The Silver Castle

by Nancy Buckingham

  As we crossed to the staircase, I was aware that Raimund glanced back to where Karl stood beneath the great pewter lantern, and I sensed the wary look that passed between them. Whatever had happened was no small matter, I knew. I knew too that I was somehow concerned in it.

  Chapter Twelve

  The mystery was solved next morning by Sigrid, who sent for me after breakfast. In the little room adjoining her bedroom, she motioned me to sit down and moved her wheelchair nearer. Her face was pale and sombre, the eyes deeply shadowed.

  “Did you have a good night, Gail?”

  “Yes, thank you,” I lied.

  “That is what we hoped. Distressing news is always better received in the morning, I think.”

  I waited nervously for what was coming. Sigrid lifted her hands a few inches, sketched a small ineffectual gesture, then let them fall back into her lap, as if she sought some way of softening bald facts and could not find it.

  “There has been an accident,” she told me. “The boy Willi ...”

  I jerked forward in my chair. “What’s happened to Willi?”

  “He was knocked down by an Auto ... a case of hit-and-run. He was found later at the side of the road.”

  “Oh no,” I gasped. “Is he badly hurt? Is he in hospital?”

  She reached out to me, her fingers touching my cheek in compassion.

  “I am afraid that he is dead, Gail. They say he must have died instantly, so he would not have suffered. That, at least, is a blessing.”

  The room began to gyrate wildly, and a howling noise deafened my ears. It felt as if I had to shout with all the power of my lungs to make myself heard.

  “When did it happen? Where ... ?”

  “Last night, at about dusk. Willi was carrying wood for his father, as he often did. It’s a curious thing, Gail, but the accident must have happened quite close to the spot where you yourself were nearly struck by a car the night before last.”

  But there was something that Sigrid didn’t realise ... the horribly significant fact that Willi had been with me that previous time. I relived the terrifying moments, and knew now that the driver had deliberately aimed at us. It had been his intention to kill. And, twenty-four hours later, he had succeeded. He had claimed his victim—Willi, the deaf-mute boy who had been a witness to that other killing—the murder of my father and Valencienne Kreuder.

  It seemed incredible now that I had not grasped this before. Was not murder a hundred times more likely an explanation than that my father should kill himself and the woman he loved for no logical reason? There was a clear motive for murder ... the anger of a jealous husband.

  I heard Sigrid say something, and stammered, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch ...”

  “I asked if you were feeling unwell, my dear. We knew you’d be upset. That is why Anton suggested that we left telling you until this morning, and why he asked me to do it ... as gently as possible. It’s a dreadfully sad thing, I know, but you mustn’t allow it to distress you too much, Gail.”

  I stared at her, finding it curiously difficult to focus my eyes. “You say that Anton asked you to tell me?”

  “Yes. I agreed that it would be kinder this way than for him to stay up and confront you with the news when you arrived back from Geneva.”

  Kinder to me—or safer for him? Face to face with me, might not his eyes have betrayed something of the truth? This way, he hoped that I wouldn’t suspect his involvement, and that Willi’s death could be glossed over as an unfortunate accident.

  Sigrid was still talking and although I could hear the sound of her voice, anxious, soothing, compassionate, I couldn’t distinguish the words. It was as though the clamour in my head was preventing me from thinking. My brain was numbed, cowering under the weight of damning facts that I couldn’t isolate. I knew only that Anton Kreuder had convicted himself of deliberate, calculated murder.

  I had to get away, I had to be alone. I mumbled some vague excuse to Sigrid, but it only served to increase her concern for me. As I rose and stumbled towards the door she followed me quickly in her chair, trying to prevent me leaving. Suddenly she seemed like an enemy, because her very existence barred the way to my revealing the truth. After Sigrid’s kindness to me, how could I add to her sufferings by announcing to the world that her stepson was a murderer? A murderer three times over.

  Sigrid held out her hands to me imploringly. “Gail, my dear, stay here and let us talk.”

  “No, no ...” Shaking my head emphatically, I wrenched open the door and ran along the corridor to my own room. Safely inside, I turned the key, knowing that Sigrid would follow me.

  A moment later she tapped softly on the door. “Gail, let me in. It will do you no good to upset yourself to this extent.”

  I took a deep, juddering breath. “No, please.... I’ll be all right. I just need to be alone for a little while.”

  She was unconvinced, worried about me, but finally she went away.

  I had imagined that when I was alone I’d be able to marshal my thoughts into an orderly pattern. But my mind remained a chaotic jumble, a thunderstorm of wild flashes and terrifying crashes that seemed to echo back into regions of time gone by.

  I stood at the window, clutching the damask curtain, and stared out at the sunlit lake. It looked so calm and peaceful now, but one night in February its dark waters had closed over a man and a woman while their killer had escaped—the whole incident observed by a retarded boy who was bewildered by a world he could not understand.

  And Anton had somehow discovered that Willi knew his dreadful secret. The carved boat had probably given him the first clue, and later, he must have visited the chalet again and seen the three crude figures Willi had used in his effort to tell me about the murder. It would have been Anton himself who had taken them away, not Willi at all.

  Doubtless Anton was puzzled about why I had not mentioned that Willi had been with me at the time of my near “accident.” Why wasn’t he afraid that I would reveal this fact now and start a trail of suspicion that might lead all the way back to the death of Valencienne and my father? He must feel very confident that he was safe, confident that I could do him no harm by telling what I knew.

  But how much, in fact, did I know? Only that two nights ago a car had been driven headlong at Willi and myself so that we narrowly escaped death, and that the very next evening, on the same stretch of road, Willi had been killed. It could easily be written off as just a coincidence. What else did I know that would weigh as evidence against the influential Anton Kreuder?

  There was only my word for it that Willi had suggested that there had been a second man on the boat when Valencienne and my father had died. I had no evidence to support this, now that the carved figures had disappeared.

  What else, I thought frantically ... there must be something more. I had been so certain, was still so certain, that a hundred indications pointed to Anton’s guilt. But what were they?

  A motive? Who else but Anton Kreuder had a motive for killing his wife and her lover? So why hadn’t he come under police suspicion at the time? That suicide message ... Anton’s report of a telephone call from my father, who’d talked wildly of ending it all. Yet there was only Anton’s word that such a conversation had ever taken place. He’d received that call, so he claimed, when he was staying late at his office, alone. No one, not a secretary nor any other employee at the silk mill, not a member of his family nor a servant, could confirm or deny the fact. And Anton had added to his story’s credibility by making anxious enquiries about Benedict Sherbrooke in the village inns.

  He had been very sure of himself, until his discovery that Willi knew the true facts. And now that Willi had been safely removed, was he once more entirely confident?

  If he doubted me ... if he had cause to suspect that I was not deceived like all the others, would he hesitate to dispose of me as well? Was he watching and waiting now to see how I would react to the news of Willi’s death?

  The other night I would have di
ed too if Anton had succeeded in his first attempt on Willi’s life. Had that been his intention, or was I merely expendable in his eyes? And on the mountaintop last Sunday, was it purely an accident that I’d slipped and fallen on the narrow path? Or had I been pushed, only the sudden appearance of the two hikers thwarting Anton’s attempt to dispose of me. I couldn’t be sure, and the question twined a knot of pain around my heart.

  Anton hated me, I did know that. His only sincere reaction to me had been in those moments in the silk mill’s yard when he’d first learned who I was. And later, that night, when Raimund and I had arrived home and he’d withered me with his scorn. But ever since then Anton had joined with his stepmother and half-brother in being charming to me, doing everything he could think of to persuade me to stay in Switzerland.

  Why, I wondered, hadn’t he wanted me to return to England, where I’d be safely out of his way? Suppose I were to announce now that I was leaving? I could easily give a plausible excuse. Anton could surely do nothing to prevent my going?

  But even as I posed the question, I knew that the time was past for running away. It was already too late yesterday, when I had been lanced through by the sudden discovery that I loved Anton. Now it was too late because, somehow, I had to find a way of proving his guilt. And I was the only person who could do that.

  Or instead prove him innocent, a stubborn fragment of my mind insisted. But I fought against the idea because it was treacherous. I mustn’t allow doubts to creep in, I warned myself, and I summoned up a fresh flood of damning memories to drive them away.

  I recalled Anton’s thoughtful silence when I’d suggested that Willi, with the boat he had carved, was trying to convey to me his feelings about my father’s death. And crowding quickly upon this came a new remembrance of only yesterday. The whole day, I saw now, had been organised towards the calculated scheme for getting rid of Willi. I had been manoeuvred out of harm’s way so that I couldn’t make contact with the boy again ... it had clearly astonished Raimund, I recalled, when Anton first suggested the trip to Geneva. And when we were there, Anton had made a phone call to the silk mill, then announced that he must return at once, without us. Back in Zurich, alone, he had been free to arrange the “hit-and-run accident” that had ended poor Willi’s short life.

  I realised that in staying at the Schloss Rietswil I would probably be endangering my own life. But I had to stay, I had to see this thing through. My one hope lay in convincing Anton that I didn’t harbour any suspicions against him. I had to behave as everyone would expect me to behave over the news of Willi’s death ... upset, but not extravagantly so.

  Already I had betrayed an abnormal degree of agitation to Sigrid, and doubtless she would mention it to Anton. I must put right the damage before Anton returned from the silk mill at lunch time.

  I washed my face and changed my clothes, then went in search of Sigrid. Ursula, arranging a bowl of long-stemmed yellow tulips in the hall, told me that I would find her mistress in the salon. I paused outside the double doors while I tried to adopt a composed expression, then I turned the handle and entered the green and amber room.

  Ursula had not warned me that Anton would be there, too. I shrank from him before I had the wit to control myself, and he could not have failed to notice. He rose from his chair and came over to me, his face expressing concern.

  “Gail, you’ve had a bad shock. Sigrid has just been telling me.”

  I steeled myself against weakness, steeled myself to meet his eyes without evasion as I spoke the lies I had prepared for Sigrid.

  “No, I’m all right now. I suppose ... well, hearing about the death of a child is always rather horrible. And somehow it’s made worse by the thought that poor Willi was handicapped. That’s not very logical, I know.”

  “But very natural.” His look was tender, his voice hushed with sympathy. “Come and sit down, Gail.”

  As I did so, I forced myself to smile at Sigrid. “I’m sorry I made such an exhibition of myself just now, Frau Kreuder.”

  “Not at all, my dear. I quite understand.”

  But what would she think, I wondered, if she really understood. Her safe, secure world would be shattered forever. I glanced back at Anton and enquired steadily, “Were you able to sort things out yesterday?”

  “At the mill, you mean?” He lifted his shoulders. “Fortunately the trouble wasn’t anything too serious.”

  His stepmother smiled affectionately. “Fancy Anton hurrying back from Geneva like that. But then he’s a perfectionist about everything he touches.”

  A perfectionist in murder, too.

  “In normal circumstances I would have waited up for you last night,” Anton was saying apologetically, “but it seemed the best plan to ...”

  “Yes, Frau Kreuder explained to me.”

  “I had to be at the silk mill on time this morning, but I thought I’d just call back home for half an hour to see how you were.” He smiled at me. “According to Raimund, Germaine’s party was a great success.”

  “Yes.”

  Ursula came in at that moment to say that Sigrid was wanted on the phone, and she decided to take the call outside, wheeling herself deftly from the room. I felt terrified of being left alone with Anton.

  He said, “I’m glad you’re able to get this unhappy business about Willi into perspective, Gail.”

  I held my hands clasped together in my lap, trying to still their trembling. Despite my resolution not to make too much of Willi’s death, I couldn’t prevent myself from saying, “When is the funeral to be? Has it been arranged?”

  “I shouldn’t think so, not yet. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I’d like to go.”

  His mouth tightened. ‘It’s likely to be a simple affair, and you’d probably feel rather out of place. I should forget the idea, if I were you.”

  “No, I really want to go. It... it’s the one last thing I can do for Willi.”

  “It won’t help him now,” said Anton, sounding brutal.

  “Perhaps it’s for my own sake,” I conceded. “I shall feel better if I go.”

  “You might not be welcome there, Gail.”

  “Oh, why shouldn’t I be welcome?” My voice was defiant.

  He didn’t answer, looking at me with a strange expression, and I couldn’t press him any further as Sigrid had come back into the room.

  “That was Ernst on the telephone,” she explained.

  Anton turned to her questioningly. “What did he want?”

  I could see that she was hesitant about telling him in front of me, so I took the opportunity to excuse myself. There was something I was anxious to check up on, right away.

  The thought had come to me suddenly that since Anton was at home, his car would be here too. The blue Mercedes was always kept immaculate, and I didn’t doubt that it would be now ... Anton was far too clever to leave any telltale marks. But if I looked carefully, knowing what I was searching for, might there not be some indication that his car had hit a human body at high speed?

  As I’d expected, the car was parked outside in the courtyard. I walked over to it, trying to appear casual in case someone might be watching. At first I could detect nothing suspicious, then the slanting sunlight revealed a distortion in the nearside front wing. Running my fingertips over the polished surface I could feel a shallow indentation. With a sudden sense of horror I snatched my hand away, feeling shocked and sickened.

  “Are you looking for something?”

  It was Anton, leaving much sooner than I’d expected. As I spun around to face him I was aware of warm colour staining my cheeks.

  “Oh, I ... I saw something glitter on the ground and I thought it must be a coin.”

  He laughed and started searching the cobblestones around about. “Finders keepers, Gail—isn’t that what you say?”

  Was he mocking me, only pretending to be deceived? I couldn’t be sure, and I had to play out the game of looking for a nonexistent coin.

  “I must have been m
istaken,” I said after a few moments.

  “Yes, I think you were.” Anton’s smile was gone now, and he gave me a puzzled, thoughtful look. Then with a brief, “See you later,” he got into his car and slammed the door.

  Did he suspect what I’d really been doing, I wondered apprehensively as I watched him drive away. I’d have to be far more careful from now on. Then I caught sight of a movement in the darkness of an open doorway across the courtyard, and I guessed that Josef was there, watching me stealthily. How much had he seen? Could I be sure that he wouldn’t go running to Anton with a report?

  I went indoors, and there I had to face Sigrid again. She was waiting for me in the hall.

  “Gail, you’re not seriously thinking of going to Willi’s funeral, are you?”

  How quickly Anton had passed on this information ... as if it somehow mattered to the Kreuders whether I went or not.

  “Yes, I intend to go,” I said steadily.

  “But, my dear girl, what will you achieve, beyond upsetting yourself all over again?”

  “I’d be more upset if I didn’t go.”

  I noticed that her eyes had a strained look. “People will find it strange. They’ll wonder what you are doing there.”

  “I don’t see why they should. I’m not ashamed of having been fond of Willi, as my father was. To me it seems only natural to go to his funeral.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t be seen in quite that light by others.”

  “Really. How will it be seen?”

  She gestured helplessly, her delicate hands fluttering like the fragile wings of an injured bird.

  “As interference, perhaps.”

  “But that’s absurd.” I paused, not wanting to be rude, yet driven on by an inner conviction that I was in the right. “I am your guest here, of course, so if you forbid me to go ...”

  “My dear, I could hardly do that,” she said quietly.

  “Then I shall act as I think best. And please let’s say no more about it.”

  Chapter Thirteen