it in a long time, and had less tolerance to her usual dose. She must have aspirated on her own vomit.'
I said nothing. It was the wrong context for it to mean anything anymore.
Revenge is not sweet. Its true flavour is bitter, since pity is the most probable aftertaste.
'What are you going to do?' he said nervously. 'You're not going to kill me, surely. Look, it was an accident. You can't kill a man for that, can you?'
'No,' I said. 'I can't. Not for that.' I saw him breathe a sigh of relief and walk towards me. 'In a civilized society you don't shoot a man in cold blood.'
Except that this was Hitler's Germany, and no more civilized than the very pagans venerated by Weisthor and Himmler.
'But for the murders of all those poor bloody girls, somebody has to,' I said.
I pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger once; and then several times more.
From the narrow winding road, Wewelsburg looked like a fairly typical Westphalian peasant village, with as many shrines to the Virgin Mary on the walls and grass verges as there were pieces of farm-machinery left lying outside the half-timbered, fairy-story houses. I knew I was in for something weird when I decided to stop at one of these and ask for directions to the S S-School. The flying griffins, runic symbols and ancient words of German that were carved or painted in gold on the black window casements and lintels put me in mind of witches and wizards, and so I was almost prepared for the hideous sight that presented itself at the front door, wreathed in an atmosphere of wood smoke and frying veal.
The girl was young, no more than twenty-five and but for the huge cancer eating away at one whole side of her face, you might have said that she was attractive.
I hesitated for no more than a second, but it was enough to draw her anger.
'Well? What are you staring at?' she demanded, her distended mouth, widening to a grimace that showed her blackened teeth, and the edge of something darker and more corrupt. 'And what time is this to be calling? What is it that you want?'
'I'm sorry to disturb you,' I said, concentrating on the side of her face that was unmarked by the disease, 'but I'm a little lost, and I was hoping you could direct me to the S S-School.'
'There's no school in Wewelsburg,' she said, eyeing me suspiciously.
'The S S-School,' I repeated weakly. 'I was told it was somewhere hereabouts.'
'Oh that,' she snapped, and turning in her doorway she pointed to where the road dipped down a hill. 'There is your way. The road bends right and left for a short way before you see a narrower road with a railing rising up a slope to your left.' Laughing scornfully, she added, 'The school, as you call it, is up there.' And with that she slammed the door shut in my face.
It was good to be out of the city, I told myself walking back to the Mercedes.
Country people have so much more time for the ordinary pleasantries.
I found the road with the railing, and steered the big car up the slope and on to a cobbled esplanade.
It was easy enough to see now why the girl with the piece of coal in her mouth had been so amused, for what met my eyes was no more what one would normally have recognized as a schoolhouse, than a zoo was a pet-shop, or a cathedral a meeting hall. Himmler's schoolhouse was in reality a decent-sized castle, complete with domed towers, one of which loomed over the esplanade like the helmeted head of some enormous Prussian soldier.
I drew up next to a small church a short distance away from the several troop trucks and staff cars that were parked outside what looked like the castle guard-house on the eastern side. For a moment the storm lit up the entire sky and I had a spectral black-and-white view of the whole of the castle.
By any standard it was an impressive-looking place, with rather more of the horror film about it than was entirely comfortable a proposition for the intendant trespasser. This so-called schoolhouse looked like home from home for Dracula, Frankenstein, Orlac and a whole forestful of Wolfmen the sort of occasion where I might have been prompted to re-load my pistol with nine millimetre cloves of snub-nosed garlic.
Almost certainly there were enough real-life monsters in the Wewelsburg Castle without having to worry about the more fanciful ones, and I didn't doubt that Himmler could have given Doctor X quite a few pointers.
But could I trust Heydrich? I thought about this for quite a while. Finally I decided that I could almost certainly trust him to be ambitious, and since I was effectively providing him with the means of destroying an enemy in the shape of Weisthor, I had no real alternative but to put myself and my information in his murdering white hands.
The little church bell in the clock-tower was striking midnight as I steered the Mercedes to the edge of the esplanade and beyond it, the bridge curving left across the empty moat towards the castle gate.
An S S trooper emerged from a stone sentry-box to glance at my papers and to wave me on.
In front of the wooden gate I stopped and sounded the car horn a couple of times. There were lights on all over the castle, and it didn't seem likely that I'd be waking anyone, dead or alive. A small door in the gate swung open and an S S corporal came outside to speak to me. After scrutinizing my papers in his torchlight, he allowed me to step through the door and into the arched gateway where once again I repeated my story and presented my papers, only this time it was for the benefit of a young lieutenant apparently in command of the guard-duty.
There is only one way to deal effectively with arrogant young S S officers who look as though they've been specially issued with the right shade of blue eyes and fair hair, and that is to outdo them for arrogance. So I thought of the man I had killed that evening, and fixed the lieutenant with the sort of cold, supercilious stare that would have crushed a Hohenzollern prince.
'I am Kommissar Gunther,' I rapped at him, 'and I'm here on extremely pressing Sipo business affecting Reich security, which requires the immediate attention of General Heydrich. Please inform him at once that I am here. You'll find that he is expecting me, even to the extent that he has seen fit to provide me with the password to the castle during these Court of Honour proceedings.' I uttered the word and watched the lieutenant's arrogance pay homage to my own.
'Let me stress the delicacy of my mission, lieutenant,' I said, lowering my voice. 'It is imperative that at this stage only General Heydrich or his aide be informed of my presence here in the castle. It is quite possible that Communist spies may already have infiltrated these proceedings. Do you understand?'
The lieutenant nodded curtly and ducked back into his office to make the telephone call, while I walked to the edge of the cobbled courtyard that lay open to the cold night sky.
The castle seemed, smaller from the inside, with three roofed wings joined by three towers, two of them domed, and the short but wider third, castellated and furnished with a flagpole where an S S penant fluttered noisily in the strengthening wind.
The lieutenant came back and to my surprise stood to attention with a click of his heels. I guessed that this probably had more to do with what Heydrich or his aide had said than with my own commanding personality.
'Kommissar Gunther,' he said respectfully, 'the general is finishing dinner and asks you to wait in the sitting- room. That is in the west tower. Would you please follow me? The corporal will attend to your vehicle.'
'Thank you, Lieutenant,' I said, 'but first I have to remove some important documents that I left on the front seat.'
Having recovered my briefcase, which contained Weisthor's medical case-history, Lange's statement and the Lange-Kindermann letters, I followed the lieutenant across the cobbled courtyard towards the west wing. From somewhere to our left could be heard the sound of men singing.
'Sounds like quite a party,' I said coldly. My escort grunted without much enthusiasm. Any kind of party is better than late-night guard-duty in November.
We went through a heavy oak door and entered the great hall.
All German castles should be so Gothic; every Teutonic warlord should live and strut in such a place; each inquisitorial Aryan bully should surround himself with as many emblems of unsparing tyranny. Aside from the great heavy rugs, the thick tapestries and the dull paintings, there were enough suits of armour, musket-stands and wall-mounted cutlery to have fought a war with King Gustavus Adolphus and the whole Swedish army.
In contrast, the sitting-room, which we reached by a wooden spiral staircase, was furnished plainly and commanded a spectacular view of a small airfield's landing lights a couple of kilometres away.
'Help yourself to a drink,' said the lieutenant, opening the cabinet. 'If there's anything else you need, sir, just ring the bell.' Then he clicked his heels again and disappeared back down the staircase.
I poured myself a large brandy and tossed it straight back. I was tired after the long drive. With another glass
