Where Treasure Hides

by Johnnie Alexander Donley

“Count Scheidemann, please. Herr Göring has a special interest in this collection. He will be quite displeased if the inventory does not agree with the listings.”

  “This is the complete Van Schuyler file, is it not?” Theodor handed Gerrits the folder.

  “Except for . . .” Gerrits gulped. “The document you . . .”

  “Herr Gerrits,” Theodor said with great patience. “Does the Van Schuyler folder not include all the lists for the crates you have stored here? If not, perhaps Commander Göring should be advised of your carelessness.”

  “There is no carelessness, Count,” said Gerrits, in a defeated tone of voice.

  “I didn’t think so.” Theodor smiled broadly and turned to his adjutant. “My business here is finished. Do not let my crates out of your sight, Lieutenant.”

  “No, sir.”

  Theodor strode away, then turned as if something had just occurred to him. “Herr Gerrits, I own two or three paintings that no longer interest me. I will gladly pay a generous commission to someone who could arrange their private sale. Are you interested?”

  “I would be honored, sir.”

  “Excellent. I will send an advance with the lieutenant when he returns the truck. A gesture of my goodwill.”

  “Thank you, Count Scheidemann. You can be sure I will do my best.”

  “And I can count on your discretion?”

  Herr Gerrits nodded. “To the fullest.”

  Theodor gave him a sharp salute and whistled as he left the warehouse. Alison’s watercolors now belonged to him. More importantly, so did The Girl in the Garden. Alison had risked her life trying to protect the painting. What would she do to get it back?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Alison wandered to the rim of the canal where the rowboat, still in one piece, floated serenely on the calm water. She was tempted to climb inside, untie the knot, and let the boat drift along the city’s canal system to wherever the flow carried her. To never look back.

  Instead, she sat on the embankment and slipped off her shoes. Rippling the surface of the sun-warmed water with her toes, she stared, transfixed, at the expanding circles, the droplets that slipped from her ankles when she lifted her feet.

  Staring into the canal, she could pretend the stately old brick house still stood behind her. Could pretend that her home, like so much of Rotterdam, had not been demolished by German bombs. She could pretend that Gerta Brant still baked her delicate pastries in the kitchen, that Tante Meg still embroidered in the parlor.

  Her fingers caressed the old-fashioned locket she now wore, knowing she couldn’t spend all day staring into the canal. She avoided looking at the rubble on the opposite bank as she gazed upward to the tranquil sky. Innocent clouds scampered across a crystalline-blue field.

  Alison mentally traced the bright vision, ignoring for a moment its stark opposition with dark earthly reality. Then she prayed for God to repeat His ancient miracle and stop the sun in its path. Because if He didn’t, the sky would darken into night. Before dusk came, she had to ride her bike through the city’s treacherous streets back to the gallery. Past piles of brick and stone, the jagged walls and bombed interiors of her home and those of her neighbors. Past German patrols.

  She sighed an apology for her foolish whim. Miracles neither large nor small had fallen on Rotterdam the last couple of weeks. Only bombs.

  “Mind if I join you?” Without waiting for an answer, Willem Brant settled beside her, half-reclining and propped up on one elbow. He’d arrived at the gallery a few days ago, too late for his mother’s funeral, but not too late to sift through the skeletal remains of his childhood home. Three years older than Alison, he’d paid scant attention to “the little miss who came all the way from America,” as his mother called her when she first arrived at the canal house. But by the time he had left home, drawn to a fisherman’s life beside the freezing waters of the North Sea, he and Alison had become the siblings neither had.

  “You shouldn’t come here by yourself.” Will plucked a blade of grass and positioned it lengthwise between his thumbs. “The streets aren’t safe anymore. Not with those Nazi goons on every corner.” He placed his thumbs to his lips and blew against the grass, creating a piercing whistle. “Can you still do that?”

  Accepting his challenge, Alison selected a broad blade. She held the whistle for several seconds, then dropped the blade as she remembered the shrill whistle of the pompous official at Waterloo Station.

  Will tapped her elbow to get her attention and raised his eyebrows.

  Tucking her knees against her chest, Alison wrapped her arms around her shins. “There was this boy, Josef. At the train station the last time I was in London.” She explained about the Kindertransport, the cardboard number, and the violin solo. “I didn’t understand how parents could send their children so far away. But now, after all this . . .” She gestured toward the broken houses across the canal.

  “‘How doth the city sit solitary,’” quoted Will, “‘that was full of people! how is she become as a widow!’”

  “Did you write that?”

  “You’re a silly goose.” Will lay back in the grass, arms folded beneath his head. “It’s from Lamentations. Jeremiah was referring to Jerusalem. But I think it describes Rotterdam, too.”

  The poignancy of the verse caught in Alison’s throat as she silently repeated the prophet’s words. “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people!”

  Her home was gone. Her five-hundred-year-old church heavily damaged. Exploding bombs and raging fires had destroyed more than twenty-five thousand homes, churches, schools, and stores. Even a hospital had been hit, the bomber ignoring the giant red cross painted on its flat roof. The death count grew daily as missing loved ones were found beneath bricks and timber.

  “Tante Meg begged me to stay home,” Alison said softly as she clasped the locket in her palm. “We argued.”

  The grass rustled as Will sat up and scooted next to her.

  “But I had to go to the gallery. I had to see it for myself.”

  Will rested his arm across her shoulders and pulled her close. “It’s a good thing you did. Otherwise you’d have . . .” His voice broke and he cleared his throat. “God protected you, Alison. It was a miracle you weren’t killed too.”

  A miracle? No. She refused to see her survival as anything except a monstrous mistake born of her own wayward selfishness. She deserved her punishment.

  “I never got to tell Tante Meg I was sorry,” she confessed, pressing her tear-streaked face into Will’s shoulder. “And now it’s too late.”

  * * *

  The days after Ian’s capture slipped by in a monotonous blur. The Germans forced him and their other prisoners to march along the battle-scarred roads southeast toward Germany. At night, he shivered on the cold ground until he fell into a restless sleep. A couple of times, he and the others were herded into nearby barns, where the sweet-smelling hay provided as welcome a comfort to his weary body as a down-filled mattress.

  His meager rations scarcely eased the hunger that gnawed at his belly, but those who didn’t march were mercilessly shot.

  So Ian marched.

  He journeyed through Belgium, barely aware of changes in the landscape or the days of the calendar. He experienced only the heat of the day, the chill of the night, and the emptiness of his stomach. His shoulder, medically treated at the first gathering post, constantly ached. But so did the rest of his fatigued body.

  At a collecting point near a broad river, the Germans divided the prisoners by nationality. Barges and lorries carried away several of the soldiers. Ian and his fellow Brits climbed into cattle trucks covered with heavy canvas. Despite the jostling, he managed to doze, finding respite in sleep.

  On the afternoon of the fourth day, the convoy stopped in the courtyard of a medieval castle. Ian hopped down from the truck bed and quickly scanned his surroundings, memorizing as many details as he could. The square castle overlooked a wide river. A town, with the settled loo
k of age, spread across both banks.

  “Any idea where we are?” he asked no one in particular.

  “Laufen. In Bavaria.” Captain Mitch Harris, his right arm in a sling, gestured toward the castle. “This used to be the country estate of the archbishop of Salzburg. Fifteenth century.”

  Ian stared across the river, gauging its width and current. “Austria?”

  Captain Harris nodded. “Until about a century ago, boats transported salt along the Salzach River. Laufen thrived on the salt trade until the railroads came along.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Years ago. My grandmother was Austrian.”

  German guards emerged from the gated archway to take custody of the Allied prisoners. Four of them held the leashes of large, snarling shepherds. Others sauntered in front of the POWs, chanting, “Für Sie der Krieg ist vorbei.”

  For you, the war is over.

  A pimple-faced private brandished his Karabiner and sneered in Ian’s face. “Für Sie der Krieg ist vorbei,” he taunted.

  Ian calmly held the adolescent’s gaze. “You’re a brave one, aren’t you?”

  The private’s eyes flickered and Ian hardened his own. The kid involuntarily stepped back and his face reddened. He puffed out his chest and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny throat as he shouted the phrase again. On the Krieg, his voice cracked. Ian’s mouth twitched, while the prisoners on either side of him chuckled.

  Anger replaced humiliation on the kid’s face. When he swung his rifle butt forward, Ian was ready. He sidestepped the blow and the kid stumbled. Before he landed on his face, Ian caught him. The prisoners laughed and the guards shouted as the kid awkwardly steadied himself. He backed up and pointed the Karabiner at Ian.

  “Achtung!” a firm voice commanded, rising above the melee.

  Both the German guards and the British prisoners immediately snapped to attention. The private nervously shouldered his rifle, and Ian showed no emotion.

  A German major, tapping a baton against his leg, walked the line between the prisoners and the guards. He halted in front of Ian.

  “Your name.”

  “Ian Devlin. Lieutenant. British Army.”

  “Where is your home, Lieutenant Devlin?”

  Before Ian could answer, Captain Harris spoke up. “He doesn’t have to answer that question.”

  “I meant no harm,” said the major. “I once visited your Lake District. You are familiar with it, no?”

  “It’s a popular holiday spot,” said Ian.

  “Yes. The fishing was excellent.” The major’s impassive expression gave away nothing. But as they sized each other up, Ian could find no enmity in the German’s intelligent eyes. When he spoke, his voice was firm but congenial.

  “Where did this war end for you, Lieutenant Devlin?”

  Ian sensed the major wished a peaceful end to the confrontation, and he also needed to restore the pimpled adolescent’s authority over the POWs. Glancing at the kid, whose armpits were damp with sweat, Ian decided to play model prisoner. Besides, he didn’t really want to spend his first night at the historic castle in solitary confinement.

  “At Dunkirk.”

  “There is no shame in that, Lieutenant.” The major sounded sincere. “Your countrymen exhibited great courage in that evacuation.”

  “Agreed.”

  The major nodded, then continued down the line. Finishing his inspection, he centered himself in front of the British officers. “Prisoners of the Third Reich, I am Major Sebastian Krueger. Welcome to Oflag VII-C, your home until Germany achieves victory. Forget that it is your duty to escape, and you will live to see that glorious day. Attempt to escape and you will be punished according to the rules set forth by the Geneva Convention.”

  He paused, letting the threat linger, then smiled cordially. “The International Red Cross will be informed of your presence here. They will advise your superiors and your families. You are dismissed.”

  One of the guards immediately shouted orders and the prisoners filed between the gates into the castle grounds. Glancing back, Ian saw the major watching him.

  “I’m not sure whether you’ve made an enemy or a friend,” said Captain Harris.

  “Time will tell,” Ian said, scrutinizing the grounds as he walked beneath the archway. If there was a way to escape this Oflag, he was determined to find it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Scheidemann chalet, nestled high in the fir forests of the Bavarian Alps, had served as the private retreat of each reigning count for over three hundred years. For Theodor, being allowed use of the chalet was almost a rite of passage. Amid the chiseled mountain peaks, he felt a deep kinship with the long-ago ancestors who hunted among the trees, fished in the glacial lakes, and fought for honor and glory. Neither the immense Prussian estate nor the sophisticated Munich apartment could provide him with the serene contentment he experienced in this place.

  His grief over his father’s death had been genuine, and he still missed the older gentleman’s presence. But along with the title, he had inherited welcome responsibility and privilege. All his life, he had prepared for this role—attending the finest schools, participating in the estate’s management, serving in the German military. His wealth and prestige gave him entry to the finest households throughout Europe, and he was destined for greatness, a rising Aryan star among the shining lights of the Third Reich.

  Theodor climbed the front steps to the chalet’s veranda and leaned against a corner post. He had driven here straight from a strategy council headed by Hitler himself to finalize Operation Barbarossa, the impending invasion of Russia. With intention, Theodor contributed little to the planning sessions. He preferred to cultivate a persona of thoughtful deliberation and quiet wisdom, qualities the Führer needed in those closest to him. And certainly not seen in that windbag Göring.

  The grim-faced Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the overzealous Schutzstaffel, known more colloquially as the SS or Protection Squadron, had been there too. With eyes bulging behind rimless spectacles, he had systematically spat out numbers. Numbers in the concentration camps, numbers in the ghettos, numbers forced to labor.

  Numbers of the dead.

  Theodor loathed the man and his cold calculations, even as he accepted the necessity of his work. The future of the Third Reich required a sacrificial cleansing. In a few years, though, victorious Germany would rebuild Europe. Hitler would no longer require the destructive services of Göring and Himmler. All in good time, Theodor planned to replace first one, then the other.

  Gazing at the variegated greens of the mountain firs, he inhaled deeply, breathing in the fragrances of late spring. Here was the simplicity he longed for, without all the trappings that usually accompanied him. A private retreat belonging totally, wholly to him.

  Renovating the chalet was his special project, his escape from the more unsavory aspects of the war. A Young Lady Reading, the painting he purchased last September from the Van Schuyler Gallery, hung in a sitting room redecorated in masculine browns and warm reds. A similar room, on the opposite side of the hall, was empty except for the crates containing Alison’s watercolors and her mother’s damaged portrait.

  The crates had been delivered and pried open the week before. He had come to the chalet today to sort through the watercolors and choose the ones to display in the dining room. Someday, he hoped to surprise Alison with the exhibit. Surely she’d be glad that he, not Göring, possessed her works.

  He emptied the first two crates, propping the frames against the bare wall. The streetscapes portrayed varying aspects of Rotterdam—the gallery exterior, the tall canal house, a corner café. Sunsets and sunrises. Fields of tulips dominated by a stereotypical windmill. Each with a promise of talent, but missing that indefinable spark of genius.

  From the third crate, the largest, he unwrapped The Girl in the Garden. With somber tenderness, he touched the girl’s torn cheek, and the distress he’d felt when Alison fell echoed in his heart. H
is jaw tightened at the wanton destruction, at the scar that now marred Alison’s temple. At his own inability to stop Göring’s careless spite.

  Examining the painting’s wound more closely, Theodor noticed the first tentative attempts at restoration. He realized, in a flash of insight, that Alison’s emotional attachment to the painting required her to restore it. But her inexperience made her fearful.

  “If she wants to restore you,” he said to the girl, “then she shall.” He carefully carried the painting into his library and propped it upon the sofa.

  Returning to the crate, he knelt beside it and pulled out portraits in oil of Hendrik, Meg, the Brants, and the overbearing Monsieur Duret. Intrigued by the next painting he unwrapped, he held it at arm’s length and studied it.

  Sparkling sprays of water gushed from a stone fountain surrounded by beds of muted flowers. The setting sun cast its final rays across the scene, lighting prisms in the falling water and lengthening shadows across the park.

  Theodor glanced from the watercolor to the first ones he had unpacked, then back again. There was something mysterious about this painting, with its aura of hope intermingled with sadness. Alison’s technique hadn’t changed, but she had. He turned it over and read the note written on the back: A park near Minivers (London).

  Minivers. London. As he puzzled over the cryptic note, jealousy slithered into his veins. An interrupted letter. Dear Ian.

  He stared at the painting of the park and knew, as if he had witnessed it himself, that this Ian had been there too. With Alison. And because of that pretentious Brit, she had found her spark.

  * * *

  Alison checked on a pan of cloverleaf rolls in the oven, releasing their yeasty smell into the gallery’s kitchen. Just a few more minutes, and they’d be perfect. Will sampled then seasoned a pot of chowder simmering on the stove. They were alone in the gallery, their home since the destruction of the canal house.

  Hendrik and Monsieur Duret had driven to Amsterdam that morning to meet with other art collectors, while Pieter and Brant checked on the hidden paintings at the air raid shelter. But all four men were expected to return later in the evening. When they did, Alison planned to heat up the chowder and pop more rolls in the oven.