“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” I said.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he said, blinking uncomfortably at the light.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m supposed to be the caretaker. They’re gone, you see. The English. And I don’t think they’re coming back. Dunkirk all over again. There’s no one here but you and me and—for all I know—the man in the iron mask.”

“Are you sure?”

“The longer I stay here talking, the more sure of it I am.” I dangled the keys in front of his face. “I found these on the table in the room next door.”

“So?”

“Nothing. But I’ve an idea they might fit that bracelet you’re wearing.”

“How come you weren’t chained up?”

“Somebody had to release you, I suppose.”

“They obviously don’t know us very well,” he said.

“It’s best you don’t remind me of that,” I said. “I’m just liable to change my mind about this.”

I tried the key on the handcuffs he was wearing. The lock opened.

“Why are you helping me?”

“I’m not sure anyone else would come and find you here. The place looks more or less disused. I guess I’m not the type who can leave a man to die like that. Chained to a radiator like an abandoned dog. Even if it is what you probably deserve.”

“Thanks.”

“I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention it.”

“If the English spies left you unchained they must have believed something of what you said.”

“Perhaps.” I thought about Kim Philby, the Soviet agent in MI6, and reflected that but for my remembering his name, the English wouldn’t have believed a word of it.

“More than I did. I could see what you were up to, Gunther. And I congratulate you. That was quite a performance, the way you took the wind out of her sails with your story. I thought the best thing I could do—the only thing, to help your crazy story along, I mean, and fuck her up—was to try and hit you.” He moved his jaw in the palm of his hand. “I just didn’t realize that English bastard would punch me so hard. He knocked me out cold.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

“But this has to be a trap,” said Hennig, rubbing his wrist and flexing his hand. “The English will probably shoot us when we try to walk out of the front door, don’t you think?”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. But why would they let us escape, either? It doesn’t make sense.”