Four Hundred Names

0:00 A Young Woman Comes Up With Her Gloves On

0:04 Narrator: Vienna, July of nineteen forty-nine. August Brenner kept his rooms on a mezzanine above a bomb-scarred courtyard off the Herrengasse, and I, Theodor Fuchs, who write his cases down, had the good chair when the young woman from the police switchboard came up with her gloves still on. Do take a chair, Fräulein. That one has most of its legs.

0:28 Resi: I'll stand. Resi Wessely, switchboard, Bureau Seven, at the Schottenring. You two aren't police?

0:36 Brenner: Neither of us. Dr. Fuchs only writes it down. Who's gone, Fräulein Wessely?

0:42 Resi: My chief. Ferdinand Stadler, who runs Bureau Seven for the Minister. A Tuesday afternoon, nine days back, a Russian interpreter rings. A short call, on a bad line.

0:54 Narrator: And Herr Stadler? Resi: He took his hat and walked to Soviet headquarters on the Ring. They opened the gate for him, and he hasn't come out.

1:04 Narrator: In this town, Fräulein, men vanish on the Ring every Tuesday. Resi: Upstairs they already have the word typed. Defected. Him!

1:14 Brenner: You tell it in the order the form asks. So you've written a report, and you know what it— Resi: Left out. Yes. And I know who reads it. The rules say the operator stays on the line. Eleven years I've listened to policemen, Herr Brenner. I trust none of them.

1:30 Narrator: You work for them. Resi: That's how I know. Brenner: What do you... want of me?

1:37 Resi: It takes a second, you know. A plug and a key. He says put him on, same as always, and I—

1:42 Narrator: Fräulein— Resi: I put him through. Every night since, I put him through again...

1:49 Noon at Schottenring Police Headquarters

1:53 Narrator: By noon we stood in the Bureau Seven offices at Schottenring police headquarters, with Fräulein Wessely at our elbow and her chief's deputy consulting his watch. Pokorny: Fräulein Wessely asked for you and told me so. Nobody else here tells me anything.

2:08 Brenner: August Brenner, Herr Pokorny. You're acting chief. Pokorny: Acting. I keep this room, I don't sit in it. His raincoat, on the hook. His desk.

2:19 Brenner: And you, when the call came? Pokorny: Me? At my desk that afternoon, behind that wall. I— well, nobody brings a deputy coffee, so nobody saw me.

2:30 Narrator: And the great locked drawer? Pokorny: Built for the informers' index. Four hundred names on cards, Doctor. He carried one key; the sealed spare came to me with the Minister's order.

2:41 Narrator: Good Lord. Brenner: Then open it. Pokorny: For the Minister, gladly. Not for a visitor. Nobody has forced that lock, Herr Brenner; look for yourself.

2:59 Pokorny: Pokorny. Da. Nyet, tovarishch, nyet. Zavtra, v devyat.

3:06 Pokorny: The Soviet liaison, twice a day, about nothing. He gets tomorrow at nine. Narrator: Your Russian's good.

3:13 Pokorny: Office Russian, that's all. It's— Yes, no, tomorrow. Three years across a table from them and anyone on the Ring has that much.

3:21 Brenner: A raincoat left, with rain by evening. No defector leaves his coat. Pokorny: Or he meant us to say so. I've written the Minister both versions.

3:32 Narrator: That's the third time you've straightened that coat, Herr Pokorny. Pokorny: Is it? Resi: He straightens every coat in the building, Doctor. The cloakroom, our pegs. It drives us wild.

3:45 Brenner: I'll take it with me, and turn out the pockets, and then— Pokorny: Leave it, and the desk. He'll want both back.

3:55 After Midnight in the Switchboard Room

3:53 Brenner: Will he.

3:59 Narrator: After midnight the switchboard room held one lamp, one operator, and two visitors on hard chairs who had no business there. You were on days when it came, Fräulein. Resi: Days then. Nights since, at my own asking. I don't sleep anyway, so...

4:19 Brenner: Your report gave the caller and the minutes. What has it no box for, Fräulein Wessely? Resi: Noise. He's barely begun, and behind him, at ten past three, a till bell jammed.

4:31 Narrator: A till? Resi: Cash register. It rang, stuck, and went on shivering like a wasp in a glass till somebody hit it.

4:39 Narrator: Twenty years I took down witnesses at the Landesgericht, Fräulein. Ears convict the wrong man weekly. Through a bad line, a wasp? You'd have me—

4:49 Resi: Because it's a bad line, Doctor. It takes the chest out of a voice. It leaves the tune, and anything high and thin.

4:57 Brenner: So you'd know a Russian's tune, but not the man singing it. Resi: I couldn't have sworn to my own brother. But I grew up under a till, in my father's tobacco shop in Favoriten. I'd know that one again.

5:10 Brenner: Fair enough. Narrator: Anything else behind him? Resi: Cups, maybe. I won't swear to cups.

5:17 Narrator: Then where was this interpreter sitting? Brenner: An interpreter summons a man from under a portrait, with a colonel at his elbow. No Soviet office keeps a till. He rang from among us.

5:30 A Wait Before the Minister Looked Up

5:34 Narrator: The Minister of the Interior received us on the Herrengasse, alone, and let us stand on his carpet some while before he looked up. Kainz: Herr Brenner. Nobody sent you, and you came anyway.

5:48 Brenner: Stadler went through a door, Minister Kainz. I'm told he meant to. Kainz: You're told by newspapers. I sat at this desk— that whole afternoon I sat here, I swear it, waiting for his five o'clock report. It never came.

6:04 Brenner: I hadn't asked where you sat. So others have, and often. Narrator: Ah.

6:11 Kainz: Everyone in this city asks where I sit. Read this. My own hand, no clerk, no registry. Ferdinand Stadler, Hofrat, Bureau Seven's first. I hadn't yet told him...

6:27 Narrator: A Hofrat. Men in this town have sold their mothers for less, and he never knew. Brenner: Then it can't have kept him loyal, Minister. A reward he never heard of only tells me what you think of—

6:40 Kainz: What I know of him. Only two men knew that title, and he wasn't one. Narrator: You, Minister. And the other?

6:51 Kainz: A decree wants a witness, Doctor. Mine witnessed it and forgot it, as he was told. That's the end of it.

6:59 Brenner: Let it lie, Fuchs. A signature didn't walk him over the Ring. Kainz: It did not. Look outside Bureau Seven, Herr Brenner. Ask Inspector Dolezal about his captaincy.

7:12 Petrol Fumes and Typing, Two Floors Down

7:16 Narrator: Two floors below Bureau Seven, the patrol liaison office smelled of petrol, and its one occupant went on typing after we came in. Brenner: Inspector Dolezal, August Brenner, Dr. Fuchs. The Minister says to ask about your captaincy.

7:33 Dolezal: Does he. A fine thing, a captaincy, I'm told. I wouldn't know.

7:39 Brenner: Stadler's informers saw to that. Dolezal: One card. Some waiter. It said I drink with my Russian. Of course I drink with him! Three years in one jeep, an American, an Englishman, a Frenchman, my Russian and me. That's why nobody gets shot.

7:57 Narrator: You'll be sorry to hear he's still missing, then. Dolezal: I'll light no candle for Stadler, Doctor. Write that down, you look like a man who writes.

8:07 Brenner: And that afternoon? Dolezal: On patrol. Brenner: You didn't ask which afternoon. And you answered like a duty sheet. Somebody signed that sheet for you.

8:17 Dolezal: You know what they— a Russian who covers for an Austrian, you know what they do with him? A train east, no windows. One word of where I was, and he's on it.

8:28 Narrator: It might clear you, Inspector, if you'd only— Dolezal: Clear me! The Minister needs a man to hang for this, and he's sent you to measure me for it—

8:35 Brenner: Inspector— Dolezal: You want my afternoon? Arrest me, Herr Brenner. Otherwise, get out.

8:41 Narrator: Well.

8:43 Back Up to Her Night Board

8:47 Narrator: Fräulein Wessely had just come on for the night when we climbed back up, and she made room for Brenner at her board. Brenner: Does patrol traffic cross this board, Fräulein Wessely? Resi: Every call to their desk in the motor yard. Stadler's order. He liked to know what the Inspector's people said, and I stay on, same as for anyone.

9:06 Brenner: Then give me the spare earpiece. A man who's just thrown me out telephones someone within the quarter hour. Narrator: You have a great faith in bad temper. I shouldn't think—

9:25 Resi: Patrol desk, Inspector. Go ahead, please. Dolezal: Strike me off tonight's sheet. And if anyone else comes asking after Stadler, you tell them what my Russian would tell them. Comrade Stadler, I have the honour to inform you that you're a louse. Kindly go to the devil by the shortest road.

9:45 Resi: Mother of God. That's— The interpreter sounded just so, the same care, the same drop at the end of every word. Brenner: A tune, Fräulein, by your own account, not a man. But three years beside a Russian in a jeep, and he needs no lessons.

10:05 Resi: I know... Narrator: An accent, a grudge, and an afternoon he'd sooner be arrested than name. I've seen men hanged on less, Brenner. Was Inspector Dolezal the voice on that wire?

10:20 Next Morning in the Minister's Office

10:24 Narrator: I carried my theory up to the Minister's office next morning, with Brenner beside me saying nothing, which he did well. I say Dolezal was the interpreter, Minister. Stadler's card cost him his captaincy, and he does his Russian's German to perfection. Brenner heard him at it, cursing Stadler, on Fräulein Wessely's board.

10:46 Kainz: The Doctor gives me in one morning what my police could not in ten days. Outside Bureau Seven, as I said. Brenner: A grudge gets a man to a telephone, Minister. But the Russians opened that gate for him, and they do no favours. They buy men with wartime files.

11:05 Narrator: That much is so. At the People's Court half the files we sent for had gone east in forty-five. Brenner: So Dr. Fuchs's theory needs a file. Let me see Dolezal's, and those of everyone who stood near Stadler's desk. All of—

11:20 Kainz: Dolezal's, gladly. Not Bureau Seven. Stadler and I knew our men, every past.

11:27 Brenner: Every past. Then you read them, Minister, and you didn't pick clean men. Kainz: There are no clean men left in this city, Herr Brenner. We picked men we knew.

11:39 Kainz: Now bring me Dolezal.

11:42 Five of Us on the Minister's Carpet

11:46 Narrator: Within the hour that carpet held five of us, the deputy having fetched the Inspector across from the Schottenring himself. Pokorny: Inspector Dolezal, Minister, as ordered. Kainz: You have been heard on a police line, Inspector, doing a Russian's German and cursing Stadler.

12:03 Dolezal: My partner's German. The boys in the yard pay for it in cigarettes. Kainz: Indeed.

12:10 Narrator: Stadler's card took your captaincy, and you have that voice to the last vowel. I say you were the interpreter who rang him. Dolezal: You say. You write it down as well, Doctor?

12:22 Brenner: I held the second earpiece, Inspector. When you rang off, Fräulein Wessely said it straight out: The interpreter sounded just so. I'll put my name beside hers, unless you give me one hour of that afternoon.

12:36 Dolezal: No. Kainz: I sat here that afternoon, at this very desk, waiting on Stadler's report. I won't now be kept waiting by his—

12:44 Dolezal: At that desk! Minister, I rang you that afternoon about my captaincy. Your line rang unanswered.

12:50 Pokorny: Rang from where, Inspector? At what hour? The Minister is entitled to—

12:54 Dolezal: Give you the hour, Herr Pokorny, and you have the afternoon. No. Brenner: You'll own the call and not the place. So it's where you stood that you're hiding.

13:04 Kainz: Your patrol pass, Inspector. On this desk. Dolezal: Three years I've kept four armies from shooting each other out of one jeep, and you—

13:13 Kainz: The pass. Dolezal: Now nobody on the Ring answers you.

13:20 Back on the Mezzanine, Drawing Up a List

13:23 Narrator: Back on the mezzanine the zither stayed on its nail, and Brenner sat under it while I drew up a list on the back of an old writ. Cafés. I've lunched in most of them. I'll have Dolezal by supper.

13:38 Brenner: Two bells, Fuchs. One behind the interpreter that nobody could stop till somebody hit it. One on the Minister's desk that nobody picked up.

13:47 Narrator: A man being broken throws mud. Brenner: A man throwing mud puts an hour on it, so he's believed. He gave none, and lost his pass sooner than give one. That call happened.

13:59 Narrator: Then the Minister stepped out for a cigar. It doesn't move Dolezal an inch. Brenner: No. My name's on that carpet beside yours. I'm only looking at what lies next to it.

14:12 Narrator: Look at this, then. Fräulein Wessely's ticket has the call coming up on the Inner City junction. A till, cups, a public booth. That's a café inside the Ring.

14:22 Brenner: Which? Narrator: One where the cashier knows a patrol inspector by name. Nine of those, I make it. We take her ears round all nine, and her till convicts him.

14:33 Narrator: Where are you going with that hat? Brenner: The Minister's desk first. Then your till.

14:39 Narrator: Now?

14:41 On the Ministry's Back Stairs

14:45 Narrator: Only coal men and charwomen used the Ministry's back stairs, and the slow tread above us was neither; we caught him at the second landing. Kainz: Herr Brenner. These aren't your stairs.

14:57 Brenner: Nor yours, Minister. A lift and a grand staircase, and you climb here, where no clerk counts how often you stop. Kainz: You came to... to inspect my exercise?

15:10 Brenner: Dolezal told you to your face your line rang unanswered. You swore you sat beside it. You didn't call him a liar. You took his pass.

15:20 Narrator: Minister, your lips are blue. My father's went that colour the year before we buried him. Kainz: You notice too much, Doctor. That afternoon I was— I was at the heart specialist's.

15:34 Narrator: Then why swear to the desk? Kainz: Nobody keeps a sick minister. One word of it on the Ring, and the Russians have their own man in my chair by—

15:43 Narrator: Sit, Minister, for pity's sake. What do you need? Kainz: Your silence. And Fräulein Wessely's oath against Dolezal, tonight.

15:54 Ten O'Clock at the Switchboard

15:58 Narrator: At ten that night the deputy climbed to the switchboard with a file, a pen and the Minister's order, and by the time Brenner and I found chairs Fräulein Wessely had sworn and recited the whole call. Pokorny: I read it back, Fräulein. Soviet headquarters asks for Herr Stadler at the gate on the Ring, at once. You have the man saying, "You are expected, Herr Hofrat." Correct?

16:21 Resi: Those words. And Stadler laughed, right out. "No Hofrat here," he says, and rings off.

16:29 Brenner: He laughed. So it was a joke to him, that word. It wasn't news.

16:34 Resi: Nobody ever called him that, Herr Brenner. Soviet calls said Herr Oberkommissar, every one, off their list. I took it for a Russian's muddle.

16:44 Narrator: We've forty grades of Herr in this town, Fräulein. A foreigner may be forgiven one. Pokorny: To the accent, by the Minister's order. You've heard it since, on this board?

16:54 Resi: Last night. The Inspector's call to the motor yard. Pokorny: Inspector Dolezal, then, on your oath.

17:01 Resi: Inspector Dolezal. Yes. But I told you, it's a tune, not a—

17:07 Pokorny: The accent is all we need, Fräulein.

17:11 Next Morning, Straight Off Her Shift

17:15 Narrator: My list had nine cafés on it, and next morning we walked Fräulein Wessely, straight off her shift, through eight of them before the cashier at the Herrenhof rang up a coffee. Resi: There. Doctor, that one. Make her ring it again.

17:30 Narrator: Frau Ernestine, oblige the young lady. Once more, on my account. Ernestine: You owe me since before the war, Doctor. Two back, sir, thank you. There.

17:42 Resi: That's it. That's— I told you a till bell jammed behind that voice, and there's its note, only without the shiver. Narrator: Does it stick, Frau Ernestine?

17:53 Ernestine: Stick! Thirty-one years, and it stuck the once. The Tuesday before last, singing on and on till I hit it with the sugar tongs.

18:03 Brenner: You say that like a woman who billed somebody. So you wrote it down, and you looked at that clock. Ernestine: In the daybook. Ten past three, the mechanic, thirty schillings to the proprietor. Sixty groschen back, madam.

18:17 Narrator: Ten past three, the Fräulein's very minute! And Inspector Dolezal of the patrol is known here. He was in your booth that afternoon, and—

18:26 Ernestine: Him? Inspector Dolezal stood paying me when it stuck. His change was in my hand. The booth's round behind the cloakroom, you can't see it from here.

18:36 Resi: No. No, it was the accent, it was— then who— Ernestine: Who should know? Just before, some tired gentleman bought a token for the booth, stopped to straighten my coats, every one, and went round. Forty back, sir.

18:51 Brenner: So that's all of it. A coffee on duty, and a Russian's signature on his sheet. Resi: I swore. Last night, with my hand up. I said his name and it's written— I put him through, and now I've put— I can't—

19:06 Narrator: He was standing here. We broke the wrong man.

19:11 Up the Front Stairs at Noon

19:15 Narrator: The Minister had the four of us up his front stairs that noon, the deputy not sent for, the Inspector last, with no pass and his hat still on. Kainz: You swore last night, Fräulein Wessely, on my order. What do you want changed?

19:32 Resi: One name, Minister. I swore— I swore to a tune and called it Inspector Dolezal. I take back the name. Every other word of that call stands.

19:43 Kainz: On whose authority? Narrator: A cashier's, and her daybook. The till behind that voice is at the Herrenhof, and it stuck once in thirty-one years. "Inspector Dolezal stood paying me," she says, with the booth out of her sight, and—

19:57 Kainz: A cashier. Narrator: It was my theory, Minister. I carried it up here myself. Brenner wanted more than a grudge, and I wouldn't wait. Charge it to me.

20:09 Brenner: My name went down beside it, Fuchs. You won't have all of it. Kainz: That'll do, Fräulein. Outside, please.

20:17 Dolezal: Two gentlemen fighting over who broke me. Very nice. So I'm cleared for a coffee. And you, Minister, that desk of yours, did you—

20:27 Kainz: You forget yourself, Inspector. Brenner: He lost his pass sooner than name one hour, Minister, to keep a friend off a train. A mouth that stays shut for a partner can stay shut for you.

20:39 Kainz: You are owed it. That afternoon I sat at the heart specialist's, not at this desk. There. His card.

20:51 Dolezal: Diseases of the heart. Tuesday, three o'clock. Brenner: Three o'clock on a doctor's couch, and the voice in a booth at ten past. That takes you off the wire too, Minister.

21:03 Kainz: I was on it? Brenner: You swore to a desk you'd left. Kainz: So I did.

21:09 Dolezal: Your card, Minister. Bad light in here. I read nothing.

21:14 Kainz: Your pass, Inspector. I shall want one man on the Ring who answers. Dolezal: We'll see.

21:23 Plugs Sitting Idle at the Night Board

21:26 Narrator: Fräulein Wessely took her night board again that evening and let the plugs sit idle, turning over a single word with the two of us beside her. Resi: I called it a Russian's muddle. But a Russian— he reads off his list, Herr Brenner, and the list says Oberkommissar. Three years of calls...

21:47 Brenner: And a muddle lands anywhere, Fräulein. This one landed on a rank no Bureau Seven man ever held. Narrator: I said a foreigner may be forgiven one grade, Fräulein. I was a fool. Tell her, Brenner, or I will.

22:02 Brenner: It wasn't wrong. There is a decree in the Minister's own hand, in his locked drawer. Stadler was a Hofrat that afternoon, and nobody had told him.

22:13 Resi: He was— and he laughed. He had it in his ear, and he laughed, and took his hat. Narrator: The Minister and one witness knew, Fräulein. Stadler didn't, you didn't, no Soviet list did.

22:29 Brenner: And the Minister we've accounted for. Now put that beside the token. A man buys it at the Herrenhof, goes round behind the cloakroom, and rings you. Not Dolezal.

22:38 Resi: Rings me, with that word ready... Brenner: So, Fräulein. How did a Russian interpreter come by that title?

22:48 A Hard Chair Beside the Board

22:52 Narrator: Next evening the Minister himself took a hard chair beside Fräulein Wessely's board, with Brenner and me by the pegs, and the deputy came in carrying file and pen. Resi: That one isn't ours, Herr Pokorny. Pokorny: It was crooked. You wanted the statement amended, Minister?

23:10 Kainz: Strike Inspector Dolezal's name. On my order. Pokorny: Done. Then we begin again, and I'll have a list by morning.

23:20 Brenner: First read what stands, Herr Pokorny. Just the caller's words. Pokorny: He wants Stadler at the gate at once, and then tells him, "You are expected, Herr Hofrat." The Fräulein's Russian muddle.

23:33 Brenner: You read a secret very smoothly. That was his rank, in the Minister's locked drawer. Pokorny: Is that so.

23:41 Narrator: I asked you on your carpet, Minister. You and who else? Kainz: On the day of that call, two men knew that title. I wrote it. Herr Pokorny witnessed it.

23:52 Pokorny: And forgot it, as ordered. It'll be— some clerk has talked, Minister. Kainz: No clerk. No registry.

24:00 Pokorny: Then I can't help you. I told Herr Brenner where I was: at my own desk, all afternoon, and nobody— Brenner: Where nobody brings a deputy coffee. But somebody sold him a token. Frau Ernestine, come in.

24:14 Ernestine: That's my coat, sir, on that peg. Herr Brenner had me hang it crooked. Twice now.

24:21 Narrator: Oh, that's low. Pokorny: Minister, who's this woman? Ernestine: Herrenhof till, thirty-one years. The Tuesday before last, one token, twenty groschen. You gave me a schilling. Eighty back, in that hand.

24:35 Pokorny: Thousands of men buy— Ernestine: Then you did every coat on my rail, one by one, and went round to the booth. Resi: Every coat in the building. And hers.

24:45 Brenner: So no desk that afternoon. And three years across a table from them, you told me. That's ear enough for any accent.

24:53 Narrator: Oberkommissar would have done, man. Every Soviet call used it, and nobody would have looked twice. Why that word?

25:02 Pokorny: I wanted to say it once.

25:05 Crossing to Another Room, the Minister Behind Us

25:09 Narrator: We crossed to the room he had kept and never sat in, Inspector Dolezal, sent for from two floors down, at his elbow and the Minister behind, and stopped before the great drawer. Brenner: For the Minister, gladly, you told me. Here he is, Herr Pokorny. Open it.

25:28 Narrator: Empty. Not one card. Brenner: Nobody forced that lock, you said, and told me to look. Nobody needed to. An acting chief, with the sealed spare.

25:40 Pokorny: Four hundred names to a Soviet major, in two shoeboxes, against one Gestapo file. Mine. His price was the index and Stadler. He'd lend no Russian voice, so I did my own.

25:52 Narrator: You sold your chief so he'd never read— Pokorny: He'd have had me out of this building in an hour. Kainz: He knew it before he ever chose you. I told Herr Brenner that Stadler and I knew our men, and you first of all.

26:06 Pokorny: No. He'd have said. Kainz: Why do you suppose I called you alone to witness his decree? Chance? We trusted you, knowing.

26:18 Pokorny: No, he— three years, every morning, he hung that coat there and said— he never once— he knew? He knew, and I... Kainz: Four hundred names, to hide what he'd already forgiven.

26:34 Dolezal: Not that coat, Herr Pokorny. It stays on its hook. You're under arrest. Walk.

26:41 The Last Page at the Mezzanine Table

26:45 Narrator: Vienna, the last page: I wrote it at the mezzanine table while Brenner, his zither down at last, tried one string after another. Pokorny, charged with treason, held in the cells under his own desk at the Schottenring. When did you know, Brenner? I can't write "at once."

27:05 Brenner: Late. Frau Ernestine said coats, and I should have heard Fräulein Wessely in his own office: the whole building's coats, every one. Narrator: I was in that room. And the title?

27:18 Brenner: The read-back at her board. Stadler laughed. A man who laughs at a title hasn't been given it, so it came down the wire from whoever had the joke.

27:28 Narrator: Then tell me what I really want to— did Stadler know that voice, on the wire? Brenner: A bad line takes the chest out of a voice. He laughed, and reached for his hat. I choose to think not.

27:42 Narrator: The index is gone for good. Four hundred names, Dolezal's waiter among them, waiting for a knock. Stadler hasn't come out. And Fräulein Wessely's still on nights...

27:57 Brenner: You've one line left, and you've been wrong in ink already. Spend it carefully. Narrator: In Vienna, every door on the Ring opens only inward.