Suddenly he was back in that moonlit Jewish cemetery in Prague, with General Moravec, and it was something he had said which provided a possible solution to shutting this lad up at least as long as they were in Cheb.

‘OK, Jimmy, how would you like a twenty-four-carat gold-plated scoop?’

‘Politicians the newspapers fear,’ Moravec had insisted.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Standartenführer was waiting for them in the lounge and as soon as Corrie saw him she hissed, ‘What a hunk!’

‘You trying to make me jealous?’

‘Would it succeed?’

‘I’m not the type,’ Cal replied as Veseli gave a crisp Nazi salute.

‘Nothing to fear, Doc,’ she whispered.

Introductions followed with Cal comparing the stiff behaviour he was watching now to the more relaxed man he had met in that farmhouse with Moravec; in terms of German broom-up-your-arse carry-on it was faultless.

‘But we must be on our way, it would not do to miss the arrival of the Führer.’

‘God forbid,’ Corrie replied, which got a flicker of disapproval from Veseli, leaving Cal to wonder at the man’s self-control.

Living a lie must be intense, acting almost constantly against your natural instincts, never able to relax, probably even in private in case you inadvertently gave something away by allowing the mask to slip, and there had to be, at his age and with his looks, women in his life, people with whom he was intimate, and how hard was that?

As they exited the hotel, Veseli gave his men a salute, which was returned, with Corrie commenting that this was a nation – she meant the Germans – who would benefit from a mass amputation. Then he was off, striding down the road, saluting right and left as those who thought him one of their own, and seeing his uniform, were determined to acknowledge his rank.

‘You’re in for a fun night.’

That got him that arm squeeze again. ‘I sure hope so.’

‘Remember, I’m only human.’

‘Not at all, Doc,’ she said with feeling, ‘you are a love machine.’

‘Where did you learn to talk like that?’

‘First of all at Daddy’s knee, ’cause he was never one to avoid a cuss when I was around, and then at college. We Bryn Mawr girls are famous for telling it like it is.’

‘Feminists?’

‘You make it sound like a dirty word.’

‘The dirtier the better.’

They reached the crowded old market square, which killed off their conversation. Down the side it was set with tables and in between them there were stalls cooking all kind of wurst, the smoke and the smell of the frying meat filling the air. Others were laden with bread and hams, added to which the tavern had set up a beer service on the pavement, with girls in dirndl clothing delivering steins to thirsty customers.

Within a minute both visitors found themselves holding steaming glasses of glühwein and being encouraged to drink up. It could have been a carnival except that now many of the surrounding buildings were festooned with a mixture of Nazi banners and the red-black-red flags of the SdP. They tended to turn the mood, for non-believers, into a sombre one.

‘Fräulein Littleton, our leader wishes you to join him. He is about to have his photograph taken and he would like one which includes you.’

‘Delighted,’ Corrie replied in the correct and required tone; Cal knew she did not mean it because, distributed, it would give the wrong impression.

Veseli/Wessely took her gently by the arm to guide her through the crowd, which left Cal to look about him. He saw Jimmy Garvin with a big jug of beer in one hand, a sausage in the other, standing back and not engaging in conversation, no doubt composing a feature about mass hysteria for some future date.

Then Veseli was beside him, leaning over to talk quietly in his ear while he handed him a bratwurst, wrapped in a linen napkin. There was something hard inside, which Cal’s fingers identified as a key. With the babble of conversation there was no chance of either being overheard and it looked as if they were having a friendly chat.

‘Tonight, as Hitler is speaking, the Czech army will enter the so-called Sudetenland and stop all this nonsense.’

‘I thought—’

‘Never mind that. The key to his suite of offices is in your hand and a layout of the hotel is drawn on the napkin, showing the emergency exit from Henlein’s suite. The papers are in his safe and you have been given the means to get access to what you came for.’

‘I came under false pretences.’

‘You must forgive the general and I for deceiving you – that was essential.’

‘What if I decline to do it?’

‘Then I must, so please tell me quickly what you intend.’

‘How would you get away with it if you did it?’

‘I would not, Mr Jardine. I might succeed but I would not long survive since suspicion would soon fall on me. The best I could hope for is a firing squad.’

‘But you will take that risk?’

Veseli laughed. ‘It is not a risk, it is certain I would die.’

‘Who were you going to pass the papers to?’ Cal asked.

That was a solution to one conundrum he had in his bath: the Czech did not insult him by denying there was someone, but there was no way he was going to reveal any more.

‘If I depart this square, my absence will be noticed, for to do so when the Führer is speaking would be seen as a gross insult to him …’

There was no way of faulting that statement; Veseli stood literally head and shoulders above most of his fellow men. He couldn’t move anywhere without it being spotted.

‘… while you can leave without raising even a slight eyebrow, especially if you claim to have eaten something that disagrees with you and which forces you to return to the hotel.’

‘The guards?’

‘Tonight, they will be here in the square, as will every Nazi in the town. None will want to miss this.’

‘The clerk at reception?’

Veseli pointed him out and also the Ice Maiden, standing next to Henlein, who was talking to Corrie, adding that the hotel would be practically deserted, given all the staff were rabid anti-Czechs if not quite National Socialists, while the guests had come specifically for this rally. It was not a residence for anyone not committed to the cause.

‘The news of the movements of the Czech army may come before Hitler is finished speaking, but it is hoped not. Either way, Henlein will seek to flee and to do that he needs his car, which is parked in the same place as your own.’

‘Though not without those documents.’

‘But hopefully you will have them and when he sees that they are gone he will not hang around to find out who stole them.’

‘Miss Littleton?’

‘I will make sure she is escorted to safety. Both you and she, being foreigners, will be free to travel through the army lines when things quieten down and it has already been arranged they will not attack the Victoria but the headquarters of Frank’s Nazis. Stay at the hotel and wait till order is restored.’

‘It is still dangerous.’

‘What can we do in these times without hazard, Herr Barrowman? Take those documents, give them to your government and let them know what that little Austrian bastard is really like.’

‘And what will you be doing?’

Veseli laughed softly. ‘Me, I will be starting a riot.’

Even with the babble of talk in the square the loudspeakers had been disseminating a sort of background growl, which was the audience at the Congress Hall in Nuremberg and that began to fade into silence.

Veseli managed one more point before the Cheb crowd followed suit. ‘I will also tell you that inside that safe is a large sum of money, subventions from the German Foreign Office, which Henlein uses to fund the SdP. I would not object if you took that too and found a better use for it.’