Алистер Маклин - Bear Island

‘But it wasn’t just the gold that was transported to Perleporten, which is why Mary Stuart is here. Feathers weren’t enough for Dad’s nest, nothing less than swansdown would do. The swansdown almost certainly took the form of either bank bonds or securities, probably obtained – I wouldn’t say purchased – in the late thirties. Such securities are perfectly redeemable even today. An attempt was recently made to sell £30 millions’ worth of such securities through foreign exchange, but the West German Federal Bank wouldn’t play ball because proper owner-identification was lacking. But there wouldn’t be any problem about owner-identification this time, would there, Heissman?’

Heissman didn’t say whether there would or there wouldn’t.

‘And where are they?’ I said. ‘Nicely welded up in a dummy steel ingot?’ As he still wasn’t being very forthcoming, I went on: ‘No matter, we’ll have them. And then you’re never going to have the pleasure of seeing Mary Stuart’s father put his signature and fingerprints on those documents and of checking that they match up.’

‘You’re sure of that?’ Heissman said. He had recovered his normal degree of composure, which meant that he was very composed indeed.

‘In a changing world like ours who can be sure of anything? But with that proviso, yes.’

‘I think you’ve overlooked something.’

‘I have?’

‘Yes. We have Admiral Hanneman.’

‘That’s Miss Stuart’s father’s true name?’

‘You didn’t even know that?’

‘No. It’s of no relevance. And no, I haven’t overlooked that fact. I shall attend to that matter shortly. After I have attended to your friends. Maybe that’s the wrong word, maybe they’re not your friends any more. I mean, they don’t look particularly friendly, do they?’

‘Monstrous!’ Otto shouted. ‘Absolutely monstrous. Unforgivable! Diabolical! Our own partner!’ He spluttered into an outraged silence.

‘Despicable,’ Goin said coldly. ‘Absolutely contemptible.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Tell me, does this moral indignation stem from this revelation of the depths of Heissman’s perfidy or merely because he omitted to cut you in on the proceeds of the cashing of the securities? Don’t bother answering that question, it’s purely rhetorical, as villains you’re dyed in the same inky black as Heissman. What I mean is, most of you spend a great deal of time and careful thought in concealing from the other members of the board of Olympus Productions just what the true natures of your activities are. Heissman is hardly alone in this respect.

‘Take the Count here. Compared to the rest of you he was a vestal angel, but even he dabbled in some murky waters. For over thirty years now he’s been a member of the board and has had a free meal ticket for life because he happened to be in Vienna when the Anschluss came, when Otto headed for the States and Heissman was spirited away. Heissman was spirited away because Otto had arranged for him to be so that he could take all the film company’s capital out of the country: Otto was never a man to hesitate when it came to selling a friend down the river.

‘What Otto didn’t know but what the Count did but carefully refrained from telling him was that Heissman’s disappearance had been entirely voluntary. Heissman had been a German secret agent for some time and his adopted country needed him. What his adopted country didn’t know was that Russia had adopted him even before they had, but this isn’t germane to the main point: that Otto believed he had betrayed a friend for gold and that the Count knew it. Unfortunately, it’s going to be very hard to prove anything against the Count, and not being a grasping man by nature, never having asked for anything more than his salary, there’s nothing to demonstrate blackmail which is why I’ve chosen him – and he’s accepted – as the person to turn Queen’s Evidence against his fellow directors on the board.’

Heissman now joined Otto and Goin in giving the Count the kind of look they had so lately given him.

‘Or take Otto,’ I went on. ‘For years he’d been embezzling very large sums of money from the company, virtually bleeding it white.’ It was now the turn of Heissman and the Count to stare at Otto. ‘Or take Goin. He discovered about the embezzling and for two or three years he’s been blackmailing Otto and bleeding him white. In sum, you constitute the most unpleasant, unprincipled and depraved bunch it’s ever been my misfortune to encounter. But I haven’t even scratched the surface of your infamy, have I? Or the infamy of one of you. We haven’t even discussed the person responsible for the violent deaths that have taken place. He is, of course, one of you. He is, of course, quite, quite mad and will end his days in Broadmoor: although I have to admit that there’s been a certain far from crazy logic in his thinking and actions. But a prison for the insane – one regrets the abolition of the death penalty – is a certainty: it may well be, Otto, as well as being the best you can hope for, that you won’t live long after you get there.’ Otto said nothing, the expression on his face remained unchanged. I went on: ‘For your hired killers, of course, Jungbeck and Heyter, there will be life sentences in maximum security jails.’

The temperature in that icily cold metallic tomb had fallen to many degrees below freezing point, but everyone appeared to be completely unaware of the fact: the classic example of mind over matter, and heaven knew that minds could rarely have been more exclusively and almost obsessively possessed than those of the men in those weird and alien surroundings.

‘Otto Gerran is an evil man,’ I said, ‘and the enormity of his crimes scarcely comes within the bounds of comprehension. However, one has to admit that he has had the most singularly wretched luck in his choice of business associates, and those associates must be held partly to blame for the terrible events that happened, for their extraordinary cupidity and selfishness drove Otto into a corner from which he could escape only by resorting to the most desperate measures.

‘We have already established that three of you here have been blackmailing Otto steadily over the years. His other two fellow directors, his daughter and Stryker, joined whole-heartedly in what had become by this time a very popular pastime. They, however, used a very different basis for their blackmail. This basis I cannot as yet prove but the facts, I believe, will be established in time. The facts are concerned with a car crash that took place in California over twenty years ago. There were two cars involved. One of those belonged to Lonnie Gilbert and had three women inside – his wife and two daughters, all of whom appeared to be considerably the worse for drink at the time. The other car belonged to the Strykers – but the Strykers were not in their car. The two people who were had, like Lonnie’s family, been at the same party in the Strykers’ house and, like Lonnie’s family, were in an advanced state of intoxication. They were Otto and Neal Divine. Isn’t that so, Otto?’

‘There’s nothing of this rubbish that can be proved.’

‘Not yet. Now, Otto was driving the car, but when Divine recovered from the effects of the crash he was convinced – no doubt by Otto – that he had been at the wheel. So for years now Divine has been under the impression that he owes his immunity from manslaughter charges purely to Otto’s silence. The salary lists show–’

‘Where did you get the salary lists from?’ Goin asked.

‘From your cubicle – where I also found this splendid bank-book of yours. The lists show that Divine has been receiving only a pittance in salary for years. How admirable is our Otto. He not only makes a man take the responsibility for deaths which he himself has caused but in the process reduces that man to the level of a serf and a pauper. The blackmailed doing some blackmailing on his own account. Makes for a pretty picture all round, does it not?