Passenger to Frankfurt - Agatha Christie [72]
‘And you let him go,’ said Herr Spiess.
‘Naturally I let him go. They had a responsible doctor with them, he was a voluntary patient, not certified, and therefore he was within his rights. So he left.’
‘I don’t see–’ began Sir George Packham.
‘Herr Spiess has a theory–’
‘It’s not a theory,’ said Spiess. ‘What I am telling you is fact. The Russians concealed it, we’ve concealed it. Plenty of evidence and proof has come in. Hitler, our Führer, remained in the asylum by his own consent that day and a man with the nearest resemblance to the real Hitler departed with Martin B. It was that patient’s body which was subsequently found in the bunker. I will not beat about the bush. We need not go into unnecessary details.’
‘We all have to know the truth,’ said Lazenby.
‘The real Führer was smuggled by a pre-arranged underground route to the Argentine and lived there for some years. He had a son there by a beautiful Aryan girl of good family. Some say she was an English girl. Hitler’s mental condition worsened, and he died insane, believing himself to be commanding his armies in the field. It was the only plan possibly by which he could ever have escaped from Germany. He accepted it.’
‘And you mean that for all these years nothing has leaked out about this, nothing has been known?’
‘There have been rumours, there are always rumours. If you remember, one of the Czar’s daughters in Russia was said to have escaped the general massacre of her family.’
‘But that was–’ George Packham stopped. ‘False–quite false.’
‘It was proved false by one set of people. It was accepted by another set of people, both of whom had known her. That Anastasia was indeed Anastasia, or that Anastasia, Grand Duchess of Russia, was really only a peasant girl. Which story was true? Rumours! The longer they go on, the less people believe them, except for those who have romantic minds, who go on believing them. It has often been rumoured that Hitler was alive, not dead. There is no one who has ever said with certainty that they have examined his dead body. The Russians declared so. They brought no proofs, though.’
‘Do you really mean to say–Dr Reichardt, do you support this extraordinary story?’
‘Ach,’ said Dr Reichardt. ‘You ask me, but I have told you my part. It was certainly Martin B. who came to my sanatorium. It was Martin B. who brought with him the Führer. It was Martin B. who treated him as the Führer, who spoke to him with the deference with which one speaks to the Führer. As for me, I lived already with some hundreds of Führers, of Napoleons, of Julius Caesars. You must understand that the Hitlers who lived in my sanatorium, they looked alike, they could have been, nearly all of them could have been, Adolf Hitler. They themselves could never have believed in themselves with the passion, the vehemence with which they knew that they were Hitler, unless they had had a basic resemblance, with make-up, clothing, continual acting, and playing of the part. I had had no personal meeting with Herr Adolf Hitler at any previous time. One saw pictures of him in the papers, one knew roughly what our great genius looked like, but one knew only the pictures that he wished shown. So he came, he was the Führer, Martin B., the man best to be believed on that subject, said he was the Führer. No, I had no doubts. I obeyed orders. Herr Hitler wished to go alone into a room to meet a selection of his–what shall one say?–his plaster copies. He went in. He came out. An exchange of clothing could have been made, not very different clothing in any case. Was it he himself or one of the self-appointed Hitlers who came out? Rushed out quickly by Martin B. and driven away while the real man could have stayed behind, could have enjoyed playing his part, could have known that in this way and in this way only could he manage to escape from the country which at any moment might surrender. He was already