Part 40 (1/2)
And he ordered his counterfeiters to keep working. Right up till the end ” Did they?”
”Yes” he said with a pained smile.
”And beyond. When the Bolsheviks got to Berlin, the counterfeiters packed it in. TheySandler, Andorpher, and whatever help they had-tried to escape with all the equipment, heading south toward Austria. They travelled by truck. That essentially is how we know what they were up to. The main truck, bearing most of the equipment plus crates and crates of freshly printed pound notes, broke down on the escape route. They couldn't bury it, it was too big. And they couldn't abandon it, it was too valuable. So they tried to hide it. Sandler released the brake on the top of a hill. They let it roll down until it splashed into a lake. And there it sank.”
”Forgotten?” asked Thomas with obvious sarcasm.
”For a few weeks. Then the crates broke open. Millions of pounds worth of notes came floating to the surface. Fives, tens, twenties, and fifties. Need I say, the locals had a fine time. Wringing out the money and hanging it in trees to dry. It was the first time Allied intelligence heard of it. Wasn't exactly the type of thing that could be kept quiet. It was the first time any outsider had any inkling about Bernhard.” Whiteside's brow was furrowed.
”There'd been suspicion for a long time, mind you. There were simply too' many pounds circulating. But now we knew. Our sacred pound sterling, and our friends the Sausage Makers had been printing it ”And Sandler?” asked Thomas, sensing the next chapter.
”And Andorpher?”
Whiteside made a gesture with his mouth. It was half wince, half pained smile.
”This is where it gets sketchy,” he said.
”But some basics are known. Andorpher, for example.”
”Captured?”
”In a sense. He was found dead, seventy-five miles east. Not west, mind you, but east. He was lying in a ditch Whiteside delivered the next sentence as casually as ve might give a cricket score or a weather report.
”Andorpher was lying in a ditch with his throat Cut.
Ear to ear. That left our friend Sandler.”
”Alone?”
”Almost. When the trucks were pulled out of the lake we learned that he'd taken along some items for good luck. The plates. The engraved counterfeiting plates.”
”Of course,” said Thomas, almost inaudibly.
Whiteside looked at the younger man as if to judge him. Whiteside's eyebrows were slanting downward in a nervous frown; his teeth were clenched in concentration.
”Now,” Whiteside continued, 'let's see if Thomas Daniels is a man or a boy. Let's see if he can spot the fox in the thicket.”
”Go ahead.”
”You're obviously a clever young man, Mr. Daniels. Otherwise you would never have gotten this far. And if you're as sly as I give you credit for being, you'll have spotted something very wrong.
There must have been something in the story I told you that struck you as odd.”
”A certain detail or turn?” asked Thomas.
”Yes. What was it?” he asked challengingly.
Thomas didn't have to think.
”East made no sense' he said simply.
”In light of everything about Arthur Sandler, east makes no sense at all.”