Krebs brought his heels together and saluted. “Heil Hitler! Investigators March and Jaeger.”
Nebe continued to tap the piano key.
“Ah!” Globus turned round. The great detectives.”
Close up, he was a bull in uniform. His neck strained at his collar. His hands hung at his sides, bunched in angry red fists. There was a mass of scar tissue on his left cheek, mottled crimson. Violence crackled around him in the dry air, like static electricity. Every time Nebe struck a note, he winced. He wants to punch the old man, thought March, but he can’t. Nebe outranked him.
“If the Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer has finished his recital,” said Globus, through his teeth, “we can begin.”
Nebe’s hand froze over the keyboard. “Why would anyone have a Bechstein, and leave it untuned?” He looked at March. “Why would he do that?”
“His wife was the musician, sir,” said March. “She died eleven years ago.”
“And nobody played in all that time?” Nebe closed the lid quietly over the keys and drew his finger through the dust. “Curious.”
Globus said: “We have much to do. Early this morning I reported certain matters to the Reichsfuhrer. As you know, Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer, it is on his orders that this meeting is taking place. Krebs will put the position of the Gestapo.”
March exchanged glances with Jaeger. It had gone up as far as Heydrich.
Krebs had a typed memorandum. In his precise, expressionless voice he began to read.
“Notification of Doctor Josef Buhler’s death was received by teleprinter message at Gestapo Headquarters from the Night Duty Officer of the Berlin Kriminalpolizei at two-fifteen yesterday morning, April fifteenth.
“At eight-thirty, in view of Party Comrade Buhler’s honorary SS rank of Brigadefuhrer, the Reichsfuhrer was personally informed of his demise.”
March had his hands clasped behind his back, his nails digging into his palms. In Jaeger’s cheek, a muscle fluttered.
“At the time of his death, the Gestapo was completing an investigation into the activities of Party Comrade Buhler. In view of this, and in view of the deceased’s former position in the General Government, the case was redesignated a matter of state security, and operational control was passed to the Gestapo.
“However, due to an apparent breakdown in liaison procedures, this redesignation was not communicated to Kripo Investigator Xavier March, who effected an illegal entry to the deceased’s home”
The Gestapo was investigating Buhler? March struggled to keep his gaze fixed on Krebs, his expression impassive.
“Next: the death of Party Comrade Wilhelm Stuckart. Inquiries by the Gestapo indicated that the cases of Stuckart and Buhler were linked. Once again, the Reichsfuhrer was informed. Once again, investigation of the matter was transferred to the Gestapo. And once again, Investigator March, this time accompanied by Investigator Max Jaeger, conducted his own inquiries at the home of the deceased.
“At zero-zero-twelve, sixteenth April, Investigators March and Jaeger were apprehended by myself at Party Comrade Stuckart’s apartment block. They agreed to accompany me to Gestapo Headquarters, pending clarification of this matter at a higher level.
“Signed, Karl Krebs, Sturmbannfuhrer.
“I have dated it and timed it at six this morning.”
Krebs folded the memorandum and handed it to the head of the Kripo. Outside, a spade rang on gravel.
Nebe slipped the paper into his inside pocket. “So much for the record. Naturally, we shall prepare a minute of our own. Now, Globus: what is this really about? You are desperate to tell us, I know.”
“Heydrich wanted you to see for yourself.”
“See what?”
“What your man here missed on his little freelance excursion yesterday. Follow me, please.”
It was in the cellar, although even if March had smashed the padlock on the entrance and forced his way down, he doubted if he would have found it. Past the usual household rubbish — broken furniture, discarded tools, rolls of filthy carpet bound with rope — was a wood-panelled wall. One of the panels was false.
“We knew what we were looking for, you see.” Globus rubbed his hands. “Gentlemen, I guarantee you will never have clapped eyes on the likes of this in your entire lives.”
Beyond the panel was a chamber. When Globus turned on the lights, it was indeed dazzling: a sacristy; a jewelbox. Angels and saints; clouds and temples; high-cheeked noblemen in white furs and red damask; sprawling pink flesh on perfumed yellow silk; flowers and sunrises and Venetian canals…
“Go in,” said Globus. “The Reichsfuhrer is anxious that you should see it properly.”
It was a small room — four metres square, March guessed -with a bank of spotlights built into the ceiling, directed on to the paintings which covered every wall. In the centre was an old-fashioned swivel chair, of the sort a nineteenth-century clerk might have had in a counting-house. Globus placed a gleaming jackboot on the arm and kicked, sending it spinning.
“Imagine him, sitting here. Door locked. Like a dirty old man in a brothel. We found it yesterday afternoon. Krebs?”
Krebs took the floor. “An expert is on his way this morning from the Fuhrermuseum in Linz. We had Professor Braun of the Kaiser Friedrich, here in Berlin, give us a preliminary assessment last night.”
He consulted his sheaf of notes.
“At the moment, we know we have Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael, Portrait of a Young Man by Rembrandt, Christ Carrying the Cross by Rubens, Guardi’s Venetian Palace, Krakau Suburbs by Bellotto, eight Canalettos, at least thirty-five engravings by Durer and Kulmbach, a Gobelin. The rest he could only guess at.”
Krebs reeled them off as if they were dishes in a restaurant. He rested his pale ringers on an altar-piece of gorgeous colours, raised on planks at the end of the room.
This is the work of the Nuremberg artist, Viet Stoss, commissioned by the King of Poland in 1477. It took ten years to complete. The centre of the triptych shows the Virgin asleep, surrounded by angels. The side panels show scenes from the lives of Jesus and Mary. The predella” — he pointed to the base of the altar-piece- “shows the genealogy of Christ.”
Globus said: “Sturmbannfuhrer Krebs knows of these things. He is one of our brightest officers.”
“I’m sure” said Nebe. “Most interesting. And where did it all come from?”
Krebs began: “The Viet Stoss was removed from the Church of Our Lady in Krakau in November 1939 —”
Globus interrupted: “It came from the General Government. Warsaw, mainly, we think. Buhler recorded it as either lost or destroyed. God alone knows how much else the corrupt swine got away with. Think what he must have sold just to buy this place!”
Nebe reached out and touched one of the canvases: the martyred Saint Sebastian, bound to a Doric pillar, arrows jutting from his golden skin. The varnish was cracked, like a dried river bed, but the colours beneath — red, white, purple, blue — were bright still. The painting gave off a faint smell of must and incense — the scent of pre-war Poland, of a nation vanished from the map. Some of the panels, March saw, had powdery lumps of masonry attached to their edges — traces of the monastery and castle walls from which they had been wrenched.
Nebe was rapt before the saint. “Something in his expression reminds me of you, March.” He traced the body’s outline with his fingertips and gave a wheezing laugh. “ ‘The willing martyr.’ What do you say, Globus?”
Globus grunted. “I don’t believe in saints. Or martyrs.” He glared at March.
“Extraordinary,” murmured Nebe, “to think of Buhler, of all people, with these…”
“You knew him?” March blurted out the question.
“Slightly, before the war. A committed National Socialist, and a dedicated lawyer. Quite a combination. A fanatic for detail. Like our Gestapo colleague here.”
Krebs gave a slight bow. 'The Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer is kind.”
“The point is this” said Globus, irritably. “We have known about Party Comrade Buhler for some time.
