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those in Oosterdijk who resented Hacha, an ex-German soldier, living among us. They were plotting against him, Old Joost claims. So, Hacha decided to go away. At least, that is what Old Joost claims. Believe it or not, as you wish.”
    â€œWhy should he lie?” Andy asked.
    The porter shrugged. “I did not say he lied. But, except for the girl, he lives alone. He is old. He imagines things.”
    â€œLook, kid,” Steve said. “It was a crazy idea coming here. We read the stuff the mayor gave us. It tells the same story, about the boat and all. When he certifies the papers they’re all the legal proof we’ll need that Milo Hacha is dead. Why knock ourselves out over an old nut’s pipe dreams?”
    â€œI thought you wanted to find Hacha,” Andy said angrily. “It seems to me that if even one man says he’s still alive, and since we have the name of the girl who tried to find him for CARE—what’s her name? Ohlendorf—we ought to follow it up.”
    â€œDon’t get yourself in an uproar. We’ll see about it.” Steve looked worried. “Do you think the old guy’s telling the truth.”
    â€œHow should I know?”
    â€œWell, let’s get going.”
    â€œPlease thank him for us,” Andy said to the porter.
    Old Joost followed them outside. The girl was nowhere in sight, but Andy heard the clanking of the cowbell behind the windmill.
    As they approached the Citroën another car drove up from the direction of Oosterdijk. It was a white Volkswagen convertible with the word Polizei stencilled on the door. The Volkswagen came to a squealing stop and a policeman got out.
    He said something sharply to the porter. Andy recognized the name Hilversum. The porter replied with his shrug. Old Joost said something, and the policeman wheeled on him with a question. Joost began to shout. Then he gasped, his knees buckled; and he fell heavily to the ground and lay there, face down, without moving. The policeman kneeled and began to chafe one of the big limp hands while the porter went into the house for some water. When he returned the policeman was no longer holding Old Joost’s hand. He shook his head at the porter and spoke again in Dutch.
    The porter said in English, “He is dead.”
    From Andy Longacre’s diary:
    â€¦ the second body. It had been in the ground much longer, for years. I get sick to my stomach even now, just thinking about it, because Steve and I hung around until the policeman, whose name is Vander Poel, finished digging it up.
    In the second grave, Vander Poel found a passport. The identification photo had rotted away, but the cover was more or less intact. It was a British passport. Near the body—I don’t know why, but this is the grisliest fact of all—Vander Poel found a rusted bicycle.
    The serial number on that was intact and they traced it to the one bicycle shop in Oosterdijk. The proprietor had rented it, in 1948, to an English private investigator named Dickson.
    All that was three days ago. Yesterday, the criminal-investigation team came down from Amsterdam and made its report. Vander Poel told me what the findings were, probably because he wants our co-operation. I’d better make the bicycle the second grisliest fact, because the autopsy showed that when Mrs. Hilversum was put into the ground she was still alive. The old man must have been off his rocker, at that.
    I told Vander Poel all I knew, which isn’t much—that we were looking for Milo Hacha because he’s the heir to a large estate left by an American airman, whose life he’d saved in the war. At first Steve wouldn’t give the testator’s name, but Vander Poel got tough about it. He told us he would check all this with the American legation in Amsterdam. This made Steve very unhappy.
    The girl Katrina has been sent to a foundling home in Amsterdam. Vander Poel says she refuses to believe anything they