‘I apologise for the hour, Mr Crowther, Mrs Westerman. Countess Dieth has been killed. Her body was discovered here by one of the maids early this morning. Her left wrist was cut and her mouth filled with earth.’
‘Where is the body?’ Crowther said at once, looking about him as if Krall might have concealed her behind the draperies.
Krall yawned, and covered his mouth. ‘Countess Dieth has been taken to the Lady’s Chapel. We could not wait to move her, Mr Crowther. This must be kept quiet for now and she needed to be taken somewhere appropriate in darkness. I will lead you there in a while, but I wished you to see this room as I found it. I hope you will indulge me.’
They looked a little suspicious. Well, good for them if they did. They inspected the small space in silence, a candle each to help guide them through the softening shadows, Mrs Westerman lifting the skirts of her dress as she moved. They were like ghosts. Some marking on the arm of the straight-backed chair in the centre of the space caused a few murmured comments to pass between them. Krall sat on the high bed as they made their investigations. His feet did not quite touch the floor. At one point he felt in his pockets for tobacco and tinder box, but reconsidered and with a sigh replaced them. Wimpf again made a movement as if to leave the room; Krall again motioned him to stay.
‘Do you mean to mock us, Mr Krall?’ Crowther said at last.
Krall blinked. ‘Mock you, sir? That was certainly not my intention. Why would you suspect such a thing?’
It was Mrs Westerman who answered. He decided he liked her dress. ‘The lady was not killed in this room,’ she said calmly. ‘It seems the body was moved here some time after her death.’
‘The killer placed the body of poor Dieth here after her murder?’ Krall asked, his head on one side.
‘No, I don’t think so, Mr Krall. I think she was found somewhere else, then placed here before you were summoned. That decanter was brought in from wherever she was found. It has its twin on the table. I suspect that design on the door has been copied for your benefit. See how hesitantly some of the lines are drawn? This is a bold killing, and that is not boldly drawn.’
‘But how can you say the Countess was not killed here?’ Krall asked.
Crowther answered him. ‘The blood. The chair comes from this room indeed, one can see in the rug the marks where it has been moved to this position, and there is blood on it – but not such a stain as would result from a wound fresh-flowing. Only flecks that must have been dislodged when the body was brought here some time after death, when the blood had fully dried. The floor is clean. No blood whatsoever there. Where could the body have been found, that it needed to be shifted in this way? What could have been more humiliating to the court than finding one of its own slaughtered inside the palace itself? Mr Krall, I cannot believe this fooled you for an instant. Nor could you have hoped to fool us.’
Krall considered the ceiling with the contented look of a man hearing exactly what he wanted to hear, then he turned to the footman and began to speak in German. As he did, he could hear Mr Crowther whispering a translation to his companion.
‘The gentleman and lady wish to know, Wimpf my boy, where the body was first discovered. Where was it? Who ordered you to carry it here?’ The footman opened his mouth, but Krall continued, ‘I know your family, boy! I thought a couple of thalers and a few friendly words might make you my eyes and ears in the palace, but you’ve been bought already. You’ve been watching me, haven’t you, you little devil? Was she still warm when you lifted her?’
‘How—?’
‘You had red chalk on your sleeve when you woke me. Stuck out rather, that, boy – you being so clean as a rule. That picture on the wall is your work, is it not? Sure you copied it right?’
‘I, I …’ Wimpf stuttered, but Krall held up his hand.
‘Remember before you speak, lad, that I answer only to the Duke. Now tell the truth. Your parents are good people. I cannot believe they brought you up to lie.’
‘I f-found her …’ he stuttered out at last, ‘in the temple … I went to Major Auwerk and he came back with me, then he told me … He carried her. I thought he meant me to, but when I went to pick her up, he told me not to touch her. He carried her here. I brought the table. Then he went to Chancellor Swann.’
He looked very afraid. Mrs Westerman stepped forward and put her hand on his sleeve, saying in halting German, ‘Yours is not the fault. The District Officer will see you get no hurt.’
Krall doubted if he could guarantee such a thing entirely, but Mrs Westerman’s words calmed the boy a little, and he smiled up at her timidly. He seemed to have shrunk in his livery.
‘What temple, Wimpf? The Temple to Apollo in the gardens? Is that where you found her?’
He shook his head violently, blinking his lashless eyes. ‘I cannot say – it is a great secret.’
Krall had never had much use for secrets, and now his patience left him. Grabbing the servant by his gold and scarlet coat, he flung him onto the floor by the bed, then stood over him with his fists balled. He heard the silks of Mrs Westerman’s gown shift, but neither of the English moved to stop him.
‘Now! If you want to leave this room as you entered it – tell me now!’
The boy scrambled backwards and found himself cornered between the end of the bed and the wall.
‘It’s hidden! It’s hidden! You can only get to it by the back corridor. It’s just a room with a few chairs in it, that’s all. Like a cupboard almost. I call it the temple. It was my joke.’ Krall took half a step forward. ‘I clean it. When I am told to. Maybe two dozen times over the last two years. Major Auwerk asked me to, he asked if I was to be trusted. If he puts the key in my hand, that means I am to clean it. I clean there when everyone else is asleep, and return the key.’
‘What does he pay you?’
‘Nothing! Only since I started I’ve been promoted twice. I wanted him to know he could trust me. And now I have betrayed him …’
Krall continued glowering for a second, then stepped back and rolled his shoulders. ‘He betrayed you first, boy. Major Auwerk has the key now?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you went to clean the room. How much work is that, usually?’
‘Not much. Glasses and a bottle or two. The chairs and so on to put back in place. Sweep and dust.’
‘How many?’ The German Crowther spoke was a great deal better than Mrs Westerman’s, though as he spoke Krall could almost smell the dusty air of a university lecture hall.
‘How many what, my lord?’
‘How many glasses?’
‘It changed. Never more than seven. There are only seven glasses in the case.’
‘Today?’
‘None used. All clean.’
Krall heard Mrs Westerman whisper something to Crowther, and he said, ‘Mrs Westerman wishes to know if this decanter and glass were in this temple. And if you include them in your count.’
Wimpf’s fingers were digging into the rug underneath him. ‘The decanter and glass were there – I’ve not seen them before. The seven glasses are nice. Special. Wine goblets. Countess Dieth was sitting in a chair in the centre of the room facing the door. I just came in and she was there. I thought she was sleeping, but then I saw her hand. I was scared, I ran out to Major Auwerk’s room in the barracks and told him. The decanter and glass were on a little table next to her. Just as they are now.’
‘And the picture?’ Krall asked.
‘On the back of the door like here. The chalk was still on the floor. I copied it properly. The Major checked.’
‘So, facing her when the door was shut? I see.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Right then, Christian, on your feet and straighten yourself out.’
The boy leaned on the bed as he got up and winced. Krall realised he must have thrown him quite hard, and found he did not care. He reached into his pocket. ‘Here is paper and pencil. Draw the room as you saw it. And draw a plan of how to reach it.’ The boy hesitated. ‘Do it, Wimpf, if y
ou want to keep that head on your shoulders.’
‘Young man,’ Crowther said, ‘how much blood was there?’
The boy shook his head. ‘Not a great deal, my lord. A few splashes under her hand. I cleaned it all up.’
They watched him as he drew with shaking fingers. After a few minutes he laid down his pen and Krall examined the sheet – clear enough. ‘Not bad. Stay out of the Major’s way today. I suppose you were asked to keep an eye on me and my English friends? Then as far as he is concerned, that is what you are doing. Avoid him until I get word to you. Now out you go.’
Wimpf paused at the door. ‘Mr District Officer?’
Krall held up his hand. ‘I don’t know, boy, what will happen to you. I can’t see into the future. But don’t despair. I doubt your fate will be any worse than the usual mix.’
They watched him leave.
‘Good God!’ Harriet said when the door had shut. ‘You knew all along, didn’t you, Herr Krall?’
‘As Mr Crowther said, madam, I am not stupid. There was the smear of chalk on his sleeve, and the maid they told me had discovered the body has the wits of a pea-hen. Can’t believe Swann didn’t spot this nonsense.’ He sat down on the bed again, well satisfied. ‘I suspect young Wimpf thought me a bit of a country cousin, as do most of the people at court, so I thought I’d make use of you and all your cleverness. He might have kept lying to me. It worked too.’
‘Who is Major Auwerk?’ Crowther asked.
Harriet was studying the symbol on the door. ‘He accompanied us from the border, Crowther, at the head of that party of Hussars. What his role is in this …’
‘We’ll find out soon enough – he won’t be going anywhere,’ Krall said. ‘Now, I am afraid you had better see the Countess.’
There was light enough now. He blew out his candle.
V.3
MICHAELS LIKED THE FARMLAND round Oberbach. As the light of the new day found him he was letting his horse amble along the valley with a pipe in his mouth and a sense of cautious approval. The wooden houses he could see from the road were neat, their gardens well-tilled, and the fruit trees that hung over his way were showing the signs of cheerful new growth. Walnut. Apple. Almond. The chimneys of the farms were already pushing woodsmoke into the first sunlight and he thought contentedly of the morning scenes playing inside. The wife at the fireplace, a child at her skirts and her kitchen clean. His own wife would also be up and working at this hour. She was efficient and quick in her movements, sometimes she hummed at her work, and sometimes not. He would walk out round the yard, see to the horses and scan the hedgerow for something pretty to bring back into the kitchen. He had told his son to bring his mother the first primrose he found. He hoped the boy had remembered, trusted he had. He felt it likely they were thinking of him now and felt a solemn happiness.
Michaels entered the town itself from the north, and by the number of travellers he nodded to on the road, suspected he was arriving on a market day. Woman walked along the verges in pairs with baskets over their arms, their aprons washed to a startling, public whiteness. The old town gate under which he rode was hung with baskets of spring flowers and the main street had the look of a place recently scrubbed clean and smiling. The death of the Lady during their carnival had left no visible scar. The old houses in the square looked confident and prosperous. Their half-timbering was outlined in red and green, and the shutters were all folded back. The newly built Town Hall with its wall of tall windows seemed designed to flatter its citizens, not cow them into obedience. It was a proud little place, bustling already, speaking of a group of people who had money enough to satisfy their hungers, then were in the habit of looking about them to see what could be improved.
After two hours of wandering through the marketplace and complimenting the women on their produce and the men on their stock, Michaels thought that if he had ever to leave his own place in Hartswood, he could do a lot worse than taking over the stable where he had left his horse and settling here among these handsome, homely streets and pleasant faces. There had been talk of this last year having been all cruel weather, and the fat on the animals being hard come by, but there were both buyers and sellers enough, it seemed to him, and the local wine was a sweet and delicate thing and had much to say of sunlight and rich soils. He had also realised, with regret, that the trail of Beatrice did not reach here. People stopped in their work and folded their arms to consider, but one after another they shook their heads.
‘We get people passing through often enough,’ one woman selling eggs from a basket over her arm told him. She was red-cheeked and cheerful-looking and wore a shawl round her shoulders Michaels’s own wife would have coveted. ‘But a young girl on her own would have been noticed and looked to.’
‘It would have been two years ago …’
‘It’s not a big town! If she’d stayed here, worked here at all, we’d know her face. A girl with black hair, who liked to wear it loose would be noticed in an hour! Mostly the strangers we see are men travelling about for one reason or another.’
‘She had a fancy to go into service in a great house,’ Michaels said, turning his round hat in his hands.
‘Why come this way then, rather than stay where she was among all the court and their nonsense?’ She spoke almost affectionately, as if the Duke was a child to be indulged with pretty toys, and shifted her basket so her hip could take the weight of it. Michaels only shrugged. She pursed her lips, thinking, then lifted a finger. ‘There are a few places beyond the village of Mittelbach. Estates with fancy houses. You might ask of her along that road. Take the north road back two miles or so, and you’ll see the turn to it heading up the hill, to the west – lies just past old Hahn’s farm. He has five pear trees below his house and coming into flower. You can’t miss the way.’
A man passing in homespun, a pair of rabbits slung over his shoulder, heard her and laughed.
‘What’s the fella ever done to you, to send him to Mittelbach, Maud?’
‘Keep your nose out of others’ conversations, Georg, or expect to have it snipped off!’ Then she turned back to Michaels with a blush. ‘Though he’s right enough. It’s a mean little place. Their pastor does nothing but drink and their head man’s a devil.’
Georg did not seem to be over-worried about his nose. ‘The blacksmith has an amulet – you know, got the hair in it of that robber who killed three travellers in Gottingen in seventy-nine. Means he can’t be vanquished by any man. He deals out the beatings the headman prescribes. Almost killed a woman there last year.’
‘Did kill her!’ Maud replied. ‘A chill like that would never have carried her off if he hadn’t knocked the health out of her. And she was no adulteress, just had a jealous husband and a friendly disposition. There, you see? We all know each other’s business round here.’
‘Why don’t they complain to the Duke?’ Michaels asked.
‘Not his people. It’s the land of one of the Imperial Knights, surrounded by Maulberg, but not Maulberg, you know? There are a few up that way. A big house, some land, some grand fella who acts like a king and spends all that can be dragged out of the soil on silks to wear in another man’s palace. They don’t care what happens to the people as long as their stewards roll up with a bag of coins once a quarter.’
Michaels thanked her and offered her a coin from his own bag. She laughed at him. ‘No charge for a chat, brother. Keep your money and buy one of May’s cheeses with it; you’ll get nothing worth eating in Mittelbach.’
Harriet was becoming accustomed to spending time with the dead, but that was not the same as being unfeeling in their presence. Countess Dieth was much her own age, and in her interviews with Krall about the death of her friend, she had answered like a woman of passion and intelligence. Harriet remembered her expression when she had understood the effect of the mask – her fear – and suddenly the death of this woman seemed to fall hard on Harriet’s shoulders. What could she – should she – have done yesterday? It seemed to her now
that she had spent half the day wandering the palace grounds. She had not pushed.
The doors closed behind them, and Harriet hesitated halfway up the short aisle. It was not a large chapel, but beautiful in its light and proportions even if the floor was messy with dust and wood shavings. Harriet was flanked by carved stalls; she saw the small organ, its pipes freshly gilded, on the south wall, the pulpit to the right, and there the Countess lay, like a sacrifice, on a table covered with white linen set before the altar. There were candles at her head and feet, but the day was bright enough now to make them unnecessary. She was lit by the morning sun coming through the stained glass of the east window. Her plum-coloured dress was patterned with the red, blue and yellow of the Arms of Maulberg. Pushed against the walls were a pair of scaffold frames. Harriet looked up to where the frescos on the ceiling had been abandoned partway through their painting. Christ in the centre, fully coloured and robed. Around Him, any number of angels faded into outlines and bare plaster. Harriet noticed that the colour of Christ’s robe was the same as the Countess’s dress. He had His arms held out wide.
She took another step forward and watched as Crowther opened one of the Countess’s eyes with thumb and forefinger. Krall took a seat in the stalls.
‘Was she suffocated with the earth in her mouth?’ Harriet’s voice sounded hollow, and loud to her in the empty space.
‘Suffocated, I think,’ he answered, without looking up. ‘The earth may have been placed in her mouth after death however. If, when I open the body, I find there is soil in her stomach and throat, then we may conclude …’
‘I understand.’
Crowther moved to the other side of the body and stooped, apparently examining the left wrist. As she watched him, he became suddenly still, frowning, then he let out his breath and turned away. She had never seen him give any sign of distress or discomfort in the company of the dead; his normal attitude was a quiet curiosity.
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