“Where you saw me, young man,” he said, “was in the tunnel when I let you in from the garden. You see, I bring all our guests into the house through the tunnel personally.”

72 Clues Leading South

72

Clues Leading South

There was a certain diabolical cleverness to these people, thought Emil Korsch to himself.

It was not surprising to find them so successful in business and financial matters. They were shrewd and wily. He could see the danger posed and why Hitler had sworn to eradicate them.

Not that he didn’t hate the swine. But it heightened the challenge of the hunt and added a certain invigorating factor of formidability that would increase the pleasing satisfaction of his final victory. A high-stakes game of chess—with death to the loser!

A most cunning stratagem indeed! The old straight-line-leading-nowhere ploy!

And he had fallen for it! Halfway across Poland, he had grabbed at every straw they carefully left for him, thinking he was getting closer all the time. He had never even stopped to reflect on the rationality of the absurd direction. What could possibly lie to the northwest? The direction had been diversionary from the outset!

It hadn’t been until Bydgoszcz that he began to smell the rank odor of deception.

There suddenly the trail had diverged in two directions. One seemed still pointed northwest, it would appear toward the Baltic. The other turned sharply, toward Poznan… and the south.

Suddenly the truth had dawned on him. Reaching the Baltic accomplished nothing! Getting Jews out by boat through the Swedish and Danish channels was impossible. There were scattered reports of such madcap attempts, even toward Finland. But no, the only real safely for them lay south—in Switzerland!

What kind of fool did they take him for! He hadn’t exactly come down with yesterday’s rain! They were dealing with Emil Korsch, assistant to Reichsführer Himmler himself!

Switzerland was the obvious destination toward which the rabbi was bound! Only there would his sacred relics hope to find security from the Nazi clutches.

Once he’d realized the gambit they were attempting, the pieces all fit. “Rheinsdorf,” village of the Rhein—he’d never heard of it, but he would find it; “Kirkhaus,” churchhouse; “Fürstenburg,” village of the prince—whatever the codes meant, they smelled of religious scoundrels, and they all had a Bavarian smell!

If these were locations along the southern border network, which he was now sure of, he would uncover their whereabouts. They were clues he’d paid handsomely for. Beating wasn’t the only way to get information. If he had to pay for it, he would do that too, though it wasn’t as interesting.

He’d obtained a name, too. Stegerwald. Where to find whoever or whatever it was, he wasn’t sure. There was also talk of a tunnel.