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“Did you call him at home?” von Deitzberg asked.
“There’s no answer,” Cranz said.
“Let me check with Fräulein Hässell,” Gradny-Sawz said, and dialed a number.
Fräulein Hässell had no idea why Herr Frogger had not come to work.
Nor did Ambassador von Lutzenberger, who suggested it might be a good idea to send Untersturmführer Schneider around to their apartment to make sure that nothing was wrong.
“You go with him, Cranz,” von Deitzberg ordered, “and take Raschner with you.”
The Frogger apartment was on the fourth floor of a turn-of-the-century apartment building on Calle Talcahuano. A park separated it from the Colón Opera House.
When there was no answer to the in-house telephone, the concierge said the Froggers must have gone out before he came on duty at nine, then gave the men a good deal of trouble when they said they wanted to have a look in the apartment.
Cranz was perhaps disloyally amused at Raschner’s coldly angry reaction to that.
He’s going to have to remember that this is not Germany and that a Gestapo badge is absolutely meaningless here.
Cranz’s charm, diplomatic passport, and a small cash gift overcame the concierge’s reluctance to let them into the apartment. The concierge was visibly relieved when Schneider produced a key.
The Froggers were not in the apartment. The beds were made, and there was no sign that they had had their breakfast there. There was nothing suspicious about that. They were Germans. When Germans got out of bed, they made the bed. When they had breakfast, they cleaned the table and the plates and silver and the kitchen.
Yet there also was not any lingering smell from someone having cooked a breakfast meal.
“Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Raschner called softly from a table in the sitting room.
Cranz walked to him.
“What looks like a photo frame has recently been removed from here,” Raschner said, pointing to barely discernible disturbances in a very light coating of dust.
Cranz raised his eyebrows in question.
“I noticed the absence of photographs of the sons,” Raschner said. “There are no photos anywhere. Then it seemed to me that there were photo frames missing from the arrangement on the mantel”—he gestured with his finger toward the mantelpiece—“and then I found this.”
Cranz nodded.
“May I proceed, Herr Obersturmbannführer?”
“Proceed to what, Sturmbannführer?”
“While I see if I can find a photo album anywhere, I will send Schneider to the garage to see if their auto is there.”
“You’re suggesting what, Sturmbannführer?”
“Let me see if we can find the car and a photo album before I suggest anything, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”
“Please call me ‘Herr Cranz,’ Sturmbannführer.”
“May I proceed, Herr Cranz?”
“Go ahead.”
[TWO]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo Near Pila Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1030 14 July 1943
Don Cletus Frade sat at a small glass-top table on a small verandah outside the master bedroom of the big house waiting for his wife to join him. He was reclined in his chair, his feet resting on the other chair, and holding a brown manual in his hands.
