Let the Tiger Die

Manning Coles

Description

Tommy's Swedish vacation turns into a hunt for Nazis who still dream of restoring the third Reich.

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Fiction
• Espionage
• Thrillers

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774641019
• Langue: English

Extrait

Let the Tiger Die by Manning Coles
First published in 1947
This edition published by Rare Treasures
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review
























LET THE TIGER DIE

A Tommy Hambledon

by Manning Coles

Cast of Characters

Tommy Hambledon. A British intelligence agent on holiday in Stockholm.

Herr Goertz. An unlucky German who is the bearer of a mysterious packet.

Isidore Skutnas, Lukas Olgar, and Moritz Wenezky (aka Erich Sachsen). Three very dangerous Middle European communists who desperately want that packet.

Captain Dirk Gielink. Skipper of the Melicant Myrdal out of Rotterdam.

Johannis. A Dutch passport forger and piano teacher, an old friend of Tommy’s.

Horaz Kenrade, aka Stefan Kalvag. A former SS officer of some notoriety.

Nilsen and Peycke. Two former Nazis living with Kenrade in Rotterdam.

Kirk Rougetel. An anxious middle-aged German living in Paris.

Antoine Marillier and Frolich . Rougetel’s brothers in exile and his bodyguards.

Charles Denton. Tommy’s longtime friend and colleague at the Foreign Office.

James Hyde . An Englishman with a recently acquired taste for adventure.

Anatole Brihou and Jean le Mari. French black market lorry drivers.

Jules Arcache. A taxi driver in the village of Ste-Marie-en-Marais.

Etienne. A guide.

Jeannot of the Goats . The village innocent.

William Forgan and Archibald Henry Campbell. A pair of London modelmakers who unexpectedly come to Tommy’s aid in Spain.

Sergeant Cortado. A soldier at the castle prison of Torida.

Ezra and Elvira Blenkinsop van Houten and Hiram Biggs van Houten. Fellow guests at the hotel in Santa Brigida who claim to be Americans.

Col. Leonhard Torgius. A prominent Nazi with dreams of a reborn Germany.

Herr Professor Schlagel . A brilliant Nazi chemist with a weakness for brandy.

Lorenz Borian . A Nazi who knows that Tommy is not who people think he is.

Tonio. An enormous yellow Canary dog as big as a calf. He’s one of the good guys.

Plus assorted innkeepers, prison guards, Communists, Nazis, and bystanders.

To amuse D.O.M.

Chapter One. Overture to Murder

Tommy Hambledon came out from the Grand Hotel on the sixth morning of his holiday in Stockholm, and lit the first cigarette of the day. He crossed the road to the water’s edge and looked at the Royal Palace which seemed to float like a lily on the sparkling blue water. Small yachts with white sails slid quietly past him. Tommy thought them very preferable to the motorcycles upon which high-spirited youth enjoyed itself at home in England. A ferry steamer went by with high sides painted white and decks crowded with passengers; they were near enough for him to see that they were of the same type as the people who, at this hour at home, would be filing into tube stations, gliding down alarming escalators and being conveyed with noises and swaying through dark tunnels fed with reconditioned air and synthetic ozone. Stockholm folk went to their business on decent steamers over sparkling water, breathing real air and warmed by the sun. No doubt it would be a good deal more Spartan in the winter, but in August, thought Hambledon, Stockholm was the place to inhabit.

He turned right and strolled along the waterfront, planning another lazy day. He would hire a motor launch and visit some more enchanted islands. He would sit on a bench, sunning himself, in the Stadshustrad gardens. He might even—so warm was his heart towards Stockholm—visit a museum, for Hambledon was not by nature a museum visitor. It would be as it were a graceful acknowledgment of favors received. After which he would go and have a drink somewhere—it was really very odd how the mere thought of a museum suggested a drink to follow—and have lunch at the Rosengrens Kallare. But first of all he would stroll along to that little antique shop and have a word with the proprietor about bubble glasses.

He turned up the Kungstradgardsgatan. They were very fine bubble glasses, the largest he had ever seen. Perhaps the proprietor would have some views about packing them safely to travel to England, though they looked so fragile as hardly to bear handling. Still, Swedish bubble glasses actually are exported from time to time and do arrive whole, unlikely though it might seem. He turned left into Hamngatan and two men, speaking German, passed him outside the Nordiska Kompaniet stores. There was nothing remarkable in hearing German spoken but it served to remind him of another item of interest in Stockholm, the German-who-was-being-followed.

Tommy told himself firmly that he was on holiday in a foreign country and that it was therefore no business of his if all the Germans in Sweden were severally and habitually followed about by a whole procession of gentry from Mitteleuropa walking two by two, each with a candle in one hand and large knife in the other. But Hambledon’s curiosity was too deeply ingrained to be weakened by a mere holiday. The man not only looked like a German, he certainly was one; by his speech he came from Munich or thereabouts. Hambledon had stood next to him in a shop when the man was buying handkerchiefs. The two Middle Europeans were farther down the street on the opposite side, looking in a shop window which displayed delicate lingerie. They did not look the sort of men to take a genuine interest in lingerie, however delicate, but one never knows with Middle Europeans. What language they used between themselves it was difficult to discover since they never spoke when one was near enough to overhear them. There were, apparently, three of them although one never saw more than two at once. Hambledon in his own mind called them Brown, Jones and Robinson.

The German never gave any sign of knowing that he was being followed, though he must have been the most unobservant of men if he did not know it. He did not look unobservant; quite the contrary. Therefore either he did not mind or could not prevent it. They might, of course, be a bodyguard, but guards and guardees usually speak sometimes; these people did not so far as Tommy could see. Besides, they had not the air of a bodyguard, and, what was more definite, they did not keep near enough to the German to be any protection to him. They were not guarding, they were watching.

Hambledon had seen this interesting group on several occasions during the five days he had been in Stockholm. It would seem that the German confined himself entirely to the Norrrnalm and Vasastaden district; it is possible that he felt safer in thronged streets. Ill-mannered violence is not tolerated in Stockholm.

Hambledon turned uphill at the end of Hamngatan and walked more slowly. The antique shop for which he was making was down a narrow turning to the left; when he came within sight of the corner he saw that the two he called Brown and Robinson were standing there together, apparently waiting for something or somebody. The German was not in sight; probably he was in one of the nearby shops.

“Buying socks, perhaps,” said Tommy to himself. “He can’t want any more handkerchiefs.”

Brown and Robinson glanced carelessly at Hambledon as he approached; they were, in fact, looking with some eagerness up the street ahead of Tommy as though they expected something or someone to come down the hill towards them. There was a good deal of traffic, for it was a busy street; while Hambledon was still twenty yards . away a saloon car drew in to the pavement just short of the turning and the two men hurried towards it. They had a few words with the driver and both got into the car. At the same moment Tommy reached the corner and, glancing down the side turning, saw the German standing outside the antique shop apparently lost in thought.

“They will turn in here,” said Tommy, preparing to dodge, for the pavements in the side road were extremely narrow and the long car would have some difficulty in turning into it. It did not turn, however, it went straight on by the way Hamble-don had come and passed from sight, giving him just time to recognize the driver as the man he called Jones. It was the first time he had seen all three together. He looked after the car for a moment and then turned down towards the shop. The German had awakened from his reverie and was walking rapidly away in the opposite direction; the next moment he also was lost to view behind a heavy porch built out upon squat round pillars at the edge of the pavement.

“Looks as though the party’s breaking up. I shall always wonder what that queer charade was all about. I only hope he hasn’t been in and bought my bubble glasses.” Tommy strolled along more slowly than ever and spent several minutes looking in at a shop window which displayed knitted garments in gay and varied patterns. Adam Keppel Denton’s birthday was imminent and a present would be required. One of those cheery little pullovers—how big is a boy of five?

A saloon car came along the narrow street towards him; it looked like the same car—it was, there was Jones driving it. It passed close by him, and though his eyes were dazzled by the sun he saw that something queer was going on in the back seat. A general impression of the Laoco6n in tweeds; a struggle, in short. What had happened was immediately obvious; the Middle European gentry had not given up the chase and gone away. They had driven round a block, met the German farther on and abducted him.

Hambledon was still not