The Schirmer Inheritance

The official looked apologetic and mumbled something in bad French.

“Phengaros,” Miss Kolin translated, “is not a good prisoner and sometimes behaves violently. The commandant would not wish us to be exposed to any trouble. It is for that reason that the interview must take place in these uncomfortable surroundings. He apologizes for them.”

George nodded. He was not at ease. He had spent a disagreeable and exhausting night, and the smell of the place was making it difficult for him to forget the fact. Moreover, he had never been inside a prison before, and, while he had not supposed the experience would be anything but depressing, he had been unprepared for the lively sense of personal guilt that it aroused.

There was a sound from the door beyond the grille and he looked round. A Judas window had opened in it and a face was peering through. Then a key turned in the lock and the door opened. A man slowly entered the room.

The prisoner was thin and sinewy, with dark, sunken eyes and a long beak of a nose. His skin was brown and leathery as if he worked a lot in the sun. His shaven head had a black stubble of growth on it. He wore a cotton singlet and canvas trousers tied in at the waist with a strip of rag. His feet were bare.

He hesitated when he saw the faces on the other side of the grille, and the warder behind him prodded him with a club. He came forward into the light. The warder locked the door and stood with his back to it. The official nodded to George.

“Ask him what his name is,” George said to Miss Kolin.

She relayed the question. The prisoner licked his lips, his dark eyes looking beyond her at the three men, as if she were the bait in a trap of their devising. He looked from her to the official and muttered something.

“What is the game?” Miss Kolin translated. “You know my name well enough. Who is this woman?”

The official shouted something at him violently and the warder prodded him again with the club.

George spoke quickly. “Miss Kolin, explain to him in as friendly a way as you can that I am an American lawyer and that my business has nothing to do with him personally. It is a private, a legal matter. Say we only want to question him about that ambush at Vodena. There is no political angle to it. Our only object in questioning him is to confirm the death of a German soldier reported missing in 1944. Make it good.”

As she spoke, George watched the prisoner’s face. The dark eyes flickered suspiciously towards him as she went on. When she had finished, the prisoner thought for a moment. Then he answered.

“He will listen to the questions and decide whether he will answer when he has heard them.”

Behind George the Lieutenant was beginning to mutter angrily to the official. George took no notice.

“O.K.,” he said, “ask him his name. He’s got to identify himself.”

“Phengaros.”

“Ask him if he remembers the ambush of the trucks.”

“Yes, he remembers.”

“He was in command of those particular andartes?”

“Yes.”

“What happened exactly?”

“He does not know. He was not there.”

“But he said-”

“He was leading an attack on the gasoline dump at the time. It was his second-in-command who caught the trucks.”

“Where is his second-in-command?”

“Dead. He was shot a few months later by the fascist murder gangs in Athens.”

“Oh. Well, ask him if he knows of any German prisoners taken from the trucks.”

Phengaros thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes. One.”

“Did he see this prisoner?”

“He interrogated him.”

“What rank was he?”

“A private, he thinks. The man was the driver of the truck that hit the mine. He was wounded.”

“Is he sure that there was no other prisoner?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him we have information that there were two men in that first truck who did not return and whose bodies were not found by the German party that came on the scene later. One was the driver of the truck, whom he says he interrogated. The other was the Sergeant in charge of the detachment. We want to know what happened to the Sergeant.”

Phengaros began gesturing emphatically as he talked.

“He says that he was not there, but that if there had been a German sergeant alive his men would certainly have taken him prisoner for questioning. A sergeant would have more information to give than a driver.”

“What happened to the driver?”

“He died.”

“How?”

There was a hesitation. “Of his wounds.”

“O.K., we’ll skip that. When he served in the army of General Markos, did he come across any Germans fighting with it?”

“A few.”

“Any whose names he can remember?”

“No.”

“Ask him if he knows of anyone who actually took part in the truck ambush who’s still alive.”

“He knows of nobody.”

“Surely they can’t all be dead. Ask him to try and remember.”

“He knows of nobody.”

Phengaros was no longer looking at Miss Kolin now, but staring straight ahead.

There was a pause. George felt a touch on his arm. The Lieutenant drew him aside.

“Mr. Carey, this man does not wish to give information that might compromise his friends,” he said in English.

“Oh, I see. Of course.”

“Excuse me a moment, please.”