Garden of Beasts Read Online Free PDF Page B

talking about this porter, Heinsler. He was always skulking around, never spent time with fellow crew members and—weirdest of all—would start spouting hooey about the Nazis and Hitler at the drop of a hat.
    Alarmed, Paul tracked down Heinsler and found him on the top deck, hunched over his radio.
    “Did he send anything?” Manielli now asked.
    “Not this morning. I came up the stairs behind him and saw him setting the radio up. He didn’t have time to send more than a few letters. But he might’ve been transmitting all week.”
    Manielli glanced down at the radio. “Probably not with that. The range is only a few miles…. What does he know?”
    “Ask him, ” Paul said.
    “So, fella, what’s your game?”
    The bald man remained silent.
    Paul leaned forward. “Spill.”
    Heinsler gave an eerie smile. He turned to Manielli. “I heard you talking. I know what you’re up to. But they’ll stop you.”
    “Who put you up to this? The bund?”
    Heinsler scoffed. “Nobody put me up to anything.” He was no longer cringing. He said with breathless devotion, “I’m loyal to the New Germany. I love the Führer and I’d do anything for him and the Party. And people like you—”
    “Oh, can it,” Manielli muttered. “What do you mean, you heard us?”
    Heinsler didn’t answer. He smiled smugly and looked out the porthole.
    Paul said, “He heard you and Avery? What were you saying?”
    The lieutenant looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. We went over the plan a couple of times. Just talking it through. I don’t remember exactly.”
    “Brother, not in your cabin?” Paul snapped. “You should’ve been up on deck where you could see if anybody was around.”
    “I didn’t think anybody’d be listening,” the lieutenant said defensively.
    A trail of clues a mile wide…
    “What’re you going to do with him?”
    “I’ll talk to Avery. There’s a brig on board. I guess we’ll stow him there until we figure something out.”
    “Could we get him to the consulate in Hamburg?”
    “Maybe. I don’t know. But…” He fell silent, frowning. “What’s that smell?”
    Paul too frowned. A sudden, bittersweet scent filled the cabin.
    “No!”
    Heinsler was falling back on the pillow, eyes rolling up in his sockets, bits of white foam filling the corner of his mouth. His body was convulsing horribly.
    The scent was of almond.
    “Cyanide,” Manielli whispered. He ran to the porthole and opened it wide.
    Paul took a pillowcase and carefully wiped the man’s mouth, fished inside for the capsule. But he pulled out only a few shards of glass. It had shattered completely. He was dead by the time Paul turned back from the basin with a glass of water to wash the poison out of his mouth.
    “He killed himself,” Manielli whispered manically, staring with wide eyes. “Just… Right there. He killed himself.”
    Paul thought angrily: And there goes a chance to find out anything more.
    The lieutenant stared at the body, shaken. “This’s a jam all right. Oh, brother…”
    “Go tell Avery.”
    But Manielli seemed paralyzed.
    Paul took him firmly by the arm. “Vince… tell Avery. You listening to me?”
    “What?… Oh, sure. Andy. I’ll tell him. Yeah.” The lieutenant stepped outside.
    A few dumbbells from the gymnasium tied to the waist would be heavy enough to sink the body in the ocean but the porthole here was only eight inches across. And the Manhattan ’s corridors were now filling with passengers getting ready to disembark; there was no way to get him out through the interior of the ship. They’d have to wait. Paul tucked the body under the blankets and turned its head aside, as if Heinsler were asleep, then washed his own hands carefully in the tiny basin to make sure all the traces of poison were off.
    Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and Paul let Manielli back inside.
    “Andy’s contacting Gordon. It’s midnight in D.C. but he’ll track him down.” He couldn’t stop