by Ann Bridge
They drove on to Schwyz, where Herr Waechter said he must see a cousin who made cement—‘I have a small interest in the firm. And you should see Schwyz; it was the birthplace of the Confederation, and it is a charming town. I ought also to call on two of my sisters-in-law, widows, and not very interesting; but their houses are pretty.’ Indeed as they drove across the flat plain towards the twin peaks of the Grosse and Kleine Mythen, which stand up like two gigantic stone axe-heads above the small town, they could see the cement-factory away to their left, its buildings all floury with grey dust. ‘It is rather a defacement,’ Herr Waechter said regretfully; ‘but it gives employment, and brings in money. We seem compelled, today, to live in an increasingly ugly world.’
But there was nothing ugly about the world into which he soon introduced her—the old Swiss families in the old town of Schwyz. They lived in large houses in big high-walled gardens, full of flowers and fruit-trees; the houses themselves were as stuffed with walnut panelling and period furniture as his own, though without the rugs and French pictures—and they all, it seemed, were related to endless other families alike engaged in industry. Julia got that afternoon, and on subsequent occasions when the calls were returned in Gersau, an unusually intimate picture of the original European democracy—since the Greek and Italian republics have not survived. All these people kept hotels, or made watches or machinery, or precision instruments; but their homes were in these ancient houses, full of inherited treasures, and they could trace their ancestry back four or five hundred years.
A couple of days later they drove to Zurich. Herr Waechter was writing a history of Gersau, and had already completed a rather learned book on Swiss furniture, now in the press; he wished to discuss these with his publishers there. They lunched at the Baur au Lac (one of the best hotels in the world) in the glass-enclosed outside restaurant between the green-flowing river on one side and the great garden, brilliant with flowers, on the other. The restaurant was full of people, all apparently Germans or Swiss—it was early in the season for Americans; Julia commented on the fact that there seemed to be no English. ‘I have so often heard people at home speak of the Baur au Lac.’
‘Oh, the English can’t afford to come here any more,’ her host said, matter-of-factly. ‘Not with this quite ridiculous travel allowance, for which there is really no excuse at all! The pound stands well; this limit of £100 is purely a bureaucratic idée fixe. And it does harm to England’s reputation.’ He paused, and sipped his wine. ‘In Switzerland,’ he went on, ‘we know a good deal about the standing of all currencies, and we regret this folly very much. The Germans, whom you defeated, can come here and spend as they please; so can the Belgians, who surrendered and left you plaqués outside Dunkirk; so can the French, who ran away. It is only the English, who stood alone for a year and a half defending European freedom, who may not travel in comfort on the continent they—and they alone —saved!’ The old gentleman spoke the last words with savage severity.
‘Good for you, Herr Waechter!’ Julia said with warmth. ‘I couldn’t agree more. I wish you’d write a letter to The Times about it.’
‘Perhaps I shall, one day. Here in Switzerland we feel deeply about this. We have not forgotten that our tourist and hotel industry, which is of great importance to our economy, was in effect started by the English—the mountaineers who came to climb, who also really created our corps of guides. Hence our first hotels—and we do not like, now, that English visitors should be forced to stay in second-class places.’
Julia was moved by this, remembering Mrs. Hatha-way’s remarks a few days earlier.
The offices of Herr Waechter’s publishers were as much of a surprise to her as his wine-merchant’s. She had once or twice been taken to cocktail-parties given by London firms, in stately premises in Albemarle Street, or more functional ones nearer the Strand, and expected something of the same sort. Not at all. The car bore them up to a hillside suburb overlooking the city, where lilacs and laburnums bloomed along shady streets, and stopped outside a modern villa, with a plate on its gatepost bearing the words ‘Eden-Verlag’. Herr Schmidt, the principal, a middle-aged man with a clever face, greeted her host with respectful warmth and bore him off upstairs, first installing Julia in a sunny room full of flowers and armchairs, and inviting her to amuse herself with the books which lined the walls—‘We do some fine illustrated books.’ He laid several on a centre table. While Julia was examining these the door opened and a rather shaky little old man, with tufts of grey hair round his baldish skull, came in and introduced himself in rather bad French as Herr Schmidt’s partner; he proceeded to lead her round the shelves, pointing out various books, including several translations into German of novels by well-known English writers. Julia’s inveterate curiosity suddenly moved her to ask him whether any of these people used numbered accounts? The question produced an extraordinary outburst.
‘Numbered accounts!’ He almost spat out the words. ‘Oh yes, often we are asked to pay royalties into numbered accounts by people who do not wish to pay taxes at home! They come here and spend it on winter-sport. But these can get their money when they want it—unlike the heirs of the wretched Jews and Poles and Hungarians, to whom it was refused by the banks.’ Again he almost spat the last word, his face twisted with a sort of despairing anger.
‘Refused? But why on earth?’ Julia asked.
‘Because death certificates shall be produced before the bank will pay! And how many death certificates were given of those who perished in the gas-chambers at Oswieczim’ he used the Polish name for Auschwitz— ‘or were beaten to death at Mauthausen, or died of starvation in Belsen and Buchenwald? So those who looked ahead and sought to make some provision for their children used their prudence in vain; those of the younger generation who escaped were denied their heritage.’
‘How ghastly,’ Julia said; though she was horrified, the little old man was so wrought up, and the story sounded so extraordinary, that she wasn’t sure if she quite believed it. ‘It sounds impossible,’ she added.
‘Oh, everything is possible! There was more than that,’ Herr Schmidt’s partner went on. ‘The Lüblin Government, the Communist clique forced on us by the Russians, asked the Swiss Government to pay to them 300 million dollars of Polish money, deposited in Switzerland. The Swiss Government paid—I leave you to guess from where they got the money!’
‘Good God! That really was too much,’ Julia exclaimed.
‘Quite so.’ Her agreement seemed to soothe the little man; he went on rather more calmly. ‘This created a certain scandal; now the Government here are more discreet—other requests of the same nature have been refused. But all over Switzerland these banks are putting up wonderful new buildings—with the money of the dead, while their heirs starve!’
Julia was distinctly relieved that at this point Herr Waechter reappeared, and took her away. What she had heard disturbed and worried her; she wondered if it could be true, and longed to ask her host, but for some time she refrained, assuming that a man of 80 would be tired after such an expedition. But quite the contrary; the old gentleman seemed so brisk and spry, quite cheered up by his outing, that eventually Julia asked him what truth there was in the story of the death certificates?
He frowned.
‘The old Petrus will have told you this, of course. It is true that payments are withheld unless a death certificate is produced; this is perfectly natural, and correct; otherwise the door would be open to every sort of fraud. And latterly matters have been arranged better, at least as far as Germans—Jews mostly, of course—are concerned; the German Government is very liberal about granting death certificates to those presumed dead, and also the United Nations circulates lists of names, partly from the very ill-kept records of the prison-camps, asking whether there is any evidence as to the life or death of those so listed—if there is no evidence that they are alive a death certificate is granted. But this was not the case in the first years after the war; the machinery had not been establishe
d, so the banks were helpless—they had to abide by their rules.’
‘Of course—I see that,’ Julia said. Then she asked about the payment to the Polish Government?
‘Oh, everyone has heard this story!’ Waechter exclaimed—‘and here also the thing is complicated. No bank may pay out the money of a private individual to anyone but that individual or his legal heirs; that is why the private fortune of the late Czar of Russia is still lying in your banks in London, in spite of repeated requests from the Bolshevik Russian Government that it should be handed over to them. Government money is a different matter; one government may, quite reasonably, hand this over to the established successor of a previous government in a foreign country. What became of those lorry-loads of gold bars which the Polish Government sent down through Rumania to Constanza when the German invasion threatened? You should know—your own Consul helped to carry them on board ship!’
Julia didn’t know; she had never heard of this episode and enjoyed visualising a sweating Consul humping gold bricks up a gangway in a hot Black Sea port.
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘Do you know where it is now?’
‘No. It has been suggested that it came here—we are such a repository! If it did, our Government would have been perfectly within their rights in handing it over to the Polish Government. But though there has been endless talk about this payment, there is no evidence that it was really made—and never will be!’ he added with finality.
Julia was fascinated by these glimpses of international finance, about which, like most people, she knew nothing. Herr Waechter obviously knew a good deal, and she decided to try to clear up the substance of another of the old publisher’s complaints while the going was so exceptionally good—she asked if it was true that the splendid new bank buildings in Switzerland were really being paid for out of ‘the money of the dead,’ as old Dr. Petrus had said.
Herr Waechter fairly exploded.
‘This is complete rubbish! and libellous rubbish too! I have already told you that machinery is now in operation to clear the accounts of those who died in the prison-camps; but in any case our banks have no need of such moneys. When German shares and Mark obligations were far down, after the War, our banks bought them up—to the great relief of the holders—and since Germany’s wonderful recovery these have enormously increased in value; so much so that our banks hardly know what to do with their money. Very sensibly, they are using it to bring their premises up to date; this gives employment, and helps our young cement industry.’
Suddenly the old man did look tired, Julia saw with compunction.
‘I’m sorry I bothered you with all this,’ she said. ‘But I was upset by what that old man told me.’
‘Of course you were, and rightly. Justice and injustice, and human suffering are things about which all must be upset.’ He spoke with emphasis. ‘But may I ask you a question?’ he went on. ‘How come you to know about numbered Kontos? From Dr. Petrus also? For the English public, I understand, has hardly heard of them, though many English, even in official positions, are now using them.’
Julia concealed wariness by laughter.
‘Are they really? Oh, what fun!’ She thought quickly, and decided to use Paddy Lynch. ‘I have a banker friend who told me about them; that’s why I asked Dr. Petrus whether any of his English authors used them—and uncovered all this story.’
‘A banker in London?’
‘No no—in Casablanca.’
‘Oh, Casablanca!’
Julia laughed again, and broke off with an enquiry about a church they happened to be passing; Herr Waechter’s historical enthusiasm deflected him, as she had hoped, from the matter of numbered Kontos. But all the way back to Gersau, through orchards that were pink drifts of blossom, she was worrying about one thing. Colin had said she had everything she needed to deal with Aglaia’s numbered account; but she hadn’t got the death certificate of Mr. Thalassides. And quite clearly, from what she had heard today, that was essential.
Chapter 3
Bellardon
On their return Julia was met on the upper landing by Watkins, who followed her into her room.
‘Mr. Colin was on the telephone for you at lunch-time, Miss. He seemed very much put about that you was out.’
‘Where from, Watkins?’
‘London, Miss. He gave me a message, and said you was to have it the moment you came in.’
‘Well what was it, Watkins?’ Julia asked impatiently. What could Colin want to ring her up for?
‘He said—“Tell Miss Julia to get on with the job I gave her as fast as ever she can”. Really, Master Colin has a cheek, to be giving you jobs!—but that’s what he said, and what’s more he made me repeat it,’ Watkins said indignantly. (She had dandled Colin as an infant, and still could not take him very seriously.)
‘Anything else?’
‘Oh yes—he gave his orders as cool as anything! You was to stay here till you get a letter from him, but to be making arrangements meantime to go and see the clergyman. He said you’d know who he meant. And he kept on saying—“Tell her to hurry; it’s urgent”. Three times, he said that.’
‘Thank you, Watkins. Tell Mrs. Hathaway I’ll come along to her in a minute or two.’
As she washed and put on powder Julia considered. Mrs. Hathaway really was much better. The doctor, who had been the evening before, had said that in a week or ten days she would be fit to move; he recommended that she should go to Beatenberg, above the Lake of Thun, for two or three weeks—the air there was peculiarly beneficial. Watkins had by now come to terms with Anna and the rest of the staff, so clearly dear Mrs. H. could safely be left for the moment. And after supper she asked her host if she might make a telephone call.
‘Of course. To England?’
‘No—to a place called Bellardon.’
‘Is that in the Canton de Vaud or the Canton de Fribourg? I know it is in one or the other, but they are so intertwined that it is a little confusing.’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ Julia said airily. ‘Does it matter which Canton Bellardon is in?’
‘Yes, certainly. You see here we have an automatic telephone system, with a different call-number for each canton—you dial that, and then the number you want in the canton.’
‘Oh, not by towns? How odd! Well how am I to find out which canton Bellardon is in?’
‘The telephone book will tell us that.’ It did—Bellardon was in the Canton de Fribourg, whose call-number was 037. (They all begin with an o.) Julia looked through the two or three pages of the Bellardon section, searching for the name de Ritter; it was not under R, nor under D.
‘I can’t find him!’ she exclaimed.
‘Whom do you seek?’ Herr Waechter asked.
‘A Monsieur de Ritter, at Bellardon.’
‘Oh, the Pastor—yes, such a brilliant man. Look under Pasteur, and you will find him.’ And among the Ps, sure enough, Julia found the entry—‘Pasteur de l’ Église Nationale, J.-P. de Ritter, La Cure, Bellardon.’ She dialled the two numbers, and was through in about fifteen seconds—the Swiss automatic telephone system works like magic—and the Pastor himself answered. Julia gave her name and said, a little deprecatingly and quite untruly, that she was a friend of his god-daughter’s, and wanted to come and see him.
‘Dear Mademoiselle, I have nearly 150 god-daughters!’ the rich voice answered gaily.
‘All English?’ Julia asked.
‘Ah no! Only two English ones.’
‘Well, Aglaia is the one, of those two, that I speak of.’ (In spite of the automatic telephone, Julia’s instinct for caution made her reluctant to use the surname.) ‘But look, I want to come very soon, probably the day after tomorrow.’
‘Come from where?’
‘Gersau.’
‘Then you must stay the night.’
‘Yes, but I don’t want to be a bother. If you would just book me a room in the hotel I can come in and see you.’
A loud, very engaging laugh c
ame ringing down the line.
‘Leave all that to me. Just come!—telephone your train, and we will meet you at the station. Au revoir.’ He rang off.
‘He sounds frightfully nice,’ Julia said to her host.
‘Jean-Pierre de Ritter? He is one of the world’s charmers. So was his father, whom I knew very well indeed. They are an old Berne family.’ There followed details of inter-marriages with Waechters and Carmenzinds.
Julia waited anxiously for Colin’s letter next day. It didn’t come by the first post, but she took occasion to tell Mrs. Hathaway that she would probably have to go away for a day or two, on a job for Colin—she knew that Watkins would have reported his telephone call to her mistress.
‘More Secret Service work?’ Mrs. Hathaway asked. ‘You know, my dear child, I do think they ought soon to start paying you for what you do. It all comes out of the Estimates, after all—which means out of our pockets—and I don’t see why the Government should have your services free.’
‘Oh, this is a private thing of Colin’s,’ Julia assured her blithely. ‘Nothing to do with the Secret Service at all.’
But Colin’s letter, which arrived by the second post, promptly disillusioned her on that score.
‘This business is turning out much more serious and more tiresome than I thought when I asked you to take it on,’ he wrote. ‘It seems that the old boy, along with his money, deposited some rather hideously important papers. I only heard this when I was having supper with H. last night. He’s in rather a flap about it, as indeed everyone is, because we’ve heard that some most undesirable characters are onto this too, and may be taking rapid action of some sort about it. I didn’t gather exactly what, but it is quite menacing. And when I mentioned that you were actually going to see you-know-who, H. begged me to lay you on and get you to function as quickly as possible. (He doesn’t care to write to you himself, naturally.) But he laid it on me to tell you that it is really vital, repeat vital, that you should get these papers away from where they are and into your own keeping as fast as you possibly can.