She turned. The Doctor was wearing a long black leather overcoat and a black soft hat.
"Well, how do I look?"
Ace studied him for a moment. "Ghastly!"
"Really?" said the Doctor, pleased. "You"re not just saying that? Needs a final touch, I think. . ." Fishing in his bottomless pockets he produced a monocle on a black ribbon and screwed it into his left eye. "There, how about that?"
"Terrific," said Ace. "Real Gestapo chic!"
At nine o"clock exactly there was a knock on the door.
"Kommen Sie!" barked the Doctor.
The door opened and Lieutenant Hemmings marched in and snapped to attention, giving the n.a.z.i salute. "Heil Hitler!"
The Doctor touched a casual hand to the brim of his soft black hat. "Well done, Lieutenant. You have transport available?"
"There is a car and driver outside, Herr Doktor. They are at your service -as I am myself."
Hemmings was immaculate in neatly pressed black uniform, badges and b.u.t.tons gleaming, jackboots polished till you could see your face in them.
No doubt about it, thought Ace: he was tall, dark, amazingly handsome, and he gave her the creeps.
The Doctor was nodding approvingly. "Sehr gut! Your military records section, your archives, where are they situated?"
"At the Reichsmuseum, in Bloomsbury, Herr Doktor. Formerly the British Museum."
"We shall go there at once."
"It will not yet be open, Herr Doktor."
"Then you will make arrangements to open it," said the Doctor.
"At once, Herr Doktor! With your permission?" Hemmings hurried over to the telephone and rapped out a series of orders. He slammed down the phone. "The caretaker lives nearby, and a messenger is on the way to his house. He will be waiting at the Museum by the time you arrive."
"Satisfactory," said the Doctor. "There now remains the matter of my a.s.sistant."
Hemmings looked at Ace. "This young lady, Herr Doktor?"
"Just so. No doubt you have been wondering why I found it necessary to bring her with me?"
Hemmings looked at Ace in a way that made her want to hit him. "It is not for me to speculate, Herr Doktor. And with such a charming young lady. . .
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, causing his monocle to drop out. He stuck it back in again.
"My dear fellow, you surely didn"t think - "
"I must confess, Herr Doktor. . ."
The Doctor laughed. "No, no, no! The girl is not unattractive but for myself I like them big, blonde and bouncy. Rubenesque! Wagnerian, even!"
"Quite so, Herr Doktor."
Terrific, thought Ace bitterly. It was bad enough being taken for the Doctor"s bimbo. Now I"m not even up to bimbo standard! It wasn"t hard to shoot the Doctor a glance of pure hatred which was what the part needed anyway.
"No, the young lady is here for quite another purpose," the Doctor went on.
"Her father was a leading light in the British resistance, in the early days.
He is now undergoing reeducation in Sachshausen Concentration Camp.
The girl"s mother was killed at the beginning of the war and, as a child, she travelled extensively with her father. She has excellent knowledge of his contacts and a.s.sociates. She can be invaluable to us in rooting out the last remnants of these criminals."
Ace realized that Hemmings was looking at her in an entirely new way rather like a tiger surveying a nice plump deer. She was his potential victim now, his meat, and her skin crawled as his eyes moved over her. She started having doubts about the Doctor"s plan. He was about to put her in Lieutenant Hemmings" power. With instructions not to harm her, of course.
But could the tiger be trusted, once it was alone with the deer? "I see," said Hemmings slowly. "Most interesting. She is willing to cooperate?" The Doctor smiled coldly. "Her father is an old man and the reeducation course is rigorous. She is well aware that his survival, let alone his eventual release, depends on her cooperation."
"A cla.s.sic technique, Herr Doktor. Allow me to congratulate you."
The Doctor shrugged modestly. "I think the best plan is for me to go directly to the Reichsmuseum alone, while I leave you here to deal with her."
Hemmings looked puzzled. "I"m sorry, Herr Doktor, I"m not clear what you want me to do."
"Do?" said the Doctor in mock surprise. "My dear Lieutenant, she is a traitor suspected of links to the resistance. I want you to arrest and interrogate her!"
When the messenger from his local Freikorps HQ pounded on his door, the caretaker prepared for the end. He had committed only the smallest of sins against the Reich - aid to an escaping Jewish artist, selling a few bits of ancient jewellery - but even minor crimes meant deportation or death. Old and frail as he was the caretaker didn"t want to die. It wasn"t so much death he feared as leaving what was left of his beloved museum. In the days when the Reichsmuseum had been called the British Museum he had been a professor and a senior curator. Now the museum was closed he was a humble caretaker but he was there, there every day. Now it was all over.
He dressed hurriedly, not wanting to be dragged away in his nightshirt, and stumbled downstairs, a tall thin old man with wispy white hair. He opened the door and found himself facing the usual Freikorps thug. This one was mounted on a huge motorcycle which. he"d ridden right up to the front door.
"I am ready," said the caretaker with as much dignity as he could muster.
He wished his knees would stop trembling.
The Freikorps messenger stared at him. "You don"t even know what I"ve come for yet, you old fool."
"But surely. . ." The caretaker made himself shut up. "I"m ready for whatever you want me to do."
"You"d better be. Some bigwig from Freikorps HQ wants to consult the military archives. You"re to meet him at the museum right away and open-up for him. Heaven help you if you keep him waiting." The messenger roared away.
Breathing a silent prayer of thanks, the caretaker fetched his keys and wheeled his ancient bicycle out of the hallway. As he pedalled frantically through the deserted streets of ruined Bloomsbury, the caretaker told himself he still wasn"t out of trouble. If the visitor got there before him...
High officials of the Reich weren"t accustomed to be kept waiting and a complaint from an irate VIP would be enough to finish him.
As he turned into Museum Road he saw a black limousine parked outside the museum. Frantically he pedalled up to it and dismounted, panting, leaning his bicycle against a pillar.
Immediately the limousine"s chauffeur, another Freikorps thug, jumped from the car and started screaming at him. "You are late, you stupid old swine. It will be reported. The Herr Doktor has been kept waiting. Is this the respect you show a high official of the Reich?" He raised his fist and the caretaker flinched, awaiting the inevitable blow.
"One moment!" said a voice behind them. A small, dark man in a leather coat and soft black hat was getting out of the car.
He transfixed the chauffeur with a stare from his cold grey eyes. "You!" The thug came to attention.
"Herr Doktor?"
"Did I request you to speak?"
"No, Herr Doktor, but - "
"Then do not speak. Get back in the car and wait until I return."
"Very good, Herr Doktor. May I ask how long -"
"You may not. But if you are not here, waiting at attention when I return, it is I who will make the report."
"Very good, Herr Doktor." The chauffeur jumped back into the car and sat to attention behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. The man called the Doctor came over and touched the trembling caretaker on the arm. "There is no problem," he said gently. "We arrived virtually together, and there will be no complaint. Shall we go inside?"
Producing a huge bunch of keys, the old man opened the doors. His hands were trembling so much he had difficulty in getting the key in the lock. "You are very kind, Herr Doktor. I should not like to lose my privilege of working at the Museum, even though it is closed. . . " He wheeled his bicycle inside the foyer and closed and locked the door.
"If you will follow me, Doctor? The military archives are in the rear of the building, we must go through the galleries. . ." He led the Doctor up the stairs and through the first gallery. The caretaker saw that the visitor was staring around him in evident amazement. The enormous gallery, and all the subsequent galleries, were almost empty. Where there had once been paintings, statues, tapestries there was nothing. Bare walls, empty pedestals, and a huge echoing silence in which their footsteps rang hollowly.
"I understand why the Museum is no longer open to the public," said the visitor dryly.
"I"m afraid there would be little for them to see. The bulk of the exhibits are now in Berlin. Marshal Goering himself supervised their removal."
The visitor nodded. "Yes, he was always a keen collector. . ." The caretaker wondered at his evident surprise. Naturally the museum had been looted.
The National Gallery and all the other museums and art galleries had been emptied as well, their art treasures taken for the Adolf Hitler Museum in New Berlin.
He led his visitor to a section of dusty offices behind the scenes. "When the Museum records were taken to Berlin, the Military Archives Bureau took over this area for a while. The Bureau is closed now, but the records are still waiting to be transferred... If I might ask which period. . ?"
"From the beginning of the war - until now."
"This room here, then, I think. . ." He took the visitor to a long, dusty room lined with filing cabinets. "The records are in order, beginning with this cabinet here. If there is anything else I can do?"
"Thank you, no. You have been very kind."
The caretaker shuffled away. A strange little man, he thought. And certainly the politest n.a.z.i I"ve ever met. Almost too good to be true...
Left alone, the Doctor went to a filing cabinet, took out a file and opened it.
It was full of maps and military reports. He began to read.
The first part of the story followed the familiar course. It began in 1939.
After a long series of largely unopposed smash-and-grab raids on the Rhineland, Austria and Czechoslovakia - referred to by the n.a.z.i historian as "the Fuehrer"s inspired and glorious consolidation of the legitimate claims of the Reich" - Adolf Hitler had invaded Poland, a country whose safety Britain had rather rashly guaranteed.
To the historian"s evident regret, the British had finally dug in their heels, honoured their obligation and ordered Hitler to leave. He was to withdraw his troops or they would declare war. Hitler was quite sure the British would never go to war over Poland - but he was wrong. In September 1939 the war began. With astonishing speed Hitler"s armies swept across Europe in the Blitzkrieg, the lightning war, and the British and French were driven back. So far, so familiar, thought the Doctor. History as he knew it, as it ought to be. But somewhere along the line things had changed. The question was where, and how - and why?
He opened another file.
Hemmings and Ace were in an interrogation room. It was another concrete-walled cellar with a table in the centre and a high-powered light bulb dangling from the ceiling. The table was bolted to the floor and there were curious dark-stained grooves in it. There was a hook in the ceiling and a bathtub and sink in one corner.
They were sitting either side of the table on hard wooden chairs. Hemmings was smoking a cigarette and toying with a riding crop.
Talk about corny, thought Ace. The sinister room and the black-uniformed man with the whip - she"d seen it in a hundred old movies. But she was uneasy all the same. What was it the Doctor had once said? "Never despise clichs, Ace. The only reason they became clichs is because they really work."
Suddenly Ace realized that she was afraid. Take the initiative, she thought.
Chuck your weight about, like the Doctor...
"How much longer must I wait?" she said aloud.
Hemmings slammed the whip down on the table. "I shall decide that!"
"You heard the Herr Doktor"s orders," said Ace defiantly. "I was to be arrested, held for a while as if being interrogated, and then released with other prisoners so that I could make contact with the resistance. . . "
Hemmings smiled. " "As if" being interrogated," he said gently. "But how much of an "as if", that"s the question." He spoke in a soft, dreamy whisper, as if in a trance. "Maybe I should give you the full treatment. I could start by having you flogged. Oh, it would all be according to the book. A set number of strokes and a doctor present in case of - accidents. There are even official forms to fill in."
He nodded towards the bath in the corner. "The water treatment is usually very successful. Head held under until the lungs are bursting, pulled out and shoved under again. . ."
He pointed to the hook in the ceiling. "Or there"s the merry-go-round.
Hands tied behind you, hung up by the wrists and spun gently to and fro.
The effects of that can be a bit permanent, I"m afraid. Some people never quite straighten out." He drew hard on his cigarette, and regarded the glowing tip. "Even the simple cigarette, properly applied. . . "
He"s a nutter, thought Ace, a genuine sicko - and I"m completely in his power.
With a mighty effort she stopped her voice from trembling. "Listen to me, you s.a.d.i.s.tic creep. This is all a pretence. I am not, repeat not, a real prisoner. You heard the Herr Doktor"s orders. If you disobey them, or exceed them in an way, you will be very, very sorry."
Hemmings drew a deep shuddering breath. "Yes. Yes, of course. Such a pity. Another time, perhaps."
"That"s more like it," said Ace. "I can see you"re in love with your work, but don"t get carried away."
He leaned forward across the table, eyes glittering. "But I don"t think we can have you coming out of an interrogation completely unmarked. It really wouldn"t be at all convincing, you know."
Hemmings smashed the back of his hand across Ace"s face, knocking her out of her chair.
7: RESISTANCE.
In an office on the top floor of the Chancellery in New Berlin, Albert Speer, Master Architect of the Thousand Year Reich, was studying a set of plans.
A vast picture window looked out over the re-modelled city with its immensely wide boulevards and its colossal triumphal arches, its giant stadia, meeting-halls and stations. Most of the old Berlin had gone by now and the new city was more colossal, more imposing than Rome or Athens in their prime. It was a city of ten million inhabitants, ruling over a German Empire of one hundred and forty million citizens and innumerable slaves.