Hitler's peace

“Look, Inspector, she was still alive when I left the house this morning. But there’s something you should know. Something important.”

Luger looked up from the notes he had been making while I spoke. “And what might that be?”

“I need to see that she really is dead before I tell you.”

“All right,” sighed Luger. “Let’s go and take a look at her.”

The two detectives had the car brought back, and we drove to the house in Harass Street. It was now guarded by several Egyptian policemen and already subject to the close scrutiny of various scientific experts.

In the hall, Luger led the way up to the first floor. Cash brought up the rear. We went into Elena’s bedroom.

She lay beside a high French window, wearing a silk gown. She had been shot through the heart at fairly close range, for the wound was surrounded with black powder. I didn’t need to put a mirror in front of her mouth to know that she was dead.

“It looks as if she knew her attacker,” I observed. “Given the close proximity of her assailant. But it wasn’t me.”

On the floor beside her body lay a Walther PPK, and I realized with horror that it was very likely the same automatic I had handled in the radio room. It would have my fingerprints on it. But for the moment I said nothing.

“You’ve had your look,” Luger said.

“Just give me a minute, please. This was a good friend of mine.” But I was playing for time. There was something small on the floor, near Elena’s hand, and I wondered if I might see what it was before I was obliged to leave the crime scene. “This has all been a dreadful shock to me, Inspector. I need a cigarette.” I took out my cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.”

I pretended to fumble with the pack and dropped a couple onto the floor. Placing another in my mouth I bent quickly down and retrieved only one of the two cigarettes from the carpet. At the same time I picked up the object close to Elena’s outstretched hand and slipped it into the pack.

“Here, here, you’re contaminating my crime scene,” objected Luger. “You’ve left one of your cigarettes on the floor.” And, bending down, he picked it up.

“Sorry.” I took the cigarette from Luger’s fingers and then lit the one in my mouth.

“Now, then, Professor. What were you going to tell me that’s so important?”

“That Elena Pontiatowska was a German spy.”

Luger tried to repress a smile. “This case really does have everything,” he said. “Yes, it’s been quite a while since we had such a sensational murder here in Cairo. You have to go back to 1927, I’d say-the murder of Solomon Cicurel, the owner of the department store-to have such a fascinating dramatis personae, so to speak. There’s you, Professor, a famous philosopher, and a Polish princess who used to be married to one of the richest men in Egypt. A man who I might add, was also shot. And now you say that this woman was a German spy.”

“You can forget that business about ‘now I say,’ ” I told him. “I don’t recall saying anything about her before now.”

“Is that why you killed her?” asked Cash. “Because she was a German spy?”

“I didn’t kill her. But I can prove she was a spy.” For a moment I thought of showing Luger the plaintext message that was still in my coat pocket and then decided it would be better to put that straight into the hands of Hopkins and Reilly. “There’s a German agent radio in a secret room upstairs. I could show you where it is.”

Luger nodded, and we left Cash in the bedroom and went back along the landing to the double doors that opened onto the stone stairs, and then up to the little apartment. I showed the detective how the bookcase was really a door and then led the way into the secret room.

But the German sender/receiver was gone.

“It was there on that table. And next to it was the gun that’s on the floor in Elena’s bedroom. The Walther. I’m afraid you might find my prints on that, Inspector. I handled it when I came in here and found the radio this morning. Just to see if it was loaded.”

“I see,” said Luger. “Is there anything else you want to tell me, sir?”

“Only that I didn’t kill her.”

Luger sighed. “Try and look at it from my point of view,” he said, almost gently. “There was blood on your trousers when we arrested you. By your own admission your fingerprints are on the probable murder weapon. You were sleeping with the victim. And, to cap it all, when you came here, with some cock-and-bull story about spies, you even tried to interfere with evidence. Yes, I’ll thank you to hand that button over. The one you picked off the floor when you dropped your cigarettes in the bedroom back there.”

I took out the button, scrutinized it momentarily, and then handed it over to the inspector. “It’s not one of mine. Sorry.”

“Did you think it might be?” asked Luger.

“As a matter of fact, no. But I don’t suppose that matters.”

“We’re not fools, sir,” said Luger, pocketing the button.

“Then you’ll already have noticed that none of my coat jackets is missing a button.”

“I have noticed that. So I’m still trying to fathom why you picked it up.”