“The house had been taken furnished from a Mrs. Aitken, now in Egypt. Letting had been effectuated by Messrs. Horlicks and Cox, to a gentleman corresponding to your description. He paid in advance, giving the name of J. Reynolds, and said that he had to be a month or two in London on business. He wrote from the Royal Star Hotel, Leeds. Enquiry at this hotel shows that a person giving this name stayed there a few days. He entered himself in the book as: ‘J. Reynolds, Finchley Road, N.W.’ Do you know how many houses there are in the Finchley Road?” asked the Inspector abruptly.
“Er—no: I’m afraid not,” said David with a start.
“The ultimate number on the left-hand side going north,” said the Inspector contentedly, “is twelve hundred and one. We wouldn’t get much out of that, even if the address wasn’t certain to be a fake. An address like that looks perfectly honest and fair in an hotel book, unless you know. The other address to use is ‘ Romford Road, E.’ That’s just as long, and looks just as exact to a provincial. Well, we’ve got practically nothing out of the neighbours and tradesmen. The man was a foreigner: he called himself Reynolds and had a slight accent. His wife—well, you know how it is.” Mr. Johnston sighed. “Thanks to you, we’ve got some description of the man. But we couldn’t pick out the woman if she walked across the street in front of us. Plumpish ! Middle age ! Middle height ! Undistinguished face ! Probably brown hair ! Wore a veil ! What can you make of that? She went out very little, paid her bills regularly, and left nothing owing. No noticeable accent. Colour of eyes unknown. Generally wore gloves: spoke very little.”
He sucked his lips in.
“That’s all from the house. But there is something more. From the body.” The Inspector turned over his notes again. “Medical evidence shows that death probably took place between one and six o’clock in the morning. Evidence from the policeman on the beat now indicates that the body was probably placed there after three o’clock. As the night was cold, it seems likely, according to the doctors, that deceased was killed shortly before being deposited, or actually in situ. H’m.
“The murderers had not removed anything from the body so far as can be seen. The contents of the deceased’s pockets included money, fountain pen, glasses, handkerchief, packet of cigarettes, Ingersoll watch, a comb, and a pocket book with diary, containing his name and address.”
“That’s odd, Inspector,” said David. “It suggests that they were disturbed. Surely they’d have tried to make it look like robbery, or tried to conceal his identity.”
“I don’t think so, I think it was quite intentional. They probably knew that we were bound to find out about them quickly. I expect they thought Mr. Birch had been to the police, as he should have done. They couldn’t hope not to have the body recognized. Now, if they’d taken his things, what would they have done with them? They’d have had to deposit them somewhere, or destroy them, and that might mean leaving another clue somewhere else. So they decided that the things were best left on the body. No doubt they’d been through his pockets first and decided that there was nothing of importance.
“Were you,” added the Inspector casually, “doing any of this counter-espionage yourself?”
David stayed silent and looked highly embarrassed. The Inspector went on: “If you were thinking of following this up, I would suggest you don’t. If you won’t take the advice as discourteous, I would ask you to leave the matter altogether to us. You’ve been very helpful, and I may have to call on you again. We shan’t forget you, and we will let you know how things progress. But when we’ve taken a case over, especially a case which may be murder, there really isn’t any room for the amateur, if you’ll pardon the word. What could you do? You can’t follow up these Goltz clues as we can. You haven’t the right to ask the questions that we have. Take my advice, Mr. Ellerton, and leave it to us.”
David hesitated. The Inspector rose and held out his hand. “You think it over,” he said.
He did think it over. But his thoughts were not wholly those the Inspector probably hoped. They resulted in a decision not, indeed, to continue chasing after “J. Reynolds” and his fellows, but to go himself to Berlin to warn and perhaps abduct the threatened Herr Mannheim. He would travel, as he had often done before, as a rich tourist seeking dissipation in Berlin.
The rashness and romanticism of his project had shocked even his youthful colleagues. But they had been unable to stop him. Money had always cushioned him against reality. The young and rich Englishman, in 1938, still could believe that he could always do whatever he wished. It was not so much that David believed that he could buy his way out of any trouble; it was rather that wealth, without his knowledge, had in the past regularly passed over to others the troubles which any follies of his own provoked. He did not know how much his own courage was ignorance, or how little Nazis cared about the habits or intentions of rich Englishmen.
In any case, as he pointed out, not one of them could stop him going; he could and would do what he pleased. In the end, Preston even aided him to the extent of securing, by means which he did not disclose, a well-forged passport for Mannheim in the name of “Albert Manton,” and even saw him off at Croydon airport.
8
David sat in a small, exactly square room, papered with book shelves, and patiently began his argument all over again. He had been talking for nearly an hour already to the owner of the flat. Albrecht Mannheim was a short, dark, squat man, with thick brown hair, and a big nose. He had full prominent brown eyes which may have derived from Jewish blood. He kept throwing his head back and brushing his hand through his hair, with what might have been a studied gesture. David had the idea that he must have been—might still be—very attractive to women. He spoke very quickly, in slangy Berlin German, and David could not always follow him.
David was wondering if he would have to go back to London without him. He had not been searched at the airport, though his luggage had been, and the faked passport was in his possession still. He had put up at the Bristol, an opulent hotel rather less ostentatious than the Adlon, though near to it. When he had left it, he had taken some precautions against being followed. He had started in directly the opposite direction. He had walked up and down the paths in the damp, dark-wooded Tiergarten until he was fairly sure no one was following him. He had examined all the shiny white statues in the Sieges Allee and received some comfort from the fact that they were still as ugly and still in the same place. Perhaps Germany did not change after all.
Then he had turned left, sauntered through the Zoological Gardens and came out at the Augusta Viktoria Platz, with its curious and ugly church on an island in the centre. Here it was he had seen the words CAFÉ AM ZOO, and had not been able to resist going in for a coffee. So this was where Herr Opell’s agents had their headquarters ! It was still the same big open café with dark red seats, and a large orchestra. It seemed rather empty, and Nazi signs were plastered about. Otherwise it was just as it had been five years ago when David first knew it. A wave of almost Teuton sentimentality arose up in him. He had been so young—there had been a girl—the band had played Ich hab’ es einmal gefragt. Camilla had been older than he was, and she had really been very kind. She had managed to leave him gently, and with no memory but that of an idyll. And in the hotel three doors down the Kurfurstendamm.… He pinched his mouth wryly, and wondered if he dared ask the band to play Ich hab’ es einmal gefragt again. They had danced again to it on their return to England as I asked her one little time. At the Metropole in Brighton, of all places. Better not ask the band to play it: it was probably a non-Aryan tune, he decided; all the best tunes were. He gulped part of his coffee: it was a disgusting bean-coffee, an ersatz. He got up, suddenly brought back to the present day, paid his bill, and went out.
He took a few paces down the Kurfurstendamm. It had once been the glittering Haunt of Jewish Vice, according to the Nazis. They had removed its glitter all right. It was decayed, dull, half derelict. He stood still long enough to make sure no one had followed him out of the café (had
it been quite wise to go there out of all the Berlin cafés?) Then he crossed the broad road, walked in front of the café which had years ago been Kempinski’s largest, and slowly worked his way back eastwards, to a narrow street not far from the Friedrichstrasse railway station, where Herr Mannheim had his tiny flat.
And ever since then he had been arguing with a man who obstinately refused to believe him. As if he were afraid to believe him. As if his whole world would vanish if he did. Mannheim kept saying “No!” and pushing something away with a thrust of his hand. He had a remarkable control of his emotions. For surely, David considered, he must either think that an agent provocateur was seated in front of him, or suspect that the whole of his escape scheme was a fraud. In either case, a disagreeable thought, yet he merely said: “I thank you. I find difficulty in agreeing with you.”
David had yet to realize how thoroughly the non-Nazi German had learnt to keep a poker face. Mannheim, behind his mask, was deeply agitated: his mind was filled by one leaping terror after another.
David told again, with gently insistent detail, the cases that they had found in Herr Opell’s files; and what had happened to the men who had paid their money. Suddenly Mannheim said to him:
“Stop. I want to think.”
He turned his back on David and stared out of the window, a black, sturdy shape against the twilit sky. His room was high up over Berlin and he could see the whole flat expanse of the city. Near in the foreground was the Brandenburger Tor, unaltered and a memory of old Germany: to its left the shapes of the unfinished Nazi buildings which were making of the Unter den Linden a wholly new street. Above his head the stars were one by one coming out; below, as if in answer, pinpoints of light appeared in the city and multiplied.
After what seemed a long time, but cannot have been much more than five minutes, he turned to David and said in an unmoved voice:
“Berlin was where I was born. I belong to no other place, and to no other persons. I had nothing else to say good-bye to. I have said it; and now I am ready.”
He sat down at the table, with a businesslike air.
“You will have plans,” he said, “which you will tell me. When do you propose to go?”
“Now,” said David. “As soon as we can. If we are unprepared it doesn’t matter. They are the more likely to be unprepared too.”
“It is true. Then to-night. Also,” said Herr Mannheim, suddenly switching his language, “since heretofore I am to be an Englishman, I will speak English.”
“Hereafter.”
“Hereafter. I thank you. I explain that it is very convenient for me to go, since I have already made what arrangements I can, to go in a few days time. I have what money I can get, though whether I can it take—can take it—with me I do not know. I have entirely new clothes. My books I must leave behind, but I have sold them already to a dealer who will the unsuitable ones denounce to the authorities when he shall have removed the valuable ones. His money I have received as to three-quarters: for the last quarter I will send a letter, that he should send it by post to a place called Stentsch. This will be useful for confusion, as the place is on the Polish border; also the address that I shall give is that of a Hitler-youth organizer, which I have from the Lokalanzeiger copied. Yes. I will therefore only take what I can put in my ordinary brief case.”
Herr Mannheim seemed almost pleased. Here, David thought, was a man of character and decision: there was little need to organize him. But the author had continued:
“I will write a letter to the man in the Café am Zoo, who to me is called Herr Gross, saying that to-day when I tried to take money from the bank, I was cross-questioned and refused. So I will say I am too frightened to come to meet him to-morrow and have gone to stay with a friend in the Wannsee region, which often I have before done—done before. So in three days will I return, I shall say, if he will also enquire so that I may be sure nothing is suspected. Also, I will leave for the concierge a note saying that I am going to the Wannsee and will be back in three days. So may we have three days of grace.
“Now you will say what I shall do. Shall I be disguised? Shall we take an aeroplane?”
“No.” David had already thought this out. “It is too dangerous. Too few people cross by aeroplane, even now. Each one can be specially scrutinized. I crossed to-day, and I was fairly conspicuous. They would notice me if I tried to come back again so soon. They would also be very likely to remember that no one like you had been seen arriving at the Tempelhof aerodrome. No good: we must go by train. Perfectly openly, and by the train that is most frequented.
“I’ve looked it up. It’s the one that leaves Berlin Friedrichstrasse, just by here, at 10.55.”
He took a travel folder out of his pocket and handed it to Mannheim. Mannheim read it to himself half aloud, his expression changing slightly as he did so.
Berlin
22.55
Hanover arr.
2.13
„ dep.
2.30
Osnabruck
4.10
Bentheim
5.46
Oldenzaal
6.48 (Dutch time)
Flushing dep.
13.50
London
21.30
“Bentham is the frontier station,” said David, unnecessarily.
“Yes,” said Mannheim. “If ever I pass it. It will be a new life then, I suppose. I wonder what do those words mean. They do not say anything to me now.” He pushed away the thought with his hand, using the same gesture as he had before. “By then, anyhow, I will know if I was wise to trust you. And if you are what you say that you are. I am sorry. It is rude, that I say this. But men like me, our minds are very tired, and often we say things that once we would only have thought.”
“That’s all right,” said David.
“And shall I be disguised?” asked Mannheim.
“A little, I think. Your clothes will have to do. But you must wear my overcoat—I have another at the hotel. You must wear glasses—not tinted glasses, for everyone suspects them, but plain horn-rimmed glasses, which I will give you. Also, since you do not usually wear a hat, you shall wear one. And you must cut off most of your hair. I had better do that for you. It will be a nuisance getting rid of the hair, but that cannot be helped. Hair left about tells its own story.”
“I will tell you what I shall do with the hair,” said Mannheim, with a slightly childish smile. “I have a big envelope, also postage stamps, which I shall now not need. We shall collect all the hair which it would indeed be too suspicious to leave, and shall put it into the envelope, which I shall stamp and leave upon the table. It shall be addressed to the Assistant Burg—Assistant Mayor of Stentsch. The concierge’s wife will find it and will post it. She is a bad woman, but she does these things for me when I am away because I give her tips, and also I think she reports them. Each morning, I did not say this, she comes to clean, you see. Then she will afterwards remember that she posted to Stentsch a large thick envelope with some strange thing inside, perhaps notes, perhaps explosive. This will also make pleasing confusion. Also will that official in Stentsch, whom I do not know, be much confused when he shall receive an envelope full of human hair and not any words therewith. Perhaps also will he and the Youth Leader be confused when the Gestapo shall demand explanations.”
“Good man,” said David. “But before I cut your hair, is there nothing that you must do? Aren’t you doing something this evening? Are you going somewhere, where your absence would be noted?”
“No. I am much alone nowadays.”
“Have you anyone to whom you must say good-bye? It would be better not; if you can avoid it.”
“My daughter died last year. My stepson is a Nazi. My second wife has had her marriage dissolved under the Nuremberg laws. I have no one else.” “Oh.”
David thought a moment.
“Then this is what we will do,” he said. “I will cut your hair now, and leave you the glasses, my coat and my hat. You will wri
te your letters and make your arrangements, while I go back to my hotel. I shall leave my large bag in the hotel, and before I go out I shall ask the hotel porter for the names of night clubs and make it very clear I am going out on a blind.”
“A—?”
“Going to make a thick night of it. Get drunk and finish up with a pretty lady. I shall ask him about the girls too. No one is going to be surprised if I don’t turn up till very late, or indeed if I don’t get back to-night at all. It’ll take them their time if they start asking all the tarts in Berlin about me when they do find I’ve vanished. During the evening I’ll buy both tickets to London, showing the two passports, and I’ll meet you fifteen minutes before the train.
“Not in the station—that would be too obvious. But in the ornamental garden between it and the river. Near to the bridge. There are a lot of people about and it is a fine night. We shall simply appear to be strolling about. Then we shall walk to the station, a little separated, and meet again inside. With any luck, we shall find a party of Americans or English, the noisier the better, and pass the barrier with them.
“Have something to eat, if you can. It’ll be better not to go to the restaurant car. The fewer people who see us, the better.”
9
They were lucky, on the whole, to have a carriage to themselves. In some ways, two men alone in a whole carriage were more noticeable; but on the other hand, if strange passengers had got in they might well have begun, or tried to begin, a conversation. Anything might happen then. Mannheim’s English was not too good, and he could easily be tripped up.
They sat in silence, each too preoccupied with his thoughts to speak.
The carriage was a box full of brilliant light, some sort of a refuge and defence against the world beyond. Outside the night was dark, black like plush, and dotted with a thousand shiny points of yellow. Continually sudden vistas of bright light appeared, as the train passed over and above the streets of Berlin. For a moment they could see long paths of well-lit road, filled with busy, soundless people on their own errands, or almost empty with brilliant lights pouring down on unused pavements, with only a motor or two in the road running along unheard to their own destinations. Empty or full, David thought, neither he nor Mannheim would ever see those streets again.
Somebody at the Door Page 12
