I never forget a face. Especially the face on a man who’d once led a group of SA to carry out a gun attack against the members of a workers’ social club who were holding a dance party at the Eden Palace in Charlottenburg. Four dead, including a friend from my old school. Probably there were other killings for which he was responsible, but it was that one, on November 23, 1930, that I particularly recalled. And then I had his name: Gerhard Krempel. He’d served some time for that murder, at least until the Nazis got into government.

“Come to think of it, make it a dozen bottles.”

Ordinarily I might have said something to Krempel—a witty epithet, perhaps, or something worse—but Behlert wouldn’t have liked that. Punching a guest in the throat wasn’t the kind of hotel-keeping that read well in Baedeker. And, for all either of us knew, Krempel was the new minister for level playing fields and good sportsmanship. Besides, Behlert was already steering me out of the Raphael Room. That is, when he wasn’t bowing and apologizing to Max Reles.

At the Adlon, a guest is always given an apology rather than an excuse. That was another of Hedda Adlon’s maxims. But it was the first time I’d seen anyone in the hotel apologizing for interrupting a fight. Because I didn’t doubt that the man who had left earlier had been hit by Max Reles. And that he had hit Reles back. I certainly hoped that was the case. I wouldn’t have minded punching him myself.

Outside the Raphael Room, Behlert faced me irritably. “Please, Herr Gunther, I know you think you are doing your job, but do try to remember that Herr Reles occupies the Ducal suite. As such he is a very important guest.”

“Oh, I know. I just heard him order a dozen bottles of champagne. All the same, he’s keeping some very ugly company.”

“Nonsense,” Behlert said, and walked away to find the sommelier, shaking his head. “Nonsense, nonsense.”

He was right, of course. After all, we were all of us keeping some very ugly company in Hitler’s new Germany. And perhaps the Leader was the ugliest of them all.

9

ROOM 210 WAS ON THE SECOND FLOOR in the Wilhelmstrasse extension. It cost sixteen marks a night, and came with an en-suite bathroom. It was a nice room and a few meters bigger than my apartment.

I got there at long past midday. Hanging on the door was a DO NOT DISTURB card and a pink form informing the room’s occupant that there was a message awaiting him at the front desk. His name was Herr Doctor Heinrich Rubusch, and the chambermaid usually would have left him alone, except that he was supposed to check out of the hotel at eleven. When she knocked at the door there was no reply, at which point she tried to enter the room, and found the key was still in the lock. After a great deal more fruitless knocking, she informed Herr Pieck, the assistant manager, who, fearing the worst, summoned me.