It felt like prying, to ask Pussy about murder, but Gregson knew it was necessary to look into her dark psyche, to find skeletons hidden there. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she flushed.

“Don’t touch my Pussy!” A voice shouted out of the shadows. Gregson wasn’t sure what to expect—a lesbian lover? The tenor was tiny, and full of steel. A little man walked out, from behind a statue of a cat licking her paws. He had a Charlie Chaplin mustache and an arrogant gate.

Gregson immediately noticed his Luger, staring him down, like death.

“Now—I might be a failed artist at painting, but I can paint your brains on the wall like a genius.”

Gregson didn’t doubt his genius. Stanley was standing next to him, trying to be an invisible coat-hanger, but it wasn’t working.

“What’s the matter? You don’t say anything?”

“I’ve already met your Pussy. My name’s Gregson.”

“Adolf. Forgive me, but I don’t shake hands. I don’t know what to do with you.”

“You could let us go?” Stanley suggested.

“That’s out of the question. Both of you need to die—I just don’t know where to sort you—garbage or recycling?”

Gregson glanced around the room like a mouse, cornered by dozens of cats—desperate to find a way out. There it was. Adolf, in Scottish golfing gear, wearing a checked cap and knickerbockers, resting his putter on his shoulder, like the emperor of the world.

“You play the greatest game?” Gregson asked.

“If you mean, politics, I am creating my own party. It will be a third reign of power, like the romans, with the blood of gypsies running in the streets. The world will die to hear the sound of my name.”

“Actually, I was thinking about the game of golf. Do you play?”

“I don’t play. I win,” Hitler said.