“My own situation is a case in point, Herr Gunther. Weinberger is not necessaily a Jewish name. I am not a Jew. None of my grandparents is a Jew. And yet I myself have been denounced as a Jew, and on more than one occasion, I might add. Which is not exactly helping my career here in Würzburg.”

“I can imagine.” I allowed myself a smile, but that was all. I hadn’t yet got the information I needed, and until then, I hardly wanted to upset the young Gestapo man walking along the street beside me. We turned onto Adolf-Hitler-Strasse and walked north, toward my hotel.

“Well, yes, it’s funny. Of course it is. Even I can see that. But somehow I feel it wouldn’t be happening in a more sophisticated place, such as Berlin. After all, there are people there with Jewish-sounding names who are Nazis, aren’t there? Liebermann von Sonnenberg? I ask you. Well, I’m sure he would understand my predicament.”

I hardly liked to tell him that Berlin’s assistant police commissioner might have been a Party member but he also despised the Gestapo and all that it stood for.

“What I feel is this,” he said earnestly. “That my name wouldn’t hold me back in a place like Berlin. Here in Würzburg there will always be the faintest suspicion that I’m not completely Aryan.”

“Well, who is? I mean, you go far enough back and, if the Bible’s right, we’re all Jewish. Tower of Babel. Right.”

“Hmm, yes.” He nodded uncertainly. “Besides all that, most of my caseload is so petty it’s hardly worth the effort of my investigating it. That’s why I became interested in Max Reles in the first place.”

“And you want . . . ? Let’s be a bit more specific here, Captain.”

“Nothing more than a chance. A chance to prove myself, that’s all. A word from the assistant commissioner to the Gestapo in Berlin would surely smooth my transfer. Don’t you think so?”

“It might,” I admitted. “It might, at that.”

We walked through the hotel entrance and made our way to the café, where I ordered us both coffee and cake.

“When I get back to Berlin,” I told him, “I’ll see what can be done. As a matter of fact, I know someone in the Gestapo myself. He runs his own department in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. He might be able to help you. Yes, it’s possible he might. Always supposing that you can help me.”