If the fake Britta Warzok had been involved with Henkell, Gruen, and Jacobs from the very beginning, then there was a strong possibility that it had been them who had arranged for me to lose a finger and end up in hospital under Henkell’s care. The men who’d beaten me up had driven me to his hospital, hadn’t they? And Henkell himself had found me in the doorway. The handkerchief I had used to stanch the blood had ended up at the scene of the real Britta Warzok’s murder. Along with my business card. That was neat. And losing half my finger had been important. I could see that now. Without that I could hardly have passed as Eric Gruen. Of course, I hadn’t seen the physical similarity between myself and Gruen until after he had shaved off his beard. But they must have known. Probably as early as the day Jacobs had turned up at my hotel in Dachau. Hadn’t he said something then about me reminding him of someone? Was that when the idea had come to him? The idea of passing me off as Eric Gruen? So that the real Eric Gruen could go and be someone else? It was an idea that stood a better chance of success, of course, if someone called Eric Gruen was under arrest for war crimes. Whatever these war crimes were. A massacre of prisoners of war? Or something even worse. Something medical perhaps. Something sufficiently heinous that Jacobs would have known that war crimes investigators of every political shade and religious creed would not have rested until they had Dr. Eric Gruen in custody. No wonder people like Bekemeier and Elizabeth Gruen’s servants had been surprised to see me back in Vienna again. And to think I had actually volunteered for it all. That was really the clever part, the way they had let me make all the running. With a little help from Engelbertina, of course. No wonder I hadn’t realized what was happening with her there to kick sand in my eyes. To distract me with that fabulous body of hers. If I hadn’t thought of the idea of impersonating Eric Gruen, she would probably have suggested it herself. And yet they could hardly have predicted the death of Gruen’s mother. Unless someone had helped the old woman on her way. Was it possible Gruen had counseled the death of his own mother? Why not? There was no love lost between mother and son. Both Bekemeier and Medgyessy had mentioned the suddenness of the old woman’s death. Jacobs must have killed her, too. Or had someone kill her. Someone from the CIA or the ODESSA perhaps. But I still didn’t quite see why Vera Messmann and the real Britta Warzok had been killed.