(2 of 2)
Locked Safe. Hume's money did not last long in Zurich, though he often stayed in Trudi's cozy apartment above her beauty shop. Looking around for another nice little bank to be taken, Hume chose the Gewerbebank on a busy downtown street. Fortnight ago, he walked into it, barked an order to Bank Teller Walter Schenkel, who pretended not to understand English. Wasting no time, Hume shot him in the abdomen, coolly vaulted the counter and rushed to the safe. It was locked. Schenkel's assistant entered at that moment and threw a wastebasket at the intruder. Snatching a meager $50 from the till, Hume fled to the street with the assistant racing after him, shouting in Swiss German: "Hebeden!" (Stop him!).
Down the sloping Rämistrasse raced Hume, right into the arms of a stocky cab driver. They grappled, but Hume shot the man dead and continued his dash through the narrow, winding streets leading to the famed Limmatquai waterfront. A crowd was in hot pursuit. Out in front was a slight, 25-year-old pastry cook named Gustav Angstmann. Near exhaustion, Hume turned, aimed his pistol at Angstmann and pulled the trigger. The gun failed to fire, and fearless Angstmann rushed at Hume, grabbed him around the neck, gripped his head in a half nelson. The howling crowd surged up. Blows were rained on Hume; a woman pulled his hair, screaming: "Lynch him!"
Swiss Love-Talk. To police, Hume identified himself as a U.S. civilian with a Polish name who worked at the U.S. Air Force base at Wiesbaden. Inside a dirty bandage on his foot police found razor blades and in his clothes poison pills that he said he intended to use "to end it all." When they took his fingerprints, they discovered Hume's true identity.
British reporters descended on stolid Zurich like inflamed paratroopers. They dried Trudi Sommer's tears with bids for the story of her life with Hume, and she finally signed an "exclusive" $3,000 contract with London's Daily Express (sample: "He was so handsome and so fond of me that it wasn't difficult for us to make love-talk even though he knew not a word of German and my English wasn't very good"). The staid Swiss were outraged at the British reportorial tactics (sniffed the respected Neue Zürcher Zeitung: "Hardly gentlemanlike") but could not resist a little curiosity themselves about their prize catch.
Hume went through the appearances of an emotional breakdown. At first, all questions were met with blank stares or a silly smile. Then he cried and expressed regret for his crimes, blubbering: "I killed a man. go ahead and hang me. Put me in the electric chair." Given a cigarette, he promptly ate it. Said Chief Investigator Hans Stotz: "I think he is a very good actor." Since there is no capital punishment in Switzerland, Hume can at most be sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, which usually brings release in 15 to 20 years. But Scotland Yard, humbugged by Hume these past nine years, will be waiting when he emerges from prison.