The Case of the Nazi Canary

CHAPTER FOUR

As usual, Sinclair was amazed at Begg's extraordinary retentive memory, which had drawn itself a precise map of the town and was able to thread Dolly's massive bonnet through the winding streets of old Munich as if the driver had lived there all his life.

Soon they were leaving the Duesenberg in the safekeeping of the Hotel Bavaria's garage and strolling into the plush and brass of the old-fashioned main bar. Clearly the Bavaria was more popular with those who preferred to be in bed with a good book by eight PM. The bar was large, but sparsely occupied, save for one middle-aged couple dancing to the strains of Franz Lehar played by an ancient orchestral ensemble half-hidden by palms and curtains on the distant dais. At a shadowed table two smart young men upon second glance turned out to be smart young women. Against the walls leaned a couple of sleepy-eyed old waiters and at the bar sat two young couples from the local "cocktail set" who had lost their way to the latest jazz party. Slumped alone, as far away from the couples as possible, wearing a great, bulky English tweed overcoat, sat a giant of a man nursing a drink which seemed tiny in his monstrous hands.

With his huge, pale head and irregular features, an expression of solemn gloom on his long face, the lone drinker looked almost comical. He glanced up in some curiosity as they entered. Begg wasted no time in introducing himself and his colleague. "You are Herr Hitler's foreign-press secretary, I understand. Too often in Berlin, these days, I suppose. We've been hired to prove your boss's innocence."

Herr "Putzi" Hanfstaengl did not seem greatly surprised that Begg knew his name. He lifted his hand in a salute before returning it to the glass. "You guys from the Times, are you?" He spoke in English with an educated American accent. He was clearly drunk. "I told your colleagues-when the Times turns up, that'll be a sign this is actually an international story." He let out an enormous sigh and drew himself to his full six and a half feet.

"You've been trying to keep all this speculation out of the papers, I suppose."

"What do you think, sport?" Hanfstaengl tossed back his drink and snapped his fingers for a refill. "It's not doing anyone much good, least of all Alf himself. He's gone under the bed, as we say, and won't come out. And I'm talking too much. Have a schnapps!" Again he snapped for the waiter, who disappeared through a door and a little later appeared behind the bar to serve them. Begg and Sinclair modified their orders to beers, but Hanfstaengl hardly noticed.

"We're not from the newspapers," Begg told him before the drinks arrived. "We're private detectives employed by Herr Hess. Anything you tell us we will use in the processes of justice."

The lumbering half-American seemed relieved to hear this. He loosened his big coat and made himself more comfortable. As he listened to the tunes of Strauss and Lehar, he relaxed. "This isn't for publication. I have your word on it?"

"Our word as English gentlemen," said Begg.

For a while "Putzi" chatted about the old days of the Nazi Party when there were only a few of them, when Hitler had been released from prison a hero, the author of Mein Kampf, which was published here in Munich by Max Amman. "We have a concession on pictures of the Nazi hierarchy and Amman publishes what they write. It's pretty much our only business. This scandal could wreck us." Since the party's success in elections, sales had climbed. Mein Kampf was now a best-seller and it was money from royalties, Hanfstaengl insisted, not from secret financiers, which was paying for the Mercedes and the place in Prinzregensburgstrasse. He seemed to be answering questions neither Begg nor Sinclair had asked. And when Sir Seaton threw the big query at him, he was rather surprised, glad that he did not have to hide something from the detective. It was dawning on him at last who Begg and Sinclair were.

"You really are the ace sleuths they say you are," he said. "I know those Sexton Blake things are heavily sensationalized, but it's surprising how like him you are. Do you remember The Affair of the Jade Skull?"

Blake was, of course, the name said to disguise the identity of Sir Seaton Begg in a long series of stories written for The Union Jack, The Sexton Blake Library, and other popular British publications known as tuppenny skinnies and four-penny fats.

"I'm surprised they're read at all beyond the London gutters," said Begg, who made a point of never reading the "bloods."

"Speaking of which-what about that material itself? I've seen some of it, of course. The stuff Hitler was being blackmailed with? Weren't you the middleman on that?"

Only Taffy Sinclair knew that his friend had just told a small, deliberate lie.

"What earthly need is there for you to know more? If you've seen how dreadful that stuff is-?" Hanfstaengl's brow cleared. "Oh, I get it. You have to eliminate suspects. You're looking for an alibi." He sipped his drink. "Well, I, too, dealt through a middleman. An SA sergeant who had got himself mixed up in something he didn't like. Called himself Braun, I think. Nobody ever proved it, but he pretty much confirmed who the blackmailer was and nobody was surprised. It was that crazy old Heironymite. Stempfle. I'm not sure how a member of an order of hermits, like Father Stempfle, can spend quite so much time drinking in the seedier Munich beer halls, but there you are. He has a certain following, of course. Writer and editor, I think. He worked for Amman once."

"The publisher?"

"Do you know him? Funny chap. Never really took to him. He's putting Hitler up at the moment. My view is that Amman could be cheating Hitler of his royalties. What if he's covering his tracks? Could Geli have found something out, do you think?"

"You mean she knew too much?"

"Well," said Hanfstaengl, glancing up at the big clock over the bar, "she wasn't exactly an innocent, was she? Those letters! Foul. But his pictures were worse. It was my own fault. I was curious. I wish I'd never looked." He let out a great sigh. "Party funds paid the black-mailer, you know. The stuff was impossibly disgusting. I said I'd burn it-but he-Alf-wanted it back."

The orchestra had begun to play a polka. The couple on the dance floor were having difficulty keeping time. Begg studied the musicians for any sign of cynicism but found none.

Hanfstaengl's tongue, never very tight at the best of times, it seemed, was becoming looser by the moment. "After that, things were never the same. Hitler changed. Everything turned a little sour. You want to ask crazy old Stempfle about it. I'm still convinced only he could have had the inside knowledge…"

"But where could I find this hermit?"

"Well, there's a chance he'll be at home in his cottage. It's out in the Munich woods there." He jabbed his hand toward the door. "Couple of miles or so. Do you have a map?"

Sinclair produced one and Hanfstaengl plotted their course for them. "I'd go with you myself, but I'm a bit vulnerable at the moment. I think someone's already had a potshot at me with a rifle. Be a bit careful, sport. There are lots of homeless people in the woods these days. They could spell danger for a stranger. Even some of our locals have been held up at gunpoint and robbed."

Begg shook hands with Hanfstaengl and said that he was much obliged. "One last question, Herr Hanfstaengl." He hesitated.

"Fire away," said "Putzi."

"Who do you think killed Geli Raubal?"

Hanfstaengl looked down.

"You have an idea, I know," said Begg.

Hanfstaengl turned back, offering Begg a cigarette from his case, which Begg refused. "Killed that poor little neurotic girl? Almost anyone but Hitler."

"But you have an idea, I know."

Hanfstaengl drained his glass. "Well, she was seeing this SS guy…"

"Name?"

"Never heard one, but I think they planned to go to Vienna together. Hitler knew all about it, of course. Or at least he guessed what he didn't know."

"And had her killed?"

Hanfstaengl snorted sardonically. "Oh, no. He doesn't have the guts." His face had turned a terrible greenish white.

"Who does-?" Begg asked, but Hanfstaengl was already heading from the room, begging his pardon, acting like a man whose food had disagreed with him.

"Poor fellow," murmured Begg, "I don't think he has a taste for the poison or the antidote…"