Roger McAllister didn't actually own the warehouse, but he was quite confident in its security. After all, he had the only set of working keys, and the only codes for the alarm system. He had been trading property management duties for discreet access for a dozen years, and if the owner ever wanted her own keys and codes, well, all she had to do was ask. McAllister had promised the daughters of Jakob Josephson that he would review the books and papers of their grandfather, Joseph Konrad Josephson, the under conditions of utmost privacy, and "my warehouse on Russell Street" was just the place.

Later, McAllister would sing the praises of this material—seven cardboard boxes, and one wooden chest—but in fact, he found most of it to be extraordinarily tedious: the old Munich bookseller had been the most tiresome kind of self-lacerating social democrat, and McAllister was all too aware that the market value of 19th century leftist tracts was rapidly approaching zero. The Lutheran librarian in Nebraska, who had vague memories of a socialist grandfather, was the only person on three continents (Europe, South America, North America—McAllister did his due diligence) willing to take the damned stuff.

But in the "chest of Nazi papers" McAllister found his treasure. Joseph Konrad Josephson had been an avid and meticulous correspondent, who neatly filed a rough copy of each letter he wrote (an almost perfect rough copy) with the response it elicited. Most of these files, of course, were filled with unbearable socialist twaddle, but there was one correspondent who always caught McAllister's eye: there was something crazy, intense, even marketable in this guy's writing.

His name was Adabert Kehr.