He replaced the receiver and turned to find Sir George standing just inside the room, adjusting his bow tie. “Presumably, that wasn’t for me?” he said.

Chavasse shook his head. “It was Anna. Believe it or not, the manuscript has turned up.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Sir George said. “How did that happen?”

Chavasse explained about Katie Holdt. “I suppose she got into a panic and decided to clear out for a while. Leaving the manuscript with Anna would seem like good insurance against being killed by the opposition if they caught up with her. She could always pull the old bluff about the authorities getting the manuscript automatically if anything happened to her.”

“Yes, I suppose that explains it.” Sir George pulled on his overcoat and sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to go to this damned affair just when things are getting exciting. I hope you’ll let me have a peep at the manuscript before it goes to the authorities.”

“I think we can manage that all right,” Chavasse told him.

“Well, I really must rush,” Sir George said. “Don’t be afraid to ring room service for anything you need.”

When he had gone, Chavasse poured himself another drink. He was filled with a feeling of tremendous exhilaration. The job was as good as finished. Getting the manuscript back to London was simply a matter of routine. There only remained the Hauptmann affair. Admittedly, it would have to be handled by German intelligence, but he still had a deep personal interest in seeing that Steiner and Nagel got what was coming to them. At that moment, a buzzer sounded sharply and he crossed to the door and opened it.

The man who faced him looked to be in his early fifties. He carried a walking stick in one hand and was wearing a dark blue overcoat with a fur collar. His face was round and benign, the flesh pouching a little beneath the eyes and chin as if from overeating. The rimless spectacles completed the picture of a reasonably average-looking German businessman. Only the eyes, shrewd and calculating and never still, gave him away to the trained observer.

“Herr Chavasse, I believe?” he said in German. “I am Colonel von Kraul.”

“How did you recognize me?” Chavasse said as he closed the door after the German had entered.

Von Kraul sat down in one of the easy chairs. “We have a dossier on you in our files. I’ve heard a lot about you. That’s why I came at once after our mutual friend spoke to me from London on the telephone. I trust I haven’t wasted my time.”

“You can judge for yourself,” Chavasse said grimly. “How important would you say Heinrich Hauptmann is to the future of Germany?”

Von Kraul was lighting a long, black cheroot. He hesitated for a fraction of a second and then continued with what he was doing. When the cheroot was burning to his liking, he said, “Hauptmann? No man is indispensable. But in German politics at the present time, Hauptmann comes closer to it than anyone else I know.”

“He’s going to be assassinated at nine-fifteen tonight,” Chavasse said.

For a long moment, von Kraul gazed steadily at him, and then he sighed and looked at his watch. “It is precisely seven o’clock. That gives us two and a quarter hours, Herr Chavasse. I suggest you tell me all you know as quickly as possible.”

Chavasse got to his feet. “Do you know a man called Kurt Nagel?”

“The steel magnate?” Von Kraul nodded. “A very well-known figure in Hamburg life. He’s extremely wealthy and a great philanthropist. As a matter of fact, he’s giving a reception tonight for the peace conference delegates.”

“To which Hauptmann has also been invited to make a speech,” Chavasse said.

For the first time, von Kraul’s calm deserted him. “Are you trying to tell me that Nagel has something to do with this business?”

Chavasse nodded. “He’s a key man in the Nazi underground. I don’t know how large his organization is, but I can tell you who his two right-hand men are. A physician named Kruger, who runs a clinic in Blankenese, and a Hamburg police inspector named Steiner.”

Von Kraul got to his feet and walked across to the table on which the bottles were standing, and poured himself a large brandy with a steady hand. He drank it down in one easy swallow and then stared reflectively into the empty glass. “From anyone else, I would have regarded such a story with incredulity. It is lucky for you, mein Herr, that your name is Paul Chavasse.”

“Lucky for Hauptmann, you mean,” Chavasse said.

Von Kraul went back to his chair. “How exactly does the killing take place?”

Chavasse closed his eyes and let his mind wander back to the room in the castle at Berndorf in which Muller had died. It was an old trick and one that had served him well in the past. “I’ll try to remember Nagel’s exact instructions,” he said, and after a moment, started to speak.

When he had finished, von Kraul sat in the chair, hands folded across the handle of his walking stick, and gazed at the opposite wall. After a while, he said, “Steiner will be there on his own. You are sure of that?”

Chavasse nodded. “That’s the essence of the whole plan – simplicity.”

“And a simple plan may be thwarted just as simply,” von Kraul said. “Is that not logic, Herr Chavasse?”

“What do you have in mind?”

Von Kraul shrugged. “I was thinking that we do not want an unsavory scandal, particularly one which suggested that the Nazis were still active and powerful. Such things are meat and drink to our Communist friends.”

“I’ll go that far with you,” Chavasse said, “but where does it get us?”

“To the grounds of Herr Nagel’s house at Blankenese,” von Kraul said. “It seems to me that two determined men could handle this affair. Are you interested?”

Chavasse got to his feet, a smile spreading across his face. “You’re too damned right I’m interested.”

“Then I suggest we be on our way.”

As he stood, Von Kraul said, “You know, there are considerable gaps in your story, and I am a man with a naturally tidy mind. I would be very interested in knowing how you first became involved with Nagel and his friends.”

Chavasse was in the act of pulling on the hunting jacket he had taken from the inn at Berndorf, and he smiled. “Now, surely you know better than to ask me a thing like that, Colonel?”

Von Kraul sighed. “After all, we are supposed to be allies. How much simpler it would be if we were completely frank with each other.” He held open the door. “Shall we go?”

His car was a black Porsche, and he handled it more than competently as they moved through the heavy traffic in the center of the city and crossed the Alster by the Lombardsbrucke.

Chavasse glanced at his watch. It was just after seven-thirty, and he turned to his companion and said, “How long will it take us to reach Nagel’s place?”

Von Kraul said, “Twenty minutes, perhaps even thirty. Certainly not longer.”

Chavasse made a quick decision. “I’d like to call in on a friend, if you don’t mind. Just to let her know I’ll be a little later than I said.”

Von Kraul chuckled. “A woman, eh? Will it take long?”

Chavasse shook his head. “Only a couple of minutes, I promise you, and it’s on our way.”

Von Kraul made no further comment after Chavasse gave him the address, and they continued in silence through the busy streets.

It was a fine autumn evening and the rain had stopped. Chavasse lowered the window and lit a cigarette, feeling suddenly content. Every so often he had a feeling that things were running his way, that the job was going to get finished in exactly the way he wanted.

When the Porsche braked to a halt in front of the apartment house where Anna lived, he got out feeling absurdly happy and grinned through the side window at von Kraul. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”

Von Kraul smiled, the cheroot still between his teeth. “Take your time, my friend. Within reason, of course.”