by Jack Higgins
She quickly took them from her bag and handed them across, and then she opened the door for them. Hardt went out without a word, but as Chavasse descended the stairs, he glanced back and saw her still standing there, framed in the opening of the door. She raised her hand and her mouth moved silently. When he looked back again, she had closed the door.
THEY parked the car around the corner from Steinerstrasse and walked the rest of the way. Hardt found the apartment house with no difficulty and they moved inside. Schmidt’s apartment was on the third floor and they paused outside the door and listened. There was no sound and Chavasse gently tried the door. It was locked.
Hardt pressed the bell firmly, holding it in position, and they waited. Within a few moments, they heard steps approaching the door. It opened on a chain and Schmidt said sleepily, “Yes, who is it?”
“Police!” Chavasse said gruffly in German. “Come on, open up!”
Schmidt seemed to come to life at once. He disengaged the chain and opened the door. As he saw Chavasse, his jaw dropped. Chavasse moved in quickly and jabbed a fist into the man’s belly before he could cry out. Schmidt sagged at the knees and started to keel forward. Chavasse ducked, caught him across one shoulder, and walked on into the room.
Behind him, Hardt closed the door, and Chavasse flung Schmidt into a chair. He lit a cigarette, sat back, and waited.
Schmidt looked terrible in the half-light of the nearby table lamp. After a while, he seemed to have got his breath back. Chavasse pulled a chair forward and sat in front of him. “Surprised to see me, Schmidt?”
Schmidt looked frightened to death. He moistened his lips. “The police are looking for you, Herr Chavasse.”
“Nice of you to let me know,” Chavasse said. He leaned across and slashed Schmidt backhanded across the mouth. “Now let’s cut out the polite talk and get down to business. The coffee you served me on the train just before we arrived at Osnabruck—it was drugged, wasn’t it?”
Schmidt made a feeble effort to protest. “I don’t know what you are talking about, mein Herr.”
Chavasse leaned forward. “I haven’t got much time, Schmidt, so I’ll make it brief. I’ll give you about ten seconds to start talking. If you don’t, I’m going to have to break your left wrist. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try the right one as well.”
Schmidt’s mouth went slack. “But I daren’t tell you, mein Herr. If I do, he’ll kill me.”
“Who will?” Hardt said, moving across the room quickly and standing at the back of the chair.
Schmidt looked up at him, his eyes round and staring. “Inspector Steiner,” he whispered.
“I thought so,” Chavasse said. “Now we’re beginning to get somewhere. The man who was killed in my compartment—was he the man who boarded the train at Osnabruck?”
Schmidt shook his head. “No, mein Herr.”
“Who was he then?” Hardt demanded.
Schmidt seemed to have difficulty in forming the words and when he spoke, it was in a whisper. “He was the one Steiner and Dr. Kruger brought on board at Rheine on the stretcher.”
“And was there anything peculiar about him when they boarded the train?” Chavasse said. He pulled Schmidt forward by the front of his dressing gown. “Come on, answer me!”
“He was dead, mein Herr!” Schmidt moaned and collapsed in the chair, sobbing.
Chavasse stood up. “I thought so. There was something about the body that didn’t quite fit when I examined it. At the time my brain was still feeling the aftereffects of the drug and I couldn’t make any sense of it. But I remembered on the way here in the car. The fingers had already stiffened and the body was as cold as clay.”
“Because he’d been dead for some hours?” Hardt said.
Chavasse nodded. “I don’t know who he was. Perhaps simply a body supplied by Dr. Kruger. He and Steiner boarded the train at Rheine, made Schmidt drug my coffee, and waited in my compartment for the real Muller to board the train at Osnabruck.”
“Then Muller was the man on the stretcher when it left the train at Hamburg?” Hardt said.
Chavasse nodded. “It was a neat plan. They eliminated me and they got their hands on Muller. Presumably, they intend to screw the information out of him at their leisure.”
“I wonder where they’ve taken him,” Hardt said.
Chavasse shrugged and then a thought occurred to him. “Perhaps our friend here can tell us.” He lifted Schmidt’s head back by the hair. “Any suggestions, Schmidt?”
“The ambulance was from Dr. Kruger’s private clinic at Blankenese,” Schmidt said. He lifted his hands pleadingly. “For God’s sake, mein Herr, you mustn’t let Steiner know you found these things out from me. He’s a terrible man. He was a group leader in the SS.”
“Then why did you help him?” Hardt said.
“But I had no choice,” Schmidt said. “You do not know how powerful these people are.”
At that moment, a step sounded outside on the landing and there was a knock at the door. Chavasse jerked Schmidt to his feet and pulled him close. “Find out who it is,” he whispered, “and don’t try anything funny.”
Schmidt walked hesitantly toward the door and said in a cracked voice, “Who is it?”
“Inspector Steiner!” The words came clearly through the thin paneling, and Schmidt turned toward the two men inside. “What shall I do?”
Chavasse looked inquiringly at Hardt. “Are you armed?”
Hardt shook his head. “No, but Steiner will be.”
Chavasse nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. What a wonderful opportunity for him to get rid of both of us and prove himself a hero at the same time. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”
He walked across to the window, brushing aside the panic-stricken Schmidt, who clutched at his sleeve, and opened it. A little to one side, a thick iron drainpipe dropped forty feet to the cobbles of the yard at the rear of the building. Three feet beyond it, there was an iron fire escape.
As Hardt moved beside him, Steiner hammered on the door and said angrily, “Schmidt, open up.”
Schmidt plucked at Chavasse’s arm. “He’ll kill me.”
Chavasse ignored him and nodded toward the fire escape. “I’d say it’s our best way down.” Without waiting for Hardt to agree, he climbed out onto the windowsill. He reached out for the drainpipe, skinning his knuckles on the rough brickwork as he slid his hands round it. For a moment, he paused, and then he launched himself to one side, his left hand grabbing for the iron railing of the fire escape. A moment later and he was safe on the platform.
Hardt emerged onto the windowsill. He successfully negotiated the drainpipe and jumped for the fire escape. Chavasse reached out and caught him by the arm as his foot slipped. A moment later and Hardt stood safely beside him on the platform.
Schmidt leaned out of the window, a look of terror on his face. “Help me, I implore you. He’s breaking in the door.”
Chavasse was already clattering down the iron steps of the fire escape and Hardt followed him. As they started across the cobbled yard to the alley that gave access to the front of the house, there was a sudden cry from above and they both paused and looked up.
Schmidt was hanging onto the drainpipe, obviously too terrified to make a move. At that moment, Steiner leaned out of the window and reached toward him. With a courage born of desperation, Schmidt jumped for the fire escape, his hand clawing the air.
His fingers seemed to find a hold and for a moment he hung there, and then he slipped and fell, his body twisting in midair so that he hit the cobbles headfirst.
Hardt gave a cry of horror and started forward, but Chavasse grabbed him by the arm and hustled him through the alley and out into the street. “We’ve got to think about the living,” he said. “If we don’t get away from here fast, Steiner will have half the Hamburg police force breathing down our necks.”
When they were safe in the Volkswagen and moving away through the deserted back streets of the city, Chavasse laughed shakily.
“It was a pretty close thing back there. For a moment or two, I thought we weren’t going to make it.”
Hardt glanced across at him, his face white and strained. “The sound that poor devil’s head made when it hit the cobbles—I don’t think I’m ever likely to forget it.” He shuddered and turned his attention to the road.
“Steiner probably intended to get rid of him one way or another at some time in the future,” Chavasse said. “He knew too much.”
Hardt nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
It had stopped raining as they slowed to a halt outside Anna’s apartment house, and Hardt switched off the engine. In the silence that followed, he sat smoking a cigarette and nervously tapping his fingers against the rim of the steering wheel.
After a while, Chavasse said, “Well, what’s our next move?”
Hardt frowned and said slowly, “A visit to this clinic of Kruger’s at Blankenese, I suppose.”
“And when do you suggest we make it?”
“Tonight after dark, I think. I’ll see what I can find out about the place during the day.”
He opened the door and got out, and Chavasse slid across the seat and followed him. They walked to the door of the apartment house and Hardt paused outside.
“Aren’t you coming in?” Chavasse asked in surprise.
Hardt shook his head. “No, I’ll get back to my place. I could do with a few hours’ sleep. I’m afraid I can’t take you with me, but you’ll be all right here. Anna will make up a bed for you on the couch.”
“Aren’t you going to take the car?” Chavasse said.
Hardt shook his head. “I feel like the walk—it isn’t far.”
He started to move away, and then hesitated and turned slowly. Dawn was just beginning to break, and in its gray light he looked sickly and unwell.
“I didn’t lose my nerve back there,” he said.
“I know that,” Chavasse told him.
“It was just that ghastly sound when his head hit the cobbles. I’ve seen men die, I’ve killed several myself, but I’ve never heard anything quite like that.”
“Go home to bed.”
For a moment longer, Hardt stared fixedly at him, and then he walked slowly away along the wet pavement. Chavasse watched him for a little while, and then he turned in through the entrance to the apartment house and went quickly upstairs.
At his first light knock, Anna opened the door and let him in. As he peeled off his raincoat, she said anxiously, “Where’s Mark?”
“Gone back to his hotel,” Chavasse told her. “He’ll be getting in touch later in the day after he’s checked on Kruger’s clinic at Blankenese. We’ll be paying it a visit tonight after dark.”
She went into the kitchen and returned almost at once with a fresh pot of coffee. As she filled two cups, she said, “What happened—did you see Schmidt?”
He drank his coffee, sitting beside her on the couch, and told her. When he finished, she shuddered. “That poor man—what a horrible way to die.”
“He couldn’t have known much about it,” Chavasse said. “He must have been killed instantly.”
“At least we now know who we’re working against,” she said.
He nodded. “According to Schmidt, Steiner was a group leader in the SS. Kruger was probably a camp doctor or something of the sort.”
“Do you think they’ll be mentioned in Bormann’s memoirs?”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t think so. My hunch is that they’re both simply active members of the Nazi underground. The people they take their orders from probably figure in Bormann’s book.”
“And you think they’ll have Muller at this clinic in Blankenese?”
“Let’s hope so.” He put down his coffee cup and got to his feet. “And now, if I can have the use of your couch?”
She went into the bedroom and came back carrying several blankets and a pillow. As he watched, she quickly made a bed for him. She turned with a smile. “I think you’ll find it’s pretty comfortable and I can promise you won’t be disturbed. I could sleep for a week myself.”
Suddenly, she seemed very close and he felt tired—really tired. “You’re very sweet, Anna,” he said.
She raised a hand and touched his cheek, and he bent his head quickly and kissed her on the mouth. For a moment, she responded, but as soon as she felt his hands on her waist, she pulled away and rushed across to her bedroom.
The door closed behind her. For a moment, Chavasse looked at it, and then he sighed and started to peel off his clothes. By the time he had finished, fatigue had seeped into his brain. He had barely enough strength left to crawl between the blankets and switch off the table lamp before he dived into darkness.
CHAPTER 6
He awakened slowly from a deep, dreamless sleep to an atmosphere of brooding quiet. Pale autumn sunlight reached in through the window, and faintly in the distance he could hear church bells and remembered it was Sunday.
He checked his watch and found, with something of a shock, that it was half past one. He threw aside the blankets and started to get dressed, and then he saw the letter propped against the flower vase on the small table.
It was from Anna. She had decided to pay Katie Holdt’s landlady a visit in the hope of getting a lead on the girl’s whereabouts. She expected to be back by three o’clock at the latest.
He lit a cigarette and went into the kitchen. He didn’t feel hungry, and ate only one buttered roll as he waited for his coffee to brew, and then returned to the living room.
He sat on the edge of the couch with the cup in both hands and wondered how Hardt was getting on. He felt restless and ill at ease, and he got to his feet and paced up and down the apartment. It was the inaction he hated. He preferred being in at the center of things, checking the other man’s move or making one himself.
On impulse he picked up the phone, rang the Atlantic Hotel, and asked for Sir George Harvey. There was a slight click as the receiver was picked up at the other end and Sir George spoke. “Yes, who is it?”
“Your traveling companion,” Chavasse said.
Sir George’s voice didn’t change. “I was hoping you’d ring,” he said. “I’ve had your boss on the phone from London. He asked me to pass on some information to you.”
“Is it important?”
“Nothing startling, but it might prove useful.”
“Good, we’d better get together then.”
“I’m afraid that’s going to be rather awkward,” Sir George told him. “I’ve hired a car and I’m driving out to the race track at Farmsen with some of the other conference delegates. We’re leaving in a few minutes. The first race starts at two-thirty.”
Chavasse considered the situation. He had been to Farmsen before to see the trotting races. They were usually well attended on a Sunday afternoon. He came to a decision quickly.
“I’ll meet you in the bar under the grandstand in the second-class enclosure at three o’clock,” he said. “Will that be all right?”
“I don’t see why not,” Sir George replied. “I can easily leave my friends in the first-class enclosure for a few minutes. As long as you think it’s safe to show your face.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Chavasse said. “I’ll only be a dot among several thousand people.” He replaced the receiver and hurriedly finished dressing.
He left a brief note for Anna, left the apartment, and walked through the quiet streets to the nearest station, where he caught a crowded underground train.
When they reached Farmsen, he mingled with the large crowd that streamed toward the entrance of the race track. As he passed through the turnstiles, he saw a couple of bored-looking policemen leaning against the barrier and chatting. He ignored them and moved on quickly, passing round the great curve of the track, and entered the second-class enclosure.
The first race was just finishing and he stood at the rail and watched the light, two-wheeled sulkies bounce on the corners, the drivers hanging grimly onto the reins as t
he horses trotted toward the finishing line at an incredible speed. There was a roar from the crowd, and a moment later, the result was announced over the loudspeaker.
He looked across into the first-class enclosure and checked his watch. There were still ten minutes to go. He sauntered across to the grandstand and went into the bar. For the moment, trade seemed to be slack and he ordered a beer and lit a cigarette. As he carried his drink across to a corner table, Sir George Harvey appeared in the entrance.
He came straight over and sat down. “Don’t you think you’re asking for trouble showing your face in a public place like this?”
Chavasse shook his head. “There’s safety in numbers.”
“I still think it’s damned risky,” Sir George said. “But now you are here, you can tell me what happened on that blasted train. Why did you have to kill Muller?”
“But I didn’t,” Chavasse said. “As far as I know, he’s still alive and kicking.” He went on to describe what had really taken place.
When he had finished, Sir George leaned back in his chair, a slight frown on his face. “It’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever heard of. So Steiner and this Kruger fellow are presumably working for the Nazi underground?”
“It certainly looks that way.”
“And this other chap,” Sir George said. “The one who saved your bacon. I suppose he’s working for the people who spirited Eichmann away to Israel?”
Chavasse nodded. “That’s about the size of it.”
Sir George shook his head in bewilderment. “You know, even during the war, when this sort of thing came under my department, I never heard anything quite like it. Dammit all, man, we went through six years of hell to give these Nazis what was coming to them, and here they are sticking their heads up again and apparently able to get away with it.”
“But not for long,” Chavasse said. “The very fact that they have to work underground is an encouraging sign.” He lit another cigarette. “You had a message for me.”
“So I did,” Sir George said. “I’m sorry, I was forgetting. Your Chief wanted you to know they’ve got a line on Muller. He was Bormann’s orderly. Apparently, in civilian life he’d been a valet. His family lived in Hamburg and he had one sister. They were all killed in the bombing in 1943. Does that help at all?”
