Wearing a stunning black hat that was like a grand piano with the lid up, Ilse Rudel was even more beautiful in mourning than she was in bed. A couple of times I caught her eye, but tight-lipped, like she had my neck between her teeth, she looked straight through me as if I was a piece of dirty glass. Six himself maintained an expression that was more angry than grief-stricken: with eyebrows knotted and head bowed, he stared down into the grave as though he were trying by a supernatural effort of will to make it yield up the living body of his daughter. And then there was Haupthandler, who looked merely thoughtful, like a man for whom there were other matters that were more pressing, such as the disposal of a diamond necklace. The appearance on the same sheet of paper in Jeschonnek’s wastepaper basket of Haupthändler’s home telephone number with that of the Adlon Hotel, my own name and that of the bogus princess, demonstrated a possible chain of causation: alarmed by my visit, and yet puzzled by my story, Jeschonnek had telephoned the Adlon to confirm the existence of the Indian princess, and then, having done so, he had telephoned Haupthandler to confront him with a set of facts regarding the ownership and theft of the jewels which was at variance with that which might originally have been explained to him.

Perhaps. At least, it was enough to be going on with.

At one point Haupthandler stared impassively at me for several seconds; but I could read nothing in his features: no guilt, no fear, no ignorance of the connection I had established between him and Jeschonnek, nor any suspicion of it either. I saw nothing that made me think he was incapable of having committed a double murder. But he was certainly no cracksman; so had he somehow persuaded Frau Pfarr to open it for him? Had he made love to her in order to get at her jewels? Given Use Rudel’s suspicion that they might have been having an affair, it had to be counted as one possibility.

There were some other faces that I recognized. Old Kripo faces: Reichskriminaldirektor Arthur Nebe; Hans Lobbe, the head of Kripo Executive; and one face which, with its rimless glasses and small moustache, looked more as if it belonged to a punctilious little schoolmaster than to the head of the Gestapo and Reichsfuhrer of the S S. Himmler’s presence at the funeral confirmed Bruno Stahlecker’s impression - that Pfarr had been the Reichsfuhrer’s star pupil, and that he wasn’t about to let the murderer get away with it.

Of a woman on her own, who might have been the mistress that Bruno had mentioned as having been kept by Paul Pfarr, there was no sign. Not that I really expected to see her, but you never can tell.