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residence, and the driver got out and unloaded the luggage.
    “Mr. Morgan, I’m pleased to welcome you to our final stop, the Nuremberg Soul Identity residence,” she heard the driver say.
    “Thank you, Mr. Little,” came the reply from the man wearing the bowtie.
    The overseer had arrived.

seven
    Present Day
    Sterling, Massachusetts
     
    “Thank you, Flora,” Archie said. He shook his head. “When you and your grandmother walked out of that bombed-out shell of a house across the street, I thought you were beggars.”
    “Until you arrived, we were beggars,” Madame Flora said. “Half-starved and filthy.”
    I tried to picture Madame Flora as anything but a well-dressed, classy older lady. “Did you look like Rose and Marie do now?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “I guess if the girls had to live with their own cooking and cleaning for a few years, then I’d have looked like them.”
    “From the moment I saw her, I thought Flora was…” Archie closed his eyes for a minute and frowned while we waited. “Striking,” he said, opening his eyes and looking at me. “Flora was a striking and a most intense young lady.”
    Madame Flora shook her head and sighed.
    “Which Nazi was joining?,” I asked.
    “The second-in-command, right up until almost the end of the war. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering,” Archie said.
    “And you welcomed him with open arms,” Madame Flora said. “What was it you told me? Nazi gold shines as bright as any other.”
    Archie sighed. “We have discussed this many times over the years, Flora. Soul Identity never discriminates against its members.”
    Apparently not even against Nazis. I wondered about the general problem of depositing stolen money. “Could I rob a bank and deposit the loot in my soul line collection?” I asked.
    “You could try, Scott,” Ann said. “People often attempt to deposit other people’s money, and we usually catch them right away. But even if we don’t, when you make your deposit, you first attest that the money belongs to you, and then you must agree that we’re the sole arbiter on any claims against it.”
    Madame Flora crossed her arms and stared at Archie. “Archibald and I both knew Goering’s gold was looted from the bodies and the belongings of the Jews and the Roma. Yet somehow it was deposited anyway.”
    Archie held up his hands. “You seem to have forgotten that we spent months cataloging and rejecting every piece of artwork and jewelry he sent us,” he said. “I only deposited what we could not trace.”
    “The gold was traceable.”
    “No, it was not.” He pointed at a brooch Ann wore on her green suit jacket. “May I borrow that piece?”
    Ann unpinned the gold brooch and handed it to him.
    Archie smiled as he took it. “The handiwork is beautiful,” he said.
    “Thanks,” Ann said.
    He held it out at arm’s length, three tiny golden rosebuds with their stems entwined. He looked at Madame Flora. “How do we know where the gold in this brooch comes from?”
    Madame Flora shrugged. “What does it matter?”
    “Because,” he said, “for all you know, it came from the fillings of dead people. This could even be made out of Nazi gold.”
    “That’s disgusting,” Ann said.
    Archie nodded. “I agree—it is better not to think about it. Once you re-factor gold, it loses its provenance and becomes untraceable.”
    Madame Flora looked at Ann. “Where did you get that brooch?”
    “It was a gift from my daughter,” Ann said.
    Madame Flora held out her hand. “If there’s any chance at all that it’s made out of Nazi gold, I want it back in the hands of its rightful owners. Give it here, Archibald.”
    As he was handing Ann’s brooch to Madame Flora, Ann stood up and snatched it. “You two need to stop acting so ridiculous,” she said as she fastened it back onto her jacket.
    Archie shrugged. “Nevertheless, my point holds. Gold is untraceable.”
    Madame Flora glared at him. “Goering’s gold and Ann’s brooch are