stood on the threshold. "General von Felseneck wishes to see you, Mr. Murphy," said he.
So I'm still considered to be an American diplomat, thought Thomas Lieven. So far so good ...
He rose without haste, the brief case under his arm. Passing the adjutant with dignity, he entered the sitting room.
General Erich von Felseneck was a short man with close-cropped, iron-gray hair and gold-rimmed spectacles.
Thomas beheld a small table bearing two dish covers, flanked by the hotel cutlery and plates. The general had evidently been interrupted while taking a hasty meal. Thomas took advantage of this circumstance to prove his familiarity with international courtesy. "General, I deeply regret interrupting you over your meal."
General von Felseneck shook hands with him. "It is I who owe you an apology, Mr. Murphy."
Thomas almost fainted when the general handed him back his forged diplomatic pass and the forged passports of Mimi and Simeon. "Your papers are in order. I hope you will pardon the first lieutenant's action. The behavior of your male traveling companion had understandably aroused his suspicions. But he unquestionably exceeded his authority."
"Well, General, these things do happen," Thomas murmured.
"But such things ought not to happen, Mr. Murphy. The German Army knows how to behave. We respect diplomatic usage. We're not robber knights!"
"Certainly not," said Thomas in English.
"Mr. Murphy, 111 be quite frank with you. Only last week we got into a frightful row. I very nearly went to the Fuhrer about it. Near Amiens some overzealous lads of mine arrested and searched two gentlemen from the Swedish Military Mission. All hell to pay. I had to offer them my personal apologies. Might have been a warning for me. Anyhow, I don't intend to let it happen again. Have you had lunch, Mr. Murphy?"
"Er—no—"
"May I ask you to join me before you leave? Plain soldiers' fare. The hotel kitchen hasn't got going yet. And Prunier's is probably shut today, ha, ha!"
"Ha, ha!"
"Well then, could you take a bombardment of German goulash?"
"You're sure I'm not intruding?"
"No, no. It'll be a pleasure. Kogge, have another place laid. And let the people next door have something too, will you?" "Very good, Sir." Five minutes later ...
"Bit monotonous this grub, Mr. Murphy, eh?" "Oh, no. Considering the circumstances it's quite nice," said Thomas Lieven, who was gradually recovering his equanimity. "I don't know why it is, but my boys can't do a decent hot pot," the general complained.
"General," said Thomas Lieven quietly. "I'd very much like to return your kindness by giving you a little tip."
"My word, Mr. Murphy! You speak the most marvelous German!"
That's a compliment which might cost me my life, thought Thomas. He at once reduced his command of the language. "Thank you, General," he said in English. Then in German: "My nursery governess was a Mecklenburg. Her specialty was Mecklenburg hot pots .. ."
"Interesting, eh, Kogge?" said the general to his adjutant. "It certainly is, sir."
"Hot pots have been most unjustly condemned," Thomas Lieven proceeded, taking care to give his authoritative tone an American accent and to distort German syntax, "and I should be glad to explain how an original Mecklenburg hot pot is prepared. But a delicate touch can be given to the cooking of even a potato goulash." Thomas lowered his voice. "One thing, though, has been worrying me for a long time, General. Is it really true that German military rations are actually concocted with—ahem— soda?"
"That's a rumor that's always being repeated. I can't judge of the truth of it. I simply don't know. But of course the boys are often on active service for months, far away from their wives and—well, I need say no more."
"Naturally not, General. But whatever the truth may be, onions are always a great help." "Onions?"
"They are the alpha and omega of potato goulash, General. Aad in France, God knows, there are enough of them about The trick is quite simple. You take the same weight of onions as you have of beef, add marjoram and gherkins cut small..."
"Just a moment, Mr. Murphy. Kogge, write it all down. I must pass this on to my quartermaster general."
"Very good sir."
Thomas proceeded to dictate the recipe to the adjutant.
MENU
Varieties of Hot
14 june 1940
At this meal Thomas made a conquest of a German general.
Potato Goulash
Fry the onions until lightly browned, season well with salt and paprika and add beef cut into small cubes. Just before the beef is tender add small diced potatoes and last of all a little marjoram and chopped, pickled gherkins.
Risi-Bisi
Boiled rice is mixed with tinned or freshly cooked peas and lightly stirred over a small flame in butter or lard. Diced cold meat or sausages are added, the mixture is seasoned to taste, preferably with curry, and after serving sprinkled with grated Parmesan cheese.
Irish Stew
There are various recipes for cooking mutton or lamb with white cabbage for this form of hot pot. One of the best comes from Mecklenburg. The meat is diced, salted and boiled for from one to one and a half hours. Pick off the outside leaves of the cabbages, quarter them if large and remove as much of the stalk as possible. Boil fast for fifteen minutes and then press to remove moisture. A casserole is then lined with slices of bacon, a layer of cabbage, round sides up, is next placed on top of the bacon, and the diced meat and chopped onions, with seasoning including a pinch of ground cloves, is laid on top of the cabbage. More layers of this kind are superimposed, the last of all being of cabbage. Finally the casserole is filled to the brim with the stock in which the mutton was boiled, and left to simmer for about an hour.
Thomas was still at work on his dictation when a knock sounded at the door. An orderly appeared. A whispered conversation between the orderly and the general ensued. Then both left the room.
Thomas went on dictating to the adjutant
Two minutes later the general returned.
He said in a quiet, ice-cold tone: "After I had reprimanded First Lieutenant Zumbusch he became very worried and telephoned the American Embassy. No one there had ever heard of any Mr. Murphy. Can you explain that, Mr. Murphy?"
[2]
Heavy tanks and army trucks were still trundling past the hotel entrance. The rattling of their tracks and the roaring of their engines sounded excessively loud in Thomas Lieven's ears.
Out of sheer habit he took out his repeater and pressed the spring to set the chiming mechanism in motion. Fourteen silvery strokes indicated the hour of two p.m. The general did not move a muscle. Thomas's brain was working at lightning speed. There's nothing for it, he thought. I'll have to play my last card.
"Well," he said. "I see Fve no choice but to disobey my strictest orders. I would ask you, General, to accord me an interview between ourselves alone." He was now speaking faultless German.
"Now look here, Mr. Murphy, or whatever you call yourself, I warn you that a court martial in a case like this can be called pretty quickly."
"I only want five minutes alone with you, General." Thomas Lieven made an effort to appear portentous.
The general took some time to think it over. Then he dismissed his adjutant with a jerk of the head.
The officer had scarcely- left the room before Thomas started chattering like a machine gun. "General, I am now going to entrust you with a great secret. After I have gone you will immediately forget that you ever met me ..."
"Are you out of your senses?"
"... I am about to reveal to you a top secret matter and I must have your word as an officer that you keep it entirely to yourself..."
"I never hear such impudence in my life before . . ."
"... I had strict orders from Admiral Canaris . . ."
"Ca—Canaris?"
"... Canaris personally, to insist in all circumstances upon my identity as an American diplomat. But now circumstances compel me to tell you the truth. Pl
ease examine this document." Thomas Lieven unbuttoned his waistcoat with a vigorous gesture and produced a paper from its inside pocket. "Read it, please, General."
Felseneck read the paper. It was a genuine German Intelligence pass, made out by a certain Major Fritz Loos, Intelligence officer at the Cologne Army Recruiting Office. Thomas had preserved the pass, feeling certain that it might one day be useful to him.
The general demanded, thunderstruck: "You—you're in the Intelligence Service?"
"As you see." Thomas was now getting into his stride. "If you still have the slightest doubt about my credentials, I beg you to put through an immediate priority long-distance call to Cologne." If he does, I'm done, he was thinking. If he doesn't, I shall get away with it.
"But surely you must realize . . ."
It looks as though I am going to get away with it, Thomas thought. He began to shout. "Do you know who those two people next door are? They're top-ranking French secret agents who've agreed to work for us!" He pummeled the black brief case. "This contains the files and the names of all the members of the Deuxieme Bureau. Now do you understand what's at stake?"
General von Felseneck, impressed, drummed nervously with his fingertips on the table. Thomas Lieven was thinking: Files, lists and names of agents. If my German compatriots get hold of these lists, they'll kill the French agents. They'll be a regular blood bath. But if they don't get their hands on them, then the French agents will do all they can to take German lives. I don't want either of those two things to happen. I hate violence and war. So I'll have to consider very carefully what I'm going to do with this black brief case. But that will be for later on. For the moment all I've got to do is to get out of here ...
The general stammered: "All the same—all the same, I don't understand it. If those people are really willing to work for us, what's all the secrecy about?"
"General, don't you really see even now? The French Intelligence service is on our heels! They may strike at any moment! That is why the admiral conceived the plan of moving
those two people out of Paris under the diplomatic protection of a neutral power and hiding them in a castle near Bordeaux until an armistice is concluded." Thomas laughed bitterly. "Unfortunately we didn't bargain for a conscientious German first lieutenant throwing a wrench in the works!" He shook his head solemnly. "Time has been lost, most valuable time! General, if those two people fall into French hands, the consequences—the international consequences—cannot be predicted.... Well, aren't you going to call Cologne?"
"Why should I, if I believe you?"
"Oh, you believe me? Thank you very much. Then may I ask you to let me at least ring up Cologne and report the breakdown of our arrangements?"
"I'd rather you didn't, in view of the similar trouble Fve had quite recently. I hope you won't insist."
"What else can I do? How can I get on with the scheme now? If I am now finally allowed to leave here after all this delay, how can I ensure that we're not all three of us arrested again, at the next street corner, by another of those overzeal-ous lads of yours?"
The general groaned. "Ill give you a pass ... you won't be held up any more ... never again ..."
"Ah, that's better," said Thomas. "Just one thing more, General. Don't start bawling out First Lieutenant Zumbusch again, will you? He only did his duty. Suppose I really had been a French agent and he'd let me through . . ."
[3]
As the black Chrysler carrying the Stars and Stripes on its roof drove out of the courtyard of the Hotel George V two German sentries saluted. Thomas Lieven, alias William S. Murphy, laid a hand to the brim of his Homburg in courteous acknowledgment of their attentions.
After this he was less polite; He gave Jules SimSon a terrific dessing-down. The colonel received it without a word of pro-test.
Nearly forty-six hours after their arrest they found themselves once more on the road to Bordeaux. Thomas demanded: "Who is supposed to take charge of that brief case?"
"Major Debras."
"Who's he?"
"Second in command of the Deuxieme Bureau. He is to take the papers to England or Africa."
And then what will happen, Thomas wondered apprehensively. Oh, what a glorious place this world would be if there were no secret services!
"Is the major at Toulouse?"
"I've no idea where he is just now," replied the colonel. "It is not yet certain when he will arrive or in what circumstances. I've orders to look up our mailbox in Toulouse."
"What do you mean by your 'mailbox'?" asked Mimi.
"That's what we call a person who receives or passes on news."
"I see."
"The man's completely reliable. He's a garage proprietor named Gerard Perrier."
The roads were so crammed with refugees and troops that it took them several days to reach the outskirts of Toulouse. The pass which General von Felseneck had given Thomas worked wonders. The German check-points treated them with exemplary courtesy. Toward the end Thomas was actually driving on army petrol. A captain at Tours had put five cans at his disposal.
Just before Toulouse, Thomas stopped and made a few alterations to the appearance of his car. He screwed off the CD badges and removed both the large and the small American flags. He stored this equipment in the trunk for possible later employment and extracted from that receptacle a couple of French number plates.
"I want you to remember that henceforward my name is no longer Murphy but Jean Leblanc," he said to Mimi and Simeon. The forged passport given him by his instructor Jupiter at the espionage school near Nancy had been made out in that name.
Toulouse was a city of 250,000 inhabitants—in peacetime. Now over a million people were living there, as in the hectic atmosphere of a fairground, with tragic overtones. Crowds of refugees camped in the open air under the ancient trees of the squares of the rue des Changes and Saint Sernin. Thomas saw cars with number plates from all over France and half Europe. He noticed a Paris omnibus still marked as bound for the Arc de Triomphe and a delivery van inscribed: "Alois Schildhammer and Sons, Soda and Mineral Water Manufacturers, Vienna XIX, Krottenbach St. 32."
While the colonel went to look for his "mailbox," Mimi and Thomas went to look for rooms.
They tried hotels, boardinghouses and hostels for for-
eigners. They went everywhere. There wasn't a single vacant room in the whole of Toulouse. At the hotels families were sleeping in the lounges, dining rooms, bars and lavatories. Bedrooms were occupied by twice or three times the number of persons normally accommodated.
After hours of searching Mimi and Thomas returned with aching legs to the parked Chrysler. They found the colonel sitting on the footboard. He looked worried and still held the black brief case under his arm.
"What's been happening?" Thomas asked. "Didn't you find the garage?"
"Oh yes," Simeon replied wearily. "But I didn't find M. Perrier. He's dead. His only surviving relative is a half-sister, Jeanne Perrier. She lives at Number sixteen in the rue des Bergeres."
"Well, let's drive there," said Thomas. "Perhaps Major Debras has left his address with her."
The rue des Bergeres was situated in the Old Town, a maze of narrow, cobbled streets and picturesque houses which had scarcely changed since the eighteenth century. It was full of shrieking children, blaring radios and gaudily colored clothing hung out to dry across the lanes.
The rue des Bergeres contained drinking shops, tiny restaurants and small bars. There were a great many pretty girls about. They were a little too loudly made up and a little too provocatively dressed. They were tripping hither and thither as if they expected something special to happen.
No. 16 proved to be a small, old-fashioned hotel with a shabby eating place on the ground floor. A brass plate engraved with a female figure and the words chez jeanne hung over the entrance.
In a dark, cramped office by the door they found a porter with heavily brilliantined hair. A steep staircase led to the first floor. The porter said that Madame wou
ld come at once. Meanwhile perhaps the visitors would like to take a seat in the drawing room.
Chandeliers, plush upholstery, dusty potted plants, bead curtains, a gramophone and a vast mirror covering the whole of one wall decorated this apartment It smelt of scent, powder and stale cigarette smoke.
Mimi murmured with some distaste: "Good heavens, it looks like a—"
"Hm, hm," said Thomas.
With a puritanical grimace the colonel exclaimed: "Come on, let's go—"
At that moment a good-looking woman about thirty-five entered the room. She wore her sandy hair cut short and her make-up had been subtly applied. She gave the impression of an energetic woman who not only understood life but also found it most amusing. Her figure immediately aroused Thomas Lieven's interest.
She exclaimed in a rather husky tone: "Glad to see you all. Three of you, eh? Well, isn't that delightful! I'm Jeanne Per-rier. May I introduce you to some of my little girl friends?"
She clapped her hands.
Behind a red silk curtain a door opened. Three girls, one of them a mulatto, came in. All three were attractive and all three were naked. They walked smiling to the big mirror and turned round in front of it. The interesting lady with sand-colored hair remarked: "Allow me to introduce, from left to right, Sonia, Bebe, Jeannette ..."
The colonel interrupted her in a low voice. "Madame—"
"... Jeannette comes from Zanzibar and she has ..."
The colonel interposed more loudly: "Madame ..."
"Monsieur?"
"There's been a misunderstanding. We wished to speak to you alone, madame." The colonel stood up and walked over to Jeanne Perrier. He asked softly: "What did the ant say to the grasshopper?"
Jeanne Perrier's eyes narrowed. She answered in an equally low tone: "Dance away, dance away. In winter youll be starving." She clapped her hands again and said to the girls: "You can go."
They left the room giggling.
"Sorry, I had no idea ..." Jeanne laughed and glanced at Thomas, who seemed to attract her. Mimi suddenly started frowning irritably. Jeanne went on: "It was only two days before his death that my brother put me wise and told me your password and what to answer." She turned to Simeon. "So you are the gentlemen who is to receive it."
The Monte Cristo Cover-Up Page 8
