“If you don’t get to the point, I am going to kill you, Schmidt,” I said.

“It is Perlmutter,” Schmidt said triumphantly. “The assistant curator from East Berlin.”

“You’re crazy,” Tony stuttered. “Perlmutter is a blond, this guy is brunet. Perlmutter doesn’t have a mustache, this guy—”

It was Perlmutter. The outlines of that splendid profile were burned into my brain.

They say that if you stare at someone long enough, invisible waves of something or other will stretch out and attract his attention. There must be something to it. Perlmutter looked up and met my eyes. The instant recognition that transformed his face would have removed any lingering doubts I might have had, which I didn’t.

Before I could react, he was on his feet and out the door to the street. By chance or by design, he had selected a table in a spot convenient for retreat.

I wasted a vital couple of seconds trying to decide which way to go—across the crowded room toward the door he had used, or back through the lobby. Tony wasted a vital couple of seconds bouncing off Schmidt, who had started in one direction while Tony tried to go the other way. Schmidt then compounded the problem by keeling over, his face set in an imbecilic grin of triumph.

Schmidt does that sometimes. It is the inevitable conclusion to his bouts of really serious drinking. They are rare events and occur only when something has happened to upset him. I wished I knew what had upset him this time, but questions would have to wait. He wouldn’t be coherent for hours. I had seen it happen once before, when he learned of the death of a favorite nephew in a car crash.

Well, there he was, hanging limply between me and Tony. We had each grabbed an arm as his round red form sagged floorward. We looked helplessly at one another over Schmidt’s bowed head.

“What do we do now?” Tony asked.

“It’s too late to follow Perlmutter…. Oh, hell. We’d better get him to bed.”

“Whose bed?” Tony asked warily.

It was a reasonable question. As we soon discovered, Schmidt did not have a room reserved, and the hotel was full-up. He may have had a reservation in Garmisch, but that was irrelevant since Schmidt was incapable of answering questions—or hearing them. He revived sufficiently to be dragged instead of carried; with one plump arm over a shoulder of each, we propelled him up the stairs to the second floor. Tony wanted to put him on the couch in my room.

“You have twin beds, don’t you?”

“Yes. But—”

“Then he’s yours. All yours. Every…adorable…chubby…pound.”

The minute Schmidt hit the mattress he was gone. I took his shoes off and covered him with the blanket. Smiling beatifically, Schmidt heaved a deep sigh and began to snore.

An expression of profound melancholy transformed Tony’s face.

“Does he do that all night?”

Tony had unpacked, in his characteristically haphazard fashion; from among the litter on the dresser top, framed in silver, the lovely heart-shaped face of Ann Belfort smiled winsomely at me.