As one, they burst into song. Wilde and Heck turned back. On the little platform beside the accordionist, a thin man of middle years with greying hair was leading the singing.

‘Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!’

Heck looked at Wilde with intent. ‘Do you hear that?’

The strains sounded vaguely familiar. ‘What is it?’

‘Goddamn, can’t you hear it? Raise the flag! . . .The ranks tightly closed! The flag is the swastika. They’re singing the fucking Horst Wessel song. The only thing missing is the Hitler salute. They’re all fucking Nazis.’

He was carrying his bag and pulled out his pistol. Without hesitation, he strode into the centre of the large room, surrounded by forty or fifty men and women all standing to attention. He raised the pistol and fired a shot into the ceiling. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space and brought the singing to an immediate halt.

‘Get out,’ he shouted in German. ‘Get out every one of you, because if you don’t I’ll shoot you all, and anyone left alive I’ll have arrested and held as an enemy combatant. Do you all understand?’

There was murmuring, but little movement among the crowd. To encourage them, he fired another shot, this time lower into one of the walls. ‘The next one will be in someone’s head,’ he roared.

Wilde could only look on and wonder how this was going to end. He had a pistol, too, but he kept it holstered. The two of them were hugely outnumbered, and who could tell what weapons these men had secreted about them? Wilde’s eyes strayed to the grey-haired lead singer and saw a look of deadly loathing.

The proprietor, meanwhile, was standing in front of Heck now. ‘You cannot do this! You have no right.’

Heck pushed the muzzle of his pistol into the Austrian’s face. ‘I have every right, mister. That song is banned in Austria and Germany. You thought we’d be too damned stupid to know, didn’t you, you smug Nazi bastard. So tell all your fascist friends to go home right now, or you’ll be the first to get a bullet. Do it!’

Heinrich Stifter looked murderous, not scared. For a moment Wilde thought he would try to punch Heck, but thankfully he managed to hold in his fury because Wilde was pretty sure the Austrian would have ended up dead.

Then Stifter turned away and reached out his arms, patting his palms downwards in a gesture designed to calm his guests. He was red-faced and as taut as a cable, but he managed to speak in measured tones. ‘Do as he says, friends. Go home now. Leave me to deal with this and we will meet again soon. Thank you for your custom. Sleep well, friends.’

Within a minute, the guests were all gone, leaving just Wilde and Heck and Stifter and the woman who had first welcomed them. Was she his daughter or wife?

‘Now then,’ Heck said. ‘You were about to show us to our rooms, Herr Stifter.’