Hartmann stared at the General as though he were seeing him for the first time. Tanz’s renowned sang-froid was complete and his manner was a combination of rocklike inflexibility and elemental calm. Under other circumstances Hartmann might have found it impressive, but nothing could banish his memory of the corpse in the next room.
“A dead body like that one,” Tanz said coolly, “will probably attract a certain amount of attention even at a time like the present—quite unjustifiably, in my view. Who was the woman, after all? Just a worthless, slatternly, degenerate whore, a piece of human flotsam. During the last moments of her life she served a certain purpose, but our age has witnessed a million deaths more deplorable than hers. Can’t you see that?”
“No,” said Hartmann.
“You will,” Tanz assured him. “There are bound to be inquiries. That could be embarrassing, though not necessarily dangerous. However, there’s always a chance that unwelcome witnesses will come forward. The very fact that the Bentley may have been seen could cause complications. That’s why—and I’ve weighed my decision very carefully— we’re going to leave some clear and comparatively straightforward clues. Can you guess what their implication will be?”
“It’s a clear-cut case.”
“To us, Hartmann, yes. Not to anyone else.”
Tanz raised the pistol and peered at it, but the muzzle pointed at Hartmann. “Do you recall a question I put to you earlier today? I asked you which was more important—to the army, the Führer, Germany, anyone—a general or a lance-corporal.”
“And I said: a general.” Hartmann’s gorge rose. He felt on the point of choking and had to fight hard to overcome the sensation. “But now, after this, I can only say: the general was—was!—more important. Or rather, I thought so at the time.”
“You’re mistaken,” Tanz said amiably, “and it won’t be long before you see your mistake. When that time comes you’ll do precisely what I expect of you and accept responsibility for this business.”
“Never!” cried Hartmann, shaking with impotent rage. “Never! It was a bestial, abominable murder, and you’re the one who’ll pay for it.”
General Tanz leant back slightly, looking as if he might burst out laughing at any moment. He was apparently incapable of any such outward expression of emotion, but it was evident that he was being racked by a spasm of violent, almost painful amusement. His blue eyes sparkled like a sunlit northern sea.
“How little you know me!” he said. “And how greatly you overestimate the strength of your own position. I like you, Hartmann, I find you congenial and I appreciate your pleasant disposition. We have spent two interesting and enjoyable days together. Our visit to the Impressionists in the Jeu de Paume was an event in itself. You have looked after me with tact and discretion, hence my forbearance. I should hate to have to put a bullet through your handsome but stupid head.”
Hartmann shrank back in his chair. The graze on his forehead stung violently as rivulets of perspiration trickled down his scalp. His palms were sweating freely and he breathed through his mouth.
“Try to collect your scattered wits, Hartmann,” Tanz told him kindly. “As I said, the surest method of avoiding prolonged and embarrassing inquiries is to provide some unambiguous clues. I have already made certain arrangements and shall shortly complete them. My original plan was simply to shoot you out of hand. It would have been only too easy to explain that you had deserted, taking my car and briefcase with you, that I followed you here, caught you red-handed and shot you in self-defence.”
“And you think people would have believed you, just like that?”
“Naturally. I’m a general. Who or what are you?”
Hartmann shivered as though smitten with an ague. “You won’t get away with it, not this way.”
“You overrate the importance of a lance-corporal, Hartmann.”
“I’ll deny the whole thing.”
“Dead men can’t deny anything.”
“But they’ll make inquiries. They’ll find out that this woman was at Madeleine’s before she was murdered and that you spoke to her. A place like that is always packed with people. Someone’s bound to have seen you together.”
Tanz raised the hand that held the pistol. His smile grew more sombre and a look of indulgent contempt flitted across his features. “Do you take me for a fool, Hartmann? I must confess that I find it a displeasing idea. You surely know the form in such establishments. There’s no need for any lengthy discussion. You just raise your thumb, that’s all. I didn’t exchange a single word with the creature. She was sitting three tables away from me. No one noticed me make any sort of rendezvous with her.”
Hartmann reached for the bottle. In the middle of the movement, he stiffened, remembering with dismay that it bore his finger-prints. So did the glass and probably other objects in the room as well. What was more, there would be blood on the door-frame where he had hit his head.
“I told you they would find clues, Hartmann.” The General spoke with quiet triumph. His usually masklike features had become endowed with expression, his eyes sparkled with life and his voice conveyed emotion. He seemed to have emerged from a deep and lasting state of lethargy. “But that’s not all. Earlier on, while you were alone in the restaurant at Versailles, I removed your papers from the glove compartment of the car. Your pass is hidden somewhere next door, somewhere where the police will find it. That’s just one of many clues, all of which will be supported and corroborated by my own testimony.”
A cloying stench of blood came from the next room, so penetrating that Hartmann half expected to see a sticky red stream oozing across the floor towards him. Numb with horror and fatigue, he closed his eyes.
“It’s up to you,” said the General. He sat there Eke a panther crouching for the kill, the muzzle of his pistol levelled at Hartmann’s head. “Either I shoot you or you make a run for it.”
Hartmann heard himself say: “I’ll try.”
“Good.” Tanz nodded contentedly. “That’s much the best solution—and far pleasanter for me personally. As I told you before, I’ve grown to like you. You weren’t perfect, of course. You even had the audacity to intrude into my private life. Don’t imagine that anything escapes me. I know all about your affair with Ulrike von Seydlitz-Gabler, though it’s a matter of complete indifference to me.”
Hartmann stared at the pistol without answering.
“Get away from here, Hartmann—as far away as possible. Go to ground somewhere. You can have the money in my wallet. You can even have the Bentley. You’re already wearing civilian clothes and you’ve got nearly a whole night ahead of you. Make the most of it.”
“What about you?”
“I shall take a little stroll and then go to bed. I shan’t notice your absence officially until tomorrow morning. I’ll say that I dismissed you on our return from Versailles this evening and that you haven’t reported for duty. There will naturally be inquiries, though I can’t say what their immediate result will be. It probably depends how soon this—” he indicated the bedroom—”is discovered and how quickly the police get to work. But now get going, Hartmann. You’re wasting valuable time.”
Hartmann walked to the door, then paused and looked back into the room. “You really think you’ll get away with it?”
“I’ve already done so. You’re the one whose life is in jeopardy.”
INTERIM REPORT
DEPOSITIONS, COMMENTS, REPORTS, CONJECTURES AND ASSERTIONS CONCERNING THE EVENTS OF THE NIGHT 19TH-2OTH JULY 1944
Alexandre Petit, at the time in question a waiter at the Boule d’Or in Versailles; now—sixteen years later—head waiter at Chez Pierre (Mediterranean specialities) in the Avenue Victor Hugo, Paris:
“Even in those days I used to divide people into three categories: those who enjoyed eating, those who ate a lot, and those who enjoyed eating a lot. I regarded anyone who didn’t fall into one of those three classes as ill-bred.
“The guest in the pearl-grey suit, whom I st
ill remember to this day, probably belonged to the third category. He ate with what might be described as fervour. I heard the man with him address him respectfully as ‘Herr General’.
“My recollection of the other individual is far less favourable. He drank Vichy water and guzzled a quantity of kitchen waste, commonly known as sandwiches. I was forced to conclude that he was a highly uncultured and inferior form of life. The General, on the other hand…”
Communication received from Frau Wilhelmine von Seydlitz-Gabler:
“I consider it an impertinence of you to pry into our past. Naturally we have nothing to hide, but we find it repugnant to assist notorious subversives and pathological muck-rakers in their unsavoury work.
“I will tell you this much: if any degraded literary hack dares to libel us we shall institute proceedings against him. In particular, we shall contest the insidious and malicious allegation that a personal or intimate relationship existed between ourselves and General Tanz—or was even contemplated.
“My daughter, who is now a married woman with two fine children and lives abroad in an allied country, is immune to any such denigrating and slanderous insinuations. But I give you fair warning—my husband is on intimate terms with the Minister of Justice and is fully able to defend our daughter’s honour—and our own.”
Madeleine V., formerly the proprietress of L’Ecurie de Madeleine in the Rue Drouot and now manageress of an international art agency with an office in the Champs-Elysées:
“A boîte is a boîte, not a Sunday school. Anyone who comes in, orders something to drink and pays for it, is a customer. Some customers are male, others female. What men and women do to each other doesn’t concern the proprietor—so long as they don’t actually do it on the dance floor.
“That’s just what I told the police at the time. The Stable was always packed. It was a popular place. My wine merchant, who was under a personal obligation to me, made sure that the drink never ran out. There were always barrels of Bordeaux. Did I ever have anything to do with a general —on the premises, you mean? It’s possible. Ministers came sometimes, not to mention prominent painters and authors.
“Yvonne—the girl from the Rue de Londres? Yes, she was a regular customer of mine. Not what you’d call a pin-up, but a willing girl and extremely good value for money. She disappeared suddenly that evening, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell you when and who with. Excuse me, won’t you? I’m rather busy.”
Otto the Fat, clerk and confidant of General Kahlenberge:
“Don’t you believe it, old cock! Of course we painted the town red occasionally—we were in Paris, after all. But always within limits, mind, so have a care! Don’t go saying anything you can’t prove.
“Why should I waste my time talking about Hartmann? What’s the point? I’m not a historian or a fortune-teller. We got pissed together sometimes. Anything the matter with that? There you are, then. That’s all there was to it.
“I’m ready to stand up and swear I never told Hartmann he was for the high jump. Everything was correct and above board between us. There wasn’t any question of threats and so on. Hartmann just hopped it. Why, God only knows.”
M. Paul Victor Magron, formerly a detective-inspector in the homicide division of the Paris police, now a chief inspector in the South of France:
“War is to crime what the coming of spring is to a garden, if you’ll pardon the poetic simile.
“Please don’t expect me to remember every detail, monsieur. Prostitution paid enormous dividends at the time and the mortality rate among filles de joie was correspondingly high.
“As usual, prostitutes got themselves murdered far oftener than housewives or office girls. The commonest motives were greed or revenge, though there were also abnormal crimes which could not be classified as sexual murders proper. All such cases were routine, so to speak. However, the murder in the Rue de Londres had certain unusual features. All crimes of violence are inhuman, monsieur, but this one was nothing short of bestial. What was more, suspicion fell on a member of the former German Wehrmacht.
“Thanks to that, the case was taken out of my hands. I was only too glad to obey instructions. I passed on the particulars to the official responsible for maintaining contact between the French and German authorities.
“Did I hear you mention the name Prévert? Well, monsieur, it was you who did so, not me.”
Colonel Martin Volges, Army Medical Corps, retd., formerly attached to the Nibelungen Division and now chief medical officer at a Hamburg clinic:
“I’m a specialist in organic diseases. I also have a knowledge of surgery, but I have never devoted any time to the study of psychiatry, psychoanalysis or related subjects. I think it only fair to stress this.
“I cannot claim that General Tanz was ever one of my patients. As far as I am aware, he flatly refused all medical treatment. General Tanz consulted me on only a few occasions —five at most—and at no time did I subject him to an exhaustive physical examination. He merely told me that he had been suffering from severe headaches and recurrent sleeplessness, so I confined myself to prescribing the appropriate medicaments. Since I was never in a position to conduct a full examination I must decline to make any further comment. Subject to that proviso, however, I can state that General Tanz enjoyed what might have been described, under prevailing circumstances, as normal health. I further state that I had neither occasion nor cause to believe that General Tanz showed symptoms of any unusual ailment.”
Captain Kahlert on the subject of Lance-Corporal Hartmann:
“… I had abundant and repeated opportunities to observe and assess Lance-Corporal Hartmann, who was directly under my command. As his immediate superior, it was one of my duties to submit official reports on him. Their gist was roughly as follows:
“Hartmann, Rainer, is an extremely intelligent and adaptable soldier. He is versatile, possesses a pleasant appearance and may be described as well-read, even cultured. He is hardworking, but careless and not endowed with any great sense of duty. He might even be described as unstable.
“His character is not easy to define, nor does it seem noticeably well-formed. He lacks toughness and drive and would be incapable of shouldering any major responsibilities. His soldierly qualities are far from developed.
“It would not, therefore, be advisable to entrust him with special duties of an exacting nature. It is also conceivable that his unbridled imagination could lead him to make statements which, while they might be unconscious exaggerations, might equally be lies.
“On the basis of this assessment, H. must be regarded as an unreliable individual and an awkward subordinate. Consequently, caution is indicated.”
Extract from a letter written by ex-Lieutenant-Colonel Sandauer:
“… I must confess not without a profound sense of shock, that your allegations have shaken me to the core. I shall resist the temptation to ask you how you have the effrontery to make them. Instead, I shall take into consideration your evident conviction that you are acting in good faith, and try, with all the tolerance at my command, to answer your questions as objectively as possible.
“First, kindly note the following: I should never have taken it upon myself to ignore, let alone hush up, any suspicious or pathological behaviour. It necessarily follows that I was never aware of anything which might point to behaviour of that sort. If I had been, my conscience would have compelled me to intervene regardless of the consequences.
“The only possible inference is that spiteful and malicious tongues have been at work—or rather, that one man’s pathological condition has prompted him to impute the same condition to another. I have no idea where your information originates, but I am convinced that this is a case where ‘Stop thief!’ is being shouted by the perpetrator of the theft.
“I implore you to think again before you proceed to cast aspersions on the honour of a veteran military commander. There is such a thing as a duty to history. Woe betide the man who tries to evade that duty, especial
ly if he lives in Germany and means to go on living there.”
Extracts from two letters taken at random from several dozen replies received by the author. The first was written by ex-grenadier Matthuber of the Nibelungen Division, the second by a fellow-grenadier of the same division named Biermann:
“… I only hope you realize the truth. That man was war personified. He had eyes like a snake. We used to tremble when he looked at us. Sometimes we were absolutely petrified with fear…”
“… I can only warn you! Don’t trample on our sacred beliefs. He was a hero, the sort of man whom only the Third Reich could have produced. We went through hell for and we’d be ready to do so again…”
7
Diary of a day in Paris; 20th July 1944
Circa 1.15 a.m.
Murder in the Rue de Londres, estimated on the basis of subsequent medical findings to have occurred between midnight and 3 a.m.
General Kahlenberge was making renewed efforts to enlist his G.O.C.’s support for the conspiracy against Hitler and his henchmen. Von Seydlitz-Gabler was being as evasive as ever.
Frau Wilhelmine was sitting up waiting for Ulrike to return.
Inspector Prévert and Lieutenant-Colonel Grau had ironed out their differences so successfully that they were now indulging in an exchange of views on red wine, horses and women.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sandauer, G.S.O.1 of the Nibelungen Division, was poring over his reorganization plans.
Otto the Fat was drunkenly—and fruitlessly—endeavouring to seduce Fräulein Melanie Neumaier, the G.O.C.’s lady-in-waiting.
Sergeant Stoss, General Tanz’s driver, had been laying siege to Raymonde in the Mocambo Bar, but had now given up and was applying himself to a bottle of crème de menthe.
The Night of the Generals Page 21