It Was a sensation of pressure and cold that wakened him. He could hear voices, people moving about, the noise of the wind. Even with his eyes shut he knew there was a light that defied the darkness.
Someone close by said, “I think he’s breathing, sir.”
The weight on his chest relaxed … and pressed down again … relaxed … and pressed down again in a rhythmic cycle that pumped air in and out of his lungs. It kept him from drifting off to sleep.
He wondered about that. Then he became aware of a lot of things all at once.
He was lying on something that had buttons. There was the feel of cold wet grass under his hands. Somebody was grunting with exertion.
Through half-open eyes Quinn saw Sergeant Boyd squatting astride his body. Superintendent Mullett and Piper were standing on either side. Behind them a tremendous light streamed up into the sky.
Sergeant Boyd said, “He’s coming round now, sir.”
Quinn’s throat was dry and it hurt to speak but he forced himself to say, “I’ll be coming flat if you don’t take your fifteen stone off me. And I’d be obliged if one of you would explain—”
Then his memory returned. Once again he heard screaming in the distance: “… Let me out … don’t leave me here to die … Lieber Gott, let me out. …”
He pushed himself upright and closed his eyes as earth and sky revolved around the leaping tower of light. When he looked again he saw figures moving against the background of the fire. A small group clustered around a fire-engine. There was a car parked on the beaten track, its windows like gold and crimson mirrors.
Very little was now left of the farmhouse. Its roof had gone, part of the front wall had collapsed, there were great cracks in one gable end where a chimney leaned out over the cobbled yard. As Quinn watched, flames licked through the cracks and wall and chimney came crashing down. A flight of fiery sparks swept overhead on the wind.
Quinn said, “There was a man chained up in the cellar … I think he was Fritz Haupmann. Did you manage to get him out?”
Superintendent Mullett turned to look at the burning house. Then he said, “By the time we got here it was well alight. While Sergeant Boyd and I were putting our shoulders to the door, Piper spotted the broken window. … How he brought you out is still a miracle to me.”
Piper said, “The superintendent’s exaggerating. You were only a yard or two from the window and I was in and out in no time.”
“I can just imagine,” Quinn said. “If it hadn’t been for what you did there’d be a strong aroma of roast Quinn right now. Not much I can say except—thanks.”
“You didn’t deserve to escape with a whole skin,” Mullett told him. “I’d have stopped Piper if I could. I didn’t see any sense in both of you being burned to death. After all, you’d gone asking for trouble.”
Quinn said, “And I found it, all right. I was just advising that poor devil in the cellar to cheer up when someone crowned me.”
“Are you sure it was Haupmann you saw? No chance it might’ve been somebody else?”
“Not unless he’s got a twin. The man down there was the man in the photograph that Mrs. Haupmann gave me.”
“Chained up in the cellar … eh?”
“Like an animal. From what I saw he’d been fed on dog food and water since he came here.”
“Did he say who brought him?”
“No, he didn’t have time.”
The ground shook as another wall collapsed. Mullett said, “This place will take hours to cool off… and then they’ll have to clear away tons of rubble before anyone can go down into the cellar. So we may as well go home. Do you feel fit to travel, Quinn?”
Quinn said, “I’il live.”
“Satan must indeed take care of his own. After all the alcohol you’ve consumed I’d have labelled you: Highly Inflammable—Keep away from Naked Lights. Want a lift?”
“Thanks. I had a—”
“Don’t thank me. I’m only doing it because I want to make sure you’ll be available to-morrow morning for a little session in my office. I’d like you to explain what right you had to interfere with a piece of evidence. … Give him a hand, Sergeant, to get to the car.”
Outside the gateway on the Waltham Abbey road a taxi was parked on the grass verge. Quinn said, “I told that fellow to stay where he wouldn’t be seen. Good job he didn’t listen to me.”
Superintendent Mullett said, “If he hadn’t been here when we arrived we wouldn’t have known for sure that you’d gone into the farmhouse.”
The taxi driver opened Mullett’s door and asked, “Want me for anything else, sir, or can I go back to town now?”
Mullett told him he was free to do as he liked. When he caught sight of Quinn, the driver said, “Didn’t think I’d see you again. You must have more than your fair share of luck.”
Quinn said, “You don’t know how lucky you are. Another couple of minutes in that house and I’d have done you out of your fare.”
They arrived back in town just after one a.m. As Quinn was getting out of the car, he said, “Pity you weren’t just a little bit closer behind me. You might’ve been in time to catch someone beating it down that lane.”
“Don’t worry,” Mullett told him. “We’ll catch him.” He gave Piper a sidelong glance and added, “Or her.”
When Quinn had gone indoors, Piper said, “I believe I know who it is. Soon’s I’ve made one quick phone call I’ll be more or less sure.”
The superintendent asked, “Who are you going to talk to at this hour of the night?”
“Nobody—I hope. Tell your driver to pull up at the next phone box we come to. …”
He spent only two or three minutes in the box. When he got into the car again, he said, “There’s always the chance I’m making a fool of myself but, if you want to settle this thing once and for all, I suggest you visit Mrs. Haupmann without delay.”
“It’ll be nearly two o’clock in the morning when we get there,” Mullett said. “That’s kind of late to be calling on a lady. She won’t like our getting her out of bed.”
Piper said, “That’s the whole point. She won’t be in bed. If she is, I’ll apologise to her—and to you.”
Mullett and Piper waited outside the porch while Sergeant Boyd rang the bell. He had to ring several times before at last a light came on in the hall.
Mrs. Haupmann opened the door. She was wearing a housecoat and fur-topped slippers.
When she recognised the superintendent she seemed to age. She asked, “What is it?”
Mullett said, “I’ve got something to tell you—something that justifies my disturbing you at this hour. May we come in?”
Her hesitation lasted a long ten seconds. Then she said, “If it’s so very important… of course.”
She took them into the long room where Fritz Haupmann had been listening to Mozart one Saturday afternoon. The embers of a fire still glowed red and the standard lamp was on.
Mrs. Haupmann asked, “Is it about—my husband?”
Before Mullett could answer, Piper said, “It’s about both your husbands. I have certain information which I should like to give Superintendent Mullett in your presence. That’s why I’m here.”
She gave him a tired look. She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If this information concerns Fritz Haupmann—”
“It does. Contrary to what you’ve been told, he isn’t dead. Neither is my friend Quinn. You thought he’d been burned to death … didn’t you?”
“That isn’t true! I’ve been here all night and—”
“But you know what happened. You know that Fritz Haupmann was kept prisoner in a farmhouse near Epping. You also know that some hours ago Mrs. McAllister was strangled before she could tell me something she’d just discovered. The great pity is that she needn’t have died. Killing her achieved nothing—”
“What has any of this to do with me?”
“—because I’d still have found out in the long run. Of course, when Fritz Haupmann was rescued it made things a lot easier.”
Superintendent Mullett said, “Leaving that aspect of the affair on one side, I’ve already received sufficient information from the Austrian police to justify my charging you with complicity to murder and attempted murder. I suggest that you call your daughter.”
The dark hollows under Mrs. Haupmann’s eyes grew darker still as she felt behind herself for a chair and sat down. In a lifeless voice she said, “I had nothing to do with it. I didn’t know … I swear to you I didn’t know about Mrs. McAllister—until afterwards.”
“But you’ve known for several days that Fritz Haupmann was a prisoner in that house.”
“No … I only found out to-night. Until then I thought …” There she lost her voice.
Piper said, “You thought he’d been killed on the evening he disappeared. Is that what you want the superintendent to believe?”
Mullett said ponderously, “If it is you’ll have to do a lot better than you’ve done so far. Personally, I don’t believe a word of it.”
“But it’s true! I tell you it’s true! Will no one understand? Haven’t you”—she turned to Piper with a hopeless look in her eyes—“haven’t you any pity?”
“I’d pity you if you’d merely helped to kill him,” Piper told her. “After what he’d done, perhaps he deserved to die. You’d suffered a lot because of his treachery … no matter how kind he’d been in the years since then. Anyone would admit that you were entitled to hate him. But you forfeited all claim to pity when you helped to keep him imprisoned in a cellar like some kind of wild beast, chained to a wall in darkness and filth.”
She began rocking to and fro, one hand wrapped in the other, her lips trembling. At last, she said, “I didn’t know … I swear to God, I didn’t know! I was horrified when I—” Her voice broke and she beat the arms of her chair impotently while she tried to find words.
Superintendent Mullett said, “If it was only to-night that you found out, Mrs. Haupmann, then you must’ve been told not very long ago. With your permission, I’d like to search the house.”
Piper asked, “May I break in again, Superintendent?”
“Certainly. What is it?”
“Just that there’s no need to make a search. I know who told her. He must’ve come straight here and, if I’m not mistaken, he was still in the house when we arrived. I phoned his home and got no reply.”
Mrs. Haupmann slumped lower in her chair and stroked one hand with the other as if it belonged to someone else. She was weeping without tears as Piper went on, “When I thought over what happened outside my flat last night, it didn’t add up right. Since there was no light at all in the corridor, Quinn must be wrong. The idea wasn’t to attack him.”
“I came to that conclusion myself a couple of hours ago,” Mullett said. “Either there was enough light to see who was coming along the corridor or there wasn’t. We know it was quite dark so—”
“—so Howarth wasn’t mistaken for Quinn. No one could make such a mistake because Howarth’s much the shorter man. If it was too dark to see that then it was too dark for the whole affair. Once I had ruled out any intention to attack Quinn. …”
“You could rule out Howarth’s whole story,” Mullett said.
He was no longer looking at Mrs. Haupmann. Now his eyes were on the door.
“… When I had that thought it suddenly struck me that a lot of things began happening from the time that Howarth phoned this house the other morning. Before he came here, Mrs. Haupmann behaved quite normally: after his visit she was a changed woman. And Fritz Haupmann disappeared that same afternoon.”
In three leisurely steps Sergeant Boyd took up a position where he could watch the door. Mrs. Haupmann was still stroking her hand and crying as if her grief was locked up inside her.
Piper said, “There’s one more point. I don’t think Mrs. McAllister rang me as soon as she returned to London. I believe she came back early enough to attend to-night’s spiritualist meeting at Bullring Court … and Howarth offered to run her home. In the car she must’ve found Haupmann’s lighter.”
There was a faint sound outside in the hall. Mrs. Haupmann looked like a woman whom suffering had consumed, leaving only an empty shell.
With almost no movement of her lips, she said, “I tried to stop him. I begged him to let other people punish Fritz for what he’d done … but it was no good. Nothing I could say made any difference. … If I’d known what he was planning to do I’d have told you, Superintendent. For his sake, I’d have told you. Now it’s too late. Everything’s too late. …”
Tears came at last. In a beaten voice, she said, “Oh, Hans, Hans, why wouldn’t you listen? There was still time for us to begin again. But now——”
The door opened. As it swung wide, the man called Howarth came in, his hands in his pockets, his round, pink face very solemn.
He ignored everyone but Mrs. Haupmann. As if they were alone, he said, “I wouldn’t listen because I wanted no legal rigmarole followed by a few years in prison. A man like Haupmann must be made to suffer like his victims suffered, never knowing, day and night, when there will be a knock at the door. He has to live in terror like they lived, until his spirit dies—not his body. I wanted him to live until he would have welcomed death. …”
Superintendent Mullett said, “Hans Schmidt, I intend to take you into custody and charge you with the murder of Mrs. Katherine McAllister. You have no need to say anything at this stage but, if you wish to make a statement, I must warn you that whatever you say——”
“—will be written down and may be used in evidence,” Howarth said.
He touched the strip of plaster on his forehead and half-smiled as he went on, “Thank you, Superintendent, but I already know my rights under English law. I don’t intend, however, to deny what you now know. I’m sorry about Kathie McAllister. I wish she hadn’t made me do it.”
“What was it she discovered?”
“On the way from Bullring Court I remembered I had a letter to post. So I stopped at a post office where there was a stamp machine. I don’t know what she found while she was alone in the car but when I got back she told me she’d changed her mind. Instead of going home she’d decided to visit a friend who was ill in bed. I knew at once that something was wrong. The address she asked me to take her to was in Kensington, not far”—Howarth turned his head and looked at Piper—“not far from where you live.”
“And you followed her when she got out of your car,” Piper said.
“Yes. What I overheard her say on the phone was enough.”
He pushed both hands deeper in his pockets, looked sombrely at Mrs. Haupmann and then turned once more to the superintendent. “I had a wife and daughter until Haupmann took them from me. He betrayed me to the Gestapo and he thought I’d been executed. Unfortunately for him, I escaped. Since the war ended I’ve been searching for him. …”
Sergeant Boyd was writing steadily in his notebook. He had made no obvious move but now he was almost between Howarth and the door.
“… From the moment of my escape I’ve done nothing but think about Fritz Haupmann…. I was nearly caught that night before I’d got very far but I managed to lose them among some trees … or so I thought. The guards must have heard me and they fired a burst of shots. Just a wild round or two in my direction … but one of them caught me in the head.”
He glanced at Mrs. Haupmann’s ravaged face and shrugged. “That’s the last thing I remember for a very long time.”
As though talking to herself, Mrs. Haupmann said, “If only I’d known … Oh, God, if only I’d known.”
Hans said, “How could you know? People who found me next morning at first believed I was dead. I was unconscious for weeks and even when I was getting better I couldn’t remember what had happened. It took a long time before my memory returned.”
Mullett said, “You can tell us the rest later. There’ll be ample opportunity to—”
“No.” A change came into his pink, pleasant face. He was no longer the kindly little man who had presided over the meeting in Bullring Court. “I want to tell you now. That is my right. You may not understand later.”
“All right. Go on.”
“… I’ve thought about those days so many times. When I was well again the difficulty was to get a message to my wife and my friends. None of the people who’d been looking after me would run the risk. So at last I decided that the only thing was to try to make my way back to Gastein.”
“And you never managed it?”
“No. Luck was against me. I fell in with a group of Allied airmen who’d been shot down … and two days later a German patrol took us by surprise. I’d been brought up in England so they accepted me as a member of an English air-crew.” The bitter look was like a pain in his eyes. “I spent the last eight months of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp.”
Piper said, “When you returned to Gastein and learned what had happened you thought your wife had known of the plan to betray you.”
“Yes. What else could I think? Perhaps I was wrong … but that doesn’t make any difference now.”
In a flat monotone, Mrs. Haupmann said, “It could have made a difference if you’d only listened to me.”
Hans looked up at Piper and asked, “You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, in a way, I think I do,” Piper said. “Although I wouldn’t have done what you did, I can understand.”
“I’d spent all those years thinking of nothing except what I’d do when I found them. From the moment I learned he was a traitor I promised myself he would pay. And after I discovered that he’d stolen my wife I was tormented with thoughts of them together. My mind hasn’t had a minute’s peace since then.”
He looked dully at Mrs. Haupmann as if expecting her to say something. Piper said, “Haupmann never met you in the old days, did he?”
“No. Each of our groups worked independently. To him I was just a name, someone he could betray to his German masters.”
Mrs. Haupmann said, “You let your hate destroy us all. What kind of life will Gizelle have now? You never thought of her. I don’t care about myself… I only wish I was dead.”
With a nod to Sergeant Boyd, Mullett said, “I must ask you now to come with me, Mr. Schmidt—or Howarth, if you prefer to be known by that name. When you have been charged you will be able—”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Hans said. “I have no intention of going with you, Superintendent.”
His hand came out of his pocket and he moved two slow steps backwards. The gun he was holding swung in an arc to include Sergeant Boyd and Piper.
“… When I leave here I’m going alone. Don’t try to stop me. I have no wish to harm any more innocent people.” His free hand felt for the doorknob.
“You can’t hope to get away,” Mullett told him. “In a few minutes every policeman in London will be on the lookout for you.”
“I’m not afraid of that. You won’t catch me before I’ve settled my debt with Fritz Haupmann. After that I don’t care what you do to me.”
Piper said, “Put your gun away. What I told your wife wasn’t true. Haupmann’s dead. We got Quinn out before the place became an inferno … but the walls collapsed soon afterwards and Haupmann was buried in the cellar.”
“You’re lying! But it won’t save him. Wherever he is—”
“No, I’m not lying. That is the truth. Fritz Haupmann was still in the cellar when we returned to London. He couldn’t possibly be alive.”
Hans looked down at the gun. Then his eyes lifted to Piper’s face and he said, “You couldn’t be so cruel as to deceive me. No man could be so cruel. …”
“I’m not deceiving you. It’s all over. He’s dead … and your job is finished. Don’t you understand?”
The man who had called himself Howarth nodded. When he looked at his wife, she said, “I believe him, Hans. Do as he says. People will realise that you’re not a wicked man … and I’ll wait for you. When you’re free again I’ll be waiting.”
Before she finished, a wild look came into Howarth’s eyes. With the words tumbling over each other, he said, “Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life remembering that you slept with Fritz Haupmann, that you gave him again and again what belonged to me? Well, I have a better way … because now I’ve nothing left to live for.”
The gun swung up and pointed at his head. As Sergeant Boyd threw himself forward in a flying tackle, Mrs. Haupmann screamed, “No, Hans, no! Don’t—”
There was a sharp report like the bursting of a paper bag. Then the room was very quiet.