Witzel looked vague. “Somewhere in Munich. My address book with all his contact details was on the Doris, I’m afraid.”
“No matter. If he is a leading Hellenist like you say, he should be easy enough to get in touch with.”
I opened my briefcase and took out the certified check for twenty-two thousand five hundred drachmas payable to Siegfried Witzel that I’d had drawn up before leaving Munich.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Pending any adjustment of your claim this is an interim payment on account to help tide you over. You can afford a hotel now.”
“About time.”
“I’ll need to see some identification in order to give you this.”
“Of course,” he said, and handed me his passport, which was how I learned his age: he was forty-three, but looked a little older.
The sight of the check seemed to soften him a little and he even tried smiling, for once. “Look, Herr Ganz,” he said, “as one German to another, I’m asking you to forget about the artifacts that were lost on the Doris. I give you my word that no one is going to make a claim for them. Least of all me or the professor. People don’t always behave at their best when a ship is sinking. I’ll admit that neither I nor the professor conducted ourselves with any great credit and the fact is that he and I exchanged some pretty strong words before we parted, in Poros. I’m not the most even-tempered man, as you may have noticed. You see, when the time came to abandon ship I told everyone to bring something important to the life raft. I asked the professor to bring some water, a flashlight, and the Very pistol. Which he neglected to do. I was angry about that and even angrier when I found some of the artifacts in the professor’s pockets when we were on the life raft. I don’t suppose I would have minded about that quite so much if he’d also remembered the flare pistol and the water. It was dark when we abandoned the Doris. I had no way of knowing how long we were going to be in the boat, so the Very pistol and the flashlight might have helped with our rescue. Anyway, I was rough with him; I slapped him about a bit and accused him of stealing. A struggle ensued and the artifacts were lost over the side. He’s hardly likely to treat any questions about me kindly now. In fact, the chances are he’ll put the phone down the minute he hears my name. So save yourself the trouble of asking him.”
“Well, thank you for your very commendable honesty.”
“I’ll find a lawyer and be in touch,” he said.
“There’s a good one on the floor below,” said Garlopis. “Herr Trikoupis. I can vouch for him.”
Witzel smiled thinly. He put the check in his back pocket, picked up his cigarettes and his keys, and went out of the office.
EIGHTEEN
–
“Commendable honesty?” Mr. Garlopis chuckled quietly. “I must confess to a certain amount of incredulity when I heard you say that, sir. And I don’t mean to tell you your business. But please don’t tell me you believe that man’s story?”
“No, of course I don’t believe his story,” I said, grabbing my coat. “What you’ve said about him from the beginning seems perfectly accurate. I’ve seen foxes who were less evasive than Herr Witzel.”
“I’m very relieved to hear you say that, sir. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud when he was trying to persuade you not to contact Professor Buchholz. There’s much more to this than meets the eye. I fear even a cyclops could see the flaws in his story. And did you notice the way he didn’t contradict you when you talked about suing the shipyard in Megara after he’d already said it was in Salamis? I take it that was deliberate. If so it was a masterstroke, sir. I take my hat off to you. And the way you brought up the gun. I should never have dared even mention it. No, the man’s story has more holes in it than the present government’s political manifesto.”
I went onto the landing outside the office door and, peering over the wrought-iron banister, I watched Witzel go down the stairs.
“That’s why I’m going to follow him. In my experience it’s sometimes the quickest way to see how much of what a man has told you is on the level.” I was thinking of the way I’d followed Friedrich Jauch in Munich, and how that had worked well for me; perhaps following Witzel would prove equally productive. “At the very least I’d like find out where he’s living right now, and with whom. That might tell us something on its own.”
“But forgive me, sir, you don’t know the city. Supposing you get lost?”
“That’s the thing about tailing a guy. It’s impossible to get lost. After all, he’s bound to lead me somewhere and even if I don’t know where that is, I can probably find it again.”
“Seriously, sir. I have to say, this doesn’t sound like a good idea at all. I can’t imagine Herr Neff ever doing such a thing as following one of our insurance claimants. Suppose Witzel sees you? Have you forgotten that he’s armed?”
“I’ll be all right.” I smiled. Part of me—the part that was still a detective—was already looking forward to what I had in mind. I’d enjoyed following Jauch, almost childishly so.
“Then would you like me to drive you, sir? I’m parked just around the corner and entirely at your disposal.”
“In that car of your cousin’s? I might as well try to follow him with a couple of motorcycle outriders. No, I want you to stay here and try to arrange for us to meet with someone from the Archaeological Museum this afternoon. And see what else you can find out about that boat of
