The Lady from Zagreb (26 page)

W
olfsberg occupied an elevated, north-facing plateau between the Thur valley and the Untersee of Lake Constance. I parked beside an extensive pear orchard and walked toward one of several buildings and, summoned by the crunch of my car tires on his gravel, I found Paul Meyer-Schwertenbach walking toward me, taller and more handsome than I remembered, and smiling warmly. He was wearing the informal clothes of a southern German gentleman: a gray Trachten-style hunting jacket with green piping and gold deer on the lapels, a pair of matching riding pants, and short brown ankle boots. There was a hock glass in his hand. I expect there were servants around but at least for the moment I didn’t see any, and Meyer struck me as the type to pretend that he and his wife were simple souls who much preferred to look after themselves. Preferring to look after yourself and doing it by necessity are very different things; especially when you have a butler and a maid and a cook and maybe a couple of gardeners to help out with a few light duties around the house.

“You made it,” he said, and handed me the glass. “I’m very glad. Welcome to my house. Welcome to Wolfsberg.”

“Thanks,” I said, and tasted the wine, which was a delicious Riesling. “That’s the most hospitality I’ve had since I got to Switzerland.”

“We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow,” he said.

“I had to change my plans.”

“Let me show you around,” he said with justifiable pride.

“You have a beautiful home,” I said redundantly.

“There’s been a house on this site since 1272.”

“That’s nice. With a position like this, it makes you wonder why they waited that long.”

“I’m pleased you think so.”

The château comprised the old château and the new château—a nicety that was lost on me, save to say these were two separate buildings—a sweet little chapel, a library, a coach house, a pantile-roofed walkway, and, for all I knew, a police presidium and a dungeon that was home to the man in the iron mask. Meyer told me that the new château was in a poor state of repair—which struck me as being counterintuitive—and that I would be staying with him and his wife, Patrizia, and their other guests in the old château. With its three stories and a façade that faced south toward an attractive French garden, the old château was a compact four-square building with dormer windows and a pyramidal mansard roof, on the summit of which was an onion-topped bell-carriage that resembled the cherry on a very large white cake—the kind of cake that very rich people are wont to have. It was a spectacular house, but for my money it was the view that made it especially enviable because, in the middle of Lake Constance, you could see as far as the German island of Reichenau with its famous abbey. Meyer told me he had some powerful binoculars on a tripod and through these you could see German soldiers watering their horses in the lake. I didn’t doubt this for a second. From Wolfsberg Castle you could probably have seen Abbot Berno of Reichenau eating his breakfast back in 1048.

One thing I didn’t expect to see from the terrace at Wolfsberg Castle was General Schellenberg. Wearing a light summer suit, he was sitting below the terrace on the lawn at the back of the house with a woman I guessed was the wife, Patrizia, two dogs, and, in no particular order, Major Eggen. Meyer led the way down a flight of steps to greet them.

“This is the man I was telling you about, my dear,” he told his wife. “The famous Berlin detective. Bernie Gunther.”

“Yes, of course. Welcome to Wolfsberg, Herr Gunther.”

She stood up politely to shake my hand. Patrizia was a woman of spectacular beauty who reminded me a little of Hedy Lamarr. Tall and willowy, with an easy laugh, she wore a floral summer dress and white Persol sunglasses and smoked as if her life depended on it. I might justifiably have paid her more attention but for the realization that Schellenberg and Eggen had certainly used me to smuggle gold across the Swiss border—that I’d taken all of the risk, unwittingly, while they’d traveled in complete safety.

“Everything all right, Gunther?” asked Schellenberg.

For the moment I decided not to let on I knew about the gold or to tell Schellenberg that the OSS had mistaken me for him, and with lethal consequences. The two Germans remained seated, smirking quietly and looking like they’d both been very clever. But the P38 in the shoulder holster I was wearing under my jacket was just itching to come out.

“Yes, everything’s just fine, sir,” I said.

“Any problems with the car?”

“None at all.”

“Good. And where is it now?”

I was tempted to say I’d left it in Zurich. Instead I sat down and let Patrizia refill my glass, and after a short delay, said, “Out front.” I teased him with the keys for a moment and then dropped them back into my pocket.

“How was Zurich?” she asked.

“I liked it. Especially the lake. And the hotel was lovely.”

“Where did you stay?”

“The Baur au Lac.”

“That’s the nicest,” she said.

“This is all very cozy,” I said. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to see both of you here. General. Major.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing,” explained Eggen. A little bead of sweat rolled off his forehead and onto the bony bridge of his nose. It was a warm day but not that warm, and I realized he was nervous—of me, perhaps.

“I could sit here all day and look at that view,” I told Patrizia.

“We frequently do,” she said. “The desk in Paul’s study is set deliberately against a wall, so that the view doesn’t stop him from writing. It’s a tip he picked up from Somerset Maugham when we were on the Riviera before the war. Although Paul hasn’t done anything as extreme as Maugham did. When he bought the Villa Mauresque, he had the window in his study bricked up so that the view wouldn’t distract him.”

“It’s difficult enough to write a novel as it is without staring out of the window all day,” said Meyer.

“I have the same problem at police headquarters on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz,” I said. “I frequently find myself staring out the window. Wondering what I’m doing there at all.”

“I’m looking forward to hearing much more about that,” said Meyer.

“Uh-oh,” said Patrizia. “I hear a writer coming. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see how dinner is coming along.”

“I’ll come and help you,” said Eggen.

Schellenberg waited until they’d gone and said, “I thought I told you not to bring a gun to Switzerland.” His keen eyes hadn’t missed the fact that I was wearing a shoulder holster.

“This?” I patted my left breast. “I didn’t bring this to Switzerland. I acquired it along the way. A souvenir of my visit, you might say.”

“Get rid of it, for Christ’s sake. You’re making our hostess nervous.”

“You know, I don’t think I will, General. Not for the moment. Too much has happened since I got to Switzerland. Best it stays where it is for now. Tucked up in its little holster.”

“I can assure you,” said Meyer, “Patrizia is fine with guns. Like most Swiss, we keep quite a few guns around the house.”

“It’s too late for that,” I said. “The Germans are already here.”

“I thought you said there were no problems, Gunther,” said Schellenberg.

“With the car. The car’s just fine. It’s out front. With me, things were a little more difficult.”

Schellenberg looked relieved. “Such as?”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“That sounds a bit ominous.”

“It’s not at all ominous.” I lit a cigarette. “Not really. You see, it already happened. To me, at any rate. I’ll tell you about it sometime, General. When I’m in a more even frame of mind than I am at this moment. It will be better for you that way. Right now I just want to enjoy this very impressive view, this excellent glass of wine, and this cigarette. And to talk to Captain Meyer, of course. I haven’t seen you since last July, Captain. We’ve got a bit of catching up to do, you and I.” I smiled a sarcastic sort of smile. “With the accent on ‘catching,’ perhaps.”

“Whatever do you mean? And, please, call me Paul.”

“Thanks, but for now I’ll just stick to captain, if you don’t mind. And what do I mean? Well, at the risk of seeming rude, I have to ask you a formal question. A policeman’s question, I’m afraid.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Schellenberg.

“The last time I saw you, Captain Meyer, at the German Opera in Berlin, there was a murder just around the corner. Fellow named Heckholz. Dr. Heckholz. Someone stove his head in with a bust of Hitler. There’s a joke in there somewhere but not for Dr. Heckholz. He died, you see. Not the first person killed by Hitler, and certainly not the last. There, I made it. The joke.”

“No one’s laughing, Gunther,” said Schellenberg.

“Let me finish. Heckholz was a lawyer for the Minoux family, who used to own the villa on Lake Wannsee. Where the IKPK conference took place. Heckholz was preparing to ask some awkward questions about the Nordhav Foundation and the purchase of the villa and who received all of the money from the sale. At first I thought the general here had ordered one of his men to shut Heckholz up. After all, he is the managing director of Nordhav and rather conveniently he does command an office full of murderers.”

“Really, Gunther, you’re the most extraordinarily impertinent fellow I think I’ve ever met,” said Schellenberg.

“But then—it was only yesterday, as a matter of fact—I realized who really killed him. It wasn’t the general or any of his men. And I don’t believe it was you, Captain Meyer. You don’t strike me as the type. But I think you know who it was. Which brings me to the formal question, sir. Was it your colleague, Lieutenant Leuthard, who killed Dr. Heckholz?”

“I must say,” said Schellenberg. “If that doesn’t beat all. You turn up at a man’s house, as a guest, and within ten minutes you virtually accuse the man to his face of cold-blooded murder. You astonish me.”

“Actually, General, I don’t think it was cold-blooded at all. I think the lieutenant hit him on the spur of the moment. With the first heavy object that came to hand. If he’d gone there to kill him, he certainly would have brought a more effective weapon than a bronze of Adolf Hitler. Which means I’m certain that the captain here didn’t order Heckholz to be killed, either. No, I’d say Leuthard acted way beyond his brief. After all, Captain, you yourself told me that Leuthard was a difficult character, at the best of times. A bit hotheaded, I think you said.”

Schellenberg stood up. “I think you should leave now, Gunther.”

“In the Mercedes?” I smiled. “The one I just arrived in? I don’t think so, General. You wouldn’t like that.”

“Sit down, Schelli,” said Meyer. “Sit down and be quiet for a moment. Captain Gunther is absolutely right. Lieutenant Leuthard did murder Dr. Heckholz. Just as he described.”

“That much is now certain, anyway,” I said.

“Leuthard was a lot more than a hothead,” said Meyer. “He was a thug. I had no idea what kind of man he was when he accompanied me to Berlin. The army insisted I take him with me, for security in the event that someone from the Gestapo decided to kidnap me from the conference. Out of fear that under torture I might reveal some state secrets.”

“Would you care to tell me exactly what happened, sir?”

“My God, Gunther,” complained Schellenberg, “you sound exactly like the village policeman.”

“I don’t think I’m going to tell you exactly what you sound like, General. It might tempt me to reach for that gun. This is a neutral country, after all.”

“No, no, Schelli, Gunther’s quite right. He was first on the scene of the crime, after all. Heckholz was threatening to expose a business deal between the Swiss Wood Syndicate and a subsidiary of Nordhav—Export Drives GMBH—in the Swiss newspapers.”

“You mean the deal to supply wooden barracks to the SS and the German Army?”

“How do you know about that?” asked Schellenberg.

“Precisely,” said Meyer. “Two thousand of them. The first five hundred were shipped last year. The whole deal is worth a lot of money to Switzerland’s rather beleaguered economy. About twelve million Swiss francs, to be honest. Not that it would be the first time our two countries have done business together. Back in 1939, Major Eggen’s department bought a large quantity of machine guns from us. Of course, not all Swiss are happy that their country is making business deals with yours. Especially when it’s military equipment. But those who are opposed to such deals don’t tell us how this country is supposed to survive economically while remaining a neutral country that’s surrounded by Germany and its allies. The fact is, we have to export to survive. We need German money, and to stay neutral, we need to do business with Germany. But this is a very sensitive subject and it would not have been helpful for someone to write about it in the Swiss newspapers. It’s that simple. Schelli here has been very helpful in making such deals happen. He believes very strongly in Swiss neutrality. In fact, that’s why he’s here, right now.”

“You’re telling him much more than he really needs to know,” said Schellenberg. “He’s really not that important.”

“Get to Leuthard’s role in all this,” I told Meyer.

“Soon after we checked into the Adlon I received a message from Heckholz asking for a meeting. So while you and I were chatting in the sunshine outside the hotel, I sent Leuthard round to Heckholz’s office to set something up. He wasn’t there. So he went back again during the opera, and this time he was. All that he was supposed to do was arrange a meeting. I certainly didn’t expect him to bash the man’s brains in. I was horrified when he told me what had happened. As soon as I got back to Switzerland, I arranged for Leuthard to be transferred from my section.”

“So you’re saying that Heckholz wasn’t killed to save Switzerland from any embarrassment about the end users of those wooden barracks,” I said.

Meyer looked puzzled. “Aside from the fact that a wooden barracks is going to be occupied by German soldiers,” he said, “I really don’t see that anyone can complain very much about a bloody hut. It’s not like we’re selling your country machine guns. That’s why we’re doing it. A hut is just a hut. Much less emotive than guns, I can assure you.”