“So. You believe that we’re looking for two Erichs, yes?”

I nodded again.

“Gunther? I’d hate to be known around the Alex as the man who saved the life of a cop killer.”

“I hadn’t really thought about that, sir.”

“Then perhaps you should. And from this moment on, my advice to you is this: that you make no further mention of exactly how you came to be acquainted with this Erich Mielke until he is safely in custody. Especially now. This is the kind of story the Nazis love to use to beat those of us in the police force who still count ourselves as democrats, is it not?”

“Yes, sir.”

We drove west and north of the Ring to Biesenthaler Strasse, which was the address on Erich Ziemer’s charge sheet. It was a dreary-looking building off Christiana Strasse and within snorting distance of the Löwen Brewery and the distinctive smell of hops that was always in the air over that part of Berlin.

Ziemer had rented a big gloomy room in a big gloomy house that was owned by an old man with a face like the Turin Shroud. He was unhappy to be roused from his bed at such an early hour, but hardly surprised that we were asking questions about his tenant, who was not in his room and, it seemed, was unlikely to be returning to it; but we asked to see the room anyway.

Up against the window was a dilapidated leather sofa that was the size and color of a slumbering hippo. On the dampish wall was a print of Alexander von Humboldt with a botanical specimen on an open book. The landlord, Herr Karpf, scratched his beard and shrugged and told us that Ziemer had disappeared like fog the previous day owing three weeks’ rent—taking his belongings, not to mention a silver and ivory tankard worth several hundred marks. It was difficult to imagine Herr Karpf owning anything valuable, but we promised to do our best to recover it.

There was a police call box on Oskar Platz, near the hospital, and from there we telephoned the Alex, where another officer had been looking for a crime sheet and an address for Erich Mielke, but so far without success.

“That’s that, then,” said Heller.

“No,” I said. “There’s one more chance. Drive south, to the Electricity Works on Volta Strasse.”

Heller’s car was a neat little cream-colored DKW cabriolet with a small two-cylinder, six-hundred-cc engine, but it had front-wheel drive and held on to the corners like a welded bracket, so we were there in no time at all. On Brunnen Strasse, opposite Volta Strasse, I told him to turn left on Lortzing Strasse and pull up.