“What?” the banker demanded.
“Made away with him—drugged him, probably, then chucked him out of a cab into the street.”
“Quite possibly that was it. Your people do such peculiar things! Well, the crooks, as you call them, got their receivership for the Shasta Company—the parent company—the very day he died. Krutzmacht was a fighter, a hard man to conquer, and if he had lived, I have very little doubt that he would have succeeded in worsting his enemies.”
“And now?” Brainard asked with a smile. The banker made a comical gesture.
“The receiver found very little to receive, naturally, after your visit. Of course, you can understand what they were after was not the Shasta Company, but its rich subsidiaries. You had left the shell, of which the Court has taken physical possession.”
Brainard laughed.
“The old boy knew what he was about,” he said. “There was no time to lose! Tell me,” he asked abruptly, “do you know whether Krutzmacht had any relatives—any heirs?”
“He must have some connections at Mannheim. Krutzmacht is a common enough name there. But I do not think that any of them were closely related to Mr. Herbert Krutzmacht.”
“I don’t mean thirty-third cousins. Had he a wife or children?”
The banker hesitated, and then said: