The Star of Kazan

30 Switzerland

‘Ithink Herr Zwingli is right,’ said Edeltraut, sipping her coffee. ‘We’ll sell the butterfly brooch next. That should bring in enough to finish the repairs at Spittal and enable us to live in comfort for two or three years.’

‘And at Felsenheim,’ put in Oswald. ‘The repairs at Felsenheim aren’t finished and Mathilde wants a new carriage.’

Edeltraut put her cup down with a clatter.

‘Oswald, how many times do I have to tell you that Annika is my daughter, not Mathilde’s. When Annika signed away her belongings, she signed them over to me, not to you or your wife.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. But Mathilde feels—’

‘I’m not interested in what Mathilde feels. I shall do exactly what Zwingli suggests and sell the pieces at intervals so as not to attract attention. After the butterfly brooch the emeralds, and then the earrings. And I think he’s right — the Star of Kazan should wait till the end: it’s such a showy piece. Questions might be asked.’

They were sitting at a table in one of Zurich’s most luxurious cafes overlooking the river. A chestnut tree beside them was just coming into blossom; there were flowers in tubs on the pavement; everything sparkled with cleanliness: the streets, the buildings, the people…

Getting hold of the trunk had been ridiculously easy. As soon as she received the note from the stationmaster that a trunk addressed to her was waiting at Bad Haxenfeld, Edeltraut had driven in with Oswald.

They had loaded the trunk into the carriage, driven to a remote shed on the Spittal estate and transferred the jewels to Oswald’s locked leather shooting bag. Then they waited till dark, returned to Spittal and threw the trunk into the lake.

That, of course, was only half the battle. They had to find out if the story that the Baron had overheard at Bad Haxenfeld was true and the jewels were real, and to do this they had gone to Zurich.

Zurich is the biggest town in Switzerland and it is a beautiful place, built on either side of a fast green river which flows into a wide lake ringed by mountains. The streets of Zurich are elegant, the shops are sumptuous and the hotels are as comfortable as palaces.

But what makes Zurich important in the eyes of the world is its banking houses. Many of the best-known banks in the world have their headquarters there and they are famous for being discreet and reliable, with underground safes where people can keep their money or their gold bars or their jewels in numbered boxes, and no one asks any questions about what is stored there or for how long.

And along with the banks, the city had the best jewellers and lawyers and accountants in Europe.

It was to the firm of Zwingli and Hammerman, the best-known jewellers in Zurich, that Edeltraut, with Oswald and Mathilde, had taken the jewels from Annika’s trunk, and as they unpacked them and laid them on the green baize table in Herr Zwingli’s strongroom their hearts were beating very fast.

‘I can’t give you an opinion on these straight away,’ he said. ‘I shall have to get my experts to look at them.’

So he gave them a receipt and looked at their documents of entitlement and they waited for two days in their hotel for what the experts would say. They were the longest two days of their lives, but when they returned they knew by Herr Zwingli’s beaming smile that their troubles were over.

‘Yes, all the pieces are genuine, and I have to say I have not seen such a collection for a long time.’

And he suggested it would be wise to sell the pieces one at a time, with intervals in between, and keep the rest in the vaults of the Landesbank, in a strong box.

‘You should have enough to live on for the rest of your life in comfort,’ he had said.

So Edeltraut had arranged for the sale of the Burmese rubies, and it was the money from these that they had spent on the repairs and changes to Spittal, and on Hermann’s fees.

Now, though, they needed more money and they had come back to Zurich to arrange the sale of the butterfly brooch. Herr Zwingli had sent a description of the brooch to a customer in America who was willing to pay a fortune for it.

When they had finished the business, they walked down the main street, stopping again and again at the windows of the shops, each one as beautifully arranged as a room in a museum.

‘Mathilde asked me to look out for a mink coat,’ said Oswald.

‘Oh really?’ said Edeltraut. ‘Might I point out that when I brought Mathilde here last time I allowed her to spend a fortune on clothes for herself and Gudrun — but enough is enough.’

Oswald shrugged. He was completely under Edeltraut’s thumb. But he looked greedily at a pearl-handled pistol in the window of a gun shop and went on looking so long that at last Edeltraut bought it for him. She did not need her sister, but she needed him.

Later, as they sat having dinner in a glamorous restaurant which overlooked the town, Oswald brought up the question of Annika.

‘Do you think Grossenfluss is quite the place for her?’

‘Most certainly I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have sent here there. You know she had to be sent away quickly after that wretched dog found the photograph. She went on asking me about Zed almost every day — wondering if it had to be him who took the trunk. We can’t take that kind of risk.’

‘No, she had to go, but I wondered about Grossenfluss. They say the discipline is—’

‘Oswald, please don’t interfere between me and my daughter. She will get an excellent education there. And, as I have told you, the school is free. I should have thought you would be glad of that, considering how good your wife is at spending my money.’

‘Well, well, I’m sure you know best,’ said Oswald. In spite of his duelling scar and his passion for killing animals, he was a weak man. ‘I think I’ll have another glass of this excellent wine.’