We were seated in Behlert’s office overlooking the Goethe Garden. Through the open doors of the adjoining Palm Court, a piano trio was doing its best to ignore a statue of Hercules that seemed to demand something rather more muscular than a selection of Mozart and Schubert. I felt a little like Hercules myself, returning to Mycenae after carrying out some pointless labor.

“Perhaps,” I said. “But I can’t think it was a good idea for me to get involved like this. I should just have let them get on with it. I might have known they would extract some sort of price.”

Behlert looked puzzled. “What price? You don’t mean—?”

“Not from the hotel,” I added. “A price from me.” And just to see the look of horror on his smooth, shiny face, I told Behlert about Liebermann von Sonnenberg and the dead man in the Charité.

“Next time,” I said. “If there is a next time. I shan’t try to influence a police investigation. It was naive of me to think I could. And for what? Some fat guy in room 210 I never even met. Why should I worry about his wife? Maybe she hated him. If she didn’t, she ought to have. It would serve him damn well right if the cops put their feet right through her feelings when they gave her the bad news. He should have thought of her when he started monkeying around with a Berlin joy lady.”

“But you were doing what you did for the sake of the good reputation of the Adlon Hotel,” said Behlert, as if that was all the justification required.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

He was on his feet now, removing a stopper from a decanter of the good stuff and pouring us each a thimble-sized glass.

“Here. Drink this. It looks like you need it.”

“Thanks, Georg.”

“What’s going to happen to him?”

“To Rubusch?”

“No, I mean, to the poor fellow in the morgue?”

“You really want to know?”

He nodded.

“With an unidentified body, what usually happens is, they take him around to the university anatomical institute and let the students loose on him.”

“But suppose the investigation reveals his true identity.”

“I didn’t make that clear, did I? There isn’t going to be an investigation. Not now that we—I mean, I—not now that I’ve established that he was a Jew. The Berlin police don’t want to know about dead Jews. It’s not considered a proper use of police time and resources. As far as the cops are concerned, his murderer—if indeed he was murdered, I’m not at all sure about that—that person is more likely to be congratulated than prosecuted.”

Behlert drained his glass of the excellent schnapps and shook his head with disbelief.

“I’m not making this up,” I said. “I know it seems incredible, but it’s all true. Hand on heart.”