To her right, several yards away, the man spins around. “Stop yelling at your child! What kind of mother are you, making him cry like this?”

“I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . .” Elfriede, gasping with her own tears, straightens and turns, and by this single act of engagement the breath flows back into her body. The strength returns to her, the tears dry against her eyes. She stares rudely into this man’s face. “How dare you,” she says, and she takes Johann’s hand and walks away, toward the zoo.

They return to the Hotel Adlon around one o’clock, desperate for lunch. Elfriede stops at the desk, as always, to inquire after any letters, and the clerk produces two: one from Helga, who’s returned to Schloss Kleist and now, finding no other occupation apparently, fires off her little darts of poison almost daily; and the other from the private detective. Elfriede tears this one open first. (Helga can wait.)

Dear Frau von Kleist,

Further to your instructions, we have investigated fully the possible lead in Hamburg, but regret to report that the woman in question is, beyond all doubt, not the same as the subject of your inquiry. We will continue to pursue our investigation as directed.

Most respectfully yours,

L. S. Schulmann

Now, as you know, the Hotel Adlon is the premier hotel in Berlin, really the only place to exist if one must exist there at all, and naturally a widowed baroness and her son receive the most attentive treatment from the staff. When Elfriede shoves her disappointing letter from Herr Schulmann into her jacket pocket, together with the unopened poisoned dart from Helga, she turns from the desk to discover a uniformed attendant begging to escort her to the usual table in the restaurant for lunch.

Because Elfriede’s so disappointed by her letters, because she’s too upset to think properly, because she’s used to only the best treatment from the Adlon staff, she finds nothing oddly precipitous in this request. So they cross the marble lobby, she and Johann and the attendant, and enter the restaurant. There, in a quiet corner, beyond the tangle of tables and chairs and gilding and potted palms, the scent of great expense, sits her usual table, where she and Johann take their meals when they’re not taking them from room service in the suite upstairs.

But the table’s not empty. A man in a handsome khaki uniform rises from his chair at the sight of them and such is his impeccable appearance, the precise ironing of his collar and creases, the knot of his tie, the shininess of his hair brushed back in immaculate order with some type of hair oil, probably, Elfriede requires a moment or two to realize that it’s actually him.

Johann, being a child, takes no time at all. He utters a cry and rushes forward, all resentments forgotten, to throw his arms around Wilfred’s waist.