“Herr Reles? He’s on a call now? To whom?”

Ingrid exchanged a look with Hermine.

“Come on, ladies, this is important. If he’s a crook—and I think he is—we need to know about it.”

Hermine nodded her approval.

“Potsdam 3058,” said Ingrid.

“Who’s that?” I waited for a moment.

Hermine nodded again.

“That’s Count von Helldorf’s number,” said Ingrid. “At the Potsdam Police Praesidium.”

Anywhere else but the Adlon I might have persuaded them to let me eavesdrop on that call, but short of a spot lamp and a set of brass knuckles, I’d had all that I was going to get out of the hello girls: standards might have been compromised in other Berlin institutions such as the police, the courts, and the churches, but not at its best hotel.

So I went back to my office to smoke some cigarettes, have a couple of drinks, and take another look at the papers I had taken from the Chinese box. I had the curious idea these were more important to Max Reles than the box itself. But my mind was elsewhere. A telephone call made by Max Reles to von Helldorf so soon after I had seen the American was disturbing. Was it possible their topic of conversation had been me? And if so, to what effect? There were good reasons why von Helldorf might be useful to a man such as Max Reles, and vice versa.

Formerly the leader of Berlin’s SA, Count Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf had been the police president of Berlin for just three months when a notorious scandal interrupted his progress to higher office. He had always been an enthusiastic gambler and a rumored pederast with a taste for the flagellation of young boys. He was also a close friend of Erik Hanussen, the famous clairvoyant who, it was supposed, had paid off the count’s very substantial gambling debts in return for an introduction to the Leader.

Much of what happened thereafter was still the subject of speculation and mystery, but it seemed that Hitler was strongly impressed by the man Berlin’s communists called “the people’s stupefier.” As a result of Hitler’s open favor, Hanussen’s influence over senior Party members, including von Helldorf, became even greater. Yet all was not quite what it seemed. Hanussen’s leverage within the Party was, it was to be revealed, the result not of good advice, nor even of mesmeric power, but blackmail. At lavish sex parties he had hosted aboard his yacht, the Ursel IV, Hanussen had “hypnotized” several leading Nazis and subsequently filmed them taking part in sexual orgies. That was bad enough, but some of these orgies were homosexual orgies.