At this point, the butler cruised smoothly into the room like a rubber wheel on a waxed floor and, smelling faintly of sweat and something spicy, he served the coffee, the water and his master’s brandy with the blank look of a man who changes his earplugs six times a day. I sipped my coffee and reflected that I could have told Six that my nonagenarian grandmother had eloped with the Führer and the butler would have continued to serve the drinks without so much as flexing a hair follicle. When he left the room I swear I hardly noticed.

‘The photograph you were looking at was taken only a few years ago, at my daughter’s graduation. Subsequently she became a schoolteacher at the Arndt Grammar School in Berlin-Dahlem.’ I found a pen and prepared to take notes on the back of Dagmarr’s wedding invitation. ‘No,’ he said, ‘please don’t take notes, just listen. Herr Schemm will provide you with a complete dossier of information at the conclusion of this meeting.

‘Actually, she was rather a good schoolteacher, although I ought to be honest and tell you that I could have wished for her to have done something else with her life. Grete - yes, I forgot to tell you her name - Grete had the most beautiful singing voice, and I wanted her to take up singing professionally. But in 1930 she married a young lawyer attached to the Berlin Provincial Court. His name was Paul Pfarr.’

‘Was?’ I said. My interruption drew the profound sigh from him once again.

‘Yes. I should have mentioned it. I’m afraid he’s dead too.’

‘Two murders, then,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Two murders.’ He took out his wallet and a snapshot. ‘This was taken at their wedding.’

There wasn’t much to tell from it except that, like most society wedding-receptions, it had been held at the Adlon Hotel. I recognized the Whispering Fountain’s distinctive pagoda, with its carved elephants from the Adlon’s Goethe Garden. I stifled a real yawn. It wasn’t a particularly good photograph, and I’d had more than enough of weddings for one day and a half. I handed it back.

‘A fine couple,’ I said, lighting another Muratti. Six’s black cigar lay smokeless and flat on the round brass ashtray.