Borrower of the Night

expected an arrow to whistle over my head and rattle on the pavement. It was the sort of humourous gesture our adversary seemed to enjoy.

We got through the tunnel without incident, however, and came to a baffled halt in the street beyond the bastion. The tall houses of the old city loomed dark and silent on either side. We hadn’t made enough noise to awaken the inhabitants, since we were both wearing rubber-soled sneakers. The loudest sound was Tony’s heavy breathing.

I was pretty sure we had lost our man. There were a dozen hiding places in that crowded, narrow way, half a dozen alleyways and side streets he might have taken. Yet I still felt vulnerable and exposed, as if someone were watching me.

I glanced up over my shoulder. The town walls were shadowy bulwarks, cutting off the sky. A single lonely streetlight did little to lighten their darkness.

Up above, on the balustraded walkway, something moved. It looked like a black sleeve, flapping.

I clutched at Tony, who was staring stupidly down the Schmeidgasse. He let out a yelp.

‘For God’s sake, don’t do that!’

‘He’s up there,’ I gasped. ‘On the wall. Tony – I think he waved at me.’

‘You would think that,’ Tony said bitterly. He pulled away from me and ran towards the flight of stone stairs that led up to the ramparts.

There may be worse places in which to pursue a crazy grave robber, but offhand I can’t think of many. The stairs are composed of the same rough brownish stone that constitutes the walls. They are steep, narrow, and very uneven. The walkway is stone-floored too; it is actually the top of the rampart, with a thin outer wall on one side. On the other side, only a waist-high wooden railing stands between the wall-walker and the paved street twenty feet below. There are lights at infrequent intervals; they are suspended from the houses that face the wall across a wide alley, and they do not illumine the stone underfoot, which is rough and full of unexpected dips and bumps. Tony took the stairs three at a time and went roaring down the narrow walkway like a mad bull.

I went after him, though I would have preferred not to do so. The pursuit was pointless now, and potentially dangerous. Our quarry could easily elude us; the fact that he had not already done so in the Schmeidgasse made me highly suspicious of his present route. But there is no arguing with Tony when he gets in one of his rages; I couldn’t even get close enough to talk to him, much less reason with him. So I followed. I had left him in the lurch once before, and I didn’t enjoy the memory of that moment of cowardice.

It’s a wonder we both didn’t break our necks. I kept stumbling; once I caught my foot in a concavity and ricocheted off the railing with a force that made that insufficient barricade quiver. Tony was some distance ahead, running like an Olympic champ. He kept vanishing and reappearing as the stretches of darkness between the streetlights swallowed and then disgorged his fleeting form. The effect was quite unnerving.

The worst places were the towers that break the wall at intervals. The walkway goes through them, and the enclosed chambers are extremely dark. Preoccupied as I was by more vital matters, I couldn’t help noticing the stench as we passed through these tower rooms, and I wondered what primitive instinct moves some members of the so-called human race to relieve themselves in every secluded corner, as dogs do.

All at once I heard a rackety din ahead. We had been running noiselessly till then; I recognized the new sound and a chill stiffened my knees. I ran faster, but it was useless; I couldn’t catch up with Tony. He had already reached the wooden flooring.

That was the cause of the rumbling noise – heavy feet, no longer on stone, but on thin wooden planks. One stretch of the walkway had this surface underfoot; I suppose it replaced a broken section of stone. I glanced over the railing to my right and saw that my memory of the topography was accurate. The alley was gone; steep tiled roofs crowded up to the very rail. And that meant we were approaching a critical spot.

The walls of Rothenburg have many towers, but only six or seven main gateways. We had ascended at one of these gateways and were now approaching the next, at a rate that spelled trouble. The inner chambers of the towers are brightly lighted compared with the complicated inner structure of the bastions. Still running, I tried to remember how the next one was designed. It was the Spitalstor, if my memory served me, and it was a wonderful place for an ambush.

In a desperate burst of speed I closed up on Tony, who was getting winded. I was close enough to see what happened, but not close enough to prevent it.

The rock missed his head. It must have meant to miss it, because it was as big as a skull and it came whizzing out of the pitch-black entrance to the Spitalstor when Tony was less than six feet away. It landed on his bad shoulder, and it knocked him flat.

I had no intention of vaulting over Tony’s prostrate body to continue the chase. No, indeed. But I wouldn’t have been able to in any case. Tony fell on me. It was becoming a habit.

Tony was out cold, but he was breathing okay. I untangled myself and lifted his head onto my lap. He sat up with a start.

‘Damn it,’ he shouted, ‘why aren’t you chasing that guy?’

There was a brief silence, fraught with emotion.

‘I ought to let your head bounce off the floor,’ I said, finally.

‘Damn, damn damn. To fall for a hoary old trick like that . . . Damn.’

‘If you’re restraining your language on my account, don’t,’ I said, helping him up. ‘Can you make it back to the Schloss? No point hanging around here.’

‘Oh, sure. The principal damage is to my inflated ego.’

That was an exaggeration. He was feeling poorly, and our progress was slow. With Tony leaning heavily on me, I began to feel my own age, and I was looking forward to going to bed. But when we reached the Schloss it was evident that I was still some distance from that indulgence. Our corridor was wide awake. The first person we saw was George, and the sight of his flushed, grim face told us something serious had happened.

‘What’s up?’ Tony asked.

‘Schmidt. He’s dead.’

‘Dead!’ Tony tried to enter Schmidt’s room, but George’s arm barred the door.

‘Don’t go in yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve seen a lot of dead men,’ said George, ‘but I never saw one who looked like that.’

‘Stop talking like The Monk,’ I said sharply. ‘What happened?’

George fumbled in his pocket and located a cigarette and matches. He looked at them blankly, as if he had forgotten what to do with them.

‘I heard him scream,’ he said. ‘What a sound . . . The Grafin heard it too. She was in the hall when I came out of my room. I went through Schmidt’s door like a bulldozer. It wasn’t locked. Schmidt was sitting up in bed facing the window. The lamp by the bed was lit. He didn’t look at us, not even when the door crashed open. He was looking at the window. He never looked at us at all. He just kept staring . . . at the window. Then he keeled over.’

George was perspiring. His shirt clung to his broad chest.

All eyes turned towards the windows, which were open to admit the night air.

I pushed George aside. Without looking at the motionless form on the bed, I crossed the room, and leaned out of the window. The distance between it and the window of Tony’s room was a good twenty feet. To the left, at an even greater distance, were the windows of the neighbouring guest chamber. There were no windowsills. The outer panes were flush with the stones of the wall. Below was a stretch of blank wall reaching down to the foundations.

I craned my neck and looked up towards the sloping eaves of the roof. A very tall man, standing on the window ledge, might have been able to touch the edge of the roof with his fingertips. I might have done it myself. I’d have hated to try.

‘Unless somebody has suckers on his hands and feet, like the Human Fly, there’s no way out here,’ I reported, withdrawing my head.

‘But that’s impossible. I tell you I was in the corridor within seconds of the time I heard him scream. Nobody could have come out of that door without my seeing him.’

‘And I,’ said a cool voice, ‘was in the corridor when Herr Schmidt cried out. No one left his room.’