March Violets

by Philip Kerr

  ‘A fine couple,’ I said, lighting another Muratti. Six’s black cigar lay smokeless and flat on the round brass ashtray.

  ‘Grete was teaching until 1934 when, like many other women, she lost her job - a casualty of the government’s general discrimination against working women in the employment drive. Meanwhile Paul landed a job at the Ministry of the Interior. Not long afterwards my first wife Lisa died, and Grete became very depressed. She started drinking and staying out late. But just a few weeks ago she seemed her old self again.’ Six regarded his brandy morosely and then threw it back in one gulp. ‘Three nights ago, however, Paul and Grete died in a fire at their home in Lichterfelde-Ost. But before the house caught fire they were each shot, several times, and the safe ransacked.’

  ‘Any idea what was in the safe?’

  ‘I told the fellows from Kripo that I had no idea what it contained.’

  I read between the lines and said: ‘Which wasn’t quite true, right?’

  ‘I have no idea as to most of the safe’s contents. There was one item, however, which I did know about and failed to inform them of.’

  ‘Why did you do that, Herr Six?’

  ‘Because I would prefer that they didn’t know.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘The item in question affords you with an excellent chance of tracking down the murderer ahead of the police.’

  ‘And what then?’ I hoped he wasn’t planning some private little execution, because I didn’t feel up to wrestling with my conscience, especially when there was a lot of money involved.

  ‘Before delivering the murderer into the hands of the authorities you will recover my property. On no account must they get their hands on it.’

  ‘What exactly are we talking about?’

  Six folded his hands thoughtfully, then unfolded them again, and then swathed himself with his arms like a party-girl’s wrap. He looked quizzically at me.

  ‘Confidentially, of course,’ I growled.

  ‘Jewels,’ he said. ‘You see, Herr Gunther, my daughter died intestate, and without a will all her property goes to her husband’s estate. Paul did make a will, leaving everything to the Reich.’ He shook his head. ‘Can you believe such stupidity, Herr Gunther? He left everything. Everything. One can hardly credit it.’

  ‘He was a patriot then.’

  Six failed to perceive the irony in my remark. He snorted with derision. ‘My dear Herr Gunther, he was a National Socialist. Those people think that they are the first people ever to love the Fatherland.’ He smiled grimly. ‘I love my country. And there is nobody who gives more than I do. But I simply cannot stand the thought that the Reich is to be enriched even further at my expense. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Not only that, but the jewels were her mother’s, so quite apart from their intrinsic value, which I can tell you is considerable, they are also of some sentimental account.’

  ‘How much are they worth?’

  Schemm stirred himself to offer up some facts and figures. ‘I think I can be of some assistance here, Herr Six,’ he said, delving into a briefcase that lay by his feet, and producing a buff-coloured file which he laid on the rug between the two sofas. ‘I have here the last insurance valuations, as well as some photographs.’ He lifted a sheet of paper and read off the bottom-line figure with no more expression than if it had been the amount of his monthly newspaper account. ‘Seven hundred and fifty thousand Reichsmarks.’ I let out an involuntary whistle. Schemm winced at that, and handed me some photographs. I had seen bigger stones, but only in photographs of the pyramids. Six took over with a description of their history.

  ‘In 1925 the world jewel market was flooded with gems sold by Russian exiles or put on sale by the Bolsheviks, who had discovered a treasure trove walled up in the palace of Prince Youssoupov, husband to the niece of the Tsar. I acquired several pieces in Switzerland that same year: a brooch, a bracelet and, most precious of all, a diamond collet necklace consisting of twenty brilliants. It was made by Cartier and weighs over one hundred carats. It goes without saying, Herr Gunther, that it will not be easy to dispose of such a piece.’

  ‘No, indeed.’ It might seem cynical of me, but the sentimental value of the jewels was now looking quite insignificant beside their monetary value. ‘Tell me about the safe.’

  ‘I paid for it,’ said Six. ‘Just as I paid for the house. Paul didn’t have a great deal of money. When Grete’s mother died I gave her the jewels, and at the same time I had a safe installed so that she could keep them there when they weren’t in the vault at the bank.’

  ‘So she had been wearing them quite recently?’

  ‘Yes. She accompanied my wife and myself to a ball just a few nights before she was killed.’

  ‘What kind of safe was it?’

  ‘A Stockinger. Wall-mounted, combination lock.’

  ‘And who knew the combination?’

  ‘My daughter, and Paul, of course. They had no secrets from each other, and I believe he kept certain papers to do with his work there.’

  ‘Nobody else?’

  ‘No. Not even me.’

  ‘Do you know how the safe was opened, if there were any explosives used?’

  ‘I believe there were no explosives used.’

  ‘A nutcracker then.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘A professional safe-cracker. Mind you, it would have to be someone very good to puzzle it.’ Six leaned forward on the sofa.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘the thief forced Grete or Paul to open it, then ordered them back to bed, where he shot them both. And afterwards he set fire to the house in order to cover his tracks - throw the police off the scent.’

  ‘Yes, that’s possible,’ I admitted. I rubbed a perfectly circular area of smooth skin on my otherwise stubbly face: it’s where a mosquito bit me when I was in Turkey, and ever since then I’ve never had to shave it. But quite often I find myself rubbing it when I feel uneasy about something. And if there’s one thing guaranteed to make me feel uneasy, it’s a client playing detective. I didn’t rule out what he was suggesting might have happened, but it was my turn to play the expert: ‘Possible, but messy,’ I said. ‘I can’t think of a better way of raising the alarm than making your own private Reichstag. Playing Van der Lubbe and torching the place doesn’t sound like the sort of thing a professional thief would do, but then neither does murder.’ There were a lot of holes in that of course: I had no idea that it was a professional; not only that, but in my experience it’s rare that a professional job also involves murder. I just wanted to hear my own voice for a change.

  ‘Who would have known she had jewels in the safe?’ I asked.

  ‘Me,’ said Six. ‘Grete wouldn’t have told anyone. I don’t know if Paul had.’

  ‘And did either of them have any enemies?’

  ‘I can’t answer for Paul,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure that Grete didn’t have an enemy in the world.’ While I could accept the possibility that Daddy’s little girl always brushed her teeth and said her prayers at night, I found it hard to ignore how vague Six was about his son-in-law. That made the second time he was uncertain about what Paul would have done.

  ‘What about you?’ I said. ‘A rich and powerful man like yourself must have your fair share of enemies.’ He nodded. ‘Is there anyone who might hate you bad enough to want to get back at you through your daughter?’

  He re-kindled his Black Wisdom, puffed at it and then held it away from him between the tips of his fingers. ‘Enemies are the inevitable corollary of great wealth, Herr Gunther,’ he told me. ‘But these are business rivals I’m talking about, not gangsters. I don’t think any of them would be capable of something as cold-blooded as this.’ He stood up and went to attend to the fire. With a large brass poker he dealt vigorously with the log that was threatening to topple out of the grate. While Six was off-guard I jabbed him with one about the son-in-law.

  ‘Did you and your daughter’s husband
get on?’

  He twisted round to look at me, poker still in hand, and face slightly flushed. It was all the answer that I needed, but still he tried to throw some sand in my eyes. ‘Why ever do you ask such a question?’ he demanded.

  ‘Really, Herr Gunther,’ said Schemm, affecting shock at my asking such an insensitive question.

  ‘We had our differences of opinion,’ said Six. ‘But what man can be expected sometimes not to agree with his son-in-law?’ He put down the poker. I kept quiet for a minute. Eventually he said: ‘Now then, with regard to the conduct of your investigations, I would prefer it if you would confine your activities specifically to searching for the jewels. I don’t care for the idea of you snooping around in the affairs of my family. I’ll pay your fees, whatever they are — ’

  ‘Seventy marks a day, plus expenses,’ I lied, hoping that Schemm hadn’t checked it out.

  ‘What is more, the Germania Life Assurance and Germania Insurance Companies will pay you a recovery fee of five per cent. Is that agreeable to you, Herr Gunther?’ Mentally I calculated the figure to be 37,500. With that sort of money I was set. I found myself nodding, although I didn’t care for the ground rules he was laying down: but then for nearly 40,000 it was his game.

  ‘But I warn you, I’m not a patient man,’ he said. ‘I want results, and I want them quickly. I have written out a cheque for your immediate requirements.’ He nodded to his stooge, who handed me a cheque. It was for 1,000 marks and made out to cash at the Privat Kommerz Bank. Schemm dug into his briefcase again and handed me a letter on the Germania Life Assurance Company’s notepaper.

  ‘This states that you have been retained by our company to investigate the fire, pending a claim by the estate. The house was insured by us. If you have any problems you should contact me. On no account are you to bother Herr Six, or to mention his name. Here is a file containing any background information you may need.’

  ‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ I said pointedly.

  Six stood up, followed by Schemm, and then, stiffly, by me. ‘When will you start your investigations?’ he said.

  ‘First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Ulrich will drive you home.’ Then he walked over to his desk, sat down in his chair and settled down to go through some papers. He didn’t pay me any more attention.

  When I stood in the modest hall again, waiting for the butler to turn up with Ulrich, I heard another car draw up outside. This one was too loud to be a limousine, and I guessed that it was some kind of sports job. A door slammed, there were footsteps on the gravel and a key scraped in the lock of the front door. Through it came a woman I recognized immediately as the UFA Film Studio star, Ilse Rudel. She was wearing a dark sable coat and an evening dress of blue satin-organza. She looked at me, puzzled, while I just gawped back at her. She was worth it. She had the kind of body I’d only ever dreamed about, in the sort of dream I’d often dreamed of having again. There wasn’t much I couldn’t imagine it doing, except the ordinary things like work and getting in a man’s way.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, but the butler was there with his cat-burglar’s steps to take her mind off me and help her out of the sable.

  ‘Farraj, where is my husband?’

  ‘Herr Six is in the library, madam.’ My blue eyes popped a good deal at that, and I felt my jaw slacken. That this goddess should be married to the gnome sitting in the study was the sort of thing that bolsters your faith in Money. I watched her walk towards the library door behind me. Frau Six - I couldn’t get over it - was tall and blonde and as healthy-looking as her husband’s Swiss bank account. There was a sulkiness about her mouth, and my acquaintance with the science of physiognomy told me that she was used to having her own way: in cash. Brilliant clips flashed on her perfect ears, and as she got nearer the air was filled with the scent of 4711 cologne. Just as I thought she was going to ignore me, she glanced in my direction and said coolly: ‘Goodnight, whoever you are.’ Then the library swallowed her whole before I had a chance to do the same. I rolled my tongue up and tucked it back into my mouth. I looked at my watch. It was 3.30. Ulrich reappeared.

  ‘No wonder he stays up late,’ I said, and followed him through the door.

  3

  The following morning was grey and wet. I woke with a whore’s drawers in my mouth, drank a cup of coffee and went through the morning’s Berliner Borsenzeitung, which was even more difficult to understand than usual, with sentences as long and as hard-to-incomprehensible as a speech from Hess.

  Shaved and dressed and carrying my laundry bag, I was at Alexanderplatz, the chief traffic centre of east Berlin, less than an hour later. Approached from Neue Königstrasse, the square is flanked by two great office blocks: Berolina Haus to the right, and Alexander Haus to the left, where I had my office on the fourth floor. I dropped off my laundry at Adler’s Wet-Wash Service on the ground floor before going up.

  Waiting for the lift, it was hard to ignore the small noticeboard that was situated immediately next to it, to which were pinned an appeal for contributions to the Mother and Child Fund, a Party exhortation to go and see an anti-Semitic film and an inspiring picture of the Fuhrer. This noticeboard was the responsibility of the building’s caretaker, Herr Gruber, a shifty little undertaker of a man. Not only is he the block air-defence monitor with police powers (courtesy of Orpo, the regular uniformed police), he is also a Gestapo informer. Long ago I decided that it would be bad for business to fall out with Gruber and so, like all the other residents of Alexander Haus, I gave him three marks a week, which is supposed to cover my contributions to whichever new money-making scheme the DAF, the German Labour Front, has dreamed up.

  I cursed the lift’s lack of speed as I saw Gruber’s door open just enough to permit his peppered-mackerel of a face to peer down the corridor.

  ‘Ah, Herr Gunther, it’s you,’ he said, coming out of his office. He edged towards me like a crab with a bad case of corns.

  ‘Good morning, Herr Gruber,’ I said, avoiding his face. There was something about it that always reminded me of Max Schreck’s screen portrayal of Nosferatu, an effect that was enhanced by the rodent-like washing movements of his skeletal hands.

  ‘There was a young lady who came for you,’ he said. ‘I sent her up. I do hope that was convenient, Herr Gunther.’

  ‘Yes — ’

  ‘If she’s still there, that is,’ he said. ‘That was at least half an hour ago. Only I knew Fraulein Lehmann is no longer working for you, so I had to say that there was no telling when you would turn up, you keeping such irregular hours.’ To my relief the lift arrived and I drew open the door and stepped in.

  ‘Thank you, Herr Gruber,’ I said, and shut the door.

  ‘Heil Hitler,’ he said. The lift started to rise up the shaft. I called: ‘Heil Hitler.’ You don’t miss the Hitler Salute with someone like Gruber. It’s not worth the trouble. But one day I’m going to have to beat the crap out of that weasel, just for the sheer pleasure of it.

  I share the fourth floor with a ‘German’ dentist, a ‘German’ insurance broker, and a ‘German’ employment agency, the latter having provided me with the temporary secretary who I now presumed was the woman seated in my waiting room. Coming out of the lift I hoped that she wasn’t battle-scarred ugly. I didn’t suppose for a minute that I was going to get a juicy one, but then I wasn’t about to settle for any cobra either. I opened the door.

  ‘Herr Gunther?’ She stood up, and I gave her the once-over: well, she wasn’t as young as Gruber had led me to believe (I guessed her to be about forty-five) but not bad, I thought. A bit warm and cosy maybe (she had a substantial backside), but I happen to prefer them like that. Her hair was red with a touch of grey at the sides and on the crown, and tied back in a knot. She wore a suit of plain grey cloth, a white high-necked blouse and a black hat with a Breton brim turned up all around the head.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said, as affably as I could manag
e on top of the mewling tomcat that was my hangover. ‘You must be my temporary secretary.’ Lucky to get a woman at all, and this one looked half-reasonable.

  ‘Frau Protze,’ she declared, and shook my hand. ‘I’m a widow.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, unlocking the door to my office. ‘What part of Bavaria are you from?’ The accent was unmistakable.

  ‘Regensburg.’

  ‘That’s a nice town.’

  ‘You must have found buried treasure there.’ Witty too, I thought; that was good: she’d need a sense of humour to work for me.

  I told her all about my business. She said it all sounded very exciting. I showed her into the adjoining cubicle where she was to sit on that backside.

  ‘Actually, it’s not so bad if you leave the door to the waiting room open,’ I explained. Then I showed her the washroom along the corridor and apologized for the shards of soap and the dirty towels. ‘I pay seventy-five marks a month and I get a tip like this,’ I said. ‘Damn it, I’m going to complain to that son-of-a-bitch of a landlord.’ But even as I said it I knew I never would.

  Back in my office I flipped open my diary and saw that the day’s only appointment was Frau Heine, at eleven o’clock.

  ‘I’ve an appointment in twenty minutes,’ I said. ‘Woman wants to know if I’ve managed to trace her missing son. He’s a Jewish U-Boat.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A Jew in hiding.’

  ‘What did he do that he has to hide?’ she said.

  ‘You mean apart from being a Jew?’ I said. Already I could see that she had led quite a sheltered life, even for a Regensburger, and it seemed a shame to expose the poor woman to the potentially distressing sight of her country’s evil-smelling arse. Still, she was all grown-up now, and I didn’t have the time to worry about it.

  ‘He just helped an old man who was being beaten up by some thugs. He killed one of them.’

  ‘But surely if he was helping the old man -’

  ‘Ah, but the old man was Jewish,’ I explained. ‘And the two thugs belonged to the SA. Strange how that changes everything, isn’t it? His mother asked me to find out if he was still alive and still at liberty. You see, when a man is arrested and beheaded or sent to a KZ, the authorities don’t always bother to inform his family. There are a lot of MPs — missing persons - from Jewish families these days. Trying to find them is a large part of my business.’ Frau Protze looked worried.