ogilvie suggests music to me."

"You are thinking of my nephew, Dixon Ogilvie, who is a pianist. He
is--well, rather famous."

"Dixon Ogilvie."

"Perhaps you have heard him somewhere. I have here," Ogilvie rummaged in
his music-case, "a programme with his photograph upon it, here it is."

"Has he played in Berlin, sir?" asked Liese in her careful English.
Miranda calls Prospero "sir," and Shakespeare must know.

"Not yet, but perhaps he will some day. He has a foolish prejudice
against going again to Germany, he was a prisoner of war there, my dear
young lady."

"But," said Liese, "if he is a great musician, he will be very welcome
in Germany. We--they--are very musical."

"He knows that quite well. In fact, he has been invited to go, but he
says he is afraid that if he hears German spoken all round him again, he
will get that locked-up feeling. It must be terrible, to be in prison.
You have heard him play somewhere, possibly," to Denton, who was looking
at the photograph.

"No," said Denton, "but I have seen him play."

"Seen, but not heard--like a good child?" But Denton did not smile.

"He was playing five-finger exercises on a packing-case when I saw him.
Someone who was with me said that was Dixon Ogilvie, a musician."

"And this was----"

"A very long time ago," said Denton, looking away out of the window into
the dark, and Ogilvie was too tactful to pursue the subject.

"Are you going to stay in Paris, sir?" asked Denton, returning to the
present day.

"I fear not, this time. I am going straight through."

"Couldn't you stay for one afternoon to perform another good deed? If it
is a good deed to abet us in a rash one? Will you be a witness at our
marriage?"

"My dear fellow," said Ogilvie, "for a thing like that I would postpone
any business. I am really honoured that you should ask me--I cannot
think why."

"It's a stupid reason," said Denton, leaning back, "but there was a man
who would have been at my wedding, and you are connected with a friend
of his, if you would stand proxy, I should be most frightfully
obliged--sentimental of me, isn't it, but these are sentimental
occasions----"

"Tell me the time and place," said Ogilvie.

"Dear Charles, does your head ache again? You look as though it did."

"A little, _liebchen_. I don't know yet, sir, but I'm going to the
British Embassy in the morning to see about it----"

"And you will both lunch with me at Maxim's at one, eh? Splendid, and
now I think we should all try to sleep a little, it is getting late and
those must be the lights of Nancy."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Hambledon went to Weber's, the tobacconist's, to buy cigarettes and
found him in a state of mental disturbance. He knocked things over,
produced the wrong brand, muttered to himself, and forgot the price.

"I'm afraid something is worrying you to-day," said the Deputy Chief of
Police sympathetically.

"It is kind of you to notice it," said Weber. "I have had distressing
news, Herr Lehmann, that is all."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Can I do anything?"

"No one can do anything. I have lost my daughter."

"Great heavens!" said the startled Hambledon. "That charming child dead!
What can have happened?"

"She was to go and spend a little while with an aunt in Switzerland, and
in the disturbed state of affairs at the moment I thought it better she
should travel with an escort rather than alone. She went, therefore,
with a Swiss friend of mine, Herr Dedler, whom I could have sworn to be
a man completely trustworthy. But what happened?"

"For pity's sake tell me," said Hambledon earnestly. (What the devil had
that fool Denton been up to?)

"See this telegram, gracious sir. I received it an hour ago."

It ran:

    Paris, 15.45 16.7.34. Married to-day entreat paternal blessing
    letter follows. Charles and Liese.

"Cheer up," said the relieved Hambledon. "They're only married."

"She is lost to me, Herr Lehmann," said Weber mournfully. "I want my
little daughter."

"Nonsense, my good Weber. She will return bringing her sheaves with
her--probably."

"Sheaves?"

"A poetic touch. Grandchildren, Herr Weber."

"Grandchildren," said Weber, "are all very well in their place, but will
they order the dinner? No. Engage and dismiss servants? No. Fetch my
pipe and slippers, perhaps, in about six years' time but not before, and
in the meantime I shall have to pay a housekeeper who will order me
about and probably rob me. Grandchildren, no. I want my daughter. I want
Liese."

"There is another disadvantage attached to these particular
grandchildren," said Hambledon, with his eyes on the other's face.

"What is that, Herr Lehmann?"

"Herr Dedler is, I think you said, a Swiss? They will not be Germans."

The tobacconist dropped his eyes instantly, but Hambledon had seen in
them the gleam which he expected, also the slow colour rose to Weber's
temples.

"I--had not thought of that," he muttered.

"They will come here to see you, of course. But they will be brought up
in another land, go to distant schools, and play in fields that are very
far away."

Weber bit his lip and did not answer.

"I did not mean to distress you, Herr Weber. I will come again some day
soon," said Hambledon, and walked out of the shop.

"Distress me!" said Weber to himself. "That German said the one thing
that would really comfort me, if he only knew it. I have a good excuse,
now, in going to see my married daughter, and who cares if an obscure
tobacconist stays in Switzerland or goes on to England? Then I myself
will walk again in those fields which are very far away."

"Poor old buffer," said Hambledon to himself. "I bet he bolts off to
England via Switzerland before many moons have waned. Why am I so
poetic? Oh, yes, honeymoon of course; who'd have thought it of Denton?
That thump on the head must have been much too hard, it's softened his
brain. He's a lucky man, though, she's a nice little thing--that is, if
you like nice domestic little things---- Fancy my telling him to go and
elope, and he actually did it, what a frightful responsibility."

He reached home without incident, since the Purge had ceased its more
active manifestations some days earlier, and went in search of Reck with
a bottle of sparkling Moselle in his hand. He found the old man in his
bedroom, sitting slumped in an armchair staring at nothing.

"Cheer up, old thing," said Hambledon breezily, "and have a drink. I've
got a toast for you to honour."

"Eh? What? I'll have a drink, certainly, though I don't like that gassy
stuff. What is there to drink to; has the shooting stopped?"

"Days ago, you old dormouse," said Hambledon, extracting the cork. "Why
don't you go out and see for yourself instead of frowsting in here this
lovely weather? Do you good."

"No, it wouldn't," growled Reck. "I hate these hearty cold-bath ideas of
yours about health. The window's open, what more d'you want?"

"Here you are," said Hambledon, handing him a glass. "It should be Veuve
Clicquot, of course, but that's unpatriotic so we drink Moselle. The
happy pair! _Hoch!_"

"_Hoch._ But we aren't a happy pair, at least I'm not if you are."

"No, I'm still completely single. We are drinking to two people you've
never met. Yes, of course you did. Denton, remember Denton? He was in
Kln with Bill after I left."

"Was that his name? He called himself Wolff then, I remember, Ludwig
Wolff. An impertinent youth in those days. Is he married? Serve him
right, I hope she beats him."

"You're a cheerful sort of devil to celebrate with, I must say. Never
mind, here's luck to them. Now, here's a message I want coded and sent
out to-night..."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Denton came to the Foreign Office to report to his Chief, and the old
Colonel from Sussex, who could not let this riddle alone, was there
also.

"I found out who it is," he said. "As you were, that's wrong. I didn't
find him out, he found me. It is Hambledon."

"Hambledon," said the Foreign Office man. "Good Lord, it can't be, he's
dead."

"Hambledon," said the Colonel. "Thank God."

Denton told his story in full detail up to the point where Hambledon
left him for the last time.

"So we don't know now who he is in Germany," said Denton's Chief, "and
instructions will be issued forthwith that no attempt shall be made to
find out."

"From what I remember of the man he is probably impersonating Adolf
Hitler," said the Colonel, "having thrown the original, wrapped in wire
netting with a couple of flagstones as anchor, down the well of somebody
he doesn't like."

"He is certainly a star," said Denton. "If I'd organized a man-sized
revolution in a foreign capital city and it had 'gone wrong a little' as
he put it, I should bolt at once. Not he. He opens the door to callers,
with a gun in each of his pockets, and waits till the storm subsides.
All the same, I wouldn't like to be the man who shot Bill Saunders, if
anyone did."

"Were there many people--er--I think liquidated is the fashionable
phrase?" asked the Colonel.

"I don't know, sir. I was too busy skulking in a cellar to inquire."

"By the way, you have not told us how you got out."

"Oh, quite easily. Hambledon provided facilities and I came home via
Switzerland. I had a week in bed at Basle as my head came back at me,
and then pottered home."

"Facilities," repeated the Colonel, and smiled.

"Anything more to report, Denton?"

"No, sir. Except that I've committed holy matrimony."

If he expected surprise he was mistaken, for the Colonel merely smiled
again and the Foreign Office man uncovered a short memorandum.

"I have here," he said, "congratulations for you, which have been
awaiting you here since 4.15 a.m."

Denton took the paper. The message ran: "T-L-T Denton Foreign Office
a.a.a. Congratulations fast work a.a.a. told you to elope didn't I
a.a.a. present follows a.a.a. sincerest good wishes."

Denton's jaw dropped. "How the devil did he know?" he said slowly.

"Don't ask me," said his Chief. "Congratulations, Denton, wish you every
happiness."

"Congratulations, Denton," said the Colonel. "Lucky fellow. And when may
I see the lady?"

"Now, sir, if you'd care to? She's waiting outside in a taxi."

"Lead on, my dear fellow. And-er--when you want a christening-mug, let
me know."




CHAPTER 10


Henry Winter went to Germany to buy fancy leather goods for the large
departmental store to which he belonged. He went from place to place
unhindered, a short fat man with a bald head, sincerely welcomed by all
who had to do business with him and quite unnoticed by anyone else. In
late November 1935 the Exchange was no longer so favourable to the
foreigner in Germany as it had been, but he was still able to buy
advantageously goods which would sell profitably in the English market.
He spent a few pounds on the carved wooden and ivory goods of the Black
Forest area as an experiment to see if they would go, bought, as he
always did, a present for his wife, in Cologne this time, and settled
himself with a sigh of relief in the train for the frontier, homeward
bound.

"I'm always glad when I've completed a buying tour," he said. He had
made acquaintance with a German commercial traveller in the same
compartment, he usually found someone to talk to, for he was a sociable
man. "It's a great responsibility, and though I have always given the
firm satisfaction so far, one always wonders. It isn't as though it were
one's own money one is spending."

"It is evident from what the Herr says that he is a conscientious man,"
said the German politely, "and the efforts of such men always deserve
appreciation."

"It isn't enough just to be conscientious. One has to use imagination,
for it is a sheer gamble to try to please the public."

"It is a gift, not a gamble, to be able to please the public. Besides,
you speak our language so well."

"I ought to," said Winter with a laugh, "I spent nearly three years
learning it. I was a prisoner of war."

"Were you indeed? I myself fought on the Western Front. Where were you
captured?"

"Near Souchez in '15. You know, just north of Arras. I was out with a
wiring party, when----"

"Souchez in '15? Why, our lot were down there in '15. Let me see, that
would be August onwards. August the 22nd if I remember rightly."

"Oh, I was captured before that. May the 12th, not likely to forget that
date, eh? You see, I was out with----"

"May the 12th? Why, my brother was near there then. He was killed on the
30th of May. I wonder if his lot gathered you in. What regiment were
they, d'you know?"

"Well, it was like this. I was out with a wiring party, when all of a
sudden----"

After which the conversation proceeded on the lines customary in all war
reminiscences. "Gave us bread and soup----" "My father was a sergeant of
Uhlans, terribly proud of it." "Awful boredom, couldn't stick it. So
when I was sent on a farm----" "I was wounded in '16----" "Thawing out
frozen turnips----" "The British blockade----" "Decent old fellow, used
to write to him till----"

When at last the train slowed down for the frontier station at Aachen
Winter said, "Never known this trip pass so quickly. See you again after
we've passed the customs? Right. Damned nuisance, these customs. There,
see how talking over old times brings 'em back, don't believe I've said
'damn' for ten years except when I've hit my thumb with a hammer or some
such. Well, see you later."

Winter pushed his suit-case across the counter to be searched for
surplus currency with the unconcern of habitual innocence, and waited
for it to be passed. He was very much taken aback when the customs
officer asked if he would please step into an inner room, there was a
little difficulty. They would not detain him a moment. If he would just
step inside and sit down, it would only be for a moment....

Winter, protesting volubly, was pushed into the inner room. He sat down,
fuming, on one of the hard chairs and was preparing a neat speech for
the customs official's superior officer, when he heard the key turned in
the lock.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Hambledon reached home rather late for lunch that day to find Frulein
Rademeyer rather fidgety.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "to have kept you waiting. You should have
started without me."

"I would rather wait, I detest eating alone."

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I was busy, the time passed before I was
aware of it."

"You are always so busy these days, even in the evenings. Can't you take
a little time off sometimes?"

Hambledon sighed inaudibly. The old lady was very dear to him, but as
the years passed she became more feeble in body but not in spirit, and
the increasing limitation of activity was most irritating to her.
Besides, it was true, he did leave her alone a great deal.

"I'll take a whole day off early next week," he said. "We'll pick a fine
day, drive out somewhere and have lunch. You are quite right, it's an
age since I had any time to myself."

"That will be very pleasant," said Ludmilla. "I cannot think it is good
for you to work so hard and come so late to your meals. It is nearly two
o'clock."

"I'm sorry," said Hambledon again, glancing at the clock. It was later
than he had thought, in five minutes' time the Cologne train would stop
at Aachen for the usual hunt through travellers' baggage to see if they
were taking more money out of Germany than was permitted by the
regulations. Suppose that funny little man Winter had changed his mind
and broken his journey somewhere. Suppose Ginsberg had had one of his
gastric attacks and been unable to do his job. It might sound a simple
matter to undo the lining of a suit-case, slip some papers inside, and
do it up again so that it did not appear to have been tampered with, but
it took an expert to do it properly. Ginsberg had been apprenticed to a
firm of luggage makers, what a find! It was only necessary to tell him
that he was concealing secret orders for transmission to German agents
abroad for him to take an artist's pleasure in the work. Now the
ham-handed Schultz----

"Klaus dear, would it be too much trouble to talk to me when you do come
in? I have had no one but the servants to speak to all the morning."

"I am a complete pig, Aunt Ludmilla. I am a mannerless baboon. If it
wasn't for certain physiological objections, I would say I was a cow,
too. I have had a difficult case to deal with this morning with both
sides lying themselves purple in the face, and I was still trying to
make up my mind which of them was lying the worst. But that's no excuse
for being rude to you. Tell me, what are you going to do this
afternoon?"

"I am going to a recital of some of Chopin's Nocturnes and Preludes, and
two Beethoven sonatas, by a famous foreign pianist who has never been in
Berlin before. I wish you could come with me."

"You don't really. You remember too well what happened last time you
tried to educate my taste in music. I snored."

"You were overtired, dear. It was unkind of me to insist on your going."

"That's a nice way of putting it, but you know what the Frau Doktor
Gericke said."

"The Frau Doktor Gericke is an evil-minded old cat," said Ludmilla
energetically. "As though you were ever the worse for drink! I told her
that if that sort of thing was customary in her household, it wasn't in
mine, and that if she fed her menfolk properly she wouldn't have so much
trouble with that wild Leonhard of hers. Of course, I didn't know that
their cook had cracked his head with a rolling-pin the evening before or
I wouldn't have said it, but----"

Hambledon roared with laughter. "You didn't tell me that! Where did this
exchange of courtesies take place?"

"At Christine's flat. I went there to coffee by invitation, but Alexia
Gericke simply walked in. Christine didn't like it, but, of course, she
couldn't do anything."

"Then what happened?"

"Oh, Christine started talking at the top of her voice about the
reclamation of sand-dunes by planting some sort of grass. You know, her
father was an expert at that sort of thing and used to lecture about it.
He couldn't read his own writing so Christine had to copy out his notes
for him when she was a girl, she's never forgotten them. You wouldn't,
you know. So whenever conversations take an awkward turn Christine talks
about sand-dunes till it's blown over."

"Frau Christine is a dear."

"She always was. Which reminds me of something quite different. Klaus
dear, don't be annoyed, will you? But I cannot abide that horrid old man
creeping about the house. Must we have him?"

"Reck? I am so sorry. He is a clever man really, you know. He has had a
sad history and I'm sorry for him. Besides, he is useful to me."

"If you really need him, Klaus, there's no more to be said. Only he does
look so disreputable, and I'm not at all sure that he is always sober."

"I'll see that he gets some new clothes and smartens himself up."

"His hair wants cutting, too."

"It shall be cut. As for not being sober, if he ever shows anything of
that in your presence, out he goes. I would, however, rather keep him
under my eye if I can. He will go to the dogs if I turn him out and I
don't want that on my conscience."

"You are too kind-hearted, Klaus. I will try and be sorry for him too
and then I shan't dislike him so much. If I were to knit him some socks,
do you think----"

"You darling! He doesn't deserve that. Heavens, look at the time, I must
go. Mind you enjoy your high-brow entertainment. Who are you going to
hear?"

"I can't pronounce his queer name, but here's a programme. It has his
photograph on it, look."

Hambledon took the programme carelessly, glanced at the photograph, and
then looked intently. Dixon Ogilvie's name was beneath it, but that was
unnecessary for Tommy Hambledon, once Modern Languages master at
Chappell's School. The photograph showed a man in the early thirties,
but there was little change from the other picture which rose to
Hambledon's mind of a tall, skinny, untidy boy to whom music took the
place occupied in the hearts of other boys by toffee, food and cricket,
a boy who wouldn't learn French and couldn't learn German--perhaps the
guards at the prisoners' camp at Thielenbruck had been more successful
teachers.

"A nice face, isn't it?" said Frulein Rademeyer, who was wandering
about the room collecting tickets, gloves, two pairs of spectacles and a
purse, and did not notice Hambledon's expression. "I should think he's a
nice young man, wouldn't you?"

Still no reply, so she looked at him, crossed the room quickly and laid
her hand on his arm.

"What is it, my dear? Do you think you remember that face?"

"Perhaps," said Hambledon, rousing himself. "It's rather unlikely, isn't
it? A chance resemblance, probably."

"He might be a friend, or some relation," she said.

"But he's English," said Hambledon, looking at her curiously. "That
would mean I was English, too, and that's impossible."

"I suppose it is," she said slowly.

"Would you mind very much, if I turned out to be English after all?
You'd hate it, wouldn't you?"

"No, why? The war's over long ago, Klaus dear, and you and I have been
happy together for a long time."

"I'm glad you think like that," he said. "I shan't be so afraid now
of--of getting my memory back."

She laughed and patted his arm. "You don't know much about women, do
you, Klaus? Besides, the English are quite respectable people. Won't you
come with me and see him for yourself?"

"No," he said, "no. I do very well as I am, and besides, I have business
to attend to this afternoon."

"Very well, dear. And don't worry, your memory will come back some day,
I am sure of it. How tiresome it will be, learning to call you by a new
name."

"You never shall----"

"Good gracious, look at the time. Tell Franz to call a cab, will you,
while I put--I shall be late--they won't let me in till the
interval----"

She scurried out of the room while Hambledon shouted to Franz to call up
a taxi, and himself walked back to his office. He pushed the thought of
Dixon Ogilvie out of his mind for the present and returned to the
subject of Henry Winter. By this time the little man should have been
released, have passed the Belgian customs, and should now be sitting in
the slow local to Brussels, having lost the boat-train. No doubt he was
horribly cross, probably he was bouncing gently on the seat and emitting
a faint sizzling sound. Never mind, they also serve----

                 *        *        *        *        *

"So I lost the boat-train to Ostende," said Winter to his wife, "and had
to take a slow local to Brussels. I caught a fast train from there but,
of course, the boat had gone, so I had to stay the night. I went to the
Excelsior Hotel, too expensive for me normally, but as it's the
off-season I knew the charge would be reasonable, and to tell you the
truth, my dear, I'd been so worried and upset that I thought I deserved
a little extra luxury."

"Did you have an amusing time there, Henry?"

"No, m'dear. Very dull."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Henry Winter had walked into the Excelsior on the previous evening
shortly before dinner and asked, in his Britannic French, for a room for
one night.

"M'sieu' is alone?" asked the reception clerk.

"Completely alone," said Winter.

He was still seething with a sense of injustice in spite of the floods
of apology which had been poured on him at Aachen. His detention was a
mistake, the locked door was a mistake, it was to keep people out, not
him in, his being shown in there at all was a mistake and the official
responsible should be reprimanded--degraded--dismissed the service. But
Winter was not appeased. However, the reception which is accorded to
hotel visitors in the off-season began to soothe him, and the excellent
dinner, with a wine he'd never heard of before but which was recommended
personally by the wine waiter, completed the cure. When he had finished
the cheese and biscuits--and the half-bottle--he felt at peace with the
world. After all, annoying contretemps must sometimes happen to every
habitual traveller, the seasoned hands, like himself, look upon such
things philosophically as all in a day's work. He was a little ashamed
of having been so flustered by it, the traditional British phlegm, he
felt, must have unaccountably failed him for some reason. A touch of
liver, possibly. He rose from the table, pulled down his waistcoat, and
strolled into the lounge.

Since the stock of foreigners of any sort was a trifle low in Winter's
estimation at the time, he counted himself lucky to find another
Englishman among the few guests present. The two men foregathered to
discuss Hitler and play billiards till Henry Winter went up to bed.

The lift was one of those which starts each journey with an aggrieved
howl, and Winter guessed rather than heard that the boy asked him which
floor. "Third," he answered, winding his watch on the way up to save
time because he was sleepy. The lift stopped, Winter got out and walked
along to his room.

He opened the door quietly, switched on the light, and noticed at once
that his very ordinary brown suit-case on the luggage-stand inside the
door had been closed again although he had left it open. He slid the
catches and threw back the lid.

There came from the other side of the room an angry wail of feminine
outrage and Winter jumped round to see with horror a woman standing
beside the bed in the alcove, a woman, moreover, in an advanced stage of
disarray. For a second he gaped at her, speechless with astonishment,
then, "My good woman!" he gasped, in English, and fled the room,
slamming the door behind him.

He hurried back to the lift, rang for it, and demanded to be taken to
the manager instantly. "_Instamment, sans_ delay," but the manager was
not there and had to be sought. Henry Winter marched angrily about the
room trying to summon adequate French to express his sentiments. If only
they spoke German he could have been so fluent...

The manager arrived. "Monsieur desire?"

"There is," said Winter carefully, "a woman in my room. I do not want
her."

"Impossible," said the startled manager.

"I thought," said Winter, after one or two false shots at the past tense
of a notoriously irregular verb, "I thought this was a respectable
hotel."

The manager said that it was truly an establishment but of the most
decorous, but Winter merely snorted, saying that the woman must be taken
away at once, "_prise_" was the word he used, which defeated the
manager yet further. "_Je demands qu'elle sera, prise._"

The manager called upon his Maker and added that there must be some
mistake, to which Winter tried to reply that there was indeed a very
serious mistake, but that anyone who imagined they could get away with
that sort of thing with him would find they would--he found himself
drowning in a tangle of subjunctives and tore himself free. "I won't
have it," he said indignantly. "I don't like that sort of thing. _Je ne
l'aime pas._"

"Is it," said the manager, upon whom a false dawn unkindly broke, "is it
that monsieur desires to part with his wife?"

"Heavens above, no!" stormed the baited Winter, in English. "She's a
stranger, I tell you. _Elle est trange, trs trange._"

The manager, making another desperate attempt to keep abreast of a
situation which became momentarily further beyond him, asked was it that
the poor madame... he tapped his forehead and suggested a doctor.

Winter, who was nearly a cot case himself by this time, shook despairing
fists in the air. "Listen," he said. "I have a perfectly good wife at
home, but----"

"_Mais oui, monsieur_," said the manager, sure he had got it right this
time. "That is of the most undoubted. But monsieur is on holiday, and
life is like that, is it not?"

"No, it isn't," howled Winter. "I tell you----"

At that moment the door opened violently, a well-developed young woman
bounced into the room and set about the unfortunate manager in floods of
French so rapid as to leave Winter gasping. He looked at her again----

"Here," he said, grabbing the manager by the arm, "that's the woman."

She flung out her arm with a gesture worthy of Duse. "That--that is the
man!"

"Hussy!"

"_Sclrat!_"

"Minx!"

"_Ravisseur!_"

"Madame," said the manager, pushing his way between. "Monsieur! All is
now clear----"

"He came to rob! He opened my case----"

"You have the wrong room," said the manager firmly to Winter. "You were
on the wrong floor----"

"Gobbless my soul," said the deflated Winter. "I told the boy the third
floor."

"I am second floor," said the lady.

"The little mistake," said the manager airily. "She comes, does she not?
_Deuxime, troisime_, what would you?"

"Madame," said Winter, horribly abashed, "I am--I cannot tell you--I
beg----"

"I beg monsieur," said she with a dazzling smile, "not to distress
himself. One understands, one pardons, is it not?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

"Very dull indeed," said Winter to his wife. "Place half shut up, very
few people there."

"But quiet and comfortable, I hope. You caught the boat all right next
day, though."

"Yes, I got across all right but, believe it or not, I had more trouble
over the luggage at Dover. I had some of the firm's stuff to declare, of
course, so after the customs people had examined everything I sent the
porter along to the train with the boxes and my suit-case whilst I paid
the charges. When I went on the platform myself I couldn't find the
porter or any of the luggage!"

"My dear, what an extraordinary thing. Didn't you complain?"

"Complain! I'll say I complained. I sent for the station-master, the
assistant station-master and the foreman porter; the train was held up
while every compartment and van were searched. Not a sign of them. Not
any of them. I was ever so angry, Agnes."

"You had every right to be, Henry. What happened then?"

"Well, eventually they had to let the train go when it was obvious the
stuff wasn't on board; I walked about at my wits' end what to do, and
chanced to go outside. I mean, to the station entrance, where the cars
drive up, and there, just outside the door, was all my luggage neatly
piled up. All by itself, Agnes, nobody looking after it."

"And the porter?"

"Never saw him again, they couldn't find him or something. Disgraceful!
Scandalous! However, all the cases were there, so there wasn't much harm
done, I looked inside each one and they hadn't been tampered with so far
as I could see. Oh, Agnes, that suit-case of mine is getting shabby, the
lining is split."

"Oh, is it? Well, you've had it some time and I dare say we can get it
mended. What happened then, did you have to wait for the next train?"

"No, as luck would have it there was a gentleman outside the station
with a wonderful car, a sports Bentley he said it was, he'd missed the
train himself and was going to drive up to town so he offered me a lift,
and I accepted. He was ever so nice, I told him all about what had
happened and he was ever so sympathetic. He even went out of his way to
drop the firm's boxes at the office."

"How very kind, Henry, how fortunate, too! So much nicer than waiting
hours for the next train. What was he like, Henry?"

"'What was he like'! Oh, you women! Very tall, with a lazy manner and a
tired way of talking as though it was almost too much trouble to speak,
don't you know, but a real toff and no mistake. I should think he'd been
in the Army, still is, probably. We got on fine," said Henry with a
self-conscious laugh. "He simply insisted on my having what he called a
spot of dinner with him before I came home. Went to a place called the
Auberge de France in Piccadilly, I'd never heard of it before. Not much
to look at outside, give me the Strand Corner House for that any day,
but my hat, the cooking! And the service! Waiters everywhere."

"What did you have, Henry?"

"Well, we started with..." and so on.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Denton took leave of Winter at one of the Piccadilly Tube entrances and
himself repaired to the Foreign Office.

"Well, did you pacify him?"

"Oh, Lord, yes, quite easy, no trouble at all. Decent old fruit really.
What's in the kitty this time, anything exciting?"

"Don't know yet, it'll be up any minute now. Wonder where they packed
it."

"Oh, at Aachen, at the examination for currency. He told me all his
troubles. They aren't so subtle as we are, though, they just inveigled
him into a back room and locked him up while they got on with it. I
imagine he raised--here's your plate of cabbage."

They tore open the envelope which the messenger brought in, the contents
informed them that Germany would march into the demilitarized Rhineland
in March, in four months' time, and at the same moment denounce the
Locarno Treaty.

"Well, I don't blame 'em," said Denton. "How'd we like being forbidden
to have a single soldier within thirty miles of the South Coast?"




CHAPTER 11


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."




CHAPTER 12


Tommy Hambledon considered for a time the advisability of leaving at
once without even waiting to pack a toothbrush, for he was very severely
frightened. If Ginsberg had been taken with the plans of the magnetic
mine on him, the Chief of Police's chance of survival was microscopic.
Klaus Lehmann had handled the case, Klaus Lehmann was present when
Hauser was arrested, Klaus Lehmann himself found the missing file; it
could be proved, if anyone really tried, that he had been in touch with
Ginsberg, and finally Ginsberg, if he were questioned by Party
officials, would talk. Naturally, since he had no idea he had done
anything but serve his country, probably he was rather proud of it. Then
out would come all the pretty details of papers inserted into
travellers' luggage, of which the case of Henry Winter was only one
example, of memoranda slipped into passports---- Hambledon broke into a
gentle perspiration. Probably it was already too late to leave, the next
time the door opened there would be a squad of S.A. men no longer
regarding him deferentially. He opened a drawer, took out an automatic
and slipped it into his pocket. No, it didn't seem much use trying to
bolt, better stay and try to face it out. Besides, there was Ludmilla,
not that it would do her much good if he faced a firing-squad, but he
could hardly depart without a word and leave her to bear the brunt.

However, the next man who came into his office behaved quite normally
and made no attempt to arrest him, nor the next, nor the next. Somehow
the interminable day passed slowly by and still men saluted when they
met him and took orders from him, and no one addressed him as "Hey,
you!" adding, "Come along quiet, now." He went home in safety and to bed
in peace, though it cannot be said that he slept particularly well.

The next day he went to his office as usual, not that he wanted to in
the least, but he found it impossible to stay away. Still nothing
happened.

"Too much dentist's waiting-room atmosphere about life at the moment to
please me," said Tommy to himself on the third day. "I wonder whether
nothing's going to happen or whether they're just waiting to pounce. To
think I might have been in England by now."

Towards the evening reports of Party activities as they affected the
police were brought in, among them was an item from the S.A.
Headquarters at Aachen. "Heinrich Ginsberg, shot while attempting to
escape, Sept. 2nd."

"Dear me," said Hambledon bleakly.

He determined on a bold stroke and sent for the papers connected with
the case. He had a perfect right to send for any such papers of course,
only it was just possible that the Party leaders were waiting for him to
make some move like that to incriminate himself. He felt as though he
were feeling his way blindfold about a dark room full of horribly
explosive furniture. One touch in the wrong place and a highly coloured
detonation would immediately follow.

However, the papers came without demur and Hambledon learned to his
surprise that Ginsberg had been arrested at 8 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 1st,
for suspected race-defilement, to wit, having an affair with the
daughter of a Jewish provision merchant in Aachen. Informant, Georg
Schultz. The prisoner, evidently actuated by a consciousness of guilt,
had attempted to escape when he was taken from prison for interrogation,
and was shot in the act.

"If this is true and not a trap," said Hambledon, "he was shot before
interrogation, but after having got rid of the plans. If this is true
and not a trap, a miracle has occurred and I've got away with it once
more. Informant, Georg Schultz. That's the clumsy oaf who was Ginsberg's
subordinate, very odd. There's something funny going on here. I wonder
if Schultz has stepped into Ginsberg's shoes. I think I'll look into
this further. Poor Ginsberg, a nice fellow, what a damn shame. I don't
believe this tale. If Schultz has framed him he shall wish he was dead
before I've done with him and then he'll wake up and find he is, damn
him."

At the end of a week in which nothing untoward had happened, Tommy
Hambledon decided to go to Aachen to try and find out for himself what
was behind the murder of Ginsberg. He frankly called it murder in his
own mind because the man had been shot without a trial, and he did not
believe one word of the "attempting-to-escape" formula. It was usually a
lie, and this time he knew it, for where would a man escape to in the
stone passages and a staircase or so between his cell and the charge
room?

He noted down Ginsberg's home address from the papers relating to the
case, and arrived one evening at a small house in a row of workmen's
dwellings in the outskirts of Aachen. He knocked at the door and was
kept waiting while faces peered at him through the lace curtains at the
front window. Eventually the door was opened to him by a thin old man
with a frightened brow-beaten look.

"_Grss Gott_," said the man. "I beg pardon, I mean Heil Hitler!" and he
gave the Nazi salute.

"_Grss Gott_," said Hambledon gently. "I am sorry to intrude on your
sorrow. I was a friend of your son's. May I come in?"

He was shown into the family living-room, which seemed at first glance
to be completely filled with large women in black. The old man edged
past him as he hesitated on the threshold and said, "Mother, this
gentleman says he is a friend of Heinrich's." Heinrich's mother
struggled up from an armchair by the fireplace, a short unwieldy woman
in which the features seemed half submerged in layers of fat, but the
expression of pain in her red-rimmed eyes made Hambledon feel sick, as
one feels who looks on torture. She stared at him with plain distrust,
and said, "The Herr is very kind, but my son is dead," in a toneless
voice which struck Hambledon as more tragic by far than the emotional
agonies with which youth confronts bereavement. "My son is dead," she
said again, still staring at him. Hambledon felt that unless he took a
firm hold of himself he would turn and run.

"I--I have heard," he stammered, "I am desperately sorry."

The old man came to his rescue. "These are Heinrich's sisters," he said,
referring to three stout young women standing politely against the wall.
"Annchen, Emilie and Lotte."

There was a fourth girl in the room whom no one introduced, a slim, fair
girl like one white rose in a garden of peonies, who sat on a stool by
Frau Ginsberg's chair and took no notice of anyone, slowly and
continually twisting her hands; she did not even look up when Hambledon
came in. He wondered who she was, she was so obviously not one of the
family.

"There's no need to be so sorry," said the old woman in a harsh voice.
"Will not the Herr sit down?"

Hambledon did so, everyone else who was standing did so too, and all
looked at him silently except the girl who took no notice of anyone but
went on twisting her hands.

He felt as if he were entangled in some insane charade, a Russian sort
of charade like some of those plays Bill Saunders used to go to see in
Kln where dreadful families sat in comfortless rooms and discussed
suicide. He tried desperately to think of something to say, but found
himself wishing so passionately he had never come that he was afraid to
speak lest those words and no others should gush out in spite of
himself. "I wish to God I hadn't come. Why did I come? I wish I hadn't
come. I was a fool to come----" And still the women stared at him and
the girl went on twisting her hands.

"There's no need," said the old woman, still in the same angry voice,
"to be sorry. I am told my son broke some of the rules of the Party,
that's all."

"I came to--to see if there was anything I could do," said Hambledon
desperately. "He--I liked him."

"The Herr is too kind," said Frau Ginsberg, and again silence descended
on the room.

"If I had known in time," said Hambledon. "It is useless to say that, I
know, but I would have tried to defend him."

"Why do you come and say such things to us? He broke the laws of the
Party, I am told, that's enough. Are you trying to make us speak against
the Party?"

"Mother, Mother," broke in the old man, "I think the Herr means to be
kind."

"Then let him leave us alone. Nobody can do anything. How can we
complain of what the Party does? There's no one to complain to, and I
don't want any notice taken of us."

"If only he'd stayed with the trunk-maker," said Emilie.

"I should have had a son to-day," said her mother. "I don't want to lose
my husband also, so we won't complain."

"I believe I am a good Party member," said Hambledon, "but that doesn't
mean I approve of every single thing that every other member of the
Party may do. I hope these walls have no ears. I hoped I should find
myself among friends here."

"The Herr can trust us," said the old man.

"I believe you. I tell you quite frankly that I think there's something
behind this matter of your son's death and I am going to find it out."

"Leave it alone," said Frau Ginsberg monotonously. "My son is dead, you
can't bring him back."

"May we know the Herr's name?" asked Ginsberg.

"Lehmann. Klaus Lehmann."

The old man gasped. "You are--sir, you cannot be the Chief of Police?"

"I am," said Hambledon grimly, "and as such it is my duty to investigate
murder."

"Better let it alone," said the mother.

The girl sitting on the stool looked up for the first time, and Ginsberg
asked, "What does the gracious Herr wish to know?"

"Anything you can tell me. This girl he was supposed to be running
after, had she any real existence?"

"Oh, she's real all right," began the old man, but the girl on the stool
broke in with a torrent of words.

"But he wasn't running after her, it's a lie to say he was. He was my
love and nobody else's. He'd never have anything to say to that greasy
Jewess, he didn't like her. He was my very own, and we were going to be
married next month."

"_Gndiges Frulein_," began Hambledon, but she took no notice.

"It's all a lie and that pig Schultz ought to have been shot for saying
it. It wasn't that Heinrich liked the Jews too much, he didn't like them
enough, that's what was wrong."

"Leonore," said Frau Ginsberg angrily, "be quiet at once. It's no good,
I tell you, hold your tongue."

"I won't be quiet. You all sit here letting everybody say horrible
things about Heinrich and you don't say a word. I don't care if they do
shoot me, I wish they would. Do you really want to know why they killed
Heinrich?"

"Yes, please, Frulein," said Hambledon.

"Be quiet, Leonore, for God's sake, you'll ruin us all," said the old
woman.

"Not by speaking to me, Madam," said Hambledon sternly.

"I don't care," said Leonore. "It was this. Schultz used to get money
out of the Jews when they went over the frontier, Heinrich told me
because he was worried about it and didn't know what to do. Something
about they aren't allowed to take money with them, but if they gave
Schultz some he used to let them take the rest. He wasn't the only one
either, most of the others were in it, but not Heinrich. He made them
ashamed, so they killed him."

"He could have laid a complaint before a higher authority," said
Hambledon. "There are means provided for such a case."

"Yes, he said so, but the higher authority was in it too, so that was no
good."

"I see," said Hambledon grimly, "and I am going to see a whole lot more.
After that, a number of people are going to wish they had never been
born." He got up and bowed over the girl's hand. "Good-bye, Frulein
Leonore. I wish more people had your courage. Ginsberg, if there is the
faintest suspicion of an attempt on the part of anyone whatever to
interfere with any of you, come direct to me at once."

"It's no use," said the old woman. "My son is dead."

"If only he'd stayed with the trunk-maker," said Emilie.

Hambledon returned to Berlin and set in train certain inquiries into the
Ginsberg affair; while these were proceeding he turned his attention to
the matter of Otto Hauser and the designs of the magnetic mine. The
police had gathered in a dozen or so assorted people of both sexes who
were associates of Hauser's in Mainz, where he lived except when the
Elektrische Gesellschaft sent him away on errands such as this. Most of
them were obviously innocent and could be returned at once to their
presumably loving families with a warning to be more careful with whom
they associated in the future. Two were plainly guilty and were
permitted no futures in which to be careful, and three were doubtful,
these were put back for further investigation. One of them was an
ex-Army officer named Kaspar Bluehm.

This name sent Hambledon's mind back to Kln and Bill Saunders; there
was a girl in Kln called Marie Bluehm who had a brother named Kaspar if
he remembered aright, though they had never met. It would be an odd
coincidence if this were the same man. If this were the same man it
would be pleasant to get him in and make him talk of Kln and the good
days when a man had a friend at his back and was not always alone, when
there was someone to talk to frankly, someone with whom it was not
necessary to act a part, someone with whom one could relax and be
puzzled or anxious or afraid, someone who would relieve the strain of
this unending tension. "God! How I miss Bill," said Tommy Hambledon.
Perhaps this fellow Bluehm would talk about him, that would be
something, if, of course, it were the same man.

Hambledon shook himself impatiently, touched the bell on his desk and
told the trooper who answered it to bring in Kaspar Bluehm. While he was
waiting he thought that if it were possible he would get the poor chap
out of this mess, merely because once he had a sister for whom Bill had
cared greatly. "Getting sentimental in my old age," said Hambledon, but
he looked up eagerly when the door opened. "You may go," he said to the
trooper. Bluehm came up to his table and saluted.

Hambledon looked at him attentively and was reminded of Marie at once,
though the blue eyes which in her case had been so clear and true were
blurred and faded here, Marie's mouth had shown sweetness and strength
while Kaspar's displayed weakness and obstinacy, but the likeness was
unmistakable and Hambledon's face softened.

"Sit down," he said kindly. "You are Oberleutnant Kaspar Bluehm?"

"Obersatz Bluehm when the war was over," said the man, and sat down.

"I beg your pardon. I find it difficult to believe that a man with your
war record could be guilty of espionage against Germany. I want you to
talk to me frankly and we will clear this matter up."

"I am certainly not guilty," said Bluehm, but he did not respond to
Hambledon's kindness. "Trying to entrap me into making admissions," he
thought, "suspected traitors are not handled so gently as all that, does
he take me for a fool?"

Hambledon saw growing suspicion in Bluehm's face and felt like shaking
him. "Tell me," he said, "you knew this Otto Hauser, didn't you? Where
did you meet him?"

"In Buenos Aires originally. I was there for a time after the war,
working as an engineer, he was in the same works. We were both Germans,
he came from Mainz and I knew the place well, my mother lived there. We
used to talk about Mainz and--and things like that. That's all."

"Very natural. What happened then?"

"He went home, oh, about four years ago. I came home last year."

Bluehm was fidgeting all the time with the hat he held on his knee,
pulling out the lining and pushing it back with nervous fingers, never
looking steadily at Hambledon but only glancing at him from time to
time. "You may not be guilty of espionage, my lad, but you've something
on your mind or I'm the Queen of Sheba," he said to himself. "Please go
on," he added aloud. "When you came home you met him again, did you?"

"I found my mother and my aunt desperately poor, I had to get something
to do. I remembered Hauser, found out where he lived, and went to see
him, he got me a job in the Elektrische Gesellschaft. I was grateful, I
used to see something of him sometimes, not much, a man like that--but
he had helped me."

"What do you mean, a man like that? Did you know that he was----"

"_Gott im Himmel_, no! I only meant he was merely a workman----"

"Not your social equal, of course not. Did you ever meet people at his
house?"

"I never went to his house. We used to go to a caf, sometimes to a
theatre or the cinema."

"I quite understand," said Hambledon, leaning back in his chair. "Apart
from having met him abroad and from his having been of use to you, you
were the merest acquaintances?"

Bluehm also relaxed, feeling that Hambledon was convinced and that the
worst of the interview was over. "Exactly that. Besides, he was an
intelligent fellow, I learned a lot from him about the work."

"On your honour as an officer," said Hambledon formally, "you had no
suspicion whatever that he was engaged in espionage?"

"On my honour, none. He would not have been likely to tell me if he
were."

"No," said Hambledon, noticing the indecisive mouth and unintelligent
eyes, "no, I don't think he would. I believe you. Unless anything else
crops up to incriminate you, you are cleared."

"Then I may go?" said Bluehm, springing to his feet.

"Sit down again and talk to me a little longer. Tell me, you lived in
Kln at one time, didn't you?"

Bluehm collapsed into the chair rather than sat in it. "I--my family
did," he said. "I was in the Army."

"Yes, of course. But you spent your leaves there, didn't you? You knew
many people there?"

"I knew a good many, naturally. Why?"

"I knew some Kln people at one time, we might have some mutual
acquaintances, that's all. My dear Bluehm, you'll destroy that perfectly
good hat if you tear at the lining like that, what is the matter with
you?"

"Nothing, nothing. My nerves are not what they were, that's all."

"Am I so very terrifying? I only thought it would be pleasant to talk
over old times."

"What did you want to know?"

"Oh, nothing of any importance," said Hambledon, who was getting tired
of all this beating about the bush. "Did you know a man I used to meet
occasionally, a Dutch importer, Dirk Brandt?"

Bluehm sprang to his feet, his face working. "You're playing with me,"
he cried, "I knew you were. You think I was in touch with British
Intelligence then----"

"Great heavens," said the startled Hambledon, who had no idea anyone
knew about Brandt, but Bluehm swept on.

"I didn't know he was a spy, I thought he was a friend of mine and asked
him to look after my sister Marie. But he killed von Bodenheim and Elsa
shot herself so Hedwige went to the dogs, and he took Marie and
disgraced her, she died too, so when I found out who and what he
was----"

He stopped and stared at Hambledon, whose face had grown terrible.

"Yes," said Hambledon in a cold voice. "When you found out what he was,
what did you do?"

"I traced him to England and shot him," said Bluehm defiantly. "He
deserved it anyway for the harm he did, and there was my sister----"

"Damn your sister. Who told you about Brandt?"

"What is the matter?" asked the puzzled Bluehm. "I deserve well of
Germany, I destroyed one of her most dangerous enemies----"

"Don't bleat. Who told you about Brandt?"

"I can't understand you. I tell you, I had nothing to do with British
Intelligence; when I found out that that was what Brandt had been doing
I hunted him down and killed him. It took me nearly a year----"

"Damn your autobiography. Answer me at once. Who told you about Brandt?"

"Reck," said Bluehm, startled into a direct answer. "You wouldn't know
him, a person of no importance, a teacher in some school or other. He
went mad, he drank, I believe----"

"Reck," said Hambledon quietly, "a person of no importance," and stared
straight in front of him, unheeding Bluehm, who went on talking of how
he had forced the secret out of Reck in the mad-house, tracked down
Brandt in spite of his having changed his name twice and moved from
place to place.

Hambledon returned from his abstraction to hear Bluehm saying, "So you
see, I have deserved well of the Reich. What is more, I have further
information to give. There is no doubt that the other partner, Wolff,
was a British spy too, the older man certainly was, Brandt admitted it.
He was drowned years ago, though, so we can't catch him now, I mean the
one who passed as Brandt's uncle, I never met him as it happened. His
real name was Hambledon----"

Hambledon broke in with a laugh so bitter that Bluehm stopped talking
and stared at him again.

"You fool," said Hambledon, "you fool. You boast of having shot him and
come to me for reward--to me, of all people. Why, I've been looking for
you for years. Oh, I'll reward you all right, if I were you I'd say my
prayers, fool."

"What d'you mean?" stammered Bluehm, but Hambledon touched his bell
twice and two guards came in.

"Take him away," said Hambledon harshly, "and send Hagen to me." He did
not look up as Bluehm was led out of the room.

"I told Denton I'd clear this up and I have," he muttered. "Bill, what
were you doing to let that stupid lump get the better of you?"

Hagen entered. "The prisoner who has just left me," said Hambledon,
"Kaspar Bluehm, is a danger to the Reich. He must not be allowed to
speak to anyone. You know what to do."

Hagen saluted and went out. Hambledon spent ten minutes or so carefully
tidying his desk, lit a cigar and walked up and down the room till Hagen
returned.

"I have to report, sir, that the prisoner eluded his guards and had to
be shot to prevent his escape."

"Do not let it grieve you, Hagen," said the Chief of Police blandly. "He
would have been shot anyway."




CHAPTER 13


Hambledon walked slowly home thinking over Bluehm's disclosures. So Reck
had done it, Reck the wireless operator of Mlheim, 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 Kln and Reck of Mlheim."

"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
Frulein 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
Frulein 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 Frulein 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 Frulein 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."

Frulein 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 Frulein 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
Frulein 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 tait une bergre,_
          _Et ron ron ron, petit patapon,_
    _Il tait une bergre_
          _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! Ergtzlich!_" 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 Frulein 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----"




CHAPTER 14


Hambledon pursued his investigations into the matter of Ginsberg, and
found that the practice of allowing Jews to take about twenty per cent
of their movable cash over the frontier in exchange for the other eighty
per cent was not merely a local custom at Aachen, but a full-sized
racket at every exit from Germany. His determination to break down the
practice hardened; though he had just as much loathing as any German for
the foul type of Jew who had battened on the miseries of Germany in the
bad years, his sense of justice revolted at making helpless and harmless
people suffer for the sins of the rich and powerful. Besides, it was to
safeguard these robbers and racketeers that Ginsberg had died, and they
should pay for it. Besides again, it was against the law, and it was his
business to see the law was obeyed. Finally, it would annoy the Nazis,
and he was coming increasingly to dislike the Nazis. The exercise of
power is a touch-stone to character, and by that test there was very
little pure gold in the Nazi Party. "A lousy lot, when you get to know
'em," said Tommy vulgarly to himself.

"The only thing that puzzles me," he said to one man he was
interrogating, "is why they are allowed to get away with twenty per
cent. It's quite a lot, twenty per cent. It's one-fifth."

"Quite right, Herr Polizei Oberhaupt, it's too much. But if we charge
more they won't give any at all. They just die and the money vanishes."

"So you think half a loaf is better than no bread."

"Four-fifths of the loaf," said the man with a grin.

The further Hambledon traced the threads of this organization the higher
in rank were the Nazi officials whom he found to be involved, till he
began to wonder who really was at the top or whether he had better cease
his inquiries before he found out more than was good for him.

He came home to the flat one evening and was horrified to find Ludmilla
Rademeyer in floods of tears, the maid Agathe hovering round with
handkerchiefs, smelling-salts and cushions, and Franz walking
distractedly about with a glass of brandy in one hand and a hot-water
bottle in the other.

"Aunt Ludmilla, for heaven's sake what is it? Have you had an accident?
Agathe, out of my way and don't drop things all over the floor. My dear,
what is it? Franz, give me that brandy and put the hot-water bottle
under the Frulein's feet. Drink this and for pity's sake don't upset
yourself like this, tell me about it."

"Christine," said the old lady, and sobbed afresh.

"Has there been bad news?" asked Hambledon of Franz.

"Evidently, sir, but we have no idea what it is. The gracious Frulein
had a letter brought by hand----"

Ludmilla pulled herself together with an effort and clung to Hambledon's
hand. "Send them away," she whispered, and the servants left the room.
Ludmilla produced a crumpled letter from one of her numerous pockets and
gave it to Hambledon.

"'Ludmilla, my old friend,'" he read, "'my husband was taken away this
morning by S.S. men who came to the house and said they were taking him
to a concentration camp because he was a Jew.' Is that true?" he asked.

"His mother," said Ludmilla unsteadily, "came of a Jewish family, but
nobody thought any the worse of her for that, a nice fat old thing,
endlessly kind. She was a Christian, and one can't help how one is
born."

Hambledon went on reading. "'I was made to give up all our papers and
all our money except twenty marks. I gave them everything they asked, I
thought if I was patient they would let Ludovic go, but they took him
away. Then the men who remained said our house was too good for a Jew's
wife, and they turned me out in the street and locked the door.'"

Hambledon paused in his reading and stared before him, hammering with
one clenched hand upon his knee, while Ludmilla looked in amazement at
the beloved face so lit with fury that she could hardly recognize it. He
continued after a moment.

"'I thought I had better go to my son Hugo for advice, so I walked to
Albrecht Strasse----'"

"All that way, and she so lame!"

"'--only to find'--I cannot read this, her writing is suddenly so
bad--'my daughter-in-law Magda coming to me with the children, because
they have taken my son also, they have taken my son also, and the
children were crying----' There is a piece here I can't read, something
about Gottlieb's horse?"

"Gottlieb is the baby, he had a toy horse on wheels----"

"I see. She goes on, 'They were also turned into the street, and when
Magda said she did not know what to do, one of the men made a suggestion
I will not repeat'--God blast them!" said Tommy Hambledon, and Ludmilla
said, "Amen." "'So we got on a tram and went to old Marthe, who you will
remember was my children's nurse when they were little; it is a tiny
house, we meant to leave the children there but she would not let us go
since they have taken my son also. Magda will find some work to do even
if it is only scrubbing, but I am so helpless I can only mind the
children and do a little sewing if our friends have any work to give
out. Do not come to see me, it might not be safe for you to be seen with
us. Marthe's son will take this note, I do not trust post or telephone.
I would not mind for myself but Ludovic is in need of care at his age,
and there is Hugo and the children. Magda is so brave, but if they had
to punish Ludovic and me I do not think they need have taken my son
also.'"

Hambledon's voice ceased and there was silence for a space till Ludmilla
said, "No doubt I am too old and stupid to understand, and these people
are your friends, my dear, but, oh, Klaus, this is wicked! Dear
Christine, who never did anything but kindness in all her life! I would
not turn out a dog on the streets like that. What will they do? Klaus,
this is a vile thing. I can't admire people who are so cruel. I don't
like our present leaders, Klaus, I don't like a lot of things that have
happened lately. I hate these loud-voiced bullying young men who swagger
everywhere and order people about, the old Germany wasn't like this. I
don't trust your Nazi Party, Klaus. I've never said so before because
they are your friends----"

"No, they are not!" said Hambledon furiously. "I have acted a part to
you long enough, but this is the last straw. The Nazis are a set of
lying, cheating bullies, out for what they can get for themselves, with
neither honesty nor conscience. They did a great work for Germany to
start with and I helped them, but now they are a scourge to Europe and a
blot on humanity. I was on their side once, but now if I can pull down
this foul regime in blood, God helping me, I'll do it!"

"Klaus, I am so glad. It's been such a grief to me to have you hand in
glove with those dreadful people----"

"It'll be more of a grief to them before I've finished, don't you
worry!"

"Klaus dear, be careful! One hears such dreadful stories, one hopes they
are not true, but----"

"I hope that whatever you have heard has been an understatement," said
Hambledon grimly.

The old lady sighed. "Yet they are Germans who carry out these dreadful
orders, how can they? Why don't they refuse? Germans used to be such
nice people before all this happened--except the Prussians, of course,
no one ever liked the Prussians--but now they're all Prussianized, I
think. I don't like Germany any more, Klaus, I would rather go and live
somewhere else. I think I'd like to live in England, Klaus."

"What makes you say that?"

"I knew an Englishman once, when I was very young. He was at Heidelberg
University with my brother, who brought him home once or twice--to the
white house at Haspe, Klaus, where you came to me. He used to tell me
about England, I thought then I would like to go there some day."

"What was he doing over here?"

"Oh, studying things, and learning the language. He was going to be a
schoolmaster, my family thought that was funny because people in our
class wouldn't be schoolmasters in those days."

"Unless they were in reduced circumstances, like us in Dusseldorf."

"Ah, that was different. My brother used to make great fun of him,
saying he would spend the rest of his life teaching little boys their A
B C and making them blow their noses properly. But nothing Georg said
made any difference to the Englishman, he said that it was a great and
noble task to train the minds of future citizens."

"Are you sure he said 'great and noble'?"

"Of course not. He said 'vitally important, really,' but that was what
he meant. He said that not only would he do that himself, but if he had
a son he hoped he'd do the same. It is only my fancy, I know, but you
seem to me to have a look of him sometimes, Klaus."

"Oh, oh," said Klaus, "and I thought you loved me for myself alone! Now
I realize I'm only a relic----"

"Klaus!"

"Only a faded rose. No, a bit of dried seaweed----"

"Klaus, I shall throw my knitting at you in a minute. Oh, how heartless
we are to laugh like this, think of Christine."

"It won't help Frau Christine if you make yourself ill fretting over
her. Tell me, what became of this Englishman?"

"He never came back. We heard that he became a schoolmaster and also a
minister of the Church, but he wouldn't be both, surely?"

Hambledon's mind went back to the country Rectory where he was born, a
white house not unlike that at Haspe, with a garden full of roses,
striped carnations, and hollyhocks high in the air above his head. There
were bumble bees in the hollyhocks as a rule; he had an idea bumble bees
didn't sting till one day he found he was wrong. His father had been a
schoolmaster in his younger days and insisted that his son should be one
too, rather against Tommy's own wishes, but there was no arguing with
the autocratic old man. "It is a great profession, not appreciated as it
should be," he said. "Judges defend the law and punish law-breakers,
doctors heal the sick and repair the damages of life, but the
schoolmaster builds up the body and the character beforehand for the
battle, _mens sana in corpore sano_, my boy." Tommy remembered wriggling
slightly on this and similar occasions, thinking that sermons should be
confined to Sundays and not loosed forth between times, but a
schoolmaster he became to start with, though he turned his attention to
other things afterwards. "And now I'm a policeman," he thought. "Wonder
if the old man approves?" He returned from his reverie to answer
Ludmilla.

"Oh, yes, easily, quite a lot of schoolmasters are in Holy Orders, as
they call it, in England, sometimes in later life they give up teaching
and have a parish instead."

"I see. You do know a good deal about England, don't you, Klaus?"

"Oh, I meet lots of English people, especially at the British Embassy,
they do like talking about themselves, you know."

"I think most people do, except you, Klaus."

"About Frau Christine," said Hambledon, to change the subject, "try not
to worry, I will see what can be done about it. Doubtless something will
present itself."

Reck had said that he was going teetotal, and to Hambledon's amused
surprise he kept his word. For some weeks life was a misery to him and
he was a trial to everyone else, but after the transition period was
over he discovered, with assumed disgust, that he was clearer in mind
and stronger in body than he had been for many years.

"You used to be an Awful Example," said Hambledon. "Stern but loving
fathers used to point you out to their sons and say, 'Look! Niersteiner
and bock, Moselle and Rhine wines, gin and schnapps----'"

"Shut up," said Reck.

"'Methylated spirit and eau-de-Cologne----'"

"I never did!"

"'--are milestones on the road leading to old Reck.' But now, what a
difference! You are no longer a warning, you are a Moral Lesson, you are
an Uplifting Influence. In a word, you're a Tract."

"You're a fool," growled Reck.

"Not at all, I am an appreciative audience. You rise early, you sing in
your bath, you do physical jerks--yes, you do, you didn't buy those
dumbbells to throw at cats--you look thirty years younger, and now I
learn that you even go for walks before breakfast."

"Well, why not? I like the streets to myself, not full of loitering
idlers staring in shop-windows."

"No, seriously, Reck, I didn't think you'd do it, and by heck I admire
you. I mean that."

Reck actually coloured with pleasure, but all he said was, "I said I'd
do it and I have. Of course, one does feel fitter, but all this early
waking is a frightful bore."

"Try writing poetry," said Tommy helpfully.

One morning, a few days after Frau Christine's letter had arrived, Reck
returned from his walk shortly before eight and saw to his surprise that
a poster had been attached to the front door with drawing-pins. He read
it with growing astonishment, glanced round him to see if anyone were
watching him, tore it down and ran up the three flights of stairs to
Hambledon's flat, not waiting for the lift. He burst into Hambledon's
room and said, "What do you say to this?"

"Thank God for safety razors," said Hambledon, who was shaving. "What is
it, free worms for early birds?"

"The German Freedom League," said Reck. "Know anything about them? It
was pinned on your door."

"They can wait while I go round my jaw. Not so sculptured as it used to
be, seems to be more of it, somehow. 'But beauty vanisheth, beauty
fadeth, However fair, fair it be.' Now let's look. My hat, what a nerve.

"'German Freedom League,'" he read. "'Germans, arise!' Ah, that was
meant for you, Reck."

"Nonsense," said Reck, "for you. I've been up for hours."

"One to you, but don't rub it in. 'Germans, undeceive yourselves! The
Nazi leaders pretend they are making you strong and free, but in truth
they are making you into a nation of slaves. Every day you have to work
harder for less money, your liberties are curtailed, if any man
complains he is thrown into prison without trial, while your leaders
live in luxury and amass huge fortunes. Worse than this, they are
indulging in wicked and senseless ambitions of conquest which will
inevitably lead to war. There are no winners in a modern war, all suffer
alike, even if Germany wins in the end it means privation, suffering,
wounds and death. Germans, awake!'--Very rousing, this gentleman, ain't
he?--'Stand up and proclaim that it is your desire to live in peace with
all nations abroad, and at home to practise in happiness and freedom
those pursuits of industry, science and culture which alone can make
Germany prosperous and respected.'

"'Follow the Freedom League!'"

"'Down with the Nazi Party!'"

"Very nicely put," said Reck appreciatively.

"I doubt if our illustrious leaders think so, wonder how many of these
appeared in our midst this morning? There'll be a row over this and I've
a horrid feeling I shall be in the middle of it."

Hambledon was not in the least surprised, therefore, to find on arriving
at his office that a summons awaited him to discuss a matter of
importance at eleven-thirty at the Ministry of Propaganda and Public
Enlightenment. He was punctually received by the Minister in person.

"These posters," said Goebbels. "We can't have that kind of thing."

"Assuredly not," said the Chief of Police. "Most undesirable."

"This damned Freedom League, who are they?"

"I have had my eye upon it for some time," said Hambledon untruthfully.
"It is an organization of discontented and subversive elements, fishing
in troubled waters for what they can draw out to their own profit."

"Doubtless, my dear Lehmann, but who are they?"

"That is precisely what it is my duty to discover. They are very well
hidden, but if they think they can make a nuisance of themselves with
impunity, I will show them that they are wrong."

"You take the words out of my mouth," said the Minister.

"I meant to," said Hambledon to himself.

"I am sure you will deal with the scoundrels effectively and promptly."

"The matter already has my attention."

"Good. Your zeal and industry are examples to us all, I am sure. This
brings me, my dear Lehmann, to the other point I wanted to discuss with
you."

"Now we come to the real nigger in the woodpile," thought Hambledon, but
he merely assumed an attitude of intelligent alacrity and waited in
silence.

"I understand," said the Minister, playing with a penwiper on his desk,
"that you have been inquiring into the details of a certain financial
latitude which is sometimes permitted to Jews leaving the country."

"I am concerned," said Hambledon with lofty nobility, "to put a final
stop to corruption and law-breaking wherever and whenever I find it."

"Admirable--in principle. But in practice, there is no harm in a special
arrangement being made in some cases--in some cases, I repeat."

"Your Excellency will be as horrified as I was," said Hambledon
earnestly, "to hear that so far from this practice being an occasional
exception, it is in fact the common practice. No one knows better than
Your Excellency the disastrous effect of financial corruption from
subordinates. It destroys their natural honesty, it depraves their
consciences, it ruins their morals and finally it undermines their
loyalty. I would not trust a man so far as I could see him, who would
take a bribe to break an order I had given him."

"Very true," said the Minister, slightly overcome by this spate of
integrity, "but I think you exaggerate----"

"It is my business to be exact," said Hambledon coldly. "I will send a
_prcis_ of the results of my investigations for Your Excellency's
perusal, together with a complete list of the names and addresses of
every man whom I have proved to be involved in this traffic, and the
approximate amounts by which each man has illegally benefited--the last
will be underestimated, believe me."

"There is no need," said the Minister hastily. "We have every confidence
in your executive ability. There is only one thing, Lehmann, in which
you have ever been known to fall short."

"And that is----"

"The ability to take a hint."

"I must beg Your Excellency to be plain with me, I am only a policeman,
not a diplomatist, and it would be better to state clearly what you wish
me to do."

"Leave the matter alone, then," said Goebbels irritably, "if you must
have it in so many words, don't interfere."

"I am to understand that this corruption is to continue unchecked?" said
Hambledon frigidly.

"Turn your superb detective abilities to the problem of the German
Freedom League, Lehmann, and you will continue to earn the gratitude of
the Reich."

"I understand," said Hambledon, rising. "I have the honour to wish Your
Excellency good morning," and he stalked out.

"Obstinate, pig-headed old die-hard," said the Minister to himself.
"Pity, he's a useful man, but it looks as though his usefulness will
come to an end soon if he can't be more accommodating."

"Sour-faced, evil-tongued, club-footed scoundrel," said Hambledon to
himself as he walked back to his office. "Another moment and I'd have
rammed his inkstand down his throat, pens and all. I think my time here
is running short, I'm not so patient with these swine as I used to be.
They make me sick. I wonder just how much a year he gets out of that
racket."

He told himself that it was ridiculous to get so angry over this trivial
matter, what did it matter to him if the Nazi Party went on corrupting
itself till it was rotten from top to bottom? The sooner the better. It
was really only his professional pride that was hurt, fancy being proud
of being Chief of Police to this mob of gangsters. "I am a British
agent," he said, and straightened his shoulders. "All the same, I have a
feeling this game is nearly up. I don't think I can keep it up much
longer."

He went home to lunch, turning over in his mind the question of Ludovic
and Hugo Beckensburg, Frau Christine's menfolk. He had seen to it that
they were as well treated as was possible in a concentration camp, but
that wasn't saying much, and the old man was feeling it. It would be as
well to get them out of Germany as soon as possible, or perhaps the
women had better go first. Frau Christine, anyway, the younger woman
could wait. If Frau Christine could be got into Switzerland, the others
could join her, that is, if she could travel alone.

"What's the matter with Goebbels," he concluded, "is that he's funny and
he doesn't know it."

He went in to lunch whistling.

"I went to see Christine this morning," said Ludmilla.

"I'm glad to hear it, how did you find her?"

"Not very well. I wish we could do something for them."

"I'm going to. They would be better out of Germany altogether, there is
no future here for anyone of Jewish descent. If I could get Frau
Christine out first, it would be best, I think."

"Dear Klaus, I was sure you would manage it. What will you do, get her a
forged passport?"

"You desperate criminal! Where did you get that idea from?"

"I read something about forged passports in the paper, and they wouldn't
let her go out with her own, would they? I don't suppose she's even got
one, now."

"I'll bear your suggestion in mind," said Klaus gravely. "Tell me,
haven't you got anything the matter with you?"

Ludmilla stared. "Matter with me? No. I've always been perfectly
healthy, and apart from old age and a touch of rheumatism, I still am.
My heart isn't too sound, but that's nothing, and I don't see so well as
I did, but you couldn't expect me to. My last doctor said I had a
dropsical tendency, but the man was a fool and so I told him. I have a
tendency to heartburn but that's my own fault, I will eat fried
potatoes. No, I'm perfectly healthy, why do you ask and what are you
laughing at?"

"Nothing. I think you're wonderful, only it would be convenient if you
could have something for which it's necessary to have treatment in
Switzerland."

"Why?"

"You would want a companion, I mean somebody to talk to, you'd have
Agathe, of course--I think Frau Christine would do very well. No one
would question an old lady travelling with the Chief of Police's aunt."

"Klaus, of course not! How clever you are--but would that mean I should
have to leave you?"

"Only for a little while," he said soothingly, "not for long. Then
either you could come back or I could come and join you--more likely the
latter, I think."

"Do you mean," said Ludmilla, laying down her spoon and fork, "that you
are really thinking of leaving Germany?"

"Sh--sh," he said, "don't speak of it. Don't even think about it, but I
don't think I can go on with these people much longer. We don't get on
as well as we did, somehow," he added grimly.

"Oh, Klaus dear, let's go away! Let's get out of this dreadful land now
the Nazis have spoiled it. It won't matter if we are poor again, will
it, we'll find a little house somewhere and I can still cook."

"I think even if we do go, we shan't starve. Push all this to the back
of your mind for the present, it will need a good deal of arranging, you
know. I only told you now so as to give you time to think it over, I
didn't want to spring it on you at the last moment."

"If you knew," she said, "how I've been longing for you to say this! Do
you think we shall ever have enough money to go to England?"

"You've been very interested in England lately, haven't you? Ever since
the Ogilvies were here, why is it?"

"He told me," she said, "that if you're in difficulties in England you
go to the police and they help you. Here, if you're in trouble, you
avoid them. I'd like to see a policeman who wanted to help you, Klaus,
why aren't your men like that?"

"Why, indeed," he said.




CHAPTER 15


Tommy Hambledon received a coloured picture-postcard of the Kursaal at
Wiesbaden, taken across the ornamental water. The message written upon
it said, "Playing here to-morrow, Coblentz Saturday, Cologne Monday,
going home Tuesday, _auf wiedersehen_ some day, greetings, good-bye," it
was signed D. Ogilvie. "Lucky devil," said Hambledon, threw the card in
a drawer of his writing-table and went to a meeting of the Party Chiefs,
summoned by the Leader. Now this was January 1938.

One never knew what to expect from these meetings of the Leader's.
Sometimes they were addressed on stirring subjects such as a new badge
for machine-gunners, or how to stimulate the birth-rate; sometimes they
heard of a new tax to be imposed or new measures against the Jews,
sometimes there was an announcement about something really important
like the reoccupation of the Rhineland or the building of the Siegfried
Line, and sometimes it seemed to Tommy that they just gathered together
to blow off hot air and tell each other how wonderful they were, just
like the Monkey-People in the Jungle Books, only a lot more dangerous.
"You never know," said Tommy, "whether it's gas or high explosive.
Wonder what it is this time."

He soon learned, for they were informed in singularly few words,
considering who was speaking, that Austria would be incorporated in the
Reich in March. There would be internal troubles in Austria, unrest,
rioting, faction-fighting in the streets and so forth. The Austrians,
realizing that their paltry Government was too weak to keep order, would
naturally appeal to their powerful neighbour for help, and union with
Germany would naturally follow. Thus so many millions more Germans would
return to their spiritual home, the Reich, and Germany would become
greater Germany. _Hoch der Anschluss! Hoch!_

It was perfectly obvious that the inner circle of Party leaders whom
Hambledon rudely called the Big Six had got this scheme all cut and
dried, and the purpose of this somewhat larger meeting was merely to
inform the various heads of departments about a decision already taken.
They were not asked for comment, still less criticism; a few well-chosen
words of congratulation, yes, but no more. One less tactful individual
asked what would happen if any of the Austrians fought.

"Fought! Fought whom?"

"Us," said the Deputy bluntly.

"No worthy Austrians will fight us. There are, as I have said,
subversive elements which require suppression. They will be suppressed."

"But----"

"There is no room for doubt. There is unrest in Austria, that is why we
march in. If there is unrest after we have marched in, that will only
show how right we were to do so."

The Deputy gave it up.

The meeting ended with the executive officers being told to prepare
plans, each in his separate sphere, for reorganizing the administration
of Austria in line with that of the Reich; posts, telephones, railways,
tax collections, and so forth. Hambledon received written orders for the
reorganization of the Austrian police, supersession would be a better
word. He was to submit detailed schemes for putting these orders into
effect. He clicked heels, gave the Nazi salute, and marched out.

"There goes a good servant of the Reich," said the Fhrer approvingly.

"I had occasion to say a few words to him the other day about minding
his own business," said Goebbels. "They seem to have done good."

"Indeed! What about?"

"He had some views about the Jewish question which hardly came within
his province, that is all," said Goebbels smoothly. "There was nothing
wrong--every man has the faults of his virtues. He was a little
over-zealous, that is all."

"I wish every man I had to deal with had only Lehmann's faults. He has
one outstanding merit which I will ask you to remember and cherish."

"What is that?"

"He is the only man in the Party whom we all of us trust."

"That is true," said Goebbels thoughtfully.

"Herr Goebbels will remember in future."

Herr Goebbels would, with displeasure, in fact the Fhrer had made a
dangerous enemy for his incorruptible Chief of Police.

Hambledon returned to his office to get some books of reference, said
that he would not be returning that day as he was going to work at home,
and returned to the flat. In point of fact he often did work at home
when he wanted to be uninterrupted, his study there was not to be
approached once he gave the warning, "I shall be busy, Franz, this
afternoon." The meal-time gong was not sounded, no wireless played, even
footsteps passing the door were hushed, for Tommy Hambledon, who had
never raised his voice or lost his temper in his own house, yet knew how
to make himself obeyed.

He settled down with maps and reference books to work out a scheme for
the effectual policing of Austria, and it took him several hours. He
made copious notes, drew up a draft report, and then corrected, amended
and annotated it till it was barely legible. When he was finally
satisfied he opened his typewriter, put in a sheet of paper, looked at
it for a moment and took it out again, replacing it by two sheets with a
carbon paper between. "I'll give 'em something to think about," he said
with a grin, and proceeded to make a fair copy of his report. By the
time he had finished it was past seven and he was stiff, tired and
hungry, but there was a little more to see to yet. He rang the bell and
Franz came.

"Is Herr Reck in the house?"

"I believe so, sir."

"Ask him to come to me, will you?"

Reck came, Hambledon gave him a cigar and asked him if he knew anything
about photography.

"Did you ever know a science master who didn't? I made a hobby of it at
one time."

"Got a camera now?"

"Heavens, no. What for? Want a series of photos of yourself for a
magazine article entitled 'Great Men at Home'?"

"Of course," said Hambledon, "how did you guess? One of me at my desk
with an expression of grim concentration, one with my feet on the
mantelpiece nursing the cat, and one with me in the background and the
whole foreground occupied by the glass bottom of a tankard of beer which
veils, without entirely obscuring, these classic features which are the
admiration of the law-abiding and a terror to evil-doers. Oh, yes,
another of me setting out to the office in the morning with my chin up
and my chest thrown out, and another of me coming home in the evening,
haggard and bent with my day's toil for the Fatherland, but my features
irradiated with that pleasing inward glow which comes only from a sense
of duty well done----"

"Or from whisky," said Reck. "You're pleased about something, aren't
you?"

"Why?"

"You always babble like that when you're pleased."

"Or frightened. Perhaps you're right."

"This photography. What about it?"

"Could you take a photograph of this so that the prints will be
completely legible?" asked Hambledon, holding up the two sheets of the
orders he had received anent the policing of Austria.

"Nice black typing," said Reck. "Top copy, not too large. Yes, I think
so. One of those old-fashioned wooden cameras with bellows extension,
half-plate size, wide-angle lens."

"Can you buy such a thing?"

"Second-hand. Oh, yes, I expect so."

"What pretext would you have for wanting a camera like that?"

"They are used mainly for photographing architectural features--ancient
Gothic archways, that sort of thing. I take up a new hobby."

"What, publicly?"

"It might be as well," said Reck. "I shall moon about with camera on
long tripod legs, prodding people wherever I turn round. Focusing cloth.
Pockets bulging with dark slides, and so forth."

"What about developing?"

"I shall process them myself--may I use the bathroom?"

"Except when I want it," said Tommy handsomely. "Ask Frulein
Rademeyer."

Hambledon made a detour on his way to the office in the morning, to pay
a visit to a shabby man who lived in a slummy street in the poor quarter
of Berlin. The shabby man opened the door himself, and when he
recognized the Chief of Police he looked alarmed and indignant.

"Herr Polizei Oberhaupt, I've done nothing, honest I haven't, don't even
want to, got a good job now writin' copies for the children's copybooks,
straight I have----"

"It's all right," said Hambledon reassuringly. "There's nothing against
you--at the moment. I only want you to do a little job for me."

For this man had the gift of being able to write most beautifully in any
style he chose; he made a living by practising this gift, only
unfortunately he sometimes practised on cheques, and that was how he
came to know the Chief of Police.

"Anything I can do for you, sir, of course--please come in."

Hambledon went in, when the door was shut behind them he produced a
picture-postcard of the Kursaal at Wiesbaden and said, "Can you imitate
that writing?"

"Bit funny, isn't it?" said the man, studying Dixon Ogilvie's farewell
message. "Foreigner, isn't he?"

"Yes, can you do it?"

"Bless you, sir, yes, have to be a lot funnier than that before it
stumps me. What d'you want?"

"Only a luggage label, here are some. Write on it 'Dixon Ogilvie'--here,
I'll write it down for you. 'Dixon Ogilvie,  Londres via Bruxelles,
Ostende et Douvre.' That's all."

"How many d'you want?"

"Only one. Don't post it to me, bring it to my house at nine to-night."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Dixon Ogilvie and his uncle, homeward bound from Cologne, sat in the
train at the frontier waiting while customs formalities were being
observed by passengers not going beyond Belgium. As the Ogilvie luggage
was registered through to London, they did not expect to be disturbed,
but a porter came to the door and said, "M'sieu' Deexon Ojeelvie?"

"More or less," said Dixon. "What is it?"

"A small matter of m'sieu's baggages, if m'sieu' would come?"

They both went, and were told at the customs office that there was a
little difficulty because whereas D. Ogilvie's way-bill declared there
were only six packages, there were in fact seven, as m'sieu' would see
for himself.

"How many did you have, Dixon?"

"I don't know, six or seven. I suppose the man at Cologne counted
wrong."

"I expect so. Perhaps we'd better just look at them."

Dixon pointed at one and said, "That's not mine."

"It's a portable gramophone," said his uncle.

"It is, in effect, a musical instrument," agreed the customs officer.

"You can't call a portable gramophone a musical instrument," objected
Dixon, "any more than you'd call a sardine tin the Atlantic Ocean."

The customs official begged pardon, and Alexander Ogilvie said, "Don't
be so damned high-brow. It is probably classed as a musical instrument,
you know, like 'cats is dogs and rabbits is dogs, but tortoises is
hinsects and goes free.'"

The customs official understood English, but was not a student of
_Punch_, so he found this a trifle baffling. However, he let it go and
returned to the main subject.

"Gramophones are musical instruments for the purposes of customs," he
began, and Ogilvie senior said, "I told you so."

"I'm not going to pay customs duty on the thing," said Dixon languidly.
"I don't want it."

"Nobody desires that m'sieu' should----"

"Then what's all the fuss about?"

"As I have already told m'sieu', there is a package in excess of the
number on the way-bill----"

"Present it to the local Female Orphanage, they'll probably love it."

"I say, Dixon----"

"Yes, Uncle Alec?"

"The label is in your handwriting."

"Eh?"

"Exactly like all the others."

Dixon walked over and examined it, and it occurred to him for the first
time that there might be more in this affair than met the eye. His uncle
snapped open the case, which had compartments in the lid for half a
dozen records. He drew out the first, wound up the motor and set it
going. The song was a French version of "Oh, Mamma!" and the singer was
Waltheof Leibowitz.

"Waltheof Leibowitz," said Alexander Ogilvie thoughtfully. "I've heard
that name somewhere."

The introduction ended, the singer started off with notable verve. Dixon
Ogilvie clapped his hands to his ears and said, "For heaven's sake!"

"I have it, it was that comic hotel baritone Denton punched on the nose
in Switzerland."

"He ought to have killed him," moaned Dixon. "Stop it, stop it. How does
one stop these dam' things?"

"One takes the needle off, for a start," said his uncle, doing so, "and
then one stops the motor, thus."

"Thank you. I suppose the thing would play a decent record by Moskowski
instead, would it?"

"Of course it would."

"Present my excuses to the Female Orphanage," said Dixon Ogilvie to the
customs official, "I will take the thing on. What do I have to do about
it?"

"It is only necessary for m'sieu' to acknowledge ownership. I will make
out an additional way-bill."

"Thanks awfully, carry on, will you? I am sorry to have given so much
trouble," said Dixon. "Allow me to--er----"

"Thank you, m'sieu'. The affair is now in order."

"That's an odd business," said Alexander Ogilvie, as the train moved off
again. "Are you sure you didn't buy it as a present for somebody and
forget about it?"

"It's more probably that some luggage labels came loose at Cologne and
were later tied on the wrong things," said Dixon.

"In that case, you've lost something. I wonder what it is."

"So do I."

"You don't seem very worried about it. By the way, no, you can't have
lost one, the way-bill said six packages, and this one was an extra."

"Oh, the man counted wrong, that's all, but if they insist the thing's
mine I'm jolly well going to keep it," said Dixon, but all the time he
was wondering whether Hambledon had had anything to do with it, and if
so, what and why. There didn't seem much sense in it, but Intelligence
agents are always mysterious people, and perhaps it was only a joke--a
little return for the concert of school songs. Or possibly Hambledon
really thought that this crooner fellow was something wonderful. Ogilvie
shuddered faintly, but he knew that some people would agree. In that
case, why not send it to him openly, without all this mystery, unless
Hambledon had got so in the habit of being mysterious that he just
couldn't help it. Ogilvie gave it up and dozed in his corner, anyway the
thing would be an interesting memento of an interesting man, he was glad
to have it and would value it highly, records and all. After all, one
needn't play the beastly things.

At Dover, a porter collected their luggage, including the gramophone,
and wheeled them on a barrow into the customs shed, the two Ogilvies
following. They saw him slide all the things on to the bench, though
they were themselves impeded from reaching it at once by a lady with
several daughters who passed before them in single file, adhering to
each other. A large trunk shot on the counter and masked the Ogilvie
luggage for a moment, but at last they arrived where it was and waited
for the customs officer, looking about them, with the ghoulish curiosity
we all feel when passing customs, to see if anybody else was going to be
bowled out. However, no such entertainment offered itself, and at last
the customs man reached them.

"Anything to declare?" he said, and held up before them a card bearing a
list of dutiable articles.

"One portable gramophone," said Dixon Ogilvie promptly, and looked among
the pile of luggage for it.

"What value, sir?"

"No idea, I had it given to me--I don't see it. It's not here. Where is
it?"

"You are sure----" began the man, but Ogilvie cut him short.

"I saw the porter load it on his barrow with the rest, wheel them in
here and put them on the bench. I saw him put the gramophone on the
bench, I was watching him."

The customs officer consulted the way-bill and counted the luggage. "It
says six articles, sir, and there are six."

"I know. There was a mistake at Cologne, and the gramophone had a ticket
all to itself."

"I have no other way-bill in your name, sir."

"D'you think I'm lying?" stormed Ogilvie, thoroughly losing his temper.
"It was in your charge and it's missing. I will have it, it must be
found at once."

"A search shall be made," said the customs man, and consulted a
colleague.

"Someone has stolen it," said Dixon furiously. "Blasted inefficiency!
Infernal carelessness! If one's goods aren't safe in a customs house in
an English port, where are they?"

"My dear boy," said his uncle, "did you really want it as badly as all
that? You nearly gave it to the Female Orphans before. No doubt if it
can't be found the authorities will replace it."

"I don't want it replaced, I want that one," began Dixon, but suddenly
became aware that everyone was staring at him, and relapsed into purple
silence.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Denton returned to his flat in town and Liese ran out to meet him.

"Charles dear, you are so late, be quick, the dinner is spoiling."

"Yes, angel, just a minute, I must look at this thing."

"It's a gramophone, isn't it?"

"Yes. I want to know why the Department sent me all the way to Dover to
collect a wedding present in person."

"Oh, who gave us that, Charles?"

"A friend of your father's, m'dear. Records in the lid--my hat!"

"Oh! They're Waltheof's, how lovely. Is 'Im Monat Mai' there? Yes, here
it is, let's have that one, Charles darling."

"If you wish," said Charles, putting it on. "Unhealthy distorted sense
of humour I call this," he muttered as Waltheof's voice rang out,
"confound Hambledon. Fancy having to listen to this."

But to their intense surprise, a third of the way through the record
Waltheof's ringing tones suddenly ran down the scale, and came to an
abrupt stop.

"So he never kissed the _kleine Mdchen_ after all," said Denton,
laughing at his wife, "or did he? Something wrong here, where's a
screwdriver?"

"Oh, darling, the dinner!"

"Let me just do this, angel, won't be a minute. No room on this table,
I'll do it on the floor. Look, it won't take a minute, just these four
screws and the whole thing lifts out----"

"_Not_ on the carpet!" shrieked his wife. "Oh, you pig, darling, on our
lovely cream-coloured carpet, all that black grease--"

But Denton was too busy staring to listen to Liese's wails, for the
vacant space round and under the motor was packed with papers. One
envelope was addressed to him and he tore it open.

"Dear Denton," ran the note inside. "These few nuts for the Dept., with
my salutations. Hope your wife likes the records, she can play them when
you're out, can't she? Every good wish. T.H."

Denton drew out one thin packet and two thick ones, and put them in his
pocket, his wife watching him in that dutiful silence which Dixon
Ogilvie so rightly admired.

"Sorry about the dinner, my sweet, got to go out," he said, and her face
fell. "I am sorry, I won't be a minute longer than I can help, and you
are a darling not to argue. I adore you----"

"Dearest," she said, as he was leaving the room with a rush.

"Yes, what? I can't stop just now."

"Not even to wash your hands?"

"No--oh, Lor'! As you were, yes."

Denton took a taxi to the Foreign Office, handed over the papers and
explained where he had found them.

"I had an idea that there might be something there," said his chief.
"Hambledon would not wireless such detailed instructions for collecting
the thing if it were only a wedding present and nothing more--how did
Ogilvie take its disappearance?"

"When I left he was jumping up and down and making turkey-cock noises,"
began Denton, but the other man cut him short.

"My godfathers, look at this. Photographic copies of an Order to the
German Chief of Police to get out a scheme for the effective policing of
Austria after its union with the Reich in March. In March, good Lord! A
carbon copy of the said Chief of Police's scheme, not merely a copy,
Denton, but a carbon duplicate. How the devil--what are these?" he went
on, opening the two fatter envelopes, full of sheets of flimsy paper.
"Dossiers of German agents in this country, dozens of 'em. Dozens of
'em." He put the papers down and filled his pipe. "So Germany marches
into Austria in March, does she? Hambledon, you ought to have the K.C.B.
No, he ought to have the Garter. Dammit, he's earned a halo, only I hope
he doesn't get it just yet."




CHAPTER 16


Hambledon, having some work he wished to finish at home, returned from
his office a little earlier than usual one evening and went straight to
his study. He was investigating a series of fires in various parts of
Germany, in some of which (_a_) arson was suspected but not proved,
(_b_) it was certainly arson but no arrest had been made, and (_c_)
those cases in which an arrest had been made; but Hambledon was by no
means satisfied that it was always the right person who had been
arrested. He had left the papers in a tidy pile to the left of his desk,
categories (_a_), (_b_) and (_c_) each in alphabetical order and, on top
of the whole lot, a separate sheet containing a list of all these cases.
He sat down at his desk, drew the pile towards him, and after the first
glance examined it with curiosity.

In the first place, the list was not at the top, it was at the bottom,
but what really made him gnash his teeth was that the rest of the
papers, instead of being carefully and methodically sorted as he had
left them, were thoroughly and horribly mixed up.

"Damn it," said Hambledon, looking through them, "someone has shuffled
them like a pack of cards."

He looked at the other papers on his desk; though they had not been so
carefully arranged as the arson cases he was sure they had been changed
about. That demand from Goebbels for full statistics of the number of
women (_a_) single, (_b_) married, or (_c_) widowed who had been
convicted of shoplifting in the last two years classified so as to show
how many of them were (1) countrywomen, i.e., dwellers in places of up
to 1,000 inhabitants and (2) townswomen, dwellers in places of 1,000
inhabitants and over, hadn't been at the top of any pile for at least
five weeks. Confound Goebbels, anyway, this recent and increasing thirst
for statistics was becoming a wholetime nuisance, and Hambledon had a
shrewd idea that Goebbels meant it to be. "He's getting after me," said
Hambledon to himself, "wonder why?" He made a rude gesture at Goebbels'
query and put it firmly back at the bottom of the "miscellaneous" tray.

Having thus restored himself to good temper, he rose from his chair and
went in search of Frulein Rademeyer.

"I say, dear, have you by any chance been dusting my desk lately?"

"No, Klaus, why? Is it badly done?"

"No, that is, it's perfectly clean, but my papers are all muddled up and
it's rather tiresome. Who does it, Agathe?"

"No, it's Franz' business to wait on you. I am sorry, dear, if he is
getting careless, would you like me to speak to him about it?"

"Don't bother, I will," said Hambledon, and returned to his study and
rang for Franz.

"Did you dust my desk to-day, Franz?"

"Yes, sir."

"This pile of papers which were carefully sorted are all in confusion.
Do you think you could----"

"I beg your pardon, sir. I had an accident with that pile of papers, I
picked them up and held them in one hand, sir, thus, while I dusted
underneath them with the other, and they slipped out of my hand and
skated all over the floor, if I may put it like that, sir. I picked them
all up, I was not aware they were in any particular order. I am very
sorry, sir, I will see it does not occur again."

"That's all right, Franz, only you understand that sort of thing is
tiresome when one is busy."

"Certainly, sir. Thank you," said Franz, and left the room.

"Quite a good explanation," thought Hambledon, looking after the man.
"It may be quite true, it's a way papers have, but---- Oh, well, I
suppose I'm naturally suspicious."

Nevertheless, when he left the study that evening he put most of the
papers away in the drawers of his desk and locked them up. Among them
was an order to raid the headquarters of the German Freedom League, it
was complete except for his signature, but he was not quite satisfied
with the bona fides of all the information received. He thought it over,
decided to make a few more inquiries, and put it away in its envelope
unsigned.

Two days later he opened the envelope again, but instead of the order
there was a neatly-written note saying simply, "No good. They have
escaped to Switzerland."

"This is too much," said Hambledon, justly indignant. "A joke's a joke,
but taking papers out of my desk and replacing them with little notes
telling me where I get off is just plain damned impertinence. Who does
the feller think I am? Von Papen?"

He considered the matter carefully and came to the conclusion that the
culprit must be either Franz, Reck, or somebody from outside. It was
almost too much to hope that whoever it was would have left useful
fingerprints on the note, but it was worth trying, so he picked it up
carefully by its edges and slid it into an envelope which he sealed
down, marked A, and put in his pocket.

"We'll start at the easiest end first," he said. "Franz."

There was a cupboard in a corner of the room where glasses were kept in
case Hambledon wished to entertain visitors in the privacy of his study,
or even occasionally to entertain himself: he walked across and opened
it. It was small and overfull, tumblers on one side, wineglasses on the
other, in ranks of three abreast. Hambledon put on his gloves, took a
clean linen handkerchief from his pocket, and very carefully polished
each of the three wineglasses in the front row.

"There," he said, replacing them, "now it won't matter which one he
takes." He rang the bell for Franz and sat at his desk again.

"You rang, sir?"

"Oh, yes. Bring me a half-bottle of Graves, will you? I'm thirsty."

Franz brought it in on a tray and got out a wineglass from the cupboard.
He drew the cork from the bottle and picked up the glass to fill it;
just at that moment Hambledon glanced up from his work.

"Don't pour it out yet, Franz. I'll do it--I'll just finish this first."

"Very good, sir," said Franz, and departed.

Hambledon put his gloves on again and, holding the glass carefully by
the base, swathed it in tissue paper. He then rolled it up in a sheet of
newspaper and tied a label on it inscribed B. After which he extracted a
wineglass from the very back of the cupboard where Franz would not
notice a gap in the ranks, poured out his Graves and thought about Reck.
It was a little unlikely that Reck should be of the inner ring of the
Freedom League, but not impossible: it was a lot more likely than, for
example, that the Chief of the German Police should be a British agent.
He would have Reck's fingerprints too, just in case.

He resumed his gloves, took a half-sheet of notepaper and wrote on it in
blue pencil, in a hand as unlike his own as possible, the cryptic
sentence, "The bee has crawled into the tulip in search of honey." He
folded and creased it as though it had been in an envelope, took his
gloves off again, drank another glass of Graves, and strolled off to
Reck's room. Reck was mixing chemicals.

"Hullo," said Hambledon, "how's the photography going?"

"All right," said Reck. "Expensive hobby, rather."

"Don't let that worry you. Harmless amusements are always included in
the expense account."

"Yes, I know," said Reck cynically. "The operative word is 'harmless.'"

"Quite. Got any good ones to-day?"

"How can I tell till they're developed? I exposed plates at the
principal entrance to the Zeughaus, a collision between two cars and a
tram, and a small boy being rude to a policeman."

"On the whole," said Hambledon, sinking into an armchair, "I have had an
uneventful day. The only interesting thing that happened was that I
found a note when I got home this evening."

Reck was pouring something out of a bottle into a graduated
measure-glass; his hand did not shake nor did the flow of liquid vary.
"Either he knows nothing about it," thought Hambledon, "or teetotalism
is all it's cracked up to be and more."

"Assignation or libel?" asked Reck, when the measure had been filled
exactly to the desired line and no more.

"Neither. Here it is," said Hambledon, offering him the folded sheet,
which he held lightly between his fingers like a cigarette. "What d'you
make of it?"

Reck took it without hesitation, unfolded it and read it aloud. "What
does it mean?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Hambledon with complete truth.

"How did it come?"

"By post. Posted in Berlin last night."

"Evidently someone is flattering you," said Reck acidly.

"Why? Am I the industrious bee or the colourful tulip?"

"Neither. They thought you'd understand."

"You are neither kind nor helpful," said Hambledon in a pained voice. "I
thought you might be able to suggest something."

"Oh, I can suggest plenty of things, but I doubt if they'll be helpful.
It's a warning of intended burglary, do you know a burglar whose name
begins with B?"

"No."

"It has a political significance. Our heaven-sent Leader is going to
march into Rumania after the oil-fields."

"What am I supposed to do about it? Arrest him?"

"Goering's going to invade Russia in search of caviar."

"You are incurably flippant," said Hambledon, getting up and taking his
paper from Reck. "I shall go and brood over it alone."

He put the half-sheet into an envelope, labelled it C, and took all
three exhibits to the fingerprint experts in the morning, asking
whether, if there were any prints on A, they coincided with those on
either B or C, and if not, were they among the Department's records. He
received the report the same afternoon. There were two sets of
fingerprints on exhibit A, one being the same as on exhibit B, i.e., the
glass, and the other coincided with a set acquired by the Intelligence
section during the Great War 1914-18; they were those of a Dutch
importer at Cologne named Hendrik Brandt.

Hambledon really felt for a moment as though he were going to faint. A
man can plan so carefully: with a little luck he works himself into an
unassailable position, he has a flawless identity and a better
background than the Leader himself, and all of a sudden Fate rises to
her full height and socks him on the jaw. It only remained for Goebbels
to obtain one of his fingerprints and make a similar inquiry, and the
balloon would go up in a shower of sparks and a strong bad smell. "Oh,
dear, oh, dear," said Tommy Hambledon, "I wonder who did that? Von
Bodenheim, I'll bet, just taking precautions in the usual routine
manner. Fancy a man you'd shot down twenty years earlier rising from the
dead to get his own back like this--after twenty years." He clutched his
head in both hands. "Goebbels must have hundreds of my fingerprints; he
may send them in to-morrow--he may have already done it--I'd better not
think about it or he might get the idea and act on it. I must get
Ludmilla out at once, and Frau Christine--and her family. Oh, dear, I
wish Bill was here, he'd suggest something. Franz--then it was Franz who
put the note in my desk. Franz belongs to the Freedom League. He must
have duplicate keys to all my drawers and probably the safe as well,
heaven knows how much he's read. Oh, dear, I wish things didn't all
happen at once----"

He got up and walked distractedly about the room trying to think calmly,
but it was very difficult. He felt acutely the need of someone to whom
he could talk. The only available person was Reck, so Hambledon picked
up his hat and went home. Reck raised his eyebrows as Hambledon walked
into his room, and said, "Hallo! Come to arrest me?"

"Don't make these ill-timed jokes," snapped Hambledon. "Come along to
the study, will you, I want to talk to you. Franz! Franz, bring whisky
and soda into the study, will you? What'll you have, Reck?"

"Grenadine, please."

"Grenadine, please, Franz. Grena--oh, my hat. Wait till Franz has been
in and gone again, I could a tale unfold, etc. Lovely weather we're
having for the time of year, aren't we? I always think it's so much
warmer when the sun shines, don't you?"

"For pity's sake," said Reck earnestly, "pull yourself together. Franz
will notice something."

"I will when he comes, besides, Franz knowing a spot more or less hardly
matters now, he knows too much already. At the moment I'd like to run
round in small circles putting straw in my hair."

"There isn't any straw."

"Franz will obtain some. What have you been doing to-day?"

"Oh, nothing in particular," said Reck, as Franz came into the room.
"Walking about looking at things. I'd like to take some night
photographs of Berlin, it's only a question of giving a long enough
exposure. The only trouble is lighted vehicles passing, they leave a
sort of fiery trail which is tiresome."

"I know, I've seen it in photos," said Hambledon. "Scarcely life-like,
is it? Thank you, Franz, that will be all. I shall have to have the
traffic stopped for you, that's all. How long would it---- Thank
goodness he's gone. Listen," and Hambledon told Reck everything,
admitting also that he had suspected him.

"Naturally," said Reck. "It would have been absurd not to."

"Yes, but evidently your fingerprints are not recorded, whereas mine are
duly docketed as Brandt, Hendrik, importer, Dutch, Hhe Strasse,
Cologne. You see the beauty of it, don't you? Goebbels has got a down on
me already, don't know why; if he starts looking round for evidence
against me----"

Reck whistled dolefully, and the two men looked at each other in a
painful silence.

"You are in the soup, aren't you?" said Reck.

"Not yet, but I'm teetering on the edge of the tureen. I don't see what
I can do. I can't very well have the record expunged."

"Burn down the Record House or whatever they call it."

"You drastic old man. But something like that will have to be done. I
can't go on living over a volcano like this day after day. It might be
simpler to shoot Goebbels."

"Frame him," said Reck.

"I'll bear that suggestion in mind, too. Now there's Franz to deal with,
I think I'll have him in and talk seriously to him. I should think he
could be managed; he knows his life is in my hands, even if Goebbels'
isn't, and, of course, I don't really mind if Germany is riddled with
Freedom Leaguers, Moonlighters, Ku-Klux-Klansmen, Fenians, Sons of
Suction, Ancient Buffaloes, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Besides, I
don't want to lose a good servant. In my official capacity I have to
discourage these activities, that's all."

Reck merely grunted, and absent-mindedly helped himself to one of Tommy
Hambledon's best cigars.

"I must get Aunt Ludmilla out at the earliest possible moment, and Frau
Christine Beckensburg and her clan too. As for you, Reck, I think you'd
better slide out unostentatiously, too. Can't you attend a photographic
conference in Paris or somewhere?"

"No," said Reck. "I think I'd better stay here."

"Why?"

"Well, judging by the mess you're getting yourself into, somebody ought
to look after you."

"Good Lord! Look after me!"

"Yes, why not?"

"B--but----"

"Besides, you keep rather good cigars, and I'd hate the source to dry
up."

Reck finished his Grenadine, nodded to the Chief of Police and strolled
nonchalantly out of the room, leaving Hambledon gaping.

"The idea of that moss-grown old buffer thinking he ought to look after
me. I must be getting old. Oh, well, I suppose I must deal with Franz
now." He rang the bell, and Franz appeared.

"Oh, Franz----"

"Sir?"

"Franz, I have got to talk to you very seriously. Don't stand over there
by the door all ready to bolt at any moment, come over here."

Franz walked up to the desk with his usual perfect composure, and with
no expression on his ugly lined face beyond courteous inquiry.

"I hope, sir, that I have not in any way failed to give satisfaction."

"You are a damned good servant and I'd hate to lose you, why did you go
and get yourself mixed up with those poisonous Freedom Leaguers?"

"Sir?"

"Don't stand there saying 'sir' at intervals like a talking parrot, you
heard what I said. You took out of a locked drawer--a locked drawer,
Franz--an order to raid the League's offices, and left this note in its
place." Hambledon slammed down the note in question on the table. "It is
of no use to deny it, your fingerprints are on it."

"I was not aware that I had attempted to deny it, sir."

"Look here, Franz. You and I have been together now for a number of
years. It is acutely painful to me to find that you are working against
me in my own household."

"Oh, no, sir. Believe me, I have never worked against you and I never
would. What you were good enough to say just now about----"

"Franz. You belong to the German Freedom League, therefore you are
working against the Government."

"Certainly, sir," said Franz calmly, "but so, I think, are you."

Hambledon leaned back in his chair and looked at the man with so savage
an expression that most men would have turned and fled. Franz merely
shifted his weight from the right foot to the left, and continued:

"For instance, sir, it is known that the man Otto Hauser, who stole the
specification of the magnetic mine, made a copy of it which was never
found; he told a friend of mine about it. I think you searched for it
yourself, did you not, sir?"

"Go on," said Hambledon quietly.

"Coming nearer home, there is Herr Reck and his transmitting set, which
he keeps in the roof-space above his bedroom. It was purely by accident,
sir, that I discovered that the plug in the wall above his chest of
drawers, to which he connects his tapping key, was not the ordinary
power-plug it resembles. I endeavoured to work the vacuum-cleaner from
it, sir."

Hambledon's grim face relaxed a little, but he merely said "Go on"
again.

"Though I must admit, sir, that all our efforts to decipher the code he
uses have so far failed completely."

"I am glad I still retain a few secrets from my domestic staff," said
Hambledon.

"Yes, sir, certainly. On the other hand, there are a few things I could
perhaps tell you, if you would permit me. For example, is Your
Excellency aware that you are followed wherever you go by the orders of
Herr Goebbels?"

"I am not altogether surprised."

"There are two men outside the house now, sir, waiting in case you
should go out again this evening."

"Do you know how long this has been going on?"

"I could not say precisely, sir, but it was shortly before you went to
see that forger to get the label for Herr Ogilvie's portable
gramophone."

"So you know that too," said Hambledon.

"Yes, sir. The man is one of our most useful, if not one of our most
respected, members. Yes," said Franz thoughtfully, "it was just before
that, about the time when Herr Reck took up photography."

"You know, Franz, I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid I shall have to have
you painlessly destroyed--as painlessly as possible. You know too much,
you must see that."

"On the contrary, sir, it is precisely because I know so much--not only
about you--that I could be of use to you."

"What do you mean by 'not only about me'?"

"To answer that, sir, I must tell you something about the Freedom
League. When the Nazi Party first received any notable measure of public
support, some of us who remembered an earlier Germany were not
favourably impressed, and a careful study of _Mein Kampf_ confirmed us
in our opinions. For after all, sir, it is all set down there, what he
meant to do and how he meant to do it, the only mystery is why so many
people were surprised at what he does. Why did they not simply believe
him? Well, we did, and we regarded the future with such forebodings that
we formed a League to protect what we foresaw would be most endangered,
our personal freedom. That was in 1924, and since then, with the growth
of the Nazi Party, the Freedom League has also grown till now there are
thousands upon thousands of us. It is a lowly and inconspicuous
organization, sir, we have no mass meetings and we carry no banners, but
we do a lot of good work--literally," added Franz with a smile. "The ivy
is an inconspicuous plant, sir, but it has been known to pull down the
forest oak."

"Please go on," said Hambledon, "I am most interested."

"We thought you would be, sir. I may say that if you had not brought
about this _claircissement_, I should shortly have initiated it myself.
To return to the Freedom League. We decided that it was necessary to
install ourselves into positions of confidence in the Party without
having to take any share in its iniquities, so as most of us had fairly
good manners and knew how things ought to be done--I was a Captain of
Uhlans myself--we readily became butlers, valets and so forth. We were
fortunate in obtaining situations with most of the Party leaders, I came
to you because from the earliest days it was evident that your
outstanding capabilities and integrity of character would carry you
far----"

"Stop a minute," said Hambledon, "you're making my head ache. Do you
mean to say you have a whole network of--of supervision running through
the Nazi Party?"

"Among all the more important members, sir."

"And that you planted yourself on me on purpose to--er--supervise me?"

"Yes, sir. Of course, until recent years I thought you were as convinced
a Nazi as any of them, but when I discovered you were not, I was only
all the more interested."

"Naturally. Er--sit down, Captain----"

"Thank you," said Franz, but not supplying his name. "I think perhaps
I'd better not, someone might come in. Thanks all the same, I appreciate
that."

"Tell me, who do you think I am?"

"To tell you the truth, I haven't the faintest idea and I've never been
able to find out. It annoys me--it is a failure on my part," said the
man with a frank smile. "I think, however, that you love Germany as we
do, and loathe the Nazis as we do. We have seen you defending the cause
of simple, honest people against tyranny in power, that is our aim also.
We mean to pull down this foul regime which is making the name of
Germany a stench in the nostrils of decent men of all nations, and we
will set up in its place a Government founded on justice, humanity and
peace."

"If you succeed," said Hambledon carefully, "you will no doubt receive a
large measure of support from, as you say, decent men everywhere."

"We shall want a new President," said Franz, his eyes kindling with the
visions his mind beheld, "a man who can be trusted, whose instincts are
sound, whose heart is upright, whose word is his bond."

"Such men are scarce, Franz."

"I think I know of one, sir. I have served him for some time and I
should be glad, if he would rescue Germany, to serve him till I died."

Franz clicked his heels, bowed to Hambledon, and marched out of the room
before his master could find words to reply.

"Good Lord," said the horrified Hambledon when he was alone, "that
settles it. I must get out, I couldn't stand that. President--what a
frightful thought. Franz looks quite capable of it--oh, gosh! No more
beautiful blondes, and I should have to live on cabbage. This is where I
go home."




CHAPTER 17


Though the days passed by without any overt attack upon Hambledon, he
was always aware of being watched and followed, and the thought of his
fingerprints, neatly docketed and filed, waiting in their proper place
for Goebbels to ask for them, made him feel sick. The neatest way to
solve the problem would be simply to substitute somebody else's
fingerprints for his own, but he had not the technical ability to do
this, as he told Reck. "I don't even know how they photograph the dam'
things," he said irritably. "They powder them, don't they? What with?
Besides, how do they file them? Alphabetically, between Brain and
Brawn?"

"No," said Reck, "I don't think so. I think they're classified according
to pattern, as it were."

"That's what I'm afraid of. If I got the wrong sort of loops into that
place, the experts would spot it at once. That is, supposing I could get
hold of it, or having got it could fake an imitation. Besides, there may
be two copies under a sort of cross-reference system. I wish I'd taken
an intelligent interest in the business earlier, I daren't now. I only
used them when necessary and asked not how nor why. I'd like to plant a
bomb in the place, but there are technical difficulties even in such a
simple scheme as that. Now Bill would have persuaded Goebbels that it
was in the Nazi interest to have the records destroyed, and Goebbels
would have beamed on him and asked him to attend to it himself."

"Ask Franz to attend to it," suggested Reck lazily.

Tommy Hambledon looked at him much as Balaam must have looked at his
ass, and walked thoughtfully away.

The next evening, when Franz came into the study as usual to switch on
lights and draw curtains, Hambledon said: "By the way, I have no desire
to meddle in any way with that organization of yours, but I did hear a
piece of news to-day which might interest you."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Your emissaries scattered quite a large number of leaflets about in
most of the larger towns of Germany some time recently."

"That is so, sir, and not one of the distributors was caught in the
act."

"No, Franz, but most of 'em left their fingerprints behind."

"I warned them," said Franz anxiously, "to be careful about that--having
been careless myself."

"Yes, but you can't separate papers in the dark with gloves on. The
fingerprints have been collected and filed, Franz, and if any one of
them can be identified he will either be dropped on and persuaded to
talk, or watched to see who his contacts are." This happened to be true,
which, as Hambledon remarked to Reck, was convenient, because he'd
probably have said it anyway. "I can't do anything, this is the
Gestapo's work."

"It looks as though some steps should be taken in the matter, sir."

"I leave it to you, Franz, with the utmost confidence," said Tommy
blandly.

Franz fidgeted about the room for some moments. "It would be very wrong,
sir, of me even to wonder what advice you would give."

"It would be positively immoral of me to offer any," said his master.

"Yes, sir. Would it be inconvenient to you, sir, if I were to go out for
an hour to-morrow afternoon? It is not my usual day."

"Not at all, Franz, by all means go. There is a very exciting film being
shown at some of the cinemas, it is called, I think, 'Flames of Desire,'
or some such title."

"Sir?" said the surprised servant.

"It is, of course, well known to everyone that photographic records are
inflammable," said Tommy patiently.

A slow smile spread across Franz's face, and he left the room without
replying.

A few days later Franz came to Hambledon and said without preamble,
"There are certain men, sir, who are prepared to burn the fingerprint
records in possession of the Government, if they could obtain access to
the building."

"It so happens," said Hambledon, "that I know the place fairly well. At
night it is, of course, always locked up and the night caretaker will
not open to anyone. If any person in authority should want to turn up a
record after the office shuts for the night, he would have to go with
one of the three principal heads of Departments, who would take him
there, let him in with his own key, stand over him while he transacted
his business, and convey him out again. The outer doors have an ordinary
lock which opens by turning a handle like any sitting-room door, and in
addition, a Yale lock or something very like it. You know, it locks
itself automatically when you pull the door shut after you and you can't
open it again unless you have a key."

"Are the doors locked all day, sir?"

"No, the catch of the spring lock is held back by a snib, which you
slide up to put the lock out of action and pull down again to release
the catch. By day, the lock is not working, it's only after office hours
that it is used."

"If one could get----" began Franz, but Hambledon interrupted him.

"So you see, if one night someone were to come out of the door and
absent-mindedly slip up the snib as he went, any man who happened to be
outside at the time could merely turn the handle and walk in."

Franz nodded eagerly. "And the night caretaker?"

"He's a very decent old fellow named Reinhardt, a veteran of the war, a
Saxon; he fought at Ypres in '16, he tells me. Reinhardt must be got out
of the way somehow."

"If the gentleman who was going home would send him for a taxi,"
suggested Franz.

"Gentlemen," corrected Hambledon. "There will be two of them, because
one will be an official with a key."

"Of course, you said so just now. If Reinhardt were sent for a taxi, the
taxi would come."

Hambledon nodded. "To-day is Tuesday. Friday night about 10 p.m.? The
side door, not the main entrance."

"Yes, sir," said Franz, suddenly becoming the servant again. "Certainly,
sir. Very good, sir."

                 *        *        *        *        *

"I must really apologize," said Hambledon to the Records official, "for
dragging you away from your family like this. A man should have his
evenings undisturbed."

"Not at all, Herr Polizei Oberhaupt. Besides being my duty, it is a
pleasure to serve the Herr."

"You are too kind," said Hambledon, as the other man put his key in the
lock. "I only heard to-night that this man has been traced, and
to-morrow--to-morrow is Saturday, is it not?--he is going to Holland and
it will be too late. Good evening, Reinhardt."

"Why do you not arrest him at once just in case?"

"It is not a political offence," explained Hambledon, "it is a case of
private blackmail, a crime which I hold in such abhorrence, Herr
Gerhardt, that I would not even accuse a man of it unless I were morally
sure of his guilt."

"It is evident that the Herr has the scales of justice implanted in his
soul," said Gerhardt with poetic, but confused, metaphor. "The dossier
you require should be in this folder--here it is."

Hambledon spent some time making notes from the dossier of a gentleman
who had indeed been convicted of blackmail in the past, and then glanced
at his watch to discover to his horror that it was five minutes past
ten.

"I have completely ruined your evening," he said. "What will Frau
Gerhardt say to me? On such a night, too, there is rain beating the
windows again. I'll send Reinhardt for a taxi and drop you at your house
on my way home. Reinhardt! Are you there? Oh, get me a taxi, would you?"

"I beg the Herr Polizei Oberhaupt not to inconvenience himself----"

"It is no inconvenience, it is a pleasure----"

"The Herr is too polite----"

"Besides, I owe you a little return----"

"On one condition, then, that the Herr will deign to come in and take a
little something. Frau Gerhardt will remember the honour all her life."

"I shall be glad to make my peace with the gracious Frau," said
Hambledon, who had the best of reasons for wanting an impeccable alibi
for the next hour or so. "I shall be delighted. What a wonderful filing
system you must have here," he went on. "Do you keep the fingerprints
here too?"

"The fingerprint section is on the floor above this, directly over our
heads," said Gerhardt, and went on telling Hambledon about it regardless
of the sound of a taxi drawing up outside till the Chief of Police
permitted himself another glance at his watch, Gerhardt took the hint,
and they walked towards the outer door.

"Where is Reinhardt?" asked the Records official. "He should be here to
open the door for us."

"We can easily open it for ourselves," suggested Hambledon, but his host
continued to fuss.

"Reinhardt!" he called, turning back from the door. "Where are you? This
is positively discourteous."

But Hambledon had already opened the door and was standing holding the
handle. "Please don't trouble, Herr Gerhardt; no doubt he has a
perfectly good explanation, perhaps it is time for one of his rounds.
Come on," he added, taking the man by the arm in friendly fashion,
"let's go; you have been on business long enough to-night already." He
slammed the door behind them and the two men got into the waiting taxi
and drove away.

When Reinhardt had been sent for the taxi ten minutes earlier, he had
walked briskly down the street whistling under his breath in spite of
the rain. There was a taxi-rank at the end of the road, he was thinking,
as he walked towards it, how lucky it was that this had happened
to-night, for Herr Lehmann always tipped well, and now they would be
able to have a goose for dinner on Sunday instead of just ordinary veal;
it would make a real feast for the boy's birthday, twenty-two on Sunday,
a good lad. Reinhardt's mind went back to the day when first he knew he
had a son, when the letter came to the sodden trenches before Ypres in
'16. He had been lucky that night, too, because his crowd were
unexpectedly withdrawn and replaced by the Prussian Guards, tall
arrogant men whom nobody liked, but there was no doubt they were grand
fighters. It was just as well they were, too, for in the dawn of the
next day the English attacked, and the fighting was savage since they
were no ordinary English, though these were bad enough, but the awful
29th Division who were reported to eat rusty nails and broken glass for
breakfast. Reinhardt in his walk came to the entry of a short
cul-de-sac, leading only to the door of a church, silent, dark and
deserted at that hour of the night. He started to cross it, thinking of
the ear-splitting roar and the blinding flashes of the artillery
barrages which preceded an attack--there were those flashes now before
his eyes, searing bursts of flame, and in his ears the unbearable shock
of explosion. He staggered, tried to run and could not, his feet would
not move--the mud, of course. He threw out his arms feebly and crashed
to the ground.

So it was all a dream that he had ever come home from the war and seen
his son grow up; probably he had fallen asleep on his feet as men did
when they were so very tired, and had a sudden vivid dream. If he opened
his eyes now he would see again the seas of foul mud, the wet trench in
which he stood, that hanging rag of slimy sacking at the corner of the
next traverse which was only sacking by day but at night turned into
something stealthy and menacing which always stopped moving when you
looked at it. After a while it occurred to him that the place where he
lay was curiously quiet for a battlefield and smelt cleaner too;
curiosity opened his eyes, and he saw a doctor leaning over him and a
man in uniform at the foot of his bed.

"Congratulations, Reinhardt," said the doctor, pleased at the return to
consciousness.

"Thank you," said Reinhardt feebly, "but I don't think it's a very nice
time for babies to be born, just now."

"My dear soul," said the doctor, laughing quietly, "you don't imagine
you've had a baby, do you?"

"Of course not," said Reinhardt. "My wife has, though. I've been hit, I
suppose."

"With a sandbag," said the doctor. "Thank the good God who gave you such
a lovely thick skull."

"Sandbag? Off the parapet?"

"He thinks he's back in the trenches again," said the policeman at the
foot of the bed. "Hope he hasn't lost his memory."

"No, no," said the doctor. "A little confused for the moment, that's
all. The war has been over these twenty years, Reinhardt, you are night
caretaker at the Record House, and last night somebody slogged you with
a sandbag."

"I remember now. I went to get a taxi----"

Directly after the taxi had driven off with Hambledon and Gerhardt
inside, a car drew up at the same door and two men with suit-cases got
out. The car moved off to a point fifty yards down the road and stopped
again with its engine running quietly; the driver lit a cigarette and
waited, his eyes on the driving-mirror reflecting the street behind him.
The two men carried their suit-cases across the pavement, opened the
door by simply turning the handle, and went in, locking the door
carefully behind them.

"Have a good look at how this catch works, Erich," said one. "If this
stuff flares up properly we may have to make a dash for it. Hans has
pinched Eigenmann's car for an hour or two because the police will
always pass it through; you know, Goebbels' secretary."

"Good idea. I know all about those locks; we've got one like that on the
front door at home. Where'd we better start it? Anywhere in this long
passage? I've never been inside this place before."

"This leads to the central hall where the stairs go up, there at the
end, you can see them. If we start in a room near the stairs and open
the window first, there'll be a good draught. Come on."

They entered the last room, next to the hall, and one pushed up the
windows while the other opened the suit-cases. The walls of the room
were lined with wooden pigeon-holes, full of papers, and there were
besides screens six feet high across the room at intervals of a yard
apart, screens themselves all pigeon-holes of papers, neatly filed.

"What a wonderful spot for the job," murmured Erich. "Why, you'd think
one match would be enough without what we've brought."

"Yes. I don't think we need use it all in here," said his friend. "We'll
start one here, and if we're quick, another one farther down the passage
as well before we go."

He took handfuls of cinematograph film, cut into short lengths, from one
suit-case and strewed it on the floor along the walls while Erich threw
coils of film over the screens in all directions.

"I should think that would be enough, then," said Erich. "Going to light
it now?"

"Of course."

"But won't they see the flames from outside?"

"No, this window looks on an inner court. Stand back--no, get right out
in the passage. Take the suit-cases, I shall have to jump for it."

"All right, I've got them," said Erich. "All clear."

The other man struck a match and applied it to one of the coils;
immediately there was a spluttering crackle and the flare of burning
celluloid. He lit another and another, tossed the match onto a heap on
the floor, and sprang into the passage.

"That'll do for that," he said, "let's find another. What's in here?
Books--not too good. This one--tin boxes, no. This'll do, it's very like
the first."

"My hat," said Erich, glancing back, "that's taken hold. Looks like the
doorway of hell already."

"Come on, don't waste time."

"This room looks out on the street," said Erich, as they tossed the
stuff about and pulled papers down to make them burn more readily.

"No matter, we shall be out before the flames show. Pull the blinds
down. That's right, now get out while I finish off."

Erich heard the crackle of the lighted film as he turned away and the
second man joined him in the passage. "Better than the other, I think,"
he said. "Now---- Good God, what's that?"

It was a rattle as someone tried the handle of the outer door, followed
by hammering on the panels and the shout, "Open, in the name of the
Reich!"

"It's the police," said the older man calmly. "They must have found the
caretaker."

Erich turned to run back along the passage but checked at once. "We
can't get through now," he said. "Look at it." The flames had barricaded
the passage and even the floor was flaring.

"Dangerous stuff, linoleum," said his friend. "No, we can't go that
way."

"The windows, then?"

"They're all barred. No. I'm sorry, Erich, I brought you into this."

"Can't we---- What's that?"

"They're trying to shoot the lock off, they'll probably succeed."

"Can't we do anything?"

"There is just a rather feeble chance that there may not be many of
them, and if they're silly enough to come in we might shoot them down
and get clear away before reinforcements arrive. I've a good mind to go
and open the door for them, you know, they've no need to come in,
they've only to wait till the fire forces us out. I think I'll do that.
Listen! There's the car moving off, if we do get out we shall have to
run for it."

"Has Hans gone off and left us, then?"

"Of course, he had orders to do that. What could he do if he stayed?
Nothing. Erich, look at that door! It's opening! Into that doorway!"

The two men dodged into doorways as the outer door burst open and the
police charged in. There was the repeated crack of automatics, and the
sergeant who was leading doubled up, stumbled, came running up the
passage under his own momentum, and collapsed like a sack at Erich's
feet. A constable by the door uttered a yelp, clasped his arm, and
jumped back, the others threw the door wide open and withdrew hastily
into the street outside, from whence they could see down the passage
with its creeping inferno of fire behind the two desperate men in the
doorways.

"They've done us now," shouted the older man. "They can see us and we
can't see them. Better get shot, it's pleasanter than burning. Let 'em
have it!"

The exchange of shots went on, lessening suddenly from within and
finally ceasing altogether. The fire-engines came, and the fire-brigade
leader asked if it was safe for his men to start.

"The fire don't look too safe to me," said the surviving sergeant of
police. "I reckon the men are harmless enough by now."

By this time the fire had taken secure hold of the building and was
spreading from room to room and bursting through ceilings to the floors
above; windows shattered with the heat and flames gushed out, lighting
up the decorous streets and squares of the Government quarter with an
incongruous dancing bonfire light. Crowds gathered and were shooed back
by the police, telephone wires buzzed and celebrities arrived, among
them Goebbels in person, to whom the Superintendent of Police reported.

"Arson, sir, there's no doubt," and he told the story of the two men.
"Reinhardt--that's the caretaker, sir--was decoyed out somehow and
sandbagged. He's now in hospital."

"Did anyone visit the place to-night after closing hours?"

"Yes, sir, Herr Gerhardt came with Herr Lehmann, the constable on duty
saw them go in."

"Herr Lehmann, eh? Did they come out again?"

"I couldn't say, sir. The constable's beat takes him right round the
square, and they might well have gone while he was out of sight."

"Lehmann," said Goebbels thoughtfully to himself. "Lehmann. Then the two
men----" But the idea of the respectable Gerhardt loosing off an
automatic at the police was quite beyond credit, if one of the men was
Lehmann the other certainly wasn't Gerhardt. After all, it was equally
ridiculous to suspect the correct Lehmann of such behaviour, only
Goebbels was getting into the habit of suspecting him of having a finger
in any unpleasantness which might crop up--not even quite a suspicion,
more a hope that the incorruptible Chief of Police would slip up. "Has
Herr Gerhardt been informed?"

"Apparently his telephone is out of order, sir, we can't get an answer.
I have sent a constable to his house to inform him."

Goebbels grunted.

The firemen confined their efforts to saving the farther wing since this
one was clearly past praying for, the flames leaped higher into the
thick rolls of smoke, and the crowd said "A-aah" as the roof fell in
with a crash and a shower of sparks. Very reminiscent of the Reichstag
fire, this, with the important difference that this one was
inconvenient, damned inconvenient. All those irreplaceable records----

He started violently as a quiet voice behind his elbow said, "An
appalling sight, Herr Goebbels, yet impressive in its grandeur and
disregard of human endeavour."

"Lehmann! When did you leave here--where have you been?"

"At my house, Herr Minister, at my house," said Gerhardt's agitated
voice. "For the past hour we have been taking a little refreshment in
the Herr Polizei Oberhaupt's esteemed company. We went home together
from here, soon after ten. All was well then."

"The devil you did," said Goebbels to himself. "A little job for you,
Lehmann. Find the miscreants," he added aloud.

"The search will be the subject of my unremitting care," said the Chief
of Police earnestly.




CHAPTER 18


Jakob Altmann was a railway porter, not in one of the passenger stations
of Berlin where there was nice clean luggage to be carried and tips to
collect from grateful passengers, but in the goods yard, where he spent
laborious days dragging heavy boxes about and staggering under the
weight of awkward parcels. His wife Gertrud said repeatedly, and usually
in the same words, that it was entirely Jakob's own fault that he was
never raised to the passenger grade; no one could expect gentlefolk to
have any dealings with such a rough, clumsy, loutish, mannerless,
loud-voiced, ham-handed bullock of a man. She knew what was what, having
been with the same family of gracious ladies till she was insane enough
to throw up her good place to marry such a lout, a lump, a baboon----

"I wish you were with them still," growled Jakob.

"But they're all dead."

"That's what I mean," he said, and swaggered out laughing.

He drew his wages one Friday evening as usual and returned to the
porters' room to get his lunch-bag before he went home. Most of the men
had lunch-bags alike, the black American-cloth shopping bag familiar to
the poor in most countries; some were shabbier than others but there was
otherwise little difference unless one wrote one's name on the lining,
but why bother? If they did get mixed up it did not matter much as they
never had anything in them at the end of the day. On this occasion there
was something in Jakob's; for some reason he had not been hungry at
dinner-time and had only eaten half his sausage, so he was naturally
taking the rest of it home again. One does not waste good food. Since
his name began with A he was paid among the first; when he reached the
smoke-blackened brick hutch called the porters' room the space under the
bench was full of black bags, with a basket or two for variety, one tin
box and several cardboard ones. Jakob picked up his own bag, felt the
lump inside to make sure it was the right one, and walked home as usual
with his friend Buergers who lived two doors down the street.

They went into a place of refreshment on the way home and had one or
two, since it was pay-day, and then ambled off to their respective
wives.

"Late again," said Gertrud, "as usual. Been gossiping with that
mutton-head Buergers, I suppose. Been fined this week?"

"No," said Jakob good-naturedly. "Been lucky this week, didn't bust
anything. Here's the money."

"This isn't all," said Gertrud, counting it.

"Had a drink on the way home," explained Jakob. He explained this every
Friday, and every Friday Gertrud received it as though it were a fresh
enormity. "Buergers stood me one so I 'ad to return the compliment as
they say in 'igh social circles, among the toffs you're so fond of."

"Taking to drink, now. If Buergers' wife is such a soft fool she'll put
up with only getting 'alf the money as is her lawful due, I'm not, Jakob
Altmann."

"Buergers' wife is one as 'as too much sense to nag at a man the minute
he comes in," said Jakob enviously. "Happy, they are, if she isn't
everlastingly buying things for the 'ouse as is no use when they're got.
Antimacassars, bah!"

"If Buergers' wife is such a slut as to be content with an 'ome looking
as it the brokers 'ad been in----"

"An' if you call two glasses of beer at the end of a day's work 'taking
to drink' you're the biggest fool in the street."

"That's right!" screamed Gertrud. "Call me names!"

"And Buergers' wife isn't a slut, she's a decent, quiet, clean
woman----"

"That's right! Taking up with another woman! I suppose Buergers----"

"Will you stop!" roared Jakob in a voice which shook the windows.
"_Herrgott_, I can't stand this, I'm goin' out. I shall kill you one of
these days, then you'll be sorry."

"What's that in the bag?" asked Gertrud, noticing an unaccustomed bulge
in it. "Brought something 'ome?"

"Only some of the sausage," answered Jakob, diving into the bag for the
parcel. "Didn't eat it all."

"Wasn't good enough for Your Lordship, I suppose?"

"Oh, just the same as usual. Only when I was eatin' it I 'appened to
think of you, my love, as the song says, an' it put me right off." He
pulled the packet out.

"That's right! Be rude! There's the fire goin' out now," said Gertrud,
diving at the stove and producing a frightful clatter with the poker.
"Go out to the shed an' bring me another bucket of briquettes, quick."

But Jakob neither moved nor spoke.

"Did you 'ear me?" said Gertrud, pushing a few tired-looking twigs into
the stove. "Suppose I'm goin' to slave for you all day long when you're
out an' then carry 'eavy buckets in while you sit in an armchair an'
twiddle your thumbs? This wood won't catch, now."

Still no answer, and Gertrud lost her temper completely. "_Will_ you do
as I say?" she screamed, and hit the top of the iron stove a terrific
welt with the poker, which bent. "Now that's gone, I wish it had been
your head, you----" she said, turning round, and suddenly her voice
changed. "What's that you've got there?"

"Money," said Jakob in a shaking voice, "lots of money."

"Give it to me," said Gertrud, diving at the table, but he caught her by
the wrists and whirled her across the room, casually, without looking
what he was doing, with an easy strength.

"I must have picked up the wrong bag," said Jakob in a puzzled voice.

"How much is there there?"

"Shan't tell you. Here's some for you," said Jakob, counting out
ten-mark notes. "Go an' buy some more antimacassars if they make you
'appy, and for 'eaven's sake get drunk on the rest, maybe you'd be
pleasanter company than you are sober."

Gertrud watched him as he shuffled up the other notes, a fat wad of
them, and replaced them between the cardboard covers he found them in,
squares of cardboard with elastic bands round them.

"Where are you going?"

"Out. I told you that before."

"Not with all that money," said Gertrud, and made a lightning snatch at
the packet. Jakob did not attempt to evade her, he held firmly to the
money with one hand and with the other dealt her a stinging slap on the
side of her head which sent her spinning to the floor, almost too
astonished to cry, because in spite of incessant provocation he had
never hit her before. Jakob did not even look to see if she were hurt,
he put the money carefully in an inner pocket and walked out of the
house.

He started the evening by taking Buergers and his wife to a restaurant
where they got good food, appetizingly cooked and cleanly served, after
which Frau Buergers, who was an understanding woman, went home and left
the men to enjoy themselves after their own fashion. Unfortunately,
their tastes in pleasure were limited and unrefined, and by ten o'clock
they were hopelessly drunk. They staggered, arm in arm, along a
dignified street which was new to them, since they had lost their way,
singing the German equivalent of "Dear old pals--jolly old pals----" in
anything but harmony. They came to the entrance of a short cul-de-sac
leading only to the door of a church, dark, silent and deserted at that
hour of the night, and turned into it, not intentionally but because
their feet happened to go that way. Half-way along it they tripped over
something and fell down.

"What's that?" asked Jakob. "You fall over something, too?"

Buergers felt about in the obscurity. "Not something," he announced.
"Somebody."

Jakob also investigated. "Qui' right. Somebody. I say, he's had some,
had lots. Lots more than us. We're bit tiddley, he's blind. Corpsed."

"Poor ole corpse," said Buergers affably. "Wake up, catch cold."

"Qui' right. Wake up, corpse."

They shook him, but Reinhardt took no notice.

"Can't leave 'm here, die of cold," said Jakob. "Not Clish--Christian."

"Pick up," suggested Buergers. "Take 'm home."

"Not my home," said Jakob firmly. "Gertrud--wouldn't like 'm. Very
respectable woman, Gertrud. Too 'spectable. Don't like her."

"Well, take 'm somewhere," urged Buergers, and they hoisted him up,
holding him under each arm, and carried him along without effort though
his feet were trailing, for the two porters even when drunk were
stronger than most men when they are sober.

"'Minds me," said Jakob, "carrying ole Hoffenberg."

"Yes," agreed Buergers. "Jus' like funeral. Sing!"

So they emerged into the very dignified street again, proceeding in
zigzags and dismally chanting that dirge of German funerals, "I had a
comrade, A better none could be," and met the constable completing the
circuit of his beat.

"'Ere!" he said sharply. "What's all this? Stop that noise."

"This feller's corpsed," explained Jakob. "Take 'm away. I'll give 'm to
you."

They let go of Reinhardt, who immediately collapsed like a sack in the
road, face downwards, and the constable, seeing that this was more than
a one-man job, blew his whistle for reinforcements, and waited. Jakob
and Buergers sat down on each side of Reinhardt and went on singing till
the constable hushed them again, whereupon Buergers said he was unkind
and burst into tears, while Jakob went to sleep.

Another constable and a sergeant arrived and the first policeman
explained the circumstances.

"Know who they are?" asked the sergeant.

"No, sir. Don't belong round here, that is, I haven't seen the middle
man's face, but they were all together."

"Let's look," said the sergeant, so they turned Reinhardt over and shone
a torch on his face. In spite of the mud smears on it the constables
recognized him at once.

"_Herrgott!_ It's Reinhardt, night caretaker at the Record House."

"He'll lose his job for this," said the sergeant ominously.

"He can't be drunk, sir, I saw him an hour ago stone sober, and just
after that Herr Lehmann and Herr Gerhardt went in; he wouldn't get drunk
with them there."

"Besides," said the other constable, "he never does."

"There's something very odd here," said the sergeant. "Get an ambulance,
Georg, and have him taken to hospital. Handcuff these two to the
railings, can't bother with them now. Johann, come to the Record House
with me."

When they looked through the letter-box of the Record House they saw the
end of the passage a mass of flames, and two men walking towards them.

After the shooting had ceased, the fire-brigade arrived and took control
of proceedings at the Record House, and the constables remembered their
charges whom they had left handcuffed to the railings. They were still
there, with the crowd surging round and tripping over their legs, but
nothing troubled them nor made them afraid, for they were sound asleep.
Efforts to awaken them having failed completely, they were lifted on to
wheeled stretchers and taken to the police station.

Here in the morning came the Chief of Police in person, pursuant upon
his promise to Goebbels that he would look into the affair himself. Here
were two men who had been in company with the damaged Reinhardt; very
well, he would start with them.

It was quite easy to start, but quite impossible to go on. The police
stated that they had found a large number of ten-mark notes, eleven
hundred and eighty-two to be exact, upon the person of the prisoner
Altmann, who could give no satisfactory explanation as to how he came by
them. There were also two squares of cardboard which, with two rubber
bands, had held the money together; one of the pieces of card had notes
scribbled on it in pencil. The cards and the money were handed over to
the Chief of Police.

Interrogated, Jakob Altmann deposed that he found the money in his bag
when he got home. That he had no idea whose it was or how it got there,
and suggested, in a flight of fancy for which the police rebuked him,
Santa Claus. That he had noticed a lump in the bag but thought it was
sausage. That he had gone home, had a row with his wife, given her some
of the money to keep her quiet, and then gone out with the rest of it
and taken his friends the Buergerses out to supper. That after supper
Frau Buergers had gone home to mind the kids while Buergers and he went
on the binge. No, he could not recall where they went, just to one place
and another. No, he didn't know how they came to fetch up in that
quarter of Berlin, supposed they must have lost their way. No, he didn't
remember meeting Reinhardt, didn't know anybody of that name, though, of
course, they'd met and talked to a lot of people they didn't know in the
course of the evening, and who was this Reinhardt, anyway?

Buergers, a gentler and less truculent man than Altmann, but also of a
lower mental grade, remembered even less of the evening than his friend,
but what he did remember corroborated Altmann's statements. No, he
didn't know where the money came from. Old Jakob said he'd found it in
his bag and Buergers had simply believed him. Why not? It was no
business of his, it wasn't his money.

Recalled, Altmann said that the only explanation he could suggest was
that he had inadvertently exchanged bags with someone who had got his
sausage in exchange for the notes, he explained how much alike most of
the bags were.

"That I can understand," said the Chief of Police, "but what I don't
believe for an instant is that a man in your position would lose a sum
like that without making an uproar about it. Would you?"

"No, sir," said the prisoner promptly.

"That is, if he ever had such a sum. Has there been any complaint about
a serious loss of money among the goods yard porters?"

"No, sir," said the Superintendent present. "Inquiries have been made."

"So you see," said Lehmann, addressing the prisoner again, "it doesn't
seem as though your story could be true, does it?"

"But it is, sir," insisted Jakob.

"Would you believe it yourself, if you were in my place?"

Jakob hesitated.

"No, sir," he said, facing Lehmann squarely. "I don't believe I would.
But it is true, sir."

"Dammit, I believe the fellow's telling the truth," muttered Lehmann to
the Superintendent. "Remanded in custody for a week, both of them. Have
that car looked up, you've got its number."

"The Herr Oberhaupt has a funny way of examining prisoners," said one
Inspector quietly to another.

"What odds so long as he gets at the facts?" said the other.

"Supposing this man to be speaking the truth," said Lehmann, talking to
the Superintendent in private, "it is perfectly obvious that the man who
lost the money had no right to it. Nobody swaps eleven thousand marks
for a couple of ounces of sausage without howling about it, not in these
days, thank God."

"No, sir. Looks like proceeds of a robbery, sir."

"So I think. Either that, or they're forged. I will take them away and
have them investigated. I'll sign a receipt for them if you'll make it
out."

It was soon established that the notes were not forgeries, so Hambledon
sent a list of their numbers to the various banks, with a request to
know when they had last been passed out and to whom, and sat down to
consider the pencilled entries on the cardboard cover. They ran:

    "April 7th
    Gagel             600
    Dettmer         1,200
    Kitzinger         800
    Tietz             500
    Rautenbach      2,000
    Militz          2,200
    Eigenmann       1,500
    Baumgartner     3,200
    May 4th"

"Message ends," said Tommy to himself. "Since the faculty of reasoning
is what mainly distinguishes us from the brute creation, what do we
deduce from this? How much did Altmann have on him after his night out?"
He turned up a note on the amount. "11,820. And to think of him lying
asleep on the pavement with all that mob surging round him and nobody
picked his pocket! However, I think that Herr Altmann spent one hundred
and eighty marks on his evening beer. What a jag! I wonder how much of
that he gave his wife."

He looked at the two dates and the list of names. "April 7th, that was
the night of the fire. I think there was going to be a share-out that
night among the Herren Gagel, Dettmer and Co., but when they got there
the cupboard was bare and so the poor dogs got none. I wonder what they
said to the treasurer when he offered them two and a half ounces of
sausage instead." He looked again at the list of names, some of them
were familiar. "Rautenbach, Militz, Eigenmann and Baumgartner are
creatures of Goebbels," he said thoughtfully, unlocked his safe and took
a book out of it. "Let's see if we have any notes about them. Yes, I
thought so. Eigenmann is up to the neck in this Jewish racket, Militz,
s.n.p.--suspected, not proved. Nothing against the other two. Kitzinger,
I think I've heard of him before. Yes, Jewish racket again, and so is
Dettmer if I don't mistake--I don't. He is. Tietz, s.n.p. again. Gagel,
no mention." He locked up the book again and lit a cigar. "The bag turns
up on the railway, and the railway people are deep in this Jew swindle.
We are getting on, we really are. I don't think this is quite an
ordinary robbery, somehow, I think it's a share-out of some of the cash
extracted from our Jewish emigrants, poor shorn lambs, and if Herr
Goebbels takes any interest in the case, I shall know I'm right. It will
be interesting to see what the banks report and in the meantime I think
I'll copy out this little list."

He made a copy, locked it up in his safe, and spent ten minutes in going
through a police report which came in. He smiled secretly to himself
when an S.S. trooper tapped on the door and announced, "The Herr
Minister-of-Propaganda Goebbels."

"I beg your forgiveness, my dear Lehmann, for breaking in upon your
labours like this. I am anxious to know whether you have been able to
get any light upon the abominable fire at the Record House."

"Please sit down," said Hambledon, setting a chair for his visitor, "I
trust that you will never think it necessary to apologize for coming to
see me. I am firmly of the opinion that the effective functioning of a
Government is only possible when the heads of Departments are upon
terms, not merely of formal interrelation, but of genuine
collaboration."

"How true," said Goebbels, "but----"

"But you did not favour me with minutes of your valuable time to hear my
platitudinous remarks upon Governmental efficiency. Exactly. With regard
to the fire at the Record House, I think there can be no doubt but that
it was a case of deliberate arson."

Goebbels gulped slightly. "I had no idea that anybody doubted that for a
moment," he said acidly. "The facts speak for themselves." The old fool
Lehmann must be entering his dotage; it was inconceivable that he was
daring to pull Goebbels' leg.

"Not necessarily," said the Chief of Police. "I have known facts which
lied like--like Ananias, till one found out some more. However, I think
we may safely assume this to have been arson. The two men who,
presumably, caused it were so completely destroyed by fire as to be
quite unrecognizable when found. Unfortunately, the sergeant who saw
them through the letter-box slit also perished, so we shall never know
whether he recognized them or not."

"So you've got no further in the matter?"

"On the contrary," said Hambledon, leaning back in his chair and putting
the tips of his fingers together, "several interesting points have
emerged. There have been, as no doubt Your Excellency knows, a number of
cases of arson in various parts of Germany during the past twelve or
fifteen months. I now know them to be the work of criminals already
known to the authorities, since they were so anxious for the destruction
of all records of such criminals as to be willing to take the risk
involved in destroying by fire a large and important building in
the----"

"Yes, yes, my dear Lehmann, but that is all rather vague, is it not? It
would have been encouraging to hear that you had found out something a
little more definite."

"Your Excellency brings me to a point which, if you had not done me the
honour to visit me, I should have called upon you to discuss. A
constable who was passing the Record House shortly before the alarm was
given--the same who found Reinhardt--noticed a car standing by the
roadside about fifty yards from the door, with its engine running. He
took its number."

"Well?"

"The moment the alarm was given the driver threw in his clutch and drove
off at a furious rate. My men regarded the incident as suspicious."

"Quite right."

"They could not chase him because they had no means at their disposal,
but they subsequently looked up the number. It was that of a car
belonging to one Eigenmann who is, I understand, one of Your
Excellency's private secretaries."

"The car must have been stolen," said Goebbels instantly.

"Inquiries were made," said Hambledon, fitting his fingers together in a
different order, "of Herr Eigenmann personally as to his movements that
evening, with a view to elucidating that point. He told my
representative that he had spent that evening driving the car in
question to a house near Lindow where some of his cousins live."

"That is true----"

"That he arrived there soon after seven and did not leave again for
Berlin till after eleven. As Lindow is fully sixty miles from
Berlin----"

"It is plain," said Goebbels, "the car by the Record House had false
number-plates."

"That may be," said Hambledon. "I--forgive my careless inattention! Let
me offer you a cigar. You may possibly prefer these, let me give you a
light. I was about to tell Your Excellency that a robbery took place
near Gransee that evening, and as the thieves had escaped in a car all
the roads were picketed and every car stopped. Herr Eigenmann's car was
not in that neighbourhood that night."

"He exchanged cars for some reason," said Goebbels hastily. "Possibly he
had a breakdown."

"He particularly assured my man that he had driven his own car all the
way," said Tommy blandly. "We thought of that."

"This is ridiculous," said Goebbels angrily. "This is a mare's nest you
have found, Herr Lehmann. I will ask Eigenmann to tell me clearly what
happened, and inform you in due course."

"That is precisely what I was going to ask Your Excellency to do. If
Herr Eigenmann was involved that night in some little indiscretion, it
is natural he should not wish to tell the police about it, though, of
course, it would be no concern of ours--probably. At the same time, I
should be glad to have the fullest possible details of the movements of
that car that night."

"Yes, yes, of course. Another point, what about that money?"

"We think it must have been the proceeds of a robbery. I am having
inquiries made."

"If you find out nothing?"

"It reverts to the Treasury, of course, who will give me a receipt for
it."

Goebbels looked as if he could have killed the Chief of Police, but
merely said, "An odd complication. How much was there?"

"Eleven thousand eight hundred and twenty marks by the time it came into
our hands, though apparently it was twelve thousand marks originally."

"How do you know?"

"I assume it by the notes on this card," said Hambledon, handing it to
him. "The notes were held together--I fear you are not well, Herr
Goebbels. You are quite pale. The cigar, perhaps----"

"I have a slight chill, it is nothing," said Goebbels carelessly.
"Common names, all of these."

"It would have been better if we had had their initials also," agreed
Hambledon.

"I will not take up more of your valuable time," said Goebbels, and took
his leave.

"Considering," said Tommy after he had gone, "that you knew perfectly
well Eigenmann was waiting with the rest of the hungry crew somewhere in
Berlin for the cash to arrive, that's a pretty stout effort."

"Damn the fellow," thought Goebbels. "I'll get rid of him somehow, only
he's so infernally incorruptible. Wonder if there's anything in his
past; I'll have him looked up. Heidelberg man, by his scars. Before my
time, of course. Wonder which Student Corps he was in?"




CHAPTER 19


A week later Jakob Altmann and Gregor Buergers came up again at the
police-court to answer for their doings on the night of the fire. As it
was perfectly obvious that they could not have had anything to do with
the fire, not even with the sandbagging of Reinhardt, since they were
far too inebriated at the time, they were merely charged with stealing
by finding the sum of twelve thousand marks, the property of some person
or persons unknown, Altmann as principal and Buergers as accessory. They
were sentenced to periods of two years and nine months respectively of
forced labour on the roads of Westphalia.

"Nice long way off," said Jakob, with a glance at Gertrud, who was
sitting in court weeping ostentatiously. "Thank you, gentlemen."
Buergers said nothing.

It was another ten days before Hambledon received a reply from any of
the various German banks to his question about the mark notes.
Eventually, one of them reported that the notes in question, together
with others of considerably larger denomination making a total of
eighteen thousand five hundred marks altogether, had been paid out on
March the 25th to Herr Rolf Weinecke of Aachen. Since they knew that the
inquiry came from the Chief of Police they added all the information
they could give, particularly the numbers and denominations of the
larger notes. They added that some of the notes were again in
circulation in Aachen, and that the whole sum was produced by the sale
of bearer bonds deposited with them ten months earlier by the said Herr
Weinecke.

"So," said Tommy to himself. "What proportion do they allow these
wretched Jews to get away with? Twenty per cent, I believe. Now twenty
per cent of eighteen thousand five hundred is--er--three thousand seven
hundred." He wrote the figure down and looked at it. "Strange. That's
just the total of the few notes of really large denomination. Now, if a
Jew were bolting out of Germany with the paltry marks allowed him by the
Government, he would change one of his big notes as soon as possible, I
think. Going from Aachen, that would be Brussels, or possibly Ostende if
he were going to England. I'll try both. Twelve thousand plus three
thousand seven hundred is fifteen thousand and seven hundred. Subtracted
from eighteen thousand five hundred, it leaves--er--two thousand eight
hundred. I think Herr Weinecke pocketed two thousand eight hundred marks
for his trouble--and the risk, of course. Dealing with a Jew, naughty.
Helping a Jew to evade the law, very naughty."

Four days later he learned from his agents in Brussels that a
hundred-mark note, bearing one of the numbers quoted, had been changed
into Belgian money on March 29th last by a Jew named Reuben Schwartz,
who was now living in rooms in the Street of the Candle at Brussels,
having apparently settled there.

"Splendid," said Tommy Hambledon, and sent two of his police to bring
him the person of Rolf Weinecke from Aachen, instantly, in haste. Next
morning Rolf Weinecke, ruffled and uneasy, was shown into Hambledon's
office. Hambledon did not ask him to sit down, but sent the troopers
away and came straight to the point in a voice as hard and cold as
stone.

"You are Rolf Weinecke from Aachen?"

"Yes, sir. May I ask----"

"No. I will do all the asking that may be needed. On Friday, March the
25th last, you went to your bank in Aachen and drew out the sum of
eighteen thousand five hundred marks."

"I believe I did, but----"

"I know you did. This sum was made up of thirty-seven hundred-mark
notes, fifty-six fifty-mark notes, and the rest in tens to the value of
twelve thousand marks."

The man merely looked at him.

"This money was the proceeds of the sale of bearer bonds which you
deposited with the bank about ten months ago."

"That is so," said Weinecke. "The bonds were----"

"You transferred the thirty-seven hundred-mark notes to a Jew named
Reuben Schwartz, at present living in the Rue de la Bougie, Brussels."

"But, sir, that is----"

"You were about to admit that that is a crime against the State. Are you
aware of the penalties attaching to it?"

"Yes, sir, but----"

"But what?"

"But there are so many people--it is so often done," stammered the man.

"It will be done a lot less in future, believe me. While I am Chief of
Police I will not tolerate such irregularities, perhaps if an example is
made in a few flagrant cases such as yours, it will be realized that I
mean what I say. This practice will stop," said Hambledon incisively,
and banged the table.

Weinecke looked as though if he had much more of this his knees would
give way.

"But, sir, I am a good German and a good Nazi. I pay all the taxes
without grumbling, I subscribe to Party funds, I give generously to the
Winter Help----"

"You cannot buy the right to sin," said Hambledon magnificently, "with
these subscriptions. No man is a good German who gives help to the
enemies of his country as you have done. The Jew, the Jew, always the
Jew behind these abuses." ("Streicher ought to hear me now," he
thought.) "What is there about these Jews that you must defile yourself
by serving them? One would think you were a Jew yourself."

Weinecke's face turned green with terror. He had never liked his Jewish
grandmother; when he was a little boy that heavy white face, the dark
smouldering eyes, the hooked nose approaching the jutting chin, had
seemed to him to embody all he had heard of witches; and the strange
unknown rites from which he was rigidly excluded, but of which he heard
garbled accounts from his Lutheran nurse, were doubtless witchcraft. The
fact was that his mother hated her husband's Jewish connection and
imbued the boy with her prejudices. Later in his life Weinecke realized
that most of his ideas about the Jews were childish nonsense and his
hysterical dislike reacted into a sort of inquisitive sympathy, but by
that time his parents and the old grandmother were dead, and as he had
never had any intercourse with his Jewish cousins the connection had
dropped. It was, he believed, entirely unknown by the time the
anti-Jewish agitation began in Germany. He would help a Jew if he could,
just as he would a non-Jew, that is to say, if there were any money to
be made out of it, but admit a Jewish connection, never, never. And now
here was this terrible and powerful man, who knew everything, dragging
out this ghastly secret also and shaking it in his face. His knees bent
inwards, his back curved, his shoulders went up in spite of all efforts
to straighten himself, and his eyes showed a line of white all along
below the iris.

Tommy Hambledon watched this in amazement, for he had no idea that there
was any truth in a suggestion he had merely thrown out to frighten the
man. "I must be getting Jews on the brain," he thought. "The creature's
turning into one before my eyes."

"Oh, I am not, gracious sir," protested Weinecke, "I am Aryan all
through."

"Protest that to the court when you are brought before it. You must know
that it will be quite easy to prove you are a Jew," said Hambledon,
meaning merely that the evidence could be fabricated if necessary, but
Weinecke took the words as proof that his ancestry was known. He still
denied it, however, hysterically.

"I am not," he shrieked, instinctively turning up his palms in the
ageold gesture of protest. "Revered sir, I am not, on the head of my
father I swear----"

He stopped abruptly. On the head of my father, what evil demon had put
the betraying phrase into his mouth? Tommy Hambledon leaned back in his
chair. Evidently his chance arrow had sunk to the feather and he had got
this man where he wanted him.

"You see," said the Chief of Police loftily, "it is useless to try to
deceive the Reich. I think you are in rather bad case, Herr Rolf
Weinecke."

The man actually fell on his knees. "I am a good Nazi, all the same," he
wailed. "I never liked them--the Jews, I mean. It was only my
grandmother, I couldn't help my grandfather marrying her, could I? Kind,
gracious sir, you are too just to punish a poor man for what isn't his
fault!" Tommy was, but he had no intention of showing it at the moment.
"Let me off, don't tell anybody. I will do anything you wish,
anything----"

"You are a disgusting and repulsive sight," said Hambledon from the
bottom of his heart. "However, I will give you one chance to serve the
Reich, just one. If you satisfy me fully in that, it may incline me to
mercy."

"Tell me what you want," said Weinecke instantly, rising to his feet and
clasping his hands in a gesture of submission.

"Put your hands down by your sides for a start," snapped Hambledon, who
found the man more intolerable every moment. "Stand up straight and
answer my questions. You will not, I think, lie to me. Now, about the
twelve thousand marks you sent to Berlin----"

Weinecke supplied a great deal of very useful information. He was the
head of the Aachen branch of the organization which fleeced the Jews at
the expense of the Government, for that was what it amounted to. The
Jews declared to the Government for forfeit, a mere fraction of their
actual possessions. Weinecke, and others in similar positions on every
German frontier, not only connived at this but actively assisted the
Jews by banking the rest of the money as their own. When the moment came
for the Jew to leave Germany, he was given one-fifth of his property to
take with him and the organization applied the rest to its own uses.
Weinecke explained that they always--or nearly always--kept faith with
the Jews, and gave them so high a proportion as twenty per cent, to
induce other Jews to deal with them in the same way. It paid the Jew and
it paid them.

"Yes," thundered Hambledon, "and the only one that suffers is the
Government of the Reich, and what do you care for that? Go on. These
people in Berlin."

Weinecke said plainly that Herr Goebbels was the brain behind the
affair, but never appeared openly. The Berlin Committee, so to express
it, were the eight gentlemen whose names the gracious Herr had deigned
to read to him--Gagel, Dettmer, Kitzinger, Tietz, Rautenbach, Militz,
Baumgartner and Eigenmann. They received, of course, subscriptions from
all parts of Germany, not only from Aachen, at their monthly meetings.
This twelve thousand marks in which the Herr was interested was not,
naturally, the whole of the month's supply from Aachen, as amounts were
transmitted weekly. It so happened that in that week there was only one
windfall, but a large one.

"So when they got there the cupboard wasn't really bare," said Tommy to
himself. "Only one plum missing. When's the next meeting?" he added
aloud. Weinecke said, as Hambledon expected, May the 4th. It was the
second date on the card found with the money.

"Where do they meet?"

"I don't know, honoured sir, I've never heard. On my honour I've no
idea."

"Your honour! You mean, on the head of your father."

Weinecke, to whom speech had given a certain amount of confidence,
shrivelled up again, and Hambledon improved the moment by extracting
full details of the Aachen end of the business, names, addresses and
all, with a view to effective action. "Now," he said, "what about
Ginsberg?"

"Ginsberg?"

"Ginsberg was a member of the Frontier Guard at Aachen. He was shot at
Aachen in August last year--nine months ago."

"Oh, I remember now. Ginsberg, yes. He took it upon himself to
disapprove of this business. He made trouble. He was one of those
would-be superior people----"

"Silence!" roared Hambledon, really angry this time. "He was my servant,
and you dared----"

"Oh, my God, what have I done? I did not know, noble sir, I didn't
know--I didn't do it, I didn't even complain of him. Schultz did that, I
had nothing to do with it, Schultz complained to the local court and
they shot him, I didn't, I----"

Hambledon touched the bell-push on his desk; two troopers came in
promptly. Hambledon pointed one finger at Weinecke and said, "Take him
away, he annoys me. Return for orders."

Weinecke collapsed on the carpet and was dragged, howling and
struggling, from the room. Hambledon poured himself out a drink and
swallowed it, lit a cigar and took a turn or two up and down the room
till the trooper returned and saluted.

"The man is guilty of murder," said the Chief of Police. "He will be
shot at eight to-morrow morning."

The trooper saluted again and went back to his mate in the ante-room
outside.

"Speakin' generally," he said, "the Chief is easy though stric', an' not
given to tempers, not like some I could mention. But when he gets going
proper, _Herrgott_, give me Goering!"

Hambledon took another turn across the room.

"There is also Schultz," he said to himself. "One of these days,
Ginsberg my servant, I will deal with Schultz."

A day or two later he spoke to Franz. "I think you once told me that you
and your friends between you served most of the Nazi leaders in private
service."

"That is so, sir."

"If it so happened that among your patrons were any of these men, it
would be interesting to know where and when they are going to meet on
May the 4th. Their names are Gagel, Dettmer, Kitzinger, Tietz,
Rautenbach, Militz, Baumgartner and Eigenmann."

"On May the 4th," said Franz.

"On May the 4th--that's next Thursday. To-day's Saturday. Not too much
time."

"I will do my best to ascertain, sir."

"Thank you. It will, I fear, be my painful duty to arrest eight members
of your German Freedom League at that meeting."

"Sir?" said the startled Franz.

"Yes. Their names are Gagel, Dettmer--and so on. I repeated them to you
just now."

"I should be very surprised, sir, to learn that any of these gentlemen
are Freedom League members."

"Not half so surprised as they will be, Franz, if all goes well."

Franz stared at his master for a moment, and then broke into a low but
distinct chuckle. "To serve you, sir, if I may take the liberty of
saying so, is not merely a duty, but a pleasure."

"I reciprocate your sentiments," said Tommy solemnly. "'You're
exceedingly polite,'" he hummed, as the man left the room, "'and I think
it only right to return the compliment.' Some day, please God, I'll sit
in the stalls at the Savoy again and see a Gilbert and Sullivan opera
right through from the overture to 'God Save the King.'"

There was a small lecture-hall attached to the Rektor Art School in
Berlin, a room about thirty feet by twenty, with a stage at one end
adorned by a backcloth representing the Rhine at Ehrenbreitstein, and
double entrance doors at the other. There was also, of course, a door at
each side of the stage giving on to dressing-rooms behind, two bare
rooms with looking-glasses on the walls and pegs for hats and coats. One
of these rooms communicated with the Art School, the other had a door
which opened into a side street. This door was kept locked, but Tommy
Hambledon had seen to it that the lock was well oiled, and what is more,
he had a key to it, for it was in this hall that the Land and Field Club
held their monthly meetings.

"Land and Field Club," said Tommy, when this was reported to him. "Lynx
and Fox Club. Association of Stoats and Weasels. Thank you, Franz."

There was a full meeting on the night of May the 4th. Eigenmann as
chairman and Rautenbach as treasurer sat at a table in front of the
stage to conduct proceedings, while the other six grouped themselves in
gracefully negligent attitudes on the chairs facing them. The entrance
doors at the end of the hall were guarded outside, but not the side door
giving to the dressing-room, since that, of course, was locked.
Eigenmann had tried it himself. The table was covered with papers,
interesting and informative in themselves, and there were also eight fat
little packets of notes which the company found even more interesting
than the papers. Business was proceeding in an atmosphere of peace,
comfort and security. "A good month, on the whole," said Rautenbach,
settling his eyeglass more securely in his right eye. "I will begin as
usual with the ports. Stettin, seventeen thousand five hundred marks.
Lbeck, two thousand six-fifty. Kiel, seven thousand two-seventy-five.
Hamburg, twenty-four thousand three hundred. Bremen, only seven----"

Rautenbach saw Dettmer, facing him, suddenly sit up and stare past him
towards the stage with a look of horror.

"--hundred and twenty," finished Rautenbach, turning his head to see
what the other was looking at. Dettmer had seen the left-hand door open
quietly, Rautenbach saw a file of police come rapidly through it, jump
off the stage, and hurl themselves on the assembled company, including
himself. Eigenmann, having his back to the stage, was taken completely
by surprise and promptly handcuffed, but the others put up a good fight
and there ensued a very notable uproar. In the struggle the table was
upset and papers and money slid to the floor in a heap; the gigantic
Tietz, flinging from him the two policemen who had attached themselves
to his arms, made a dive at this and started tearing up papers with the
muddle-headed idea of destroying evidence. One of the police immediately
hit him on the head with the leg of a chair, and Tietz passed into
unconsciousness still clasping a double handful of lists and memoranda,
snatched up haphazard from the ground.

When the fracas died down and the prisoners had been quelled and
handcuffed, victors and victims, alike panting, saw the Chief of Police
return to the stage. His dignity was a little marred by his collar,
which stuck out at right-angles behind his left ear, but he surveyed the
scene with a benignity which the Land and Field Club disliked intensely.

"Well, well," he said. "Dear me, you have done it now, haven't you?
Sergeant, have those papers on the floor carefully collected and taken
to the police station; they are important evidence. Let a bucket of
water be poured over the large gentleman, it may revive him. I think the
gentlemen's coats are in the cloakroom we came through; they may resume
them and then be handcuffed again. The gentlemen will be searched at the
station, locked up for the night and charged to-morrow afternoon, I will
go through the evidence in the morning. I suppose the smaller fry
outside the door have also been netted? Good. I commend the police for
their efficiency. I am now going home. Good night, gentlemen."

Herr Goebbels was not himself present at the police-court proceedings
the following afternoon, but he went nearly insane with anger when his
representative gave an account of what had taken place.

"The Herr Polizei Oberhaupt himself gave evidence. He gave a detailed
account of the way the Jewish money business is worked, and it appears
he pounced at Aachen last night too. Every member of the organization
there was hauled out of bed and arrested. Schultz evaded the police and
came up here on a motor-cycle, riding all night, to report it. But that
is not the worst."

"What----"

"All the papers at the Rektor Art School Hall were of course impounded,
and the eight men are charged, not with defrauding the State of the
Jews' money as you'd expect, but with being members of the German
Freedom League."

"_What?_"

"The German Freedom League. Not ordinary members, either, but a sort of
local executive committee. Important documentary evidence was found, not
only on the table but also in the gentlemen's pockets, and worse still,
in the houses of some of them when they were searched. Eigenmann's,
Rautenbach's and Baumgartner's, to be exact."

"What happened?"

"The magistrate sentenced them to ten years in a concentration camp,
each. I don't know what's happened to our people at Aachen."

"Damn the people at Aachen," said Goebbels hoarsely. "Go away and let me
think this out--if I can," he added, as the man went. "Freedom League!
That devil Lehmann has worked this somehow. It can't be true. It's
impossible. No, it's not impossible, but I don't believe it. Eigenmann
would never--but he's easily led. Rautenbach is capable of it, but he
wouldn't dare. On the other hand, where do the Freedom League get their
funds from? Must be from something like this and somebody runs it, why
not Rautenbach? No, it's ridiculous. Lehmann has done this somehow, and
the Leader will be so pleased. Who are those two men----" He rang the
bell and his informant returned.

"Who were those two men we put into Lehmann's police? Send for them at
once, I want to speak to them."

"They may be on duty----"

"I said, send for them!"

They came, and found Goebbels white and shaking with fury.

"What do you know about these arrests last night?"

"We were there, sir. We were among the police selected for the duty."

"Oh, were you? Good. Now, those Freedom League papers were planted. Tell
me how it was done."

"They couldn't have been, sir. There was some among the papers on the
table and some in the gentlemen's pockets."

"They were put there beforehand."

"If you say so, sir. But why didn't the gentlemen see them on the
table?"

"They were brought in afterwards."

"Impossible, sir. I found some of them myself, almost before the fight
was over."

"They were----" Goebbels fought for self-control and stopped. "You may
go," he said, and the men were glad to do so.

"It seems true," he said. "But I don't believe it. This is Lehmann's
work; pompous, sententious devil, always talking about virtue and
morality, blast him. Rautenbach could do it---- If it's the last thing I
do in this life I'll get Lehmann----"

"Quite easy," said Tommy to Reck. "I distributed papers in their coats
while my gallant police charged in, then I followed them into the fray,
fell over the table, which upset, papers cascaded from under my overcoat
and the helpful Tietz clasped them to his bosom. Always remember this,
Reck, my pippin. When men are fighting, they aren't _looking_."




CHAPTER 20


Goebbels' eight friends arrived at the concentration camp; a group of
pampered, arrogant men who hid their uneasiness behind a screen of
defiance. The Camp Commandant looked them over and decided he did not
like them, after which they ceased at once to be pampered, their
arrogance vanished, and even their defiance wore thin.

In one part of the camp there was a row of cells with a warders' room at
the end which was sometimes used for interviewing prisoners. It was a
bare, ugly room with a wide window in front looking on to the parade
ground; at the back of the room was a row of horizontal ventilating
windows well above eye-level, set wide open on this sunny May morning.
Outside the back wall of this room, below the ventilators, a wide garden
bed ran the whole length of the row of cells, and here one of the
prisoners, with a line, a dibber, and a can of water, was setting out
young cabbages.

He heard talking inside the room but took no interest at first in what
was said. Nothing that anybody said could ever make him less of a Jew,
and as that was the only offence he had committed there was no atonement
possible. He had a large share of the fatalism of his race; he knew
perfectly well that compared with most of his fellows he was extremely
lucky so long as the same Camp Commandant remained, and he had sunk into
an uneasy apathy with his lot, broken only by occasional frenzied
attacks of craving for freedom, freedom, and the air again. So he worked
on placidly, sometimes murmuring to the cabbages about their roots, till
his attention was attracted by a voice raised higher than before.

"Of course they were planted, Herr Goebbels! The police brought them
in."

Goebbels. Talking to his prisoner friends, no doubt. The gardener moved
even more quietly than before and listened.

"Not the police," said Goebbels' incisive voice. "That swine Lehmann."

There followed a confused murmur, presumably of assent, and presently
Goebbels went on:

"I have been looking up his past. He joined the Party at Munich in the
early days, he was a curator in the Deutches Museum then. Before that
again, in '18, he worked in the Naval Establishment at Hamburg. It is
known that he came there from a hospital at Ostende, so presumably he
had been wounded, but what branch he served in or where he came from, I
can't find out. The hospital staff scattered and the books were lost or
destroyed when we retreated at the end of the war, and he never talks
about himself."

"Sounds like a thoroughly worthy citizen," said somebody, with a sneer.

"It does seem as though there's nothing in his past to bring up against
him--unlike most of us," said Goebbels, with a sardonic laugh. "Besides,
if there were it wouldn't do any good, the Leader trusts him."

"So you've just got to sit down under it," said a deep voice, "while we
rot in here."

"I can't attempt to get you out while he's in office," said Goebbels,
"but I'm certainly not going to sit down under it, Tietz. I'm going to
do something very definite quite soon; in July, to be exact. If I don't,
he'll frame me next, and then where will you be?"

"Showing you round the camp, I expect," someone said, and laughed.

"There is a very important commission going to Danzig in July," said the
voice of Goebbels, "they are going to--er--arrange and expedite future
events. They are arriving unostentatiously, so they can't have the usual
conspicuous guards, but as they are very important I think I can
persuade the Fhrer to send the Chief of Police with them in person.
While he is there he will be assassinated by the ill-mannered
Danzigers."

"How will you persuade them that he's the right man to assassinate?"

"I shan't attempt it, of course, I shall send two men to do it, and the
Danzigers can take the blame. The anti-Nazi Danzigers, that is. I'll
send Schultz for one, he's done one or two little jobs for me before,
and I'll find someone to go with him."

"Thought Schultz was at Aachen," said another voice. "Wasn't he roped in
with the rest?"

"No, he wasn't at home that night when they called for him and the
rumour got round. He hopped on a motor-cycle and left for Berlin, he's
there now."

"Why wait till Lehmann goes to Danzig?" asked the deep voice. "Why not
do it now and let us get out of this filthy hole?"

"Do you want a heresy-hunt started in Berlin, with everyone looking
round to see whom Lehmann has annoyed recently? Don't be a fool----"

Two guards turned the corner and came strolling down the path towards
the cabbage-planter, who suddenly awoke to the fact that he had not done
a stroke of work for ten minutes, so he hastily went on planting. The
guards passed him without comment, but stopped a little farther on to
discuss some matter of dog-breeding, he had to appear industrious in
their presence. In a few minutes the voices in the room ceased and he
heard a car drive off, the interview was over. He ought to have been
grateful to Goebbels, who had given him that priceless boon in a
prisoner's life, something fresh to think about, instead of which he
spent many hopeful hours invoking new and ingenious curses on the sleek
black head of the Minister of Propaganda.

It was nearly a week later that the camp had another distinguished
visitor, the Herr Polizei Oberhaupt. He drove his own car, an Opel
saloon, and went a little out of his way to drop the Frulein Ludmilla
Rademeyer at the small house where her friend, the Frau Beckensburg, was
living in terrified obscurity.

"I am very unhappy about Christine, dear. She has aged so you would
hardly know her, in fact she seems to be breaking up. I am really afraid
if you can't do something soon she won't live much longer."

"Tell her to be brave and hold on," said Tommy. "I hope it won't be much
longer now. I am going to the camp this afternoon mainly to see the
Beckensburgs and have a look round the place, I hope that may give me an
idea. It's not easy, even for the Chief of Police, to get two Jews out
of a concentration camp."

"I know, dear, I know. I feel a tiresome old woman to keep on worrying
you about her, but we have been friends for nearly sixty years. After
all, you must have much more important things to deal with----"

"Don't talk like that," said Hambledon almost roughly. "I haven't
forgotten a winter's day at Dusseldorf when we were cold and starving.
Someone gave us firing and food--do you remember the real butter? When I
forget that----"

"Klaus dear," said the old lady, "I wish it wasn't so public, I should
like to kiss you."

"Better not, I should probably run us into a lamp-post. Here you are,
give her my love and tell her to hold on a little longer. Shall I call
for you on my way back?"

"No, don't bother, I'll take a taxi. Had I better take the rug with me?"

"No, why? It'll be all right in the car--I'll throw it in the back."

"Well, don't lose it, Klaus. I shall see you this evening, then."

The guards at the gate of the camp stood to attention as the Chief of
Police drove his car past them and up the drive. He pulled up outside
the Commandant's office and went in without delay; he had various
matters to attend to besides the welfare of the Beckensburgs, with whom
he wanted a short interview. He also wanted a much clearer idea than he
had previously had about the way the camp was run, it would be quite
impossible to make even the simplest plan for getting the Beckensburgs
out until he knew exactly what he had to cope with. Induce the
Commandant to talk, that's the idea. Quite a decent fellow, by all
accounts, considering his job...

Hambledon was so deep in thought that he saw without noticing a prisoner
who was wandering about the drive with a sack over his shoulder, armed
with a stick which had a long steel spike at the end, his job was to
collect any stray bits of paper which might be blowing about. The
prisoner recognized the Chief of Police, and his face lit up, but he
made no move to attract Hambledon's attention and merely went on with
his work while the Chief of Police disappeared within doors.

The sun shone and the wind blew. Two warders came up with two prisoners,
father and son, the Beckensburgs, summoned to an interview with the Herr
Polizei Oberhaupt. The guards at the gate left off looking up the drive
and turned their attention elsewhere, in the distance a line of men were
digging, watched by armed warders. Their bodies moved rhythmically,
their spades flashed in the sun; a peaceful scene if one did not know
what was hidden behind it. The man with the spike worked gradually
nearer to the car.

Presently a raucous bell clanged from a turret on the top of the office;
the diggers straightened their backs, shouldered their spades, and
marched off out of sight. All over the camp unhappy men ceased work and
gathered in long sheds with trestle tables down the middle, for it was
the hour of what passes for supper in a concentration camp.

The scavenger ceased work with the rest, cleared a few fragments of
paper from his steel spike into the sack, and walked towards the car, he
had to go that way, there was nothing suspicious about that. When he was
close to the Opel he cast an anxious glance at the guards by the gate,
but Providence prompted an enthusiastic young Air Force officer, passing
overhead, to loop the loop at that moment, and the men were watching
him. The prisoner dodged round the car, opened one of the rear doors,
and shot in, taking his sack and his unpleasant-looking weapon with him.
He threw himself on the floor and, by putting one foot against the
door-post, managed to shut the door properly without slamming it. After
that, he covered himself, the sack and his tool completely with Frau
Rademeyer's rug, made himself as small and flat as possible, and waited
with a beating heart for the car's owner to return.

Unendurable ages dragged past before he heard footsteps and voices, the
Chief of Police being seen off by the Camp Commandant in person. They
stood on the doorstep while the Commandant talked about his pet system
of checking prisoners several times a day. "There is one call-over
almost due now," he said, "at the end of supper; would it amuse you to
see it? It is rather----"

"If he does," thought the prisoner, "if he does I shall be missed, they
will hunt, I shall be found here, God of mercy, make him say no. Make
him say no----"

"--staggered times for guard-changing," continued the Commandant, "so
that there is no moment of the day or night when all the guards at once
are distracted from their duty."

"Admirable," said the Chief of Police, "quite admirable. The
organization and management of this camp should be a model for every
such camp in Germany. But no, my dear fellow, I mustn't stay any longer,
taking up more of your valuable time. Besides, I also have one or two
unimportant matters to see to this evening----"

"I have detained you too long----"

"On the contrary--"

"I bore everybody with my systems----"

"Everything I have seen has been of absorbing interest."

"But where is your driver?" asked the Commandant, laying his hand on the
handle of the rear door.

"I drive myself," said the Chief of Police, "whenever possible. It
fidgets me to sit in state in the back of a car with someone else
driving."

"All really good drivers feel that. Will you not have the rug over your
knees? These May evenings turn chilly."

"No, thank you, your excellent Niersteiner--besides, it would be in the
way." Hambledon started the engine. "_Auf wiedersehen_, Herr Commandant,
and thank you." He moved the gear lever.

"A pleasure," said the Commandant, standing at the salute, and at that
moment the bell rang again. "That is for the call-over, will you
not--no. _Auf wiedersehen_, Herr Polizei Oberhaupt."

"Oh, God," whispered the prisoner under the rug. "Oh, God, all this
politeness; oh, God----"

Hambledon let in the clutch, turned the car and went slowly down the
drive. He had to stop at the gate to let some traffic go by, and one of
the guards came up to the car to say something civil to the
distinguished visitor. The prisoner broke into a perspiration so violent
that he could feel it running off his face, till at last the car moved
off, turned into the road, changed into second--third--top. Hambledon
leaned back in his seat and said, "Thank God that's over. Foul place,"
aloud, but the prisoner did not hear him, for he had fainted.

He came back to consciousness with a violent start from a dreadful dream
that he had been buried alive in a coffin too short for him, flung back
the rug and sat up. The next instant he remembered where he was and sank
back again at once. There was, however, no need now to stifle under the
rug, at least not for the present, and he drew long breaths of the cool
night air. Street lights appeared and the traffic increased, they were
approaching Berlin. "I ought to have stopped him in the country,"
thought the prisoner, "where we'd have been alone, it's too late now,
too many people about. If he opens the door himself it'll be all right,
but if a servant opens it----"

They passed swiftly through the streets, for the car of the Chief of
Police was given precedence, occasionally the prisoner risked a glance
out of the window and recognized buildings he knew. They went through
the Government quarter without stopping. "Good," said the prisoner,
"he's going straight home." He lay down again on the floor and arranged
the rug carefully over himself.

At last the car slowed down in a quiet street and came to a stop before
the entrance to a block of flats. The driver switched off the engine,
opened the door, kneeled upon the seat where he had been sitting, and
snatched the rug off the prisoner with the words: "Hands up! I've got
you covered!"

The prisoner obeyed at once, for he could see an ugly but familiar
object in Hambledon's hand.

"Now! Who are you, and what the devil are you doing in my car?"

"Squadron-Leader Lazarus, sir, and I've escaped from the camp."

"Lazarus," said Hambledon thoughtfully. "Lazarus. I've heard----"

"Sir, I must speak to you privately, I've something desperately
important to tell you. Do let me speak to you and then let me go, I'll
take my chance, I don't want to be a bother to you."

"Squadron-Leader Lazarus," repeated Hambledon, in the voice of a man
trying to remember something. "Yes, better come up to my flat." He
opened the rear door of the car for the man to get out and walked up the
stairs a little behind him, still unostentatiously keeping him covered
with the automatic. "Ring the bell, will you?" said Hambledon, because
it is not easy to hold a latch-key and a pistol in the same hand at
once, or to watch a prisoner and look at what you're doing at the same
time. When Franz came to the door, however, Hambledon slipped the
automatic in his pocket, though he still kept his hand upon it.

"Franz, show this gentleman into the study, and bring in some--what'll
you drink? Whisky and soda?"

"Don't believe I've tasted it since '18, I'd love some," said Lazarus
with a smile.

Hambledon's face cleared, the reference to '18 supplied the clue for
which he had been searching. "Of course," he said, "of course, I
remember now. You were at Darmstadt the day the Allied Commission came
to destroy your machines, Goering was there, you had a little trouble
with him if I remember correctly."

"Were you also a pilot?" said Lazarus, staring at him. "I am so sorry--I
ought to remember you, no doubt----"

"No, no, I was--I merely happened to be there. I was not in the Air
Force and had not the honour of being presented to you."

The Squadron-Leader smiled bitterly. "I think that was the last day upon
which it was an honour to be presented to me," he said. "Now I am only a
Jew, and who says Jew says muck."

"Is that the only reason why you were sent to that camp? Have a drink."

The man nodded. "You can see it in the records. Not too much, please,
I'm not used to it now, and I have something to tell you."

"Sit down and drink that first," said Hambledon. "You look all in. Had a
rotten time, of course."

"Not too bad," said Lazarus. "I was lucky. The Commandant was one of my
Flight-Lieutenants, and he did make things as easy for me as he could.
Never got anything really foul to do, gardening most of the time, gave
me cigarettes sometimes, and the guards looked the other way if they
caught me smoking behind the tool-shed--talk about catching me, how did
you know I was in the car?"

"Saw you reflected in the driving-mirror when you sat up," explained
Tommy. "Knew you must have stowed away at the camp. Quite safe, nobody
slays the driver of a fast car when it's moving. That's why I drove so
fast," he added with a disarming smile. "I was wondering whether you'd
brought your spike with you, you were the man in the drive, weren't
you?"

Lazarus nodded. "It's in the car, I had to bring it. And the sack, of
course. Now, what I had to tell you was this. You know, of course, that
eight of Goebbels' men are in the camp?"

Tommy smiled. "I should know, I sent them there."

"Yes? Well, Goebbels came down to see them the other day, he talked to
them in a warders' room there for privacy, but I was planting cabbages
at the back and I heard a good deal of what was said." He repeated the
conversation as accurately as he could, and Hambledon listened intently.

"Schultz," he said, when Lazarus had finished. "Schultz. It's rather a
coincidence that he should be looking for me, because I am looking for
him. I have a little bill to pay Herr Schultz. It is also borne in upon
me, Squadron-Leader Lazarus, that I am also deeply indebted to you. Even
if I'd seen Schultz, it might not have occurred to me that he was after
my blood. Wonder how he'll set about it? Apparently I'm safe till we all
arrive in Danzig--first I've heard of that, too. Thank you. I must do
something about you first."

"If I could get out of the country," said Lazarus eagerly, "into
Switzerland, say, but it doesn't matter where, I'd be all right. I think
I'd go to America and get a pilot's job, fancy flying again----"

"Of course," said Hambledon slowly. "You can still fly, can't you? One
doesn't get hopelessly out of practice, does one? I know nothing about
it."

"No, at least, not for a long time, especially if you've done a lot, and
I was a regular commercial pilot till they pounced on me two years ago.
I've kept fit, too, I told you I was lucky, they never knocked me about,
in the camp I mean."

"Do you think you could fly a plane to Switzerland?"

"Yes, sir," said Lazarus promptly. "I was on the Swiss route the last
nine months I was flying."

"Good. You'll have to hide up while I make arrangements, you may have to
fly two old ladies across the frontier--this way up, handle gently,
fragile, do not bump, eggs with care, you understand?"

"They shall not know they've touched the ground," said Lazarus with
shining eyes, "till the bus stops."

"In the meantime," said Hambledon, "it's the loft under the roof for
you, I'm afraid, but we'll make you as comfortable as we can. There's a
wireless set up there already, but we'll add a few more amenities. Come
along and meet a friend of mine who'll look after you; his name is
Reck."

"So Goebbels is looking into my past and finding it inconveniently
blameless," said Hambledon to Reck, when Lazarus had been fed, stowed
away, and provided with a few comforts. "I wonder how long it will be
before it occurs to him to look up my fingerprints?"




CHAPTER 21


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 Fhrer, 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
Fhrer 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 Fhrer'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 Fhrer'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
Frulein, 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'tat_ 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."




CHAPTER 22


The Commission travelled to Danzig by the ordinary train, not a special,
and merely had compartments reserved for them since they did not wish to
be more conspicuous than was unavoidable. Hambledon and Reck had one
compartment to themselves, as soon as the train had settled into its
swing the Chief of Police sent for his two plain-clothes men and
addressed them in private.

"There are two men somewhere on this train among the ordinary
passengers, their names are Schultz and Petzer. Here are their official
descriptions and photographs, you had better, perhaps, study them here
and now." He lit a cigar and sat in silence, looking out of the window,
till the men handed him back the papers. "Schultz and Petzer are going
to Danzig. On arrival at the station, you will follow these men and see
everything they do. When they have found quarters for the night, one of
you will come back to me and report but the other will remain on the
watch. They are not to be lost sight of, night or day, or the
consequences may be very serious."

"If they should part company while only one of us is on duty, which are
we to follow?"

"Schultz. Now go and identify them, but don't come back here, it would
be disastrous if they saw you with me. You know where I shall be staying
in Danzig."

When the men had gone, Hambledon turned to Reck and said, "You're very
quiet, what's the matter?"

"I have lived in Germany," said Reck, without looking at him, "since
1901, that's thirty-seven years. What shall I do in England?"

"It's odd you should say that, I was thinking much the same myself. I've
been here almost continually since '14, and for fifteen years I believed
I was a German."

"I am one," said Reck, "in everything but birth."

"Yes. Latterly, you know, when things have been getting a little too
exciting for comfort, I've thought how wonderful it will be to live in
England again and sleep in peace with no fatal secret--that sounds
well--in the background waiting to blow me sky-high."

"No Gestapo," said Reck, in a tone of forced cheerfulness.

"No concentration camps."

"No S.S. troopers swaggering about, no bumptious Hitler youths."

"No Goebbels. Sounds like heaven, doesn't it?"

"Yes. But d'you realize I've almost forgotten the language?" said Reck.

"Oh, it'll soon come back, I've got a strong German accent myself, but
it'll wear off. You know, if you don't like the Government in England,
you can stand up on a soap-box in Hyde Park and say so----"

"In a strong German accent?"

"And if anybody tries to knock you off it the police will arrest him."

"Sounds just too marvellous," said Reck sardonically, "that is, for
anybody who wants to stand on a soap-box and abuse Chamberlain. But what
else is there to do?"

"I tell you one thing there'll be to do," said Hambledon cheering up.
"Go to the Foreign Office and collect twenty years' arrears of pay."

Reck brightened up a little. "Do you think they will pay it? We didn't
do much for them for fifteen years, you know."

"We'll tell them we spent the time making useful contacts," said
Hambledon, "and heaven knows we succeeded. It'll be fun trying to make
'em pay up, anyway. By the way, following the example of most of my
revered colleagues, I put away a tidy sum of my savings where I can get
at it presently."

"You won't starve, anyway," said Reck. "But what I still want to know
is, what shall we do all day?"

"Oh, we shall find some trouble to get into, I expect. Moreover, if
German Intelligence spots us, we shan't have to find trouble, it'll find
us. I think I'll live quietly in the country and grow pigs."

They arrived in Danzig towards evening, and Hambledon was busy arranging
for the protection of his Trade Commission from battle, murder, and
sudden death. There were sundry conferences arranged, some in Danzig
itself and one out at Zoppot, where Hambledon passed the time wandering
about the Casino. The baccarat room fascinated him, with its Moorish
arches outlined with electric lights, the unreal landscapes painted on
the walls and the vast open fireplace. He learned with awe that baccarat
was only played from 5 p.m. till 8 a.m., whereas roulette could be
played all day long, why, he never discovered.

The police reported that Schultz and Petzer had taken rooms in a not too
reputable apartment house behind the Heilige-Geist Kirche, near the
Fischmarkt, and one morning when the Commission was escorted round the
sights of Danzig, he was led away from the party at the Butter Tor and
had the house pointed out to him.

The Commission was to stay in Danzig for a week, and Hambledon's idea
was to take rooms for himself and Reck in some sailors' boarding-house
down by the docks and slip away when the rest of the party went back to
Berlin. He was never a believer in having plans very cut and dried
beforehand, because too much prearrangement only gave scope for things
to go wrong. "Some scheme," he would say, "will doubtless present
itself," and it usually did. "When I have seen all my little lambs
safely into their fold, I shall have time to deal with Schultz. Till
then, my police can keep these two in order."

"Little lambs," grunted Reck, who was not impressed by the Trade
Commission. "Old goats, most of 'em. What do you propose to do with
Schultz?"

"He is guilty of murder," said Hambledon quietly. "He killed a man named
Ginsberg who worked for me and trusted me, so Schultz is going to die. I
think I'll ask him to go for a little drive with me in my fine car"--the
Danzig Nazis had provided cars for the Trade Commission and Hambledon
had one for his own use--"take him out somewhere in the forests round
here and shoot him. I shall tell him why first, so it will be quite
fair."

Reck was on the point of saying, "Suppose he refuses to go?" when he
glanced at Hambledon's face and somehow the question seemed foolish, so
he omitted it and substituted another. "What happens after that?"

"After that we leave, as inconspicuously as possible, in a ship bound
for England if we can find one, if not, in a ship bound for anywhere
except Germany. Have you ever been a stowaway, my wandering boy?"

"Never," said Reck, "and I----"

"Never mind," said Tommy cheerfully. "You will. We had better go and buy
ourselves some clothes, any slop shop will do, and a couple of cheap
suit-cases. We can then walk out of this hotel in these suits, change in
any secluded spot which seems convenient, and proceed on our way to the
docks."

"It might not be a bad plan," suggested Reck, "if we went to the docks
beforehand and had a look round. We might be in a hurry when we do
leave."

"Sound idea," said Hambledon. "We might go this afternoon, I shouldn't
think my flock would get into serious trouble between 2 and 4 p.m."

They found the sort of shop they were looking for, and bought clothes of
the sort that seafaring men wear when they spruce up to come ashore.
They changed into their new suits in a place where a desire for privacy
is respected, packed their other garments in the suit-cases, and emerged
into the hot sunshine of a Baltic summer's day. Hambledon, strange to
relate, had his head bandaged, the Chief of the German Police had become
fairly well known by sight in Danzig.

"I can't imagine," said Reck, turning his wrists uneasily in his coat
sleeves, "why we think of the poor as thinly clad. These are the
thickest garments I ever wore."

"I know what is meant," said Tommy, easing his coat collar where it
chafed his neck, "by hard-wearing cloth. It means hard on the wearer.
How do I look?"

"Too clean and tidy. How do I look?"

"Too respectable. Couldn't you look a bit more--I think 'raffish' is the
word I want? Leer at the girls."

"Leer yourself," said the horrified Reck. "At my age---- I tell you
what. These clothes want sleeping in, I remember now. When I was selling
papers, a woman gave me quite a decent suit once, at least, it had been
cleaned and pressed, I think it had been fumigated too, but never mind.
I felt quite smart for a day, but I had to sleep in the things that
night--it was cold--and next morning--well, I was myself again, that's
all."

"I'll treat these to-night. Do you think it would do as well if I
crumpled them up and slept on them?"

"No," said Reck unkindly. "Where are we going?"

"To take a room in some dockside tavern. We don't want to have to wander
about seeking accommodation if we ourselves are being urgently sought,
we want to be able to dive in and stay there. We will make sure the
proprietor knows us again, too."

"I think this'll do," said Tommy, a little later. "It looks to be more
or less what we want, and I don't think I wish to walk any farther this
afternoon, anyway. I have exercised the pores of my skin quite enough,
and as for this bandage, phew! The Seven Stars, even if someone crowns
us with a bottle we ought to be able to remember that. Come in."

"I am still a teetotaller," said Reck firmly.

"Not here, my lad; at least, not so as anyone would notice it. Perhaps
there's an aspidistra you can make friends with. Here goes."

There was no aspidistra, but there were some ferns in pots along the bar
in places where they would not inconvenience customers. Reck took his
stand by one of them, and it is to be hoped that _Pteris cretica_ likes
schnapps.

After that, they inspected a room which was vacant, approved it, and
paid a deposit. More schnapps and a little light converse with the
innkeeper completed their business, and they left the place, changed
back into their ordinary clothes on the way home and returned to
Hambledon's hotel. One of the police whom he had detailed to follow
Schultz and Petzer came in to report.

"The suspects spent the morning quietly in the vicinity of their
lodgings," he said, referring to a note-book. "They visited various
taverns, I have a list of them here."

"Omit the list," said Hambledon.

"Very good, sir. At one-fifteen they came to the neighbourhood of this
hotel and hung about, one in front and the other, Petzer, in view of the
side entrance. Pursuant upon your instructions, I concentrated upon
Schultz. At two-fifteen precisely, the suspect Petzer came rapidly round
the corner from the side entrance, spoke to the suspect Schultz, and
both walked away at a good pace."

Hambledon allowed his glance to stray carelessly in the direction of
Reck, who gave no sign of having heard anything interesting.
Nevertheless, two-fifteen was the hour at which they themselves had left
the side entrance to the hotel.

"The suspects walked fast at first and then more slowly through several
streets towards the poorer quarter of the town. I have a list of the
streets."

"Omit the list."

"Very good, sir. They hung about for some time in a small street off the
Johannis Gasse, started again towards the river and again waited just
inside the north door of the Johannis Kirche. Here they stayed about
twenty minutes. There seemed to be a certain amount of discussion as to
what they should do next, they were plainly arguing, and as they passed
me I heard Petzer say, 'I don't think it is,' and Schultz answered, 'I
do. I'm sure it is.' They then proceeded in the direction of the wharves
along the Mottlau and came to another stop in an archway opposite a
tavern called the Seven Stars. The time was then three-forty-eight. They
waited here until four-thirty-two and then returned to the Johannis
Kirche where they stayed for only twelve minutes. They then walked
smartly in the direction of this hotel. When it became evident where
they were heading, I rang up Hermann as arranged and he took over from
me outside here at the moment when the suspects went away. That is all I
have to report."

"Very good," said Hambledon, rose to his feet and took a turn across the
room and back. "I think it probable," he went on, "that they have now
gone home. Find out, and telephone to me."

"Very good, sir," said the man, saluted, and left the room. Hambledon
looked at Reck and laughed.

"So much for our beautiful disguises," he said. "Schultz and Petzer have
been trailing us all the afternoon."

"Apparently our disguises were good enough for your police," said Reck.

"They weren't looking for us, and anyway, they were busy. Ever tried
trailing anybody through crowded streets without getting near enough for
him to see you? It's a hell of a job, you don't notice much else. But
you see what's happened, don't you? They know where we're going, what
we're going to look like, and most serious of all, the fact that we are
arranging to get away--they must have guessed that. They know a lot too
much."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Have something to eat, for a start, I can't do anything till that
fellow telephones. I hope he'll be quick, because some of the Commission
want to go for a stroll round Danzig to-night and I shall be expected to
go with them. I should, anyway, because heaven knows what mischief
they'd get into if they were out on their own."

"Bear-leading, eh?"

"No. Puppy-walking."

Half an hour later the telephone rang, Hambledon lifted the receiver and
said "Yes" at intervals. He ended by saying, "Very good. You and Hermann
can both go off duty now. Yes, there is no need to continue the watch
to-night. Report here for duty at 10 a.m. to-morrow." He put the
receiver down. "They have gone in, the police are going off, and I am
going out. See you later."

"Don't you want me?" said Reck.

"No. Yes, you can sit in the car, it may save questions, and you might
be useful keeping Schultz in order on the drive. I shall leave the car
by the Heilige-Geist Kirche and you will stay with it. Bring your
automatic."

Hambledon walked along the street behind the Fischmarkt, turned into the
entrance of an apartment house and walked up the stairs without
hesitation. It was a shabby building with paint peeling off the walls,
worn stone stairs with an iron handrail leading straight up from the
door, and a fine mixed smell of cookery, oilskins and damp stone floors.
There were two doors on each half landing, Hambledon went up three
flights with his right hand in his coat pocket, opened the first door
with his left hand and went swiftly in. In fact, it might be said that
he burst in except that he did it so quietly, but the precaution was
wasted, for the room was empty.

There were two rooms in the apartment, a sitting-room first and a
bedroom opening out of it, Hambledon listened intently for any sound in
the further room, but there was none, so he walked through and
investigated it. It had two beds, a dressing-table and a washstand, with
signs of masculine occupation in the way of shaving-tackle, spare boots
and a coat or two. One of the coats, hung from a nail on the back of the
door, had a pocket which looked heavy. It contained an automatic.

"Careless, careless," said Tommy, and thoughtfully unloaded it.
"Possibly one of our friends is unarmed."

He returned to the sitting-room. There was a table in the middle, with
playing-cards lying in confusion on it, a pipe, a tin half full of
tobacco, a packet of cigarettes and some matches.

"Good," said Hambledon, surveying this. "They won't be long, they've
only gone to fetch the beer."

The window was wide open to the hot evening, and directly opposite to
him, only about fifteen feet away, was another window, also open. Tommy
glanced down, there was a well between, probably intended by an
optimistic architect to supply ventilation to the building all round it,
but it was completely airless and smelt of onions. He drew back again
rather too late, for there was a movement in the room opposite, a girl
came to the window and leaned out, her elbows on the sill, watching him.
He turned away, but she only laughed and shouted a remark across to him.
He scowled and withdrew modestly into the bedroom where she could not
see him so long as he stayed near the door, though this room was, of
course, equally commanded by the window opposite to it.

"Trudi!" called the girl to some unseen friend elsewhere in the block.
"Just fancy. A new man opposite, an' he's shy!"

A voice below called up a reply which Tommy felt sure was better
inaudible. "Confound the girl," he said irritably, "if all these windows
fill with Delilahs I am sunk. As it is, if she sees me with a gun in my
hand she'll tell the world."

However, the window opposite the bedroom remained vacant, Hambledon
pushed the door almost shut, and waited.

Presently the outer door of the apartment opened and two men entered,
talking. Objects were set upon the table with bumps, chairs were drawn
up, and there were sounds of settling down.

"Have a drink," said one voice.

"Thanks, I don't care if I do," said the other.

"You look worried," said the first voice, to the accompaniment of
pouring noises. "Buck up."

"I shall be glad when it's over; didn't reckon on being mixed up in this
sort of game."

"You don't 'ave to do nothin', on'y come with me an' help in the
getaway. You'll be good at that."

"Did you say it was to-night?"

"To-night, yes. Listen, it's easy. Some of that high-an'-mighty
Commission are goin' out to-night on the binge, an' Lehmann's goin' too
to keep em in some sort of order. Well, you know what those sort of
toffs are when they're on holiday. 'Show us somethin' tough,' they say,
an' off they goes an' all piles into some dockside pub they'd turn their
noses up at at home. ''Ow quaint,' they say, ''ow interesting.' I've
'eard 'em."

"Well?"

"Well, I'm havin' some of the boys keepin' a look out for 'em. When they
goes in somewhere where the likes of us can go, we all piles in and soon
somebody starts a bit of bother over somethin'. In the ensooin' uproar,
guns are drawn an' the Chief of Police is unfort'nately shot dead. After
which we all leaves in 'aste, as is natural, an' you an' me comes back
'ere, picks up our bits and pieces, and takes the first train for
Berlin. See? Simple."

"Don't see what you want me around for at all," objected Petzer.

"Gawd knows a strip of dried cod 'ud be more generally useful," said his
candid friend, "but you will at least know the way back 'ere from
wherever we are----"

The bedroom door opened noiselessly, and Hambledon appeared on the
threshold, with his hand in his pocket out of regard for the lady in the
room opposite, who was still leaning on the sill. In the same moment he
saw Schultz's automatic on the table within reach of his hand, no time
for argument here.

"Talking of shooting," said Tommy conversationally, "do you remember
Ginsberg? That's for Ginsberg," he said, and shot Schultz through the
head. The man slid to the floor, the gun he had snatched up spinning
from his hand, and immediately pandemonium broke loose. The girl
opposite uttered an ear-splitting shriek and followed it with cries of
"Murder! Murder! Help!" Petzer gave a yell of rage, and rushed at
Hambledon with his bare fists.

"Here, hold off, you fool," said Hambledon, parrying the attack, "I
don't want to kill _you_! Stop it, you idiot----"

Sounds of shouting filled the house, hurrying feet clattered on the
stairs, somebody tried to open the door and failed, because it was
bolted inside, so they hammered and kicked it instead. Hambledon was
getting an unpleasant surprise from Petzer, whom he had assumed from the
previous conversation to be something of a pacifist, but apparently the
man only had a conscientious objection to murder, especially when
directed against himself. Petzer landed heavily on Hambledon's left ear
and made his head sing.

"This practice will now cease," said Tommy, through clenched teeth, hit
the man in the wind, which made his head come forward, and then hit him
under the jaw. Petzer threw up his arms and dropped to the floor.

"Now," said Tommy, surveying the scene of battle, "what does A do? After
all, I am the Chief of Police, but I do hate making a public exhib----
That door'll be down in a minute."

Petzer, who was only half stunned, saw Schultz's automatic on the floor
under the table, picked it up and staggered blindly to his feet. While
he stood swaying, and shaking his head to clear his brain, Hambledon
retired hastily to the bedroom as the outer door fell in and two men
with it, backed up by several others who jammed up the doorway and
stared. They saw one man dead on the floor, obviously shot through the
head, another man standing over him waving an automatic, and drew the
obvious conclusion.

"He's shot him!"

"Shot his pal!"

"Murder!"

"Catch him! Tie him up!"

"Police! Murder!"

Petzer finally lost his temper and his head. He didn't know much but he
did know he hadn't killed Schultz, and this was too much. He fired a
couple of shots at random which happily hit the wall and not his fellow
Danzigers, and made a rush for the door. Room was made for him, as it
usually is for an angry man with an automatic, and he bolted down the
stairs, colliding with people coming up, and finally dropped over the
handrail of the last flight into the hall, dodged out into the street,
and ran like a hare, with a couple of policemen and half a dozen agile
citizens in hot pursuit.

The two men who fell in with the door very wisely stayed down and let
the wild ass stamp o'er their heads. When Petzer left the room they
picked themselves up, not in the least surprised to find a third man
there who seemed to have come from nowhere in particular, and all
charged down the stairs in pursuit of Petzer together.

Herr Schumbacher, the cobbler, had just made himself some coffee when
the uproar broke out. He lifted the pot off the fire to prevent it from
boiling over, and went to the door with it in his hand. Immediately the
crowd, in passing, gathered him in as a twig is swept away in a current,
and the boiling contents of the pot went over the heads and shoulders of
Herr Pfaltz, stevedore, and Frau Braun, wife of Heinrich Braun,
scavenger. From spectators in the uproar, they became participants, and
matters were not mended thereby.

Nobody had time to notice Hambledon.

Once out in the street, Tommy ran as fast as he could round two corners,
dropped into a walk, and rejoined Reck in the car near the Heilige-Geist
Kirche, panting slightly.

"Not got your man?" asked Reck.

"Oh, yes, I got him. Ginsberg may sleep in peace," said Hambledon,
tenderly caressing his left ear. "It didn't turn out quite as I
expected, there was something of a brawl. There was to have been another
meeting of the Joy-through-Shooting League to-night, with me for target,
but I should think that's off now. Schultz's boy friends were going to
pick a quarrel with the Commission----"

As for Petzer, he made his way to the goods yard, having an idea they
might be looking for him at the passenger station. He dodged round
trucks and stumbled over rails; somebody shouted at him so he dived into
a truck of which the doors were open and crouched behind bulky packages.
Probably the truck would go to Berlin; he had a muddled idea that most
things went to Berlin from Danzig, but it didn't matter. Anywhere out of
the place, anywhere----

Five minutes later somebody came along, slammed the truck doors and
bolted them, whistles blew, the truck began to move, bumped over points
and gathered speed. Petzer was off on the long run to Constantinople.




CHAPTER 23


Some half-dozen of the younger members of the Commission set out on a
tour of Danzig at about nine that night. They had a Danzig driver for
their seven-seated Mercds, and Hambledon, with Reck beside him,
followed in the black saloon which had been lent to him. He thought that
they might just as well have gone out in the afternoon and let a fellow
get to bed in decent time, since the only difference between 3 p.m. and
nine at night was that most of the shops were shut, as it was, of
course, broad daylight at that hour in those high northern latitudes.

"What's the programme?" asked Reck, as the cars moved slowly off.

"Broadly speaking, a pub-crawl," said Hambledon. "We visit a few
assorted cafs in Danzig itself, some new, with chromium plate; some
old, with hereditary smells. After which, we drive along the beautiful
tree-lined road to Zoppot, to see the girl dancing in the fountain, play
roulette till they chuck us out, and so to bed. My job is to see that
the outing proceeds in a stately and preordained manner, and now that
Schultz is dead I expect it will. I wish I could leave my left ear at
home, tenderly wrapped in cotton-wool in a small box with 'A Present
from Danzig' on the lid."

"Girl dancing in the fountain? What's that?"

"At the casino at Zoppot. There is a fountain. There is a girl. They
turn on the fountain, also coloured floodlights beneath it. She gets in
and dances under the arches of water in the changing lights, you
understand. A pretty sight, I'm told, if a trifle French, the
Commission'll love it, bless their little cotton socks. What's this? Oh,
stop number one. I suppose I must go in, are you coming?"

"Mine's a Grenadine," said Reck, who privately thought the programme
sounded rather amusing. The first caf was very modern, of a type to be
found in any city from San Francisco right round to San Francisco, and
it did not detain the Commission long. There were plenty like that in
Berlin, they wanted to see something different.

The next place strongly resembled the under-croft of Rochester
Cathedral, and had a damping effect on the spirits of the party which
even schnapps failed to counteract.

"Is this tour all prearranged?" asked Reck.

"Of course it is, what did you expect? Those singularly sober men
holding large pots whom you see in all the corners are police."

"Oh. Suppose the Commission wants to go somewhere else?"

"The driver will dissuade them, that's part of his job. Besides," added
Hambledon cheerfully, "Schultz is dead, so I don't suppose it would
matter."

The third port of call was frankly vulgar without being funny and the
Commission became restive.

"Now we go to Zoppot," said the driver persuasively.

"No we don't," said the Commission. "Aren't there any real dockside
taverns here with sand on the floors and Norwegian seamen singing
choruses?"

"No Norwegian ships in at the moment, gentlemen. It is nearly time
to----"

"Swedish seamen, then. Now, in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg I could
show you----"

"Harbour's very empty of ships at this season, gentlemen, and most of
the taverns close for July and August."

"That be hanged for a tale----"

"Gentlemen," broke in Hambledon, "the time is going on and it is nearly
seven miles to Zoppot. It would be a pity, would it not, to miss any of
the entertainment there?"

The driver threw him a grateful glance and some of the Commission
wavered, but the stalwarts stuck to their point.

"Look here, driver, if you can't find us something more amusing than
this we'll find it for ourselves. You hop in and drive where we tell you
to drive, and when we say stop, you stop. See?"

The driver looked at Hambledon, who merely made a gesture of resignation
to the inevitable, so the cars moved off again.

"You can hardly blame them," said Hambledon, "the tour as arranged was
not particularly inspired. There's not likely to be any trouble if we
keep these fellows in a good temper."

The procession took a devious route in the general direction of the
Vistula, since the Commission did not know the way and the driver sulked
and refused to tell them. Eventually someone recognized the Kran-tor at
the end of a street and remembered that that was on the quayside, but
they had passed the turning by the time they got their bearings so they
took the next street instead, which was the Heilige-Geist Gasse with
another river-gate across the end. At the bottom of this street they saw
something which looked a little more hopeful.

"Here, what about this?"

"This looks better."

"Stop here, driver, we'll try this one."

Hambledon slipped out of his car and had a hasty look inside while the
Commission was disembarking. The place was certainly old and
picturesque, with the requisite sanded floor and polished brass
fittings, it really looked the sort of place where tuneful seamen might
burst into song at any moment if there happened to be any tuneful seamen
there. At the time, however, it was practically empty and seemed
harmless enough. Hambledon withdrew again and the Commission entered.

"Shouldn't think they'd get into mischief in there," he said to the
driver. "Hardly anybody there."

"Ah," said the driver. "It's quiet enough when it is quiet, if you get
me. Aren't you going in, sir?"

"No," said Hambledon, "I'd rather look at the river. Coming, Reck?"

"I'll just turn the car round," said the driver. "Save time afterwards."

"Quite right, I'll do the same." They turned the cars to head up the
street and all three strolled through the gate on to the quay. To their
left the Kran-tor towered against the sky, wharves and warehouses faced
them across the glassy river, upstream tall houses masked the sunset. A
motor ferry crossed the river lower down and the ripples broke up the
inverted gables in the water, gulls cried, someone laughed in a group of
people twenty yards away, and somewhere far out of sight a steamer
hooted.

"Do you get much foreign shipping here?" asked Hambledon.

"Not a lot here, mostly barges and that from up the river. The foreign
ships mostly put in to the Free Harbour down at Neufahrwasser, that's
the real port, like. There's always ships in there, German, Swedish,
English, Italian, French--all sorts."

"Is it far down there?"

"'Bout three and a half to four miles. No, not far. I tell you, there
was a row down there last night. Some men off an English ship got into a
row in a pub down there--just such a place as this one. Two of 'em was
properly laid out. The ship'll have to sail without 'em, for they're in
hospital and she's going out in the morning."

"What will happen to them?"

"Oh, nothing. Get another ship when they come out, I expect. British
Consul'll look after them."

The conversation languished, and Hambledon looked at his watch.

"Do you think if you blew your horn it would hurry them up?"

"I doubt it," said the driver, but he strolled off, climbed into his
seat and blew the horn. He was quite right, nothing happened.

"You heard that about the English ship, didn't you, Reck?" said
Hambledon. "When I've got this school-treat home again I think we'll
slide quietly away and board her. I've paid Schultz, so there's nothing
to wait for, if we leave it too long Goebbels might replace him with
somebody more efficient."

Reck grunted assent and they leaned against the quayside rails and
waited while the day sank into twilight and the colour faded out of the
sky. Two sailors passed talking animatedly in Italian and somewhere
among the wharves across the river a dog barked. The street-lamps came
to life, and a man in a peaked cap, under one of them, took a long time
to say good night to a girl in a gaily smocked white blouse with full
sleeves like a bishop's. Hambledon and Reck walked back through the
archway and leaned against their car watching the door of the tavern
patronized by the Commission, it seemed to have livened up a little,
snatches of song floated out, and sounds of merriment. The driver of the
big car had apparently fallen asleep. Various people approached the
tavern door and entered, others came out, but none of them looked
particularly truculent.

"I suppose I ought to go in and rout those people out," yawned
Hambledon, "but I'm blowed if I do. I don't care if they never go to
Zoppot."

An elderly man in a neat grey suit came down the street, pausing every
now and then to glance behind him. He reached the tavern door, decided
to go in, looked in, decided not to, and strolled past the cars towards
the river. Before he passed under the arch he cocked his eye up at the
evening sky.

"Sea captain," said Hambledon, "looking at the weather."

"Sea captain or not," said Reck, "he's the living image of you."

"Nonsense. My face has its drawbacks, but not warts on its nose."

"I meant, in build and general appearance."

"I am not unique," admitted Tommy modestly.

A woman came down the street closely followed by a man. Husband or
lover, presumably, for when she looked at Hambledon in passing, the man
glowered. They went under the archway and disappeared, but the neat grey
man returned. He stopped near the cars and brought a cigar out of his
pocket, pinched it, smelt it, cut the end off with a knife, stuck the
cigar in his mouth and finally lit it. He took one or two puffs at it
which appeared to please him, and strolled past.

He was just approaching the tavern door when there came a change in the
tone of the sounds which floated from the half-open door, and he stopped
to listen. Instead of song there was shouting, instead of merriment,
anger. Hambledon straightened up and began to run towards the door, and
at that moment two shots rang out.

Instantly the doors burst open and a gush of customers poured into the
street. The Mercds driver awoke, started up his engine, and kept on
tapping the accelerator, producing a rhythmic series of roars. Hambledon
leapt at the car and threw the doors open just in time for the
Commission to fling themselves into it.

"You are a fool, Andreas," said one angrily.

"I thought all Danzigers were good Germans," said Andreas in a pained
voice, while another voice from the doorway told them what sort of
Germans they were. The adjective used was not "good."

Hambledon slammed the doors and shouted, "Drive on!" The car moved off
and was rapidly gathering speed when there came a fresh rush of men from
the tavern and one of them fired several parting shots after the car.
Several of them hit, for the impact was audible, but one at least
missed, for the elderly man in the grey suit, who was hurrying away,
suddenly threw up his arms as though he were going to dive, and fell
headlong in the road in front of the car. The driver had no chance to
avoid him and perhaps did not even see him; the heavy Mercds ran right
over him, shot up the road, round the corner and out of sight.

"Now they have killed somebody," said Hambledon in an exasperated tone.
"There'll be trouble over this."

He looked round for Reck and saw him emerging from the doorway in which
he had prudently taken cover, for he was not one of Nature's warriors.
The other people in the street melted away so quickly that it seemed
some of them must just have vanished where they stood; already the
tavern lights were out, blinds drawn and doors locked. In an incredibly
short time the Heilige-Geist Strasse was deserted except for Hambledon
and his car, Reck, and the neat grey man, who was a great deal greyer
and not nearly so neat.

Hambledon observed with surprise that Reck, instead of hurrying to the
car, was bending over the body in the road. Tommy, supposing him to be
animated by purely humanitarian motives, did not call to him, but
started the car and drove it to the spot where the man lay.

"Come on," said Hambledon, after one glance at the victim of malice and
accident, "you can't do anything to help him."

"Quick," said Reck in peremptory tones, "get him in the back of the car.
Come on, lend a hand."

"What the devil----" said the surprised Hambledon.

"Don't argue, help me!"

Hambledon slid out of the car, opened the rear door and helped Reck to
hoist the body into the back. "Though why on earth you want to saddle us
with a corpse just when----"

"Don't argue," repeated Reck, slamming the door. "Get in and drive like
blazes!"

Hambledon obeyed, very astonished at himself for doing so, and it was
not until they were several streets away that he said, "May I know what
all this is about?"

"Certainly. That poor thing in the back is you."

"But he's not in the least like me in the face."

"Face! Did you notice his face?"

"No," said Hambledon. "I thought you'd put something over it--a rag of
some kind."

"No. There was nothing over it."

"Oh," said Hambledon, and shivered.

"You see, the Mercds----"

"That'll do, thank you. What were you thinking of doing with him?"

"Driving the car to some quiet spot and leaving him there to be found.
Then we can go away and live happily ever after, because even German
Intelligence won't look for you when they've buried you with full
honours and an oration by the Fhrer."

Hambledon slowed the car on purpose to look at Reck. "I hand it to you,"
he said admiringly, "on a gold plate edged with rosebuds." He thought it
over for a moment. "But this means I shall have to change clothes with
him."

"It does," said Reck firmly.

"Oh, Lor'. Well, the Department will damn well have to pay me twenty
years' arrears after that. I shall have earned 'em."

"Do you know of a good place to go?"

"I only know the Zoppot road. It runs through forests, I should think we
could find a track turning off it somewhere."

                 *        *        *        *        *

"No marks on his underclothes," said Reck after investigation. "That
saves your changing those too."

"No, it doesn't," said Hambledon, "for I shouldn't have put them on in
any case. It only saves you picking the marks off. Mind, that's the
wrong leg. You'll have his trousers on back before."

"Why the hell do we have so many buttons? Heave him up while I fix his
braces."

"Collar and tie. Hang it, Reck, how do you knot a tie on somebody else?
It's all wrong way round, besides---- Oh, damn. I shall have to wash
again now."

"Hot night, isn't it?" said Reck, who had perspiration running down his
face. "Waistcoat. A trifle loose, he didn't live so well as you,
evidently. Tighten that strap at the back a little. That's it. Now your
watch in his pocket."

"I liked that watch," said Tommy plaintively, but it had to go.

"Now his coat. No, it's not so simple as all that, his sleeves will ride
up if we aren't careful. Here's a bit of string, tie his cuff-links to
his thumbs, and don't forget to remove the string afterwards and twist
the cuffs round."

"I would give the whole of that twenty years' arrears," said Hambledon
violently, "for a tumblerful of John Haig--neat."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The ship was ten hours out from Danzig, bound for Cardiff with a cargo
of sugar, when one of the firemen thought he heard voices in the coal
bunker. He picked up a firebar and went to investigate.

"'Ere, you! Cummon outer that."

They came, slithering down the coal, blinking from the long darkness,
cramped for want of movement, and inconceivably grimy.

"'Ere! Look what I've found."

"Stowaways," said the second engineer. "Hoo mony o' ye are there?"

"Two," said Hambledon with dignity. "I want to see the Captain at once."

"Ye've no need to fret yourselves, ye'll see the Captain quick and
lively, but whether ye'll enjoy the interview is another pair o' breeks
a'thegither. Come on, now, get a move on. What the deevil ye mean
stowin' away aboard this ship----"

"Who the devil are you?" asked the Captain.

"Thomas Hambledon and Alfred Reck. Can I speak to you in private?"

"No, you filthy blasted skulking scarecrows! How dare you stow away
aboard my ship?"

"Because we had to. I am sorry, Captain, but there was no alternative.
The passage will be paid as soon as we arrive in England. I must speak
to you in private."

"You'll do nothing of the sort. Yes, you'll pay for the trip all
right--in work. Lucky for you I'm two men short. Take these men
for'ard----"

Hambledon took a quick step forward and leaned over the Captain's desk.
"Look here," he said, in a tone inaudible to the men clustered round the
door, "we are British Intelligence agents on the run, and I must send a
wireless message instantly."

"Wireless message my----"

"Don't be a fool, man. You'll soon know when you get the answer. The
message is to the Foreign Office."

The tone of habitual authority was unmistakable, and the Captain paused.

"The matter is urgent," added Hambledon coldly.

"Very well," said the Captain. "You shall send your message, but if
there's any hanky-panky about it the Lord help you, for you'll need it.
Come with me."

In the wireless room Hambledon asked for a sheet of paper and wrote down
a message, briefly informing the Department that he and Reck were on
board the---- "What ship is this?"

"The _Whistlefield Star_."

"Bound for?"

"Cardiff."

"Do you put in anywhere between here and Cardiff?"

"No."

On board the _Whistlefield Star_ bound for Cardiff, and request
instructions.

"Code that, will you, Reck?"

"Let me see it first," said the Captain, and read aloud, "Hambledon to
Foreign Office, London." The rest of the message he kept to himself.

"You may send it."

"Carry on, Reck."

Reck settled down to write a string of letters, with pauses for thought,
occasionally counting upon his fingers. Hambledon found the Danziger's
cigars in his pocket, pulled them out, saw they were hopelessly crushed,
and threw them in the wastepaper basket. He then walked restlessly up
and down the cabin, the Captain sat in a chair and stared at the
calendar on the wall, the wireless operator looked from one to the
other, and no one spoke out of deference to Reck's mental labours. The
wireless operator was a stocky man, with a freckled face and red hair
turning grey. He had been aboard the _Whistlefield Star_ for a number of
years and had served in destroyers during the first Great War.

Presently Hambledon in his prowling came opposite to a small piece of
mirror fixed to the bulkhead, glanced at his reflection and said, "Good
Lord."

"What's the matter?" asked the Captain.

"I had no idea I looked like that. No wonder you didn't believe me.
Dammit, I look like a nigger minstrel on Margate sands."

The Captain unbent enough to smile, and said, "You'll be glad of a wash,
no doubt. Won't you sit down?"

"No, thanks," said Hambledon absently, and went on walking up and down,
thinking. Dear old Ludmilla in Switzerland, must let her know as soon as
he could or she'd grieve horribly. Perhaps they wouldn't find the car
for some days; it was well hidden in the woods off the Zoppot road. He
must send her a message somehow as soon as possible, better send it to
Frau Christine and let her tell Ludmilla. She must come to England; she
always wanted to, though how she'd like living there permanently was
another matter, with the language difficulty, the foreign cooking and
the strange customs. Pity to part from Franz but it could not be helped,
Franz would be sorry, probably. He'd have to look elsewhere for the
President of his New Germany--thank goodness!

Reck stirred in his chair and began running through what he had written,
absent-mindedly tapping out the message with his pencil on the table,
whereat the wireless operator spun round, scarlet with excitement, and
cried, "Good Lord! Is that who you are?"

"What d'you mean?" asked the Captain.

"Why, British secret agents, of course. T-L-T, that's the call-sign.
Used to listen for it when I was on destroyers in the last war. Heard it
again soon after I came in this ship, that'ud be six years ago, before
you came to us, sir----"

This was enough for the Captain, who rose from his seat, advanced upon
Hambledon with his hand held out and said, "I see I owe you an apology,
sir. But you must admit appearances were against you!"

The reply to Hambledon's message came a few hours later, instructing the
_Whistlefield Star_ to rendezvous at a certain time and place in the
Channel to tranship passengers to a destroyer, but by that time
Hambledon and Reck, washed clean and in borrowed garments, were having
dinner with the Captain.

The following evening they were listening to the Berlin radio from the
wireless set in the Captain's cabin, for Hambledon showed a certain
interest in the German news bulletins.

"It is with heartfelt sorrow and burning anger," said the announcer,
"that the German people will learn of the cowardly and brutal murder of
our Chief of Police, Herr Klaus Lehmann. His car was discovered this
afternoon hidden away in a forest glade near Danzig; inside it was the
body of Herr Lehmann, battered almost beyond recognition. It was,
actually, only identified by the clothes and general appearance, and by
the fact that the honoured and respected Chief had not returned to his
hotel two nights earlier. He was not, however, always in the habit of
giving previous notice of his movements, so that his absence had not yet
caused alarm. He was one of the earliest adherents----"

"Lord love us," said the Captain, who knew enough German to follow a
plain statement, "was that why you were on the run?"

"What a question," said Tommy blandly, and the Captain blushed and held
his peace.

"--faithful servant and leader of the Reich and a trusted and beloved
friend of the Fhrer himself----"

An inarticulate gurgle came from Reck.

"--who will himself pronounce the oration at the State funeral, which
will take place in Berlin on Tuesday in next week. The whole German
people will join with their Leader in mourning and resenting this
bestial and revolting outrage, perpetrated upon one whose outstanding
devotion to duty, meticulous honour and unfailing fidelity made him an
example to every----"

"They are doing him proud, aren't they?" said Tommy, fidgeting slightly.

"Wonder if Herr Goebbels wrote this?" said Reck impishly.

"--Immediate steps are being taken to ensure the arrest, conviction, and
condign punishment of the bloodstained assassins, who, undoubtedly under
Jewish influence, were guilty of this abominable act of treachery. At
the end of this announcement, that is, at once, a two minutes' silence
will be observed as a tribute to the dead Chief."

Reck lifted his glass. "To the late Chief of Police," he said in German,
and drank. Hambledon, with a rather wry smile, followed suit.

"May he rest in peace," said the Captain solemnly, and drained his
glass.

"No rest in peace for him, I fear," said Hambledon cryptically. "There
wasn't before," he added, to himself, "and to-morrow is here."

The radio reawoke to life. "We are now giving you a recorded version of
the late Herr Lehmann's radio play, _The Wireless Operator_, first
broadcast from this station in March 1933. There is only one character,
the wireless operator himself----"






[End of Pray Silence, by Manning Coles]
