The Schirmer Inheritance (9 page)

“Yes, I can see you must have wished for a more personal revenge.”

She had leaned forward to stub her cigarette out. Now she turned her head slowly and her eyes met his.

“I’m afraid that I have not your belief in justice, Mr. Carey,” she said.

There was a curious, persecuted little half-smile on her lips. He realized suddenly that he was on the verge of losing his temper.

She rose to her feet and stood in front of him smoothing down her dress. “Is there anything else you would like to know?” she asked calmly.

“I don’t think so, thank you.” He stood up. “It was very kind of you to come along, Miss Kolin. I’m not sure yet when I shall be leaving Paris. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I know.”

“Of course.” She picked up her bag. “Good-bye, Mr. Carey.” “Good afternoon, Miss Kolin.”

With a nod she went.

For a moment he looked down at the cigarette she had stubbed out and the lipstick on it; then he went to the lift and was taken up to his room.

He telephoned the Embassy man immediately.

“I’ve just seen Miss Kolin,” he said.

“Good. All fixed up?”

“No,
not
all fixed up. Look, Don, isn’t there somebody else I can get?”

“What’s the matter with Kolin?”

“I don’t know, but whatever it is I don’t like it.”

“You must have caught one of her bad days. I told you she’d had some pretty rugged experiences as a refugee.”

“Look, I’ve talked to lots of refugees who’ve had rugged experiences. I’ve never talked to one before who made me sympathize with the Gestapo.”

“Too bad. Her work’s O.K., though.”

“She’s not.”

“You wanted the best interpreter available.”

“I’ll take the next best.”

“Nobody who’s actually worked with Kolin has ever had anything but praise for her.”

“She may be fine for conferences and committees. This is different.”

“What’s different about it? You’re not on a vacation trip are you?” There was a note of irritation in the voice now.

George hesitated. “No, but—”

“Supposing there’s a dispute later over the testimony. You’re going to look pretty silly explaining that you passed up the chance of getting a reliable interpreter because you didn’t like her personality, aren’t you, George?”

“Well,—” George broke off and then sighed. “O.K.—if I come back a raving alcoholic I shall send the doctor’s bills to you.”

“You’ll probably end by marrying the girl.”

George laughed politely and hung up.

Two days later he and Maria Kolin left for Germany.

A
book-keeper named Friedrich Schirmer had died at Bad Schwennheim in 1939. He had had a son named Johann. Find this son. If he was dead, then find his heir.

Those were George’s instructions.

There were probably thousands of Johann Schirmers in Germany, but certain things were known about this one. He had been born somewhere about 1895, in Schaffhausen. He had married a woman whose given name was Ilse. There was a photograph of the two taken in the early twenties. George had a copy. It would probably be of little help in making a positive identification at this stage, but it might serve to remind former neighbours or acquaintances of the pair. Appearances were usually better remembered than names. The photograph itself supplied another faint clue; the photographer’s imprint on the mount showed that it had been taken in Zurich.

However, the first move in the plan of campaign which Mr. Sistrom had mapped out for him was, as Mr. Moreton had surmised, to go to Bad Schwennheim and start where the former inquiry had stopped.

When Friedrich Schirmer had died, he had been estranged from his son for several years; but there was always a chance
that the war might have changed things. Families tended to draw together in emergencies. It would have been natural, Mr. Sistrom had contended, for Johann to try to get in touch with his father at that time. If he had done so, he would have been officially notified of the death. There might be a record of that notification giving his address. True, Mr. Moreton had heard nothing on the subject from Bad Schwennheim, but that proved nothing. The priest might have forgotten his promise or neglected it; his letter could have been lost in the uncertain wartime mails; he might have gone off into the German army as a chaplain. There were endless possibilities.

In the train on the way to Basel, George explained it all to Miss Kolin.

She listened attentively. When he had finished she nodded. “Yes, I see. You can, of course, neglect no possibility.” She paused. “Do you hope much from Bad Schwennheim, Mr. Carey?”

“Not much, no. I don’t know exactly what the German procedure is, but I would say that when an old man like this Friedrich dies, the authorities don’t fall over backwards finding relations to notify. We wouldn’t, anyway. What’s the point? There’s no estate. And supposing Johann did write. The letter would go to the sanatorium and most likely get returned through the mail marked ‘Addressee deceased’ or whatever it is they put. The priest could easily not have heard about it.”

She pursed her lips. “It is curious about this old man.”

“Not very. That sort of thing happens every day, you know.”

“You say that Mr. Moreton found nothing of the son except this one photograph among the old man’s papers. No letters, no other photographs, except of his dead wife, nothing. They quarrelled, we are told. It would be interesting to know why.”

“The wife got tired of having him around, probably.”

“What disease did he die of?”

“Bladder trouble of some sort.”

“He would know he was dying, and yet he did not write to his son before the end or even ask the priest to do so?”

“Perhaps he just didn’t care any more.”

“Perhaps.” She thought for a moment. “Do you know the name of the priest?”

“It was a Father Weichs.”

“Then I think you could make inquiries before going to Bad Schwennheim. You could find out if Father Weichs is still there from the church authorities at Freiburg. If he is not still there, they will be able to tell you where he is. You might save much time that way.”

“That’s a good idea, Miss Kolin.”

“At Freiburg you may also be able to find out if the old man’s belongings were claimed by a relative.”

“I think we may have to go to Baden for that information, but we can try at Freiburg.”

“You do not object that I make these suggestions, Mr. Carey?”

“Not a bit. On the contrary, they’re very helpful.” “Thank you.”

George did not find it necessary to mention that the ideas she had put forward had, in fact, already occurred to him. He had given some thought to Miss Kolin since taking his reluctant decision to employ her.

He disliked her and, if Mr. Moreton were to be believed, would end by detesting her. She was not somebody he had chosen freely to serve him. She had, to all intents and purposes, been imposed upon him. It would be senseless, therefore, to behave towards her as if she ought to represent—as a good secretary ought to represent, for instance—an extension of part of his own mind and will. She was rather more
in the position of an unsympathetic associate with whom it was his duty to collaborate amicably until a specific piece of work was done. He had encountered and dealt philosophically with such situations in the army; there was no reason why he should not deal philosophically with this one.

Thus, having prepared himself for the worst, he had found the Miss Kolin who had presented herself with suitcase and portable typewriter at the Gare de l’Est that morning an agreeable modification of it. True, she had marched along the platform as if she were going out to face a firing-squad, and, true, she looked as if she had been insulted several times already that day, but she had greeted him in quite a friendly fashion and had then disconcerted him by producing an excellent map of Western Germany on which she had drawn for his convenience the boundaries of the various occupation zones. She had accepted with businesslike comprehension his patently guarded outline of the case, and shown herself alert and practical when he had gone on to explain in detail the nature of the work they had to do in Germany. Now she was making intelligent and helpful suggestions. Kolin on the job was evidently a very different person from Kolin being interviewed for one. Or perhaps the man at the Embassy had been right and, having experienced one of her bad days, he was now enjoying a good one. In that case it would be as well to discover how, if at all, the bad might be avoided. In the meantime he could hope.

After two good days in Freiburg, his attitude towards his collaborator had undergone a further change. He was no nearer liking her, but he had acquired a respect for her ability which, from a professional standpoint at any rate, was far more comforting. Within two hours of their arrival, she had discovered that Father Weichs had left Bad Schwennheim in 1943, having been called to the Hospital of the Sacred Heart, an institution for disabled men and women, just outside Stuttgart.
By the end of the following day she had unearthed the facts that Friedrich Schirmer’s belongings had been disposed of under a law dealing with the intestacy of paupers and that the dead man’s next of kin was recorded as “Johann Schirmer, son, whereabouts unknown.”

To begin with he had attempted to direct each step of the inquiry himself, but as they were passed from one official to another, the laborious time-wasting routine of question and interpretation followed by answer and interpretation became absurd. At his suggestion she began to interpret the substance of conversations. Then, in the middle of one interview, she had broken off impatiently.

“This is not the person you want,” she had told him. “You will waste time here. There is, I think, a simpler way.”

After that he had stood back and let her go ahead. She had done so with considerable energy and self-assurance. Her methods of dealing with people were artless but effective. With the co-operative she was brisk, with the obstructive she was imperious, for the suspicious she had a bright, metallic smile. In America, George decided, the smile would not have beguiled an oversexed schoolboy; but in Germany it seemed to work. Its final triumph was the persuasion of a dour functionary in the police department to telephone to Baden-Baden for the court records of the disposal of Friedrich Schirmer’s estate.

It was all very satisfactory, and George said so as handsomely as he could.

She shrugged. “It does not seem necessary for you to waste your time with these simple, routine inquiries. If you feel you can trust me to take care of them I am glad to do so.”

It was that evening that he found out something rather more disconcerting about Miss Kolin.

They had fallen into the habit of discussing the next day’s work briefly over dinner. Afterwards she would go to her
room and George would write letters or read. This particular evening, however, they had been drawn into conversation with a Swiss businessman in the bar before dinner and were later invited by him to sit at his table. His motive was quite evidently the seduction of Miss Kolin, if that could be accomplished without too much trouble and if George had no objection. George had none. The man was agreeable and spoke good English; George was interested to see how he would make out.

Miss Kolin had had four brandies before dinner. The Swiss had had several Pernods. With dinner she drank wine. So did the Swiss. After dinner he invited her to have brandy again, and again ordered large ones. She had four. So did the Swiss. With the second of them he became coyly amorous and tried to stroke her knee. She repelled the advance absently but efficiently. By the time he had finished his third, he was haranguing George bitterly on the subject of American fiscal policies. Shortly after his fourth he went very pale, excused himself hurriedly, and did not reappear. With a nod to the waiter Miss Kolin ordered a fifth for herself.

George had noticed on previous evenings that she liked brandy and that she rarely ordered anything else to drink. He had even noticed when they had been going through the customs in Basel that she carried a bottle of it in her suitcase. He had not, however, observed that it affected her in any way. Had he been questioned on the point he would have said that she was a model of sobriety.

Now, as she sipped the new arrival, he watched her, fascinated. He knew that had he been drinking level with her, he would by now have been unconscious. She was not even talkative. She was holding herself very upright in the chair and looking like an attractive but very prudish young school-mistress about to deal for the first time with a case of juvenile exhibitionism. There was a suspicion of drool at one corner
of her mouth. She retrieved it neatly with her tongue. Her eyes were glassy. She focused them with care on George.

“We go, then, tomorrow to the sanatorium at Bad Schwennheim?” she said precisely.

“No, I don’t think so. We’ll go and see Father Weichs at Stuttgart first. If he knows something it may be unnecessary to go to Bad Schwennheim.”

She nodded. “I think you are right, Mr. Carey.”

She looked at her drink for a moment, finished it at a gulp, and rose steadily to her feet.

“Good night, Mr. Carey,” she said firmly.

“Good night, Miss Kolin.”

She picked up her bag, turned round, and positioned herself facing the door. Then she began to walk straight for it. She missed a table by a hairsbreadth. She did not sway. She did not teeter. It was a miraculous piece of self-control. George saw her go out of the restaurant, change direction towards the concierge’s desk, pick up her room key, and disappear up the stairs. To a casual observer she might have had nothing stronger to drink than a glass of Rhine wine.

The Hospital of the Sacred Heart proved to be a grim brick building some way out of Stuttgart off the road to Heilbronn.

George had taken the precaution of sending a long telegram to Father Weichs. In it he had recalled Mr. Moreton’s visit to Bad Schwennheim in 1939 and expressed his own wish to make the priest’s acquaintance. He and Miss Kolin were kept waiting for only a few minutes before a nun appeared to guide them through a wilderness of stone corridors to the priest’s room.