an old woman.”
Especially wearing a dress like that, said Helen’s eyes. “Nothing’s wasted that broadens a life, I believe. Look at me-a Harvard graduate one moment, dealing with Queens traffic the next. Harvard was a help.”
“The Queen has traffic?” Dagmar asked blankly. “In what?”
Her laughter broke all conversation into a transfixed stop-motion; everyone stared, and Helen realized that one didn’t howl with laughter at a von Fahlendorf table. Too bad. “No, you misunderstand. Queens is a borough of New York City, and I was a traffic cop there for two years.”
Someone pressed the button: movement resumed.
“An extraordinary job,” said Josef, dark eyes admiring. “I think you left it, yes?”
“Yes, to train as a detective in Holloman, my home town.”
“Such unfeminine work,” said the Baroness, looking itchy to leave even though the fish was just coming in.
“Work is work,” said Helen in a flat voice, staring at the glaucous eye of a sole above its pursed little rubbery lips. “People give work a sex, when it shouldn’t have one. Detection of crime is eminently suited to the talents of women.”
“Why?” asked Kurt, smiling.
“Because women are naturally nosey, Kurt, love.”
“It cannot pay much,” said the Baron, scraping one side of his sole down to its skeleton and eating with relish.
“I don’t need to worry about money, Baron. I have an income of a million dollars a year from a trust fund.”
Stop-motion again.
“You are enormously rich!” said Josef on a squawk.
“Not for my family,” said Helen, laying knife and fork down together to indicate that she found the fish inedible. “The thing is, we made our money several generations ago, and thanks to good management, we’ve been able to do useful things with it. My father is a famous educator, my parents have brought my brother and me up to regard philanthropy as necessary, and we work to benefit our family reputation, our home state, and our country.”
“Didn’t I tell you Helen was wonderful?” Kurt demanded.
The Baron flipped his fish over to enjoy the more buttery, lemony underside. “What we do not know,” he said, scraping away, “is who kidnapped Kurt. Your getting him back unharmed and saving our money were laudable, Helen, but the crime is not solved.”
“Actually,” said Helen, waving at a footman to take her plate, “it is solved. I know who kidnapped Kurt and tried to steal your ten million, Baron.”
“Nonsense! How could you?” Josef asked sharply.
“Not nonsense, Josef, as you well know. She must be a most expensive mistress, the woman who lives with the young man in that big house. Is he your son too?”
The silence was palpable; the four genuine von Fahlendorfs were staring now at Josef, trying to seem unaffected.
“A joke, Helen?” Kurt asked, face the color of ashes.
“Unfortunately, Kurt, no. It’s the truth. Josef masterminded your kidnapping, which was carried out by a cruel and ruthless woman who is either Josef’s mistress or his real wife. Her assistant-a rather unwilling one, I think-was the young man who looks too much like Josef not to be his son,” said Helen.
Josef broke into a stream of German that dried up when the Baron smacked the table with the palm of his open hand.
“
Dagmar was howling noisily and Kurt fully occupied in trying to calm her, but the Baroness was behaving most strangely of all, scratching at her chin and throat. The brilliant light of the overhead chandelier showed the beads of sweat breaking through her careful make-up; Helen saw the light. The Baroness was a junkie. Morphine, probably.
It was Macken and Helen who took charge. Kurt was ordered to take his sister away and help her in her own rooms, and the Baroness’s maid summoned to deal with her mistress and her habit.
“Brunhilde knows what to do,” said Macken, revealing that at least the senior staff knew the family secrets. “My lady had a back operation several years ago, and cannot deal with the pain,” he said smoothly.
In a pig’s eye, thought Helen. “Josef can’t be allowed to communicate with his woman,” she said to Macken, “and that means locked in guest quarters like mine, with all the phone jacks unplugged and no one in contact with him who might be susceptible to a bribe. It’s up to the family what they do with him and his accomplices, I’m butting out-going home, I mean.”
“This is all nonsense, Helen,” Josef said as two footmen prepared to march him away. “You spied on me and discovered my sister and her son.”
“Sister?” Helen laughed. “I saw the lip-locker you and Frau Richter-shall I call her that?-exchanged this afternoon.”
Kurt walked in, looking grim. A swift conversation passed between him and Macken; Kurt looked relieved. “You are a woman in a million, Helen,” he said to her. “I must take Papa to his room. He will recover in a moment, then we will decide what to do with Josef. Poor Dagmar!”
“I’m going home tomorrow,” she said.
“I will be coming with you,” said Kurt, and led his father away: a curious business. The old man shrank, muttering about bombs-that much Helen got, even in German-then seemed to cave in and allowed Kurt to assist his faltering attempt to walk.
“You’re a treasure, Macken,” she said to the butler when they were the only people left in the room.
“Thank you, Miss Helen.”
“What did your father do to make a living?”
Macken looked surprised. “He was butler to the Graf.”
Old retainers! “And your son or sons, Macken?”
“One son. He is the head of a government department in Bonn.”
Dagmar begged for admittance as Helen was packing the next morning. “I must thank you,” she said stiffly.
“It’s not necessary. You realize, I hope, that I’m not going to marry Kurt? I came to see if I could solve the kidnapping.”
“That relieves me. You would drive my Kurtchen insane.” She sat on a chair out of the way and watched the jeans-clad Helen work, smoothly and swiftly. “We will save the family name, that is all-important.”
“I figured as much,” said Helen dryly.
“Josef asked me to split two of the ten million off and give it to him,” said Dagmar. “I took it as selfishness, but of course he wanted it for his natural son. His request was denied.”
“May I offer you a word of advice?” Helen asked, stopping to look at Dagmar very seriously
“No doubt I will resent it, but offer it anyway.”
“Josef’s mistress dresses like the Duchess of Windsor-both very expensively and in very good taste. You dress like old Queen Mary, with whose appearance I’m acquainted thanks to an English colleague. You’re a frump, Dagmar, but you needn’t be. Put yourself in the hands of one of those faggy guys always hanging around rich women and let him work a Pygmalion. The best revenge is to live well, so while the Richter woman rots in a German prison, you can flaunt it. You’ll be a happier woman, betcha.”
The sheer insolence deprived Dagmar of a retort.
Helen packed on tranquilly until she finished.
Dagmar spoke again. “Did you mark the woman’s house on your map?” Dagmar asked then.
“Yes,” said Helen, surprised.
“May I have the map? I will need it for the police.”
Helen reached into her enormous shoulder bag and withdrew it. “Here it is, complete with the wrong folds.” She opened it and pointed. “There you are.”
“Well, at least I know what Josef did with his salary.”
“Speaking of houses, this one-” Helen began.
