The Seventh Secret (30 page)
"Romantic, a most romantic story," said Schmidt, although she knew that he had heard it before.
Drinking the tea, Evelyn looked over the rim of her cup, her eyes fixed on Chief Schmidt. "Wolfgang, do you remember when you and I met?"
"Wasn't it in 1940?"
"In 1941, at the Berghof, when the
Feldherr
and I were sharing the same bed." She laughed. "One morning his valet burst in on us about some emergency, and found us in each other's arms, in bed, together. It was the only time anyone was ever sure we were having an affair. "
"Anyway," Schmidt announced, to recover from his blunder, "you did get married."
"The happiest moment of my life," Evelyn admitted. "But four years before that you and I had met. I remember the day you came on the job in the Berghof, such a stiff young SS trooper assigned to play nursemaid to me."
"To guard you, Ellie, when you strolled alone in the woods. The
Feldherr
would not permit you to go anywhere unguarded."
"It was my good fortune to find such a loyal and good friend as you, Wolfgang. I can't imagine what I would do today without someone like you."
"It was my lifetime vow to protect you, Effie." Evelyn's face clouded. "And now this Ashcroft woman from England is poking into our past."
Schmidt could not deny it, but doggedly he pledged, "I will protect you from her as I promised." Schmidt considered what he would say next. "It will not be so easy now as I thought it would be before. Now, as I told you, she is not alone for even one minute. This Foster is beside her all the time. There are others in her camp, too, I have discovered. A Russian from Leningrad, Nicholas Kirvov, and also an Israeli woman, Tovah Levine, a German Jew who claims to be a journalist. Any and all of them would defend her, if necessary. I must be honest, they enlarge the threat against all that we cherish and hold holy. They have loosely formed a zealous team of amateur investigators. We know, of course, the Ashcroft woman's aim. Rex Foster is a Los Angeles architect trying to reconstruct the architecture of the Third Reich for a picture book. Nicholas Kirvov has acquired, somehow, an early painting executed by the
Feldherr
and is trying to verify its authenticity. Tovah Levine has occupied herself trying to ferret out a 'Hitler double.' By themselves, each of the three appears to be harmless. But when they throw themselves behind the Ashcroft woman's more dangerous quest, they become somewhat more formidable."
"About our main legacy from the
Feldherr
, they know nothing of it?"
"I assure you, Effie, they haven't the slightest idea. It remains our secret."
Fleetingly, Evelyn's countenance reflected some inner regret. "Sometimes I wish it wasn't. All secret, I mean."
"Effie, whatever are you talking about?"
"My critics, stupid historians, who've always pigeonholed me as flighty and dumb." It still rankled, some of the things that had been written about her. "Especially that Nuremberg judge who wrote the book about us in 1950. When writing about me, he wrote that I was 'utterly devoid of political and economic interests' and devoted all my time 'to dress, picnic, and frolic.'
"
Arschloch
!" Schmidt snorted. The expletive meant "asshole."
"Forgive my coarseness," Schmidt said quickly. "It is the only expression that comes to mind. If that idiot, and the others, only knew how the Feldherr so often confided his political thoughts to you, and wanted your opinions. How he discussed the Austrian
Anschluss
with you before undertaking it, and how in 1938 he had you accompany him to the political conference with Mussolini in Italy."
"And how his last act was to entrust me with what we are doing now."
"It will remain a safe secret from the Ashcroft team," Schmidt promised her once more. "As long as I continue to know what they are up to, I am not worried and you need not be worried."
"How do you know what they are up to?" Evelyn suddenly asked. "In fact, how do you know so much about them already?"
Schmidt offered a self-satisfied smile. "After the attempt on the Ashcroft woman, Foster came to me as chief of police to report the incident. I guaranteed him full protection for Emily Ashcroft. I told him I'd arrange for the hotel to place guards in the Kempinski keeping an eye on all entrances to the second floor."
"Have you done so?"
"Promptly. As chief, it was the only thing to do."
"Of course."
"I also arranged one more thing," added Schmidt. "On the pretext of having one of our department technicians check the security inside Miss Ashcroft's suiteâwindows, and so forthâI had phone taps inserted in each of the Ashcroft woman's telephones."
"You have really done this, Wolfgang?" Evelyn said admiringly.
"The very first moment the Ashcroft woman and Foster went out. The listening devices are safely and unobtrusively in place. They will never be detected. They have already begun to show results." Schmidt dipped a hand into his right jacket pocket and pulled out a yellow box and handed it over to Evelyn. "The first day and evening of Emily Ashcroft's telephone calls, going out, coming in, on tape. You can play it when you return home. You won't hear too much that is exciting, not yet at least. She is a bit guarded in whatever she says. But sooner or later something will come through." Schmidt glanced at his watch. "As a matter of fact, right now the Ashcroft woman and Foster have taken the Russian Kirvov on a visit to what used to be Hermann Göring's old Air Ministry."
Evelyn frowned. "Why? I can't imagine why?"
"Neither can Iâyet," said Schmidt confidently. "But believe me, and I guarantee this, soon we'll know. We'll know everything. If any danger to us arises, I'll be prepared to prevent it. Effie, I tell you again. You need have no fear."
Evelyn sat back and exhaled her relief. "Wolfgang, I have no fear. Not as long as I have you." She placed the reel of tape in her expensive alligator purse. "Iâmy husband and Iâwe both thank you for what you are doing to preserve Germany's future."
I
rwin Plamp, driving his Mercedes sedan through Checkpoint Charlie, had taken them into East Berlin and guided them knowingly to their destination.
He parked near Leipziger Strasse, a block away from the gray rectangular-stone government building, and in pairs his passengers left the sedan and started down the street. Although it was early afternoon, the thoroughfare had only light vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
In the brightness of the warm day, the building they had all sought was the only landmark that seemed gloomy and forbidding.
Nicholas Kirvov, holding the Hitler oil painting in his hand, was the first to cross Leipziger Strasse and study the structure close up. His gaze rose from the inset facade of the ground floor to the four stories rising above it.
Foster came alongside him, followed by Emily and Tovah.
"The onetime
Reichsluftfahrtministerium
," said Foster. "The Göring Air Ministry of 1945, and the only Third Reich structure to survive the massive Allied air raids. "
"Today, it is the
Haus der Ministerien
," said Emily. "East Berlin's House of Ministries."
Kirvov remained silent as his gaze dropped from the building itself to the building represented in Hitler's oil painting. For at least a minute he compared the two, and finally he turned to the others. "They are both exactly the same," he announced. "The building we see before us and the building Hitler depicted in his painting."
"So now you have seen for yourself," said Foster, "and when you put the oil on exhibit in the Hermitage, you can accurately explain it to all the museum-goers."
"Of course," Emily reminded Kirvov, "thirty-five percent of the original ministry was damaged in the air raids, so over a third of it has been repaired and restored." She fished into her purse. "Perhaps you'd like to see a better shot of the entrance. I have a photograph that was taken in 1935, which I just received from Oxford, and this close-up shows how the ministry looked before it was damaged and restored."
She found the photograph of the building and gave it to Kirvov.
The Russian was silent again as he stared at the 1935 photograph of the present entrance to the building, then at the actual building, and finally at his Hitler oil.
Watching Kirvov, Emily absently addressed Tovah beside her. "I'm just wondering about that strange expression on Nicholas Kirvov's face."
The expression on the Russian's face was very strange indeed.
He suddenly looked up at the others, bursting out, "How odd! How very odd!"
Kirvov was beckoning all of them to come closer, and they crowded around him.
"Look over there," said Kirvov, pointing at the front of the building façade. "See the ceramic tile mural set into the ministry front at the entrance, almost lost in the shadows behind the twelve pillars? Now look here." He held his Hitler painting aloft and pointed to the same spot on the painting. "Here you see the ceramic mural once again barely visible in the shadows, but visible enough. All right, now . . ." He lowered the painting, propping it against his leg, and held up the early photograph taken of the original ministry in 1935. "Now look closely at the photograph of the ministry as it used to be before it was bombed and restored. What don't you see? You don't see any ceramic mural in the photograph. There was no ceramic mural whatsoever when the ministry was first built. The ceramic is on the building only after it was repaired. And it is also in the painting Hitler made of it!"
"Let me see the photo," said Foster, taking it from Kirvov and studying it. "You're right. It's something I missed completely."
"This means that Hitler did not paint the original building!" Emily exclaimed. "He painted it after it was repaired!"
"But when was it repaired?" Kirvov asked, puzzled.
Emily could not contain her excitement. "I know exactly how to find out. Let's get to a telephone."
She hastily led the way back to the Mercedes.
"Herr Plamp," she said to the waiting driver, "I need to get to a public telephone at once. Are there any near here?"
The driver considered the request. "There are a few phones in the Café am Palast."
"Take me there," ordered Emily.
After they were all in the car, Plamp put the Mercedes in gear and maneuvered through the streets of East Berlin until they had reached the broad thoroughfare of Unter den Linden. Presently he drew up behind the Palast Hotel. "This is it. The Café am Palast is around the corner. You'll see it. There are public phones in the entry foyer."
The four of them left the car, turned the corner, and entered the Café.
Emily gestured at the dining room. "Take a table. I'll be with you in a minute. I'm going to call Professor Blaubach."
Out of the corner of an eye, Emily watched the others being shown to a vacant table, while she rummaged through her purse for the tiny notebook she had prepared with local telephone numbers. She found it, flipped to B, and there was Professor Otto Blaubach's phone number.
She silently prayed that he was in his office.
In less than a minute she had Blaubach on the phone.
"I don't have any news for you on permission to excavate," he said immediately. "But I expect some word by late this afternoon."
"Good, good. I'll be at the Kempinski waiting for your call." She paused. "Professor, that is not why I am phoning you. It is about another matter. I'll explain it all when I see you the next time. What I need right now is some information about one of your government buildings."
"Of what building do you speak?"
"The
Haus der Ministerien
near the Wall."
"You mean the ministry building, the one that used to be headquarters for Göring's Luftwaffe?"
"That's the one," said Emily.
"What do you wish to know about it?" inquired Blaubach.
"I understand a third of it was damaged in an Allied air raid before 1945. When the East German government took it over, they repaired it."
"Yes, I believe that was done."
"Is it possible to find out when it was repaired?"
"Umm, it is possible," said Blaubach. "I can find out in a few minutes. Where can I reach your
"Let me call you back," said Emily.
