Rage in Paris

by Kirby Williams

  “I know that Barnet Robinson and Lindbergh are neighbors in New Jersey, near Princeton.”

  “Rumors from very high places indicate that Barnet Robinson was instrumental in financing the ‘ransom’ paid to Hauptmann and that Hauptmann killed baby Lindbergh on direct orders from the Abwehr. Robinson helped to finance the ransom because Himmler ordered him to do it.”

  “Barnet Robinson’s making no secret of his role in funding the ransom,” I said. “And I still don’t see what the Abwehr stands to gain by having one of its agents murder the baby.”

  “As I said, it’s to make Lindbergh toe the line. Have some more schnapps, Mr. Brown. Now, I will give you the ‘pièce de résistance.’”

  I finished my schnapps and waited.

  “The key to the plot is that the Abwehr and Robinson are searching for a black man to be charged with the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby to fan the hatred already directed against black people. They also want to avoid the kind of hostility that Germany would face were Hauptmann’s and the Abwehr’s rumored role in the affair to come to light.”

  Having escaped from the race war already directed against colored people in the South, I knew that the Klan and its sympathizers would have a field day if Baby Lindbergh’s murderer turned out to be colored.

  Schulz-Horn said, “Robinson helped Lindbergh to pay the ransom with US gold dollar certificates, which the Abwehr had amassed to finance the black uprising. Then Roosevelt came along and made it illegal to hold such certificates.” He smiled and continued, “I understand from Stanley that Robinson has paid you a part of your private investigator fees in gold dollar certificates and that you have turned them over to Stanley for safekeeping. I told Stanley to burn them right away. They have all been marked, and you could end up as the perfect scapegoat that the Nazis and their supporters, like Barnet Robinson, have been looking for.”

  He smiled, and the full enormity of the trap that I had nearly walked into walloped me in the face like a knockout blow from a bunch of Jack Johnsons reflected in a funhouse mirror. By nailing me, Robinson and the Abwehr would be tossing J. Edgar Hoover and the yellow press the perfect scapegoat: a part-colored jazz musician who consorts with white women and kills the baby of an all-American Aryan hero. Unless Robinson III and his buddies had originally stuffed some gold certificates in the ransom satchel and intended to make Buster the patsy all along.

  Schulz-Horn studied my face and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Well?”

  “Colonel, I sure would appreciate hearing how you plan to smuggle Daphne out of Germany,” I said.

  “Here it is. Conveniently for us, one of my most trusted Regular Army, Reichswehr, officers is going to get married next week, and our circle of sworn ‘blood brothers’ and jazz lovers is going to throw a bachelor party for him Friday night, in Cologne. You and I are going to play at that party, and Daphne will be our guest. I will accompany you on piano, if you permit . . . ”

  “What if Daphne doesn’t want to come along?” I asked.

  “My informants at Goering’s residence tell me that she’s having second thoughts about her German adventure. Her fantasies of Nazi life involved a poetic, sensitive Adolf Hitler and not a swine like Goering who brings out the worst in everyone, even in a madman like Hitler. I think that if she cares for you as much as Stanley says, she will leave with you. If she resists, we have other means to bring her to Cologne as an unwilling guest. From Cologne, we can get you both safely into France.”

  “I’m with you, Colonel.”

  It was past midnight and Friday had already begun. I was excited that I’d have the chance to take Daphne back to France and settle up accounts with her, with Robinson III, and with the Count because I was growing more and more certain that they were in it together.

  Schulz-Horn said, “I want you to write out a note asking her to meet you at the Tiergarten Zoo tomorrow at noon in front of the sign to the wild felines’ cages. We will have a car nearby. You will meet her there and reason with her. If she won’t leave with you, we will snatch her then and there and head for Cologne.” He passed me a gold-colored Parker fountain pen, and I wrote down the words that he dictated on a piece of Hotel Adlon notepaper. He took the note from me, put it inside an envelope from the hotel, and stuffed it into the pocket of his trench coat.

  “You will snatch her in broad daylight if she resists?” I asked, doubtfully.

  He smiled. “Nothing is impossible for the Reichswehr.” Schulz-Horn stood up and put his Tyrolean hat back on. He was of medium height, half a foot shorter than I was. He was a few years older than me. But there was something forceful and athletic in the way he held himself, and he had a natural air of command. He was not a man I would like to tangle with.

  “I have a car waiting outside,” he said. “I’ll drop you off at the Universal. Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow . . . ”—he looked at his watch—“today is going to be a very long and busy day for us.”

  I reckoned that neither of us would sleep much.

  “I’m going to phone somebody to deliver my luggage to where we’re meeting Daphne. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go back to that hotel after we pick her up. I’m sure I’m being watched.”

  “Good idea,” he said. “Daphne might not want to go back to stay under that swine Goering’s roof for another second. If she goes with us, she won’t have a chance to go back for her luggage. I’ll have my friends pick up some necessaries for her.”

  Back in my hotel room, I packed my suitcases. On the way there, I told Gunther to deliver my suitcases to the friend I had told him about at eleven sharp. The friend was willing to help to arrange Gunther’s visa to America but wanted to look him over first before going to see the American Ambassador Dodd. I gave Gunther two hundred dollars and told him to start packing his own suitcases, in case he had to leave for America at a moment’s notice.

  Gunther was excited at having the American money and the chance of escape that I was offering him. I was hoping that Jean’s friend or one of her acquaintances in the American diplomatic community could make Gunther’s dreams come true.

  Gunther told me not to worry; he would deliver my luggage to my friend at 11:00 a.m. I told Gunther to knock on my door at 8:00 a.m. to wake me up.

  My plans in place, I slept soundly, until Gunther’s insistent knocking on the door woke me up.

  CHAPTER 21

  Berlin, Friday morning, February 16, 1934

  An hour later, at nine in the morning, I retrieved my passport and put in a phone call to Jean Fletcher’s journalist friend, Skip Oatman. He had his own car, much to my relief, and I asked him to turn up at the Universal at 11:00 a.m. to pick up my luggage and settle my hotel bill. He was to tell the desk clerk that I had been called away on an urgent mission.

  I told Oatman to look for a sallow-faced youngster named Gunther and to mention my name to him. Gunther would handle putting my luggage into his car at the hotel’s rear entrance. I told him where to meet me at the Tiergarten with my bags; he knew the place. When I said goodbye to Oatman, I gave him a rundown on Gunther’s situation and asked him if his American embassy contacts could get Gunther an emergency visa. Oatman sounded pretty sure that he could pull it off by calling in a favor from the ambassador’s daughter, Martha Dodd.

  Minister Hermann Goering had already made advances to Daphne twice since the Führer had ordered him, immediately after the reception at the Chancellery on Wednesday evening, to lodge her in his residence until further notice. Daphne was certain that a spark had passed between her and the Führer, and she had thought that being placed under the “personal protection” of his Minister Goering meant that he favored her over the others and that a marriage proposal was imminent.

  Some “personal protection,” Daphne reflected bitterly. Goering had shown her to her lavish bedroom, closed the door, and proceeded to slice her evening gown to shreds with his enormous hunting knife. He then stared at her contemptuously and locked her in her room, demanding that �
��the next time” she should show him more respect and affection. He warned her that, otherwise, it would not go well between her and the Führer. He threatened to tell him “all.” When she had asked what he meant he laughed and waddled out of the room, his hips wide and old-maidish like Elsa’s.

  Daphne was depressed afterward. She had dreamed of a pure Germany led by a mystical, poetic Führer who loved her and would father her children and invest her with power. Instead, she had been bullied and browbeaten by Hitler’s right-hand man, who was more uncouth even than Buster and certainly not of the caliber of Urby Brown. She wondered why Urby had not arrived in response to her SOS message to her father—and the Count—where she mentioned that Buster was holding her in Berlin.

  She had slipped Buster’s name in so that Urby would realize she was not playing games. It was a threat that if he did not come quickly, she would tell all to the Count, who would then probably set his men on Urby or go to the police. She did not want that to happen, but she needed Urby more than ever now that Goering had turned out to be a monster and seemed to want her for himself alone.

  Out of desperation, Daphne decided to ask his sow-like Elsa to pass a message to the Count’s friend Rudolf Hess, asking him to arrange an interview with Chancellor Hitler for as early as possible on Friday.

  She had given the message to Elsa yesterday evening, Thursday, at eight o’clock. Three hours later, she was awakened by the pig Goering screaming at her and threatening her with physical violence unless she was nice to him. She pretended to go along with him, kissing his hand and begging him to give her a little more time and she turned her tears on full blast. She planted a kiss on his perfumed cheek and he grunted with satisfaction when he left her, muttering that he would see about arranging an interview with the Führer now that she was “cooperating.”

  Daphne realized that Elsa Herbst was devoted to her master and that no help would come from that quarter. As she lay tossing and turning in her bed, well past midnight, afraid that the next morning might bring another assault from Goering, there was a knock on the door. Daphne saw that a note had been slid under it. She opened it; it was written on Hotel Adlon notepaper. To her delight, it was from Urby Brown. He asked her to meet him at the sign to the wild felines’ cages at the Tiergarten at noon on Friday, in exactly eleven hours.

  Her heart raced. She was sure that Urby would rescue her and that he would make love to her in his room at the Hotel Adlon, with champagne and caviar, just as at La Pérouse Restaurant. That would drown out her nightmare stay under Hermann Goering’s “protection.” Just knowing that Urby was in Berlin calmed her fears.

  Things had turned out so disastrously that Daphne was considering the abandonment of her German dream to return to New Jersey with her father. Urby would help her to decide by finding a way for her to escape from Hermann Goering.

  Goering’s morning visit did not happen. Elsa explained that he had a meeting with the Führer that would last all morning. But, she said, smiling demurely, Prime Minister of Prussia Goering had instructed her to put some Liebfrauenmilch wine on ice for a “tête-á-tête luncheon for two.” Elsa’s words nauseated Daphne, and her skin crawled at the thought of being in Goering’s presence again and having to show him more affection.

  At 11:00 a.m., Daphne told Fraülein Elsa Herbst that she wished to go out for a walk by herself, and the woman actually tried to stop her by force. Finally, Daphne picked up one of Goering’s marble busts of himself from the piano top and menaced Elsa with it. When she left to go outside, Elsa followed her, walking with her waddling stride that was just like her master’s.

  Fraülein Herbst matched her stride for stride for the first three minutes, with Daphne walking faster and faster and Elsa barely keeping up, with her fat legs pumping like pistons and her breathing increasingly stertorous. She pleaded with Daphne to slow down.

  When they turned the corner into a busy street, Daphne, the best white female sprinter in New Jersey, dashed away, leaving the woman far behind, weeping in frustration. Daphne flagged down a passing taxi and headed for the Berlin Zoo in the Tiergarten.

  Having arrived early, Daphne sat down on a bench near the sign for the wild felines’ cages. She was still very warm and excited from her narrow escape from Elsa Herbst and her emotions were running wild. She would laugh hysterically when she remembered looking back and seeing the bitch waddling faster and faster behind her, oinking at her to stop for the love of God.

  Daphne’s sprint had also got her sexual urges flaring up, and she was hoping that Urby and she could take a fast taxi to his hotel and make love for the rest of the afternoon.

  She had decided that, as a last try at her dream, she would telephone Rudolf Hess from Urby’s room and ask him to arrange an appointment with the Führer. If Hess refused or she felt that he was using delaying tactics, she would ask Urby to take her back to France. Whatever happened, she had no intention of returning to Hermann Goering’s “personal protection.”

  Daphne knew that Urby would have a lot of questions to ask about the kidnapping, but she would make them wait until after they made love and she had him in her power. She had questions to ask him, too. She had arranged for her own kidnapping, but why were she and Buster abducted from La Belle Princesse before they could set their scheme in motion? That had not been part of her plan. Was the owner of La Belle Princesse, or the jazz musician, Stanley Bontemps, involved in the abduction?

  Daphne was not afraid to tell Urby that she had planned her own kidnapping to get away from her father. And he would have to keep the story to himself because she knew that he had killed Buster, and he certainly did not want the Count to know that. There was also the problem of the man they called Baby Langston, but only he, in his last instants of consciousness, knew that she had killed him. Buster would take the fall for the killing; Urby would not dare to gainsay that.

  At noon, my black Mercedes-Benz limousine stopped near the sign to the wild felines’ cages. The windows were tinted, and I couldn’t see out until I rolled down the window. A car pulled up behind us, and its driver opened the trunk, lifted out two suitcases, and placed them on the sidewalk. I stepped out of the Mercedes, shook Skip Oatman’s hand, and the driver of my car, who wore a German officer’s uniform, helped me put the suitcases into its trunk. Oatman drove off, refusing to be repaid for covering my hotel bill.

  Daphne ran to me then. I could feel her heart pounding against my chest, and she clung to me, sucking me in.

  “Please take me to your room, Urby.” The Mercedes-Benz raced away from the Tiergarten as we held each other in the backseat of the car, an opaque window separating us from the driver.

  “Daphne,” I said. “I have only one chance of getting you out of Germany. Do you want to stay or go back to France? You have to decide now. I’m not going back to my room. I’ve checked out of my hotel;the concierge has probably already reported it.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here and back to France, Urby,” she said. She tapped on the thick, opaque window separating us from the driver.

  “Can he hear or see us through this thing?” she asked, her violet-blue eye sparkling,the other one covered by the wave of white-blonde hair. She put her hand on my thigh and squeezed it.

  I said, “No, this is a general’s limousine. We are bullet-proof, invisible, and sound-proof. If you want to speak to the driver, you use this thing.” I picked up a kind of telephone receiver, pressed a button, and said, “To Cologne, as agreed.” I told Daphne, “It’s going to be a long drive, but they won’t search for me in this car.”

  I had just flicked the phone off when Daphne kissed me hard and then settled cozily into my arms. She probably felt safe for the first time in days, so she fell asleep, a smile on her face. I watched her and then looked out to watch Germany racing by outside my window. I hummed riffs to myself, which I recognized were my own.

  CHAPTER 22

  Cologne, Germany, Friday evening, February 16, 1934

  At a few minutes past eight o�
�clock in the evening, five German officers in tuxedos, and Daphne, were in the Blaue Ecke private club in Cologne, drinking champagne and listening to Colonel Schulz-Horn’s piano improvisations on the Gershwins’ tune, “The Lorelei.” Playing a borrowed clarinet, I blew melodious backing riffs, and the colonel and I smiled at each other, enjoying the music we were making together and the applause of the officers at our back and forth.

  Daphne, who was wearing a long, yellow silk evening gown with matching long gloves and a string of emeralds around her neck, had edged close to the piano and put a gloved hand on it. She picked up a microphone with her other hand and started singing, her voice sounding exactly like Billie Holiday’s on “Riffin’ the Scotch,” the record Stanley had given me for Christmas.

  When she paused, the men all leapt to their feet. “Noch einmal!” the officers shouted.

  But Schulz-Horn and I, mesmerized by the beauty of her voice and phrasing, stopped playing and stared at her. Mimicking Buster’s accent, she reddened with anger and spat out, “Buster told me over and over: ‘girl, you got to learn to sing like a woman who loves her man, else I be gone.’”

  We heard the sound of a motorcycle outside, and an officer tapped the signal on the door and was let in. He saluted Schulz-Horn and said, “Colonel, our travelers must leave now, as arranged.”

  The officers went into the dressing room and came back out a few minutes later, having swapped their tuxedos for military uniforms. One was wearing a German general’s tunic and hat, and the others were dressed as his chauffeur and four outriders. They formed up around Daphne and me and were about to escort us out of the club when the telephone rang. Colonel Schulz-Horn answered it, listened, and said, “Ja, ja” with a grave expression on his face. Then he hung up.

  “We’ll wait,just for a few minutes. A friend is bringing Goebbels’s Nacht Angriff newspaper for this evening.” We heard a loud knock and footsteps running away. The colonel went to the door and came back, looking at the headlines, which he held up to the group. There was a photograph of Daphne on the front page. She looked at it and shrank back, horrified.