The Monte Cristo Cover-Up

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  52

  thing of the kind and smuggled some tinned foods into the school. On the fourth day he was still enjoying Belgian goose liver. Accordingly, while the other pupils were already coming to blows over the carcass of a field mouse, he remained stoically calm, for which demeanor he was praised by Jupiter. "You should follow Hen* Meier's example, gentlemen. There's a real man for you!"

  In the sixth week Jupiter took the class to the edge of a towering cliff, where they stood and looked into a terrifying abyss, the bottom of which was covered by a flimsy-looking cloth.

  "Jump!" shouted Jupiter. The pupils, all except Thomas, drew back, shuddering. But he thrust his colleagues aside, dashed at full speed to the brink and with a cheerful shout sprang into the void. It had only taken him a second or two to realize that the French authorities would hardly be paying out so much for his physical and mental training merely in order to drive him to suicide. As he had anticipated, the flimsy cloth covered several layers of rubber, which broke his fall quite comfortably. Jupiter proclaimed estatically: "You're my best man, Meier! One of these days you'll be famous!"

  The prophecy was destined to come true.

  Thomas only fell foul of his teacher on one occasion, when Jupiter was instructing the class in writing with invisible ink. The only materials required were a pen, some onion juice and a raw egg. Thomas demanded, in his innocent zeal for knowledge: "Please, sir, to whom would it be best to apply in a Gestapo prison when one needs onions, pens and raw eggs?"

  The course ended with a final examination, for which the pupils were tumbled out of their beds at midnight and brought before a German Intelligence court, composed of the instructional staff, with Jupiter in the chair. The instructors, by this time all well known to the trainees, sat in German uniforms behind a long table. Jupiter turned dazzling spotlights on them and kept them without food and drink all night, though this was not a serious deprivation, as they had all partaken of an ample evening meal.

  Jupiter treated Thomas with special severity. He boxed his ears several times, stood him with his face to the wall for long periods and pushed the cold barrel of a revolver into the back of his neck.

  "Confess!" he bawled. "You are a German spy!"

  "I'm not saying anything," Thomas retorted heroically. Then they fitted thumbscrews on him and began tightening

  them. As soon as Thomas felt the first slight pain he ejaculated "Ow!" whereupon the screws were immediately loosened. About six in the morning he was sentenced to death for espionage.

  Jupiter called on him for the last time to reveal military secrets in order to save his life.

  Thomas spat on the floor at the chairman's feet and shouted: "I'd rather die!"

  They complied with his wishes by taking him out into a dirty courtyard, where they stuck him up against a cold wall in the gray dawn and shot him without military honors, though they compensated for this omission by using blank cartridge.

  Then they all went in to breakfast.

  It is almost unnecessary to record with any special emphasis that Thomas Lieven came through the course with flying colors. Jupiter had tears in his eyes as he handed him a diploma corresponding with the distinction he had gained, together with a forged French passport in the name of Jean Leblanc. "Good luck, comrade! I'm proud of you!"

  "But Jupiter, aren't you afraid, if you let me go like this, that one of these days I might be captured by the Germans and tell them everything I have learned here?"

  Jupiter answered with a smile: "There wouldn't be much to tell, old boy. Secret service training methods are the same all over the world. They all run neck and neck. They all take advantage of the latest medical, psychological and technological inventions."

  On July 16, 1939, Thomas Lieven returned to Paris. Mimi received him with as much affection as if she had really been faithful to him for the last six weeks.

  On August 1, Thomas Lieven acquired through Colonel Simeon comfortable quarters in the Bois de Boulogne, fifteen minutes by car from his bank in the Champs Elysees.

  On August 20, Thomas Lieven obtained permission from the colonel, despite the tense European situation, to take a holiday with Mimi at Chantilly, the popular racing and excursion center for Parisians, after all his recent hardships.

  On August 30, Poland declared general mobilization.

  That afternoon Thomas and Mimi set out on foot to visit the lakes at Commelle and Queen Blanche's castle.

  A blood-red sun was sinking as they returned to the town toward evening. Arm in arm they strolled past sleepy villas erected at the turn of the century, making their way over the

  worn cobbles to the Hotel du Pare in the Avenue du Marechal Joffre, where they were staying.

  When they entered the lounge the porter signaled to them. "A call for you from Belfort, M. Lieven."

  A few minutes later Thomas heard the voice of Colonel Simeon. "Ah, at last, Lieven!" The colonel was speaking German and immediately explained why he was doing so. "I can't take the risk of anyone in your hotel understanding me. Listen, Lieven. The balloon's gone up."

  "War?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "Within the next forty-eight hours. You must catch the first train to Belfort tomorrow morning. Report to the Hotel du Tonneau d'Or. The porter will be expecting you. We have to. . ."

  At that moment the connection was cut.

  Thomas rattled the key. "Hallo, hallo!"

  A severe feminine voice announced: "M. Lieven, you have been cut off. You were speaking in a foreign language."

  "Is that-forbidden?"

  "Yes, since six o'clock this evening. Long-distance calls can now only be made in French."

  The line went dead.

  As Thomas Lieven left the telephone booth the porter gave him a strange look. Thomas took no particular notice of it. He did not remember it again until five o'clock in the morning, when someone knocked at the door of his room.

  Mimi was asleep, bunched up like a kitten. He had not been able to bring himself to tell her, the evening before, what he had heard from Simeon.

  Outside, it was already light. A lot of birds were twittering in the old trees.

  The knocking was repeated, very much more loudly. Surely that can't be the Germans already, thought Thomas. He decided not to answer.

  A voice sounded behind the door. "M. Lieven, open up. If you don't we'll break the door down."

  "Who's there?"

  "Police."

  Thomas sat up with a sigh. Mimi woke, with a little shriek. "What's happening, cheri?"

  "I think I'm probably being arrested again," he said. His suspicions proved to be correct. A French police officer with

  two of his men was standing in the doorway. "Dress and come with us."

  "Why?"

  "You are a German spy."

  "Why do you suppose that?"

  "You had a suspected conversation on the telephone yesterday. The supervisor reported it to us. The porter saw you. So it's no use lying."

  Thomas said: "Send your people away for a minute. I've something to tell you."

  The two gendarmes disappeared.

  Thomas produced his identification papers and the passport Jupiter had given him. He explained: "I'm employed by the French secret service."

  "Can't you think of anything better than that? And with such clumsily forged papers into the bargain! They're a joke! Come along, dress!"

  [8]

  Thomas Lieven arrived late in the afternoon of August 31, 1939, at the formerly fortified town of Belfort on the River Savoureuse. He took a taxi through the little Old Town, passing the Place de la Republique and the monument commemorating the three sieges, straight to the Hotel du Tonneau d'Or. He was as immaculately dressed as ever. His waistcoat displayed the gold chain of his old repeater.

  Colonel Simeon was waiting for him in the hotel lounge. Although in uniform, he looked just as friendly as he had in mufti.

  "My dear Lieven, I'm so awfully sorry for the idiotic behavior of
those policemen! As soon as Mimi at last got me on the telephone, I gave the whole lot of them a good dressing down. Well, come along now, General Effel is already waiting for us. There's no time to lose. You'll soon have your baptism of fire, my friend."

  A quarter of an hour later Thomas Lieven was seated in the general's office at the headquarters of the French General Staff.

  Military ordnance maps of France and Germany covered all four walls of the plainly furnished room.

  The tall, slim, white-haired Louis Effel paced to and fro, his hands behind his back, in front of Thomas Lieven, who sat at a card table with Simeon beside him.

  The general's deep voice announced:

  "Mr. Lieven, Colonel Simeon has told me all about you. I know you are one of our best men."

  The general halted by the window and looked down into the pleasant valley between the Vosges and the Jura mountains. "This is no time for pretense. The facts are that Hen-Hitler has initiated hostilities and in a few hours he will be receiving our own declaration of war. But ..." The general faced round. "France, Herr Lieven, is not prepared for this war. Nor are we of the secret service in any sense prepared for it . .. The problem pertains to your sphere of operations. Will you please state it, Colonel."

  Simeon gulped. Then he said to Thomas: "The fact is we're pretty well broke, old boy."

  "Broke?"

  The general nodded emphatically. "Yes, sir. We're practically without funds. We're reduced to ridiculously small subsidies from the War Office. We should be incapable of operating on the large scale now required. We're tied hand and foot. We can't move."

  "Well, that's a bad show," said Thomas Lieven, though it was all he could do to not burst out laughing. "You'll excuse me for saying so, but if a nation has no money, then it seems to me it would be better not to have a secret service at all."

  "We might have had enough money to prepare ourselves for an attack by Germany. Unfortunately, monsieur, there are people in France who are selfish and egotistical enough to evade supplementary taxes and concentrate entirely on enriching themselves at the expense of their country." The general drew himself up to his full height. "I know that it's almost too late to apply to you, Herr Lieven. I know that I may be demanding the impossible. Yet I ask you whether you can think of any conceivable way in which we can acquire really substantial—and I mean substantial—funds in double-quick time—and I mean double-quick—so that we can set to work?"

  "Well, I shall have to think that over, General. But I can't do it here." Thomas glanced at the military ordnance maps. "I shan't get any useful ideas here." His face cleared. "If you gentlemen have no objection, I'd like to take my leave now, go back to the hotel and prepare a little dinner, over which we could discuss everything in more detail."

  Louis Effel looked flabbergasted. He said: "You mean you want to go and do some cooking? Now, at this moment?"

  "If you will permit me, General. I always get my best ideas in the kitchen."

  Accordingly, a memorable meal took place on the evening of August 31, 1939, in a special private room at the best hotel in the place.

  MENU

  Snail Soup

  ^Pheasant and Oysters with Sauerkraut

  Lemon dJMeringue Cream with Cerises Flambees

  31 august 1939

  This meal revolutionized French monetary policy.

  Snail Soup

  To clean snails boil them in salt water for one hour, then extract them from their shells with a fork, skin them, salt them to get rid of the mucus, then thoroughly wash them three or four times, drain and dry. Some forty are then boiled in broth till tender. Two thirds of them are then removed, chopped very fine and braised in butter. Add as much broth as is needed for the quantity of soup required and bring to a boil several times with a little nutmeg. The yolks of three eggs are then whisked in a soup tureen and the soup poured over them. It can then be served with fried croutons and the rest of the snails.

  Pheasant and Oysters with Sauerkraut

  After preparation of the bird as though for roasting, two pounds of lightly squeezed sauerkraut are placed in a casserole and covered with equal measures of white wine and water. A piece of bacon and a grated onion are added. The mixture is boiled for one hour. The pheasant is then laid in it and braised for another hour. It is removed when tender and the sauerkraut is thickened with a little bechamel. The oysters are cleaned, and dried. They are then sprinkled with salt and pepper, rolled in flour, egg and bread crumbs and fried in clear butter till light brown. The pheasant is then jointed and served in a double ring of sauerkraut and oysters.

  Lemon Merin&ue Cream with Cerises Flamhees

  For four persons four lemons are cut into thick slices and boiled with sugar. The extract is thickened with a little almond flour and, after cooling, passed through a sieve. The whites of five eggs, beaten up hard, are added and champagne glasses are filled with the mixture. Preserved cherries are then heated, drenched in cherry brandy or cognac and set alight. As soon as the flame dies down they are placed on top of the lemon cream.

  "Exceptional!" remarked the general after the main dish, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

  "Fantastic," remarked the colonel.

  "The best of all was the snail soup. I never tasted any so good," the general added.

  "I'll give you a little tip," Thomas said. "The snails must always be big ones in gray shells, General. But the shells must be unbroken."

  Waiters brought in the last course. Thomas rose. "Thank you. I'll attend to that." He lit a small spirit lamp, announcing: "This is a lemon meringue cream with a delicious supplement which we set on fire."

  He took preserved cherries from a plate, laid them in a small copper pan and heated them over the flame of the spirit lamp. He next sprinkled the cherries with French cognac and a pellucid liquid. Everyone watched him with fascination. Colonel Simeon half rose to his feet.

  "What's that stuff?" asked the general, pointing to the clear, colorless liquid.

  "Practically pure alcohol, chemically tested. It's needed to set the whole dish alight." With a dexterous gesture Thomas brought the flame into contact with the cherries. A hissing, spluttering blue flame shot up, quivered, flared and went out. Our friend distributed the hot fruits over the cream with grace and precision.

  "Now," said he, "let us consider our problem. I believe I have found a solution to it."

  The general nearly dropped the little spoon he held. "For heaven's sake tell us!"

  "Well, General, this afternoon—really good these cherries, aren't they?—and you were complaining of the behavior of certain people who were still trying to enrich themselves at the country's expense. I can set your mind at rest. There are

  gangs like that in every country. All they want is to make a profit and they don't care how. If anything goes wrong they take their money and clear out. Humbler citizens remain behind." Thomas ate a spoonful of cream. "Perhaps it's a bit sour. No? Well, it's probably a question of taste. Now, gentlemen, I believe we can put the French secret service on its legs at the expense of that selfish, unpatriotic lot."

  "But how would you set about it? By what means?" "All I need is an American diplomatic passport, an ordinary Belgian passport and fast work by the Secretary of the Treasury," said Thomas Lieven modestly. It was on August 31, 1939, that he made this announcement.

  On September 10, 1939, the following order was reported by the French press and radio.

  COUNCIL OF STATE

  An Order prohibiting or regulating in time of war the export of capital, exchange transactions and monetary trading . . .

  Article 1

  The export of capital in any form without Treasury authoritv is prohibited.

  Article 2

  All approved exchange transactions without exception must be carried out through the Bank of France or such other Bank as may be duly authorized by the Treasury for the purpose ...

  Further regulations concerning specie and currency followed. Very severe penalties for infrin
gement were notified. The decree was signed by:

  Albert Lebrun, President.

  Edouard Daladier, President of the Council.

  Paul Marchendeau, Chancellor.

  Georges Bonnet, Foreign Secretary.

  Albert Sarraut, Home Secretary.

  Paul Reynard, Secretary of the Treasury.

  Fernand Gentin, President of the Board of Trade.

  Raymond Patenotre, Economics Minister.

  Georges Mandel, Colonial Secretary.

  Jules Julien, Postmaster-General.

  On September 12, 1939, a young American diplomat traveled by the regular 8:35 a.m. express from Paris to Brussels. He was dressed like an English banker and carried a big black pigskin suitcase.

  Officials on the Franco-Belgian frontier were very strict. The immaculate young gentleman's diplomatic passport, which opened out like an accordion, enabled the representatives of both nations to identify him as William S. Murphy, offical courier to the American Embassy in Paris. His baggage was not investigated.

  In Brussels the American courier, who was really a German named Thomas Lieven, checked in at the Hotel Royal, producing a Belgian passport in the name of Armand Deeken.

  During the following day Deeken, alias Murphy, alias Lieven, spent three million French francs in Brussels, buying up dollars. The francs came out of the black pigskin bag and the dollars went into it.

  Thomas's original stock of three million francs had been supplied by his own little bank. There had been nothing for it but to advance them to the Deuxi&me Bureau. . . .

  Political events had caused the international value of the French francs to fall by twenty per cent. Private citizens in France, in their panic fear of a further devaluation of the franc, were intent on buying up dollars. Consequently, dollar quotations had risen in a few hours to astronomical heights.

  But this was not the case in Brussels. There dollars could be acquired at a substantially lower price, since the Belgians had not been infected by the French terror of war. They expressed their firm convictions by the statement: "We shall remain neutral. Under no circumstances whatever will the Germans attack us for the second time."