Claire hesitated. She loved the sound of bells. There was just time enough to sit outdoors and feel the last push of the sun on her skin. A clock was on the sideboard outside her room. Claire touched it with tentative fingers, then picked it up and turned it upside down. It was a neat, small clock. She tried her Swiss Army knife on one of the screws, but the blade wasn’t nearly fine enough. There would be no room for a lot of diamonds in there at any rate. Iris said there had been sixty stones. Claire heard something and furtively put the clock down. She pattered down the waxed wood floor, past the shut doors, locked her moon-pale hand onto her pocket lint and jangled the new loose, exotic change. She whooshed down the stairs excitedly, savoring this clean, toilet-watered, just-ready-to-go-out rush when a swinging pendulum of dark shadow went back and forth past the window at the landing of the stairs. It looked—it was a man, upside down, his feet caught up in the bell ropes. He was swinging.
She stopped and gripped the wall. He was swinging. He looked—She waited, rapt, for the next time he would pass. She heard his skull crack against the tower wall.
His upside-down eyes, horrified, swept by.
His spotless blue-and-white-checkered shirt went back and forth with him inside it, holding him, entirely like baggage, dead.
Through the hallway raged a woman’s screams. Claire never knew they were her own until she heard them stop.
3
The first one to reach Claire was Blacky. He swung around the corner, nimble as a fireman, and took her in his arms until he saw what it was.
“Herrgott!” he cried and let her crumple to the floor. Up the lighthouse-like stairs he lurched, pausing at the halfway window to see if he could jimmy open the shutters. They were crusted shut from years of paint. He gave up that idea quickly and raced the rest of the way to the top. He tried to tug Hans’s body up from there, but he had no luck.
Puffin Hedges, lighting Mara Morgen’s cigarette in the garden down below, saw what was going on, dropped his lighter and ran up to help. Between the two of them, they made a little headway, but then young Cosimo appeared behind them. When he saw who it was upside down at the end of the rope, he went mad. He shrieked. The men tried to calm him down and get him to help them haul Hans in, but it only seemed to drive home harder what had happened to his father.
Cosimo, his mouth in a horrible “O,” held himself captive with his long beautiful hands and batted his head against the wall. Blacky, fearing the already unstable young man would throw himself out the belfry arch after his father (there was only the knee-high ironwork guardrail), let the dead man go, told Puffin to take the other end of Cosimo and help get him down the stairs. But they couldn’t get hold of him. Cosimo was furious with strength. His head was turning bloody from the wallops. In the end it was Evangelika who got him going, walking him down the stairs, whispering that his father wouldn’t want him to hurt himself, he had to be there for Stella. He had to help Stella get through this. Someone would have to tell Stella.
The next thing you knew, everybody ran up. The gardener, the film crew, everyone. Claire wriggled Cosimo through the little mob until she got him to the landing. Stella Gabriella stood quietly in front of her lighted room. Her eyes were lit from within and removed, her lips were dry and parted, her heavy braids open, and her hair tumbled down her back. She had just removed her crystal necklace and she held it in her hands. She looked as though she was waiting for them, as though she knew what they would say.
“There’s been an accident,” Claire rushed to tell her. “It’s your father. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
Cosimo yowled and fell into Stella Gabriella’s arms. Stella flinched, but the expression in those eyes didn’t do what Claire expected it to do. It was as though her reaction itself was a hesitation, as though the real reaction went obediently off into a silent drawer, to be taken out later and fingered, like a scarf.
The rest of them were edging their way down the stairs with the body.
“Let’s get him inside,” Claire suggested.
They walked Cosimo in. “Leg dich hin,” Stella told her brother sternly, and he did as he was told; he lay down on the bed, his face rigid in grimace, the now silent tears running down both sides of his face and into his pretty ears.
Isolde filled the doorway. “What’s happened?” she demanded.
“It’s Hans.” Claire rushed to her. She put her arm around Isolde’s waist and led her from the room, a finger to her lips. “He’s fallen. From the belfry. He was tangled in the ropes. Oh, Isolde, he’s dead.”
“Dead? He can’t be dead. I was just with him. We—” She stopped herself and looked at Claire. “He can’t be dead.”
“I’m sorry, Isolde. I’m afraid he is.”
Isolde pushed her away and ran down the stairs to follow the crush already moving to the ground floor. Cosimo bolted up. He and Stella trampled past Claire and ran down as well. Claire stood there in the doorway of Stella’s surprising room. It looked sparse, Japanese. Claire felt shocked, frightened. Everything was out of control. Somehow, with Cosimo in the bed, she had had the silly notion that all was well. The child was in bed, everything would be all right. She turned, sensing herself watched, but there was no one. She ran down the hallway to the top of the back stairs, just above the kitchen, where they’d taken Hans. She didn’t know whether to go down or stay put, wanting to help but not wanting to intrude. And then she was drawn to the activity. She tiptoed down the stairs, touching the steady safety of the walls, old and painted blue. There were so many people, it wouldn’t matter if she went in or not. She slid in.
Hans was laid out on the table, Father Metz was administering the Last Rites. All you could hear were the loud clocks ticking and Father’s Latin murmurings.
Everyone was silent in the presence of death. All the doorways and windows were filled with the curious silhouettes of the guests, standing still, their hands holding on to their cheeks or their mouths.
“Ah! Everyone here! Jolly good!” Temple Fortune clumped in, the refreshed and landed gentry complete with elbow patches and the squire’s billycock. He swatted his hands together and rubbed them back and forth and stomped his feet. “The light’s lovely just now. Let’s push on for the next scene, shall we?” He stood still. “Hello, what’s up? You all look—” And he stopped at the sure sight of the corpse on the long kitchen table. “Begorra!” he cried in his otherwise tucked-away mother’s own tongue.
When the police and ambulance had come and gone, both guests and help sat together, stunned and chatty in the beer garden. Blacky had tranquilized Cosimo, and put him back to bed. Stella Gabriella was upstairs with him still. All the rest of them stayed outside in the last rays of leafy warmth. Old Evangelika, shocked herself, was kept busy transporting drinks, for everyone wanted a stiff one. No one knew what to do. Puffin Hedges, reverent with death, suggested they all pack up and leave, head for another hotel. “But we’re just in the middle of shooting the last scenes,” Temple Fortune protested.
“It would be the only decent thing to do,” Puffin Hedges insisted. “Think of the family.”
“Well, I won’t hear of it,” Temple Fortune said. “It’s not as though we’re family friends. We’re paying guests.”
“Sizable-fortune paying guests,” Puffin added. “Still, I guess it wouldn’t do them much good to take away their income.” He sat in a splendid bit of yellow light, alternately opening his portable backgammon kit and then closing it up. The Shetland collie-mutt stood underneath the spot where Hans had died, and the poor fellow wouldn’t be budged. There he stood in full view of them all, legs planted apart, baffled but steadfast. He wouldn’t come when Evangelika called him in, not even for his meal. No one hollered at him, the poor old fellow. His master was gone for good now, and no one knew what to do for him but let him be.
Evangelika was so rattled she wasn’t keeping note who drank what. The serving girl, Gaby, a tense little Bavarian butterball in earphones and a dirndl, nervous and easily rattled on a good day,
had been so discombobulated by what had happened that she’d flumped onto her bicycle and taken off, pedaling home to her Mutti and the safety of the village. “More like to get a good start spreading the news,” Evangelika snorted, disgusted.
Claire felt sorry for the old woman. Here she was, long past retirement age herself, and there she went, doing for everyone else. Well, that’s it, Claire decided, all this looking after others kept you from dwelling on your own problems, kept you strong. On the other hand, she noticed the old woman falter on her way back to the house. Claire got up and went over to her. “Can’t I help you?” she asked.
“Na, na.” Evangelika wagged her head vehemently. “Ich mach schon alles,” she insisted. She could handle it herself.
“Yes, I’ve noticed how you single-handedly run this place,” Claire admired. She remembered that the old woman spoke English, even though she pretended not to when it suited her. Claire didn’t want to insult her, but neither did she like the idea of a collapsed Evangelika as well as a dead proprietor. Those steins were heavy. She noticed Puffin Hedges behind her, helping himself to the goose-liver pâté.
“Mr. Hedges”—she tapped him on his costly heather-and-moss tweed—“would you mind helping me carry out these steins? Then I can get the trays of cheese and Wurst she’s laid out. I don’t think the poor thing can manage.” Puffin Hedges looked at Claire as though she’d addressed him in Cantonese. Such an idea was preposterous, the paleturquoise eyes above that red nose indicated. “Be a dear”—he smiled—“and handle all that yourself. We’ll see to it you’re taken care of when we tally up. There’s a good girl.”
For a moment she thought he was about to include a hurry-along pat across her bottom. She would have sputtered a defiant reply, but she was so taken aback that she went numb. She’d get him back for that one, she resolved, but in her own way and time, and properly.
When Blacky saw what she was up to, balancing and lugging heavy stuff, he jumped up to give her a hand. Temple Fortune noticed the aristocratic doctor there, gravely rolling up his white sleeves to pitch in, and he joined them at once. The three of them worked swiftly and companionably until the hefty loads of food and drink were nicely arranged on a group of tables pushed neatly together by the two men.
Claire couldn’t help enjoying herself. She liked getting things done in a flurry, herself at the helm. For once Isolde was shocked into submission. She sat smoking her Merit cigarettes and looking wiped out. Her starched outfit defied her withered attitude and stood out from her like a costume on a hanger. Her magnificent hair only drizzled down over her shoulders. Claire wondered, for a moment, how much Isolde had cared for Hans von Grünwald after all.
Well, Claire wasn’t going to pretend to herself she felt any sorrow. She’d only just met the man and hadn’t much liked him. That wasn’t true, she’d liked him well enough, she supposed, she’d just been put out when she noticed he hadn’t been much taken with her. At least she would help give the poor fellow a fine send-off, something any Irishwoman knows just how to do. Funny the way a death will make you appreciate life, she mused, gathering up the small bouquet of lily of the valley Evangelika must have been working on when all of this happened. She was just about to carry the pretty thing out with the condiments when something decent, a sense of reserve, stopped her. She put the flowers down on the empty table and left them there, then said a hushed Hail Mary for the poor and maybe now still-hovering and (who knew?) listening spirit.
“What I don’t understand”—the film star Mara Morgen was batting her cigarette about for emphasis before continuing in her charming, heavy accent outside—“is why would Hans get himself tangled up in a bell rope up there anyhow? I mean, what was he doing up there? Why was he there?”
Friedel the gardener gave an annoyed wave of his hand to ward off her intrusive smoke from mingling with his own. “Haven’t we all just been asked the same questions by the police? I mean, isn’t it enough?” He’d been coming up the drive when all of this had happened and didn’t see why he should have to answer anything.
Fräulein Wintner held her arms and squeezed herself in disbelief. “This cannot be happening.” She shook her head. Blacky went over to her and looked, concerned, into her eyes. You never knew who would flip out next. The least likely people would suddenly do such outrageous things.
“It is his property, you know,” Friedel reminded them in stilted English. “He did have a right to be wherever he chose, didn’t he?” He put his mud-creased fist gently, but firmly, on the table.
“What’s he doing here?” Puffin indicated Friedel’s presence at their table.
“Hans might well have gone up to check those shutters for a scraping,” Blacky suggested. “They’re crusted shut; I noticed it when I tried to get them open. He might well have been inspecting what needed repair. And then got tripped up in the coiled ropes and fell. I’m sure it was something as simple as that.”
With his priest and his mistress waiting for him foolishly down below, Father Metz mused sardonically to himself. He finished up the lovely golden liquid of his beer and shook his head. Life was fleeting. It was good for all these fancy hedonists to realize that. Guiltily, he looked toward the door. Stella Gabriella, Hans’s daughter, poor soul, ought to be relieved from the torments of her brother. God knows what he was torturing her with now. Blaming her, perhaps. He ought to go up and see. The truth was, he was frightened of Cosimo. He stood carefully, never liking to parade his corpulence in a crowd of artists and swells and despising himself for caring. He minced his way across the garden, shook his wrinkled sleeves down over his wrists, and went into the house.
Isolde glared at Blacky. She hated the way he would run over and assist any little poppet who needed help or felt the slightest bit ill. It really was an unappealing side to him. “Check his property!” she sneered at Claire. “Hadn’t we, Hans and I, just been having a cozy little chat upstairs when Hans suddenly thought of something, asked me to wait a moment and he’d be right back, that was just what he’d said. ‘Warte doch ein kleines Momentli, gell?’ he said, asking me to wait a little moment and kissed my hand and turned and went. He never came back. I’d supposed he’d spotted Blacky or Friedel on the drive and hesitated to return to me. He was, if anything, discreet. And now this. It’s unbelievable.” She shook her head vehemently. “Unbelievable.”
“You did mention all this to the inspector, didn’t you?” Claire whispered.
“What do you think I am, stupid? They’ll think I pushed him!”
“Oh, but Isolde, you must,” Claire whispered urgently back. “What if they find out later and hear you didn’t tell them. It will look awkward for you.”
“And what will it look like now?” Isolde smiled grotesquely at Mara Morgen while she hissed to Claire. “Upstairs! Me alone with the victim a week before I’m supposed to marry his enemy?”
“Enemy? Surely you mean rival. And what is this, ‘victim’? Good Lord, Isolde, it was an accident! And why wouldn’t you be upstairs, looking over the rooms he was to provide for your guests.”
“Really? That isn’t what Blacky will think.”
Claire looked around the table. She contemplated the two dazzlers, the famous fair Mara and the notorious dark Isolde. Isolde was the one who held you, Claire noticed, foolishly, loyally pleased. But it was true. Isolde was the one with good health and dash. Big white teeth, big everything. A juicy woman. Mara had the bone structure all right, but her skin in person was drab and sallow, mottled. She had the unfortunate habit of hunching over and fumbling through her vast handbag for something to grab hold of. Something glazed about her slanty, exotic gray eyes. You had the feeling she slept while she was awake. She had the merchandise, all right. It just looked, under scrutiny, used. Poor thing, Claire thought, not knowing why, and shivered. Claire looked over at Blacky. How strange that their first meeting after all these years should be accompanied by tragedy. The memories of their happy times had filled her thoughts all month. And they had been happy then
. Young and free and happy. They just hadn’t known it. They’d just been self-absorbed enough to imagine themselves miserable. Flying off to Venice for the weekend to recover from their overly theoretical, empty arguments of existentialism. What they’d needed, she realized now, were some yowling kids to fill up their vacuous days and nights. They’d had too much too soon, she and Blacky, and not enough suffering between them beforehand to absorb it and compare it with. She looked over at Blacky and found him looking good-naturedly back. Unfortunately, Isolde’s eyes, suspicious and watchful, were pointed toward her too, so the smile she made back was merely congenial and toothless.
“All right over there?” he called out across the huge table. Claire smiled again, this time warmly. If there was nothing wrong with her feelings, she had every right to expose them. She got up and went into the Mill. What she needed was a cup of coffee.
In the kitchen, Evangelika was weeping. Claire rushed over, then stood helplessly by. The old woman sobbed into a linen dish towel. When she was finished, she blew her nose into it and threw it on the floor. “Nehm die Scheisskartoffeln,” she barked at Claire and pointed, which means “Take the shit potatoes,” but which really meant “Thank you for being here, even if you are a useless American.”
Claire went wordlessly back outside with the enormous bowl of vinegar-and-parsley potatoes on a tray and put it down.
“You know,” Blacky was saying, “there is supposed to be a treasure at Saint Hildegard’s Mill. So the story goes.” Claire froze. She tried to look interested and uninterested at the same time.
“Really?” Mara peered at him. “How fascinating.”
“Hans could have been off looking for treasure,” Puffin proposed. “That would explain why he was up in the belfry.”
Keeper of the Mill Page 6