by M. M. Kaye
Brigadier Brindley, well aware that conversation at the two neighbouring tables had ceased and their occupants were openly listening, paused to help himself with some deliberation to stewed fruit and custard.
‘Oh, do go on,’ urged Stella. ‘What happened then? That isn’t all, is it?’
‘By no means!’ said the Brigadier, accepting the sugar bowl handed to him by an interested German waiter: ‘No, that is not all. Danke.’
A well-aimed bit of bread landed with a thump on the table, narrowly missing Brigadier Brindley’s glass, and the Brigadier closed his eyes briefly and shuddered.
‘May I eat my pudding at Wally’s table?’ asked Charlotte.
‘Mais non!’ said Mademoiselle firmly.
‘Then I shan’t eat my pudding,’ said Charlotte, equally firmly: ‘Why can’t I? Wally’s mother wouldn’t mind. Daddy, can I eat my pudding at Wally’s table?’
‘You heard what Mademoiselle said, Lottie.’
‘But she doesn’t like Wally. She says he’s a nasty, rude, rough boy. But I like him. Why can’t I go? I shan’t let him throw bread.’
‘Oh, let her go,’ said Stella impatiently, ‘and then perhaps that child will stop heaving crusts. Don’t let’s have a scene. All right, darling, you can go and ask Mrs Wilkin if she’d mind your sitting at her table. But do behave nicely. No, there’s no need for you to go too, Mademoiselle.’ She turned back to Brigadier Brindley: ‘Do go on. You were telling us about how Herr Ridder got the diamonds.’
‘Ah, yes. The diamonds. Well, of course we knew—that is, our Intelligence Service knew—that the diamonds had fallen into German hands. And from our point of view that, so to speak, was that. We did not learn the end of the story—if indeed it can be said to have ended, which I doubt—until the war was over. It was only then, through the medium of captured documents and a certain amount of interested evidence, that we learned the rest of the story.’
The Brigadier paused and looked impressively about his audience, which now included all the occupants of the two adjacent tables.
‘Willi Ridder, supposedly carrying the diamonds, returned to Berlin. He was flown in by night, and landed at Tempelhof airfield. His arrival was, purposely, as unobtrusive as possible. There he was met by his personal car and driven to his house. And neither he nor his wife was ever seen again.’
‘You mean they were—liquidated, or purged, or whatever they called it?’ asked Miranda. ‘Because they knew about the diamonds?’
‘No, they simply disappeared.’
‘But what about the diamonds?’
‘Those disappeared too.’
‘You mean they skipped with the lot?’ asked Robert.
The Brigadier gave him a reproving look, cleared his throat again, and said: ‘Possibly no one will ever know whether Herr Ridder and his wife had planned it carefully beforehand, or whether the fact that he suddenly found himself in possession of this fantastic fortune proved too much for him. But after reading some of the files on the case I am inclined to think that it was all planned. Ridder knew that Holland was to be attacked, and that he was to be sent in person to take over the diamonds. Then, you see, there was the new garage that was in the process of being built at the end of his garden…’
The Brigadier paused expectantly, and Miranda did not disappoint him: ‘What on earth had a new garage got to do with it?’ she demanded, puzzled.
‘Ah, what indeed! It was to be built of stone and brick, and large enough to take two cars. Stone needs mortar, and mortar needs quicklime. There was a pit of quicklime behind the garage so that the mortar could be mixed on the spot, and the building had been completed all except the roof. When Herr Ridder failed to report next day, a search was made of the house. There was no one in it, and no diamonds either. Later, the wreckage of the car and the body of the chauffeur were found in a town near the Dutch border. And later still the bodies of the cook and the valet were found buried in quicklime at the back of the unfinished garage in the Ridders’ garden.’
There was silence for a moment, and Stella shuddered audibly.
‘Did no one ever find out what had happened to the Ridders?’ asked Robert.
‘No. They could only guess. Their guess—and mine—is that Ridder and his wife murdered their two servants and used their passports and papers to conceal their own identity. The names of Herr and Frau Schumacher would have meant little to anyone; but far too many people in the S.S. knew Herr and Frau Ridder. The driver of the car was a picked S.S. man, but he would have thought nothing of being told to drive his employer and wife to some place outside Berlin. He would not have known about the diamonds—only a very few people knew. He obeyed Herr Ridder’s orders, while at the same time sending a detailed report of all Herr Ridder’s movements to his chief in the S.S. The Ridders presumably shot him on a lonely stretch of road, and drove as far as they dared towards the Dutch frontier, leaving the car and the corpse in a town that was being bombed at the time. After that they ceased to be Herr and Frau Ridder and became Karl and Greta Schumacher, refugees.’
‘But what do you suppose they meant to do?’ demanded Robert. ‘Where are they supposed to have gone? They couldn’t have expected to get away. Why, I mean to say, the place must have been crawling with panzer divisions and all the rest of it at that time.’
‘The supposition is that the diamonds never left Holland. That Herr Ridder managed to conceal them in some safe hiding-place and returned with an empty bag to Berlin. His intention being to go back and collect them, after which he and his wife would escape in the guise of refugees to England or Spain; and from there to America, which was not at that time in the war. With a fortune of such magnitude in their hands it must have seemed worth taking very great risks. And in the chaos of those days there were many people who escaped out of Europe. All the same, it should have been a fairly simple matter to trace them; and it is certain that the S.S. had no doubts as to their ability to do so.’
‘And yet they got away.’
‘They got away. And from that day to this they have never been heard of again; although ever since the war ended not only the German police but the police and Intelligence Services of four continents have been looking for them. They had a young child—a daughter I believe—who vanished too; though there was a story that the Ridders had sent her to relatives in Cologne some months before, and that she and her aunt had subsequently been killed with a great many other people when an air-raid shelter they were in received a direct hit. That may well have been true. Herr Ridder’s mother was taken to a concentration camp and died there, but Willi and his wife and the diamonds apparently vanished into thin air.’
‘Has nobody ever found a clue? Or heard even a rumour?’ asked Stella.
‘Yes, there was a clue. And though nothing ever came of it, I myself have always thought it provides the most intriguing part of the story. The unexpected and fantastic twist!’ The Brigadier’s voice was all at once less pendantic and almost eager, and it was obvious that the tale held a peculiar and recurrent fascination for him.
‘In May 1940 a little band of refugees were landed in England from a small fishing boat. Among them was a child.’
‘You mean you think it may have been the Ridders’ child?’
‘Oh no. This was an English child. Her parents had been in Belgium when the German attack came, and they had both been killed. None of the other refugees appeared to know anything about her and they had all imagined her to be French, for until an Englishwoman at the Centre spoke to her in English, and she replied in that language, she had only spoken French. She was sent with a batch of sick refugees—England was full of refugees in those days—to some hospital or home in Sussex, until she could be identified. She was carrying a large doll from which she refused to be parted.’
The silence about the table changed in an instant, and became curiously intent and charged with something far more than interest in an unusual story. But if the Brigadier noticed it he evidently put it down to his p
owers of narration.
‘Some time later she broke the doll, and a kindly doctor offered to see if he could mend it for her. It was then discovered that the hollow body of the doll was stuffed with jewels and over five thousand pounds in high-denomination British and American banknotes. The child had no idea how they came to be there and could offer no explanation for their presence. She insisted that the doll had been given her for Christmas, and that nobody had touched it but herself. The jewels were later identified as being the property of Frau Ilse Ridder.’
There was a long, long silence.
Brigadier Brindley beamed complacently upon his audience, pleased at the sensation his dénouement had created. Robert was looking thunderstruck, Miranda’s face had paled and she and Stella were staring at him literally open-mouthed.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Robert with explosive violence.
Stella’s face flushed a vivid pink and she stuttered a little when she spoke.
‘B—But—but____Oh, it can’t be true! This is the most incredible thing I ever heard!’
‘My dear lady,’ said the Brigadier a little stiffly, ‘I assure you…’
‘Oh, of course he hasn’t made it up!’ interrupted Miranda, her face pale and her eyes enormous. ‘It’s just a staggering coincidence. It’s fantastic!’
‘I am afraid I do not quite understand,’ began the Brigadier, patently bewildered.
‘No, of course you don’t!’ said Stella. ‘How could you? It’s just that your story has knocked all the wind out of us. You see it really is the queerest possible coincidence. That hospital you mentioned—the one in Sussex—well, it wasn’t a proper hospital. It was only being used as a sort of nursing home during the war. It was my house—Mallow—and I was nursing there. And Miranda was the little girl with the doll!’
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Brigadier Brindley, echoing Robert’s words with equal fervour. He pulled out a handkerchief, and mopping his forehead looked a little wildly round the table. ‘You are not by any chance pulling my leg?’ he inquired suspiciously.
‘No, I promise you we’re not! It’s quite true. Isn’t it, Robert? Ask Miranda! She must remember it.’
‘Of course I do,’ said Miranda unsteadily. ‘I dropped Wilhelmina—that was the doll—on the paving stones of the terrace, and her head came off. It had always been a bit wobbly I think. I was bathed in tears and despair, and a nice young doctor said he would mend her for me. He started in to see how she worked and before we knew where we were the place was a mass of diamonds and emeralds and banknotes. No wonder she was so heavy!’
Miranda shivered and made a little grimace, as though the memory was an unpleasant one.
‘Amazing!’ The Brigadier’s voice was almost devout as he realized that he now had a story with which he could hold the attention of fellow diners for years to come.
‘Wasn’t it? I hadn’t an idea how they got there, and I still haven’t. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember much about what happened between the time the bombing started and arriving at Mallow. I don’t think I wanted to remember it. But I do remember that they confiscated all Wilhelmina’s stuffing, and I howled the roof off. I didn’t mind about the banknotes, but the jewels sparkled, and I naturally thought that as they had come out of my doll I should be allowed to keep them. In the end they gave me a cheesy little chain bracelet to keep me quiet. It wasn’t even gold or silver. Just a lot of thin links in some white metal, with a little Egyptian charm, an ankh, dangling from it. I lost the bracelet years ago, but I still have the charm. And what’s more, I’m wearing it now! How’s that for proof?’
Miranda held out her left hand with a flourish. About her wrist she wore a gold charm bracelet jingling with an assortment of miniature nonsense in the form of lucky coins, signs of the Zodiac, replicas of windmills, sailing boats and ship’s lanterns, and among them, slightly larger than the rest, was a small ankh—the ancient Egyptian life-sign that appears again and again on the walls of tombs and temples in the Land of the Pharaohs, and can best be described as a loop standing on a capital T. It was fastened to the bracelet by a link attached to the top of the loop, and was made of some steel-grey metal that had been engraved on the flat surface with Egyptian hieroglyphics, and on the edge by deep parallel lines.
‘I’ve worn it for years,’ said Miranda. ‘Stella gave me this bracelet for my tenth birthday, and I’ve added something to it almost every year. The ankh was the first thing to go on it, because at the time it was the only charm I possessed.’
‘Really? This is most interesting,’ said Brigadier Brindley. ‘Extra-ordinarily interesting. Incredible! Might I have a look at that trinket?’
‘Of course. Wait a minute and I’ll undo the catch. It’s a bit stiff. I’ve often meant to jettison that charm because it doesn’t really go with the others, but now I shall cherish it as my prize piece.’
She struggled with the stiff clasp of the bracelet and having managed to remove it, handed it across the table to the Brigadier, who examined the ankh with absorbed interest and seemed disappointed.
‘I’m afraid it’s not very exciting,’ apologized Miranda. ‘It hasn’t even got a date or a name or initials or anything on it. I remember a lot of men came and peered at it once, and one of them said it was modern and the signs on it were only for decoration, because they didn’t make sense, but that it was made from some alloy that might be worth looking into. He tried to bend it, I remember. But it wouldn’t bend, and because I thought he’d break it, I began to howl dismally, and one of the other men said, “Oh, let the kid have it!” and gave it back to me.’
The bracelet was passed around the table. ‘It is very interesting, is it not?’ said Mademoiselle, peering at it doubtfully before returning it to its owner.
‘It’s like a sort of fairy story, isn’t it?’ said Miranda pocketing the bracelet in preference to wrestling further with the clasp. ‘A rather creepy one by the Brothers Grimm. I never did like their stories, anyway.’
‘It is certainly a very remarkable coincidence,’ said Brigadier Brindley. ‘A most romantic story.’
‘It is even more romantic than you think!’ said Miranda with a laugh. ‘In fact if it hadn’t been for me, we should none of us be sitting here now. You see, I stayed at Stella’s house while the authorities were trying to trace my next-of-kin, who turned out to be mother’s brother, General Melville. Uncle David rushed over to see me, but he was just off to the battle, and as Aunt Frances was dead and their son—that’s Robert here—was fighting somewhere in the Middle East, he was in a bit of a flap as to what to do about me, and he simply jumped at Stella’s noble offer to keep me for the duration. I never saw him again, because he got killed about a year later, but when the war was over Robert turned up to collect the family burden, and stayed and married Stella instead. And Stella and Robert asked me if I’d like to spend a month with them in Berlin—and so here we all are!’
‘And there you have the end of your story,’ said Stella.
Brigadier Brindley turned and looked at her, smiling. ‘The end of your story, my dear Mrs Melville. But not the end of the story I have just told you. It is only another small piece of that story.’
‘I see what you mean, sir,’ said Robert. ‘Your story won’t end until the Ridders are discovered.’
‘Perhaps they will never be discovered,’ said Brigadier Brindley. ‘And if so, no one will ever know the end. Perhaps they are dead—blown up by some bomb among the ruins of some broken city. I think it is very likely.’
‘Why, sir?’
‘Because if they were not dead, one of them at least should have been easy to trace. Frau Ilse had a deformity that was not a common one. The second and third fingers of her left hand were joined together. She had never attempted to have them operated on and was, curiously enough, rather proud of the fact, for she wore a specially made ring on the double finger. It was this ring that was largely responsible for establishing the ownership of the jewels found in—er—
Wilhelmina.’
‘But surely she could have had an operation performed?’ said Robert. ‘That sort of thing is not so unusual, after all. I’ve known of a case myself, a child who…’
‘Ah, a child,’ interrupted the Brigadier with a tolerant smile. ‘If it is done in childhood it does not leave quite so noticeable a scar. But to perform such an operation on a grown woman would be a more difficult matter, since it would undoubtedly leave scars that would be impossible to disguise. And that is why I feel sure that Frau Ilse, at least, is dead. A physical defect or peculiarity is like an illuminated sign: it attracts attention. And not only that. Once seen it is not forgotten. It sticks in the memory of the observer when all else has faded to a blur. One seldom fails to notice, or remember, a freak of nature.’
Miranda saw Mademoiselle’s spine stiffen and her sallow face flush a painful shade of puce. The governess was one of those distressing persons who appear to be perpetually taking offence, and on this occasion she had obviously taken the Brigadier’s words as a personal affront, since she herself possessed a noticeable physical peculiarity in that her eyes were of different colour—the left being blue and the right a grey that verged on hazel. A deviation from the normal that afforded Lottie and her young friends endless amusement. Mademoiselle had suffered a good deal from their uninhibited questions and comments, and Miranda, suspecting as much, smiled consolingly at her across the table. But Mademoiselle refused to be comforted. Her mouth narrowed into an offended line and she returned Miranda’s smile with a frosty stare, and turned to Stella.
‘If you will excuse, Madame, I would go now to find me some hot milk for the thermos. The little Charlotte will sleep better in the train if she drink the cup of hot milk when she is ready for bed.’ She rose from the table and rustled away, wounded feelings in every line of her back.
Miranda suppressed her smile and turned again to Brigadier Brindley: ‘What was she like?’