Secret Armies Part 16

"Why did you apply for a transfer from Staten Island to the Brooklyn Navy Yard?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I guess there was more money in it."

"How much were you getting when you were working on the destroyers?"

"It was some time ago," he said slowly. "I do not remember very good."

"How much are you getting now at the Navy Yard?"

"Forty dollars and twenty-nine cents a week."

"You went to Germany last year for a couple of months and before that you went to Germany for six months. Were you able to save enough for these trips on your wages?"

"I do not spend very much," he said. "I live here all alone."

"How much do you save a week?"

"Oh, I don't know. Ten dollars a week."

"That would make five hundred dollars a year--if you worked steadily, which you didn't. You traveled third cla.s.s. A round trip would be about two hundred dollars. That would leave you three hundred to spend provided you did not buy clothes, etc., for these trips. How did you manage to live in Germany for six months on three hundred dollars? Did you work there?"

He hesitated and said, "No, I did not work there. I traveled around. I was not in one place."

"How did you do it on three hundred dollars for six months?"

"My brother gave me money."

"What's your brother's business?"

"Oh, just general business in Bremerhafen. He's got a big business there."

"Perhaps I can get a report from the American Consul--"

"Oh," he interrupted. "His business isn't that big."

"Have you a bank account?"

He hesitated again and then said, "No, I do not make enough money for a bank account."

"Where do you keep your money for trips to Germany? In cash?"

"Yes, in cash."

"Where? Here? In this room?"

"No. Not in this room. I have it locked up."

"Where?"

"Oh, different places," he said vaguely.

"Where are those places?"

"I have my money with a friend."

"Who?"

"Nordenholz, Albert Nordenholz."

"You work in Brooklyn, live in Sheepshead Bay and save ten dollars a week in Port Richmond with a friend? Isn't that a long distance to go to save money?"

He shrugged his shoulders without answering.

"What's Nordenholz's business?"

"I think he's retired. I think he used to be a butcher."

"You don't know very much about a man's business and you travel all this distance to give him money to save for you when there are banks all around? Why do you do that?"

"Oh, I don't know. It seems to me that it is better that way."

Later when I asked Nordenholz, he denied that Dieckhoff had ever given him any money to hold.

Dieckhoff had worked on turbines, gear reductions and other complicated mechanical parts on the cruiser "Brooklyn." The moment I asked him if he handled blueprints he answered in the affirmative, but quickly added that the blueprints were returned every night and locked up by the officers. A capable machinist could, he admitted, after careful study remember the blueprints well enough to make a duplicate copy.

"When you went to Germany after working on the destroyers did anyone ever question you about them over there?"

"No," he said quickly. "n.o.body."

"My information is that you did talk about structural matters."

He looked startled. "Well," he said, "my brother knew I worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We talked about it, naturally."

"My information is that you talked about it with other people, too."

He stared out of the window with a worried air. Finally he said, "Well, my brother has a friend and I talked with him about it."

"A minute ago you said you had not talked about it with anyone."

"I had forgotten."

"This is the brother who gave you money to travel around in Germany?"

He didn't answer.

"I didn't hear you," I said.

"Yes," Dieckhoff said finally, "he gave me the money."