But I’d already decided on my next course of action, which was to take a drive down to Ermioni, the town on the Peloponnesian coast where Siegfried Witzel had said the lifeboat from the Doris had come ashore, and there to ask the local coast guard for more information. I didn’t know that I expected to discover anything useful but at least that way I’d be doing something better than sitting around in the office waiting for Arthur Meissner to decide if he would meet with me in Averoff Prison, or for Dumbo Dietrich to answer my latest telegram. Besides, I needed to look like I was doing something if only to keep Lieutenant Leventis off my case. I’d met a few high-pressure cops in my time—Heydrich, Nebe, and Mielke, to name but three—and while Leventis wasn’t a killer like them, in his own way he was effective. Without my passport I couldn’t leave Greece and, until it was returned to me, I was the lieutenant’s straw man just as surely as if he’d been the Kaiser and I his most slavish subject.
“Mr. Papakyriakopoulos telephoned while we were out,” Garlopis said after Telesilla had left for the telegraph office. “Arthur Meissner has agreed to meet with us on Friday evening, sir.”
“That’s something, I suppose. Although I really don’t know what I’m going to ask him. Or exactly how I’m going to improve his weekend. Not to mention my own.”
“But I thought you told Lieutenant Leventis that you might be able to persuade him to tell you about Alois Brunner.”
“I had to tell that slippery cop something. He’s the type who could find every crime in the Bible and write someone up for it. But I don’t see why Meissner would tell me anything new. Leventis isn’t offering much of a deal yet. He’ll speak up for Meissner if Meissner contributes something useful about Brunner. That wouldn’t be enough to convince me to spill my guts. And if he knows nothing, then what? We’re back to square one.”
“Yes, I do see the problem, sir. I must say this is all quite worrying.”
I put my hand on the Greek’s shoulder and tried to look reassuring. “Look, I don’t think Leventis is that interested in you, my friend. So I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s me he wants turning the millstone in the Gaza.”
“Because you used to be a detective in Berlin.”
“That’s right. A German detective to help a Greek detective solve a German murder.”
“Yes, well, in Athens one can understand that kind of Socratic dialogue.”
“For now what matters is that as far as he’s concerned, you’re just a nobody.”
“It’s kind of you to say so, sir. As a matter of fact, I’ve asked around about this man, Leventis, to see if my first opinion about him—on the likelihood of his taking a bribe—might have been wrong.”
“And?”
“By all accounts he’s perceived to be an inflexibly honest man.”
“They’re usually the most expensive people to try and corrupt.”
“This is not to say that it’s impossible, sir.”
“Yes, but the first time you saw him you said you didn’t think he could be bought.”
“Nobody is above being bribed in Greece. Companies, judges, prime ministers, kings—them especially—everyone in Greece has to have his fakelaki, his little envelope. It’s just a case of working out what might be in it. Even a man like Stavros Leventis would probably not be above five thousand drachmas. At most ten.”
“I might raise a thousand drachmas on expenses. But that’s it.”
Garlopis lit a cigarette. “Is it possible that Mr. Dietrich in Munich would authorize this kind of unaccountable expenditure?”
“I doubt it.”
“Not even for a man who has saved them from paying out on the Doris? A quarter of a million drachmas.”
“I don’t believe they think like that. I was just doing my job.”
“Then we are forced to consider other methods of fund-raising. Perhaps, during the course of your inquiry, you may see the opportunity for a little bit of quiet larceny. In which case you would certainly be advised to take it.”
“You make it sound as if there’s five thousand drachmas just lying around in this town. There isn’t.”
“You’re wrong about that. If I might make a suggestion?”
“Please do.”
“The certified company check for twenty-two thousand drachmas payable to Siegfried Witzel.”
“It was on the table at the scene of his murder in Pritaniou. Almost certainly it’s now police evidence.”
“Almost certainly it is not.” He took out his wallet and then unfolded the same certified company check, which he handed to me with a smile. “I took the liberty of taking it when we left the murder scene. I suppose you’d like me to tell you why.”
“Go ahead. Meanwhile I’ll try and figure out the real reason.”
“For safekeeping, you understand. Just in case one of those uniformed policemen was tempted to steal it.”
“You sly old dog. But how do we—?”
“I have a cousin, sir, who works for the Alpha Bank. I think that for a small commission he might be able to help us out. Of course, we should have to be careful to cash the check at a smaller branch outside Athens, mostly probably somewhere like Heraklion, or Corinth—so that it might seem the check was presented for payment before Herr Witzel’s unfortunate death. It could also require that you should impersonate Siegfried Witzel. But then that shouldn’t be too difficult for a German, with the help of a Greek, that is.”
“You are a man of many
