The Schirmer Inheritance

by Eric Ambler

  He finished his report to Mr. Sistrom and sealed it in an envelope. The post office might be open now he thought. He took the report and the cable and went downstairs.

  He had left Miss Kolin over an hour before, when she had gone to her room. To his surprise, he saw her sitting in the cafe with the remains of a breakfast on the table in front of her. She had changed her clothes and was looking as if she had had a good night’s sleep.

  “I thought you were going to bed,” he said.

  “You said you were going to send a cable to your office. I was waiting to take it to the post office. They make so much chi-chi about cables there. They have so few. I did not think you would like to deal with them yourself.”

  “That’s very good of you, Miss Kolin. Here it is. I’ve done my report, too. Air-mail that, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  She left some money on the table for the breakfast and was going through the lobby to the street when the desk clerk came after her and said something in French. George caught the word “telephone.”

  She nodded to the clerk and glanced at George-in an almost embarrassed way, he thought.

  “My call to Paris,” she said. “I had cabled my friends that I was on my way home. I wished to tell them that I would be delayed. How long do you think we will be?”

  “Two or three days, I’d say.” He turned to go. “Pretty good work that, to get through to Paris from here in an hour,” he added.

  “Yes.”

  He saw her enter the telephone booth and begin speaking as he went upstairs, back to his room to sleep.

  At eight o’clock that evening they met the old man with the Renault again, and began their second journey to the Sergeant’s headquarters.

  George had slept fitfully for most of the day and felt a great deal wearier for having done so. In the faint hope that there might be a reply cable in from Mr. Sistrom, he had risen in the late afternoon and gone down to check. There had been nothing in. He had been disappointed but not surprised. Mr. Sistrom would have some thinking to do and some inquiries to make before he could send a useful reply. Miss Kolin had been out and, sitting beside her in the car, he noted that the leather satchel which she carried slung by a strap from her shoulder looked bulkier than usual. He decided that she had bought a bottle of brandy with which to fortify herself on the journey. He hoped, uneasily, that she would not hit it too hard.

  Arthur was waiting for them at the same place and took the same precautions about shutting them in the back of the truck. The night was even warmer than the previous one and George protested.

  “Is all that still necessary?”

  “Sorry, chum. Got to be done.”

  “It is a wise precaution,” said Miss Kolin unexpectedly.

  “Yes, that’s right, miss.” Arthur sounded as surprised as George felt. “Did you bring the Sarge’s papers, Mr. Carey?”

  “I did.”

  “Good. He’s been worrying in case you’d forget. Can’t wait to know about his namesake.”

  “I brought along a copy of an old photograph of him as well.”

  “You’ll get a medal.”

  “What’s been decided?”

  “I don’t know. We had a chat last night after you’d gone but-anyway, you talk to him about it. There we are! All tucked up now. I’ll take it quiet.”

  They set off up the twisting, rock-strewn road to the ruined house and went through the same routine as before when they reached it. This time, however, as they stood waiting among the pine trees while Arthur warned the sentry of their approach, George and Miss Kolin had nothing to say to one another. Arthur returned and led them to the house.

  The Sergeant greeted them in the hall, shaking hands with George and clicking heels to Miss Kolin. He smiled, but seemed secretly ill at ease as though doubtful of their goodwill. Miss Kolin, George was relieved to note, was her usual impassive self.

  The Sergeant led them into the dining-room, poured out drinks, and eyed George’s briefcase.

  “You have brought the papers?”

  “Sure.” George opened the case.

  “Ah!”

  “And a photo of the Dragoon,” George added.

  “This is true?”

  “It’s all here.” George took out a folder which he had brought from Philadelphia. Inside it there was a photostat or photograph of every important document in the case. “The Corporal didn’t have time to read the interesting part when he searched my room,” he added with a grin.

  “Touche,” said Arthur, unmoved.

  The Sergeant sat down at the table, glass in hand, his eyes gleaming as if he were about to be served with some ambrosial meal. George began to lay the documents one by one in front of him, explaining as he did so the origin and importance of each. The Sergeant nodded understandingly at each explanation or turned to Miss Kolin for guidance; but George soon saw that there were only certain documents in which he was genuinely interested-those which directly concerned the first Franz Schirmer. Even a photograph of Martin Schneider, the soft-drinks potentate who had amassed the fortune which the Sergeant might inherit, produced no more than a polite exclamation. The photostats of Hans Schneider’s Account, on the other hand, the church-register entries relating to the marriage of Franz, and the record of the baptism of Karl, he studied minutely, reading the German aloud to himself. The copy photograph of old Franz he handled as if it were a holy relic. For a long time he stared at it without speaking; then he turned to Arthur.

  “You see, Corporal?” he said quietly. “Am I not like him?”

  “Take away the beard and he’s your spitting image,” Arthur agreed.

  And, indeed, for one who knew of the relationship, there was a strong resemblance between the two Schirmers. There was the same heavy strength in the two faces, the same determination in the two mouths, the same erectness; while the big hands grasping the arms of the chair in the daguerreotype and those grasping the photographic copy of it might, George thought, have belonged to the selfsame man.

  There was a rap on the door and the sentry put his head in. He beckoned to Arthur.

  Arthur sighed impatiently. “I’d better see what he wants,” he said, and went out, shutting the door behind him.

  The Sergeant took no notice. He was smiling now over Hans Schneider’s account of Eylau and the photostat of a page of the Dragoon’s war diary, the one recording Franz Schirmer’s desertion, which George had placed beside it. That old act of desertion seemed to give him special pleasure. From time to time he would glance at the old man’s photograph again. George supposed that the Sergeant’s own failure to return to Germany when an opportunity presented itself (he could have taken advantage of one of the amnesties) had been a kind of desertion. Perhaps, what the Sergeant was enjoying now was the reassuring intimation from the past that, contrary to the beliefs of his childhood, sinners were not obliged to dwell with devils always, and that outlaws and deserters, no less than fairy princes, might live happily ever after.

  “Have you decided yet what you’re going to do?” George asked.

  The Sergeant looked up and nodded. “Yes. I think so, Mr. Carey. But first I would like to ask you some questions.”

  “I’ll do my best to…” he began.

  But he never learned what the Sergeant’s questions were. At that moment the door was flung open and Arthur came back into the room.

  He slammed the door behind him, walked over to the table, and looked grimly at George and Miss Kolin. His face was pinched and grey with anger. Suddenly he threw two small, bright yellow tubes down on the table in front of them.

  “All right,” he said. “Which of you is it? Or is it both of you?”

  The tubes were about an inch and a half long and half an inch thick. They looked as if they had been cut from bamboo and then coloured. The three round the table stared at them, then up at Arthur again.

  “What is this?” snapped the Sergeant.

  Arthur burst into an angry torrent of Greek. George glan
ced at Miss Kolin. Her face was still impassive, but she had gone very pale. Then Arthur stopped speaking and there was silence.

  The Sergeant picked up one of the tubes, then looked from it to George and Miss Kolin. The muscles of his face set. He nodded to Arthur.

  “Explain to Mr. Carey.”

  “As if he didn’t know!” Arthur’s lips tightened. “All right. Someone left a trail of these things from the culvert up here. One every fifty metres or so for someone else to follow. One of the lads coming up with a light spotted them.”

  The Sergeant said something in German.

  Arthur nodded. “I put the rest out collecting them all before I came to report.” He looked at George. “Any idea who might have dropped them, Mr. Carey? I found one of these two wedged between the canvas and the body of the truck, so don’t start trying to play dumb.”

  “Dumb or not,” George said steadily, “I don’t know anything about them. What are they?”

  The Sergeant got slowly to his feet. George could see a pulse going in his throat as he drew George’s open briefcase towards him and looked inside. Then he shut it.

  “Perhaps one should ask the lady,” he said.

  Miss Kolin sat absolutely rigid, looking straight in front of her.

  Suddenly, he reached down and picked up her satchel from the floor by her chair.

  “You permit?” he said, and, thrusting his hand into it, drew out a tangle of thin cord.

  He pulled on the cord slowly. A yellow tube came into view and then another, then a handful of the things, red and blue as well as yellow. They were strings of wooden beads of the kind used for making bead curtains. George knew now that it was not a bottle of brandy that had made the satchel so bulky. He began to feel sick.

  “So!” The Sergeant dropped the beads on the table. “Did you know of this, Mr. Carey?”

  “No.”

  “That’s right, too,” Arthur put in suddenly. “It was Little Miss Muffet here who wanted the canvas over the truck. Didn’t want him to see what she was up to.”

  “For God’s sake, Miss Kolin!” George said angrily. “What do you think you’re playing at?”

  She stood up resolutely, as if she were about to propose a vote of no-confidence at a public meeting, and turned to George. She did not even glance at Arthur or the Sergeant. “I should explain, Mr. Carey,” she said coldly, “that, in the interests of justice and in view of your refusal to take any steps yourself in the matter, I considered it my duty to telephone Colonel Chrysantos in Salonika and inform him, on your behalf, that the men who robbed the Eurasian Credit Bank were here. On his instructions, I marked the route from the culvert, so that his troops could…”

  The Sergeant’s fist hit her full in the mouth and she crashed into the corner of the room where the empty bottles stood.

  George leaped to his feet. As he did so the barrel of Arthur’s gun jabbed painfully into his side.

  “Stand still, chum, or you’ll get hurt,” Arthur said. “She’s been asking for this and now she’s going to get it.”

  Miss Kolin was on her knees, the blood trickling from her cut lip. They all stood watching her as she climbed slowly to her feet. Suddenly she picked up a bottle and flung it at the Sergeant. He did not move. It missed him by a few inches and smashed against the opposite wall. He stepped forward and hit her hard across the face with the back of his hand. She went down again. She had made no sound. She still made no sound. After a moment she began to get to her feet again.

  “I’m stopping this,” said George angrily, and started to move.

  The gun dug into his side. “You try, chum, and you’ll get a bullet in the kidneys. It’s nothing to do with you, so shut up!”

  Miss Kolin picked up another bottle. There was blood running from her nose now. She faced the Sergeant again.

  “Du Schuft!” she said venomously, and hurled herself at him.

  He brushed the bottle aside and hit her again in the face with his fist. When she fell this time she did not try to get up, but lay there gasping.

  The Sergeant went to the door and opened it. The sentry who had summoned Arthur was waiting there. The Sergeant beckoned him in, pointed to Miss Kolin, and gave an order in Greek. The sentry grinned and slung his rifle across his back. Then he went over to Miss Kolin and hauled her to her feet. She stood there swaying and wiping the blood from her face with her hand. He gripped her arm and said something to her. Without a word, and without looking at any of them, she began to walk towards the door.

  “Miss Kolin-” George started forward.

  She took no notice. The sentry pushed him aside and followed her out of the room. The door closed.

  Sickened and trembling, George turned to face the Sergeant.

  “Easy, chum,” said Arthur. “None of the hero-to-the-rescue stuff. It won’t wash here.”

  “Where’s she being taken?” George demanded.

  The Sergeant was licking the blood off one of his knuckles. He glanced at George and then, sitting down at the table, took the passport from Miss Kolin’s satchel.

  “Maria Kolin,” he remarked. “French.”

  “I asked where she’s being taken.”

  Arthur was standing behind him still. “I wouldn’t try getting tough, Mr. Carey,” he advised. “Don’t forget, you brought her here.”

  The Sergeant was examining the passport. “Born in Belgrade,” he said. “Slav.” He shut the passport with a snap. “And now we will talk a little.”

  George waited. The Sergeant’s eyes rested on his.

  “How did you find out, Mr. Carey?”

  George hesitated.

  “Talk fast, chum.”

  “The truck the Corporal brought us up in-it had slots for false number-plates and the plates were lying inside on the floor of the truck. They were the same numbers as those mentioned in the Salonika papers.”

  Arthur swore.

  The Sergeant nodded curtly. “So! You knew this last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you did not go to the police today?”

  “What I did was to cable in code to my office to find out what the extradition treaty between America and Greece says about armed bank robbery.”

  “Please?”

  Arthur explained in Greek.

  The Sergeant nodded. “That was good. Did she know you do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why does she tell Chrysantos?”

  “She doesn’t like Germans.”

  “Ah, so?”

  George looked down pointedly at the Sergeant’s hands. “I understand her feelings.”

  “Easy, chum.”

  The Sergeant smiled enigmatically. “You understand her feelings? I do not think so.”

  The sentry came in, gave the Sergeant a key with a word of explanation, and went out again.

  The Sergeant put the key in his pocket and poured himself a glass of plum brandy. “And now,” he said, “we must think what is to be done. Your little friend is safely in a room upstairs. I think we must ask you also to stay, Mr. Carey. It is not that I do not trust you but that, at the moment, because you do not understand, you are feeling that you would like to destroy the Corporal and me. In two days, perhaps, when the Corporal and I have finished arranging our business, you may go.”

  “Do you intend to keep me here by force?”

  “Only if you are not wise and do not wish to stay.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting why I came here?”

  “No. I will give you my decision in two days, Mr. Carey. Until then, you stay.”

  “Supposing I told you that unless Miss Kolin and I are released immediately you’ll have as much chance of inheriting that estate as that sentry outside.”

  “Your office in America will be very sad. Arthur explained to me.”

  George felt himself reddening. “Does it occur to you that, trail or no trail, Colonel Chrysantos won’t take very long to find this place now? In two or three hours he may have you surrounded by Greek t
roops.”

  Arthur laughed. The Sergeant smiled grimly.

  “If that is so, Mr. Carey, Chrysantos will be in trouble with his government. But you need not worry. If this bad Colonel comes, we will protect you. A glass of wine? No? Brandy? No? Then, since you are tired, the Corporal will show you where you can sleep. Good night.” He nodded dismissal and began to go through the photostats again, putting those that interested him specially into a separate pile.

  “This way, chum.”

  “Just a moment. What about Miss Kolin, Sergeant?”

  The Sergeant did not look up. “You do not have to worry about her, Mr. Carey. Good night.”

  Arthur led the way; George followed him; the sentry brought up the rear. They went upstairs to a derelict room with a straw mattress on the floorboards. There was also a bucket. The sentry brought in an oil lamp.

  “It’s only for a couple of nights, Mr. Carey,” said Arthur-the hotel receptionist apologizing to a valued client who has arrived unexpectedly. “You’ll find the palliasse fairly clean. The Sarge is very keen on hygiene.”

  “Where’s Miss Kolin?”

  “Next room.” He jerked his thumb. “But don’t you worry about her. It’s a better room than this.”

  “What did the Sergeant mean about Chrysantos getting into trouble with the government?”

  “If he tried to surround us? Well, the Greek frontier’s nearly a kilometre away. We’re on Yugoslav territory. I’d have thought you’d have guessed.”

  George digested this disconcerting news while Arthur adjusted the lamp wick.

  “What about the frontier patrols?”

  Arthur hung the lamp on a hook jutting out from the wall. “You want to know too much, chum.” He went to the door. “No lock on this door, but, just in case you’re thinking of sleepwalking, there’s a wide-awake sentry here on the landing, and he’s trigger-happy. Get the idea?”

  “I get it.”

  “I’ll give you a call when it’s time for breakfast. Pleasant dreams.”

  About an hour had gone by when George heard the Sergeant come upstairs and say something to the sentry.