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 the 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, Fraulein 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 “Muller—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, Fraulein.”

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, Fraulein. 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, Fraulein, 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 Madchen 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.

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