The Thief Read online

  ARTHUR CURTIS OPENED AN envelope containing an enciphered cablegram from Isaac Bell. Pauline read it aloud over his shoulder, decoding it faster than he could. It was apparent by now that she had a true photographic memory for both sights and sounds.

  NEED MORE ON KRIEG RUSTUNGSWERK.

  NEED KRIEG MAN IN AMERICA.

  BOSS AUTHORIZES PAY ANY PRICE.

  ON THE JUMP!

  “What is the meaning of ‘On the jump’? Like it sounds?”

  “Exactly like it sounds. Get moving without delay. Immediately.”

  “What are you going to do on the jump, Detective Curtis?”

  “Send you home and go to work.”

  Curtis climbed into his coat and felt in the pockets for a couple of apples he had bought earlier.

  “Should I come with you?” she asked.

  “Go home. It’s bedtime. Here.” He handed her the apples. “Give one to your mother.” He ushered her out and locked the door. Then he turned off the light and watched from the window until she disappeared around the corner. No one else was out at this hour, and no one was watching the office. He went out the back window and down the fire ladder and hurried to a neighborhood Kintopp, hoping to get lucky.

  A groschen bought him a pint Topp of beer and entry to the Kino which showed moving pictures in a long, narrow space formed by three apartment flats strung together. The films on the screen this evening would have not passed the test for a police license. Arthur Curtis had been a detective long enough to have only a passing interest in what in his boyhood would have been called “dirty pictures.” But Hans Reuter, his man inside Krieg’s Berlin office, liked them, and this working-class moving picture theater was a sufficiently long walk from Reuter’s expensive neighborhood that he felt safe frequenting it without the locals telling his wife. So Arthur Curtis sipped his beer and pretended to be engrossed in the goings-on flickering on the screen while he kept an eye on the men drifting in from the beer bar.

  Curtis sat for two hours in the dark. The place had emptied out a bit, and he was having trouble staying awake, when, all of a sudden, in walked his man from Krieg, hugging his beer and looking for an empty place on the bench that he favored in the back row. Curtis moved over. Herr Reuter sat, sipped, and stared.

  The short, round Van Dorn detective remained as silent as the film until the waiters finally interrupted with loud offers of “Beer?” During the storm of affirmative replies, he leaned closer to Reuter and whispered, “Triple.”

  “What?” Reuter turned. His mouth tightened when he realized that the man who had been sitting next to him all along was Arthur Curtis. “I said, no more.”

  “I can now pay triple,” whispered Curtis. “Three times as much. If you’re interested, meet me in the bar.”

  Reuter kept him waiting, but not for long. Greed, in the immortal words of Chief Investigator Isaac Bell, worked wonders.

  “Triple?” Reuter echoed in disbelief.

  Arthur Curtis passed him the fresh Topp he had ordered and took a sip from his own. “Triple. But only for something special.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something unique. You know the situation at your employer. You’re best qualified to suggest something that I would really need. Aren’t you?”

  Hans Reuter looked worried. “But how am I to guess?”

  Curtis shrugged. “Let me guess for you. How many Krieg company executives and directors are former Army officers?”

  “Very few.”

  “Do you know any?”

  “Not personally. I mean, there are none in the Berlin office.”

  “Can you find their names?”

  “I would have to think about that.”

  “While you’re thinking,” Curtis shot back, “think which of those company directors might travel abroad.”

  Reuter looked uncomfortable, and Curtis thought he was touching some sort of a nerve here, as if the man had thought of a name he feared.

  “One of your responsibilities is to dispense funds overseas, correct?”

  “How do you know?”

  Curtis’s casual, “I asked around” did not make Reuter look any more comfortable.

  Curtis went for broke. “I need a name.”

  “A name?”

  “The name of the recipient.” Push! Arthur Curtis thought. Push him hard. Don’t give him time to change his mind. “Two days,” he said. “Meet me here. Seven o’clock.”

  “It is risky.”

  “Don’t worry, it will be the last time I ask.”

  “No more?” Hans asked, partly with relief, partly with disappointment that the money would stop. Curtis said, “In addition to triple, I will seek authorization for a separation bonus. A thank-you.”

  Greed was Reuter’s middle name. Suddenly he was brave. “But for the name you ask I will have to pay someone else.”

  He was lying, bless him, Curtis thought. Reuter was high enough up in Krieg to know the name himself. Curtis said, “O.K. If I must, I will pay your ‘someone else,’ too.” Maybe Reuter was lying. But maybe he wasn’t. Hopefully, he was so grasping he would take a big risk.

  On his way back to the office, Art Curtis stopped at the all-night telegraph in a railroad station to cable Isaac Bell.

  WIRE AUTHORIZED FUNDS.

  NAME POSSIBLE TWO DAYS.

  ANDREW RUBENOFF REPORTED BACK to Isaac Bell that he was very impressed by Irina Viorets.

  “I’m surprised,” Bell admitted. “I thought there was something fishy about how fast she got the job running such a big outfit.”

  “The woman displays a keen understanding of the moving picture business. Not only the taking of the pictures, but the distribution and exhibition—which are absolutely vital to making a profit. Equally important, she understands that more must be done than introducing a couple of new shows with each change. The customers won’t stand much longer for furbishing up of the exhibition with a few new features. The exhibitors must be able to declare that the entire show is new. ‘Keep your show fresh and up-to-the-minute,’ she told me, ‘and you will draw full houses.’”

  “Sounds like she was selling you.”

  “I pretended to be an exhibitor with a string of picture show shops in Indiana.”

  “That was a nice touch,” Bell said admiringly.

  “Not really,” Rubenoff replied with a modest smile. “I control houses in Detroit, Toledo, Battle Creek, and Indianapolis.”

  “So you think she passes muster?”

  “There are poseurs in this line who like to say that anyone can make a moving picture. That is not true, as Mr. Thomas Edison is slowly beginning to learn at great expense. Similarly, not just anyone can distribute movies. Mademoiselle Viorets knows her business. Most important, she knows the future of the business.”

  “You didn’t fall for her, Uncle Andy, did you?”

  “It is in my makeup,” Rubenoff replied, enigmatically, “to be capable of admiring a beautiful woman without desiring her.”

  “How did Irina learn so much about the future of the business?”

  “Apparently she made one-reelers in Russia. Much as your bride does when she is not shooting her Picture World newsreels for the ghastly Whiteway.”

  “But how did a Russian moving picture director learn about distribution and exhibition?”

  Rubenoff smiled. “You’re your father’s son, young Isaac. Always to the core.” Then he turned very serious, and Isaac Bell was reminded that Rubenoff had earned several fortunes since landing as an immigrant and appeared to be on the road to another. “It seems to me that Irina Viorets learned about distribution and exhibition by listening carefully to someone who has manipulated a modern corporation to control the entire chain of production and marketing from top to bottom.”

  “Like who?”

  “Andrew Carnegie pretty much invented modern vertical integration.”

  “Assuming the young lady did not sit on the old philanthropist’s knee, who else? Any Germans?”

&nb
sp; “Germans? Krupp has pretty much written the book on German vertical integration.”

  “What about Krieg Rüstungswerk?”

  “If not quite so large as Krupp, Krieg is better connected in the kaiser’s circle. But wherever the lady absorbed her ideas, she has a clear understanding that the future of moving pictures belongs to those who control every aspect, from hiring actors to projecting the finished product in the theater—only then can we guarantee a place to see our product, and a product to see in our place.”

  “Sounds like you’re working at vertical integration, too, Uncle Andy.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear, young Isaac. But don’t go blabbing it about.”

  “Will you keep digging into who’s behind her?”

  “I’ve already begun inquiries,” Rubenoff replied.

  “QUIET AS A CHURCH,” THE VAN DORN Protective Services operatives reported whenever Bell dropped by the Imperial Building laboratory where Clyde Lynds was hard at work. “He’s at it from breakfast to supper, and sometimes half the night. The man works hard as a nailer.”

  “Have you seen anyone hanging around?”

  “No. It’s just him and us and Clyde’s helpers—and you know we looked at them real close.”

  “No shadows on the way home?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Bell. None coming in either. And the boys watching the house haven’t seen a soul who looked like trouble. Do you think maybe they just gave up and packed it in?”

  “I would be very surprised,” said Bell. “Keep on your toes. And remember, the hardest part of guarding a fellow is that the attack can come anytime, night or day.”

  Privately, however, Bell had to wonder. Had Krieg given up? Or were they laying back, reasoning that once he was set up in a laboratory, Clyde Lynds wasn’t going anywhere until he had finished the machine, in which event they had him just where they wanted him?

  JOSEPH VAN DORN ARRIVED ON THE TRAIN, unexpectedly.

  Isaac Bell saw by his expression that the boss doubted that his chief investigator was on the right course, although Van Dorn’s opening salvo was uncharacteristically mild and somewhat oblique.

  “Our friends at Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock are alarmed by inquiries from disreputable types.”

  “What sort of disreputable types?”

  “Some furrier and his cousin in the glove trade marched in big as day demanding to borrow money to build a plant for the manufacture of motion pictures. Thanks to your bankrolling masquerade, word’s getting around the film folk that Dagget has money to lend.”

  “Are you sure they weren’t Krieg agents onto us?”

  “I looked into them, of course. But they appear legitimate.”

  “Legitimately disreputable?” Bell asked with a smile.

  “That’s what I just said: a furrier and a glover. How’s Clyde making out with the machine?”

  “He’s making progress. Seems excited by a scheme to photograph the sound directly onto the movie film.”

  “I hope he makes progress faster. Guarding a man night and day does not come cheap.”

  “How did you make out with the German ambassador?” Bell asked.

  “We danced around each other, me pretending I was merely curious about Army officers serving as consular attachés, the ambassador pretending not to wonder why I was pretending mere curiosity. I left the Cosmos Club with the distinct impression that he hasn’t a clue what his consuls are up to, much less the German Army. Nor does he want to.”

  “In other words, the consuls do the dirty work.”

  “As I told you in Washington.”

  “So nothing new from the ambassador.”

  Van Dorn sighed. “Look here, Isaac, is it possible Krieg and company have thrown in the towel?”

  “No. They’re biding their time.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until Clyde gets closer to finishing.”

  “That could be years!” Van Dorn exploded. “‘Several years.’ Clyde’s own words.”

  “I doubt they’ll hold off that long. For now, he’s working on the machine and they can wait until he’s made enough progress so they’ll know it really works.”

  “How will they know? You’ve forted him up. He’s surrounded with costly detectives, night and day, in the laboratory, home in bed, and the quick-march in between.”

  “All they need is one spy in the Imperial Building, watching and reporting back. There are scores of employees within range of Clyde’s laboratory. It would only take one to keep an eye on him—an otherwise legitimate technical fellow or a mechanician.”

  “If that’s the case, then Clyde Lynds is safe while he works on his machine.”

  “Temporarily safe,” retorted Isaac Bell. “Each time they’ve tried to lay hands on him it was clear they intended to take him back to Germany, where they’re ready to put him to work making the machine. Now we’ve put him to work, so right now they’re watching and waiting. What will trigger their next attempt will either be movement ahead on Clyde’s part, or us lowering our guard.”

  “It is very hard to keep your guard up for a long time, Isaac.”

  “That is why I am investigating what Krieg Rüstungswerk is up to in America. When we find out what and put a stop to it, Clyde and the talking machine will be free and clear.”

  Van Dorn sighed again. “What if all they are ‘up to in America’ is grabbing Clyde and his machine? It’s the machine they want. If you hadn’t stopped them on the ship, they’d be happily holed up in some Prussian castle while Clyde and Beiderbecke tinkered away with guns to their heads. The first the world would know was when the Germans showed talking pictures.”

  “The Germans were here already,” said Bell.

  “Here? What do you mean?”

  “Here in America, long before I broke up the kidnapping.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Look at the operation to grab Clyde off the Limited. Back in Chicago they smuggled the Acrobat into the express car. Only thirty-six hours later in New Mexico, halfway across the continent, they wrecked the train and had horsemen and mounts positioned to spirit Clyde across the Mexican border and onto a train. Five to one, they had a ship waiting in Veracruz. And they organized the entire operation in the few short days after Clyde gave their Marzipan Boys the slip in New York. Don’t you see, Joe? This is a gigantic outfit with a continental reach. I’ll bet you ten to one, Krieg secretly owns American factories, farms, ranches, and hotels where their agents hole up.”

  IN DEAD SILENCE, AND IN MOVEMENTS so lithe he seemed to flow like oil, Christian Semmler roamed up and down a stairwell concealed in the center of the Imperial Building. The hidden shaft let him enter every floor from the subcellar to the roof. He could watch, unseen, seeing everything. On the penthouse story, he pressed his eye to a spy hole. The cinematography stage camera operator was photographing a scene of a couple kissing good-bye in their parlor as the man went off to war.

  Semmler descended three floors to watch Irina Viorets busy at her desk, female stenographers on either side, a runner hurrying notes to a telegrapher tapping in a far corner, and the telephone pressed to her ear. Though the walls that encased his secret stairwell were thick, he fancied he smelled her perfume.

  Floor by floor he descended, peering through spy holes at scene shops, carpenters, and seamstresses, ranks of darkroom chemists laboring under red lights, films being loaded into canisters. He stopped to watch an entire ten-minute reel of film being presented to Imperial Company salesmen, who would take it to the exhibitors and distributors around America. All was up-to-date, all the latest way of doing things, with one glaring exception: the sound-recording studio on the fourth floor.

  Christian Semmler surveyed the recording studio with a knowledgeable eye. It was antiquated—even though the equipment was the latest available—because words and music were recorded here as feebly as they had been when Edison and his competitors first tinkered with phonographs and gramophones thirty years ago. Grim proof of
how antiquated was the makeup of the band of trumpets, clarinets, and saxophones playing into an acoustical horn. Where were the violins? Where was the double bass? Where was the piano? Where was the tympani? Nowhere! None of those instruments could be recorded faithfully. The saxophone played for the string bass. The clarinet was supposed to fill in for the violins. Banjos attempted to keep the beat. The untutored listener of the recorded wax disc would assume that the piano had never been invented.

  General Major Semmler climbed back up to the eighth floor for another look at the one man who could change that. He watched through the spy hole as Clyde Lynds’s eager assistants scurried. He saw that Lynds had had a cot moved in so he could work long nights. Semmler grunted approval at the sight. The scientist who was key to surmounting the shortcomings on the fourth floor was what Fritz Wunderlich’s drummer friends applauded as a “live wire.” Lynds was working, Semmler thought with a cold smile, just as hard as if he were locked in a Prussian dungeon with a gun to his head.

  Semmler glided up the stairs to his lair on the ninth floor, confident that he had Clyde Lynds exactly where he needed him to save Germany from the fatal flaw of Der Tag. And, despite Isaac Bell’s repeated interference, the grand scheme of the Donar Plan was unfolding as it was destined to.

  General Major Christian Semmler had soldiered abroad. Fighting in China and Africa, he had seen firsthand foreigners’ weaknesses and their strengths, and he knew better than any other officer in the kaiser’s army that Germany could never survive a war against all the world at once.

  The Donar Plan—Semmler’s strategy to save Germany—had sprung to life in a rainstorm at Katrinahall, the hunting lodge on the Rominter Heath that was the jewel of his wife’s dowry. Kaiser Wilhelm II had come to shoot wild boar. A royal visit was a singular honor that aristocrats vied for at court. Semmler had stocked the estate with that in mind, but in fact the kaiser had always cast a warm eye on his youngest general major. He called Semmler a man’s man and a soldier’s soldier, and he chortled over rumors of deadly duels at school and reports of savage battles in Peking and with the Boers behind the English lines.