The Bormann Testament (The Testament of Caspar Schultz)

CHAPTER 14

It was bitterly cold at the Hook of Holland as the ship nosed her way out of the harbor, and fog was rolling in steadily from the North Sea, pushed by a slight wind.

Chavasse leaned over the rail and smoked a cigarette and watched the lights disappear into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance, a bugle sounded faintly on the wind from one of the Dutch Army camps, touching something deep inside him and filling him with a curious sadness. For a brief moment, he remembered Anna’s words in the hunting lodge at Berndorf: Lights out, you’re through, it’s all over, and as Holland disappeared into the night behind them, he flicked his cigarette down into the fog and went below.

He had a cabin to himself, and stripped to the waist and washed and shaved. Afterward, he dressed slowly, putting on a fresh shirt, and went up to the bar.

He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but after the first double whiskey he felt a little better. He lit a cigarette and looked about him. Sir George Harvey was sitting in a corner with two other men, and he waved across the room. Chavasse nodded slightly and turned back to his drink.

He rested an elbow on the bar and stared blindly into space, his mind going back over everything that had taken place during the last few days, preparing for the report he would have to give the Chief.

But it was very difficult. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate, it was unimportant things that persisted in pushing the other things, the things the Chief would want to know, into the background.

It was a touch of brain fatigue, that was all, and he sighed and gave up the struggle. He closed his eyes, and her face seemed to float in the darkness before him. There was a sweet, grave smile on her lips, and he was suddenly reminded that this was how she had looked in the hunting lodge at Berndorf when they had waited for Sir George’s car.

He remembered what she had said. One day, you’ll look back on it all and it will simply be something that happened a long time ago. And then she’d quoted from one of Marlowe’s plays. But that was long ago and in another country.

For a moment, he sat there, eyes closed, a slight frown on his face, and then he remembered the quotation in full and shivered violently, coldness seeping through him. But that was long ago and in another country, and besides – the wench is dead.

Had she perhaps had, for a brief moment only, a sudden foreknowledge of what was to happen? But his brain refused to function efficiently, and he reached for his glass and emptied it.

As he started to rise, Sir George Harvey sat on the stool beside him. “Got time for a nightcap?” he said.

Chavasse nodded and sat down again. “Just one if you don’t mind. I’m desperately tired. Haven’t slept since the day before yesterday.”

Sir George nodded sympathetically. “I’m sorry we couldn’t meet on the train. Unfortunately, several of the delegates decided at the last minute to spend a day or two in London before breaking up. Naturally, I was compelled to travel with them.”

“That’s all right,” Chavasse said as the barman placed two large whiskies before them.

Sir George offered him a cigarette and shook his head. “I felt particularly bad about it under the circumstances. I wanted time to discuss things with you.”

“There isn’t anything to discuss,” Chavasse told him.

“But there is,” Sir George said. “I get the definite impression that you’re feeling pretty grim about everything. Your original mission a failure, Miss Hartmann’s unfortunate death. But there is another side to things, you know. After all, you did manage to save Hauptmann. Who knows what effect that may have on the future of Germany?”

Chavasse nodded slowly. “Yes, I suppose one could look at it that way.” There was a dull, throbbing pain behind his eyes and he felt curiously light-headed. He got to his feet and said, “I hope you’ll excuse me now. I’m desperately tired.”

Sir George hastily finished his drink, his face full of concern. “Stupid of me to keep you here at all, Chavasse. You look terrible.”

They walked out of the lounge and paused at the top of the companionway. “I’ll leave you here,” Sir George said. “I feel like a turn around the deck. I can never sleep during this particular crossing.” He held out his hand. “If I don’t see you again, good luck. If you should ever feel like returning to a more normal life, come and see me. I’ve a great deal of influence in business circles.”

Chavasse went along the corridor to his cabin, thinking about Sir George’s offer. He wondered what the Chief would say if he walked into his office and handed over his resignation along with the report on the Bormann affair. It was tempting – very tempting.

He opened the door of the cabin and went inside, yawning as the tiredness seemed to melt into his very bones, turning them to jelly. He stood in front of the mirror and started to take off his tie, and images and thoughts circled endlessly in his brain, disjointed and meaningless, and then something erupted out of his subconscious to scream one name at him through the silence.

He gripped the edge of the washbasin with both hands and stared into the mirror, the shock of it like a bucket of ice water thrown in the face. And then he no longer felt tired and he pulled on his raincoat quickly and left the cabin.

The ship was moving through a silent world of thick fog when he came out onto the top deck, and a light rain was falling. He lit a cigarette and moved forward, his eyes probing every corner.

He found Sir George leaning over the stern rail, a cigar burning between his teeth, one hand thrust deep into the pocket of a heavy overcoat. A seaman in knitted cap and reefer jacket was coiling a rope nearby, and he moved away into the fog as Chavasse approached.

Sir George turned from the rail. “Oh, it’s you, Chavasse. Changed your mind about going to bed, eh?”

Chavasse nodded. “There are one or two loose ends to the Bormann affair. I thought you might be able to help me tie them up.”

“Certainly, my boy,” Sir George said. “Only too pleased to be of assistance.”

“I hoped you’d feel that way.” Chavasse smiled. “You can start by telling me how you came to be involved with Nagel, Steiner, and the rest of that pleasant bunch.”

Sir George’s face looked suddenly old and careworn in the sickly light of the deck lamp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then I’ll make it plainer for you,” Chavasse told him. “You’ve been sticking a knife into my back from the very beginning of this affair. I’d like to know why.”

Sir George moved forward suddenly and tried to brush past him.

Chavasse pushed him violently and struck him a heavy blow in the face.

Sir George staggered backward and slipped to one knee. For a moment he stayed there, blood on his mouth. As he rose to his feet, his right hand came out of his overcoat pocket, holding an old Webley.38 with a specially shortened barrel.

“That won’t do you any good,” Chavasse said.

Sir George carefully wiped the blood from his mouth with a handkerchief. When he spoke, his voice was cold and impersonal. “How did you find out?”

“It was something you said in the bar earlier,” Chavasse replied. “You told me not to feel too badly about things because at least I’d saved Hauptmann’s life.”

For a moment, Sir George frowned, and then a light suddenly dawned. “Of course – I wasn’t supposed to know about the plan to assassinate Hauptmann, was I?”

“It was careless of you,” Chavasse said.

Sir George sighed. “We all make mistakes.”

“There were other things,” Chavasse said. “They didn’t make sense before, but they do now. The fact that the opposition knew Muller was to meet me on the train at Osnabruck. That was something I was never really happy about. And then there was something Nagel said at Berndorf when he first met Anna. His exact words were, ‘So this is the Jewish girl?’”

“What’s so remarkable about that?” Sir George asked.

Chavasse shrugged. “At the best of times, the word race is only an abstraction. The only way Nagel knew she was Jewish was because he’d been told, and only one person other than myself knew that an Israeli underground organization was also after Bormann and the manuscript. That was you, because I’d told you.”

“I seem to have been even more careless than I imagined.” Sir George sighed again. “It’s a great pity, Chavasse, because I’d really taken a liking to you, and now I’m going to have to kill you.”

Chavasse took out a cigarette and lit it calmly. “Not without an explanation,” he said. “Surely, I’m entitled to that?”

“A quick one.” Sir George’s eyes glinted in the dark. “There was a period in my life when I was very dissatisfied with the way my country was being governed. At that time, I greatly admired what was going on in Germany. In fact, I was censured by the press for my too-warm support of Herr Hitler.”

“And just how warm was that support?” Chavasse asked.

“I agreed to become head of the provisional government when the Germans successfully invaded England,” Sir George told him calmly.

And then the whole thing began to make sense. “Bormann mentioned you in his manuscript, didn’t he?” Chavasse said.

“I should imagine he devoted at least a chapter to me. He was the only member of the Nazi hierarchy with whom I was in close contact during the years before the war. The whole arrangement was made through him and was so secret that only Bormann, Hitler, and a go-between from the political branch were in on it.”

“And who was the go-between?”

Sir George allowed himself a slight smile. “Kurt Nagel.”

“Now it is beginning to make sense,” Chavasse said. “Presumably, he’s been blackmailing you ever since.”

Sir George shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that. We’ve always understood each other very well. Let me put it this way. I saw that he got his start in industry during the bad days after the war when things were very difficult. In fact, it proved quite profitable for me in the end. We’ve always been on the best of terms.”

“Did you know about his activities with the Nazi underground?”

“Not until recently. When the directors of the publishing firm approached me regarding Muller’s offer, I was trapped. I couldn’t stop their story from getting to the proper authorities, so I decided that the best thing to do was to take it to them myself.”

“That was clever of you,” Chavasse said, “and also dangerous.”

Sir George shook his head. “I’ve been lucky, Chavasse. Incredibly lucky from the beginning. I got in touch with Nagel and told him what was happening. It turned out that he already had a line on Muller from the German end and he arranged the business on the train. It seemed clever at the time. A good way of grabbing Muller and getting rid of you.”

“But you hadn’t reckoned on Mark Hardt.”

Sir George sighed heavily. “One can’t think of everything. I was as careful as I could possibly be. I always acted through Nagel so that none of the others knew that I was involved. And then last night when you told me the girl had the manuscript, I had to act fast, and that unfortunately meant meeting Steiner and taking him to her apartment.”

Chavasse said slowly, “Then it was you and Steiner who took her from the apartment?”

Sir George nodded. “I’m afraid so. Of course you do realize the predicament I was in. I had to see that manuscript destroyed. I’m sorry about the girl – she just happened to be in the way. It was Steiner who shot her – not me.”

“But you’d have killed her anyway,” Chavasse said, “because she knew your secret.”

Sir George nodded gravely. “Yes, I’m very much afraid I would. The only reason I didn’t kill Steiner was because he told me about the Hauptmann business. That made me see some of the remarks you made earlier in the evening, and the visit of that German intelligence chap, in a new light. I decided Steiner was very probably a dead man walking anyway.”

“And you got two for the price of one,” Chavasse said. “Nagel as well. Now there’s only one living person who knows you intended to be one of the dirtiest traitors in English history.”

Sir George nodded and moved round in a half circle, the revolver never wavering for an instant. “Stand with your back against the rail, please,” he said sharply.

Chavasse took his time about moving into the required position, every muscle tensed and ready for action. If he was going to die anyway, he intended to make a move of some sort.

“That’s fine,” Sir George said. “Yes, you’re quite right. You’re the only person who can ruin me. Believe me, I’m sorry about this. I rather liked you.”

He moved back a pace, raising his arm, and aimed so quickly that he caught Chavasse off guard. As his finger tightened on the trigger, the seaman whom Chavasse had noticed a little earlier moved out of the fog silently. His arm swung and the edge of his right hand thudded across the back of Sir George’s neck.

The revolver dropped from the nerveless fingers and as he started to crumple to the deck, the seaman caught the inanimate body across his shoulders. He walked two quick paces to the rail and heaved Sir George Harvey down into the fog.

The whole thing had happened with such incredible speed that Chavasse had been unable to do anything. As the seaman kicked the revolver over the side, Chavasse grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him round – and found himself looking into the pale, impassive face of Mark Hardt.

For a moment there was silence, and then Hardt said calmly, “I think you’d better go down to your cabin, Paul. It wouldn’t do to be seen on deck now. You might be questioned later on.”

“How did you know?” Chavasse said.

Hardt shrugged. “After you’d gone last night, I was clearing up some of Anna’s things. Apparently, she’d been reading Bormann’s manuscript and made notes in Hebrew as she was going along. It seems there was a chapter on Harvey.”

Chavasse turned and looked over the rail, down into the swirling fog. He shivered. “It’s a hell of a way to go, but I can’t say I’m sorry for him. He was directly responsible for Anna’s death.”

Hardt nodded. “This way is better all round. Famous British politician has tragic accident and the country avoids a scandal of world dimensions.”

Chavasse looked at him closely for a moment and then shook his head. “You’re a strange one, Mark. I don’t think I’ve ever really understood you.”

Hardt smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You loved her, didn’t you, Paul?”

Chavasse nodded slowly and sighed. “Not that it did her a great deal of good.”

“I loved her too,” Hardt said. “We’ll always have that bond between us.”

They walked along the deck and paused at the entrance to the lounge. Hardt held out his hand and said gravely, “I don’t think we’ll be meeting again, Paul.”

Chavasse took the hand and held it for a moment. He tried to think of something to say, but Hardt turned and melted into the fog before anything suitable came to mind.

The ship seemed to poise high on a wave, and Chavasse held his breath and for some reason thought of Anna. And then the vessel dipped smoothly down into the next hollow again and he pulled open the door and went inside.