The Hindenburg Murders (12 page)

And somehow Charteris didn’t think the captains were summoning him now to inform him Eric Knoecher had been found.

SEVEN

HOW THE HINDENBURG LOST CONTACT WITH HOME, AND LESLIE CHARTERIS WAS RECRUITED

T
HE CHIEF STEWARD DELIVERED
C
HARTERIS
to the officers’ mess, forward on portside B deck. The cozy room, decorated by a few framed nautical prints, was divided into two oversized booths, and Captain Pruss, Captain Lehmann, and Luftwaffe undercover man Fritz Erdmann were seated in the slightly smaller of these, by the wall of slanting windows (a continuation of the promenade deck), through which the gray overcast day filtered in. The other booth was empty.

Charteris took the single chair at the round table the L of the booth encompassed. By the window sat the crisply uniformed if blandly handsome Captain Pruss, his cap on the table before him, crown down, like a soup bowl waiting to be filled. Next to him (and directly across from the author) was the
Hindenburg
’s previous captain, stocky and unprepossessing in his rumpled brown suit; beside him slumped the glum Erdmann, graying blond hair slicked back, an unconvincing tourist in his tan sport jacket over a yellow sweater with a gold-and-yellow tie.

No one rose but they all nodded to Charteris.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Charteris,” Lehmann said, in English, forcing a smile out of the melancholy mask that had once seemed so genial. He was tamping tobacco into a meerschaum pipe—Charteris knew the
Reederei
director was an inveterate pipe smoker, to the point of holding its unlighted bowl in his palm, and clasping its cold stem in his teeth.

But Erdmann, apparently not realizing the pipe was a sort of prop to the captain, said, “Is it safe to smoke in here?”

“Oh yes, yes, certainly.” Lehmann dug into his pocket and tossed a book of Frankfurter Hof matches onto the table. “Go ahead, gentlemen—I think we could all use a smoke about now, and the smoking room would not provide the privacy we need.”

Charteris—his suspicions now confirmed that the officers on an airship were held to less stringent precautions than its passengers—withdrew his silver cigarette case from his sport-jacket pocket and offered a Gauloise to Captain Pruss, who waved it off, and to Erdmann, who accepted. Lehmann was lighting his pipe, getting it going on a single match; Erdmann fired up the French cigarette and shared a match with Charteris. The sweet fragrance of the pipe smoke mingled with the harsher blend of the cigarette’s, forming another gray cloud, like those outside the slanting windows.

A steward poured coffee for all of them and disappeared.

“I’m going to make a wild guess,” Charteris said, “and say Eric Knoecher hasn’t turned up.”

Erdmann twitched a weary smile, and Lehmann said, “The entire ship has been searched—every cabin inspected. There is no sign of him.”

“I assume you’ve questioned the stewards who might have been on duty, in the wee morning hours.”

Lehmann nodded. “No one was seen on either promenade deck after around three-thirty
A.M
. The few hearty souls still up, at that hour, had helped close down the smoking room, and stumbled out to the lounge to finish their last drink. Then off to bed.”

Erdmann’s gaze was unblinking as he said, “I understand, Mr. Charteris, that you agreed to tell anyone who asked that your cabin mate has a cold, and has confined himself to the cabin.”

“Yes. And a few people have asked about him, and I’ve passed that tale along. No one’s questioned its veracity. No one much misses Mr. Knoecher, it would seem.”

“That surprises me,” Erdmann said. “He had a certain charm.”

“A cultivated charm that he used to obtain information from his victims. From your use of the past tense, Colonel, I assume you agree with me that Mr. Knoecher has become a victim himself.”

“A murder victim,” Erdmann said, exhaling smoke through his nostrils, dragon fashion, “yes. And this presents certain… difficulties.”

“Such as the S.D. not being keen on having their agents bumped off.”

Captain Pruss frowned. “‘Bumped off’?”

Charteris grinned. “Sorry, Captain… that’s the Americans’ rather colorful vernacular for homicide.”

Lehmann, pipe in hand, leaned forward, saying, “All politics aside, the Zeppelin Company isn’t keen on having murders committed aboard our ships, either.”

“Admirable policy.”

Lehmann’s expression seemed somewhat exasperated. “Mr. Charteris… Leslie… you know that public relations are
a major concern of ours. We are with this flight inaugurating our second season of round-trip travel to the United States. The damage this incident could do to the future of zeppelin travel is… well, it’s distressing even to contemplate.”

Charteris shrugged, saying, “You’re always going to have difficulties, Ernst, convincing Americans that you’re a friendly, cuddly bunch under that goose-stepping regime.”

“Be that as it may,” Lehmann said, “there remains the possibility that the… disappearance of Eric Knoecher will not be made public.”

“Because if it does, zep travel gets a black eye.” Charteris cast a glance at the Luftwaffe colonel. “And so does your government, if it becomes public knowledge that special police are traveling your ships as undercover spies.”

Erdmann said nothing, but Lehmann said, “That’s a rather harsh assessment, Leslie.”

“But an accurate one, Ernst. So what do the boys back home have to say? What’s the good word from Marshal Goering? Am I being enlisted to help cover up?”

Erdmann flicked ash onto the saucer where his coffee cup rested. “Neither Captain Lehmann nor myself will make the decision as to whether or not this apparent murder is revealed to the world at large.”

“Hasn’t someone back at Nazi Central made that decision already?”

Captain Pruss shifted in his seat, gesturing toward the grayness out the windows. “Mr. Charteris, we are currently in an electromagnetic storm. These conditions have created a complete radio blackout.”

“How long will that last?”

“As long as the storm. Possibly many hours.”

“Until we have a decision,” Erdmann said, “until we have our orders, from the Air Ministry, we would… appreciate your help.”

“In keeping Eric Knoecher alive and well and sick with a cold in my cabin, you mean?”

“Yes.” The Luftwaffe colonel glanced at Lehmann; there was something pained about it. “That, and something more.”

“What, gentlemen?”

Lehmann sighed pipe smoke. “I have discussed your offer with Captain Pruss and Colonel Erdmann.”

“What offer, Ernst?”

“To help in our… investigation.”

“Isn’t that Colonel Erdmann’s job?”

Erdmann said, “I understand you worked as a police constable.”

“Yes—briefly. Didn’t handle any murder cases, to speak of.”

“And that you studied criminology at school. And obviously, as a writer of mystery novels—”

Charteris interrupted with a laugh. “It might be dangerous assuming Zane Grey can punch cattle, my friends, or H. G. Wells pilot a spaceship. But if there is some manner in which I can help—certainly I’m at your service.”

Lehmann nodded, smiling a little. “Thank you, Leslie.”

“But I don’t offer this to help the brownshirt boys. I feel it’s obviously an unsettling thing that we may have a murderer among us—however aptly chosen his victim may have been. Still, this seems more appropriate for the colonel, here—”

“The colonel,” Lehmann said, with a wag of the head toward Erdmann, “cannot risk exposing the true nature of his presence here—which is to say, security.”

“We’re back to the bomb threat, again.”

Lehmann nodded gravely. “Yes. Furthermore, if the colonel actively investigates, the disappearance of Knoecher will become known. What we need, from you, Leslie, is something more along the lines of a… sub-rosa investigation.”

“A sort of discreet poking around, you mean.”

“Precisely. Asking ‘innocent’ questions, assessing reactions, without letting anyone know about Mr. Knoecher’s apparent dire fate.”

“Understood.”

“For example, Leslie, this morning, when you mentioned Knoecher’s cold, and confinement, to your cabin—did anyone react to this in any way that might be considered suspicious?”

“No. And I have to admit, I had that thought in mind. After all, the murderer would know I’m lying.”

“What I would suggest,” Erdmann said, shifting in his seat, “is striking up friendships with the handful of passengers we consider our most likely suspects.”

Charteris frowned. “You have thirty-some passengers, and at least as many crew members, plus stewards and officers… how can you narrow that group to a handful?”

Erdmann swallowed, his glum expression taking on a glazed cast. Finally he said, “I believe the names are all you need. How we arrived at them are irrelevant.”

“No.”

Erdmann looked up sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

“Actually, Fritz, ‘no’ is a word that requires precious little parsing. However, I’ll gladly explain my meaning: I won’t cooperate with you unless you’re forthcoming. And if you refuse to answer the first question I have for you, well, then—I suggest you comb the passenger list for some other former-police-constable-trained-in-criminology-turned-mystery-writer.”

And Charteris gave them a big smile, stubbed out his cigarette on his saucer, and rose.

“Please sit, Leslie,” Lehmann said, motioning with his pipe in hand. “Sit, please!”

“Before I do, let’s hear what the colonel has to say.”

Erdmann sucked on the cigarette, which was presently about an inch and a half long. “First of all, could I beg another cigarette from you, Mr. Charteris?”

“All right.” Still standing, he dug out his silver case and passed it over to Erdmann.

“When I knew we had an S.D. man aboard,” Erdmann said, tamping the tip of the smoke on the case, “I took him aside and made him tell me who his… subjects… were to be.”

Nodding, Charteris sat. Taking back his cigarette case, lighting Erdmann up with a match, and then doing the same for himself with another Gauloise, the author said, “Was Mr. Knoecher… forthcoming?”

“Yes. He didn’t like it, but I was a ranking officer, with a problem rather larger than his.”

“Sabotage.”

“Yes. We’d had a bomb scare.”

“And you wanted to know who your potential bombers were.”

Erdmann nodded, once.

“What are the particulars of this bomb scare, Colonel?”

Erdmann glanced at Lehmann, who said, “Before you stand and threaten to leave again, Leslie, let me answer that…. It is what I consider to be a crank letter from a woman in Milwaukee.”

“Milwaukee!”

“Yes. We know precious little about this woman at present, other than that she is friendly to the German cause—a member of a local Bund group.”

“What did her letter state?”

Lehmann grinned nervously, drew smoke from his pipe, which drifted out of his mouth lazily as he said, “That this airship, on this passage, would be destroyed by a time bomb.”

Charteris frowned, gesturing with the cigarette in hand, making smoke trails. “
Could
we have a time bomb aboard this ship? I find the prospect very credible, personally, having seen all the possible hiding places on my little tour.”

The
Reederei
director shook his head. “Thanks to those precautions in Frankfurt that so offended you, Leslie, the presence of a bomb on the
Hindenburg
is a virtual impossibility. Every lighter, flashbulb, flashlight, every matchbook was confiscated.”

Charteris pointed to Lehmann’s own book of hotel matches in the middle of the table like a tiny centerpiece. “Not every matchbook.”

“Let’s not be absurd. As Colonel Erdmann will attest, the S.D. team that went over this ship did a painstaking, rigorous job of it. The mail and cargo has been examined with special equipment, the passengers’ baggage thoroughly checked, even the crew was subject to stringent searches. No one had the opportunity to smuggle a bomb aboard this ship.”

Charteris turned to Erdmann. “Do you agree, Colonel?”

“I do. There is no bomb aboard the LZ-129. Our security is far too comprehensive.”

“Is it? Let me ask you—on Eric Knoecher’s list of ‘subjects,’ which is now your list of likely murder suspects… was Joseph Spah by any chance included?”

Erdmann shrugged with his eyebrows. “Yes. Spah travels as an American, with a French passport, though he was born a German. As an artist, a performer, he frequently travels throughout Germany, and is known to spend time in the company of antiparty people.”

“People in your anti-Hitler resistance movement.”

“Mr. Charteris…”

“Oh, I forgot. There is no resistance movement in Germany. Please go on, Colonel.”

Erdmann gestured with an open hand. “That’s all the information I have on Mr. Spah, other than I understand he is considered potentially a dangerous spy by the S.D.—and that he has been a troublemaker on this flight.”

Charteris exhaled smoke. “Well, I can add to your information—of course, with your excellent security, on this ship-that-could-not-possibly-have-a-bomb-aboard-it, you probably already know.”