The Time Dweller

'Has this,' I said, pointing to the bed,' anything to do with last night?'

'He was probably here when it happened, but I… ' Sagittarius shook his head and I Wondered if there was anything he'd meant to imply which I'd missed.

I saw something on the floor, stooped and picked it up. A pendant with the initials E.B. engraved on it in Gothic script.

'Who's E.B.?' I said.

'Only the garden interests me, Mr Aquilinas -I do not know who she is.'

I looked out at the weird garden. ' Why does it interest you -what's all this for? You're not doing it to his orders, are you? You're doing it for yourself.'

Sagittarius smiled bleakly. ' You are astute.' He waved an arm at the warm foliage that seemed more reptilian than plant and more mammalian, in its own way, than either. ' You know what I see out there? I see deep-sea canyons where lost submarines cruise through a silence of twilit green, threatened by the waving tentacles of predators, half-fish, half-plant, and watched by the eyes of long-dead mermen whose blood went to feed their young; where squids and rays fight in a graceful dance of death, clouds of black ink merging with clouds of red blood, drifting to the surface, sipped at by sharks in passing, where they will be seen by mariners leaning over the rails of their ships; maddened, the mariners will fling themselves overboard to sail slowly towards those distant plant-creatures already feasting on the corpse of squid and ray. This is the world I can bring to the land - that is my ambition.'

He stared at me, paused, and said: 'My skull -it's like a monstrous gold-fish bowl!'

I nipped back to the house to find Bismarck had returned to his room. He was sitting in a plush armchair, a hidden HiFi playing, of all things, a Ravel String Quartet.

'No Wagner?' I said and then: ' Who's E.B.?'

'Later,' he said. ' My assistant will answer your questions for the moment. He should be waiting for you outside.'

There was a car parked outside the house - a battered Volkswagen containing a neatly uniformed man of below average height, a small tooth-brush moustache, a stray lock of black hair falling over his forehead, black gloves on his hands which, gripped a military cane in his lap. When he saw me come out he smiled, said,' Aha,' and got briskly from the car to shake my hand with a slight bow.

'Adolf Hitler,' he said.' Captain of Uniformed Detectives in Precinct XII. Police Chief Bismarck has put me at your service.'

'Glad to hear it. Do you know much about him?'

Hitler opened the car door for me and I got in. He went round the other side, slid into the driving seat.

'The chief?' He shook his head. 'He is somewhat remote.

I do not know him well-there are several ranks between us.

Usually my orders come from him indirectly. This time he chose Jo see me himself and give me my orders.'

'What were they, these orders?'

'Simply to help you in this investigation.'

'There isn't much to investigate. You're completely loyal to your chief I take it?'

'Of course.' Hitler seemed honestly puzzled. He started the car and we drove down the drive and out along a flat, white road, surmounted on both sides by great heaps of overgrown rubble.

'The murdered man had paper lungs, eh?' he said.

'Yes. Guess he must have come from Rome. He looked a bit like an Italian.'

'Or a Jew, eh?'

'I don't think so. What made you think that?'

'The Russian watch, the Oriental shoes - the nose. That was a. big. nose he had. And they still have paper lungs in Moscow, you know.'

His logic seemed a bit off-beat to me but I let it pass. We turned a corner and entered a residential section where a lot of buildings were still standing. I noticed that one of them had a bar in its cellar.' How about a drink?' I said.

'Here?' He seemed surprised, or maybe nervous.

'Why not?'

So he stopped the car and we went down the steps into the bar. A girl was singing. She was a plumpish brunette with a small, good voice. She was singing in English and I caught the chorus: '

Nobody's grievin' for Steven, And Sterne ain't grievin' no more, For Steve took his life in a prison cell, And Johnny took a new whore.'

It was the latest hit in England. We ordered beers from the bartender. He seemed to know Hitler well because he laughed and slapped him on the shoulder and didn't charge us for the beer. Hitler seemed embarrassed.

'Who was that?' I asked.

'Oh, his name is Weill. I know him slightly.'

'More than slightly, it looks like.'

Hitler seemed unhappy and undid his uniform Jacket, tilted his cap back on his head and tried unsuccessfully to push back the stray lock of hair. He looked a sad little man and I felt that maybe my habit of asking questions was out of line here. I drank my beer and watched the singer. Hitler kept his back to her but I noticed she kept looking at him.

'What do you know about this Sagittarius?" I asked.

Hitler shrugged.' Very little.'

Weill turned up again behind the bar and asked us if we wanted more beer. We said we didn't.

'Sagittarius?' Weill spoke up brightly. 'Are you talking about that crank?'

'He's a crank, is he?' I said.

'That's not fair, Kurt,' Hitler said. ' He's a brilliant man,, a biologist - '

'Who was thrown out of his job because he was insane!'

'That is unkind, Kurt,' Hitler said reprovingly. ' He was investigating the potential sentience of plant-life. A perfectly reasonable line of scientific enquiry.'

From the corner of the room someone laughed jeeringly. It was a shaggy-haired old man sitting by himself with a glass of schnapps on the little table in front of him.

Weill pointed at him. ' Ask Albert. He knows about science.'

Hitler pursed his lips and looked at the floor. ' He's just an embittered old mathematics teacher - he's jealous of Felipe,' he said quietly, so that the old man wouldn't hear.

'Who is he?' I asked Weill.

'Albert? A really brilliant man. He has never had the recognition he deserves. Do you want to meet him?'

But the shaggy man was leaving. He waved a hand at Hitler and Weill. 'Kurt, Captain Hitler-good day.'

'Good day, Doctor Einstein,' muttered Hitler. He turned to me.' Where would you like to go now?'

'A tour of the places that sell jewellery, I guess,' I said, fingering the pendant in my pocket. ' I may be on the wrong track altogether, but it's the only track I can find at the moment.'

We toured the jewellers. By nightfall we were nowhere nearer finding out who had owned the thing. I'd just have to get the truth out of Bismarck the next day, though I knew it wouldn't be easy. He wouldn't Eke answering my personal questions at all. Hitler dropped me off at the Precinct House where a cell had been converted into a bedroom for me.

I sat on the hard bed smoking and thinking. I was just about to get undressed and go to sleep when I started to think about the bar we'd been in earlier. I was sure someone there could help me. On impulse I left the cell and went out into the deserted street. It was still very hot arid the sky was full of heavy clouds. Looked like a storm was due.

I got a cab back to the bar. It was still open.

Weill wasn't serving there now-he was playing the pianoaccordion for the same girl singer I'd seen earlier. He nodded to me as I came in. I leant on the bar and ordered a beer from the barman.

When the number was over. Weill unstrapped his accordion and joined me. The girl followed him.

'Adolf not with you?' he said.

'He went home. He's a good friend of yours, is he?'

'Oh, we met years ago in Austria. He's a nice man, you know. He should never have become a policeman, he's too mild.'

'That's the impression I got. Why did he ever join in the first place?'

Weill smiled and shook his head. He was a short, thin man, wearing heavy glasses. He had a large, sensitive mouth. ' Sense of duty, perhaps. He has a great sense of duty. He is very religious, too - a devout Catholic. I think that weighs on him.