confided in.”
“Yes. Yes. We can deal with her—”
“As you dealt with the old man? I forbid it. Do you hear? Keep that degenerate follower of yours under control. Leave it to me.”
“Yes, my darling. I am sorry—”
“Rather late for regrets, isn’t it?”
Tears filled her eyes, smearing her heavy makeup. “Don’t be angry with me. You will break my heart. I promise, I will do whatever you say.”
“Do nothing. Keep searching. Notify me at once—at once, do you hear?—if she communicates with you. In the meantime, I will take steps to correct your mistake.”
“You think you can—”
“I have several ideas,” the far-off voice murmured.
For the next few days I was followed around Munich by little fat men—or, sometimes, little fat women. They were all Schmidt. He loves dressing up in funny costumes. I wouldn’t dream of destroying his illusion that he is a great detective, so I pretended not to recognize him. I didn’t try to lose him either, which wouldn’t have been hard.
I would have lost him if I had been doing what he thought I was doing—heading for a rendezvous with the mysterious, the enigmatic Robin Hood of crime. Schmidt assumed that though John had vanished from the rest of the world, he had kept in touch with the love of his life. Maybe he had—but obviously I wasn’t it.
The stain on the wrapping paper was human blood, all right. This fact, among others, convinced me John was not the sender. The sight of blood made him sick—especially, as he had candidly admitted, his own. Nor would he have left me hanging in limbo. He’d have sent a follow-up message.
I studied that damned photograph, with the naked eye and the magnifying glass, until every detail was imprinted on my brain. If there was a hidden clue, I failed to find it. Schmidt had no better luck than I. He kept stealing the photo, and I had to keep stealing it back; and I knew that if he had found something I overlooked, he wouldn’t be able to resist bragging about it. I made a point of arriving early at work so I could intercept the mail before Gerda messed around with it. I infuriated the switchboard operator with my daily demand of “Are you sure no one else called?”
She was sure.
Except for Schmidt’s comedy routine, it was a dull week. Even his appearance as a pint-sized Erich von Stroheim, complete with monocle, didn’t cheer me up. Schmidt’s eye muscles weren’t up to the job of retaining the monocle, it kept falling out, and whenever I looked back at him, all I saw was his rotund rump as he pawed at the snowdrifts looking for his prop. That pursuit ended when some woman started beating him with her purse and accusing him of trying to look up her skirts. I guess he talked her out of calling a cop. I didn’t intervene, since I wasn’t supposed to know who he was.
I’m not one of those unfortunate people who sink into a deep depression during the holidays. Usually I love Christmas, and
In other words, I did my damnedest to cultivate some Christmas spirit. I had only limited success. The gold bracelet I bought mother recalled the glitter of Helen’s diadem; a street sign reminded me that the small town of Dachau was only a few miles away and made me wonder why I was worrying about the fate of a few chunks of lifeless metal, compared to the wreckage of human life in that awful cataclysm.
Even the toy stores didn’t cheer me up. German toy stores are superb, but I was pretty sure my nieces and nephews would prefer copies of American superheroes made in Taiwan to the beautifully crafted castles and storybook dolls and stuffed, cuddly animals. I loaded up on heroes for the kids and consoled myself with a stuffed kitten. I adore stuffed animals, but I have a hard time building a collection because Caesar keeps eating them. The kitten was lifesized and amazingly lifelike—a Siamese with seal-brown ears and tail, a pink nose, and blue glass eyes. At the moment, however, I was not too fond of blue eyes, what with Schmidt dogging my every move and John not dogging me….
I also bought a robe and nightgown. They were Italian-made, sheer white batiste dripping with lace and embroidery. After I got back to work that day, I spread the robe out across the desk and stared at it. I cannot honestly say I do not know what possessed me to buy such a useless, extravagant item. I knew exactly what had possessed me. It wasn’t even my style; as my mother keeps insisting, I look better in tailored clothes.
When the telephone rang I lunged for it, hoping the caller would be someone interesting enough to take my mind off my increasing insanity.
At first I didn’t recognize his voice. Even after he had identified himself, I remained doubtful. “Are you sick or something? You sound funny.”
“Humor is not my aim,” said Tony. “This is a business call.”
“The word was ill-chosen,” I admitted. “Seriously—are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Illinois, of course. Are you going to the meetings this year?”
“Which meetings? Oh—Turin. No, I don’t think so.”
“You went last year.”
I had not taken him seriously when he said the call was business; one never knows when the IRS may be bugging one’s telephone. But the formal, almost accusatory tone was not like the Tony I knew.
“Last year the meetings were only sixty miles from Munich,” I explained patiently. “And there were several sessions on art history. Are you going?”
“Yes. I—uh—I had hoped to see you.”
“Well, you won’t unless you stop over in Munich.”
“May I? I wouldn’t want to interfere with your plans—”
“Tony, you sound like Miss Manners’ older brother. I’d love to see you. I can’t think of anything I’d like better. I have no plans—I’ll be all alone—”
“What about that weird little boss of yours?”
“Schmidt,” I said in exasperation. “His name is Schmidt, as you know perfectly well. I usually do spend Christmas with him unless I go home, but this year he’s going to his sister’s. He can’t stand the woman—she’s one of those tightlipped disapproving types—and he hates her husband, too; but she trapped him and he couldn’t think of an excuse—”
“Oh,” Tony said, in a sepulchral bass rumble, like Boris Karloff. “All right. How does the twenty-first suit you?”
I assured him nothing in this world or the next would give me greater pleasure than to pick him up at the airport on December 21.
“Okay,” Tony mumbled. “See you then.”
The click of the far-off receiver caught me with my mouth open and my rapturous enthusiasm half-expressed. He sounded as if he was even more depressed than I was. Instead of cheering one another, we might end up in a joint suicide pact. Then something else hit me. Tony had not asked me to marry him.
Tony always asked me to marry him. He had been asking me for years. One of the reasons why he disliked Schmidt was that he blamed the old boy for luring me from the primrose path that led to the cottage door and the little frilly aprons and the houseful of babies. This was completely unjust, since I wouldn’t have married Tony even if Schmidt had not offered me a job.
Not that I wasn’t fond of Tony, who is tall (really tall, I mean, six inches taller than I am), dark, and
