“I agree with Captain Kestner. In a surrender situation, it’s as well to be reminded that the surrender began with a war. After 1918, I think the French would do well to learn a little humility. If they’d treated us better at Versailles, then we might not be here at all. So I don’t see any sense in trying to sugarcoat the pill they have to swallow. There’s no getting away from the fact that they just got their arses kicked. The sooner they recognize it, the sooner we can all go home. But I came here to arrest a man who murdered two policemen. And I don’t much care if some Franzi doesn’t care for my manners while I’m doing it. Since I put on a uniform I don’t much care for them myself. I can take the uniform off again and pretend to be something I’m not in order to get the job done, but I can’t pretend to be diplomatic and charming. I never was one for French kissing. So to hell with their feelings, I say.”

“Bravo, Captain Gunther,” said Knochen. “That was a fine speech.”

Maybe it was and maybe I even believed some of it, too. One thing I said was certainly true: The sooner I went home, the better I was going to feel about a lot of things, especially myself. Mixing with anti-Semites like Herbert Hagen reminded me just why I’d never become a Nazi. And French victory or no French victory, I wouldn’t ever be able to overcome my instinctive loathing of Adolf Hitler.

That afternoon I went to see Les Invalides. It was a very Nazi-looking monument. The front door had more gold than the Valley of the Kings, but the atmosphere was that of a public swimming bath. The mausoleum itself was a piece of mahogany-colored marble that resembled an enormous tea caddy. Hitler had visited Les Invalides just a couple of weeks before. And I can’t have been the only person who wished that it had been he and not the Emperor Napoleon who was inside the six coffins that were contained in that overblown mausoleum. After his escape from Elba, I suppose they were worried the little monster might escape from his grave, like Dracula. Maybe they’d even put a stake through his heart just to be on the safe side. Burying Hitler in pieces looked like a better bet. With the Eiffel Tower through his heart.