[6]
The secret hideout of the member of the Order of the Blood had so far revealed to the major and his men—apart from the obscene collections—-some valuable items of jewelry, large quantities of gold coins, and a number of rare prints and wood carvings from the Far East, but no proofs whatever of any participation by Petersen in the German Treasury bills swindle.
Mme. Page made repeated efforts to get at one of the sun blinds. She only ceased when any such movement was strictly forbidden by the major.
One and a half hours had now elapsed since the search of the apartment had begun. Suddenly the front doorbell rang. Lily turned as white as a sheet.
Brenner drew his revolver. "Silence!" he hissed. He backed away through the hall, then suddenly swung around and snatched the door open, seizing the man who stood outside.
He was young, handsome and olive-complexioned. He had smooth black hair, a small mustache, long eyelashes and two scars on his right cheek which might have been inflicted by a knife. At the moment he looked as pale as a corpse.
"You fool!" the voluptuous Lily shrieked at him. "What did you come up here for?"
"Why shouldn't I?" he shouted back. "The sun blind was up!"
"Aha!" cried Brenner in triumph. He searched the man for weapons, but found none. His identity card gave his name as Prosper Longtemps, his profession as that of impresario and his age as twenty-eight.
Brenner interrogated him formally. But the young man sullenly refused to give any further account of himself.
Lily suddenly burst into a wild fit of sobbing. "Monsieur le Commandant," she cried. "I will tell you everything. Prosper
is—the only man I love. I have been deceiving Petersen with him for a long time now ... don't you believe me?"
"No, I don't," retorted Brenner icily. He was thinking, that's the way Lieven would have answered—icily. Then he locked Prosper Longtemps in the bathroom.
It was now half-past seven and already dark outside. The major put a second call through to the Lutetia and then to Lieven's villa. But Thomas Lieven had not yet arrived at either address.
Brenner dared not send even one of his five picked men to the railway station to meet Lieven. It was quite possible tfrat the Security Police might have traced the apartment by this time. If they tried to get in he would have to hold it like a fortress.
What on earth was he to do next? Everything had begun in such a brisk and promising way and yet now here he sat in this stuffy apartment, filled with unspeakable things but empty of the proofs he was looking for. He had certainly taken one prisoner. But he couldn't make head or tail of the fellow. Would he, Brenner, ever learn the truth?
And on top of it all there was that disturbing Mme. Page with her extremely pretty maid and five men who could only be kept away with the greatest difficulty from those unspeakable collections and the maid herself. He fervently wished he were back at his desk in the Hotel Lutetia. Theoretical work on the General Staff, that was his strong suit, not the direct, practical application of tactics and strategy.
He gave a sudden start. Mme. Page had suggested that her maid might really start cutting some sandwiches for the hungry men.
He hesitated. Ought he to allow such a thing? Were not madame and her maid his enemies? On the other hand the men must certainly be hungry and he did not wish to appear tyrannical. He therefore permitted the maid to go to the kitchen, posted one of his men to keep an eye on her and sternly warned him to behave with the most absolute propriety.
The men were soon munching away with bulging cheeks and drinking champagne which they had found in the refrigerator. Brenner had at first austerely declined either to eat or to drink. But later on he took a modest bite and sip or two.
Nine o'clock struck, then ten. There was still no news of Thomas Lieven. The ladies requested permission to go to bed.
Brenner granted their request. He organized sentry duty.
One man was posted at the door of the maid's room, one before her mistress's door and one at the bathroom door. Two men kept watch at the front door. The major himself stayed in the drawing room, beside the telephone.
He intended to keep awake, comparing himself with a rock in the surf, impregnable, impervious, imper—
But he did drop off after all.
When he awoke it was dark in the drawing room. He became aware of soft hands gently caressing him . . .
"Don't move," Lily Page whispered. "Everyone's asleep ... I'll do anything you like, but please let Prosper go . . ."
"Madame," said Brenner sternly, seizing her arms in a viselike grip, "take your hands off my revolver this instant!"
"Oh," sighed Lily in the darkness. "I don't want your pistol, you silly boy ..."
At that moment the front doorbell rang.
[7]
Thomas Lieven had reached Paris at ten minutes past ten that night. At the Hotel Lutetia he was excitedly informed that Major Brenner had been impatiently awaiting him for hours at No. 28, Avenue Mozart. It was added that the major had set out with a raiding party.
"H'm," said Thomas. He was wondering what on earth Brenner had been doing for hours in that racketeer Petersen's secret hideout.
In the lounge of the hotel he caught sight of his two old friends Raddatz and Schlumberger, the war-weary and somewhat cynical wireless operator corporals, whom he had got to know and like during his adventure with the Crozant resistance group. The Berliner and the Viennese greeted him with delight. They had just come off duty.
The lean man from Berlin, who was so fond of French magazines, exclaimed rapturously: "Why, look, Karli, there goes our Herr Sonderfiihrer!"
"Come and join us, Herr Sonderfiihrer!" cried the slightly overweight Viennese. "We're just off to the rue Pigalle to find us a couple of nice little dicky-birds!"
"Listen, boys," said Thomas Lieven. "Put off your praiseworthy intentions for a little while and come along with me. I may need your help."
Accordingly, a few minutes before eleven o'clock the three friends found themselves standing at the front door of No. 28
in the Avenue Mozart. Thomas rang the bell. He heard several voices inside the apartment, then a certain amount of banging about. At last footsteps approached. The door was flung open. Major Brenner stood on the threshold. His face was a deep crimson, he was out of breath, his hair was standing on end and there were traces of lipstick on his neck. Behind him Thomas and his friends caught sight of a lady who was wearing a dream of a nightgown over nothing at all.
Major Brenner stammered: "Hen* Lieven ... thank God you're here at last..."
Thomas Lieven gallantly kissed the hand of the lady in the nightgown.
Major Brenner then explained the position. He described what he had unfortunately found in the apartment and also what he had unfortunately not found. Finally he referred to the prisoner.
"Prosper is my lover," Lily Page interrupted. She had meanwhile added a morning wrapper to her somewhat inadequate clothing. Looking Thomas deep in the eyes, she continued: "He knows nothing whatever about Petersen's business affairs."
"He hasn't any," Thomas told her bluntly. "Erich Petersen has been shot dead in Toulouse by one of his business partners ..."
Lily's seductive lips pouted in a seductive smile. She looked angelically happy as she murmured: "At last they've caught up with him, the vile blackguard."
'Try not to grieve over it too much, madame," Thomas implored her.
The little major looked bewildered. "But," said he, "but I thought..."
"Hey!" The sonorous tones of Corporal Raddatz interrupted him. "Here's something worth looking at, I must say!"
"How dare you interrupt me!" shouted Brenner. Then he turned around. The lean corporal was standing at the big mahogany cabinet which the major had opened that afternoon and then closed again in utter disgust.
Corporal Raddatz had also opened the cabinet. But he had not closed it again in utter disgust. He began taking out the contents of the drawers, examining them with amazement and de
light. Finally he took out all the drawers and emptied them out on the floor, still chuckling. But suddenly he stopped laughing. He exclaimed in bewilderment: "Well, Til be
damned! Just look at this! What the hell are Treasury bills doing in among this caboodle?"
A sudden deathly silence fell in the room. At last Thomas said quietly: "Well, well." He bowed to Mme. Page. "May I ask your permission to recommence the search?"
The beauty gave him a weary smile. "With pleasure. And I'll also be glad to tell you where you'd better look. It's wherever the major ordered his men to stop looking."
Treasury bills of the Rumanian issue to the value of five million marks were brought to light. They were found in rosewood cabinets containing strange objects from the ingenious Orient, behind pornographic books in the library, among the "unspeakable" collections and behind the indecent pictures on the drawing-room walls.
Thomas then dismissed Mme. Page to her bedroom and proceeded to interrogate the pallid, terrified Prosper Long-temps. Ten minutes later he went into madame's room.
She was lying in bed with feverishly burning eyes. Thomas sat down on the edge of the bed. She whispered: "I'm going to tell you the truth ... Prosper is the only man I love. It was only for his sake that I stood it here with Erich—the dirty swine . . . but I'm sure you don't believe me . . ."
"I believe you," said Thomas Lieven. "Now, madame, I am ready to protect Prosper under one condition—"
"I understand," she interrupted, with a wry smile and a languid gesture.
"I don't think you do," Thomas replied amiably. "Petersen was involved in illicit dealings with Treasury bills. I have to know how they got into France. If you help us to find out I'll look after your friend Prosper."
Lily slowly sat up in bed. A most beautiful woman, thought Thomas.
Lily Page said: "Do you. see that picture over there, of c Leda and the Swan'? Take it down."
Thomas did as she said. A small wall safe with a combination lock was revealed.
"Dial the number 47132," said the woman in the bed. He did so. The door of the safe opened. The steel interior contained a book bound in black leather, but nothing else.
"Erich Petersen was a disagreeable, pedantic sort of creature," said the woman in the bed. "He kept records of everything. Of men, of women and of money. That's his diary. Read it. Then you'll know everything about his affairs."
That night Thomas Lieven slept little. He was reading the
diary of Untersturmfiihrer Erich Petersen. By daybreak he knew all about one of the greatest swindles of the war.
That same morning, with bleared eyes, he reported to Colonel Werthe, now back at the Lutetia. "The whole set-up was involved. Top men at Security headquarters in Berlin, top Gestapo officials in Rumania, probably even Manfred von Killinger, the German ambassador in Bucharest and here in Paris, Obersturmfuhrer Redecker, Heinrich Himmler's brother-in-law. They were all in it."
"God Almighty," murmured Colonel Werthe in a faint voice. Major Brenner squirmed restlessly in his chair, tense with expectation.
"It was really Redecker who started the whole show," Thomas went on. "In 1942 he was working at Security headquarters in Bucharest ..." At that time -the Rumanians were obliged to accept German Treasury bills as legal tender. But they were happy if they could find anyone who would pay them in dollars, sterling or gold for the bills. Even at rock-bottom prices. They didn't care how little they received for that rubbishy paper so long as they got rid of it.
Then Redecker was transferred to Paris. There he met Untersturmfiihrer Petersen. The pair of them discovered that they had a very great deal in common. Redecker described his Rumanian experiences. They built up quite a big business together.
"The facts are exactly as surmised by that banker Ferroud," Thomas Lieven concluded. "Only Germans could have arranged so gigantic a fraud. With the bills they had acquired so cheaply in this way Redecker and Petersen bought up anything they liked in France with perfect impunity. But Petersen never quite trusted Redecker. So Lily Page told me. That was why Petersen kept a secret hideout and a diary in which he recorded all the operations in which Redecker had been concerned. He wanted to have a hold over Redecker." Thomas lifted up the black leather book. "But Redecker's name is not the only one in these pages. Many others are mentioned. With this book in our hands, gentlemen, we can blow the whole racket sky-high."
"But just a minute, Lieven," growled the colonel irritably. "Don't you realize whom we're up against in this affair? There's Himmler's brother-in-law, there's an ambassador and there are all those top-ranking Security bosses! You told us so yourself!"
"That's why our next steps will have to be very carefully
considered, sir. And where can one consider important steps more carefully than over a good meal? I've already made all the necessary arrangements at my own place. I shall expect you, therefore, at my villa in an hour's time." But alas, a good deal can happen in an hour.
[8]
Colonel Werthe and Major Brenner looked pale and upset when they arrived, sixty minutes later, at Thomas Lieven's charming little villa in the Bois de Boulogne. The major seemed about to burst into tears. The colonel stared glumly into space while the pretty Nanette served the first course.
menu
CsWelon Slices
Chocolate
PARIS, 28 SEPTEMBER 1943
Over dessert Thomas Lieven evolved a plan to bring even a Reichsfiihrer to reason.
Melon Slices
Iced slices are served from a firm, ripe melon. Each guest peppers and salts his own to taste.
Parmesan Cutlets
Medium-sized pork cutlets, preferably from near the neck end, are beaten, peppered and salted. They are then placed in a well-buttered, fireproof dish, and sprinkled liberally with grated Parmesan cheese. Pour thick sour cream on the cutlets, but not so as to cover them. They are then baked in the oven for twenty to thirty minutes, till light brown. The cutlets are served in the same fireproof dish with boiled potatoes and a green salad.
Chocolate Pancakes
Extra-fine, thin pancakes are baked. The batter should have been prepared at least an hour before cooking. Cream three yolks with three tablespoonfuls of fine sugar till frothy. Melt three squares of chocolate in one cup of milk over a flame, adding a little vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt. Mix all together. Cook over a very low flame to a thick cream and spread over pancakes. These are then rolled, sprinkled with coarse sugar and ground almonds or pistachio nuts and served immediately, very hot
Thomas waited until she had left the room. Then he inquired: "Why so melancholy, gentlemen? Can it be that you feel a natural human sympathy, all of a sudden, with the impending fate of Reichsheni's brother-in-law?"
"If it were only that fellow who was going to catch it," Werthe grunted gloomily.
"Well, who else is in for it, then?" asked Thomas, popping a piece of melon into his mouth.
"You," said Werthe.
One doesn't talk with one's mouth full. So Thomas swallowed down his morsel before demanding: "A joke, sir?"
"Unfortunately not, Lieven. The Security Service is determined to run you in. I expect you know that Brenner has certain connections with that department. So after we parted today he paid another visit to the Avenue Foch. After all, we had just solved the mystery of Petersen's murder at Toulouse. So he had a chat with Winter. To begin with he made the reassuring discovery that Paris Security knew nothing of the Treasury bills swindle. But then Winter began to talk about you, Lieven."
"Did he, though? And what did he say?"
"He said ... well, ahem .*.. he said that now at last you were in the bag."
The door opened.
"Aha, here comes our dear Nannette once more," cried Thomas, rubbing his hands. "And so do the Parmesan cutlets!"
The girl blushed to the roots of her hair. "M. Lieven, please don't call me 'dear Nanette' when I'm serving. Otherwise I'm sure to drop the plates and ruin ev
erything!" As she offered the dish to Werthe she murmured: "M. Lieven is the most charming man in the world!"
The colonel nodded dumbly and helped himself to salad. When the maid had left the room again Thomas said: "I hope the cutlets haven't been overpeppered? You think not? Good. So Fm in the bag, am I? And how do they make that out?"
It appeared that during Thomas's search for a bridge to be blown up by the Crozant resistance group he had accidentally run into a certain lady, a chief staff clerk at the Paris Ministry of Labor, who had treated him with such insufferable Nazi arrogance that he had been obliged to inform her that he represented Admiral Canaris and could not therefore take orders from her. This lady, it seemed, had not forgotten him. She had caught sight of him in the Paris express with Yvonne, sent a couple of military police to investigate their passes and reported the circumstances, which she considered suspicious, to Sturmbannfuhrer Eicher.
The latter, who detested Thomas, had soon found out that Lieven's companion, after traveling to Marseilles as Madeleine Noel of Paris Intelligence, was now living in Lisbon as Yvonne Dechamps.
That name seemed to ring a bell in Eicher's memory. He searched his records. Then a triumphant grin broke over his face. Yvonne Dechamps, Professor Debouche's assistant, had been wanted by the Gestapo for weeks as a dangerous member of the resistance. And Thomas Lieven had enabled her to reach safety with a German Intelligence pass!
"Winter told me that Eicher had already communicated the facts to Berlin," said Brenner, cutting a boiled potato, most improperly, with his knife. "To Himmler in person."
"To the brother-in-law of Herr Redecker," said the colonel. J "Himmler spoke to Canaris. And Canaris called me up half an hour ago. He was furious. You know how strained our relations are with the Security Service. And now a thing like this! I'm sorry, Lieven. You're a decent fellow. But I can't see j any way out of this. The Security Service has lodged a criminal charge against you. You'll be court-martialed and that'll be the finish ..."
"Oh, no, it won't," said Thomas.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I think there are a lot of things we can still do, Major. Don't eat too much of that pork, I warn you. There's another specialty coming. Chocolate Pancakes."
The Monte Cristo Cover-Up Page 39
