“None taken. He is a sow’s bladder. Was this lady blond or brunette?”

“Blond. And plenty of it, too.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” I said, mentally eliminating from my list of possible suspects Dora Bauer. She had short brown hair and was hardly the type to afford a tiara.

“ Anything else?”

“She wore a lot of perfume. Smelled real nice. Like she was Aphrodite herself.”

“I get the picture. Did you drive her?”

“No. She must have used the stairs.”

“Or maybe she just climbed on the back of a swan and flew straight out of the window. That’s what Aphrodite would have done.”

“Are you calling me a liar, sir?”

“No, not at all. Just an incurable romantic and lover of women in general.”

Wolfgang grinned. “That I am, sir.”

“Me, too.”

MULLER WAS IN THE OFFICE we shared, which was about all we shared. He hated me and, if I’d cared enough, I might have hated him back. Before coming to the Adlon he’d been a leather hat with the Potsdam police—a uniformed bull with an instinctive dislike of detectives from the Alex like me. He was also ex-Freikorps and more right wing than the Nazis, which was another reason he hated me: he hated all Republicans the way a wheat farmer hates rats. But for his drinking, he might have remained in the police. Instead he took early retirement, climbed on the temperance wagon for as long as it took to find himself the job at the Adlon, and started drinking again. Most of the time he could hold it, too, I’ll say that for him. Most of the time. I might have figured it was part of my job to put him out of a job, but I didn’t. Leastways, I hadn’t done it yet. Of course, we both knew it wouldn’t be long before Behlert or one of the Adlons found him drunk on the job. And I hoped it would happen without any help from me. But I knew I could probably live with the disappointment if this turned out not to be the case.

He was asleep in the chair. There was a half bottle of Bismarck on the floor beside his foot and an empty glass in his hand. He hadn’t shaved, and the sound of a heavy chest of drawers being rolled across a wooden floor was coming out of his nose and throat. He looked like an uninvited guest at a Brueghel peasant wedding. I slipped my hand into his coat pocket and took out his wallet. Inside were four new five-mark notes with a serial number that matched the notes I’d found on the desk in Rubusch’s room. I figured Muller had either procured the joy lady for him or taken a bribe off her afterward. Perhaps both, but it hardly mattered. I put the leaves back in the wallet, returned it to his pocket, and then kicked him on the ankle.

“Hey. Sigmund Romberg. Wake up.”