Trojan Gold

This part of the story had the ring of truth.

Then, late in the fall, Hoffman had changed his mind. His enemies were closing in. He feared for his life—and hers. He had spoken of getting in touch with me—was I sure, absolutely certain, he had not told me…

“I have no idea where it might be,” I said. “That’s the truth, Frau Hoffman. Are you sure you—”

“No. I mean—yes. Would I have called on you for help if I knew?”

The answer to that was so obvious no one felt the need of voicing it. Tony cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Friedl—Frau Hoffman—”

She interrupted him, looking up at him from under her lashes and reaching for his hand. “Please, you must not be so formal. We are old friends.”

“Thank you.” Blushing, Tony did not emulate her use of the informal du. “I was about to say—I don’t see how we can help you. I must be honest; I am still not convinced your husband was—er— in his right mind. All this business about Communists—”

“Then who was it who shot at Fraulein Bliss?”

“Hmmm,” said Tony.

“And,” Friedl continued, “not long after my adored Anton’s death, someone broke into his room and searched it. Several pieces of furniture were smashed to pieces. I thought at the time it was an ordinary thief—but after the terrible incident of the shooting…Please, you will not abandon me? You will help me to find it?”

“We’ll try,” Tony said dubiously. “Though, with so little to go on…Have the police no idea who could have fired those shots?”

Friedl shrugged. Watching her, I said, “Freddy isn’t on duty today. Has he left town?”

She wasn’t as dim as she appeared—or else she had had reason to anticipate the implied accusation. “Are you suggesting it was Freddy? Impossible. My own cousin—”

“I’d like to talk to him,” I said mildly.

Her eyes fell. “I—you cannot. He has gone. There was—he has—someone offered him a better position. He was only helping me temporarily.”

“Where has he gone?”

“Zurich.” The answer came so pat that a new-laid egg might have believed it.

“Who is Freddy?” Tony inquired.

“I’ll fill you in later,” I promised.

“Freddy had nothing to do with it,” Friedl insisted. “It was the Communists.”

Every time she mentioned Communists, Tony’s skepticism level shot up. “We’ll try,” he repeated. “If you think of anything else, anything at all—”

After a further exchange of insincere promises and protestations, we took our leave. I told Tony about Freddy, which seemed to cheer him a little. “Guy sounds like a thug,” he said hopefully. “And his sudden departure is suspicious. Friedl is so trusting, anyone could take advantage of her.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

It was possible—not that Friedl was a trusting innocent, but that someone could have tricked her. Her explanation of the destruction of the Schrank was feasible, too. I didn’t believe it, but it was feasible. I saw no reason to disillusion Tony. He would only have accused me of being catty, jealous, and a few other things.

Freddy’s departure was suspicious. He might have taken fright after the failure of his attack and fled from a possible police investigation. Or, if John’s theory was correct, he might have fled from someone else.

Once out of Friedl’s cloying presence, Tony’s spirits rose. “Communists aside,” he remarked, “her story isn’t as unlikely as it sounds. The Nazis were the biggest looters of art objects the world has ever seen. Hitler was collecting for his Sonderauftrag Linz, Goring was collecting for Goring, and everybody else was picking up the leftovers. A lot of the loot ended up in Bavaria; even Goring shipped his treasures to Berchtesgaden when the Russians began to close in on Berlin. Remember the salt mines at Alt Aussee? Over ten thousand paintings, dozens of sculptures—including Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child—and thousands of minor works. According to one estimate, there were at least two hundred official caches of art treasures in southern Germany, and God knows how many unofficial ones. Some have never been found. This prize of Hoffman’s needn’t be a whole mineful; maybe it’s a single piece, something that had special importance to him.”

He was getting uncomfortably close to the truth. I hoped he wouldn’t think of looking up Hoffman’s name in the professional literature; that would turn his attention away from the paintings-in-the-salt-mine theory, which was where I wanted him to stay. The trouble with my friends, and enemies, is that they are too intelligent.

“It’s a hopeless cause, Tony,” I said. “These mountains are like Swiss cheese, full of holes, caves, and abandoned mines. It could be anywhere—if it exists.”

Tony refused to be discouraged. The prospect of another treasure hunt, and of playing detective, was too exciting. “Don’t be such a pessimist. Hoffman must have left some clue. He was an old man; he wouldn’t take the chance of its being lost forever.”

We had reached my room. I unlocked the door.

“I wonder how big it is,” Tony mused.

“Bigger than a breadbox,” I offered. “Are you coming in?”

“I have my own room, thank you. Friedl was more than happy to accommodate me.”

He was infuriatingly calm about being exiled from my tempting proximity. In fact, there was a swagger in his step and a certain swing to his shoulders as he walked away….

“Tony,” I said gently.

“What?”

“I have a feeling Ann would rate Friedl as a succubus, too.”

Tony’s smile was the sublime quintessence of smugness. “Why don’t I ask her? I told her I’d call today. So if you’ll excuse me for, say, half an hour—maybe an hour…” He disappeared into his room, leaving me to contemplate his closed door and the shame of my evil imagination.

We decided to drive to Garmisch for dinner. Actually it was I who decided; Tony was in favor of sticking around the hotel, in hopes of God knows what—another attempt on my life, perhaps. I wanted to get away. The town was preying on my nerves—not that it wasn’t a nice town, but it was so small. Too small for the three of us —especially when John was one of the three.

Since it was still early, we poked around the shops for a while, and Tony, who was still smarting from what he considered my treacherous behavior, got his revenge by carrying out an act of atrocity from which I had dissuaded him on several previous occasions. He bought a pair of lederhosen.

Lederhosen are those short leather pants. Let me repeat the word “short.” They do not come to the knee, or just above the knee, or to mid-thigh; they are, not to belabor the point, short. On Tony they were a cross between a visual obscenity and a bad joke; he had to buy the largest pair in the shop in order to cover the essentials, and they were so big around the waist there was room inside for two of him. He said it didn’t matter, the suspenders would hold them up.

The suspenders, brightly embroidered with objects such as edelweiss, were part of the costume, which also included knee socks and one of those silly little hats with a feather or an ostrich plume or a Gamsbart (chamois beard) tucked into the band. Tony’s had a white ostrich feather. When attired in the complete ensemble, he looked exactly like Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater in a German edition of Mother Goose I had bought for one of my nieces.

He wanted me to try on dirndls—so we’d match, I suppose. I actually love those cute little outfits; the astute reader has probably realized that my nasty remarks about the waitresses were prompted by pure jealousy. A dirndl looks as absurd on me as the lederhosen looked on Tony, if not as indecent. I tried on a few, to shut him up; when I saw him in a whispered conference with the shopkeeper, I realized he was planning to buy me one for a Christmas present. I also realized I didn’t have anything for him, so we cruised a few more stores and I took mental notes on the items Tony admired.

We stowed his parcel in the car. By mat time it was dark, and the town was aglitter with thousands of Christmas bulbs strung from storefronts and lampposts. Snow crunched underfoot, the air was redolent with the smell of pine branches and wood fires; the colorful ski jackets and caps glowed like neon—raspberry, turquoise, hot