Eric Ambler - The Schirmer Inheritance

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.

George remembered that Father Weichs spoke good English, but it seemed more tactful to begin in German. The priest’s sharp blue eyes flickered from one to the other of them as Miss Kolin translated George’s polite explanation of their presence there and his hope that the telegram (which he could plainly see on the priest’s table) had arrived to remind him of an occasion in 1939 when …

The muscles of Father Weichs’s jaws had been twitching impatiently as he listened. Now he broke in, speaking English.

“Yes, Mr. Carey. I remember the gentleman, and, as you see, I have had your telegram. Please sit down.” He waved them to chairs and walked back to his table.

“Yes,” he said, “I remember the gentleman very well. I had reason to.”

A twisted smile creased the lean cheeks. It was a fine, dramatic head, George thought. You were sure at first that he must hold some high office in the church; and then you noticed the cracked, clumsy shoes beneath the table, and the illusion went.

“He asked me to give you his good wishes,” George said.

“Thank you. Are you here on his behalf?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Moreton is now an invalid and retired.” It was difficult not to be stilted with Father Weichs.

“I am sorry to hear that, of course.” The priest inclined his head courteously. “However, it was not the gentleman himself who gave me special cause to remember him. Consider! A lonely old man dies. I am his confessor. Mr. Moreton comes to me asking questions about him. That is all. It is not as unusual as you think. An old person who has been neglected by relatives for many years often becomes interesting to them when he dies. It is not often, of course, that an American lawyer comes, but even that is not remarkable in itself. There are many German families who have ties with your country.” He paused. “But the incident becomes memorable,” he added dryly, “when it proves to be a matter of importance for the police.”

“The police?” George tried hard not to look as guilty as he suddenly felt.