“The money, please,” Von Koerner said.
It occurred to me that there wasn’t one damn reason why I should give it to him at this point. The flashlight beam flicked to my face, and he must have read what I was thinking there. He took a step away from me and aimed the beam at Cromwell again. His other hand hovered over Cromwell’s throat. There was an ice-pick in it. The flashlight wasn’t the only thing Von Koerner had taken from the shelf.
So now I had the reason to pay him. I handed him the money. Still holding the icepick, he moved to the door. “You can untie him now.” Von Koerner motioned towards Cromwell. “I'll wait here and you can go out first. I wouldn’t want the young lady to leap to any wrong conclusions and get trigger-happy. Then you can take my car. I’ve made other arrangements.”
The adhesive tape over Cromwell’s mouth was virtually embedded in his flesh. I had to pick at it a little at a time to get it off. His eyes told me the process was painful. Also, the knots of the ropes binding him had been soaked in water and it was going to be a painstaking business working them loose. That icepick Von Koerner had would have come in handy, but I knew he wouldn’t give it to me.
As I worked over Cromwell, I tossed a few questions at Von Koerner. He wasn’t at all reticent about answering them. I guess he figured he had nothing to lose. He’d gotten what he wanted and was all set to remove himself from the action. It didn’t matter what he told me now. Also, Von Koerner was naturally a braggart. He enjoyed crowing about his scheme and how well he’d executed It.
As he talked, while I worked over Cromwell, the pieces of the puzzle, the missing pieces Von Koerner now provided, fell neatly into place. One piece of luck, a coincidence, had placed von Koerner in the position he was now so thoroughly enjoying, the position which had netted him the hundred grand he now clutched in his hot little hand. This coincidence was personified by Carrie Cromwell.
But the scheme itself had begun not with her, but with Knute Hajstrom. Von Koerner had known Hajstrom many years ago in Europe. After the war, Von Koerner had “found it necessary” to “emigrate” to Stockholm from his native Germany. By this I guessed that he had probably been on some list of wanted Nazi scientists and had managed to get out one jump ahead of the War Crimes Commission18 . In any case, since he had no license to practice medicine in Sweden, he had been forced to do so illicitly. He practised a peculiar form of gynecology in Stockholm’s nether world of sex. The Swedes have a very permissive attitude toward sex19 . Abortion, for instance, is legal. But they do draw the line at groups which go in for certain specialized perversions. It was to these groups that Von Koerner catered. He performed operations to sensitize the sex organs, operations which left the patient in the perpetual state of one who takes aphrodisiacs regularly. He also devised and sold various gadgets to heighten the sex experience. And he patched up occasional victims of discipline club parties which had gotten out of hand.
That’s where Hajstrom came into the picture. He was an ardent follower of the De Sade theory of combining sex with pain. He brought a very young girl to Von Koerner one night. The girl had been brutally beaten by him. She was unconscious and bleeding internally. Despite Von Koerner’s ministrations, she died. Von Koerner disposed of the body for Hajstrom.
Even in those days Hajstrom was a prominent engineer. Learning this, Von Koerner started blackmailing him. Hajstrom came from a very wealthy family. Shortly after the incident with the girl, his father died and he came into a great deal of money. Von Koerner relieved him of a substantial portion of it and came to the United States.
Here Von Koerner played it straight for a short while. He served his internship, took his medical boards, and was licensed to practice as a gynecologist. Then, using what was left of the money he had extorted from Hajstrom, he had founded the Research Institute of Advanced Gynecology. Once it was established, he had found it easy to get wealthy individuals and foundations to invest in it. Recently he had pulled out his original investment, sold his interest at a profit, and made arrangements to disassociate himself from the Institute and its research program.
He had begun to make these arrangements when he learned that Hajstrom was in Washington, on loan from the University of Stockholm to the U. S. government as an expert in alloys with much valuable knowledge pertaining to our outer space program. He had started blackmailing Hajstrom again. But the well had almost run dry, and he recognized that he could only get so much before he drove the Swede to suicide. This was how things stood when Cromwell came into the picture.
One look at Cromwell’s mousetrap and Hajstrom had recognized the value of the alloy used in its creation immediately. He must have thought he saw the glimmering of a way to get Von Koerner off his back. In any case, he called Von Koerner before he went to the Pentagon and told them of Cromwell’s discovery.
“It was I who decided he should alert the Pentagon,” Von Koerner told me smugly.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
“Because I knew I would have Cromwell in my possession before they could get to him. And I thought they would pay handsomely to get him back. As it turns out, they have. But if they hadn’t, there were other governments who were interested.”
The reason Von Koerner had been so sure of himself was Carrie Cromwell. Originally she’d been brought to one of his spank-parties by Barry. But she’d gotten to Barry through Velvet, and Von Koerner was the power behind Velvet. The bookseller was a front, as was the bookshop, for another of Von Koerner’s schemes. He had compiled information about all the people who had dealt with Velvet and been steered into underground sex activities. His purpose was blackmail.
Thus Von Koerner had made it his business to know all about Carrie Cromwell and her husband. With Anthony Bowdler Cromwell such a bluenose, he had thought he might eventually blackmail Carrie, or perhaps even Cromwell himself. Then had come the call from Hajstrom about Cromwell’s discovery, and Von Koerner had seen the opportunity for some really big money.
He had called Carrie and insisted she bring her husband to the spank-party that evening. When she balked, he sent the note with the leather panties to Cromwell. That did it. Cromwell. fell into his hands like a ripe plum.
After that he had put out feelers to the various governments, letting Hajstrom’s contact with the Pentagon serve as the contact for the U. S. government. Then he had played a waiting game, figuring that would push the price up. But when Hajstrom had been killed, he’d decided to wait no longer.
“Your killing Hajstrom made me nervous,” he admitted. “Was that your purpose?” '
I didn’t answer him. I guessed that my Russian double had killed Hajstrom because Hajstrom was the competition. Also he must have known I’d be blamed for it, and that would not only make trouble for me with the police, but would also make Von Koerner suspicious, which it had. But his greed was greater than his suspicion, and so here we were.
I had Cromwell untied now. He got to his feet. He was pretty wobbly. I gave him a minute to get hold of himself. That minute proved costly.
Von Koerner was standing to one side of the door, his back to it. The beam from his flashlight was in my eyes. He had the packet of money under his arm, the ice pick still in his hand.
Then, suddenly, he stiffened, his face crumpled with agony, and he pitched forward to the floor. The flashlight went spinning crazily out of his grasp. Something hard hit me on the side of the head. It didn’t knock me unconscious, but it dazed me for a moment. I was still dazed as I stumbled to the door and tripped over Von Koerner’s body.