Paul lowered his voice to a whisper. "With Sarah?"

"Only indirectly," I said. "And that's all the information you will get from me."

"Paul!" called the other reporter. "It will just take one second."

"That's all I'm getting so far," Paul said. "Don't think I'm giving up."

He slipped the envelope in his jacket pocket and walked across the room to the other reporter. Before he came back, I sneaked out the side door of the newsroom.

I had to pick up Anton before Fritz got home from work.

Before I finished knocking on Bettina's door, Anton opened it.

"You returned from the hunt." Dropping his bear, he threw himself at my legs. "The brave is pleased."

I bent and hugged him. Bettina had trimmed his hair properly and dressed him in a pair of short pants and a singlet. He looked like an ordinary boy. Small and pale, perhaps, but nothing like the dirty ragamuffin I'd seen at my door the night before.

"Return of the chief," Bettina said, with a smile from the doorway. "Quite a greeting."

"Usually no one notices when I come home except the cat." I scooped Anton in my arms. "We must be off," I said. I did not want to meet Fritz after he found out about Anton. He would ask hard questions about Ernst. He would know the birth certificate was a fake, and he would want answers. He would not be as easy to put off as Paul.

"Please can we take the cache of cookies?" Anton gripped my hand. "I made them all by myself. Didn't I, Auntie Bettina?"

She smiled and led the way to the kitchen. "You certainly did, Little Eagle."

She slipped a glass jar filled with soup into a canvas bag and added a loaf of her special bread and two apples. Finally, she wrapped a handful of cookies in a warm dish towel and placed them on top. "You can take this home for a big supper, in case you forgot lunch," she said. "Anton loves it."

"I do," Anton said. "Auntie Bettina said it's like the stew the Indians used to make."

"I had no idea." My stomach growled, reminding me of my missed lunch. I'd had nothing but coffee since Bettina's scone that morning.

"Chicken and dumplings," Bettina said, winking at me. "A staple on the prairie."

"Thank you, Bettina," I said. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Nor I without you, Hannah." She gave me a hug. "And now I don't know what I'd do without you either, Anton."

She stroked his hair and stuck a small picture book in his hands. "For bedtime," she said. "In case Hannah has no good books."

Anton fell asleep on the bus, holding his bear and his picture book. He had insisted that a brave carries his own supplies. I watched the neighborhoods change from the neo-baroque Wilhelminian apartments in Bettina's world, to the newspaper district with its assortment of modern and humble buildings, and finally to the sooty brick tenements crammed together in a mishmash around Hallesches Tor, and home.

I pulled the cord to signal the bus to stop and gathered everything up, including the sleeping boy. It was heavier than I wanted, and Mitzi did her best to get in my way as I entered the house, but I could not bring myself to wake Anton. He was an orphan now, the same as me.

When I turned to close the door with my foot, I glanced outside. A small figure slid gracefully into the doorway across the street. Francis? I slammed the front door and hurried upstairs, locking my apartment door carefully.

I carried Anton in and put him down on the bed. He did not stir so I held my fingers under his nose, to make certain he was breathing, as I used to do with Ernst when he was an infant.

I stared out the window in my dark kitchen for several minutes. No one waited in the street below. Mitzi twined around my ankles, yowling for her milk. I had been imagining things, I decided firmly, turning on the light and feeding her.

I stroked Mitzi while she drank her milk, her fur warm and soft under my fingers. Her throaty purr was the only sound in the kitchen. Hungry myself, I sliced Bettina's bread and opened the jar of her treasured dumplings. The soup was still warm, and the smell of onions and chicken wafted up. Mmm. Treasure was right.

Treasure.

Mother's jewelry case. She'd called it her secret treasure chest, because of its special compartment. Mother kept her most valuable pieces there. I set the case on the table, thinking back to the secret compartment Mother showed me when I was a small girl. How had it worked? The case had a false bottom that could only be opened when you closed the case, tilted it forward, rapped it on the left side, opened it back up, and pulled a tiny gold loop in the left corner.

I went through the steps, tugged at the gold loop, and lifted out the red velvet false bottom. Brightly colored feathers filled the hidden compartment. Clever. That would muffle the sound if anyone shook it. What did Ernst have worth hiding there?

I picked out the feathers. First I found two of Mother's necklaces: a diamond pendant and a heavy gold locket. He must have stolen these pieces before Ursula could get to them. I felt a thrill of fierce pride. Well done, Ernst. It was wonderful to see them again after I'd given them up for lost.

But Ernst was more clever than I. He'd hidden the necklaces in the bottom of the case. A bottom Ursula had never noticed, perhaps because she had no interest in Mother, wanting only to be Father's chosen one.

I sprang the locket open with my thumb. It contained a picture of Ernst at two years old and a lock of fine blond hair. He'd been so beautiful as a child. I remembered the sunny day I'd taken him to the photographer and the way he'd sat, serious about his picture, wanting to look just right, even then. I kissed the locket and tears welled in my eyes. I took a deep, shaky breath. I needed to be clear-headed in case something here gave me a clue that would help me find Ernst's murderer.

Both necklaces were valuable and could be sold in a pinch for food, though I would be loathe to do so. I weighed the locket in my hand. I hated to part with it again, but food for a hungry child is more important than sentiment. I set the jewelry on my battered kitchen table and withdrew more feathers.

Hidden in the far left corner was a masculine-looking ring. I lifted it out and gaped. It was gorgeous. Two golden snakes with tails intertwined formed the back of the ring. In their fangs they held a giant square ruby that glistered in the light. The red light hypnotized. Power emanated from the stone. I shook my head. Ridiculous.

It could not be real. I had never seen a stone that large except on a movie screen. I laughed aloud. I was uncertain that I'd seen a stone that large on a movie screen either. Its size was absurd. Only royalty could flaunt something like this. But it was exactly the kind of ring that a status seeker like Ernst would wear, even if fake. Mitzi jumped onto my lap and kneaded my dress. I stroked her snowy head absently.

Where did the ring come from? It was not Rudolf's style. I bet that he gave Ernst the more decorous onyx-and-diamond pieces. Modern and almost masculine, but not quite. Besides, if he gave it to Ernst, why would Ernst hide it?

Who else could have given it to him? His rich soldier? If it was real, no wonder he hid it. But it fell beyond a soldier's budget. I wondered what other admirers he had. My hands became ice. What if he had stolen it? I pictured him sneaking out of the bedroom of some rich man, helping himself to the contents of the night table on his way.

I shook myself, set Mitzi on the floor, and stood. The ring was fake. It was too large to be real. And yet I turned it over and over in my fingers. An inscription inside was too tiny to read. Tomorrow I would take it to a jeweler, a friend of mine and Sarah's. I might also take the onyx-and-diamond ones that were outside of the secret compartment. I'd like to see what he could make of them, where they came from. Perhaps I could trace the man or men who had given him the more valuable pieces.

But if they were valuable, why had Rudolf given me the case? He must not have known about the secret compartment. I could think of no sinister reason he would have knowingly given me expensive jewelry.

Pulling out more feathers, I found a diamond-and-ruby bracelet, and a golden cross set with rubies on a fine gold chain. If they were real, they would be worth enough to keep Anton and me for months. I angled the jewels to and fro, watching them catch the light. I felt like a child playing pirates, except that I'd uncovered a real treasure chest. Such beautiful things, jewels. Never in my life had a man given me a jewel. Walter had only given me a simple gold engagement ring, promising to replace it with something nicer after the war. He never had the chance. Yet Ernst had several pieces. He'd probably owned and pawned more.

Diamonds and rubies were perfect for him. He loved the luxury of diamonds, and red was his signature color. He'd always wanted red clothes as a child. He ate red food, if he could-apples, rare steaks, beets, red potatoes instead of white ones, strawberry ice cream. The color mattered more than the flavor.

Luckily Father approved of red. After all, the piping on his uniform was red. What if Ernst had fancied pink? Wishing for a magnifying glass, I picked up the large ruby ring and tried again to make out the inscription.

"That is my father's snake ring," piped a tiny voice from the bedroom doorway.

I turned. "It is?"

"I saw it on his finger," he said, walking sleepily into the kitchen. "I'm hungry."

"What do you know about your father?" I filled a bowl with warm soup for him.

"His name is Ernst," Anton said.

So Anton thought that Ernst was his father. That seemed to make it true then. Why would Ernst act as father to Anton otherwise?

"And he will take care of me." Anton climbed onto a kitchen chair. "He is rich."

I'd never thought of Ernst as rich before, but from Anton's perspective I guessed he was.

"What about your mother?" I set a spoon next to the bowl.

"You are my mother." He sat at the table and picked up his spoon. "Auntie Sweetie said that someday she would take me to my mother and she did."

I opened my mouth to deny the relationship, but no words came. "Let me get you some bread," I said and spread a slice of bread thickly with butter. I watched him eat, twirling the ring around my finger. I was as close to a mother as he had now, poor child.

What if Sweetie Pie was not his mother either? Perhaps she told the truth when she said that she was only his aunt. Perhaps he had a real mother somewhere.

After I tucked Anton back in bed, I returned to the kitchen, stuffed the jewelry among the feathers and closed the secret compartment. Even if only the pieces from Mother were real, they were valuable. I placed the jewelry case back in the bottom of the box and piled old newspapers on top. My treasure buried, I, too, went to bed. It had been a long time since I'd had valuables in the house, and I tossed and turned with worry. I must learn the value of the jewelry, to see if it needed more safeguarding than I could provide. I fell asleep thinking of sinister figures creeping nearer, one doorway at a time.

14.

"Indian good morning," Anton said when I walked into the kitchen the next day. Oily crumbs from the last of Bettina's cookies dropped from his fingers onto the bare table.

"Good morning. I am happy you found your own breakfast today."

"A brave learns a lesson with one showing."

"We should all be that wise." I cut Bettina's apples into wedges and gave one set to Anton. The other I ate myself, along with a fat slice of fragrant bread.

After breakfast, I dressed in a simple dark green dress and moved Ernst's jewelry to my satchel. I did not have to turn in a story today, so I could retrieve my paycheck and run errands, like finding out more about the jewelry and perhaps buying Anton a set of used clothing from a street vendor. For now, I dressed him in the clothes Bettina had given him yesterday.

On the way to Bettina's, Anton regaled me with tales of Indian derring-do. He talked of riding fast horses over the prairie, yet the only horses in sight pulled carts and wore blinders. We rode a bus in the shadows of tall stone buildings as he told me about teepees and the harsh sun in the land of the Apache.

He chattered away until we reached Bettina's house and knocked.

"Good morning," said Bettina when she answered the door. "You missed Fritz."

"Give him my regards."

She raised one eyebrow. "Come in, Anton. I have fresh oatmeal with apples."

"He had breakfast already," I said, as we entered Bettina's cinnamon-scented front hall.

Anton squeezed past us and streaked toward the kitchen.

"He's a growing boy," she said, laughing. "He can eat two breakfasts. Maybe three. Don't worry, I'll keep him fed."

How would I ever pay for his food? It was wrong for me to depend on Bettina's charity. If he was like Ernst, he would eat more than an adult. Before I left home, I'd often slipped Ernst bits of my dinner, breaking Father's strict rules about portion control. "Thank you, Bettina," I said. "I won't need to bring him this weekend so you can have a break."

"I don't need a break from him, Hannah." She reached over and straightened the collar of my dress with one efficient gesture. "But I think it's good if you spend the weekend with him."

"I can give you something for his food-"

"Nonsense." She raised her finger warningly. "One more foolish comment like that and I'll turn you over to Fritz."

"Turn me over to Fritz?" I kept my voice carefully neutral.

"He is very interested in Anton and how he came to be here." Her eyes twinkled. "He wonders why you didn't mention it when you went to the station yesterday."

"I forgot."

"I told him you did not want to explain it in a police station, which I think is closer to the truth." Bettina shook her head. "So early in the day, and you're already lying to your old friend."

"When is he coming home tonight?"

"So you can avoid him?" Bettina tilted her head to one side and flashed her impish smile. "Around six."

When I arrived at the paper for my paycheck, Rudolf stood in the lobby looking at his watch. People parted around him like water around a stone in a stream. Too late, I turned to leave.

"Hannah." He strode across the room. "We have something to discuss."

"We have nothing to discuss." I hurried toward the elevators.

He grabbed my upper arm; his fingers pinched me cruelly. In the five years of our acquaintance, it was the first time he'd ever touched me. "Listen to me now, or you will deeply regret it later."

I stopped. "Release my arm," I said in a loud voice. Xavier, the elevator operator, looked curiously in our direction. Rudolf let go, but stayed too close for my comfort. I resisted the temptation to rub where his fingers had been. I would not let him see that he had hurt me.

"Tell your brother that he must deliver the package we talked about the other day." His voice was low and urgent.

People hurried past us, crossing the elegant lobby on their way to the elevator, but I saw no familiar faces. It was as if we were standing outside Rudolf's office and not mine.

"I have no idea what you mean." Was it the ring? If Rudolf knew about it, Ernst would not have hidden it from him in the secret compartment.

"I think you do, but even if you do not, Ernst does. He knows the stakes for withholding it." Rudolf leaned into me. He smelled like stale sweat. Whatever startled Rudolf out of his careful grooming could not be good.

I stood my ground. I would not be intimidated. "Does he?"

Rudolf gripped my elbow and marched me to the corner of the lobby, away from the crowds by the elevator. I was afraid to go too far from other people, but I wanted to know why Rudolf sought me out. I kept quiet.

Rudolf lowered his voice. "They will kill first him, then me. Finally, probably, even you. He knows they are skilled in torture, and they will find what they need. Tell him to take the easy way."

My hands shook. I clasped them together so that Rudolf would not see. Could he smell my fear, like a dog? "What should he return? And where?"

"He knows. And he knows the place. Sunday at his apartment. In three days."

"Return it to whom?" When the elevator bell dinged I turned toward it, ready to get away.

"If he hasn't told you whom he is dealing with, Hannah, I will not either," Rudolf said, leaning down to whisper in my ear. "Ask him."

I said nothing. Rudolf straightened again. "You are good at asking questions, aren't you? And reporting the answers to others," he said in his normal voice. "I read that story in the paper last night. The one written by your friend, Peter Weill."