“What did you do to my father, you witch?”
Brunhilda took a step back. For the second time that night, someone had recoiled at the mention of Hans Reiner, but ironically the person doing it now was the same one who had used his name as a threat earlier.
How much do you know, child? How much did he tell you before… ?
She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t: she didn’t dare.
Instead, she squeezed her hands into fists until her nails stuck into her palms, trying to calm herself and decide what to do, just as she had done that night fourteen years earlier. And when she had managed to recover a minimum of composure, she went back downstairs. On the first floor she poked her head over the banister and smiled down into the entrance hall. She didn’t dare go any farther, because she didn’t think she could keep up the pretense for long in front of that sea of tense faces.
“You’ll have to excuse us. Friends of my son have been playing with firecrackers, just as I thought. If you don’t mind I’ll deal with the chaos they’ve caused up there”-she gestured to Paul’s mother-“Ilse, my dear.”
The faces softened when they heard this, and the guests relaxed when they saw the housekeeper following their hostess up the stairs as though nothing were wrong. They already had plenty of gossip about the party, and could hardly wait to get home to bore their families with it.
“Don’t even think about screaming,” was the only thing Brunhilda said.
Ilse had been expecting some childish mischief, but when she saw Paul in the corridor, she was afraid. Then, when she half opened Eduard’s door, she had to bite her fist to stop herself from screaming. Her reaction was not so very different from that of the baroness, except that with Ilse there were tears as well as horror.
“Poor boy,” she said, wringing her hands.
Brunhilda watched her sister, her own hands poised on her hips.
“Your son was the one who gave Eduard the gun.”
“Oh, Holy God, tell me that’s not true, Paul.”
It sounded like an entreaty, but her words contained no hope. Her son didn’t reply. Brunhilda approached him, exasperated, waving her index finger.
“I’m going to call the magistrate. You’ll rot in prison for giving a gun to an invalid.”
“What did you do to my father, you witch?” Paul repeated, slowly getting up to face his aunt. She didn’t step back this time, even though she was scared.
“Hans died in the colonies,” she replied, lacking conviction.
“That’s not true. My father was in this house before he disappeared. Your own son told me.”
“Eduard was sick and confused; he was making up all kinds of stories because of the injuries he suffered at the front. And in spite of the fact that the doctor forbade him visitors, you’ve been in here, making him agitated, and then you go and give him a gun!”
“You’re lying!”
“You killed him.”
“That’s a lie,” said the boy. Nonetheless he felt a chill of doubt.
“Paul, that’s enough!”
“Get out of my house.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” said Paul.
“You decide,” said Brunhilda, turning to Ilse. “Judge Strohmeyer is still downstairs. In two minutes I will go down and inform him what’s happened. If you don’t want your son to spend tonight at Stadelheim, you’ll leave straightaway.”
Ilse paled in terror at the mention of the prison. Strohmeyer was a good friend of the baron’s, and it wouldn’t take much to convince him to charge Paul with murder. She grabbed her son by the arm.
“Paul, let’s go!”
“Not until-”
She slapped him so hard that it hurt her fingers. Paul’s lip began to bleed but he stood watching his mother, refusing to move.
Then, finally, he followed her.
Ilse didn’t allow her son to pack a suitcase; they didn’t even go by his room. They went down the service staircase and left the mansion through the back door, skulking along the alleys to avoid being seen.
Like criminals.
8
“And may I ask where the hell you’ve been?”
The baron appeared, furious and tired, the edges of his frock coat creased, his moustache disheveled and his monocle hanging loose. An hour had passed since Ilse and Paul had left, and the party had only just ended.
Only when the very last guest was gone did the baron go and look for his wife. He found her sitting on a chair she’d brought out into the fourth-floor corridor. The door to Eduard’s room was closed. Even with her immense will, Brunhilda couldn’t manage to bring herself to return to the party. When her husband appeared, she explained to him what lay inside the room, and Otto felt his own share of pain and remorse.
“You’re calling the judge in the morning,” said Brunhilda, her voice dispassionate. “We’ll say we found him like this when we came to give him his breakfast. That way we can keep the scandal to a minimum. It might not even get out.”
Otto nodded. He drew his hand back from the door handle. He didn’t dare to go in, nor would he ever. Not even after the traces of the tragedy had been scrubbed from the walls and the floor.
“The judge owes me a favor. I think he’ll be able to sort it out. But I wonder how Eduard got hold of the gun. He can’t have got it on his own.”
When Brunhilda told him Paul’s role and that she had thrown the Reiners out of the house, the baron was livid.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“They were a threat, Otto.”
“And have you by any chance forgotten what’s at stake here? Why we’ve had them in this house all these years?”
“To humiliate me and ease your conscience,” said Brunhilda, with a bitterness she’d been holding in for years.
Otto didn’t bother to reply, since he knew what she said was true.
“Eduard talked to your nephew.”
“Oh, God. Do you have any idea what he might have told him?”
“That doesn’t matter. After leaving tonight they’ve become suspects, even if we don’t turn them in tomorrow. They won’t dare speak out, and they have no proof of anything. Unless the boy finds something.”
“Do you think I’m worried about them finding out the truth? For that they’d have to find Clovis Nagel. And Nagel hasn’t been in Germany for a long time. But that doesn’t solve our problem. Your sister is the only one who knows where Hans Reiner’s letter is.”
“Keep an eye on them, then. From a distance.”
Otto reflected for a few moments.
“I’ve got just the man for the job.”
Someone else was present during that conversation, though he was hidden in a corner of the corridor. He had listened without understanding. Much later, when Baron von Schroeder retired to their bedroom, he went into Eduard’s room.
When he saw what was inside, he sank to his knees. By the time he rose, what was left of the innocence his mother had not been able to burn away-the parts of his soul that she hadn’t been able to sow with hatred and envy toward his cousin over many years-were dead, turned to ashes.
I’ll kill Paul Reiner for this.
Now I am the heir. But I will be the baron.
He couldn’t make out which of the two competing thoughts excited him more.
