but she would win the next one, the Third World War.”
“What was his reasoning?” Teensy asked.
“He said Germany would lose but it would only be a token defeat. Just as in 1918, he said, Britain and France would be terribly weakened. He said Germany, no matter what happened, possessed greater powers of recovery. He felt Britain and France would be dying nations even in apparent victory.”
“What did he say about Russia?” Hiram asked.
“He said that, pact or no pact, Germany and Russia would fight each other. But I remember what he said after that just as clearly as if it were yesterday.
“The German minister said something like this: ‘Russia may fight alongside Britain and France. She might help swing the coming war against Germany. But Russia is Asiatic. Russians are ruthless. You would soon find Russia would try to rule Europe. England would eventually fight Russia as England has fought every nation that has tried to dominate Europe. Then our chance would come. Germany would pick up the pieces.’ ”
“That fits in with my story,” Hiram said. “It all fits perfectly.
“Those nine men who met at Strasbourg also looked at the Second World War as a battle in what they regard as another Hundred Years’ War, one they fanatically believe will end in German victory in spite of two lost battles. Because they regarded the second battle as lost, they met to send German industry underground. They couldn’t send all of their industry, of course, but they could send the key scientists, the men responsible for so many of Germany’s military weapons. They would continue to work in secret on their inventions against the day when a new German army would be ready.”
I drained my glass. “A lot of people in America are talking about rearming Germany today,” I said. “You hear arguments that Western Germany ought to be allowed a certain number of infantry divisions. You hear a lot of talk like that in Washington. They think they can use the Germans against the Russians.”
Hiram nodded. “Your German minister was certainly right. The Russians have already armed the ‘people’s police’ in Eastern Germany. But nobody will benefit except the Junkers and the Ruhr industrialists.
“Early in 1945, the plan to send the German war scientists underground was put into effect. Some of them were instructed to surrender to the British and the Americans as refugees. Others went into the Russian lines. A good many technicians went to Scandinavia and Switzerland, others to Spain and Portugal. You see, it didn’t make any difference in the long run where they continued their work as long as they were ready to return to Germany when the time came. They were to continue their scientific research anywhere they could, even to pretending to work for the Russians, the Americans, or the British. They would have facilities at their disposal and they would also form a sort of scientific intelligence corps, learning other countries’ secrets at the same time.”
It was a further development of the old scheme for keeping their soldiers in training, even to noncoms like Otto and Hermann who had joined the Red Army as frontier guards. A new version of the Trojan Horse.
“Do you think Germany was about to produce new weapons when the war ended?” I asked. “If you remember, Hitler kept promising the Nazis marvelous new weapons if they would hang on a few months longer. Everybody was talking about the neue Waffen. Do you believe it was only propaganda?”
Hiram lit another cigar. “No, I know it wasn’t all bluff on Hitler’s part. There’s a lot of evidence to show they’d made tremendous new advances in rockets, for instance. But they never got into production.”
“Haven’t all those things been outdated by the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” Hiram said. “Suppose the Germans invented a controlled rocket which would travel 10,000 miles, one that could carry an A-bomb or an H-bomb? There’s good reason to believe they did.”
I said, “I don’t quite see what this has to do with Marcel Blaye and why he was killed by Doctor Schmidt.”
“I’m coming to that. There was a gap of many months between the time we were tipped off by the relief waiter in Strasbourg and the occupation of all of Germany. Even then the Russians had gotten into Berlin before the British and Americans and the Reds had first crack at what was left of Nazi records. It took months and years of patient intelligence operations to pick up any trail. The nine German industrialists and their Junker associates had planned very thoroughly.” We could hear the screaming siren of a police car moving down Stalin ut. It reminded me that we were only two blocks from number 60, the headquarters of the MVD.
Hiram said, “Almost every line we followed ended at a blank wall. Then, a couple of months ago, we turned up Marcel Blaye in Geneva. As Mademoiselle Torres told you, Blaye had arrived in Geneva early in 1945. He had set himself up in business as a watch and clock exporter which gave him all the excuse in the world to travel and to carry on an extensive correspondence abroad. Blaye was a German. His real name was Count Manfred Blomberg. His grandfather had been Swiss and so he was able to get a Swiss passport. Blaye, or Blomberg, was a contact man between some of the exiled underground scientists and his principals who remained in Germany.”
“Who is Schmidt?” I asked.
“As far as we know,” Hiram said, “a former colonel in the Wehrmacht. I don’t know whether you’ve ever heard of a group of ex-generals and staff officers in Germany who call themselves Die Bruderschaft, the brotherhood? That’s the outfit that is plugging for the rearmament of Western Germany. They’re behind the campaign to sell the United States and Britain on allowing Western Germany a few infantry divisions.
“Of course, the brotherhood is tied up with the industrialists and the Junkers.”
I recalled Maria’s story of the angry scene between Blaye and Schmidt in the former’s Geneva office. “What did Schmidt have against Blaye? Why did he want to kill him if they were members of the same gang?”
Hiram poured us another drink, then stirred the fire. Teensy was sound asleep on the sofa.
“I told you we found Blaye in Geneva a couple of months ago. The Russians had beaten us to it. By the time we became interested in Blaye, they’d sent the Countess Orlovska, one of their best agents, to work on him. And she succeeded, too.”
I still had the pink perfumed note in my pocket. I handed it to Hiram.
“Then the countess talked Blaye into making a deal with the Russians?” I said. “She mentions Blaye’s solemn word in regard to a bargain.”
“That must have been it all right,” Hiram said. “The countess is an extremely attractive woman. She knew how to handle Blaye. I suppose she made her favors contingent on his selling out his friends. Maybe she promised him a high place in the new East German government.”
“The Manila envelope contained dozens of addresses,” I said. “Addresses of watchmakers and pharmacists and machine shops. I wish I knew who has it.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Hiram said. “That’s to go to the Countess Orlovska. We haven’t got it. We know Schmidt didn’t find it, unless his game is a lot more subtle than it seems. If the Russians have it, Orlovska may know where it is.”
He left the armchair and stood with his back to the dying fire. He looked more than ever like a grotesque doll, with his head barely reaching the level of the mantelpiece.
“Do you recall anything about the lists?” he asked. “Can you remember any of the addresses?”
“I didn’t try to memorize them,” I said. “You’ll recall I had no idea what they meant. Even if I’d known, I wouldn’t have tried to memorize them at that point. My only thought was to get away from this business.”
“Do you recall any detail at all?”
“Only the first name on the list. I remember because the name was Ablon, the name of an old Hungarian friend. I think the notation said this Ablon was a watchmaker on the Vaci utca. Does that help?”
“Maybe,” Hiram said. “It might help if nothing else works. But we’ve got to work on the Countess Orlovska. We’ve got to get that list fast before the Russians start working on it.”
“How do you propose doing that?”
Hiram flicked his ashes into the fire.
“That’s a job for you,” he said.
“Me?” I said. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“Lots,” Hiram said. “I think you’re ideal for that job. Orlovska likes handsome young men. She’s never seen or heard of you before. Your French and German are good enough so you can be French or Belgian or Austrian. Or you can just go on being Swiss.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“The only man who might be in a position to identify you in the circles in which Orlovska moves is Major Strakhov and he’s dead.”
I got up and went over to the window. “Nothing doing,” I said. “I told you, Mr. Carr, that all I want is to get
