'Your puzzle is a fairy story, my dear David. I have thought and I have telephoned friends of mine in Berlin, and I tell you there is nothing, nothing, that fits your puzzle. Time cancels out the value of things: what would be valuable to a thief then would not be valuable to
'We had a tip that it might be the Schliemann collection from the Staatliche Museum.'
'The Trojan treasures? No, David, the psychology is wrong. Worth stealing–yes. After all, the Russians stole it and it was stolen from them, I know the story. But it was not theirs in the first place, so they would not pursue it. If it had been the amber from the Winter Palace, that would be different. That was
'Never mind, Theodore. It was good of you to take time from Tolkien to try.'
Audley sipped his coffee. It was surprisingly drinkable.
The old man was shaking his head. 'No, I have failed you. But even if your thief had catholic tastes and took a thing here and a thing there I find it hard to imagine a collection of objects which would tempt them now.'
'Tell me about the Forschungsamt instead, then.'
dummy4
The great bullet-head stopped shaking. 'What do you wish to know about the Forschungsamt, Dr Audley?'
'Anything, Theodore. I don't know the first thing about it.'
Freisler pondered the question for a time.
'The most interesting thing, of course, is that it illustrates the relationship of the old German bureaucracy to the Nazi Party. If you have time to read the relevant chapter in my book on the civil service between the wars I think that will become apparent to you.'
Before he could get up Audley managed to restrain him.
'I haven't really got the time. Just tell me what it was.'
Freisler looked at him pityingly. 'What it was? Why, it was the office that grew out of the old Chiffre und Horchleitstelle, Cypher and Monitoring. What I believe you would call 'passive intelligence'. I knew a number of people who worked in it–good Germans, too, not Nazis. That was the remarkable thing about the Research Office: the Nazis were always trying to take it over, but they never really managed to do so.'
He smiled. 'I think it was partly because they all wanted it that they failed. Goering was nominally in charge, but all he knew was that he wasn't going to give it up. Let me see –Himmler tried, and Kaltenbrunner tried. And Diels.' He counted them off on his fingers. 'The only one who got close was Heydrich. He managed to move some of his prewar Sicherheitsdienst files into its headquarters on the Schillerstrasse. But then he was killed by the Czechs in '42, and the office was bombed out by your air force in
'43. After that nobody really knew what was happening. The dummy4
records were spread all over the place, and many of them were destroyed in the end to stop the Russians getting them.'
He looked up at Audley. 'But your clever thief wouldn't have wanted any of them. They had no great value then, and they'd have less than none today, except to the historians. As I recollect, the Forschungsamt officials were considered so innocent that they weren't even called to the de-nazification trials!'
He rose and picked his way between piles of journals and manuscripts to his bookcase.
Audley rose too, but in alarm. Once Theodore gave him the book he would be honour bound to wade through it, or he would never be able to face the old German again.
'Theodore, I really ought to be going.' He looked at his watch. 'I'm lunching with my fiancee and I mustn't be late.'
But Theodore was already thumbing through a thick volume, as unstoppable and incapable of changing direction as a rhinoceros.
'Schimpf–Schimpf was the first director. He committed suicide.
Then came Prince Christophe of Hesse. He was killed on the Italian front. Then Schnapper, I think . . . Ah! Here we have it! The office went to Klettersdorf after the 1943 air raid. Then back to Berlin when the Russians were approaching. And then to the four winds!'
He tapped the book with his finger, staring owlishly at Audley, who had reached the door.
'Some of the documents I saw in England in 1957, at Whaddon Hall. But there was nothing of interest to you in them. They would dummy4
have been from the section captured at, let me think now–at Glucksberg, of course.'
Audley made his way slowly down the staircase. Once Theodore had mentioned passive intelligence he had known that any further research into the Forschungsamt was likely to be a journey up a blind alley. It had been a wasted trip. But as he reached the street doorway he heard Theodore bellowing unintelligibly from above.
He stopped guiltily and waited impatiently as the heavy footsteps thumped after him from landing to landing.
The old German was breathing heavily when he finally appeared.
'David, forgive me! My mind was not listening to you properly. A fiancee, you said–and for a fiancee there must be a gift!'
Audley's heart sank as he saw the square, untidy parcel, a battered carrier bag lashed down with scotch tape. The famous two-decker history of the German civil service, through all the convulsions of the Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, had cornered him at last.
'Theodore, it isn't necessary.'
The great hands thrust the parcel into his and waved his protest aside. It was necessary. It was a small token of deep esteem. It humbly marked a great occasion.
