“You’d better come in, Herr Gunther,” she said, standing aside. “After all, he that is overcautious will accomplish little. That’s Schiller, too, in case you didn’t know. As well as private detectives, he’s also the patron saint of single women.”

“You learn something new every day,” I said. I went into the apartment, enjoying her perfume as I moved past her body.

“No, not every day,” she said, closing the door behind me. “Not even every week. Not in Vienna. Not lately, anyway.”

“Maybe you should buy a newspaper,” I said.

“I got out of the habit,” she said. “During the war.”

I took another look at her. I liked the glasses. They made her look as if she had probably read all the books on the shelves that lined the entrance to her apartment. If there’s one thing I like, it’s a woman who starts off looking plain but gets better-looking the more you look at her. Vera Messmann was that kind of woman. After a while I formed the impression that she was a rather beautiful woman. A beautiful woman who happened to wear glasses. Not that she herself was in much doubt about any of that. There was a quiet confidence about the way she carried herself and the way she spoke. If there had been a beauty pageant for lady librarians, Vera Messmann would have won it hands down. She wouldn’t even have had to take off her glasses and unpin her brown hair.

We remained, a little awkwardly, in the entrance hall. I had yet to make her day, although from what she was saying, my just being there represented a welcome novelty.

“Since I haven’t murdered anyone,” she said, “or committed adultery—not since last summer, anyway—I’m intrigued as to what a private detective could want with me.”

“I don’t do many murders,” I said. “Not since I stopped being a bull. Mostly I get asked to look for missing persons.”

“Then you should have plenty of work to keep you busy.”

“It comes as rather a pleasant change to be the bearer of good news,” I said. “My client, who wants to remain anonymous, wishes you to have some money. You don’t have to do anything for it. Nothing at all except turn up at Spaengler’s Bank tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock and sign a receipt for cash. And that’s pretty much all that I’m allowed to tell you except the amount. It’s twenty-five thousand schillings.”

“Twenty-five thousand schillings?” She took off her glasses, which let me see how right I had been. She was a peach. “Are you sure there’s not been some kind of mistake?”