The Hindenburg Murders - By Max Allan Collins Page 0,43
nice-looking young Eric Knoecher.
“Excuse me, sir?” piped up a voice just to his left, a male voice, rather high-pitched, almost as if it had not quite changed yet. The English words were precise if heavily German-accented.
Looking up, swiveling slightly, Charteris saw respectfully standing there, in gray coveralls and crepe-soled slippers, a young crew member—the boy couldn’t be older than twenty-five—fresh-faced, blue-eyed (weren’t they all?), a tall, pale lad whose wholesome good looks were offset by ears that stuck out slightly from the elongated oval of his head, features somewhat embryonic, his lips puffily feminine, his jaw a bit weak.
“Excuse me for interrupting, sir.”
Suddenly Charteris realized this was the baby-faced crew member who had stared down at him from the rafters of the ship, on yesterday afternoon’s tour.
“Not at all. It’s rather a treat to see one of the crew invade our sacrosanct little world.”
But Hilda seemed annoyed by this intrusion, openly frowning, and Charteris gave her a quick sharp look, and she softened.
“I was hoping you might sign my book.” From behind his back the boy withdrew a well-read-looking copy of The Saint Overboard, the Hodder & Stoughton British edition, its dust jacket protected in the manner of a lending library, one of whose cast-off copies this apparently was.
“Well, it would be my pleasure,” the author said. “Everyone on board seems to know who I am, and some even claim to read me, but you’re the only one with proof. Do you have a pen?”
“I came prepared, sir.” The boy rather stiffly handed forward both the book and a fountain pen.
“This particular work has been translated into German,” Charteris said, as he thumbed to the title page. “But you have an English copy, I see.”
“I prefer to read American and British books in the tongue they were written in, sir.”
“You speak very well. What’s your name, son? So I can it inscribe in the book?”
“Eric,” he said. “Eric Spehl.”
Another Eric. Another blue-eyed Eric, at that.
“No joke intended, Eric, but could you spell Spehl?”
The boy didn’t smile; well, it hadn’t been much of a joke and he’d probably heard it a thousand times.
“S-P-E-H-L,” he said.
Charteris signed it—“To Eric Spehl, with Saintly best wishes”—and added the stick figure with halo that was the “sign of the Saint,” a logo that had risen out of Charteris’s own limited artistic ability but which had added enormously to the success and recognizability of his swashbuckling creation.
He handed the book back to the lad, who held it open, letting the glistening black ink dry. Strangely, Spehl’s expression remained blank, with little of the die-hard fan’s glowing-eyed pleasure. Obviously a shy one.
Hilda was frowning again, tapping her finger on the table. Embarrassed, Charteris made conversation with the young crew member.
“Do you like mystery fiction in general, Eric? Or are you strictly a Saint fan?”
The boy seemed to brighten a little. “Oh yes, I like detective stories and Wild West novels. Biographies, too.”
“That’s an interesting combination—escape fiction and biographies.”
“Well, sir, in both cases they represent lives more interesting than mine.”
“What could be more interesting than working on a zeppelin? What’s your job, by the way?”
“Rigger.”
“That sounds more like duty on a sailboat.”
“I use a sailmaker’s needle, sir, and heavy thread that can stand up to weather like we’ve been having.”
“You work mostly with your hands, then.”
He nodded. “I was an upholsterer’s apprentice before I came to work for the Reederei. But I am no seamstress.”
This last seemed vaguely defensive.
“I’m sure you aren’t, Eric.”
“I have to climb high up into the ship to patch a gasbag tear, or repair the linen skin over the frames.”
“Exacting work. Dangerous. And of course you get to travel.”
Spehl nodded. “I like that very much. I’m just a farm boy, and now my world is so much bigger.”
“Where were you raised?”
Hilda sighed heavily. Charteris glanced at her again, trying to convey his unhappiness with her rude behavior. She glanced away.
“Goschweiler, sir—a little village in the upland meadows of the Black Forest. Beautiful there. But just one small corner of the big world.”
“Still, home always has its special place in our hearts, doesn’t it? Well, thank you, Eric, and do keep reading me.”
Charteris held out his hand and the boy blinked, then accepted the handshake, and Spehl’s grip was firm, powerful, more than you might expect of a slender lad like this, if you didn’t know the good and taxing work he did with his hands.
The inscription dry, Spehl closed the cover on the Saint book, nodded, muttered another thanks, and moved quickly off. Another