door, but it was certainly rubbing the glass; and it was older and sadder looking than most of the queues that I was used to standing in. The people waiting there were from a mixture of backgrounds, but mostly they had two things in common: their Judaism and, as an inevitable corollary, their lack of work, which was how they came to be selling their valuables in the first place. At the top of the queue, behind a long glass counter, were two stone-faced shop assistants in good suits.
They had a neat line in appraisal, which was to tell the prospective seller how poor the piece actually was and how little it was likely to fetch on the open market.
'We see stuff like this all the time,' said one of them, wrinkling his lips and shaking his head at the spread of pearls and brooches on the counter beneath him. 'You see, we can't put a price on sentimental value. I'm sure you understand that.' He was a young fellow, half the age of the deflating old mattress of a woman before him, and good-looking too, although in need of a shave, perhaps. His colleague was less forthcoming with his indifference: he sniffed so that his nose took on a sneer, he shrugged a half shrug of his coathanger-sized shoulders, and he grunted unenthusiastically. Silently, he counted out five one-hundred-mark notes from a roll in his skinny miser's hand that must have been worth thirty times as much. The old man he was buying from was undecided about whether or not he should accept what must have been a derisory offer, and with a trembling hand he pointed at the bracelet lying on the piece of cloth he had wrapped it up in.
'But look here,' said the old man, 'you've got one just like it in the window for three times what you're offering.'
The Coathanger pursed his lips. 'Fritz,' he said, 'how long has that sapphire bracelet been in the window?' It was an efficient double-act, you had to say that much.
'Must be six months,' responded the other. 'Don't buy another one, this isn't a charity you know.' He probably said that several times a day. Coathanger blinked with slow boredom.
'See what I mean? Look, go somewhere else if you think you can get more for it.'
But the sight of the cash was too much for the old man, and he capitulated. I walked to the head of the line and said that I was looking for Herr Neumaier.
'If you've got something to sell, then you'll have to wait in line with all the rest of them,' muttered Coathanger.
'I have nothing to sell,' I said vaguely, adding, 'I'm looking for a diamond necklace.' At that Coathanger smiled at me like I was his long-lost rich uncle.
'If you'll just wait one moment,' he said unctuously, 'I'll just see if Herr Neumaier is free.' He disappeared behind a curtain for a minute, and when he returned I was ushered through to a small office at the end of the corridor.
Peter Neumaier sat at his desk, smoking a cigar that belonged properly in a plumber's tool-bag. He was dark, with bright blue eyes, just like our beloved Fuhrer, and was possessed of a stomach that stuck out like a cash register. The cheeks of his face had a red, skinned look, as if he had eczema, or had simply stood too close to his razor that morning. He shook me by the hand as I introduced myself. It was like holding a cucumber.
'I'm pleased to meet you, Herr Gunther,' he said warmly. 'I hear you're looking for some diamonds.'
'That's correct. But I should tell you that I'm acting on behalf of someone else.'
'I understand,' Neumaier grinned. 'Did you have a particular setting in mind?'
'Oh, yes indeed. A diamond necklace.'
'Well, you have come to the right place. There are several diamond necklaces I can show you.'
'My client knows precisely what he requires,' I said. 'It must be a diamond collet necklace, made by Cartier.' Neumaier laid his cigar in the ashtray, and breathed out a mixture of smoke, nerves and amusement.
'Well,' he said. 'That certainly narrows the field.'
'That's the thing about the rich, Herr Neumaier,' I said. 'They always seem to know exactly what they want, don't you think?'
'Oh, indeed they do, Herr Gunther.' He leaned forwards in his chair and, collecting his cigar, he said: 'A necklace such as you describe is not the sort of piece that comes along every day. And of course it would cost a great deal of money.' It was time to stick the nettle down his trousers.
'Naturally, my client is prepared to pay a great deal of money. Twenty-five per cent of the insured value, no questions asked.'
He frowned. 'I'm not sure I understand what you're talking about,' he said.
'Come off it, Neumaier. We both know that there's a lot more to your operation than the heart-warming little scene you're putting on out front there.'
He blew some smoke and looked at the end of his cigar. 'Are you suggesting that I buy stolen merchandise, Herr Gunther, because if you are '
'Keep your ears stiff, Neumaier, I haven't finished yet. My client's flea is solid. Cash money.' I tossed the photograph of Six's diamonds at him. 'If some mouse walks in here trying to sell it, you give me a call. The number's on the back.'
Neumaier regarded it and me distastefully and then stood up. 'You are a joke, Herr Gunther. With a few cups short in your cupboard. Now get out of here before I call the police.'
'You know, that's not a bad idea,' I said. 'I'm sure they'll be very impressed with your public spirit when you offer to open up your safe and invite them to inspect the contents. That's the confidence of honesty, I suppose.'
'Get out of here.'
I stood up and walked out of his office. I hadn't intended to handle it that way, but I hadn't liked what I'd seen of Neumaier's operation. In the shop Coathanger was half-way through offering an old woman a price for her jewel-box that was less than she might have got for it at the Salvation Army hostel.
Several of the Jews waiting behind her looked at me with an expression that was a mixture of hope and hopelessness. It made me feel about as comfortable as a trout on a marble slab, and for no reason that I could think of, I felt something like shame.
Gert Jeschonnek was a different proposition. His premises were on the eighth floor of Columbus Haus, a nine-storeyed building on Potsdamer Platz which has a strong emphasis on the horizontal line. It looked like something a long-term prisoner might have made, given an endless supply of matches, and at the same time it put me in mind of the nearly eponymous building near Tempelhof Airport that is Columbia Haus the Gestapo prison in Berlin. This country shows its admiration for the discoverer of America in the strangest ways.
The eighth floor was home to a whole country-club of doctors, lawyers and publishers, who were only just getting by on 30,000 a year.
The double entrance doors to Jeschonnek's office were made of polished mahogany, on which appeared in gold lettering, 'GERT JESCHONNEK. PRECIOUS STONE MERCHANT'.
Beyond these was an L-shaped office with walls that were a pleasant shade of pink, on which were hung several framed photographs of diamonds, rubies and various gaudy little baubles that might have stimulated the greed of a Solomon or two. I took a chair and waited for an anaemic young man sitting behind a typewriter to finish on the telephone. After a minute he said:
'I'll call you back, Rudi.' He replaced the receiver and looked at me with an expression that was just a few centimetres short of surly.
'Yes?' he said. Call me old-fashioned, but I have never liked male secretaries.
A man's vanity gets in the way of serving the needs of another male, and this particular specimen wasn't about to win me over.
'When you've finished filing your nails, perhaps you'd tell your boss that I'd like to see him. The name's Gunther.'
'Do you have an appointment?' he said archly.
'Since when does a man who's looking for some diamonds need to make an appointment? Tell me that, would you?' I could see that he found me less amusing than a boxful of smoke.
'Save your breath to cool your soup,' he said, and came round the desk to go through the only other door. 'I'll find out if he can see you.' While he was out of the room I picked up a recent issue of Der Sturmerfrom the magazine rack.
The front page had a drawing of a man in angel's robes holding an angel's mask in front of his face. Behind him was his devil's tail, sticking out from underneath his surplice, and his 'angel's' shadow, except that this now
