Frankie's Letter Read Free Page A

his socks and shoes, bitterly regretting the warm coat, hat and gloves which he’d left in Frau Kappelhoff’s hall. He tried to make sense of the noises from the street below. A hubbub of shouted orders came up to him. They were taking Cavanaugh’s body away.
    Anthony didn’t know why Terence Cavanaugh was in Kiel. There were certain questions which simply weren’t asked by people in their situation, but he’d liked the man. He’d had a reckless, to-hell-with-it attitude which Anthony, surrounded by careful Germans, found immensely refreshing. God only knew why Cavanaugh was in the war. He wasn’t, as Anthony was, fighting for his country. He was an American, a neutral.
    Cavanaugh didn’t hate Germany and had mixed feelings about England but he had, as he’d told Anthony, a real nose for trouble. The war was shaping up to be just about the biggest load of trouble anywhere on earth and he wanted to be part of it. Well, thought Anthony, smoking his cigarette down to the butt, he certainly got his wish, poor devil.
    Feet crunched in step below. There were a lot of troops about, an abnormal number, in fact. Kiel, the home of the High Seas Fleet, was always well patrolled, but this was excessive and Anthony wondered why. It was with an odd stab of surprise he realized they were looking for him.
    At long last, when he was thoroughly chilled, the evening turned to dusk. Very, very stiffly he climbed up to the Kolhmeyers’ window. It was closed, of course. Anthony’s first thought was to slip the catch with his pocketknife but his fingers were too clumsy to open the blade. He wrapped his fist in a handkerchief, smashed the glass and, seconds later, was standing in what was obviously, from the sparse furniture, a servant’s bedroom.
    From far below came the sound of a piano. He remembered that Mrs Kolhmeyer was musical. He crept down the attic stairs and gently edged back the door. The music, one of the more rumbustious bits of Wagner, increased. There was no one about, as he had hoped at this time in the evening. With only a bit of luck all the Kolhmeyers would stay in the drawing room. He stole along the corridor to the head of the stairs.
    The sound of the piano swelled and he shrank into a bedroom. Someone had come out of the drawing room. Were they coming up the stairs? A woman said something about coffee. Anthony breathed a sigh of heartfelt relief.
    He couldn’t go out of the front door and the back door was in the kitchen. At least one of the Kolhmeyers’ two servants would be there. He listened intently for a moment, then slipped down the stairs into the hall.
    The door to the drawing room was ajar but the door to the dining room was closed. The piano still played but there was a sound as if a fairly bulky someone had got up from their chair and walked towards the door. Mr Kolhmeyer.
    Mr Kolhmeyer wasn’t built for speed but even if he’d moved like greased lightning it was doubtful if he would have seen Anthony, the rate he got across the hall and into the dining room.
    He stood with his back to the closed door, looking at the dining room. The room was, thank God, empty. It was dominated by a solid table with a green plush tasselled cloth and smelled of cooked cabbage. In the alcove stood an equally solid bureau. His first thought was to get out of the window but the sight of the bureau made him pause. He opened the oak lid and there, as he had hoped, were the Kohlmeyers’ identity papers.
    Anthony had a twinge of conscience as he pocketed Mr Kolhmeyer’s papers, but the chance to get a genuine pass was too good to be missed. Now for it.
    He pulled back the heavy velvet curtain covering the sash window and waited. He had his hands on the sash when he heard the tramp of feet. Three soldiers marched by. He waited until the sound of their boots had faded, took a deep breath, mentally crossed his fingers that the window wouldn’t stick, and