Rievesaltes looked at Lipsky. “Are you willing?” he asked.

“Willing,” said Lipsky.

Force of habit, that is the explanation for why the two gunmen obeyed the Elder. Or else they recognized there was nothing else to do.

“One condition,” the Bolshevik called. He was standing with his back to the door, across the room from the Chief of Police.

“And that is?”

“Whoever survives executes Trumpelman.”

“Agreed.”

Trumpelman’s lips pulled up, off his teeth and gums. Then he shouted, quite loudly, “Get ready!”

Lipsky raised his gun arm. He had not removed his money-lender’s disguise. His hat rode on the tuft of his hair. “Rievesaltes! For your crimes against the Jewish people, the Edmund Trilling Brigade sentences you to death!”

The condemned man raised his arm as well. “What is death? Who knows the answer to that, Lipsky? Not you and not I. It’s possible we’ll find out together.”

“It can’t,” said Lipsky, “be worse than life.”

“Aim!” cried Trumpelman.

The Chief of Police released the catch on his gun. “They say that up there even the poorest Jew can make a good living.”

Lipsky turned his profile, with a hand on his hip. “Better than in the Aryan section.”

At that instant the door next to the lawyer flew open and Grundtripp, the Totenkopfer, burst into the room. “Don’t move, Jews!” he commanded. “Not even a finger!” It was then that Isaiah C. Trumpelman bellowed, “Fire!”

A bullet came out of each duelist’s gun. Lipsky’s went wild, into the floorboards. But Rievesaltes’ sailed into the chest of the Obergruppenführer, and stopped.

“You are under arrest!” cried the Other, without realizing he had been shot. Then because his heart was not beating, he dropped straight down.

Fried Rievesaltes let go of his weapon. He undid the button of his collar. “I’m dead!” he exclaimed. “Dead! Not living!”

Now Trumpelman started to shout. “Help! Help! It’s a rebellion! Communists!”

A detachment of Death’s-Headers rushed through the doorframe. F. X. Wohltat was right behind them. His face was different from usual. Red, not white. As if he were choking. “I almost went first,” he said.

A horrible scene followed then. All the Death’s-Headers rushed over to Rievesaltes and began to beat him, to kick him with their shoes. Suddenly there was a crash and a tinkle and rainwater came into the room. Lipsky, with an armful of guns, had jumped through the window. The Others ran to the spot and began to shoot into the dark. Missed! Missed again! The underground leader was gone.

“Stop! Stop shooting!” It was Trumpelman, still tied to the chair. “The Police Chief is a Judenrat prisoner. And so is the Bolshevik, Lipsky. He won’t escape from the Elder. The Judenrat will punish them both.”

“Both! Both! We’ll kill you all! We’ll smash the Ghetto to pieces! What if I’d gone first through the door!” It was the Volksdeutscher. His voice rose and rose, practically shrieking. “Twenty-four hours! Just twenty-four hours! If the partisan is not captured by then, we shall attack with tanks, with artillery guns, with planes. No one will be left alive. There will be nothing but corpses!”