After a while I got up and opened the door to let the cat out. Friedl went on mopping blood off Tony—an unnecessarily prolonged operation, in my opinion. The scratches weren’t all that deep.

“As Tony was about to remark, we have decided that he was right the first time,” I said. “We have found no evidence that your husband possessed anything of value, and if he did, we have found nothing to indicate what he may have done with it.”

“But,” Friedl stuttered. “But—but you—”

“I’m afraid I can’t spend any more time on this, Frau Hoffman. I have my own work to do.”

“I don’t,” said Tony.

She turned eagerly to him. “Then you will stay? You will help me?”

Her fluttering hands and flapping eyelashes had their effect on Tony’s gullible heart. Also, he was moved by the desire to get the better of me. “Sure,” he said. “You said I could go through his papers. Maybe he left a memorandum of some sort.”

She gushed her thanks, then eyed Schmidt. “And you, Herr Direktor?”

“I have certain inquiries of my own to pursue,” Schmidt said, trying to look mysterious.

She thanked him, though not as effusively as she had Tony (he wasn’t as young and cute as Tony) and then asked me when I was leaving. I said I’d give it another day. “I promised—promised myself—that I would visit your husband’s grave, Frau Hoffman. I thought I’d take some flowers or greenery. It’s a custom where I come from.”

I needn’t have bothered inventing excuses. She said indifferently, “It is also a custom here.”

“Would you like to go with me?”

From her reaction, one might have supposed I had suggested a visit to a morgue. “Lieber Gott, nein! That is—it is too painful for me. So soon after…”

She offered Tony free run of her office, but he declined, with thanks, and asked if the papers in question could be brought to his room.

“Whatsa matter?” I hissed, in the accent of the underworld, after we had left Friedl to her own devices. “You don’ wanna be friendly wit’ de little lady?”

“That’s disgusting,” said Tony.

He was right, so I abandoned the accent. “She seems a trifle tense, don’t you think?”

“After murdering her lover she should be relaxed?” Schmidt demanded at the top of his voice.

Tony and I fell on him and carried him away.

“That’s a libelous statement,” Tony muttered, as we propelled Schmidt up the stairs. “Two libelous statements, in fact.”

“Just one,” I said. “She and Freddy were lovers, all right. But she didn’t kill him. She may not even know he’s dead.”

“Shall we tell her?” Tony asked. We shoved Schmidt into the room and closed the door.

“The less anybody tells anybody, the better off we are,” I said sweepingly.

“That is a premise that can be carried too far,” Schmidt grumbled. “You carry it too far.”

“You know everything I know,” I assured him mendaciously. “But for the love of Mike, don’t blab to Friedl. I’ll be damned if I can figure her out. Does she want us to go or stay? She sure didn’t try to change my mind.”