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also didn’t ask him whether he wasn’t ashamed as an old Communist to be staying at the Kolpinghaus.
    As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Turbo returned from one of his forays over the rooftops, jumped from the windowsill onto the sofa, and rubbed against Karl-Heinz Ulbrich’s legs on his way to the kitchen. Karl-Heinz said “puss-puss,” his eyes following Turbo with satisfaction. He looked at me triumphantly, as if he’d always known that animals in the West were friendlier than people and that this had now been proven. Luckily he didn’t say this out loud.
    He got up. “I guess I’d better go. But I’ll be back.”
    Without waiting for a good-bye, he walked through the hall to the door, opened it, and from outside carefully closed it again.
     
     
     

— 15 —
     
Without confession
there is no absolution
     
     
    I called Strasbourg. I couldn’t get hold of Georg—though after he’d been there just a day he wouldn’t have had much to report. So I had to make do with what Schuler had told me.
    The silent partner from Strasbourg whose first or last name bore the initial
C
,
L
, or
Z
seemed to spark little interest in Welker or Samarin. As I sat opposite them making my report, Samarin looked visibly bored, while Welker seemed to be trying to suppress his impatience.
    I’d said all I had to say. “I’ve picked up the Strasbourg lead and can either follow it or drop it. I do get the impression, however, that you’ve lost interest in the silent partner.”
    Welker assured me that the silent partner was as important to him as ever. “Let me write you another check. Strasbourg won’t be a cheap venture.”
    He took his checkbook and a fountain pen out of his jacket and wrote me a check.
    “Herr Self,” Samarin said, leaning forward and looking me in the eye. “It seems that Schuler had access to the bank and withdrew some money. He left that money with you, and—”
    “He brought me an attaché case, which I have placed in the care of a third party. I’m not sure whether I should hand it over to his heirs or the police. I don’t even know who his heirs are, or the exact circumstances of Schuler’s death.”
    “He died in a car crash.”
    “Somebody frightened him to death,” I countered.
    Samarin shook his head—slowly, ponderously—and as he did so he rocked his upper body back and forth. “Herr Self.” He squeezed out the words. “When someone takes something that doesn’t belong to him, it doesn’t do that person any good.”
    “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Welker said soothingly, glancing at Samarin and me with some irritation as he handed me the check. “You must understand that decades ago Herr Schuler was our teacher, a good teacher, and we don’t forget it. His death was a blow to us, and the suspicion about the money, too. I must say that I cannot believe—”
    Samarin exploded. “You
will
believe what—”
    “What you tell me?” Welker looked at Samarin and me triumphantly for a few seconds.
    Samarin was so furious that he almost tipped the heavy chair over as he got up. But he managed to get a grip on himself. Slowly and menacingly he said, “You will be hearing from me, Herr Self.”
    I walked along the palace gardens to Schuler’s house. I couldn’t figure out what Welker’s moment of triumph was all about. Or why the money that had disappeared seemed to worry him less than it worried Samarin. If there was something fishy about the used fifty-and hundred-mark bills, whether Schuler had taken them or not, then this ought to worry the boss more than his assistant, even if his assistant is responsible for practical matters and has a tendency to be overbearing and is quick to flare up. Or were they playing some version of the good-cop, bad-cop routine with me? But if that were the case, Samarin could have exploded instead of getting a grip on himself.
    I looked around but nobody was following me, neither my counterfeit son nor a blue Mercedes. The woman who opened the