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thinking of leaving Germany?”

“Sh—sh,” he said, “don’t speak of it. Don’t even think about it, but I don’t think I can go

on with these people much longer. We don’t get on as well as we did, somehow,” he added

grimly.

“Oh, Klaus dear, let’s go away! Let’s get out of this dreadful land now the Nazis have

spoiled it. It won’t matter if we are poor again, will it, we’ll find a little house somewhere and I

can still cook.”

“I think even if we do go, we shan’t starve. Push all this to the back of your mind for the

present, it will need a good deal of arranging, you know. I only told you now so as to give you

time to think it over, I didn’t want to spring it on you at the last moment.”

“If you knew,” she said, “how I’ve been longing for you to say this! Do you think we

shall ever have enough money to go to England?”

“You’ve been very interested in England lately, haven’t you? Ever since the Ogilvies

were here, why is it?”

“He told me,” she said, “that if you’re in difficulties in England you go to the police and

they help you. Here, if you’re in trouble, you avoid them. I’d like to see a policeman who wanted

to help you, Klaus, why aren’t your men like that?”

“Why, indeed,” he said.

Tommy Hambledon received a coloured picture-postcard of the Kursaal at Wiesbaden,

taken across the ornamental water. The message written upon it said, “Playing here to-morrow,

Coblentz Saturday, Cologne Monday, going home Tuesday,
auf wiedersehen
some day,

greetings, good-bye,” it was signed D. Ogilvie. “Lucky devil,” said Hambledon, threw the card

in a drawer of his writing-table and went to a meeting of the Party Chiefs, summoned by the

Leader. Now this was January 1938.

One never knew what to expect from these meetings of the Leader’s. Sometimes they

were addressed on stirring subjects such as a new badge for machine-gunners, or how to

stimulate the birth-rate; sometimes they heard of a new tax to be imposed or new measures

against the Jews, sometimes there was an announcement about something really important like

the reoccupation of the Rhineland or the building of the Siegfried Line, and sometimes it seemed

to Tommy that they just gathered together to blow off hot air and tell each other how wonderful

they were, just like the Monkey-People in the Jungle Books, only a lot more dangerous. “You

never know,” said Tommy, “whether it’s gas or high explosive. Wonder what it is this time.”

He soon learned, for they were informed in singularly few words, considering who was

speaking, that Austria would be incorporated in the Reich in March. There would be internal

troubles in Austria, unrest, rioting, faction-fighting in the streets and so forth. The Austrians,

realizing that their paltry Government was too weak to keep order, would naturally appeal to

their powerful neighbour for help, and union with Germany would naturally follow. Thus so

many millions more Germans would return to their spiritual home, the Reich, and Germany

would become greater Germany.
Hoch der Anschluss! Hoch!

It was perfectly obvious that the inner circle of Party leaders whom Hambledon rudely

called the Big Six had got this scheme all cut and dried, and the purpose of this somewhat larger

meeting was merely to inform the various heads of departments about a decision already taken.

They were not asked for comment, still less criticism; a few well-chosen words of

congratulation, yes, but no more. One less tactful individual asked what would happen if any of

the Austrians fought.

“Fought! Fought whom?”

“Us,” said the Deputy bluntly.

“No worthy Austrians will fight us. There are, as I have said, subversive elements which

require suppression. They will be suppressed.”

“But—”

“There is no room for doubt. There is unrest in Austria, that is why we march in. If there

is unrest after we have marched in, that will only show how right we were to do so.”

The Deputy gave it up.

The meeting ended with the executive officers being told to prepare plans, each in his

separate sphere, for reorganizing the administration of Austria in line with that of the Reich;

posts, telephones, railways, tax collections, and so forth. Hambledon received written orders for

the reorganization of the Austrian police, supersession would be a better word. He was to submit

detailed schemes for putting these orders into effect. He clicked heels, gave the Nazi salute, and

marched out.

“There goes a good servant of the Reich,” said the Führer approvingly.

“I had occasion to say a few words to him the other day about minding his own

business,” said Goebbels. “They seem to have done good.”

“Indeed! What about?”

“He had some views about the Jewish question which hardly came within his province,

that is all,” said Goebbels smoothly. “There was nothing wrong—every man has the faults of his

virtues. He was a little over-zealous, that is all.”

“I wish every man I had to deal with had only Lehmann’s faults. He has one outstanding

merit which I will ask you to remember and cherish.”

“What is that?”

“He is the only man in the Party whom we all of us trust.”

“That is true,” said Goebbels thoughtfully.

“Herr Goebbels will remember in future.”

Herr Goebbels would, with displeasure, in fact the Führer had made a dangerous enemy

for his incorruptible Chief of Police.

Hambledon returned to his office to get some books of reference, said that he would not

be returning that day as he was going to work at home, and returned to the flat. In point of fact he

often did work at home when he wanted to be uninterrupted, his study there was not to be

approached once he gave the warning, “I shall be busy, Franz, this afternoon.” The meal-time

gong was not sounded, no wireless played, even footsteps passing the door were hushed, for

Tommy Hambledon, who had never raised his voice or lost his temper in his own house, yet

knew how to make himself obeyed.

He settled down with maps and reference books to work out a scheme for the effectual

policing of Austria, and it took him several hours. He made copious notes, drew up a draft report,

and then corrected, amended and annotated it till it was barely legible. When he was finally

satisfied he opened his typewriter, put in a sheet of paper, looked at it for a moment and took it

out again, replacing it by two sheets with a carbon paper between. “I’ll give ’em something to

think about,” he said with a grin, and proceeded to make a fair copy of his report. By the time he

had finished it was past seven and he was stiff, tired and hungry, but there was a little more to

see to yet. He rang the bell and Franz came.

“Is Herr Reck in the house?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“Ask him to come to me, will you?”

Reck came, Hambledon gave him a cigar and asked him if he knew anything about

photography.

“Did you ever know a science master who didn’t? I made a hobby of it at one time.”

“Got a camera now?”

“Heavens, no. What for? Want a series of photos of yourself for a magazine article

entitled ‘Great Men at Home’?”

“Of course,” said Hambledon, “how did you guess? One of me at my desk with an

expression of grim concentration, one with my feet on the mantelpiece nursing the cat, and one

with me in the background and the whole foreground occupied by the glass bottom of a tankard

of beer which veils, without entirely obscuring, these classic features which are the admiration of

the law-abiding and a terror to evil-doers. Oh, yes, another of me setting out to the office in the

morning with my chin up and my chest thrown out, and another of me coming home in the

evening, haggard and bent with my day’s toil for the Fatherland, but my features irradiated with

that pleasing inward glow which comes only from a sense of duty well done—”

“Or from whisky,” said Reck. “You’re pleased about something, aren’t you?”

“Why?”

“You always babble like that when you’re pleased.”

“Or frightened. Perhaps you’re right.”

“This photography. What about it?”

“Could you take a photograph of this so that the prints will be completely legible?” asked

Hambledon, holding up the two sheets of the orders he had received anent the policing of

Austria.

“Nice black typing,” said Reck. “Top copy, not too large. Yes, I think so. One of those

old-fashioned wooden cameras with bellows extension, half-plate size, wide-angle lens.”

“Can you buy such a thing?”

“Second-hand. Oh, yes, I expect so.”

“What pretext would you have for wanting a camera like that?”

“They are used mainly for photographing architectural features—ancient Gothic

archways, that sort of thing. I take up a new hobby.”

“What, publicly?”

“It might be as well,” said Reck. “I shall moon about with camera on long tripod legs,

prodding people wherever I turn round. Focusing cloth. Pockets bulging with dark slides, and so

forth.”

“What about developing?”

“I shall process them myself—may I use the bathroom?”

“Except when I want it,” said Tommy handsomely. “Ask Fräulein Rademeyer.”

Hambledon made a detour on his way to the office in the morning, to pay a visit to a

shabby man who lived in a slummy street in the poor quarter of Berlin. The shabby man opened

the door himself, and when he recognized the Chief of Police he looked alarmed and indignant.

“Herr Polizei Oberhaupt, I’ve done nothing, honest I haven’t, don’t even want to, got a

good job now writin’ copies for the children’s copybooks, straight I have—”

“It’s all right,” said Hambledon reassuringly. “There’s nothing against you—at the

moment. I only want you to do a little job for me.”

For this man had the gift of being able to write most beautifully in any style he chose; he

made a living by practising this gift, only unfortunately he sometimes practised on cheques, and

that was how he came to know the Chief of Police.

“Anything I can do for you, sir, of course—please come in.”

Hambledon went in, when the door was shut behind them he produced a picture-postcard

of the Kursaal at Wiesbaden and said, “Can you imitate that writing?”

“Bit funny, isn’t it?” said the man, studying Dixon Ogilvie’s farewell message.

“Foreigner, isn’t he?”

“Yes, can you do it?”

“Bless you, sir, yes, have to be a lot funnier than that before it stumps me. What d’you

want?”

“Only a luggage label, here are some. Write on it ‘Dixon Ogilvie’—here, I’ll write it

down for you. ‘Dixon Ogilvie, a Londres via Bruxelles, Ostende et Douvre.’ That’s all.”

“How many d’you want?”

“Only one. Don’t post it to me, bring it to my house at nine to-night.”

Dixon Ogilvie and his uncle, homeward bound from Cologne, sat in the train at the

frontier waiting while customs formalities were being observed by passengers not going beyond

Belgium. As the Ogilvie luggage was registered through to London, they did not expect to be

disturbed, but a porter came to the door and said, “M’sieu’ Deexon Ojeelvie?”

“More or less,” said Dixon. “What is it?”

“A small matter of m’sieu’s baggages, if m’sieu’ would come?”

They both went, and were told at the customs office that there was a little difficulty

because whereas D. Ogilvie’s way-bill declared there were only six packages, there were in fact

seven, as m’sieu’ would see for himself.

“How many did you have, Dixon?”

“I don’t know, six or seven. I suppose the man at Cologne counted wrong.”

“I expect so. Perhaps we’d better just look at them.”

Dixon pointed at one and said, “That’s not mine.”

“It’s a portable gramophone,” said his uncle.

“It is, in effect, a musical instrument,” agreed the customs officer.

“You can’t call a portable gramophone a musical instrument,” objected Dixon, “any more

than you’d call a sardine tin the Atlantic Ocean.”

The customs official begged pardon, and Alexander Ogilvie said, “Don’t be so damned

high-brow. It is probably classed as a musical instrument, you know, like ‘cats is dogs and

rabbits is dogs, but tortoises is hinsects and goes free.’”

The customs official understood English, but was not a student of
Punch
, so he found this

a trifle baffling. However, he let it go and returned to the main subject.

“Gramophones are musical instruments for the purposes of customs,” he began, and

Ogilvie senior said, “I told you so.”

“I’m not going to pay customs duty on the thing,” said Dixon languidly. “I don’t want it.”

“Nobody desires that m’sieu’ should—”

“Then what’s all the fuss about?”

“As I have already told m’sieu’, there is a package in excess of the number on the way-

bill—”

“Present it to the local Female Orphanage, they’ll probably love it.”

“I say, Dixon—”

“Yes, Uncle Alec?”

“The label is in your handwriting.”

“Eh?”

“Exactly like all the others.”

Dixon walked over and examined it, and it occurred to him for the first time that there

might be more in this affair than met the eye. His uncle snapped open the case, which had

compartments in the lid for half a dozen records. He drew out the first, wound up the motor and