A Cleft Of Stars

'Where,' he asked in a strained, high voice, 'Where is the hyena's blanket?'

I simply couldn't credit what was happening. If it hadn't been for the reality of the blue-black mouth of the automatic I might have been tempted to flippancy at the way-out question.

I remained silent; Nadine was also stunned speechless. Von Praeger got to his feet and moved behind Talbot's bed to use it as a barrier against attack. The pistol became rocksteady and he blinked his eyes rapidly; there was a glassiness about them and he stumbled over his order to Nadine.

'Put that torch on the bed. Facing your friend. Out of my eyes.'

Nadine remained rooted still, staring incredulously at the gun.

'Get on with it!' he snapped hoarsely. 'Schnell!'

'Do as he says, Nadine,' I said quietly, 'and then come here.' '

No! Keep away from him!' He waved the gun at the

diamond pencil which I still held extended in my hand. Don't come close with that thing, do you hear? Throw it at my feet. No tricks!'

There was no alternative so I lobbed it carefully on to-the end of Talbot's bed. Von Praeger bent to pick it up and I missed another chance. He seemed spellbound by the ancient tool and for a second took his eyes from me, but before I awoke to my opportunity he had straightened up and rammed it into his pocket.

His eyes had their same blank, frightened look when he repeated his earlier gibberish, 'Where is the hyena's blanket?' His own hyena gave a shrill little cry like a kitten in pain. It underwrote the dream-like quality of the scene, and it was the most frightening sound I have ever heard. Nadine ignored the pistol and ran to my side.

'Quick! Answer! Answer me!'

'Listen, von Praeger,' I said harshly. 'I don't like being pushed around, by anyone; especially at the point of a pistol. Nor do I like people raising their voices and shouting at me — I had enough of it in one of your precious POW camps. You'

ve thrown enough bloody nonsense and crazy threats around. Now put that gun away and say quietly what you have to say, and say it plainly.'

Neither his smile nor its implication was pleasant.

'Ah, the tough approach! You were also too tough, or too guilty, earlier to do me the courtesy of telling me your name. Allow me to remedy your omission. It is William Guybon Atherstone Bowker — yes?'

'What has my name got to do with it?'

His eyes blazed. 'Yes or no?' he shouted. I thought he was about to fire.

'Yes.'

He cringed as if a bullet had seared him and gave two or three quick intakes of breath, more like gasps than sighs. Then the steam and tension seemed to go out of him all at once. His voice was strangely flat when he spoke again and he licked his leathery lips.

'Bowker. It had to be,' he muttered almost to himself. 'But I wasn't quite sure. Bowker. . it's been a long, long chase.'

He held the pistol on me while he called the hyena to him. It shambled up and he said something in German and indicated us. The brute took up guard.

Nadine and I exchanged a swift glance. We were both convinced that Praeger was out of his mind. The gun and the hyena made the possibility of a successful attack on him very dodgy. I therefore left the next move to him. The only sound was of bats radar-pinging the cliffs in the darkness. Finally he said. 'I will take this whole place apart with my bare hands to find it. But first I will take you apart if you don't tell me.'

'I've never heard such rubbish in my life — the hyena's blanket I '

'Perhaps if I refresh your memory on a few points it will all come back to you. We have plenty of time. You may remember that we Germans were adept at extracting information from reluctant witnesses.'

'You sound like the Gestapo.'

'Not quite one of them, but certainly on the fringes of their operations. Medically it is quite fascinating to dredge information from a mind whose owner is trying to hold back at all costs. Sometimes it is at all costs.'

'If you think you can.

'Bluster is always the first reaction,' he retorted calmly. '

Later, under pressure, the patient usually becomes more amenable.' He held up his hand as I was about to explode. '

The methods are refined; no crudities like castration, which are self-defeating; for when a man finds he has nothing more to lose it increases rather than decreases his resistance. The target is the mind …'

'Von Praeger!' I broke in. 'The war's finished and done with. You're not operating now with your bloody Gestapo. This is a country with plenty of law and order, as you'll soon find out if you start anything. First of all, pointing a gun is an offence, in case you don't already know it.'

I think he must have been getting his mental breath back, so to speak, for he ignored my outburst and pulled the diamond pencil from his pocket.

'Where'd you get this from?'

'It was my grandfather's. It came to me in his estate. From Holland.'

He drew his face a little to the right, as if he could see us better that way.

'I wondered many times what had happened to it. You see, he had it in his hand the night he died. Then it disappeared. The fact that you have it is the last link in a search which I started that same night. Now the end is in sight and. (a brief rictus showed his teeth and he gestured at us with the pistol) ‘. . I have my fish in the net.'

'If you saw that in my grandfather's hand when he died then you killed him,' I said slowly. 'Because he didn't die naturally. The Gestapo killed him. I know that much.'

'True,' he replied almost conversationally. 'The Gestapo was responsible. That is where the hyena's blanket comes in. Your grandfather was a spy.

'A patriot.'

'What you call him depends purely upon whose side you are,' he replied levelly. 'I say he was a spy. The Gestapo intercepted a radio message from him to the Dutch government in exile. The code was amateurish as one would expect from an amateur. But the key to its meaning was a phrase which completely defeated them — "the hyena's blanket!".'

'They probably misread it.'

He shook his head. 'I think not. The only codebreaker in the war better than the Gestapo was the British Admiralty. It was hyena's blanket all right. The rest of the message was plain — all about providing finance for the Dutch to continue the fight in exile. Since Erasmus was a diamond dealer, it didn't require much imagination to know he was referring to diamonds. But,' and he squinted at us again, 'it would require one hell of a lot of diamonds to keep a whole government going in exile. And that's what Erasmus meant.'

'This has nothing to do with me or with Nadine.'

'No?' The pistol was rock-steady on us. 'It has everything, as you will realize soon. This diamond pencil proves it.'

'I tell you. .!' I exclaimed angrily, while a knot of fear began to form in my stomach.

'Let me tell you,' he returned. 'The Gestapo rounded up Erasmus of course and interrogated him. Unfortunately they were too enthusiastic. The old man had a heart attack before they extracted much from him. I was called in as a doctor to try to keep him alive long enough for them to find out why he kept saying, over and over, "the hyena's blanket".'

'You bastard!' I burst out. 'You did a harmless old man to death!'

'Not so,' he replied. 'I used everything in my power to keep him alive. In fact, I thought at one stage I had succeeded. But he died, still moaning about the hyena's blanket.'

I felt a cloud of greyness rise up out of the past. I had been fond of my grandfather; automatically I blamed his tragic end on diamonds.