I saw at once that I was right and my impressions of the night before had been considerably distorted. In daylight the chapel was much smaller than I had recalled and thus even further removed from the 'spacious Gothic cathedral' of Beddoes' play. Nor was there anything there to correspond to the sepulchre of the dukes of Munsterberg from which the resurrected Wolfram emerges. As for the frescos, there seemed to be much less to see by daylight than moonlight. Any fancy I may have entertained that perhaps Holbein or one of his pupils had popped across from Basel to try out designs for his Dance of Death soon evaporated. The style of these is pretty crude, completely lacking the Holbein wit and energy my imagination had given them the night before.
Yet I found myself thinking that Beddoes lived in north Switzerland for some time. And doesn't Gosse say in his memoir that when he fled from Zurich after the troubles of 1839, he went to the neighbouring canton of Aargau, which is where I am now?
Brooding on these matters, I strolled away from the chapel not paying much heed to my direction, till finally I came out of the forest at the crest of a gentle rise overlooking the castle. Distantly I saw a car crawling up the snow-covered driveway towards the main entrance, and all thought of Beddoes and rationality went clean out of my mind.
This had to be the car bringing Emerald to Fichtenburg. Without conscious decision, I was running down the slope, driven by my desire to be the first person to greet her as she stepped out.
I believe I even had some crazy notion of throwing my cagoule on to the ground before her, so that her dainty feet wouldn't have to touch the snow.
Well, naturally I paid for my impetuosity, and instead of the perfect gentle knight greeting his lady with due courtesy, the first glimpse the inmates of the car had of me was more like a court jester desperate for laughs, rolling down the slope in a human snowball.
By the time I picked myself up and brushed off the worst of the snow and made my way to the forecourt, the new arrivals were already unloading their vehicle and Frau Buff was standing in the doorway of the castle to greet them.
One glance told me that Emerald was not among them. How could I have imagined she might be travelling in a battered VW Estate with snow chains!
The party consisted of three young women, all strangers to me, though the smallest of them did have something familiar about her.
This familiarity and the nature of the huge misunderstanding I had been labouring under became clear when we exchanged introductions:
The small woman was Musetta Lupin! This was the Tochter Frau Buff had been preparing for. A moment's thought should have told me that the divine Emerald in search of winter sport wouldn't waste her time and beauty on a little pond like Blutensee; she would be adorning some fashionable resort where the beautiful people strut their stuff.
Naturally I was at pains to conceal my disappointment, but when the girls (for that is what they are; all under twenty and none of them, I suspect, much experienced in life) invited me to share the lunch that Frau Buff had prepared for them, I refused politely and returned to the chalet to nurse my wound. And to seek solace in starting this letter to you.
How lucky I am to have someone like yourself I feel I can turn to in my troubles, though I sometimes suspect that my good luck may be based on your bad luck. What I mean is, I would have anticipated that a man of your ability and amiability -would have napped his wings and flown far afield during the years following our first encounter.
Please don't be offended. I'm not belittling your achievement. For many officers, being a Detective Chief Inspector at your age would seem pretty. fair progress. And you were very lowly (meaning highly!) rated in the Syke; a clever, sharp player, one not easily deceived, and offering you a bung was a waste of time! Your one perceived weakness was your reluctance to cut corners. Not that they rated you soft. Oh no. Hard as nails and a terrier once you took hold. I didn't need anyone to give me chapter and verse on that!
The main hope of the MYCF (the Mid-Yorkshire Criminal Fancy!) was that you'd soon take off, leaving space for someone more malleable, and I doubt if anyone would have put money on you still being in your present job these several years on.
So why are you, I ask myself?
Could it be that, like an elegant schooner sailing in the lee of a huge battle-scarred man o' war, you have been both protected from the weather and at the same time had some of the wind taken out of your sails? In other words, is it the Good Ship Dalziel which in some way has hindered the fair and speedy voyage which all have mapped for you?
This is not to aim any sniping criticism at the dear Superintendent. What use to snipe at Juggernaut? He is, you will not be surprised to learn, the Public Enemy Number One of the MYCF, their Hound of Heaven, the man they most love to hate.
Oh, do not let yourself be hidden too long in his huge shadow, dear friend, condemned to do the flitting of the bat. Rather let yourself be the rapid falcon who perches on the fabled roc's shoulders until those mighty pinions have carried him as high as they can – then at last launches himself into blue empyrean!
But I fear I have let enthusiasm carry me into impertinence, and, worse, euphuism. My apologies. I shall not send this letter till I have pondered whether I have earned the right to speak to you with the frankness my heart so desires between us.
Fri Dec 21st
I don't know whether I've earned that right, but if I haven't I must purchase it on credit for once more I find myself in emotional turmoil and, like an addict turning to his drug of choice, I find my hand reaching out for my pen.
Let me take you back to that first day at Fichtenburg.
I wasn't -left alone for long to brood over Emerald's non-arrival. Early in the afternoon I heard a knocking at my door and I found the girls had come down to skate on the lake, which I only now noticed someone had swept clear of snow during the morning. How rich a man must be to employ so many silent workers to keep him comfortable! Shyly, the girls asked whether I would mind if they used the chalet verandah for putting their skates on. Naturally I said of course not, feel free to use all its facilities. Then they said they'd brought a spare pair of skates and would I care to join them? I replied I didn't skate. And they giggled like Yum-Yum, Pitti-Sing and Peep- Bo and said it was a doddle.
It wasn't! But it was good knockabout fun. They were all pretty expert and each took it in turn to act as my tutor and, more importantly, supporter while the other two whizzed around with vigorous grace. There is nothing like making a fool of yourself for breaking the ice (not quite literally) between young people, and nothing like being in statu pupillari for making you feel young! So by the time we all retired to the chalet for in their cases a cooling and in mine a warming drink, we were chatting away like any bunch of kids.
It turns out that they are all teachers at the International School in Strasbourg. Zazie is (guess!) French, Hildi is Austrian, and Mouse is of course English, but they're all fluent in each other's languages and pretty hot, so far as I can make out, at many others. Zazie is by far the prettiest, full of vivacity and natural grace, definitely the girl to take to the ball. Hildi is stocky and muscular. I suspect she never misses her daily work-out in the gym, and from one or two things that were said I gather she is a top-notch cross-country skier. If I get lost in a blizzard, it's Hildi I want to come looking for me! As for Mouse, well, she isn't pretty, that's for sure. In fact she's plain plain, with many of her mother's features but none of that dominatrix edge which can provoke a sexual shiver. And she's almost as timid as her sobriquet. I'm sure she's great with young kids and it's probably my childish antics on the lake that made her relax with me.
It seems she's spending Christmas here with her mother's party and. her friends have just come for a few days of pre-festive frolics. It was a subject of some mirth that Linda's approval of their visit had been qualified by a warning not to disturb the guest in the chalet, whom they'd pictured as some ancient scholar, impatient of company, interested only in his books and in need of absolute silence.
Well, during the next couple of days there was practically no silence, lots of company and not much scholarship, though I did make use of their linguistic skills. I showed them the chapel and explained my interest in it. Hildi, who had a genuine rather than a casual interest in antiquities, said I should ask Frau Buff about it and volunteered to interpret, so off we all went to beard our chatelaine in her den. Buff's knowledge of the family history was extensive if anecdotal, and she shared this with us as she took us on a tour of the castle, including the
