The Sandler Inquiry

by Noel Hynd

  "Why am I here?" Thomas asked.

  "Because you wanted to be," laughed Whiteside.

  "Good God, man, you were in Devon a few days ago asking leading questions, badgering the hall of records and trying to scare up the dead. Now don't tell me you don't want to be here where you can ask questions about Arthur Sandler and Leslie McAdam."

  "Then let's begin," said Thomas.

  "I don't like being held prisoner."

  "You're not."

  "I'm not under arrest?"

  "You're free to leave at any time," said Whiteside.

  "There's the door. I'll escort you to the street if you prefer."

  Thomas studied the door and wondered if he sensed a trick.

  "However," said Whiteside, "you'll find it rewarding to stay. We can have a most interesting conversation."

  "All right," said Thomas. He settled back on the sofa.

  "Intriguing," said Whiteside absently.

  "How something like this crops up after twenty-some years."

  "Excuse me?"

  Whiteside's gaze shot back to Thomas.

  "I'm retired, Mt. Daniels," he said.

  "As far as the Foreign Office is concerned, I don't even exist anymore.

  But this Sandler-McAdam problem was in my lap back in 1954. Nasty problem, really, though I don't expect that you know the half of it yet. My 'section,' shall we call it, was within M.I. Six and linked with the Chancellery of the Exchecquer. Or Treasury, as you'd term it."

  "Money, in any language "Currency if you like," said Whiteside.

  "That's how I became involved with Arthur Sandler."

  "Currency manipulations again?"

  Whiteside smiled.

  "You are a barrister, aren't you? The incisive question quickly and succinctly. No matter. You'll have a few of your answers presently."

  The smile disappeared.

  "The trouble is, sir, for you, there will be other questions. Maybe you'll help us with those ' Thomas opened his hands to indicate that he had no idea of what Whiteside was speaking.

  "Ah, yes' Whiteside continued, 'you're owed a few explanations.

  Shall we start with Arthur Sandler?"

  "I'd love to."

  "You know him as an industrialist and a financier, I would think" said Whiteside.

  "And with a bit of chemistry added in. Correct?"

  "Reasonably correct " "Ah, yes. Some of the espionage nonsense, too.

  You know about that' ' Thomas nodded.

  "What you don't know about is Sandler's greatest singular skill.

  The nice word for it is engraving."

  "Engraving?"

  "And the not-so-nice word for it is forgery. Or counterfeiting, if you prefer."

  Thomas offered no reply. He merely sat there in puzzlement until Whiteside spoke again. He studied the intense acerbic man in front of him, a man with a Latin teacher's face and voice combined with the crisp assurance of a major in infantry.

  "Daniels, either you're an actor of inordinate skills or you know nothing about this. In either event, I assume you would like to hear more' "I ' would."

  "Have you ever heard of Operation Bernhard?"

  The two shrewd eyes watched Thomas as he thought. Thomas shook his head.

  "What about Sachsenhausen? Name mean anything?"

  Thomas shrugged.

  "How innocent the young are" commented Whiteside sardonically.

  "What about Helmut Andorpher? Or Heinrich Kinder?" ill "Nothing," said Thomas.

  "It's time we added to your education'" said Whiteside.

  "Allow me to graphically transport you back to 1943. As you may have learned from the history books, there was a bit of a conflict going on in Europe."

  Thomas was silent, watching and listening as Whiteside folded his long narrow fingers into a steeple on the desk before him.

  "Germany had several different phases of its war against Britain"

  Whiteside continued.

  "Not all were military. There is more than one way to destroy a nation. Militarily is one way. Economically is another. Operation Bernhard was of the latter."

  "A plan of economic destruction?" asked Thomas, his eyebrows lowered into a frown.

  "Operation Bernhard was a highly secret German project," explained Whiteside, leaning forward and speaking with more intensity now.

  "The operation was to counterfeit British currency, specifically the five-pound note but also tens and twenties. This was the brainchild, as it were, of an SS colonel named Helmut Andorpher who conceptualized the project in 1940 and received approval directly from Hitler in 1941.

  The intention was quite simple.

  Inflate the pound sterling so catastrophically that its value on the world market would be destroyed."

  "Brilliant idea;' conceded Thomas.

  "Not at all original," sneered Whiteside dourly.

  "Andorpher was a student of history." Whiteside cleared his throat and allowed himself a thin smile.

  "During your War of Independence our General Howe counterfeited Continental dollars to undercut their worth. With considerable success, I might add. The only distinguishing quality separating the original from the facsimile was that the counterfeit was a better product."

  "But we won;'said Thomas.

  There was a silence.

  "Yes. I'm told you did. In any event, Andorpher headed Operation Bernhard. He was a formidable strategist and an "cellent soldier. What he was not was an engraver."

  Thomas nodded.

  "What he needed to make his operation work was the homme indispensable, the indispensable man who could engrave the plates and who could duplicate the paper. The man who could turn out the unquestionably perfect counterfeit product."

  "And he found him. Within German intelligence, I'll bet "Very good, Daniels," nodded Whiteside.

  "Of course he found him. A man very intimate with international finance and currency.

  A German intelligence officer named Heinrich Kinder." Whiteside allowed himself another meager smile.

  "A nom de guerre, of course."

  "Of course ' "Arthur Sandler," sighed Whiteside.

  "Our dear, dear American double agent Pensively, he continued,

  "Well, our friend Herr Sandler straightened out the Huns with their printing presses. It makes sense. He was a chemist, remember? He concocted a bleach that positively lifted the ink off old one-pound notes. Then he reduced the paper to pulp, reprocessed it to accommodate five pound notes, meticulously reengraved the plates and began running off five-pound notes as fast as the presses could roll.

  Damned nice of our American cousins to supply the enefny with the essential man for their Operation Bernhard. Don't you think so?" he concluded with bitterness.

  "How much damage did they do?"

  Whiteside broke his hands apart and rubbed the palms together.

  "During the war, surprisingly little. The saving factor was that an operation such as this took enormous time to get underway.

  Kinder-or Sandler-was given his workshop in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He had labor there to run the presses, but there were logistical problems getting all his material and engraving tools to him. By the time everything was fully underway and by the time the presses were rolling at full speed, it was late 1944."

  "And the war was almost over."

  Whiteside nodded.

  "The German armies were in retreat everywhere. And the channels in Switzerland, North Africa, and South America which could pass the money were limited or impaired. It was somewhat like the V-2 rockets, Daniels, or the atomic bomb.

  Time ran out on the Huns before they could shove it down our throats."

  Whiteside spent a moment in quiet reflection.

  "Bloody jerries," he muttered.

  Thomas sensed that Whiteside might be given to more candor than he'd intended. He pressed the questioning.

  "You haven't even told me the real problem," said Thomas.

  "Sorry?"

 
; "You said Operation Bernhard did surprisingly little damage.

  Your own words. Yet it was important."

  "Yes, it was."

  "Why? I said it did little damage during the war. What we're leading up to is 1945. Early on in the year."

  Thomas thought quickly. It was just before this period that Arthur Sandler had stepped out of the life of Elizabeth Chatsworth.

  "The fate of the Third Reich had been decided by the beginning of 1945" said Whiteside.

  "No question about that. Again, it was a matter of time, closing the noose, choking off the armies, and reaching Berlin' Thomas listened intently. His eyes drifted to the coat of arms on the wall behind Whiteside. The Lion and the Unicom, Dieu et Mon Droit. .

  "The Reich was drawing in upon itself," said Whiteside.

  "Hitler had retreated to his Alpenfestung. He was on the dark side of insanity by now, of course. He was ordering children into combat, sending out commands for battalions which had long since been decimated.

  And he ordered his counterfeiters to keep working. Right up till the end " Did they?"

  "Yes" he said with a pained smile.

  "And beyond. When the Bolsheviks got to Berlin, the counterfeiters packed it in. TheySandler, Andorpher, and whatever help they had-tried to escape with all the equipment, heading south toward Austria. They travelled by truck. That essentially is how we know what they were up to. The main truck, bearing most of the equipment plus crates and crates of freshly printed pound notes, broke down on the escape route. They couldn't bury it, it was too big. And they couldn't abandon it, it was too valuable. So they tried to hide it. Sandler released the brake on the top of a hill. They let it roll down until it splashed into a lake. And there it sank."

  "Forgotten?" asked Thomas with obvious sarcasm.

  "For a few weeks. Then the crates broke open. Millions of pounds worth of notes came floating to the surface. Fives, tens, twenties, and fifties. Need I say, the locals had a fine time. Wringing out the money and hanging it in trees to dry. It was the first time Allied intelligence heard of it. Wasn't exactly the type of thing that could be kept quiet. It was the first time any outsider had any inkling about Bernhard." Whiteside's brow was furrowed.

  "There'd been suspicion for a long time, mind you. There were simply too' many pounds circulating. But now we knew. Our sacred pound sterling, and our friends the Sausage Makers had been printing it "And Sandler?" asked Thomas, sensing the next chapter.

  "And Andorpher?"

  Whiteside made a gesture with his mouth. It was half wince, half pained smile.

  "This is where it gets sketchy," he said.

  "But some basics are known. Andorpher, for example."

  "Captured?"

  "In a sense. He was found dead, seventy-five miles east. Not west, mind you, but east. He was lying in a ditch Whiteside delivered the next sentence as casually as ve might give a cricket score or a weather report.

  "Andorpher was lying in a ditch with his throat Cut.

  Ear to ear. That left our friend Sandler."

  "Alone?"

  "Almost. When the trucks were pulled out of the lake we learned that he'd taken along some items for good luck. The plates. The engraved counterfeiting plates."

  "Of course," said Thomas, almost inaudibly.

  Whiteside looked at the younger man as if to judge him. Whiteside's eyebrows were slanting downward in a nervous frown; his teeth were clenched in concentration.

  "Now," Whiteside continued, 'let's see if Thomas Daniels is a man or a boy. Let's see if he can spot the fox in the thicket."

  "Go ahead."

  "You're obviously a clever young man, Mr. Daniels. Otherwise you would never have gotten this far. And if you're as sly as I give you credit for being, you'll have spotted something very wrong.

  There must have been something in the story I told you that struck you as odd."

  "A certain detail or turn?" asked Thomas.

  "Yes. What was it?" he asked challengingly.

  Thomas didn't have to think.

  "East made no sense' he said simply.

  "In light of everything about Arthur Sandler, east makes no sense at all."

  "Exactly!" snapped Whiteside with enthusiasm, bringing a fist down hard on his desk. He allowed a moment or two to regather his poise.

  "For twenty-two years, Mr. Daniels, east has made no sense.

  And now we'll discuss why."

  Chapter 15

  "No bloody sense at all' continued Whiteside.

  "None! Here's a top American agent, a man who spent the war slipping back and forth across enemy lines, a man who moved around Austria and Germany with obscene ease, a man who knew the inner mechanisms of German intelligence for five years, and what does he do when the war is over? He moved one hundred eighty degrees in the wrong direction.

  Instead of returning to the Americans, he jumps into the Russians'laps' "Whiteside shrugged disgustedly.

  "We know he was in Moscow for a month at least' "There are possible explanations" said Thomas thoughtfully.

  "Of course there are," buffed Whiteside.

  "Countless explanations.

  Want to know the best one, the one most popular at the Foreign Office?

  Here it is: The Yanks recruited a closet Bolshevik in 1941.

  Sandler, the theory goes, was working three ways from the middle, with his highest allegiance being given to Moscow."

  "I don't follow," said Thomas.

  Whiteside buffed slightly, as if mildly exasperated at having to explain.

  "A triple game, Mr. Daniels he elaborated.

  "You Americans thought Sandler was your own spy acting as a double agent against the Germans. In a sense he was, but he was also a triple, selling out Washington to Moscow whenever he had the opportunity. That would have explained why he went east instead of west."

  "Intriguing," said Thomas reflectively.

  "Intriguing, yes:' retorted Whiteside.

  "And possible. But it doesn't wash. Not all the way. We tried several theories on Sandler.

  We had to. Can you guess why?"

  "It's obvious, isn't it? He had those plates. He kept using them"

  "Brilliant' remarked Whiteside quietly from behind white teeth that were most clenched in annoyance.

  "He kept printing our money."

  Thomas suppressed a sudden smile as the incredible Sandler fortune, the one which had magically materialized after the war, flashed into his mind. Of course, he thought to himself. Of course, of course, of course!

  There were muffled noises in the corridor outside the small room. They were voices. It broke Thomas's concentration and he glanced at his watch. He had been alone with Whiteside for almost an hour.

  "From there we lost track of Sandler. We thought the Russians had him.

  But then he turned up some way in New York. How he got from one place to the other I've never known. All I know is that he did. And his plates were with him."

  "In the United States?"

  "Where do you think all those pounds were being printed, damn it" snapped Whiteside.

  "In your citadel of democracy. Our pound was being sabotaged unmercifully. It was happening on United States soil and nothing was done to stop it."

  "Maybe.. " "Washington knew," said Whiteside flatly.

  "They knew and did nothing" After an annoyed pause, he added,

  "It strengthened the dollar, you know."

  Thomas felt a tinge of embarrassment. Whiteside knew it and played the moment to its advantage, letting several seconds pass before speaking again.

  "So you see, we knew that our currency was being sabotaged by counterfeits, we knew who was doing it, and we knew it had to be stopped. Your Uncle Sam wouldn't help" Whiteside sighed.

  "We don't like to do things this way, really we' don't, But it became incumbent upon us." He -paused.

  "We ordered him 'put down ' "Is that what you call assassinated?"

  Thomas asked. Whiteside nodded.

  "So
unds like the mercy killing of a horse."

  "Term it anything you like,- said Whiteside.

  "Men are much more vile than animals anyway. Call it killed. I gave the order myself.

  Personally. In 1954. And in case you're wondering," he added without hesitation,

  "I'd order it again today."

  "You might have to," Thomas said.

  "You missed the first time" "Yes " said Whiteside.

  "I know. Sandler was up to the chauen ' as usual. He had a double.

  Imagine" gel mused Whiteside pensively.

  Then his expression brightened.

  "But in any event, the forgery of pounds stopped soon thereafter. So the put-down of the double may have accomplished its purpose in a roundabout manner. Maybe it drove Sandler farther underground. Maybe it genuinely scared him, though I doubt it. Or maybe he was plain ready to graduate to other things. Who knows?"

  Both men were silent in thought for a moment. Whiteside spoke next.

  "All I know is that the forgery of British pound sterling stopped within weeks. That was all I was ever concerned with" "No, it's not"

  Thomas reminded him gently.

  "Not all. Not by a long shot "Ah, yes he said, remembering.

  "Leslie "You certainly took steps to protect her. But why after all those years did Sandler feel that he had to come back and kill a wife and daughter? That makes no sense, either."

  "Vaguely, it does," said Whiteside.

  "But only when considered from a certain angle, and conceding that with Sandler one isn't always dealing with a rational man" "Can you elaborate?" asked Thomas.

  "This is merely speculation, but maybe we never knew the full story of the post marital breakup. Perhaps there was a good reason why Sandler never returned to her after the war. Thus he could have been infuriated that she'd claim part of his 'estate' after he was 'dead." "

  "Maybe," said Thomas.

  "But why wait so long?"

  "She initiated the contact," Whiteside said. His hands were busily working a small Canary Islands cigar out of a compact gold case.

  He took the cigar in his lips, lit it, and was enshrouded by a mild white cloud of smoke as he continued to talk.

  "Perhaps Sandler had believed her to be long lost and forgotten. Or perhaps he thought she'd been killed during the war. Maybe he doubted that the daughter was his." Whiteside shrugged.