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incredulous, turned even a more unpleasant colour than he had been before,
    swayed forward against Lehmann’s big desk and placed his hands on it for support. He continued
    to stare and Lehmann, mildly surprised, stared back.
    “What’s the matter with you?”
    “Nothing. Nothing whatever.”
    Johann began to drum nervously with his first finger on Lehmann’s desk.
    “What did you see of the fire?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Don’t be absurd, man! You were within a few hundred yards of one of the most
    spectacular fires in history, and you saw nothing of it! Why not?”
    “No business of mine. I always mind my own business. Don’t like being dragged into
    things.”
    The irritating drumming on the desk continued, rhythmic but irregular, dactylic.
    Lehmann, who had not noticed it at first, suddenly found himself listening to it with interest.
    “What was your profession before you sold newspapers?”
    “I—have seen better days.”
    “Heaven help us, I should hope so. I said, what was your profession?”
    “I was a schoolmaster,” said the old man, slowly and reluctantly. Lehmann leaned
    forward across the desk till his face was near the other’s, stared into his eyes, and said, in a low
    tone that could not reach the ears of the S.S. man by the door, “Not a wireless operator?”
    Johann Schaffer gasped, closed his eyes and slid to the floor in a dead faint.
    “Take him away,” said Lehmann as the guard sprang forward. “Tidy him up. Wash him
    —de-louse him if necessary, and I expect it is—and bring him back here at ten o’clock to-
    morrow.”
    At the appointed hour a clean, tidy old man, with his scrubby whiskers shaved off, was
    brought into Lehmann’s room. Klaus looked him up and down, and said to the guard, “Are you
    sure this is the same man?”
    “Quite sure, Excellency,” said the man with a grin. “Merciful heavens, what a little soap
    and water will do.”
    “You should have seen what we took off him,” began the man, but Lehmann said with a
    shudder, “Thank you, I would so very much rather not. You may go, I don’t think this prisoner is
    dangerous.”
    The man saluted and went. Lehmann beckoned the old man up to his desk, and said,
    “Next time you are asked for your name, think up a nice one, don’t just read one off an
    advertisement calendar on the wall. It arouses suspicion in the most credulous breast.”
    “I—my name is Schaffer—”
    “It is not. It is Reck. If you are going to wilt like that you had better sit down, there’s
    nothing to be afraid of. You know me, don’t you?”
    “No, I don’t,” said Reck, clutching at a chair and dropping into it. “Never seen you
    before.”
    “So? Perhaps I can help you to remember. Your name is Reck, before and during the last
    war you were science master at a school at Mülheim, near Köln. There was a tower to the school
    buildings with a lightning conductor on it, do you remember now? You were something of an
    amateur wireless enthusiast in those days, and you had a small wireless transmitter, you used the
    lightning conductor as an aerial. You knew enough morse to send out messages in code, I will
    say for you that you were pretty hot stuff at coding messages. Does it begin to come back to you
    now? No, don’t faint again, because if you do I shall empty this jug over you, and it’s full of cold
    water. You remember on whose behalf you sent the messages, don’t you? British Intelligence.”
    Lehmann paused, largely because poor old Reck looked so dreadfully ill that it was
    doubtful whether he could take in what was said to him without a short respite.
    “Well, I think after that a drink would do us both good,” said the Deputy Chief, and rang
    the bell.
    “Bring some beer, Hagen, will you, and a bottle of schnapps and glasses.”
    “Drink this,” he said, when his orders had been carried out, “it will do you good. You
    always liked schnapps, didn’t you? I’m sorry I’m not the red-haired waitress from the