The Poison Tide (25 page)

He gave a sharp nod and stepped aside. ‘I thought you were the police.’

‘Why?’

‘They’ve been here too.’

He led Wolff round behind the stairs into his own small first-floor apartment. His front room smelt of cabbage. There was a suggestion of a woman’s touch once: a sewing machine, dirty lace curtains, the china figure of a shepherd girl on the mantelpiece.

‘Well?’

‘He’s Paul Koenig,’ he said, holding out a wrinkled yellow palm. ‘I’ll give him the money. You sure you’re not the police?’

‘Koenig. And he lives here?’

The old man shook a crooked finger at him cantankerously, then held out his hand again. Wolff gave him the five dollars.

‘You can trust me,’ the caretaker remarked lamely; ‘we’re all Germans. Last of the buildings round here. The rest are full of Jews and Italians.’ He stuffed the money into his trouser pocket. ‘Yes, he lives here. Third floor at the back. Has done for years. Works for Hamburg America, or used to. Something to do with their security.’ He gave Wolff a hard, unfriendly stare. ‘You look like a cop.’

‘What did they want to know?’

But only when Wolff counted out another five was he prepared to say more. Not the ordinary police, he said. They were watching Koenig; searched his room. ‘They didn’t say why. Is he in trouble?’

‘How would I know?’ Wolff replied.

You’re wrong, Gaunt, he thought, as he walked back to his apartment. New York’s finest did have some inkling of what was going on under their noses.

He tried to warn Gaunt the following morning but the attaché was too excited to listen.

‘Never mind the police, Wolff,’ he said, pacing their room at the Prince George. ‘Never mind that.’

‘But we’re no better, are we . . .’ Wolff persisted.

‘Forget the police.’

‘Will the police recognise us as friends?’

‘For God’s sake, man,’ Gaunt’s temper flared; it was on the lightest of triggers. ‘They haven’t heard from the
Fiscus
for two days. Left here on the twelfth. Lost. Sunk. Gone. Cargo and crew. Seven thousand tons with shells. Blinker’s hopping.’ He stopped pacing abruptly. ‘That’s the fourth we know of for sure. Got to do something,’ he declared. ‘We’re not waiting for your Bureau chaps to arrive, do you hear?’

T
HEIR VISITOR PARKED
his car with two wheels on the sidewalk. Emmeline watched as he dropped his cigarette end in the front yard, grinding it into the grass that Anton had cut and weeded carefully the day before. Suit trousers stuffed carelessly into seaman’s boots, and why didn’t he run a comb through that shock of blond hair? There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest he was genial, as large men often are, but something unkind in his face. Not the sort she wanted neighbours to see swaggering to their door.

Stepping away from the curtain, she walked into the kitchen. ‘Your guest is here.’ There was no reply. ‘Anton?’ He’d closed the cellar door. ‘Anton?’ she shouted, and took a step down the stair. She didn’t like to go further. ‘Anton.’ Her voice sounded a little plaintive; and there was that evil smell again. ‘My beef broth,’ Anton liked to joke. ‘Your visitor is here!’

This time he opened the door, mask around his neck, white coat and rubber gloves. ‘Just finishing,’ he replied with a distant smile. ‘Entertain him, would you? Just for a few minutes.’

‘Please hurry,’ she pleaded.

Their guest was smirking on the doorstep. ‘I saw you so I didn’t bother to ring,’ he said in German. ‘Is he here?’

‘I assume you mean my brother, Dr Dilger. Yes, he is here,’ she said stiffly. ‘Please come in.’ The sooner he was inside the better. ‘My name is Miss Emmeline Dilger – Dr Dilger’s sister.’

‘I know.’ He offered her his calloused hand. ‘This is Tony’s place. Where is he? In the laboratory?’

‘Would you like some tea? He’ll be with you in a minute, Mr . . .?’

‘Captain. Captain Hinsch. At your service.’

She led him into the drawing room and left him examining their family photographs. When she came back with the tea, he was perched on the edge of a low chair, his broad knees almost at his shoulders. He’d removed a picture from the wall above the secretaire and was scrutinising it closely.

‘Big family,’ he observed. ‘You here?’

‘Yes,’ she said, placing the tray on the table beneath the window.

‘Show me.’

She finished pouring the tea.

‘Is that you?’ he asked, poking the glass with his forefinger.

Setting a cup on a lace doily beside him, she turned and bent over the picture. ‘No, that’s me.’ He smelt fusty, like an old couch. ‘That’s Anton; and my father, Mr Hubert Dilger; and there in the middle row, my mother’s father, Dr Tiedemann from Heidelberg.’

He grunted. ‘Family of doctors.’

‘No. My father was a soldier. May I,’ she tugged at the picture, jerking it from his hands; ‘if you don’t mind.’

He didn’t seem to notice the hostility in her voice. ‘A soldier, eh? Against the French?’

‘No. For the Grand Duke of Baden’s horse artillery, then here in America – in the Civil War,’ she said, polishing the glass with her handkerchief.

He grunted again, this time with a little more interest. ‘My brother’s fighting,’ he said.

‘Oh? My brother-in-law too, and Anton was serving in a hospital.’

For some reason he found this amusing, reaching for his cup with the same smirk with which he’d greeted her on the step. She was relieved to hear Anton in the hall, and a few seconds later he joined them.

‘Only tea,’ he reproached her affectionately; ‘but the captain would prefer something stronger, I’m sure. How about that good German beer Josephine brought us?’

She frowned. Why was he going to the trouble?

‘So this is Tony,’ said Hinsch, levering himself from the chair.

‘This is Dr
Anton
Dilger,’ she retorted crossly.

She left them to become acquainted while she fetched the beer and the old stoneware mugs she had brought from the farm. Rattling around the kitchen, opening and shutting the same cupboards, fretting that her brother was involved in something he shouldn’t be. ‘The acquaintance of a friend in Berlin,’ he’d told her, but she could see he wasn’t being frank. Goodness, it wasn’t a matter for her. Please just drink your beer and leave, she thought; leave us in peace.

They were still speaking of the family when she returned to the drawing room. Anton’s eyes were twinkling wet with pride as he told of the horse shot from beneath their father at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Such a marvellous raconteur – all their neighbours said so – the dinner guest of choice. Folks in Chevy Chase appreciated proper manners and Anton brought a little old-world sophistication to their homes with his stories of life in Berlin – just as long as the conversation didn’t turn to war. Of course she felt the same but she knew not to lose her temper. ‘Americans don’t understand Germany,’ she’d told him; but he’d upset Mr and Mrs Proctor, dumping his napkin and some forthright opinions on their table before walking out unceremoniously. Not that it really mattered; old Proctor was only a storekeeper.

The war would have broken their father’s heart, Anton was saying. ‘There’s too much stupid sentiment here about democracy, you see.’ His beer mug hovered at his lips. ‘I was shocked when I got back. The newspapers – the Kaiser’s a despot, we’re Huns and the despoilers of Belgium . . .’ he paused to snatch a sip. ‘Is the Tsar a democrat? Do the British care a fig for the rights of small nations? What about the British Empire? I tell you, Captain, I’m worried.’

‘About what?’ Hinsch asked, shifting impatiently in his chair.

‘That the United States will become embroiled.’

‘Isn’t it already?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You know we should get on?’

Anton caught Emmeline’s eye and smiled apologetically. ‘The captain wants to see my experiments.’

‘Oh?’ she remarked sceptically. ‘Are you interested in science, Captain?’

‘Very,’ replied Hinsch, bending to stuff a trouser leg back in his boot.

‘All right.’ Her brother put down his mug and stood up hurriedly. ‘Shall we?’

Emmeline followed them into the kitchen with the tray. As they clumped down to the cellar she heard Hinsch say, ‘And this is Tony’s lab.’ Then, a moment later, ‘Don’t I need a mask?’ The door banged shut because it was stiff; she would speak to Anton about shaving a little from the jamb.

She’d asked the Mitchells from across the way for supper. Anton had found a good butcher and she was going to cook
Schweinshaxe
. Taking a sharp knife from the drawer, she scored the flesh of the pork and began to press in the garlic. Pity there wasn’t time to soak the knuckle in brine. Hinsch was talking, now laughing. He had a quarterdeck voice – boom, boom, boom – but she couldn’t make out more than a few words and was cross with herself for trying.

If only Anton would join a medical practice in Washington. Handsome, charming, still only thirty; his list would be full in no time. But he pulled a face when she mentioned the possibility, and when she had pressed him he said he wasn’t interested in that sort of medicine. ‘I’m too selfish, Em,’ he joked; ‘patients would bore me.’ She’d scolded him lightheartedly: ‘It must be a terrible trial living with me.’ He denied it, of course, squeezing her hand affectionately.

She began shredding the cabbage. You couldn’t have pork without sauerkraut. Everyone made a joke about it these days. Anton said they were calling Germans ‘Krauts’ in the newspapers. She wished he wouldn’t bother reading them. What was he doing down there with Hinsch? He’d told the family he was exploring ways to control infections, some research he had begun in Berlin. But before today, before Hinsch, he’d avoided speaking to anyone else of his work, skilfully deflecting their neighbours’ questions. At first she was glad he had found something worthwhile to do, she had even learnt to live with the smell of his foul ‘broth’, but the squealing of the guinea pigs – that she was sure she would never get used to. ‘It’s cruel, An,’ she complained, but to no avail. He was adamant that he needed the animals for his experiments. When they died, he wrapped them in tarred canvas and buried them in the border furthest from the house, and she was under strict instructions not to garden there.

Slipping the pork into the hot oven, she turned to tidy the vegetable peelings from the table. ‘. . . Yes, yes, in a safe at the Hansa Haus. Don’t worry, Doctor,’ she heard Hinsch say at the cellar door. ‘We’ll begin in Newport News, the British have a large operation there.’ Then her brother said something she didn’t catch and a second later the door opened with a jerk and they began to climb the stair to the kitchen.

‘I asked Captain Hinsch to join us for supper but he must return to Baltimore by nightfall,’ Anton said with an insincere little smile.

She answered him with one of her own: ‘Perhaps another time, Captain.’

‘Yes.’ Hinsch was cradling a boot box of brown cardboard, tied with string. She caught Anton’s eye but he looked away, stern like their father, his thin mouth turning down a little at the corners, skin stretched tight across the family jaw. ‘I’ll see you to your car, Captain,’ he said.

‘Best not. Goodbye, Miss Dilger.’ He nodded curtly to her.

‘Goodbye, Captain.’

Then Anton led him to the end of the hall and they stood there for a moment in conversation. From her place at the kitchen door she heard snatches of Hinsch: ‘. . . if you need more money, Hilken can make arrangements’; and a moment later, ‘Aren’t you tired of this place? If you want some life, come to Baltimore, or join us in New York. Hilken says it’s perfectly safe; he knows . . .’ but the rest was lost as he turned his back to the hall. A few seconds later the door opened and she heard Hinsch leave. From the window in the parlour she watched him lumber across the grass to his shiny new Ford, open the passenger door and place the cardboard box in the well beneath the seat. Then he walked to the front and cranked the engine.

‘Glad to be rid of him?’ Anton was standing at the door.

‘Yes.’

She turned back to the window as the car began to pull away. Her hands were trembling, and she clenched them in fists.

‘He’s gone.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Mr and Mrs Mitchell again tonight, isn’t it?’

She turned abruptly to face him. ‘What did he want, Anton?’

He frowned, crossly this time. ‘I told you. Business. It was business.’

‘Why does it have to be secret?’

‘Because it does,’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘It does.’

It was too much for her. She crumpled, shoulders shaking, reaching for her handkerchief, and turned away. Anton was beside her in a second; ‘Shh shh,’ his arm about her. ‘Emmeline
,
please don’t. It’s nothing.’ But she couldn’t stop.

‘Don’t let him upset you.’ He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Dear Em.’

She wanted to tell him, ‘No, Anton, it’s you, not that oaf. I’m frightened for you,’ but she couldn’t. He would be angry, say she was silly.

‘It’s nothing,’ he assured her. ‘Just samples for a doctor I know in Baltimore. That’s all. Hinsch said he’d deliver them for me.’

She lifted her face to him and he wiped a tear tenderly from her cheek.

‘Are you bored, An?’ she asked nervously.

He looked puzzled. Then the right side of his face twitched with irritation, but the smile was back in only a moment. ‘Of course not, Em. I’m happy here with you. Very happy.’

‘
Are
you?’

‘Yes. Come on,’ and he led her to the parlour door. ‘It’s five o’clock already. What can I do to help?’

But she stopped, pulling at his hand and turning towards him with a determined stare. ‘You can be careful,’ she said firmly. ‘Please, Anton, please be careful.’

T
HE NOTE WAS
on the hall floor in the morning. Wolff padded through to the bathroom and propped it against the mirror while he went to the lavatory. He was surprised it had taken so long, almost a week. Washed and shaved but still in his dressing gown, he sat and read it at the kitchen table.