by Eric Ambler
George hesitated. “Friedrich Schirmer’s family was a branch of the Schneider family in question. The actual connection would take a long time to explain, but I can tell you that the German government did not know of it.”
The priest smiled. “I see that it is still necessary to be discreet.”
George flushed. “I’m being as frank as I can, Father. This has always been a pretty funny sort of a case. There have been so many false claimants to the estate already that, even if a legitimate one were found, it would be enormously difficult now to establish the claim in the American courts. The fact is that, in all probability, no claim ever will be established. The money will just go to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
“Then why are you here, Mr. Carey?”
“Partly because the law firm I work for succeeded Mr. Moreton in the matter. Partly because it is our duty to find the heir. Partly because the matter has to be cleared up so that our firm may be paid.”
“That, at least, is frank.”
“Maybe I should add, too, that if there is a rightful heir, then he or she ought to have the money and not the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The federal government and the state will get most of it in taxes in the end anyway, but there’s no reason why someone else shouldn’t enjoy it too.”
“Mr. Moreton mentioned a trust.”
“Well-”
“Ah, I see. That also was discretion.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Was Friedrich Schirmer the rightful heir?”
“Mr. Moreton thought so.”
“Then why did Mr. Moreton not tell the courts so?”
“Because Friedrich Schirmer was dead and because he was afraid that if Friedrich were found to have no living heir, the German government would fake one to get the money. In fact they did produce an old man they claimed to be the heir. Mr. Moreton fought the claim for over a year.”
Father Weichs was silent for a moment; then he sighed. “Very well. How can I help you now, Mr. Carey?”
“Mr. Moreton said that you promised to let him know if Friedrich Schirmer’s son, Johann, appeared. Did he?”
“No.”
“Do you know if any letters ever came for Friedrich Schirmer to the sanatorium where he died?”
“Up to the middle of 1940 no letter came.”
“You would have known?”
“Oh yes. I visited the sanatorium often.”
“And after the middle of 1940?”
“The sanatorium was commandeered by the army. It became the headquarters of a training school for radio operators.”
“I see. Well, that seems to be fairly conclusive.” George stood up. “Thanks a lot, Father.”
But Father Weichs had made a movement of protest. “One moment, Mr. Carey. You asked if Johann Schirmer came to Bad Schwennheim.”
“Yes?”
“He did not come, but his son did.”
“His son?” Slowly George sat down again.
“He would be of interest to you, the son?”
“If he were a grandson of Friedrich Schirmer, he would interest me very much.”
Father Weichs nodded. “He came to see me. I must explain that when the army occupied the sanatorium, I visited the Commandant of the school to offer the services of my church to those who wished them. The Commandant was not himself of the religion, but he was sympathetic and made it as easy as possible for those who wished to come to Mass.”
He looked thoughtfully at George. “I do not know if you served in the army, Mr. Carey,” he went on after a moment or two. George nodded. “So! Then you may have noticed that there were some men-among the young front fighters I mean-who were not religious and yet found it necessary sometimes to seek some of the consolations of religion. It was when they had to find the courage to face death or mutilation, after they had seen what those things were, that the need seemed to come. Then the elaborate materialism of the intelligent among them proved as useless and sterile as the hero myths they had brought with them from the Hitler Jugend. They found that they needed something else, and sometimes they went to a priest to look for it.” He smiled faintly. “Of course, it never appeared as simple as that at the time. They came to me for many commonplace reasons, these young men-to talk about their families, to ask advice on some material problem, to borrow a book or a magazine, to show photographs they had taken, to enjoy the privacy of a garden. But the outward reason was unimportant. Though they might not always realize it, what they wanted was, in some way, to come to terms with me as a priest. They wanted something that in their hearts they thought I might be able to give them-an inner peace and strength.”
“And Schirmer’s grandson was one of them?”
Father Weichs shrugged. “I was not sure. Perhaps, yes. But I will tell you. He had been sent to the school for special training. He was a-”
He broke off, hesitating, and then, glancing at Miss Kolin, said the word Fallschirmjager.
“He was a paratrooper,” she said.
The priest nodded. “Thank you, yes. He came to see me one day in September or October-I do not quite remember. He was a tall, strong-looking young man, very much a soldier. He had been wounded in Belgium in the attack on the fortress of Eben-Emael, and was not yet well enough to return to combat duty. He came to ask me if I knew of his grandfather, Friedrich Schirmer.”
“Did he say where his home was?” asked George quickly.
“Yes. He came from Koln.”
“Did he say what his father’s occupation was?”
“No. I cannot remember that he did.”
“Had he any brothers or sisters?”
“No, he was the only child.”
“Did he know when he came that his grandfather was dead?”
“No. It was a great disappointment to him. When he was a boy the grandfather had lived in his parents’ house and been kind to him. Then one day there had been a quarrel and the old man had gone.”
“Did he say how he knew that the old man had lived at Bad Schwennheim?”
“Yes. The quarrel had been serious, and after Friedrich left, his name was never mentioned by the boy’s parents. But the boy loved his grandfather. Even before he went to school the old man had taught him how to write and to rule his exercise books properly. Later the grandfather helped him with arithmetic problems and talked to him much of commercial affairs. You knew Friedrich Schirmer was a bookkeeper?”
“Yes.”
“The boy did not forget him. When he was about fourteen his parents received a letter from the old man saying that he was retiring to live at Bad Schwennheim. He had heard them discussing it. They destroyed the letter, but he remembered the name of the town, and when he was sent to the army school there he tried to find his grandfather. He did not know until I told him that, by a strange chance, he was living in the building where the old man had died.”
“I see.”
Father Weichs looked down at his hands. “You would not have thought to see him or speak with him that he was a young man whom it was necessary to protect from disillusion. I think I failed him. I did not understand him until it was too late. He came to see me several times. He asked many questions about his grandfather. I saw afterwards that he wanted to make a hero of him. At the time I did not think. I answered the questions as kindly as I could. Then one day he asked me if I did not think that his grandfather Friedrich had been a fine and good man.” He paused and then went on slowly and carefully as if choosing words in his own defence. “I made the best answer I could. I said that Friedrich Schirmer had been a hard-working man and that he had suffered his long, painful illness with patience and courage. I could say no more. The boy took my words for agreement and began to speak with great bitterness of his father, who had, he said, sent the old man away in a moment of jealous hatred. I could not allow him to speak so. It was against the truth. I said that he was doing his father a great injustice, that he should go to his father and ask for the truth.” He raised his eyes and looked at George s
ombrely. “He laughed. He said that he had never yet had anything from his father that was good and would not get the truth. He went on to talk jokingly of his father as if he despised him. Then he went away. I did not see him again.”
Outside, on the iron balconies of the hospital, the shadows were getting longer. A clock tolled the hour.
“And what was the truth, Father?” asked George quietly.
The priest shook his head. “I was Friedrich Schirmer’s confessor, Mr. Carey.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
“It would not help you to know.”
“No, I see that. But tell me this, Father. Mr. Moreton made a rough list of the documents and photographs that were found after Friedrich Schirmer’s death. Was that all he had? Was nothing else ever found?”
To his surprise, he saw a look of embarrassment come over the priest’s face. His eyes avoided George’s. For a moment or two there was something positively furtive about Father Weichs’s expression.
“Old documents,” George added quickly, “can be very important evidence in cases like these.”
Father Weichs’s jaw muscles tightened. “There were no other documents,” he said.
“Or photographs?”
“None that could possibly have been of any value to you, Mr. Carey,” the priest replied stiffly.
“But there were other photographs?” George insisted.
Father Weichs’s jaw muscles began to twitch. “I repeat, Mr. Carey, that they would have had no bearing on your inquiry,” he said.
“ ‘ Would have had’?” George echoed. “Do you mean they no longer exist, Father?”
“I do. They no longer exist. I burned them.”
“I see,” said George.
There was a heavy silence while they looked at one another. Then Father Weichs got to his feet with a sigh and looked out of the window.
“Friedrich Schirmer was not a pleasant man,” he said at last. “I see no harm in telling you that. You may even have guessed from what I have already said. There were many of these photographs. They were never of importance to anyone but Friedrich Schirmer-and possibly to those from whom he bought them.”
George understood. “Oh,” he said blankly. “Oh, I see.” He smiled. He had a strong desire to laugh.
“He had made his peace with God,” said Father Weichs. “It seemed kinder to destroy them. The secret lusts of the dead should end with the flesh that created them. Besides,” he added briskly, “there is always the risk of such erotica getting into the hands of children.”
George got to his feet. “Thanks, Father. There are just a couple more things I’d like to ask you. Did you ever know what unit of the paratroopers young Schirmer was serving in?”
“No. I regret that I did not.”
“Well, we can find that out later. What were his given names, Father, and his rank? Do you remember?”
“I only knew one name. Franz, it was, I think. Franz Schirmer. He was a Sergeant.”
6
They stayed that night in Stuttgart. Over dinner George summed up the results of their work.
“We can go straight to Cologne and try to find the Johann Schirmers by going through the city records,” he went on; “or we can go after the German army records, turn up Franz Schirmer’s papers, and get hold of his parents’ address that way.”
“Why should the army have his parents’ address?”
“Well, if it were our army he’d been in, his personal file would probably show the address of his parents, or wife if he’s married, as next of kin. Someone they can notify when you’ve been killed is a thing most armies like to have. What do you think?”
“Cologne is a big city-nearly a million persons before the war. But I have not been there.”
“I have. It was a mess when I saw it. What the R.A.F. didn’t do to it our army did. I don’t know whether the city archives were saved or not, but I’m inclined to go for the army records first just in case.”
“Very well.”
“In fact, I think the army is a better bet all round. Two birds with one stone. We’ll find out what happened to Sergeant Schirmer at the same time as we trace his parents. Do you have any ideas about where his German army records would be?”
“Bonn is the West German capital. Logically they should be there now.”
“But you don’t really think they will be, eh? Neither do I. Anyway I think we’ll go to Frankfurt tomorrow. I can check up with the American army people there. They’ll know. Another brandy?”
“Thank you.”
A further thing he had discovered about Miss Kolin was that, although she probably consumed, in public or in the privacy of her room, over half a bottle of brandy every day, she did not seem to suffer from hangovers.
It took them nearly two weeks to find out what the German army knew about Sergeant Schirmer.
He had been born in Winterthur in 1917, the son of Johann Schirmer (mechanic) and Ilse, his wife, both of pure German stock. From the Hitler Jugend he had joined the army at the age of eighteen and been promoted corporal in 1937. He had been transferred from the Engineers to a special air training unit (Fallschirmjager) in 1938 and promoted sergeant in the following year. At Eben-Emael he had received a bullet wound in the shoulder, from which he had satisfactorily recovered. He had taken part in the invasion of Crete and had been awarded the Iron Cross (Third Class) for distinguished conduct. In Benghazi later in that year he had suffered from dysentery and malaria. In Italy in 1943, while acting as a parachutist instructor, he had fractured a hip. There had been a court of inquiry to determine who had been responsible for giving the order to jump over wooded country. The court had commended the Sergeant’s conduct in refraining from transmitting an order he believed to be incorrect, while obeying it himself. After four months in hospital and at a rehabilitation centre, and a further period of sick leave, a medical board had declared him unfit for further duty as a paratrooper or any other combat duty which entailed excessive marching. He had been posted to the occupation forces in Greece. There, he had served as weapons instructor to the Ninety-fourth Garrison Regiment in a Lines of Communication Division stationed in the Salonika area, until the following year. After an action against Greek guerrillas during the withdrawal from Macedonia, he had been reported “missing, believed killed.” The next of kin, Ilse Schirmer, Elsass Str. 39, Koln, had been duly notified.
They found Elsass Strasse, or what was left of it, in the remains of the old town off the Neumarkt.
Before the stick of bombs which had destroyed it had fallen, it had been a narrow street of small shops with offices above them, and a tobacco warehouse halfway along. The warehouse had obviously received a direct hit. Some of the other walls still stood, but, with the exception of three shops at one end of the street, every building in it had been gutted. Lush weeds grew now out of the old cellar floors; notices said that it was forbidden to trespass among the ruins or to deposit rubbish.
Number 39 had been a garage set back from the street in a space behind two other buildings and approached by an arched drive-in between them. The arch was still standing. Fastened to its brickwork was a rusty metal sign. The words on it could be read: “Garage und Reparaturwerkstatt. J. Schirmer-Bereifung, Zubehor, Benzin.”
They walked through the archway to the place where the garage had stood. The site had been cleared, but the plan of the building was still visible; it could not have been a very big garage. All that remained of it now was a repair pit. It was half full of rain water and there were pieces of an old packing case floating in it.
As they stood there, it began to rain again.
“We’d better see if we can find out anything from the shops at the end of the street,” George said.
The proprietor of the second of the shops they tried was an electrical contractor, and he had some information. He had only been there three years himself and knew nothing of the Schirmers; but he did know something about the garage site. He had considered renting it for his own use
. He had wanted to put up a workshop and storeroom there and use the rooms over his shop to live in. The ground had no street frontage and was therefore of little value. He had thought to get it cheaply; but the owner had wanted too much and so he had made other arrangements. The owner was a Frau Gresser, wife of a chemist in the laboratories of a big factory out at Leverkusen. When women started bargaining, you understand, it was best to… Yes, he had her address written down somewhere, though if the gentleman were considering the property, he personally would advise him to think twice before wasting his time arguing with…
Frau Gresser lived in an apartment on the top floor of a newly reconstructed building near the Barbarossa Platz. They had to call three times before they found her in.
She was a stout, frowzy, breathless woman in her late fifties. Her apartment was furnished in the cocktail-bar-functional style of prewar Germany, and crammed with Tyrolean knickknacks. She listened suspiciously to their explanations of their presence there before inviting them to sit down. Then she went and telephoned her husband. After a while she came back and said that she was prepared to answer questions.
Ilse Schirmer, she said, had been her cousin and childhood friend.
“Are the Schirmers alive now?” George asked.
“Ilse Schirmer and her husband were killed in the big air attacks on the city in May 1942,” Miss Kolin interpreted.
“Did Frau Gresser inherit the garage land from them?”
Frau Gresser showed signs of indignation when the question was put and spoke rapidly in reply.
“By no means. The land was hers-hers and her husband’s, that is. Johann Schirmer’s own business went bankrupt. She and her husband had set him up in business again for the sake of Ilse. Naturally, they had hoped also to make a profit, but it was goodness of heart that motivated them in the first place. The business, however, was theirs. Schirmer was only the manager. He had a percentage of the takings and an apartment over the garage. No one could say that he had not been generously treated. Yet, after so much had been done for him by his wife’s friends, he had tried to cheat them over the takings.”
