“I do not know what it is you have told,” he spoke in a less savage tone. “And I know as a matter of fact that there is very little you could say, for you have been kept in the dark. But one thing I may tell you. If you say one word, Frau Bauer, of where you received your blood money just after the War broke out, then I, too, will say what I know. If I do that, instead of being deported—that is, instead of being sent comfortably back to Berlin, to your niece and her husband, who surely will look after you and make your old age comfortable—then I swear to you before God that you will hang!”
“Hang? But I have done nothing!”
Anna was now almost in a state of collapse, and he saw his mistake.
“You are in no real danger at all if you will only do exactly what I tell you,” he declared, impressively.
“Yes,” she faltered. “Yes, Herr Hegner, indeed I will obey you.”
He looked round him hastily. “Never, never call me that!” he exclaimed. “And now listen quite quietly to what I have to say. Remember you are in no danger—no danger at all—if you follow my orders.”
She looked at him dumbly.
“You are to say that the parcels came to you from your nephew in Germany. It will do him no harm. The English police cannot reach him.”
“But I’ve already said,” she confessed, distractedly, “that they were brought to me by a friend of his.”
“It is a pity you said that, but it does not much matter. The one thing you must conceal at all hazards is that you received any money from me. Do you understand that, Frau Bauer? Have you said anything of that?”