“Because I got pregnant,” she said. “I wouldn’t have married him otherwise. After we married, I lost the child. And I told you. I’m a Catholic. We mate for life.”

“All right. I’ll buy that. But suppose I do find him. What happens then? Have you thought about that?”

Her nostrils narrowed and her face took on a hard aspect that hadn’t been there before. She closed her eyes for a moment, removed the velvet glove she’d been wearing, and let me see the steel hand that had been there all along.

“You mentioned Erich Koch,” she said. “It’s my fiancé’s understanding that since he came out of hiding, in May, the British—in whose zone of occupation he is now imprisoned—are considering the extradition requests of Poland and the Soviet Union, in whose countries Koch’s crimes were committed. Despite the Basic Law, and any amnesties the Federal Republic might push through, it is my fiancé’s opinion—his well-informed opinion—that the British will approve his extradition to the Russian Zone. To Poland. Should he be found guilty in a Warsaw court, he will undoubtedly face the maximum punishment under Polish law. A sentence that Germany is judicially inclined to disapprove of. We anticipate the same fate for Friedrich Warzok.”

I grinned at her. “Well, that’s more like it,” I said. “Now I can see what you two had in common. You’re really quite a ruthless woman, aren’t you? Kind of like one of those Borgias I was talking about. Lucrezia Borgia. Ruthless, and beautiful with it.”

She blushed.

“Do you really care what happens to a man like that?” she said, brandishing her husband’s photograph.

“Not particularly. I’ll help you to look for your husband, Frau Warzok. But I won’t help you put a noose around his neck—even if he does deserve it several thousand times over.”

“What’s the matter, Herr Gunther? Are you squeamish about such things?”