Eric Ambler - The Schirmer Inheritance

“And so you did check up.” Now that he had the facts he wanted, George was getting impatient with Mr. Moreton’s reminiscences.

“Yes, I checked up. But without the interpreter. He was so darned scared that I told him to take the car, drive it to Strasbourg, and wait for me there. That was a lucky thing, too. When the Gestapo got hold of him later, he knew no more than that I’d gone to Bad Schwennheim. Real luck. I went there by train. Do you know it? It’s near Triburg in Baden.”

“I never got down that way.”

“It’s one of those scattered little resort towns-pensions, family hotels, and small villas on the edge of the fir forest. I’d found that the best person to make for on those inquiries was the priest, so I set out to find him. I could see the church-like a cuckoo clock it was, on the side of the hill-and I had just about enough German to find out from a passer-by that the priest’s house was beyond it. Well, I sweated up there and saw the priest. Luckily, he spoke good English. I told him the usual lies, of course-”

“Lies?”

“About its being a trifling matter, a small legacy, all that stuff. You have to play it down. If you go telling the truth on a job like that you’re a dead duck. Greed! You’d be surprised what happens to perfectly sane people when they start thinking in millions. So I told the usual lies and asked the usual questions.”

“And the priest said Friedrich Schirmer was dead?”

“Yes.” Mr. Moreton smiled slyly. “But he also said what a pity it was that I’d come too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“For the funeral.”

“You mean he’d survived Amelia?”

“By over ten months.”

“Had he a wife?”

“She’d been dead for sixteen years.”

“Children?”

“A son named Johann. That’s his photograph in the box you have. Ilse was the son’s wife. Johann would be in his fifties now.”

“You mean he’s alive?”

“I haven’t any idea, my boy,” said Mr. Moreton cheerfully. “But if he is, he’s certainly the Schneider Johnson heir.”

George smiled. “ Was the heir you mean, don’t you, sir? As a German, he could never receive the estate. The Alien Property Custodian would vest himself with the claim.”

Mr. Moreton chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t be so certain, my boy. According to the priest, Friedrich spent over twenty years of his life working for a German electrical manufacturer with a plant near Schaffhausen in Switzerland. Johann was born there. Technically, he’d be Swiss.”

George sat back in his chair. For a moment or two he was too confused to think clearly. Mr. Moreton’s pink, puffy jowls quivered with amusement. He was pleased with the effect of his statement. George felt himself getting indignant.

“But where did he live?” he asked. “Where does he live?”

“I don’t know that either. Neither did the priest. As far as I could make out, the family returned to Germany in the early twenties. But Friedrich Schirmer hadn’t seen or heard from his son and daughter-in-law in years. What’s more, there was nothing in the papers he left to show that they’d ever existed, barring the photograph and some things he’d said to the priest.”

“Did Friedrich make a will?”

“No. He had nothing to leave worth troubling about. He had lived on a small annuity. There was scarcely enough money to bury him properly.”

“But surely you made an effort to find this Johann?”

“There wasn’t much I could do right then. I asked Father Weichs-that was the priest-to let me know immediately if anything was heard of or from Johann, but the war broke out three days later. I never heard any more about it.”

“But when the German government claimed the estate, didn’t you tell them the situation and ask them to produce Johann Schirmer?”

The old man shrugged impatiently. “Of course, if it had got to the point where they had a real chance of substantiating their Schneider claim, we’d have had to. But, as it was, it was better not to show our hand. They’d already produced a phony Schneider. What was to stop them producing a phony Johann Schirmer? Supposing they’d discovered that Johann and Ilse were dead and without heirs! Do you think they’d have admitted it? Besides, we didn’t expect the war to last more than a month or two; we were thinking all the time that at any moment one of us would be able to go back to Germany and clear the whole matter up in a proper way and to our own satisfaction. Then, of course, Pearl Harbor came and that was the end of the thing as far as we were concerned.”

Mr. Moreton sank back on his cushions and closed his eyes. He had had his fun. Now he was tired.

George was silent. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the second Mrs. Moreton hovering in the background. He got to his feet. “There’s only one thing I’m not clear about, sir,” he said hesitantly.

“Yes, my boy?”

“You said that when you handed over to Mr. Sistrom in ’44 you didn’t want these facts to come to his attention. Why was that?”

Slowly Mr. Moreton opened his eyes. “Early in ’44,” he said, “my son was murdered by the S.S. after escaping from a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany. My wife wasn’t too well at the time and the shock killed her. When the time came to hand the administration over, I guess I just couldn’t accept the idea of a German getting anything out of this country as a result of my efforts.”

“I see.”

“Not professional,” the old man added disapprovingly. “Not ethical. But that’s the way I felt. Now-” he shrugged and his eyes were suddenly amused again-“now all I’m wondering is what Harry Budd’s going to say when you tell him the news.”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself,” said George.

Mr. Budd said: “Oh my God!” with great force and asked his secretary to see if Mr. Sistrom was available for consultation.

John J. Sistrom was the most senior partner in the firm (Lavater and Powell had been dead for years) and had been well thought of by the elder J. P. Morgan. A remote, portentous figure who entered and left his office by a private door, he was rarely seen except by other senior partners. George had been presented to him on joining the firm and received a perfunctory handshake. He was very old, much older than Mr. Moreton, but skinny and spry-an energetic bag of bones. He fidgeted with a gold pencil while he listened to Mr. Budd’s disgusted explanation of the position.

“I see,” he said at last. “Well, Harry, what do you want me to do? Retain someone else, I suppose.”

“Yes, John J. I thought that someone like Lieberman might be interested.”

“Maybe he would. What’s the exact value of the estate now?”

Mr. Budd looked at George.

“Four million three hundred thousand, sir,” George said.

Mr. Sistrom pursed his lips. “Let’s see. Federal tax will account for quite a bit. Then, the thing has been held up for over seven years, so the 1943 legislation applies. That means eighty per cent of what’s left to the Commonwealth.”

“If a claimant were to get half a million out of it, he’d be lucky,” said Mr. Budd.

“Half a million free of tax is a lot of money these days, Harry.”

Mr. Budd laughed. Mr. Sistrom turned to George. “What’s your opinion of this Johann Schirmer’s claim, young man?” he asked.

“On the face of it, sir, the claim looks sound to me. A big point in its favour would seem to be the fact that although the intestacy itself comes under the 1917 act, this Schirmer claim would satisfy the tougher provisions of the ’47 act. There’s no question of representation. Friedrich Schirmer was a first cousin and he survived the old lady.”