“Schmidt,” I said softly. “Shut up. No. Don’t shut up. Repeat what you just said.”
“I thought I would let you sleep a little longer, so—”
“Before that. Something about the police.”
“Yes, I expect they are looking for you.”
“Why, Schmidt?”
“Because of the dead man in your garden, of course.”
“The dead man in my garden,” I repeated hollowly.
“Give her more coffee,” said Schmidt.
Schmidt was full of admiration for the foresight of Sir John Smythe, who had warned him about the dead man.
“Well, not in so many words, of course,” Schmidt admitted. “But he told me there would be a desperate attempt on your life, Vicky, and that I must come at once to tell you when it occurred.”
“He told you I would be here?” I was still trying to get a grip on the situation.
“He did not have to tell me, I knew. He has a greater respect for my intelligence than some people.”
“Wait,” I pleaded. “Just stop talking for a minute, Schmidt, and let me think. Did you find…No, that’s not the most important…How was he…What I want to know is, who was it?”
“You don’t have to shout,” Schmidt roared, clapping his hands over his ears.
“I’m sorry,” I whimpered.
“Have some hay,” Tony suggested. “It’s very good when you’re feeling faint.”
Suddenly I felt better. It may have been the caffeine, but I think it was just Tony—the comradely grin, the familiar dimple, the tacit acknowledgment that the whole scenario had the lunatic logic of a Lewis Carroll plot. The cat jumped on my knee and began washing her whiskers.
“Let him tell it,” Tony went on, indicating Schmidt. “He’s been bending my ear with his tale since six A.M. He’d have rousted you out at that hour if I had let him, so you can thank me for your extra sleep.”
“Thank you,” I said meekly.
“Bitte schön. I might add,” Tony added, “that if he had bothered to mention this little detail last night, instead of waiting until this morning—”
“There were more important things,” Schmidt protested. “The spy from East Berlin—”
“Schmidt, you were so drunk you wouldn’t have known a spy from a brontosaurus,” I said wearily. “Never mind. Tell me now.”
Schmidt made a long dramatic story of it, but there really wasn’t much to tell. He had arrived at my house shortly after Tony and I had left. After Brotzeit, lunch, and a short nap, he had decided to take a little exercise. Jogging briskly and breathlessly around the block, he had attracted a pack of dogs. (Schmidt is irresistible to dogs; he is so round and so roly-poly, and he yelps so delightfully when they nip at his ankles.) Trailed by the fascinated pack, he had fled back to the house, but had been too distracted by the nips and barks and whines to unlock the door. In the hope that his admirers would lose interest and go away, he had slipped through the side gate into the back yard. One of the dogs had slipped through with him; from his vivid description, I recognized the animal as the beagle who lived three doors down. When the dog abandoned him and began digging furiously in a snowbank by the fence, Schmidt was curious enough to investigate.
I couldn’t blame him for getting drunk. As soon as he realized what the snow concealed, he had bundled the dog out the gate, but its frantic howling provided a ghastly background accompaniment to his excavations. The stiff white flesh was the same shade and temperature as its icy shroud, but Schmidt had no difficulty recognizing the face of Freddy.
I patted Schmidt’s hand sympathetically. He frowned at me and pulled it away. “It was a terrible sight. I am glad it was I and not you who found him, Vicky. His eyes were open and coated with a thin layer of ice….”
Shocked though he was, Schmidt had dug snow away until he found the dark-crusted stains on the breast of Freddy’s fancy Hawaiian shirt. They came from multiple stab wounds, according to Schmidt—and I was willing to take his word for it. However, there was no blood on the snow. Freddy had been long dead and half frozen when someone tipped him over the fence into my back yard. It must have happened the night before, after I took Caesar to visit his friend Carl.
“So of course I left Munich at once,” Schmidt finished. “To tell you what had happened. But I could not find you. You were not here. And by the time you came, I had seen Perlmutter—”
“Didn’t you call the police?” I asked.
“No. Why should I do that? They would only detain me, asking questions. But I suppose they will find him before long,” said Schmidt calmly. “And then they will want to talk with you. And when they find who he is, and that you were at the hotel—”
“Schmidt, don’t be theatrical. I’ve got to go home right away. There is no sense in staying on here—”
“We can’t leave yet,” Tony protested. “Friedl—er—Frau Hoffman—has given me permission to look through her husband’s papers. He must have left some sort of memo or note or map telling where he hid the gold.”
“The gold,” I said. “Right. I suppose Schmidt told you.”
“Yes, he did. And I must say, Vicky, that your behavior has hurt and astonished me. I would like to believe that it was concern for my safety and respect for my altered status that prompted your reticence—”
“Believe it,” I said, shrugging.
“I would like to believe it, but I don’t. You’ve harbored a grudge ever since the Riemenschneider affair—”
“Grudge? Grudge, my eye! Why should I?”
“Because I proved my superiority,” said Tony, with a smirk and a superb disregard for the truth. “Because we made a bet and I won.”
“Like hell you won.” The cat grumbled and dug her claws into my leg. I moderated my voice. “We collaborated on that affair. It was a joint success.”
“That’s what I mean. You can’t stand sharing the credit.”
“There is some truth in that,” said Schmidt judiciously. “You do not share well with others, Vicky. You did not tell Papa Schmidt, or Sir John—”
“And that’s another thing,” shouted Tony. “Who is that character, anyway? What’s he doing in this business? How did you meet him?”
“But I have told you,” said Schmidt, winking furiously at me to indicate…something or other. Even when I’m at my best, I am sometimes uncertain as to the esoteric meaning of Schmidt’s gestures. Enlightenment dawned as he continued, “Sir John is an under-the-blanket personage of an extremely secret organization—”
“So secret I’ve never heard of it?” Tony demanded. “He’s lying to you, Schmidt. There is no such thing. He’s probably some kind of crook; Vicky attracts them the way a dog collects fleas.”
They went on exchanging insults and lies, which gave me a chance to consider this latest development. If anything, it only strengthened my determination to get myself, not to mention Tony and Schmidt, out of what was beginning to look like a nasty, dangerous, unproductive mess.
When they had wound down, I said, “If you two have quite finished, I’d like to make a statement. I said I was through, and I am. Through.”
“But the murder of Freddie—” Schmidt began.
“Schmidt, there is no way anybody could suspect I killed Freddie.”
“But the gold—” Tony exclaimed.
“What gold? We’ve built up a fabric of guesswork and surmise. We haven’t the slightest clue, and there is nothing more we can do here.”
“Not true,” said Tony. Schmidt nodded vigorous agreement.
“What can we do?”
“Inspect Hoffman’s papers.”
“Lots of luck, buster. You can be sure Friedl has already been through them with a fine-tooth comb.”
“I don’t know why you are so prejudiced against the poor woman,” Tony said. I rolled my eyes in speechless commentary. Tony reddened. “Even if she is—er—up to no good, which I consider unproven, I may find something she overlooked. I hope you won’t accuse me of vanity if I suggest I am slightly more intelligent than she.”