They dragged the prisoner away, bleeding and crying. The Leutnant finished his cigarette as they brought in a new one–an old man this time.

The Leutnant raised an eyebrow. Even after being shackled to the chair and given a welcome-slap from the soldier with the knife, this new prisoner held himself proudly, wearing a mane and beard like a lion’s: golden waves surrendering to grey. Though, the Leutnant noted, the prisoner’s dark eyes betrayed his blood. He stepped closer–intrigued by this one.

“Where is the gold?” The soldier with the knife demanded.

“You’ve taken it,” Goldmann answered, calmly.

The officer who could detect lies whispered something to the soldier with the knife.

“All your gold?” The soldier asked.

“Yes.”

The officer who could detect lies shook his head. “He’s lying.”

The soldier used his knife.

Picking up Goldmann’s bloodflecked file, the Leutnant noted a large amount of gold had indeed been confiscated from the banker’s home.

“There’s more, then,” the soldier spat, ignoring his prisoner’s still-proud bearing. “Where?”

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“I don–”

As Goldmann opened his mouth, the officer stopped his jaws with both hands. He held on against the struggling and directed his colleague’s attention to a rear golden tooth.

The Leutnant kept reading as his men extracted the tooth. Another item of interest referred to an only son, an atomic scientist, educated at the finest universities and now fled to the West like a traitor.

“Is there other gold on your person?”

“What?” Goldmann burbled.

“On your person, on your body?”

The prisoner paused for a moment. “No.”

“He’s lying,” noted the officer who could detect lies.

They searched, toenails to wisdom teeth. They cut away Goldmann’s clothes and popped each stitch, searching for the weighty gold that simply wasn’t there. It took so long, the Leutnant had another cigarette.

“Is the gold still on your person?”

“No!”

The soldier with the knife didn’t need to be told to use it. “Is there still gold in your body?” He demanded, wiggling his blade.

“Yes,” Goldmann said at last, finally slumping in his restraints.

“He’s telling the truth,” said the officer who could detect lies.

“Where, then? More teeth?”

“No…It’s…”

“Yes?”

“Gold,” he said weakly, “some…some in my lungs. My bones.”

The officer who could detect lies nodded his head, his eyes wide with surprise.

That was good enough for the Leutnant, who drew and fired his sidearm, cleanly putting an end to Goldmann’s suffering and indignities.

“You heard him,” the Leutnant said, kicking a pail of tools over to his men. “Find it.”

The soldier and the officer made a terrible mess over the next several hours. They found no gold.

Had they been at their prisoner’s home seven years earlier, seated at the cacophonous dinner table, they would have heard the secret. The soon-to-be-titled Dr. Goldmann explained to his father, between mouthfuls of warm bread, that nearly a million-trillion atoms of the lustrous metal–far less than a milligram–naturally deposit themselves in one’s lungs, skin, and skeleton over a lifetime.