The Schirmer Inheritance (11 page)

“But there
were
other photographs?” George insisted.

Father Weichs’s jaw muscles began to twitch. “I repeat, Mr. Carey, that they would have had no bearing on your inquiry,” he said.

“ ‘
Would
have had’?” George echoed. “Do you mean they no longer exist, Father?”

“I do. They no longer exist. I burned them.”

“I see,” said George.

There was a heavy silence while they looked at one another. Then Father Weichs got to his feet with a sigh and looked out of the window.

“Friedrich Schirmer was not a pleasant man,” he said at last. “I see no harm in telling you that. You may even have guessed from what I have already said. There were many of these photographs. They were never of importance to anyone but Friedrich Schirmer—and possibly to those from whom he bought them.”

George understood. “Oh,” he said blankly. “Oh, I see.” He smiled. He had a strong desire to laugh.

“He had made his peace with God,” said Father Weichs. “It seemed kinder to destroy them. The secret lusts of the dead should end with the flesh that created them. Besides,” he added briskly, “there is always the risk of such erotica getting into the hands of children.”

George got to his feet. “Thanks, Father. There are just a couple more things I’d like to ask you. Did you ever know what unit of the paratroopers young Schirmer was serving in?”

“No. I regret that I did not.”

“Well, we can find that out later. What were his given names, Father, and his rank? Do you remember?”

“I only knew one name. Franz, it was, I think. Franz Schirmer. He was a Sergeant.”

T
hey stayed that night in Stuttgart. Over dinner George summed up the results of their work.

“We can go straight to Cologne and try to find the Johann Schirmers by going through the city records,” he went on; “or we can go after the German army records, turn up Franz Schirmer’s papers, and get hold of his parents’ address that way.”

“Why should the army have his parents’ address?”

“Well, if it were our army he’d been in, his personal file would probably show the address of his parents, or wife if he’s married, as next of kin. Someone they can notify when you’ve been killed is a thing most armies like to have. What do you think?”

“Cologne is a big city—nearly a million persons before the war. But I have not been there.”

“I have. It was a mess when I saw it. What the R.A.F. didn’t do to it our army did. I don’t know whether the city archives were saved or not, but I’m inclined to go for the army records first just in case.”

“Very well.”

“In fact, I think the army is a better bet all round. Two birds with one stone. We’ll find out what happened to
Sergeant Schirmer at the same time as we trace his parents. Do you have any ideas about where his German army records would be?”

“Bonn is the West German capital. Logically they should be there now.”

“But you don’t really think they will be, eh? Neither do I. Anyway I think we’ll go to Frankfurt tomorrow. I can check up with the American army people there. They’ll know. Another brandy?”

“Thank you.”

A further thing he had discovered about Miss Kolin was that, although she probably consumed, in public or in the privacy of her room, over half a bottle of brandy every day, she did not seem to suffer from hangovers.

It took them nearly two weeks to find out what the German army knew about Sergeant Schirmer.

He had been born in Winterthur in 1917, the son of Johann Schirmer (mechanic) and Ilse, his wife, both of pure German stock. From the Hitler
Jugend
he had joined the army at the age of eighteen and been promoted corporal in 1937. He had been transferred from the Engineers to a special air training unit (
Fallschirmjäger
) in 1938 and promoted sergeant in the following year. At Eben-Emael he had received a bullet wound in the shoulder, from which he had satisfactorily recovered. He had taken part in the invasion of Crete and had been awarded the Iron Cross (Third Class) for distinguished conduct. In Benghazi later in that year he had suffered from dysentery and malaria. In Italy in 1943, while acting as a parachutist instructor, he had fractured a hip. There had been a court of inquiry to determine who had been responsible for giving the order to jump over wooded country. The court had commended the Sergeant’s conduct in refraining from transmitting an order he believed to be incorrect,
while obeying it himself. After four months in hospital and at a rehabilitation centre, and a further period of sick leave, a medical board had declared him unfit for further duty as a paratrooper or any other combat duty which entailed excessive marching. He had been posted to the occupation forces in Greece. There, he had served as weapons instructor to the Ninety-fourth Garrison Regiment in a Lines of Communication Division stationed in the Salonika area, until the following year. After an action against Greek guerrillas during the withdrawal from Macedonia, he had been reported “missing, believed killed.” The next of kin, Ilse Schirmer, Elsass Str. 39, Köln, had been duly notified.

They found Elsass Strasse, or what was left of it, in the remains of the old town off the Neumarkt.

Before the stick of bombs which had destroyed it had fallen, it had been a narrow street of small shops with offices above them, and a tobacco warehouse halfway along. The warehouse had obviously received a direct hit. Some of the other walls still stood, but, with the exception of three shops at one end of the street, every building in it had been gutted. Lush weeds grew now out of the old cellar floors; notices said that it was forbidden to trespass among the ruins or to deposit rubbish.

Number 39 had been a garage set back from the street in a space behind two other buildings and approached by an arched drive-in between them. The arch was still standing. Fastened to its brickwork was a rusty metal sign. The words on it could be read:
“Garage und Reparaturwerkstatt. J. Schirmer—Bereifung, Zübehor, Benzin.”

They walked through the archway to the place where the garage had stood. The site had been cleared, but the plan of the building was still visible; it could not have been a very big garage. All that remained of it now was a repair pit. It
was half full of rain water and there were pieces of an old packing case floating in it.

As they stood there, it began to rain again.

“We’d better see if we can find out anything from the shops at the end of the street,” George said.

The proprietor of the second of the shops they tried was an electrical contractor, and he had some information. He had only been there three years himself and knew nothing of the Schirmers; but he did know something about the garage site. He had considered renting it for his own use. He had wanted to put up a workshop and storeroom there and use the rooms over his shop to live in. The ground had no street frontage and was therefore of little value. He had thought to get it cheaply; but the owner had wanted too much and so he had made other arrangements. The owner was a Frau Gresser, wife of a chemist in the laboratories of a big factory out at Leverkusen. When women started bargaining, you understand, it was best to.… Yes, he had her address written down somewhere, though if the gentleman were considering the property, he personally would advise him to think twice before wasting his time arguing with …

Frau Gresser lived in an apartment on the top floor of a newly reconstructed building near the Barbarossa Platz. They had to call three times before they found her in.

She was a stout, frowzy, breathless woman in her late fifties. Her apartment was furnished in the cocktail-bar-functional style of prewar Germany, and crammed with Tyrolean knickknacks. She listened suspiciously to their explanations of their presence there before inviting them to sit down. Then she went and telephoned her husband. After a while she came back and said that she was prepared to answer questions.

Ilse Schirmer, she said, had been her cousin and childhood friend.

“Are the Schirmers alive now?” George asked.

“Ilse Schirmer and her husband were killed in the big air attacks on the city in May 1942,” Miss Kolin interpreted.

“Did Frau Gresser inherit the garage land from them?”

Frau Gresser showed signs of indignation when the question was put and spoke rapidly in reply.

“By no means. The land was hers—hers and her husband’s, that is. Johann Schirmer’s own business went bankrupt. She and her husband had set him up in business again for the sake of Ilse. Naturally, they had hoped also to make a profit, but it was goodness of heart that motivated them in the first place. The business, however, was theirs. Schirmer was only the manager. He had a percentage of the takings and an apartment over the garage. No one could say that he had not been generously treated. Yet, after so much had been done for him by his wife’s friends, he had tried to cheat them over the takings.”

“Who was his heir? Did he leave a will?”

“If he had had anything to leave except debts, his heir would have been his son, Franz.”

“Did the Schirmers have any other children?”

“Fortunately, no.”

“Fortunately?”

“It was hard enough for poor Ilse to feed and clothe one child. She was never strong, and with a husband like Schirmer, even a strong woman would have become ill.”

“What was the matter with Schirmer?”

“He was lazy, he was dishonest, he drank. When poor Ilse married him she did not know. He deceived everyone. When we met him he had a prosperous business in Essen. We thought him clever. It was not until his father went away that the truth was known.”

“The truth?”

“It was his father, Friedrich, who had the business head. He was a good accountant and he kept the son properly under
control. Johann was only a mechanic, a workman with his hands. The father had the brains. He understood money.”

“Did Friedrich own the business?”

“It was a partnership. Friedrich had lived and worked for many years in Switzerland. Johann was brought up there. He did not fight for Germany in the first war. lise met him in 1915 while she was staying with friends in Zurich. They married and remained in Switzerland to live. All their savings were in Swiss francs. In 1923, when the German mark failed, they all came back to Germany—Friedrich, Johann, Ilse, and the child, Franz—and bought the garage in Essen cheap with their Swiss money. Old Friedrich understood business.”

“Then Franz was born in Switzerland?”

“Winterthur is near Zurich, Mr. Carey,” said Miss Kolin. “It was mentioned in the army papers, you remember. But he would still have to apply for Swiss nationality.”

“Yes, I know all about that. Ask her why the partnership broke up.”

Frau Gresser hesitated when she heard the question.

“As she has said, Johann had no head for—”

Frau Gresser hesitated again and was silent. Her plump face had become red and shiny with embarrassment. At last she spoke.

“She would prefer not to discuss the matter,” said Miss Kolin.

“All right. Ask her about Franz Schirmer. Does she know what happened to him?”

He saw the relief in Frau Gresser’s face when she understood that the subject of Friedrich Schirmer’s departure was not going to be pursued. It made him curious.

“Franz was reported missing in Greece in 1944. The official letter addressed to his mother was forwarded to Frau Gresser.”

“The report said: ‘missing, believed killed.’ Did she ever receive official confirmation of his death?”

“Not officially.”

“What does she mean?”

“One of Franz’s officers wrote to Frau Schirmer to tell her what had happened to her son. That letter also was forwarded to Frau Gresser. Having read it, she had no doubt that Franz was dead.”

“Did she keep the letter? Is it possible for us to see it?”

Frau Gresser considered the request for a moment; finally she nodded and, going to a chest of drawers shaped as if to reduce its wind resistance, brought out a tin box full of papers. After a long search the officer’s letter was found, together with the original army casualty notification. She handed both documents to Miss Kolin, making some explanation as she did so.

“Frau Gresser wishes to explain that Franz neglected to report to the army authorities that his parents had been killed and that it was the postal authorities who forwarded the letters.”

“I see. What’s the letter say?”

“It is from Lieutenant Hermann Leubner of the Engineer Company, Ninety-fourth Garrison Regiment. It is dated the 1st of December 1944.”

“What’s the date that Franz was reported missing on that army notification?”

“October 31.”

“All right.”

“The Lieutenant writes: ‘Dear Frau Schirmer: You will, no doubt, already have been notified by the army authorities of the fact that your son, Sergeant Franz Schirmer, has been listed as missing. I write as his officer to tell you of the circumstances in which this sad occurrence took place. It was on the 24th of October—’ ” She broke off.

“They were pulling out. They wouldn’t trouble to send casualty returns every day,” George said.

Miss Kolin nodded. “It continues: ‘The regiment was moving westwards from Salonika towards the Greek frontier in the general direction of Florina. Sergeant Schirmer, as an experienced soldier and a responsible man, was sent with three trucks and ten men to a gasoline dump several kilometres off the main road near the town of Vodena. His orders were to load as much of the gasoline as he could on to the trucks, destroy the remainder, and return, bringing the troops who had been guarding the dump with him. Unfortunately, his detachment was ambushed by one of the Greek terrorist bands that had been attempting to hinder our operations. Your son was in the first truck, which exploded a mine laid by the terrorists. The third truck was able to stop in time to avoid most of the machine-gun fire of the terrorists, and two men from it were able to escape and rejoin the regiment. I myself led a force immediately to the place of the ambush. Your son was not among the dead we found and buried, nor was there any other trace of him. The driver of his truck was also missing. Your son was not a man to surrender unwounded. It is possible that he was rendered unconscious by the explosion of the mine and so captured. We do not know. But I would be failing in my duty if I encouraged you to hope that if he were captured by these Greeks he would be alive. They have not the military code of honour of us Germans. It is, of course, also possible that your son evaded capture but was unable to rejoin his comrades immediately. If so, you will be informed by the authorities when there is news of him. He was a brave man and a good soldier. If he is dead, then you will have the pride and consolation of knowing that he gave his life for his Führer and the Fatherland.’ ”