Jean paid him with a credit card, then watched as he drove away, leaving her on a cobblestone walkway on the edge of a narrow street. She stood for a moment, comparing once again the street name and house number to the address on the letter from Ingrid Weiss. She had expected an office building, some lifeless modern glass monstrosity filled with faceless corporations. Instead she stood among an explosion of life—trees hung over garden walls, carefully tended shrubbery spilled out to the edge of the single lane street, flowers bloomed in profusion and the few sounds she heard were distinctly domestic—a crying baby, a vacuum cleaner, a pair of garden shears clipping rhythmically. Another taxi moved slowly down the street toward her, and she thought there might not be room for it to pass, so, to make space in the street more than because she felt brave, she pressed the button by Ingrid Weiss’s gate and waited.

And waited. And waited. The taxi stopped several houses away. The vacuum cleaner shut off and the baby quieted. The garden shears continued their steady clip, clip, clip. After several minutes and two more pressings of the button, Jean turned to go. It was nearly six o’clock and if she wanted to get back to Vienna tonight, she should catch a train soon. She felt a wave of disappointment—to have come all this way only to be met by a locked gate and an unanswered doorbell. Maybe she should spend the night in Munich and try again first thing in the morning. Or at least come back later in the evening. Maybe Ingrid Weiss would be home in an hour. She turned to go, took a step away from the gate, then heard a fuzzy voice coming through a speaker on the wall.

“Ja? Wer ist es? Who is it?” The voice sounded tired and annoyed.

Jean jumped back to the gate and stood on her toes to speak. “Miss Weiss? My name is Jean Simpson. I came to . . .” Jean hadn’t thought what she would say to convince Ingrid Weiss to open the door. If she said she had come to confront her about the fraud she was perpetrating, the gate would certainly remain locked. “To thank you for a book you sent me. A book that belonged to my grandfather.”