“An inquiry about a certain Eduard Roschmann.” And he said tersely, “So?”
“Ah yes, about Captain Roschmann. I just thought I might be able to help you.” The man swiveled his eyes back from the river and fixed them kindly on Miller. “Captain Roschmann is dead.”
“Indeed?” said Miller. “I didn’t know.”
Dr. Schmidt seemed delighted. “Of course not. There’s no reason why you should. But it is true nevertheless. Really, you are wasting your time.”
Miller looked disappointed. “Can you tell me when he died?” he asked the doctor.
“You have not discovered the circumstances of his death?” the man asked.
“No. The last trace of him I can find was in late April nineteen forty-five. He was seen alive then.”
“Ah yes, of course.” Dr. Schmidt seemed happy to oblige. “He was killed, you know, shortly after that. He returned to his native Austria and was killed fighting against the Americans in early nineteen forty-five. His body was identified by several people who had known him in life.”
“He must have been a remarkable man,” said Miller.
Dr. Schmidt nodded in agreement. “Well, yes, some thought so. Yes indeed, some of us thought so.”
“I mean,” continued Miller as if the interruption had not occurred, “he must have been remarkable to be the first man since Jesus Christ to have risen from the dead.
He was captured alive by the British on December twentieth, nineteen forty-seven, at Graz in Austria.”
The doctor’s eyes reflected the glittering snow along the balustrade outside the window. “Miller, you are being very foolish. Very foolish indeed. Permit me to give you a word of advice, from an older man to a much, much younger one. Drop this inquiry.”
Miller eyed him. “I suppose I ought to thank you,” he said without gratitude.
“If you will take my advice, perhaps you ought,” said the doctor.
“You misunderstand me again,” said Miller. “Roschmann was also seen alive in mid-October this year in Hamburg. The second sighting was not confirmed. Now it is. You just confirmed it.”
“I repeat, you are being very foolish if you do not drop this inquiry.”
The doctor’s eyes were as cold as ever, but there was a hint of anxiety in them. There had been a time when people did not reject his orders, and he had never quite got used to the change.
Miller began to get angry, a slow glow of anger working up from his collar to his face. “You make me sick, Herr Doktor,” he told the older man. “You and your kind, your whole stinking gang. You have a respectable facade, but you are filth on the face of my country. So far as I am concerned, I’ll go on asking questions till I find him.” He turned to go, but the elder man grabbed his arm. They stared at each other from a range of two inches.
“You’re not Jewish, Miller. You’re Aryan. You’re one of us. What did we ever do to you, for God’s sake, what did we ever do to you?”
Miller jerked his arm free. “If you don’t know yet, Herr Doktor, you’ll never understand.”
“Ach, you people of the younger generation, you’re the same. Why can you never do what you’re told?”
“Because that’s the way we are. Or at least it’s the way I am.” The older man stared at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re not stupid, Miller. But you’re behaving as if you were. As if you were one of these ridiculous creatures constantly governed by what they call their conscience. But I’m beginning to doubt that. It’s almost as if you had something personal in this matter.”
Miller turned to go. “Perhaps I have,” he said and walked away across the lobby.
8
MILLER found the house, in a quiet residential street off the main road of the London borough of Wimbledon, without difficulty.
Lord Russell himself answered the ring at the door, a man in his late sixties wearing a woolen cardigan and a bow tie. Miller introduced himself.
“I was in Bonn yesterday,” he told the peer, “lunching with Mr. Anthony Cadbury. He gave me your name and a letter of introduction to you. I hoped I might have a talk with you, sir.” Lord Russell gazed down at him from the step with perplexity. “Cadbury? Anthony Cadbury? I can’t seem to remember…”
“A British newspaper correspondent,” said Miller. “He was in Germany just after the war. He covered the war-crimes trials. Josef Kramer and the others from Belsen. You recall those trials.”
“Course I do. Course I do. Yes, Cadbury, yes, newspaper chap. I remember him now. Haven’t seen him in years. Well, don’t let’s stand here. It’s cold and I’m not as young as I was. Come in, come in.” Without waiting for an answer be turned and walked back down the hall.
Miller followed, closing the door on the chill wind of the last day of 1963. He hung his coat on a hook in the hall at Lord Russell’s bidding and followed him through into the back of the house, where a welcoming fire burned in the sitting-room grate.
Miller held out the letter from Cadbury. Lord Russell took it, read it quickly, and raised his eyebrows.
“Humph. Help in tracking down a Nazi? Is that what you came about?” He regarded Miller from under his eyebrows. Before the German could reply, Lord Russell went on, “Well, sit down, sit down. No good standing around.” They sat in flower-print-covered armchairs on either side of the fire.
“How come a young German reporter is chasing Nazis?” asked Lord Russell without preamble. Miller found his gruff directness disconcerting.
“I’d better explain from the beginning,” said Miller.
“I think you better had,” said the peer, leaning forward to knock out the dottle of his pipe on the side of the grate. While Miller talked he refilled the pipe, lit it, and was puffing contentedly away when the German had finished.
“I hope my English is good enough,” said Miller at last, when no reaction seemed to be coming from the retired prosecutor.
Lord Russell seemed to wake from a private reverie. “Oh, yes, yes, better than my German after all these years. One forgets, you know.”
“This Roschmann business-” began Miller.
“Yes, interesting, very interesting. And you want to try and find him.
“Why?” The last question was shot at Miller and he found the old man’s eyes gazing keenly from under the eyebrows.
“Hell, I have my reasons,” he said stiffly. “I believe the man should be found and brought to trial.”
“Humph. Don’t we all? The question is, will he be? Will he ever be?” Miller played it straight back. “If I can find him, he will be. You can take my word on that.”
The British peer seemed unimpressed. Little smoke signals shot out of the pipe as he puffed, rising in perfect series toward the ceiling. The pause lengthened.
“The point is, my Lord, do you remember him?” Lord Russell seemed to start. “Remember him? Oh yes, I remember him. Or at least the name. Wish I could put a face to the name. An old man’s memory fades with the years, you know. And there were so many of them in those days.”
“Your Military Police picked him up on December twentieth, nineteen forty-seven, in Graz,” Miller told him.
He took the two photocopies of Roschmann’s picture from his breast pocket and passed them over.
Lord Russell gazed at the two pictures, full-face and profile, rose and began to pace the sitting room, lost in thought.
“Yes,” he said at last, “I’ve got him. I can see him now. Yes, the file was sent on from Graz Field Security to me in Hanover a few days later.
That would be where Cadbury got his dispatch from. Our office in Hanover.” He paused and swung around on Miller. “You say your man Tauber last saw him on April third, nineteen forty-five, driving west through Magdeburg in a car with several others?”