Prague Fatale полностью

Arianne struck me as an unlikely sort of spy. After all, hadn’t she confessed to being Gustav’s unwitting courier before I had told her that I was a cop? And, having told her I was a Commissar from the Alex, what kind of spy was it who, instead of disappearing the very next day, chose to begin a relationship with someone who very probably ought to have seen it as his duty to inform the Gestapo about her? What kind of spy was it who was prepared to risk so much for so little? After all, I was privy to no secret information she could have passed to anyone. Surely she was just what she seemed to be: a good-time girl with a dead husband and a brother who was a kennel hound with the Field Military Police. I’d checked him out, too. What else did she want but a chance to see a bit of what life had to offer before the Nazis turned her into yet another dutiful little German wife producing children for her first-class rabbit medal – the Honour Cross for the German Mother?

All the same, now that I knew about the local SD’s VXG, it had become very obvious that bringing Arianne along to Prague for my own pleasure had helped put her in considerable danger; and it seemed imperative that she return to Berlin as soon as possible.

It was while I was deciding to send Arianne back to Berlin that I remembered Major Ploetz had given me a letter forwarded from the Alex. Sitting in the Morning Room with a coffee and a cigarette awaiting the next senior officer on my list, I read it.

The letter was from a girl I knew in Paris; her name was Bettina and she worked at the Lutetia Hotel. I’d stayed there during my posting to the French capital. I had fixed her up with a better job at the Adlon and she was writing to thank me and to tell me that she would be coming to Berlin before Christmas. She hoped to see me then. She wrote a lot of other things besides, and since I didn’t get many letters, least of all from attractive girls, I read it again. I even passed it under my nose a couple of times, as it seemed to be scented – then again, that might have been my own imagination.

I was reading the letter a third time when Kahlo ushered General Henlein into the Morning Room.

Henlein wore round metallic-framed glasses that flashed in the firelight like newly minted coins. His hair was dark and wavy but the wave was on the ebb-flow. His mouth was sulky, and facially he was not unlike Doctor Jury. It was hard to connect this 43-year-old from Maffesdorf and the leader of the Sudeten German Movement with the vigorous gymnastics teacher described by Arianne’s girl friend at the Imperial.

Kahlo handed me the plan of the house that Kritzinger had given him, and while Henlein made himself comfortable I glanced over it briefly and, for the moment, noted only that Henlein had occupied the room immediately next to Captain Kuttner’s.

Kahlo sat down on the piano stool. Henlein, seated on the sofa opposite me, picked some fluff off his breeches, checked the cutlery on his tunic lapel – another War Merit Cross with swords – and smiled nervously several times. He had good teeth, I’ll say that for him; they were the only vigorous-looking thing about him.

‘Let me say something before we go any further.’ He spoke quietly, as if he was used to being listened to. ‘It’s no secret that I was blue last night. I think we all were, after the Leader’s speech and the good news about the Three Kings.’

He paused for a moment, as if waiting for me to agree with him; but I didn’t say anything. I just lit another cigarette and let him hang there.

Momentarily discomfited, he swallowed noticeably and then continued:

‘Toward the end of the evening I believe I may have made certain remarks to the unfortunate Captain Kuttner that I now regret. They were spoken in the heat of the moment and under the influence of alcohol. I have never been much of a drinker. Alcohol does not agree with my constitution. I try to keep myself fit, you understand, as all of us should who are in the SS. It is an elite, after all, and a higher standard is expected of us. Not just physically, but in matters of behaviour, too. Consequently, it seems to me that my own behaviour was not all that it could have been. And in retrospect the poor Captain was quite right to remonstrate with me. Indeed, it is very much to that officer’s credit that he did so.