By the time mother and daughter reached the corridor, the baron was halfway down the main staircase and out of sight. They quickened their pace to try to keep up with him. They found him waiting impatiently at the bottom. The next moment he was through the door into the south parlor and bounding down the stairs into the cellar. Again he waited, and, when Marion and Sabina reached him, he led the way into the underground corridor along the length of the house.

“As many times as I’ve been down here, and as much as I’ve investigated, there it was right in front of my nose the whole time,” he said excitedly as he went. “Just imagine what uses we might be able to put the place to!”

Quickly following her mother and father, Sabina’s only thought was of Matthew. Oh, if only he could be here now to see this!

Halfway through its length, the baron stopped in the middle of the dirt floor and crouched down to one knee.

“Look, here it is,” he said. “The small brass lever behind this brick of stone is the secret to the whole thing. It’s so well camouflaged that unless you knew exactly what you were looking for, you’d miss it entirely.”

He reached forward and gave the metal handle a gentle pull, then stood back while his wife and daughter gazed in amazement at the result.

74 Hidden Workroom

74

Hidden Workroom

Seven months later Heinrich von Dortmann hunched over a crude wood table in dim light. The earthy aroma was ample reminder that their activities were of an underground and clandestine nature.

Dr. Aaron Abrahams sat opposite. They were typing up false identity cards, adding stamps and photos, and personalizing information to the blanks supplied by a printer in Fürstendorf known to the Catholic priest who was their ally in such illicit projects. This week’s set was for a family they hoped to pass off as Catholic refugees from Dresden, whom they were transferring to a monastery in Potsdam. The typewriter on which the doctor was now pecking out the names was not the best, but they had obtained it from a governmental office, and thus its type was of the sort not to arouse suspicion. Scattered about the table were pens and scissors and glue and other tools of their surreptitious trade.

The very afternoon of his discovery, the baron and the doctor had returned with measuring tools, string, paper, and pens, and by evening they had managed to string a makeshift light overhead by means of a long cord stretched through the underground corridors up to the small library.