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Begg followed Stempfle into the hermit’s horrible candlelit den, which stank of mold, old food, woodsmoke, and dust. Everywhere were piles of books, manuscripts, scrolls. There was no doubt the man was a scholar, but whether he followed God or the Devil was hard to determine. In a small grate, a sparse, damp fire emitted a little heat.

“You’re a close friend of Adolf Hitler, I gather, Father?” Begg hardly gave the unshaven old man in the filthy cassock a chance to catch his breath.

Father Stempfle stuttered. “I wouldn’t say that. I have very little to do with him, these days.”

“You helped him write his book—Mein Kampf, is it?”

Now Begg’s long hours of reading and study were coming to his aid as usual. Sinclair remembered how impressed he so often was with his friend’s ability to put together a jigsaw with pieces from so many apparently disparate sources.

Father Stempfle began to turn scarlet. He fumed. In his mephitic cassock and sandals, he stamped about his paper-strewn study until it seemed the unevenly stacked piles of books would fall and bury them all alive. “Helped him, my good sir? Helped that illiterate little trench terrier, that scum of Vienna’s pervert’s quarter? Helped him? I wrote most of it. The manuscript was unreadable until his publisher asked me to work on it. Ask Max Amman. He’ll confirm everything. He and Hitler fell out over it. Or perhaps he has now been persuaded to lie by Röhm and his apes. My arguments are the purest and the best. You can tell them because I offer a much more sophisticated analysis of the Jewish problem. Hitler’s contribution was a whine of self-pity. For years Amman didn’t publicize the book widely enough. Now, of course, it’s selling very well. And do I get a pfennig in royalties?” The squalid old monk shuffled to a stop, his face breaking into something which might have been a grin. “Of course, it’ll sell even better once they know about the murder. . . .”

Begg had no stomach for this. He drew a large handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “You think Hitler killed her?”

“Nobody seems to think he’s up to it,” murmured Sinclair. “Not a strong man, physically at least. A pacifist, we were learning today . . .”

Stempfle crushed old parchment in his hands as he moved toward the fire. Something had made him feel the cold. “He says he hates violence. But you should see how cruelly he treats that dog of his. Wulf? He calls it such a name so that he can demonstrate his own masculinity the better. I think he is capable of any violence.”

Sinclair stepped forward. “What about those pictures—those letters—the blackmail attempt?”

“Oh, he’s calling it blackmail now, is he? I simply wanted fair reimbursement for the work I’d done. . . .” Stempfle glowered into the fire, which seemed to flicker in sympathy.

“If you still have some of that stuff, I could see that it got into the appropriate hands. Would it not strengthen the case against Hitler?”

Stempfle snorted. The sound was almost gleeful. “It would top and tail him nicely, true. . . .”

“That material is here?”

Stempfle grew cunning. “The originals are elsewhere, in safekeeping. Still, I don’t mind showing you the copies.”

“I am prepared to pay one hundred pounds for the privilege,” declared Sir Seaton.

At this the old man moved with slightly greater alacrity, ascending a ladder, moving a picture, rattling a combination, then going through the whole process backward again. When he came down, he had an envelope in his hands. Begg paid him in the four crisp twentyfive-pound notes he held ready, and Sinclair accepted the envelope, casually drawing out the first photograph and then blanching at what he saw. He returned the photograph to the envelope and covered his mouth. “Great Jehovah, Begg! I had no idea! Why would any woman involve herself in this? Or any man demand it?” Now he knew why Angela Raubal could not help being a disturbed young woman and why Hanfstaengl had left the bar so swiftly.

Stempfle’s crooked body shook with glee. “Not how Adolf might wish to be remembered, eh? They would make excellent illustrations