Israelis, it was still the missing Nazis of 1945. He should have remembered that.
'I give you my word, Jake, that as far as I know this has nothing to do with war criminals. Absolutely nothing. And you know how I feel about that.'
The Israeli relaxed. In as far as he trusted any Anglo-Saxon he trusted Audley. Which was not far, perhaps, but far enough.
He nodded. 'Okay, David. I'll drop a word to Joe Bamm–you can always get him at our Berlin place. He's forgotten more about the old days than most other people ever know. In return, if you turn up any little thing about one of
He looked at his watch. 'Is that all, then? Because if it is my Delilah awaits me.' He paused, unsmiling again. 'But just you dummy4
watch it, David, my old friend. You're not dealing with simple Jewish farm boys and stupid Arab peasants any more. You're dealing with real chess players now. If I were you I'd wear belt and braces. They haven't changed one bit, the Russians, whatever your starry-eyed liberals say.'
Audley had one more self- appointed contact to establish before going to the office, but there was no time unfortunately to make it a face to face one. The hated telephone had to be used this time.
'Dr Freisler? Theodore–David Audley here.'
Theodore Freisler was outwardly the archetypal German of the twentieth century world wars, hard-faced and bullet-headed. But within the Teutonic disguise lived an old nineteenth century liberal, whose spiritual home was on the barricades of 1848. His books on German political history were highly regarded in the new Germany, though even in translation Audley found them unreadable. The mind which produced them, however, was at once gentle and formidable: Theodore was a wholly civilised man, the living answer to Jake's unshakeable suspicion of everything German.
'Theodore–I'm glad to have caught you. I'm always expecting to find you've gone back to Germany.'
Theodore had quite unaccountably settled in Britain, in an uncomfortable flat near the British Museum, during a historical conference in 1956. And although he was always revisiting Germany and talking of returning to the Rhineland he had showed dummy4
no sign of actually doing so. Audley had wondered idly whether he was producing some terrible successor to
'One day, David, one day. But until that day I shall make my personal war reparation by letting your chancellor have most of my royalties. That is justice, eh?'
'You'll have to work a lot harder to shift our balance of payments, Theodore. But you may be able to help me just now.'
Their friendship had started years before when Theodore, no Nazi-lover, had volunteered the information which had set the Israeli propaganda on the German experts in Egypt in its proper perspective. Since then he had been Audley's private ear in West Germany on Arab-Israeli policies.
'I am at your service, Dr Audley.' The formality marked the transition from banter to business.
'Theodore, I've got a riddle for you: what is it that was of great value to the Russians in 1945, was attractive enough for a private individual to steal, and is still of interest to the Russians today?'
There was a short silence at the other end of the line.
'Is this a riddle with an answer?'
'If it is I haven't got it.'
'Do you have any clues?'
'It came out of Berlin in the summer of '45, possibly in seven wooden boxes, each about the size of that coffee table of yours, Theodore. Roughly, anyway.'
dummy4
'You don't want much, do you? In 1945 there were a great many things of value to be had in Berlin, and the Russians took most of them. But of value
'You can't think of anything?'
'Give me time, Dr Audley, give me time! But it is time that makes a nonsense of your riddle. There was much plunder to be had then, but that would not interest them now. Not even Bormann's bones would interest them now! That is perhaps the one thing that you can say for them: their sense of material values is not so warped as ours in the West.'
'But you're interested?'
'Interested in your riddle? Yes, of course. It is the lapse of time which makes it interesting. But can you give the date of the theft more precisely?'
'Not the theft, Theodore. But it left Berlin end of August, beginning of September.'
Theodore grunted. 'I will ask my friends, then. But it is a long time ago, and I cannot promise success. Also, some riddles do not have answers. And if there is an answer, is it a dangerous one? I don't wish to embarrass my friends.'
'To be honest, Theodore, I don't know. But just give me a hint and I can get someone else to do the dirty work.'
Theodore chuckled. 'Ach, so! I do the searching, others take the risks and the good Dr Audley sits in his ivory tower putting all our work together–that is the way of it! But I think I shall move circumspectly, since you do not know what it is I am to find.'
dummy4
Audley had to take it in good part, for it was true enough.
'If you're too busy—'
'Too busy? I'm always too busy, David. But not too busy for a friend–never too busy for a friend. And besides, it interests me, your riddle. Something old, but still valuable to them, eh? And
