‘What if …’ Sir Henry paused. ‘Oh, never mind. There are a thousand what if’s and whichever one I attempt to plan for here will be the wrong one.’
‘Much like a battle, yes?’ Felix suggested.
Sir Henry nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Let us go.’
‘I will go out first,’ Felix told him.
‘Yes,’ Sir Henry agreed. Then he paused and took Felix’s arm. ‘Oh, wait one second. Before I forget, I have a message for you.’
‘Yes?’
‘From Lord Geoffrey. He is arranging to get you a radio transmitter. On the outside it will look like a – what do you call it? – a “people’s receiver”.’
‘Yes, the ubiquitous Volksempfänger. The party is trying to get one into every German household so that all can listen to der Führer’s words.’
‘Yes – that. So it will be a bit less problematic should it be discovered.’
‘A bit less,’ Felix agreed.
‘But it will actually be able to transmit and receive in the something-or-other band. I don’t know the technical stuff, but all will be explained. And he suggested that you use a book code, so there’s nothing incriminating to carry around.’
‘Save the transmitter itself,’ Felix agreed. ‘And the book?’
‘Lord Geoffrey suggests Mein Kampf.’
‘Ha!’ said Felix.
‘Sort of on the principle of The Purloined Letter, don’t you know.’
Felix nodded. ‘Yes. Yes of course. Something so much in plain sight that it becomes invisible.’
‘That’s it,’ Sir Henry said.
‘All right,’ Felix agreed. ‘Then let’s get on with it. I’ll go now. You will wait for three minutes and then leave through the front door and turn right. There will be a taxicab waiting for you at the corner. The driver will have a green cap.’
Sir Henry grimaced. ‘Are you trying to turn this into a spy melodrama?’ he asked sourly. ‘Why don’t I just get the cab in front of the hotel?’
‘Because the doorman whistles for a cab if you want one as you leave, and he may whistle for the wrong cab.’
‘Ah,’ Sir Henry said. ‘Of course.’
A dusty black taxi awaited him at the corner, the driver immersed in the day’s Völkischer Beobachter, which he tossed aside with a disgusted ‘Scheissblatt,’ as Sir Henry climbed into the back seat. He gave a two-finger salute and, without a word, pulled away from the corner. After two left turns he pulled up and Felix stepped out of a doorway and got in. They sat there for three or four minutes until Felix was satisfied that no car had followed, then he tapped the cabbie on the shoulder and they started out careening across Berlin. They turned onto Friedrichstrasse and continued south until, after about ten minutes, they slowed and turned down a block-long street called Ulmgasse and parked a bit in from the corner.
‘Now,’ Felix said, opening the taxi door, ‘begin the fun and games. We will stroll together around the corner to the cheese shop. I will enter with you and proceed by myself through the inner door to the stairway and thence up to Madeleine’s studio. There I will turn on the lights and appear in the window, perhaps wearing a bonnet and shawl. The two watchers – we believe there are only two – should both scurry inside to capture me. I will be elusive, turning back into a respectable German gentleman, and pass them on the staircase. In the meantime you will gather up Madeleine, and, when you see two men in black-leather greatcoats enter the stairs, scurry around the corner to the taxi. What do you think? It has the virtue of simplicity, no?’
Sir Henry followed Felix out of the taxi. ‘We can but try,’ he said.
Felix turned and gave him a quizzical look, and then punched him lightly on the arm. ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘The fate of civilization depends on what you do here today. Centuries from now your name will be either praised or cursed depending upon the outcome of this, ah, operation. So don’t take it so seriously.’
‘Well,’ Sir Henry said, ‘that’s certainly reassuring. Let’s go do this.’
‘One second,’ Felix said, ‘I almost forgot.’ He reached into the shoulder bag he was carrying and brought out a copy of the London Times. ‘Stick this in your briefcase,’ he said. ‘It’s a day old, so I suggest you start doing the crossword to explain why you’re carrying it.’
‘And why am I carrying it?’
‘Pass it on to the people at MI6,’ Felix told him. ‘It contains the location of the three dead-letter boxes I will use until and unless I get the transmitter, and how to access them. Tell them, “cabbage”.’
‘Cabbage?’
‘Cabbage. Red cabbage.’
Sir Henry shrugged. ‘Red cabbage it is,’ he said, unfastening the straps on his briefcase and thrusting the paper inside.
They walked around the corner, chatting about what Sir Henry could never remember; Felix the perfect Junker in his dark-brown double-breasted suit, gray hat, and distinctly military air, Sir Henry almost a caricature of an English gentleman with hat, tie, briefcase, furled umbrella, and look of unassailable dignity. Sir Henry had to resist the impulse to exaggerate every gesture for the benefit of the unseen observers presumably lurking somewhere about. When they reached the shop window of Käse Beske, about eighteen steps in from the corner, they paused to admire the three rows of cheeses on display. Then, after a brief discussion and much pointing at various cheeses, they pushed open the door and went in together.
Madeleine stood behind the high counter, a black-and-white-checked apron covering her from the neck down and a red-and-white kerchief wrapped somehow around her head concealing her hair and most of her forehead. Her eyes widened as they walked in, but she gave no further sign of knowing either of them. ‘May I help you?’ she asked in German.
‘Time to commence practicing your English,’ Felix said, leaning over the counter to give her a kiss. ‘This gentleman is Sir Henry Cardine, a major in His Majesty’s Army, recently retired, or so he claims. And you are his sister Mabel.’
‘Of course I am,’ she agreed. ‘It is a true pleasure to meet you, brother Henry. I may call you Henry?’
‘Either Henry or, ah, Pugs.’
‘Pugs?’
‘It was my nickname in school. It’s what my, ah, other sister insists on calling me.’
‘I think,’ Madeleine said, ‘I prefer Henry.’
‘I also,’ Sir Henry agreed.
‘I must run upstairs,’ Felix said. ‘I have a little charade to perform to draw the watchers inside, at which you must scurry away from here and around the corner with your loving brother. Karl is waiting there to drive you to the airport.’
‘But,’ she began, ‘the children?’
‘Kohlmann picked them up. They should be at the airport waiting for you.’
‘Thank God!’
‘Passport!’ Felix said.
‘Ah, yes.’ Sir Henry pulled it from his pocket and handed it to Madeleine as Felix headed for the door in the back.
‘Be careful!’ Madeleine called. Felix waved briefly in reply as he vanished through the door.
Madeleine opened the passport to the description page and held it up to the light. ‘Mabel,’ she said. ‘Mabel Bellant. I must practice responding to “Mabel”.’ She stared critically at the picture, and then turned the passport sideways to see if that would improve the image. ‘I am very, how you say, frowsy.’
‘I would never say such a thing,’ Sir Henry insisted. He looked around the shop. ‘Is there no one else here?’
‘Otto is in the back. He is the owner.’
‘You must get ready to leave.’
She took off her apron and undid the kerchief, releasing and running her hands through her shoulder-length blonde hair. ‘I will tell Otto,’ she said. ‘I must thank him.’
Sir Henry stood by the window and looked out, pursing his lips and doing his best to appear to be inspecting cheeses. It was perhaps two minutes before a man in a black-leather greatcoat appeared from a doorway across the street, looking up at
a window above them. He stared at whatever was happening in that window for a minute and then gestured and a second man came from an alcove to join him. They strode across the street together and pushed through the outer door to the building.
Sir Henry waited a few moments to be sure they did not come out again, and then called to his new sister, who came hurriedly from the back room. ‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘We’d best go. You have a suitcase?’
She handed him a small wrapped package. ‘A going-away gift from Otto,’ she told him. ‘A half-kilo of Edelpilzkäse.’ Then went behind the counter and returned with a small valise. ‘Onward,’ she said, giving him an almost smile.
‘That’s all you’re taking?’
‘Three trunks holding everything I own have supposedly been shipped ahead to wherever-it-is,’ she told him. ‘If they haven’t been confiscated by the Gestapo. Everything I used to own has been distributed amongst various charities.’
‘Confiscated?’ Sir Henry asked.
‘Certainly if they had been sent with my name. Jews are not allowed to leave with any property – if they’re allowed to leave at all. But Willy says they’ve been adequately disguised.’
‘Willy?’
‘Oh yes, that’s right,’ she said. She smiled. ‘My husband Wilhelm Fauth. You know him as “Felix”.’
‘Well!’ Sir Henry could think of nothing to say to this, so he picked up his new sister’s valise and held out his arm. ‘Let us go.’
‘Indeed,’ she said, slipping her arm in his. ‘There is no longer anything for me here.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Except Willy, of course. Always excepting Willy. But he can take care of himself. Or so he says. And perhaps … perhaps.’ Another deep breath and she was almost pulling him out the door. ‘Let us go.’
They rounded the corner at a hasty walk and headed for the waiting cab. Karl was behind the wheel, reading yet another newspaper. Sir Henry couldn’t make out which it was, but it had oversized headlines with the words Der Führer amongst them.
Just as they reached the cab they heard pounding footsteps behind them and a short, plump man in a black-leather greatcoat came skidding around the corner waving and gesticulating in their general direction. ‘Halt!’ he yelled. ‘Bleiben Sie sofort stehen!’
They stopped and Sir Henry took his hand off the door handle of the cab and turning to face the chubby man.
‘Gestapo,’ Madeline said calmly. ‘What could he possibly want with us?’
‘It is a puzzle,’ Sir Henry agreed, pleased to note that his nervous system was reacting calmly to this sudden threat. ‘Yes, my man,’ he called. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Englander?’ the man asked, coming to a stop in front of Sir Henry.
‘Indeed,’ Cardin replied calmly. ‘And who are you, and by what right do you come running up after us? We paid for the cheese.’
‘What?’ the man paused for a moment adjusting his mind to replying in English. ‘What is it you are speaking about?’
‘The cheese. Isn’t that why you’re running after us? Did the storekeeper complain?’
The man shook his head violently as though trying to clear a gnat from his ear. ‘I know nothing of that,’ he said. ‘I am a police officer. May I see your papers, please?’
‘It is no wonder,’ Sir Henry told him in the most arrogant voice he could manage, ‘that fewer and fewer Englishmen are choosing to spend their holidays in Germany these days. Stopped on every street corner by officious idiots like yourself. If you’re a policeman, where is your uniform?’
‘You will show me your papers, please,’ the man repeated, his face wooden. ‘I am of the Gestapo. We do not wear uniforms.’ He pulled an identity disk from his pocket and held it some inches from Sir Henry’s nose. ‘This is my identity. Now I would see yours.’
Sir Henry thought he could go two or three more rounds like this, but decided antagonizing the man further would be counterproductive. A bit of pushback to show one won’t be easily pushed around but not enough to produce a violent reaction, that was the ticket. ‘Of course,’ he agreed, pulling his passport from the pocket of his jacket and handing it to the tubby gentleman of the Gestapo.
The man opened it and stared at the page for a moment before turning to Madeleine. ‘And you, Fräulein?’
‘My passport?’ She opened her purse and fished around inside it. ‘It’s here somewhere. Ah yes – here it is.’ She took it out with a slight flourish and handed it to the plump man. ‘You’ll have to excuse my brother,’ she said. ‘He’s jealous because he didn’t get to spend the last two weeks in Switzerland with us. I think your country is perfectly lovely.’
The man opened her passport and stared at it, rubbing his fingers over the photograph and the ink as though trying to see if they’d rub off. ‘Frau Mabel Bellant?’ he asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘But this is not Herr Bellant?’
‘That’s right,’ Sir Henry broke in. ‘Mabel is my sister.’
The plump man stared speculatively at Frau Mabel Bellant. Then he took a small photograph from the flap pocket of his jacket and stared speculatively at it. Then he looked back at Frau Mabel. ‘It could be that you are actually Frau Madeleine Fauth, could it not?’
‘Who?’ Madeleine asked, doing a good job of looking surprised.
‘Come now,’ the officer said, and he turned to look at Sir Henry. ‘And perhaps it is that you are the mysterious Herr Fauth?’
‘See here,’ Sir Henry said, ‘I’ve had about enough of this.’ He took a step toward the man, who backed up and reached under his greatcoat. Sir Henry could see the bulge of a bulky pistol holster under his dark gray jacket. He chose to ignore it for the moment, but he moved no closer. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, or who you think I am, or for that matter who you think my sister, Mrs Bellant, is, but there’s my passport with my photograph in it, and her passport with her photograph in it, and if that’s not good enough for you I suggest you call the British Embassy. They know who I am.’
‘Perhaps,’ the plump man said. ‘And perhaps I should take you both in for further interrogation. Your embassy can be contacted from Gestapo headquarters should that seem advisable.’ He backed up two steps, taking a whistle from his pocket and raising it to his lips.
Karl swung himself from the driver’s seat of the taxi behind the tubby Gestapo agent and in one continuous motion raised a rolled-up newspaper and smashed it across the back of the man’s head. With the incongruous visual effect of a movie cartoon the newspaper did not crumple, and the man’s head snapped backward, his eyes rolled back, he made a soft gargling sound and fell to the ground.
Madeleine made a soft squeaking sound and clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide.
‘Quick,’ Karl said, stooping down to take the Gestapo agent by his shoulders, ‘help me get him into the boot.’
‘Is he dead?’ Sir Henry asked. He crouched and grabbed the man by the feet.
‘We have no time to find out,’ Karl said. ‘You must get to Tempelhof by six. I’ll take care of him later.’
Between them they swung the man into the boot of the taxi and closed the lid. Sir Henry helped Madeleine into the back seat and climbed in after her.
Karl took several deep breaths and started the engine, then turned in his seat and smiled the ineffable smile of the taxi driver. ‘Welcome to my taxicab, mein herr und frau,’ he said. ‘Where might I have the pleasure of taking you?’
‘Tempelhof, driver,’ Sir Henry said. ‘With reasonable haste.’ He paused, and then added, ‘And thank you.’
‘All part of the service,’ Karl said. ‘Anything for the Oberst.’
The car swung around the corner.
TWENTY-THREE
And oh, how sweet a thing to be
Safe on an island, not at sea!
(Though some one said, some months ago –
I heard him, and he seemed to know;
Was it the German Chancellor?
‘The
re are no islands anymore.’)
– Edna St Vincent Millay
Patricia leaned back and pushed the remains of her coddled eggs and particles of toast aside as Sophie appeared at the door of the breakfast room. ‘Good morning,’ she said, reaching for her coffee cup. ‘Come and help yourself to food and sit down. There’s all sorts of breakfast things on the sideboard. If you don’t see something you like we’ll ring for it. Pour yourself a glass of orange juice. Of course there’s the matter of eggs – how do you like your eggs?’
‘I think,’ Sophie said, ‘that a bowl of cereal would do me nicely, thank you.’
‘Oatmeal? Or something cold and crunchy?’
‘Oatmeal? I like the oatmeal, if it isn’t all watery.’
Patricia waved a hand toward a double-hulled silver serving bowl on the sideboard. ‘That contraption keeps it nice and warm,’ she said. ‘And it isn’t a bit watery. Indeed, it tends to get lumpy after a while – but it’s only been fifteen minutes or so, so it should be fine. How are you feeling this morning?’
‘I did not sleep well. I think I had bad dreams, although I don’t remember them. And I woke up several times and I was crying. And I don’t remember why. I mean, I know what, that is, what I have to cry about. But I can never remember why I’m crying at that moment, and it feels as though it’s something else entirely.’
Patricia sighed. ‘Your recent past has been pretty awful, hasn’t it? I’d say if you feel like crying then you should bally well cry. Not that I’m an expert on this sort of thing.’
‘But that’s the thing, you see,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s not that I feel like crying – it’s that I suddenly find that I am crying. It surprises me that I am crying.’
Patricia nodded. ‘Your unconscious mind is going over things that your conscious mind would just as soon ignore, at least for the moment. Trust me, I know these things for I have read the writings of Dr Freud.’
The Bells of Hell Page 18