The little Jew beamed with delight.

“Ach! that is bright!” he cried, “oi, oi, oi, but he is smart, this Herr Eichenholz!  Who’d have thought of that?  Brilliant, brilliant!”

“As you say, Herr Kore, enquiry agents must live, and I am quite prepared to pay for the information I require....”

I pulled out my portfolio as I spoke.

“The matter is quite simple,” Kore replied.  “It is already arranged.  The charge is five hundred marks.  My client said to me the last time I saw him, ‘Kore,’ he said, ’if one should come asking news of me you will give him the word and he will pay you five hundred marks.’”

“The word?” I said.

“The word,” he repeated.

“You must take Dutch money,” I said.  “Here you are ... work it out in gulden ... and I’ll pay!”

He manipulated a stump of pencil on a writing block and I paid him his money.

Then he said: 

“Boonekamp!”

“Boonekamp?” I echoed stupidly.

“That’s the word,” the little Jew chuckled, laughing at my dumbfounded expression, “and, if you want to know, I understand it as little as you do.”

“But ...  Boonekamp,” I repeated.  “Is it a man’s name, a place?  It sounds Dutch.  Have you no idea? ... come, I’m ready to pay.”

“Perhaps ...” the Jew began.

“What?  Perhaps what?” I exclaimed impatiently.

“Possibly....”

“Out with it, man!” I cried, “and say what you mean.”

“Perhaps, if I could render to the gentleman the service I rendered to his brother, I might be able to throw light....”

“What service did you render to my brother?” I demanded hastily.  “I’m in the dark.”

“Has the gentleman no little difficulty perhaps? ... about his military service, about his papers?  The gentleman is young and strong ... has he been to the front?  Was life irksome there?  Did he ever long for the sweets of home life?  Did he never envy those who have been medically rejected?  The rich men’s sons, perhaps, with clever fathers who know how to get what they want?”

His little eyes bored into mine like gimlets.

I began to understand.

“And if I had?”

“Then all old Kore can say is that the gentleman has come to the right shop, as his gracious brother did.  How can we serve the gentleman now?  What are his requirements?  It is a difficult, a dangerous business.  It costs money, much money, but it can be arranged ... it can be arranged.”

“But if you do for me what you did for my brother,” I said, “I don’t see how that helps to explain this word, this clue to his address!”

“My dear sir, I am as much in the dark as you are yourself about the significance of this word.  But I can tell you this, your brother, thanks to my intervention, found himself placed in a situation in which he might well have come across this word....”

“Well?” I said impatiently.