“Really, Gunther, you’re the most extraordinarily impertinent fellow I think I’ve ever met,” said Schellenberg.
“But then — it was only yesterday, as a matter of fact — I realized who really killed him. It wasn’t the general or any of his men. And I don’t believe it was you, Captain Meyer. You don’t strike me as the type. But I think you know who it was. Which brings me to the formal question, sir. Was it your colleague, Lieutenant Leuthard, who killed Dr. Heckholz?”
“I must say,” said Schellenberg. “If that doesn’t beat all. You turn up at a man’s house, as a guest, and within ten minutes you virtually accuse the man to his face of cold-blooded murder. You astonish me.”
“Actually, General, I don’t think it was cold-blooded at all. I think the lieutenant hit him on the spur of the moment. With the first heavy object that came to hand. If he’d gone there to kill him, he certainly would have brought a more effective weapon than a bronze of Adolf Hitler. Which means I’m certain that the captain here didn’t order Heckholz to be killed, either. No, I’d say Leuthard acted way beyond his brief. After all, Captain, you yourself told me that Leuthard was a difficult character, at the best of times. A bit hotheaded, I think you said.”
Schellenberg stood up. “I think you should leave now, Gunther.”
“In the Mercedes?” I smiled. “The one I just arrived in? I don’t think so, General. You wouldn’t like that.”
“Sit down, Schelli,” said Meyer. “Sit down and be quiet for a moment. Captain Gunther is absolutely right. Lieutenant Leuthard did murder Dr. Heckholz. Just as he described.”
“That much is now certain, anyway,” I said.
“Leuthard was a lot more than a hothead,” said Meyer. “He was a thug. I had no idea what kind of man he was when he accompanied me to Berlin. The army insisted I take him with me, for security in the event that someone from the Gestapo decided to kidnap me from the conference. Out of fear that under torture I might reveal some state secrets.”
“Would you care to tell me exactly what happened, sir?”
“My God, Gunther,” complained Schellenberg, “you sound exactly like the village policeman.”
“I don’t think I’m going to tell you exactly what you sound like, General. It might tempt me to reach for that gun. This is a neutral country, after all.”
“No, no, Schelli, Gunther’s quite right. He was first on the scene of the crime, after all. Heckholz was threatening to expose a business deal between the Swiss Wood Syndicate and a subsidiary of Nordhav — Export Drives GMBH — in the Swiss newspapers.”
“You mean the deal to supply wooden barracks to the SS and the German Army?”
“How do you know about that?” asked Schellenberg.
“Precisely,” said Meyer. “Two thousand of them. The first five hundred were shipped last year. The whole deal is worth a lot of money to Switzerland’s rather beleaguered economy. About twelve million Swiss francs, to be honest. Not that it would be the first time our two countries have done business together. Back in 1939, Major Eggen’s department bought a large quantity of machine guns from us. Of course, not all Swiss are happy that their country is making business deals with yours. Especially when it’s military equipment. But those who are opposed to such deals don’t tell us how this country is supposed to survive economically while remaining a neutral country that’s surrounded by Germany and its allies. The fact is, we have to export to survive. We need German money, and to stay neutral, we need to do business with Germany. But this is a very sensitive subject and it would not have been helpful for someone to write about it in the Swiss newspapers. It’s that simple. Schelli here has been very helpful in making such deals happen. He believes very strongly in Swiss neutrality. In fact, that’s why he’s here, right now.”
“You’re telling him much more than he really needs to know,” said Schellenberg. “He’s really not that important.”
“Get to Leuthard’s role in all this,” I told Meyer.
“Soon after we checked into the Adlon I received a message from Heckholz asking for a meeting. So while you and I were chatting in the sunshine outside the hotel, I sent Leuthard round to Heckholz’s office to set something up. He wasn’t there. So he went back again during the opera, and this time he was. All that he was supposed to do was arrange a meeting. I certainly didn’t expect him to bash the man’s brains in. I was horrified when he told me what had happened. As soon as I got back to Switzerland, I arranged for Leuthard to be transferred from my section.”
“So you’re saying that Heckholz wasn’t killed to save Switzerland from any embarrassment about the end users of those wooden barracks,” I said.
Meyer looked puzzled. “Aside from the fact that a wooden barracks is going to be occupied by German soldiers,” he said, “I really don’t see that anyone can complain very much about a bloody hut. It’s not like we’re selling your country machine guns. That’s why we’re doing it. A hut is just a hut. Much less emotive than guns, I can assure you.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “All the same, I wonder what the Swiss people might say if they knew exactly what the SS is using some of those huts for.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They’re being sent to concentration camps. You’ve heard about those, I suppose.”
“You don’t know that for sure, Gunther,” said Schellenberg. “You’re just guessing.”
“Two thousand of them? I should think it’s a fair guess that quite a few of them have ended up in one KZ or another.”
“Do shut up, Gunther,” said Schellenberg, “you’re in way over your head.”
“I’m used to that, oddly enough.”
“You haven’t the first idea of what we’re trying to accomplish here.”
“Of course they’re not for soldiers, Captain Meyer. They’re for Jewish slave labor. Jews and anyone else the Third Reich has deemed subhuman and therefore expendable. I should like to tell you more about those but I’m afraid I don’t know much about what happens in these places, though I can guess.”
“I see.” Meyer looked grimly at Schellenberg. “Did you know about this, Schelli?”
“If he didn’t know, he certainly suspected as much. And if a man as intelligent and well connected as the general here suspects something, then you can bet it isn’t very long before he makes it his business to know everything about it. That’s Schelli’s job, after all. To find out where others have hidden the truth.”
“Damn it all, Gunther, how dare you walk in here in your size forty-fives and trample all of the months of good work that Major Eggen and I have done.”
“But sometimes he also makes it his business not to know what he suspects,” I said. “Just as he’s managed very carefully to avoid the murderous work that most of his unfortunate subordinates have been obliged to carry out. Is that right, General? Your small white hands are quite clean, aren’t they?”
Schellenberg looked fit to burst with anger. Like a lot of small men, it turned out that he had quite a bark.
“Do you honestly think you’re any different?” he said through gritted teeth. “If I’ve avoided getting blood on my small white hands then that’s only because I’ve been hiding myself away in the same lavatory as you, Gunther. We’ve both been crouched in the end stall, living in fear that we’ll have to do something to stay alive that makes staying alive seem like a high price to pay for what we’ve had to do. Haven’t we? So what the hell gives you the right to judge me? Do you think that the captains are any less culpable than the generals, is that it? Or is it that you think that my soul has already paid a higher price by reason of who and what I am? Well, you’re wrong. If I’ve got where I am with a shred of self-respect left to me then that’s because I’m rather better at walking the high wire than you are. Did you ever consider that? And you can’t look inside my heart and know me any more than I can look inside yours. The way I see things, it’s my duty to try and save this country and, as a corollary, my country from total destruction. So let me explain it very simply in a way that even you can understand, Gunther. Only if Switzerland remains neutral will anywhere exist that Germany can conduct peace negotiations with the Allies. It’s as simple as that. The Americans are here. The English are here. Even the Russians are here. All we have to do is find somewhere quiet with a nice round table and then sit down and talk. It’s taken me months to persuade Reichsführer Himmler that this is the only way forward for Germany. Do you understand? It’s our duty to end this war. And to do that we need this country.”