“Even if there could be any-oblivion about what you did to the Jews and the others, there can never be any forgetting that your bunch ran and hid like the dogs you are. You talk of patriotism; you don’t even know the meaning of the word. And as for daring to call Army soldiers and others who fought, really fought, for Germany, Kamerad, it’s a damned obscenity.
“I’ll tell you one other thing, as a young German of the generation you so plainly despise. This prosperity we have today-it’s got nothing to do with you. It’s got a lot to do with millions who do a hard day’s work and never murdered anyone in their lives. And as for murderers like you who may still be among us, as far as I and my generation are concerned, we would put up with a little less prosperity if we could be sure scum like you were not still around. Which, incidentally, you are not going to be for very long.”
“You’re going to kill me,” mumbled Roschmann.
“As a matter of fact, I’m not.” Miller reached behind him and pulled the telephone over toward where he sat on the desk. He kept his eyes on Roschmann and the gun pointed. He took the receiver off the cradle, slid it onto the desk, and dialed. When he had finished, he picked up the receiver.
“There’s a man in Ludwigsburg who wants to have a chat with you,” he said and put the telephone to his ear. It was dead.
He laid it back in the cradle, took it off again, and listened for the dial tone. There was none.
“Have you cut this off?” he asked.
Roschmann shook his head.
“Listen, if you’ve pulled the connection out, I’ll drill you here and now.”
“I haven’t. I haven’t touched the phone this morning. Honestly.” Miller remembered the fallen branch of the oak tree and the pole lying across the track to the house. He swore softly.
Roschmann gave a small smile. “The fines must be down,” he said. “You’ll have to go into the village. What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to put a bullet through you unless you do as you’re told,”
Miller snapped back. He dragged the handcuffs he had thought to use on a bodyguard out of his pocket.
He tossed the bracelets over to Roschmann. “Walk over to the fireplace,” he ordered and followed the man across the room.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to handcuff you to the fireplace, then go and phone from the village,” said Miller.
He was scanning the wrought-iron scrollwork that composed the surround of the fireplace when Roschmann dropped the handcuffs at his feet. The SS man bent to pick them up, and Miller was almost caught unawares when Roschmann instead gripped a heavy poker and swung it viciously at Miller’s kneecaps.
The reporter stepped back in time, the poker swished past, and Roschmann was off balance.
Miller stepped in, whipped the barrel of the pistol across the bent head, and stepped back. “Try that again, and I’ll kill you,” he said.
Roschmann straightened up, wincing from the blow to the bead.
“Clip one of the bracelets around your right wrist,” Miller commanded, and Roschmann did as he was told. “You see that vine-leaf ornament in front of you? At head height? There’s a branch next to it that comes out of the metalwork and rejoins it again. Lock the other bracelet onto that.”
When Roschmann had snapped the second link home, Miller walked over and kicked the fire-tongs and poker out of reach.
Keeping his gun against Roschmann’s jacket, he frisked him and cleared the area around the chained man of all objects which he could throw to break the window.
Outside in the driveway, the man called Oskar pedaled toward the door, his errand to report the broken phone line accomplished. He paused in surprise on seeing the Jaguar, for his employer had assured him before he went that no one was expected.
He leaned the bicycle against the side of the house and quietly let himself in by the front door. In the hallway he stood irresolute, bearing nothing through the padded door to the study and not being heard himself by those inside.
Miller took a last look around and was satisfied. “Incidentally,” be told the glaring Roschmann, “it wouldn’t have done you any good if you bad managed to hit me. Its eleven o’clock now, and I left the complete dossier of evidence on you in the bands of my accomplice, to drop into the mailbox, addressed to the right authorities, if I have not returned or phoned by noon. As it is, I’m going to phone from the village. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. You won’t be out of there in twenty minutes, even with a hacksaw. When I get back, the police will be thirty minutes behind me.”
As he talked, Roschmann’s hopes began to flicker. He knew he had only one chance left-for the returning Oskar to take Miller alive so that he could be forced to make the phone call from a phone in the village at their demand and keep the documents from reaching the mailbox. Miller swung open the door at the other side of the room and walked through it. He found himself staring at the roll-neck pullover worn by a man a full head taller than he was. From his place by the fire Roschmann recognized Oskar and screamed, “Hold him.”
Miller stepped back into the room and jerked up the gun he had been replacing in his pocket. He was too slow. A swinging left backhander from Oskar’s paw swept the automatic out of his grasp, and it flew across the room. At the same time Oskar thought his employer cried, “Hit him.” He crashed a right hand into Miller’s jaw. The reporter weighed 170 pounds, but the blow lifted him off his feet and threw him backward. His feet caught in a low newspaper rack, and as he went over, his head slammed into the comer of a mahogany bookcase.
Crumpling like a rag doll, his body slid to the carpet and rolled onto one side.
For several seconds there was silence as Oskar took in the spectacle of his employer manacled to the fireplace, and Roschmann stared at the inert figure of Miller, from the back of whose head a trickle of blood flowed onto the floor.
“You fool,” yelled Roschmann when he had taken in what had happened. Oskar looked baffled. “Get over here.” The giant lumbered across the room and stood waiting for orders.
Roschmann thought fast. “Try and get me out of these handcuffs,” he commanded. “Use the fire-irons.”
But the fire-irons had been made in an age when craftsmen intended their handiwork to last for a long time. The result of Oskar’s efforts was a curly poker and a pair of wriggly tongs.
“Bring him over here,” he told Oskar at last. While Oskar held Miller up, Roschmann looked under the reporter’s eyelids and felt his pulse. “He’s still alive, but out cold,” he said. “He’ll need a doctor to come around in less than an hour. Bring me a pencil and paper.” Writing with his left hand, he scribbled two phone numbers on the paper while Oskar brought a hacksaw blade from the tool chest under the stairs.
When he returned, Roschmann gave him the sheet of paper.
“Get down to the village as fast as you can,” he told Oskar. “Ring this Nuremberg ‘ number and tell the man who answers it what has happened.
Ring this local number and get the doctor up here immediately. You understand? Tell him it’s an emergency. Now hurry.” As Oskar ran from the room, Roschmann glanced at the clock again.
Ten-fifty. If Oskar could make the village by eleven, and he and the doctor could be back by eleven-fifteen, they might bring Miller around in time to get to a phone and delay the accomplice, even if the doctor would only work at gunpoint. Urgently, Roschmann began to saw at his handcuffs.
In front of the door Oskar grabbed his bicycle, then paused and glanced at the parked Jaguar. He peered through the driver’s window and saw the key in the ignition. His master had told him to burry, so he dropped the bicycle, climbed behind the wheel of the car, gunned it into life, and spurted gravel in a wide arc as he slid the sports car out of the forecourt into the driveway.