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across the staircase. Then the match or cigarette lighter.’
    â€˜But … but the usherette has said there were two women …?’ began St-Cyr in German that was far from rusty.
    Unimpressed that a Frenchman could speak his native tongue, Weidling fastidiously brushed crumbs from thick, strong fingers before pulling on his gloves. Again he spoke only to Hermann. ‘Lübeck first, in late May of 1938. A cinema in the student quarter near the university.’
    The blue eyes were lifeless in that rosy, apple-cheeked countenance. A man of sixty or sixty-five, a father probably and a grandfather. The lips were thin.
    â€˜Heidelberg in early July of the same year, a crowded lecture hall, a Party meeting. The first fire killed sixty-seven, the second only twenty-eight. Then Köln and a night-club in mid-August—again the same technique, again a good number—sixteen to be precise—but most escaped through the stage doors and I count the thing a failure.’
    Was he really telling them everything? ‘Two women?’ asked Kohler, watching him intently.
    Weidling returned the look. ‘Perhaps, but I happen to think not.’
    â€˜And since those fires?’ hazarded the Sûreté.
    Again he was ignored. ‘Nothing of a similar nature, Herr Kohler. Other arsonists, of course, but now this, yes? A student perhaps who visited the Reich in 1938 and then went home to Lyon. My people are checking into things and will send me the case files. You can read them yourself.’
    A student, a citizen of Lyon …
    â€˜Leiter Weidling is to become a professor at the Fire Protection Officers’ School in Eberswald. We are fortunate to have him with us. He’s the only fire marshal in the Reich to have been decorated three times for bravery beyond the call of duty.’
    This had come in French from Lyon’s fire marshal, Julien Robichaud.
    â€˜On holiday, is he?’ snapped Kohler in French, for that was the way one got things done quickly.
    Weidling grinned, for though he hadn’t understood a word, he had understood only too well the drift of Herr Kohler’s thoughts. Hero firemen sometimes lit their own fires. ‘Here for the International Fire Marshals’ Convention and staying on a few days.’
    It was Kohler’s turn to be unimpressed, but he tried hard to hide his feelings by offering precious cigarettes all round and insisting Louis take one. ‘A coffee, I think, and a glass of marc ?’
    Robichaud strode over to the nearest pumper truck and returned with a thermos jug, four tin cups and a bottle. ‘Emergency rations, messieurs,’ he said, gritting his teeth self-consciously. ‘It’s not a day for alcohol but …’ He gave the shrug of a man uncertain of his position and definitely worried about it. ‘But one has to have a little something, eh? to settle the stomach.’
    Kohler took the bottle from him and uptilted it into his mouth, shutting his eyes in blessed relief. ‘ Merci ,’ he said, wiping his lips. ‘Louis?’
    St-Cyr shook his head. ‘In the coffee, I think. Yes, yes, that will be sufficient.’
    They were a pair, these two detectives, thought Weidling. Gestapo Leader Mueller’s telex from Berlin had said to watch them closely. Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris had been emphatic: St-Cyr was a patriot and therefore untrustworthy; Kohler a doubter of Germanic invincibility. They’d been in trouble with the SS far too many times. They had made disparaging remarks about some of its members and had held them up to ridicule.
    Weidling helped himself to the bottle. The coffee was good—the real stuff—the brandy barely passable, the French fire chief nothing but a nuisance to be got rid of quickly. ‘You will need a list of all those who were in the cinema, Herr Kohler, both the victims and those who escaped.’
    â€˜It’ll be impossible to get a complete