‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone who wanted Alexander dead.’ Uncle Nat shook his head. ‘That’s why I think it must have been a normal heart attack.’
Hal smiled. ‘It’s nice to be able to talk theories through with you. It’s hard pretending to be Harrison Strom. I don’t like lying to Ozan, Hilda and Herman. They’re nice. It must have been difficult being a spy.’
‘It was lonely,’ Uncle Nat replied, and Hal nodded, feeling closer to his uncle now they shared a secret. ‘But you won’t have to pretend for much longer. Tomorrow is the funeral, which will be a difficult day, but on Tuesday morning, we’ll catch a train back to Berlin and go home. I promised your mother I’d get you home before Easter.’ Uncle Nat smiled. ‘The moment we step on to that train, we can drop the disguises.’
‘Then I only have thirty-six hours to solve the mystery of how Alexander Kratzenstein died,’ Hal said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE FUNERAL TRAIN
The next morning, snow lay thick on the ground and, although fresh flakes had stopped falling, a white fog hung in the air. Hal got dressed in his black trousers and jacket for the funeral and followed Herman, Hilda and Ozan down to breakfast.
Going to the platform doorway of the salon, Hal paused to watch Aksel working as the others filed into the dining room. The vintage black-and-red Class 99 tank engine was sitting in a cloud of steam at the head of the funeral train. Behind it was the sombre carriage, in which Alexander Kratzenstein lay in his coffin, and behind that were two empty wooden carriages awaiting the funeral guests.
‘Morning.’ Hal walked up to Aksel as he opened a hatch in the top of the boiler and fed in the water hose. Aksel nodded. ‘Is the train ready?’
Aksel pointed to the snowplough bolted to the front of the locomotive.
‘He’s been working on the train for hours,’ said Connie, who was wrapped in her coat and watching Aksel with affectionate interest from further along the plaform. ‘He wants to make sure the engine has enough water to get her up the mountain and back again.’
‘It’s very important a loco doesn’t run out of water.’ Hal nodded. ‘If the water runs out, the engine can explode.’
‘Really?’ Connie stared at the engine. ‘That sounds terribly dangerous.’
‘It’s like a giant kettle that keeps on boiling after all the water’s evaporated. But don’t worry,’ Hal said, seeing the concern on her face. ‘Aksel knows what he’s doing.’
*
A few hours later, a line of cars struggled up the snowy drive to Schloss Kratzenstein. Hilda, Ozan and Hal were sitting on the floor of the gallery, looking down on the ballroom where the guests were being welcomed by the willowy Clara Kratzenstein. Her long blonde hair was loose, and she wore a floaty black silk dress, with sleeves that ended at her elbows, long lace cuffs stretching to her delicate wrists. Her skin was ghostly pale, her blue eyes shone with tears. Hal could see why Alexander Kratzenstein had fallen in love with her.
‘I fear the snow may prevent many of the funeral guests from travelling,’ the baron said to Uncle Nat. ‘It will be a small gathering.’
‘The size of the gathering is not important,’ Clara said, dabbing her eyes with a black lace handkerchief.
When the doctor and his wife arrived, they were greeted warmly by Bertha in her smart black suit.
‘Look, that’s Marie Winkelmann,’ Hilda whispered, pointing at a frail-looking woman. ‘She’s a distant relative of the Count of Wernigerode.’
‘Why is she here?’ Hal asked.
‘She was Manfred Kratzenstein’s fiancée. He died before they could get married.’
Bertha was striding about, informing people there was coffee and cake for them on a long table to the side of the room. Arnie was standing beside the table, looking longingly at the silver platter of cake slices.
‘Mmm, Zuckerkuchen,’ Ozan murmured.
‘It’s a cake we have at funerals,’ Hilda explained. ‘It’s sweet and buttery.’
‘Poor Herman,’ Hal said, watching a man bend to talk down to him. ‘I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone if this was my dad’s funeral.’
‘That man is probably being kind,’ Hilda said.
‘That’s worse,’ Hal replied. ‘It would make me cry.’
‘We should go down,’ Ozan said, and Hilda got to her feet as Hal and Ozan stood up and dusted off their trousers.
‘I’ve never been to a funeral before,’ Hal admitted.
‘They’re boring.’ Ozan pulled a face. ‘And seeing adults cry is weird.’
‘Adults don’t know how to let their tears out,’ Hilda agreed. ‘They try to hold them back and end up making noises like hedgepigs.’
‘Hedgehogs,’ Hal corrected her, with a chuckle.
Filing down the stairs, they joined the fringe of the group in the ballroom, and Hal found himself surrounded by soft, respectful conversations in German. Hilda translated for him in whispers. ‘That’s Herr Gotthold.’ She pointed with her nose at the man Clara was talking to. ‘He’s the Mayor of Wernigerode. He’s offering his condolences.’
Hal saw the doctor slip out of the hall and decided to follow him. He had a question he wanted to ask the man. He found him outside the back door, standing in the kitchen garden, puffing on a pipe.
‘Hello.’ Hal shook the surprised doctor’s hand. ‘I’m Harrison.’
‘Herr Melchior.’
‘Are you the doctor?’
Herr Melchior nodded.
‘You did the autopsy on Alexander Kratzenstein?’
The doctor dropped his chin, looking at Hal over his gold-rimmed spectacles in surprise.
‘You believe the cause of his death to be a heart attack?’
‘I do not believe, I know he died of a heart attack, and I would not use the word cause in this way.’
‘What might cause a heart attack?’
‘A shock, perhaps . . .’ The doctor paused. ‘Or some bad news.’ He turned his pipe upside down and tapped it against the wall, emptying its contents on to the snow. ‘A fright causes the body’s fight-or-flight mechanism to flood the system with adrenalin. Adrenalin can trigger a heart attack and there was whisky in his bloodstream.’
‘Do you think Mr Kratzenstein was frightened?’
‘Alexander wasn’t the kind of man to jump at shadows.’ The doctor fell silent, staring at nothing, and then whispered, ‘He looked terrified.’ He shook his head. ‘It was so strange. He had a white substance on his fingertips, a chalky paint. It was on his shirt collar too – probably from when he tried to undo his shirt collar.’
Hal thought about the white face paint he’d found in the skull’s nose. ‘He tried to undo his shirt?’
‘This is not a conversation for a child,’ the doctor said, patting Hal’s head. He slipped his pipe into his jacket pocket. ‘Come, let us return to the party.’
Following the doctor back into the hall, Hal stepped sideways and sat on a chair inside the door, pulling out his pocketbook and pen. He let his mind go blank and began to draw.
The grieving widows, Clara and Bertha, both with sons they loved fiercely and a claim on Alexander’s estate, circled old Arnold in his wheelchair. Connie stood against the wall, dressed in a plain black dress, her short blonde hair tucked neatly behind her ears, a blanket over her arm, should Arnold need it to warm his legs. Freya was wearing a charcoal dress under a frockcoat with a high collar and ruffles round the hem. Her hair was piled up like a Victorian lady’s and she was holding Belladonna in her arms. Rada stood next to her, looking striking in a black trouser suit, her hair covered by a black headwrap knotted above her forehead. Uncle Nat was talking with the Mayor and the baron. Arnie and Ozan were standing either side of the platter of funeral cake, eating. Hilda had her hand through Herman’s arm. He was staring into space like a zombie.
Aksel entered the room dressed in a suit, and at first Hal didn’t recognize him. He’d washed the dirt from his hands and face, slicked his hair back, tying it in a po
nytail, and his beard was trimmed. He approached Bertha and whispered something to her. Bertha nodded, and went to stand beside Arnold.
‘Freunde, es ist Zeit für uns alle in den Zug einzusteigen. Bitte folgt mir,’ Bertha said, and turned towards the doorway where Hal was sitting drawing. He jumped up, hiding his pen and pocketbook behind his back, as she strode towards him, and everyone calmly followed her through the house.
Hal fell in step beside Uncle Nat. ‘I talked to the doctor,’ he whispered. ‘He thinks something caused Alexander’s heart attack.’ He paused. ‘If someone frightened him on purpose . . . is that murder?’
‘If you wanted to kill someone, there are simpler, more effective ways of doing it,’ Uncle Nat replied.
The funeral train was waiting for them in Kratzenstein Halt.
To Hal’s surprise, Arnold got up out of his wheelchair and boarded with assistance from Arnie. Bertha, Clara and Herman followed him. Freya handed Belladonna to Rada, before boarding the carriage and closing the door. Rada put Belladonna into her basket as Connie folded Arnold’s wheelchair, and both women went into the second carriage with the other guests.
‘Isn’t this wonderfully creepy?’ Hilda whispered to Hal as she and Ozan followed their dad on to the train.
‘We want to be at the back,’ Uncle Nat said under his breath, gently putting his hand on Hal’s shoulder as he moved to follow Hilda. ‘We can stand outside on the veranda at the end of the train as it travels up the mountainside.’ Hal looked at his uncle, surprised. ‘One should be respectful at funerals, but there’s no rule that says you’re not allowed to enjoy yourself,’ Uncle Nat said. ‘Alexander loved trains. He would have approved.’
They got into the third carriage and Hal followed his uncle out on to the veranda.
The locomotive let out a long, sorrowful whistle as it pulled away from Kratzenstein Halt, towing the sombre train through the archway, past the train shed and the goat pen towards Dead Man’s Pass.
‘Did you find the missing goat?’
‘No, I fear it may have met with a mishap,’ Uncle Nat replied as the train approached the cutting. ‘There are wolves on the mountain.’
‘See the nose hole in the skull?’ Hal pointed. ‘I found a cloth bag in there with white and black face paint in it.’
Uncle Nat looked at him sharply.
‘And there are candle stubs and pools of dried wax in the eye sockets. I think it’s a clue. The doctor said Alexander had white paint on his fingers.’
The two of them stared silently at the macabre visage of the skull as they passed by.
When the funeral train joined the Brockenbahn, clunking over the points, Hal exchanged a smile with his uncle as they passed through the station with the dead drop. At a red-and-white level crossing, a crowd of people had gathered. The train approached and some removed their hats as a mark of respect. The loco blasted out a mournful whistle and everyone on both sides of the tracks bowed their heads, as Alexander Kratzenstein passed by on his final train journey.
Winding up the mountainside, through the Harz national park, Hal saw frozen spider webs strung between trees, frost hair sprouting from branches, and crystalline patches of treacherous ice. At each bend and corner, the whistle wailed.
As they climbed towards the peak, the trees grew thinner and the snow thicker. The orange-and-white spike of the listening tower rose above the line of trees, piercing the clouds, its flashing red light mirroring the red signal in Arnold’s tower. Mist drifted through the trees, like slow waltzing spectres. The plumes of powder-grey smoke exhaled by the tank engine seemed to thicken the low clouds that hid the sun. Hal felt like the funeral train was travelling out of this world to a station somewhere between the living and the dead.
They pulled into a siding, past cut-back foliage, to a short platform of wooden planks the length of a carriage. The train halted so the double doors in the centre of the first carriage were beside the platform. Aksel climbed down from the footplate to open the doors. Uncle Nat jumped down from the veranda, hurrying to help Connie, who was wrestling with the folded wheelchair. Arnie and Aksel each pulled back one of the double doors, and Hal saw the black coffin on a plinth in the carriage, surrounded by white flowers.
Clara and Herman got off the train, holding hands, and Bertha followed them, her arm a prop for Arnold to lean on.
Hal went to stand beside Hilda and Ozan, and the three of them watched as the baron, Aksel, Arnie, Freya, Oliver Essenbach and Dr Melchior went and stood around the coffin. The baron said something quietly, and each of them gripped a silver handle. He muttered again, and the six of them lifted the coffin in unison. Herman went to stand with Arnold, who took his hand. As the coffin was lifted from the train, the pair went in front of it, soundlessly leading the procession along the path through the trees to a white stone building wreathed in ivy.
Hal followed the procession, keeping his eyes on the ground, listening to the creak of footsteps on snow. Creeping fingers of cold walked up his spine, and he shivered at the sound of crows cawing in the canopy above.
The Kratzenstein mausoleum was built into the side of the mountain, its facade a white stone arch over a door topped by a cross on a pedestal. A pastor in religious robes was standing beside the door.
Inside, the mausoleum resembled a miniature church and was filled with flowers. Hal went and stood with Uncle Nat at the back of the room. It was so cold he could see his breath.
The service began, but it was in German, and Hal struggled to understand anything but the name of the dead man. Freya got up and said something that sounded like a poem. Arnold said some words, and poor Clara was too tearful to get out a whole sentence.
Hal was studying the guests, wishing he could take out his pocketbook, when a strange high-pitched noise lifted all the hairs on his body.
‘Blut! Da ist Blut an meinen Händen!’ Herman wailed.
Uncle Nat jumped to his feet. Aksel stepped forward from the back of the room.
Hal rose too. ‘What did he say?’
But before Uncle Nat could answer, Arnie, who was in the adjacent front pew to Herman, cried out in fear and anguish. He held up his hands, and Hal could see that they were dripping with blood.
‘They have blood on their hands!’ Aksel growled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MAELSTROM
People gasped, crying out fearfully and jumping to their feet. The funeral erupted. Clara stood with her arms round Herman, who held his blood-stained hands away from his face as he wailed hysterically. Arnie was shouting, ‘Wer hat das gemacht? Wer von euch hat mir das angetan?’
Uncle Nat rushed to the baron’s side. Hal pulled out his pocketbook and, lightning fast, drew as many vignettes as he could, capturing the information from the scene in front of him.
The man conducting the service was trying to calm everybody down, but the Mayor, Marie Winkelmann and many of the guests who weren’t family were fleeing the mausoleum. Hal could hear the chatter outside: ‘Es war die Hexe . . .’ ‘Die Hexe hat das getan . . .’
Dr Melchior was beside Arnie, examining his hands. He confirmed to the baron that it was real blood.
Connie was helping a confused and frail-looking Arnold into his wheelchair, tucking his blanket over his knees. She was trying to calm him down, but he kept trying to get up.
Freya and Rada’s heads were bent towards one another. They were deep in conversation, oblivious to the commotion around them.
Hilda had rushed to Herman’s aid. She had a handkerchief and was wiping Herman’s hands. She poured water from a bottle, rinsing them and drying them with the sleeve of her coat.
Herman looked stunned and was shaking. Hal felt anger burning in his chest. Someone in this room was terrifying Herman on purpose. And, despite Arnie’s bluster and his pretending to be a grown-up, Hal could see that he was scared too.
Clara, who had been talking to Connie, turned to Arnold and said something in German. She looked like she was pleading with him.
‘Nein,’ Arnold replied gruffly with a shake of his head. ‘I’ve lived all my life on this mountain. I will never leave. I don’t want to live in Berlin.’
The baron spoke to Aksel and the pastor, who turned and held up his arms, quieting the chatter. He said something in German, then he, the baron, Uncle Nat, Aksel, Arnie and Oliver lifted the coffin and solemnly carried it to the back of the mausoleum and disappeared down a staircase. The pastor returned and spoke again. There were affirmative mutterings as people made their way out of the chapel. A few minutes later, Uncle Nat and the others returned.
‘You OK?’ Uncle Nat glanced down at the pocketbook, and Hal nodded. ‘Funeral’s over. We’re getting the train back to the house. In light of these strange happenings, the dinner has been cancelled.’
‘Where did the blood come from?’
‘A nasty trick. Someone tipped blood into Herman and Arnold’s gloves.’
‘Who would do that?’ Hal asked, appalled.
Uncle Nat shook his head. ‘And why?’
The journey down the mountain seemed faster than the ascent. Hal sat inside with Uncle Nat and a carriage full of whispering guests.
Once the train had pulled into Kratzenstein Halt, everyone was eager to get away. They shook hands with Arnold, offered their condolences, returned to their parked vehicles out front and drove away.
Hal hovered in the salon, beside the suit of armour, watching the comings and goings of people like an eagle. Through the double doors, he could see Aksel on the platform. Freya and Rada were talking to him with serious expressions on their faces. He pointed to the train sheds.
Connie was clucking and fussing over Arnold, who was sitting in his wheelchair, glowering.
Hilda and Ozan had taken Herman off to have a bath, in the hope that it would make him feel better. The baron, Uncle Nat and Oliver Essenbach were in the dining room, talking in low, hushed voices. Alma was trying to keep Clara and Bertha from arguing with each other, as they each claimed the other was responsible for the stunt in the mausoleum. They were arguing in German, but Clara kept pointing angrily at Bertha, whose chin was raised, her expression defiant.
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