'Oh, no,' I cried, 'it is not like that. I haven't the vaguest idea what she is like. But, you see, my dead brother loved her, and I want to hear her talk about him. It's really quite simple.'

'Sad!' said Mr Silbermann and shook his head.

'I want to write a book about him,' I continued, 'and every detail of his life interests me.'

'What was he ill?' Mr Silbermann asked huskily.

'Heart,' I replied.

'Harrt – dat's bad. Too many warnings, too many… general… general….'

'Dress rehearsals of death. That's right.'

'Yes. And how old?'

'Thirty-six. He wrote books, under his mother's name. Knight. Sebastian Knight.'

'Write it here,' said Mr Silbermann handing me an extraordinarily nice new notebook enclosing a delightful silver pencil, With a trk-trk-trk sound, he neatly removed the page, put it into his pocket and handed me the book again.

'You like it, no?' he said with an anxious smile. 'Permit me a little present.'

'Really,' I said, 'that's very kind….'

'Nofing, nofing,' he said, waving his hand. 'Now, what you want?'

'I want,' I replied, 'to get a complete list of all the people who have stayed in the Hotel Beaumont during June 1929. I also want some particulars of who they are, the women at least. I want their 'addresses. I want to be sure that under a foreign name a Russian woman is not hidden. Then I shall choose the most probable one or ones and….'

'And try to reach dem,' said Mr Silbermann nodding. 'Well! Very well! I had, have all the hotel-gentlemans here [he showed his palm], and it will be simple. Your address, please.'

He produced another notebook, this time a very worn one, with some of the bescribbled pages falling off like autumn-leaves. I added that I should not move from Strasbourg until he called.

'Friday,' he said. 'Six, punctly.'

Then the extraordinary little man sank back in his seat, folded his arms, and closed his eyes, as if clinched business had somehow put a full stop to our conversation. A fly inspected his bald brow, but he did not move. He dozed until Strasbourg. There we parted.

'Look here,' I said as we shook hands. 'You must tell me your fee… I mean, I'm ready to pay you whatever you think suitable…. And perhaps you would like something in advance….'

'You will send me your book,' he said lifting a stumpy finger. 'And pay for possible depences,' he added under his breath. 'Cerrtainly!'

14

So this was the way I got a list of some forty-two names among which Sebastian's (S. Knight, 36 Oak Park Gardens, London, SW) seemed strangely lovely and lost. I was rather struck (pleasantly) by the fact that all the addresses were there too, affixed to the names: Silbermann hurriedly explained that people often die in Blauberg. Out of forty-one unknown persons as many as thirty-seven 'did not come to question' as the little man put it. True, three of these (unmarried women) bore Russian names, but two of them were German and one Alsatian: they had often stayed at the hotel. There was also a somewhat baffling girl, Vera Rasine; Silbermann however knew for certain that she was French; that, in fact, she was a dancer and the mistress of a Strasbourg banker. There was also an aged Polish couple whom we let pass without a qualm. All the rest of this 'out-of-the-question' group, that is thirty-one persons, consisted of twenty adult males; of these only eight were married or at least had brought their wives (Emma, Hildegard, Pauline, and so on), all of whom Silbermann swore were elderly, respectable, and eminently non-Russian.

Thus we were left with four names:

Mademoiselle Lydia Bohemsky with an address in Paris. She had spent nine days in the hotel at the beginning of Sebastian's stay and the manager did not remember anything about her.

Madame de Rechnoy. She had left the hotel for Paris on the eve of Sebastian's departure for the same city. The manager remembered that she was a smart young woman and very generous with her tips. The 'de' denoted, I knew, a certain type of Russian who likes to accent gentility, though really me use of me French particule before a Russian name is not only absurd but illegal. She might have been an adventuress: she might have been me wife of a snob.

Helene Grinstein. The name was Jewish but in spite of me 'stein' it was not German-Jewish. That 'i' in 'grin' displacing the natural 'u' pointed to its having grown in Russia. She had arrived but a week before Sebastian left and had stayed three days longer. The manager said she was a pretty woman. She had been to his hotel once before and lived in Berlin.

Helene von Graun. That was a real German name. But me manager was positive mat several times during her stay she had sung songs in Russian. She had a splendid contralto, he said, and was ravishing. She had remained a month in all, leaving for Paris five days before Sebastian.

I meticulously noted all these particulars and the four addresses. Any of these four might prove to be the one I wanted. I warmly thanked Mr Silbermann as he sat mere before me with his hat on his joined knees. He sighed and looked down at me toes of his small black boots adorned by old mouse-grey spats.

'I have made dis,' he said, 'because you are to me sympathetic. But [he looked at me with mild appeal in his bright brown eyes] but please, I fink it is ewsyless. You can't see de odder side of de moon. Please donnt search de woman. What is past is past. She donnt remember your brodder.'

'I shall jolly well remind her,' I said grimly.

'As you desire,' he muttered squaring his shoulders and buttoning up his coat. He got up. 'Good djorney,' he said without his usual smile.

'Oh, wait a bit, Mr Silbermann, we've got to settle something. What do I owe you?'

'Yes, dat is correct,' he said seating himself again. 'Moment.' He unscrewed his fountain-pen, jotted down a few figures, looked at them tapping his teeth with me holder: 'Yes, sixty-eight francs.'

'Well, that's not much,' I said, 'won't you perhaps…'

'Wait,' he cried, 'dat is false. I have forgotten… do you guard dat notice-book dat I give, gave you?'

'Why, yes,' I said, 'in fact, I've begun using it. You see… I thought…'

'Den it is not sixty-eight,' he said, rapidly revising his addition, 'It is… It is only eighteen, because de book costs fifty. Eighteen francs in all, Travelling depences…'

'But,' I said, rather flabbergasted at his arithmetic….

'No, dat's now right,' said Mr Silbermann,

I found a twenty franc coin though I would have gladly given him a hundred times as much, if he had only let me.

'So,' he said, 'I owe you now…. Yes, dat's right. Eighteen and two make twenty,' He knitted his brows. 'Yes, twenty. Dat's yours,' He put my coin on the table and was gone.

I wonder how I shall send him this work when it is finished: the funny little man has not given me his address, my head was too full of other things to think of asking him for it, But if he ever does come across The Real Life of Sebastian Knight I should like him to know how grateful I am for his help. And for the notebook. It is well filled by now, and I shall have a new set of pages clipped in when these are completed.

After Mr Silbermann had gone I studied at length the four addresses he had so magically obtained for me, and I decided to begin with the Berlin one. If that proved a disappointment I should be able to grapple with a trio of possibilities in Paris without undertaking another long journey, a journey all the more enervating because then I should know for sure I was playing my very last card. If on the contrary, my first try was lucky, then…. But no matter…. Fate amply rewarded me for my decision.

Large wet snowflakes were drifting aslant the Passauer Strasse in West-Berlin as I approached an ugly old house, its face half-hidden in a mask of scaffolding, I tapped on the glass of the porter's lodge, a muslin curtain was roughly drawn aside, a small window was knocked open and a blowsy old woman gruffly informed me that Frau Helene Grinstein did live in the house. I felt a queer little shiver of elation and went up the stairs. 'Grinstein', said a brass plate on the door.