The Alice Factor

by J. Robert Janes

  “I thought they’d killed them.”

  “Precisely! You let Heydrich fool you completely! You’ve made him pay a pittance. He’s got you right where he wants. He knows, Richard. Damn it, man, use your head. Cut your ties with Irmgard Hunter and this … this friend of hers Heydrich has had thrown into Ravensbrück. Do so publicly. The Hunter woman is far too great a threat to you.”

  “She’s also helped us, as has Dee Dee.”

  “Don’t try to save them, Richard. That’s what Heydrich wants.”

  “And Arlette? Can’t you insist Duncan bring her over?”

  “She’s too essential. Mislead the Nazis for as long as you can. Never fear but that we shall be forever in your debt and that when the right time comes, we shall pluck the girl from their clutches.”

  Churchill crammed his gloved hands into the pockets of his overcoat. “The Scheldt, Richard. Fifty miles of estuary lie between Antwerp and the sea. If we should manage to get the diamonds on board that freighter, she’ll be as naked as a dockside harlot under the loading lights. Pray tell me, are there any plans to arm her? A token perhaps, just to fool the Nazi agents?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “Then we must see that a company of Royal Marines is dispatched to seize the ship while she’s still in Antwerp.”

  Hagen laid the safety deposit box on the cubicle’s counter and opened it. Two pouches held the gleanings of several months. He added a third, then on impulse, opened them all and emptied their contents into the box.

  Spread loosely, Klees had a small fortune’s worth of stones. Heydrich had to be aware of what had been going on.

  There was nothing like the blue diamond, nothing even approaching its quality. He was glad of the loss, glad Heydrich had let Lev’s daughter and son-in-law leave the Reich, but why had he done it?

  And what were Duncan and he going to do about the Dutchman?

  Idly he trailed a finger through the glitter. Most of the stones were of far less than a quarter of a carat. He could picture Klees prying them out of their mountings, surrounded by his warren of junk and his wall of broken dolls.

  The Dutchman would know enough diamond cutters and polishers in Amsterdam to get the Germans started. Once Dieter got back from the Congo, they’d have them in place.

  Out on the street, the pigeons were busy.

  Everywhere in London there were signs of a coming war: a magnified grimness among the people, Anderson shelters in the tiny back gardens, larger shelters in Hyde Park, a line of toddlers practicing the art of walking in their gas masks. Antiaircraft batteries springing up all over the city. Hurricanes and Spitfires flying overhead, but still far too few of them.

  When it came, the carnage would be terrible.

  Duncan was waiting for him at the Red Lion in St. James’s. Right away Hagen broached the subject of getting Arlette out before it was too late.

  McPherson gripped his pint. Would it be the last time they’d see each other? “The girl’s no longer being followed. Dillingham’s is definitely not being watched. Our sources—”

  “Your sources won’t be good enough, Duncan. Damas is far too sharp, and if not him, then Otto Krantz.”

  “Richard, I wish it weren’t this way. We’ll do everything we can—you have my word on it. I’ve assigned Collin Forbes to see that she gets out when the time comes. He’s been on to Damas and the others. Collin’s good, one of the best.”

  “But he’ll be working alone?”

  McPherson knew he couldn’t tell Richard that the British Secret Service had been having trouble with its people in the Hague, that there’d been a scandalous misappropriation of funds there and that none of the bastards could be trusted until cleared.

  “Collin’s not known to the Nazis. Until the past few weeks he’s been in the Far East.”

  “From one fire to another, is that it?” Hagen had the sinking feeling it wasn’t going to work.

  “The Abwehr might know of him but the Sicherheitsdienst won’t. Besides, Collin has an aunt who lives in Bruges. It’s ideal cover. He’s been staying with her, having a bit of a rest.”

  “And how will Arlette know him? How will she even know he’s not one of Heydrich’s people?”

  McPherson let his gaze pass over his friend. Everything in him wanted to stop this business, but he knew he couldn’t. “Collin will use ‘the Carpenter’ as his code word.”

  It was a bitch of a night. Bernard Wunsch struck a match and tried to light the pipe his doctor had told him would be better than so many cigarettes. The tobacco had been tamped down too hard! He wasn’t drawing on the damned thing well enough.

  In anger, he slammed the thing down and broke the stem quite by accident. Martine had bought him the pipe! “My dear, I’m sorry. It’s Richard. He can’t possibly cross the channel in this. Croydon airfield will be socked in, and if not there, then here.”

  That good and ample woman set her knitting aside. “Oh, do try to relax. You know your ulcers will only act up.”

  “I can’t! That renegade Dutchman, Klees, has had the effrontery to call the office and demand to see Richard. Have you any idea what this means? De Heer Klees will discredit Richard, and all his work will have been for nothing.”

  “Bernard, Bernard, I really don’t know what I’m going to do with you. Is it the hospital you want at such a time? Have some sense and try to calm down. Here, I will make us some tea.”

  “Tea! I want coffee … My dear, forgive me. Richard has been to London. The Committee … we’re all anxious to hear what he has to say.”

  She clucked her tongue. “Perhaps if you’d talk to me about things. Be more open with me, Bernard.”

  “The matter is far too secret.”

  “Then I will make the tea.”

  Wunsch followed her into the kitchen and ran an apologetic hand over her shoulders. They’d had no children since the death of their daughter at the age of three. In all those years there’d been just the two of them. “It’s this continued stubbornness of the king, my dear. Neutrality can only make the British suspicious of us. Hence they still refuse to give us the written guarantees, and without those the Committee’s hands are tied.”

  “Won’t King Leopold talk to de Heer Lietermann?”

  Irritably Wunsch finished his cigarette and shook his head. “He adamantly refuses to meet with us. It’s as if our desire to save the diamonds is unpatriotic! He’s afraid the Germans will see such a move as weakness of resolve on his part.”

  “Then there is no hope?”

  He shrugged. What else could he do? “Richard may have news. I only hope he hasn’t tried to cross the channel in this weather.”

  They settled down by the fire. Wunsch tried to fit the pipe together. It might be possible to glue it. She offered him the cigarettes and he took another immediately and lit up. “Ah, that’s better! We may not have that long to live in any case.”

  She told him not to talk like that. He fussed about the Dutchman. He said, “Richard should never have seen him in the first place.”

  At 11:00 p.m. they listened to the news. Poland still refused to grant the Nazis transit rights across the corridor. The German Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, swore that Germany would never come to an understanding with the Bolsheviks of Russia.

  In the South China Sea the Japanese had taken some island of strategic importance. Italy had eyes on the Suez Canal, so the British and French navies had begun maneuvers in the Mediterranean as a show of force and solidarity. Albania was very much on Il Duce’s mind. The premier of Hungary had been forced to resign because of his Jewish ancestry.

  Finally, in a Reichstag speech, Hitler shrieked that the frontiers of what remained of Czechoslovakia could no longer be guaranteed because of internal strife within that country.

  Wunsch snorted. “Martine, it’s as though the Czech problem is over. They’ve relegated it to the end of the news instead of the beginning!”

  He switched off the wireless and sat there brooding. He’d h
ave to tell her something. “Because of the work Richard does …”

  “Because of the spying.”

  “Yes, damn it! God help us if the Germans should ever be in a position to ask you that.

  “My dear, forgive me. Because of his work, I suspect that Richard has had to enter into a sort of business arrangement with de Heer Klees. Now this Dutchman is claiming that he must see Richard on a matter of great urgency. Arlette, she has taken the telephone call, as I was out of the office at the time. She says that Klees sounded very agitated and afraid for his life. He wouldn’t tell her what the matter was. She couldn’t tell him that our lines could well have been tapped.”

  What was the world coming to?

  He took a sip of tea and grimaced. “This Dutchman must want to get out of Amsterdam before it’s too late. The Nazis may also have put the squeeze on him. So, a panic call to Richard, a little blackmail perhaps. Who knows? I have the feeling he will want residence papers for England, and for that the British will have to excuse his criminal record.”

  He waited a moment, then said, “So you see how anxious I am about Richard.”

  The knitting was taken up and concentrated on to the point of irritability. She stopped suddenly, had to ask it of him now because there was more to this. “Is Richard still in love with Arlette?”

  Those sad brown eyes met hers. “My dear, it is a love affair that must go on in secret but cannot be hidden forever.”

  The dress was of silk, a rich brown paisley with such a sheen. It had a broad and floppy collar, a neckline that plunged a little but not too much. Buttons down the front, a fullness to the skirt that was divine.

  Arlette ran a smoothing hand down the front, turned sideways to look at herself in Cecile’s mirror, then went through to the sitting room.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Hagen grinned up at her from his chair. Cecile exclaimed, “My God, he’s speechless! To think you could choose such a thing, Richard. Arlette, it matches the color of your eyes.”

  Arlette stood primly before him. He reached out to take her by the hand. Neither said a thing. They just looked at each other, Richard pleased, Arlette delighted, her legs touching his knees …

  Cecile couldn’t keep the brittleness from her voice. The sight of them together like that still made her jealous! “I’ll leave you two, I think.” She went downstairs to the club, only to find an agitated Bernard Wunsch waiting for her in the kitchens.

  “My God, it’s a night for travellers. Let me get us a bottle and two glasses, mijnheer. We will drink to their health and continued happiness, and we will have us a little talk.”

  Arlette felt Richard’s arms slide around her. The dress was so soft. He drew her against him and she laid a trembling hand on the back of his neck.

  When she found his lips, they kissed each other longingly. That quickness came to them both, that nervousness. Her hair spilled forward as she drew away a little. “I want you,” she whispered. “Richard, I have to have you in me.”

  Hagen cradled her in his lap and they kissed again, each time a little longer, each time a little more urgently.

  Then Cecile came back, and with her was Bernard.

  Across the canal the Dutchman’s shop was in darkness, but a single light had been left on in his second-floor apartment as agreed.

  Hagen anxiously glanced at his watch. The meeting had been arranged for as close to 3:00 a.m. as possible. The Dutchman had been afraid.

  There was no one about, not even a drunk.

  Arlette had pleaded with him not to go; Bernard had insisted that he must for all their sakes.

  Satisfied that he hadn’t been followed, he stepped out from the doorway and went quickly along to the nearest bridge. Again he waited, hidden from view. Again the street remained empty.

  The Dutchman’s houseboat was still moored to the quayside.

  The door to the shop opened and he stepped quickly inside and closed it behind him. At once the clutter, the mildew, that stuffy, musty feel and smell of things old and discarded came to him.

  Cupping a hand over the beam of his flashlight, he swung it up past the knives and rings to a tuba whose brass gleamed dully. The counter was there, the shelves behind it holding clocks, clocks and more of them. He didn’t call out to the Dutchman. Cautiously he made his way over to the counter.

  With a forefinger, he eased open the drawer and found the pistol but didn’t take it out. So far so good.

  Behind the shop there was less need for caution from the street. The flashlight swept over a nail keg full of rusty swords and pikes. It passed china piled high on sideboards, tables and bureaus; porcelains; a stoneware jug and basin.

  It settled on the brick wall with its broken dolls.

  He switched off the light and stood there in the darkness. Everything in him said to leave.

  When the beam of the light found a child of ten or twelve, she was lying on the floor naked. Her pale little seat was rucked up, her thin arms were clasped beneath her. Blood had pooled on the floor where her throat had been cut. The blue eyes were glazed, the silky blond hair in disarray. Things had fallen over everywhere about her—chairs, a table, the shattered remains of a demijohn. She’d run from Klees, had tried to escape, tried to hide, and he’d …

  Hagen’s stomach heaved. Suddenly he found himself moving swiftly away from her. More things began to fall—a copper washtub, a stoneware crock, the curtain that had been across the entrance to the Dutchman’s office …

  Cut gem diamonds and their mountings were scattered on the floor. The door to the safe was wide open. Klees was slumped against the far wall, gray slabs of flesh hanging from him in rolls to fall to the hairy pubis and flaccid penis that drooped between his chubby legs.

  They’d shot him. A trickle of blood had congealed on his forehead. The pale gray eyes were unfeeling.

  Blinking, Hagen switched off the torch and tried to think, tried to figure out what to do. Heydrich! It had to have been done on his orders, but why? To pin the murder on him? To rock the Antwerp diamond world with the scandal? Child Murdered. American Spy Helps Dutch Sex Killer. What to do? What the hell to do?

  The Belgian government would be in an uproar, the British government all the more suspicious of them, Germany the only safe haven for him. A diamond trader on the run.

  “Well, Richard, it looks as if you’ve got a problem on your hands.”

  Hagen swung around and shone the light into Krantz’s face.

  “Please.” The Berliner winced. “It’s too bright for my eyes. A little agreement, Richard, that’s all Herr Heydrich wants. No more lies. Save yourself a lot of trouble, and we’ll tidy this up for you. No questions, not one word. Just that Herr Klees has gone for a little trip in his houseboat and the sea …” He gave a shrug. “Who can trust such a thing in this weather?”

  “What did he do? Refuse to work for you?”

  “Let’s just say he wanted out, and we saved you the trouble of trying to get him a visa.”

  “And the child? Did you bastards have to kill her?”

  “Bastards, Richard? Please. The honey pot got broken. He couldn’t let her scream.”

  “I’ll never work for you people.”

  “Then tidy this up yourself and see what happens, but remember, my young friend, that the Dutch have stamped your passport at entry and Herr Klees has left us a record of your dealings with him.”

  The Berliner walked away into the darkness and the clutter. Hagen shone the light after him, shadows on the walls and ceiling, a nest of Roman lances, the image of a bass violin, a stack of plates, a pair of skis, a wall of broken dolls.

  The Villa Laumannfeld was on the Prinzregentenstrasse in Munich’s center near the park. Stark and alone amid neglected grounds, it brooded in the rain and snow.

  Irmgard swung the Daimler in at the drive, and they came to a stop before the Moorish gates of the iron fence that surrounded the estate.

  Winged statues of naked nymphs and warlike gods lined the eav
es.

  There’d been the parties, the gala balls in 1934, 1935 and 1936, Dee Dee and Irmgard in stunning dresses … so long ago it seemed. Dieter and he in tuxedos and black ties.

  “Irmgard, what did they do to you?”

  She had said so little, didn’t look well at all. The flight had been over an hour late. As the plane had touched down at Oberwiesenfeld, he’d seen her standing beside the car.

  They’d driven past Landsberg Prison, past Gestapo Headquarters on the Briennerstrasse, and come straight here.

  “Irmgard …”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does.”

  She couldn’t look at him. She got out of the car to open the gate. Shards of glass littered the barren patches among the rapidly vanishing snow. As she hurried ahead of him, the glass ground beneath her shoes. It seemed everywhere, yet the windows had all been replaced.

  Hagen caught up with her. “What’s happened to the family?”

  That was just like Richard! “Dachau, Ravensbrück and the grave. What did you think? One doesn’t talk about such things. The villa simply became ‘available,’ that’s all. Would you rather someone had put a torch to it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then for Christ’s sake, shut up!”

  Built at the turn of the century by a master of the classical and art nouveau, the place had been a Munich landmark until Crystal Night.

  Beyond the grinning jaws of a bronze Medusa letter box, the entrance foyer was huge, of black, white and gold marble. A mosaic of tiny white tiles covered the floor. In black, an uncoiled cobra appeared as if moving across the center of the foyer.

  In one wall niche there was a glossy black copy of a Florentine male nude. Against the opposite wall, a superb female nude in black dared her chosen lover to cross the floor between them.

  Stripped of its paintings—gutted by Goering’s thugs—there still remained the many frescoes and bas-reliefs, the sumptuously decadent scenes of Pompeian brothels on some of the ceilings.

  Far from the range of most bombers, Dieter Karl would use the villa as a center for the cutting and polishing of industrial diamonds. They’d build a factory in the suburbs for making the grinding wheels and cutting tools.