Sir George shook his head. “No, we were all requested to leave. The excuse given was that Nagel had met with an accident. Naturally, I was curious and had a word with one of the servants on the way out. He gave me the details.”
“Have they identified the man who killed him yet?” Chavasse said.
“Not as far as I know,” Sir George told him. “The police had just arrived as I left.” Chavasse didn’t say anything more, and Sir George looked sideways at him curiously. “You don’t know anything about it, do you?”
Chavasse nodded slowly. “I should imagine they’ll just be discovering that the dead man is Inspector Steiner of the Hamburg police.”
The car slewed violently and Sir George fought for control, and finally brought it to a standstill. He took a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “Sorry about that,” he said, “but to be perfectly frank, you rather took the wind out of my sails.” Chavasse didn’t reply, and after a moment of silence Sir George went on. “I suppose it all ties in with the Bormann affair?”
Chavasse wound down the window and flicked his cigarette out into the rain. “There is no Bormann affair any longer. It’s finished, all wrapped up.”
Sir George frowned. “But what about the manuscript?”
“A heap of ashes,” Chavasse said. “I’m afraid Steiner was just one step in front of me.”
Out of the silence that followed, Sir George said awkwardly, “And Miss Hartmann?”
For a moment, the words refused to come, but Chavasse swallowed hard and forced them out. “I’m afraid he got to her as well.”
Sir George turned slowly and looked at him, horror in his eyes. “You mean she’s dead?”
Chavasse didn’t bother replying, and they sat there for some time in silence. After a while, Sir George said, “Is there anywhere I can take you?”
Chavasse nodded slowly. “Yes, I think I’d like to go back to her apartment, if you don’t mind.”
Sir George nodded, seemingly too full of emotion to speak, and switched on the engine. A moment later, they were continuing through the heavy rain toward the center of Hamburg.
When they reached the house, Chavasse got out quickly and Sir George kept the engine running. He leaned out of the side window and said, “Is there anything more I can do for you?”
Chavasse shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine, thanks.”
“I’m leaving on the afternoon train tomorrow,” Sir George went on. “Will I see you again before I go?”
Chavasse nodded slowly. “I’ll probably be returning by that train myself. I’ve nothing to hang on here for any longer.”
Sir George smiled tightly. “I won’t say good-bye then. If I don’t see you on the train, we must certainly have a drink together on the boat going over.” He let in the clutch and the Mercedes moved away quickly, leaving Chavasse alone on the edge of the pavement.
He went upstairs slowly, taking his time, reluctant to go into the empty apartment. He hesitated outside for a moment, and then took out the master key the caretaker’s wife had given him, and unlocked the door.
As he turned the handle, he became aware of a slight flurry of movement inside. For a moment he hesitated, and then flung the door open and went into the room half-crouching, his hands ready.
Mark Hardt was standing in the center of the room. He was wearing a heavy driving coat, but his trousers were wet and clung to his legs. His face looked white and tense, and when he saw Chavasse he relaxed with a deep sigh. “You had me worried for a moment.”
Chavasse unbuttoned his hunting jacket slowly. “How did you manage to get away from them?”
Hardt shrugged. “It was easy enough. Once I’d led them away from you, I stopped making such a damned noise. The dogs couldn’t pick up my scent in the heavy rain. I crossed the main road and hid in the loft of a barn for two or three hours. Then I thumbed a lift from a passing truck driver. I told him I’d been camping and got washed out by the heavy rain. I don’t think he believed me, but he gave me this coat and dropped me off in Hamburg.”
“How’s the arm?” Chavasse said.
“Bloody awful!” Hardt replied with a tired grin. “But I’ll survive. Where’s Anna?”
Chavasse said slowly, “I think you’d better sit down, Mark. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you.”
Hardt frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
“She’s dead,” Chavasse said quietly. “Steiner and his friends got hold of her.”
Hardt swayed slightly, and then reached blindly for a chair and sat down. After a while, he said in a dead voice, “How did it happen?”
Chavasse told him. When he had finished, he hesitated and went on. “If it’s any comfort, both Steiner and Nagel are dead. I was waiting in the garden of Nagel ’s house in Blankenese with a German intelligence man when Steiner arrived to assassinate Hauptmann.”
Hardt got to his feet slowly. “It’s no consolation at all,” he said. “Steiner, Nagel, and Martin Bormann might have crawled out from under a stone, but Anna…” He smiled sadly. “Suddenly, it all seems so silly. I wonder what we’ve come to.”
He walked across to the table by the window and gently touched one of the Hebrew books. “She always did her homework, as she called it. It doesn’t seem possible, does it, Chavasse?”
And then his shoulders started to shake and the fine face crumpled. He slumped down into the chair and bowed his head upon his arms and wept.
For a little while, Chavasse stood there watching him with pity in his heart, and then he turned and went out, closing the door gently behind him.
CHAPTER 14
It was bitterly cold at the Hook of Holland as the ship nosed her way out of the harbor, and fog was rolling in steadily from the North Sea, pushed by a slight wind.
Chavasse leaned over the rail and smoked a cigarette and watched the lights disappear into the darkness. Somewhere in the distance, a bugle sounded faintly on the wind from one of the Dutch Army camps, touching something deep inside him and filling him with a curious sadness. For a brief moment, he remembered Anna’s words in the hunting lodge at Berndorf: Lights out, you’re through, it’s all over, and as Holland disappeared into the night behind them, he flicked his cigarette down into the fog and went below.
He had a cabin to himself, and stripped to the waist and washed and shaved. Afterward, he dressed slowly, putting on a fresh shirt, and went up to the bar.
He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, but after the first double whiskey he felt a little better. He lit a cigarette and looked about him. Sir George Harvey was sitting in a corner with two other men, and he waved across the room. Chavasse nodded slightly and turned back to his drink.
He rested an elbow on the bar and stared blindly into space, his mind going back over everything that had taken place during the last few days, preparing for the report he would have to give the Chief.
But it was very difficult. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate, it was unimportant things that persisted in pushing the other things, the things the Chief would want to know, into the background.
It was a touch of brain fatigue, that was all, and he sighed and gave up the struggle. He closed his eyes, and her face seemed to float in the darkness before him. There was a sweet, grave smile on her lips, and he was suddenly reminded that this was how she had looked in the hunting lodge at Berndorf when they had waited for Sir George’s car.
He remembered what she had said. One day, you’ll look back on it all and it will simply be something that happened a long time ago. And then she’d quoted from one of Marlowe’s plays. But that was long ago and in another country.
For a moment, he sat there, eyes closed, a slight frown on his face, and then he remembered the quotation in full and shivered violently, coldness seeping through him. But that was long ago and in another country, and besides – the wench is dead.