The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction - July/August 2016, Page 2

  "When you put it like that…," she said.

  * * *

  Ulla Blau's room was an almost perfect square. It had once been a dressing room of some sort, or perhaps, Gunther thought a little uncharitably, a supply closet. The old woman, whose name, he had learned, was Mrs. White, stood in the doorway watching him with her bright button eyes. She swayed, from time to time, and hummed a tune under her breath. It sounded a little like the Horst Wessel song.

  There was nothing of the personal in Ulla Blau's room. There was a bed, perfectly made up; a wardrobe and a vanity mirror; a small gas ring and a kettle; and that was about it. Gunther's imaginings of their reunion plunged further into doubt, for this was not the romantic abode he had perhaps envisioned. There were no clues as to Ulla's employment or whereabouts. Beyond the wall, the noise of hurried sexual congress could be clearly heard. He glanced at Mrs. White, who shrugged. Gunther began to have an idea of what the majority of the rooms were used for.

  Mrs. White moved aside to let him out. The corridor was long and dark and the communal bathroom was at one end of it. Gunther was, at this point, beginning to feel concern.

  "And you do not know where she is?" he demanded of Mrs. White.

  The old woman shrugged. She didn't know, or didn't care, or didn't care to know. Gunther dug out Ulla's note. If I am not there, she had written, ask for the dwarf.

  I shall interject, at this point, to say that this dwarf was a person of considerable interest to us. We were anxious to interview him with regards to some matters which had arisen. This dwarf went by the name of Jurgen, and was of a Swiss nationality. He had come to London six months previous and was, moreover, the scion of a wealthy Zurich banking family with connections high up within the party.

  "Where can I find," Gunther said, and then felt silly, "the dwarf?"

  He said it quite light-heartedly. But Mrs. White's reaction was the opposite. Her face turned a crimson shade and her eyes rolled in her head like those of a grand dame in a Christmas pantomime.

  "Him? You ask me about him ?"

  Gunther was not aware of the reputation the dwarf had in certain circles. Mrs. White's reaction took him quite by surprise.

  "Where can I find him?" he said mildly.

  "Do not ask me that!"

  Good wine, missed plans, and bad company do not mix well. Gunther at last lost his patience.

  "Listen to me, you silly old bat!" he said. He had done terrible things to survive on the Eastern Front. Now that man was before Mrs. White, and she cowered. Gunther jabbed an angry finger at the old woman's face. "Tell me where this damned dwarf is or by God I'll.…"

  She must have told him; he must have left. My men lost him, by accident or design, shortly after; and so the first I knew of it was the next morning, when Sergeant Cole called me and woke me from a blissful sleep, to tell me they'd arrested Gunther Sloam for murder.

  3

  BY THE TIME I made it to HQ, they'd worked Gunther over a little; mostly I think just to keep their hand in. I told them to straighten him up and bring him to my office, along with two cups of tea. When they brought him in, he had a black eye, a swollen lip, and a bad temper.

  "What is the meaning of this?" he said. "I am a citizen of the Reich. You can't treat me like this!"

  "Please, Mr. Sloam, sit down. Cigarette?" I proffered the box. He hesitated, then took one, and I lit him up. He took in all the smoke at once, and after that he was a little calmer.

  "Say, what is the meaning of this?" I think only then my face registered with him, and he started. "You're that chap, Everly. I don't understand."

  He looked around him at the office. The framed photograph of the Führer stared back at him from the wall.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I should have introduced myself more fully. I am Kriminalinspektor Tom Everly, of Gestapo Department D."

  He looked at me in silence. His lips moved. He looked around the room again. When he at last spoke he was more subdued.

  "Gestapo, eh?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "But you're English!" he cried, turning on me accusingly.

  "Yes?"

  That stumped him. "When you said you studied in Berlin before the war—"

  "It is not I who have to justify myself to you," I said.

  "How do you mean?"

  "Mr. Sloam, you have been arrested for murder."

  "Murder!" His eyes were wild. "Listen, here!"

  "No, you listen," I said. "We can do this the hard way. You've already had a little taste of that. Or we can do this the civilized way."

  I waited and presently there was a knock on the door. Then Cole came in with the tea. He left it on my desk and departed. We'd had the routine down pat by then.

  "Milk? Sugar?" I said.

  Unexpectedly he smiled. "How very English," he said. "Two sugars, please, and milk too, why not." He sat down on the chair, hard. I passed him the tea and lit a fresh cigarette and watched him.

  "You'd better tell me what happened last night," I said.

  He sighed. "I don't know where to start," he said, dejectedly.

  * * *

  Gunther left the house on Dean Street around eight o'clock in the evening. When he stood outside, the thought that came to his mind was that the house was, indisputably, one of ill repute. What Ulla was doing in such a place he did not know. He could not believe that she prostituted herself, nor understand how she came to live in such a squalid place. As I'd said to him before, he was a romantic—though that did not necessarily make him a fool.

  Mrs. White had given him an address nearby. Gunther walked, not hurrying, but at a steady pace. He was well aware of the two shadows which detached themselves from the wall across the road and followed. He did not increase his speed or slow down, but his path was such that in a short amount of time he was able to shake them off. Taking a turning, he hid down a dark alleyway as the two men walked past. He could hear them arguing in low voices as he slunk in the other direction.

  The night was thick with darkness. The buildings here were still half-ruined, destroyed in the Blitz, and served as hidey-holes for all kinds of illicit activities. Gunther watched himself, but wished he had a gun, a wish he was soon to fulfill. He smelled frying onions nearby and his stomach rumbled. He heard drunken laughter, soft footfalls, and a scream that was cut short. He saw four men sitting by a lit lantern playing cards. He smelled cigar smoke. He heard someone muttering and moaning in a low, never-ceasing voice.

  At last he made it to the Lyric. It is a Victorian pub, and had remained undamaged during the war. Gunther, the romantic, found it charming. Opposite the pub stood the Windmill Theatre. It was the one source of bright light, and advertised nude tableaux vivants, as well as the exclusive appearance of Tran und Helle, the popular comedians, visiting London for seven nights only.

  Gunther entered the pub. It was dark and dim inside, and the smell of beer, and cigarette and cigar smoke hit him with their combined warmth. A small fire burned merrily in the fireplace. The atmosphere worked like a panacea on Gunther. He removed his coat and perched on the bar gratefully.

  "Help you, sir?"

  The bartender was bald and rotund and missing one eye, his left one. He turned a rag inside a beer stein, over and over and without much hope of making it clean.

  "I'll have an Erdinger, please," Gunther said. "And a plate of Schweinshaxe mit Sauerkraut. "

  The bartender, without changing an expression, poured the beer and served it to Gunther.

  "We don't have pork knuckle," he said. "Or sauerkraut."

  Gunther closed his eyes and took a sip of the beer. He already felt light-headed from the wine he had consumed earlier with the old woman.

  "Well, what do you serve?" he said.

  "Pie."

  "What sort of pie?"

  "Pork pie."

  "Then I shall have a pork pie, bitte. "

  The bartender nodded and kept wiping the stein. "That'll be twenty Reichsmarks," he said.

  "Twenty!"


  The bartender looked bored. Gunther cursed under his breath but paid. The bartender made the money disappear. Gunther lit a cigarette and looked about the pub. There were only a few men sitting around, and no women. No one looked in his direction. He began to get the sense that he wasn't welcome.

  He took another sip of his beer.

  "I am looking for Der Zwerg, " he said; announcing it into the air of the pub.

  No one moved. If anything, Gunther thought, they had become more still.

  "Pie," the bartender said. Gunther looked down at the counter. A round, solid brick of pastry sat on a cracked plate. Gunther picked up the knife and fork. He cut through the pastry into the pink fleshy interior. He cut a slice and put it in his mouth. It was cold and rather flavorless. He chewed and swallowed.

  "Delicious," he said.

  Someone sniggered. When Gunther turned his head a tall thin figure rose from a bench against the wall and perched itself on a stool beside him. The man had the cadaverous look of a disappointed undertaker. The smile he offered Gunther was as honest as a Vichy check.

  "You are new in town?" he said.

  "What's it to you?" Gunther said.

  "Nothing, nothing." The man rubbed his hands together as though cold. He reminded Gunther a little of that Jew actor, Peter Lorre; he had starred in Fritz Lang's M nearly three decades earlier. "It is good to hear an honest German voice again."

  "You are not from Germany."

  "No. Luxembourg," the man confessed. That explained the accent. "It is a strange country, England, is it not? They are so dour, so resentful of you Germans. Do you know, I think, deep down, they believe they should have won the war." He laughed, the same sort of insincere sound a hyena makes. "Beer, bartender!" he called jovially. "And one for my friend here. Put it on my tab."

  "You have been here long?" Gunther asked.

  "Two years now," the man said. "I do a little business. Import-export, mostly. You know how it is."

  Gunther did not. The beer arrived and he sipped from it. He forced himself to finish the pie. He had eaten worse on the Front.

  * * *

  "This man," I said. "His name was Klaus?"

  Gunther was pacing my office. He looked up, surprised. "Klaus Pirelli, or so he told me," he said. "Yes. How did you—?"

  "He has given us a full statement," I said. "He says he drank beer with you and discussed the ongoing war in America, Leni Riefenstahl's latest film, the new African Lebensraum, and the import-export business. He says you got progressively drunker and increasingly aggressive. At some point you asked, loudly, where a man could get hold of a gun in this town. You became so voluble that he had to escort you outside. He says the last he saw of you, you were staggering down Great Windmill Street in the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue, waving your arms and swearing you would, 'Get that bitch.'"

  Gunther stopped pacing. His mouth hung open. I almost felt sorry for him at that moment. In his comic horror he reminded me of the comedian, Alfred Hawthorne, whom I had recently seen playing Bottom in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

  "But that is Wahnsinn !" He gaped at me like a landed fish. "It is madness! I did no such thing!"

  "Can you prove it?"

  "The other drinkers! The bartender! They were all witnesses—"

  He looked at me then, realization slowly dawning.

  "You are German," I said, sadly. "They are not."

  "Listen, Everly, you've got to believe me!"

  "Just tell me what happened," I said.

  * * *

  Gunther found the Luxembourgian trying. The man was obviously selling something, but Gunther wasn't sure what.

  "I am looking for the dwarf," he said again.

  "Him!" the Luxembourgian exclaimed.

  "I was told I could find him here."

  "He is not an easy man to find, Herr Jurgen."

  "Is that his name?" Gunther said.

  "You do not know his name, yet you seek to find him?" The Luxembourgian looked amused at that. "What is the nature of your business with the count?"

  "A count, is he?" Gunther said. His head really was spinning. "Well, I want to know where Ulla Blau is." He grabbed the Luxembourgian by the lapels and shook him. "Do you know where Ulla is?" he demanded. His speech felt slurred, his tongue unresponsive. "I need to see her. She's in a lot of trouble."

  The Luxembourgian gently removed Gunther's hands. "You need air, friend," he said. "I think you've had too much to drink."

  "Don't be…ridiculous," Gunther said. His vision swam. He was dimly aware of his new friend putting an arm around his shoulders and steering him outside. Cold air hit his face like a slap, but it did not clear his confused thoughts. He began to stagger away from the pub. As he did so, he saw a pair of shapely white legs strolling past. He raised his head and tried to focus. A good-looking woman wrapped in a thick fur coat walking away from him. As she passed under a gaslight, for just a moment, she turned her head and smiled.

  "Ulla?" Gunther cried. "Ulla!"

  There was something mocking in the woman's smile. She turned and walked away. Gunther lurched after her for a few more steps but she was long gone, and perhaps, he thought later, she had never been there at all. He tottered on his feet. Darkness opened all around him like the entry to a sewer. He fell, hard, and lay on the ground. He closed his eyes, and dark sleep claimed him.

  * * *

  "And that is all you remember?" I said.

  "All I remember, until some uncouth men roused me on the street, administered a series of kicks for good measure, put me in irons, and dragged me to your cellars to have another go." He touched his black eye and winced. "Don't you see?" Gunther said. "I was drugged. The Luxembourgian must be in on it. He must have slipped something into my drink when I wasn't watching."

  The mention of drugs caught my attention and I looked at him in a new way.

  "Besides," he said with a laugh, "who the hell am I supposed to have murdered?"

  "Come with me."

  He shrugged. This, he endeavored to get across, was nothing to him. In that he was wrong.

  He followed me along the corridor and down the stairs. The Gestapo had made its headquarters in Somerset House. We found the stout walls and easy access to the river compelling. I took him down to the makeshift morgue.

  "What is this?" he said, and shivered as we entered. I ignored him.

  "Sir," Kriminalassistent West said, standing to attention.

  "What is this?" Gunther demanded. We both ignored him. I gave West the nod. He pulled one of the refrigeration units open and slid out the gurney.

  A corpse, covered in a sheet, lay on the cold metal tray.

  Gunther's lips moved, but without sound. Perhaps he was beginning to realize the trouble he was in.

  I gave West the nod again. He removed the sheet. Underneath it lay a naked female form. Her face had been blasted apart by a bullet from a Luger semiautomatic.

  I watched Gunther closely. The horror on his face looked genuine enough.

  "Can you identify her?" I said. He stared at the body mutely. His eyes took in the ruined faced, the still, cold body, her bejeweled fingers. He began to shake.

  "No, no," he said. "It cannot be."

  He stepped closer to the gurney. He took one dead hand in his.

  "This ring," he said. It was a rather tawdry thing, a chunky emerald set in copper. "I gave it to her. I remember buying it, from Kling's on Münzstrasse. It was a token of my love, just before they shipped me to the Front."

  "Gave it to whom?" I said, gently.

  He looked at me, his eyes full of quiet despair.

  "I gave it to Ulla Blau," he said.

  4

  THE STORY could have ended here, but for the fact that Ulla Blau's death, though in some part not entirely without benefit, nevertheless put me in an awkward position.

  I took Gunther back to my office. I asked Sergeant Cole to bring us two coffees this time, and some Viennese pastries. You may wonder why I treated Gunt
her Sloam with such kid gloves. After all, the expedient act would have been to send him back down to the cellars for a second, more thorough work-over—to last only as long as necessary to extract a full and frank confession—then a speedy execution and burial by water. There were, as I mentioned, several reasons why Somerset House was chosen for our headquarters. The corpses, occasionally, if not weighted enough, floated back up to the surface or caught in the Greenwich wharves on their way out to sea, but that merely served to reinforce in people's minds the long and lethal reach of the Gestapo. Sometimes we had to make sure the corpses were lightly weighted when a particular message needed to be sent.

  Gunther wondered the same thing. I could see it in his eyes. He observed Sergeant Cole bring in the coffee and pastries with the eyes of a condemned man watching his executioner. I sat behind my desk and stirred a cube of sugar into my coffee.

  "Cream?"

  "Thank you."

  He said that in a wondering voice. I smiled patiently and took a bite from my Apfelstrudel. "They are not as good as on the Continent, of course," I said, when I had chewed and swallowed. "But we do try our best, as you see."

  "I am sure it is delicious," he said. He didn't look like he tasted anything.

  "I asked you, when we first met," I said. "What your friend was doing in London. You did not enlighten me."

  "Everly, for God's sake…!" he began, then went stumm .

  I waited him out.

  "I don't know," he admitted at last. "I received this note, and I—" he buried his face in his hands. "I did not take it seriously. She said her life was in danger and I, I—"

  "You were expecting nothing more than a pleasurable reunion," I said. He raised his face to me and his eyes flashed with anger.

  "Now look here, Everly!" he said. "I did not kill her!"