Nights in Berlin

by Janice Law

  He said nothing until he was quite close to the gate, and then he spoke softly to the dogs. Instantly, the furry weight dropped from my leg, and the three brutes clustered around him, their big tails wagging, eager to receive some treat. Consolation, no doubt, for being denied filet of Francis. I came cautiously down the gate—one hand, then the other—and got my feet on the gravel. One pant leg was soaked from the dog’s mouth, and, to collect myself, I rolled up the fabric and saw the bluish tooth marks but no blood.

  “They are trained to hold, not to attack,” the oberst said indifferently. He shifted his shoulder and bought his mechanical hand up for a puff of his cigarette.

  The dogs sniffed around the grass and began pissing against the gate. Now that I was no longer of prime interest to them, I was angry. Dinner and a bed were all fine, but this was too high a price. “You set them on any guest who leaves early?”

  “You might have been off with the silverware,” he said calmly.

  “I don’t even have a knapsack.” I turned out my pockets to show him that they were empty, too, although I really didn’t think he was concerned about theft. “I went looking for the WC,” I said. “I couldn’t remember where it was, so I came outside.”

  “A long walk to take a leak,” said the oberst.

  I shrugged. “I was up. I was awake. I decided to head for the station.”

  He leaned over to the wall, stubbed out his cigarette, and knocked the butt from his mechanical fingers. “Enough,” he said and gestured with his pistol for me to return to the house.

  I shook my head. “Unlock the gate and I’ll be gone. I don’t think der Bund is really for me.”

  Oberst Weick raised the pistol. “It is so fortunate I was born left-handed,” he said in a reflective tone. We might have been exchanging reminiscences over port in his study instead of standing in the mist with savage dogs. “They made me write with my right hand, but the war corrected that.” He hefted the pistol as he spoke. “Now, please, let there be no misunderstanding. Should you be shot, it would be in the course of a robbery. A few well-placed pieces of silverware would do the trick absolutely.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “It would be your word against mine,” I said. “And there must be a British consulate in the area.”

  “There would be no word from you at all. I am an excellent shot, and with a Luger at this range, the outcome is not in doubt. Now you will come with me, Mr. Bacon.”

  My heart sank; this was worse than I’d thought, because my real name opened all sorts of dismal possibilities. Still, I made a show of resistance, swearing up and down that there was some mistake, that I knew nothing of this Bacon chap, that without a doubt my lost passport was at the bottom of everything.

  The oberst said nothing, and I gradually fell silent. Then he said, “There are also the dogs. A word from me would be enough.”

  He didn’t need to say more. This time when he gestured with the pistol, I started toward the house, a dog in front of me and one on either side. I followed the drive toward the front door, but the oberst directed me around the main building and past the stables to what looked to be a woodshed. “Open the door,” he said.

  A smell of logs, sawdust, decaying bark, and something else, too, made me hesitate to touch the latch, as all the bad feelings that had started with the sight of Oskar’s empty bed flooded into my mind. Something hard, round, and metallic poked me in the left kidney. “Open the door.”

  I turned the knob and pushed the door. Something dark in the predawn light, something on the earthen floor. I stepped forward, frightened and sick. Someone was lying there on a dark stain. “Who?” I said. “Who?”

  But before he could answer, I saw blond hair, and when I leaned down, I saw the perfect profile and one fine, pale hand. I heard a cry that exploded in the quiet dawn. And then another before the oberst hit me with the side of the pistol, and I realized it was my own voice. “Oskar! What has happened to Oskar! What have you done to him?”

  “No, Mr. Bacon. It’s what you’ve done to him. A lover’s quarrel, maybe? Or something more sinister, connected with your uncle? The police can be here within minutes. I have only to call, but first we must talk.”

  He poked me again with the Luger and gestured toward the door. I stumbled out as if drunk, and, for I don’t know how many minutes, all my senses were overwhelmed. Prodded by the oberst’s gun, I must have passed the extensive vegetable gardens Oskar and I had admired only hours before, circled the stout turf-topped root cellar, and reached the edge of a grove of trees and a door. I was definitely standing before a door with brown paint set in a fieldstone building.

  “Open it,” said the oberst.

  I hesitated. In a moment of near madness, I thought to myself, He has only one arm—what if I grab his gun or can grab his good arm, before one of the dogs nudged my leg with its large head. If I hurt the oberst in any way, they would kill me. I couldn’t be sure of anything with Oberst Weick, but I felt that I could count on his dogs. I reached out, lifted the hasp that secured the door, and hauled it open. The Luger poked me in the back, and I stepped inside.

  Stone floor, wood paneling, small windows protected by stout iron grills—a little cell, in short. There were two chairs and a wooden table, the whole smelling of mildew and permeated by a damp chill.

  The oberst motioned for me to take one of the chairs and sat down himself. Panting noisily, the dogs explored the room before settling in the open doorway.

  “You are in a bad position,” he said.

  “Put away the gun and send off the dogs and I’ll be just fine.” To my horror, I realized that my voice was trembling.

  “I never understand English humor,” he said. “I think every nation has its own laughter.”

  I was about to say that I didn’t think Germans had any sense of humor but thought better of it. I shrugged. I was pretty sure the oberst didn’t get up before dawn to discuss national styles in jokes. I might have followed that thought, but I could hear Nan saying, Concentrate, Francis. Not my best skill, especially when the main thing, the thing I must concentrate on, was the one thing I wanted not to see, not to hear, not to think about: Oskar lying dead.

  “Oskar was a prince,” I said.

  The oberst blew out a column of smoke and watched it ascend toward the dark beams of the ceiling. “Even princes must be sacrificed sometimes. This is a cruel world.”

  “He was a patriot and an idealist!” I said. “What had he ever done but sell a few decks of snow in order to eat?”

  “Oskar died for the Fatherland,” the oberst said. “There is no more to be said about him. You, Mr. Bacon, are still very much alive. And perhaps would like to remain so.”

  I could have said, You’ve killed Oskar, shoot me, too. But I realized that I was not so romantic, that I was destined for an unglamorous survival. And then I thought that, given the opportunity, I could kill the oberst. That I would be capable of it. With this in mind, I asked what had happened.

  “That’s not for you to know. As far as the police are concerned, you and Oskar quarreled in the early hours and you stabbed him to death with a knife that you had removed from the dining room. Need I say that suggests forethought? The knife is there and will have your prints on it. Of course, your footprints are now in the woodshed. There may be other evidence needed, but be assured that we will supply whatever is required.” He paused a moment and added, “I see you are stunned. Quite natural; you were never at the front.” Once again his voice turned reflective. “At the front, such sights were a matter of course.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “You can trust me when I say that if I summon the police, you will be the main suspect.”

  He paused to let this sink in. To be honest, I didn’t absorb very much. I kept seeing the dark, distorted shape on the floor, and the horrible way that death had ruined Oskar.

  “If I summon the police,”
the oberst repeated when I did not reply.

  I looked up. I had not understood that any of this was conditional. “You must notify the police.”

  The oberst gave what without his scars would have passed for a smile. “I see that you are a law-abiding boy.”

  “Oskar is dead, murdered.”

  “But you are alive. And free. Perhaps even eager to return home? London has its attractions, I am sure.”

  I said nothing.

  The oberst looked sharply at me and shook his head slightly. “Mr. Bacon, pull yourself together. We do not have much time.” He turned his mechanical arm to look at his watch. “The sun will rise within the hour. The boys will get up. I will return from a walk with the dogs, and they will alert me to something in the woodshed. In the uproar, the police will be summoned and all will be set in motion.”

  I nodded. I could imagine that.

  “Are you to be turned over to them, Mr. Bacon, as the likely suspect? Or are you to be safely hidden in this old gamekeeper’s lodge? You must decide now.”

  This leap from suspect to safety was totally unexpected. “What do you want from me? What is all this about? You know that I am completely innocent.”

  “What I know is flexible,” the oberst said. “And you are not innocent at all. You are a plant from British intelligence and an associate of Lastings Marsdon, also known as Luc Pinot. Your uncle is a most dangerous man, Mr. Bacon.”

  In spite of my danger and distress, I almost laughed in his face. “You can’t be serious. My uncle is a con man. He cheats suckers out of their money.”

  “He is a murderer,” the oberst said. “And a spy. If he is cheating British intelligence, so much the better. But we still want him.”

  “A number of people want my uncle,” I said.

  “You have been in touch with him. We want to know where he is. Send a message telling him you need his help, and I will see that you escape the police.”

  “I have no idea where he is. He always contacted me, not the other way around. As far as I know, he’s lined his pockets and is off looking for fresh pigeons.”

  The oberst took this under consideration. If he knew my real identity, I guessed that he knew a bit about Uncle Lastings. But not enough! The oberst was as bad as Harold and Mac and Miss F. How had they all been fooled? And why was I left to sort everything out?

  “But,” he said after a moment, “you are his nephew.”

  “He left me with an Adlon bill as big as the national debt, one guinea, six shillings, and fifteen marks. I haven’t seen him since.”

  The Prussian mind likes precision, and I think the oberst was impressed by this exact accounting. “Yet you have survived,” he said, and he raised the Luger.

  My brain must have begun thawing, because in that gesture, I understood that innocence was more dangerous than guilt. The oberst was not interested in justice, and a genuine babe in the woods would be excess baggage for him. He’d murdered Oskar—and here I had the horrible thought that he’d murdered Oskar to force me to betray my uncle. He should have done it the other way around. I’d have betrayed Uncle Lastings to save Oskar any day.

  But I’d been foolish to protest my innocence. If I had connections in high places and a line to my rascal of an uncle, I was valuable. If not, I was useless to the oberst, and what was to stop him from shooting me right here, right now? He hadn’t spared Oskar, who was a patriot, a member of der Bund, and a model German citizen for the future. Worse, Oberst Weick had evidence of a sort, and I realized he could plausibly claim that, handicapped as he was, he had no choice but to shoot me. And if he did, I certainly believed that the outcome would not be in doubt.

  I was clearly safer guilty. “Uncle Lastings is out of reach,” I said, “but he had some friends. More pigeons. Perhaps a message to one of them?”

  The oberst thought this over, while I wondered who best to mention. Please remember, I didn’t ask for any of this.

  “He does send messages—at least he did before his contact was murdered,” I continued, “but I never read them.” I assumed that the oberst already knew all about Belinda. Most likely he’d had her killed.

  “And who does read them?” he asked, raising his weapon slightly.

  “Mac. He’s called Mac.”

  “In all of Berlin,” the oberst said sarcastically, “one man called Mac.”

  “He’s attached to the embassy.”

  “Not good enough,” said the oberst. “A phony diplomat attached to the embassy. They are a dime a dozen. Every embassy has them. You must do better.”

  I hesitated until he grew impatient. “There are always the dogs. I find men are most afraid of either guns or dogs. I can see you lean toward the latter.”

  “I deal with Mac—and my landlady.”

  “Really?”

  “Clarice Fallowfield.”

  “Ah, English. I might have known.” The oberst glanced down at the Luger with what might have been regret. “I will bring paper,” he said and stood up.

  “Where am I to be hidden?” I asked. “The police will surely search all the outbuildings.”

  The oberst raised his head and gave me a haughty look. “They will have my word that this building—like many others—was locked. The main gate will be open. It will appear that you made for the station and the rail line.”

  With this, he rose and, followed by the dogs, went outside. I heard the metallic rattle as he locked the door. From one of the small windows I watched his progress across the field toward the gardens and the house. Now that he wasn’t prodding me with the pistol, he had managed to set up another cigarette. I could see the smoke rising. I couldn’t quite imagine the mind that could shoot an acquaintance before dawn, threaten another before breakfast, and stroll back to call the police as if this was an ordinary morning.

  I was in big trouble. At some point, the oberst would return. Immediately, if he should delay summoning the police. Otherwise, I guessed there would be a fair amount of time devoted to helping with inquiries, as the phrase goes, and playing lord of the manor to forestall a serious search. All the boys would be questioned. That would take time. And the staff, too. If the gate was open, that raised other possibilities. Oh, yes, the police would be busy. Meanwhile, I stood shivering all over, more from nerves than cold, trying to decide whom to contact. I was sorry to have mentioned Miss Fallowfield, although I suspected that she could take care of herself.

  Naming Harold would have been poetic justice, but he was too high up in the embassy. They might not believe me or—worse—he might not be inclined to help. That left Mac. So far as I could trust any of them, I thought a note to Mac was my best bet. And what to say? Am being held hostage by fanatical German nationalists? Send the head of Uncle Lastings?

  That’s what they wanted, but the appeal lacked something, and I didn’t think it would be effective. Fanatics willing to swap me for Lastings. Remember I’m only seventeen. How’s that? An appeal to Mac’s better nature and sentimental side, if he has one? Very good, but I was pretty sure that Uncle L. had done a bunk. Could he be summoned out of thin air, even the rarified air of cafés and clubs like the Eldorado? And even if by some chance my uncle had found a courier despite his shortage of funds, and if Mac went to the Eldorado and made contact and sent on my cry for help, would Uncle Lastings drop whatever he was enjoying to put his head on the block? I knew my uncle too well to imagine that!

  The best thing I could do would be to play along with the oberst and hope to escape. That seemed such a tall order that I wondered whether I might be better off with the police. But that would involve questioning, and not just about Oskar, who I kept seeing sprawled in the half-light of the shed. The police would want to know about delivering the Webley to my uncle and careening around the dark streets afterward to the station. I might eventually be found innocent of Oskar’s murder, but I’d clearly be guilty of something.<
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  I stamped around the little lodge and banged my fist on the table, and very nearly dismembered a chair, before I calmed down. Possibly there was a way out. If so, I needed to find it. And if not, I needed to look for some weapon, because even if I wrote the note he wanted, and even if by some miracle Uncle Lastings replied, I doubted very much that my safe exit was on Oberst Weick’s program.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I surveyed my cell and considered my options. The chairs were sturdy, as was the table. Could I take apart one or the other? Possible, but I didn’t think even a stout piece of oak was going to thwart a man with a Luger, not to mention dogs. There was a sink in one corner, equipped with a hand pump. I worked the handle for a minute. Although a bit rusty, the water was drinkable. I was not to die of thirst.

  Could the handle be removed? I fiddled with it for a bit, but the pump was well constructed and the handle solidly fastened. I took a turn around the room and checked the bars on the windows. Why did a gamekeeper’s lodge have barred windows to start with? A question, I suspected, with no pleasant answer. Rafters up top, broad enough to hold me, I was sure. Though I might be able to climb up and escape the dogs, I would be a sitting target for the oberst.

  Floor next. Some storage hatch? A trap door entrance to some basement space? No chance. The oberst had picked his spot carefully. I am not fond of confined spaces, and bullying types like him provoke bad memories. I started shivering again, and I thought it would be nice if there was a fire in the fireplace. It was certainly a big, impressive one with old-fashioned fittings. Someone had cooked in this years ago and probably smoked pork or game more recently.

  I stepped closer and craned my neck. The flue was black with soot but surprisingly wide. Wide enough for a sweep? One of those sad little Victorian boys in the stories Nan used to read me? I thought so. Wide enough for an adult? A bit less certain. I went to the windows again, checked the grills, looked out toward the gardens, the stables, and the main house.