“You take it lightly,” Friedl said, sounding more like her sullen self. “I tell you, they want to kill you!”

“Who?”

She went back to the prepared script. “I cannot say more over the telephone. I too am in danger. You must come—here—to the hotel. Bring a friend if you like, someone who can help us. Will you come? Tomorrow?”

“Well…all right.”

In a sudden switch from the melodramatic to the brisk, she thanked me and hung up. I turned to find three pairs of eyes focused on me.

“Who was it?” Schmidt asked.

“None of your business, Schmidt. How about another beer?”

He was agreeable. I picked up the tray and went to the kitchen. John was right on my heels.

“How did you know?” I demanded.

“Was that her?”

“She. How did—”

“Pedant,” John said. “Well, I expected something of the sort; didn’t you?”

“No,” I admitted. “She’s invited me to be her guest at the hotel—dire hints of disasters past and present. Apparently she’s decided to come clean; she admitted her husband had intended to write to me. Maybe I was wrong about her. She had no reason to trust me, walking in off the street the way I did.”

“If you believe that, you are as innocent as a new-laid egg.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“Could be.” John did not appear particularly perturbed by the idea. “However, in my considered opinion, it seems more likely that they have decided to pick your brains instead of your bones.”

“You have such a poetic way of putting things.”

“In words of one syllable, then—they don’t know where it is. Or, ‘is at,’ as you Americans say. Having searched in vain, they have concluded—somewhat tardily, I agree—that you may succeed where they have failed.”

“I still don’t see—”

“You’ve had a great deal on your mind lately,” John said kindly. “Think. Why would Friedl go to such lengths to lure you to Bad Steinbach when she can murder you just as easily and far more safely, in Munich?”

“Cheerful thought. If they want to pick my brains, why did they try to kill me yesterday?”

“Because they’re a bunch of bloody amateurs,” said John, with professional disdain. “They had been half-expecting, half-dreading your arrival; when you turned up out of the blue, they didn’t know what to do. Someone—probably Freddy the Mindless and Muscle-Bound—acted on impulse. He’s the sort of chap whose natural impulses would be lethal. Later on Friedl got in touch with the Mastermind, who pointed out a more responsible course of action. I trust you realize what that implies? It takes her some time to reach the man in charge. He isn’t on the spot.”

“If you mean Tony…I don’t believe it.”

John’s demonic eyebrow soared skyward. “Of course you know him so much better than I, don’t you?”

My nice neat living room looked like the scene of an all-night binge. It stank of beer—Caesar had knocked a glass over—and the place was littered with empty bottles and glasses, the ashes of Schmidt’s horrible cigars, and the scraps of a bowl of pretzels. Schmidt had turned sentimental, as he usually does after three or four beers, and was looking at my photograph albums. He and Tony had their heads together over the Rothenburg mementos and were giggling as they recalled their encounters with the ghost of the Schloss.