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“Several times, from my bedroom windows, I saw Kretz prowling about the courtyard or upon the wall. Once I fancied I caught the creeping of a couple of figures beyond the wall. I went out to look up the nature of the stunt, and almost got myself shot by what Campe afterward called prowling tramps. On the following night as I sat reading in my room, I heard a woman’s scream—sudden and high with fear. There was a rush of feet along empty corridors, sharp voices and the slamming of doors. I grabbed up my automatic and, all in disarray, I broke for the scene of excitement. But half-way down a flight of stairs I came upon Sergeant-Major Kretz, quite calm, but looking a little grimmer, if anything, than I’d ever seen him before.

“‘It’s nothing,’ he tells me. ‘The Fräulein was frightened. All is right. You need not bother.’”

“There’s a woman, then, at Schwartzberg?” said Ashton-Kirk.

“Two of them, to be exact,” returned Scanlon. “One’s an aunt of Campe’s; the other is a companion, or something of the kind. The girl I see often, but the aunt very rarely. But I never did more than nod to either of them until the night Campe was cut.”