The Schirmer Inheritance

by Eric Ambler

  George thought quickly. “I suppose Franz changed his name when Muhlhausen was ceded to Prussia.”

  “That’s what I thought. As far as the Prussians were concerned, he’d be a deserter. But I guess he just didn’t trouble about Karl.”

  “He changed Hans’s name.”

  “But Hans was a baby then. He’d naturally grow up a Schneider. Anyway, whatever the reason, there it was. Hans had had six brothers and five sisters. All were surnamed Schneider except one, Karl. His surname was Schirmer. All I had to do was to find out which of those persons had had children-cousins of Amelia-and whether any one of those children was alive.”

  “That must have been quite a job.”

  Mr. Moreton shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds. Death rates were higher in the last century. Out of the eleven brothers and sisters, two boys and two girls died in a typhoid epidemic before they were twelve, and another of the girls was killed by a runaway horse when she was fifteen. That meant I had only six to worry about. Four of them I handed over to a private inquiry agent specializing in that kind of thing. The other two I looked after.”

  “Karl Schirmer was one of your two?”

  “He was. And by the middle of July I had finished with the Schneiders. There had been children all right, but none of them had survived Amelia. So there was still no heir. The only one left to check on was Karl Schirmer.”

  “Did he have any children?”

  “Six. He’d been apprenticed to a printer in Coblenz and married the boss’s daughter. I spent from mid-July on, chasing around the towns and villages of the Rhineland. By mid-August I’d traced all but one of the six, and there was still no heir. The missing child was a son, Friedrich, born in 1863. All I knew about him was that he’d married in Dortmund in 1887, and that he was a bookkeeper. And then I had trouble with the Nazis.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Well, in the summer of 1939 any foreigner who traveled about the Rhineland asking questions, checking official records, and sending cables in cipher was bound to become suspect, but, like a dope, I hadn’t thought of that. In Essen I was interviewed by the police and asked to give an account of myself. I explained as best I could and they went away, but the next day they came again. This time they had a couple of Gestapo boys with them.” Mr. Moreton smiled ruefully. “I don’t mind telling you, my boy, I was glad I had an American passport. Still, I made them believe me in the end. The fact that I was trying to prevent the papers’ knowing what I was doing helped, I think. They didn’t like newspapers either. The main thing was that I managed to keep the name of Schirmer out of it. But they made trouble all the same. Within two weeks I had a cable from my partners to say that the German Embassy in Washington had notified the State Department that in future the German government would represent any German national claiming the Schneider Johnson estate, and had requested complete information about the present state of the administrator’s inquiries in the matter.”

  “You mean the Gestapo had reported what you were doing to their Foreign Office?”

  “They certainly had. That’s how that phony Rudolph Schneider claim of theirs started. You have no idea how difficult it is, politically and in every other way, to challenge the validity of documents produced and attested by the government of a friendly power-I mean a power enjoying normal diplomatic relations with your own government. It’s like accusing them of forging their own bank-notes.”

  “And what about the Schirmer side of the family, sir? Did the Nazis ever get on to that?”

  “No, they didn’t. You see, they didn’t have Amelia’s documents to help them as we did. They didn’t even have the right Schneider family, but it was difficult to prove.”

  “And Friedrich Schirmer, Karl’s son? Did you trace him?”

  “Yes, my boy, I traced him all right, but I had hell’s own job doing it. I got on his trail at last through a clerical employment agency in Karlsruhe. They found out for me that there had been an elderly bookkeeper named Friedrich Schirmer on their files five years previously. They’d found a job for him in a button factory at Freiburg-im-Breisgau. So I went to the button factory. There they told me that he had retired three years earlier at the age of seventy and gone into a clinic at Bad Schwennheim. Bladder trouble, they said. They thought he’d probably be dead.”

  “And was he?”

  “Yes, he was dead.” Mr. Moreton looked out at the garden as if he hated it. “I don’t mind telling you, my boy,” he said, “that I was feeling pretty old and tired myself by then. It was the last week in August and there wasn’t very much doubt, from what the radio was saying, that Europe was going to be at war within the week. I wanted to go home. I’ve never been the sort of man who likes being in the thick of things. Besides, I was having trouble with the interpreter. He was a Lorrainer, France was mobilizing, and he was afraid he wouldn’t have time to see his wife before he was called to his regiment. It was getting difficult to buy gasoline for the car, too. I was tempted to forget about Friedrich Schirmer and get out. And yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to go without just making a final check-up. Twenty-four hours more, that was all I needed.”

  “And so you did check up.” Now that he had the facts he wanted, George was getting impatient with Mr. Moreton’s reminiscences.

  “Yes, I checked up. But without the interpreter. He was so darned scared that I told him to take the car, drive it to Strasbourg, and wait for me there. That was a lucky thing, too. When the Gestapo got hold of him later, he knew no more than that I’d gone to Bad Schwennheim. Real luck. I went there by train. Do you know it? It’s near Triburg in Baden.”

  “I never got down that way.”

  “It’s one of those scattered little resort towns-pensions, family hotels, and small villas on the edge of the fir forest. I’d found that the best person to make for on those inquiries was the priest, so I set out to find him. I could see the church-like a cuckoo clock it was, on the side of the hill-and I had just about enough German to find out from a passer-by that the priest’s house was beyond it. Well, I sweated up there and saw the priest. Luckily, he spoke good English. I told him the usual lies, of course-”

  “Lies?”

  “About its being a trifling matter, a small legacy, all that stuff. You have to play it down. If you go telling the truth on a job like that you’re a dead duck. Greed! You’d be surprised what happens to perfectly sane people when they start thinking in millions. So I told the usual lies and asked the usual questions.”

  “And the priest said Friedrich Schirmer was dead?”

  “Yes.” Mr. Moreton smiled slyly. “But he also said what a pity it was that I’d come too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “For the funeral.”

  “You mean he’d survived Amelia?”

  “By over ten months.”

  “Had he a wife?”

  “She’d been dead for sixteen years.”

  “Children?”

  “A son named Johann. That’s his photograph in the box you have. Ilse was the son’s wife. Johann would be in his fifties now.”

  “You mean he’s alive?”

  “I haven’t any idea, my boy,” said Mr. Moreton cheerfully. “But if he is, he’s certainly the Schneider Johnson heir.”

  George smiled. “ Was the heir you mean, don’t you, sir? As a German, he could never receive the estate. The Alien Property Custodian would vest himself with the claim.”

  Mr. Moreton chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t be so certain, my boy. According to the priest, Friedrich spent over twenty years of his life working for a German electrical manufacturer with a plant near Schaffhausen in Switzerland. Johann was born there. Technically, he’d be Swiss.”

  George sat back in his chair. For a moment or two he was too confused to think clearly. Mr. Moreton’s pink, puffy jowls quivered with amusement. He was pleased with the effect of his statement. George felt himself getting indignant.

  “But where did he liv
e?” he asked. “Where does he live?”

  “I don’t know that either. Neither did the priest. As far as I could make out, the family returned to Germany in the early twenties. But Friedrich Schirmer hadn’t seen or heard from his son and daughter-in-law in years. What’s more, there was nothing in the papers he left to show that they’d ever existed, barring the photograph and some things he’d said to the priest.”

  “Did Friedrich make a will?”

  “No. He had nothing to leave worth troubling about. He had lived on a small annuity. There was scarcely enough money to bury him properly.”

  “But surely you made an effort to find this Johann?”

  “There wasn’t much I could do right then. I asked Father Weichs-that was the priest-to let me know immediately if anything was heard of or from Johann, but the war broke out three days later. I never heard any more about it.”

  “But when the German government claimed the estate, didn’t you tell them the situation and ask them to produce Johann Schirmer?”

  The old man shrugged impatiently. “Of course, if it had got to the point where they had a real chance of substantiating their Schneider claim, we’d have had to. But, as it was, it was better not to show our hand. They’d already produced a phony Schneider. What was to stop them producing a phony Johann Schirmer? Supposing they’d discovered that Johann and Ilse were dead and without heirs! Do you think they’d have admitted it? Besides, we didn’t expect the war to last more than a month or two; we were thinking all the time that at any moment one of us would be able to go back to Germany and clear the whole matter up in a proper way and to our own satisfaction. Then, of course, Pearl Harbor came and that was the end of the thing as far as we were concerned.”

  Mr. Moreton sank back on his cushions and closed his eyes. He had had his fun. Now he was tired.

  George was silent. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the second Mrs. Moreton hovering in the background. He got to his feet. “There’s only one thing I’m not clear about, sir,” he said hesitantly.

  “Yes, my boy?”

  “You said that when you handed over to Mr. Sistrom in ’44 you didn’t want these facts to come to his attention. Why was that?”

  Slowly Mr. Moreton opened his eyes. “Early in ’44,” he said, “my son was murdered by the S.S. after escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. My wife wasn’t too well at the time and the shock killed her. When the time came to hand the administration over, I guess I just couldn’t accept the idea of a German getting anything out of this country as a result of my efforts.”

  “I see.”

  “Not professional,” the old man added disapprovingly. “Not ethical. But that’s the way I felt. Now-” he shrugged and his eyes were suddenly amused again-“now all I’m wondering is what Harry Budd’s going to say when you tell him the news.”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing myself,” said George.

  Mr. Budd said: “Oh my God!” with great force and asked his secretary to see if Mr. Sistrom was available for consultation.

  John J. Sistrom was the most senior partner in the firm (Lavater and Powell had been dead for years) and had been well thought of by the elder J. P. Morgan. A remote, portentous figure who entered and left his office by a private door, he was rarely seen except by other senior partners. George had been presented to him on joining the firm and received a perfunctory handshake. He was very old, much older than Mr. Moreton, but skinny and spry-an energetic bag of bones. He fidgeted with a gold pencil while he listened to Mr. Budd’s disgusted explanation of the position.

  “I see,” he said at last. “Well, Harry, what do you want me to do? Retain someone else, I suppose.”

  “Yes, John J. I thought that someone like Lieberman might be interested.”

  “Maybe he would. What’s the exact value of the estate now?”

  Mr. Budd looked at George.

  “Four million three hundred thousand, sir,” George said.

  Mr. Sistrom pursed his lips. “Let’s see. Federal tax will account for quite a bit. Then, the thing has been held up for over seven years, so the 1943 legislation applies. That means eighty per cent of what’s left to the Commonwealth.”

  “If a claimant were to get half a million out of it, he’d be lucky,” said Mr. Budd.

  “Half a million free of tax is a lot of money these days, Harry.”

  Mr. Budd laughed. Mr. Sistrom turned to George. “What’s your opinion of this Johann Schirmer’s claim, young man?” he asked.

  “On the face of it, sir, the claim looks sound to me. A big point in its favour would seem to be the fact that although the intestacy itself comes under the 1917 act, this Schirmer claim would satisfy the tougher provisions of the ’47 act. There’s no question of representation. Friedrich Schirmer was a first cousin and he survived the old lady.”

  Mr. Sistrom nodded. “You agree with that, Harry?”

  “Oh, sure. I think Lieberman will be glad to act.”

  “Funny things, some of these old inheritances cases,” mused Mr. Sistrom absently. “They make perspectives. A German Dragoon of Napoleon’s time deserts after a battle and has to change his name. Now here we sit, over a hundred years later and four thousand miles away, wondering how to deal with a situation arising out of that old fact.” He smiled vaguely. “It’s an interesting case. You see, we could argue that Friedrich inherited the estate prior to the appointment of the Alien Property Custodian and that it should therefore have descended to Johann Schirmer under the German law. There have been one or two cases of German-Swiss claims against the Custodian which have succeeded. There are all sorts of possibilities.”

  “And won’t the papers have fun when they get hold of them!” said Mr. Budd.

  “Well, they don’t have to get hold of them, do they? Not for the present anyway.” Mr. Sistrom seemed to have come to a decision. “I don’t think you ought to be too hasty about this business, Harry,” he said. “Naturally, we’re not going to get involved in any newspaper nonsense, but we’re in the possession of certain information that nobody else has access to. We’re in a strong position. I think that before we come to any decision about who’s going to act we ought at least to send someone quietly to Germany to see if this Johann Schirmer can be traced. I don’t like the idea of just letting the Commonwealth take all this money because we can’t be bothered to fight them. If he’s dead and without issue or heir, or we can’t find him, then we can think again. Maybe I’ll just tell the Commonwealth the facts and leave it to them in that case. But if there is some chance that the man may be alive, no matter how slight, we should bend our effort to find him. There is no need to hand over a substantial fee to another firm for doing so. Our charge for services is made irrespective of whether we are successful or not. I see no reason for turning down the opportunity.”

  “But, my God, John J.-”

  “It’s perfectly ethical for the administrator’s attorneys to endeavour to find the heir and be paid for their efforts.”

  “I know it’s ethical, John J., but jeepers-”

  “In this kind of office one can get too narrow,” said Mr. Sistrom firmly. “I don’t think, either, that just because we’re afraid of being annoyed by a little newspaper publicity we should let the business go out of the family.”

  There was a silence. Mr. Budd heaved a sigh. “Well, if you put it that way, John J. But suppose this man’s in the Russian zone of Germany or in jail as a war criminal?”

  “Then we can think again. Now, whom will you send?”

  Mr. Budd shrugged. “I’d say a good, reliable, private inquiry agent was what we needed.”

  “Inquiry agent!” Mr. Sistrom dropped his gold pencil. “Look, Harry, we’re not going to make a million dollars out of it. Competent private inquiry-agents are far too expensive for a gamble like this. No. I think I have a better idea.” He turned in his chair and looked at George.

  George waited with a sinking heart.

  The blow came.

&nb
sp; Mr. Sistrom smiled benevolently. “How would you like a trip to Europe, Mr. Carey?” he said.

  4

  Two weeks later George went to Paris.

  As the plane from New York banked slowly and began to lose height in preparation for the landing at Orly, he could see the city turning lazily into view beneath the port wing. He craned his head to see more of it. It was not the first time he had flown over Paris; but it was the first time he had done so as a civilian, and he was curious to see if he could still identify the once familiar landmarks. He was, besides, at the beginning of a new relationship with the place. For him it had been, successively, an area on a map, the location of an Army Air Corps headquarters establishment, a fun fair in which to spend leave periods, and a grey wilderness of streets to wander in while you sweated it out waiting for transportation home. Now it had become a foreign capital in which he had business to attend to; the point of departure for what, in a facetious moment, he had thought of as an Odyssey. Not even the knowledge that he was acting merely as an inexpensive substitute for a competent private inquiry agent could quite dispel a pleasurable feeling of anticipation.

  His attitude towards the Schneider Johnson case had changed somewhat during those two weeks. Though he still regarded his connection with it as a misfortune, he no longer saw it as a major disaster. Several things had conspired to fortify his own good sense in the matter. There had been Mr. Budd’s protest against sending so able a man on so pedestrian a mission. There had been his colleagues’ blasphemously expressed conviction that, having become bored with examining claims, he had cunningly misrepresented the facts in order to get himself a free vacation. Above all, there had been Mr. Sistrom’s decision to take a personal interest in the matter. Mr. Budd had crossly attributed this to vulgar greed; but George suspected that Mr. Sistrom’s apparently simple desire to milk the estate while he had the chance contained elements of other and less businesslike wishes. It was fantastic, no doubt, to suggest that, in a financial matter of any kind, a partner in Lavater, Powell and Sistrom could be influenced by romantic or sentimental considerations; but, as George had already perceived, fantasy and the Schneider Johnson case had never been very far apart. Besides, the belief that a schoolboy lurked in Mr. Sistrom was somehow reassuring; and reassurance was a thing of which he now stood in need.