The Thief (Isaac Bell 5)

“What? I mean, what do you mean he wasn’t so high then? Who?”

“I retired, what was it… six years ago? He was only a colonel, a very young colonel. What a man! What a soldier! You’ve never seen a fighter like him. They say he resigned his commission to fight in Africa. A guerrilla fighter with the Boer commandos.”

“Did you know him?”

“Me? A sergeant from Berlin know a Prussian aristocrat? What could you be thinking, my friend?”

Curtis gripped the table to right himself as a sudden burst of pain nearly knocked him off his chair. He put all his might into composing his voice. “I meant, did you serve under him?”

“I only knew him by reputation. He was admired. Still is, I’m sure.”

“Why did they call him Monkey?”

“Not to his face,” the sergeant chuckled. “Mein Gott, Colonel Semmler would have sliced their ears off and made them eat them.”

“Semmler… But why did they call him ‘Monkey’?”

“He looked like one. Enormous arms and big brows like a monkey.” The sergeant glanced about and lowered his voice. “Not quite the picture of the purebred Prussian aristocrat, if you know what I mean. More the sturdy peasant, like me.”

“I thought Semmler was a Prussian name?”

“Of course. And they said he’s a Roth

, too — buckets of superior Prussian blood, if not the superior shape. My friend, are you all right? You look at death’s door.”

“What is his first name?”

“Christian.”

Arthur Curtis gathered his spirit in an effort to stand.

“I am thinking it is more than the schnapps. Bad oysters. I had a dozen at lunch. Perhaps… I better go — here, let me pay.”

“No, no, my friend. You always pay. You hardly touched your beer. I’ll pay and finish it for you. You go home and get to bed.”

* * *

The telegraph offices in the main railroad stations were open all night. He would cable Semmler’s name and description to Isaac Bell, care of the New York office, and just to be sure he would also wire it to the Van Dorn field office in Paris. He headed for the nearest station, hoping that his lurching pace would not draw attention on the well-lit streets. He paused just inside the main entrance to check in a kiosk mirror that no blood showed on his coat, and as he did, he saw across the vast hall that the police were checking the papers of the men lined up at the telegraph office. They’d be doing the same at every office open all night and, he realized with a touch of panic, at the hospitals, too. And as the night wore on and the streets and bars and restaurants emptied, they would stop any man still about.

The French border, four hundred and fifty miles west, was a fantasy. He could barely walk. Nor could he go home to his Pension. It was filled with busybody boarders and a nosy dragon of a landlady. Anyone who saw him in the lighted foyer would report his condition. Kicking himself for not trading the convenience of the boarding house for the privacy of a furnished apartment, and with panic rising, Arthur Curtis convinced himself that he could hole up in his office. There he could rest, regain his strength, and then light out for the border in the morning — or maybe the North Sea coast. A million and a half people lived in Berlin, and when they all rushed to work in the morning the railroad stations would be too crowded for the police to check everyone. Concentrating on placing one foot after another, he headed for the tram. They stopped running at eleven. He had time. He pulled himself aboard with a herculean effort, staggered off at his stop, managing not to fall, and walked toward his office.

A man in a macintosh was standing across the street.

Art Curtis reached deep into his pocket and closed his hand around his Browning, which had a round in the chamber and two left in the magazine. He looked for the man’s partner and spotted him in a doorway. He veered off the sidewalk into the street, drawing both from their cover. They exchanged looks and moved quickly. He let them come close. When they drew their weapons — Army Lugars again — he fired twice through the cloth of his coat, dropped both men, and staggered into his building. He hauled himself up the steps, fumbled his key into his lock, pushed inside, and locked the door, wondering whether he still had the strength in his hands to reload. There’d be more of them coming any minute.

The desk lamp flared on, and he whirled to fire his last bullet.

“What happened?” asked Pauline. Her eyes were clouded with sleep, her face creased where she had rested her cheek on her sleeve.

30

“Nothing. Go home. Go on. Get out of here!”

“I’m sorry. I was doing my homework, and I fell asleep. I can’t go home, my mother’s friend—”

“Get out of here!” Curtis roared. The girl flinched and tears of hurt filled her eyes. Curtis started coughing. He pressed his hand to his mouth, and it came away full of blood.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “You’ve been shot.”