I went into the museum, opened the first door marked PRIVATE, and found myself looking down at a rather fetching stenographer sitting behind a three-bank Carmen, with Maybelline eyes and a mouth that was painted better than Holbein’s favorite portrait. She wore a checked shirt; a whole souk’s supply of brass bangles, which tinkled on her wrist like tiny telephones; and a rather severe expression that almost had me checking the knot on my tie.
“Can I help you?”
I felt sure she could, but I hardly liked to mention exactly how. Instead, I sat on the corner of her desk and folded my arms, just to keep my hands off her breasts. She didn’t like that. Her desk looked as neat as a display in a department-store window.
“Herr Stock about?”
“I guess if you had an appointment you’d know it was Dr. Stock.”
“I don’t. Have an appointment.”
“So he’s busy.” She glanced involuntarily at a door on the other side of the room, as if hoping I would be gone before it opened again.
“I bet he does that a lot. Is busy. Men like him always are. Now, if it was me, I’d be giving you a little dictation or maybe signing a few letters you’d just typed with those lovely hands of yours.”
“You
can
write, then?”
“Sure. I can even type. Not as well as you, I’ll bet. But you can be judge of that.” I reached into my jacket and took out the crime sheet I’d borrowed from the Alex. “Here,” I said, handing it over. “Take a look and tell me what you think.”
She glanced at it and her eyes widened a few f-stops.
“You’re from the Police Praesidium, on Alexanderplatz?”
“Didn’t I say? I just came from there on the underground.” This was true, but only as far as it went. If she or Stock asked to see a warrant disc, I wasn’t going to get anywhere, which was the main reason I was behaving the way a lot of real cops from the Alex behave. A Berliner is someone who believes it’s best to be just a little less polite than other people might think is necessary. And most Berlin cops fall a long way short of that high standard. I lit a cigarette, blew the smoke her way, and then nodded at a chunk of rock on a shelf behind her well-coiffed head.
“Is that a swastika on that bit of stone?”
“It’s a seal,” she said. “From the Indus Valley civilization. From around 1500 B.C. The swastika used to be a significant religious symbol of our own remote ancestors.”
I grinned at her. “Either that or they were trying to warn us about something.”
She stood up from behind the typewriter and quickly walked across the office to fetch Dr. Stock. It gave me enough time to study her curves and the seams in her stockings, so perfect they looked as if they’d been done in a technical drawing class. I always disliked technical drawing, but I might have been a lot better at it had I been asked to sit behind a nice girl’s legs and try to make a couple of straight lines on her calves.
Stock was less easy on the eye than his secretary but exactly as Heinz Seldte had described him back at the Alex. A Berlin waxwork.
“This is most embarrassing,” he wailed. “There has been an awful mistake for which I’m most dreadfully sorry.” He came close enough for me to smell the peppermint lozenges on his breath, which was a nice change from most of the people who spoke to me, and then bowed an abject apology. “Dreadfully sorry, sir. It would seem that the box I reported stolen was not stolen at all. Merely mislaid.”
“Mislaid? How’s that possible?”
“We’ve been moving the Fischer collections from the old Ethnographical Museum, in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, to our new home, here in Dahlem, and everything is in disarray. The official guide to our collections is out of print. Many objects were misplaced or wrongly attributed. I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey. On the underground, you said? Perhaps the museum could pay for a taxicab to take you back to the Police Praesidium. It’s the least we can do to make up for the inconvenience.”
“So you have the box back in your possession?” I said, ignoring his bleatings.
Stock looked awkward again.
“Perhaps I might see it for myself,” I said.
“Why?”
“Why?” I shrugged. “Because you reported it stolen, that’s why. And now you’re reporting that it has been found. The thing is, sir, I have to fill out a report, in triplicate. Proper procedures have to be followed. And if this Ming dynasty box can’t be produced, I don’t see how I can very well close the file on its disappearance. You see, sir, in a sense, the moment I type that it’s been found, I make myself responsible for it. I mean, that’s logical, isn’t it?”
“Well, the fact is—” He looked at his stenographer and twitched a couple of times, as if someone had a fishing line in him somewhere.
She stared at me with hat pins in her eyes.
“Perhaps you’d better come into my office, Herr—”
“Trettin. Criminal Commissar Trettin.”
I followed him into his office, and he closed the door behind me straightaway. But for the size and opulence of the room, I might have felt sorry for him. Everywhere there were Chinese artifacts and Japanese paintings, although it could just as easily have been Chinese paintings and Japanese artifacts. That year I was a little weak on my knowledge of Asiatic antiquities.
“Must be interesting, working in a place like this.”
“Are you interested in history, Commissar?”
“One thing I’ve learned is that if our history were a little less interesting, then we might be a lot better off. Now, what about that box?”
“Oh, dear,” he said. “How am I going to explain this without making it sound suspicious?”
“Don’t try to finesse it,” I told him. “Just tell it like it is. Just tell the truth.”
“I always endeavor to do that,” he said pompously.
“Sure you do,” I said, toughening on him now. “Look, stop wasting my time, Herr Doctor, have you got the box or not?”
“Please don’t rush me.”
“Naturally, I’ve got all day to waste on this case.”
“It’s a little complicated, you see.”
“Take my word for it, the truth is rarely complicated.”
I sat down in an armchair. He hadn’t asked me to. But that didn’t matter now. I wasn’t selling anything. And I wasn’t buying anything while I was still standing on my size large. I took out a notebook and tapped a pencil on my tongue. Taking notes of a conversation always puts people on their heels.
“Well, you see the museum falls under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. And while the collections remained at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, the minister, Herr Frick, happened upon them and decided that a few of the objects might serve a more useful purpose as diplomatic gifts. Do you understand what I mean by that, Commissar Trettin?”
I smiled. “I think so, sir. It’s kind of like bribery. Only it’s legal.”
“I can assure you it’s perfectly normal practice in all foreign relations. The wheels of diplomacy often have to be oiled. Or so I’m told.”
“By Herr Frick.”
“No. Not by him. By one of his people. Herr Breitmeyer. Arno Breitmeyer.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I took note of the name.
“Naturally I’ll be speaking to him, as well,” I said. “But let me try to straighten this pretzel. Herr Breitmeyer removed an item from the Fischer collections—”
“Yes, yes. Adolph Fischer. A great collector of Asian artifacts. Now dead.”
“Namely one Chinese box. And gave it to a foreigner?”
“Not just one object. I believe there were several.”
“You believe.” I paused for more effect. “Am I right in thinking that all of this happened without your knowledge or approval?”
“That is correct. You see, it was thought at the ministry that the collections left at the original museum were not wanted for exhibition.” Stock colored with embarrassment. “That while being of great historical significance . . .”
I stifled a yawn.
“That, perhaps, they were unsuitable within the meaning of the Aryan paragraph. You see, Adolph Fischer was a Jew. The ministry had formed the impression that, under these circumstances, the true origins of the collection made it impossible to exhibit. That it was—in their words, not mine—‘racially tainted.’ ”
I nodded, as if all this sounded perfectly reasonable. “And when they did all this, they neglected to tell you, is that right?”
Stock nodded unhappily.
“Someone at the ministry didn’t think you sufficiently important to keep you informed about this,” I said, rubbing it in a little. “Which is why, when you found the object missing from the collection, you assumed it had been stolen, and reported it immediately.”
“That’s it,” he said with some relief.
“Do you happen to know the name of the person to whom Herr Breitmeyer gave the Ming box?”
“No. You would have to ask him that question.”
“I will, of course. Thank you, Doctor, you have been most helpful.”
“Do I take it the matter is now closed?”
“As far as your own involvement is concerned, yes, sir, you can.”
Stock’s relief turned to euphoria, or at least as near to euphoria as someone so dry was ever going to get.
“Now, then,” I said, “about that taxicab back into the city.”
8
I
TOLD THE TAXI DRIVER to drop me at the Ministry of the Interior on Unter den Linden. Next to the Greek embassy, it was a dull, dirty gray building just around the corner from the Adlon. It was crying out for some climbing ivy.
I went inside and, at the desk in the cavernous main entrance hall, handed my business card to one of the clerks on duty. He had one of those startled animal faces that makes you think God has a wicked sense of humor.
“I wonder if you can help me,” I said unctuously. “The Adlon Hotel wishes to invite Herr Breitmeyer—that’s Arno Breitmeyer—to a gala reception in a couple of weeks. And we should like to know the correct way to address him and to which department we should send the invitation.”
“I wish I was going to a gala reception at the Adlon,” the clerk admitted, and consulted a thick leather-bound department list on the desk in front of him.
“To be honest, they can be rather stiff affairs. I don’t particularly like champagne. Give me beer and sausage any day.”
The clerk smiled ruefully as if he were not quite convinced, and found the name he was looking for. “Here we are. Arno Breitmeyer. He’s an SS-Standartenführer. That’s a colonel to you and me. He’s also the deputy Reich sports leader.”
“Is he, now? Then I expect that’s why they want to invite him. If he’s merely the deputy, then perhaps we should invite his boss as well. Who would that be, do you think?”
“Hans von Tschammer und Osten.”
“Yes, of course.”
I’d heard the name and seen it in the newspapers. At the time I’d thought it typical of the Nazis that they should have appointed an SA thug from Saxony to be Germany’s sporting leader. A man who had helped beat to death a thirteen-year-old Jewish boy. I guess it was the fact that the boy had been murdered in a Dessau gym that had really bolstered von Tschammer und Osten’s sporting credentials.
“Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.”
“Must be nice working at the Adlon.”
“You might think that. But the only thing that stops it from being exactly like hell are the locks on the bedroom doors.”
It was one of the many maxims I’d heard from Hedda Adlon, the owner’s wife. I liked her a lot. We shared a sense of humor, although I think she had more of it than I did. Hedda Adlon had more of everything than I did.
Back in the hotel, I called Otto Trettin and told him some of what I’d discovered at the museum.
“So this fellow Reles,” said Otto. “The hotel guest. It looks as if he might have been in possession of the box quite legitimately.”
“That all depends on your notion of legitimacy.”
“In which case this little stenographer, the one who went back to Danzig—”
“Ilse Szrajbman.”
“Maybe she did steal the box, after all.”
“Maybe. But she’ll have had a good reason.”
“Like that, is it?”
“No. But I know the girl, Otto. And I’ve met Max Reles.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’d like to find out more before you go charging off to Danzig.”
“I’d like to pay less tax and make more love, but it’s not going to happen. What’s it to you if I go to Danzig?”
“We both know that if you go you’ll have to make an arrest to justify your expenses, Otto.”
“It’s true, the Deutsches Haus hotel in Danzig is quite expensive.”
“So why not telephone the local KRIPO first? See if you can get someone local to go and see her. If she really does have the box, then perhaps he can persuade her to return it.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, probably. But she’s a Jew. And we both know what’s going to happen to her if she’s arrested. They’ll send her to one of their concentration camps. Or they’ll put her in that Gestapo prison, near Tempelhof. Columbia Haus. She doesn’t deserve that. She’s just a kid, Otto.”
“You’re turning soft, you know that, don’t you?”
I thought of Dora Bauer and how I had helped her get off the sledge. “I suppose I am.”
“I was looking forward to some sea air.”
“Drop by the hotel sometime, and I’ll have the chef fix you a nice plate of Bismarck herrings. I swear, you’ll think you were on Rügen Island.”
“All right, Bernie. But you owe me.”
“Sure I do. And, believe me, I’m glad about that. I’m not sure our friendship could take the strain if it was you who owed me. Call me when you hear something.”
MOST OF THE TIME THE ADLON ran like a big state Mercedes—a Swabian colossus with handcrafted coachwork, hand-stitched leather, and six outsized Continental AGs. I can’t claim that any of this was attributable to me, but I took my duties—which were largely routine—seriously enough. I had a maxim of my own: Running a good hotel is about predicting the future, and then preventing it from happening. So every day I would look over the hotel register, just in case there were any names that leaped out at me as likely to cause trouble. There never were. Unless you count King Prajadhipok and his request that the chef prepare him a dish of ants and grasshoppers; or the actor Emil Jannings and his predilection for loudly spanking the bare bottoms of young actresses with a hairbrush.