‘This here is Kriminalinspektor Dietz,’ he said.

The one called Dietz, who I guessed to be the senior officer, was sitting on the edge of my desk, swinging his leg and looking generally unpleasant.

‘You’ll excuse me if I don’t get out my autograph-book,’ I said, and walked over to the corner by the window where Frau Protze was standing. She sniffed and pulled out a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse, and blew her nose. Through the material she said:

‘I’m sorry, Herr Gunther, they just barged in here and started ransacking the place. I told them I didn’t know where you were, or when you would be back, and they got quite nasty. I never knew that policemen could behave so disgracefully.’

‘They’re not policemen,’ I said. ‘More like knuckles with suits. You’d better run along home now. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She sniffed some more. ‘Thank you, Herr Gunther,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’ll be coming back. I don’t think my nerves are up to this sort of thing. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right. I’ll mail what I owe you.’ She nodded, and having stepped round me she almost ran out of the office. The haircut snorted with laughter and kicked the door shut behind her. I opened the window.

‘There’s a bit of a smell in here,’ I said. ‘What do you fellows do when you’re not scaring widows and searching for the petty-cash box?’

Dietz jerked himself off my desk and came over to the window. ‘I heard about you, Gunther,’ he said, looking out at the traffic. ‘You used to be a bull, so I know that you know the official paper on just how far I can go. And that’s still a hell of a long way yet. I can stand on your fucking face for the rest of the afternoon, and I don’t even have to tell you why. So why don’t you cut the shit and tell me what you know about Paul Pfarr, and then we’ll be on our way again.’

‘I know he wasn’t a careless smoker,’ I said. ‘Look, if you hadn’t gone through this place like an earth-tremor, I might have been able to find a letter from the Germania Life Assurance Company engaging me to investigate the fire pending any claim.’

‘Oh, we found that letter,’ said Dietz. ‘We found this, too.’ He took my gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it playfully at my head.

‘I’ve got a licence for it.’

‘Sure you have,’ he said, smiling. Then he sniffed the muzzle, and spoke to his partner. ‘You know, Martins, I’d say this pistol has been cleaned; and recently, too.’

‘I’m a clean boy,’ I said. ‘Take a look at my fingernails if you don’t believe me.’