Two suitcases each, plenty left for you.”

He’s practically falling asleep, the last few words are mumbled.

Baldur fixes him with an alert stare. Maybe it’ll pass off without violence—the two men are completely sloshed. But his instinct warns him. He grabs Borkhausen by the shoulder and barks: “Who’s that man with you? What’s his name?”

“Enno!” Borkhausen barely manages to say. “My friend Enno…”

“And where does your friend Enno live?”

“Don’t know, Herr Persicke. Met him at the bud… drinking pubbies… at the Also Ran…”

Baldur has made up his mind. Suddenly he swings his fist into Borkhausen’s midriff, causing him to fall into the piles of clothes. “Bastard!” he yells. “How dare you refer to my spectacles, and call me a child. I’ll show you!”

But his shouting serves no purpose, for the two men can no longer hear him. His SS brothers have jumped in and knocked their opponents cold with a couple of brutal blows.

“There!” says Baldur happily. “In an hour or so we can hand the two of them over to the police as burglars caught in the act. In the meantime we can move down whatever things we want for ourselves. But quiet on the stairs! I haven’t heard old Quangel come back from his late shift.”

The two brothers nod. Baldur looks down at the bloodied, unconscious victims, then at all the cases, the clothes, the radiogram. Suddenly he breaks into a smile. He turns to his father. “Well, Father, how did I do? You and your anxiety about everything! You see…”

But that’s as far as he gets. His father isn’t standing in the doorway, as expected; his father has suddenly disappeared. In his place is Foreman Quangel, the fellow with the sharp, cold birdlike face, silently staring at him with his dark eyes.

When Otto Quangel got home from his shift—even though it had grown very late, because of the meeting, he had refused to take a tram, saving his pennies—he saw that in spite of the blackout there was a light on in Frau Rosenthal’s apartment. On closer inspection he saw that there were lights on at the Persickes’ as well, and downstairs at Judge Fromm’s, shining past the edges of the blinds. In the case of Judge Fromm, of whom it wasn’t certain whether he had gone into retirement in ‘33 because of old age or the Nazis, this wasn’t surprising. He always read half the night. And the Persickes were presumably still celebrating their victory over France. But he couldn’t believe that old Frau Rosenthal would have the lights on all over her apartment—there was something amiss there. The old woman was so cowed, she would never light up her flat like that.

There’s something wrong, thought Otto Quangel as he unlocked the front door and slowly went up the stairs. As ever, he had forborne to switch on the lights in the stairwell—he didn’t just economize for himself. He economized for everyone, including the landlord. Something’s up! But what’s it to do with me? I want nothing to do with those people. I live for myself.