“Yes, yes, of course. But I will proceed as if you were Captain Ranklin. You are accused of helping arrange the murder of a man known – to you – as Gunther van der Brock.”
A great relief flooded Ranklin: the Germans hadn’t uncovered him, only Gunther’s people, and they knew him anyway. He might still get murdered, but he had his professional pride back. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about, and I’ve most certainly never arranged the death of any-”
“You are here in Germany to accompany Lady Kelso, who goes to Turkey to help release two engineers on the Baghdad Railway held hostage for ransom. Do you want more details? About Miskal Bey defeating Turkish soldiers with his new rifles?”
“Who are you?”
“You may go on calling me Dr Zimmer. But I am a partner of Gunther. Will you now stop pretending?”
Ranklin looked around. The room was big, probably used for parties and meetings, and bare – for any room in Bavaria. The walls held only a scattering of religious prints, mountain views, photographs and official notices, a clock and several empty flower baskets. It was lit by a single electric bulb hung from the ceiling that was anything but bare: its shade looked like a harvest festival with tassels on, letting only a glow of orange-pink light leak out. From below came, incongruously, the friendly early-evening mumble of the beer hall. “Is this a trial, then?”
Zimmer gave a tiny shrug. “Perhaps, but not like your English trials. It is . . . an inquiry, before Hunke takes you out for execution.”
“It seems I’ve been found guilty already.”
Zimmer said indifferently: “I could have had Hunke shoot you in the rail-yard. Instead, I am being fair. You can try to explain yourself.”
Good God, the bastard really means this, Ranklin realised. Any feeling of relief was gone now. He was going to be taken out and shot like . . . like a spy. He swallowed and asked: “May I sit down?”
Zimmer nodded; Hunke brought over a chair, then himself sat against the wall square to Ranklin, dangling the pistol between his knees. His knubbly face seemed solemn and phlegmatic under his wide flat cap – he may have been the dockside loafer glimpsed earlier – but quite capable of obeying nasty orders.
Ranklin said: “Gunther didn’t come to see the Bureau in London, he saw somebody else. I don’t know who. I called on him at breakfast because we’d heard he was in town-”
“Who told you?”
“The police spotted him at the port. Gunther didn’t tell me anything, we said good-bye outside the hotel, then a man waiting put a pistol in his face and killed him. I saw that myself.”
Zimmer had his attache case open on the table, spilling a collection of papers, and was checking Ranklin’s account against a newspaper cutting. “Did you try to catch the man?”
“No, he’d vanished in the fog. It must mention the fog. Anyway, I might have thought twice about chasing an armed man who killed that freely. And that’s all.”
Zimmer seemed to be considering this judiciously. “Are you sure he had seen someone in your Government?”
“As you said, I wouldn’t be here in Germany if he hadn’t, would I? And the English money the police found on him.”
“Money?” Zimmer frowned and consulted the cutting again.
“Two hundred pounds. No, they were trying to keep that out of the newspapers.”
Outside the door a board creaked and Hunke lunged silently to his feet; for a big man, he moved very smoothly. He tiptoed to the door and listened, keeping his pistol pointed warningly towards Ranklin. There was silence, except for the murmur from beneath, then heavy, unsuspicious footsteps came down the stairs, past the door and on down until they blended into the noise below. Hunke shrugged and sat down again.
Zimmer picked up the thread: “So you say you did not arrange his death?”
“Of course not. We wouldn’t kill the golden goose.”
“Pardon?”
“We got information from him. We wanted – still want – to go on getting it from his firm – you. Why should we suddenly want to kill him?”
“To protect the secrets he had given you, so that he would not sell them to anyone else.”
That was a new idea for Ranklin. He’d been standing too close to the event, not seeing enough of how it might look to others. “We wouldn’t do that. We trusted Gunther, we wouldn’t have had dealings with him if we hadn’t trusted him.”
“But this time, you said, you did not have dealings with him.”
And what was the answer to that? Zimmer went on calmly: “You see, I know what the famous English Secret Service thinks of us. You believe, because you are patriots working only for your country, that you are superior to us who work for any country, and also for money. We do not matter – is it not so?”
“No,” Ranklin said. It was difficult to think in big general terms when faced with the specifically gigantic thought that Hunke was about to take him out and kill him. “No. That might be how generals and cabinet ministers think, if they didn’t despise all of us, their own spies as much as any others.”
Again the small, almost indifferent, shrug. “Perhaps. Perhaps now I do not think you killed Gunther, or want him killed. But that does not matter. Like a soldier – and I think you are also a soldier? – then you must die, not for what you have done, but for what your country has.”
“But you don’t know it was my country! It could be the Germans who found out what Gunther had sold!” He was ashamed to hear the desperation in his voice, then he thought The hell with shame, this is my life.
Zimmer shook his head and smiled sadly. “I said you do not understand. You think you belong to a small Bureau. Probably you say you have not enough men, not enough money, so you think you are small. But not really, because you belong to England, and that is big. So a defeat does not mean so much, it is not the end of everything – and one day, probably, you will take revenge. But we are truly small, and belong to nobody, and a single defeat will destroy us if it is known that we do not act, and quickly. So it is more important to show we will take revenge, than that we take the right revenge. Do you understand that?”
“That saving your honour justifies any mistake?” But hadn’t it always?
Somebody tried the handle of the door, then gave a heavy knock. A voice called: “How can I bring in your drinks if you won’t open the door?”
Zimmer and Hunke swapped surprised looks. “Did you-?” Zimmer hissed, and Hunke shook his head.
The voice outside was impatient. “Open up!”
Hunke pocketed the pistol and opened the door. The landlord – presumably – waddled in with a tray of beer-mugs, and doled them onto the table beside Zimmer’s case.
Zimmer asked: “Who ordered these?”
“The other man. The Englishman.”
Zimmer instinctively looked at the door – at O’Gilroy sauntering in with a friendly grin and going straight up beside Hunke. Going so close you couldn’t see his hand behind Hunke’s back.
“There’s your change.” The landlord slapped it on the table and waddled out, muttering about locked doors and secret societies . . .
O’Gilroy patted Hunke’s pockets and whisked the pistol away. Hunke stood very still, knowing exactly what was poking into his back.
Then O’Gilroy stepped away quickly. “All under control,” and by now his smile was lopsided and nastier. “D’ye want me to shoot them in any partic’lar order?”
Ranklin got carefully to his feet, unsure about his knees. “Give me my pistol.” Even to himself, his voice sounded unnatural.
O’Gilroy snapped open Hunke’s gun – it was a big military-calibre revolver – to check that it was loaded, then passed over Ranklin’s smaller weapon. The simple feel of it in the hand flowed straight to his knees, stiffening them. His hand clenched and he almost shot a dent in the wall.
Then he walked back and held the gun a few inches from Zimmer’s face. “I told you, I saw Gunther killed. The man put a pistol to his face – just like this – and fired. It blew the back of his head off. His brains fell into his hat. I saw it.”