The Hindenburg Murders

EIGHT


HOW THE HINDENBURG CONSERVED WATER, AND LESLIE CHARTERIS FOUND A CABIN MATE





CHARTERIS STOPPED AT THE BAR outside the smoking room, to collect a double Scotch and water. He sipped it, finding it to his liking—he appreciated good solid drinks, as opposed to samples of pale faintly tinted water—then ordered a second one.

Once inside the sealed smoking room, it was rather a bother to deal with that turnstile contraption you entered through, and of course you had to leave any burning cigar or cigarette behind upon returning for more libation.

Its air pressure regulated somewhat higher to keep out any stray wisps of hydrogen, the smoking room was a veritable chapel of combustion precaution: that single electric lighter on a cord, which smokers were clumsily sharing, the peachwood flooring in place of the more easily burning carpet found elsewhere on the ship, those automatically self-sealing ashtrays that swallowed tapped-in ashes. Charteris, resting his drinks on a table, could only grin as he matched a Gauloise, thinking of the director of the Reederei—within a few yards of this airtight chamber—puffing away at his pipe and inviting his cohorts to light up.

Douglas and his friends Morris and Dolan were seated in one corner, lost in conversation, wreathed in smoke. This was apparently a male preserve, though Charteris knew of no rule against women joining in the tobacco idolatry. The air was as filled with masculine braggadocio as it was with cigarette, cigar, and pipe fumes. English seemed to be the language of choice, as various world problems were tackled—sit-down strikes, Japan’s intrusion into Manchuria, Stalin exterminating “enemies of the working class,” the war in Ethiopia, the war in Spain.

What a relief it was to have these problems resolved.

These discussions were in part prompted by a news broadcast piped in, first in German, then in English. One of the more mundane reports had to do with the price of cotton rising both in Europe and the U.S.A., up from nine to twelve.

A tall-dark-and-handsome brute in his mid-thirties, impeccable in his gray three-piece Brooks Brothers, responded to this pedestrian report thusly: “Yippee!”

So it was that Leslie Charteris, boy detective, made his first deduction: the rangy, character who’d howled like a cowpoke was George W. Hirschfeld, cotton broker, son of a Texas mother.

As the news report concluded, Charteris ambled over to where the Hindenburg’s answer to Gene Autry stood at the railing beyond which the floor-set windows revealed an atmosphere almost as gray and smoky as the one in here. The man Charteris took for Hirschfeld was holding a big glass of beer, a man’s man’s drink, in a well-manicured hand.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Charteris said in English, cigarette drooping from his lips, a Scotch in either hand, “that was an enthusiastic response to a pretty dull piece of news.”

“Depends on your point of view, son.” His mellow baritone bore a peculiar distinction: the man had, simultaneously, German and Texas accents. The author had never heard anything quite like it.

“Again, I don’t mean to stick my nose in,” Charteris said, “but exactly what point of view might that be?”

“Let’s just say a man has to have the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.” He waved dismissively toward their fellow smokers with a hand bedecked by several gold-and-precious-jeweled rings. “For instance, these poor fools around us listen to war news, to politics… the Pope wants the Reich to leave the Church alone, the Reich is up in arms about being accused of that Guernica bombing…”

“Yes. Important enough topics.”

“Not in this man’s opinion. I’m more impressed with hearin’ that Gone with the Wind won the Pulitzer, or that General Motors declared a dollar a share. The technicians in Hollywood are out on strike, did you know that?”

“I missed that one.”

He narrowed his eyes and shook a finger at Charteris. “Did you know there’s an effort afoot to close down the burlesque houses in New York?”

“Perish the thought.”

“Perish the goddamn thought is right.” The big man snorted, threw back some of the beer. “Now that’s important—like the Kentucky Derby’s important, or the affair between the King and Mrs. Simpson is important…. Let these other poor boobs eat up that slop about war and politics and religion. Give me show business and business business, every damn time.”

Charteris tasted his Scotch. “Are you an American?”

“Technically I’m a German. But I got a Texas momma, and I grew up in the U.S. of A., for the most part. Name’s George Hirschfeld, of Lentz & Hirschfeld, Bremen—hell, you can’t shake my hand with those drinks in it. You must be one two-fisted drinker!”

“Under these conditions I am.”

“Hey, a table’s opened up over there—care to join me?”

Hirschfeld settled into the booth side and Charteris took a chair with a small round table between them. They were seated near the railing and the windows. Charteris set down his drinks, and extended his hand.

The author was in the midst of a too-firm grip with the German Texan, and was starting to introduce himself, when Hirschfeld said, “I know who you are, Mr. Charteris.” He mispronounced it Char-teer-us. “You’re the mystery writer. Your detective’s the Saint, right?”

“It’s Chart-eris, actually. Are you a reader of mine?”

“No.” Hirschfeld was firing up a Pall Mall—Charteris’s favorite American brand, coincidentally. “No offense, but I gotta read too much, in my work—reports, newspapers, charts, and God knows what all. For relaxation, I’m more a movie man, myself.”

“Well, they’re probably going to make my stuff into films, pretty soon. RKO just picked up the rights.”

This seemed to impress the cotton broker. “Yeah? Who’s gonna play your detective?”

“I’m lobbying for Cary Grant. I presume I’ll get Grant Withers.”

Hirschfeld laughed at that, a deep, raspy sound. “Broadway and Hollywood—that’s what America’s really about.”

“You may have seen a picture or two I wrote.”

“Really? You wrote movies?”

“Until the producers and George Raft rewrote them. I ended up telling Hollywood where it could get off.”

“No kiddin’?”

“Yes, and Hollywood reciprocated by telling me what train I could get on.”

Hirschfeld chuckled, flicked ash into a hungry ashtray, and gulped some beer. “Yeah, but now they’ve come crawlin’ back to you. You got bestsellers to your credit, and so they wanna do business—that’s the biggest part of show business, after all, that second word.”

“Well,” Charteris said, exhaling smoke through a tight smile, “I wouldn’t say they’ve come crawling; but I am doing business with them, yes. How is it you know so much about me, if you don’t read me?”

The businessman sighed. “I asked around about you, got to admit. I was interested in who beat me to the punch.”

“Beat you to the punch?”

“There are two unattached females of the species on this big fat flying cigar, Mr. Char-teer-us… Charteris.”

“Leslie.”

“Leslie—and I’m George. Anyway, the only two girls aboard who aren’t married to some other passenger are that dried-up spinach leaf the college boys are fighting over, and that good-looking blonde you cornered the market on….” He lifted his beer glass, shook his head, smiling ruefully. “More power to you.”

“I must admit when I first saw Miss Friederich, I felt time was of the essence. You have an affinity for the well-turned ankle?”

“That’s one of the parts I’m fond of—wouldn’t say it was number one on my personal list. You see, my hobby is collecting showgirls, Mr. Charteris—Leslie. I make no apologies, and I get no complaints.”

“Now I understand your appreciation for Broadway.”

“You spend much time in America, Leslie?”

Funny thing was, “German” George Hirschfeld was the crystallization of Charteris’s cock-eyed, clichéd onetime expectations about America. As a youth he’d sat in Singapore, learning of the U.S.A. from books and magazines, discovering a land largely peopled by Indians and characters in fringed buckskin jackets, a purple sage-covered landscape through which cowboys in chaps and sombreros galloped in endless chases, either part of, or one jump ahead of, a posse.

“More and more, these days,” the author admitted. “America’s where the money is—and impending war isn’t.”

“Don’t listen to the doomsayers. Politics always takes a backseat to money. You probably don’t realize you’re talkin’ to a card-carryin’ Nazi.”

“Really?”

“Joined May first three, no, four years ago. Party card number 3075295.”

Charteris had finished his first Scotch; it was clearly time to begin his second. “If you don’t mind my saying so, George, you don’t seem the, uh, Nazi type.”

Hirschfeld lifted his glass to Charteris. “And I take that as a compliment. See, back in thirty-three these little men in the Nazi party demanded seats on the Cotton Exchange and on the Board of Trade. You know the expression—if you can’t beat ’em?”

“Join them.”

Hirschfeld grinned and nodded. “I outfoxed the bastards—protected my seat by signin’ up.”

“I see.”

“Do you? Let me ask you this—do you know what a bale of cotton is?”

“You mean what it sells for?”

“Hell, price is always in a state of flux. What I mean is, ask any showgirl and she’ll tell ya: cotton and money, they’re the same damn thing. Interchangeable. A few bales of cotton—a Mercedes, a box at Longchamps, a gold ring the size of an onion. And that’s an exchange that can be made regardless of who holds political power, irrespective of political ideas and economic theories.”

“Well, no matter one’s politics, one does need cotton.”

“Damn tootin’. You wear it, pants, shirt, underwear, ties, socks, your wife even serves the evening meal on it, and as for war? You know what war means to me? Tents and uniforms and parachutes and rags to clean your goddamn guns with.”

“And to sop up blood.”

“Now, now, Leslie, you think I’m coldhearted, cold-blooded? No. I’m a businessman. What the fools of the world want to do with themselves is their concern—I just know, whatever they do, whatever they decide, they’ll still need me.”

“Is cotton trading so difficult a business to master?”

“Cotton trading isn’t just a business, Leslie—it’s an art. You see, my poppa was a cotton broker, and when I was twenty-three, he put me to work on our cotton plantation on the Brazos River. This was born and bred into me.”

“Ah.”

“A true trader can tell between good cotton and poor cotton, between rain in Mississippi and Minnesota. Right now I’m in the middle of the biggest cotton deal of my career—fifty thousand tons in one fell swoop.”

“This is American cotton?”

“That’s right. Last deal like this that came along, Washington wouldn’t sell cotton to Germany without us takin’ some surplus U.S. lard. Imagine that? Cotton dunked in lard! Not this ol’ boy. Because I talk their language. Because they know I’m an American at heart.”

An American Nazi.

“I take it you’re not Jewish, George?”

“No. My partner is.”

“And you’re not worried for him?”

“No. Economics will prevail over petty prejudices.”

“For your partner’s sake, I hope you’re right.”

“Have I offended you, Leslie?”

“No. Not at all.”

“I’m a party member because those are the waters I have to swim in.”

That was becoming a familiar refrain.

“That’s fine, George—as long as you know to keep a keen eye out for sharks.” Speaking of which. “Have you by any chance met my cabin mate, Eric Knoecher?”

“Why, yes! Charming man. I haven’t seen him today.”

If Hirschfeld was lying, he was very smooth; Charteris saw nothing in the man’s eyes, heard not a hesitation or quaver in the man’s voice, to indicate a murderer hiding his tracks. On the other hand, this was a man big enough to pitch another man out a window.

“Poor Eric’s picked up a cold,” Charteris said. “I suggested he stay in our cabin, under the sheets, and apparently he’s taken my advice.”

“Good advice. You give him one of your books to read, Leslie, to pass the time?”

“No, but perhaps I should. I’ve sometimes been told that my immortal works have brought cheer and comfort to the bedridden—but I have to admit that certain other readers have indicated I make them sick.”

Hirschfeld chuckled, draining the last of his beer. “I don’t know Knoecher very well—your cabin mate? He just came up and introduced himself to me, here in the smoking room.”

“Really? When was that?”

“Fairly late last night. Maybe one, two in the morning. Wasn’t keeping any closer track of time than I was the number of beers I was putting away…. And you know, I could use another right now, and you seem to have drained both your drinks. Shall we risk havin’ our ears pop to go out and order up some more?”

“No thank you, George.” Charteris stood. “I’m afraid I have an appointment to keep before supper.”

“It is getting about that time.” Hirschfeld half rose. “Perhaps we’ll talk some more, later on—and I promise I won’t bore you with cotton talk.”

The men shook hands again.

“You haven’t bored me at all, George. I never thought of cotton in quite this light, before.”

Charteris had two appointments, actually. The second was with Hilda, at her cabin, to fetch her for an eight o’clock supper; and the first was with a shower.

The shower, to be precise, as this was the only one on the airship (or for that matter on any airship, this being a true first), and Charteris had signed up for 7:15 P.M. Morning reservations for this choice B-deck convenience were well nigh impossible, but at least freshening up before supper—a late supper, anyway—was an achievable goal.

He waited politely for the previous occupant to exit, then he went in, used the toilet in the adjacent changing room, hanging his clothes up on the hooks, leaving his monocle on a shelf, and headed into a cubicle where he stood naked and cold awaiting an unseen steward to turn on the wasser. Above him was a nozzle that seemed big enough to bathe everyone on the ship in one blast.

But he had been warned by Chief Steward Kubis to “be quick about it,” because the spray cut off automatically after three minutes, in an effort to conserve water, and if you were all soaped up at the moment, that was your problem.

“Airships must ration everything by weight,” Kubis had told him. “Even the shower water is gathered and stored as ballast in dirty-water tanks.”

Despite the shower’s rather limp-wristed water pressure, he had managed to soap up and rinse off by the time the nozzle dribbled to its preordained stop.

When, half an hour later, Charteris left his cabin to fetch the lovely Hilda, he was bathed, shaved, trimmed and waxed (mustache only), cologned, pomaded, and clothed in his white jacket and black tie, black shoes shiny as mirrors, looking at least like a million bucks.

Hilda, of course, looked like two million. She, too, had managed to book a shower, and smelled of lilacs, her blonde hair flowing to her shoulders now, shoulders that were beautifully bare thanks to a slim sheath of a dress that was all pleated black romaine, ruffled with pink and green satin ribbon.

“We are a pair,” Charteris said, as he walked her to the dining room, where a table for two along the wall awaited.

“I never saw a more handsome man,” she told him, as they waited for their Beaume Cuvée de l’Abbaye 1926, a fine red wine from the airship’s “cellar.”

“It would take a better writer than yours truly,” he said to her, “to do your beauty justice.”

Pretty corny stuff, he knew, but it felt very good, and even very real. They were holding hands and the look in her deep blue eyes promised a memorable evening.

They ate lightly if thoroughly of mixed green salad, cheese, fresh fruit, pâtés à la reine, and roast filet of beef, medium rare. Both declined dessert and sat drinking coffee, listening to the rain beat its insistent but trivial tattoo on the ship’s skin, watching lightning-flecked charcoal clouds roll by.

The storm had kicked up again, the ship on a wild ride into pelting rain and torturous head winds—if they were doing fifty knots now, Charteris figured, they were lucky—but the mood it lent to the romantic evening could not have been better conjured by Merlin himself.

“I love the rain,” he said.

“So do I,” she said.

“I love it in Malaya—the tropical storms sheet down like a waterfall, they beat the roof like a drum, stream from the eaves in a hundred miniature Niagaras. I’d sit at an open veranda and watch it come down, with great dewdrops condensing on the glass of wine I held… the air suddenly cool, fresh, temporary relief from a steaming heat.”

She squeezed his hand.

He went on: “I love it in Corsica, too—spluttering on the taut cloth of a tent top, peering out from that precarious shelter to watch the drops dancing on the rocks, running down to drench a parched ravine.”

Now she was holding his hand with both of hers.

“I’ve watched thunderheads,” he said, “building over the mountains in Tirol, bursting over the green valley where I didn’t even have a tent, just a ground sheet to pull over my sleeping bag and hope that not too much of it would creep in… which it invariably did.”

“I love the rain,” she said.

“Ah, but you live in the city. Rain is just a nuisance in the city. To feel the excitement of the rain, you have to be where the rain belongs—out in the open, where you can see it falling all around you, separated from it by the least possible protection necessary to keep you dry—and sometimes not even that.”

“I love it, too,” she said.

“I’ve always been a sucker for rain—but, you know, I never loved the rain more than I love it right now. Right this moment.”

“I love it.”

They made love in her cabin, twice that night, and then they slept snuggled together in the lower bunk—the sound of rain nowhere near them, but they imagined they heard it.

They imagined they heard it clearly and well, though the only real thunder was the muffled sound of snoring from the cabin next door, leaching through the linen-covered foam panels of the wall.