Authors: Robert Ryan
‘You’d know all about that. Saving your own neck, I mean,’ Watson said sourly.
Kügel threw back his head and laughed. ‘Not so Mad Bill now, eh?’
As they approached the ladder that would take them up to the recreation room, Watson stopped, as if catching his breath.
‘Just a few more yards,’ said Harry.
‘You know, you are wrong about me not knowing the outcome of this war.’
‘How’s that?’
‘As we said, the Americans are coming, Commandant. Not tomorrow or next week, but sooner or later they’ll be over here on European soil.’
‘You could be right. But then again, it might be the making of me. As we also said, I speak their language, after all. Yes, sirree, I truly do.’ He stood aside and presented the
ladder, like an usher showing a patron his seat. The smile faded and the joviality vanished from his voice. ‘Now, Major Watson, perhaps you could get out of all our hair and get to the Dutch
border. I do believe you have an appointment there.’
Watson was surprised, to say the least, when Kügel decided to join him on the cross-country trip to the exchange point. The snow was easing, Kügel had left the
capable Hauptmann Musser in charge and Watson sensed that the commandant wanted to hand him over personally to Von Bork. After all, he was going to need allies when the full story of his camp
emerged.
Watson was provided with a blanket, a flask of schnapps, a hot-water cylinder and some bread and sausage for the journey. Once again the driver was Emil, the scarred
Feldwebel
with the
eye patch, and Watson hoped that one eye could judge distance well enough to manage in the prevailing conditions. It was difficult enough with two.
‘There is one other thing,’ said Watson as Kügel made to get in the car. ‘You will need the help of the guard or the truck driver to locate the exact spot, but there is a
young lad in the forest. The other guard. The one I got the better of.’ Damn, an old man’s pride was leaking into his voice. A stab between his shoulder blades reminded him he had
hardly come through this unscathed. ‘He’s wounded and will be quite chilled by now.’
‘Not dead?’
‘Not when I left him. He had a skewer driven through his foot. He is gagged and tied up with both my belt and his own. You should send someone to pick him up.’
Kügel went off to make the arrangements. There was a chance the boy had succumbed to hypothermia but Watson was oddly indifferent to that. He had considered running the boy through with the
sharpened walking stick, but something had stayed his hand. Yet part of him felt he would have been justified, given that the lad had shot Sayer in cold blood. He wasn’t sure, however. His
moral compass was spinning wildly, as if he had ventured too close to the magnetic pole.
The car bounced on its springs as Kügel climbed in. ‘I know you want to sleep but first I need you to fill me in on events.’
Watson opened his weary, stinging eyes. The German was right. He needed to sleep. ‘Events?’
‘When did you suspect they were murdering their own people?’
Watson shuffled more upright in the seat as the Argus moved off and took a hit of schnapps from the flask. ‘First of all, I hope you will take some responsibility for this.’
‘Me?’ Mad Bill’s eyes widened, as if in shock. ‘What have I got to do with this? I didn’t dream up this cockamamie scheme. I haven’t, despite what you think
of me, murdered anyone.’
Watson felt he could speak freely, given that Kügel clearly wanted to play him as a card to Von Bork and his superiors. ‘Not directly, perhaps. But you created the atmosphere in the
camp, the one of naked greed. If you had money, or access to it, you thrived. If not, you starved. It was like a perversion of the American way that you admire so much. Survival of the fittest, the
thriving of the most rapacious.’
‘There was an element of that, perhaps,’ admitted the commandant.
‘No perhaps about it. Into this environment come men who discover there is a way out of the camp. Through the old gold workings. But it’s useless. Escaping the camp is just the first
step, the easy one. Getting across Germany and over a border? Almost impossible. So the tunnels are useless . . . unless they could use them to convince others that they work.’
‘And you suspect who of initiating this?’
‘Lincoln-Chance.’
‘And your suspicions were aroused?’
‘They put me in one of the coffins. To show the mechanism. I honestly think they meant to kill me but then began to worry that I would be missed too much, thanks to Von Bork. He has, in a
way, saved my life.’
‘Go on.’
‘When I inspected the underside of the coffin, I burned my fingers.’ He held up his hand. ‘Look. No skin on the tips. Acid. Why acid? Because of the acid extraction method for
refining the gold. And what else is used in the process?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A powerful poison. Toxic enough to pollute the waterways. You said so yourself, gold ravages the land, poisons the water.’
‘Ah, cyanide,’ said Kügel.
‘Precisely. I believe the three men at the séance were poisoned with cyanide. It was why they had to be buried so quickly – the symptoms post-mortem are easy to
spot.’
‘They were killed simultaneously?’ Kügel asked. ‘All three?’
‘The Greek tradition of summoning the dead is, apparently, to cut the wrists and then make a ritual toast to the spirits they are about to contact. So all three would drink, and die, at
the same moment.’
‘And they were killed because . . . ?’
‘Because they were about to tell all and sundry that Brevette was not at home having tea in London, but had perished. Which he had. I suspected that because the postcard from the Coburg
was a forgery. It has recently changed its name, but nobody in the camp knew that.’
‘Except you.’
Watson nodded. ‘By a stroke of luck, a casual mention in a letter.’
They were on the long straight road past the pines now, plunging downhill into the snow-flecked night. The one-eyed driver was travelling faster than Watson himself would have risked, but he was
exuding an air of absolute confidence in himself and the big roadster. After a few moments of silence Kügel spoke, his words tentative. ‘But if the séance had contacted Brevette,
and he was dead, surely that means . . .’
‘It suggests the séance was genuine,’ said Watson. ‘As has been pointed out to me before. It means that they really did get in touch with the dead.’
‘Which we both know can’t be true.’
‘No,’ said Watson. ‘I must agree with you.’
‘Do I detect some doubt, Major Watson?’
‘No.’
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
Too often, Watson thought, far too often.
‘So it was all about the money? They simply pocketed whatever they charged for this fictitious escape?’
‘Not quite. There was more at stake. The men were persuaded to make a new will and give power of attorney or probate to one of the escape committee. I suspect by the time peace came and
the men returned to England, those wills would have been altered to make new beneficiaries. The signature would be genuine, after all. Although I equally suspect Steigler and Lincoln-Chance would
have found a way to cheat their fellow conspirators. The survival of the cruellest, you see.’
‘Devilish.’
‘Indeed. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to get some sleep if I am to participate in whatever scheme Von Bork has for me.’
‘I think that is straightforward. I am not privy to the fine details. But in the time-honoured fashion, you are to be exchanged for someone more valuable than yourself.’
Watson slumped down in the seat. It would probably be some German general he had never heard of. Unless . . .
But no. He didn’t want to think beyond ‘unless’.
Snow was not a sniper’s friend. And it was starting to fall thick and fast as Bloch climbed the last few steel rungs that led to the upper tier of the observation tower.
He glanced up at the sky. There had been evidence of stars up until two hours before, right up to when they had entered the small boat for the almost silent paddle across the river. He had watched
Jasper’s men deploy their oars, but he still had no idea how they made the blades slice through the water and rotate them for the next stroke with hardly a ripple or a plop. Practice, he
supposed. He was in the hands of experts, which was some comfort.
The snow was blowing in from the east, so Jasper had said, and might grow into a full storm. In which case . . .
The Dutchman hadn’t finished the sentence. Jasper was no fool. A lone man, with a rifle, wanting access to the highest point around. Clearly, Bloch hadn’t crossed the Meuse with the
intention of sightseeing. There was precious little of value to see in this pancake-flat stretch of the country. In which case, Jasper was suggesting, should the storm materialize, he might find
his mission aborted due to impaired visibility.
Once he was up on the ledge, Bloch hesitated. It was three metres wide, made of steel plate and ran around the entire circumference of the top of the structure. So, in fact, he was standing on
the edge of a steel doughnut. If he stepped off the edge it was an eighteen-metre drop to the floor below, that one made of concrete. He had to keep his wits, and his balance, about him.
His eyes had had plenty of time to adjust to the gloom. Jasper had used his flashlight sparingly and its lens was masked with layers of muslin, so it gave a glow equivalent to a candle. Just
enough for him to show Bloch the tower entrance and illuminate the sequence of steps, stairs and ladders that would take him to the top, and to warn him about the hibernating bats that clustered
together two floors below, away from the worst of the weather. He wished he could be so lucky, for the snow was spotting his face now. It would do the same for the scope. And judging distances
through a snow flurry, with its shifting, ethereal light, especially at dawn, was tricky at best.
What was to stop him just packing up and going now? Going back down, finding a German border guard and giving himself up? Nothing. Nothing at all. Except . . .
Carlisle would have thought of that. Or if not Carlisle, then one of his superiors. Who knew if there wasn’t an agent of England lurking downstairs who, having made his own way over the
border, was ready to put a bullet through his head if he emerged before daylight? At one point Jasper had been convinced they were being followed, and had sent Karel back to investigate, but he had
reported that they were alone on the eastern bank, that nobody had crossed after them.
Then perhaps the British already had a man in place. And, of course, it was possible that agent, if he existed, had orders to kill him once he had done his work.
Almost anything was on the cards – there were simply too many variables. Which meant, in the end, Bloch had to take the simplest course of action. He had to shoot the Englishman and leave,
and if someone was going to try to stop him . . . well, good luck to the man who came between him and Hilde.
A dog yapped on the Dutch side of the river, the sound carried across the water and the refrain was picked up in Germany. A sharp exchange of barks was followed by silence as streamers of snow
fell around him. He pulled his collar up and sat, back to the wall, while he took the rifle from its protective case. He had often practised stripping down his weapons blindfolded and this was
easier than that – a silvery shine from the clouds seem to bounce off the snow, which meant he could see the gun well enough. He ejected the single round and rolled it in the palm of his
hand. One shot, one chance, one kill for Hilde. Make it count, he thought.
Bloch reloaded the bullet, slid the gun back into the case. He would check it over again at first light, which was a good few hours away. He didn’t feel like doing it, but the sensible
option would be to climb back down, find a dry spot and grab some sleep. But even as he thought of it his head lolled and he drifted off so quickly, he failed to hear the soft tread of feet on the
iron rungs below.
‘Wake up!’
His eyes cranked open, gummy and sore.
‘We’re here.’
Watson tried to move but a spasm in his neck caused tracks of pain to shoot up the side of his head and across his shoulders.
‘We’re here,’ Kügel repeated in a softer voice.
Watson grimaced in response. He had slept in an awkward position and his joints had set rock hard within his body. He felt like he had an exoskeleton as he unfurled his arms and straightened his
legs, as if his skin might snap and crackle, like a stamped-on cockroach’s. ‘Give me a minute. What time is it?’
‘Almost eight.’
Watson levered himself up in the seat so he could look out of the window. There was a shimmering light in the east, and a glow from the snow-covered ground. About an inch had fallen but it had
stopped now. They were parked near a river with, ahead of them, beyond a border fence, a broke-back bridge. Around them were a number of vehicles, lorries, military staff cars and civilian
transport. It looked as if the circus was coming to town.
‘Is all this for me?’
‘I expect so,’ said Kügel. ‘I think you are the biggest event this part of the world has seen in some time.’
‘That’s difficult to credit.’ Watson wiped his eyes and tried to focus on the steel span over the Meuse. ‘That bridge is open, isn’t it?’
‘For the moment. Come on, stretch your legs, Watson. You want to walk, not hobble to freedom.’
Emil, the one-eyed driver, was yanking open the door as the German said this and a blast of cold air whipped over Watson’s face. It felt momentarily invigorating after the stuffiness of
the roadster, like a roll in the snow after a sauna, something he had experienced in Sweden all those years ago when Holmes was on the trail of Ricoletti and his abominable snow-woman of a
wife.
Watson threw off the blanket and swung his legs out. The driver helped him unfold from the car and Watson placed a hand on top of the door for support. He wondered about the pulsing in his back,
until he remembered the bullet that had passed through Steigler but, thankfully, not him.