by Howard Mason
As the warden finished, I thought of the grey, dying man who had lain in my armchair on that rainy evening only a few weeks ago. “Where I come from is a prison” he had said. I studied the little warden’s kindly, ineffectual face, and said:
“What sort of a life did Braun have here? Did he seem contented? Was he allowed any freedom?”
The warden looked at me and said: “He seemed contented enough. Until the day he went. Why do you ask?”
I told him about Braun’s dying words. The warden frowned, with a mild, puzzled air, and said: “I hope that Meiningen did not seem to him a prison. We allow our patients a good deal of freedom. Believe me, it’s better here than in the State Asylum.”
I said: “D’you think he could have come from prison originally—before he came to you?”
“It is possible. It was 1919, you remember; he may have been a prisoner-of-war.”
Prisoner-of-war. The phrase rang in my mind like an alarm-bell. Of course. Stony had been a prisoner-of-war. In Germany. In 1918.
My mind leapt ahead, constructing theories, dismissing them. Suppose Stony and Braun had been prisoners in the same camp—no, Braun was a German. A guard, then?—suppose they had played chess with each other—
No. Stony didn’t play chess.
This unalterable fact stared me in the face like a barbed-wire fence. I couldn’t get under it, through it, or over it.
Well, Braun was insane, so at least his evidence could be discounted. Whatever his connection with Stony was, it couldn’t have been a game of chess.
Another thought flew into my mind, bringing me up sharply.
Rightly or wrongly, I had been convinced that Braun’s red bishop had something to do with Stony’s vanished money; was even the key to the mystery. Walter Mott evidently thought so, too.
Yet there were two simple facts staring at each other in my mind; two more pieces of the jigsaw which wouldn’t fit together. They were these:
Stony’s fortune disappeared in 1938.
The red bishop had been in the pocket of Johann Braun, at Meiningen, from 1919 until the day he died a few weeks ago.
Had I been barking up the wrong tree? In any case, what on earth could the connection be between that chessman and three-quarters of a million pounds? But Walter Mott had wanted it; had got it; and if he wasn’t looking for my great-uncle’s money, then what was he looking for?
I emerged from my thoughts, to see the old warden watching me curiously. I said: “Is there anything else—anything else at all that you can tell me about Braun? Nothing else that he ever said which stuck in your mind?”
He shook his head, slowly.
“No other proper name that he mentioned?” I persisted.
Ulbrecht continued to shake his head; then, suddenly, he remembered something.
“Just one phrase, that remains in my mind. Something he said—now when was it? Not long before he ran away.” The warden broke off, looking at me. “It is good of you to take such an interest,” he said, curiously. “Really very good.”
I said quickly: “The case is of great interest to me. I—it is just possible that I may know of someone who could identify him.” I didn’t want to have to tell him the whole story, but I couldn’t blame him for being curious about my interest. I asked him about the phrase he had remembered.
“It was nothing out of the ordinary, really; I remember it only because it was so rare to hear him speak at all. He said—sitting by the window one day, looking out—he said quietly, ‘Kurz ist das Leben, lang ist der Rhein’—life is short, the Rhine is long; well, I suppose it must have been some old rhyme, some verses he had remembered. After that he sometimes repeated it, puzzled, you know, as though he’d forgotten how it went on. I don’t suppose it had any significance.”
Kurz ist das Leben, lang ist der Rhein. It didn’t sound very promising. I am in check. Where is Stonybridge? The whole thing was beginning to sound like an exercise in grammar. I sighed, and picked up my hat. I had found out all I could, and it hadn’t got me much further.
We talked for a bit longer, discussing Braun’s escape, which didn’t interest me much. The warden thought he must have stolen money and stowed away in a small boat; clearly he must have recovered enough of his wits to be able to get as far as Flood Street. It seemed quite a feat, but I had known escaped lunatics do stranger things in the columns of the News of the World, and I had had enough of Braun. I thanked the warden for his help, then, and departed.
It was after nine when I drove back into the town, and I went straight to the Rhein-Hotel. There were three telegrams awaiting me; the clerk informed me that they had come in during the evening. I tore them all open at once, but there was nothing from Nobby yet.
The first was headed PANCRAS PARK, and read:
STONYBRIDGE RHEIN-HOTEL BAD GODESBERG
AM REFERRING YOUR QUERY TO MOTT BABINGTON PETTIGREW STOP TRUST NOTHING AMISS STOP THEY WILL CONTACT YOU DIRECT SORRY NOT MORE HELP AM OUT OF TOWN FOR WEEK
ST PANCRAS
That was a great help. It would probably mean a hold-up in Nobby’s dealings with the bank, which was annoying. I delivered myself of a number of vigorous comments on the noble earl’s character, intellect, and ancestry, and turned to the second wire.
This went:
INVESTIGATE PROCEEDING AS ADVISED STOP UNABLE TO ACT FURTHER THIS STAGE WITHOUT GROUNDS EXTRADITION STOP UNOFFICIALLY SUGGEST CONTACT HUMPERDINCK OF BERLIN BUREAU MENTIONING MY NAME ATOP CARRY ON DICK BARTON
CHURT
Well, I’d expected that one. You could always trust Churt to recommend a policeman. I dismissed his suggestion as impracticable and examined the third wire. This was from the caretaker at Stour.
Mrs. Hilly had clearly suffered a good deal from Hedge:
BEG TO INFORM YOU ALFRED HEDGE RECOMMENDED BY MR MOTT BUT NOT POPULAR WITH HIS LORDSHIP IF I MAY PRESUME STOP TRUST HE HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG BUT AM NOT SURPRISED
HILLY
There was one interesting thing about her information, apart from the fact that it confirmed my theory. This was that it seemed more unlikely than ever that Stony would have confided in Hedge. Whatever Hedge had learned, he hadn’t learned it from Stony.
I crumpled up the wires and went in search of a meal.
I found a table on a terrace overlooking the river, and gave my order. I thought over the warden’s story; it didn’t seem to help much. And it gave me no clue for my next move. I tried to work out the chances of hearing from Nobby that evening. There was a chance; it was worth waiting till the morning, perhaps, and after that I’d have to start working laboriously on Mott’s trail from Aix, questioning in every possible stopping-place. It seemed pretty hopeless.
I sat gazing down at the river. There were a few small boats and barges drifting by. Wide and serene, the river seemed like a solid, permanent object; one could hardly believe that it had started in the mountains as a tiny spring. Kurz ist das Leben, lang ist der Rhein. The words kept on cantering through my mind in a monotonous jingle. They were a scrap of some verse. They couldn’t have any significance. Or could they?
I stared at the river, a new, tenuous hope rearing its head inside me.
Johann Braun had “just walked in” to Meiningen Castle, Godesberg, that day early in 1919. He looked like a tramp; he had presumably been tramping. Tramping down the river. Down the Rhine.
What had he been searching for—this nameless man with a cloud on his brain and a chessman in his pocket? Why did he leave the shores of the river to venture on strange, well-walled territory? Had it been accident, just aimless wandering?
Kurz ist das Leben, lang ist der Rhein.
No, it was ridiculous to imagine it.
Or had Johann Braun been looking for a castle—a castle on the Rhine?
I told myself I was a fool, but I got out the map and began to study it.
The Rhine was a hell of a long river, even in its German section alone; and the total number of castles situated on its east and west banks between Cleves and Basle defied estimation. I put it at about two or three to the mile.
Of course, I could call at every likely-looking castle on the neighbouring stretch of river, and ask a few questions; but this seemed an awkward and unpromising activity. Is this the Schloss Bumff, I could ask; oh, I see, and have you a Hispano-Suiza lurking in the woodshed? Is your name Braun? And forgive my asking you, but do you play chess? Oh, well, I just wondered. No, I do not desire to buy Bumff; I’m just looking, thanks.
On the strength of one line of doggerel uttered by a madman, it seemed an arduous undertaking, and I abandoned it.
I was just finishing my meal when the waiter brought me a telegram.
I snatched at it like a drowning man at a lifebelt, and tore it open.
Nobby had handed it in at 6.30 p.m. in London, and the message was:
NOTHING DEFINITE YET BUT YOU MIGHT TRY ONE HERR VON ARNHEM OF COCHEM-AN-DER-MOSEL RHINE PROVINCE STOP STREET ADDRESS UNKNOWN STOP IF IT’S A DUD DONT SAY I DIDNT WARN YOU
NOBBY
Well, it wasn’t much, but it was something. I wished Nobby had been more explicit. It looked as though he had found the German name somewhere in the bank passbooks.
I spread out the map again. The Moselle was a tributary of the Rhine. Cochem was not far down it, on the west bank. A hundred, a hundred and fifty miles, I estimated, from where I was. At least it was in the right area; the ground seemed to be narrowing. And it was on the river. I still hankered after my theory about the river.
I didn’t wait any longer. There was nothing else to do in Godesberg, and I wired Nobby telling him to send his next bulletin to Poste Restante, Cochem. Then I got into the Rolls, headed south, and followed the river into the darkness.
I reached Cochem soon after midnight. It was silent and empty in the moonlight; a small cluster of Gothic houses and hotels, tucked in at the foot of the pine-covered hills which rose on either side of the river. I went in the best-looking of the hotels, and persuaded them to give me a room. It was too late to start looking for Herr von Arnhem. He would have to wait till the morning.
I went out on to the balcony of my room and stood there to smoke a last cigarette. The rounded, flat-topped hills, not quite mountains, lay like sleeping animals, crouching side by side as far as the eye could see; the broad river curling away between them. I blew out a final cloud of tobacco-smoke and watched it drift across the river in the faint light from the window behind me. It rose, and faded into the dark sky. A small wind sighed across the hills, making them ruffle themselves and cough gently, as though the smoke had got into their throats. I tossed my cigarette-end into the river, and turned in.
CHAPTER VIII
I slept later than I had intended, and by the time I emerged from the hotel the sun was well up in the sky and sparkling on the river.
At Cochem post-office there was a letter waiting for me. It was from Nobby all right. He had put it directly on to a plane the night before, and it had come up from Cologne airport with the first post, which wasn’t bad going.
I returned to the hotel, ordered some coffee, and sat down to study the letter. It covered several sheets in Nobby’s small cramped hand, and was decorated here and there with ink-blots.
Well I got here alright, what a train journey to Brussels, three times I had to change and not a drop of liquer to he had on any of them but let that pass, not to mention the aircraft though that did have some of the afore-mentioned on board I must admit but I wont bore you with that now and come to the point here goes:
That—St Pancras hadnt done a thing about it of course, so how was yours truly supposed to get into the bank after closing-time you never thought of that one but I got Churt on to the job and he got me inside the manager’s office in two shakes of a cob’s tail I will say that for old Churt. The manager was eating out of my hoof when Churt was done with him and I got him to bring everything he had up out of the vaults, I’d like to have gone down there myself and seen what it was like down there but they say its a dead loss, old Moke once knew someone who once tried it ten years he got.
Well I got hold of the books for years 1937-38 first like you said, but we couldnt find nothing, he had drawn it all out alright but nothing to show what he did with it so that was a dead loss.
Well having drawn a blank there I didnt lose heart but put in some smart work on the currant account statements for years preceding, Sherlock Homes isnt in it when it comes to yours truly for smart work. What I found was this name von Arnhem which kept cropping up all the time and being German I sent you the wire right away because you never know, it looked funny to me.
Well keeping on looking what I found was this: Up to 1938 Stony was paying out an annual sum of seven thousand a year repeat seven thousand, to this von Arnhem, and this had been going on for nearly twenty years by the looks of it only I gave up after I’d got as far as 1920, that was quite far enough let me tell you I was nearly cross-eyed.
Well this stopped in 1938 which it would naturally do if Stony lost all his money, though of course there may be a more subtle connection and if you ask my opinion the whole thing stinks of blackmail. In fact I’ll lay you ten to one on this von Arnhem is a blackmailer, and very nicely he has done out of it too. The only clue to von Arnhem’s address was that the cheques came back through the Rhein-Bank Cochem-an-der-Mosel branch. Maybe they will give you his address but there is only one thing in this world cagier than a bank manager and that is a stable hand on Derby day.
Well thats all there was of interest and after that Churt and me paid a nocturnal visit to the offices of Mott Babington and Pettigrew, Churt is a smart hand at picking a lock I will say that for old Churt.
We didnt find anything much but Churt had been working on the official end since receiving your wire and what he’d found out was this: There is no Babington or Pettigrew, leastways Mott bought the whole firm lock stock and b. in 1936 but kept them on in name as sleeping partners, time someone woke them up if you ask me.
Well thats about all and I’m putting this on to a plane for Cologne tonight so lets hope it gets you alright. Tomorrow I’m going to have a look round at Stour if I can get that far, Im not feeling at all well let me tell you, never again those Belgian trains not if you paid me. Hope you can read this alright I could do with a blotter.
Well heres mud in your eye from yours truly
Norton Q. Chalmers
PS. That two-year-old Bishops Scarlet which won at Hurst Park was disqualified for interference so you lost your money bad luck.
PSS. It was 20 to 1 so that will learn you.
I set down the letter thoughtfully.
Seven thousand pounds a year, paid out annually to Herr von Arnhem of Cochem. It certainly looked like blackmail. But I couldn’t imagine what heinous secret old Stony could have had on his conscience to shell out a sum like that.
It had stopped in 1938. Well, he clearly couldn’t have sent money to Germany after 1939. Had this von Arnhem seen the war coming and demanded a lump sum of cash down?
Well, but not that much. Not the greater part of his entire fortune. There must be some other explanation.
There was only one way to find out, and I called my elderly waiter and asked him to find me a local telephone directory. If von Arnhem was in it, it would save me a lot of trouble; if not, I’d have to try the bank.
I waited for the directory, gazing down into the street, where a cluster of village children were racing each other up and down. Their noise distracted me, and I began to watch them, making a book with myself on the likely ones. I fancied a little flaxen tot with ankles like Hyperion’s, but she kept falling down just before she reached the post. After a moment a woman leaned out of one of the houses and shouted at her, calling her in. “Komm sofort!” I heard. “Komm sofort in
s Haus! Oder ich werde dich den Turm hinaufschicken!” The odd threat seemed to be effective: come in, or I’ll send you up the tower. The little girl picked herself up and galloped back to her stall.
When the waiter came back, I asked him what the phrase meant. I wanted to engage him in conversation, because I thought he might be able to tell me something about von Arnhem. My opening gambit seemed to be a good one, for he handed me the directory with a beam and launched into a wordy explanation. “It’s a local saying, mein Herr, a very old one; my grandmother used to say just the same to me.” He pointed up into the hills behind us. “The Tower’s up there, across the valley from Burg Endert. You can’t see it from the village; it’s all overgrown with trees now.”
I said: “Why the threat?”
He shrugged. “It has a bad name. People say it isn’t safe to go up there, and the village keeps away. Mind you, I went up there many a time as a boy and none the worse for it.” He began to clear away the dishes, talking garrulously. I let him have his head, meanwhile beginning to flip through the pages of the directory. “It’s an old belief, older than my great-grandfather, the late Mayor of Cochem,” he continued, with pride. “Even in the parish register you’ll find it.” I turned from the V’s to the A’s; the close German print was hard to read. “Yes, it’s there, written down. In the old days, they wrote it often. ‘Johann Braun, went up the Tower March 5th, deeply mourned’—meaning he died, you understand.”
I sat up as though I’d been pricked with a needle. “Braun? Who was this Braun?”
The waiter stared at me blankly. “I meant only as one might say, John Brown, Wilhelm Tell, anybody. I don’t know if there’s really such a Braun.”
I suppose I’d known what he meant, really. In any case, Braun wasn’t my man’s real name. I was losing my grip.
I fingered the directory and said: “I suppose you don’t happen to know of a man called von Arnhem, who lives here in Cochem or nearby?”
