Plated, Of No Value

0:00 Up the Mezzanine Stair in the Rain

0:04 Narrator: Vienna, the autumn of nineteen forty-five. She came up the mezzanine stair to Brenner's rooms off the Herrengasse at a run, and would not take the chair I offered her. Please, sit. You're soaked, and I'm a doctor. I insist on very little else.

0:21 Ilona: Ilona Vámos. Thank you, Doctor, but I will stand. Brenner: You'll stand because you mean to go back. Whatever you found is still where you left it.

0:32 Ilona: On a stall at the Tannenmarkt. My mother's— my mother's Sabbath candlesticks. A silver pair. Men with armbands wrote them into a ledger in our flat in Torvár. Then onto a train. The amber train, people call it now.

0:48 Narrator: The one the Americans caught in the mountains. They hold it at Salzburg, I read. Brenner: Under American guard, and today it's on a stall in Vienna. Somebody carried it here.

1:00 Narrator: Fräulein, there are a thousand pairs of candlesticks in this city. How can you be sure, in the rain? Ilona: The left one has a dent in the base. My brother dropped it when he was five. Every Friday I polished them, and my mother laughed that I would rub the silver away.

1:19 Ilona: She lit them... the last Friday she lit them, and the men were already on the stairs, and she... Forgive me. I didn't come here to weep, Herr Brenner. The woman wouldn't give them back to me.

1:34 Brenner: Then show me this stall.

1:36 A Rain-Soaked Lane and the Last Stall

1:40 Narrator: The Tannenmarkt ran with rain, a long lane where the city sold its grandmothers' things for bread, and Ilona led us to the last stall. Marie: Brass by the kilo, silver by the piece. You again, my dear. With two gentlemen this time.

1:57 Ilona: Those are my mother's. The pair on the shelf behind you. Marie: Out of the rain, where good silver belongs. Hands off, please.

2:06 Brenner: Brenner. I only want to know where you got them. Marie: Where I get everything, Herr Brenner. From Vienna. Vienna sells; Marie holds the scales.

2:17 Narrator: Then let the lady hold one, just for a moment. Marie: Listen. Hear that? Plate goes tock, like a saucepan. That sings. Thirty years at this stall, and I know real silver by its ring.

2:33 Narrator: Remarkable. Brenner: Then you didn't buy them as plate. Marie: What I paid is between me and the Lord, and He's never once asked.

2:43 Brenner: And what you're asking? Marie: Three cartons for the pair. American, not that Russian sawdust.

2:51 Narrator: Good heavens. Ilona: This morning you said two. Marie: This morning nobody was crying over them, my dear. Crying puts a price up.

3:01 Narrator: Brenner, I can find three cartons by tonight. An orderly at the General Hospital owes me his thumb. Brenner: Then we've paid for stolen silver, and whoever sold it to her walks away.

3:13 Ilona: They were taken from my parents. You are selling— Marie: Everything on this street was somebody's. Bring cigarettes, or bring a policeman. Next!

3:23 Inspector Lang Fetched Through the Downpour

3:27 Narrator: Within the hour Brenner had fetched Inspector Lang down to that stall, and the downpour had not eased for him either. Lang: Lang, police directorate. Good afternoon, Marie. The candlesticks are seized as stolen goods.

3:42 Marie: Seized! On the word of a girl who cried at my— Lang: On the word of the Republic, which is half a year old and very touchy. Who sold them to you?

3:52 Marie: Somebody. People sell, Marie buys. That's the Tannenmarkt, Inspector.

3:58 Brenner: You won't name your seller because you mean to buy again. There's more where these came from. Marie: Is there? Then you know more than I do.

4:07 Lang: Herr Brenner, a word, away from the scales. The Americans filed a list with us this week: train goods drawn out of Salzburg to furnish billets here. One lot only. Two crates, to a captain in Döbling.

4:20 Brenner: Then Döbling's my next— Lang: Gently, gently. It's an American billet. I can give you the address. I can't give you the door.

4:28 Ilona: Inspector, may I hold one? Only hold it. Lang: Hold it. Then it's evidence.

4:36 Ilona: Here's my brother's dent. And underneath, there is— something is cut into the silver. Forty-one, scratched fresh, still bright in the line.

4:47 Narrator: A point did that. A penknife, or a nail. Weeks old, I'd say. Not years.

4:54 Brenner: Your mother never marked them? Ilona: Never. One doesn't number the Sabbath.

5:00 Brenner: Forty-one. Then somewhere there were forty before it. Lang: That number stays under this canvas. Marie, you never saw it. Doctor, it leaves nobody's mouth.

5:11 Marie: I see nothing all day, Inspector. Best trade I have. Ilona: Somebody has been counting... counting my mother's things...

5:23 A Borrowed Address in Döbling

5:26 Narrator: That evening a borrowed address took us out to Döbling, to the tall house where an American officer kept his billet. Radakowitsch: Gentlemen for the captain? Radakowitsch. I keep this house.

5:39 Brenner: Frau Radakowitsch. Black under your nails. Polish: brass, or silver?

5:46 Radakowitsch: Brass. The banisters, every Friday, forty years. Brenner: Is that so.

5:53 Pruett: Come on up, gentlemen. Pruett, Captain. The Inspector's office called ahead.

5:58 Brenner: Brenner, and Dr. Fuchs. Silver candlesticks from the amber train turned up today on a Tannenmarkt stall. You'd know the Tannenmarkt, Frau Radakowitsch.

6:09 Radakowitsch: Me? I never— I never go near the Tannenmarkt. A tram and a half, and a thief at every stall.

6:17 Brenner: And two crates of train goods came to this house, Captain. Pruett: To me. I ran the Salzburg warehouse till they posted me up here. Featherbeds and pots, mostly. Officers may draw junk to furnish a billet. Here's the chit.

6:32 Narrator: "Train property, Salzburg. Two crates, household metalware, released as billet furnishings." And the whole lot set down as plated, of no value.

6:45 Pruett: That's what the list says. Grey, dented, black with tarnish. I sold hardware in Toledo before the war. I'm no jeweller.

6:53 Brenner: And the crates now? Pruett: In the cellar. I don't eat off dented plate. Some of it's walked off, I'd guess. This is Vienna.

7:02 Radakowitsch: Seven tenants have cellar keys, Herr Brenner, and every one of them is hungry. Brenner: Two crates in an open cellar, worth nothing on paper. Nobody would report a piece—

7:14 Pruett: I didn't. Who reports junk? Narrator: There's a last line. "Released by the warehouse officer. Received by the same." Both signed: Pruett, Captain.

7:26 Brenner: Convenient. Pruett: One man, two hats, Doctor. That's the Supply Command. Cigarette? Lucky Strikes all round. Frau Radakowitsch, bitte, you too.

7:37 A Telegram Read Twice at the Schottenring

7:40 Narrator: Next morning we climbed to Lang's office at police headquarters on the Schottenring, and found him reading a telegram twice over. Lang: From the American guard at Salzburg, answering my wire. Officers may draw worthless goods for billets. The captain's chit stands.

7:57 Brenner: It stands, though one hand signed both ends of it. Lang: The Americans don't mind that, so I may not. And then this: their cargo still held there bears no marks or numbers.

8:11 Narrator: Then forty-one wasn't cut in Salzburg. Brenner: After the silver left, then. In a cellar seven tenants can open, where the captain says pieces walked off.

8:22 Lang: Walked off to Marie, of course. Somebody empties that cellar for her. She knows silver from tin, so she numbers the haul and feeds it out slowly.

8:31 Narrator: He's right, Brenner. Dealers mark their stock. My father's watchmaker scratched a number inside every case.

8:38 Brenner: Then a dealer who counts so carefully can tell us who sold her the first forty. Lang: She can. She won't. I can't touch an American. A stallholder... a stallholder I can jail.

8:53 The Market at Its Busiest Hour

8:57 Narrator: Lang came for Marie at the market's busiest hour, two uniformed men behind him, Brenner and I at his shoulder. Marie: You again, Inspector, with a crowd and two boys in caps. I'm flattered.

9:10 Brenner: Two crates of train silver sat in a Döbling cellar, Marie, and pieces walk out. Somebody carries them here, and you pay for them like— Marie: Like saucepans? I pay what Vienna asks. Vienna's hungry; it asks low.

9:26 Narrator: Those were a family's Sabbath candlesticks. Nobody asked the family. Marie: Don't preach, Doctor. You'd have paid three cartons for them yourself.

9:36 Lang: Tell me what you paid, and you're back at your scales. Marie: Ask the Lord. Lang: The Lord makes no arrests this week. Who empties that cellar for you?

9:45 Marie: Döbling! I've never set foot in Döbling. My silver walks in by itself, in old women's apron pockets.

9:54 Brenner: Which old woman? Marie: Black under the nails, a cough like a coal chute. Spoons, one piece at a time, and never meets my eye.

10:04 Narrator: Well, well. Brenner: Brass polish under those nails. Frau Radakowitsch, who swore to us she never comes near this market.

10:14 Lang: There's your cellar, Brenner. A spoon a week out of Döbling, and Marie numbering the lot. Marie: Spoons, Inspector! What's a spoon beside a candlestick—

10:23 Lang: My question exactly. What did you pay for the candlestick? Marie: Nothing you'll ever write down.

10:30 Lang: Then you're under arrest for receiving stolen goods. Wachmann, the car. Marie: Hands off my brass, you vultures! I know every one of your faces!

10:40 Narrator: Her own neighbours, Brenner, and she isn't even in the car. Brenner: Thirty years she weighed them. Now they're weighing her.

10:51 An Afternoon Call Upstairs in Döbling

10:55 Narrator: Captain Pruett poured us tea that afternoon at his own table, Frau Radakowitsch dusting round us. Pruett: PX tea, gentlemen. Not the hay they sell on the Graben.

11:07 Brenner: Lang arrested a stallholder this morning, Captain. For buying train silver at saucepan prices. Pruett: Good for Lang. My junk's finally earning its keep.

11:18 Brenner: Your chit calls that lot plated, of no value. She rang a piece with her fingernail, and it sang. Pruett: Then she's got better ears than the Allied Supply Command. Looked like stove fittings to me.

11:31 Narrator: May I borrow her trick, Captain? On your teapot. That's no saucepan.

11:39 Brenner: And it came out of your crates. You don't eat off dented plate, you told us. You drink from it.

11:46 Pruett: Well, I'll be. That's— sure, one clean set off the top of the first crate. On this table since I moved in. Tea's not eating, Brenner. A man a long way from Ohio wants one decent thing in the house, that's all...

12:01 Pruett: Not that one, bitte. Leave it be, Frau Radakowitsch. Radakowitsch: Never the sugar bowl. I know, Captain. The duster goes round.

12:12 Pruett: Sugar's worth more than silver in this town. Narrator: You watch your sugar closer than you watched two whole crates, Captain. Pruett: Crates were junk, Doc. Sugar's sugar.

12:23 Brenner: If she heard silver and paid for plate, Captain, then the man she cheated was— Pruett: Was me? Then hang your stallholder. I just drink tea.

12:33 Notes Spread Across Brenner's Desk

12:37 Narrator: Back in Brenner's rooms I spread my notes across his desk, and he let me talk until the lamp wanted lighting. Take it whole. Solid silver written down as plate by a hardware man who'd never know the difference. Salzburg's guard swears nothing in his keeping is numbered, so forty-one was cut after the crates left. Marie hears silver with a fingernail, yet won't say what she paid. Ashamed of her bargain.

13:04 Brenner: And the caretaker? Narrator: Swears she never goes near the market; Marie puts her at that very stall, spoons in her apron. One lies, and the caretaker holds the—

13:15 Brenner: Keys, yes. Then explain forty-one. A spoon a week from an apron pocket never counts that high. Whoever cut that number had a heap of silver on one table, counted through at one sitting.

13:29 Narrator: Marie had a heap, until this morning. Brenner: Marie knows her stock by its ring. She'd no more number it than you'd number your teeth.

13:40 Narrator: My father's watchmaker had perfect ears and still numbered his cases. Dealers count. Brenner: And Marie sits in Lang's cell. Is that where she belongs?

13:51 Narrator: Well, I... that's hardly fair...

13:55 Back to Döbling With Ilona

13:59 Narrator: The captain was out at his duties when we brought Ilona to Döbling; Frau Radakowitsch met us on the stairs, keys in her fist. Radakowitsch: He's at his office till six, Herr Brenner. You've no business up there.

14:13 Ilona: I ask to take nothing, Frau Radakowitsch. Only to see where my mother's things have been living. Radakowitsch: Living, she says. My mother had silver once, too. Come up, then, before I think better of it.

14:28 Ilona: Thank you. Brenner: We touch nothing we can't put back. What we see here, no court will hear from us.

14:36 Narrator: And if the captain comes home early, we're two burglars and their doctor. Radakowitsch: There's his tea service. Hasn't shifted off that cloth since he came in September. He won't let me polish it; he does it himself, nights. I'll sit on the landing. If I cough, you're out. With my chest, you'll hear me.

14:57 Brenner: Fair enough. Narrator: By the body, Ilona. Old silver gives at the handle first.

15:04 Ilona: You sound like my mother, Doctor. Underneath there is a number. Forty. Cut with a point, and still bright.

15:14 Brenner: Forty on his cloth, forty-one on the Tannenmarkt. One run of numbers: the pot first, then your mother's candlestick. Ilona: The four leans forward. The way it leans on hers. I'd say... in the same hand.

15:29 Ilona: But the candlestick is in the Inspector's cupboard, and I will not swear to a line from memory. Narrator: You put that down as though it might bite. Ilona: It might.

15:41 An Unannounced Caller at the Schottenring

15:45 Narrator: Pruett called at the Schottenring unannounced, and found us there before him, the seized candlesticks upright on Lang's blotter. Pruett: Inspector. You've got a stallholder in your basement and nothing on paper. What's the holdup?

15:59 Lang: She won't talk, Captain, and the Republic likes a reason before it charges anyone. Pruett: She bought Supply Command property off a cellar thief. Charge her, and I'll sign for those two and take them—

16:10 Lang: They're evidence. After that, they belong to a family. Pruett: Whoever owned that pair is past asking, Inspector. Hard, but there it is.

16:20 Brenner: Since September they lay in an open cellar. Now you collect in person. You've revalued your junk, Captain.

16:28 Pruett: Vienna's taught me, that's all. Leave a thing lying here and it walks. Brenner: Then only tell me where these two came from.

16:37 Pruett: Salzburg, like the rest. We numbered every piece before I signed; that's how a warehouse runs. Turn one up. Forty-one, if I— if I remember my sheets.

16:47 Lang: Is that so. I'll put your memory on file, Captain. Pruett: Put the stallholder on file. Guten Tag, gentlemen.

16:56 Lang: Five of us stood under that canvas when it was turned. I swore all five to silence. Brenner: And one of the five has sat in your cells since the market morning.

17:06 Narrator: Nobody turned them up for him. They've stood on their feet the whole time.

17:12 Carbolic, Wet Wool and a Market Shawl

17:17 Narrator: Lang took us down to the cells, carbolic and wet wool, where Marie sat on her bunk in her market shawl. Marie: Brought the doctor to take my pulse, Inspector? It's racing. Rage does that.

17:31 Brenner: Paid cheap, you'd have bragged of it the length of the lane. So it isn't the sum you hide, Marie. It's what you paid it in.

17:39 Marie: Clever. Did they teach you that at the university or at my stall? Lang: Before you answer him: receiving is a cell. Dealing in gold is prison, Marie, and longer.

17:52 Narrator: Lang! You're telling her to hold her tongue? Lang: I'm advising her of the price. The Republic insists.

17:59 Marie: A fence for cellar thieves, that's me in your book. Bread money off a dead family's table— I paid— thirty years, I paid! Thirty years of wet feet and tock and ring, and you write me down a vulture—

18:16 Brenner: Thirty years. Your savings went on that silver, then. All of them.

18:21 Marie: Twenty-nine. The first year I ate. He wouldn't take cartons, wouldn't take paper. He'd have nothing but small gold coins, every one I had, out of my stocking into his hand.

18:36 Brenner: He. A man, then. Marie: A man. Hat pulled low, behind the stall, after dark. I never— his chin. I never saw more than his chin.

18:49 Lang: You know what you've just told me. Marie: Gold, he wanted. Write that down, policeman.

18:56 The Four of Us Among the Drips

19:00 Narrator: Brenner would not let Lang lock that cell door again, and the four of us stood among the drips while Marie dried her eyes on her shawl. Lang: Marie, you've just put yourself in the gold trade. I can't unhear it.

19:14 Brenner: Don't try, Lang. Hear the rest. Your theory wanted a fool in Döbling selling silver as—

19:20 Lang: A fool and a fence. Commonest pair in Vienna. Brenner: Fools take cartons, and gladly. A man who'll take nothing but small gold coins knows to the gram what he's selling.

19:32 Narrator: Small ones, too. A bar wants explaining. Coins go anywhere, in a lining or a shoe.

19:39 Lang: So he knew. He knew it was silver, and Marie paid silver's price. Marie: Twenty-nine years' price, and now the Inspector believes me. Doctor, write down the day.

19:53 Lang: What coins, Marie? Exactly. Marie: Old Franz Joseph ten-crown pieces, mostly. Three French Napoleons. And one with a hole bored over the Emperor's head. My mother wore it on a ribbon.

20:07 Narrator: You gave him your mother's coin. Marie: He wanted every one. And I wanted the silver, so...

20:16 Lang: And Frau Radakowitsch? You put her at your stall— Marie: Her? She's no cellar thief. Her family's spoons, a crest on every handle, one piece at a time.

20:26 Marie: She comes when the bread runs out, eyes on the cobbles. Too proud to say she's hungry, the old goat. I pay her fair.

20:36 Brenner: So the caretaker sold her own spoons. It was the man in the hat who brought the candlesticks. Lang: Which leaves me holding a receiver who was robbed herself.

20:46 Brenner: It does, rather. Lang: Go home, Marie. Stay where I can find you, and not one word about gold.

20:54 Marie: Home to a bare stall. Your vultures had all my brass. Narrator: They'll sell it back to you, I expect. At a price.

21:03 Marie: When you find him, I want my coins. Lang: Naturally.

21:09 The Döbling Stair in the Dark

21:12 Narrator: Brenner and I reached the Döbling house ahead of the others and climbed the stair blind; the current had failed again. No current. Keep a hand on the banister, Brenner. Forty years of her Fridays won't let you fall.

21:28 Narrator: One match, one page. Salzburg numbers nothing. Forty under the captain's pot, forty-one under Ilona's candlestick. And the captain hands Lang that forty-one, off sheets nobody has ever seen.

21:42 Brenner: Not a number, Fuchs. The number. Any man might guess a candlestick was marked. Nobody guesses which mark.

21:51 Narrator: Unless somebody let it slip to him. Brenner: Lang can tell us who could have. Narrator: Meanwhile the caretaker holds his key, and she's lied to us once already.

22:02 Brenner: About her family's spoons. And Marie's seller wore a man's hat over a man's chin. Narrator: Dark again. Whoever cut those numbers had better light than this.

22:14 Brenner: A lamp, a cloth, a heap of silver, a whole night. Then who sat in that flat, counting?

22:24 A Whole Procession at a Lamp-Lit Door

22:28 Narrator: Captain Pruett opened his door to the whole procession: Lang with his briefcase, Ilona, Frau Radakowitsch at the rear, and Brenner and me. Pruett: Inspector, a parade. Frau Radakowitsch too. Come in; the Supply Command's got a lamp, even if Vienna hasn't.

22:48 Lang: Captain Pruett. You know Herr Brenner and the doctor. This is Fräulein Vámos.

22:53 Ilona: The candlesticks on the Inspector's desk were my mother's, Captain. Pruett: Then I'm sorry for your trouble, Fräulein. Inspector, you've charged that stallholder?

23:03 Lang: I sent her home this afternoon. Pruett: Home? The woman's a fence, Inspector. Ask anybody on that market.

23:10 Brenner: She bought it from a man who would take only gold, Captain. Whoever sold her that silver knew exactly what it was. Pruett: Then go find him. What's that to me?

23:21 Brenner: At the Schottenring the candlesticks stood on their feet, and you named the number cut beneath one. Pruett: Sure. My people numbered every piece before I signed. It's all on my—

23:31 Lang: I wired your Salzburg guard. Their cargo bears no marks or numbers, Captain. Not a crate, not a spoon.

23:38 Pruett: Then that sergeant never looked underneath. Ask him for my— Lang: A warehouse that numbers nothing keeps no sheets of numbers.

23:44 Pruett: Now look— Brenner: So the numbers were cut after the crates left Salzburg. And the crates came to one house. This one.

23:53 Narrator: That number was shown to five people under a market canvas, Captain, and every one of them was sworn to silence. Lang: The pair went into my briefcase within minutes. Marie never saw her seller's face, and from the next morning she sat in my cells till today.

24:08 Brenner: Nobody outside those five had heard forty-one, Captain. Yet you had it. Pruett: Two crates. Down a cellar nobody— nobody bothered to lock. Seven keys.

24:21 Radakowitsch: Seven tenants, Captain. And a caretaker. Pruett: Anybody in this house could scratch a number.

24:29 Lang Opens His Briefcase

24:33 Narrator: Lang drew the dented candlestick from his briefcase and stood it on the captain's cloth, beside the silver teapot. Radakowitsch: Anybody in this house. That's me, Captain. Say it plain.

24:47 Pruett: I'm saying the cellar's open, Frau Radakowitsch. Nothing— Radakowitsch: Then I'll say it plain myself. I lied about the market, Herr Brenner. My mother's spoons. For bread.

24:57 Radakowitsch: But the captain's things I never lifted. He'd not let me near that pot with a rag. Pruett: Nobody said you—

25:05 Brenner: Anybody could scratch a number, Captain. Only the man who scratched it could read it out to Lang without turning the piece over. Inspector, let Fräulein Vámos turn them both, where you can see.

25:17 Ilona: My mother's candlestick: forty-one, scratched fresh. The captain's teapot: forty. Side by side, I will— yes. I'll swear to it. The fours lean forward together. They were cut in the same hand.

25:35 Narrator: And that this pot never left its cloth isn't only the caretaker's word, Captain. You told us yourself it's stood here since you moved in. Brenner: Then the pot was counted here, at your table, and the candlestick in the very next breath.

25:50 Pruett: I've got nothing more to say to the Austrian police. Lang: Then say it to your own.

26:05 Lang: Police directorate. The American provost marshal, please. Yes. Tonight.

26:11 Up the Dark Stair, Two Steps at a Time

26:15 Narrator: American military police took the dark stair two steps at a time, and Marie, whom Lang had sent for, puffed up behind them. Marie: So this is Döbling. Thirty years I managed without it. Where's he, Inspector?

26:30 Lang: In his own chair, Marie, with two Americans at his elbows. Herr Brenner, it's your evening. Brenner: One thing in this flat was never to be touched. Frau Radakowitsch knows which.

26:43 Radakowitsch: Round it with my duster, every single morning. Never the sugar bowl, he said, as if it were the Host. Tonight I lift it.

26:55 Pruett: Now, that's— Narrator: That's no sugar, Captain. Marie: Give it here. Ten-crown pieces. Napoleons. And— oh, there. Bored through over the Emperor's head. My mother's ribbon coin.

27:08 Pruett: Plate's plate, Brenner. A tea service listed worthless goes home in a footlocker. No customs man lifts a sugar bowl. The owners were dead. Who was ever going to ask?

27:21 Ilona: I asked, Captain. Lang: You asked, and here's your answer. The Americans have their evidence in that bowl. The Republic signs the pair back to the family.

27:31 Ilona: The family... it's only me now. My brother's dent. On Friday I'll polish them, and she will— she'd laugh that I rub the silver—

27:42 Narrator: Then let her laugh. Carry them yourself. But tell me, Brenner. Why number them at all? Without those numbers he'd be on a boat.

27:52 Brenner: He sold hardware in Toledo, he told us on our first call. A hardware man counts his stock, even stolen stock, so he knows what each sale left him. And the caretaker told us he polished that set himself, nights, and let nobody near it. Not a comfort, Fuchs. A strongbox with a spout.

28:14 Narrator: Sugar worth more than silver, he told us. Brenner: In that bowl it was worth twenty-nine years of Marie's wet feet. Marie: And I want every one back, Inspector.

28:26 Lang: Evidence, Marie. Then we'll see. Captain Pruett, the provost charges you with theft. Not my Republic. Yours.

28:35 Narrator: Half this city carries its silver out the door for bread. Tonight one pair comes home. Ilona: Come, Doctor. I'll carry them myself, all the way to Leopoldstadt.