They climbed down a ladder and onto the narrow rubber-matted keel catwalk-a nondescript figure in a brown suit and a crew member in the standard gray jumpsuit: Colonel Erdmann, followed by Eric Spehl.
Who for a man in custody seemed pretty much on his own. No handcuffs or leg irons, and the colonel seemed confident enough in his charge to keep his back to his captive.
“Hello, boys,” Charteris said, working his voice up above the diesel drone. He was perhaps twenty feet from them.
“Charteris,” Erdmann said, frowning, halting. “What are you doing back here? It’s dangerous-we’re about to land!”
They could feel the ship slowing, even turning.
Charteris strolled toward them. “I’d ask you and your, uh, prisoner the same thing, Fritz… if I didn’t already know the answer.”
Behind Erdmann, who remained calm and collected in the face of this intrusion, Spehl was openly distressed, eyes wide, mouth hanging open, arms extended, hands splayed, as if caught in the lights of an oncoming truck.
“Know what answer?” Erdmann asked calmly. But he did run a hand over his slicked-back blond hair, a nervous gesture of sorts.
“Well, perhaps ‘know’ is a bit strong.” Charteris was facing the Luftwaffe colonel now, Spehl moving in closer behind Erdmann, peeking up over his shoulder, making a two-headed man of him. “My surmise is that you and young Eric are on your way back after tucking your bomb into place.”
Neither man, crosshatched by the shadow of ladders and struts, found a response to this.
So Charteris continued, casually: “If it had already been planted, you would need to reset the timer, because of the weather delays. Or, if you were planting it for the first time, now is of course the ideal time to do it… minutes before mooring, with the crew occupied and at their landing stations.”
“This is quite the most absurd thing I ever heard,” Erdmann said, managing to put some quiet indignation into it.
Behind him, Spehl was sweating, trembling, his face drained of blood.
“I am assuming, of course,” Charteris said, “that you don’t wish to blow yourselves or for that matter any of the passengers to kingdom come. You’d like this great symbol of Nazi power to blow itself up when it’s at the mooring mast, and no one is aboard, and no one, or hardly anyone, is standing near enough to be harmed. Very humane, Fritz. Commendable thinking, for a saboteur.”
Erdmann sighed. “All right. You are partially correct. Rigger Spehl is a member of the resistance-”
“Ah, so there is a resistance. That’s nice to know.”
“He admitted to me that he had planted a bomb, and we went to retrieve it.”
“Well, let’s see it, then.”
“All right,” Erdmann said, and reached in his pocket and withdrew a small black automatic, a Luger.
“Fritz, Fritz… do you really want to fire that thing and blow all of us up?”
“No. But I am hoping you will listen to reason.”
“Ah! An offer to join the resistance? And I’m not even German! What an honor.”
Erdmann chuckled dryly at that; the little black automatic in his fist was like a toy-reminding Charteris of the chief steward taking the Doehner boys’ tin toy into custody, for making sparks.
“How in hell did you know?” Erdmann asked.
“Well, I should have known much earlier. But all these delays gave me so much time to ponder. And another passenger made a stray remark about you, just now-Gertrude Adelt-reminding me of that touching scene the first night, when your wife bid you good-bye. You knew better than anyone that this ship had been thoroughly searched, and that every last stitch of baggage would be exhaustively inspected. But in your capacity, you could allow your wife to come aboard for a last-minute good-bye-she had to stand for no security procedure, at all, did she? And I’m sure she wasn’t pretending, when she embraced you on deck, I’m sure the tears were very real, because she knew the dangerous journey you were about to begin-that if things went awry, she might never see you again…. She passed it to you, didn’t she, Fritz? Your wife handed you the bomb, didn’t she?”
Erdmann’s haggard smile and faint sigh said yes.
“It must be a fairly small and simple device,” Charteris said.
The colonel nodded. “Yes. You may have learned in your own… investigation… that Eric here, is something of a photography buff.”
“Actually, it didn’t come up.”
“I forgot-you’re not much of a detective.”
“Enough for us to be standing here like this, Fritz. So Eric’s an amateur photographer-so what?”
Erdmann shrugged. “One flashbulb added to a small dry-cell battery, with a pocket watch attached.”
“Ingenious,” Charteris said, rather impressed. “A flashbulb is perfect-a tiny glass sphere filled with pure, dry oxygen, exploding into dazzling light by a split-second combustion of aluminum foil.”
Another nod from Erdmann. “Enough to melt steel, let alone ignite hydrogen.”
“A simple device, a modest investment, to destroy the Nazis’ greatest propaganda weapon.”
“Will you join us?”
“Why don’t you put that pistol away, Fritz, and we’ll talk about it.”
With Kubis reporting to the captain, all Charteris had to do was stall-of course, if the captain was too busy, landing this beast, then…
Erdmann said, “No. I’ll keep my weapon, thank you.”
“You’re not reckless, Fritz. You won’t shoot.”
“Don’t be too sure. A gunshot wouldn’t necessarily ignite the ship’s hydrogen, not unless there’s a leak we don’t know about.”
The diesels were grinding as the airship slowed.
“You see, Fritz, that’s my problem with you and your young protege, here. You say you’re against the Nazis, but you kill just as ruthlessly as they do…. By the way, which of you threw Eric Knoecher overboard? I’m just curious.”
“I did,” Erdmann said, unhesitatingly.
“Funny, isn’t it? I took your word for it that there were no crew members on Knoecher’s list. It was you, Fritz, who gave us the names of his ‘subjects,’ our ‘suspects.’ You sent silly-ass me off on a half-dozen wild-goose chases, while withholding the one name on his list that mattered: Eric Spehl. The young crewman with Communist leanings and leftist associates. Was your name on his list, too, Fritz?”
Erdmann said nothing.
“Oh well, what does it matter?” Charteris said, stalling. “Eric Knoecher doesn’t bother me so much… the world will survive without his putrid presence. But what does bother me is poor Willy Scheef. He wasn’t part of your plot, was he?”
Erdmann’s eyes narrowed and a weariness in the man’s expression told Charteris he was on the right track.
Edging his voice up above the engine noise, Charteris said, “Poor Willy was what they call in the movies a day player. Eric here recruited him to deliver me that warning by way of a beating… but Willy was just doing Eric a favor. He wasn’t part of the resistance, just a thickheaded, good-hearted drinking crony who would do anything for a friend.”
Erdmann said, “Give me your decision, Mr. Charteris, or I’m afraid-”
“You should be afraid. You have a partner, Fritz, who is very unreliable. Very emotional. Why don’t you tell him, Eric, why you really involved poor Willy? And why you killed Willy, to cover your tracks?”
The wild-eyed Spehl spoke for the first time, and his voice was shrill. “I did not kill Willy! And neither did Colonel Erdmann. It was an accident.”
“An accident,” Charteris said, almost tasting the word. “I believe I heard this song-and-dance before….”
Insistently Spehl went on: “Willy was angry with me, for getting him in trouble, when he found out the Luftwaffe agents were investigating; he knew the wound on his leg would give him away. He was going to give himself up and tell them what I’d asked him to do and…”