Читать книгу The Sealed Verdict - Lionel Shapiro - Страница 6

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Tall, blond Hedy hummed a passage from “Star Dust” as she came across the dining room of the Excelsior Hotel. Her apron was spotted with grease and her face shiny from frequent attendance in the steaming kitchen but her walk was supple and provocative. Patently she was happy.

Supper hour in the officers’ mess was over and ordinarily Hedy would have been chagrined to see a table still occupied. Now there was something freshly eager about her as she approached the corner where Lashley and Captain Lance Nissen Were deeply engaged in conversation.

Carrying a coffeepot high, like a spear carrier, she stopped at their table and simulated an aloofness which scarcely concealed the quick coquettish glance she threw at Nissen.

“Frischen Kaffee, meine herren?”

Nissen looked up at her calculatingly. “Bitte, Liebling,” he said.

She pursed her lips to smother a pleasurable little smile, refilled both cups, and mumbled a very professional “Bitteschön”. Catching up the tune of “Star Dust” with discordant abandon, she turned about quickly and flounced toward the kitchen doors. Nissen looked absently at the movement of her buttocks under her thin cotton dress.

Lashley rested his elbows on the table. He drew deeply on a cigarette and watched the steam curl from his coffee cup. After a moment he crushed his cigarette and turned his tired eyes on Nissen.

“You think I’m a fool,” he said.

“I think you’re an idiot,” said Nissen promptly. “You have brains and no common sense. That kind of an idiot.”

Lashley passed his hand over his forehead. “You don’t seem to understand, Lance. Why would Rodal——”

“Never mind that. I’ve heard it all,” Nissen interrupted. “How long ago did you phone the provost people?”

“About an hour. Just before you called.”

Nissen said, “Well, phone them now and tell them to forget it. Tell them you were drunk, which in a way you were. Tell them anything.”

“I’d like to sleep on it,” Lashley said disconsolately.

Nissen threw up his hands. “Fine,” he moaned, “just fine. Tomorrow will be a beautiful day. Marriner will hear about it, and in his nice, quiet, humane way he’ll ruin you, you idiot! Call the provost people and forget about the whole thing. Take Hedy to bed. She loves me dearly but she’ll sleep with you. All sex and no conscience. Just what you need.”

The suggestion passed by Lashley’s ears like cigarette smoke.

He said, “Marriner has no jurisdiction. He can’t do anything to me. Remember, we take our orders from USFET in Frankfurt.”

Nissen snorted. “Listen. You don’t go kicking a general in the slats—any general. Sure, he’s got no control over the War Crimes Section, but he’s still in command in this area—and does he know it! He can ruin you, brother. And for what? Don’t you know how lucky you are?”

“Lucky?” Lashley snapped.

Nissen stood up and leaned on the table. “Yes, lucky. Five years out of law school and you make the front pages back home. See those correspondents run like hares after the sentence? They were running with money to the bank. Money in your bank, brother. Know what it means? Everything! A good partnership, a county appointment, a political start, write your own ticket. Steigmann was big news. No Goering, but big enough. When do you go home?”

Lashley said, “Three or four months. But I’ve got a lot of accumulated leave.”

Nissen slapped his hands against his thighs.

“Go home now, you nitwit,” he pleaded. “Take your leave and go home. By air, even if you have to pay for it. Go home and make speeches. The Kiwanis, the Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, Ladies’ Morning Music Club—set ’em up and mow ’em down. Tell ’em about the Nazi scourge and how it must be eradicated, smashed, wiped out, torn up by the roots. You’re big, you’re made—if you play it right. There’s a tide in the affairs of Lashley and this is it. Christ, man, I’ll be your campaign manager. Me. Nissen. The poor bastard who sits around here and defends ’em.”

Nissen walked around the table in his excitement.

“My God, Bob, you can do it. You’re an orator, a spellbinder with a conscience. That summation of yours this morning was fine, really fine. Wasn’t such good law, but who cares? It was great emotional stuff. Even that pinhead of an artillery captain listened. He looked positively human for the first time——”

Lashley crashed his fist on the table. His half-filled cup fell on its side and the coffee made dark stains on the tablecloth.

“What do you mean—it wasn’t such good law? What do you mean, Lance?”

Nissen stiffened where he stood. For a moment his face was covered with chagrin. He recovered quickly.

He said, “For God’s sake, Bob, stop play-acting. I’m not talking about the trial. It’s finished and done with. I’m talking about the future you’re tossing away. And for what? That’s what I want to know. For what?”

Lashley watched the spilled coffee moving slowly toward the edge of the table. When he spoke again his voice sounded old and tired.

“I wish I could tell you in a way that would make sense. Three hours ago I walked out of the courtroom feeling”—he smiled miserably—“almost as elated as a bridegroom. Since then—all I know is, now I’m not at peace with myself. Something is wrong—wrong—wrong!”

Nissen studied him as a doctor studies a feverish patient. “I know how you feel. It’s not easy to realize that you’ve had a hand in sending six men to their death.” He sat down and looked into Lashley’s tired face. He said, “For just so long they’re just so many legal problems. They’re perjurers, liars, evaders, connivers, bastards, murderers. You’re against them. You’re fighting them. Then the judge says, ‘Until you are dead,’ and they suddenly become human beings. It does something to you where your throat meets your chest.”

He looked at his watch. “What you need is a drink. Let’s get over to the Winter Garden. New floor show tonight.”

Lashley shook his head. “I couldn’t enjoy a drink. I’m tired—desperately tired.”

Nissen frowned. He said tartly, “I could enjoy a drink. That’s because I’m not tired, I suppose. Hell, all I’ve done for six weeks is catch the bullets you fired across the courtroom.”

Lashley put his hand on Nissen’s arm. “I’m sorry, Lance. Your job was miserable. And tough. Much tougher than mine.”

“Don’t be sorry, my friend,” Nissen said. “That’s what is technically known as the Nissen nemesis. Runs through the family like the hound of the Baskervilles. That and alcoholism and sex. We’re thoroughly depraved, we Nissens, and proud of it. Now will you come to the Winter Garden?”

“I’d like to go to sleep.”

“What!” exploded Nissen. “And wrestle in the bed sheets with that dark little mind of yours? I’d rather see you in bed with a man-eating tiger. You need five or six drinks. Develop a hangover. Then you won’t have to wonder why you’re unhappy. You’ll know.”

Lashley got up. “Maybe you’re right, Lance,” he said.

As they walked across the deserted room there was a flutter of skirts at the swinging door leading to the kitchen. Hedy emerged. She stood morose and sensuous against the wall.

Nissen said, “Pardon me. My paramour awaits like an Indian in ambush.”

When he rejoined Lashley in the lobby he muttered, “She’s suffering from an overdose of spate and spermatozoa. That’s been the trouble with the Germans since the fifth century.” He pulled on his coat. “Let’s go.”

The April night had whipped itself into a biting temper. Lashley and Nissen turned up their coat collars as they came out of the overheated lobby of the Excelsior. They crossed the street and took a short cut through the driveway of the opera house toward Bahnhofstrasse.

On the rubble-filled portico of the opera house they saw a gaunt man sitting at the base of a statuette which was shrapnel-spattered beyond recognition. He was hatless and he wore an ankle-length black leather coat in the style of Wehrmacht officers. With a pocket knife he was paring cement from a salvaged brick. Beside him a wheelbarrow filled with clean bricks attested the length of his labor in the stinging cold. Nissen eyed him as they passed. He said, “Look at him. He probably commanded a battery of 88s in the war. No wonder the Germans beat history every twenty-five years.”

In Bahnhofstrasse there was more life. A Red Cross club for enlisted men occupied the most important building still standing in the street, the former Palast Kino. Just beyond the lights that brightened the entrance to the club, each dark doorway of the boarded, fire-gutted shops was populated by one or two girls. They were mostly children of thirteen or fourteen, and the rouge that was lumpily applied to their cheeks made them look like Halloween pranksters rather than apprentices on the dreary night watch of the camp follower. Some, heedless of the cutting wind, wore GI shirts boldly unbuttoned to the precipitate whiteness of their child breasts. Others had skimpy neckpieces of squirrel or cat fur over polka-dotted blouses. A few, those with an expectant smile frozen on their lips that connoted a longer experience in the trade, were wrapped in short fur jackets.

As Lashley and Nissen passed they heard giggles interpolated by a whispered word, “Offizieren.” GIs shuffled back and forth, pausing at each doorway. Here and there they saw in the glowering dark a khaki-jacketed back tightly enclosed by two white hands. A little man with sunken cheeks appeared at Lashley’s elbow and walked with them briefly, whispering, “What got to sell? Zigaretten? Amerikanische dollars?” He fell away in the darkness and a boy, perhaps ten, took his place. “Want girl? Pretty girl. Young. No sick.” He too slunk away. As they crossed in front of the Red Cross Club two MPs saluted briskly.

They walked another block and were about to turn into Münchenerstrasse.

Suddenly the brooding night was pierced by a girlish voice screaming German epithets with the shrill hysteria of violent heartbreak. Then there was the sound of a shot, followed by a high-pitched cry that tailed off like an air-raid siren abruptly gone dead.

Harsh shouts and the patter of running feet echoed up and down the street.

When Lashley and Nissen reached the scene, two MPs were already elbowing their way through a crowd of some fifty soldiers and civilians. Whatever tragedy had occurred was centered in the doorway of a boarded-up Woolworth’s store directly across the street from the Red Cross Club. Above the excited chatter in American and German, they heard a curiously childlike voice sobbing fitfully.

One of the MPs stumbled out of the crowd and ran across the street into the Red Cross Club.

The other MP shouted from the doorway, “Back! Everybody back! A man’s been shot. Get back now!”

The growing crowd pushed in all directions. Newcomers racing to the scene shoved forward eagerly. Others backed away as though terrified by what they saw.

“GI! He’s dyin’!”

“American!”

“The girl shot him!”

“Where’s the ambulance?”

“They got ’er!”

“A GI! Christ!”

“He’s covered with blood!”

“Lousy Fräulein!”

“Get a padre!”

“Back there! Give him air!”

“I saw it. She was waitin’ for him with a rod!”

An ambulance and an MP jeep screamed into the street. Four military policemen, their pistols drawn, jumped out and shouldered their way through the crowd. A machine gun mounted on the back of the jeep was trained on the scene. A weapons carrier brought a new squad of military policemen. They locked arms across the doors of the Red Cross Club and closed off hundreds of hatless soldiers who flailed at them and shouted. Red Cross girls hung out of the upstairs windows of the club.

“Make way for the medics!”

A stretcher was trundled out of the ambulance by two soldiers wearing Red Cross bands on their sleeves. They cut through the crowd.

Nissen grabbed Lashley’s arm. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll hear about it in the morning.”

They darted across the street and disappeared into Münchenerstrasse.

A five-piece string band led by a white-haired German violinist was playing “Symphonie” in the little musicians’ gallery overlooking the foyer bar of the Winter Garden. A sign tacked on the wall identified the place as the “official night club operated by the Eleventh Army for officers and their Allied escorts.” The tune was almost lost in the confusion at the crowded bar as officers waved their chitbooks and shouted for rye, cognac, scotch, and bourbon. Three German bartenders frantically splashed drinks into tumblers and passed them to eager hands. An American sergeant sat on a stool behind the bar and read a colored comics magazine.

At one end of the bar there was still a small space. Lashley and Nissen checked their coats and moved into it.

“What’ll you have?” said Nissen, running his thumbnail over the edge of a new book of chits.

“Rye, with water,” said Lashley.

“Hi, Fritz! Two rye. Doubles.”

The drinks came sliding along the bar. Nissen picked up a water decanter and said, “How much?”

“Half full.”

“Avoiding the issue,” muttered Nissen. “I take mine straight.” He snapped his fingers. “I must escape from myself. Away, away. Far away. Into delirium. Into love.” He sighed a mournful sigh. “Last time I escaped from myself I wound up in a black dungeon, hacking away at the wall and screaming to get out. It turned out to be my own stomach.”

“You should be on the radio,” said Lashley.

“And you,” retorted Nissen, “should be in a padded cell. When are you going to call the provost people?”

Lashley made a slight movement with his shoulders. He lifted his glass.

“God bless you, Lance.” He drank lightly.

“You.” Nissen swallowed his drink in a gulp and waved his chitbook.

A steady stream of people moved through the foyer into the big room. Many of the officers had girls on their arms. They were mostly American girls, nurses and Wac officers; a few were British girls working at headquarters or with UNRRA. A sprinkling of them wore dinner dresses. The rest were in uniform.

The string band in the foyer retired and now the deep-throated harmony of saxophones came from the big room. The fourteen-piece GI dance band of the 35th Infantry had begun operations for the evening.

Nissen swallowed his second drink. “Polish that off,” he said, “and let’s get a table inside before it jams up.”

Before the war the Winter Garden must have been the most popular cabaret in Reschweiler. The dance floor was huge, occupying almost half the floor space, and the bandstand was garishly lighted with blue, green, and white neon tubing. Two small doors on each side of the bandstand gave entrance to the artists’ dressing rooms. Tables along the side walls were elevated from the dance floor and protected by chromium railings.

Nissen surveyed the room with a practiced eye and moved quickly ahead, dodging revelers like a fullback, to take possession of a small table facing the floor. By the time Lashley reached the table Nissen had snared a distracted Fräulein and was ordering a quantity of drinks.

The chatter and laughter were oppressive to Lashley. His mind felt cluttered. He had been under a strain for six weeks and the reaction was beginning. He wished devoutly he had not succumbed to Nissen’s well-meaning invitation, that he were somewhere quiet so that he could sort out the day’s events. He had a sense of foreboding which he could not explain. Perhaps he was only overtired. “What do you know about the Frenchwoman?” he asked suddenly.

Nissen smirked with satisfaction and set down his glass.

“I knew you were thinking about her,” he said. “I would have put a month’s pay on it.”

Lashley said, “I shouldn’t ask it, Lance. It would be proper for you, professionally, not to answer. But I’ve got to know. I’ve got to make up my mind tonight—now.” He found himself shouting in order to be heard above the music and the noise.

Nissen played with his glass and shook his head slowly. He said, “It’s not a matter of professional ethics. The fact is, you found out more in your cross-examination than we ever knew.”

“For God’s sake,” Lashley said, “she was your witness. Surely you talked with her before she testified.”

Nissen laughed lightly. “She turned out to be your witness.”

Lashley leaned hard across the narrow table. “This is important to me, Lance. What was she to Steigmann?”

The band ended a dance number and it was as though hearing had suddenly returned to their ears.

Nissen said, “This is all I know. When we were preparing the defense Steigmann gave us a list of about a dozen people we could call as witnesses. Nobody turned up, not even his wife, who lives here in Reschweiler.”

“I didn’t know he had a wife in town.”

“It isn’t important,” continued Nissen. “I saw her. She refused to have anything to do with him. Well, in telling us his case history, Steigmann mentioned that he’d been transferred from Paris because, among other things, he was under suspicion of having helped a Jew called Flanders—Pierre Flanders, I think. He didn’t labor the point, just mentioned it. It was my idea to get Flanders to testify. We put through a routine request to Western Base in Paris to see if they could locate the guy. Nothing happened. Then one fine day this gal appears in my office and tells me she knew both Steigmann and Flanders in Paris and is willing to spill it on the stand. That’s all I could get out of her. Whatever else she told was under your cross-examination.”

“Has she been living in Paris till now?”

“That’s what I gathered.”

Lashley said, “Then how did she get here? You just can’t wander into Germany. You’ve got to have military orders.”

Nissen threw back his head and laughed. “You’re naïve, Bob. A woman can go anywhere she wants—if she’s pretty enough and there are soldiers around.”

A roll of drums thundered through the room. The band leader announced with inordinate enthusiasm, “The ‘Jersey Bounce’!” and a blast of trumpets raked the room.

Conversation was impossible. Lashley reclined in his chair and surveyed the dance floor. The “Jersey Bounce” blended expertly with the mood of the room. Elderly colonels swung their awkward hips and glared with sleazy eyes into the necks of their partners. Youthful officers lashed their girl friends around the dance floor with an all-consuming enthusiasm. Lashley regarded them with a touch of envy. He wished he were capable of such violent escape from reality.

The place was now crowded to overflowing. A large table off the dance floor was occupied by twelve roistering fliers. One was drinking champagne from a bottle. Their raucous laughter made Lashley wince. He knew he shouldn’t have come tonight. The mood was foreign to the dark turnings of his mind.

Nissen touched his hand and said, “I know what’s wrong with you. By God, I know.” His face broke into a grin. “It’s not Steigmann and it isn’t Rodal either. What’s happened is that you’ve fallen for the woman.”

Lashley looked up. His face broke into creases of sudden amusement.

“Don’t laugh,” said Nissen doggedly. “Crazier things have happened in a courtroom. You’ve been looking at her for four days. I’ve watched you.” He slapped the table and guffawed. “You’ve got a yen for her.”

Lashley laughed and said, “That kind of nonsense is just what I deserve for applying a serious problem to that lecherous mind of yours.”

Nissen said knowingly, “I can smell the symptoms on top of this lousy rye. You’re going down the line for her—all the way.”

“Don’t be idiotic. I’m not doing anything for her. I’ve got to live with myself and I don’t want to see her pushed around, though she’s probably just a high-class Paris whore.”

Lashley felt inexplicably ashamed even as he uttered the words. If the woman had to be dismissed from his mind, this was a gauche way of dismissing her.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Nissen. “But I think she’s a whore at heart. You noticed how well turned out she was.”

Lashley thought of the arrow in her hat and of Ginny. The chain of association amused him. He said, “Some of the most magnificent women in the world are whores at heart.”

“Anyway, I’d like to sleep with her,” said Nissen bluntly.

“What’s wrong with Hedy?”

Nissen shook his head with mock sadness. “Hedy is a nymphomaniac,” he said, and he added in an exaggerated whisper, “Nymphomaniacs are notoriously without passion.”

A fanfare of trumpets cut across their conversation. The lights dimmed. From behind the bandstand a pretty girl in a blue-sequined evening gown fluttered into the spotlight that played on a microphone. She was greeted with applause and yowls. “Now, folks,” she announced with a trace of Teutonic accent, “we present for you our new show—the Winter Garden Follies.” She threw up both arms and smiled widely, like a politician accepting a nomination.

The fliers at the big table howled in unison and slapped one another on the back. She threw a kiss to them and held up her hand. “We open our show with Gerta and Elena—two girls on the flying trapeze. Thank you!”

Lashley turned his eyes from the swinging torsos of Gerta and Elena.

“You think the Delisle woman is passionate?”

Nissen sighed. “I’m sure of it. She has great courage. Women with great courage have great passion.”

“Unless they’re nymphomaniacs,” parried Lashley.

Nissen swallowed the last of his drink.

“D’accord. Unless they’re nymphomaniacs.”

The trapeze act of Gerta and Elena was followed by a pair of agile tumblers. They worked with an aplomb which was hardly dented by lack of applause and the not infrequent shouts of “Get the hook!” and “Where are the women?”

The tumblers were taking an enormous number of unsolicited bows in the grand manner of European artists when Nissen put down his glass with a thump of finality and said, “I’m leaving. Promised Hedy I’d drive her home.”

Lashley said, “You don’t like Hedy.”

“I don’t. It’s just that I correct my perspective on life when I get in bed with her.”

“Soulless bastard.” Lashley was smiling now. This was the Nissen he liked, tart and wholly lacking in restraint.

“On the contrary,” said Nissen. “I’ve got more soul than sense. When we go to bed she feels triumph. I can tell that. She’s conquering me. And don’t forget, I’m supposed to be conqueror.”

“You sacrifice yourself,” said Lashley.

“Certainly. It makes her feel powerful, both as a woman and a German. Mostly as a German. Same as these performers. Their pay isn’t important. They love being dominant in a company of the conquerors. A hundred thousand women in Germany are conquering tonight as their men could never conquer on the battlefield.”

For the first time in longer than he could remember, it seemed, Lashley laughed heartily. He said, “You’re the only person I know who carries his study of practical psychology to the lit d’amour.”

“I would say you’re the only person in the world who doesn’t,” Nissen said. “Only a fine whorehouse is a lit d’amour, as you put it, as simple as it’s purported to be.”

Nissen stood up and grinned. “Well, I’ve got a date with Hedy,” he said, then seriously, “Don’t forget to make that call to the provost. Save yourself a headache in the morning.”

“Sit down a minute, Lance,” Lashley said.

He closed his eyes wearily for a moment and leaned back so that his chair rested on two legs. “Tell me something frankly,” he said, opening his eyes and leaning forward again. “You were on the defense. You were close to the man. Does Steigmann deserve what he got today?”

As he asked the question Lashley felt suddenly foolish.

Nissen scratched the back of his head.

He said, “That’s a hell of a question to ask me. As you say, I was on the defense. I’m subject to bias. Anyway, I don’t see how it affects you. The verdict was Macklin’s, not yours.”

“Do you want to answer my question, Lance?”

Nissen stood up again. He looked toward the spotlight and blinked. A violinist was now contending with the howls and whistles.

“The six others were bloody killers,” said Nissen. “Even the one who got off with life deserved to hang.”

“And Steigmann?” Lashley looked sternly into his friend’s eyes.

Nissen blurted, “I loathe Steigmann. He’s a Nazi through and through. If you ask me, I say he’s guilty as hell. But I don’t think Rodal’s evidence was reliable enough to convict him. Does that answer your question?”

Lashley’s muttered “Yes” was drowned amid the derisive cheers that greeted the end of the violin solo. He felt the squeeze of Nissen’s hand on his shoulder, then watched him dodge between tables on his way to the doors.

He summoned a waitress. “Get me a double rye—no, make it two doubles,” he said.

The statuesque woman who came to the floor drew Lashley out of himself. She must have been a great attraction in other days, he thought. He could tell by the grace and confidence with which she moved into the spotlight and by the way the cacophony of drunkenness seemed to subside even before she began to perform. She was fifty at least. This much was revealed by the deep lines that ran down the sides of her mouth and the wrinkles that formed themselves like lace on her thin neck. Her hair was shimmering blond except close to her head, where it grew dark gray out of her scalp. Her narrow nose bespoke sensitivity. Her evening gown, as neatly faded as its mistress, must have been handsome ten years ago.

In a small, well-controlled voice but with considerable difficulty she began to sing in English, “Yours Is My Heart Alone.” Only a piano and a violin accompanied her out of the gloom beyond the spotlight. This nostalgic music warmed Lashley and he realized how dearly he had missed its comfort during these years away from home.

She was halfway through the song when there was a flurry of commotion at the big table where the fliers sat, and amid hoarse shouts a young officer walked unsurely across the floor. He clasped a champagne bottle in his hand. When he came within the radius of the spotlight he held out the bottle to her. The audience whistled and shouted hilariously.

She continued her song as though oblivious of the disturbance. The flyer swayed there a moment, shrugged his shoulders, then let himself down on the floor directly in front of her. Bringing the bottle to his lips, he drank deeply. Six more fliers staggered from the same table, each carrying a bottle of champagne. As the crowd cheered and laughed they seated themselves Indian style in a semicircle around the singer, looking up at her with amused innocence. The woman began the second chorus although she could scarcely be heard above the clamor.

Lashley felt deep chagrin. He despised Germans because he despised the infliction of unhappiness. These youths were not German. They were Americans. He hated to see them inflict even this harmless unhappiness.

The woman finished her song and fled. The fliers yelped and slapped one another on the back as they scrambled to their table.

Lashley almost wished he had departed with Nissen. But he admitted that he wanted to be away from Nissen and what Nissen was thinking. He realized how considerate Nissen had been tonight, how deliberately glib and gross Nissen had made the conversation. Nissen knew what was plaguing him. Nissen had scarcely mentioned Rodal. That was good of Nissen. The very goodness of Nissen surged through his mind and made him angry. Nissen had wanted to ask, “Now—what do you think?” Nissen hadn’t done so. That was considerate of him. It made Lashley resentful. He didn’t want consideration. He wished Nissen had snarled, “Rodal was your star witness. A little mad, isn’t he? And not too scrupulous.” Nissen hadn’t said it. Nissen was a good friend. Nissen was mocking him with his goodness. He was glad he was alone. He knew why he hadn’t left with Nissen. He didn’t want to be with Nissen.

He swallowed his drink—straight. And then another.

“Now, boys,” announced the mistress of ceremonies, smiling impishly, “our grand finale! We bring you what you’ve been waiting for!” She winked. “Our Winter Garden girls in—the Hungarian dance!”

Eight girls bounded to the floor, four from each side. They wore tights and brief halters and they carried tambourines. Lashley’s head thumped with the tumult of cheers and whistles. The orchestra appeared to be making the proper motions but no music could be heard above the bedlam.

Now Lashley hated the place. The girls whirled and stamped and whirled again in their flimsy costumes. They shook their heads proudly and laughed madly, lasciviously. There was one whose halter slipped under the bounce of her full breasts. The audience screeched. She threw her head high and laughed crazily. The other girls glanced at her and laughed too. Young officers at the front tables whistled and made signs with their hands. The conquerors, Lashley thought; these were the conquerors. Not in 1946! Surely not in 1946. Surely not Americans. Yet this happened here every night. Perhaps it was an excusable release for men who had been through the fighting. He consciously checked himself, for he knew conscience had made him inordinately sensitive tonight.

He shoved back his chair and made for the door, pushing people roughly out of his way.

He plunged into the line-up before the checkroom. They thought he was drunk. He was, a little; it didn’t matter. He wanted to get out, to leave behind the clamor and the coarseness, to walk away quickly from this place that was compounding the confusion in his mind.

He pushed his ticket toward the girl, grabbed his coat and cap. Now he was out. The MP at the door said, “Better put your coat on, Major. It’s frosty.”

It didn’t matter about his coat. He was out in the sharp, quiet air. The harder it hit him, the better. He felt the cold bite against the sweat of his face. He breathed deeply.

Then he saw her. She sat in the front seat of a weapons carrier, staring ahead. The low-built truck stood at the curb directly in front of the Winter Garden. He couldn’t help noticing her. Her mouth was tight. Her face chalk-white against dark fur. Kinsella sat beside her, his left arm draped over the steering wheel and his thick body twisted toward her. His overseas cap dropped low over his right eye. At the sight of Lashley framed in the lighted doorway, he made a halfhearted comedy of saluting.

“Hiya, Major.”

Lashley frowned. The woman was looking at him now and he felt the cool envelopment of her gaze as he had felt it many times during the trial. Now as then it made him acutely self-aware; it focused, alerted him. He had the disturbing feeling that this mysterious and remote Thémis Delisle knew more about him than he knew about her.

Kinsella grinned sheepishly. “We’re having a little argument, Miss Delisle and me. What do you know, Major, about a dame that don’t drink, don’t do nothing? French, too. I’m just through tellin’ her it ain’t natural.”

It struck Lashley there was unconscious irony in the ex-policeman’s comment. So much about this woman was not “natural.” Her attitude to Steigmann, for one thing. He found it incredible that she loved that gross, hard man with the cruel mouth. Yet Steigmann had cried out to her before they took him away: “Farewell, dearest.” The woman who could inspire that kind of devotion at such a moment was no ordinary one.

He said sharply, “What are you doing here, Kinsella?”

“Like I said. Takin’ her home. Only I thought we’d get a few under our belts.”

Mlle. Delisle disentangled herself from Kinsella’s arm, slid out of the seat, and stepped down. Now she was standing between Lashley and the weapons carrier, facing him.

“Hey, come back here,” Kinsella growled. “I’m gonna keep my eye on you tonight, lady. I told you.” He tried to reach for her. “The colonel’s orders. Gotta put you on a train first thing tomorrow.”

Lashley looked at the woman. Her white face was empty. But her eyes seemed to plead. He heard himself saying, “All right, Kinsella. I’ll take over.”

The captain pushed back his cap and leaned across the empty seat. In a whisky-scented whisper he advised: “Confidentially, Major, she stinks. Doesn’t give. Get yourself a Fräulein job. Sure-fire.”

Lashley stepped swiftly to the curb, putting himself between the woman and Kinsella’s foulness without thinking. He spoke curtly: “I’ll be responsible from now on, Kinsella. That’s an order.”

Immediately he knew he should not have said that; he had no authority. He added swiftly: “Something’s come up since I saw you this afternoon. I’ve got to talk to this woman.”

A guffaw came from inside the weapons carrier.

“Okay, Major. Big brain you got. Heavy thinker, huh? Like your piece same as us plain Yanks.” He cackled loudly. Lashley sprang forward. The twirl of the starter was caught up in the roar of the engine.

“Okay, Major. Try an’ get it.” The weapons carrier rolled away.

They stood on the sidewalk a few yards apart. Men and their girls emerging from the Winter Garden walked around and between them.

Lashley jerked on his coat, for suddenly he felt miserably cold. He said stiffly, not looking at the woman, “I’m sorry if the captain annoyed you. He was probably drunk. That’s not the way we do our duty around here. I’ll have him charged, if you like.”

There was a perceptible pause. Then she said quietly, “Please do not bother. It is not important.”

He nodded. “All right.”

She said, “I know you can be hard. But you are not evil. It was kind of you to send that man away.” Her lips trembled. “There is not much kindness in Reschweiler. Or elsewhere.”

“No. Perhaps not.”

He was confronted with the immediate problem of what to do with her. It was true what he had told Kinsella; he had to talk to her, though the necessity for this had come to him only when he caught sight of her. But where?

Behind them the Winter Garden’s door opened and let raucous voices out into the night. He dismissed the thought of taking her in there. He could not see himself with her, facing the battery of curious eyes, overhearing the inevitable whispers: “Isn’t that the woman who testified at the trial? The witness for the defense? Steigmann’s woman?”

Steigmann’s woman.

It was he who had fastened that label to her. His lips twisted, thinking of her gratitude for what she called his kindness.

He said, “It’s true what I told Kinsella. I’ve learned something which affects you very closely.”

He heard her catch her breath.

“Something dangerous?”

“Possibly. I can’t say. But under the circumstances I think you should be informed.”

“Ah, m’sieu, I was right. You are kind.”

Behind them the Winter Garden’s doors swung again and half a dozen of the young fliers pushed out onto the pavement. They stood, arms locked, swaying, blinking. Suddenly their befuddled gaze took in the two figures at the curb. A shout went up.

“What a dame!”

Quickly Lashley drew the woman’s arm through his. They crossed the street. The fliers’ hoots followed them.

“Where are you living?” Lashley asked.

“Up the hill. I live in a billet and you are not allowed to come up this late.”

They walked slowly toward Bahnhofstrasse. Her hands were lost in the fur-trimmed pockets of her coat and she held her head high and straight as though she were on parade.

The street was deserted. The Red Cross Club was dark and only a few persistent German girls remained huddled in doorways. The wind whipped at Lashley’s legs above the ankles. He looked toward the lights of the Excelsior Hotel and said, “That is where I live. We can talk there. Do you mind?”

She gave a slight shake of her head. “It doesn’t matter. I will go with you.”

They walked across the Operaplatz.