Philip Kerr - Prussian Blue

The man swallowed with difficulty and answered breathlessly. “Orders came direct from Donau,” he said. “From General Kaltenbrunner himself. Told us he’d had an informer report that you’d been seen making a libelous drawing of the Leader and that we were to arrest you for high treason.”

“Did he name this informer?”

“No. And no arguments were to be allowed. The Linz Gestapo had been chosen to carry out this assignment because you had too many friends in Salzburg and Munich who were likely to brush the affair under the carpet.”

“And then what were you to do?”

“We were to get rid of you on the way back to Linz. Shoot you in the head and leave you in a ditch somewhere. Please. I need a doctor.”

“I think we both do, Fritz.”

I went to fetch the two RSD men who were at the Villa Bechstein to guard Rudolf Hess. They were playing chess in front of the fire in the drawing room and jumped up as soon as they saw the blood rolling down my hand.

“Those two men who came in a few minutes ago,” I said. “I want them placed under arrest and locked up in the cells underneath the Türken. Right now they’re upstairs bleeding in my room. You’d better fetch a doctor, too. I’m going to want some stitches in this hand.”

“What happened, sir?” asked one.

“I told you to arrest them,” I said loudly. “Not ask me for a history lesson.” The magic potion had started to kick in again. It was odd how it made you feel impatient and intolerant and even a bit superhuman — like a Nazi, I suppose. “Let me spell it out for you. These two clowns have tried to interfere with a police investigation and the authority of Martin Bormann. That’s why I want them locked up.” I’d seen enough blood for one evening and it angered me that some of it was mine. “Look, you’d better fetch Major Högl. It’s time he did something around here other than comb his hair and polish his Party badge. And I’m going to need to send another telex to General Heydrich in Berlin.”

Winkelhof, the villa’s butler, turned up to see what all the commotion was about. Calmly and without complaint, he took charge of everything — even the stitching of my hand. It turned out he’d been a medical orderly during the war — and I had to remind myself that he, too, was on the list of the disgruntled and dispossessed Obersalzberg locals that Karl Schenk had compiled on my orders. This case had it all, I told myself: absurdity, alienation, existential anxiety, and no shortage of likely and unlikely suspects. If I’d been a very clever German of the kind who knew the difference between the sons of Zeus, Reason and Chaos, I might have been dumb enough to think I could write a book about it.

I ate a tasteless breakfast at the Berghof. Alone. I was dreading seeing Anni Kaspel and telling the poor woman that her husband, Hermann, was dead, and I wondered why I had been foolish enough to tell the spotty young lieutenant at the Türken that I would volunteer for this onerous duty. It wasn’t like I’d spent that much time with Kaspel. And it was only when Major Högl and the cold herring he called his personality joined me in the dining room that I suddenly remembered why I’d said I would do it at all. It was like having breakfast with Conrad Veidt. After a few tense moments Högl confessed, smugly, that he’d already been up to Kaspel’s house in Buchenhohe to break the news to the widow. Hearing this I winced and tried to contain my irritation with him, which he was at least perceptive enough to notice.

“Look here, as Kaspel’s senior officer it was my duty to give her bad news like that, not yours,” he said. “Besides, it’s obvious why you told Lieutenant Dietrich that you wanted to tell her yourself.”

“Is it?”

Högl’s eel-like lips writhed across his long Bavarian undertaker’s face until they were a sarcastic imitation of a smile. Now he really did look like Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs .

“Anni Kaspel is a very attractive woman. It’s generally accepted that she’s the most beautiful woman in Obersalzberg. Doubtless you thought you might ingratiate yourself with the woman and provide her with a convenient shoulder to cry on. You Berliners are so unscrupulous, so sure of yourselves, aren’t you?”

I let that one go and, for a moment, diverted my thoughts away from this egregious insult by asking myself who among those with access to the Berghof might also have been a secret artist talented enough to draw a well-rendered caricature of Hitler in my notebook. It seemed a more considered reaction to what Högl had just said than grabbing him by the neat dark hair on his El Greco head and banging his bony nose on the breakfast table. Although it might at least have helped summon the waiter to bring me another pot of coffee. But after injuring two Gestapo men, I was in no hurry to gain myself a reputation for violence, even if it was probably warranted.

“How did she take it?”

“How do you think? Not well. But I wouldn’t flatter yourself that your telling her would have made any difference to how the poor woman feels about it now. Her husband is dead and there’s no way of polishing that table.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Högl poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee and stirred some milk into it with a monogrammed teaspoon. If it hadn’t been for the fact I’d just drunk some myself I could have wished it was poisoned.

“Besides,” he said, “we’re quite a close community up here in Obersalzberg. We don’t like outsiders very much and prefer to handle these things privately, among ourselves.”

“You mean like murdering Hermann Kaspel? Or informing the Linz Gestapo that I had supposedly libeled the Leader? Yes, I can see how close you all are.”

“I have to tell you, Commissar Gunther. This whole thing strikes me as fantastical. Cutting through someone’s brakes? I never heard of such a thing. No, it’s quite unthinkable.”

“And I suppose that Dr. Flex was shot by accident.”

“Frankly, I’m still not convinced he wasn’t. I’ve seen no hard evidence yet that he really was murdered. In my own humble opinion he was probably killed by a stray shot from a careless hunter. A poacher, most probably. In spite of our best efforts we still get a few of those around here.”

“What about the rifle found in the chimney at the Villa Bechstein? I suppose it was left there by Shockheaded Peter.”

“There’s no telling how long it had been there. It was certainly very dusty. Besides, it’s no proof of intent. A poacher might just as easily have wanted to hide a rifle quickly as an assassin. The punishments for poaching are severe.”

I was already regretting that I hadn’t banged Högl’s head on the breakfast table; it might have knocked some sense into it. The man had the forensic skills of a rubber plant.

“By the way, Major, I meant to ask. That rifle of yours at the Türken Inn. The Mannlicher carbine with the scope. Was that the same rifle Hermann Kaspel gave you? The one that was found in the Landlerwald.”

“I really couldn’t say.” Högl shrugged. “I suppose it might have been.”

“Hermann said he thought it was a poacher’s rifle. Because it was fitted with an oil filter sound suppressor. Just like the one I found in the chimney at the Villa Bechstein.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I don’t remember there being an oil filter suppressor fitted to the rifle when Kaspel gave it to me. But why is that important?”

“Whoever fitted your rifle with a sound suppressor may well have done the same with the assassin’s rifle. It could be important evidence.”

“If you say so.”