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Back The One from the Other Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. TEN
  16. ELEVEN
  17. TWELVE
  18. THIRTEEN
  19. FOURTEEN
  20. FIFTEEN
  21. SIXTEEN
  22. SEVENTEEN
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. THIRTY
  36. THIRTY-ONE
  37. THIRTY-TWO
  38. THIRTY-THREE
  39. THIRTY-FOUR
  40. THIRTY-FIVE
  41. THIRTY-SIX
  42. THIRTY-SEVEN
  43. THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. THIRTY-NINE
  45. FORTY
  46. FORTY-ONE
  47. FORTY-TWO
  48. EPILOGUE
  49. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  50. Teaser chapter

“Gentlemen,” I said. “It’s been interesting. But I think I ought to be going. It’s a nice day and I could use some exercise. So if you don’t mind, Heinrich, I’m going to try to walk back to the house.”

“It’s four miles, Bernie,” said Henkell. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“I think so. And I’d like to try.”

“Why don’t you take my car? Major Jacobs can drive me back when he and I have finished up here.”

“No, really,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sorry he was so rude,” said Henkell.

“Don’t get sore,” Jacobs told him. “It’s nothing personal. He surprised me, turning up again like this, that’s all. In my business, I don’t like surprises. Next time we’ll meet at the house. We’ll have a drink. It’ll be more relaxed that way. All right, Gunther?”

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll have a drink and then go and dig in the garden. Just like old times.”

“A German with a sense of humor,” said Jacobs. “I like that.”

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SIX

When they first make you a cop they put you on a beat. They make you walk so you have enough time to notice things. No one ever notices much from the inside of a stripe wagon traveling at thirty miles an hour. “Flatfoot” and “gumshoe” are words that come at you when you wear hobnailed boots. If I had left Henkell’s laboratory in the Mercedes, I would never have glanced in the window of Major Jacob’s Buick and I would never have seen that he had left it unlocked. Nor would I have looked back at the villa and remembered that it was impossible to see the road and the car from the office window. I didn’t like Major Jacobs, in spite of his approximate apology. That was no reason to search his car, of course. But then, “snooper” is another word for what I do and what I am. I am a professional sniffer, an oven-peeper, a nosey parker, and I was feeling very nosy about a man who had dug up my back garden in search of Jewish gold and who was sufficiently secretive—not to say paranoid—to lock away an old copy of Life magazine in order to stop me from looking at it.