“So what’s your story, Fritz?” Reles asked me. “You look too young to be a house detective. That’s a job for a retired cop, not a punk like you. Unless, of course, you’re a commie. The Nazis wouldn’t want a cop that was a commie. Fact is, I’m none too fond of the reds myself.”

“I’d hardly be working here if I was a red, Herr Reles. The hotel flower arranger wouldn’t like that. She prefers white to red. And so do I. Besides, it’s not my story that matters right now, it’s yours. So let’s try to concentrate on that, eh? Look, sir, I can see you’re upset. Helen Keller could see that you’re upset, but unless we can all keep calm and establish what happened here, we won’t get anywhere.”

Reles grinned and then snatched the cigar back just as Behlert was taking away the ashtray. “Helen Keller, eh?” He chuckled and put the cigar back in his mouth, puffing it back into life. But the tobacco seemed to smoke the traces of good humor out of him, and he returned to his resting state, which seemed to be that of low rage. He pointed at a chest of drawers. Like most of the furniture in his suite, it was blond Biedermeier and looked as if it had been baked in a glaze of honey.

“On top of that cabinet was a little basketry-and-lacquer Chinese box. It was early seventeenth century, Ming dynasty, and it was valuable. I had it parceled up and ready to send to someone in the States. I’m not exactly sure when it disappeared. Might have been yesterday. Might have been the day before.”

“How big was this box?”

“About twenty inches long, about a foot wide, three or four inches deep.”

I tried to work that out in metric and gave up.

“There’s a distinctive scene painted on the lid. Some Chinese officials sitting around on the edge of a lake.”

“Are you a collector of Chinese art, sir?”

“Hell, no. It’s too . . . Chinese for my tastes. I like my art to look a little more homegrown.”

“Since it was parceled, do you think you might have asked the concierge to have it collected and forgotten about it? Sometimes we’re too efficient for our own good.”

“Not so, as I’ve noticed,” he said.

“If you could answer the question, please.”

“You were a cop, weren’t you?” Reles sighed and combed his hair with the flat of his hand, as if checking it was still there. It was, but only just. “I checked, okay? No one sent it.”

“Then I have one more question, sir. Who else has access to this room? It could be someone with a key, perhaps. Or someone you’ve invited up here.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning just what I said. Can you think of someone who might have taken the box?”

“You mean apart from the maid?”

“Naturally, I’ll be asking her.”

Reles shook his head. Behlert cleared his throat and lifted his hand to interrupt.