While Still We Live

  Sheila did so.

  “Born where, and when?”

  “In High Wycombe: a small place just outside of London. On August 7, 1916.”

  There was another interval for more spelling.

  “Your parents?”

  Sheila suddenly lost her resolve to be patient. “Is this necessary?”

  “Most necessary. Your parents?”

  “Both dead. My mother died in September 1916. My father, Charles Matthews, was killed in December of the same year.”

  “Killed? How?”

  “In action.”

  “In France?”

  “No.” Sheila found that her uncle’s insistence on silence over her father’s death was even, at this moment making it difficult for her to talk about it. “In Poland,” she said reluctantly.

  “Really?” All three men were watching her intently, now. “Just where in Poland in December 1916?”

  “Here in Warsaw.”

  “There were no Allied troops fighting in Warsaw by December 1916. By that time, the Germans were in possession of the city.”

  “The Germans shot him. There’s a tablet erected to his memory in the Citadel.”

  The man who looked like a French general said aside in Polish, “This is devilish clever.”

  “That can be verified,” the man behind the desk continued. “You speak very calmly of your father’s death.”

  “Well, after all, I never saw my father.” And Uncle Matthews wouldn’t talk about him, either. “All I can feel,” Sheila added honestly, “is pride, and curiosity, and regret that I never knew him.”

  “Who was responsible for your education?”

  “My father’s only brother, John Matthews.”

  “Profession?”

  “He is a business-man. His firm is Matheson, Walters, and Crieff. Exporters.”

  Her interrogator nodded. “Verify that,” he said to the secretary. And then he continued, “Any other relatives?”

  “None. My uncle is unmarried. My mother had two brothers, but they were killed in the war. France and Gallipoli.”

  “How is it that you came to visit Poland at this time?”

  “I came at the end of June, on an invitation. I stayed longer than I should have.”

  “Why are you still here at this time?”

  Sheila shrugged her shoulders. There were so many explanations to that, all little, all very personal, that it seemed useless to start listing them.

  “Who invited you?”

  There was a sound of the door behind her being opened, and closed; of footsteps which halted just inside the room, so that she couldn’t see the newcomers. Her eyes seemed to be stuck at the desk. She couldn’t look over her shoulder.

  “Who invited you?” The question was sharper, this time.

  “A Polish family.” Sheila wondered desperately how she could keep the Aleksander name out of this stupid mess. She probably couldn’t without rousing more suspicion. She told them quickly of Andrew Aleksander’s visit to London last winter on a Purchasing Commission; of her visit here this summer at the invitation of Madame Aleksander; of her stay at Korytów.

  “How did Aleksander come to meet you in London?”

  “His aunt, Pani Marta Korytowska Madalinska, had given him a letter of introduction to my uncle. Her husband was killed by the Germans along with my father.” Sheila felt more confident again. All these facts could be checked, and her story would be proved. But the next question left her gasping.

  “Then why did you visit Hofmeyer’s shop, today? Why did he leave money for you in an envelope? Quite a large amount?”

  “Why don’t you ask Mr. Hofmeyer?” Sheila said angrily. Surely she didn’t have to start explaining all that, too...

  “Unfortunately, Mr. Hofmeyer disappeared half an hour before our men arrived to arrest him. He has been in contact with German agents. He met one of them—who has since been arrested and given us the necessary information about Hofmeyer—at Lowicz yesterday evening. Lowicz is near Korytów. We have traced his visit to you there. Yes, you may look dismayed, Miss Koch. When we arrest him, which should happen any minute now, you may find he is less thoughtful of you than you have been of him.”

  “But I am not this woman Koch. I am Sheila Matthews.”

  “Koch used many names, sometimes English or American ones. Matthews would have been an excellent one to choose.” He said to the secretary, “Now check all these main points in her story.” The man rose obediently, and hurried through the communicating door.

  The man who looked like a French general was watching Sheila coldly. He picked up the black leather folder: “‘Margareta Koch, age twenty-five, born at Grünwald near Munich, medium height, slender, straight fair hair, brown eyes, for three months employed by Johann Hofmeyer (Polish citizen) as secretary. Disappeared without trace on March 17, 1939. Believed to have returned secretly to Germany, and then to the United States.’ Complete evidence on her undeniable guilt as an organiser of diversionist activities and of spying then follows...”

  “But my hair isn’t straight,” was all that Sheila could say with complete inadequacy.

  The uniformed man waved her silent. “Forgetting about permanent waving, Miss Koch, or Miss Matthews, what course of action would we take when we heard that an envelope with money was to be delivered to someone who was to call at the business address of a man who faces charges of being a traitor? Especially when the person who called was a blonde young woman of medium height, with brown eyes? Especially when some of us believe that the rumour of Koch’s departure for Germany and America was merely, a fake, to cover her continued presence in Warsaw? What would you have done in our place?”

  Sheila, watching the secretary’s face as he returned with a slip of paper which he handed to the man with the black moustache, watching that man reading it with interest, said slowly, “I’d arrest her, of course, in a time like this. And then I’d find out who she was. And then I’d check her story. And then I’d release her and apologise.”

  The slip of paper had now been passed to the French general. He read it with one eyebrow raised.

  “What if,” he continued still more coldly, “a London directory of business firms lists all men who have any important positions in the various firms; lists Matheson, Walters and Crieff, and all its directors; but doesn’t mention a John Matthews? Or is he now an unimportant clerk, so that we can’t check on his name?”

  Sheila said, “But he is important.” Remembering Uncle Matthews’ clothes, his house, his friends, she added lamely, “At least, he had money enough.”

  “Have you visited his office?”

  “No.” Uncle Matthews didn’t approve of that. “But I’ve ’phoned there, often enough, to leave a message for him. His secretary always took the message.”

  “For Mr. Matthews?”

  “Yes. For Mr. Matthews. For Mr. John Matthews.”

  “I see. What if we have found the record of Charles Matthews, found that he was murdered along with Andrew Madalinski by the Germans, but that there was no mention of any child? It was known to his friends that he had a wife and a brother, who doesn’t happen to be named on this report. But there is absolutely no mention of either the wife’s death, or of a child.”

  Sheila sat very still. She could only think: he didn’t know, he didn’t know I even existed... He didn’t know.

  The man was talking again. She tried to listen, but her thoughts were with her father. For him, she had never existed. If the men in this room had tried their best to find some argument to end her resistance, they couldn’t have succeeded more brilliantly, more cruelly. Suddenly, as her silence remained unbroken, they realised something had had an effect.

  The man with the moustache pressed home the advantage. He said quickly, “If Koch, knowing that she was in danger of being discovered, and yet knowing that her work in Poland was still to be finished, wanted an excellent and safe means of returning here, what could be better than to become the daughter of a man who died f
or Poland some twenty odd years ago? Then she could enter a Polish family of good standing, and as their guest she could spend the summer safely and quietly until the time came for her to finish her work. And that time is now. Now, with war threatened...”

  Sheila roused herself. She said tonelessly, “But I didn’t seek out any member of a Polish family. He had a letter of introduction to my uncle. He was invited to our house.”

  “That will be checked.”

  “That’s all I want.” But, she wondered, would things be checked quickly in a time of national emergency? Andrew had left Warsaw with his regiment that morning. Professor Korytowski could only say that he had met her as a friend of his nephew’s.

  “Look here,” she said in desperation. “Why don’t you take me back to Mr. Hofmeyer’s place? That girl at the desk told a lie when she identified me as this Koch woman. The other employees there could tell you I am a complete stranger to them all.” The conviction that she had at last given them an unassailable piece of proof added confidence to the last sentence. She was almost cheerful again, as she ended the little speech.

  “Either you are very innocent, or very clever,” the black moustache said with a peculiar smile. “You know, or didn’t you, that the present secretary whom you saw today has only been recently employed by Hofmeyer? That the rest of the staff are now discharged, or have scattered? Some are innocent. Others are in hiding. When they are found they will be shot as spies.”

  Sheila made her last attempt. “If I were as clever and mysterious as you think, why should I have walked into such a trap this afternoon? Surely Hofmeyer would have warned me, if I were his accomplice?”

  “He would have warned you, I am sure, if there had been time. We heard the Lowicz German’s confession at four o’clock, implicating Hofmeyer. When our men arrived to arrest him, Hofmeyer was gone. If you, yourself, had arrived at the appointed time for your envelope, we would have been too late to find you. But you were the one who was too late. By these little mistakes, even the best spy walks into the net, Miss Koch.”

  “I am not Koch. I am Sheila Matthews.” Her Scots temper flared.

  “Now we are back where we started,” the man murmured. He looked over her shoulder, behind her. She suddenly remembered that someone had been standing there all this time.

  “Do you want to continue the interrogation, Mr. Commissioner?” the man at the desk was asking the unknown. Sheila turned her head, her eyes widened. But only the small, thin man, who was now advancing towards the desk, could see them. He looked at her without any sign of recognition, but there was almost a warning in the blankness of his eyes. He held her stare so coldly that her “Mr. Olszak!” froze on her tongue and remained unspoken.

  “No thank you, Colonel Bolt,” Mr. Olszak said crisply. “I think you have handled it as fully as possible at this stage, and you have treated it with your usual thoroughness and brilliance. The case of Margareta Koch is on the files of my little department and I think it would probably clarify matters if this young woman were to be put under our care, until a full check can be made of several interesting points which she has raised.”

  Colonel Bolt, obviously pleased with the beginning of that speech, seemed somewhat ruffled by the time it approached its end.

  “We are handling Hofmeyer, and it would seem that this case is linked with his.”

  “Hofmeyer was never under suspicion until four o’clock this afternoon. The files on him have only been opened. Koch, on the other hand, has been one of our subjects for the last six months, and the files on her past activities have grown in that time. In any case, Colonel, you have more important business at the moment than the tedious verification or disproval of this young woman’s statement. How’s that Gottlieb case coming along? My dear fellow, I thought your analysis of his reasons was really brilliant if I may say so.” Mr. Olszak had seated himself casually on the corner of the desk. He picked up Sheila’s handbag. “Examined these papers in here yet?” he asked as he opened the bag to show it stuffed with a woman’s usual concentration of odds and ends. “Of course not,” he added quickly, “it takes time to examine all these innocent-looking little scraps of paper and letters.”

  “There was no gun, no weapon,” Sheila’s first escort volunteered from the background.

  “Good,” Mr. Olszak said. “And now—”

  “We’ve wasted considerable time on this Koch-Matthews possibility,” Colonel Bolt said quickly. He was still inclined to be difficult.

  “Not wasted, I assure you,” Olszak said equally quickly. “And my department is in your debt, Colonel.”

  “For the matter of our records—” Colonel Bolt continued, but Mr. Olszak interrupted him with polite magnanimity.

  “The records, of course. By all means, Colonel, have it placed on your files that a young woman calling herself Sheila Matthews, but possibly Koch, was apprehended by your department at Hofmeyer’s shop in suspicious circumstances. That the said young woman, having failed to satisfy your department that she had no connection with Koch, was transferred to the care of my department because of our special interest in that case. Now, I think I’ll take Miss Matthews or Koch along with me. I think I can find a quick method of verifying certain necessary points in her statement. I shall let you know at once, of course, so that your records on this case may be completed.”

  Sheila, her arm grasped by a thin, surprisingly strong hand, found herself being led determinedly from the room. In his other hand, Mr. Olszak had an equally determined grip of her handbag.

  6

  MR. OLSZAK

  “Well, young lady,” Mr. Olszak said at last, when they had reached a small room of indescribable confusion, “you do make life very complicated for yourself.” He pushed aside two wire trays filled with papers, and perched himself on the corner of his desk to face Sheila, seated in his only chair. Now her back was to the light and it was Mr. Olszak who faced it. Sheila felt as if he had reversed the positions deliberately. She suddenly relaxed for the first time in the last two hours. Her hands trembled slightly as she smoothed her linen skirt over her knees. But she managed to smile.

  “That’s better,” Mr. Olszak said in his crisp way. “Much better.” He removed his rimless glasses, and fingered the thin bridge of his nose where they had pinched it into a red groove. His greying hair had receded so deeply from the temples that what was left of it formed an exaggerated widow’s peak, making the high brow still higher. His face had the white look of a man who worked too much, slept too little, and cared about neither regular meals nor exercise. His clothes and his manner of wearing them were quiet and neat, but nondescript. He was completely undistinguished to look at, except for his eyes and his hands. Both of these, Sheila thought, were unexpectedly powerful, once he let you look at them. It wasn’t the colour of the eyes so much—a strange mixture of grey and green—as the expression they held. Behind his glasses, they had been quick and intelligent. Now, as he looked past Sheila to the tree branches which brushed the window, there was a brooding quality which combined thoughtfulness with decision. This man, Sheila realised, did not know fear. He believed in something so far apart from himself that he had left no place in his mind for selfish emotions. Nothing that happened to him personally would seem important enough to be terrifying. She envied him at this moment.

  “And what do you think of our policemen?” he asked, still watching the tree, still smiling in that sardonic way of his.

  “I’d think you were wonderful,” quoted Sheila with some bitterness, “if I weren’t in my position. For a moment or two, they had me almost convinced that I didn’t exist.”

  Mr. Olszak didn’t bother to answer. He was looking through the contents of her handbag now. “Where did you find this?” With a movement as sudden as his question he had extracted Hofmeyer’s leaflet. He watched her closely as she explained it all, beginning with Hofmeyer’s visit to Korytów yesterday evening.

  “You believe me, don’t you? You know I am Sheila Matthews,” she ende
d desperately, as Mr. Olszak remained silent.

  “Why else should I have rescued you from the efficient logic of Colonel Bolt?” He smiled without any sarcasm this time, and added, “But my belief didn’t come from anything you contributed to the discussion in Bolt’s office, Miss Matthews.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I met you through Professor Korytowski. He met you, like Barbara and her mother, through Andrew. Andrew met you in London through some letter or other from his aunt. But if he or she cannot be found to substantiate your story—if, for instance, a German bomb or bullet took care of them within the next few days—well, then! What’s more, you had a strange reluctance to leave Poland. Edward Korytowski told me about the station incident last night. Of course, we could have checked with the British Embassy to find out why you were staying. I presume you informed them?”

  Sheila’s face was answer enough. She said, at last, to end his obvious amusement, “I went this afternoon. That was why I was late for Hofmeyer’s. But everything, everyone was so busy... Really, I didn’t think I mattered so much just then.”

  “I see.” It was an encouraging rather than a polite remark. Sheila felt that not one of her most hidden emotions could escape these sharp eyes.

  “Why do you believe me, then?” she asked.

  “Because,” and he paused and his voice was very quiet, “I knew your father. You are very like him. The resemblance is extraordinary. Except that your eyebrows and eyelashes are darker, but perhaps that isn’t nature’s fault.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Yes, I was at the last meeting he and Madalinski attended. I had just left. It was raided by the Germans. They were shot.” He looked at the girl almost gently. “When you get angry, and push your hair back from your face, and lift that chin and your eyebrows, I can see enough of Charles Matthews to please me.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell Colonel Bolt? Why didn’t you? He would have believed you.”