The Hindenburg Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,4

and Brazil.

The Hindenburg—Eckener having been encouraged by his American partners in Akron’s Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation to establish a North American service—had flown ten flawless flights last year between Germany and the United States, plus seven nonstop flights to Rio de Janeiro. This would be the first of eighteen scheduled flights for 1937—transatlantic crossings were becoming routine.

“I’m proud to call Dr. Eckener my friend,” Morris said, rather pompously. “I served in France, during the Great War, and learned to fly, there—I’ve had an interest in aviation ever since.”

“Now you’ve started him,” Douglas said, waving at the waiter.

Morris went on, undaunted. “Dr. Eckener arranged, on one booked-to-capacity flight, for me to share quarters in the keel of the Graf Zeppelin, with its captain…. I love airship travel—no words can properly express the sensations.”

“I met Dr. Eckener on the maiden voyage,” Charteris said, flicking cigarette ash into a round glass Frankfurter Hof tray. “Got to know him rather well—and my impression is, no love is lost between him and the Nazis.”

“Damn right,” Morris said. “He despises his beloved zeps being used for Nazi propaganda.”

“Nonetheless,” Charteris said, “the Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin are the best weapons in the Nazis’ public-relations arsenal. People do love dirigibles.”

“Phallic symbols are always popular,” Douglas said dryly.

“Will Dr. Eckener be along for this flight?” Dolan asked.

“I don’t believe so,” Charteris said. “My understanding is he’s on the outs with the Reich.”

“Kicked upstairs,” Morris said glumly.

Charteris didn’t know the idiom. “What’s that?”

“Given some kind of honorary chairmanship. Captain Lehmann’s the anointed one now, I hear—and he’s along for the ride, this time.”

“Glad to hear it,” Charteris said. “They say Lehmann’s the best airship captain alive.”

Morris shrugged. “He’s not captain, this time around. Merely observing—just for show, first flight of the season and all.”

The waiter finally came over and said, in German, “Last call, gentlemen. The omnibuses to the airfield are here.”

“What did he say?” Morris asked.

Charteris translated, and the men ordered their drinks.

The torturous afternoon of indignity and delay was over, the delights of travel by airship awaiting.

TWO

HOW THE HINDENBURG DISEMBARKED, AND LESLIE CHARTERIS MET TWO WOMEN

THE BURLY MAJORDOMO AT THE front door of the Frankfurter Hof was as elaborately uniformed as a cast member of The Student Prince, rather a relief after the Nazi-ish attire of the customs officials. But the doorman was almost as officious, hustling the Hindenburg passengers through the drizzling rain to the three buses, shooing them aboard like schoolchildren late for class.

It was approaching seven P.M. and the lights of Frankfurt did their best to sparkle and twinkle in a dreary dusk. Charteris had managed to select a bus that included a drunken gentleman who was singing German folk songs from a seat toward the back. The author chose a seat toward the front.

The drunk had not been Charteris’s only objective in his forward-seat selection. Across the aisle from him was a rather Nordic-looking dark-blue-eyed blonde, in her early thirties, her frozen-honey locks worn up in Viking braids, a coiffure that only wide cheekbones and classic bone structure like hers could pull off. She was one of those pale beauties whose demeanor conveyed a stately beauty and whose near voluptuousness promised earthier delights. Like Charteris, she wore a belted London Fog trench coat and he was about to comment across the aisle about their mutual taste in rainwear when another woman came between them.

This new woman in his life was younger than sixty but not much, a slender, sparrowlike lady standing (in the aisle of the bus) barely five feet in her practical heels. She had been pretty once, but that prettiness had congealed into a pixie-ish mask, and her stylish attire bespoke both money and a desire to affect youth—white flannel suit narrowly pin-striped black, black gloves, black soupbowl chapeau with a long sheer shadowy veil designed to serve the same function as Vaseline on a movie lens aimed at a beautiful but aging actress.

“Would you mind terribly scooting over?” she asked ever so sweetly.

Charteris had taken the seat nearest the aisle, to obtain proximity to the Viking blonde, leaving the window seat empty.

“Not at all,” Charteris said, and did so. He thought he caught the barest amused glimpse from the Viking—which was at least an acknowledgment by her that he was alive.

“Thank you, ever so,” his new neighbor said, settling snugly into her seat. “I’m Margaret Mather—Miss.”

She extended a ladylike gloved hand, which he took, introducing himself.

“Oh, the mystery writer! I do so enjoy your novels.”

“Well, thank you.”

She beamed beneath the veil. “The