The Schirmer Inheritance

“Look. The man’s in a truck ambushed by these guerrillas. That Lieutenant comes along some time afterwards and has a look at the scene. There are lots of dead bodies about, but not the dead body of our man. So maybe he’s escaped and maybe he’s a prisoner. If he’s a prisoner, says the Lieutenant, then he hasn’t a hope, because the Greek guerrillas had the habit of killing their prisoners. ‘Just a minute,’ says the judge; ‘are you claiming that all Greek guerrillas operating in 1944 invariably killed all their prisoners? Are you prepared to prove that there were no cases at all of German soldiers surviving after capture?’ What does the Lieutenant say to that? I don’t know anything about the Greek campaign-I wasn’t there-but I do know that if all these guerrillas were so well trained and so well organized and so trigger-happy that no German who fell into their hands was ever smart enough or lucky enough to get away, they’d have had the Germans pulling out of Greece long before the Normandy landings. All right, then, let’s alter the wording of the evidence. Let’s say that Greek guerrillas often killed their prisoners. Now, then-”

“But do you think he is not dead?” she asked.

“Of course I think he’s dead. I’m just trying to point out there’s a whole lot of difference between an ordinary everyday probability and the calculated kind that the law prefers. And the law’s right. You’d be surprised how often people turn up when they’ve been thought dead. A man gets fired from his job and quarrels with his wife; so he goes down to the shore, takes off his coat, leaves it with a suicide note on the beach, and that’s the last seen of him. Dead? Maybe. But sometimes he’s found by accident years later living under a different name and with a different wife in a city on the other side of the continent.”

She shrugged. “This is different.”

“Not so very. Look at it this way. It’s 1944. Let’s suppose that Franz Schirmer is captured by the guerrillas but by luck or skill manages to get away alive. What is he to do? Rejoin his unit? The German occupation forces are trying to escape through Yugoslavia and having a tough time doing it. If he leaves his hide-out and tries to catch up with them, he’s certain to be recaptured by the guerrillas. They’re all over the place now. It’s better to stay where he is for a while. He is a resourceful man, trained to live off the country. He can stay alive. When it is safe for him to do so, he will go. Time passes. The country is under Greek control once again. Hundreds of miles now separate him from the nearest German unit. Civil war breaks out in Greece. In the resultant confusion he is able to make his way to the Turkish frontier and cross it without being caught. He is an engineer and does not mind work. He takes a job.”

“By February 1945 Turkey was at war with Germany.”

“Maybe it’s before February.”

“Then why does he not report to the German Consul?”

“Why should he? Germany is collapsing. The war is virtually over. Maybe he likes it where he is. Anyway, what has he to return to postwar Germany for? To see Frau Gresser? To see what’s left of his parents’ home? Maybe he married an Italian girl when he was in Italy and wants to get back there. He may even have children. There are dozens of possible reasons why he shouldn’t go to the German Consul. Maybe he went to the Swiss one.”

“If he had married, his army record would show it.”

“Not if he married someone he wasn’t supposed to marry. Look at the rules the Americans and British had about their troops marrying German girls.”

“What do you propose?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think.”

When he got back to the hotel, he sat down and wrote a long cable to Mr. Sistrom. First he set out briefly the latest developments in the inquiry; then he asked for instructions. Should he return home now or should he go on and make an attempt to confirm Franz Schirmer’s death?

The following afternoon he had the reply.

“ HAVING LOOKED UNDER SO MANY STONES,” it said, “ SEEMS PITY LEAVE ONE UNTURNED STOP GO AHEAD TRY CONFIRM OR OTHERWISE FRANZ DEATH STOP SUGGEST GIVING IT THREE WEEKS STOP IF IN YOUR JUDGMENT NO SERIOUS HEADWAY MADE OR LIKELY BY THEN LETS FORGET IT. SISTROM.”

That night George and Miss Kolin left Cologne for Geneva.

Miss Kolin had interpreted at conferences for the International Red Cross Committee and knew the people at headquarters who could be of help. George was soon put in touch with an official who had been in Greece for the Red Cross in 1944; a lean, mournful Swiss who looked as if nothing again could ever surprise him. He spoke good English and four other languages besides. His name was Hagen.