Sponer saw Marie out. “It’s possible,” he whispered, “someone may ask you where I am. If so, tell them you don’t know, you came to my place only because you expected to find me in. For Heaven’s sake, don’t say I’m here. Do you understand?”
She just nodded.
He kissed her hands. She opened the front door. Then she went out and didn’t return.
Just after the driver Georg Haintl had taken over from Sponer, there was a phone call to the garage for a cab to 73 Kaiserstrasse.
Haintl, who, as we already know, was slightly tipsy, filled up and drove to Kaiserstrasse.
He had to wait a little in front of No. 73, but then a party of five people in evening dress came out of the front door and bade one another goodbye: three set off towards Mariahilfer Strasse; while a man, and a woman in an ermine cape, got into the car. The man said, “Hotel Ambassador”.
The journey took just over ten minutes. The hotel entrance was still lit brightly. A bellboy ran out and opened the door. The passengers alighted. The man put his hand in his pocket in order to pay, but found he had insufficient small change and wanted to offer the driver a note, whereupon the woman said she had some silver, and she went up to the driver and opened her evening bag.
“What’s that on your back?” her companion suddenly asked.
“Where?” the woman enquired.
“On your cape,” the man said. “The back’s all dirty.”
“Dirty?” the woman exclaimed.
“Yes,” the man said, and pulled off one of his gloves and bent forward. “And it’s wet, too,” he said. When he withdrew his hand, his fingers were stained with a ruddy, coagulated gunge.
“But that’s awful!” the woman shouted. “How on earth did it happen? It must be from the car!”
“From the car?” Haintl shouted loudly, still flushed with wine. “Are you saying my car’s dirty?”
“Of course!” the man shouted. “The whole cape’s dirty!”
A second bellboy came up, and the man and the boys examined the cape and confirmed that it was dirty, the woman trying all the while to turn her head sufficiently to see for herself.
“It’s quite obvious it came from where you were sitting,” the man shouted. “That’s where the dirt stains are!” He opened the car door again and shouted to Haintl, “Turn the light on!” Haintl switched on the rear compartment light, got out of his seat, opened the door and all five of them looked in the back.
“There you are!” the man shouted, and pulled back the upholstery of the backrest. “It’s all wet and dirty! The whole car’s soaking wet! I noticed it as we were driving along!”
“But it’s raining!” Haintl shouted.
“Yes, water, not shit!” the man shouted. “And the inside of the car’s absolutely filthy!”
“From your shoes!” Haintl retorted.
By now a porter had also arrived on the scene, asked what the matter was and looked at the woman’s back; the woman took off her cape and screamed that it was ruined. They all continued fingering the cape and the upholstery until they had all got their fingers dirty, and even Haintl had to admit that everything was dirty.
“What sort of dog cart is this?” the man shouted. “Whom does it belong to? We demand compensation! What is this filth! Everything’s covered in it!”
They all walked into the light of the hotel entrance and examined their fingers. “It’s all red!” one of the boys said. “Yes, reddish brown,” the porter added; and the woman, who was still clutching her cape and trying to scrape the dirt off, suddenly clicked her fingers and exclaimed, “Ugh! Looks just like blood.”
All at once they all fell silent. The man, wishing to lend support to his wife, said it really did look like blood, whereupon the bellboys turned pale, and the porter, now that the others agreed it was blood, added his voice, too, “Yes, yes, it’s definitely blood.” Haintl was absolutely horrified.
“How could it be?” the man shouted.
“I honestly don’t know,” Haintl stuttered, adding that he certainly wasn’t responsible and so on. By now the manager had appeared, and a couple of passers-by had stopped and were staring. Haintl stammered that he himself had just taken over the car a quarter of an hour ago, and that the blood must already have been there.
“Who had the car before you?” the manager asked.
“Another driver,” stammered Haintl, and thought of Sponer.
“Who?” the man shouted, and Haintl mentioned Sponer’s name.
In the end, Haintl had to go to the police station. The man and the woman also drove the short distance in another car; and so it was that Jack Mortimer’s blood, which Sponer had only partially succeeded in washing off in the dark, had come to be in Bräunerstrasse for the second time.
There it was established that the blood was not, as the porter at the Ambassador had first imagined, from a quarried deer, a goose or chicken whose throat had been slit and which someone had been transporting in the taxi, but the blood of someone shot just a few hours previously; they also found the two bullets that had gone through Mortimer’s body and penetrated the car’s bodywork; and Haintl, having been told to leave the car at the police station, was driven, accompanied by two detectives, first to the Brandeis garage and, since the only person there was the car washer, on to Sponer’s flat. In the meantime the Brandeis family were alarmed, but of course knew nothing. One of the detectives rang the front doorbell; the door was opened and, accompanied by the startled porter, they mounted the stairs, woke up the Oxenbauers, and entered Sponer’s room. What with the examination of the blood-stained interior of the car at the police station and everything else, it was, by then, gone two in the morning.
Of course, they hardly expected to find Sponer in his room, though it was possible he could still turn up. The manner in which he had handed the car over to Haintl gave the impression he thought he had got rid of all traces of blood. He was evidently convinced he had. After a short session with Oxenbauer and his daughter, neither of whom had anything material to say because they had both gone to bed at about half past ten and were therefore not aware of Sponer having returned to his flat twice, they were released, but told to keep to their rooms, as was the porter, though the couple did not go back to bed, but started discussing the night’s unprecedented events. In the meantime the detectives continued interrogating Haintl and began a thorough search of Sponer’s room. They noted the two French newspapers, and also broke into the wardrobe and found the wet suit.
Having got that far, however, no one had as yet thought of the table drawer (the table was covered over with a blanket), when Marie Fiala appeared. She had found the front door downstairs, which had an old-fashioned lock, closed, of course, but not locked, which the porter in his confusion and panic had forgotten to do. Her heart began to beat. Although it was dark, being on familiar territory, she rushed up the stairs confidently. The door to the flat was not fully locked, and she entered by turning the key slightly. By now she was almost convinced something was the matter, though she didn’t know what, for Sponer had said virtually nothing to her. The detectives and Haintl, as well as the Oxenbauers and the porter in the other rooms, heard the sound of the key being turned in the lock. The light was immediately switched off in Sponer’s room, and those waiting in the other rooms fell silent. Marie entered and noticed the strip of light showing under the door of the Oxenbauers’ room. For a moment she hesitated. If it had been just up to her, she’d have immediately left the place, rushed back to Sponer, and said this, that and the other had happened. The fact that she saw a strip of light under the door could, of course, have an innocent explanation. However, why couldn’t she hear anyone talking or moving about? She stood stock-still for a full two or three minutes, and listened.