Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [36]
Dietrich moved along the wall. "This time I'm just going to yank the bars with my hand."
Dietrich lowered the bat to the floor. He gripped the bar and pulled. It easily came off in his hand. When he gripped the second rod and tugged, it also came away from the window.
The inspector held up both metal shafts. "Burke was up on the roof, five floors above the courtyard, and had two escape suitcases. Sitting on the peak of the roofline, he shoved one case down the shingles, where it fell five floors to the courtyard. It left a swath of broken moss, and the roof looked like a man had slipped down the shingles."
Janssen added in a bemused tone, "And Burke must have thrown those two loose shingles along with the suitcases to make it seem like the American had desperately grabbed at something as he slipped, and had pulled the shingles loose."
"The fistfight over the bagpipes was a planned distraction," Dietrich went on. "The instant the brawl began, Burke pushed the suitcase down the roof and, at the same instant, you POWs pulled aside the bars and Cray leaped from this first-floor window. Cray fell ten feet, not five floors."
"But I saw him fall," Heydekampf objected.
"You heard Cray scream, and turned in time to see him fall a few feet and bounce off the courtyard stones. Lieutenant, your imagination filled in much of his fall. He dropped only from this first-floor window. To further convince you, Burke kicked his legs and slid around a bit up on the roof, and made it look like he had almost fallen."
Heydekampf did not bother translating these last revelations.
Apparently resigned to the course of the conversation, Commandant Janssen offered, "If you look at the tips of those bars, you'll see the mortar used to stick them back in place."
Dietrich brought up an iron shaft. Dry powdery paste was at the tip.
"It's made from the old mortar in the stone walls," Janssen said wearily. "They probably scraped it off the wall with a nail or spoon, then mixed the powder with water. The mortar reconstituted and became sticky, just as it was when these walls were constructed many years ago, and they dabbed it onto the ends of the bars and replaced them right after Cray went through the window."
Dietrich held up his hand to Heydekampf to stop him from interpreting, then asked Janssen, "Where do you suspect the POWs got the metal saw or file to cut the bars?"
The commandant lifted his palms. "From a maintenance crew probably. The POWs will steal absolutely anything left untended for more than two seconds. Or perhaps they have picked the shop lock. They can get into the shop and infirmary and kitchen at will, it seems. The prisoners undoubtedly have a hardware store's inventory hidden around the castle."
Dietrich nodded to Heydekampf, who again began translating when the inspector said, "Jack Cray's willpower can be measured by his posture after he landed on the stone court below this window. His arms were dislocated, and surely he was in a great deal of pain. He hit the stones, and he remained motionless in a rag doll's limp posture. A man who is badly wounded will reflexively curl up into a ball, but a dead man has a sprawled, boneless look to him. That's how you found Jack Cray. His flaccid posture alone would have led you to think he was dead."
"He wasn't breathing," Heydekampf blurted in German.
"He was breathing, very shallowly and slowly under his loose coat, and in checking everything else, you missed it."
Dietrich placed the bars on the floor and returned to the table. Hornsby and Bell had finished their crullers, but David Davis still had one in each hand, taking bites out of each alternately and as rapidly as he could as if afraid the German inspector might abruptly take them back.
"But he had no pulse," Heydekampf argued. "I swear it."
"You are correct, Lieutenant. Jack Cray had no pulse. You and Colonel Janssen are not surgeons, so you cannot be faulted for failing to detect the American's ruse." Dietrich brought out two lengths of rubber tubing from his jacket pocket.
Bell again glanced at Hornsby.