The Trojan Horse Page 5

  ‘However, it did not matter. I had plenty of money. I bought a little workshop on the outskirts of Vienna and equipped it with all I needed. And there I settled down to continue my experiments. I lived on the premises and saw scarcely anyone. My diesel engine experiments were reaching the point at which I could see the possibility of a tremendous success. Freya came back for a time and worked with me in the shop. She was enthusiastic. But, though she threw herself wholeheartedly into the work, I could tell she was not happy. She was young and not content, like me, to live the life of a recluse. Vienna was no place for a Jew’s daughter and I feared lest she should share her mother’s fate. In January, 1938, I persuaded her to return to London, ostensibly to arouse the interest of one of the big British firms in our experiments. Two months later I stood by the roadside and watched the armoured columns of Nazi Germany roll into Vienna. I knew it was time for me to leave.

  ‘But I had left it too late. The frontier was closed. It was impossible to get money out. I waited for ten hours in a queue at the British Embassy. It was no good. They could do nothing. The Nazis were combing Vienna for Jews. In the papers I read of the death of those few of my old friends who had not already fled the country. I went back to my workshop and destroyed the engines I had built. Two days later I was in a newly-constructed concentration camp. I was more fortunate than most. Freya got in touch with Fritz Thessen himself. She gave him some idea of the stage reached in our experiments. In those days he was still a power behind the Nazi Party. He was sufficiently interested to obtain my release. I was sent under escort with three others to Germany. But I was very weak with the beginnings of pneumonia. The effort of marching to the station finished me. In the heat of the carriage I collapsed. And because my release papers had Fritz Thessen’s name on them, I was taken to a hospital in Linz, which was the next stop. There my guards left me, as they had to deliver the other prisoners.

  ‘They came back three days later to find that I had died. Two weeks afterwards, still very weak, I crossed the frontier into Switzerland and went to England.’

  ‘I don’t quite follow,’ I said.

  A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. ‘I was lucky, that was all. One of the doctors at the Linz hospital was a friend of mine. I had helped him when he and his wife were in a bad way. A Roumanian happened to die that same night. He was about my build and cultivated a beard. The doctor switched us round and bound my head whilst I grew that.’ And he pointed to the dark little tuft of beard that showed in the photograph. ‘I hope they never discovered how I escaped. But for that man I should be working for Germany, and Germany would hold the supremacy in the air.’ He made this pronouncement quite calmly. It came from his lips as indisputable fact. ‘The Nazis are more receptive to a new idea than the English. Fritz Thessen would have recognised the value of my work. In this country, the land of my forefathers, I am not recognised. I am hunted down like a criminal for a crime I did not commit. But I should not have been happy in Germany. There would have been no Freya, and life would not have been easy.’

  I stubbed out my cigarette in the ash-tray at my side and looked across at David, who was reclining full length on his bed, his unlit briar clamped between his teeth. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that is the story he told me. It’s strange enough, but I think it was its strangeness that convinced me more than anything else. It’s hardly the sort of story a man would make up – too much detail.’

  ‘What about the diesel engine business?’ David asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘that’s where I wasn’t so sure. I thought his brain might have become unbalanced. His claim was extravagant. Yet his daughter, Freya, believed it and on the strength of it Thessen obtained his release from the concentration camp. And when he arrived in England, Schmidt went straight down to Llewellin’s place in Swansea, The invitation was due to Freya’s conversations with her uncle. Llewellin was apparently enthusiastic. He placed one of his shops at Schmidt’s disposal and did everything possible to help him. Schmidt had retained the Roumanian’s name, by the way, which was Paul Severin. Freya had also interested Calboyds in his work. But Schmidt would not allow either the metal or the plans to be seen by anyone, and for a time the company lost interest.

  ‘This interest was suddenly revived, however, shortly after inquiries had been made about him by two men, who described themselves as representing the immigration authorities. They approached the elder Mrs Llewellin, and as she disliked Schmidt and had distrusted him ever since her daughter’s death, she told them all she knew. This was in July of last year. By that time Schmidt, working with the money that his broker friend in Vienna had invested in England several years before, had practically completed a new engine. Calboyds approached him and offered to purchase the diesel design and the secret of the new alloy for a very substantial figure. They also offered him a princely salary for his services. This Schmidt refused, having a very shrewd idea, as he put it, of the value of his discoveries and not wishing to be tied to any one firm. Shortly afterwards his rooms were searched. He carried the secret in his head, however, and the searchers got nothing. But by this time he had begun to realise that the secret of his identity had leaked out, and it was then that he discovered about the visit of the immigration people to old Mrs Llewellin. He removed the nearly completed engine to a place of safety. In its place he put an old type engine. Two weeks later this engine disappeared overnight. By this time he had approached the Air Ministry, informing them of the probable performance of the engine. But he got the bird. Llewellin was furious and, knowing someone in the Ministry, he learnt the reason. Calboyds had been approached for an opinion and had described Schmidt as a crank. Llewellin then began a long correspondence with the Air Ministry in an effort to obtain a test of the engine. In the meantime, Schmidt’s finances were exhausted and Llewellin had taken the pair into his own house, and was financing the work.’

  I lit another cigarette. ‘Well, David,’ I said, ‘that’s his story. He says that he found Llewellin dead, and after going into the office and seeing the safe open he knew he had been framed and got out while the going was good.’

  ‘Why should they go to all that trouble to frame him? Why didn’t they just kill him?’

  ‘That’s what I couldn’t understand,’ I replied. ‘It was that and the melodramatic manner in which he concluded the interview that made me wonder whether he wasn’t a little unbalanced.’ And I told him word for word what Schmidt had said as he stood up with the firelight blazing in his eyes.

  ‘Cones of runnel,’ David murmured, and sucked noisily at his pipe. ‘Those are funny key-words for a code. Perhaps it has a further significance.’ He heaved himself off the bed and stood up facing me. ‘The whole thing is damned funny,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t believe a word of it, I’d say he was definitely nuts, if I didn’t know that I’d been burgled last night and the book had been replaced by another and the negatives destroyed. Can I have a look at the page we have got decoded?’

  I put my hand in the pocket of my jacket. I think I knew what to expect a fraction of a second before my fingers encountered the smooth leather of my wallet. There was nothing else in the pocket. I looked up at David. ‘We’ve both been burgled,’ I said.

  ‘Sure you put it in that pocket? It’s not in your rooms anywhere?’

  I shook my head. It was no good. I remembered slipping it into the pocket the night before and I had not looked at it since.

  ‘Well, what do we do now – call in the police?’ he asked.

  His tone held a note of sarcasm, and I pictured myself telling the whole thing to Crisham. ‘I don’t think we can very well do that,’ I said. ‘Not yet at any rate.’ And I gave him a brief résumé of the page I had decoded. When I had finished, I said, ‘Schmidt was right. Just before he went he said he thought I wouldn’t find it a case for the police – at first.’

  David filled his pipe and lit it. He was frowning slightly. ‘What’s this girl Freya like?’ He put the question in an abstracted manner. He was t
hinking of something else.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  He swung round on me. ‘Well, isn’t she the clue to the whole thing? Where do you suppose she is?’ he asked.

  The thought had already occurred to me.

  ‘I’ve got a hunch that the cones of runnel is not only the clue to the code, but the clue to the hide-out where that diesel engine is. Somebody’s got to get to Freya Schmidt before these lads, whoever they are, discover those key-words.’ He went over to the phone, which stood on the table by his bedside. ‘Get me Central 0012, will you, Miriam?’ He turned to me. ‘If we fail here, we’ll have to go round to that professor laddie you mentioned.’

  ‘Greenbaum?’

  ‘Yes.’ The phone rang, and he picked up the receiver again. ‘Is that you Micky? David Shiel here. Can you let me have a picture of Freya Schmidt? Yes, that’s right – the daughter. Oh! They haven’t traced her? You think so? Well, maybe you’re right. No, a pal of mine on the Record just rang me up to see if I could get one for him. Cheerio, old boy.’ He put the receiver back. ‘No luck,’ he said. ‘The agencies haven’t been able to get hold of any photo of her and the police don’t seem able to trace her. They think Schmidt may have killed her too. Nice minds these boys have! I suppose Schmidt really is dead? I mean, supposing you wanted someone to take some notice of an invention of yours, wouldn’t this be a good way to do it?’

  ‘And what about Llewellin?’ I said. ‘It’s no good, David. I’ve been over the whole business from beginning to end and there’s only one conclusion, and that’s the one that Schmidt hinted at. Schmidt may or may not be dead. At the moment it’s immaterial. Somehow we’ve got to find that girl.’

  ‘You may be right. But I still don’t understand that murder. It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps you’re leaping to conclusions?’

  ‘This sort of game is my job,’ I said a trifle stiffly.

  ‘What – lucid deduction?’ He looked at me quizzically. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Lucid deduction, my foot! Your job is to make any twelve of your fellow citizens believe anything you want them to believe.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but this business is serious. From the start there were only two ways of looking at it. Either Schmidt was speaking the truth or else he was mad. After what has happened during the night, I am quite certain he isn’t mad. Do you type?’ He nodded. ‘Good! Then perhaps we could have the typewriter in here. The first thing is to get out a statement, which I can leave at my bank.’

  ‘You’re going to take it up yourself, are you?’ He hesitated. Then he added, ‘If all Schmidt says is true, this is something pretty big.’

  ‘That’s why the first essential is to make a statement of what we know.’

  ‘Yes, but wouldn’t it be better to call in the police?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Police investigations can yield nothing in the case of a firm like Calboyds. If we knew what Schmidt had set down in those other four pages, there might be enough evidence to prove something. As it is, I shall have to go ahead on my own.’

  ‘But, good God!’ he said, ‘you’ll be a marked man from the word Go.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But don’t forget that, if I disappear, the police will have to take notice of my statement.’

  David nodded and fetched the typewriter from the studio. ‘We’ll have a carbon copy,’ I said, as he settled down in front of it.

  It took me over an hour to complete that statement. When it was finished, I signed the carbon and placed it in a foolscap envelope, addressing it to Inspector Crisham. In a covering letter to my bank manager, I told him that it was to be handed to Inspector Crisham in person if at any time more than a week passed without his hearing from me. I emphasised that Crisham was to read it through in his office, and I gave him a detailed description of the Yard man. I was taking no chances. When I had signed this letter and placed it, with the statement, in a larger envelope, I asked David whether he had a back entrance.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ he replied.

  ‘A fire-escape, then?’

  ‘No, the roof was considered sufficient.’

  ‘Of course, the roof. You know the people next door, don’t you – the people that were burgled? Will their roof door be unlocked?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. But they’re on the top floor. If I knock on their skylight, I expect they’ll come and open it.’

  ‘Do you know them well enough to ask them to take this to my bank and keep quiet about it?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know them very well, but Harrison seems quite a good sort. I expect he’d do it. You think we’re being watched?’

  ‘I’m working on that assumption. And whilst you’re doing that, I’m going to make certain, and at the same time ring Crisham.’ I handed him the envelope. ‘And don’t use this phone again to make any inquiries,’ I said as he went to the door. ‘There’s just a chance it may have been tapped.’

  He laughed. ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘You don’t underrate them.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve played this game before. Crooks are one thing, but foreign agents are another, particularly if they’re German. Don’t forget, I was in the Intelligence in the last war.’

  ‘You are old, Father William.’

  I nodded. I was well aware of the fact. I was not as fast as I used to be at squash. But I was fit enough and I still held down a golf handicap of two. ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But age has the compensation of experience. Keep off that phone.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’ He grinned and went out through the door.

  I took up the typescript of the statement and placed it in another envelope addressed to Crisham. This I put in my pocket. Then I got my hat and coat and went to the lift. There was no doubt that we were being watched. As I came out into Shaftesbury Avenue I noticed the quickened pace of a sandwich-board man.

  I paused for the traffic at Piccadilly Circus and I saw that the man was still on my trail. But after crossing the Circus I lost him. Nevertheless, as I went down Lower Regent Street, I was conscious of being followed. By cutting down Jermyn Street and pausing to look in the window of Simpson’s, I was able to identify my follower as a ragged-looking individual wandering along the gutter in search of cigarette ends. I should have taken no notice of him, but as he passed me he looked up and met my eyes. A feeling of awareness passed between us. it was almost embarrassing. He seemed to feel it too, for he mumbled, ‘Spare a copper, sir.’ I fished in my pocket and went over to him with two pennies. I put them clumsily into his outstretched hand so that one of them fell on to the pavement. He stooped to pick it up, and I noticed that, though his face was dark with dirt, the back of his neck below the collar was quite clean. I noticed, too, a slight scar on the back of his right hand. It was very small, just a thin line of drawn flesh across the knuckles. But I remembered a hand thrust out into the torchlight as it grabbed at a book.

  I crossed the road and cut down Duke of York Street to Pall Mall. In the sanctuary of my club I made my way to the secretary’s office. I handed him the envelope and asked him to put it in his safe. ‘I’ll drop you a line or wire you every few days,’ I said. ‘If you don’t hear from me for a whole week, get Inspector Crisham of the Yard to come round and give him the envelope. He’s to read it in your office.’ Except for a slight lift of the eyebrows, the secretary betrayed no surprise, and I left him to ponder over the peculiarities of members.

  I then went to one of the phone-boxes and rang Crisham. I was kept waiting some time, but in the end I got through to him. I told him of the arrangement I had made, but cut short his questions. ‘One other thing,’ I said. ‘You still want Schmidt, I suppose? Well, you can pick up the scent at 209 Greek Street. It’s a little stale, perhaps, but he was living there as Frank Smith until about the middle of last week. The owner of the place, one Isaac Leinster, might repay attention.’ Again I had to curb his curiosity. ‘And don’t try to get in touch with me unless you’ve found Sch
midt,’ I warned him, and put down the receiver.

  Next, I rang up my bank manager. The statement had reached him and had already been placed in the strong-room. My next call was to a big issuing house in the City. Bernard Mallard was an old friend of mine. ‘Do you know anything about Calboyds?’ I asked.

  ‘A certain amount – why?’ was the cautious reply.

  ‘I want to know who controls the company,’ I said.

  ‘No one in particular, as far as I know,’ he replied.

  ‘My information is to the contrary,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, I think your information is inaccurate. As a matter of fact, we went into the company’s position very closely about three years ago. We were hoping to be able to handle that big issue of theirs. There are a number of nominee holdings, but they’re not large. All the big holdings are in the shareholders’ own names, and none of them are big enough, singly, to constitute a controlling interest.’

  ‘Can you tell me their names?’

  ‘There you’ve got me, old boy. Calboyd was one, of course. But I can’t remember the others and I don’t think we kept the details. Better go along to Bush House, if you’re really interested.’

  ‘I will,’ I said. ‘Who handled the issue in the end?’

  ‘Ronald Dorman – and damned badly, too. He put the price too high and got stuck with about seventy per cent of the Ordinary and practically the whole of the Preference.’

  ‘He underwrote the issue himself, did he?’

  ‘Yes. There may have been some sub-underwriting, but I fancy the firm were left with the bulk of the issue.’

  ‘Where did Dorman get the capital?’

  ‘There you’ve got me. He was pretty successful in 1935 and ’36, don’t forget, and he probably had a tidy packet put by. Dorman is supposed to be pretty wealthy.’ He gave a soft chuckle. ‘Those who have money can usually find money.’

  ‘You mean he may have had backing?’