worried for your safety! And it serves you right; you will never learn to trust others.’
There were a few more fading rumbles of complaint before Schmidt dropped into a chair and mopped his face. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered. ‘Tell me everything.’
He said afterwards that it was almost as good as a chapter from my book. Almost. I knew very well what was lacking, but did not feel obliged to pander in the first person to Schmidt’s perversions.
He didn’t press me. In fact, when I told him, briefly and impersonally, of the denouement, his faded blue eyes filled with tears. Schmidt is very sentimental. He cries over everything, especially corny old German love songs.
‘It was the man you knew in Rome?’ he asked gently.
‘Yes.’
‘My child, time will heal your grief. There are many who love you, who will comfort you – ’
‘Skip the violins, Schmidt. He dragged me into this.’
‘But he did not mean to. When he realized the danger, he tried to save you. And,’ Schmidt went on, reverting to his familiar grievance, ‘you had not sense enough to do as he said. If you had returned home, or asked for my help, instead of keeping me always in the dark like a stupid old grandpa . . . It was your fault.’
On the whole, I prefer Schmidt’s scoldings to his disgusting wallows in bathos, so I said provocatively, ‘You can’t blame me for your being here. I should have known when I talked to Gerda and got the well-known runaround that you had done some damn-fool thing like haring off to Stockholm.’
Schmidt grinned from ear to ear with reminiscent pride. ‘You did not see me, did you? Not ever! I was following you everywhere. I have not lost the touch. You think I am too old and too fat, but not once did you see Papa Schmidt when he was on the trail.’
‘And a fat lot of good it did me.’
‘If you had stayed in Stockholm, I would have helped,’ Schmidt said angrily. ‘But no, you must go rushing into the wilderness. I could not find where you had gone. I rented a car, I was lost, many times, many times. . .’
‘You must not speak to her that way,’ said Gus, from the door.
I introduced the two, adding, ‘We always yell at each other, Gus. Schmidt is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and I would not deny that he has a point.’
‘Yes, he is right to scold you for doing foolish things,’ Gus said. He took a chair next to Schmidt’s, and the two of them stared at me with matching expressions of stern disapprobation.
I wondered what local deity I had offended to incur such a curse. Most heroines (in which category I account myself, of course) pick up handsome, dashing heroes as they pass through their varied adventures I seemed to be building up a collection of critical grandpas.
Schmidt, being the more sentimental of the two, was the first to remember my bereavement. His eyes got watery again.
‘We must not scold her now,’ he said to Gus.
Gus nodded. ‘You are right. She must not be alone. We will show her how much she is treasured by us.’
‘It is very romantic,’ Schmidt assured me. A tear trembled on his eyelid, as if terrified by the vast pink expanse of cheek below, then took the plunge. ‘You have redeemed this man, my dear. His love for you turned him from his path of crime He died a hero, saving the life of the woman he loved. Let that comfort you, and let the memory of his gallant death shine in your thoughts through the years of – ’
‘Shut up, Schmidt,’ I snarled.
The two heads turned, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and nodded solemnly in tempo.
‘She is distraught,’ Schmidt said.
‘She does not know what she says,’ Gus agreed.
What was the use of trying to explain? They wouldn’t understand. On the surface the whole affair had been a succession of simple cliches; but motives are never so simple. I didn’t even understand my own.
After the first few hours I was pretty sure Gus and I weren’t in danger of being killed. Crazy as it may sound, I believed Max. I don’t know why; maybe it was the cat that convinced me that I could trust his word. Even after I realized that Leif was one of the gang, I wasn’t afraid for myself. He’d have let me survive, as the latest of what was undoubtedly a long list of infatuated dupes; his vanity was so overweening that he couldn’t believe I had penetrated his disguise until I hit him over the head with it – literally.
I could have played along. It would have been the safest and most sensible course. I owed John nothing. And the funniest thing about it, the thing nobody would believe – except John himself – was that I had not risked myself because I was in love with him. I had always known John for what he was – a corrupt, unscrupulous man with the morals of a tomcat – and I’m not referring to the cat’s sexual habits, but to its incurable tendency to put its own interests ahead of everyone else’s. I didn’t love that man; I didn’t even like him. The one I loved was the guy with the perverse sense of humour and the peculiar brand of courage and the occasional streak of quixotry and the clever, twisty mind. But that man was part of the other, buried so deep it was hard to be certain he existed.
I caught a glimpse of him in those last few seconds, just before John went over the side. That was why I tried to stop him. He must have realized, as I did, that I was Leif’s primary target. He stood a good chance of getting away while Leif was busy with me. He had a bad arm and a bad head and he was half Leif’s size, but he hadn’t made a break for it. If he had, I might not have lived to hear Schmidt blathering on about heroic sacrifices and heroic deaths. Is it any wonder I snarled at poor old sentimental Schmidt?
The police had no trouble rounding up the gang. They were not unarmed – Max had another suitcase of weaponry tucked away – but resistance to the death was not part of their credo. With their connections they’d be out on parole in a couple of years, and back at the old stand.
Max asked to see me before they hauled him off to jail. Schmidt and Gus wanted to go along, to protect me, and I had to be very firm with them.
He rose with his usual courtesy when I entered the room.
‘I am glad to see you are unharmed by your adventures,’ he said. ‘I felt a certain concern.’
‘You had cause.’ I waved him back into his chair. ‘I suppose I should commiserate with you, but I’m damned if I feel any regret about Leif – Hasseltine – whatever his name.’
‘It was a business association,’ Max said calmly. There wasn’t a wrinkle in his well-cut suit, his tie was neatly knotted, and his wig was firmly in place; he was the very image of a respectable businessman. ‘In fact,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘his, er, premature demise opens several promising avenues of speculation for me. I might even say, Dr Bliss, that if you should ever have occasion to call on me for a favour . . .’
I ought to have been shocked and disgusted. But there was something about Max . . . His composure was so complete that he forced you to accept his premises – for the moment, anyway.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Was that all you wanted to say?’
‘Only to express my personal regrets for the inconvenience you experienced, and to give you this.’
They had let him keep his briefcase. From it he took a piece of cardboard and handed it to me. The black silhouette had been neatly mounted.
‘I did it from memory,’ Max said, as I studied the familiar profile. ‘It is good of him, don’t you think?’
‘You always do good work, Max. I appreciate it. Did you make another – for your collection?’
‘No,’ Max said deliberately. ‘No, Dr Bliss.’
I said, ‘I understand.’
‘I felt sure you would. May I say, then, good fortune to you, and
‘I sincerely hope not,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Max.’
And that, dear reader, is how I came to be footing it, not too lightly, around the Karlsholm maypole. It was an event I wouldn’t have missed, a memory I will always cherish. And I’ll be back. By dint of desperate searching and ingenious invention, Gus and I worked out a genealogy that made me his fourteenth cousin twice removed, or something of that nature. Kinfolks have to keep in touch. Besides, Schmidt had been working on Gus to permit excavation of the pasture, and Gus was showing signs of yielding.
When the dance ended, I went to join the two of them. They broke off their solemn conversation to offer me a chair and food and drink. Then Gus said hesitantly, ‘We were speaking of a matter – ’
‘No, Gus,’ Schmidt interrupted. ‘The wound is only beginning to heal. You will rend it open again.’
‘Shut up, Schmidt,’ I said.
