The Hindenburg Murders (19 page)

Morris and Dolan weren’t hearing any of this, both caught up in their own bombast.

“So tell me, Les,” the handsome mustached advertising man said, swirling bourbon in a glass, “how did you manage to rustle a filly like that little blonde? Only she’s not so little.”

“It comes from not spending all your time down here in this den of iniquity.” Charteris sipped his Scotch. “Why, do you wish you’d given me some competition?”

“No. I’m afraid, just as with these military maneuvers, I’m on leave. Out of the game.”

“You sound like a man who’s been burned.”

Douglas chuckled wryly; he had a cigarette of his own going. “You write romances, right?”

“Of a sort.”

“I guess you could say I’m carrying a torch.”

“Not with all the hydrogen on this ship, I hope.”

“No.” Douglas chuckled again, but his eyes were woeful. “I just closed my office in Frankfurt and had to leave somebody behind.”

“Some female body?”

“Yes indeed. Very female. As female as that braided specimen of yours, Les.”

“Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

Douglas sighed, sipped, smoked. “I hope, one day soon, to bring her to America. But it’s not as easily done as said.”

“Why?”

“… She’s Jewish.”

“Ah.”

“She was my secretary. That’s how we began, anyway. I’m divorced; have a daughter.”

“Me, too. On both counts.”

“Really? Do you miss her, Les?”

“My daughter or my wife?”

Douglas laughed, smoke curling out his nostrils. “Let’s not get into that, either of us…. Well, I’ve had my share of flings since my marriage dissolved, but this is different. Marta may be a little young for me, but she’s such a fine, smart woman, and what a beauty. Dark brown hair, eyes the same, figure like… well, like your blonde.”

“You have money. You can buy her way out, can’t you?”

“I hope so. It’s just… I know they have their eye on her.”

Charteris drank a little Scotch, kept his tone casual. “Whose eye? The Nazis?”

“Yes. You see, I have… had… an office at a building on Neue Mainzer Strasse; trouble is, so does a guy named Goebbels.”

Charteris’s eyes opened so wide, his monocle fell out; catching it, he said, “The Propaganda Ministry has an office in your building? And you had a Jewish secretary?”

“Yeah, and it went over swell. Whenever they saw her, it rubbed ’em the wrong way, those fanatic sons of bitches. I was advised to dispense with her services. When I told ’em to go to hell, they started shadowing me. Shadowing us.”

“It’s like something out of Kafka.”

“No, it’s far worse than that. You can close the covers on a book; but when they’re tapping your phones, searching your desk and file cabinets every other Tuesday—well. Time to go home.”

“And you couldn’t find a way to bring her with you?”

Douglas grinned half a wry grin. Shook his head. “She wouldn’t come. You’re right, I got the dough to make that happen, too. But she has family. Germany’s home to her. I’m just praying to God she comes to her senses before it’s too late, while
I can still get her out. Maybe if she misses me, half as much as I miss her…”

Douglas swallowed, smiled embarrassedly, and gulped at his drink.

“I’m behaving like a lovesick schoolboy,” he said. “Spilling to you like this. You’re the second guy on this trip who’s stood still for this mush.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, first night aboard, I sat and talked with this nice fella in the import business. You know, most of these Germans, if they’re not party members, if they’re just regular people, they’re not bad at all. He was real friendly. Outgoing. I liked him. Funny thing, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since that first night.”

Neck tingling, Charteris said, “Sounds like you’re talking about my cabin mate.”

“Yeah?”

“Eric Knoecher.”

Douglas snapped his fingers. “That’s it. That’s the guy.”

“Poor bloke’s been sick ever since that first night.”

“No kiddin’?”

“Yes. You probably noticed him coughing and sneezing.”

“No, I can’t say I did.”

“Well, anyway, Eric’s been sick in bed, stuck in the cabin, since he woke up Tuesday morning.”

“Oh, well by all means give him my regards, and a get-well-soon. He was the kind of sounding board a lovesick goon like me needed, just about then.”

Soon after, Charteris excused himself, thinking that either he was a terrible detective or Ed Douglas was a terrific actor—because there had not been the slightest sign that Douglas was
stringing him along, that the advertising man might know that Eric Knoecher was dead.

In fact, Charteris didn’t think Douglas did know. Nor was he convinced the man was a spy for General Motors or Admiral America, either. This was simply a middle-aged man who had fallen for a good-looking young woman. It just happened that the middle-aged man was an American working in Nazi Germany and the good-looking young woman was a Jewess.

When Charteris returned to the lounge, Lehmann was again at his accordion, and the Americans, Brits, and even a few Germans were managing a rousing “Home on the Range.” He stopped to whisper in Hilda’s ear that he’d rejoin her soon, but needed to do something first. She nodded, smiled prettily, and returned with gusto to one of the few American songs she knew.

Charteris went over to where Spah was seated with Margaret Mather and her college boys. Margaret fluttered her eyelashes at him, and he somehow resisted the urge to flutter his back at her.

Leaning in, he said to Spah, “Can I have a word with you, Joe?”

“Sure!”

Spah scampered after Charteris like a puppy, following him around to the dining room, where the tables were already set for tomorrow’s breakfast. Not a soul was on this side of the ship, and Charteris sat on one of the benches by the slanting windows and Spah sat next to him, gazing up at the taller man with a curious expression.

“You’re in danger,” Charteris said.

Spah beamed, as if delighted. “I am?”

“Listen to me, and take this seriously. Quit clowning.”

“All right.” But he was still grinning.

“You’re walking that narrow line.”

“What narrow line?”

“Between clown and jackass.”

Spah wasn’t smiling now. “What are you talking about?”

“Steward Kubis is a friend of mine. I got to know him last year, on the maiden voyage. He confided in me that you are on the brink of arrest.”

Spah’s eyes popped open; it was comic but not, for a change, intentionally so. “Arrest? What the hell for?”

“For these continued unscheduled trips to see your flea-bitten mangy hound.”

Spah grinned again but this time it was glazed. “I’m going to be arrested for seeing my dog?”

“You’re going to be arrested for breaking the rules on a Nazi ship.”

“Such stupid rules!”

“Actually, they’re not stupid rules. Are you aware that a passenger train in France blew up today?”

“Yes—it was on the news broadcast they piped in.”

“
You
are suspected of planting a bomb, Joe—of hiding it somewhere in the vast framework and skin of this beast.”

“A bomb? That is ridiculous!”

“Ridiculous, perhaps. But not funny. You have a history of associating with Communists and other anti-Nazi elements; you live in America; and you’ve been doing your hilarious Hitler impression for a German audience.”

Spah said nothing; the grin had long since faded.

“No more clowning, Joe—understood?”

He swallowed and nodded. “Understood.”

“I need to ask you something else.”

“Anything. Only a friend would say the things you’ve said.”

“Is there anything else these Germans might have on you? Anything you’re hiding?”

“No. My life is an open book.”

“The first night aboard, I saw you talking to my cabin mate, Eric Knoecher.”

“Yes, that’s right. Is he any better? Or still sick in your cabin?”

“Did I tell you that, Joe?”

“Maybe. Or was it Leonhard or maybe Gertrude? Why, is that important?”

“Joe, what did you and Eric Knoecher talk about?”

“Nothing. Fluff!”

“What kind of fluff?”

“He recognized me, like you did, from the stage, and also from the papers, from press I received. That’s what we talked about.”

“What, you in the press?”

“Yes. He asked me about my ‘engagement’ to the striptease artist, Mathia Merrifield. He wanted to know all about her—what red-blooded man wouldn’t?”

“You’re engaged to a stripper?”

“No! It was a publicity stunt—to get Mathia some press. She’s an American girl, a close friend.”

“How close?”

“That wouldn’t be polite; you shouldn’t even ask. Anyway, I’m happily married with a wife and three kiddies, you know that, I told you before, didn’t I?”

“I believe you did. You just left out the American stripper, is all.”

Spah shrugged, made a face. “Anyway, she was going to appear at some theater in Munich, doing what she does best—take off her clothes—and I have some fame there, so we cooked this up. Or her press agent did, I should say.”

And Eric Knoecher was interested.

“Joe,” Charteris said, “hasn’t it occurred to you that this could be used against you? You can be kept out of Germany on moral grounds. Adultery, bigamy…”

“Yes, it was big of me to help the girl get some publicity. So what if they ban me? I told you, I’m not going back to Germany. Just to my wife and kids.”

“Not your stripper.”

“No.” He grinned. “Anyway, she’s still in Munich.”

Charteris waggled a finger in the acrobat’s face. “Joe—we have one more day, partial day at that, on this ship. Keep your nose clean. Let the steward feed your mutt.”

“She’s no mutt! She’s—”

“She’s a pedigreed bitch, I know. Stay away from her.”

That might have been good advice where the stripper was concerned, too; but at least she wasn’t in freight on this ship. As far as Charteris knew, anyway.

The community sing was winding down when Charteris and Spah strolled back. They were concluding with “Muss I denn?”, the beautiful German folk song that spoke of leaving a “little town,” leaving a sweetheart behind. Had Ed Douglas been present—and understood the German words—he might well have broken down and cried.

Charteris walked Hilda back to her cabin. They spent a memorable hour within, and—as she had requested, for the sake of avoiding embarrassment, that he not stay the night—he kissed her at the door and moved across the hall to his own quarters.

Sliding the door open, his hand felt for the light switch; but from the darkness something, someone grabbed him, perhaps emerging from the lower bunk, and yanked him inside, his
monocle flying, and he was knocked into the far wall, which gave a little.

Startled, he tried to get his bearings and saw a form, barely identifiable as the back of a gray-jumpsuited crew member, lurch for the door, slide it shut, sealing them into darkness.

Though he could see nothing, Charteris plunged blindly toward where the form had been—as small as the cabin was, there was little chance of missing—and in doing so threw himself into the open arms of his unknown assailant. Powerful arms hugged him, pinning him, crushing him, bones popping, please God not breaking, and Charteris brought a knee up, where it would do the most good.

His intruder howled in the darkness, and—some small night vision coming to him, now—Charteris brought clasped hands down, hard, on the back of the doubled-over figure. Then he grabbed the cloth of the jumpsuit and slammed the bastard into where the washstand should be. And was.

Whimpering with pain from this blow, and the one to his groin, the intruder nonetheless managed to scramble around and tackle Charteris, knocking the author back, his head smacking into the aluminum bunk ladder. Woozy, almost unconscious, Charteris somehow found his way to his feet and swung madly, randomly in the darkness, fists hitting nothing.

Then a fist flew into him, into his stomach, doubling him over, and now he was on the floor of the pitch-dark cubicle, and he was the one being pummeled by clasped hands on his back.

Grabbing in the darkness, grabbing for anything, his hands gripped an ankle, and it was not very dignified, it was not something the Saint might have done, but Charteris bit into the flesh of the man’s leg, hard, savagely hard, bare skin between pant leg and sock, and Charteris tasted blood. It was a good wound.

Which elicited another howl that signaled to the author a turning point in this close-quarter battle in utter darkness, and he got to his feet and was bringing his fist back when powerful hands gripped his throat and squeezed, squeezed hard and harder, and his fist turned into limp fingers and his head began to spin.

But he clearly heard the harsh whisper of a male voice, German-accented English, saying, “Stop this, what you’re doing! Stop it!”

Then he felt himself propelled backward, and his head was slammed into the metal of the folded-up-into-the-wall suitcase stand.

And Leslie Charteris, amateur detective, author of the sophisticated Saint tales, retired for the evening.

DAY FOUR:

THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1937