He locked the door, pulled a stool from beneath the bunk, and sat on it, his shoulders resting comfortably against the wall. “Don’t you think it’s time we got down to business?”

Chavasse nodded. “All right, but you first. How much do you know about this affair?”

“Before I start, just tell me one thing,” Hardt said. “It is Muller who is dead, isn’t it? I heard one of the other passengers say something about a shooting and then Steiner marched you along the corridor.”

Chavasse nodded. “I had a cup of coffee just before Osnabruck. Whatever was in it put me out for a good half hour. When I came round, Muller was lying in the corner, shot through the heart.”

“A neat frame on somebody’s part.”

“As a matter of fact, I thought it was your handiwork,” Chavasse told him. “What exactly were you looking for in my compartment?”

“Anything I could find,” Hardt said. “I knew Muller was supposed to meet you at Osnabruck. I didn’t expect him to be carrying the manuscript, but I thought he might take you to it, even to Bormann.”

“And you intended to follow us?” Chavasse said.

“Naturally,” Hardt told him.

Chavasse lit another cigarette. “Just tell me one thing. How the hell do you know so much?”

Hardt smiled. “We first came across Muller a fortnight ago when he approached a certain German publisher and offered him Bormann’s manuscript.”

“How did you manage to find out about that?”

“This particular publisher is a man we’ve been after for three years now. We had a girl planted in his office. She tipped us off about Muller.”

“Did you actually meet him?”

Hardt shook his head. “Unfortunately, the publisher got some of his Nazi friends on the job. Muller was living in Bremen at the time. He left one jump ahead of them and us.”

“And you lost track of him, I presume?”

Hardt nodded. “Until we heard about you.”

“I’d like to know how you managed that,” Chavasse said. “It should be most interesting.”