“So you will understand she was not the most gracious of daughters when Uncle Heinrich departed. And when he never returned, she carried the guilt of that with her. Particularly as conditions worsened and she realized that her father had not been as selfish and dishonorable in his actions as she’d assumed.”
“So she decided to try to find him,” I concluded.
Kurt shifted his feet in the snow, making it crunch, and clasped one fist in the palm of the other hand before him as he thought back. “When I was next home for leave, she convinced me to go to Frau Vischering, posing as another deserter to learn all I could. I told her the idea was faulty. That I was unlikely to learn anything. But she would not be swayed. It was the only link we had, you see. The only tangible information we had to go on. And so I went, hoping to prevent Anni from doing something even more reckless.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Other than the fact that Frau Vischering was not a cold-hearted traitor, but merely a woman who chooses to view the worth of each person on their merits alone and not that of their nationality, no.” He heaved a sigh. “But Anni, she would not accept that. When I returned to Berlin after the war, I discovered she had gone to Monschau to search for answers herself. And that she had contrived to get herself hired as her maid.” He shook his head, his face forlorn. “I begged her to let it go. To return to Berlin with me and move on with her life. But she would not listen. She began leaving threats.”
“She left the threats?” I repeated.
He grimaced. “Childish things. Anonymous letters and messages scrawled on walls. But they frightened Frau Vischering, and it was cruel to do so, especially when the old woman had only ever been kind to Anni. When that didn’t work, she became determined to come to England, to search for the truth here, though I didn’t understand how.” He straightened his shoulders. “That was when I threatened to go to Frau Vischering and tell her everything if she did not abandon her plans, but she outwitted me. She told her that I was a scorned suitor who badgered her, and soon after they departed for England.”
“But you followed them?”
“Yes, though it was not easy.” He cleared his throat. “I am not here legally.”
I had already guessed as much.
Tabitha came trotting out of the woods then, licking her chops, and I shook my head at her, for what a poor guard dog she’d turned out to be. But I also wanted to howl at the uselessness of Anni’s charade. “I wish she’d come forward and told us who she was. For the truth is, we don’t know what became of Herr Becker. As I said, he was sent back to Germany on another mission, one that was admittedly more dangerous than the first, but he agreed to it and he was handsomely compensated. I’d hoped he’d simply returned to his family, taking the money given to him with him. After all, he’d made it clear his loyalty lay with his family above all else. But sadly, it appears that’s not where he went. Or, at least, he never arrived.”
I turned to gaze out over the quiet woods as the shadows lengthened, casting strange elongated patterns across the snow. “You were seen by several people speaking to Anni in the village.”
“I figured as much. That’s why they’ve been hunting for me, isn’t it?” Kurt’s jaw hardened. “I’m a stranger, and a German at that. They think I killed her.”
“Did you?” I asked evenly.
His brow furrowed, as if he wished to take offense, but then he abandoned it, perhaps recognizing it was a legitimate question. “No.” He tilted his head in candor. “Honestly, I thought at first that you might have done it. That you’d realized who she was and tried to silence her. But then I realized that made no sense. What had you to fear from her? And also I watched you and listened to the villagers when I could, trying to learn more of you. I realized then that you were not content to accept the police’s conclusion.” His gaze flicked to Sidney, who despite his deceptively relaxed stance was still on guard. “That you and your husband were searching for the truth yourselves.”
“How did you learn such things without drawing people’s attention?” Sidney questioned. “Where did you conceal yourself?”
His gaze darted between us, as if hesitant at first to share. “The church. The bell tower.”
Of course. I wanted to kick myself, for I should have realized sooner that the church would be the perfect place to hide. It was always open, but also often deserted. Particularly at night.
“People do not often guard their tongues in a church. They think they are not overheard. Except by God. But then, you English tend to believe he’s always on your side.”
I couldn’t fault him for this assertion. It was true. But I turned my queries back to the matter of Bauer’s murder.
“What happened in the barn?”
Kurt’s eyes dimmed. “I don’t know. Not for certain. That is the truth. She planned to leave you a letter, asking you to meet her there so that we could both confront you. I was to arrive later than her, after the two of you had begun to talk. But when I reached the barn . . .” His shoulders sagged and pain etched his brow. “She was already dead.”
“You were the one who laid her out on the floor,” Sidney guessed.
“I thought I might be able to save her, but . . . she was already gone.”
I was not insensitive to the grief I heard in his voice. Not after just battling my own. But what we needed most right now were answers. And I hoped Kurt could help us to find those.
“You were also in the woods.” It was a statement more than a question. “Watching us.”
“I needed to be sure she would be found, to know who would find her.”
“In case they were the killer returning?”
“Yes.”
I did not fault him for this thinking. I would have pondered the same thing. After all, it was unlikely someone would have just happened upon such an isolated spot except a field hand come to bale the hay.
“So you didn’t see or hear anything or anyone that might tell us who killed her?” I pressed.
“No, but . . .” He frowned, wrestling with himself. “A few days before, she told me that she’d been confronted by a man as she was leaving the village. She said he all but accused her of being a spy, and that he would be watching her.”
I shared a look with Sidney. “What man?”
“I can’t recall his name. Hard-something. She called him a soft egg, a slacker.” He began to speak faster, perhaps in reaction to my jolt of realization, which he seemed to interpret wrong. “I heard the man she was speaking of talk several times, heard the way he struggled for breath. I thought he had been gassed and told her she was cruel to label him so. But she said he’d not been gassed. That he’d not fought at all. I realized then that his health must have been poor.”
I turned away, pacing a tiny circle as I considered the ramifications of what he’d just revealed.
“You know who this is?” Kurt asked.
“Yes, and I think . . .” I broke off, unwilling to say more until I was certain. “I need to speak with Freddy.” I turned to stride off, but then paused to turn back. “Where are you staying? The church still? Is it safe?”
He shrugged. “As safe as anywhere.”
I glanced at Sidney, who was watching me, and then made a decision. “Will you wait? I’m going to send someone to you. Someone who will bring you some food and lead you to a place to shelter on my father’s property. I give you my word that as long as you have been honest with me, you will not be harmed.”
He studied me and then Sidney in turn, and for a moment I felt certain he would refuse. But then his shoulders dipped, as if bowed beneath the weight of a heavy burden. “Yes, I will wait.”
I nodded once and then turned to stride off toward the house, whistling for Tabitha to follow.
Sidney caught up with me in half a dozen steps. “Isaac Hardcastle.”
“Yes.” I pressed my lips together grimly. “What Kurt told us isn’t proof of anything, of course, but . . . I think Freddy might be able to tell u
s more.”
Whether Sidney understood what this oblique statement meant, I couldn’t tell, but he didn’t question it. Instead, he gripped my elbow to help me over a fallen tree limb. “Then let’s go see him.”
After a quick word with Father, who agreed to have one of his staff provide shelter for Kurt in one of the outbuildings, and to keep the matter hush-hush from everyone else, we knocked on the door of the cottage. Freddy answered, and the looks on our faces must have conveyed our urgency.
“What is it? What’s happened? Tante Ilse?” he asked in rapid fire, giving me some idea of what his manner had been in the operating theater at the front after battles. When one broken soldier’s body after another was placed on the table before him to repair, or at least stave off the prospect of imminent death, before being whisked away to be replaced by another.
“No, I’m sorry. It’s not Tante,” I told him. “It’s about Fräulein Bauer’s murder.”
“You’ve thought of something.”
It wasn’t truly a question, but I answered it as one nonetheless. “Yes.”
He glanced behind him before stepping back to allow us entry. “Rachel’s upstairs with Ruth and Miss Pettigrew,” he explained as we moved toward the wooden table with four spindle-backed chairs that stood closest to the door. A bowl of pine cones and evergreen boughs sat at the center, lending their aroma to the room. A small stove stood near the wall along with a cupboard, while the other half of the room was arranged as a cozy sitting area with chintz sofas. Pale green paint covered the walls, and a coordinating shade of chintz adorned the windows. Beyond the sitting area lay the stairs and then the bath and a workroom.
“You have questions for me,” he deduced, not forcing me to have to explain myself.
“When Tim came to collect you and the motorcar after we’d found Bauer, you weren’t here,” I began.
“That’s correct. I’d been summoned to the Hardcastles’. Isaac had one of his asthmatic episodes . . .” His voice broke off almost midword, as if realizing the same thing I had.
I leaned across the table toward him. “Did they tell you what brought it on? Did he or Mrs. Hardcastle explain?”
He began to shake his head, but then stopped. “No. They didn’t. But hay is one of the chief culprits, and I found some on my coat when I departed.” His gaze shifted to Sidney and then back to me again. “Mrs. Hardcastle had hung it over Isaac’s on the hook.” He sat back, plainly staggered, and swore. “Isaac Hardcastle. Do you really think so?”
“In your medical opinion, would he be physically capable of it?” Sidney asked. “Could he wield a pitchfork like that?”
“Of course,” Freddy replied without question. “Even in the midst of a minor attack, I suspect he would be able to do so. Only while suffering a more severe incident would he be truly incapacitated, and he suffers from those far less than Mrs. Hardcastle would have everyone believe. Because he listens to medical advice and normally avoids strenuous physical exertion and known triggers, like hay.”
“Was his attack the day Bauer was killed severe?” I queried. “Severe enough it may have been brought on by both strenuous physical exertion and exposure to hay?”
His voice was solemn. “Aye.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth and turned to gaze out the window toward the inner courtyard. The sun had set, leaving naught but a dusky light in the sky. “Good heavens, he did it,” I finally said. “It has to be him.”
Freddy stood to turn on a lamp, as if just recognizing it was needed. “Not the missing German?”
“He’s not missing anymore.” I glanced at Sidney. “We just spoke with him. He was Bauer’s cousin, and I’m certain he didn’t kill her.”
Freddy turned to Sidney, and I felt a twinge of annoyance that he should expect my husband’s opinion on this to be more valid than mine.
“Verity’s right. He didn’t do it,” he concurred. “It makes no sense for him to have done so. Not when everything he’d done before then had been to try to keep her safe.”
I pressed my finger to the table, further laying out my case. “He also told us that Isaac had approached Bauer one day when she was leaving the village and essentially threatened her. He told her that he knew she was a spy, and he would be watching her.”
“So he followed her to the field barn . . .” Freddy surmised.
“Or overheard Bauer and her cousin planning to meet there,” Sidney chimed in to suggest. “He might have denied knowing German.” He nodded to me. “But I would wager Verity’s memory is correct, and he does know it.”
Though we would have to ask Kurt if he knew precisely what Isaac had overheard them discussing.
Freddy nodded, conceding this possibility. “And expecting she was up to no good, he decided to confront her. Matters turned heated . . .”
I arched my eyebrows. “Maybe she called him a coward and a slacker, as she’d already told her cousin she believed him to be.”
He cringed. “Aye, that would certainly get under Hardcastle’s skin. So, he picked up the pitchfork, whether intending to use it or just threaten her, and then ended up skewering her.”
I grimaced. “That’s the gist of it.”
Sidney shifted in his chair to face me. “Is that what a ‘soft egg’ means? A coward?”
I realized he was referring to what Kurt had said in the woods. “Yes, some Germans would call a coward a weichei, a weich ei, which literally translates to a ‘soft egg.’ ”
He tilted his head in consideration. “So is a ‘hard egg’ someone brave?”
I scowled at him, for now was not the time for such a discussion. “The trouble is, we don’t have any proof. Isaac’s fingerprints might be on the handle of that pitchfork—and he would undoubtedly have a difficult time explaining them if they were—but he might just as easily have worn gloves. It was cold enough.”
Freddy nodded. “And very like Isaac to do so in order to avoid touching anything that might trigger a fit. Have the police tested the pitchfork for fingerprints yet?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to ask Father to speak to Sergeant Bibby about it tomorrow, and pressure them to do so if they haven’t. Threatening to go over his head if he must.”
“Aye, Bibby will want to keep on Father’s good side. He’ll see it’s done.” He sighed, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “But if there aren’t any fingerprints, I’m afraid there isn’t much of a case against him. Any barrister worth his salt would argue that the asthmatic attack could be attributed to any number of sources. It’s certainly not proof he was in the barn, though it is indicative.”
“Not that he would even be arrested on the evidence we do have,” Sidney stated matter-of-factly. “After all, who other than us is going to believe the word of a German who snuck into this country illegally over a parish councilman?”
He was right. It was more likely that Sergeant Bibby would arrest Kurt on Isaac’s flimsy evidence, no matter what we said. And I couldn’t reveal my connection to Heinrich Becker, or why Bauer and Kurt had come to England, or explain any of their odd behavior without compromising myself and breaking the oath I’d sworn to uphold the Official Secrets Act.
“So what do we do?” Freddy asked.
My jaw firmed. “We need a confession.”
My brother studied me, clearly weighing and assessing me with new eyes given the things he’d learned about me in the past few days. “Do you think you can get one from him?”
“For him, it all comes down to pride,” I replied. “He’ll want to brag to someone. After all, what good is saving England from German spies if no one ever knows about it? He needs someone to know that he did his bit. Not just in serving on the parish council, but actually in a warlike capacity.”
Freddy’s eyes glimmered with sympathy. “Aye, I’m certain it eats at him, his not having been able to serve.”
Just as I was certain he was aware everyone pitied him for it. Freddy might feel compassion for him, but he
didn’t want it. What he wanted was respect. That was something I could appreciate. But not if it meant he’d killed an innocent German maid in his quest to get it.
CHAPTER 30
Having agreed it would be best to wait until Father returned from speaking with Sergeant Bibby on the progress of the inquest and whether the handle of the pitchfork had been tested for fingerprints, I spent much of the next morning pacing the floors. I was still undecided on what was the best way to confront Isaac, realizing I would only get one chance to elicit a confession from him. His words to us in the churchyard while Bauer was being laid to rest suggested he might already be on guard, but I was hopeful I could still play on his insecurities.
Sometime shortly after midmorning, Abbott appeared in the doorway of the drawing room. “A message for you, Mrs. Kent, delivered by the Capshaws’ manservant.”
Surprised by this news, I hastened over to take the missive. Turning toward the sunlight spilling through the window, I opened it.
I must speak with you. Come to St. Margaret’s at half past eleven. Father has use of the motorcar, and I can’t risk the staff overhearing.—Violet
It was hastily scrawled, and the ink had smudged from being folded too quickly. A glance at the clock told me I must hurry if I hoped to arrive at the time requested. Passing it to Sidney, I hastened up the stairs to fetch my Prussian blue velvet coat with roll collar and matching hat. I met him coming up as I was on my way back down.
“Shall I come with you?”
“I’d rather you stay here to wait for Father,” I told him while buttoning the coat up over my gown. “That way you can come straight there to fetch me should there be any immediate news. But I will need to take your Pierce-Arrow.”
He glanced down at the note, clearly harboring some sort of wariness I didn’t feel.
“I can’t imagine there being any trouble,” I assured him. “The vicar will be there, as well as any number of other parishioners going in and out about various tasks.” I arched a single eyebrow in teasing. “Or is your hesitation more about my getting behind the wheel of your prized Pierce-Arrow?”
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