Trojan Gold

“True.” Schmidt ruminated. “I will have the gateau with rum and strawberries. For you—”

“Just coffee.” After he had dealt with the pressing matter of dessert, he continued, “It was the concierge, you think? The fat boy who gave us the directions?”

“That’s not fat, that’s muscle,” I said fairly. “Muscle enough to climb a mountain and get to the spot before us. But we haven’t any proof. He may have passed on a message in all innocence.”

Schmidt’s curling lip showed what he thought of Freddy’s innocence. He’d have preferred to make Freddy the villain rather than Friedl, lady’s man that he was. I went on, “The police just laughed when I told them someone shot at us. They said it was probably a hunter.”

“A bad hunter who could mistake a Mercedes for a deer,” Schmidt grunted.

Schmidt slept most of the way back. He had eaten enough to render a gorilla comatose, but I was worried about him. He was too old and too fat for such goings-on. His accusations had stung, though. I did have a tendency to denigrate him and underestimate him and treat him like a child. He enjoyed having me fuss at him—at least I thought he enjoyed it—but I was beginning to realize that the derogatory adjectives and the patronizing attitude might hurt an aging person who was already painfully aware of his increasing liabilities. I had to keep him out of danger without wounding his feelings and that wasn’t going to be easy.

I took him home and tucked him into bed—not the first time I had performed that little job. I was reluctant to leave him alone, but he insisted he was okay, just tired; so, in keeping with my new policy, I said good night. Besides, I had a feeling….

For once, my premonitions were right on the mark. It was long past midnight before I had tended to Caesar’s needs and my own; when the summons came, I was ready. Caesar, sprawled on the bedroom floor, had keener ears than mine. He let out one short, sharp bark, and got up; then he loped to the window, his nails clicking on the bare boards, and began whining.

I turned off the light before I opened the window. The garden was white and dead and the high, distant moon cast long gray shadows across the snow. He looked no more solid than any other shadow as he slid over the balcony rail, but the arms that drew me to him were hard and real, and the lips that closed over mine were not cold for long.

Five

IF MY EARS WERE BURNING THAT NIGHT I didn’t notice. Some such omen ought to have occurred: people were talking about me again.

“Stop sniveling. Why the devil do you always snivel when I talk to you?”

“You are so cruel to me. It was not my fault. I didn’t know he was going to do it.”

“I told you to telephone me if she turned up.”

“I did. It was only this morning that she—”

“And Schmidt too. That tears it. They know. If they weren’t sure before, that moronic young thug has confirmed their suspicions. Where is he?”

Guiltily, as if the distant speaker could see her, she glanced at the closed bedroom door. “He is here.”

“Keep him there. Keep him quiet.”

“Yes, I will. Liebchen, no harm has been done. They were not injured—”

“And a damned good thing, too.” After a long pause the voice said thoughtfully, “There may be a way of turning this to our advantage after all. Now listen to me.”

“Yes, I will. I will do exactly as you say.”

“Then this is what you must do….”

The smeared tears died on her cheeks as she listened, intent on every word. Freddy was a diversion, pleasant enough in his way; but the voice came from a world far beyond anything Freddy could offer—a world that would one day be hers, if she followed orders faithfully.

For some reason known only unto the great god Freud, I dreamed about babies. They were howling their little heads off because someone had stuck them upright in a snowbank, all in a row like ducks in a shooting gallery. One of them went on yelling after I woke up. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t a baby, but Caesar, whining pathetically outside the bedroom door.

Sunlight slanting across the floor told me that Caesar’s complaint was justified. It was long past his usual hour for R and R (relief and refreshment).

John was still asleep. Only the tip of his nose and a mop of ruffled fair hair showed over the blanket. I pulled it down with a careful fingertip, exposing his face. He murmured low in his throat, but didn’t waken. No wonder he was tired. He had had a hard day—and night.

Propped on one elbow, I studied his sleeping face curiously. He was back to blond, sans mustache, beard, or other distractions—the original, the one and only…whatever his name might be. What’s in a name, after all? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet—and its thorns would prick as painfully.

I slid cautiously out of bed and reached for the negligee lying crumpled on the floor. Goose bumps popped out all over me in a spontaneous explosion; I discarded the charming but chilly chiffon ruffles and made a beeline for the closet and my comfortable old furry bathrobe.

Caesar trailed me downstairs, whuffling appreciatively and licking my heels. By the time the coffee was ready, he had finished his breakfast—two gulps and a single comprehensive lick. I shoved him out the back door, fixed a tray, and carried it upstairs.

John was sitting up in bed, hands behind his head. He greeted me with a sweet smile. “Excellent service. I must come here more often.”

“And no hotel bill,” I said, putting the tray on the table. “Not that you ever pay them anyway.”

“Didn’t I ever reimburse you for that time in Paris?”

“No, you did not.”

“A slight oversight.” He stretched sideways, reaching for a cup.

The movement sent muscles sliding smoothly under his tanned skin; I wondered whether the tan had been acquired in a health spa or under a tropical sun. I didn’t bother asking.

John would have considered Freddy’s protuberant pectorals not only vulgar in the extreme, but also inefficient. His own body was above all else efficient-looking, as if he had deliberately designed it to do what he expected of it with the minimum of effort. It had a certain aesthetic appeal, however, at least to someone who prefers the lean grace of early classical Greek sculptures such as the Discobolus to the muscle-bound athletes of the later Hellenistic period. I had never mentioned my aesthetic tastes to John, since he was vain enough already.

Catching my eye, he pulled the blanket up to his chin. I laughed. “Surely modesty, at this stage in our relationship…”

“Cold, not modesty. Are you going to stand there like a statue of virtue all morning? ‘’Tis true, ’tis day; what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me?’”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. That was a mistake. Or, to look at it another way, that was exactly the right move.

Caesar was howling plaintively in the garden and the patches of sunlight had moved farther when I stirred. “I’ve got to let that damned dog in. The neighbors will complain.”

“Never mind the neighbors. Or the dog.” “He remembered you.”

“Of course. I’m unforgettable.”

“In some ways,” I agreed. “We have to talk about the gold, John. Are you in?”

“Not at the moment, but if you’ll give me a little time—”

“I despise crude sexual double-entendres,” I said crossly. “You used to quote Shakespeare. Last night all I got was Humphrey Bogart.”

“There were occasional bits of Shakespeare. Even a smidgen of John Donne.”

“Oh, really? ‘License my roving hands, and let them go’?”

“I’ve always considered that one of Donne’s less-inspired passages. No, I believe, among other things, I remarked that ‘Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.’”

“That’s nice. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“I expect your attention was on something else,” John said, demonstrating.

“I thought you considered that one of Donne’s less-inspired—”

“I was referring to the poetic spark—the divine afflatus. Insofar as practical advice is concerned…”

“John, if you don’t stop that—”

“I thought you enjoyed it. Oh, very well. Lie still. I can’t concentrate on crime when you squirm around like that.”

“Is this better?” I curled up against him, my head on his shoulder.

“Not a great deal,” John murmured. “But I will endeavor to rise above lesser distractions. What were we talking about?”

“Crime. If that’s what it is.”

“Taking pot shots at you is a crime in my book.”

“Ah, so that’s what convinced you I wasn’t inventing wild stories in order to lure you back to my arms.” John made a small sound, a mixture of protest and laughter, and I insisted, “You did think that.”

“No, honestly.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I had enough confidence in your veracity to follow you to Garmisch. Damned lucky for you I did.”

“Yes, I deeply appreciate it, but I can’t help wondering why, if you had all that confidence in my veracity, you didn’t say so in the first place.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about crime.”

“I am. I do. I just don’t understand—”

John gave a long, exaggerated sigh. “My dear girl, your initial scenario was pure fantasy. Attempted murder is a solid fact. People don’t try to kill you unless you have done something to annoy them. What did you do yesterday?”

I gave him a brief rundown of the day’s activities.

“Ve-ry interesting,” John said thoughtfully. “Let’s concoct a plot, shall we? I’ll begin; feel free to interrupt if you have contributions or criticisms.”

“I will.”

“I’m sure you will. All right, here we go. Forty-odd years ago, Hoffman was an official of the museum where the Trojan gold was displayed. After the war—”

“Wait a minute, you’re skipping. What was he doing during the war?”

“Irrelevant. We have to assume he was in Berlin at the end of the war and that somehow he managed to make off with the treasure. Otherwise we don’t have a plot.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that.”

“All the same, I wish I knew how he managed it,” John mused. “It was one of the master scams of all time, played against a background of epic tragedy—Homeric tragedy, one might say. Crawling across a hellish no man’s land pocked with bomb craters and fallen bodies, with shells bursting overhead and buildings flaming around him, clutching that precious bundle…We’ll never know, I suppose.” I nudged him and with a wistful sigh—the tribute of a master to a brilliant amateur—he resumed his narrative.

“After the war, he turned up in Bavaria, married the innkeeper’s daughter, and settled into a life of quiet obscurity, giving up what might have been a distinguished academic career. The preservation of the Trojan gold had become an idée fixe, perhaps a symbol of all the masterpieces of art and learning smashed by the barbarians and never to be retrieved, as your friend the carpenter put it. Why should he hand it over to someone else? He had as much right to it as anyone—more, because he had saved it and they had threatened to destroy it. In his admittedly distracted mind, there was no difference between conqueror and conquered. One had bombed London and Coventry, but the other had reduced Dresden to rubble and gutted the Cathedral of Cologne. Well—what do you think?”

“Very literary, very intuitive, very profound. You may even be right.”

“To resume, then. His first wife must have known about the treasure; he photographed her wearing it. Was it her death that made him decide to share his secret with someone else? The inevitability of death is the one undeniable fact we all try to deny—”

“If I want more philosophy, I’ll read Plato,” I informed him. “Get on with it.”

“His wife died,” John said obediently. “He married again—a woman forty or fifty years younger. Did he tell her about the treasure?”

“Of course he did. Men do stupid things when they’re in love.”

“Dear me, what a sweeping, sexist generalization.”

“I said, skip the philosophy.”

“You were the one who…. All right, what next? Did the second Frau Hoffman promise to carry on the trust? Or did she urge him to hand over the gold to the proper authorities?”

“Neither of the above. She’s a greedy, ignorant little gold digger, John. If she found the True Cross, her first idea would be to hock it.”

“I’ll accept your evaluation—without,” John added pointedly, “any sexist comments. The reaction you describe is unfortunately common to many members of the human race, male and female alike.”

“So she said something like, ‘Oh, Anton darling, think of all that money,’ and he said, ‘Bite your tongue,’ and she…well, whatever she said, he realized he had picked the wrong lady. The minute he died, she’d have the treasure out of hiding and into the hock shop. That realization was what made him decide to pass on his trust to a more suitable custodian. Better it should end up in a museum than in the hands of—forgive me—someone like you.”

I paused to give him time for rebuttal; he chose not to take advantage of it, so I went on. “He kept putting off the decision to act, however. How many people die without a will? Something finally forced him to make up his mind. I suspect—and there is some confirmatory evidence—that he learned Friedl had already betrayed him—gone behind his back. To—who?”

“Whom,” said John. “Ouch,” he added indignantly.

“Then don’t be a pedant. You derailed my train of thought. Where was I? Oh—Friedl’s extramarital activities. I’m sure she had plenty. Not only was Hoffman old enough to be her grandfather, but he was a gentleman—not her type. Freddy was definitely her type, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he is not unknown to the police. But he’s even stupider than his lady. What Friedl needed was a person who had two specific qualifications: brains enough to comprehend the unique value of the treasure, and the right connections to dispose of it, quietly, lucratively, and illegally.”

The taut muscles under my cheek quivered, and then relaxed. “It wasn’t me,” John squeaked. “Honest, lady.”

“I believe you, darling. If she had approached you, you’d have taken care of the matter by now and left no loose ends dangling.”

“Thank you.”

“Bitte schön.”

“Your hypothesis, though unsubstantiated, is worth considering,” John said. “Where could she have met such a person? No, don’t tell me, let me work it out for myself. At the hotel, obviously. All sorts of people go to hotels. They are known to enjoy skiing and other harmless sports; they eat, drink, and are merry. Perhaps it was a chance encounter (how romantic) that introduced Friedl to the man of her dreams, and while they were being merry she opened her little heart to him. She’s the type that would babble in bed—”

“Unlike me,” I said wryly.

“Quite unlike you. I’ve had a look at the lady, and she lacks your external charms as well as your ability to carry on a witty conversation even under circumstances of considerable distraction…. What was I saying?”

“It wasn’t John Donne, but I liked it. Do go on.”

“That’s enough; I wouldn’t want it to go to your head. We might try to have a look at the hotel register. This hypothetical expert of yours must have visited Bad Steinbach during the spring or summer of last year.”

“She may have met him earlier,” I said. “And remembered him when she learned about the gold….”

John knew every nuance of my voice. He said alertly, “You’ve thought of someone.”

“No. It’s not only unsubstantiated, it’s pure fiction.”

The arm around my shoulders tightened painfully. “Don’t hold out on me, Vicky. I’m willing to collaborate in this little venture of yours, but only if you tell me everything.”

“Old habits die hard,” I said apologetically. “In our past encounters, we’ve been on opposite sides. I’m not accustomed to trusting you.”

The even movement of his breathing did not alter. After a brief, internal struggle, I said, “All right, then. I happen to know of five people—six, including myself—who had at least one of the necessary qualifications, and who were at the hotel last year.”

“I think you may have something there,” John said, when I had concluded the explanation. “While the old gentleman was learning to know—and of course, love—you, Friedl was learning to know someone else, in quite another sense of the word. Later, when the matter of the gold came up, she would think of him—or her?”

“Who’s to know?”

“Who indeed? The encounter needn’t have been heterosexual or even sexual. You say three of the lot have surfaced lately?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean what you think. Suppose Hoffman contacted some of the others, as well as me? You and I know I’m uniquely wonderful, but Hoffman might have decided to check out a number of candidates before settling on one. We don’t know how many copies of that photograph he mailed, or how much information he gave other people. I’m sure I would have received a letter or a phone call if he hadn’t died.”

“Or been murdered.”

I moved uncomfortably. “I thought of that, of course. But much as I abhor the woman, I can’t believe…”

“Always assume the worst; then you are never disappointed.”

“John, I really have to get to work sometime today. Schmidt is sure to come looking for me—”

“Speaking of Schmidt—you don’t mean to involve him in this, do you?”

“I wish I could keep him out of it. Your turning up didn’t help. Schmidt is fascinated by you.”

“I will endeavor to put a lid on my notorious charm when next we meet. Seriously, Vicky. I don’t want to be constantly distracted by having to rescue Schmidt.”

“And I don’t want Schmidt to be in a position where he needs rescuing. We’ll just have to elude the little rascal, that’s all.”

“Agreed. It behooves us, then, to investigate the people you mentioned. Their reputations, their recent activities, any suspicious circumstances. You might give me a list.”

“I can do better than that. I have snapshots of all of them—they’re in a box on the coffee table. You’ll recognize the ambiance. There was Dieter Spreng from Berlin, Rosa D’Addio from the University of Turin, Tony…”

“Tony?”

“Tony,” I repeated. Caesar was howling, the sunlight lay golden on the floor…. I sat up with a gasp. “What time is it?”

For some reason, he was still wearing his wrist-watch. “Two.”

“Two P.M.? Oh, God! Wednesday. It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

“The last time I looked it was Tuesday. That was last night, so logic suggests—”

I jumped up and began groping for my clothes. “Tony. He’s here. His plane lands at two. I told him I’d pick him up.”

John sprang out of bed. Clad only in a wrist-watch and a lordly sneer, he struck a pose like Jove about to hurl a thunderbolt and declaimed, “‘Yet she/Will be/False, ere I come, to two, or three.’ Aren’t you scheduling your appointments rather too tightly? Far be it from me to…Tony Lawrence from Chicago?”

Jeans, shirt, shoes…“Don’t leave!” I ordered. “Oh, well—maybe you had better leave, come to think of it. Where can I reach you? Write it down. I want an address and a phone number—and a name! Any name so long as it’s one to which you are currently answering….” I ran to the door.

John had dropped down onto the edge of the bed and changed his pose—Rodin’s Thinker instead of Athenian Jove.

It’s a wonder I made it to the airport in one piece. As I wove in and out of the traffic, my brain felt like my spare-room closet, stuffed with odds and ends that had been shoved in, helter-skelter. It was all John’s fault. Our discussion had clarified several of my amorphous ideas, but John Donne and the Discobolus kept elbowing into my attempts at deductive reasoning. For God’s sake, hold your tongue, John Donne, and let me think.

Tony. I had to concentrate on Tony; he was the most imminent of the concerns of the moment. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten about him. Now that he had been recalled to my attention, I couldn’t believe the things I was thinking about him.

I could handle the possibility that Tony might be one of several people whom Herr Hoffman had contacted, and that he was keeping mum about it because he hoped to outsmart me in a hunt for the Trojan gold. That possibility was looking less likely, though. According to what Müller had told me, there had only been one envelope. It was conceivable that Hoffman had dispatched other communications earlier (he certainly hadn’t sent any later). But—call me egotistical—I couldn’t believe that the old gentleman would have left me until last, or that he would have given me less information than he had given the others. It was one thing for me to take a day off work and drive sixty miles to check out a wild theory; for Tony to spend time and money on a trans-Atlantic flight, he’d need more to go on.

On the other hand, Tony said he had been planning to go to the meetings. If the trip had already been in the works, it wouldn’t be much out of his way to stop over and find out what I was up to.

I wanted to believe it, because the alternative was an ugly one. If Tony was the faceless hypothetical conspirator John and I had invented, it would mean he was a cold-blooded, dishonest bastard who was ready to betray every ethical and professional principle—and that he had been making out with Friedl at the same time he was supposed to be enjoying my company. Guess which bothered me more.

I refused to believe it. There was a third possibility, and that was that Tony was completely unwitting. A man is innocent until proven guilty, after all. But if he was unwitting, I preferred to keep him that way. Tony and I had collaborated once before, with some success, but I didn’t want to make a habit of it. Even if John had not turned up…

John. I should have locked him in the closet, tied him to the bed…. Not that he couldn’t get out of any prison I could construct. He had gotten out of worse ones. What if he disappeared and never came back?

And then there was Schmidt. The thought of my boss, and of the possible permutations—all disastrous—of Schmidt and Tony, John and Schmidt, Tony and John, and all three—sent my brain into overload. The terminal was in sight. I decided to emulate Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow.

I had hoped the plane would be late, or that it would take Tony a while to get through customs. Both those contingencies would have occurred if I had been breathlessly anticipating the moment when I could fold him in a passionate embrace. Since I wasn’t, they didn’t. He was already there.

Though the terminal was crowded with holiday travelers, I had no trouble spotting him because he was a head taller than anyone else. He was bareheaded. His hair, thick and black and wavy, is the kind women love to run their fingers through, which is probably why Tony, thoughtful soul that he is, seldom wears a hat. He looks like a popular misconception of a poet (who usually looks like the popular misconception of a truck driver). He has delicate hollows under his cheekbones, and a thin, sensitive mouth, and a high forehead over which his hair tumbles in distracting curls.

I attributed his frown and his formal outstretched hand to annoyance at my tardiness, so I brushed the latter aside and flung myself into his less-than-enthusiastic arms. They were not unenthusiastic for long; as they tightened around me, and his lips warmed to the task at hand, I thought how nice it was to have to stand on tiptoe to kiss a man. After the first second or two I didn’t make any other mental comparisons; it would be like comparing apples and oranges, each is delicious in its own way, it all depends on which you prefer. There is no doubt, however, that a certain degree of guilt increased the ardor of my embrace—though why the hell I should have felt guilty I don’t know.

I freed myself, amid a spatter of applause from the watching tourists; after all, they had nothing else to look at. Tony was blushing furiously, as is his engaging habit. I linked my arm with his and led him toward the exit.

There wasn’t much I could do but take him home with me. The Museum was out of the question until I could warn Schmidt not to give Tony the slightest hint of our latest scam—excuse me, investigation. John would surely have gone by the time we returned. I only hoped he had not left some intimate garment hanging on the bedpost or a message scrawled in shaving cream across the mirror. But so what if he had? Tony didn’t own me. Fidelity had never been part of the deal. But I did owe him a place to stay, for old times’ sake. He’d expect that much.

“I have a reservation at the Bayrischer Hof,” he said, staring straight ahead. “If that’s out of your way, you could drop me at a taxi stand.”

My hands lost their grip on the wheel for an instant; I swerved back into my own lane amid the frenzied gesticulations of the wild-eyed driver of a Fiat on my right.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I have a reservation at the—”

“I heard you. What’s bugging you, Tony? Just because I was a little late—”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“With what?”

“With the—er—the situation being what—er—” Tony let out a long, gusty sigh. “I’m engaged.”

“To be married?” I gasped.

“That is the customary meaning of the word,” Tony mumbled.

I cut across two lanes and finally found a place where I could pull off the road. I turned to face him. He wouldn’t look at me; he continued to stare straight ahead, as if the bleak winter landscape held something of absorbing interest.

“That’s very nice,” I said. “Just one question, Tony. Why the hell did you come here?”

“It was her idea.”

“Oh, was it?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Oh, did it?”

He kept sliding down in the seat, his knees rising as his body sank. When his knees were on a level with his head, I couldn’t control my laughter any longer. But I will admit that the laughter wasn’t altogether merry.

“Look at me, Tony.” I put one hand on his cheek; he shied like a skittery horse. “I’m not going to bite your head off,” I continued gently. “Seems to me you’re in enough trouble as it is. Who is this extraordinary female?”

The mildness of my voice reassured him. He pulled out his wallet. “Her name is Ann Belfort.”

If he’d set out to find someone whose characteristics were the antithesis of mine, he had succeeded. A cloud of soft dark hair surrounded the girl’s heart-shaped face; her eyes were as big and brown and melting as those of a Jersey cow. “Five feet two inches?” I inquired, studying the face I had always wanted to possess.

“Three and a half inches.”

“Uh-huh. What do you do when you want to—”

“Now cut that out!” Tony sat upright, rigid with chivalrous indignation.

“Kiss her, I was about to say. I suppose you can always find a rock or a low table…. Oh, hell, I’m sorry. Forget I said that. Belfort…Any relation to Dr. Belfort of the Math Department at Granstock?”

“Uh—yes. His daughter.”

“When are you being married? No, don’t tell me. June, of course.”

“That’s right. I don’t know why you—”

“Neither do I,” I admitted. “I’m very happy for you, Tony. I honestly am. But I don’t understand why you are here instead of in Illinois.”

“She knows all about you,” Tony said.

“All about me?”

“All she needs to know.” Tony bowed his head. A lock of raven hair dropped adorably over one eyebrow. I repressed an urge to grab it and pull as hard as I could. “It was okay,” he went on gloomily, “until about a month ago, when I woke her up calling your name.”

“Did you really, you dear thing?”

“It wasn’t so much what I said as the way I said it. ‘Oh, Vicky—Vicky—oooooh…’”

He sounded like a dying calf, or a man in the last extremity of about-to-be fulfilled passion. I grinned reluctantly. “I can see her point—though I still think this is stupid. She sent you back to your old love to make sure the incubus is exorcised?”

“Succubus,” Tony said. “Incubi were masculine; the female demons whose diabolical sexual assaults on helpless innocent men—”

“Oh, right. Seems to me you’re waffling, Tony. Either you’re still lusting for me or you’re not. What’s the point of the Bayrischer Hof?”

“I don’t really have a reservation.”

“I thought not. It’s a very expensive hotel.”

“I had assumed I’d stay with you, of course. In a perfectly platonic way—no fooling around—”

My sympathy for cute little Ann began to dissipate. “‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov’d I not honour more.’” But this was really too far out. Not love, quoth she, but vanity, sets love a task like…Like a weekend nose to nose and side by side with an old flame, with no moment of weakness, no—“fooling around,” indeed.

“And you agreed?” I demanded incredulously.

“I didn’t think there’d be any problem.” Tony looked so hurt and baffled and young that I thought seriously of slugging him square in the chops. That boyish look gets all his women, but he was thirty-four years old, for God’s sake. Old enough to have better sense.

“I mean, we were always good friends,” Tony went on in an aggrieved voice. “I used to like to talk to you. If you hadn’t kissed me—”

“I did it out of the kindness of my heart, you conceited male chauvinist! If you’re going to let one friendly kiss get your male hormones in a whirl…Did this woman step out of some kind of time warp, or is she just emotionally retarded?”

“Of course a single experiment is not conclusive,” said Tony, reaching for me.

Apples. Nice, crisp fresh apples, like Jonathans, with a little tang under the sweetness. Wholesome American fruit, no imports, nothing exotic. But the very best of their kind.

It was Tony who ended the kiss. I’d have gone on as long as he wanted; it was his experiment, not mine.

“Well?” I inquired. “Have you reached a scientific conclusion or is more research necessary?”

“I think,” said Tony weakly, “I had better go to the Bayrischer Hof.”

“You can’t.” I started the car and edged back into the traffic. “They’ll be booked solid this time of year. Don’t worry, you can always prop a chair against your bedroom door.”

What I had said was true—most of the hotels would be full-up over the holidays. But the more I thought about letting Tony stay with me—chair or no chair—the madder I got. In addition to the other disadvantages, I resented being used as a bad-conduct prize.

After a moment of chilly silence I said, “Scratch the chair. You can start calling hotels as soon as we get to my place.”

The silence that followed was even chillier.

There was one positive feature to the situation, though. Now I could dismiss my suspicions of Tony once and for all. His odd behavior over the phone had bothered me more than I had been willing to admit; I hadn’t even mentioned it to John, because I knew he’d pounce on it as further evidence of guilt. That was all explained by Tony’s news; he had been apprehensive about breaking the news of his engagement and (the conceited thing) ditto my poor heart, and he must have known I would react profanely and angrily to Ann’s loony experiment.

Tony stirred. “You’ve changed.”

“How?”

“You didn’t used to sulk.”

“I’m not sulking. I’m thinking.”

If I had been tempted to tell all to Tony and invite him to join the hunt, the news of his engagement had changed my mind. I had no right to push Ann’s fiancé into possible danger. He would expect to see something of me, though, even if he stayed at a hotel. Could I keep him amused and unaware for a few days, and then send him off to Turin unscathed and unsmirched? The answer was yes, probably, if nothing untoward occurred and if Schmidt kept his mouth shut and if John stayed far away from me.

In my absorption, I almost drove past the house. I pulled into my driveway with an abruptness that wrung a rude comment on my driving from Tony.

I ignored the comment. “Here we are. We’ll have a drink or two while you call hotels.”

Tony looked hurt. I ignored the look, too. It had been his idea to stay at a hotel, hadn’t it?

My house and its neighbors were part of the Wirtschafts-wunder—the economic rebirth of Germany after the Second World War. Not a distinguished part, however. Like corresponding developments in the United States, there were only two basic plans, endlessly repeated, to which the architects had added minor details in the hope (unfulfilled) of making the houses look different. My neighbor on the north had a bay window in the living room, my neighbor on the south had a bay window in the dining room. I had a front porch. It wasn’t much, just two walls with a roof on top and two teeny benches that nobody ever sat on.

Schmidt was sitting on one of the benches. If it hadn’t been for that damned porch, I’d have spotted him in time and passed on by. To make matters worse, he had swathed himself in bandages that covered his forehead from eyebrows to hairline.

“Ah,” he said, rising stiffly. “You have found him.”

I looked at Tony. “You called the Museum?”

“You were late,” Tony said sulkily. “I thought you’d forgotten. Grüss Gott, Herr Direktor. What the hell happened to you?”

“Grüss Gott. I came,” Schmidt explained, “because I was concerned about you, Vicky. You were not in your office, you did not answer your telephone; and after what happened yesterday—”

“Never mind,” I said.

“I am still sore,” Schmidt said, rubbing his shoulder. “Being dragged by the arms and then thrown—”

“Never mind, Schmidt!”

“Dragged?” Tony repeated. “Thrown. What happened?”

I turned my back on Tony and made a face at Schmidt. It was a sufficient reminder; he was no more anxious than I to let Tony in on our “adventure.”

“Never mind,” said Schmidt.

I had just located my key when the door opened.

“What’s wrong, love? Can’t find your key?” John asked.

The artistic disarrangement of his ambrosial locks was supposed to suggest that he had just got out of bed. I’ve seen characters in soap operas look like that, but never a real person. His shirt was unbuttoned, and he was tucking it into his pants as he spoke. He was barefoot.

“I thought you’d gone,” I stuttered.

“You begged me not to leave,” John said.

When, oh when, I asked myself, was I going to stop playing straight man? I made an effort to get control of a situation which, I venture to assert, not even Emily Post could have handled neatly.

“Dr. Tony Lawrence, this is—”

“Sir John,” Schmidt squeaked. “I am so glad to see you again. I have not yet thanked you for saving—”

“An honor, I assure you,” said John.

“Sir John?” said Tony, eyebrows gyrating. “Saving—?”

I gave up on introductions. I gave up on everything.

I can’t say that the next few minutes were comfortable. Tony refused to sit down; he stood in the middle of the living room like a Puritan divine about to thunder denunciations, and demanded the telephone. “I’ll start calling hotels,” he said stiffly.

“But my dear chap!” John’s smile was a study in guileless good will. “There’s plenty of room.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in the way,” said Tony.

“No, no. I must be off myself shortly; delighted to know Vicky will have someone to keep her company.”

They went on like that for a while, with Schmidt listening in openmouthed fascination, until I got tired of the badinage.

“Sit down, Tony,” I said sharply. “John, why don’t you get us something to drink?”

I gave him a hearty shove to emphasize the suggestion, and followed him into the kitchen. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to be a good host.” John opened the refrigerator. “What are we serving?”

“He’s not staying here.” I pushed him aside and inspected the shelves. “Beer, I suppose. I always keep Löwenbräu for Schmidt…. As soon as I can find him a hotel room, he’s leaving.”

“Do as you like of course,” John said smoothly. “But if I were you, I’d keep an eye on him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s one of the gang of six, isn’t he?”

The opener slipped as I applied pressure and a fountain of beer shot heavenward. I tipped the bottle into the sink and turned on John. “Are you crazy? Tony wouldn’t…”

John had already selected a tray from the rack under the counter; now he reached unerringly for the cupboard where I keep my beer glasses. He had certainly made good use of his time alone in the house. “Isn’t he the chap you told me about—the one who was involved in the Riemenschneider affair?”

“Yes. He’s a friend of mine, dammit!”

“Doesn’t it strike you as a bit of a coincidence that he should drop in on you just now?”

“He explained that. He—it is a coincidence. They happen.”

The swinging door opened and Schmidt slipped in. “Ah, you are still here,” he said with satisfaction. He wasn’t talking to me. “We must have a conference. Vicky, it was foolish of you to bring Tony here. We don’t want another person to join us. We are enough.”

“We are too much,” I said, sighing. “I’ll get rid of Tony, I promise. It’s only for a few days; he’s going on to Turin on the twenty-seventh. Now we’d better get back in there before he starts wondering what we’re doing.”

“You go,” said Schmidt. “I wish to confer with Sir John.”

“Sir John” had filled the glasses; leaning against the counter, arms folded and a supercilious smile on his face, he said nothing. I picked up the tray.

Tony had the Munich directory open on his lap and the telephone in his hand. I was sorry to see that he had already reached the stage of plaintive pleading. “Nothing? Not even a single, small…yes, I see. I’ll try there.”

He took the glass I offered him, glared at me, and dialed again.

Half of my mind was fighting off the nasty hints John had reawakened. Coincidences do happen. Tony wouldn’t…The other half was wondering what wild yarn John was telling Schmidt.

A furious cacophony of barks and whines burst out, mingled with Schmidt’s shrill expletives. John had let the dog in. Caesar didn’t linger; in search of me, his best beloved, he came barreling through the swinging door. The back swing ended with a thud and a curse from Schmidt; I deduced it had hit him in the stomach, which is the part of him that sticks out the farthest.

Tony had not had the pleasure of meeting Caesar. He dropped the telephone and went over the couch in a vault that would have done credit to an Olympic athlete. Of course that attracted Caesar’s attention—he loves people to play with him—and a chaotic interval ensued, until I could pry the dog from Tony.

When the dust settled, Tony and Schmidt were sitting on the floor with Caesar between them, and Schmidt was explaining that Caesar was just a big lovable pussycat who happened to be in the body of a Doberman. Caesar was slobbering on both of them, alternately and impartially. I saw no reason to join in, so I sat down and drank my beer.

John had taken advantage of the brouhaha to escape, but not, as I hoped (or feared) out of the house. Before long, he came tripping down the stairs, fully attired. He was wearing the same thing he had worn the night before; I deduced as much, since he had not been carrying a suitcase, but I must admit it was the first time I had actually seen the ensemble. Black, all of it, from his track shoes to the cap he was carrying in his hand. I had expected he would bid us a fond farewell, since he was clearly dressed for the street; instead, he parked himself in the most comfortable chair and proceeded to be charming.

I sat there morosely drinking beer and wondering what the hell John was up to. Oh, I knew part of the performance was designed to calm Tony and persuade him to do what John wanted him to do, i.e., spend the night at the house. He succeeded in the former aim; I saw Tony’s frown smooth out, to be replaced by a pseudo-tolerant smile as he studied John’s graceful gestures and winning smiles and deceptively slender build. I thought John was overdoing it a bit when he started calling Tony “duckie” and patting him on the arm—John’s great weakness is a tendency to get carried away by a role—but Tony has the usual prejudices against well-groomed men who bat their eyelashes at him.

That wasn’t John’s only reason for hanging around. He was waiting for something, I could tell. When the telephone rang, he stiffened perceptibly. At least it was perceptible to me; I don’t think the others noticed.

She apologized rather perfunctorily for disturbing me, and then, as was her habit, got straight to the point. “I heard of your accident. I am so distressed it should happen. I telephoned you this morning but you did not answer—”

“I was here all morning,” I began—then I saw the corner of John’s mouth twitch, and I shut up. The telephone had rung; one of us—I think it was John—had reached out and taken it off the hook. Apparently he had put it back after I left.

“I am calling to ask for your help,” Friedl went on. “I know my husband meant to do so. But I did not realize before that the matter was so serious. Now you are in danger too. It is a matter of life and death.”

“Oh, really?” I couldn’t think what else to say, not only because of the listening ears, but because she gave the impression of someone reciting memorized lines, not quite in order.

“You take it lightly,” Friedl said, sounding more like her sullen self. “I tell you, they want to kill you!”

“Who?”

She went back to the prepared script. “I cannot say more over the telephone. I too am in danger. You must come—here—to the hotel. Bring a friend if you like, someone who can help us. Will you come? Tomorrow?”

“Well…all right.”

In a sudden switch from the melodramatic to the brisk, she thanked me and hung up. I turned to find three pairs of eyes focused on me.

“Who was it?” Schmidt asked.

“None of your business, Schmidt. How about another beer?”

He was agreeable. I picked up the tray and went to the kitchen. John was right on my heels.

“How did you know?” I demanded.

“Was that her?”

“She. How did—”

“Pedant,” John said. “Well, I expected something of the sort; didn’t you?”

“No,” I admitted. “She’s invited me to be her guest at the hotel—dire hints of disasters past and present. Apparently she’s decided to come clean; she admitted her husband had intended to write to me. Maybe I was wrong about her. She had no reason to trust me, walking in off the street the way I did.”

“If you believe that, you are as innocent as a new-laid egg.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“Could be.” John did not appear particularly perturbed by the idea. “However, in my considered opinion, it seems more likely that they have decided to pick your brains instead of your bones.”

“You have such a poetic way of putting things.”

“In words of one syllable, then—they don’t know where it is. Or, ‘is at,’ as you Americans say. Having searched in vain, they have concluded—somewhat tardily, I agree—that you may succeed where they have failed.”

“I still don’t see—”

“You’ve had a great deal on your mind lately,” John said kindly. “Think. Why would Friedl go to such lengths to lure you to Bad Steinbach when she can murder you just as easily and far more safely, in Munich?”

“Cheerful thought. If they want to pick my brains, why did they try to kill me yesterday?”

“Because they’re a bunch of bloody amateurs,” said John, with professional disdain. “They had been half-expecting, half-dreading your arrival; when you turned up out of the blue, they didn’t know what to do. Someone—probably Freddy the Mindless and Muscle-Bound—acted on impulse. He’s the sort of chap whose natural impulses would be lethal. Later on Friedl got in touch with the Mastermind, who pointed out a more responsible course of action. I trust you realize what that implies? It takes her some time to reach the man in charge. He isn’t on the spot.”

“If you mean Tony…I don’t believe it.”

John’s demonic eyebrow soared skyward. “Of course you know him so much better than I, don’t you?”

My nice neat living room looked like the scene of an all-night binge. It stank of beer—Caesar had knocked a glass over—and the place was littered with empty bottles and glasses, the ashes of Schmidt’s horrible cigars, and the scraps of a bowl of pretzels. Schmidt had turned sentimental, as he usually does after three or four beers, and was looking at my photograph albums. He and Tony had their heads together over the Rothenburg mementos and were giggling as they recalled their encounters with the ghost of the Schloss.

“Yes, she married,” Schmidt said with a sigh; he was talking about Ilse, Countess Drachenstein, who had figured prominently in the case. “A fine young fellow—he was a chemist in Rothenburg. I attended the wedding. I wore my white linen suit I bought in Rome—”

“Chemist?” Tony echoed. “Not the same guy we rousted out of bed in the small hours?”

“The same,” I said.

John listened with bright-eyed interest. “Speaking of chemists,” he began, and went on to tell an outrageous story about an art forgery that had made headlines a few years earlier. The part of the story he told had not been in the newspapers. “And,” he ended, “it turned out he had latent diabetes; it was the sugar that did that trick.”

Schmidt laughed so hard he turned purple. Tony laughed too, but he was still suspicious. “You seem to know quite a lot about detecting forgeries, Sir John.”

John lowered his eyes modestly. “I’m just a dilettante, Professor. Jack-of-all-trades, master of none, as they say. As a matter of fact, I became interested because we had a slight problem with one of the family portraits—a Romney…. But that’s another story. It’s getting late. Shall we go, Herr Direktor?”

“Yes, yes.” Schmidt chug-a-lugged his beer and bounced to his feet. “Where is my coat? Did I have a briefcase?”

Caesar went to help him look for them, and I followed John into the hall. “What are you up to now?”

“You wanted Schmidt out of the way, didn’t you? Leave him to me.”

“Oh, God,” I said hopelessly, and said no more, because Schmidt appeared, trying to get into his coat, which was complicated by the fact that Caesar had hold of one sleeve.

We got Schmidt into his coat and convinced him he had not had a briefcase, and then they left, arguing about who was going to drive. Eventually Schmidt got in the passenger side and they drove off.

I returned to the living room. “Alone at last,” I said.

Tony was looking at photographs. “I’d never seen these,” he said, pleased. “We had a good time, didn’t we? Why don’t we spend a few days at that hotel in Bad Steinbach?”

It was all John’s doing, of course. When he had found time to corrupt Tony, I did not know; but he had left the snapshots in plain sight, and that had finished the job.

Why did I give in? Not because I thought there was the slightest possibility that John’s vile hints had a basis in fact. I knew Tony. He was so damned honest it hurt. Even during the Rothenburg incident, he hadn’t wanted the treasure for himself; he just wanted the fun and the prestige of finding it.

“And suppose,” said a small evil voice inside my head, “that is what he wants now?”

The voice had a pronounced English accent. I countered, “So badly that he would shoot out the tires of Schmidt’s car and endanger me?”

“I thought we agreed that was an impetuous, unpremeditated gesture. There are obviously several malefactors.”

“Not Tony.”

“What’s his annual salary? The amount of money involved might weaken anyone’s moral fibers. Even if he’s too good for that sort of thing, consider the temptation of being hailed as the discoverer of the Trojan gold. Headlines, television interviews, a book, a film based on the book—and, under certain circumstances, a strong claim to the treasure for his museum.”

I gave up the argument, not because I was convinced but because I seemed to be losing.

Short of picking a fight with Tony in the hope that he would storm out of the house and bid me farewell forever, there was no way of getting rid of him. Anyhow, he was just as likely to go on to Bad Steinbach by himself. I didn’t want to postpone my own trip. For one thing, I was worried about Herr Müller. I should have taken steps to warn him earlier, but with a wounded, starving Schmidt on my hands early in the evening, and John later…Nothing had happened to him as yet, but then nothing had happened to me, either, until after I had paid him a visit. I’d be a lot easier in my mind if I could persuade him to get out of town for a few days.

Besides, Friedl might be on the level. I might indeed be as innocent (translation: stupid) as a new-laid egg, but John had a cocksure, arrogant way of stating theories as facts and of assuming his inter-pretation was the only logical one. I could think of others that made equal sense. Friedl could be hopeless but harmless; Freddy could be repulsive but right-minded. The villains could have been four other people.

So I said, fine, that sounds like a great idea, and I called Carl the janitor, who became incoherent with pleasure at the idea of baby-sitting Caesar for a few days. I said I’d bring him over right away, since we wanted to get an early start. This added concession almost reduced Carl to tears. De gustibus non est disputandum.

After we had dropped the dog off, we went out to dinner at a little place the tourists haven’t discovered, where the food is good and the prices are reasonable. Tony’s capacity for food is almost as great as Schmidt’s, though it doesn’t show. As he stuffed himself with Schweinebraten mit Knödel, he kept mumbling about how good it was to be back in Germany, and recalling some of our past experiences. Usually I’m a sucker for sentiment and “remember when,” but it irritated me that evening, and not only because Ann was hovering over the table like Banquo’s ghost. It was almost as if Tony were deliberately avoiding certain subjects. Whenever I casually introduced the subject of crank mail and unusual letters, Tony went off onto another spate of nostalgia.

Much later, in what are termed the wee small hours of the night, I was awakened by soft sounds at my door—light scratching, the squeak of a turning doorknob. There was no further action because I had propped a chair under the knob. Sauce for the gander…

Six

SAINT EMMERAM’S BEARD WAS STILL ICE-FRINGED; he had a long icicle on his nose as well. It had turned fiercely cold overnight; the world glittered with a cold, hard shine, like a diamond. Sunlight reflected from the snow-covered fields with a shimmer that stung the eyes. It was, as Tony said, a perfect day for skiing.

I had my skis strapped to the rack on top of the car, primarily as camouflage; I had a feeling I wasn’t going to have much time for sport. Tony was planning to rent. Tony has this delusion that he is a great skier. I don’t know what his problem is; it can’t be his height because a good many fine skiers are tall. He kept talking about trying the Kandahar Trail, where the championship downhill races are held. I was tempted to tell him to go ahead and break his damned leg, so he’d be out of my hair, but then I decided that was not nice. Besides, a broken leg might keep him from traveling on to Turin, and who knows what I might find myself doing with a pathetic, bedridden, pain-wracked, engaged ex-boyfriend in desperate need of TLC?

He made no mention of his late-night visit, so naturally I did not refer to it. Ann’s name was not prominent in our conversation, either.

Tony loved Emmeram’s icy beard and the wreath of greenery draped around his stony shoulders. “I’m glad I thought of this,” he said, as I pulled into the parking area reserved for hotel guests. “I always liked this place. Nice to see it hasn’t changed.”

“Herr Hoffman is dead,” I said.

Tony turned a blank, innocent face toward me. “Who?”

“Hoffman. The host—the owner.”

“Oh, the nice old guy who bought us a round the night before we left? Too bad. You know, this is a great place to spend Christmas. We can go to midnight mass at the church and…er…”

Freddy was not at the desk. There were a number of people waiting impatiently; the concierge, a stout middle-aged woman, kept poking nervously at the wisps of hair escaping from the bun at the back of her neck. When she got to me, she didn’t wait for me to speak, but shook her head and said rapidly, “Grüss Gott, I am sorry, but unless you have a reservation—”

“I believe Frau Hoffman is expecting me. My name is Bliss.”

“Ach, ja, die Dame aus München. Entschuldigen Sie, we are so busy—”

“Calm yourself, gnädige Frau,” Tony said soothingly. “We are in no hurry, and life is short.”

Tony’s German is schoolboy-simple, with a pronounced American accent that some Germans, especially middle-aged women, seem to find delicious. The concierge stopped poking at her hair and returned his smile. “You are very kind, mein Herr. You understand, this is a busy season for us and we are shorthanded; I am the housekeeper, not a clerk, and what we are to do, with so many people…”

Tony listened sympathetically. Basking in his boyish smile and melting brown eyes, the woman would have gone on indefinitely if I hadn’t cleared my throat and reminded her that customers were piling up again. She handed a registration form, not to me, but to Tony. It’s a man’s world, all right, especially in country villages. I took it away from him and filled it in. There was no bellboy; Tony allowed me to carry my own suitcase.

If Friedl was planning to murder me, she had taken pains to soften me up for the slaughter. The room was one of the best in the house—a big corner room, with an alcove furnished with sofa and chairs, and a wooden balcony offering a breathtaking view of the mountains. I was distressed to observe that the balcony was decorated with plastic geraniums.

Tony didn’t comment on the geraniums; he was more interested in the bed, a massive antique four-poster.

“Don’t worry about getting another room,” I said generously. “You can sleep on the couch in the alcove.”

“It’s only five feet long!”

“There’s always the floor.”

“Now, Vicky, this is ridiculous,” Tony began.

“It certainly is. But I wasn’t the one who established the rules. I suppose we could put a naked sword between us, the way the medieval ambassadors did when they bedded their royal masters’ brides. Ann would probably love that one.”

Tony picked up his suitcase and stalked out. When I went through the lobby, I saw him flirting with the concierge. He was so intent on the job he didn’t see me, which suited me fine.

By the time I reached Müller’s shop, I had worked myself into a state of idiotic apprehension; finding the place dark and the door locked, I banged and knocked for some time before I noticed the sign. It read, “Closed for the holidays.”

I was about to turn away when there was a rattle of hardware inside. The door opened a crack; a narrowed blue eye and a tuft of bushy white eyebrow appeared.

“Ah, it is you,” Müller exclaimed, and threw the door wide.

“I thought you’d gone.”

“I am about to go—to my daughter’s, for Weihnachtszeit. Come in, come in.” He locked the door after me and then went on, “I had not intended to leave until tomorrow, but your friend persuaded me otherwise. He is waiting now to drive me to Füssen. A kindly gesture, though I cannot believe—”

“My friend,” I repeated.

“Yes, he is here. Perhaps you wish to speak to him.”

I indicated that I definitely did wish to speak to him.

The door to the shop was closed; Müller escorted me into a tiny hall that led to his living quarters.

Already the small parlor had the cold, waiting look of a place whose occupants have left it for a protracted period of time—dark, fireless, overly neat. Two comfortable chairs flanked the fireplace. In one—obviously her usual place—was the cat, bolt upright, tail curled neatly around her hindquarters, wide blue eyes fixed unblinkingly on the occupant of the other chair.

John was dressed with less than his habitual elegance; I deduced that the jeans and shabby boots and worn jacket had been selected in an effort to convince Herr Müller he was just one of the boys and hence trustworthy. He was staring back at the cat with a nervous intensity that reminded me of a character in one of the Oz books, who tries to cow the Hungry Tiger with the terrible power of the human eye. The cat appeared no more impressed than the Hungry Tiger had been.

Glancing in my direction, he said sternly, “You’re late, Dr. Bliss. I expected you an hour ago.”

“I had to…We stopped by…I’m sorry.”

“If you’re ready, Herr Müller.” John got to his feet. The cat let out a raucous Siamese squawl. John flinched.

“Yes, I will get my suitcase. But I still cannot believe…”

“It’s just a precaution,” John said. “Our investigation is in the preliminary stages.”

Shaking his head, the old man ambled out. “Who is ‘our’?” I inquired. “Interpol, British Intelligence, or some exotic organization invented by you?”

John whipped a leather folder from his pocket and presented it for my inspection. I must say when he did a job, he did it properly; the shield glittered busily in the light, and the ID card was frayed authentically around the edges. Even the picture was perfect—it had the ghastly, staring look typical of drivers’ licenses, passport photos, and other official documents.

“International Bureau of Arts and Antiquities Frauds,” I read.

“IBAAF,” said John, returning the folder to his hip pocket. “It was your name that won the old boy’s confidence, however. You’re a district inspector.”

“And you, of course, are my superior?”

“Regional inspector.”

“That’s modest of you. I had expected a title with the word ‘Chief’ in it.”

“I have no time for idle persiflage,” said John coldly. “You should have been here before this. Let me be brief—”

“That I want to see.”

The cat yowled as if in agreement. John started nervously. “I’m staying here,” he said rapidly. “At least for the time being. I want to have a look at the fragments of the Schrank. It might be a good idea if we weren’t seen together. Thus far, I am unknown to any of the gang—”

“The man who was shooting at us must have seen you.”

“I was wearing one of those handy-dandy ski masks, remember? I might have been any casual traveler, rushing to the rescue. If you want to see me, come to the back door and give the signal—”

“What signal?”

“Anything you like,” John said magnanimously. “Whistle ‘Yankee Doodle,’ rap three times—”

“Three, then a pause, then two.”

“How unoriginal. I’ll telephone or leave word at the desk should anything interesting arise.” The sound of footsteps descending the stairs quickened his voice. “Watch for familiar faces. Be careful. Don’t tell Tony I’m here. Let me know—”

“I’ll report later this evening, sir,” I said, as Herr Müller entered.

John tried to take the suitcase from him but was rebuffed. “I am not so old as that,” the old man said huffily. “We can go now. I still cannot believe…Fräulein, do you know what it is, this mysterious missing painting?”

“No,” I said, feeling it was safer not to elaborate. Lord knows what fantasy John had spun.

“My friend would not do anything wrong,” the old man insisted.

“There is no question of that,” John said smoothly. “I can’t go into detail, Herr Müller, you understand, but we are certain that his involvement was accidental and, unhappily, fatal. He said nothing to you?”

“I have told you. I cannot believe…”

The cat jumped off the chair and walked stifflegged around the suitcase, sniffing it and grumbling to herself.

“She knows I am going away,” Müller said seriously. “She doesn’t like changes. Remember, Herr Inspektor, she must have a square of raw liver each evening….”

A spasm of profound distaste rippled over John’s face. “Er—Dr. Bliss, why don’t you take the nice pussy cat to the hotel with you? She likes you.”

Clara had given up her inspection of the suitcase and was rubbing around my ankles. I bent over to stroke her. “Don’t you like cats, sir?”

“I am fond of all animals. That cat doesn’t like me.”

“Why, sir,” I said, “you must be imagining things. Cats are splendid judges of character. I always say, never trust a person a cat dislikes,…sir.”

The cat started toward John. The hoarse purr with which she had welcomed my touch changed tone. It was more like a growl. To be accurate, it was a growl.

“Perhaps she would prefer to go with you, Fräulein,” said Müller. “It is her old home, after all.”

“I imagine she’ll go where she wants to go,” I said. “Don’t worry about her, Herr Müller. I’ll help the inspector to watch over her.”

“That would be most kind.”

John had retreated into the hallway, and the cat had backed him into a corner. Crouched, her tail twitching, she appeared to be on the verge of leaping. Much as the sight entertained me, I was anxious to get Müller on his way. I scooped Clara up and put her in the parlor while John made his getaway.

The back door opened onto a walled garden deep in snow. Paths had been shoveled to the gate and to a chalet-style bird feeder, obviously Müller’s own work, which hung from a pine tree. Its branches were strung with suet, bits of fruit and berries, and other scraps.

Müller hovered in the doorway, one foot in the house and one foot out. “I must make sure I turned off the fire under the glue pot.”

“It’s off,” John said firmly. “I watched you do it.”

“Fresh water for the cat—”

“I watched you do that, too.”

The old man’s eyes wandered over the dead garden. “I meant to take the Weihnachtsblumen to the grave today,” he said slowly. “Now there will be no remembrance for my poor friend.”

John was hopping from one foot to the other, whether from cold or the same formless sense of anxiety that nagged me, I did not know. “With all respect, Herr Müller—”

I slipped my arm through the old man’s. “I’ll take the flowers,” I said. “I meant to do it anyway.”

“You would be so good? For her as well—poor Amelie?”

“Of course.”

“Not flowers, they would only freeze. Green boughs as for Weihnachten—berries and wreaths—”

“I know,” I said gently. “They still do that in my home town in Minnesota. I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

That promise got him out of the house. While he was locking the door, he told me how to find the cemetery. “The church is abandoned now, no one goes there except to tend the graves, and there are few left who care; Anton’s grave will be the last, I think. For generations, the family of his wife was buried there, so he was given permission to rest alongside her; but one day the mountain will crumble and cover church and graves alike. The fools have cut away the trees for their sports, tampering with God’s work—they don’t know or care….”

Between us, we urged him down the path to the gate and through it, into a roofless corridor of an alleyway lined for its entire length with high fences. These people liked their privacy. I could see that John approved of it, too. He wrestled the suitcase from Müller and put it in the back of his car.

Impulsively I threw my arm around the old man and gave him a hearty smack on the cheek. “Happy Christmas, Herr Müller.”

“The blessings of the good God to you, Fräulein.” I didn’t kiss John. District inspectors don’t get fresh with their superiors.

That was one load off my mind. Grudgingly I gave John credit, not only for seeing the obvious without explanation, but for caring enough about the old boy to get him to a safe place. I’d have given him even more credit if I had not known he had an ulterior motive. Why he thought he could find a clue the searchers had overlooked, I could not imagine; but if anyone could, it was John. His natural bent toward chicanery had been developed by years of experience.

The lower end of the alley debouched into the Marktplatz. When I reached the hotel, I found Tony lying in wait. “Where the hell did you go?” he demanded.

“Out,” I said shortly. “What’s the matter, couldn’t you get a room?”

“I got a room all right.” He took my arm and pulled me aside. People passed us, going in and out and giving us curious looks as we stood nose to nose glaring at each other. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony snapped.

“Tell you what?”

“Anything. Something. That Friedl was the new owner—”

“You know Friedl?”

“Well, sure. We all…” He grinned self-consciously. “Not me, of course.”

“Of course. I’m sure she would have worked all of you in if she had had time.”

Once again I had been caught with my pants down, figuratively speaking. (Obviously the metaphor applied more accurately to some of my former colleagues.) I had only been gone for half an hour; it was symptomatic of the luck I was having that Tony should have latched onto Friedl during that brief interval. Hoping against hope she hadn’t spilled her guts, I murmured, “I didn’t think you’d be interested, Tony.”

“Not interested in somebody trying to kill you?”

“Oh, Schiesse,” I said. “What did she tell you?”

A Bavarian teenager trying to stash his skis in the rack beside the door narrowly missed decapitating Tony. Bawling the boy out relieved some of Tony’s spleen; he turned back to me and said in a milder voice, “Suppose we have a beer and a little heart-to-heart talk. Friedl is anxious to see you, but not as anxious as I am.”

The bar was crowded; we wedged ourselves into a quiet corner, mugs in hand. Sunset reddened the slopes of the Zugspitze and draped the sky with gaudy cloths of scarlet and purple, but Tony wasn’t moved by the beauty of the scenery. I let him talk. I wanted to find out how much he knew before I contributed to his store of information. That was fine with Tony, who seldom got a chance to conduct a monologue when he was with me. As I recall, the lecture went something like this:

“I don’t mind participating in these mad extravaganzas of yours. Not at all. I’m always happy to give a friend the benefit of my superior expertise. A lesser man might resent being shoved into a mess like the one you’ve obviously got yourself into without some warning; I mean, the words ‘sitting duck’ come to mind. Or possibly ‘decoy.’ What I really resent is the insult to my intelligence. I knew something was going on. You and Schmidt and that—that effeminate character, with your heads together…who is that guy? Never mind, don’t tell me, I’m not finished. You might at least warn a person that he’s putting his head in a noose instead of pretending this was just a social visit—”

“Now wait a minute,” I said, indignantly. “I didn’t invite you to come. It was your idea.”

“You could have warned me off.”

“I could have,” I admitted. “At the time I didn’t know—”

“Is that the truth?” Tony scowled at me over his mug. “Nobody tried to mug you, murder you, or burglarize you until the day before yesterday?”

I was glad he had phrased the question that way, because I could look him straight in the eye and say firmly, “No. Nobody.” Not that I wouldn’t have looked him straight in the eye and denied anything he accused me of.

“Oh. All the same, you might have mentioned it.”

“It could have been an accident. Some drunken hunter.”

“Yeah. But Friedl seems to think not. Are you sure you never got a letter or a package or anything from her husband?”

I looked him straight in the eye and said firmly, “No. I mean, yes. How about you?”

“Me? Why would I…” Tony considered the question. “No reason why it shouldn’t have been me, come to think about it. According to Friedl, the object in question is a work of art—she didn’t seem to know more than that. I met Hoffman last year, chatted with him…Hey. What about the rest of them—Dieter, Elise, Rosa…”

“I’m sure he liked you best,” I said.

“I might not have taken notice of a letter,” Tony muttered. “We get a lot of crank mail.”

“I know.”

“Just the week before I left, there were half a dozen or so. People seem to get weirder during the holiday seasons…. An appeal for funds from that Psychic Archaeology crowd in Virginia, a curriculum vitae from some loony who thinks he should be appointed to the staff because he’s the reincarnation of Herodotus, a copy of that photo of Sophia Schliemann—Hey, watch out!”

I had spilled my beer. “Sorry. Did you say Sophia Schliemann?”

Tony grabbed a handful of napkins off a nearby table and swabbed at his sweater. “Damn it, Ann made this for me…. Yeah, you know, the one where she’s wearing the jewelry from Troy. I don’t know what the hell that was all about; there wasn’t even a letter with it.”

That answered one question, unless Tony was a lot sneakier than I had ever known him to be. “What else did Friedl tell you?”

“She didn’t make a lot of sense,” Tony admitted, “what did she tell you?”

“She hasn’t told me anything yet,” I said, with perfect truth.

“Well, let’s go see her. Maybe the two of us can extract some information. So far it’s a damned fishy story.”

I was about to endorse this assessment when Tony’s mouth took on the wistful curve that made strong women want to mother him. “It would be too good to be true,” he said longingly.

Friedl did not rise to greet us. She gave Tony her hand at an angle that made it impossible for him to do anything with it except kiss it.

Usually I can tell when people are lying. Friedl defeated me; she was so accustomed to putting on an act that everything she said sounded phony. The gist of her long and rambling narrative was that (a) her husband had some hidden treasure, (b) she didn’t know what it was, and (c) she didn’t know where it was.

Though visibly moved by her quivering lips and pathetic story, Tony was not moved to the point of excessive gullibility. Tactfully he pointed out that old men sometimes suffer from delusions.

“He was not old,” Friedl protested.

“Seventy-five?” I suggested.

“Not in his heart—in his love…” Friedl covered her face with her hands.

Tony patted her clumsily on the shoulder and gave me a reproachful look. Like all men, he is quite willing to believe that a young and beautiful girl will adore him when he’s eighty.

Friedl restrained her grief, which had left not a smudge on her make-up, and proceeded with her story. She had not learned of the treasure until the past spring. It was something her husband had rescued at the end of the war and had kept safely hidden for forty years. Recently, however, he had begun to fear that his enemies had finally tracked him down.

“Enemies?” Tony said. “What enemies?”

Friedl opened her eyes so wide her mascara flaked. “The Russians. The Communists.”

“Oh,” said Tony.

I said, “Bless their red hearts, they make such handy villains.”

The comment passed over, or through, Friedl’s head. She went on. Her husband would tell her nothing more for fear of endangering her, and when she suggested that he turn the treasure over to the authorities—she didn’t specify which authorities and neither of us pressed her—he had angrily refused. The treasure was his. It had passed through many hands, the original ownership had always been in dispute, and now it was his by right of possession. He had as much right to it as anyone. He had saved it.

This part of the story had the ring of truth.

Then, late in the fall, Hoffman had changed his mind. His enemies were closing in. He feared for his life—and hers. He had spoken of getting in touch with me—was I sure, absolutely certain, he had not told me…

“I have no idea where it might be,” I said. “That’s the truth, Frau Hoffman. Are you sure you—”

“No. I mean—yes. Would I have called on you for help if I knew?”

The answer to that was so obvious no one felt the need of voicing it. Tony cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Friedl—Frau Hoffman—”

She interrupted him, looking up at him from under her lashes and reaching for his hand. “Please, you must not be so formal. We are old friends.”

“Thank you.” Blushing, Tony did not emulate her use of the informal du. “I was about to say—I don’t see how we can help you. I must be honest; I am still not convinced your husband was—er—in his right mind. All this business about Communists—”

“Then who was it who shot at Fräulein Bliss?”

“Hmmm,” said Tony.

“And,” Friedl continued, “not long after my adored Anton’s death, someone broke into his room and searched it. Several pieces of furniture were smashed to pieces. I thought at the time it was an ordinary thief—but after the terrible incident of the shooting…Please, you will not abandon me? You will help me to find it?”

“We’ll try,” Tony said dubiously. “Though, with so little to go on…Have the police no idea who could have fired those shots?”

Friedl shrugged. Watching her, I said, “Freddy isn’t on duty today. Has he left town?”

She wasn’t as dim as she appeared—or else she had had reason to anticipate the implied accusation. “Are you suggesting it was Freddy? Impossible. My own cousin—”

“I’d like to talk to him,” I said mildly.

Her eyes fell. “I—you cannot. He has gone. There was—he has—someone offered him a better position. He was only helping me temporarily.”

“Where has he gone?”

“Zürich.” The answer came so pat that a new-laid egg might have believed it.

“Who is Freddy?” Tony inquired.

“I’ll fill you in later,” I promised.

“Freddy had nothing to do with it,” Friedl insisted. “It was the Communists.”

Every time she mentioned Communists, Tony’s skepticism level shot up. “We’ll try,” he repeated. “If you think of anything else, anything at all—”

After a further exchange of insincere promises and protestations, we took our leave. I told Tony about Freddy, which seemed to cheer him a little. “Guy sounds like a thug,” he said hopefully. “And his sudden departure is suspicious. Friedl is so trusting, anyone could take advantage of her.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

It was possible—not that Friedl was a trusting innocent, but that someone could have tricked her. Her explanation of the destruction of the Schrank was feasible, too. I didn’t believe it, but it was feasible. I saw no reason to disillusion Tony. He would only have accused me of being catty, jealous, and a few other things.

Freddy’s departure was suspicious. He might have taken fright after the failure of his attack and fled from a possible police investigation. Or, if John’s theory was correct, he might have fled from someone else.

Once out of Friedl’s cloying presence, Tony’s spirits rose. “Communists aside,” he remarked, “her story isn’t as unlikely as it sounds. The Nazis were the biggest looters of art objects the world has ever seen. Hitler was collecting for his Sonderauftrag Linz, Göring was collecting for Göring, and everybody else was picking up the leftovers. A lot of the loot ended up in Bavaria; even Göring shipped his treasures to Berchtesgaden when the Russians began to close in on Berlin. Remember the salt mines at Alt Aussee? Over ten thousand paintings, dozens of sculptures—including Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child—and thousands of minor works. According to one estimate, there were at least two hundred official caches of art treasures in southern Germany, and God knows how many unofficial ones. Some have never been found. This prize of Hoffman’s needn’t be a whole mineful; maybe it’s a single piece, something that had special importance to him.”

He was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. I hoped he wouldn’t think of looking up Hoffman’s name in the professional literature; that would turn his attention away from the paintings-in-the-salt-mine theory, which was where I wanted him to stay. The trouble with my friends, and enemies, is that they are too intelligent.

“It’s a hopeless cause, Tony,” I said. “These mountains are like Swiss cheese, full of holes, caves, and abandoned mines. It could be anywhere—if it exists.”

Tony refused to be discouraged. The prospect of another treasure hunt, and of playing detective, was too exciting. “Don’t be such a pessimist. Hoffman must have left some clue. He was an old man; he wouldn’t take the chance of its being lost forever.”

We had reached my room. I unlocked the door.

“I wonder how big it is,” Tony mused.

“Bigger than a breadbox,” I offered. “Are you coming in?”

“I have my own room, thank you. Friedl was more than happy to accommodate me.”

He was infuriatingly calm about being exiled from my tempting proximity. In fact, there was a swagger in his step and a certain swing to his shoulders as he walked away….

“Tony,” I said gently.

“What?”

“I have a feeling Ann would rate Friedl as a succubus, too.”

Tony’s smile was the sublime quintessence of smugness. “Why don’t I ask her? I told her I’d call today. So if you’ll excuse me for, say, half an hour—maybe an hour…” He disappeared into his room, leaving me to contemplate his closed door and the shame of my evil imagination.

We decided to drive to Garmisch for dinner. Actually it was I who decided; Tony was in favor of sticking around the hotel, in hopes of God knows what—another attempt on my life, perhaps. I wanted to get away. The town was preying on my nerves—not that it wasn’t a nice town, but it was so small. Too small for the three of us—especially when John was one of the three.

Since it was still early, we poked around the shops for a while, and Tony, who was still smarting from what he considered my treacherous behavior, got his revenge by carrying out an act of atrocity from which I had dissuaded him on several previous occasions. He bought a pair of lederhosen.

Lederhosen are those short leather pants. Let me repeat the word “short.” They do not come to the knee, or just above the knee, or to mid-thigh; they are, not to belabor the point, short. On Tony they were a cross between a visual obscenity and a bad joke; he had to buy the largest pair in the shop in order to cover the essentials, and they were so big around the waist there was room inside for two of him. He said it didn’t matter, the suspenders would hold them up.

The suspenders, brightly embroidered with objects such as edelweiss, were part of the costume, which also included knee socks and one of those silly little hats with a feather or an ostrich plume or a Gamsbart (chamois beard) tucked into the band. Tony’s had a white ostrich feather. When attired in the complete ensemble, he looked exactly like Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater in a German edition of Mother Goose I had bought for one of my nieces.

He wanted me to try on dirndls—so we’d match, I suppose. I actually love those cute little outfits; the astute reader has probably realized that my nasty remarks about the waitresses were prompted by pure jealousy. A dirndl looks as absurd on me as the lederhosen looked on Tony, if not as indecent. I tried on a few, to shut him up; when I saw him in a whispered conference with the shopkeeper, I realized he was planning to buy me one for a Christmas present. I also realized I didn’t have anything for him, so we cruised a few more stores and I took mental notes on the items Tony admired.

We stowed his parcel in the car. By mat time it was dark, and the town was aglitter with thousands of Christmas bulbs strung from storefronts and lampposts. Snow crunched underfoot, the air was redolent with the smell of pine branches and wood fires; the colorful ski jackets and caps glowed like neon—raspberry, turquoise, hot pink—and the sound of carols poured from every door. It was very pretty and festive, and all I could think of was John’s advice: Look out for familiar faces. Between the ski masks and the scarves and the caps pulled low over ears and foreheads, it would have been difficult to recognize my own mother. The season and the setting could not have been more convenient for someone who preferred to pass unrecognized.

We hadn’t gone a block from the car before I saw a familiar face. He was as swathed in scarves as all the others; I recognized him by the globular red nose that flashed on and off.

He saw me at the same time. Dropping the arm of the woman who was with him, he came pelting toward me, arms extended, nose glowing. “Vicky! Adored and most elongated of womanly pulchritude”—he made it all one word, which you can do in German, if you aren’t particular about syntax. “You changed your mind! You came!”

He flung his arms around me and burrowed his face into my chest.

It was merely a token gesture, since I was wearing three layers of clothing and my parka had a zipper that closed it tighter than a chastity girdle, but Tony decided to take offense. Twisting a hand in the back of Dieter’s collar, he removed him.

“She came, and I came with her,” he said, biting off the words so that his breath made irritated white puffs in the cold air, like a dragon hiccuping. “Cut it out, Dieter.”

“I saw you,” Dieter admitted. “I hoped you were only a figment of my imagination and that if I ignored you, you would dissolve into air. Where is my nose?”

He fumbled at his face. “Here,” I said, handing it back to him. “Must you, Dieter?”

“Yes. Yes, yes, I must, or go mad with longing….” He began pounding on his chest.

I indicated the woman who stood some distance away, her arms folded and her foot tapping. “Isn’t that Elise?”

“It was Elise,” Dieter admitted. “No doubt it still is Elise. You see, when you turned me down, Vicky, I had to find another companion. Don’t tell Elise I asked you first. She would not like to be second choice.”

Elise did not come rushing to greet us. “Look who I have found,” Dieter cried, presenting us like trophies.

“Yes,” said Elise. “Quite a coincidence that we should all be here again.”

“It certainly is,” said Tony.

“Why do you stand looking hard at one another like two strange dogs?” Dieter asked curiously. “That is no way for old friends to behave. Let us all kiss one another.”

Whereupon he flung his arms around Tony and stood on tiptoe, his lips pursed. Torn between amusement and disgust, Tony finally succumbed to laughter; he pushed Dieter away and reached for Elise. “Good idea, old buddy.”

He had to lift Elise clean off her feet to kiss her; when he put her down she was looking a lot more amiable. Giggling, she linked arms with Tony and leaned against him. “We were about to have dinner. You will join us, won’t you?”

There was no way of getting out of it without rudeness, even if we had wanted to, which neither of us did. The coincidences were falling as thick as the leaves in Vallombrosa.

But as the meal progressed and everyone mellowed with wine and food, I began to wonder whether this particular coincidence might not be legitimate. Dieter was a keen skier, and Garmisch was one of the most popular winter-sports areas in Germany. Elise’s presence surprised me a little, but there again, Dieter’s explanation made sense. They had certainly been friendly the year before; now that her marriage was kaput, she would be looking for entertainment.

I wondered whether Schmidt would approve of her new hairstyle. It was jet-black instead of pink, and arranged in the wispy, wind-blown style fashionable that year. She had lost weight, which in her case was not becoming. The hollows under her cheekbones were as deep as scars, and her wrists looked brittle as dry twigs. She laughed a lot.

Tony wasn’t buying the coincidence, but he didn’t make much progress in his subtle attempt to elicit information. One of his problems was that he had no idea what we were supposed to be looking for; it could have been a painting or a piece of sculpture, a rare coin or an entire frescoed ceiling. He twitched at the mention of Tintoretto and started at Saint Stephen’s Crown. It was the most entertaining aspect of the evening, a lot funnier than Dieter’s dreadful jokes.

During the course of the usual shoptalk and professional gossip, I had a chance to inquire after Rosa and Jan. Elise’s comments about Rosa were surprisingly catty, even for her; from what she said, I got the impression that a professional feud was brewing, probably over some earth-shaking issue such as whether a painting was by Rembrandt or by one of his students. Dieter professed to know nothing about her; since their fields of expertise were so different, they would not ordinarily meet professionally, and—as Dieter candidly and crudely remarked—Rosa had nothing else to attract a man of his tastes.

He had more to say about Jan Perlmutter. They lived in the same city, though divided from one another by a wall that was more than material, and communication between the museums of the two Berlins was not infrequent. According to Dieter, Jan had recently been passed over for promotion because of some petty political issue, and was very bitter about it.

The only other subject of interest arose when Elise asked where we were staying.

“Ah, the Hexenhut,” Dieter said reminiscently. “Yes, it was a pleasant little place—especially that waitress—you know who I mean, Tony….”

He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips in a display that made it difficult for Tony to admit a like knowledge. I said, “You’re revolting, Dieter. I suppose you mean Friedl.”

“Yes, that was her name. Dear little Friedl. How is she, Tony?”

I took it upon myself to reply. The news of Friedl’s marriage and bereavement didn’t arouse much interest; Elise looked bored, Dieter giggled and made a ribald comment.

After dinner, we made the rounds of a few bars, and then Tony and I excused ourselves. We left Dieter doing the Schuhplattler with a group of costumed entertainers while Elise looked on with a sour smile.

As we began to drive back to Bad Steinbach, Tony said thoughtfully, “It can’t be Dieter.”

“What can’t? Who can’t?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Friedl said her husband planned to communicate with someone about the treasure. She thought it was you, but she may have been mistaken. Elise and Dieter were both at the hotel last year, and both are museum officials. What I’m saying is, it can’t be Dieter.”

“Why not?” We left the lights of the town behind and headed up into the hills; the stars spilled out across the sky like a handful of flung jewels.

“He’s such a jackass,” Tony said, in tones of deep disgust.

“He is that.”

“Hoffman wouldn’t confide in an idiot like Dieter.”

“You think Elise is more likely?”

“No, not really. Now if Perlmutter were to turn up in Bad Steinbach…”

“Come, now,” I said, sneering. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for the dirty-Communist routine.”

“Eastern-bloc scholars have pressures on them we don’t have,” Tony argued. “Suppose the item in question came originally from behind the Iron Curtain. Recovering it would give Perlmutter a lot of prestige, maybe a step up the party ladder.”

Again he was getting too close to the truth. I changed the subject.

As soon as I got Tony tucked away for the night, I planned to pay John a visit. He was entitled to know what I had discovered. The presence of two more of the gang of six would get his mind off Tony as suspect number one. (At least that provided a reasonable motive for calling on John; if there were others, I preferred not to admit them.)

But it was to be an evening of renewing old acquaintances. When we walked into the lobby, the first thing I saw was an all-too-familiar face and form. Red as a rose and round as a berry—Schmidt and no other.

John had promised to take care of Schmidt. I hadn’t inquired how he meant to handle the matter. Now I wished I had. Obviously the scheme had backfired.

Schmidt was so happy to see us. He waved frantically. “Here,” he cried. “Here I am.”

We joined him. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I came to help you, of course,” said Schmidt.

“But I thought—”

“What is he doing here?” Schmidt glowered at Tony.

“Well,” I began.

“You have told him!”

“No. No, Schmidt—now look, Schmidt—”

“It was our private affair. You and I and—”

“Never mind!”

“You told this fat old idiot about the deal and you didn’t tell me?” Tony demanded.

“Fat and old? Who is fat and old?” Schmidt struggled to get out of his chair, but it fit his ample posterior so snugly he could only rock back and forth. His voice rose. “Fat and old, is it? I will show you. You will receive a strip of paper measuring the length of my sword. Choose your seconds!”

That was when I knew Schmidt was drunk—really bombed out, stinking drunk, not just mildly inebriated. He never challenges people to duels when he’s just mildly inebriated. At my urging, Tony apologized; we sat down; Schmidt stopped rocking and relaxed. A look of mild perplexity replaced his indignant frown, and he muttered, “Now what was it I had to tell you? So much has happened, but Sir John must know—”

“How long have you been waiting?” I asked, trying to get his mind off the engrossing subject of Sir John.

“Hours,” Schmidt grumbled. “Hours and hours and…No one knew where you had gone. Since I did not know where you had gone, I could not follow.”

“True, O Schmidt,” I said.

“I had a little to drink and to eat,” Schmidt said, like a suspect under police interrogation trying to remember the activities of a long-past day. “I talked to the pleasant lady at the desk—she is the housekeeper, you know…. But she intends to resign as soon as Frau Hoffman can find a replacement. I fear the poor young lady is not popular with the employees. It was expected that the hotel would be taken over by the nephew of the first Frau Hoffman, since it has belonged to her family for two hundred years. There is much resentment, I believe, since the second Frau Hoffman—”

“Schmidt,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

Schmidt blinked. “About the nephew—or perhaps it is the grandnephew—”

“Why are you talking about him?”

“Now that,” said Schmidt, “is a pertinent question. Why am I talking about him? I do not know. I should not be talking about him. There is a matter of greater importance—of consuming importance—of an importance demanding immediate action…. Ach, ja, now I remember! Come, come quickly, I will show you. He is there—I saw him go in. He has not come out. I staked myself here to watch.”

He surged to his feet, accompanied by the chair. Tony plucked it off his posterior and put it down. Schmidt ignored this with the lofty unconcern of a man who has more important matters on his mind. “There,” he hissed. “He is there. I saw him go in. He has not come out.”

He pointed toward the door of the bar. “But, Schmidt,” I began. “There’s another door—”

“Who?” Tony asked blankly.

“I will show you.” Schmidt beamed. His face looked like the harvest moon hanging low over the hills of Minnesota. A pang of homesickness swept over me. Oh, to be in Minnesota now—away from intoxicated German professors and slippery English crooks and miscellaneous people trying to kill me….

We followed Schmidt to the bar. I fully expected that his suspect—some innocent householder who had beady eyes or a nose like Peter Lorre’s—had had his beer and gone home via the street door. I was wrong. “There,” said Schmidt, in the hissing shriek that is his idea of a whisper. “See—he is there!”

He was there, all right. There was no doubt as to whom Schmidt meant; his quivering forefinger and his intent stare pilloried a man sitting alone at a corner table.

He was worth looking at—tall and broad-shouldered, with a profile like that of a brooding eagle. A Wyatt Earp-type mustache framed a pensive, thoughtful mouth; brown hair curled over his ears and his high, intellectual brow.

“I’ve never seen him in my life,” Tony said blankly.

I said nothing.

“Ho,” shrieked Schmidt. “I told you I never forget a face. Only once have I met him. Only once, but I remember, and you, who have known him better, do not recall him. It is lucky for you I came here, nicht.”

“If you don’t get to the point, I am going to kill you, Schmidt,” I said.

“It is Perlmutter,” Schmidt said triumphantly. “The assistant curator from East Berlin.”

“You’re crazy,” Tony stuttered. “Perlmutter is a blond, this guy is brunet. Perlmutter doesn’t have a mustache, this guy—”

It was Perlmutter. The outlines of that splendid profile were burned into my brain.

They say that if you stare at someone long enough, invisible waves of something or other will stretch out and attract his attention. There must be something to it. Perlmutter looked up and met my eyes. The instant recognition that transformed his face would have removed any lingering doubts I might have had, which I didn’t.

Before I could react, he was on his feet and out the door to the street. By chance or by design, he had selected a table in a spot convenient for retreat.

I wasted a vital couple of seconds trying to decide which way to go—across the crowded room toward the door he had used, or back through the lobby. Tony wasted a vital couple of seconds bouncing off Schmidt, who had started in one direction while Tony tried to go the other way. Schmidt then compounded the problem by keeling over, his face set in an imbecilic grin of triumph.

Schmidt does that sometimes. It is the inevitable conclusion to his bouts of really serious drinking. They are rare events and occur only when something has happened to upset him. I wished I knew what had upset him this time, but questions would have to wait. He wouldn’t be coherent for hours. I had seen it happen once before, when he learned of the death of a favorite nephew in a car crash.

Well, there he was, hanging limply between me and Tony. We had each grabbed an arm as his round red form sagged floorward. We looked helplessly at one another over Schmidt’s bowed head.

“What do we do now?” Tony asked.

“It’s too late to follow Perlmutter…. Oh, hell. We’d better get him to bed.”

“Whose bed?” Tony asked warily.

It was a reasonable question. As we soon discovered, Schmidt did not have a room reserved, and the hotel was full-up. He may have had a reservation in Garmisch, but that was irrelevant since Schmidt was incapable of answering questions—or hearing them. He revived sufficiently to be dragged instead of carried; with one plump arm over a shoulder of each, we propelled him up the stairs to the second floor. Tony wanted to put him on the couch in my room.

“You have twin beds, don’t you?”

“Yes. But—”

“Then he’s yours. All yours. Every…adorable…chubby…pound.”

The minute Schmidt hit the mattress he was gone. I took his shoes off and covered him with the blanket. Smiling beatifically, Schmidt heaved a deep sigh and began to snore.

An expression of profound melancholy transformed Tony’s face.

“Does he do that all night?”

Tony had unpacked, in his characteristically haphazard fashion; from among the litter on the dresser top, framed in silver, the lovely heart-shaped face of Ann Belfort smiled winsomely at me.

I smiled winsomely back. “Snore, you mean? Only when he’s drunk. Nighty-night, Annie—I mean, Tony.”

Friedl had preserved one of the Hexenhut’s pleasant old-fashioned customs; the chambermaid had turned down my bed and spread my nightgown gracefully across it. For the chambermaid’s sake, I was glad I had brought my fancy new nightie instead of my old flannel pajamas. For my own sake, I was sorry I hadn’t brought the jammies. The stove had been banked for the night, and as I knew from past experience, the room would be as cold as a frozen side of beef by morning, though it warmed quickly after someone revived the fire. I had usually managed to con Tony into proving his manhood while I remained snuggled under the downy warmth of the Dauendecke. Tomorrow I’d have to do it myself or wait for the chambermaid. Such are the disadvantages of celibacy.

I needed to see John. In this case, celibacy had nothing to do with it. Things were getting out of hand—suspects emerging from the woodwork, Tony narrowing in on the gold and on John (his accusations had been unnervingly accurate); and Schmidt…The old dear’s rambling conversation had raised a host of new and ominous possibilities. One in particular, resulting from a casual comment I had been too preoccupied to notice at the time, came back to me now and made me all the more anxious to confront that sneaky, tricky, untrustworthy devil…. I forced my clenched hands to relax. Maybe I was reading too much into a single statement. Maybe I had better not raise the point. He’d never admit anything anyway. There were other, equally urgent matters to discuss. What had happened to John’s scheme for getting Schmidt out of our hair? Not that the little rascal hadn’t been useful. I would never had spotted Perlmutter without Schmidt. That made five of the six.

I turned out the light and went to the window. Most of the town had gone to bed. The night was clear and cold. In the distance the snow-covered peaks of the Stuben Mountains shone with a faint, eerie glow against the darkness. Far up on the dark heights of the Hexenhut, a single Christmas tree burned blue and scarlet and white, like a dollhouse miniature.

I realized that I had made a slight mistake in strategy—or is it tactics? I couldn’t leave the hotel by the normal route without being seen and recognized. There isn’t much to do in Bad Steinbach at midnight. Even a casual observer might wonder where I was going at that hour; and, as I had just learned, some of the observers might not be so casual. How was I going to get to Müller’s shop unseen?

The answer was only too obvious. With a sigh and a shiver, I opened the window and went out onto the balcony. Investigation showed a nice convenient snowbank directly below. A single bulb beside a side entrance gave more light than I would have liked, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. That didn’t mean there wasn’t someone watching, but I had to take the chance.

I was about to lower myself off the balcony when it occurred to me that I might have a little problem returning by the same route. I went back inside, turned on the light, and investigated the backpack I carry on such excursions instead of a purse. There were a lot of peculiar items in the pack, but no rope. I hadn’t really expected there would be. The only alternative seemed to be a towel or bed sheet. I balked at that idea; it was too much like the sort of thing Schmidt would think of, and a knotted sheet dangling from a hotel window was likely to attract attention. I would simply have to return through the front door and the lobby. It wouldn’t matter so much if I was seen returning, so long as no one knew where I was returning from.

The snowbank was cold. I don’t know why that should have surprised me.

Avoiding the lighted entrance of the hotel, I skirted the Marktplatz. A roofed arcade over some of the shop fronts cast a welcome shadow. There were a few other people abroad, but when I reached the mouth of the narrow, pitch-black alley, no one seemed to be interested in my activities, so I proceeded on my way. Only a faint glow from the snow underfoot marked the path. Despite my heavy gloves, my fingers were stiff with cold before I got the gate open and re-latched. Not a gleam of light showed from the house. I found the door, by touch, and knocked.

An icy breeze brushed my face and set the foliage sighing. Something hit the ground with a soft thud; I knew it must be snow falling from the laden branches of the trees, but my pulse skipped a beat or two. I was about to turn away when the door swung silently open into a space of absolute blackness.

The warm familiar smell of shavings and wood smoke wafting out of the house did not move me to enter. I stood squinting into the black silence until a hand wrapped around my arm and yanked me inside. My nerves were in such a state that I swung wildly at the dark. I missed him, of course; the door closed, two arms wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides, and two lips planted themselves firmly on mine. I had always suspected he could see in the dark.

“It is you,” John said, after a prolonged interval.

“Who did you think it was?”

“One never knows.” He continued to hold me immobile. I knew the futility of struggling against a man who knew more dirty, underhanded wrestling holds than Bruce Lee. Besides, I couldn’t see a thing. Besides, I didn’t especially want to struggle.

“No more hitting?” he inquired hopefully.

“Sorry about that. I find all this a trifle unnerving.”

“You aren’t the only one.” He let me go. Then a light went on. It came from a door to the right—the door into the workshop, which John had opened. He gestured. “In here.”

He had made himself comfortable. The room now contained an overstuffed chair and a reading lamp, next to the workbench, where a tall slim bottle stood in incongruous juxtaposition to Müller’s tools.

I was about to ask what had become of the cat when a muffled yowl and the sound of claws on wood gave me the answer. Clara was in the parlor, across the hall. Clara didn’t want to be in the parlor, across the hall.

“A nice warm purring cat would add to the creature comforts,” I suggested.

John pushed me into the shop and closed the door. I could still hear Clara. The complaints of a Siamese cat are hard on the ears—and, after a time, on the nerves. John said shortly, “That is not a nice warm purring cat.”

“You can’t keep her in there all the time.”

John turned to face me, displaying a neat row of parallel scratches along one cheek. “Oh yes, I can,” he said.

“But the poor thing…”

“Forget the damned cat,” said John. “It won’t be neglected; have you ever known me to be cruel to a living creature? Don’t answer that….”

“A complete inventory would take too long,” I agreed.

John’s face darkened. His sense of humor was decidedly under par that evening. “I haven’t time to exchange feeble witticisms with you. Any news?”

“Quite a lot.” I sat down in the chair and picked up the glass from which he had been drinking. “Delicate and fruity, with a fresh bouquet,” I said appreciatively, after sampling the contents. “Piesporter Goldtröpfchen? Or do you call it hock?”

“I don’t call it anything, I just drink it.” He poured wine into another glass and hoisted one hip onto the table.

“Guess who I ran into this evening,” I said coyly.

“I don’t have to guess. I saw you being matey with your colleagues in Garmisch.”

“Oh, those convenient ski masks,” I murmured.

“As you say. One was the chap from Berlin—I recognized him from your snapshots. Who was the woman?”

“Elise. She’s dyed her hair.”

“Aha. That makes two of them. Three if we include your lengthy admirer.”

“Four. Jan Perlmutter is in Bad Steinbach.”

That didn’t surprise him either. “I rather thought he might be.”

“Did you rather think Schmidt might be here?” I inquired, hoping to puncture that smug, know-it-all façade.

I succeeded. He stopped swinging his foot and slammed it to the floor. “Schmidt here? I told him to stay in Munich!”

“I know it must be a blow to your reputation as world’s champion spinner of fantastic stories, but you obviously failed to convince Schmidt.” I held out my empty glass and added generously, “He isn’t easy to convince. Even a master liar like you—”

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 the 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.

When they had wound down, I said, “If you two have quite finished, I’d like to make a statement. I said I was through, and I am. Through.”

“But the murder of Freddie—” Schmidt began.

“Schmidt, there is no way anybody could suspect I killed Freddie.”

“But the gold—” Tony exclaimed.

“What gold? We’ve built up a fabric of guesswork and surmise. We haven’t the slightest clue, and there is nothing more we can do here.”

“Not true,” said Tony. Schmidt nodded vigorous agreement.

“What can we do?”

“Inspect Hoffman’s papers.”

“Lots of luck, buster. You can be sure Friedl has already been through them with a fine-tooth comb.”

“I don’t know why you are so prejudiced against the poor woman,” Tony said. I rolled my eyes in speechless commentary. Tony reddened. “Even if she is—er—up to no good, which I consider unproven, I may find something she overlooked. I hope you won’t accuse me of vanity if I suggest I am slightly more intelligent than she.”

“No,” I said. “I won’t.”

Tony wasn’t quite sure how to take that, so he decided to let it pass. “We should also interrogate our colleagues.”

“Now, Tony—”

“Look here, Vicky,” Tony said in a kindly voice. “Let me spell it out for you, okay? You and I both got copies of that photograph of Frau Schliemann—”

“It wasn’t Frau Schliemann.”

“Well, Helene Barton of the Classics Department said it was.”

“Helene Barton is a jerk. She doesn’t know her—”

“Please, Vicky. The point is, if you and I got copies of the picture, maybe the others did, too—Dieter and Elise and Jan Perlmutter. My being here is a coincidence; I have to admit I didn’t give that photo a second thought. Maybe Dieter just happened to fix on Garmisch for his holiday. But you can bet Perlmutter wouldn’t be hanging around, and in disguise, at that, if he weren’t up to something sneaky.”

“Tony,” I said desperately, “if your—my—our—theory is correct, one of them is a killer.”

“Precisely. Therefore it behooves us to find out which one.”

“It is Perlmutter who is the killer,” said Schmidt. “He is in disguise. Or perhaps the one we have not seen—D’Addio. It is very suspicious that she has disguised herself so well we have not even seen her.”

The brilliant illogic of this took my breath away for a moment. “There’s another possibility, just as logical,” I said. “Nobody we know is the killer. The photos were sent as a bizarre practical joke, or the delusion of a sick old man. Freddy’s murder is unrelated to the hypothetical gold of Troy.”

“Then why was his body left in your garden?” Schmidt asked.

“I don’t know. Which is precisely why I intend to return to Munich this evening and make a full confession. I’ll tell my friend Karl Feder the whole story and let him laugh himself sick at my girlish delusions of buried treasure, and then the police can get on with their investigation.”

“She is speaking out of despair,” Schmidt explained to Tony. “She is easily discouraged. We will find a clue and then she will change her mind. Vicky, let us go to Garmisch and give Dieter the third degree.”

“Sorry, I didn’t bring my rubber hose. Besides, I have an errand to do this morning.”

“Ah—to find Perlmutter. Perhaps that is better. I will come with you while Tony reads the old gentleman’s mail.”

“You can come if you like. I’m not going to look for Perlmutter.”

“What, then?”

“I’m taking flowers to a dead man.”

We were still arguing in a desultory, unproductive sort of way, and finishing the food the cat hadn’t eaten, when the phone rang. It was Friedl, summoning us to The Presence. I agreed to accompany the delegation, provided I was allowed to get dressed first.

“There, you see, Tony,” Schmidt remarked. “She is recovering. She will not abandon the quest.”

“I’m going along to make sure you two don’t dig yourselves into a deeper hole,” I snapped. “And to keep you from committing me to a project I’ve no intention of pursuing. Now listen, both of you. You may not agree with me about Friedl’s character, or lack thereof, but for God’s sake don’t volunteer any information. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”

“But of course,” said Schmidt. “That is a basic principle of criminal investigation.”

Tony’s only comment was, “Don’t be insulting.”

We called on Friedl in a body, so to speak. She looked a little startled when we marched in, and I couldn’t blame her; there was a decided nursery-rhyme air about the group—Peter, Peter; Peter’s wife; and the pumpkin. She didn’t notice the cat until Clara reared up and began clawing at the sofa. She let out a shriek, which didn’t bother the cat one whit; when she reached for a poker, I intervened.

“I hope you don’t mind,” I said untruthfully—actually. I hoped she did. “The cat seems to have attached herself to me. I’ll try to keep her out of your way.”

The cat bothered her, all right. Clara was a living reminder of the old man she had deceived and betrayed, perhaps to his death. The feeling was reciprocated. Though she permitted me to hold her, the animal didn’t relax into a nice furry bundle; her claws were out, her fur bristled. That was exactly the way Friedl affected me.

“It keeps coming back,” she muttered. “I suspect the cook feeds it. I would fire her if I could….”

“But she is an excellent cook,” said Schmidt interestedly. “The Bavarian burger especially, that is a stroke of genius.”

“Schmidt, Schmidt,” I said, more in sorrow than in anger.

“Yes, you are right, Vicky; I am distracting myself. I must allow Frau Hoffman to tell why she asked to see us.”

“I wished to know whether you had learned anything new,” Friedl said.

“No,” I said.

“That’s not quite accurate,” Tony objected. “We have discovered what it was your husband was hiding—”

I dropped the cat onto Tony’s lap. It was a vicious, cruel, spiteful gesture; the information Tony had been about to disclose was information Friedl already knew, and if my assessment was accurate, she knew that we knew. I was furious with Tony for shooting off his mouth and ignoring my sensible suggestions, but I suppose that’s no excuse.

After a while I got up and opened the door to let the cat out. Friedl went on mopping blood off Tony—an unnecessarily prolonged operation, in my opinion. The scratches weren’t all that deep.

“As Tony was about to remark, we have decided that he was right the first time,” I said. “We have found no evidence that your husband possessed anything of value, and if he did, we have found nothing to indicate what he may have done with it.”

“But,” Friedl stuttered. “But—but you—”

“I’m afraid I can’t spend any more time on this, Frau Hoffman. I have my own work to do.”

“I don’t,” said Tony.

She turned eagerly to him. “Then you will stay? You will help me?”

Her fluttering hands and flapping eyelashes had their effect on Tony’s gullible heart. Also, he was moved by the desire to get the better of me. “Sure,” he said. “You said I could go through his papers. Maybe he left a memorandum of some sort.”

She gushed her thanks, then eyed Schmidt. “And you, Herr Direktor?”

“I have certain inquiries of my own to pursue,” Schmidt said, trying to look mysterious.

She thanked him, though not as effusively as she had Tony (he wasn’t as young and cute as Tony) and then asked me when I was leaving. I said I’d give it another day. “I promised—promised myself—that I would visit your husband’s grave, Frau Hoffman. I thought I’d take some flowers or greenery. It’s a custom where I come from.”

I needn’t have bothered inventing excuses. She said indifferently, “It is also a custom here.”

“Would you like to go with me?”

From her reaction, one might have supposed I had suggested a visit to a morgue. “Lieber Gott, nein! That is—it is too painful for me. So soon after…”

She offered Tony free run of her office, but he declined, with thanks, and asked if the papers in question could be brought to his room.

“Whatsa matter?” I hissed, in the accent of the underworld, after we had left Friedl to her own devices. “You don’ wanna be friendly wit’ de little lady?”

“That’s disgusting,” said Tony.

He was right, so I abandoned the accent. “She seems a trifle tense, don’t you think?”

“After murdering her lover she should be relaxed?” Schmidt demanded at the top of his voice.

Tony and I fell on him and carried him away.

“That’s a libelous statement,” Tony muttered, as we propelled Schmidt up the stairs. “Two libelous statements, in fact.”

“Just one,” I said. “She and Freddy were lovers, all right. But she didn’t kill him. She may not even know he’s dead.”

“Shall we tell her?” Tony asked. We shoved Schmidt into the room and closed the door.

“The less anybody tells anybody, the better off we are,” I said sweepingly.

“That is a premise that can be carried too far,” Schmidt grumbled. “You carry it too far.”

“You know everything I know,” I assured him mendaciously. “But for the love of Mike, don’t blab to Friedl. I’ll be damned if I can figure her out. Does she want us to go or stay? She sure didn’t try to change my mind.”

“She doesn’t know her own mind,” Tony said. “She isn’t the one who is making the decisions.”

I smiled approvingly at him. “You aren’t as naïve as you look.”

“I never said Friedl wasn’t a crook; I said we couldn’t be certain.”

“I’m certain. And,” I continued, before Tony could object, “you’re right about her taking orders from someone else. Too bad we can’t listen in on her phone. I’ll bet she is passing on the latest news right now.”

“Ha,” said Schmidt. “You are again interested. You will not abandon—”

“Dammit, there is nothing to abandon! Oh, the hell with it. I’m off to the cemetery.”

A procession of hotel employees carrying cartons of papers arrived, and Schmidt and I left Tony gloomily contemplating the collection. Schmidt went with me to my room while I got my jacket and backpack; then he followed me downstairs and out of the hotel.

“You are really going only to put flowers on the poor old gentleman’s grave?” he inquired.

“I really am.”

“Not that I can believe you. But if you don’t care if I come, then it means you are not going to do anything I want to do. All the same, Vicky, I will come.”

“You’re a suspicious old goat. Come if you like.”

“No, that is not why. You go alone to this place so far from the village. I will come to protect you.”

The idea of danger hadn’t occurred to me until he mentioned it. I didn’t know whether to scold him for scaring me or kiss him for caring. I kissed him on his bald head and arranged his cap to cover his ears. “You’re a sweetie, Schmidt.”

“I thought I was a suspicious old goat. I would not mind the rest so much if you did not always say ‘old.’”

“‘Old’ doesn’t mean ‘old.’ It means—it’s a term of affectionate…of friendly…oh, never mind, Schmidt. I won’t say it again, I promise. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

He remained dubious; I had to pretend to see Perlmutter skulking in the distance before he would leave. “I will pursue,” he exclaimed. “In that shop, you say?”

“No, he went up the street—that one. Hurry, Schmidt, before he gets away.”

Off Schmidt scuttled, approximately as inconspicuous as a carnival balloon.

The clear bright skies were being invaded by herds of elephant-sized clouds. Some squatted on the mountains, hiding the high peaks; others moved sluggishly westward, swelling and multiplying. I had not been looking forward to the expedition and the dismal skies didn’t increase my enthusiasm; but I had promised, and there was no sense postponing the job.

However, the idea of a little company had its appeal. I strolled across the square and made my way to the back of the wood shop. Clara was already there, staring at the closed panel with the ineffable air of concentrated expectation at which cats excel, and which seems to say, louder than speech, “If I wait long enough and hope hard enough, the anticipated miracle will occur—the door will open, herring will rain from the heavens, and I will be welcomed with the enthusiastic noises that are only my due.”

It’s sad to see such religious devotion go for nought. I knocked on the door. The cat didn’t look at me, she was concentrating on expectation. After a while I remarked, “He’s not there.”

Clara didn’t believe it. A piercing Siamese wail berated the cruelty of heaven.

Her howls produced no more result than my knocking. Either John was out or he didn’t want to see either of us. The former conclusion seemed more likely, since, as he was well aware, prolonged complaint from the cat might arouse the curiosity of the neighbors.

So much for John. He was never around when you needed him.

The cat followed me down the garden path and along the alley. She stayed close at my heels while I canvassed the shops for wreaths. When I opened the car door, she flowed in and sat down in the passenger seat.

I have driven with cats before, or tried to; most of them like to get into cars, but they do not like to ride in cars. I reached across and rolled down the window on the passenger side, expecting Clara would hop out as soon as I started the engine. She didn’t budge, even when I backed out of the parking space and turned into the street leading to the highway.

The clouds darkened and sagged lower. The cat started to purr.

Well, I had wanted company. Clara wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but she was better than nothing. I hoped.

The main road into and out of Bad Steinbach wasn’t a four-lane superhighway; but it looked like an autobahn compared to the narrow lane into which Müller’s directions led me. It switched back and forth across the slopes of the Hexenhut, winding steadily upward between tall trees whose shadows turned the cloudy day to twilight dusk. I switched on my lights; the twisting of the road sent shadows darting, like sylvan monsters trying to elude the light. The cat kept purring. My skin started to crawl.

The old man had said, “You can’t miss it,” and he was right. Eventually I emerged from the trees onto a brief stretch of level ground—not the summit of the mountain, but a largish ledge, shaped like a half-moon and less than two acres in extent. The road skirted one side of it and then appeared to end, against the open sky. I cleverly deduced that there was a steep descent beyond.

I turned off the road and stopped the engine. In the silence the cat’s hoarse purring seemed uncannily loud.

Straight ahead the mountainside rose, forming a natural wall around the scattered graves. Tall trees marched up in stately parade; above and beyond, a wide swath of treeless white curved around the mountain’s flank and then swung away, out of sight—the ski slope from the summit of the Hexenhut. I had not realized it came so close to the church. I had never skied that stretch, actually, and even if I had, I would have had no reason to observe the church.

It wasn’t much. Perched uneasily on the edge of the drop, where the crumbled remains of a stone wall marked the far edge of the cemetery, it had neither age nor architectural distinction. Not even the usual onion dome, only a stubby broken tower. The windows were boarded up and snow had drifted against the walls.

I opened the car door. The silence was deafening. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see the ski lift or the ski lodge atop the mountain. It seemed impossible that less than a mile away there were people laughing and talking and drinking beer.

The place was like a black-and-white photograph; there was no color anywhere, only shades of gray. Nothing moved except the scudding clouds and the tree branches swaying gently in the wind.

Then I saw that I was not the only one to remember the dead at the season of the Redeemer’s birth. A few graves—a pitiful few—were blanketed and trimmed with boughs. The brave red bows and bright berries were like a snatch of song in a charnel house—or whistling in the dark?

I realized there were tears on my cheeks. Sheer terror, perhaps? I wiped them away with gloved hands, took a firmer grip on my wreaths, and set out across the snow.

The atmosphere was so thick I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the cat unerringly select the grave of her master and fling herself down on the mounded earth like the dog in that morose old Scottish story. (Greyfriars Bobby was the name, I think.) Of course, she did nothing of the sort. While I searched for Hoffman’s grave, she went wandering off in search of prey. But all the little mice and moles were tucked snug in their winter beds; when I finally reached my goal, Clara came to stand beside me.

It should not have taken me so long to find the right stone. It was the newest one in the graveyard, an austere dark granite slab with no epitaph, only the names and the dates. Hoffman must have had it prepared when his wife died. The carved lines giving the date of his death were raw and fresh compared to the other lettering.

The plot was enclosed by a low wrought-iron railing, which I discovered by tripping over it; it was entirely concealed by fallen snow. The other stones in the enclosure belonged to members of the same family—Frau Hoffman’s, according to Müller. The oldest visible date was that of a Georg Meindl, who had been born in 1867. There were probably older stones, now fallen and snow-shrouded.

After I had clumsily propped the wreaths against the tombstone I lingered, feeling as if there were something more I ought to do. I’m not much for praying, so I just stood shivering and wishing there were some truth in the wistful age-old desire for communication with the dead.

The Meindl plot was one of the ones farthest from the entrance to the cemetery. From where I was standing I could see clear out across the neighboring valley; a small settlement below looked like a toy village and, beyond it, another ridge of mountains raised dark, snow-streaked barriers. Apparently the road I had traveled descended from this point. A few of the lower loops were visible, but the section nearest me was hidden by the remains of the wall.

My wreath was the only memorial on the mounded earth above his grave. It looked cold and lonely; only the dainty footprints of the cat crisscrossed the white covering. The funeral flowers had been tidied away after they withered—probably by poor old Herr Müller. She wouldn’t have bothered. Thank heaven for the kindliness of snow; it covered raw earth and weedy neglect with a benign white mantle.

Frau Hoffman’s grave was equally stark at this season, but there were pathetic evidences of someone’s tending. The stem of a small climbing rose twined around the dark granite. The rose was brown and leafless now, but during the past summer the green leaves and small fragrant blossoms would have softened the starkness of the stone. Dried brown flower heads protruded from the snow—not weeds, as I had thought, but chrysanthemums and asters—autumn flowers.

The cat ambled up to see what was taking me so long. A gust of icy wind rattled the dead stalks. She sat up on her haunches and swiped at a swaying flowerhead. I moved instinctively to stop her, but she scampered away from my hand, and I stood back, smiling wryly. Hoffman wouldn’t mind. Life goes on. Better a warm living creature, rolling and playing, than silence and icy winds.

Clara had gone into a feline frenzy, rotating in a vain attempt to catch her tail, brushing the snow aside in a wide patch that bared the withered flowers and frozen earth. A white protrusion caught my eye and I bent to examine it.

It was a bulb—probably a daffodil, to judge from its size. Freezing, the ground had heaved and thrust the bulb out and upward. One less flower to brighten the springtime and testify to the hope of resurrection; it would never survive the winter’s cold, exposed and vulnerable as it was. I knelt, thinking I would replant it, but the ground was frozen hard as stone.

Bad Steinbach looked like a teeming metropolis after the loneliness of the cemetery. I was glad to be back in civilization unscathed. My shoulders ached; I realized I had been driving with my head pulled in like a turtle’s, in anticipation of attack. Thank you, Herr Professor Schmidt.

The town was livelier than usual, and as I watched people bustling around, setting up scaffolding and booths and arranging benches under the arcade, I remembered there was some sort of festival that night. Weihnacht, fröhliche Weihnacht…Mine wasn’t looking very fröhlich at the moment, what with a frozen body in my garden at home and a number of live bodies harassing me in Bad Steinbach.

I opened the car door. The cat jumped out and went swaggering off, without so much as a thank-you for the ride or a backward glance. I wondered whether she would find John at home.

When I asked for my key, the clerk gave me a handful of messages. The first was from Tony. “Dieter and Elise came by, have gone skiing, we’ll be at the Kreuzeck, why don’t you join us?” I crumpled it and went to the next, which read, “Astonishing news! Have made great discovery! Come instantly to my room!”

The other slips of paper were telephone messages, all of them from Schmidt, all of them demanding I present myself instantly. “What the devil—” I said involuntarily.

“The Herr returned an hour ago and left the message,” the clerk said wearily. “He has telephoned your room every ten minutes since. If you would be so kind, gnädiges Fräulein—”

I promised I would put a stop to Schmidt, and headed for the stairs. Schmidt and his astonishing discoveries; he had probably spotted all the members of the Politbüro lurking around Bad Steinbach.

Since he didn’t have a room in the hotel, I assumed he meant Tony’s, so I went there. A hearty “Herein, bitte,” answered my knock. I opened the door.

Schmidt was eating, of course. Brotzeit. The table was covered with beer bottles and plates, and across from Schmidt was Jan Perlmutter.

Schmidt greeted me with a shriek of pleasure. “It is you at last; I thought it was the room service. Look, Vicky—see—I have captured him!”

Jan rose to his feet and made me a stiff, formal little bow. “Guten Tag, Fräulein Doktor. I must protest the Herr Direktor’s statement. It is not accurate. To say that he captured me is a falsification of the facts.”

I studied him thoughtfully. “I liked you better as a blond, Jan.”

“That is easily remedied,” Jan said, straightfaced. “I am wearing a wig.” He pulled it off.

“And a rotten wig it is. Is that the best a socialist Soviet republic can do?”

Jan looked blank. Dieter was right; the man had absolutely no sense of humor. But the tight golden curls clung damply to his beautiful skull and he looked good enough to eat. I smiled at him. “Sit down, Jan.”

Jan sat. “He did not capture me. When I recognized the distinguished director of the National Museum…”

“I overpowered him,” Schmidt explained, brandishing his beer stein. “With a chop to the throat and a partial nelson to the leg. I then applied a hammer-bolt and forced him to return here with me.”

I said, “Shut up, Schmidt. All right, Jan, I gather you were about to make a statement. Proceed.”

“I will begin at the beginning,” Jan said.

Well, he tried. The man had a logical mind; it wasn’t his fault that Schmidt kept interrupting.

He began by taking a piece of cardboard from his breast pocket and handing it to me. “Yes,” I said. “It’s Frau Schliemann…. My God. It is Frau Schliemann!”

“Who?” Schmidt leaned forward and peered over my shoulder. “Herr Gott! This is not the same—”

“Schmidt, will you please refrain from unnecessary comments? Go on, Jan. Where did you get this?”

It had come to him in the mail. Unlike my photograph of the lady who was not Frau Schliemann, this offering had something written on the back. “What happened to the Trojan gold? Inquire of A. Hoffman, former assistant curator of the Staatliches Museum, Berlin 1939, now owner-manager of the Gasthaus Hexenhut, Bad Steinbach.”

“Now you understand why I am here,” said Jan solemnly.

“I’m damned if I do.”

“But—did you not receive a similar communication?”

Schmidt’s mouth opened. I put a doughnut in it. “Even if I had,” I said truthfully, “I wouldn’t have assumed it was an oracle from on high.”

“You don’t understand,” said Jan.

“I told you I didn’t.”

What I failed to understand was that East German scholars, particularly those of the Berlin museums, had developed a mild neurosis about the Trojan gold. They knew the Russians didn’t have it, which put them one up on the rest of us and also added to the mystery. Jan’s boss, the director of the Bode Museum, was particularly sensitive about the subject; the very mention of Troy, Schliemann, or Helen initiated a fit of twitching and mumbling. So as soon as the photograph arrived, Jan carried it dutifully to his superior.

Schmidt couldn’t let that pass. “Ha, I knew he would not have the initiative to come here on his own. They cannot go to the toilet without permission. However, Vicky, there is something admirable about the loyalty of a subordinate to—”

“Never mind, Schmidt,” I said. “Are you telling me your boss fell for this yarn, Jan?”

Not only did he fall for it; the old boy practically had a stroke. He had been on the staff of the museum and had known Hoffman well. After the war he hadn’t bothered to look him up, since the relationship had been purely professional; if he thought about the matter at all, he assumed Hoffman had been killed. When Jan assured him that Hoffman had been rusticating in Bavaria for over forty years, he thought the circumstances curious enough to merit investigation. And, as Jan modestly remarked, who was better qualified than he to investigate? The letter had been addressed to him, he knew Hoffman personally—and he also knew the five other scholars who had stayed at the Gasthaus Hexenhut.

Not that Jan actually made that last statement. He didn’t have to; I knew as well as if I had been sitting in on the discussion that this factor had been raised and debated. Jan was no dumbbell; he must have suspected he might not be the only one to receive a message.

He was rattling merrily along, his crisp curls coiling tighter as they dried, and he looked so beautiful I hated to scuttle his story. But I forced myself.

“Just an innocent little inquiry,” I said. “All open and aboveboard.”

“Aber natürlich. I have done nothing against the law—”

“Then why the wig? Why were you trailing me in Munich? Oh yes, you were, Jan; I saw you. What were you up to, that you didn’t want to be recognized?”

I would like to say that Jan’s reaction typified the police-state mentality, but I’m afraid it is typical of people in general: When somebody catches you pulling a dirty trick, blame them.

“You were conspiring against me,” Jan said sulkily.

“Me and who else? Him?” I indicated Schmidt.

Jan shook his head. “No. Of course, your superior would be in your confidence. I did not blame you for that.”

“Ha,” said Schmidt, giving me a meaningful look.

“But when I saw Dieter enter the museum, and then Tony came, all the way from America, I knew all of you were together, against me. The Western capitalist oppressors—”

“That is a flat-out lie,” I said indignantly.

“Yes? But they are here now, and also Elise and the Herr Direktor. For what have you come if it is not to steal the treasure from me?”

Schmidt emitted one of his fat, rich chuckles. “It has a suspicious look, Vicky. Admit it.”

“Well…I suppose if someone has a strong streak of paranoia to begin with…”

Schmidt’s open amusement went farther than my righteous indignation to convince Jan. He looked uncertainly from Schmidt to me.

“Are you telling me it is only a coincidence that you have met here? That you are not—”

“Conspiring? Hell, no, we aren’t even cooperating! Nobody has the faintest idea of what anybody else is doing. I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

Jan studied me solemnly. Then his lips parted and stretched into one of his rare smiles. The effect was dazzling. “I am inclined to believe you.”

“How very condescending.”

“But, Vicky, you are the one I would have expected to be best informed. You knew the old man best; it was to you he talked, sent flowers—”

“You make it sound like some sort of November-June romance,” I snapped. “We did talk. But he never mentioned the gold, Jan. Believe it or not.”

“I do believe it. Because if he had told you then, you would not be here now.” Jan leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together pyramid-style, like Holmes getting ready to enlighten poor thick-headed Watson. His smile continued to dazzle, but his eyes were as hard and opaque as brown pebbles. “I will tell you what else I believe,” he went on. “I believe you were all summoned here, as I was summoned. That Hoffman intended to divulge to us the secret he had guarded for so many years. We are in a sense an international committee, representing some of the world’s great museums, and he knew us personally. But Hoffman’s death frustrated his intention. So now we are assembled, as he wished us to be, and the treasure is still missing. You don’t know where it is either. I have observed you, all of you. Your actions have been as aimless and undirected as my own.”

“Humph,” Schmidt grunted. “He is no fool, this one.”

I was forced to agree. Jan’s theory was one that had not occurred to me—nor to the great John Smythe. It left a few minor odds and ends unaccounted for—like the frozen corpse in the back yard—but it had merit.

However, I was not moved to take Jan into my confidence and clasp him to my bosom (tempting as that idea might be). For once I didn’t have to warn Schmidt to avoid the same error. His little blue eyes narrowed to slits, and he rumbled, “Yes, he is no fool. Watch out, Vicky. Next he will suggest we puddle our information—”

“Pool,” I said. “Not puddle, Schmidt. Pool.”

“But is not that the most logical thing to do?” Jan asked guilelessly. “Working together we may achieve what none of us can do alone. We are scholars, not criminals; our aim should be to restore a treasure that belongs, not to any individual, but to the world.”

Schmidt’s reaction to this beautiful sentiment was openmouthed indignation. I looked around for something to put in his mouth before he could put his foot in it. However, he had eaten everything. So I kicked him in the ankle, and he began swearing in fluent Mittelhochdeutsch.

“I have no quarrel with your reasoning, Jan,” I said. “But I’m afraid the cause is as hopeless as it is noble. As you have seen for yourself, I have no idea where to look. There are thousands of square miles of mountain scenery out here.”

“So what do you suggest?” Jan asked.

“Me?” I opened my big blue eyes wide and looked innocent. “I’m baffled, Jan. So, as long as I’m here, I figure I might as well stay for a few days and enjoy some skiing and some Christmas cheer. The others will be going on to Turin on the twenty-seventh. I will return to my job—which I have rather neglected lately—and forget the whole thing.”

“I see,” Jan said slowly.

“You’re welcome to join the crowd,” I went on. “There’s some sort of local festival here this evening; I think Elise and Dieter are planning to have dinner with us and watch the show.”

“Perhaps I will do that.”

“Good. But—this is only a suggestion, of course—I don’t think you ought to discuss this with the others. They are even more baffled than I am.”

He agreed to meet us at the hotel at six. We parted with many expressions of good will.

After I had ushered him out, I turned to Schmidt, who was methodically finishing his catalogue of Middle-High-German obscenities. One advantage of an advanced education is that it provides you with such an extensive list of languages to swear in.

“Now what’s the matter with you?” I demanded. “That little nudge didn’t hurt.”

“I am angry with you,” Schmidt explained. “Vicky, you are a fool; don’t you know that when a Communist invites you to share a meal with him, he is planning to eat your food and his own?”

“That evil suspicion did occur to me, Schmidt.”

“He will give nothing away. He only wishes to pick your brain.”

“There’s nothing in my brain to pick.”

“Humph,” said Schmidt.

“It should be amusing,” I said dreamily. “He’ll be looking for hidden meanings in everything we say. Finding them, too, I expect.”

“Your idea of amusement is very strange,” Schmidt grumbled. “Why are you sitting here? Why don’t you follow him?”

“Why should I?”

“Because he…because you…” Schmidt bounced up. “If you don’t, I will.”

“Have fun.”

“Humph,” said Schmidt. Snatching his cap, he trotted to the door.

He opened it; then he stood back. Clara sauntered in, her tail swinging. “Guten Tag,” Schmidt said absently, and proceeded on his way.

“He wasn’t home?” I asked.

The cat didn’t reply. Jumping onto the bed, she clawed one of Tony’s shirts into a nest, lay down on it, and went to sleep.

The beds had been made, but Schmidt and Tony had managed to create considerable havoc. Cast-off clothing littered the bed and the floor, the crumbs of Schmidt’s snack were scattered far and wide, and poor Hoffman’s private papers were all over the place. The majority of them had been returned to the cartons, not too neatly; I had the impression that they had been tossed there in frustrated disgust. Others littered the chairs and the beds.

I glanced through one of the untidy piles. It consisted of a dunning letter to a guest whose check had bounced, a receipt from an antique shop in Garmisch, and bills from several record shops. Poor Tony. No wonder he had given up in despair and gone skiing.

What to do, what to do? The long empty afternoon was mine to do with as I wished, but none of the options attracted me. Skiing with Tony and the others, in the gray, flat light that skiers particularly hate—with Elise glowering at me and Dieter arranging pratfalls for me and Tony sulking because he spent more time on his backside than on his skis…Pounding on the door of the house where John squatted like a toad in its hole? He probably wouldn’t let me in, which would hurt my ego, or else he would let me in, and I would end up doing something I would regret.

To my disgust I realized that while my mind was wandering, my hands had been busy, tidying up the room. That’s what early childhood conditioning does. I noticed with sour amusement that the sweater I had just rescued from the floor was the one Ann had made with her own fair hands. She’d have a fit if she saw how cavalierly Tony treated her love-offering; it smelled faintly of the beer I had spilled the previous day. I wondered if Ann sewed cute little tags onto her creations—a picture of crossed knitting needles and a motto, “From the needles of…”

There was a tag at the back of the neck, all right. The sweater had been handmade. In Taiwan.

I stood quite still, clutching the sweater and trying to talk myself out of my evil-minded suspicions. There were a dozen different explanations for the discrepancy, the most obvious being that this was not the same sweater. My good angel, my better self, asked piously, “What difference does it make?” My other self—the one with the higher IQ—knew it did make a difference. And it knew how to ascertain the truth.

I dropped the sweater onto the floor and kicked it for good measure.

At first I thought it would be safer to make the call from a public phone, but after some reflection, I realized that it wouldn’t matter if the conversation was overheard because it wouldn’t mean anything to anyone except me—and Tony. So I went to my own room and put through a call to Munich. Some people might have taken advantage of the boss’s absence to indulge in a long lunch hour, but not Gerda. She was there. However, she was not noble enough to refrain from pointing out at some length that while she was at her desk, working her little heart out, certain other people were gadding around enjoying themselves.

“Where?” she demanded. “Where are you? You left me no number, no forwarding address. What am I to do when people ask how to reach you?”

“Has anyone tried to reach me?” I asked, with a sudden uneasy recollection of the corpse in the garden.

“Nein. Not yet. But it is not professional, what you do—”

She went on scolding, and I went on thinking about Freddy. I am a great believer in not troubling trouble until it comes troubling you, and I certainly didn’t owe Freddy anything—I had a strong suspicion he was the one who had tried to send me and Schmidt shuffling off this mortal coil—but I hated to think of him lying there cold and unwanted. It was the cold that had kept him from being discovered. If the temperature rose…

I didn’t want to think about that. I said, “Gerda, will you look something up for me?”

Gerda loves being useful. She has her own little reference shelf, right beside her desk, and it only took a few minutes for her to find the information I needed, in the National Faculty Directory.

I thanked her and hung up before she could repeat her demand for an address and phone number.

So simple, and so damning. Professor James Belfort of the Mathematics Department at Granstock and his wife Louise had no children. Tony had lied to me from the beginning. Not only was Ann no knitter, she wasn’t even a person.

Eight

I WAS ON THE BED, FLAT ON MY BACK WITH the cat on my stomach, when Tony walked in. The early winter dusk had descended, and I hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. He fell over a chair, swore, fell over a table, swore, and finally found the light switch. I deduced that he had not expected to find me in residence, because he jumped nervously and let out a yelp when he saw me.

“What the hell…Are you all right? Is something the matter, Vicky? Are you sick?” He clumped to the bed leaving damp footprints across the floor, and put an icy hand on my forehead.

“I’m fine,” I said. His fingers felt like those of a corpse. “Just thinking.”

“You and Sherlock Holmes.” Tony sat down on the edge of the bed. He was in a high good humor, so I deduced he had not sprained or broken anything that day. “I don’t buy this sedentary ratiocination technique, Vicky; you’ll never learn anything if you lie around here.”

“You’re leaking all over the bed,” I said irritably. “Get up.”

“It’s just melted snow.”

“I know it’s melted snow, that’s what I’m objecting to. Get up.”

Tony rose to his full height.

“What time is it?” I asked, yawning.

“A little after five. Dieter and Elise are joining us as soon as they change. Listen, Vicky, I found out something—”

“I suggest you emulate them,” I said, looking critically at the puddle forming around his feet.

“I will in a minute. I want to tell you what I found out—”

“Jan Perlmutter will be here at six.”

“While you were lying here in slothful ease I found out…What? Perlmutter? Where? Here? How—”

“Schmidt captured him—or vice versa.” Tony stood there melting and looking chagrined while I explained. I did not feel guilty for spoiling his big news. During my hours of cogitation, I had decided not to confront him with his low-down lies. There might be an innocent explanation, but I couldn’t think of one, and I was very hurt by his behavior. If I couldn’t trust Tony, whom could I trust?

Sir John Smythe? I had been a fool to suppose the leopard had changed its spots. Worse—a besotted fool, so bemused by John Donne and his disciple that I hadn’t noticed the fatal slip until long afterward. Perhaps John had been a little bemused too; it wasn’t like him to be so careless. More likely he was just getting old. I would like to live to see the day when John alias Smythe let a woman cloud his crystal-clear selfishness.

I couldn’t trust Schmidt either. He would double-cross me without a moment’s hesitation if he could talk himself into believing he was doing it for my own good. Just as I would do it to him.

I couldn’t trust anybody. And after all the efforts I had made to keep Tony safe and unwitting…

The narrative took the wind out of his sails in another way. Jan’s theory anticipated the one Tony had cleverly formulated after talking with Dieter. “He and Elise both got copies of that photograph,” Tony informed me.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I expected a little more enthusiasm. Even, perhaps, a touch of admiration. Something like ‘Oh, Tony, how clever,’ or ‘Tony, you never cease to amaze me—’”

“You never do,” I said grimly. “So you spilled your guts to Dieter and Elise?”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” I echoed. “Why not indeed? Why ever not?”

“You are sick,” Tony said.

I pushed his hand away. “I’m not sick. Keep your clammy hands off of me. So. Dieter and Elise are on the trail, too. Separately or in collusion?”

Tony scratched his head. “They seem to be colluding now. It was Dieter’s expedition to begin with. Elise paid no attention to the photograph—thought, as I did, that it was a typical crank communication.”

“There was no message on hers?”

“I guess not. There certainly wasn’t on mine. Dieter…” Tony pondered. “He didn’t say exactly, but there must have been something. He called Elise and got her interested; talked her into joining him here.”

“The sly little rascal,” I said. “He certainly didn’t invite me to collude with him.”

“You don’t collude well,” Tony said with a grin. “Dieter likes to be Chief; Elise makes a better Indian than you.” Then he added generously, “That’s a good point; I should have asked Dieter how he knew it was Hoffman who sent the photograph.”

“The same way Jan did, I expect.”

“That’s odd, though,” Tony said. “Why would Hoffman give Perlmutter and Dieter leads he didn’t give the rest of us?”

“I don’t know.”

I had another question, but I wasn’t about to ask Tony—not since I had learned that Ann was a figment of his imagination. Perlmutter’s photograph had been of Frau Schliemann, not Frau Hoffman. Maybe jerky Helene had been right about Tony’s photo after all. What about Dieter and Elise—Frau Hoffman or Frau Schliemann? I would try to find out, though God knows why; I couldn’t think what it might mean, if anything.

“A committee.” Tony was communing with himself. “That makes sense, you know.”

“Maybe it makes sense to you. Go drip on your own floor, Tony. I want to change.”

“It is my floor,” Tony said indignantly. With the air of a squatter establishing property rights, he dropped his soggy jacket onto said floor.

“Oh. So it is. I forgot I was in your room.”

Tony unzipped his ski pants and tried to step out of them. Since he had neglected to remove his heavy, wet boots, the pants only wadded up around his calves. “You needn’t be coy with me, Vicky,” he said tenderly, struggling with the pants. “When I realized you were here waiting for me—Hey, don’t go. I want—”

Though he was effectively pinned to the spot by the wet cloth around his feet, he has very long arms; one of them reached me as I was sidling toward the door and spun me neatly back into a fond embrace. It would have been as pretty as an old Astaire-and-Rogers routine had it not been for the fact I wasn’t feeling as friendly as Ginger, and the additional fact that Tony’s feet were immobilized. We toppled over onto the bed in a flurry of arms and bodies and breathless dialogue, profane on my part, conciliatory on Tony’s, just as Schmidt walked in.

Instead of tactfully retiring, or bursting into laughter, either of which would have been appropriate, Schmidt rubbed his hands together and beamed from ear to ear. “Ah, it is nice to see you so friendly together. Don’t mind Papa Schmidt, just go on with what you were doing.”

This cooled Tony’s ardor as effectively as the elbow I had placed under his chin. He stopped thrashing around and I assumed my feet.

“If we had been doing what you thought we were doing, which we weren’t, we certainly wouldn’t go on doing it with you refereeing from the sidelines.”

“Then what were you doing?” Schmidt asked curiously.

Tony lay motionless, his arms over his face, like a dead knight on the battlefield. I’m not as hardhearted as I’d like to be. The total humiliation of the man moved me; I knelt at his feet and began working him out of his boots. It was a complicated procedure, since everything was soaking wet and his terpsichorean efforts had twisted his pants into overlapping coils.

“We were discussing the case,” I said. “I told him about Perlmutter…. Where did he go, Schmidt?”

“I lost him,” Schmidt admitted. “I made a mistake, you see. I should have adopted a disguise. He had seen me in this suit—”

“Yes, that’s all right,” I said abstractedly.

Schmidt bent over Tony, lifted one arm, and peered down into his face. “Did you learn anything from Hoffman’s papers, mein Freund?”

“No,” Tony muttered. Schmidt let go of his arm, which dropped with force enough to make Tony grunt. “There’s nothing there,” I said.

Tony sat up. “So that’s why you were here. Can’t you trust me to do a job right?”

“No,” I said coldly. “Damn it, there goes a fingernail. Take your own damned clothes off.”

“Such language does not become a lady,” Schmidt remarked.

“I don’t give a—”

“Nothing?” Schmidt picked up handful of papers and began looking through them. “Nothing at all? No maps, no keys for storage lockers, no code messages?” Neither Tony nor I felt it necessary to dignify this question with a reply. Schmidt went on, “But what is this? Ach, Gott, it is a love letter! ‘To my adored, my own Helen…’ Ha, but that is significant! There is no Helen in the case. Had this dignified old gentleman a mistress, then? She may know—”

I took the paper from Schmidt’s hand. “It’s to his wife,” I said. “There were only a few letters; I guess they weren’t often parted. But she kept them tied up with a blue ribbon.”

“Oh.” Schmidt’s eyes filled. “How touching. Her name was Helen?”

“No, it was Amelie. Helen was his pet name for her. He quotes Goethe and Marlowe—‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships…’ Oh, stop blubbering, Schmidt, or you’ll get me started. You’re a sentimental old—a sentimental fool.”

It wasn’t Schmidt’s easy tears that roughened my voice; it was the memory of the woman’s face in the photograph. There had been beauty in that lined face once, at least to the eyes of the man who loved her.

I gathered up the rest of the letters. “I’m going to burn these,” I said. “Friedl should have had the decency to do it, instead of handing them over to strangers.”

Schmidt approved. Tony did not express any opinion. He was still struggling with his boots when I left them.

I hadn’t brought a dress, since I had not expected to attend any formal social functions. I rather wished I had when I saw Elise dolled up in mink and four-inch heels, but the weakness was fleeting; competition on that level is something I avoid, all the more readily because I don’t own a mink coat. It did occur to me to wonder how Elise could afford one.

Dieter was sporting a Groucho Marx nose with attached mustache—a modest effort, for Dieter. When someone (me) objected, he said it was Weihnacht, and there would be other masked and costumed revelers in the crowd that evening. I doubted it; but Schmidt’s face assumed a wistful expression. He asked Dieter where he had procured the nose, and they entered into an animated discussion of costume and magic shops that sold ghastly props for practical jokers.

Schmidt, who loves parties and is generous to a fault, had reserved a table and ordered champagne. Tony said very little. He was still annoyed with me, and he didn’t care much for Elise. She appeared to be in a bad mood, too. Under her mink she was wearing a slinky black cocktail dress spattered with sequins—very inappropriate, in my opinion. Glancing at the unoccupied chair, she said disagreeably, “Is this for the skeleton at the feast?”

“No,” I said. “We’re expecting someone else. Jan Perlmutter.”

That distracted Dieter from the subject of whoopee cushions. “Jan? He is here?” Unexpectedly, he began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Tony asked sourly.

Dieter took off his nose and wiped his eyes. “You don’t see how comical it is? All of us skulking about in disguise, keeping secrets from each other. It is most comical for Jan, he is naturally a spy at heart. How did you flush him out?”

Puffing himself up, Schmidt gave his version of the “capture.” Dieter shouted with laughter. “Yes, it is very funny. Poor Jan, how his pride must be hurt. He hoped to find the prize and make off with it before we could stop him.”

“Didn’t we all?” I asked, glancing at Tony, who scowled back at me.

“Of course,” Dieter said cheerfully. “Can you imagine the legal battles if it were found? Everyone has a claim—the Greeks, the Turks, the Germans—and the Metropolitan Museum or the Getty Museum would try to buy it; they have the most money to spend. But if one of us said, ‘Ha, here it is, I have it, now what are you going to do?’ it would not be easy to take it away. And if it were in East Berlin—”

“Sssh,” I said, “Here he comes.”

“Why should I ssssh?” Dieter demanded. “I don’t say anything I wouldn’t say to him. Ha, Jan, old comrade, how are things in the beautiful socialist society, eh? Have you won your dacha on the Black Sea yet?”

“No,” Jan said. “Guten Abend, Elise, Vicky, meine Herren.” Elise gave him a languid hand, and he bent over it, obviously relieved that someone was doing the proper thing.

“But how lovely it is to see you again, Jan,” Elise murmured. “Vicky, why don’t you move over, then Jan can sit between us? It is more suitable than having two ladies together.”

In my opinion, it was questionable as to whether either of us qualified, but I did as she asked, and Jan sat down. They made a nice couple; unlike the other men, Jan was formally attired in a gray three-piece suit and a somber dark tie. He only needed a black armband to complete the picture, but even the rotten tailoring and dismal color couldn’t mar Jan’s absurd good looks. He’d look divine in the clothes like those of the King in the painting—rich brocades and glowing colors, and the chaperone headdress, with its graceful hanging drapery.

Tony on my other side gave me a sharp jab in the ribs, and I realized that a silence had fallen over the table. Several people started talking at once; out of the corner of his mouth Tony muttered, “You look like a groupie staring at a rock star. Stop making a fool out of yourself.”

“I’ll have plenty of help,” I said.

Dieter banged on the table. “A toast,” he exclaimed, raising his glass. “Let us drink to…to Heinrich Schliemann!”

Schmidt giggled and Tony’s tight lips relaxed. Jan nodded gravely; but after Elise had drained her glass, she said pettishly, “I say to hell with Heinrich Schliemann. He started this—”

“Yes, but you can’t blame him,” said Dieter. He leaned over and planted a wet, smacking kiss on her cheek. “It is my fault you are here, Herzgeliebte, so you should say to hell with Dieter.”

“To hell with Dieter,” Elise said. I realized she was a little drunk. She must have downed a few before joining us.

Jan ignored the byplay. “I am glad you have decided to be candid,” he said, addressing the table at large. “As I said to Vicky today, it is foolish we should not cooperate.”

“To hell with cooperation,” Elise muttered. “I think you are all crazy. This is a wild-goose chase; we are wasting our time.”

“Oh, you hurt me,” Dieter exclaimed, clutching his heart. “I have not wasted my time, Schatzie. What is the harm in this, if it gives us a pleasant holiday? Here—have more champagne.”

“I believe I will,” Elise said.

“You claim this is for you only a pleasant holiday?” Jan demanded, frowning. “You refuse to—”

“Oh, don’t be such a suspicious old Marxist,” Dieter said. “No one is trying to put one over on you, Jan. We came here for the same reason—we admit that—and now we know we have arrived at a dead end. Is that not so? Hoffman is dead, the treasure is hidden, if it was ever here to begin with, and that is all there is to it. Now I say forget it, enjoy yourself.”

“But—” Jan began.

“But nothing. Have you an idea, a theory, you would like to propose? No? And you, Vicky—you, Tony?…” His bright, amused eyes moved around the table. “And you, Dieter? Dieter says no, he has no idea either. So let’s forget it and have fun, eh?”

“Amen to that,” Elise said loudly.

The arrival of the first course put an end to the discussion, if not to the disagreement. The band arrived, and began playing—a bizarre mixture of American soft rock and schmaltzy Bavarian waltzes. Filled with food and drink, especially the latter, Tony asked me to dance. I declined; Tony is even more of a menace on the dance floor than he is on skis. So he asked Elise, out of spite, and she was delighted to accept.

Dieter and Schmidt had gone back to discussing disguises, which left me tête-à-tête with Jan. He ate in silence for a while; then the band broke into a waltz—I think it was a waltz—and Jan said solemnly, “Will you honor me?”

“Why not?” I said.

The dance floor was so full we couldn’t do much but stand in one spot and sway back and forth. Jan swayed rather nicely; I told him so, and he returned the compliment. He was holding me even closer than the crowded conditions demanded, and when his hand began making what my mother would have called “rude gestures,” I said, amused, “I’m surprised at you, Jan.”

“Surprised? That I am human, after all?” At close range the smile was drop-dead blinding. He went on, “Do you think I am some sort of machine? No, Vicky, I am a man; I feel as any man would feel in the company of a beautiful woman.”

There was ample evidence of that. At that interesting moment the music ended with a crash of cymbals, and Tony charged toward us, towing Elise, whom he thrust into Jan’s arms. “Change partners?” he suggested.

Tony pressed me to his manly bosom and we went blundering around the floor to the strains of “Du kannst nicht treu sein.” How appropriate, I thought sadly. How tragically, poignantly, painfully appropriate. Champagne always make me sentimental.

Champagne makes Tony belligerent. “What were you doing with Jan?” he demanded. “You turn me down and then go groping around with that—that—You know what he’s after, don’t you?”

“The same thing I was after. We were both wasting our time, actually.”

“Oh. You can’t trust him, Vicky. He just wants—”

“Tony, will you try to get it into your head that this has turned into a farce? It’s like one of those films about comic secret-service agents falling over each other’s feet and out windows and into swimming pools.”

We went back to the table. At least Schmidt was having a good time. Dieter appeared equally relaxed and happy, but Jan sat in frowning abstraction, replying to Elise’s bright chatter with brusque monosyllables.

When we reached the coffee-and-dessert stage, I saw Friedl circulating among the guests like a good hostess. Hoffman had done the same thing, but with a grace and genuine good will his widow could only imitate, not emulate. Her smile was mechanical, her movements abrupt, and she kept glancing toward our table.

Jan had been watching her, too. “Is that Frau Hoffman?” he asked.

“She used to be a waitress. Don’t you remember her?”

“No.” Jan added, “One never looks at their faces, does one?”

“Especially not in Friedl’s case.”

“Bitte?” Jan asked, looking puzzled.

“It was a joke, Jan. Not a very good one, though. Are you sure you don’t remember her? She used to have brown hair—braids—”

“Oh, yes,” Jan said indifferently. “She is the one who was Dieter’s friend.”

“Not yours?”

“I prefer tall blond ladies,” said Jan, looking at me sentimentally.

I never know what to say to remarks like that; fortunately, they don’t come my way very often. After a moment, Jan said in quite a different voice, “Surely he would confide in his wife.”

Dieter caught the remark. “He would be a fool if he confided in that one. She hasn’t a brain in her head.”

“Oh? And how do you know?” Jan demanded.

“Don’t be such a self-righteous little puritan,” Dieter said without rancor. “We all had a try for Friedl, including you; if you want to have another try, go ahead. But I can tell you, she would not be running this crummy little hotel in this dull little town if she knew where there was something of value to be sold. She would sell her mother…. Ah, Frau Hoffman! Please, won’t you join us for a liquor? We are enjoying ourselves so much.”

He liberated a chair from a nearby table and Friedl accepted the invitation with a gracious inclination of the head. Dieter, his round face now as lugubrious as an undertaker’s, offered his condolences on her husband’s death. A mildly embarrassed and wholly unconvincing murmur from the rest of us seconded the sentiment, which Friedl acknowledged with proper sobriety. Accepting a glass of brandy from Dieter, she said, “I remember all of you were here last year at this time. I hope you find everything satisfactory?”

We murmured at her again. “I am glad,” she said. “It has been difficult for a woman alone. It is hard to get good help.”

“But surely,” Jan said, “many of the former employees are still here. In such a small place, it is almost like a family, yes?”

I could see what he was thinking, the foxy devil. He was trying to find someone in whom Hoffman might have confided. It was the sort of thing a good thorough private investigator would do, but I had already considered the idea, and dismissed it. If Hoffman had not divulged the secret to his best friend, he was not likely to have confided in his cook or his driver.

Friedl answered him with a long string of complaints. Several of the older employees had left, the cook was threatening to quit, the younger ones preferred to work in Garmisch, where wages were higher and there was more excitement. Dieter patted her on the back in an avuncular fashion. “You are still young, Frau Hoffman. It is too soon to be thinking of such things, but believe me, time will heal your wounds. A woman of your attractions will not always be alone.”

Friedl simpered. “You are very kind to say so, Herr Professor.”

“But it is true. A little more brandy?”

He caught my disapproving eye and winked openly. His hand was still on Friedl’s shoulder, squeezing and squirming in Dieteresque fashion. Friedl didn’t object. She giggled and nodded.

“Humph!” said Schmidt, staring.

He wasn’t the only one to find their behavior unbecoming. Elise said loudly, “We should leave if we want seats for the performance.”

“There is plenty of time,” Dieter said easily. “The seats are only for the town dignitaries; the rest of us commoners will mill around in a friendly confusion.”

He handed Friedl her glass. Reaching for it, she was a little too eager—or perhaps her hand was a little too unsteady. Only a few drops of the liquid spilled, but one of Friedl’s fake fingernails popped off and flew across the table, landing with a splash in Schmidt’s coffee. His expression of disgust as he stared at his cup would have been funny if the whole performance had not been so repellent.

The incident put Schmidt off his food, and shortly thereafter, we left. Friedl tried to keep her hand out of sight, but I caught a glimpse of the denuded finger. The nail was bitten to the quick.

After the overheated, stale confines of the restaurant, the night air felt like wine. Clouds hid the winter stars, but the Marktplatz was as brilliant as a stage, and the dark slopes of the Hexenhut twinkled with lights like a giant Christmas tree. Even Elise forgot her ill humor. “Oh, look,” she cried, “what is it?”

“Torches,” Tony said. “The young men carry them in procession through the forest and end up on top of the mountain where there is a huge bonfire.”

“It is in essence a pagan festival,” Jan explained. “The old pre-Christian commemoration of the winter solstice. On the longest night of the year, the fires were lit to welcome the returning Sun, who was the god of these heathens. The demons of darkness are most dangerous at this time, you understand, so the ignorant villagers make loud noises to frighten them away. No doubt there was once a pagan sanctuary on that very hill; the name Witches’ Hat—”

“We’ve all studied folklore, Jan,” I said.

“Yes, don’t lecture to us,” Dieter added. “This is supposed to be fun. Come, let us find a good place. Where does the parade go?”

“Down from the mountain, I think,” Tony said. “It ends up at the church.”

From pushcarts and stalls draped in greenery, people were buying trinkets and refreshments—mundane modern offerings like cotton candy and popcorn along with fragrant, freshly baked gingerbread and twisted canes of red-and-white sugar. Schmidt bought an enormous candy cane and a pocketful of gingerbread, which he munched as we made our way through the crowd. People filled the Marktplatz and the surrounding streets, whose steep slopes made an informal viewing stand. It was a cheerful, well-mannered crowd, but beer was flowing freely and I suspected there would be a few fights before the night was over. Ropes strung from wooden horses outlined a path through the Marktplatz and around the fountain; it ended, as Tony had said, at the church.

Christian theology had converted the spirits of forest and field into demons, to be expelled and exorcised. The hunters on the hillsides would drive them from their refuge and into the church, where the priest would cast them into outer darkness. Poor little harmless nymphs and satyrs, stumbling and squealing as they fled the hunters, cowering under the ceremonial lash of the priestly voice. Since the ceremony had to be repeated every year, one might reasonably assume that the demons weren’t annihilated, only temporarily inconvenienced. I was glad of that.

I realized I had taken a little too much to drink. Contrary to popular belief, fresh air doesn’t clear one’s head; in fact, it concentrates the fumes. The others were feeling no pain, either; Jan’s face was flushed and he had an arm around Elise, under her coat.

Alternately pushing and wheedling, Dieter forced a path through the milling bodies. His methods were deplorable—I heard him tell one large woman who was reluctant to give up her place that his poor old father was suffering from leprosy and wished to watch the festival once more before he died. He was referring to Schmidt, whose face did suggest some loathsome disease; the crumbs of the gingerbread had stuck to the patches of sugar from the candy cane and he looked absolutely disgusting. The woman backed away, whether from compassion or fear of catching the disease I would hesitate to say. Dieter’s technique was effective; we ended up right against the ropes.

The twinkling torches twisted in snakelike symmetry, converging on the mountaintop. Then a great tongue of fire rose heavenward, and a roar of delight rose from the watchers. It was paganism, pure and simple, and it was very contagious; I realized I was yelling, too. As the voices died away, a spatter of firecrackers echoed across the valley. Like sparks from a spreading fire, or burning lava from the heart of a volcano, the torches reappeared and expanded out and down, faster now, as the runners took the downhill slope at perilous speed. The sounds of explosions accompanied them, growing louder as they approached the village—firecrackers, horns, and an occasional blast from one of the old-fashioned blunderbusses resurrected for the occasion. There were special organizations, called Christmas Shooters, in some Alpine villages; the members practiced all year with the old black-powder, ramrod weapons.