“My old adjutant told me you used to be a policeman and that now you’re a private detective, and I decided that since we were old comrades that I might come to you for help.”

“I’m very glad you did. It’s been a long time, Captain.”

“Twenty years.”

“You look well, sir.”

“Thanks for saying so, Gunther, but we both know that’s not true.”

Captain Achim von Frisch must have been in his sixties, but he looked much older, desiccated even; his hair was pewter-colored and his once handsome face looked drawn and poorly shaven. He wore a dark gray coat with a thick fur collar, a monocle, and gray kid gloves, and he carried a silver-handled cane. But even the wax in his imperial-style, eagle’s-wing mustache looked spent and dried up, and there was a strong smell of mothballs around his person. His manner was exactly what you might have expected of an old Prussian cavalry officer, stiff and courteous, but I remembered him as a kind man who’d cared deeply about the welfare of the men under his command of whom, in 1918, I had been one. It might have been twenty years since I’d seen him, but you don’t forget that kind of comradeship. I’d have done anything for my old army captain. Once, he’d grabbed me by the collar of my tunic and pulled me clear as I blundered into a position on the line that was being scoped by an Australian sniper. A second later, a .303 bullet that was meant for my head hit the back wall of the trench.

We were in my suite of offices on the fourth floor of Alexander Haus. The premises were small but comfortable and I had a pretty good view of my old office window in the Police Praesidium on the opposite side of Alexanderplatz, where I’d spent many years as a detective until my politics obliged me to resign from the force. Thanks to the Nazis, the private investigator business was brisk—mostly missing persons. People were always going missing in Berlin under the Nazis.

My business partner, Bruno Stahlecker, lit his pipe noisily and shifted uncomfortably on his chair, but he wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as poor Captain von Frisch.

“I think I would prefer it if it was just you and I talking about this, Gunther,” he said.

“Herr Stahlecker is one of my operatives and enjoys my complete confidence. You can speak freely in front of him. I rely on him to carry out a lot of my investigative work.”

“I appreciate that. However, I really must insist. This is quite difficult enough as it is.”

I nodded. “Bruno, would you be kind enough to step outside for half an hour. Better still, could you fetch me a packet of Murattis?”

“Sure, boss, anything you say.”