“Oh, that’s comprehensible. He’d want it close at hand, where he could look at it and gloat over it.”
“Well, that’s very interesting, but I can’t see that it gets us anywhere. Friedl may not know where he hid it—”
“Friedl does not know. Jest all you like, but my theory is the only one that fits the facts.”
“We don’t know where it is either.”
“How about your elongated gentleman friend from Chicago?”
I tried to raise one eyebrow. Though I have practiced for hours in front of a mirror, the feat is still beyond me; both eyebrows slipped up. “If I didn’t know better, I would suspect your harping on Tony’s height betrays jealousy of a taller and better man. I’m convinced Tony is innocent, but he is no longer unwitting. Friedl got to him and spilled part of the beans. I’m going to tell him the rest.”
Instead of objecting, John nodded. “You may as well. I do not share your blind faith in the lad, but if I’m right and you are wrong, he knows anyway. If you are right and I’m wrong, it’s too late to remove him from the line of fire; the bad boys have seen him with you and they will assume he’s a coconspirator.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. I thought we had decided the attack on me and Schmidt was a single aberration.”
John raised one eyebrow, without visible effort. “We hope that’s what it was. If they are waiting for us to come up with a solution, we may all die of old age here in Bad Steinbach. I am completely without inspiration.”
“Me too.”
The glum silence that followed was broken by another outburst from the parlor. Even with two heavy doors in between, it sounded like a large child having a large temper tantrum. John flinched. “I can’t stand much more of this.”
“Maybe she wants out,” I suggested.
“I know she wants out. As soon as I let her out, she wants in again. I have spent the afternoon letting her in and letting her out.” John’s voice cracked. “I can’t let the creature sit outside the door howling, for fear the neighbors will hear and come to investigate.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when the great John Smythe was cowed by a cat.”
“It isn’t the damned cat, it’s general frustration. We aren’t making any progress and I see no hope of our ever doing so. At what point do we call the whole thing off?”
“We?” I repeated. “You’re a free agent, John. You can—and will—walk away whenever you choose. The only thing that puzzles me is why you signed on in the first place.”
He turned slightly, to place his glass on the workbench. The fine hairs outlining his chin and jaw sparked like the shining scraps of Helen’s gold. He started toward me. I waited till he was leaning forward before I slid ungracefully out of the chair and out of his reach. He lost his balance and sprawled awkwardly across the chair.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“I didn’t intend to.” He sat up, but he didn’t make the mistake of reaching for me a second time. “What’s got into you?”
“Common sense, maybe,” I suggested. “John, you make love very nicely. I don’t know anyone who does it better—”
“And your experience, I presume, is extensive.”
“Ooooh, how rude,” I said. “That was unworthy of you, sir. As I was saying, I’m willing to play games of that sort with you whenever it suits me, but don’t insult my intelligence by implying that our relationship means any more to you than—than that. If you did care about me, you wouldn’t disappear into thin air the way you did and left me worrying—I mean—”
The hard, angry line of his lips relaxed, and I realized, too damned late as usual, that I had left myself wide open. That repulsive heroine of mine was affecting my speech patterns, if not my brain.
John stood up. “Darling!” he bleated. “I didn’t know you cared.”
I had one hand raised to smack his grinning face, before I realized that he had presented his cheek in gallant expectation of just that response. “Oops,” he said in his normal voice. “Wait a sec—not that one.” He turned the other cheek, the one that the cat had not scratched.
I let my hand fall. “Never mind,” I said, with as much dignity as the situation allowed.
“Don’t go,” John pleaded, as I made a wide berth around him on my way to the door. “It’s been a frightfully dull day, and these little exchanges are so enlivening. We could insult one another a bit longer and then retire—”
“I’ll have to take a rain check. Schmidt will be at my door at around six A.M., and if I’m not there, he’ll have the whole police force of Bad Steinbach out looking for me.” Then I remembered my cooling stove, and added, “Unless you’d like to come back with me.”
“Hmm,” said John, scratching his chin and eyeing me doubtfully.
“Oh, well, forget it. You’d probably make me do it anyway.”
“Do what?”
“Never mind.” I opened the door to the parlor. Clara burst out and made a beeline for John. “Sic ’em, killer,” I said.
Seven
SCHMIDT DID WAKE ME THE FOLLOWING morning. It had taken me some time to fall asleep. The emphatic hammering on my door shattered a dream whose details I prefer not to recall and shot me out of bed before I realized what I was doing. Having gotten that far, I decided I might as well open the door.
“Ha, there you are,” Schmidt said happily.
I stared blearily at him. He had changed into a bright orange ski suit, in which he looked like an animated pumpkin.
“We are having breakfast together in our room, Tony and I,” Schmidt went on with ghastly cheerfulness. “Come. Come quickly, we have much to discuss.”
I grabbed a robe as he towed me toward the door, and managed to get it around me before he ushered me into his—their—room. Heavenly warmth wrapped around my shivering limbs. Some noble soul had fired up the stove.
Appropriately attired in lederhosen, suspenders, et al., Tony was seated at the table digging into a hearty Bavarian farmers’ breakfast. It was no wonder he had been moved to start the stove; his bare thighs were still faintly blue with cold.
He was in a better mood than I had expected after a night listening to Schmidt snore. He greeted me with a wave of a fork on which a sausage was impaled. Such was my state of sleepy confusion that I was not at all surprised to see a Siamese cat sitting on the table next to the sausage.
“Sit down,” said Schmidt. “We must discuss the case.”
“I’m retiring from the case,” I mumbled, sitting. Fortunately there was a chair under me.
“What? No! Give her coffee, Tony, she does not ever make sense until she has had coffee.”
Tony obliged. Clara took advantage of his distraction to hook the sausage off his fork; she carried it across the room and sat down on the beruffled lace-trimmed hem of my robe to eat it. I was too far gone to protest. I said faintly, “1 am retiring from the case.”
“Have more coffee,” said Schmidt.
“I will. But that will not affect my decision. I am retiring from the case because there is no case.”
Tony and Schmidt said in unison, “You can’t.”
“Oh yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t,” said Schmidt and Tony. Tony glared at Schmidt, who continued in solo, “The police are looking for you, Vicky, my dear. You must solve the case to free yourself from suspicion.”
The cat rose fluidly from the floor to the table and clamped its teeth on the bacon Tony was holding. Tony tugged at it and swore. The cat growled but did not relinquish her hold. Schmidt giggled.
“A charming animal,” he said approvingly. “Yours, Vicky? It was outside your door early this morning; I had hoped you would be awake, but you were not, and I thought I would let you sleep a little longer, so I brought it here with me—”