"He's the ... the—" Mrs. Scharpe tried to get the word out, and then pushed by the two men and came into the hut. "I didn't want to but there's something strange, and we can't afford any suspicion, and—"
Jonas realized slowly that she was crying as she looked at him. "It's all right," he said uncomfortably.
"You're—"
"I'll be perfectly all right," Jonas said. He stood up. "This Herr Knupf," he said. "He wants to see me?"
"He said bring you along," the bald man told him.
The black-haired man nodded very slowly. "Gur," he said.
Jonas sighed and went forward to meet the two big men, leaving Mrs. Scharpe sobbing in the background. The poor woman felt terrible, he knew; but there was nothing he could do about that. "Then let us go," he said, and marched off. Feeling that one more effect wouldn't hurt, he led the way to the Town Hall; let them figure out how he had known just where to go, he thought.
Their minds were very, very boring, and quite blank. Herr Knupf, Jonas reflected, might be a definite relief.
First there was the cell, which was in the basement of the Town Hall. It was damp and the air was not too good, but there were compensations. Rats, for instance. Jonas told himself, after the first couple of hours, that he simply wouldn't have known what to do without the rats. Trying to trap and kill them, with no weapons beyond his bare hands—even an eating knife he had carried in his jerkin had been taken away, leaving him to the uncomfortable reflection that he was going to have to dine with his fingers—was a pastime that occupied him for several hours on the first day.