display cases on street corners. They get a cheap thrill reading about Jewish doctors interfering with mesmerized German virgins.
Look at it this way. Not only will it stop her from getting bored, but also, if Streicher or his people are involved, then they're more than likely going to take notice of her here, in front of one of these Sturmerkasten, than anywhere else.'
I stared uncomfortably at the elaborate, red-painted case, probably built by some loyal readers, with its vivid slogans proclaiming: 'German Women: The Jews are your Destruction', and the three double-page spreads from the paper under glass. It was bad enough to ask a girl to act as bait, without having to expose her to this kind of trash as well.
'I suppose you're right, Becker.'
'You know I am. Look at her. She's reading it already. I swear she likes it.'
'What's her name?'
'Ulrike.'
I walked over to the Sturmerkasten where she was standing, singing quietly to herself.
'You know what to do, Ulrike?' I said quietly, not looking at her now that I was beside her, but staring at the Fips cartoon with its mandatory ugly Jew. No one could look like that, I thought. The nose was as big as a sheep's muzzle.
'Yes, sir,' she said brightly.
'There are lots of policemen around. You can't see them, but they are all watching you. Understand?' I saw her head nod in the reflection on the glass.
'You're a very brave girl.'
At that she started to sing again, only louder, and I realized that it was the Hitler Youth song:
'Our flag see before us fly, Our flag means an age without strife, Our flag leads us to eternity, Our flag means more to us than life.'
I walked back to where Becker was standing and got back into the car.
'She's quite a girl, isn't she, sir?'
'She certainly is. Just make sure that you keep your flippers off her, do you hear?'
He was all innocence. 'Come on, sir, you don't think I'd try to bird that one, do you?' He got into the driving seat and started the engine.
'I think you'd fuck your great-grandmother, if you really want my opinion.' I glanced over each shoulder. 'Where are your men?'
'Sergeant Hingsen's on the first floor of that apartment building there,' he said, 'and I've got a couple of men on the street. One is tidying up the graveyard on the corner, and the other's cleaning windows over there. If our man does show up, we'll have him.'
'Do the girl's parents know about this?'
'Yes.'
'Rather public-spirited of them to give their permission, wouldn't you say?'
'They didn't exactly do that, sir. Ulrike informed them that she had volunteered to do this in the service of the Fnhrer and the Fatherland. She said that it would be unpatriotic to try and stop her. So they didn't have much choice in the matter. She's a forceful sort of girl.'
'I can imagine.'
'Quite a swimmer, too, by all accounts. A future Olympic prospect, her teacher reckons.'
'Well, let's just hope for a bit of rain in case she has to try and swim her way out of trouble.'
I heard the bell in the hall and went to the window. Pulling it up I leant out to see who was working the bell- pull. Even three storeys up I could recognize Vogelmann's head of distinctive red hair.
'That's a very common thing to do,' said Hildegard. 'Lean out of a window like a fishwife.'
'As it happens, I might just have caught a fish. It's Vogelmann. And he's brought a friend.'
'Well, you had better go and let them in, hadn't you?'
I walked out on to the landing and operated the lever that pulled the chain to open the street door, and watched the two men climb up the stairs. Neither one of them said anything.
Vogelmann came into Hildegard's apartment wearing his best undertaker's face, which was a blessing since the grim set to his halitosic mouth meant that, for a while at least, it stayed mercifully shut. The man with him was shorter than Vogelmann by a head, and in his mid-thirties, with fair hair, blue eyes and an intense, even academic air about him. Vogelmann waited until we were all seated before introducing the other man as Dr Otto Rahn, and promised to say more about him presently. Then he sighed loudly and shook his head.
'I'm afraid that I have had no luck in the search for your daughter Emmeline,' he said. 'I've asked everyone I could possibly have asked, and looked everywhere I could possibly have looked. With no result. It has been most disappointing.'
He paused, and added: 'Of course, I realize that my own disappointment must count as nothing besides your own. However, I thought I might at least find some trace of her.
'If there was anything, anything at all, that gave some clue as to what might have become of her, then I would feel justified in recommending to you that I continue with my inquiries. But there's nothing that gives me any confidence that I wouldn't be wasting your time and money.'
I nodded with slow resignation. 'Thank you for being so honest, Herr Vogelmann.'
'At least you can say we tried, Herr Steininger,' Vogelmann said. 'I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have exhausted all the usual methods of inquiry.'
He stopped to clear his throat and, excusing himself, dabbed at his mouth with a handkerchief.
'I hesitate to suggest this to you, Herr and Frau Steininger, and please don't think me facetious, but when the usual has proved itself to be unhelpful, there can surely be no harm in resorting to the unusual.'
'I rather thought that was why we consulted you in the first place,' Hildegard said stiffly. 'The usual, as you put it, was something that we expected from the police.'
Vogelmann smiled awkwardly. 'I've expressed it badly,' he said. 'I should perhaps have been talking in terms of the ordinary and the extraordinary.'
The other man, Otto Rahn, came to Vogelmann's assistance.
'What Herr Vogelmann is trying to suggest, with as much good taste as he can in the circumstances, is that you consider enlisting the services of a medium to help you find your daughter.' His accent was educated and he spoke with the speed of a man from somewhere like Frankfurt.
'A medium?' I said. 'You mean spiritualism?' I shrugged. 'We're not believers in that sort of thing.' I wanted to hear what Rahn might have to say in order to sell us on the idea.
He smiled patiently. 'These days it's hardly a matter of belief. Spiritualism is now more of a science. There have been some quite amazing developments since the war, especially in the last decade.'
'But isn't this illegal?' I asked meekly. 'I'm sure I read somewhere that Count Helldorf had banned all professional fortune-telling in Berlin, why, as long ago as 1934.'
Rahn was smooth and not at all deflected by my choice of phrase.
'You're very well-informed, Herr Steininger. And you're right, the Police President did ban them. Since then, however, the situation has been satisfactorily resolved, and racially sound practitioners in the psychic sciences are incorporated in the Independent Professions sections of the German Labour Front. It was only ever the mixed races, the Jews and the gypsies, that gave the psychic sciences a bad name. Why, these days the Fnhrer himself employs a professional astrologer. So you see, things have come a long way since Nostradamus.'
Vogelmann nodded and chuckled quietly.
So this was the reason Reinhard Lange was sponsoring Vogelmann's advertising campaign, I thought. To drum up a little business for the floating wine-glass trade. It looked like quite a neat operation too. Your detective failed to find your missing person, after which, through the mediation of Otto Rahn, you were passed on to an apparently higher power. This service probably resulted in your paying several times as much for the privilege of finding out what was already obvious: that your loved one slept with the angels.
Yes indeed, I thought, a neat piece of theatre. I was going to enjoy putting these people away. You can sometimes forgive a man who works a line, but not the ones who prey on the grief and suffering of others. That was like stealing the cushions off a pair of crutches.
'Peter,' said Hildegard, 'I don't see that we really have much to lose.'
