Tempting Fate (96 page)

“There has been a complaint, from Fräulein Nillel Schlacke—” Inspector Spreu said patiently, only to be interrupted by Ragoczy once more.

“Fräulein Nillel Schlacke is a fine one to make accusations. A fine one.” He reached for the bottle, then stopped, casting a broad, guilty glance at Inspector Spreu.

“Very wise, Mein Graf,” the Inspector said with a sigh. “I know that it is unfortunate to be detained in this way, but you must understand my position. There was a request for my cooperation from those who are very highly placed.” He cleared his throat, his mouth curved with distaste. He had not liked his orders, and although he was a loyal member of the NSDAP, he was always reluctant to grant extra privilege to those in exalted positions. He was painfully aware that had Ragoczy also been a member of the NSDAP, no one would have paid any attention to what the woman said, nor would he have been forbidden to cross the border. He looked down at his hands. “Tomorrow, I have been told that I should see that you are on a train to Berlin. I am required to act in this matter, or I would not be willing to do so.”

Ragoczy had been peering at him owlishly, measuring the distress in the man’s stance. He waggled a finger at him. “You’re not making sense, Inspector. You’re saying you have to stop me. Why must you do that? Who gave you the orders?”

The Inspector shrank back at the last question, and did not at first try to answer. But then he capitulated, telling himself that it was most unlikely that Ragoczy would remember in the morning, and so embarrass both himself and the Inspector. “It is not the police as much as the NSDAP. Someone in the high command of the party wants to see you. It isn’t the woman at all, but some other matter. The woman is an excuse. From what I was told on the telephone, she was working for the NSDAP in any case, being paid to keep an eye on you, so that if they had to come up with some reason to hold you, she could provide one.” He felt better now that he had said it. He had missed the solace of confession since leaving the Church, and at moments like this one, he often felt an overwhelming urge to unburden himself. At least on this occasion he had not been indiscreet, and if Ragoczy should remember a few words, no one would believe that a man as drunk as he could make any serious countercharges.

“That’s … that’s pretty corrupt,” Ragoczy said, letting the words roll out of him in long, juicy syllables. He grinned lopsidedly at the Inspector.

“Yes, it is,” Inspector Spreu said in a dejected tone.

“Pity.” Ragoczy made a lugubrious nod.

“A great pity,” the Inspector agreed gravely.

“Now, if you could tell them what to do … You’re not the sort of man to let them do this thing.… See it in your eyes.… They’re puffed up … met a few in Berlin, like grouse … strutting around.” He laughed with sloppy amusement and paddled the air with one arm. “Don’t like Berlin … did I tell you that?”

“I believe you did,” said the Inspector as he came nearer the fire. There was the first onslaught of a blustery wind slapping at the windows, and a new assortment of drafts scampered across the floor. “I don’t relish sending you back there.” He had other reasons to feel that way, but was no longer eager to discuss them.

“Well, don’t do it, then,” Ragoczy said with an overbearing attempt at being reasonable. “Tell them how to use their orders and forget you ever saw me.” He leaned back in the chair and propped one heel on the toe of his other shoe, smiling beatifically at this accomplishment.

“I haven’t any choice. Even if you did not stop here, there are notices out for you from Meppen to Lindau. Herr Göring does not want you to leave the country.” He tried to imagine what it was that had captured Göring’s interest in this foreigner. There had been rumors of great industrial discoveries, but unless it was a better way to distill schnapps he could not imagine what the man would have of value.

“Göring again,” Ragoczy said with a gargling chortle. “Always Göring. Strange.” He picked up the bottle and cradled it against his chest. “I wonder what he wants?”

“You will find out when you arrive in Berlin, no doubt.” Inspector Spreu moved away from the wall, his hands joined before him so that he looked for one instant like the choirboy he had been as a youth.

“Tomorrow?” Ragoczy asked. “What time must I leave?” He slurred the question and let his accent grow stronger, so that he was almost unintelligible.

“As soon as you are able.” There was a skeptical quality to Spreu’s answer, as if he assumed that Ragoczy would have a massive hangover: it was precisely what Ragoczy wished him to think.

“Don’t wake me too early, Inspector.… Don’t want to … you know what morning heads are like.” His toe-and-heel balancing came to an abrupt halt, and he sprawled, legs stiff in front of him.

“I sympathize,” the Inspector said as he went toward the door. “I am going to leave a man posted in the lobby. If you should try to leave…”

Ragoczy laughed far more riotously than the comment merited. “Not tonight, Inspector. Tomorrow. Where’s that woman?… Oh, well … wouldn’t do much for her tonight, not now.” He brought one hand to his brow in an uncertain salute. “After breakfast, you come to see me. We’ll go over all this again then. I’ll make more sense of it.” He giggled and waved at Inspector Spreu.

“Herr Ragoczy, I feel I should warn you that you may be in a great deal of trouble.” The Inspector frowned as he said this, doubt rising in him again. Could this man have the diverse qualities NSDAP headquarters in Berlin attributed to him? It was not likely. Spreu began to think that there were other, more subtle reasons that Hermann Göring was interested in Ragoczy. The man came from a distinguished family if his name was any indication, and he felt free to disgrace that name with impunity. There were a great many well-placed men in Hungary who might be swayed if one of their own nobility were to espouse the philosophy of the NSDAP. That made a degree of sense to Spreu, though he deplored the idea. The NSDAP should not have to wring support out of defunct princes in order to make their cause acceptable. He shook his head and opened the door. “I wouldn’t drink any more tonight, Herr Graf,” he suggested.

“You aren’t me, Spreu, and there’s still schnapps in the bottle.” He held it up in an unsteady hand. “Another hour, and it will all be gone.”

“As you wish,” Spreu said, a tinge of resignation in his words. What did it matter to him if the man pickled his brain in alcohol, when he would be little more than a pet on display in Berlin? Yet his reflections cheapened the NSDAP in his mind, and something of the pride he took in his swastika pin was diminished. “Good night, Mein Herr.”

“G’night,” Ragoczy called after him with farcial cheer, capping his performance with a badly-rendered version of the chorus of one of the lewd songs currently popular in Berlin’s underground nightclubs. He repeated it three times until he was certain that Inspector Wolfram Spreu had left the hotel. Then he left his room and swaggered to the top of the stairs, bellowing down for another bottle of schnapps and demanding boisterously to know where his manservant and lady-friend were, and insisting that they join him for a drink.

The bellman who brought up the schnapps told him that undoubtedly his female companion and his manservant had retired for the night, it being after nine. Although he was inured to the boorishness of foreigners, he ventured to suggest that it might be wise for the Graf to retire as well. Ragoczy cursed him roundly as he fumbled for change, and tipped him in gold instead of silver. The bellman concealed a sour smile and hurried from the room to tell the staff that the Hungarian Graf was drunk as a Cossack and would be impossible in the morning. He boasted a little of his good fortune, but when he saw the sly, envying looks of the others on the staff, he became quiet once more.

Almost an hour later, Ragoczy left the hotel, though no one was aware of his departure. He climbed down the side of the building, his bags strapped to his back, his compact, deepchested figure now in unrelieved black. Inspector Spreu would not have recognized him, for all the slovenliness that he had seen was gone. Nothing remained of the miserable, drunken foreigner who had roused Spreu’s pity and contempt: in his place was a formidable man of commanding presence and utter competence. His dark eyes were keen, though a little red-rimmed from the heavy rubbing he had given them, and something of the smell of schnapps still clung to his clothes. He moved in swift, purposeful silence toward the garage that had been a stable not so many years before.

There were a number of twenty-liter drums of gasoline stored on one side of the garage, and Ragoczy appropriated two of them for his journey, putting them into the backseat of the powerful automobile and bracing them with his suitcases. With luck that would give him enough gasoline to cover the distances he had in mind. There were cities where he could purchase fuel, he knew that, but he had begun to fear that such places would be under surveillance. Since detention orders were out on him from the North Sea to the Swiss border, he thought it likely that other roads would be watched: with the rain making a quagmire of all but the main roads, he did not dare to find his way on the narrow country lanes, and he was reluctant to risk being spotted on the more heavily-traveled highways. For the moment, he felt it was safest to drive at night, not only because he had much less chance of being recognized or stopped, but because with so little of his native earth he was not willing to expose himself to daylight any more than necessary.

He got into the driver’s seat of his Delage and pulled on his gloves. The front windscreen was raised, but he lowered the one fronting the rear passenger seats. He gave a last-minute inspection to the roof and was satisfied that it would not leak too badly. When the weather cleared, he would take it down.

Ragoczy waited until the clock in the Koblenzer Tor began to chime the hour of eleven; then he depressed the starter and the powerful machine rumbled into life, coughing once or twice with the chill. Slowly Ragoczy backed out of the garage, always looking to see if anyone had noticed his activities. The hotel was quiet, most of the windows dark, and no one stirred as the Delage turned onto the brick-paved streets and accelerated away from the hotel, slipping away toward the south side of the city. There he struck out, not toward the west and the guarded borders, but south-southeast, toward Mainz and Heidelberg and München. The rain that rode on the wind suited his steadily-darkening mood: how fitting, he thought bitterly as he steered around a muddy pothole, that his one escape route should lie through the region he wished most to avoid.

Text of a letter from Enzo DiGottardi to Paul von Hindenburg

Schloss Saint-Germain

Schliersee, Bayern

April 2, 1928

Presidential Resident

Berlin

My dear President von Hindenburg:

I am writing to you because there is no higher authority in this country, and your word ought to bear some weight with those who are imposing upon my employer and myself. I am employed by Graf Franchot Ragoczy to be caretaker of his estate, Schloss Saint-Germain, here in Bayern. It is a remote place, of fair acreage, with a Schloss of good size, about four hundred years old. My employer is not in residence, and because of a tragedy in his family, does not expect to be here for some time to come. He has placed the entire estate under my responsibility, which I have done my best to discharge well. I am not one to shirk obligations, and I have brought a few family members here to work with me so that the estate and grounds will not suffer during Graf Ragoczy’s absence. I have been given a reasonable allowance to draw upon for the upkeep of Schloss Saint-Germain and I have not had to use any of the discretionary funds that have been set aside for me.

I tell you this not for my own glory, but so that you will understand that I am not writing to you because of my own incompetence or lack of interest in my employer’s affairs. For the time I was Graf Ragoczy’s cook, he was more than fair with me, giving me excellent pay, even when money was so worthless that enough to paper a wall would not have bought a single egg. During those bleak days, Graf Ragoczy paid me in gold coins and in useful necessities, such as food, fuel, blankets, and the like. He is a man who does well by those who work for him, and expects them to be worthy of his trust.

It has happened recently that there have been men, many of them active in politics and similar endeavors, who have been interested in Schloss Saint-Germain. There have been offers from a few of them to purchase this estate, but I am not at liberty to enter into negotiations with any of them, and would not do so, even if I had my employer’s permission. I believe that one given the care of such an extensive holding must be prepared to do a great deal for it, and to invest the best part of himself in the place, which precludes any such bargaining, no matter how opportune such requests and offers may seem. I have agreed in all instances to inform Graf Ragoczy of the interest expressed, and have written to his Paris address with instructions that the information was to be delivered to him as soon as convenient. Graf Ragoczy has been doing a goodly amount of traveling recently, and therefore his responses to these offers have been erratic. In all instances, however, he has rejected the proposals out of hand and said that should he change his mind, he will inform me of it. I have made sure the men who have submitted offers have learned of Ragoczy’s refusal and his continuing disinclination to sell his estate.

I have thought that this settled the question, but apparently I have been wrong. Two days ago I was visited by a number of armed men in SA uniforms who told me that I had been instructed by the München court to leave the premises at once and to relinquish the keys and all access to the estate to their officers at once. I said that it was impossible, as I had not been empowered by Graf Ragoczy to do so. I was then informed that the court had decided to honor a claim to the estate that had been put before the bench on behalf of the Thule Bruderschaft. The judge hearing the case is a member of that organization, and willingly granted the request of his brother member.