1. APPLE OF CONCORD

The room was not large but bare to austerity; there was a roll-top bureau in the middle, a substantial safe in one corner, and a draughtsman's desk, like a wide sloping shelf, along one wall; there were two or three wooden chairs and, over the windows, heavy curtains, the residue of wartime black-out. There were four men in the room. Two of them were at the bureau which had been forced open; they were pulling out drawers, emptying their contents upon the floor, and hunting through pigeonholes. A third man was staring gloomily at the safe and the fourth was merely standing in a corner looking unhappy. The man by the safe turned his head sharply.

"Listen! Someone coming."

In the silence which followed there came clearly the sound of loose slippers descending an uncarpeted stair.

"Put that light out."

"It's the old chap himself," said the man in the corner.

"If he comes in, Ackie, hit him with the cosh. No shooting."

When the room was dark a bright line under the door showed that the lights had been switched on in the hall outside. The footsteps drew near the door; it opened and showed against the light the figure of a man in pyjamas. He peered into the darkened room and set his hand upon the electric-light switch. At that moment Ackie struck and he fell heavily, switching on the light as he did so, and lay face downwards across the threshold.

"Well, thanks for turning the light on, anyway. These bureaux are all much alike; there's an alleged secret compartment in most of them. Which of these little drawers is shorter than the others?"

"You've killed him," said the man in the corner, and crept across towards the doorway.

"Nonsense. I didn't hit him hard enough. Besides, he's breathing."

"This drawer. Now, there should be a spring here somewhere—ah."

There was a sharp click and an inner compartment slid forward; it contained only a long slim key with a turreted barrel. The finder took it out and said "Ah" again, in a satisfied voice, and carried it across to the safe.

"I don't like seeing him like this," said the man from the corner, kneeling beside the unconscious body on the floor. "He wasn't a bad old stick."

"You are a fool," said the man with the key. "Always were and always will be." He pressed the key into the lock, turned it right round and withdrew it, then turned the handle, and the safe door swung open.

"It is not really clear to me," said Thomas Elphinstone Hambledon, "why they should have asked for me in the first place, why you should want me to go merely because they have, and what the plague I am supposed to do when I get there."

"In the first place," said the spokesman for the Foreign Secretary persuasively, "they have asked for you because they want you. Don't let's use that tiresome and indefinite 'they'; the application for your services was put forward by the Bonn government at the instance of a Mr. Spelmann whom I believe you know."

"Heinrich Spelmann? Oh yes, I know him. We worked together when I was in Cologne two years ago. He was a private detective in those days, though I do remember hearing that he was later taken on by the Security people at Bonn. That was under the Allied administration, of course. Is he working now for the West German government?"

"Certainly he is, and holding quite a good position."

"Oh, really," said Hambledon. "Glad to hear it; he had abilities and was certainly a hard worker. But I still don't know why he wants me there. This aircraft designer fellow what's-his-name——"

"Renzow. Gustav Renzow."

"Renzow, thank you—hears noises in the night, comes down in his pyjamas to find a burglar or burglars in the act of breaking into his safe, and gets banged on the head so effectively that he's been unconscious ever since. The burglars got away with his personal papers—passport and so on—and a set of drawings for an aeroplane which is alleged to be of no particular value. And, presumably, any loose cash there may have been lying about. Spelmann, no doubt, was told to go and look into the matter because there were some aircraft designs involved. Well, he doesn't want me, he wants a reasonably bright specimen of the Bonn police force, plain-clothes division. I may be getting a bit grizzled," said Tommy, delicately stroking his temples, "but I am not yet in my dotage. You don't send me galloping about Europe to do jobs which would be far better done by the local police. Come off it. What is all this?"

"It's on the border of the French zone."

"Well?"

"And the French are not satisfied that it is all as simple as it seems."

"It has never been easy," said Tommy, "to satisfy the French."

"No. On the other hand, if a French detective were to be sent up, it wouldn't satisfy the Germans."

Hambledon laughed.

"So you see," said his friend, "why it is that when Mr. Spelmann successfully urged the Bonn government to apply for you, the French backed the application."

"I see that far," said Hambledon, "but still not why your crowd granted the request."

"We are always anxious to assist the French whenever it is reasonably possible and we are particularly anxious to oblige them at the moment."

"Oh, ah."

"For reasons which I should prefer not to mention."

"Please don't trouble," said Hambledon politely. "I can read the newspapers for myself."

"Well, there you are. Hambledon, what is all this fuss about? You like Germany and you always enjoy going there. I agree that it doesn't look as though this is your job, but why worry? Go over and show willing, drink the local wines and talk to the local people, encourage Mr. Spelmann in his endeavours, and have a good time generally. He will be pleased, the French will be gratified, and you will be happy. When you get bored you can come home again. Well?"

"I see. I am to be a bone of contentment and an apple of concord. All right, I'll play."

When Hambledon arrived at Wahn, which is the airport for Cologne and district, he saw a man he knew among the group of people who had come to meet their friends. Heinrich Spelmann had not changed in the least since Hambledon had last seen him two years earlier; he was still a short square man who habitually went hatless, with a mop of white hair blowing round his head like a halo whenever there was the least wind. He still wore a disreputable waterproof and his square sunburnt face was eager as ever. Hambledon greeted him with genuine pleasure.

"It is delightful to see you," said Spelmann, "quite delightful. I was, frankly, a little afraid that you might refuse to come. This matter, you would say, is for the police, why bother me? Let us walk this way. I have a taxi waiting outside the Customs. So it seems, this affair, a matter for the police, and if it turns out to be so at least we shall have met again and you can sit on a terrace above the Rhine with a glass on the table before you and talk to everyone you meet, can you not? It will be a holiday."

"Yes," said Hambledon, "yes. I am delighted to have the opportunity of spending a few days with you and, to be frank, that is why I am here. What I have heard so far about this case does not suggest that I can be of much use to you. However, perhaps there is more in it than appears on the surface."

"I think so," said Spelmann with emphasis.

Hambledon passed the Customs and rejoined Spelmann, who said that he had taken a room at an hotel at Königswinter for Hambledon. "We will drive straight there now, if you agree; it is only twenty-five kilometres and we shall arrive in time for dinner."

"Königswinter—I ought to remember——"

"It is just above Bonn. It is one of those little Rhine towns, on the right bank between Beuel and Bad Honnef; Mehlem, where the American Headquarters are, is just opposite."

"Oh, is it?" said Hambledon in a tone of surprise. "I thought that was the French zone, across the river."

"Not just there. The zoned boundary is just upriver from Mehlem. Rolandswerth is in the French zone."

"And Königswinter?"

"British, up to the other side of Bad Honnef. Look," said Spelmann, digging into the poacher's pocket of his raincoat, "here is a map. A large-scale map, it shows the boundaries."

Hambledon looked at the map. "I wonder why on earth these zonal boundaries had to be so irregular; they twist about like a drunk snake. The French zonal boundary goes up the middle of the Rhine for about three kilometres. Why didn't they just rule off straight lines on a map?"

Spelmann shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? Not that it matters as between the British, the Americans, and the French; there is no check, control, or hindrance of any kind upon their boundaries. It is only the Russians who are different; you must be careful with the Russians."

"So I hear," said Hambledon drily. "How far off are the Russians? I see. About two hundred kilometres."

"Not nearly far enough," said Spelmann sourly.

"Oh, I agree. But far enough to prevent my straying accidentally into it if I walk in my sleep. Now tell me, why are we going to Königswinter?"

"Because it is where Renzow lives."

"Oh, is it? I see. But what do you suppose I can do there? You do not suppose his assailants are townspeople, do you?"

"No," said Spelmann, "but one must start somewhere. As for what you can do there, it is a charming place. It is just at the foot of the Drachenfels. It has an ancient church and numerous ancient winehouses where you can try the local vintages and talk to the people. When you are tired of that you can walk in the Nachtigallenwaldchen and listen to the nightingales which St. Bernard chased away from Heisterbach because they disturbed his prayers. You can—here is the Lorelei Hotel, and no doubt dinner is served."

"You will dine with me, Spelmann, will you not?"

"I thank the Herr. I shall be honoured and delighted."

"A glass of wine in the lounge before we dine," said Hambledon when Spelmann had swept up the porter, the desk clerk, and the headwaiter and more or less cast them at his visitor's feet. "You know, it's very odd how saints dislike nightingales. There is a district in my own country called St. Leonard's Forest where there are many sorts of birds but no nightingales. St. Leonard told them to go away for the same reason as St. Bernard's. What will you have?"

"A little glass of Moselle, if I may?"

"And you a Rhinelander! Certainly. Waiter!"

"The Moselle wines are lighter," said Spelmann almost apologetically. "These nightingales, they sing all night of love, so the poets tell us, do they not?"

"And you think the saints understood what they were saying?"

"Being saints, no doubt they had supernatural attributes?"

"Oh, probably. Of course, that would account for their telling the birds to go away. I can't think of anything more disconcerting to a saint. About this fellow Renzow——"

"After dinner," said Spelmann hastily, "after dinner I will tell you all about it."

"You will remember," said Spelmann, comfortably settled in a far corner of the lounge with Hambledon beside him and coffee before them, "that after the war was over there was a manifest desire on the part of the Allies to secure the services of distinguished German technicians in various branches of science and industry."

"Call it a hectic scramble to grab them before the Russians got hold of them, and vice versa."

"Yes, yes indeed. It was like that. Gustav Renzow was a draughtsman in the Focke-Wulf works at Bremen before the war and proved to be a young man with ideas. You do not want his autobiography. Towards the end of the war he was one of their foremost designers, though no longer at Bremen. He is a Rhinelander. This house at Königswinter was his father's; at the very end he was living here and working at an aircraft factory at Bassenheim, near Coblentz. When that stopped work he merely remained at home."

"Most of these technicians left Germany and went to America or Russia as the case may be. Why did he stay here? On account of the nightingales?"

"He refused to leave," said Spelmann pointedly, "and that, my friend, is one of the reasons why I think that there is something behind all this. He was offered a most desirable post in America and he declined it. Why?"

"A typical Nordic blonde, possibly? Is he married?"

"No. He had a sister whose husband was a Nazi of high rank in the Party. He was killed in Berlin at the end. Her daughter, Anna Knipe, is Renzow's housekeeper and secretary. She lives with him; her mother died long ago. I have interrogated her several times and she is keeping something back. I know it, I can feel it here." Spelmann patted his chest. "You have read the official reports of the case?"

"Not the full reports, a précis only. His safe was broken into, he came downstairs——"

"The safe was not broken into; it was unlocked with its own key. The key was kept in a roll-top writing bureau which was kept locked, and it was this that was broken open in order to find the key of the safe."

"Someone knew where he kept it," said Hambledon.

"Certainly, the Herr is right. Fingerprints show that there was more than one man in that room that night, probably three. Only one print is good enough to photograph and that has not yet been identified, though we have not—that is, the police have not yet received replies from all the several places which keep criminal records."

"Several men. You mean several strange fingerprints, don't you? Any real reason to believe that they were all men? And were they necessarily all burglars? Could not some of them be those of visitors since I understand that Renzow is still unconscious and cannot answer questions?"

"His niece says there were no visitors and her statement is corroborated by their servant. Moreover, that room was his office, where he worked; if he had visitors they would be received in one of the two sitting rooms."

"Unless, presumably, the visitors came on business. And are you sure the niece and the servant are telling the truth? Didn't they hear anything that night?"

"No, but their bedrooms are at the other side of the house. As for the visitors, if there were any, why should they deny it? It is not a crime to have visitors."

"Spelmann, Spelmann," said Hambledon reproachfully, "this is unworthy of you. It all depends upon who the visitors were. Have you tried your fingerprints upon the records of the Security people? This man Renzow was a Nazi, was he not?"

"I tried the Security records first of all, but without result. Yes, he was a Nazi, but he had to be in order to hold the position he did hold. He was not an enthusiastic member."

"They all say that," said Tommy in a bored voice, "just as everyone in the occupied territories now tells you he was in the Resistance. But I keep on interrupting you. They broke open a roll-top desk, took out the safe key, and opened the safe. What is missing?"

"They took his personal identity papers, and a passport which had recently been issued to him, and a set of drawings—designs—a design—for an aeroplane. His niece told me that the design was not particularly valuable because under test the wing had shown a fatal weakness. However, the design was considered by the Americans to be so interesting that Renzow was being encouraged to overcome the difficulty."

"Oh. Was that all they took? Personal papers, a passport, and a dud aeroplane design?"

Spelmann cocked his head on one side and looked at Hambledon. "You do not believe it either?"

"Well, they might have been just unlucky," said Hambledon reasonably. "I suppose burglars do draw blank sometimes. One thing I refuse to believe, and that is that they broke in to get his passport. I wonder they bothered to take it; it's much simpler to get a faked one."

"Yes. It is a very large safe," said Spelmann slowly. "It is as big as a household refrigerator. It was made in Bonn and I went to see the makers. They remembered all about it very clearly. It was requisitioned from them in February 1945 by an Army officer. They were very pleased to make the sale because at that time, only two months before the end of the war, they thought that nobody would ever want a safe again."

"Having nothing to put in it."

"Exactly. They thought it a little odd that anybody should want to buy a safe when already the guns of the Allies could be heard like summer thunder in the distance and drawing nearer every day. However, the officer requisitioned it and brought an Army lorry to transport it. Having no employees left except a couple of cripples, the partners went out on the lorry to Königswinter and installed it themselves. When they asked for payment they were told it would be sent in a day or two, but in point of fact the money was not sent. They showed me the requisition order; it was signed by August-Ernst Knipe, General. Renzow's brother-in-law."

"Who was killed in Berlin some six weeks later, you said."

"That is right."

"One intriguing point about this mystery, to my mind," began Hambledon.

"Yes?"

"Why didn't the Bonn firm take their safe away again when they weren't paid for it?"

"I make no progress," said Spelmann sadly, "in convincing you that there is anything in my story. Renzow paid for the safe ultimately. Why, mein Herr? To keep, as you say, his passport in? If he did not want it, why not send it back? If he did, what did he keep in it?"

"And what did General Knipe get it for in the first place?"

"I asked that question of his daughter, Anna Knipe, Renzow's niece. She said that she did not know. She was not at Königswinter at that time; she was nursing the wounded. She did not see her father at that time; indeed, she never saw him again. She said that no doubt he installed it for some purpose and was possibly prevented from carrying the purpose out, whatever it was."

"Yes, that is quite likely, but it doesn't explain why Renzow paid for it instead of sending it back. What did he want it for, as you asked just now?"

"To keep his designs in, she says."

"And you don't believe her," said Hambledon.

"No, mein Herr. Because Renzow paid for it in January 1948, and he did not take up his aircraft work again until the middle of 1950. He had a clerk's job in the Municipal Gas Office in Bonn."

"Did you point that out to her?"

"No, I checked the dates since I last saw her. In any case, she was lying. She is a nice woman, really," said Spelmann reflectively. "She ought to be married and have several happy, healthy children. She is not unpleasantly clever; she is domesticated and wholesome to look at. She is naturally truthful, and it is as plain as sunlight when she is speaking the truth and when she is not, but you cannot shake her. I would stake a good deal that the secret, whatever it is, of why the safe was bought and what was kept in it is not a disgraceful one. She lies and she does it badly, having no natural gifts that way, but she is not ashamed of doing it. Rather the contrary."

"Some sort of trust," suggested Hambledon, and Spelmann nodded. "Yet she is not anxious to help you to recover whatever was taken."

"It might be something which they would not be allowed to keep if it were known that they had it."

Hambledon leaned back in his chair and smiled at his old friend.

"For the first time since I arrived, there is a faint suggestion that I may find something else to do here besides enjoying your company."

Spelmann's face lit up and he sprang to his feet. "That is what I have been praying to hear you say! There is a mystery here and we will unravel it, you and I." He began to walk up and down across the corner of the lounge where they sat; the room had emptied until there was no one besides themselves in it except a loving couple holding hands in a far corner who did not even look round. "All this time I have been afraid that you would say: 'Call in your police, Spelmann—thanks for your company—good-bye.' Now we work together again, you shall advise me and I will help you. I have an office now, Herr Hambledon; I always told you I would have a real office one day and not a converted bedroom such as I had in Cologne two years ago. I have men under me and access to official files. All these things delight me afresh every morning when I wake up, but the real crown of my success is to be able to say to the Bonn authorities: 'Entreat my friend, the famous Herr Hambledon, to give me the benefit of his advice,' and here you are. This it is," said Spelmann, swinging round at each turn of his quarter-decking so that his white hair swirled round his head, "this it is to work hard and be successful. What will you have with me? Waiter! I hope they have something you will like. Waiter! Have you any Grand Marnier? Two Grand Marniers, please. Ha!"

2. SHAREHOLDERS' MEETING

Hambledon was sitting in the sunshine at a table by an open window overlooking the busy Rhine and finishing his breakfast of coffee, rolls, and butter, when Spelmann came into the room. The little detective's face was bright, his step jaunty, and his manner that of the bearer of good news.

"You have brought me luck," he said. "I knew you would. You are without doubt my better half."

"Your—— Oh, I see. Glad to hear it. Have some coffee and tell me all about it."

"Thank you, just one cup. In the first place, the police have been diligently enquiring of everyone in Königswinter, Bad Honnef, Dollendorf, and the neighbourhood whether anyone was about that night and whether they saw anyone. They found at last a forester whose child was taken ill and who had walked into Königswinter to fetch the doctor. He passed by Renzow's house at a little before two in the morning. Just before he reached it a car drove up to the house and stopped in the road outside. Only side lamps were left on and by their light he saw four men turn in at the gate and walk up to the house. There is a short path to the door. The forester came back a quarter of an hour later with the doctor in his car. The car which had stopped was still there and even as they passed a light came on in the fanlight over the front door."

"Renzow coming downstairs," said Hambledon.

"So I think, also."

"He can't tell you anything about the car?"

"Nothing, except that it was a saloon car, not an open tourer. Besides, he says he was not interested, the child was choking. However, he is quite definite that there were no lights visible at the house until the hall light went on, but the visitors might have been in some room at the back. Why not?"

"Four men," said Hambledon.

"And that is not all my news. The Berlin—Western sector, naturally—police report that the one identifiable fingerprint is that of Bruno Gruiter, a Berliner who has already served two sentences for burglary. They telephoned this to the chief of police in Bonn this morning; I happened to be with him when the call came through. They said that they would send us particulars of him, photographs and so forth. Our chief asked them whether they would make a search for him and they laughed at the idea. I heard it myself, squeaky noises from the telephone receiver. They asked whether anything of immense value was missing and our chief had to say that it had not been clearly established what was missing but that a householder had been brutally assaulted and was dangerously ill. They laughed again and said it was too bad, but in Berlin murder was a commonplace and stolen goods there were not petty valuables but living men and women. Our chief apologized for troubling them; I heard him do so and I should have done the same in his place."

"Yes," said Hambledon, "yes. So should I. Have your police interviewed the doctor?"

"Not yet. He had started out on his rounds by the time they had got the forester's statement. He has a big district; he starts early and will not be home before lunch."

The Königswinter doctor was a large elderly man with grizzled eyebrows which stuck out. He gave his visitors a glass of wine, poured out one for himself, and lit a pipe which had a china bowl decorated with pink roses.

"Of course I remember the occasion," he said, "but the car I saw could not have brought the miscreants who hammered poor Renzow. It was a French staff car, I saw it distinctly. I noticed it with surprise and then the obvious explanation struck me. Renzow's house is a little outside the town—you have seen it? Yes. It is quiet and private there. If a car stops beside a country road in the small hours the occupants are probably returning from a party. No, I did not mention it to the police. Why should I? The French occupation troops are human like the rest of us. I thought nothing more about it."

"But the forester had seen the car stop there when he passed on his way to your house a quarter of an hour earlier. Four men got out and went up to the house."

"Oh, indeed? He did not tell me that. Are you sure it was the same car?"

"The forester thought so," said Spelmann. "Also, lights went on in the house at the moment when you were passing."

"Oh, did they?" said the doctor. "I did not notice that. I shouldn't, you know, if they came on just as we were passing; I should be looking ahead. Renzow is one of my patients; in fact, I was called in when they found him in the morning. I packed him off to Bonn. A depressed fracture of the skull is not a thing which the local medico attempts to treat in his surgery. Dear me, no. I do not wish to be arrested on a murder charge. And rightly. I rang up the hospital and they sent out an ambulance for him and I understand that they operated the same day. That is now four days ago. Has he recovered consciousness yet, do you know?"

"Not by nine o'clock this morning. Can you tell us anything about the car?"

"Only that it was a French staff car with the usual markings on it. It was a Citroen, I think. I didn't notice the number, I'm afraid. Probably the French authorities can help you, though I still think my explanation much more likely. The car poor old Rupprecht saw probably went off again; it wouldn't have taken them long to break open that desk and open the safe with a key. The fact that the car I saw stopped in the same place was, in my opinion, coincidence."

"Any idea what he kept in that safe?" asked Hambledon, speaking for the first time.

"My dear sir! I have not the slightest idea. His drawings, presumably. I never saw it until the other morning. I had not been in that room before."

They took their leave and drove back to Bonn. Spelmann went away to telephone the French authorities to ask if they had lost a staff car on the night when Renzow's house was broken into. He came back an hour later to say that they had indeed lost a car that night; it was taken from one of the official parks at Bonn. Its movements had been traced for most of its journey that night; it had passed through Königswinter, going South, at about 2 A.M. and returned half an hour later. It was not noticed in Bonn. "But it wouldn't be," said Spelmann. "Why should it? There are so many. It was seen again passing through Hersel on the road to Cologne and has not been seen since, although the British have made the most searching enquiries."

Hambledon lifted his shoulders. "Sprayed a different colour, with fresh number plates and a set of impeccable papers," he said, "it could be in Amsterdam, Brussels, or Paris long before this."

"Or Rome," agreed Spelmann gloomily. "Or Madrid."

"Or Constantinople," said Tommy briskly. "I beg the Turks' pardon, Istanbul. This discussion is profitless. I think I shall go to Berlin. I used to have a lot of disreputable friends there and perhaps the police will spare a moment from their more pressing cares to tell us who Gruiter's associates are. If they know. Are you coming?"

On the second day after the robbery at Königswinter four men sat round a table in a semi-basement room in the Western sector of Berlin. The room was gloomy although the sun was shining outside; it had once formed part of the storerooms of a large department store, now in ruins, but this lower part of the building had been strongly built, being part of the foundations of the five storeys above. These semi-cellars had been cleared out, cleaned, subdivided into living accommodation, and let to the homeless. Some of the rooms had very little furniture of any kind and others far too much, according to whether the tenants had been able to salvage any of their possessions or not. This one was overcrowded but reasonably clean; Hans Ackermann's wife had been house-proud when she had had a house of which to be proud. She was out at that time. Ackermann had sent her out because the four men had private matters to discuss; otherwise they would probably have been sitting round a table in a café in the sunshine. One of them was Bruno Gruiter, who had carelessly left his fingerprints in Renzow's office at Königswinter when Hans Ackermann had attacked the designer; the third was named Andreas Claussen, and the fourth Karl Edberg. Claussen had been standing by Renzow's safe while Gruiter and Ackermann were hunting through the desk for the key; Edberg was the man in the corner who had shown some humane feeling when Renzow had been struck down. He referred to it again.

"I suppose the old chap isn't dead," he said. "There's been no mention in the papers."

"Of course not," said Ackermann. "I told you at the time I didn't hit him hard enough."

"That don't worry me," said Claussen, "half so much as having to leave all them stones parked like that."

"They're all right," said Gruiter, "and what we've brought away's enough to go on with. We couldn't bring it all with us, could we? All through the Russian zone on that lorry?"

"We was hung with 'orseshoes," said Edberg, "gettin' through like that. Them Russians didn't hardly look at us, seemed 'alf asleep or something."

"Well, why should they?" said Gruiter. "One 'eavy lorry loaded with iron girders in the middle of a convoy of seven 'eavy lorries loaded with iron girders, why should they look? Them loads come up and down that road all day and all night. I told you we'd be all right, and Aug filled up the forms for us, didn't he? Wind up, that's what you had, Ed."

"Them Russians," said Edberg, "give me the 'errors."

"Bilge," said Gruiter contemptuously. "They can be bluffed like anyone else. Easier. They're slow, they are. Look at Bart Lachmann, he ain't afraid of 'em."

"He's smart," said Ackermann, "Bart Lachmann is."

"I saw him this morning," said Gruiter. "Wanted to know how we'd got on."

"Got on?" said Claussen. "What does he know? You didn't tell 'im anythink?"

"What d'you take me for? He knew we'd been away. What d'you expect me to tell him? We'd been to a spa for our rheumatics? I told him we'd come across some designs, looked good to me. Parts of aeroplanes or some such." Gruiter smiled slowly. "That Bart, he'd sell flea powder to a flea. Said he'd come and look at 'em."

"He knows about that sort of stuff," said Edberg. "Worked in a drawing office at a tank factory in the war."

"Why weren't he in the Army?" asked Claussen.

"He was, for six weeks," said Gruiter. "Then his heart went back on him, so he said, and the doctors believed it. I reckon he knew a chemist, myself."

Claussen, once a front-line soldier, snorted, but the others laughed.

"What does he reckon to do with the drawings when he's seen 'em?" asked Edberg.

"Sell 'em to the Russians," said Gruiter, "if he thinks 'em good enough to pass. They'll buy anything that looks like Western scientific stuff, he says."

"Anythink Renzow thought up 'ud be good," said Edberg. "Real top-notcher, he is, in his line."

"That's right. I asked Bart to come along," said Gruiter, "and we'd show him. Might see if he's outside now, will you, Ackie?"

Ackermann went out and came back five minutes later with a thin dark man in the early thirties who might have been good-looking if his eyes had not been too near together. His suit was shabby and threadbare but well cut, his shirt had been carefully darned, and he wore a clean collar and a neat tie. He looked like a bank cashier or a junior partner in an architect's office, and his manners were easy and friendly. He greeted Edberg and Gruiter, was introduced to Claussen, and sat down at the table.

"Quite a board meeting," he said pleasantly. "The Chairman will now take the Chair and address the shareholders."

Gruiter said that he had already told Lachmann that they had come into possession of some designer's drawings of what appeared to be an aeroplane though it looked rather a funny one to him. He had never seen an aeroplane with a wing anything like that but he was no expert and didn't pretend to be.

Lachmann said that he also was no aeronautical engineer but he did know something about engineers' drawings. Perhaps the gentlemen would care to let him look at them.

Gruiter looked round the table; Ackermann and Edberg nodded and Claussen said: "I suppose so," in a surly voice. Ackermann got up and opened the bottom drawer of a chest of drawers which appeared to be Frau Ackermann's linen press, for he lifted out sheets and towels to extract from below them some large sheets of tracing linen which had been folded up small instead of being rolled.

"Sorry they're creased like this," said Gruiter. "We had to fold 'em up small to carry them on us."

"Doesn't matter," said Lachmann, unfolding the first one handed to him, "they'll iron out if necessary. Ah."

The first sheet, as it happened, was the general arrangement and showed an aeroplane with swept-back wings, the wings being hinged in such a way as to make it possible to vary, in flight, their angle of sweep. So much the notes at the foot made clear, though why the designer should have gone to all that trouble was an insoluble mystery to the uninstructed round the table. The other sheets made clear the means by which the alteration in angle was to be effected. Each sheet was signed in the corner, G. Renzow.

"I don't know in the least what all this is about," said Lachmann frankly, "but if this doesn't lift the Russkis right off the seats of their chairs, I'm a little baby Hottentot."

"Besides," said Edberg, "I expect they'll have heard of Renzow."

"Of course," said Lachmann. "You can bet on that. Why, even I have heard his distinguished name. He's famous. Oh, they'll know all about him." He examined the sheets again and read the marginal notes. "It would be nice to know what all this is about," he went on. "What is a 'high maximum lift coefficient'? Don't all speak at once. Oh well, it doesn't matter, I haven't got to know. I'm only the vendor."

"I take it," said Gruiter, "that you think these drawings are worth money to the Russkis. Are you prepared to undertake to sell them?"

"I thought I'd just said so," said Lachmann.

"I only wanted to make sure. All right, then. How do we set about it?"

"They won't see these, of course," said Lachmann. "They will only see photostats of just enough to show them what it is but not how it works. I think each photostat should be of the bottom right-hand corner of each of these sheets, say a quarter of each sheet, but including the designer's signature in each case. Then I go across to the Russian zone and tell them the tale. I must get to see some real expert—and they have some, boys, make no mistake about that—because only a real top-liner would know what this design is worth. Or understand it, for that matter. I mean, some Russian Air Force bod would be worse than useless. This design will stay here in the meantime. Not necessarily here," he added, glancing round the room, "I mean, in your care; I was thinking particularly of the risk of fire. These sheets"—he flicked them with his finger—"are not the sort of thing to attract a casual thief who didn't know anything about them. Not like precious stones, for instance. Stones won't burn but, by heck, these will. Fire is a great cleanser," said Lachmann sententiously, "but we don't want it cleaning these up. I leave all that to you. Then we must arrange for some foolproof method of getting the money in exchange for the design, and no monkey business; that'll want some thinking out. If I want the design brought across the frontier to meet me, will one of you do it?"

"Not me," said Edberg instantly.

"I don't mind," said Gruiter. "I'm not afraid of them."

"That's the spirit."

"How much?" asked Ackermann.

"I shall require notice of that question," said Lachmann, smiling. "We shan't get what this design will be worth to them because they'll know very well that we can't sell it anywhere else. So it's what they offer us or nothing. On the other hand, if they want it they will want it at once, and we can, if we choose, keep them waiting for months. If they want it they will pay, no doubt about that. It's just to strike a balance."

"You mean, a bargain," said Gruiter, and Lachmann laughed.

"But you must 'ave some figure in your mind," persisted Ackermann.

"We shall be lucky," said Lachmann, "if we get three hundred thousand marks. Western marks, of course."

"Well, that'll do, divided up," said Gruiter comfortably. "A man can live on——"

"And the division," cut in Lachmann, "will be half to me and the rest between you four."

"Too much," said Claussen, speaking at last. "You didn't get 'em."

"And you can't sell 'em," said Lachmann bluntly.

"One third," began Ackermann.

"Half, or I walk out here and now," said Lachmann. "And I've seen the design, remember."

"Was you thinking," said Claussen ominously, "that there'll be a reward out for these drawings?"

Gruiter intervened hastily. "It's plain idiotic to start quarrelling about the divvy-up before we've started selling the goods. All the same," he added in a plaintive voice to make the others laugh, "I think if I risk my neck going into Russia I ought to get a bit more myself."

"I agree," said Lachmann cheerfully. "Look, I'll make a concession. If Gruiter does come he shall have a slice off my half. But I'm going to have half or I don't play. Well?"

"I agree," said Edberg. "They take the risk, don't they?"

"Oh, all right," said Ackermann.

"Claussen?" said Lachmann.

"Too much," said Andreas Claussen, but he moved uneasily.

"Three to one against you, Anders," said Gruiter persuasively. "Come on."

"Oh, very well, since you're all against me. Western marks, mind."

"Thank you," said Lachmann. "Thank you, one an' all. Western marks, certainly. Now, there is one other thing. How are we going to finance this trip? It'll cost money."

"We've talked that over," said Gruiter, "already. You must keep the cost down, but anything reasonable we'll find."

"Splendid," said Lachmann. "You are gentlemen a man can work with. Now, does anybody know a photographer? Because, if not, I do."

3. THE FERRET

On the following morning Lachmann came to the room where Ackermann lived and found Gruiter also there.

"I've spoken to my photographer friend," said Lachmann casually. "If you'll let me have the sheets I'll just pop around and get them done."

"Certainly," said Ackermann. "I'll come with you, me and Gruiter. I'd better carry them and you an' Bruno can be bodyguard. You're both quicker in the uptake than what I am, if there was to be any sort of trouble."

Lachmann knew perfectly well that all this was merely a polite cover for the fact that none of them would trust him with the sheets out of their sight, and he did not resent it. A reasonable precaution; he would have done the same himself. They would come into the photographer's studio too, talking cheerfully about how interesting it was to watch a skilled man on his job, but it would be only to make sure that nothing more than the agreed portions were photographed. He was quite right, they did. It turned out that Gruiter had been something of a photographer in his better days before the war and his comments were intelligent and instructed. Ackermann merely watched closely and in silence; when the business was over he and Gruiter took the designs away again.

The next day the photostats were finished and very well done. Lachmann showed them to his four fellow shareholders and received from them an agreed sum of money, Renzow's passport (suitably adapted), and other evidences of identity from Renzow's desk.

"Listen," he said. "I've been thinking about how to get the money in exchange for those drawings and no chance of any monkey business with those Russkis. When the price has been agreed, they'll send a man with the money. I mean, they won't just give it to me, I'm afraid."

The others laughed and Lachmann with them.

"I'll travel back with him and take him to Gruiter's place. The designs will not be there. I don't mind where you keep 'em, boys, but they must not be in the room I bring the man to. Then, when we've seen the money all present an' correct, Gruiter will go and fetch those sheets from wherever you have kept 'em while I and the Russki wait together. When Bruno comes back, we will swop the sheets for the money. O.K.?"

The men nodded.

"Any amendments?"

Ackermann leaned forward.

"It do seem a pity," he said, "to let them papers go when the money's there and us two to one against the Russki. Or even three to one to make sure; I could come back with Bruno."

But Lachmann disagreed energetically. "No, no, that wouldn't do at all. Look, you might want to do business with these bods again one day, and what would happen then? 'Sides, we don't all want to leave Berlin, and what would our lives be worth if we'd done the like of that, with them all round us 'ere?"

Edberg supported him. "We don't want them after us," he said, and shivered.

They settled a few more details, including a message about the date and the time, and Lachmann said good-bye. He started upon his journey at about the time when Hambledon arrived in Berlin; Gruiter, Ackermann, Edberg, and Claussen had nothing to do but wait for the prearranged message.

Hambledon went to Berlin by himself; Spelmann was a busy man with other cases claiming his attention in Bonn. He could follow Hambledon to Berlin at any time if matters became interesting or exciting and Hambledon thought that he was more likely to gain his ends by strolling inconspicuously about by himself. Spelmann was a noticeable figure, easily remembered, readily recognizable and becoming quite well known. Some of the people whom Hambledon wanted to meet were of the sort who just naturally disappear round corners when they see anything resembling police; if they saw Spelmann they would probably leave the city.

Hambledon came to Berlin by air four days after his arrival at Königswinter; even for him it had taken some time to obtain permits and passes to enter Berlin and a seat in an aeroplane. This aircraft was circling the Tempelhof airport while Lachmann, straphanging in an underground railway train, was passing from the Western sector of Berlin into the Russian zone with a set of photostats in his wallet. Hambledon went straight to his hotel; his bedroom was small, dark, and inconvenient and overlooked acres of dismal ruins where the rats fought and squealed at night, but he knew that he was lucky to have a room to himself and made no complaint. His first call was upon the Berlin police, among whom he had some old friends.

They were very pleased to see him and said so; they asked him out to dinner—to wine parties—to their clubs. They asked after old so-and-so and where was what's-his-name now and then their eyes turned unwillingly to the piles of work on their desks.

"But I am not entirely on holiday," said Hambledon. "If you could spare some junior clerk for ten minutes to look up a little information for me—thank you so much. I am sorry to be such an infernal pest——"

He explained that what he wanted was any information about one Bruno Gruiter who, he understood, was on the records. His address, his associates, his habits, whether he was in Berlin at the moment, and anything else they knew.

"Bruno Gruiter," said one of them. "Somebody sent us his dabs the other day—I remember. The Bonn police. They said he'd broken into a house and clouted the householder on the head. Why, has he died?"

"Not so far as I know," said Hambledon.

"I asked if he'd got away with anything and they didn't seem to know."

"He got away with some aeroplane designs and the householder he clouted was Gustav Renzow."

"Oh. The devil he was! Well, now, come along to Records and they shall be laid before you, such as they are. Also, I'll give you a note to the district police station of the area where he used to live and they'll be able to give you a good deal more, I daresay. I don't suppose he lives there now, though."

Records and the local police station told Hambledon quite a lot. Bruno Gruiter, aged forty-two, unmarried, born in Berlin of German parents, was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker and later worked in a furniture factory until the war, when he was called up and served with the artillery. He returned to Berlin on the cessation of hostilities and was convicted in 1948 of breaking into a house in American occupation and stealing cutlery, table silver, some small ornaments, and a silver cigarette box. "He forced the latch of the dining-room window and just swiped what he could find," explained the sergeant in charge of this section of Records. "He was heard and the occupier of the house came down and chased him. An American officer. Unfortunately for Gruiter, the American was a crack quarter-miler and just ran Gruiter down. He got six months."

"He was unlucky, wasn't he?" said Hambledon. "If that didn't make him honest, nothing would."

It did not. In 1949 a German policeman off duty was saying good night to a girl in the shadow of some trees outside a house in the Moabit district when Gruiter came quietly from the back of the house. The policeman abruptly went on duty and Gruiter got two years that time.

From the district police station Hambledon received a more personal picture. Gruiter was not a bad fellow really and life was difficult for the poor in Berlin, as the Herr would understand. Gruiter had got into a bad set and a string of names followed.

"These men have not all been convicted or even arrested," said the superintendent of the district. "It is one thing to be morally sure that a certain man has done a certain job or, at the very least, knows more about it than he is telling, and quite another thing to be able to charge him with it. But no doubt I am telling the Herr what he already knows."

Hambledon nodded. "You get that in every country," he said. "At least, in every country where the police act in accordance with civilized rules. Is there anything you can tell me about any of these men?"

The superintendent called in for consultation such of his men as happened to be in the station. Melcher was a pickpocket, but was not much esteemed. Claussen was a jewel thief, mainly from hotel bedrooms. He only took good stuff; he had been employed by a jeweller before the war and knew valuable stones when he saw them. Twedt stole from cars and Goldstein snatched handbags. Edberg was suspected of stealing a car or cars, but it had never been proved. He had been a chauffeur-batman in the war to a Nazi general named Knipe who——

"Named what?" said Hambledon sharply.

"Knipe. He was fighting against the Russians in Poland towards the end of the war; his lot fell back on Berlin and he was killed here in the last days."

"Any of you know what Edberg looks like?"

Apparently there was nothing particularly noticeable about Edberg and since he had never been arrested there was no official description or photograph. One of the police who knew him by sight described him in the police manner, but it was a description which could apply to a good many men of the ordinary blond Germanic type. "Nothing remarkable about him at all," said the speaker, "except that he's said to be terrified of the Russians. Maybe he has reason."

Ackermann, Hans, aged thirty-six. Robbery from the person with or without violence. He joined the Hitler Youth movement and was one of its most active and energetic workers. The superintendent made a grimace. "I was a constable then," he said. "We were not, of course, permitted to interfere. Ackermann served in the Green Police. When the war was over he came home and I had the pleasure of dealing with him for a couple of offences. He has only just come out. A nasty thug."

"His wife is a decent woman," said one of the constables. "My wife knew her when they were children. She looks terrified now, my wife says."

Hambledon thanked them all with the utmost sincerity and came away, thinking chiefly of Karl Edberg. Chauffeur-batman to General Knipe, Renzow's brother-in-law, and all the way from Berlin to the Rhineland in order to burgle Renzow's house. It could be coincidence. All generals had batmen and most generals had brothers-in-law. An ex-batman might well fall into bad company and evil courses when his general's purifying influence had been removed, and if one of his acquaintances broke into the house of one of the late general's relatives, the ex-batman need not necessarily have had a hand in it. In fact, one might argue to the contrary. If the ex-batman had been fond of his general, his attitude might well be: "Leave my old man's family alone, can't you? Go and burgle somebody else."

On the other hand, Gruiter had made a long journey, right out of his own territory, to burgle Renzow's safe. Edberg could have been one of the party of four since only Gruiter's prints were clear enough for reproduction, and in any case, the police had not got Edberg's prints on record. Hambledon found it hard to believe that Gruiter would go all that way in order to steal a set of aircraft designs said to be of dubious value. Unless, of course, he had been commissioned to do so. Who said that the designs were faulty? Renzow's niece. How did she know? Did Renzow tell her, and if so, was it true?

Against this must be set Spelmann's account of how the safe was obtained. General Knipe had it installed. What for? Then he was killed. A safe like that is an expensive thing, but Renzow does not return it to the makers. On the contrary, he pays for it himself, and this two and a half years before he takes up designing again.

"What the hell," said Hambledon to a statueless plinth in the Tiergarten, "did Renzow keep in that safe?"

He walked on for nearly a mile, turning left and then right again and again but bearing generally southwards until he reached a street which, when he last saw it, had been almost all ruinous. The houses had been uninhabitable but the ground-floor shops had been either salvaged or small temporary premises put up within their shell, as often as not by the previous owner. Hambledon was looking for an old friend, a one-legged cobbler named Sachs, who was, only the previous year, working in one of these temporary shops. However, when Hambledon reached the spot he found that the whole block had been cleared away and was now barricaded off with six-foot hoardings from within which came the sounds of hammering, drilling, chipping, and industrious concrete mixers. Hambledon was at a loss. He paused, looking about him, and then began to walk about down one side turning and up the next, but there was no sign of Sachs.

Presently he noticed a red-haired boy whose noticeably grimy face peered at him out of a gutted building. Hambledon stopped and said: "Here. Come here, I want you."

"Not me," said the boy, preparing for flight. "What for?"

Hambledon grinned at him cheerfully.

"Do you know Sachs the cobbler? Used to work further back there?"

"Old Peg-leg? Oh yes, I know him."

"He's still about, is he?"

"Oh yes. He's only moved. He got turned out of there, so he went somewhere else."

"Do you know where?" The boy nodded. "Will you take me to him?"

"It'll cost you fifty pfennigs, mister."

"That's all right."

The boy disappeared for a moment and then came out through a gaping doorway.

"It's some way," he said. "Near the railway."

They walked along together with the boy half a pace ahead and always, Hambledon felt, poised for flight. He was about fourteen, red-haired and freckled, dressed in an assortment of clothes, some of which were too big for him and some too small but all in reasonably good condition. In a city where so many people seemed dull and spiritless from undernourishment, he looked well fed, alert, and intelligent and his eyes were everywhere.

"What's your name?" asked Hambledon.

"Frett, they call me. Frettchen, you know."

Frettchen means a ferret and was obviously a nickname.

"I mean your real name."

"I don't know," said the boy indifferently. "I've forgotten."

"But haven't you got any people?"

"People?"

"Belonging to you. Relations."

"Oh no. I remember when I was little being told that my father and mother were killed in a raid here in April 1941. I don't remember it; I expect I wasn't there. I do remember the woman who looked after me for a time after that, but she was killed in 'forty-three. I remember that all right; they dug me out and I ran away."

"How old were you then?"

"Oh, I don't know. About six, I suppose. There were a lot of us running around then; we used to pinch food and things and live in the ruins, then they used to round us up and put us in schools, but I always got away again. It wasn't a bad idea to be indoors in the winter, but I couldn't be shut in all the summer too. I can read," said Frett proudly, "and count and add up. When I knew that I didn't go back to school any more."

"But where do you live—haven't you got a home?"

"I've got a place of my own but I'm not telling anybody where it is. It's mine, I found it."

"How do you manage when you're ill?"

"I'm never ill."

"And do you darn your own clothes?" asked Hambledon, noticing the neatly repaired elbows on the boy's jumper.

"I get a woman to do that." Frett looked round at Hambledon with a slightly abashed smile. "She lets me have a bath on Saturdays in her washtub. I haven't got to, I just like it. It isn't sissy to like having a bath now and again, is it? Some of the fellows say it is."

"Certainly not," said Hambledon emphatically. "A man who is a man has a bath as often as he can; it's very low to let yourself go dirty."

Frett looked at him closely.

"I expect you have lots of baths, you look so clean. Every day?"

"Almost every day. Sometimes I have to miss it."

Frett lost interest. "That's where Sachs lives, across the road there. Now can I have my fifty pfennigs?"

Hambledon gave him a mark.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you very much. If you want taking about again I'll do it."

"But where shall I find you?"

"Oh, I'm generally about."

"Well, good luck to you," said Hambledon, and crossed the road to the cobbler's shop, where Sachs sat upon a stool close to the window to make the most of the fading daylight. He spent the whole day there, bent over his work with his wooden leg straight out before him; apparently he only glanced up now and again but, in fact, very little escaped him, as Hambledon knew. He had hardly stepped off the pavement when Sachs saw him and his face lit up with pleasure; when Hambledon entered the shop he was warmly greeted.

"It is a good day that brings the Herr again," said Sachs, shaking him by the hand. "Come and sit on the stool I keep for my best customers and tell me all the news. I have had to move, as you see. I was swept out with the rest of the rubble from where I was before. Never mind, I am still alive and so is my wife. Things might be worse. How is it with the Herr?"

Hambledon sat down and gave Sachs some tobacco he had brought for him; after some time he introduced the subject of Gruiter.

"Poor Gruiter," said Sachs thoughtfully. "I can't help being sorry for him."

"Why?"

"He has taken up a new trade," said Sachs with a swift glance at his friend. "You know, perhaps? Yes, I see you do. He used to be a cabinetmaker. It is a pity he didn't stick to that; he was a good cabinetmaker."

Hambledon laughed. "I had heard that he had been a little unlucky."

"It is a mistake to take up a profession for which one has no natural gifts. The Herr is interested in Gruiter?"

"I should like a little chat with him," admitted Hambledon.

"If you could make him see how foolish he is it would be a good deed. I have not seen him about for some time now, two or three weeks, perhaps more. I heard that he had left the city with some friends of his and that they had gone to the West, but I don't know what for."

"Do you also happen to know the friends who went away with him?"

"Hans Ackermann was one. I know him as—how shall I put it?—as one knows a bad smell in a certain spot which one often passes. One forgets about it and then, as one draws near the spot, one is reminded of it and there it is. He is not a friend of mine."

"I gathered that he wasn't," said the amused Hambledon.

"Karl Edberg was another. I don't like him much but I have nothing against him. He has a good appearance and is well mannered, I think he was an officer's servant at one time. He is a good driver. I find him dull, but it may be because I can't talk about motors; the good God did not intend me for a mechanic. So I didn't become one. I have heard that the fourth was a man named Claussen but I know nothing about him."

"And have they all returned from their mysterious journey, have you heard?"

"I have not heard, no, but it is only fair to say that I have not asked. Gruiter—I have known him a long time as one knows so many people, but we were never intimate or even near neighbours. Has he, then, been in mischief, or am I indiscreet in asking?"

"He's been in something all right," said Hambledon with a laugh. "He left his fingerprints all over the place. That's between ourselves," he added.

"Certainly, certainly. I do not babble, as you know of old." Sachs clicked his tongue in an irritated manner. "That Gruiter, really! I thought every child knew about fingerprints by now. He should have stuck to his carpentry, I said so before."

"He certainly seems a singularly inefficient burglar," said Hambledon. "I shouldn't think he'd last long. As a burglar, I mean."

Sachs picked up his work again, filled his mouth with nails after the manner of cobblers, and went on resoling a boot.

"How did the Herr find me here?" he asked, indistinctly because of the nails.

"A boy brought me. Lad who calls himself Frett."

"That boy," said Sachs thoughtfully. "I sit and wonder sometimes what he'll be when he grows up. He makes more money now than most of us do."

"Good gracious! How?"

"Oh, one way and another."

"Has he got parents?"

"No. Nobody knows who he is or where his people are. He is one of the 'wild children'; most of them were rounded up and sent to schools by the Welfare people, as the Herr knows, but this one could never be persuaded to stay. No one knows where he lives or how he manages, but he does very well."

4. APPOINTMENT AT NINE

Hambledon came out of Sachs' shop and turned to go back to his hotel. Frett, who had been hanging about for no particular purpose, saw him go and strolled aimlessly towards the cobbler's with some idea of having a word with Sachs which might throw some light upon this unusual person who gave one a whole mark when one had only asked for half. Frett felt there was something about him which made one desire more of his company and it was not only the prospect of money. Curious.

Beside the cobbler's shop a narrow alley ran back between its flimsy side wall and a more solid building in reasonable repair. As Frett wandered past the end of the alley an arm shot out, a hand closed upon him and dragged him in. Frett turned like a wildcat, all teeth and claws, but the man who had seized him pacified him at once.

"All right, all right, I'm not a policeman. Want to earn some money?"

Frett left off struggling and asked what for. The man pushed him gently back to the corner.

"Look along the street there, that man in the grey suit. See the one I mean? He's waiting to cross the road."

Frett nodded.

"He wants to see a friend of mine; he was asking Sachs about him. There's five marks for you if you bring him to my house tomorrow night at nine."

"What d'you want him for? Ten marks, mister."

"I don't want him really, it's him as wants us."

"Then why didn't you stop him yourself?"

The man backed cautiously into the alley and took Frett with him.

"Because there's a policeman along there and I don't want him to spot me. See?"

Frett saw. The situation was familiar to him.

"D'you know me?" went on the man.

"I knows you. I don't know your name."

"That'll do. Know where I live?"

"In the middle one of them three houses behind where the brewery used to be."

"That's right. Bring him there tomorrow night at nine o'clock sharp and knock on the door like this." The man tapped on the wall three times, a pause, once, another pause, and then twice. "Three—one—two. Then I'll know it's you and not the police. Got it? You do it."

Frett obeyed correctly. "But I don't know where he lives."

"You cut along after him now, he's not hurrying. Follow him and see where he goes. When you bring him to my house there's five marks for you. Off you go."

"Ten marks," said Frett, merely moving out of reach, "or I don't go."

"You money-grubbing obstinate little blockhead, I haven't got ten marks," said the man in an exasperated voice. "Get on or you'll lose him."

"Seven marks, then. Your pal as wants to see him'll put up the other two."

"Oh, all right, all right, seven marks. Now get cracking or——"

But Frett had already gone. There was indeed only one direction in which Hambledon would be likely to go in order to reach the quarter where were situated the three or four hotels available to temporary visitors. Unless he were staying with friends he would go by this street or that and in any case cross a certain square—Frett took a short cut across some waste ground, running and leaping like the animal for which he was named. The chase was longer than he expected, for Hambledon had realized that he was hungry and mended his pace, but at last the grey suit and the English felt hat showed up under a lamp in Potsdamer Strasse; Frett sighed with relief and followed a little way behind. Hambledon paused at the door of his hotel to let some people come out and Frett ran up to him.

"I say, mister——"

"Hullo! You again?"

"I've got a message for you."

"What is it?"

Frett backed away to be out of earshot of the commissionaire and Hambledon followed him.

"A man stopped me and said as there was a man you wanted to see. That right?"

"Could be," admitted Hambledon. "If it's the right man. Did he give you a name?"

"No. Asked me if I knew his name and I said no, but it wasn't true, I did know."

"Well, what was his name?"

"Claussen."

Claussen, the jewel thief, the man whom Sachs had heard of but did not know, the friend of Gruiter.

"That right, mister?"

"Near enough. What about it?"

"What's it worth if I take you there? Ten marks?"

"Certainly not," said Hambledon. "Seven is quite enough."

It was a major event in Frett's career that for the first time in his life he did not argue the point.

"If I come here for you at half-past eight tomorrow night——" he began, but Hambledon interrupted him.

"Where is the place? Anywhere near Sachs'? Very well, I'll meet you by the bridge where the railway crosses the Potsdamer Strasse at nine."

"Too late, mister. We've got to be there at nine."

"Oh, he mentioned a time, did he? Very well, the bridge at a quarter to nine, then. By the way——"

"What, mister?"

"What are you having for supper tonight?"

Frett was so surprised that he actually blushed.

"Oh, I don't know——"

"Come with me," said Hambledon, and led the way to a café across the road, where he sat down at a table and ordered beer for himself and a plate of Krostcher wärm—a sort of stew—for Frett.

"Real meat," said Frett, round-eyed.

"Don't you get real meat as a rule?"

"Sometimes I do, but mostly it's sausage. Real meat costs money."

"Wind that into yourself," said Hambledon when the meat was served, and Frett attacked it in a manner which was almost savage. Hambledon lit a cigarette, drank his beer, and said nothing for a time; appetites are keen at fourteen. When Frett had cleaned up the plate so thoroughly that washing it would be merely a matter of routine, he pushed it back and looked across at Hambledon.

"I say, mister."

"Well?"

"Don't go tomorrow night."

"Why not?"

"They—I don't like that lot."

"Claussen and his friends? What d'you know about them?"

"Not much. I keep away. I only know one other." The boy's voice dropped.

"Who's he?"

"Ackie. That's what they call him. Ackie. You keep away, mister."

Ackermann, the ex-Green Policeman, the thug, Sachs' "bad smell."

"Listen," said Hambledon, leaning across the table. "You have been given an address to take me to, I suppose."

"It's the middle house behind where the brewery used to be," which conveyed nothing to Hambledon. "I've got to knock on the door like this, three-one-two," said Frett, tapping the table. "That's to prove it's us and not the police."

"Yes. Well, they won't do anything to me there. They won't dare, because you will know where I went. If I don't come out again reasonably soon you can go to the police, can't you, and tell—— Oh well," in reply to the look on Frett's face, "you can go and tell Sachs, he'll do the rest. I'll tell some friends of mine where I'm going before I start; that'll make it quite safe. Nobody attacks people who are known to have gone to their house, because they would be suspected at once. Do you follow that?"

Frett nodded, but his face showed that he was not convinced, so Hambledon added: "I'm not quite helpless myself, you know. I've dealt with roughnecks before. In any case, this has got to be done." He paused a moment. "Thanks all the same."

Frett gave it up.

Hambledon walked down the Potsdamer Strasse the following night. When he reached the place of meeting he looked about for the boy but did not see him. Tommy told himself that he should have known better; Frett was not of those who stand about under a light. Hambledon strolled on; when he passed a place where a shop front jutted out and cast a strip of shadow Frett was suddenly there at his side.

"That's right, mister. You—you are going, then?"

"Of course I'm going. Carry on."

Frett sniffed audibly but made no other protest. They turned right and walked into a district of small streets all much alike, a district which had been a confused muddle when Hambledon had known Berlin well but which was more confusing and more of a muddle than ever now that war damage had removed so many of the landmarks. In ten minutes he knew only that he was south of the Kurfürstendamm and walking roughly parallel to it and that Sachs' shop must be a couple of streets away on his left. Presently they came to a still-imposing entrance with the wreck of a large building inside.

"The brewery," said Frett.

"What a shame to smash it up, wasn't it? Much more useful as a going concern."

Frett glanced up at Hambledon's face; his expression was one of mild interest and even amusement, but the boy had noticed that Hambledon's right hand had been in his coat pocket ever since they had turned off the main street. The reason for this suddenly dawned on the boy.

"I say, mister!" in a thrilled whisper. "You got a gun?"

Hambledon's eyebrows went up but he only said that the time was getting on and how much further was it?

"Only jus' down here and round the corner. What's the time?"

Hambledon looked at his wrist watch by the light of one of the infrequent lamps.

"Two minutes to nine."

"Just about right."

The streets here were practically deserted; they were not such as anyone would loiter in for pleasure. They never had been even when they were populous, an unsavoury district in its best days. Hambledon's hand tightened upon the Luger automatic in his pocket and his thumb rested upon the safety catch.

"Down here," said Frett, and led the way into a lane running beside the brewery wall. The other side of the lane was occupied by small houses, most of them tenanted; there were lights in the windows and in one a gramophone was playing an American dance tune. Further along the lane a car was parked, heading towards them, and Hambledon noticed that it bore Eastern zone number plates.

Frett checked slightly. "I never saw a car down——" he began, when a door opened silently just beside them, there was a rush, and Hambledon found a cloth cast tightly about his face from behind and both his arms seized in a grip so paralyzing that he could not even release the safety catch on his gun. As he was dragged backwards into the house he felt rather than heard that Frett had left him abruptly and gone off like a startled cat.

Hambledon was manhandled along a short passage and into a room almost wholly dark; only a faintly lighter square showed where the window was. He was pushed against a wall and his hands tied behind him, rather incompetently tied since the operator was working in the dark and Hambledon knew how to hold his hands so that the binding was not nearly so tight as it appeared. The trick had been shown him by a professional escaper from bonds who had been one of the "turns" at the Portsmouth Empire years before. Tommy blessed his forgotten name and faced round upon his unseen assailants with more confidence than they would have believed, especially as they had taken away his automatic.

"Sure this is the right man?"

"Sure. Saw him come round the corner."

"You ought to've got Frett too," said a third voice.

"Tomorrow 'ull do for Frett. You go and get the car, Ed."

"Wait a few minutes," said the first voice, presumably Ed. It was rather a high-pitched voice with a tinge of nervousness in it. "Best make sure first no one noticed anything." Hambledon, working at the knot with the tips of his fingers, nearly thanked him. "Did he see you?"

"It won't matter in half an hour's time," said the second speaker, "whether he saw us or not. But no, he didn't."

"You can't knock him off here," said a fourth voice which had not previously been heard. "We've got the police knowin' too much about us already."

"Of course not. We'll take him into the Eastern zone; the Russkis won't worry. Nor report it, neither. What sort of a car you got, Ed?"

"American. Packard saloon. Got Eastern zone number plates. Took it for that reason. Shan't be stopped on the border."

Hambledon thought it time he took a hand.

"You don't suppose you'll get away with this, do you?" he said. "You mutton-headed thugs, the police know I came here to meet you."

"Oh no, they don't. Frett told you where you was to go, didn't he? Well, that ain't here, that's in the next street. When they finds your dead body, which may be tomorrow or may not be for a month, they can come and ask us. We're all sitting at 'ome waiting for you to come, we haven't been out all evening. In fact, we're beginning to get worried 'cause you don't come, aren't we, boys? We're afraid something must have happened. We've got witnesses to all that. That's what they call an alibi, in case you don't know."

The last knot came loose and Hambledon held the cord between his fingers and his hands clasped lightly together behind his back. It was dark in the room but not utterly dark; already he could see where the four men were, two sitting and two standing up. If they had been in the dark for some time they might be able to see him fairly plainly.

"Go and get the car, Ed."

"All right," said the high-pitched voice. The man nearest the door went out, and silence fell on the party. Hambledon had no intention of starting a fight in that room; a knife in the ribs or a length of piping on the head would be only too easy. There might be a chance when they got him out of the house or, more likely, while driving through the streets. He merely kept his hands behind him and waited. In a very few minutes there came the sound of a car stopping outside and the man called Ed returned. At once the two who had been sitting down got up and came to either side of Hambledon. One of them threw an old coat round his shoulders, drew it over his head, and buttoned the two top buttons so that his face was completely shrouded. An old Army greatcoat, probably; the material was rough and rasped his skin; also, it smelt of mouldy hay. They took him by the arms and led him out.

"I say, Ed"—in the tone of one having a bright idea—"your car got a luggage place behind?"

"Course it has. All them big Packards——"

"Let's put him in there, then no one'll see him if they do stop the car anywheres."

"If it isn't locked," said the voice belonging to Ed.

They came out upon the street and Hambledon felt the barrel of a gun in his ribs.

"One chirp out of you and you'll get this."

The car was drawn up so close to the house door that Hambledon had no room to move. The neck button of the coat was upon his forehead and the next below his chin; there was a narrow vertical gap between through which he could see with one eye. Ed was at the back of the car.

"It's open," he said, "but it's not big enough. We'll never shut it on him."

"Put him inside—quick! There's someone coming round the——"

One man leapt into the back of the car, Hambledon was hustled in after him, and another sprang in beside him. Before the door was shut the driver was in his place and the fourth man was beside him. The car moved forward, rolling and bumping on the uneven road. They slowed for the corner, turned left, and went steadily on.

Hambledon twisted in his seat and immediately two large hands closed round his neck; they were strong hands and even through the muffling folds of the coat the effect was strangling. They held the coat tightly over nose and mouth and it was impossible to breathe; Hambledon struggled violently.

"What you doing, Ackie? Keep him quiet, can't you?" The man beside the driver turned in his seat. "You're stifling him, you fool."

"Don't matter if I do——"

Hambledon got both feet on the back of the driver's seat and heaved so violently that the seat slid forward and the driver complained.

"What the hell you playing at? Suppose I can drive with you——"

"Let him breathe, Ackie!"

The strangle hold eased and Hambledon, who had got to the stage where the lungs pump vainly and the world turns black before the eyes, lay back gasping.

"You keep quiet. Next time, I won't let go.".

They were passing through lighted streets. Hambledon moved his head so that, through the gap in the coat, he could get a good view of the driver, who of course was Edberg. The blond Teutonic type with nothing remarkable about him, as the police had said, and since he drove with the trained chauffeur's immobility Tommy could only get a three-quarter view of the back of the man's head and could not be sure of knowing him again. Tommy moved so as to bring his left eye to bear upon the other man in the front seat, who immediately obliged by turning round to look at him. Hambledon recognized him at once from the police photographs; that was Gruiter. Since Ackermann was on Tommy's right in the back seat, the man on his left was almost certainly Claussen.

"He seems quiet enough now," said Gruiter.

"Probably fainted from fright," said Ackermann.

Hambledon kept still and said nothing, but his hands were in front of him now, hidden but ready for action.

The car slowed down and there was suddenly a shocking burst of profanity from Edberg. "They've barricaded the road."

"They're letting that car through," said Gruiter, "look. They're moving the bar. Get on his tail, Ed."

"I don't like it," said Edberg, and his voice ran up the scale.

Ackermann, in the corner beside Hambledon, sat forward suddenly.

"So you're yellow, are you?" he snarled. "Know what we do to them as turns——"

"Ach!" said Edberg in an exasperated voice, and swung the car round to follow the other before the barrier—merely a pole on trestles—could be replaced. The car ahead went on fast and Edberg followed it in spite of shouts from the Russian guard on the barrier. The car in front took a side turning, but Edberg went straight on.

"There you are," said Ackermann, "we're through. Nothing to get windy about."

A light came through the rear window—the headlight of something following them—then the roar of a motorcycle engine and the sound of a horn, commanding, insistent, repeated. Claussen came out of his corner and, leaning heavily on Hambledon as though he had been put there for an arm rest, looked back out of the rear window.

"Soldier on a motorcycle," he reported. "Got a sub-machine gun on the handle bars."

Edberg, who had instinctively eased a little and pulled in to let an overtaking vehicle pass, uttered a moan of terror and put his foot down hard on the accelerator. The car leapt forward; there was one more warning hoot from behind and then a burst of machine-gun fire from the following motorcycle. The back window of the car was shattered, fragments of glass flew about, and Claussen uttered a surprised grunt and fell on Hambledon.

"Anybody hurt?" asked Gruiter.

"Claus," said Ackermann briefly. He turned round, rested his hand on the back of the seat, and fired several shots from Hambledon's automatic at the motorcyclist. He could hardly miss, the man was by then only ten yards behind. There was a slithering crash and then silence.

"Got him," said Ackermann in a satisfied voice.

"You blasted fool," said Gruiter furiously, "they'll have us all for this! Ed, take the next turning off wherever it goes."

Hambledon had wriggled sufficiently free of Claussen to undo his coat buttons and get ready to jump. This could not last.

Another single headlight, coming to meet them this time.

"Another soldier," wailed Edberg, "with a——"

"Down here!" snapped Gruiter.

The car braked so violently that Ackermann shot forward against Gruiter; Claussen rolled off Hambledon and back into his corner as Edberg took a corner on two wheels with a horrible crunch of a front wing against a wall. He got round only to be faced with an impassable barrier of rubble almost across the street. The car tilted sickeningly, slowed, turned, and rammed the opposite wall.

Edberg was out almost before the car stopped, over the rubble and away. Gruiter and Ackermann were almost as quick. Hambledon sprang out after them as the motorcyclist turned at the end of the street and his headlight lit up the scene. Hambledon was hardly out of the car when a figure dodged from behind and seized him by the hand.

"This way, mister——"

"Frett!"

"Come on."

They ran up the slope of rubble into the ruined house from which it came and immediately slipped and rolled into a large hole. A cellar, in fact, open to the sky. Frett was on his feet at once.

"Hurt, mister? Come on, run!"

Tommy picked himself up and staggered after the boy, who appeared to be able to see in the dark. They were in a passage of some kind; at the end of it Frett stopped.

"Down here. There's a hole in the floor and a ladder going down. Kneel down and feel for it. Got it? That's right. I'll go first."

Hambledon felt the edge of a square hole and, within it, the top rung of an iron ladder fixed to one side and descending vertically.

"Nothing," he said, aloud and in English, "could equal my distaste for—-"

In the distance by the way they had come he heard suddenly the voice of the soldier, shouting: "Come out or I fire," or words to that effect. The threat was idle because he could not possibly see them, but it made up Hambledon's mind for him.

"Except going back to meet you," he concluded, and climbed down the ladder after Frett.

5. THE BLIND MAN

They were in a tunnel, a round tunnel such as receive and deliver underground railway trains, but not nearly so large. This one was only about five feet in diameter and Tommy walked along it with his head bent and his arms outstretched to touch the side walls. His feet sank in a couple of inches of soft mud and the smell was unseemly.

"Frett. What is this?"

"It used to be a sewer, but they don't use it now."

"I should hope not!"

"It comes out—careful, there's an opening on your left—in a yard. We'll have to mind we aren't seen there, and then it's only to cross a road and we're out of the Russian zone. I say, mister?"

"What?"

"Is this worth ten marks?"

"It's worth twenty," said Hambledon, "or it will be when we get out of this smell."

Frett laughed and plodded on.

"I say, mister?"

"Well?"

"Was any of that lot killed?"

"Claussen was. The others got away. Which reminds me, Frett, how did the shooting come to miss you? You were in the luggage boot, of course."

"They left it open when they drove off in such a tear, so I hopped on."

"Yes, but when the firing started——"

"I lay down flat. Mister, I went so flat I nearly pushed myself through the floor. Mister, you could have posted me in a letter box, honest."

Hambledon wondered whether the Russian soldier had seen the boy and mercifully aimed high; it seemed most probable, as otherwise it would be more natural to aim at the tank or the back tyres. If so, he had deserved a better fate than being shot by Ackermann.

"We're nearly there," said Frett, and Hambledon sighed with relief. A few more heavy paces and Frett stopped.

"Here's the ladder. Look up, you can see the light. I'll go first and see if there's anyone about, see, 'cause I know where to look. You come on after but not too close, I might have to dodge back."

But there was no one about and they emerged in a yard almost full of handbarrows.

"What the workers clear the roads with," explained Frett. "This way."

They came out on an unfrequented road and, since the Russians cannot possibly watch every yard of their zonal frontier, they crossed it unobserved and stepped out more freely. Frett sniffed.

"Mister," he said with awful frankness, "don't you stink!"

"You're no bunch of orchids yourself," said Hambledon indignantly. "Like to come to my hotel and have a bath, Frett?"

"What, me? They'd throw me out!"

"Oh no, they wouldn't!"

"No, mister, thank you very much. Frau Muller's got my water hot anyway; it is Saturday night. No, mister, I'd rather not, honest."

Hambledon did not insist.

"By the way, Frett, why call me 'mister' all the time? What's 'mein Herr' done that you don't like him?"

"Because you're English," said Frett simply. "That's right, isn't it? What you say in England?"

"And what d'you say to Americans?"

"Hiya, bud!"

"And when it's a Frenchman?"

"I've never met one. Look, mister—mein Herr—there's your hotel. I'll get along now."

Hambledon gave him twenty marks which Frett accepted with some dignity, for he had certainly earned them.

"And when you want me, mister, I'll be round about Sachs' place."

"Frett. Be very careful about those men. They're looking out for you. They said so. They meant to get you tonight, and only one of them is dead. Be careful tonight and meet me at Sachs' at twelve tomorrow."

"Auf Wiedersehen, mein Herr."

Hambledon returned to his hotel and, since there was no one about, went behind the reception desk to remove his shoes. The porter came out from the back regions somewhere and asked whether he could, perhaps, help the Herr in some way.

"I'm not drunk, if that's what you're thinking——"

"No, no, mein Herr——"

"But I appear to have trodden in something."

The porter bent forward impulsively and drew back as quickly.

"The Herr does, indeed, seem to have met with some kind of misfortune."

"They are good shoes," said Hambledon thoughtfully. "Normally, that is. Perhaps if they were scraped and then scrubbed and then well aired——"

He put his hand in his pocket to draw out some money and the porter took the hint.

"Leave them with me, mein Herr. They shall receive attention."

"I can go up in my socks," said Hambledon, stepping back, "if you'll take me up in the lift. Oh, Lord! My socks too!"

"And the Herr's trousers also," said the porter with lively curiosity. "The Herr would appear at some point to have taken the wrong turning."

"You may say that I was regrettably misled. About these things——"

"I will go with the Herr to his room and he shall give me such things as require attention. They shall be returned tomorrow if that is convenient."

Hambledon said that it was and led the way to the lift with long strides. He was understandably anxious not to meet any of his fellow guests. The porter waited upstairs while he removed everything he wore, except his vest which seemed to have escaped contamination, and then took away the offending garments.

"I do not wish to be called early tomorrow," said Hambledon. "I expect to spend most of the night having a series of baths."

The porter wished him good refreshment and left the room. The bath water was already running before he shut the door. He went down in the lift, sent off the second bootboy, protesting vainly, to the all-night cleaners, and had hardly returned to his desk when the revolving doors spun round to admit a detective-inspector of police and his sergeant.

"The Herr Hambledon is staying here, is he?"

"Certainly, gentlemen."

"Does he happen to be in?"

"Certainly he is. He came in a quarter of an hour ago and is now in his room."

"You are quite sure?"

"Quite sure," said the porter firmly. "I have myself only just returned from taking him up to his room."

"Taking him up. Why, is he hurt or ill? You have an automatic lift here, I think."

"The Herr was not ill," said the porter hesitantly.

"I will go up myself and see him," said the detective-inspector decidedly. "What is his number and on which floor?"

"He won't want to see you just now. He is having a bath. Several baths."

"What is all this?"

"The Herr said he must have trodden in something. I have just sent his suit, his socks, and shoes to the cleaners. I think the Herr is given to understatement."

"Like that, was it? Take me up. I must see him."

The porter shrugged his shoulders in a resigned manner and took them up. There was a sound of rushing water, Hambledon was just running in his second bath as the porter knocked at the door.

"Go away!" shouted Hambledon, but the porter said it was the police and the detective-inspector added that he was most unhappy at disturbing the Herr but that he had had definite orders to make sure that the Herr was safe and well.

"Of course I'm well. I'm having a bath. I'll come round and see you in the morning." Hambledon turned off the taps. The detective-inspector said in an apologetic voice that his orders were to see Hambledon, literally see him with his own eyes; and two or three of the other hotel guests gathered hopefully in the corridor. The porter noticed them.

"Mein Herr," he said imploringly with his mouth against the keyhole, "there is a crowd which begins to assemble. The good name of the hotel——"

"Oh, hell!" said Tommy violently. He cast a bath towel about himself and opened the door wide enough to let the detective-inspector sidle in. "What on earth is all this fuss about?"

"From information received we were led to believe that the Herr had been abducted in a car with Eastern zone number plates."

"Who told you that?"

"A message was telephoned. A most circumstantial message that you were seen to be abducted by four men, names given."

"The names were known to you?"

"Certainly, mein Herr. The men are being diligently sought for."

"Did you know the voice?"

They did not. It was a young voice, probably a boy's or even a girl's.

Hambledon remembered having warned Frett against Gruiter and his friends. If this was Frett's idea of removing the danger, there was no need to be anxious about him. He could look after himself very capably indeed.

"Yes, I see. It is all perfectly true. I was abducted by four men but, as you see, they did not manage to keep me. Persevere in your search; I hope you find them. By the way, there are only three now, Claussen is dead."

"Leaving Gruiter, Ackermann, and Edberg. Is that right? Good. Has the Herr any idea where they are now?"

"I left them in the Russian zone but I shouldn't think they'll stay there. I don't know, they might. The Russians don't know who shot the soldier."

"Shot the sol—— The Herr has had quite an evening, has he not?"

"My regards to your superintendent," said Hambledon firmly. "I will tell him all about it in the morning."

The detective-inspector took the hint.

Two days later Spelmann came to Berlin in response to a summons from Hambledon.

"As I told you," he said, "I've identified the four, but I'm not sure that we're really much further on. Look at 'em. Claussen was a jewel thief when he was alive; Christian charity forbids me to speculate upon what he has now become. I mean, the devil looks after his own, doesn't he? Edberg, ex-chauffeur, is a car thief according to the police. Gruiter is an oddly inefficient burglar——"

"So the police say," said Spelmann. "I must point out that they only know about two cases in which he was involved. In the first he was markedly unlucky, for who expects to be chased along a street by a record-breaking quarter-miler? In the second case he was certainly careless; nobody ought to walk out of a house into the arms of a policeman. Do you not think, my dear Herr Hambledon, that it may have been a long run of successes which made him careless?"

"Fingerprints at Königswinter," said Hambledon reminiscently. "Still, you may be right. Perhaps he just has his off days. Ackermann is a thug, and I would add 'pure and simple' if I were not so sure that he is neither. Spelmann, what sent that bunch of petty crooks travelling all the way to the Rhineland to steal aircraft designs?"

"Somebody sent them," said Spelmann, nodding until his white hair stood up like the crest of a cockatoo.

"If they are caught and brought in——" said Hambledon.

"We shall be no further on," finished Spelmann. "The Herr is quite right. They must be watched for and followed. I will speak to the police to that effect."

"They know me by sight," said Hambledon. "Gruiter and company, I mean."

"Yes, but they don't know me."

"They may have seen your photograph. That article in that picture paper, the Frankfurter Illustrieite——"

"A blunder," agreed Spelmann, "a grave blunder. Not the article, which was carefully written to given an impression of the omniscience of the police and so to alarm the criminals, but the photograph. Mein Herr, I absolutely forbade a photograph and when I saw the article I was furiously angry, but what could I do then?"

"Too late. Photographs are the devil," said Hambledon feelingly. "I have spent half my life dodging them. However, one must face the consequences. It is mainly your hair, you know. Could you not wear a hat? And use some of that fixative stuff so widely advertised?"

Spelmann smiled. "I thought you were going to ask me to have my hair cropped, and I do not wish to do that. You are quite right. I will attend to the matter."

Hambledon nodded. "One thing more. If these men are not to be arrested, the boy Frett should be got away. He is not safe here."

"He has brains and a quick intelligence, from what you tell me, but what can one do with a boy who will not go to school?"

"I've been talking to him and I gather that it's being a boarder he doesn't like. If he had work of some kind during the day he would attend night school. He is ambitious. After all, boarding schools are rather like nice clean prisons, aren't they?"

"Is he honest?" asked Spelmann bluntly, and Hambledon hesitated.

"He has that reputation, so Sachs the cobbler tells me, but it may be only because he has not been found out. But if I explained to him that one little theft would ruin his career for ever and ever and that he would sink back into the gutter and end in misery and crime, it might do some good."

"You talk to him again," said Spelmann. "Then, if you think he means to make good, we will find him employment in Bonn."

"I'll see him this afternoon," said Hambledon.

Later that day he passed in the street a short, sturdy figure whose walk and general outline were familiar to him but the abundant white hair was no longer in evidence. It was brushed sleekly back and covered by a blue beret drawn well down; the bright alert eyes were masked by tinted glasses with broad tortoise-shell rims. Spelmann was not unrecognizable by anyone who knew him well, but he was very unlike the photograph in the Frankfurter Illustrierre.

The police had received orders not to arrest three wanted men but to shadow them. A couple of days passed, and there was no sign of any of the three.

"They have gone to earth," said the chief of police, "in some cellar and will stay there till they think the hunt has died down. We shall get them eventually."

"They know the police, plain-clothes branch and all," said Spelmann privately to Hambledon. "When a policeman comes into view they just vanish and appear again when he is gone. What is needed is for one of them to be seen by someone they do not recognize." He took a comb from his breast pocket, smoothed down his already sleek hair, and replaced his beret.

"Provided they have not remained in the Russian zone," said Hambledon, "voluntarily or otherwise." He occupied some of the waiting time by arranging for a friend of his to take a rather subdued Frett to Cologne and find him employment where he would be looked after. "Go with this Herr," said Hambledon. "Take the work he finds for you and stick to it. Go to evening classes and get yourself educated. Learn languages. Behave yourself and keep out of mischief. I will come and see you when I leave here. Don't let me down. Good-bye."

In the end it was Spelmann who was the first to see one of the men, and it was Gruiter, the most easily recognized because of the police photographs and description. Spelmann was wandering vaguely along; there are so many who wander vaguely in a city where a quarter of the working population are unemployed. It was towards evening, at the time when twilight is falling but the lamps are not yet lighted in the streets. Gruiter came out of an alley, looked cautiously about him, and went on ahead of Spelmann, who followed unconcernedly after him. Gruiter turned into a small shop which sold picture post cards, newspapers, writing materials, and a few cheap novels, and the door shut behind him.

Spelmann waited. He was prepared to wait for hours if necessary, but in less than ten minutes the door opened again and a woman, whom he correctly assumed to be the shopkeeper, came out helping a blind man down the three steep steps to the pavement. The blind man thanked her; she returned to the shop, and he set off slowly along the street, tapping the pavement edge with his white stick.

"Almost he fooled me," said Spelmann to Hambledon, later that evening. "He was wearing a hat instead of a cap, very dark glasses, and an overcoat, but he had not changed his trousers or his boots. So I followed. It was easy, as he went slowly. Also, I think his glasses—they looked almost black—really did make it hard for him to see plainly, for at one crossing he stepped in front of a car and was nearly run over. Someone dragged him back and a kind policeman helped him across the road."

Hambledon laughed.

"I did not notice the policeman's number," said Spelmann. "My own district is very far away and I have some tact. Gruiter went on till he reached a café, one of those places with tables outside, not actually on the pavement but only divided from it by a railing. A terrace, perhaps; it was one step higher than the pavement. There was a girl sitting at a table against the railing; when she saw Gruiter coming she ran out and led him in, back to her table. I also felt that it would be pleasant to sit, but I could not get very near them so I sat where I could see them, if I could not hear. I also was against the railings. There was another man watching them from across the road, he was there when Gruiter and I arrived, so he was presumably watching the girl."

"Just a moment," said Hambledon. "I gather the café terrace was fairly full, how then did you know which of the assembled company he was watching?"

"Because of what followed later, mein Herr."

"I beg your pardon. Tell me about him."

"I shall know him again. A thin young man who coughed frequently and bent forwards when he did so. One would say that the cough hurt him. He was neatly and warmly dressed, but he was hollow-chested and his shoulders came forward. His face also was thin, the bones showed under the skin; he had high cheekbones and a heavy frontal bar above his eyes like the busts of Beethoven. You know what I mean?"

"Perfectly. I should almost recognize him myself."

"Good. It may be useful."

Spelmann said that Gruiter, as a blind man, acted very well. The girl helped him with his coffee, putting it within easy reach and guiding his fingers to the cup; when he was talking to her he did not always look straight towards her but sometimes over one or other of her shoulders. He was very careful how he moved. One would say that he had not been blind long.

"Those dark glasses," suggested Hambledon.

"Exactly, mein Herr. He had only suffered from this affliction—what—perhaps twenty minutes." They were talking earnestly together; as they did so the girl rested her elbow upon the top of the rail and leaned her cheek upon her hand. "She was wearing a ring, mein Herr, and what a ring! It was large and heavy; she wore it upon her middle finger. There was an elaborate setting, and one large diamond. Such a diamond! It was like a car head lamp."

"Really, Spelmann! A duchess in disguise?"

"I may, perhaps, exaggerate a little," admitted Spelmann. "I cannot imagine a duchess being of the type which this girl represented, but perhaps I have an old-fashioned respect for rank. I call her a girl, but she was not very young and I have seldom seen such a hard face. I looked at her and said to myself that if she had a pet name it ought to be Tigerin."

"You don't seem to have been attracted."

"Presently an old man came wandering along the pavement; very old, very feeble, very bent. An animated rag bag and not very animated. One would say the spark of life burned low in him."

"Oh, get on, Spelmann!"

"At the moment when he came level with her table she had her hand resting on the rail and the ring came, so to speak, under his eyes. He stopped and stared at it closely; she noticed it and took her hand away. He put his arm over the rail, took hold of her wrist, and pulled her hand up to look again at the ring. She shook him off and spoke roughly to him, but all he did was to go back to the entrance, into the terrace, and along to her table. He passed near me, mein Herr; he was muttering to himself, I could not understand what he said because he was not speaking German."

"What was it?"

"Russian or Polish. I can hardly tell them apart. He was animated enough then. One would have thought the ring some magic talisman to give him new life. He reached their table and addressed them in German. Simple German, such as one speaks who has learned it late in life. 'That ring. It is not yours. It is stolen. You have stolen it.'"

"Probably quite true."

"So I thought. The woman denied it, covering the ring with her other hand, and Gruiter stood up and said the old man was drunk. He poked at the old man with his white stick, saying: 'Go away! You are drunk. You annoy the lady,' poking at him all the time. People were turning round and standing up to look. I also. Suddenly the old man collapsed into the chair Gruiter had been sitting on and laid his head on the table, and, at that, the woman seized Gruiter by the hand and pulled him away. She threw down a note on the table so nobody tried to stop them and they hurried away. It was at this point that I was sure the young man across the road was interested in them and none other, for the moment they began to make their way out he straightened up; when they came out upon the pavement he moved forward; and when they walked quickly away he hurried also, crossing the road to keep behind them. I also would have followed but that they were nearer the exit than I, and you know what it is trying to get out of a café when the tables and chairs are all disarranged. I had not gone far before a waiter arrived and spoke to the old man. He was not unkind. He said: 'Mein Herr, get up. It is not allowed, to sleep here,' and he pulled him back. Then the old man fell sideways over the arm of the chair like a doll of which the sawdust has run out."

6. THE RING

"Was he dead?" asked Hambledon.

"I did not like the look of him," said Spelmann, who was never to be diverted from his own way of telling a story. "I thought he had had a heart attack, but when he was withdrawn from the table there was a red stain upon the cloth and it was not a wine stain, mein Herr."

"Not even 'Dragon's Blood'? Had he been stabbed?"

"Shot. I went across to him and he was not dead. The police came and then an ambulance and he was taken to hospital."

"Shot. Did you hear it?"

"No. That is, there was a good deal of noise and all the time there had been corks popping occasionally. I did not hear anything of which I could say to myself: 'Heinrich, that was a shot.'"

"Do you know which hospital they took him to?"

"Yes," said Spelmann, and named it.

"Come on," said Hambledon.

When they reached the hospital they interviewed the surgeon whose patient the old man was.

"To be frank with you," said the surgeon, "I don't think a lot of his chances, though the bullet wound is not really serious. It went through his side and out again, chipping one rib but not penetrating the lung. If he were a younger man he would be out again in a week, but he is very old and very tired, also he has been half starved for some time. He is wandering in his mind and he talks to himself or, perhaps, to people who are not there."

"What does he say?" asked Hambledon eagerly.

"Can you speak Polish? I can't."

"Oh, dear. I suppose he hasn't got any papers?"

"Oh yes, he has. All present and correct. His name is Karas. Apparently he has drifted here from Poland. He is illiterate and was here for some time before he learned that there was a refugee organization he could apply to for help. The police told me all this. He has been before the Committee and was to have gone again tomorrow. They think he will get official recognition but whether they'll get him out of Berlin is more doubtful. These refugees have to be flown out, you know, and there are many citizens more useful than poor old Karas awaiting transport. Still, he'll be looked after."

"May we see him?"

"You can go and look at him, certainly; I'll take you along myself. There is another case in that ward I want to have a look at before I pack up for the night. But you won't be able to talk to him, he'll have had a sedative and I hope he's asleep. Whether he is or not, I won't have him disturbed."

"Did he," asked Spelmann, "have anything else in his pockets besides his official identity papers which, I suppose, the Refugee Committee gave him?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said the surgeon. "If he had, they'll be in his locker. The ward Sister will know, or ought to."

They stood beside the narrow bed in which the old man lay; his hair, his face, and the grey blankets were only slightly different tones of the same colour. He was deeply asleep, his mouth a little open and the wrinkled eyelids sunken over his eyes.

"Poor old man," said the young nurse who had been bidden to escort Hambledon and Spelmann. "He'll look better tomorrow when he's had a shave."

"You think he'll get over it?"

The nurse lifted her shoulders. "He's had a shock, of course, and he's very frail, but it's wonderful how tough some old people are. He's got every chance here."

"I'm sure of that," said Hambledon. "The Herr Chirurg Weissmuller said that we might see whatever he had in his pockets."

"Precious little," said the nurse. "A few photographs. No letters, no money, no tobacco." She unlocked the bedside cupboard and gave them what had once been an expensive crocodile-leather wallet, now in the last stages of decrepitude and held together by a piece of string. Hambledon opened it to find some half-dozen photographs mounted on card, professional photographs rubbed and faded with age but still clear. There was an immensely imposing figure of a man in an elaborate uniform covered with orders. He stood stiffly against a pillar and his hand was on his sword. Another showed a lady in full evening dress with necklace, tiara, bracelets, and rings on her fingers. She sat with great dignity in a stiff armchair but her face was kind. Across the back of this was written: "Mikhail. Christmas 1921," in a pointed, educated hand.

"That was never him?" said Spelmann in an awestruck voice, referring to the personage by the pillar.

"Oh no," said Hambledon, "he's illiterate, don't you remember? These are Master and Mistress, I expect. Is his name Mikhail? Let's look—yes, that's right. Mikhail Karas. Here's the family castle, no doubt. Gosh, it's as big as Ehrenbreitstein and much older. Much. Here's a group of the staff all seemly disposed on the grand staircase in order of seniority; scullions on the extreme left, under-housemaids on the extreme right, and who's this in the middle?" Hambledon took a small magnifying glass from his pocket. "Yes, here we are, I'd take a bet on it. Poor old Mikhail Karas, in person, dressed up in a tail coat all over gold lace and dignity. The butler, I fancy. Look for yourself."

Spelmann looked and nodded, ran his eyes along the orderly ranks of servants, and uttered a subdued exclamation.

"What is it?"

"That man there—a footman, is he?—he's the young man with the cough who followed Gruiter and the woman this evening."

Hambledon took the photograph back.

"Yes, I see. Just as you described him. Not a face which would alter much from the cradle to the grave. This is damned odd. They must have known each other in the old days. I wonder whether——"

He stopped, for Spelmann was showing him a photograph he had not yet seen. It was of the young footman alone in the glory of a creaseless livery with a self-conscious smirk upon his face. Across the corner was written: "Your loving son."

"His son," said Hambledon. "His son? Yet, when the poor old boy is struck down, the young Karas doesn't even cross the road to see if he's ill?" He looked down at the sleeping man. "What a damned rotten—I suppose he saw what happened?"

"He might not have done," said Spelmann. "Gruiter was standing up and so was the woman; they would mask this man from view. Also, there were passers-by and traffic. Then, when they went away, this poor man only looked as though he were sitting down; unhappy, perhaps, but not obviously hurt. No, if young Karas' errand were urgent enough, I doubt if he would think it necessary to abandon it."

"No, perhaps not. I may be doing him an injustice. But, when he hears what has happened, will he not come here, Spelmann?"

"We will make the necessary arrangements," said Spelmann. "There is one more photograph, is there not?"

"Only a small boy on a pony. The son of the house?"

"Any name on the back?"

Hambledon deciphered the inscription with difficulty, for the ink was faded and the lights in the ward were dimmed for the night.

"Paul Alexis Rudolph Patro—no, Pastolsky, aged ten. Quite a—— What's the matter?" For Spelmann had uttered a wordless grunt and stood staring with his mouth open as though he had seen a ghost.

"Pastolsky—you are sure it is Pastolsky?"

Hambledon went nearer a light and spelt it out carefully.

"Yes, that's right. Why?"

"Did I not tell you——No, evidently not. Pastolsky was the name of General Knipe's Polish cousins."

"Didn't know he had any!"

"Oh, yes. His mother was a Pastolsky and he could speak Polish, naturally. That is why he was employed in Poland; and I daresay he made an opportunity of protecting his cousins as far as he could."

Hambledon put the photographs back in the wallet, tied it up again, and looked round for the young nurse who had tactfully retired to a distance. She came up, smiling, and Hambledon gave her the packet to lock up again.

"I know you'd take great care of him, whoever he was. But he is a good old man, I believe. He once held a position of great trust and he treasures the souvenirs of it. It is sad to see him lying like this, in a casual ward."

"Poor old boy," she said. "We'll do all we can, be sure of that. Will you be coming again?"

"Oh yes," said Hambledon, "and I hope you'll be on duty when we do."

She laughed softly and motioned them away. Hambledon took Spelmann by the arm and led him out of the ward with long strides, down the stairs, and out into the street. Spelmann began to say something but Hambledon hushed him imperatively. "Just a moment, if you don't mind. I'm trying to work it out."

They hurried through the streets to Hambledon's hotel; dinner was long over but they were served with sandwiches and beer in a quiet corner of the deserted dining room. As soon as the waiter had gone out of earshot Hambledon, with a sandwich in one hand and a pint pot in the other, leaned across the table.

"Listen, Spelmann. Let me retell the story as far as we know or can guess. Stop me if I go wrong. Renzow lives at Königswinter; he is an aircraft designer. General Knipe is—was—his brother-in-law. General Knipe's mother was a Pastolsky. The Pastolskys live in Poland in a castle and in a style suitable to royalty. We have seen tonight a photograph showing some of their jewels. All right so far? Good. General Knipe was in Poland towards the end of the war, until the Army he commanded fell back upon Berlin before the advancing Russians. Sometime when they first arrived in Berlin, Knipe gets leave and goes to Renzow at Königswinter, where the first thing he does is to go to Bonn and buy a hulking great safe which he has installed in Renzow's house. Now tell me what was kept in Renzow's safe."

"The Pastolsky jewels."

"Or some of them. Edberg was General Knipe's batman-chauffeur. If he drove the car when Knipe went on leave, or even before—or both—he must at the very least have known that something precious was being carried. It would not be left unguarded for a moment, for example. Besides, I expect he helped to carry them in, and no doubt the Pastolsky jewels were well known. No, on second thoughts, he wasn't perfectly sure that the boxes or what-have-you contained jewels; that was why Claussen was invited to join the party. He could give them the once-over. Well?"

"Go on," said Spelmann, nodding his head like a mandarin. "Go on."

"One step at a time. There were no jewels in the safe when we saw it——"

"And there was something Anna Knipe was not willing to tell me. I said so at the time," said Spelmann.

"You did. So those four scoundrels got away with the jewels. What did they do with them?"

"Bring them to Berlin?" said Spelmann in a doubtful voice. "Through the Russian controls on the Berlin highway?"

"I wouldn't," said Hambledon, "would you? But they brought some of them along to go on with, for I think you saw one of them tonight."

"The ring that wretched harpy of a woman was wearing," said Spelmann. "Du lieber Gott, if they are all like that the whole collection is worth a king's ransom. This, of course, is where the Karas men come into it."

"Yes. I suppose Karas junior recognized it on her finger and followed her to that café. Then Karas senior comes mooning along and also sees it and recognizes it and makes a fuss, and rightly in my opinion. No wonder young Karas was so taken up with the woman that he didn't notice poor Father sitting down with a bump in the chair. Even if he did, he may have thought that Father could wait; probably they live somewhere near that café since they were both in that street, though not together. When he gets home and finds Father hasn't——" Hambledon's voice died away.

"You mean, if he gets home. Gruiter and that awful woman——"

"And Edberg and Ackermann. Especially Ackermann," said Hambledon thoughtfully.

"By the way," said Spelmann, "we never left word at the hospital to let us know if young Karas came to see his father. That was what I was about to say when we were leaving."

"And I shut you up. I'm sorry. In the excitement of the moment I forgot all about it and I wouldn't have gone back then, anyway. We can ring them up in the morning, first thing. It will do just as well. If he doesn't come——"

"We shall, at least, know who is responsible."

Hambledon shrugged his shoulders. "Don't you think," he said in a lighter tone, "that your tigress woman was a great fool to wear a ring like that so openly? There are plenty of people in Berlin, or anywhere else, who'd cut her throat for a tenth of its value by your description."

"She may not have believed it to be real. I myself wondered. That showy stuff which looks so opulent, what do they call it? Costume jewellery, is it not? Too big to be true. Or perhaps she had not had it long and could not forbear to wear it. Who knows? They say women are like that."

The two bachelors shook their heads solemnly over the vagaries of women and sent their pint pots to be refilled.

"And now, Spelmann, what becomes of your aircraft designs?"

"I expect they were duds, after all," said Spelmann sorrowfully. "She said so. Anna Knipe, I mean."

"I think it will be necessary to try to make sure. Perhaps she will talk now we know what she was hiding up. Or Renzow may recover consciousness."

"He had not, when I came away. Where are the jewels, mein Herr?"

"You tell me," urged Hambledon.

But when Hambledon rang up the hospital as early in the morning as he thought seemly, he was told that Mikhail Karas had died in his sleep during the night.

"Oh dear. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. By the way, I hate bothering you, but if any of his relatives come to see him I particularly want to speak to them. I believe he has a son in Berlin and I—what? Already been? Just gone. How very unfortunate."

The ward Sister explained that a young man came to enquire about Mikhail Karas. Asked if he were any relative, the young man said that he was the old man's son. Asked to prove it, he said there was a photograph of himself in his father's wallet. The likeness was so unmistakable that he was instantly believed, and the sad news was broken to him. He saw the body in the mortuary, said again that that was his father, and made arrangements for the funeral. He then went away, taking the wallet with him. No, not long ago; about half an hour perhaps. No, he had left no address.

"So we've missed him," said Hambledon to Spelmann.

"Yes. But we have now a number of people to look for; all of whom we shall recognize if we see them, and any one of whom will give us a lead to the others. Gruiter, Edberg, Ackermann, the tigress woman, and young Karas, who probably knows where to lay his hands on them after following them yesterday."

"Laying his hands on them is probably what he is trying to do," said Hambledon grimly, "and not in the way of kindness, either."

"My money's on the others," said Spelmann with a sigh. "Four to one, and the one a consumptive if I am not mistaken."

"Perhaps he'll attend the funeral," said Hambledon hopefully. "We will do so ourselves."

They did, but only two or three poor neighbours followed the coffin through a depressing downpour of rain. One of them was the old woman whose lodger Mikhail Karas had been; Hambledon spoke to her after the service.

"He was a good old man who had seen better days," she said. "He was considerate and gave no trouble. He used to tell me long stories about the great castle and his master's family. He said they were all dead, mein Herr, and that it was time that he died too and went to serve them in heaven." She wiped her eyes. "He was very simple in heart; he would have been proud to think that a gnadig Herr such as yourself should have followed him to the grave."

"But his son," said Hambledon, "did he not live with him?"

"Oh no, mein Herr. The son does not live in Berlin. I do not know where he lives. Somewhere far away. He came to see my poor old lodger two or three times this last week, but he was not lodging with us. He is in bad health, mein Herr. He is a consumptive. He was in a concentration camp where he almost died, but some kind German friends got him out. His father told me about it many times—how his son would have died if it had not been for his good friends. The young man paid for the funeral, of course—the undertaker's men told me so—and I expected to see him here. I do not know why he is not here. One would naturally expect it."

"Naturally," agreed Hambledon. "Do you know where the son is staying in Berlin?"

"No, mein Herr. They spoke much together, but in Polish, which I do not understand. He came to see his father early in the morning of the day after he had been taken to hospital, and I told the young man what had happened and where his father was. He rushed away and I have not seen or heard of him since, if it please the Herr."

It did not please the Herr at all, but there was nothing he could do but take her address and ask her to let him know if young Karas should come back. "Here is my card and the address of my hotel," said Hambledon. "If he should return, implore him to come and see me. I want to help him and I believe I can."

But Karas never returned to his father's lodgings or appeared anywhere else. The woman with the ring was seen no more; and as for Gruiter, Ackermann, and Edberg, they might never have existed.

"If she's gone into the Russian sector we may never find her," said Hambledon. "But she may have met with some accident—"

"Or with Karas, with the same result," said Spelmann.

"At least Karas is not in any hospital here, or we should have been told."

"He may be at the bottom of a well."

"I'm not going round Berlin dragging wells," said Hambledon irritably, "but I don't mind visiting a few hospitals. You'll have to come too. You can recognize her."

"No one seems to know her in Berlin," objected Spelmann. "It is true that her description would fit several hundred women, but a woman of that sort is usually known in her district and, besides, there is the ring."

"You don't suppose she has still got it, do you?"

"Why not, if she has gone back to wherever she came from?"

"I know, now, why Job was so justly renowned for his patience! It wasn't on account of his sufferings but for the way he put up with his friends. You are Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all rolled into one. Come on, exercise is good for you."

They went to see Weissmuller again, the surgeon who had treated Mikhail Karas, and told him that they were looking for a woman whose name, address, and detailed description were unknown.

"You don't know much, do you?" said the amused surgeon.

"Only that she's a shocking bad lot and the associate of criminals."

"Such women usually end up in a hospital ward," agreed the surgeon. "If she isn't in one yet she probably will be one of these days. Look, I'll ring up the ward Sister in the women's ward here and she'll let you walk round. If you don't find your woman, come back here in not more than twenty minutes, for I can't wait for you."

She was not there, and they returned to the surgeon's room to find him putting on his overcoat.

"Just in time. I am now going to a hospital for women only, staffed by nuns. You can follow me round the wards, but for God's sake keep your mouths shut. You'll see why, in a minute."

They were whirled away in the surgeon's car to another hospital, a tall, patched-up building behind a high wall. Weissmuller pulled up the car with a jerk, sending the gravel flying, and leapt out of the car with Hambledon and Spelmann hurrying after.

"This is a place where unattached males are definitely not allowed. Even attached ones are only admitted on sufferance, and subject to the most stringent precautions. Don't ask me why. I'm only a poor innocent sawbones." He led the way in at a side door and ran up a flight of stone stairs into a small room, shutting the door behind them. "You two will put on white coats and follow me round, looking as intelligent as possible but not uttering a word, for if you give me away there'll be hell to pay. Here are your coats. Put them on."

They did so while the surgeon sat at his desk and ran rapidly through a series of reports. Hambledon did not look much like a doctor, but what does a doctor look like? Spelmann was much more convincing in the part. There was a stethoscope on a shelf and he asked if he could borrow it.

"What, that? Oh, yes. It's waiting to be sent away to be repaired, anyway; I don't suppose you'll damage it much more."

Spelmann arranged it carefully in the breast pocket of his white coat after the official manner. They started with the accident ward; the surgeon said that that was his usual practice and they'd better stick to it. Weissmuller looked hard at them at the last moment and said: "Unmoved expressions, please, gentlemen. Kindly and alert, but unmoved." He walked in and they followed meekly after.

The first three or four cases they saw—and they had to look attentively—proved the warning necessary. Hambledon found a remedy and whispered it to Spelmann, who was turning delicately green.

"Throw your eyes out of focus, then you won't see much. And don't scowl!"

Even so, towards the end of the ward they both turned away from one bed and engaged in a whispered consultation a couple of yards away. Spelmann's eyes wandered over the half-dozen beds remaining and stopped at the one in the corner.

"That's her," he said. "Look, Hambledon, that's the one."

7. AIR-GUN

Hambledon waited until Weissmuller turned away from the case with which he had been dealing and then went up to him and spoke in an undertone. "We've found her. The last bed on the left."

"Assault case," murmured the surgeon. "I wondered, before I brought you here. Just a moment. We'll take the ward Sister into her office and explain matters. Sister Francisca!"

Once inside the Sister's little room, one wall of which was of glass so that she could see into the ward at all times, Weissmuller laid the matter open. "I have been guilty, Sister, of a small deception. These gentlemen are not students of surgery, they are high officers of Criminal Investigation."

A gleam of humour lit up the Sister's calm face. "Your little deception was not entirely successful, Herr Chirurg. I recognized the defective stethoscope."

"You are very good, Sister——"

"I was sure that your motive was above reproach."

"Thank you," said Weissmuller. "I was anxious to avoid any excitement or talk; if these gentlemen had not found the woman they sought they would have gone quietly away and no comment would have been caused. It is the assault case in the end bed. Look, you won't want me, I'll get on with my round." He went away and they saw him pass along the ward.

"What is her name, please, madame?" asked Hambledon.

"Have you come to arrest her?"

"Oh, no. Unless she has done something of which the police are ignorant. No, I want her to tell me something, that is all. If I may talk to her privately for a little while, that is all I want."

"May I ask if the case is really serious?"

"It is murder and she knows the man who did it."

The Sister bent her head, crossed herself, and immediately became brisk and businesslike. She took a loose-leaf file from a shelf and turned over the pages.

"This is she. Do you wish to take notes? Here is a pad if you care to use it. Theresa Zingel, aged thirty-four. She was brought in here late on Tuesday night, the day before yesterday, by the police. She was found lying unconscious in the road. She had a dislocated elbow and two broken ribs, concussion of the brain, and extensive bruising generally distributed over the body. There is also some injury to the spine which may be serious."

Spelmann whistled under his breath and Hambledon said: "Badly beaten up. Was she wearing a ring when she was brought here?"

"No. Some trumpery earrings, but no ring."

"Can she talk?" asked Spelmann.

"Oh, yes. That is, she can speak without the least difficulty, but she will not give any account of herself or of her assailant. She would not even give her name or address but the police found the room in which she lived, and they brought her identity papers here. I understand——" The Sister checked herself and became silent.

"I can get that information from the police, madame," said Hambledon quickly, and she thanked him. "Now, if we might talk to her—it is not very private here——"

"I will have screens put round the bed; it is surprising how they muffle sound," said the Sister. "If you speak quietly you will not be overheard."

Five minutes later Hambledon and Spelmann were sitting on either side of the high bed and Theresa Zingel looked from one to the other with open defiance. She moved her head and her arms easily enough, but there was a complete immobility about the lower half of her body which should have aroused sympathy but did not.

"Your name," began Hambledon, "is Theresa Zingel."

"Clever, aren't you?"

"Not particularly," said Hambledon, "but I know quite a lot."

"Then you don't need me to tell you."

"Where's your ring?"

"If you could tell me that," she said, "you might be more useful than you look."

"I know where it came from," said Hambledon. "Originally, I mean. Which of them gave it to you, was it Gruiter?"

She gave him a long hard stare and then said: "No."

"Or Karl Edberg? I don't think it was Ackermann, somehow. Ackie, you call him, don't you? I don't see Anders Claussen parting with a stone like that, he knows its value too well. Knows, I said, it should have been 'knew.' He's dead, you know, the Russians shot him."

"Who the devil are you?"

"Did you know Claussen was dead?"

After a pause she said: "Yes. Gruiter told me."

"In the café when he was playing at being blind?"

That struck right home; she gasped and lay back, pushing against the pillow as though she were trying to retire through it.

"Are you police?"

"No. Who beat you up?"

"I don't know his name. He said he was the old man's son, but I don't know."

"The consumptive," said Hambledon. "Where is he?"

She smiled, a slow secretive smile. "The regions beyond the grave are an insoluble mystery to mortal man. I heard that in a sermon once; it was the only bit of sense in the whole silly rigmarole."

Hambledon nodded. "All the same, what one hears at funerals seems to stick, doesn't it?"

The defiance vanished and was replaced by naked fear.

"How did you know——"

"Never mind. What did you tell the old man's son?"

"He wanted to know where the jewels were. I didn't know and he wouldn't believe me. I didn't know, I still don't. He took my ring and beat me. I fought him but he went on and on, but it wasn't the pain, it was when he said he'd tell about Belsen that I gave in. You know. Where they preached that sermon over the graves afterwards, and me standing there looking mournful with a handkerchief to my eyes. Were you there too? You must have been. Were you?"

"What did you tell him?"

"I gave him their address, where they lived. I wish I'd thought of it before, it 'ud have saved all this. Then I hit him in the throat and he began to cough, so I dodged him and ran out. I meant to telephone to them but I don't think I did. I can't remember any more, only being here with all them Holy Annies creeping about."

"What was the address?"

"I'm not telling you. You'll take the police there."

"What was the address?"

"I've forgotten."

"Oh, don't be silly," said Hambledon sharply. "I can talk, can't I, just as well as the old man's son?"

She collapsed at once. "I can't stand it," she whimpered, "being tried and standing up in front of everybody and people coming to swear lies about what I did. I had to do it, didn't I? You can't pick and choose——"

"What was the address?"

Strictly speaking, it was not an address in the ordinary sense, but detailed directions for finding one semi-basement room among ruins in a city largely composed of ruins with basement rooms under them. Spelmann made notes.

"And if I don't find it," said Hambledon, preparing to go, "you know what will happen to you, don't you?"

"They'll hang me and I can't run away—— Don't, don't. Why are you so cruel?"

"Cruel!" said Hambledon, and laughed. "That's good, from you. Come on, Spelmann."

They walked back through the ward; Weismuller had gone about his business but Sister Francisca was in her glass-walled office. Hambledon stopped and she came to the door.

"I only wished to thank you, madame."

"It is I who should thank you for your careful tact in coming dressed as you are. It was thoughtful and kind."

"Don't thank me," said Hambledon hastily. "I should not have thought of it; it was the Herr Chirurg Weissmuller who did that. I—that is—that woman—"

The Sister's tranquil look remained unaltered.

"That woman," Hambledon blundered on, "do you know anything about her? She ought not——"

The Sister's uplifted hand stopped him. "Please do not tell me, mein Herr. This is a place to which the sick come to be healed in body and that is the extent of my duty. Further than that I do not wish to know."

"You are wise as well as good, madame. Let me first offer one suggestion—do not let her talk to your young nuns. If she became confidential they might hear what would come between them and their prayers for the rest of their lives."

"Thank you," she said. "I will be careful. Though, do you think I have worked in this hospital for thirty years without learning to recognize evil when I see it?"

Hambledon and Spelmann bowed to her and went out, leaving their white coats in Weissmuller's room on their way.

"And the next step?" asked Spelmann. "You will not visit these three men unsupported?"

"Listen," said Hambledon patiently. "Do I remind you of Siegfried or St. George or even Douglas Fairbanks? Or do you take me for 'the portrait of a blinking idiot'? We will take with us an ample supply of large policemen. We are even now making for the head police station."

"Splendid," said Spelmann, and stepped out more confidently.

The entrance was down a flight of stone steps into a narrow area of a kind common in towns to provide light to basement rooms and a means of access to a tradesmen's entrance. There even remained some part of the railings which had once fenced off the unwary or unstable passer-by from an eight-foot drop. There was a door at the foot of the steps and a window beside it—the window was closely curtained.

Hambledon, Spelmann, a police sergeant, and three constables circled round the place and came to the back. Here they found a slope leading down to a back window, but no door; there were one or two rough steps cut in the slope.

"Emergency exit only," murmured Hambledon. The police sergeant gave a quiet order to two of his constables who slithered down the slope and took up their positions on either side of the window while the rest of the party returned to the front.

"Let us enquire," said Hambledon, "whether there is anyone at home." He moved toward the head of the steps but the police sergeant, politely begging to be excused the apparent rudeness, slipped in front of him and ran down the steps with his constable at his heels. They did not knock at the door, they turned the handle; the door opened and they went straight in, revolver in hand. There was a few moments' pause and then the police sergeant reappeared in the doorway and looked up at Hambledon and Spelmann on the steps.

"Nobody at home?" said Hambledon.

The police sergeant gulped, steadied his voice, and said, yes, in a sense, there was someone there. Hambledon pushed past him and entered the room with Spelmann close behind; as he did so the constable pulled back the curtain from the window and let a flood of daylight into the room. When he had done this he sidled out of the room, keeping his face to the wall as he did so, and distressed noises were heard from the passage outside.

There was a wooden armchair in the room and there was a man sitting in it. He could not fall out of the chair although he was quite dead, because he had been bound to it; his arms along the arms of the chair, his legs separately to the front chair legs, and there were, in addition, cords round his chest and the back of the chair. He had been comprehensively and disgustingly tortured.

"Young Karas?" said Hambledon, and stooped to look into the man's face, for his head hung forward. "No. Not Karas. Who is this poor devil?"

The police sergeant heard the question as he came into the room with a wooden face and a complete lack of expression. He also stooped over the body and said he was not sure but it might be Edberg. "One of my men knows him personally. I'll get him in."

Hambledon dragged down the window curtain to cover the body, leaving only the face exposed. One of the constables on duty at the back came in and identified the body as that of Karl Edberg.

"Quite sure?"

"No doubt at all, sir. I knew him well."

"Do you want him left here, sir?" asked the sergeant.

"Heavens, no," said Hambledon with a shudder. "Take it away and bury it. Oh, ask the police surgeon how long he's been dead. Put it outside somewhere, chair and all. I want to examine this room."

The chair and its occupant moved crabwise out of the room with a slow tread of heavy feet while Hambledon went to the window; failing to open it he took his automatic—a replacement of the one Ackermann took from him—from his pocket; smashed the glass out with the butt and drew long breaths of fresh air.

"Ah, that's better. Well, Spelmann?"

"He was worked on to make him talk, obviously."

"Obviously. And I should think he did talk before he died. If young Karas did that, he must have learned something in his concentration camp. Belsen, I suppose, since you notice he knew the Zingel woman's fatal secret."

"I suppose so. And what he wanted to know," said Spelmann, "was where the rest of the jewels are."

"Of course it was. He was avenging his father too, no doubt, but plain death would have done for that. This wasn't Gruiter, but as near as no matter. This case gets more like the ten little nigger boys with every passing day, doesn't it?"

"Indeed? I have not read the paper today."

"Read the paper?" said Hambledon, staring.

"Were you not referring to some item of news about ten Negro youths?"

"Oh, let it ride," said Tommy.

The room was poorly and scantily furnished with a truckle bed along one wall, a table under the window with a round mirror hanging above it and hairbrushes and shaving kit upon it, a small oilstove and a kettle, and three wooden chairs.

"Edberg's home, I think," said Tommy. "We have here the remains of the habit of personal smartness. He even owned a clothesbrush."

"There is a cupboard in the wall here," said Spelmann, moving towards it.

"Look out something nasty doesn't pop out and say boo."

"Nothing which merely popped and booed could be half so nasty as what we've already seen." Spelmann unlocked the door and opened it, there was a slithering sound and something did fall out on the floor. Spelmann picked it up.

"Gruiter's white stick. Here, I think, is the overcoat he was wearing. I wonder whether the dark glasses—— Yes, here they are in the pocket."

The cupboard was a tall, shallow one filling one side of the chimney breast; there were other garments hanging upon hooks besides Gruiter's blind-man overcoat, and they were neatly brushed and, where necessary, mended. There was a suitcase standing upright at the bottom and Spelmann passed it over to Hambledon, who opened it.

"Edberg's clothespress, this. Shirts, vest, socks," he said, lifting the things out one at a time and examining them singly. "By the way—I meant to ask you before—I suppose the woman who kept the little newspaper shop was questioned? The kind lady who helped the blind man down the steps."

"Oh, yes. She said a blind man did come in there sometimes and that she always helped him down the steps. She asked if it was a crime to help a blind man down steps. She didn't know who he was or anything about him, so she said. She was a hard-working shopkeeper, not a warty-nosed cop. Charged with allowing him to assume a disguise on her premises, she denied it indignantly and, since there was a back door leading to a yard with other houses behind, we could not prove that he had not simply walked through and come back. Mein Herr, there is something a little funny about this walking stick. It seems to be screwed together in sections and there is a small knob here in front of the handle which does not appear to serve——"

Hambledon spun round. Spelmann was holding the stick horizontally to examine the knob. He pressed it just as Tommy struck the stick up; there was a hard "plop" which sounded loud in that quiet room, and an air-gun slug sang over Hambledon's head and broke the last remaining pane in the window.

"Herr Gott!" gasped Spelmann, turning perfectly white. "I nearly shot you. Gütig Himmel, what a devil's contrivance—— Gnadig Herr, I shall never—"

"Cheer up," said Hambledon, taking the stick from his unresisting fingers, "there's no harm done. Even the window is not much worse than it was and at least we know now how poor old Karas was shot."

"Oh," said Spelmann, dropping into a chair to wipe his agitated forehead, "if a merciful Providence had not prompted you to turn round just now—"

"It wasn't a merciful Providence," said Hambledon. "At least, Providence may have reminded me, but when you talked about screwed sections and a knob, I suddenly remembered a jumble sale in the vicarage garden when I was a lad. Somebody sent in a stick like this and there was a pumplike attachment with it. I found out how it worked and tried it out and potted the gardener, I remember. My father took reprisals. There ought to be a pump here somewhere——"

"On the floor in the cupboard," said Spelmann, diving for it like a terrier. "A brass one, very neat."

"That's it," said Hambledon. He made to unscrew the stick for a demonstration and then changed his mind. "I'll try this tonight, from my bedroom window, on the rats. In the meantime, I thought I felt something in these socks just as you——"

He unrolled a pair of socks and there slid out upon the table a gold chain bracelet with a diamond in every link.