I sighed, and was about to voice my disagreement when she stopped me.
'Yes, you're going to say that it makes catching this criminal more difficult, and that Reinhard may have information which might help you. You're absolutely right, of course. But listen to my reasons, Herr Gunther.
'First of all, my son is an impulsive boy. Most likely his reaction would be to tell this blackmailer to go to the devil, and not pay. This would almost certainly result in his arrest. Reinhard is my son, and as his mother I love him very dearly, but he is a fool, with no understanding of pragmatism. I suspect that whoever is blackmailing me has a shrewd appreciation of human psychology.
He understands how a mother, a widow, feels for her only son especially a rich and rather lonely one like myself.
'Second, I myself have some appreciation of the world of the homosexual. The late Dr Magnus Hirschfeld wrote several books on the subject, one of which I'm proud to say I published myself. It's a secret and rather treacherous world, Herr Gunther. A blackmailer's charter. So it may be that this evil person is actually acquainted with my son. Even between men and women, love can make a good reason for blackmail more so when there is adultery involved, or race defilement, which seems to be more a cause for concern to these Nazis.
'Because of this, when you have discovered the blackmailer's identity, I will tell Reinhard, and then it will be up to him what is to be done. But until then he will know nothing of this.' She looked at me questioningly. 'Do you agree?'
'I can't fault your reasoning, Frau Lange. You seem to have thought this thing through very clearly. May I see the letters from your son?' Reaching for a folder by the chaise she nodded, and then hesitated.
'Is that necessary? Reading his letters, I mean.'
'Yes it is,' I said firmly. 'And do you still have the notes from the blackmailer?' She handed me the folder.
'Everything is in there,' she said. The letters and the anonymous notes.'
'He didn't ask for any of them back?'
'No.'
'That's good. It means we're dealing with an amateur. Someone who had done this sort of thing before would have told you to return his notes with each payment.
To stop you accumulating any evidence against him.'
'Yes, I see.'
I glanced at what I was optimistically calling evidence. The notes and envelopes were all typewritten on good quality stationery without any distinctive features, and posted at various districts throughout west Berlin W.35, W.4O, W.50 the stamps all commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Nazis coming to power. That told me something. This anniversary had taken place on 30 January, so it didn't look like Frau Lange's blackmailer bought stamps very often.
Reinhard Lange's letters were written on the heavier weight of paper that only people in love bother to buy the kind that costs so much it just has to be taken seriously. The hand was neat and fastidious, even careful, which was more than could be said of the contents. An Ottoman bath-house attendant might not have found anything particularly objectionable about them, but in Nazi Germany, Reinhard Lange's love-letters were certainly sufficient to earn their cheeky author a trip to a K Z wearing a whole chestful of pink triangles.
'This Dr Lanz Kindermann,' I said, reading the name on the lime-scented envelope. 'What exactly do you know about him?'
'There was a stage when Reinhard was persuaded to be treated for his homosexuality. At first he tried various endocrine preparations, but these proved ineffective. Psychotherapy seemed to offer a better chance of success. I believe several high-ranking Party members, and boys from the Hitler Youth, have undergone the same treatment. Kindermann is a psychotherapist, and Reinhard first became acquainted with him when he entered Kindermann's clinic in Wannsee seeking a cure. Instead he became intimately involved with Kindermann, who is himself homosexual.'
'Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is psychotherapy? I thought that sort of thing was no longer permitted.'
Frau Lange shook her head. 'I'm not exactly sure. But I think that the emphasis is on treating mental disorders as part of one's overall physical health. Don't ask me how that differs from that fellow Freud, except that he's Jewish, and Kindermann is German. Kindermann's clinic is strictly Germans only. Wealthy Germans, with drink and drug problems, those for whom the more eccentric end of medicine has some appeal chiropracty and that sort of thing. Or those just seeking an expensive rest. Kindermann's patients include the Deputy Fnhrer, Rudolf Hess.'
'Have you ever met Dr Kindermann?'
'Once. I didn't like him. He's a rather arrogant Austrian.'
'Aren't they all?' I murmured. 'Think he'd be the type to try a little blackmail? After all, the letters were addressed to him. If it isn't Kindermann, then it has to be somebody who knows him. Or at least somebody who had the opportunity to steal the letters from him.'
'I confess that I hadn't suspected Kindermann for the simple reason that the letters implicate both of them.' She thought for a moment. 'I know it sounds silly, but I never gave any thought as to how the letters came to be in somebody else's possession. But now you come to mention it, I suppose that they must have been stolen. From Kindermann I would think.'
I nodded. 'All right,' I said. 'Now let me ask you a rather more difficult question.'
'I think I know what you're going to say, Herr Gunther,' she said, heaving a great sigh. 'Have I considered the possibility that my own son might be the culprit?' She looked at me critically, and added: 'I wasn't wrong about you, was I? It's just the sort of cynical question that I hoped you would ask. Now I know I can trust you.'
'For a detective being a cynic is like green fingers in a gardener, Frau Lange.
Sometimes it gets me into trouble, but mostly it stops me from underestimating people. So you'll forgive me I hope if I suggest that this could be the best reason of all for not involving him in this investigation, and that you've already thought of it.' I saw her smile a little, and added: 'You see how I don't underestimate you, Frau Lange.' She nodded. 'Could he be short of money, do you think?'
'No. As a board director of the Lange Publishing. Company he draws a substantial salary. He also has income from a large trust that was set up for him by his father. It's true, he likes to gamble. But worse than that, for me, is that he is the owner of a perfectly useless title called Urania.'
'Title?'
'A magazine. About astrology, or some such rubbish. It's done nothing but lose money since the day he bought it.' She lit another cigarette and sucked at it with lips puckered like she was going to whistle a tune. 'And he knows that if he were ever really short of money, then he would only have to come and ask me.'
I smiled ruefully. 'I know I'm not what you might call cute, but have you ever thought of adopting someone like me?' She laughed at that, and I added: 'He sounds like a very fortunate young man.'
'He's very spoiled, that's what he is. And he's not so young any more.' She stared into space, her eyes apparently following her cigarette smoke. 'For a rich widow like myself, Reinhard is what people in business call a loss leader. There is no disappointment in life that begins to compare with one's disappointment in one's only son.'
'Really? I've heard it said that children are a blessing as one gets older.'
'You know, for a cynic you're beginning to sound quite sentimental. I can tell you've no children of your own. So let me put you right about one thing, Herr Gunther. Children are the reflection of one's old age. They're the quickest way of growing old I know. The mirror of one's decline. Mine most of all.'
The dog yawned and jumped off her lap as if having heard it many times before.
On the floor it stretched and ran towards the door where it turned and looked back expectantly at its mistress. Unperturbed at this display of canine hubris, she got up to let the brute out of the room.
'So what happens now?' she said, coming back to her chaise longue.
'We wait for another note. I'll handle the next cash delivery. But until then I think it might be a good idea if I were to check into Kindermann's clinic for a few days. I'd like to know a little more about your son's friend.'
'I suppose that's what you mean by expenses, is it?'
'I'll try to make it a short stay.'
'See that you do,' she said, affecting a schoolmistressy sort of tone. 'The Kindermann Clinic is a hundred
