A door at the end of the hall opened. Sunlight from the room behind the figure blurred its outlines; I was quite close to her before I realized she was not the woman in the photograph. She was much younger, probably in her twenties. Her face was vaguely familiar, though.
“Frau Hoffman?” I asked uncertainly.
“Yes.” She stood back and motioned me to enter. “And you are the—you are a friend of my late husband?”
“I hope I may call myself that, though I only had the pleasure of meeting your husband once. You were in the hospital at the time, I believe.”
I didn’t really believe it, because I had remembered where I had seen her before. She had been a waitress in the restaurant. Friedl. The name came out of nowhere, as it does sometimes; I had heard it repeated often enough. The customers were always yelling for Friedl, especially the male customers. From waitress to wife to widow in less than a year…Quick work, and nice work if you can get it.
The promotion had not improved her looks. The waitress’s uniform of tight-waisted dirndl and low-cut blouse had suited her slight but well-developed figure. She had had thick braids of brown hair that she wore coiled over her ears, and a fresh, pink-cheeked face. Now her hair was cut short and bleached almost white. She wore an ultrasuede suit that must have cost a bundle, but it was too tight across the chest and the apricot shade didn’t flatter her complexion. She was heavily made up, and her nails were blood-red, long, and pointed.
“The hospital?” she repeated blankly. “That wasn’t me. You must be speaking of my husband’s first wife. She passed on last January.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and again I spoke sincerely.
She had certainly done her best to efface all traces of her predecessor. The room had been charming, filled with fine old furniture and beautiful shabby rugs. The painted Schrank was gone, as were the carved chest and the Persian rugs. Wall-to-wall carpeting in a shrieking shade of blue concealed the hardwood floor, and every stick of furniture was teak, glass, or chrome.
“Then you are the new owner of the hotel?” I asked.
“Yes.” She snapped the word out, as if my idle question had contained a challenge. “It has not been easy,” she went on, with the same air of defiance. “But I can do it. Already I have made many improvements.”
I couldn’t bring myself to congratulate her on the improvements. Still feeling my way, I said, “I hope you have good help.”
I was thinking of the hotel staff that had kept the place running so smoothly the year before, but Friedl interpreted the comment differently. With a betraying glance at a door that I assumed led to another room of her apartment, she murmured, “Freddy—Mr. Sommers—has been a great help to me. He is my—my cousin.”
“I’ve met Mr. Sommers.”
Belatedly remembering her manners, she offered me a chair, which I accepted, and coffee, which I declined. I had decided that my smartest move was to keep my mouth shut and let her make the first move. She didn’t waste any time. “Did you get a message from my husband?”
I put on an expression of innocent bewilderment and countered with a question of my own. “Why, did he write to me?”
That was her chance. If she had said yes, and gone on to explain, I might have leveled with her.
Her eyes fled from mine. “I—uh—no, I don’t think…I wondered…Why did you come, then?”
“I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Herr Hoffman was very kind to me last year, so I thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
“I see.” She chewed on her lower lip and tried again. “He often spoke of you.”
“Did he?”
“Oh yes. Often. He admired you. Such a learned lady, so clever, so intelligent. You had talked together—of many things…”
“Yes, we did.”
She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “What did you talk about?”
“Oh—lots of things. Art and antiques…” I paused invitingly, but the only response was a blank stare, so I went on, “Books, music—he was very fond of Brahms—cats…He had a beautiful little Siamese kitten. I hope it is flourishing?”
“Flourishing? Oh, the cat.” Her mouth twisted unpleasantly. “I got rid of it. I hate the creatures. They are so sly. Besides, it was scratching my beautiful new furniture.”
“I see.”
“Did he speak of anything else?”
If I hadn’t taken such an intense dislike to the wretched woman, I might have felt sorry for her. She was trying to find out how much I knew without giving anything away, but she was going about it so clumsily that she had betrayed more than she realized.
I said, “I see you’ve redecorated this room.”
“Yes. Yes, I could not live with such dirty old things. This is much more cheerful, don’t you think?”
“Cheerful” was not the word I would have chosen. In fact, the room was depressing, for all its bright colors and gleaming chrome. She had ruthlessly swept away not just inanimate objects, but the memories, the traditions, the long years of affectionate living they embodied. The fact that she had done it without deliberate malice only made the desecration worse; it was a symbol of the triumph of mediocrity over beauty and grace.
Ordinarily, I would not have been guilty of the bad taste of trying to buy a dead man’s belongings from his widow of barely two weeks. In this case I didn’t hesitate.
“If you haven’t sold the furniture, I’d like to buy it.”
“Buy it? All of it?”
“I was thinking of the Schrank. Perhaps some of the other pieces.”
Again her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why would you want them?”
“Tastes differ,” I explained patiently. “You like modern, I like antiques.”
“I have already sold them.”
Couldn’t wait to get them out of the house, I thought. Two weeks…
There was a sound from the next room—a muffled thud, as if someone had stumbled, or jarred a piece of furniture. Friedl started violently.
“Oh, do you have company?” I asked. “I’m sorry, you should have told me you were busy.”
“Oh, no. No, there is no one…It must have been the—the cat.”
The cat that wasn’t there. Quite suddenly I was overcome by a burning desire to escape from that sterile, horrible room and its occupant. I rose to my feet. “I mustn’t take up any more of your time. Perhaps you could tell me to whom you sold the Schrank. He might consider an offer.”
Now she seemed as anxious to be rid of me as I was to be gone. She gave me a name and directions, and let me show myself out. As I passed through the lobby, I noticed that Freddy wasn’t at the desk.
The address she had given me wasn’t far. No place in Bad Steinbach is far from any other place in Bad Steinbach. When I reached the fountain I stopped for a moment, to consider the new developments, and to get a grip on myself. The interview had left me shaken and off-balance.
Friedl and Freddy made a much more believable equation than Freddy and the late Frau Hoffman. I wondered whether Friedl had waited until after her husband’s death to begin the affair.
I told myself I mustn’t let my dislike of the woman prejudice my judgment, but it was no use; I felt about Friedl the way Friedl felt about cats. All prejudice aside, however, her behavior had been highly suspicious as well as highly inept. She knew Hoffman had intended to communicate with me. So why the devil didn’t she come right out and say so? What was she trying to hide?
An answer came readily to mind.
If Friedl’s intentions were honest and honorable, she should have welcomed the opportunity to confide in a responsible person—the very person her husband had planned to consult. If she knew about the treasure and intended to keep it for herself…I found that alternative much more plausible, and it explained some of the peculiarities in her speech and manner. She suspected Hoffman had written to me, but she wasn’t sure. Then it had not been Friedl who mailed the envelope. Had Hoffman himself staggered, dying, to a postbox and pushed th
e envelope stained with his own blood through the slot with his last burst of strength? That scenario was a little too much even for my Rosanna-trained imagination. But then, who had mailed it? Was the blood Hoffman’s? He had died suddenly, by violence….
Much as I abhorred dear little Friedl, I wasn’t ready to accuse her of mariticide. Not yet. It was no strain on my imagination to believe her capable of fraud, however. Yet even that assumption didn’t explain her insistent questions. She had had two weeks in which to dispose of the gold, or move it to another location. That’s what I would have done if I thought my husband had spilled the beans to an outsider. Then I’d sit tight and look innocent, and if some nosy female from a Munich museum came snooping around asking leading questions, I would tell her I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was raving about. Gold? What gold? What would a simple Bavarian innkeeper be doing with a museum treasure? Sorry, Fräulein Doktor, but I’m afraid too much learning has addled your brain.
I had to allow for the obvious fact that Friedl wasn’t the smartest woman in the world. I had not mentioned my name, to her or to Freddy, and she hadn’t even had the basic intelligence to pretend ignorance of my identity. I hadn’t said a single word that betrayed any knowledge of a secret or contradicted my statement that I was playing a simple social call; yet I had a feeling that Friedl was now as suspicious of my intentions as I was of hers, and for all the wrong reasons. My insistence on acquiring the Schrank had been a mistake, if an innocent one. I wanted it because it was beautiful; she thought of it only as a possible hiding place. Sometimes I think God must like stupid people, he gives them so many breaks.
Well, there was nothing I could do about it now. I brushed the snow from my pants and started walking across the Marktplatz. The shop she had mentioned was just off the central square, a couple of doors up one of the narrow streets. It wasn’t an antique shop, as I had supposed. The sign read “Müller—Holzschnitzerei,” and the small display window contained toys and ornaments carved out of wood, of the type sometimes referred to as “folk art.”
Bells chimed softly as I opened the door. There was no one in the shop. From an open door at the back came the sound of tapping and a smell that made my nostrils quiver appreciatively. Fresh wood shavings, hot glue, and pipe tobacco blended into an aroma as seductive as the finest perfume. My grandfather’s workshop smelled like that; I had spent many happy hours there as a child, hammering nails into wood scraps and making doll wigs out of curled shavings.
The tapping stopped. A man appeared in the open doorway, squinting at me through thick glasses.
He was short and square, with big gnarled hands. His shoulders filled the doorway from side to side. A light behind him made his hair shine like a silver nimbus.
After I had explained who I was and what I wanted, he put his pipe in his mouth and smoked in meditative silence for several seconds, without taking his eyes off me. Then he nodded and gestured. “Herein, Fräulein.”
I followed him into the workshop. It was wonderful; tools were scattered over a long wooden table and sawdust had drifted like dun snow. He pointed, and then I saw it: a painted door, leaning disconsolately against the wall, splinters of wood hanging from the broken hinges.
“Oh, no,” I exclaimed. “What happened to it?”
My unconcealed distress pleased the old man. His formal manner relaxed, and he said, “That is how it was when I found it, the pieces piled in the courtyard ready to be burned. She was good enough to sell it to me.”
I damned Friedl with a few well-chosen words—in English, since I knew a man of his age and background would think poorly of a lady who used vulgar language. He got the idea from my tone, if not from the actual words, and his eyes were twinkling when I looked at him.
“Just so,” he said. “Don’t distress yourself, Fräulein. I can repair it. That is my trade, at which I excel. I have no real talent for creating, you understand, but for restoration, there is no one better. Do you still want to buy it?”
“Yes. Please.”
I didn’t even ask the price. At that point, I’d have been willing to hock my car and mortgage my house; this was a rescue operation, not a commercial transaction. How could Friedl have done such a stupid thing? She must have hated him, to destroy an object that would have brought a fancy price from any antique dealer.
“What happened to the other furniture?” I asked.
The old man shrugged. “It went, I believe, to a dealer in Garmisch. I could not afford to pay so much as he. One moment, Fräulein, I must finish this piece before the glue hardens.”
He settled himself on a stool, put his pipe carefully in an ashtray, and picked up the piece he had been working on—a carved head with a grotesque yet humorous grin—surely a caricature of a living model. The nose had been broken off; I stood watching as the old man carefully glued the nose, or a reproduction of it, into place.
“So,” he said. Swiveling slowly on the stool, he faced me, his hands resting heavily on his knees. His face was as rigid as the wooden one he had just repaired, hardened by harsh weather and long years. His hair clung to his skull like a white fur wig. Then his leathery cheeks cracked into deep lines and his thin lips curled up at the corners.
“So,” he repeated, “you are the so-learned Mädchen from the museum. Did you get the letter, then?”
“You sent it?” I gaped at him. “But how—why?”
His smile stiffened into sobriety, though a spark of amusement remained in the depths of his eyes. “I mailed it, I did not send it. There is a difference.”
“You are right. There is a difference. I…Can I sit down?”
“Please.”
He picked up an oily rag and passed it carefully over a backless chair inches deep in sawdust.
“Thank you,” I said meekly. “Would you mind telling me how it happened?”
“It does not take long to tell. I was working late in the shop, as I often do. I heard the sounds from the Marktplatz. They were the sounds of death,” the old man said simply. “The car did not stop; it accelerated and went on. I had expected him, you see. He had said he would come that evening. I went as quickly as I could, but there were others there before me; they made a circle around him. I saw only one shoe. I knew it, and pushed through them. His blood soaked the snow and spread as I bent over him. He knew me. He had no breath to speak, but he moved his hand—pushed the letter toward me. I knew what he wanted. We had been friends a long time.”
He picked up his pipe and slowly tapped out the dead embers.
“I’m glad,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say, but he understood.
“Glad there is someone to mourn him? Yes. The only one. She…” He turned his head aside and spat neatly into the pile of shavings beside him. Then he went on in the same calm voice, “It happens to old men, even those who should know better. After Amelie died, he was verrückt—crazy with grief. A man needs a woman, and she knew how to use her advantage.”
“I’m sure she did. But…Do you know what was in the letter?”
“I do not open mail addressed to other people. It was so important to him that he thought of it with his last breath; that was enough for me. But I knew your name. He had spoken of you.”
“What did he say?”
His eyes glinted. “That if he were forty years younger he would go to Munich to see you—and perhaps to do other things.”
For some absurd reason I felt tears coming to my eyes. I gave him a watery smile. “If he had been forty years younger, I probably would have done them. He was a good man.”
“Yes, a learned man. Not like me; I am only an ignorant worker, with no more than Volksschule. But he liked to talk to me.”
“He never said anything to you about…” I didn’t hesitate because I didn’t trust him. I hesitated because I didn’t want his blood reddening the snow in the Marktplatz. “About why he might want to get in touch with me?”
“No, nothing. When he spoke of you, it was in connection with art.” The old man’
s face was stiff with pride. “Yes, we talked of such things, the scholar and the ignorant peasant. He loved beautiful things, and no craftsman worthy of the name can be indifferent to a fine work of art.” His fingers caressed the surface of the sculptured head. “This would have hurt him. Often he spoke of the destruction of beauty—the statues broken, the paintings slashed by barbarians. So much lost. So much that can never be retrieved.”
His voice was as deep as a dirge; it reminded me of the passage in the Brahms Requiem when the soft voices mourn in grieving resignation. “Behold, all flesh is as the grass, and all the goodliness of man is as the flowers of the field; for lo, the grass with-ereth….”
I knew I was going to break down and blubber if I didn’t get away. “I must go,” I said, rising. “I’m afraid I am interrupting your lunch.”
“No, I have this with me.” He reached for a paper-wrapped sandwich. “Will you share? It is good ham and cheese.”
I refused with thanks; but a rustling noise heralded the appearance of someone who was definitely interested in the offer. As the sleek fawn body slid out from under a bench I exclaimed, “Surely, that is Herr Hoffman’s cat.”
“Yes. Her name is Clara—”
“After Clara Schumann,” I said with a smile. “The great love of Brahms’s life. I’m so glad she’s with you. Frau Hoffman said she had gotten rid of her, and I was afraid…”
“I would not let Anton’s pet come to harm.”
The cat leaped onto the table with the air of spontaneous flight common to Siamese. It sauntered casually toward the sandwich, looking as if food were the farthest thing from its mind. The old man pulled out a chunk of ham and offered it; after sniffing the morsel, the cat condescended to accept it.
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