“Will be sold,” Dagmar said with finality, and got up. “I will not see you again-ever, I hope. But thank you.”
Helen and Kurt flew home together on Sunday, and parted in the foyer of Talisman Towers undemonstrably.
“I am tired,” said Kurt, brushing her chin with one hand.
“Worse than being kidnapped?”
“Infinitely. My poor sister! She is heart-broken.”
“Give her my compliments when you talk.”
“I will.”
And, thought Helen, gazing around her attractive but austere bathroom, it may not look like mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, but I like it all the more for that. Something in between would be nice.
“Bigamy!” said Carmine on Monday morning. “It fits. Yeah, it fits like Frau Richter’s hand in her French kid glove. The brother-in-law did it to provide for his legitimate son, since his bastards had so much-and were getting more.”
“Bigamy can happen when a once-whole nation has been split ideologically, and the two parts don’t talk to each other. I daresay the von Fahlendorfs didn’t ask, and Josef sure as hell didn’t say,” Helen said to Carmine, Nick and Delia.
“They won’t prosecute,” Nick said.
“Definitely not,” Delia said.
“They have to do something,” Helen said. “Honor has been insulted, and the Baron’s not the man to suffer that without lashing back. Nor is the Baroness. And Dagmar’s even worse.”
“Well,” said Carmine, leaning back in his chair, “thank God whatever they do is German business, not American. Note, however, that the family pushed Kurt back to our side of the Atlantic with indecent haste.”
“Protecting him from whatever they do,” said Nick.
“Have you seen the evening papers?” Desdemona asked on Tuesday night when Carmine got home.
He was on edge; there was a faint possibility that the Dodo would strike today. “No,” he said, taking his drink.
Prunella came in and sat down with a breathless sigh. “I wish Julian had less imagination, now that he’s found it,” she said, smiling. “Captain Nemo is rather wearing. Did you know that a race of fish men live in the deep ocean right at its bottom? I could bear that if they hadn’t invented this whizz-bang, super-duper death ray.”
Desdemona handed her a glass of red wine, and gave Carmine the New York evening papers; Holloman’s was a morning one.
“It’s in both papers,” said Desdemona, sitting. “The
It was front page, and headlines: Josef von Fahlendorf, brother-in-law of kidnap victim Professor Kurt von Fahlendorf, had been shot dead outside the von Fahlendorf factory in Munich on this Tuesday at dawn. “Holy shits!” Carmine exclaimed, still reading. What Josef was doing there at that hour no one in authority at Fahlendorf Farben seemed to know, including its managing director, Dagmar, who hadn’t even been aware that Josef was gone from their bed. According to the sole witness, a Volkswagen car eased up behind Josef and the two men in it cut him down with automatic pistols. Heinrich Muller was a factory worker on his way in to Fahlendorf Farben to fire up some new equipment, and he behaved heroically. Instead of seeking shelter, he tried vainly to help Josef, who died in his arms a few minutes later. “Kurt!” he said several times, quite clearly. Muller said the men looked like Turks, had spoken a few words in Turkish. Enjoying this news item immensely, the by-lining journalist said it was evident that Josef thought he had been mistaken for Kurt.
“What do you think?” Desdemona asked.
“That it’s as fishy as Julian’s fish men.” He got up.
“Off to Helen’s minus your drink?”
“Hell, no! She can wait until tomorrow. I’m going to see Delia. Give her a call for me, please? With this news humming on the aether, every hammer and teamster in creation will be tuned to the cop band, so let’s keep my movements secret.”
“Dinner?”
“I should be home in time. Otherwise, save mine.”
“Luckily it’s steak, so we’ll wait. Prunella, looks as if this might be a night for the girls to get blotto.”
“That’s a good chambertin-don’t guzzle.”
Since she didn’t mind the half-hour commute, Delia lived in Millstone, where she could afford a spacious apartment on the waterfront of Busquash Bay. Having chosen a divine color scheme of rust, blue and pink, Delia had stuffed every room with furniture imported from Oxford, where it had graced her grandmother’s home. The walls were a permanently open photograph album of Carstairses, Silvestris, Ceruttis and Cunninghams, the occasional tables boasted lava lamps next to Dresden china lamps, and there were lace-edged, daisy-embroidered doilies everywhere. It was
By the time that Carmine got there she had read the newspapers and listened to the local news radio station, WRHN. She also had his drink ready.
“So who did it?” Carmine asked.
“I’m not quite sure, Carmine dear. Whoever, it’s carefully orchestrated. Heinrich Muller was there accidentally on purpose, of that I’m positive. They had to have a witness to point out that the culprits were Turks.”
“Why Turks?” he asked, sipping.
“Because Germany’s filling up with them,” Delia explained. “Turks find German much easier to learn than other European languages, and penniless Turks gravitate there in search of work. I predict that in the future the trend will escalate, but it’s already marked enough to have created a degree of resentment in working class Germans. Turks make convenient whipping boys.”
“I see. And Heinrich Muller?”
“Will get a big fat promotion. Oh, he was there! I’m also sure the men he saw looked like Turks, may well have been Turks. But I very much doubt that Josef died with Kurt’s name on his lips-or that he died so slowly. I don’t know how clever Muller is, but he’s probably clever enough to suspect that he was given this special job in order to be there as a witness. If he earns a big fat promotion out of it, I predict that he won’t care who set it up or for what reason. Dagmar had him pegged as promising.”
“So who do you think set it up, Deels?”
“A von Fahlendorf. Which one is the brain-teaser. Not our Kurt, of that we can be sure, I think. The family was anxious to get him out of Europe. But whether it’s the Baron, the Baroness or Dagmar, I don’t know. My choice is Dagmar.”
“Broken heart and all?”
“The broken heart makes her more likely, in my book. A woman scorned and all that stuff? According to Helen, Josef is-was-a gorgeous looking bloke, smooth as satin, charming as Cary Grant. She’d already forgiven him an attempted scam and must have been positive he wouldn’t err again. But to think he’d kill her baby brother-! Ooo-aa! That’s blood versus love,” said Delia with a shudder. “I’d choose blood over love every time.”
“So would I, I think. What will the German cops think?”
“That some Turks did it. That it was Turks planned the kidnapping too.”
“In which case, why kill Josef?”
Delia pursed her lips. “Some abstruse Ottoman mind-set? A peculiar eastern revenge? I think the German cops will be so grateful to have a solution offered to them that they won’t ask too many uncomfortable questions.”
His glass was empty; Carmine declined a refill. “Thanks, but no. I have to get home for dinner.”
“There’s a chance the Dodo will strike tonight.”
“I know. That means early to bed.”
