“I’m a fool and no matter what Streicher has said about Jews being inferior, I looked into the little bastard’s eyes and I knew he was an intelligent man. ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked him. ‘Three years,’ he answered. ‘Then you know what we’re like, don’t you?’ He smiled and nodded at me. ‘So,’ I said, ‘what do you think they will do in Berlin when they find out that I’ve stopped . . . our work? And they will find out.’ ” The little bastard doesn’t answer, so I say, ‘They’ll destroy this camp and everyone in it, and even if the thing in there survives, all the men with you will be dead. So will everyone here; Germans, Poles, and Jews. I can keep you and your people alive. That’s all I can do, no matter what you threaten me with.’ ”

“And so all the rest died. Amen,” Hawkins said.

Bianco ignored him and kept talking to Rachel. “Speiser was right. The Nazis were beginning the ‘final solution’ and if they had found out that a couple of thousand Jews stayed alive because of a fairy tale monster. . . .”

Hawkins stood up. “It’s not a fairy tale. It’s worse. It’s a Boris Karloff movie.”

Bianco said, “Speiser believed it.”

“And you believed him,” Hawkins said. “Why? Deathbed truth? You don’t think he’d risk damnation by having a little fun with you?”

Bianco said quietly, “You weren’t in that room, Inspector, or you wouldn’t ask that. He was sick and starving and about to be hanged for one of the worst crimes in history. It wasn’t a setting for a last joke. Whatever Speiser said, crazy or not, he believed it.”

Hawkins headed for the door and Bianco followed them to the door; he kept looking at Rachel and apologizing, which Hawkins didn’t understand. Then when they were outside the house, just getting into the car, he ran out the door after them. “You’ll let me know?” he said to Rachel.

She nodded.

“Please,” he said urgently. “I’ve waited a long time. You’ll tell me . . .”

“I promise,” Rachel said solemnly.

Hawkins didn’t say anything; he was looking through his pockets for Chaim Garfield’s phone number.