Max Collins - The Hindenburg Murders

“I believe Douglas has clearly shown himself to be a spy,” Erdmann went on. “He is brazenly sending and receiving code messages like this one.”

The colonel handed the Reederei director the cablegram carbon copy.

Lehmann studied it. “This would certainly seem to be a coded message,” he said softly, gravely.

“May I see it?” Charteris asked.

Lehmann handed it to the author, who read it, then began to lightly laugh.

“What amuses you?” Erdmann asked tightly.

“He received this, I take it.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s a childishly simple code. It’s baseball references.”

Erdmann frowned. “What?”

“Baseball. You know-the American bastardization of cricket. This appears to have come from his home office, in New York-‘AFTER YOU LEFT FIRST BASE’… first base would be Frankfurt… ‘LOCAL UMPIRES SEARCHED YOUR DUGOUT’… ‘umpires’ are game officials, ‘dugout’ is where the team gathers during the-”

“I don’t need to understand this stupid American sport,” Erdmann said testily. “What does the cablegram mean?”

“It means that your police searched his apartment or his house in Frankfurt, ‘FOUND NO FOUL BALLS STOP’… that means your gestapo didn’t find anything incriminating at his home… ‘YOU’LL HAVE TO HOLD UP AT SECOND STOP WELCOME HOME REILLY.’ Second base would be New York-he’s to wait there before going to his home in, where did you say? New Jersey?”

Erdmann thought about this, while Lehmann leaped in. “Then if he’s a spy, he’s finished his work, and going home?”

“That’s a reasonable interpretation,” Charteris said. “Or it could just be the boss saying welcome back. Remember, I haven’t had a crack at Douglas yet-and we have already met, so he’ll be simple enough to approach.”

Erdmann exchanged a glance with Lehmann.

“Why don’t you, then?” Lehmann said to Charteris. “Perhaps if he’s a spy headed home, he’s no longer a danger to anyone.”

“Can we be sure?” Erdmann posed. “This may be what Knoecher confronted Douglas with-and Douglas may have murdered him.”

“If so,” Charteris said, with a shrug, “it’s a military action, isn’t it? It’s not as though Douglas were some madman, some Jack the Ripper at large on the ship.”

“Jack who?” Lehmann asked.

“Suffice to say your passengers would not be endangered by the man’s presence. But I will talk to him. And to Spah.”

And he did. Douglas, first. In the smoking lounge.

Coming directly from the officers’ mess, Charteris stopped by the smoke-filled cubicle, and pulled up a chair, coming in on the middle of what the Americans called a “bull session” between the perfume magnate Dolan and stockyard king Morris.

The two men were developing a strategy for the U.S.A. in the Pacific, hinging on the need for a two-ocean navy to protect both coasts from the ambitious Japan and a volatile Europe.

“With Japan such a threat to the Philippines,” Dolan was saying, “the whole Pacific basin is in peril.”

“That’s to put it mildly!” Morris bellowed. “Why, the Japs could destroy the Panama Canal in a day, by air!”

It was easy enough to develop a side conversation with the advertising man, Douglas, who reached for the lighter on the wall and yanked it over to get Charteris’s Gauloise going.

“I’ll leave it to the colonel and the major,” Douglas said to Charteris, “to settle the Pacific.”

Testing the waters, Charteris asked, “No military background, Ed?”

“Oh, I was in the navy in the war. Petty officer. But I’ll gladly leave the big picture to the armchair admirals.”

Morris and Dolan weren’t hearing any of this, both caught up in their own bombast.

“So tell me, Les,” the handsome mustached advertising man said, swirling bourbon in a glass, “how did you manage to rustle a filly like that little blonde? Only she’s not so little.”

“It comes from not spending all your time down here in this den of iniquity.” Charteris sipped his Scotch. “Why, do you wish you’d given me some competition?”

“No. I’m afraid, just as with these military maneuvers, I’m on leave. Out of the game.”

“You sound like a man who’s been burned.”

Douglas chuckled wryly; he had a cigarette of his own going. “You write romances, right?”

“Of a sort.”

“I guess you could say I’m carrying a torch.”

“Not with all the hydrogen on this ship, I hope.”

“No.” Douglas chuckled again, but his eyes were woeful. “I just closed my office in Frankfurt and had to leave somebody behind.”

“Some female body?”

“Yes indeed. Very female. As female as that braided specimen of yours, Les.”

“Why didn’t you bring her with you?”

Douglas sighed, sipped, smoked. “I hope, one day soon, to bring her to America. But it’s not as easily done as said.”

“Why?”

“… She’s Jewish.”

“Ah.”

“She was my secretary. That’s how we began, anyway. I’m divorced; have a daughter.”

“Me, too. On both counts.”

“Really? Do you miss her, Les?”

“My daughter or my wife?”

Douglas laughed, smoke curling out his nostrils. “Let’s not get into that, either of us…. Well, I’ve had my share of flings since my marriage dissolved, but this is different. Marta may be a little young for me, but she’s such a fine, smart woman, and what a beauty. Dark brown hair, eyes the same, figure like… well, like your blonde.”

“You have money. You can buy her way out, can’t you?”

“I hope so. It’s just… I know they have their eye on her.”

Charteris drank a little Scotch, kept his tone casual. “Whose eye? The Nazis?”

“Yes. You see, I have… had… an office at a building on Neue Mainzer Strasse; trouble is, so does a guy named Goebbels.”

Charteris’s eyes opened so wide, his monocle fell out; catching it, he said, “The Propaganda Ministry has an office in your building? And you had a Jewish secretary?”

“Yeah, and it went over swell. Whenever they saw her, it rubbed ’em the wrong way, those fanatic sons of bitches. I was advised to dispense with her services. When I told ’em to go to hell, they started shadowing me. Shadowing us.”

“It’s like something out of Kafka.”

“No, it’s far worse than that. You can close the covers on a book; but when they’re tapping your phones, searching your desk and file cabinets every other Tuesday-well. Time to go home.”

“And you couldn’t find a way to bring her with you?”

Douglas grinned half a wry grin. Shook his head. “She wouldn’t come. You’re right, I got the dough to make that happen, too. But she has family. Germany’s home to her. I’m just praying to God she comes to her senses before it’s too late, while I can still get her out. Maybe if she misses me, half as much as I miss her…”

Douglas swallowed, smiled embarrassedly, and gulped at his drink.

“I’m behaving like a lovesick schoolboy,” he said. “Spilling to you like this. You’re the second guy on this trip who’s stood still for this mush.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, first night aboard, I sat and talked with this nice fella in the import business. You know, most of these Germans, if they’re not party members, if they’re just regular people, they’re not bad at all. He was real friendly. Outgoing. I liked him. Funny thing, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since that first night.”

Neck tingling, Charteris said, “Sounds like you’re talking about my cabin mate.”

“Yeah?”

“Eric Knoecher.”

Douglas snapped his fingers. “That’s it. That’s the guy.”