‘Listen, I don’t mesmerize easy. This fellow was a professional. Not the sort to let you have his lighter for a bag of sherbet.’

‘A professional what — haberdasher? Don’t talk out of your navel, Tesmer. He was just a kid.’

‘Well, that makes it worse for you, because he isn’t going to do any more growing up.’

‘Young he may have been,’ I said, ‘but he was no weakling. I didn’t bite my lip because I find you so damned attractive. This is real blood, you know. And my dressing-gown. It’s torn, or hadn’t you noticed?’

Tesmer laughed scornfully. ‘I thought you were just a sloppy dresser.’

‘Hey, this is a fifty-mark gown. You don’t think I’d tear it just for your benefit, do you?’

‘You could afford to buy it, then you could also afford to lose it. I always thought your kind made too much money.’ I leaned back in my chair. I remembered Tesmer as one of Police Major Walther Wecke’s hatchet-men, charged with rooting out conservatives and Bolsheviks from the force. A mean bastard if ever there was one. I wondered how Stahlecker managed to survive.

‘What is it you earn, Gunther? Three? Four hundred marks a week? Probably make as much as me and Stahlecker put together, eh, Stahlecker?’ My friend shrugged non-committally.

‘I dunno.’

‘See?’ said Tesmer. ‘Even Stahlecker doesn’t have any idea how many thousands a year you make.’

‘You’re in the wrong job, Tesmer. The way you exaggerate, you should work for the Ministry of Propaganda.’ He said nothing. ‘All right, all right, I get it. How much is it going to cost me?’ Tesmer shrugged, trying to control the grin that threatened to break out on his face.

‘From a man with a fifty-mark gown? Let’s say a round hundred.’

‘A hundred? For that cheap little garter-handler? Go and take another look at him, Tesmer. He doesn’t have a Charlie Chaplin moustache and a stiff right arm.’

Tesmer stood up. ‘You talk too much, Gunther. Let’s hope your mouth begins to fray at the edges before it gets you into serious trouble.’ He looked at Stahlecker and then back at me. ‘I’m going for a piss. Your old pitman here has got until I come back into the room to persuade you, otherwise . . .’ He pursed his lips and shook his head. As he walked out, I called after him:

‘Make sure you lift the seat.’ I grinned at Stahlecker.

‘How are you doing, Bruno?’

‘What is it, Bernie? Have you been drinking? You blue or something? Come on, you know how difficult Tesmer could make things for you. First you plum the man with all that smart talk, and now you want to play the black horse. Pay the bastard.’