Frowning, John splashed wine into my glass. “I told him I wanted him to stand guard over your house—promised him armed desperadoes, attack, invasion, or some other form of entertainment. I fully expected the little elf would arm himself to the teeth and squat there indefinitely. You don’t suppose…”
“Impossible. There wasn’t a mark on him.” I chewed on my lower lip; then I said reluctantly, “He was absolutely bombed by the time we found him. He doesn’t do that without good and sufficient reason.”
“What did he say?”
“He mentioned you. He didn’t explain, though; he had just spotted Perlmutter and was all excited about him. Then he—well, he passed out.”
“Wake him.”
“No use. He’s out for the next six hours, I’ve seen it before. I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“Bloody hell,” John muttered. “I don’t like this.”
“I don’t like any of it. How about you? Any luck?”
“Only in a negative sense. Look here.” He put his glass down. The back of the shop was dark; when he pulled the chain of a hanging bulb, I saw that the pieces of the Schrank had been neatly arranged in something like the original order—the back against the wall, the two side pieces next to them, and, in between, a pile of rougher boards that were obviously the shelves. John picked up the topmost of these; it was a solid slab of hardwood three-quarters of an inch thick, unadorned and unfinished. He turned it to the light. The marks were clearly visible—slightly indented, faintly stained.
“Something stood on that shelf for years, probably decades,” he said. “Something heavy and rectangular—”
“The treasure chest?” I said dubiously. “Boy, talk about jumping to conclusions—”
“I know it was a chest.” John put the shelf down and indicated a smaller pile of scraps, off to one side. “Here are the pieces of it. The dimensions fit the marks on the shelf. Now observe—there is nothing up my sleeve….” He carried the scraps to the workbench and laid them out. “Bottom, sides, top. It’s oak, hardened with age. Even Freddy must have had a spot of bother chopping it up. Threads caught on splinters within indicate it was once lined with wool, possibly a piece of blanket.” I opened my mouth to object; John raised a minatory finger. “Wait. The best is yet to come.” From his breast pocket he took a small plasticized envelope, the kind jewelers use, and waved it. Sparks flared and danced. I snatched it from him.
“Gold!”
John resumed his pose on the edge of the bench, his foot swinging. “Gold. A grand total of five minuscule grains caught on splinters, or on the wool threads. No, don’t open it, they’re so light they’ll simply float away. There’s not enough to test, but from the color and the texture it appears to be virtually pure—twenty-four carat.”
“No wonder they smashed the Schrank,” I murmured. “It was there—my God, it was there all the time, while I sat listening to Brahms with Hoffman. Less than five feet away from me….”
The small envelope swayed in my fingers; the gold twinkled like tiny stars. John took it from me and replaced it in his pocket.
“That would appear to be the case,” he said coolly. “Friedl knew where it was kept; when she went looking for it, after Hoffman’s—shall we stretch a point and say ‘accident’—she found he had removed it. Hell hath no fury, et cetera; she may have been angry enough to kick the chest to bits with her own dainty foot.”
“I can’t believe he would be so casual about it! Right there in his living room—”
“Oh, that’s comprehensible. He’d want it close at hand, where he could look at it and gloat over it.”
“Well, that’s very interesting, but I can’t see that it gets us anywhere. Friedl may not know where he hid it—”
“Friedl does not know. Jest all you like, but my theory is the only one that fits the facts.”
“We don’t know where it is either.”
“How about your elongated gentleman friend from Chicago?”
I tried to raise one eyebrow. Though I have practiced for hours in front of a mirror, the feat is still beyond me; both eyebrows slipped up. “If I didn’t know better, I would suspect your harping on Tony’s height betrays jealousy of a taller and better man. I’m convinced Tony is innocent, but he is no longer unwitting. Friedl got to him and spilled part of the beans. I’m going to tell him the rest.”
Instead of objecting, John nodded. “You may as well. I do not share your blind faith in the lad, but if I’m right and you are wrong, he knows anyway. If you are right and I’m wrong, it’s too late to remove him from the line of fire; the bad boys have seen him with you and they will assume he’s a coconspirator.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. I thought we had decided the attack on me and Schmidt was a single aberration.”
John raised one eyebrow, without visible effort. “We hope that’s what it was. If they are waiting for us to come up with a solution, we may all die of old age here in Bad Steinbach. I am completely without inspiration.”
“Me too.”
The glum silence that followed was broken by another outburst from the parlor. Even with two heavy doors in between, it sounded like a large child having a large temper tantrum. John flinched. “I can’t stand much more of this.”
“Maybe she wants out,” I suggested.
“I know she wants out. As soon as I let her out, she wants in again. I have spent the afternoon letting her in and letting her out.” John’s voice cracked. “I can’t let the creature sit outside the door howling, for fear the neighbors will hear and come to investigate.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when the great John Smythe was cowed by a cat.”
“It isn’t the damned cat, it’s general frustration. We aren’t making any progress and I see no hope of our ever doing so. At what point do we call the whole thing off?”
“We?” I repeated. “You’re a free agent, John. You can—and will—walk away whenever you choose. The only thing that puzzles me is why you signed on in the first place.”
He turned slightly, to place his glass on the workbench. The fine hairs outlining his chin and jaw sparked like the shining scraps of Helen’s gold. He started toward me. I waited till he was leaning forward before I slid ungracefully out of the chair and out of his reach. He lost his balance and sprawled awkwardly across the chair.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“I didn’t intend to.” He sat up, but he didn’t make the mistake of reaching for me a second time. “What’s got into you?”
“Common sense, maybe,” I suggested. “John, you make love very nicely. I don’t know anyone who does it better—”
“And your experience, I presume, is extensive.”
“Ooooh, how rude,” I said. “That was unworthy of you, sir. As I was saying, I’m willing to play games of that sort with you whenever it suits me, but don’t insult my intelligence by implying that our relationship means any more to you than—than that. If you did care about me, you wouldn’t disappear into thin air the way you did and left me worrying—I mean—”
The hard, angry line of his lips relaxed, and I realized, too damned late as usual, that I had left myself wide open. That repulsive heroine of mine was affecting my speech patterns, if not my brain.
John stood up. “Darling!” he bleated. “I didn’t know you cared.”
I had one hand raised to smack his grinning face, before I realized that he had presented his cheek in gallant expectation of just that response. “Oops,” he said in his normal voice. “Wait a sec—not that one.” He turned the other cheek, the one that the cat had not scratched.
I let my hand fall. “Never mind,” I said, with as much dignity as the situation allowed.
“Don’t go,” John pleaded, as I made a wide berth around him on my way to the door. “It’s been a frightfully dull day, and these little exchanges are so enlivening. We could insult one another a bit longer and then retire—”
“I’ll have to take a
rain check. Schmidt will be at my door at around six A.M., and if I’m not there, he’ll have the whole police force of Bad Steinbach out looking for me.” Then I remembered my cooling stove, and added, “Unless you’d like to come back with me.”
“Hmm,” said John, scratching his chin and eyeing me doubtfully.
“Oh, well, forget it. You’d probably make me do it anyway.”
“Do what?”
“Never mind.” I opened the door to the parlor. Clara burst out and made a beeline for John. “Sic ’em, killer,” I said.
Seven
SCHMIDT DID WAKE ME THE FOLLOWING morning. It had taken me some time to fall asleep. The emphatic hammering on my door shattered a dream whose details I prefer not to recall and shot me out of bed before I realized what I was doing. Having gotten that far, I decided I might as well open the door.
“Ha, there you are,” Schmidt said happily.
I stared blearily at him. He had changed into a bright orange ski suit, in which he looked like an animated pumpkin.
“We are having breakfast together in our room, Tony and I,” Schmidt went on with ghastly cheerfulness. “Come. Come quickly, we have much to discuss.”
I grabbed a robe as he towed me toward the door, and managed to get it around me before he ushered me into his—their—room. Heavenly warmth wrapped around my shivering limbs. Some noble soul had fired up the stove.
Appropriately attired in lederhosen, suspenders, et al., Tony was seated at the table digging into a hearty Bavarian farmers’ breakfast. It was no wonder he had been moved to start the stove; his bare thighs were still faintly blue with cold.
He was in a better mood than I had expected after a night listening to Schmidt snore. He greeted me with a wave of a fork on which a sausage was impaled. Such was my state of sleepy confusion that I was not at all surprised to see a Siamese cat sitting on the table next to the sausage.
“Sit down,” said Schmidt. “We must discuss the case.”
“I’m retiring from the case,” I mumbled, sitting. Fortunately there was a chair under me.
“What? No! Give her coffee, Tony, she does not ever make sense until she has had coffee.”
Tony obliged. Clara took advantage of his distraction to hook the sausage off his fork; she carried it across the room and sat down on the beruffled lace-trimmed hem of my robe to eat it. I was too far gone to protest. I said faintly, “1 am retiring from the case.”
“Have more coffee,” said Schmidt.
“I will. But that will not affect my decision. I am retiring from the case because there is no case.”
Tony and Schmidt said in unison, “You can’t.”
“Oh yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t,” said Schmidt and Tony. Tony glared at Schmidt, who continued in solo, “The police are looking for you, Vicky, my dear. You must solve the case to free yourself from suspicion.”
The cat rose fluidly from the floor to the table and clamped its teeth on the bacon Tony was holding. Tony tugged at it and swore. The cat growled but did not relinquish her hold. Schmidt giggled.
“A charming animal,” he said approvingly. “Yours, Vicky? It was outside your door early this morning; I had hoped you would be awake, but you were not, and I thought I would let you sleep a little longer, so I brought it here with me—”
“Schmidt,” I said softly. “Shut up. No. Don’t shut up. Repeat what you just said.”
“I thought I would let you sleep a little longer, so—”
“Before that. Something about the police.”
“Yes, I expect they are looking for you.”
“Why, Schmidt?”
“Because of the dead man in your garden, of course.”
“The dead man in my garden,” I repeated hollowly.
“Give her more coffee,” said Schmidt.
Schmidt was full of admiration for the foresight of Sir John Smythe, who had warned him about the dead man.
“Well, not in so many words, of course,” Schmidt admitted. “But he told me there would be a desperate attempt on your life, Vicky, and that I must come at once to tell you when it occurred.”
“He told you I would be here?” I was still trying to get a grip on the situation.
“He did not have to tell me, I knew. He has a greater respect for my intelligence than some people.”
“Wait,” I pleaded. “Just stop talking for a minute, Schmidt, and let me think. Did you find…No, that’s not the most important…How was he…What I want to know is, who was it?”
“You don’t have to shout,” Schmidt roared, clapping his hands over his ears.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered.
“Have some hay,” Tony suggested. “It’s very good when you’re feeling faint.”
Suddenly I felt better. It may have been the caffeine, but I think it was just Tony—the comradely grin, the familiar dimple, the tacit acknowledgment that the whole scenario had the lunatic logic of a Lewis Carroll plot. The cat jumped on my knee and began washing her whiskers.
“Let him tell it,” Tony went on, indicating Schmidt. “He’s been bending my ear with his tale since six A.M. He’d have rousted you out at that hour if I had let him, so you can thank me for your extra sleep.”
“Thank you,” I said meekly.
“Bitte schön. I might add,” Tony added, “that if he had bothered to mention this little detail last night, instead of waiting until this morning—”
“There were more important things,” Schmidt protested. “The spy from East Berlin—”
“Schmidt, you were so drunk you wouldn’t have known a spy from a brontosaurus,” I said wearily. “Never mind. Tell me now.”
Schmidt made a long dramatic story of it, but there really wasn’t much to tell. He had arrived at my house shortly after Tony and I had left. After Brotzeit, lunch, and a short nap, he had decided to take a little exercise. Jogging briskly and breathlessly around the block, he had attracted a pack of dogs. (Schmidt is irresistible to dogs; he is so round and so roly-poly, and he yelps so delightfully when they nip at his ankles.) Trailed by the fascinated pack, he had fled back to the house, but had been too distracted by the nips and barks and whines to unlock the door. In the hope that his admirers would lose interest and go away, he had slipped through the side gate into the back yard. One of the dogs had slipped through with him; from his vivid description, I recognized the animal as the beagle who lived three doors down. When the dog abandoned him and began digging furiously in a snowbank by the fence, Schmidt was curious enough to investigate.
I couldn’t blame him for getting drunk. As soon as he realized what the snow concealed, he had bundled the dog out the gate, but its frantic howling provided a ghastly background accompaniment to his excavations. The stiff white flesh was the same shade and temperature as its icy shroud, but Schmidt had no difficulty recognizing the face of Freddy.
I patted Schmidt’s hand sympathetically. He frowned at me and pulled it away. “It was a terrible sight. I am glad it was I and not you who found him, Vicky. His eyes were open and coated with a thin layer of ice….”
Shocked though he was, Schmidt had dug snow away until he found the dark-crusted stains on the breast of Freddy’s fancy Hawaiian shirt. They came from multiple stab wounds, according to Schmidt—and I was willing to take his word for it. However, there was no blood on the snow. Freddy had been long dead and half frozen when someone tipped him over the fence into my back yard. It must have happened the night before, after I took Caesar to visit his friend Carl.
“So of course I left Munich at once,” Schmidt finished. “To tell you what had happened. But I could not find you. You were not here. And by the time you came, I had seen Perlmutter—”
“Didn’t you call the police?” I asked.
“No. Why should I do that? They would only detain me, asking questions. But I suppose they will find him before long,” said Schmidt calmly. “And then they will want to talk with you. And when they find who he is, and that you were at t
he hotel—”
“Schmidt, don’t be theatrical. I’ve got to go home right away. There is no sense in staying on here—”
“We can’t leave yet,” Tony protested. “Friedl—er—Frau Hoffman—has given me permission to look through her husband’s papers. He must have left some sort of memo or note or map telling where he hid the gold.”
“The gold,” I said. “Right. I suppose Schmidt told you.”
“Yes, he did. And I must say, Vicky, that your behavior has hurt and astonished me. I would like to believe that it was concern for my safety and respect for my altered status that prompted your reticence—”
“Believe it,” I said, shrugging.
“I would like to believe it, but I don’t. You’ve harbored a grudge ever since the Riemenschneider affair—”
“Grudge? Grudge, my eye! Why should I?”
“Because I proved my superiority,” said Tony, with a smirk and a superb disregard for the truth. “Because we made a bet and I won.”
“Like hell you won.” The cat grumbled and dug her claws into my leg. I moderated my voice. “We collaborated on that affair. It was a joint success.”
“That’s what I mean. You can’t stand sharing the credit.”
“There is some truth in that,” said Schmidt judiciously. “You do not share well with others, Vicky. You did not tell Papa Schmidt, or Sir John—”
“And that’s another thing,” shouted Tony. “Who is that character, anyway? What’s he doing in this business? How did you meet him?”
“But I have told you,” said Schmidt, winking furiously at me to indicate…something or other. Even when I’m at my best, I am sometimes uncertain as to the esoteric meaning of Schmidt’s gestures. Enlightenment dawned as he continued, “Sir John is an under-the-blanket personage of an extremely secret organization—”
“So secret I’ve never heard of it?” Tony demanded. “He’s lying to you, Schmidt. There is no such thing. He’s probably some kind of crook; Vicky attracts them the way a dog collects fleas.”
They went on exchanging insults and lies, which gave me a chance to consider this latest development. If anything, it only strengthened my determination to get myself, not to mention Tony and Schmidt, out of what was beginning to look like a nasty, dangerous, unproductive mess.
Trojan Gold vbm-4 Page 17
