Krebs made no reply. The dome of the Great Hall loomed ahead. Ten minutes later, when the BMW turned left on to the East-West Axis, March guessed their destination.
IT was almost eight by the time they arrived. The iron gates of Buhler’s villa had been swung wide open. The grounds were filled with vehicles, dotted with black uniforms. One SS trooper was sweeping the lawn with a proton-magnetometer. Behind him, jammed into the ground, was a trail of red flags. Three more soldiers were digging holes. Drawn up on the gravel were Gestapo BMWs, a lorry, and a large armoured security van of the sort used for transporting gold bullion.
March felt Jaeger nudge him. Parked in the shadows beside the house, its driver leaning against the bodywork, was a bulletproof Mercedes limousine. A metal pennant hung above the radiator grille: silver SS lightning flashes on a black background; in one corner, like a cabbalistic symbol, the gothic letter K.
TWO
The head of the Reich Kriminalpolizei was an old man. His name was Artur Nebe, and he was a legend.
Nebe had been head of the Berlin detective force even before the Party came to power. He had a small head and the sallow, scaly skin of a tortoise. In 1954, to mark his sixtieth birthday, the Reichstag had voted him a large estate, including four villages, near Minsk in the Ostland, but he had never even been to look at it. He lived alone with his bed-ridden wife in Charlottenburg, in a large house marked by the smell of disinfectant and the whisper of pure oxygen. It was sometimes said that Heydrich wanted to get rid of him, to put his own man in charge of the Kripo, but dared not. “Onkel Artur” they called him in Werderscher Markt. Uncle Artur. He knew everything.
March had seen Nebe from a distance but never met him. Now he was sitting at Buhler’s grand piano, picking out a high note with a single, yellowish claw. The instrument was untuned, the sound discordant in the dusty air.
At the window, his broad back to the room, stood Odilo Globus.
Krebs brought his heels together and saluted. “Heil Hitler! Investigators March and Jaeger.”
Nebe continued to tap the piano key.
“Ah!” Globus turned round. The great detectives.”
Close up, he was a bull in uniform. His neck strained at his collar. His hands hung at his sides, bunched in angry red fists. There was a mass of scar tissue on his left cheek, mottled crimson. Violence crackled around him in the dry air, like static electricity. Every time Nebe struck a note, he winced. He wants to punch the old man, thought March, but he can’t. Nebe outranked him.
“If the Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer has finished his recital,” said Globus, through his teeth, “we can begin.”
Nebe’s hand froze over the keyboard. “Why would anyone have a Bechstein, and leave it untuned?” He looked at March. “Why would he do that?”
“His wife was the musician, sir,” said March. “She died eleven years ago.”
“And nobody played in all that time?” Nebe closed the lid quietly over the keys and drew his finger through the dust. “Curious.”
Globus said: “We have much to do. Early this morning I reported certain matters to the Reichsfuhrer. As you know, Herr Oberstgruppenfuhrer, it is on his orders that this meeting is taking place. Krebs will put the position of the Gestapo.”
March exchanged glances with Jaeger. It had gone up as far as Heydrich.
Krebs had a typed memorandum. In his precise, expressionless voice he began to read.
“Notification of Doctor Josef Buhler’s death was received by teleprinter message at Gestapo Headquarters from the Night Duty Officer of the Berlin Kriminalpolizei at two-fifteen yesterday morning, April fifteenth.
“At eight-thirty, in view of Party Comrade Buhler’s honorary SS rank of Brigadefuhrer, the Reichsfuhrer was personally informed of his demise.”
March had his hands clasped behind his back, his nails digging into his palms. In Jaeger’s cheek, a muscle fluttered.
“At the time of his death, the Gestapo was completing an investigation into the activities of Party Comrade Buhler. In view of this, and in view of the deceased’s former position in the General Government, the case was redesignated a matter of state security, and operational control was passed to the Gestapo.
“However, due to an apparent breakdown in liaison procedures, this redesignation was not communicated to Kripo Investigator Xavier March, who effected an illegal entry to the deceased’s home”
The Gestapo was investigating Buhler? March struggled to keep his gaze fixed on Krebs, his expression impassive.
“Next: the death of Party Comrade Wilhelm Stuckart. Inquiries by the Gestapo indicated that the cases of Stuckart and Buhler were linked. Once again, the Reichsfuhrer was informed. Once again, investigation of the matter was transferred to the Gestapo. And once again, Investigator March, this time accompanied by Investigator Max Jaeger, conducted his own inquiries at the home of the deceased.
“At zero-zero-twelve, sixteenth April, Investigators March and Jaeger were apprehended by myself at Party Comrade Stuckart’s apartment block. They agreed to accompany me to Gestapo Headquarters, pending clarification of this matter at a higher level.
“Signed, Karl Krebs, Sturmbannfuhrer.
“I have dated it and timed it at six this morning.”
Krebs folded the memorandum and handed it to the head of the Kripo. Outside, a spade rang on gravel.
Nebe slipped the paper into his inside pocket. “So much for the record. Naturally, we shall prepare a minute of our own. Now, Globus: what is this really about? You are desperate to tell us, I know.”
“Heydrich wanted you to see for yourself.”
“See what?”
“What your man here missed on his little freelance excursion yesterday. Follow me, please.”
IT was in the cellar, although even if March had smashed the padlock on the entrance and forced his way down, he doubted if he would have found it. Past the usual household rubbish — broken furniture, discarded tools, rolls of filthy carpet bound with rope — was a wood-panelled wall. One of the panels was false.
“We knew what we were looking for, you see.” Globus rubbed his hands. “Gentlemen, I guarantee you will never have clapped eyes on the likes of this in your entire lives.”
Beyond the panel was a chamber. When Globus turned on the lights, it was indeed dazzling: a sacristy; a jewelbox. Angels and saints; clouds and temples; high-cheeked noblemen in white furs and red damask; sprawling pink flesh on perfumed yellow silk; flowers and sunrises and Venetian canals…
“Go in,” said Globus. “The Reichsfuhrer is anxious that you should see it properly.”
It was a small room — four metres square, March guessed -with a bank of spotlights built into the ceiling, directed on to the paintings which covered every wall. In the centre was an old-fashioned swivel chair, of the sort a nineteenth-century clerk might have had in a counting-house. Globus placed a gleaming jackboot on the arm and kicked, sending it spinning.
“Imagine him, sitting here. Door locked. Like a dirty old man in a brothel. We found it yesterday afternoon. Krebs?”
Krebs took the floor. “An expert is on his way this morning from the Fuhrermuseum in Linz. We had Professor Braun of the Kaiser Friedrich, here in Berlin, give us a preliminary assessment last night.”
He consulted his sheaf of notes.
“At the moment, we know we have Portrait of a Young Man by Raphael, Portrait of a Young Man by Rembrandt, Christ Carrying the Cross by Rubens, Guardi’s Venetian Palace, Krakau Suburbs by Bellotto, eight Canalettos, at least thirty-five engravings by Durer and Kulmbach, a
Gobelin. The rest he could only guess at.”
Krebs reeled them off as if they were dishes in a restaurant. He rested his pale ringers on an altar-piece of gorgeous colours, raised on planks at the end of the room.