Prague Fatale by Philip Kerr

I was hardly through protecting her from attack.
     
    ‘Someone tried to rape her,’ I said. ‘So you can either help or you can go and put on some more make-up. The end of your nose looks like it could use some red paint.’
     
    ‘Well, really,’ the landlady gasped. ‘There’s no need to be rude. Raped, you say. Yes, of course I’ll help. Her room is along here.’
     
    She led the way down the hall, found a key from the bunch in the pocket of her sagging dressing gown, opened a door, and, switching on the ceiling light, illuminated a neat, well-furnished room that was cosier than a cashmere-lined leather glove, and about the same size.
     
    I laid Fräulein Tauber down on a sofa of the kind that wasonly comfortable if you were wearing a whalebone corset, and kneeling at her feet I started to slap some life into her hands and face.
     
    ‘When she started working at the Golden Horseshoe I told her something like this might happen,’ said the old woman.
     
    This was one of the few remaining nightclubs in Berlin and probably the least offensive, so the chain of causation that was being suggested was hardly obvious to me; but, containing any argument because I’d already been too rough on the woman, I asked her, politely, if she could fetch a cold compress and a cup of strong tea or coffee. The tea or coffee was a long-shot, but in an emergency there’s no telling what Berlin women can come up with.
     
    Fräulein Tauber started to come around again and I helped her to sit up. Seeing me she smiled a half-smile.
     
    ‘Are you still here?’
     
    The smile must have been painful because she flexed her jaw and then winced.
     
    ‘Just take it easy. That was quite a left hook he handed you. I’ll say one thing for you, Fräulein Tauber, you can take a punch.’
     
    ‘Yeah? Maybe you should manage my fights. I could use a big purse. How’d you know my name, anyway, Parsifal?’
     
    ‘Your landlady. She’s fetching a cold compress and a hot drink for that eye of yours. It’s just possible that we can stop it from going blue.’
     
    Fräulein Tauber glanced over at the door and shook her head. ‘If she’s fetching me a hot drink you must have told her I was dying.’
     
    The landlady returned with the cold compress and handed it to me. I laid it carefully on Fräulein Tauber’s eye, took her hand and laid it on top.
     
    ‘Keep some pressure on it,’ I told her.
     
    ‘There’s tea on the way,’ said the landlady. ‘I had just enough left for a small pot.’ She shrugged and gathered her dressing gown closer to a chest that was bigger than the cushions on the sofa.
     
    I stood up, stretched a smile onto my face and offered the landlady one of my American cigarettes.
     
    ‘Smoke?’
     
    The old woman’s eyes lit up like she was looking at the Koh-i-noor diamond.
     
    ‘Please.’ She took one tentatively, almost as if she thought that I might snatch it away again.
     
    ‘It’s a fair exchange for a cup of tea,’ I said, lighting her cigarette. I didn’t smoke one myself. I hardly wanted either of them thinking I was Gustav Krupp.
     
    The old woman took an ecstatic puff of her cigarette, smiled and went back into the kitchen.
     
    ‘And here was me thinking you were just Parsifal. Looks like you’ve got the touch. Healing lepers is easier than raising a smile on her face.’
     
    ‘But I get the feeling she disapproves of you, Fräulein Tauber.’
     
    ‘You make that sound almost benign. Like my old schoolmistress.’ Fräulein Tauber laughed bitterly. ‘Frau Lippert – that’s her name – she hates me. If I was Jewish she couldn’t hate me more.’
     
    ‘And what’s your name? I can’t keep calling you Fräulein Tauber.’
     
    ‘Why not? Everyone else does.’
     
    ‘The man who attacked you. Did you get a good look at him?’
     
    ‘He was about your height. Dark clothes, dark eyes, darkhair, dark complexion. In fact everything about him was dark on account of the fact