I realized there were tears on my cheeks. Sheer terror, perhaps? I wiped them away with gloved hands, took a firmer grip on my wreaths, and set out across the snow.
The atmosphere was so thick I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the cat unerringly select the grave of her master and fling herself down on the mounded earth like the dog in that morose old Scottish story. (Greyfriars Bobby was the name, I think.) Of course, she did nothing of the sort. While I searched for Hoffman’s grave, she went wandering off in search of prey. But all the little mice and moles were tucked snug in their winter beds; when I finally reached my goal, Clara came to stand beside me.
It should not have taken me so long to find the right stone. It was the newest one in the graveyard, an austere dark granite slab with no epitaph, only the names and the dates. Hoffman must have had it prepared when his wife died. The carved lines giving the date of his death were raw and fresh compared to the other lettering.
The plot was enclosed by a low wrought-iron railing, which I discovered by tripping over it; it was entirely concealed by fallen snow. The other stones in the enclosure belonged to members of the same family—Frau Hoffman’s, according to Müller. The oldest visible date was that of a Georg Meindl, who had been born in 1867. There were probably older stones, now fallen and snow-shrouded.
After I had clumsily propped the wreaths against the tombstone I lingered, feeling as if there were something more I ought to do. I’m not much for praying, so I just stood shivering and wishing there were some truth in the wistful age-old desire for communication with the dead.
The Meindl plot was one of the ones farthest from the entrance to the cemetery. From where I was standing I could see clear out across the neighboring valley; a small settlement below looked like a toy village and, beyond it, another ridge of mountains raised dark, snow-streaked barriers. Apparently the road I had traveled descended from this point. A few of the lower loops were visible, but the section nearest me was hidden by the remains of the wall.
My wreath was the only memorial on the mounded earth above his grave. It looked cold and lonely; only the dainty footprints of the cat crisscrossed the white covering. The funeral flowers had been tidied away after they withered—probably by poor old Herr Müller. She wouldn’t have bothered. Thank heaven for the kindliness of snow; it covered raw earth and weedy neglect with a benign white mantle.
Frau Hoffman’s grave was equally stark at this season, but there were pathetic evidences of someone’s tending. The stem of a small climbing rose twined around the dark granite. The rose was brown and leafless now, but during the past summer the green leaves and small fragrant blossoms would have softened the starkness of the stone. Dried brown flower heads protruded from the snow—not weeds, as I had thought, but chrysanthemums and asters—autumn flowers.
The cat ambled up to see what was taking me so long. A gust of icy wind rattled the dead stalks. She sat up on her haunches and swiped at a swaying flowerhead. I moved instinctively to stop her, but she scampered away from my hand, and I stood back, smiling wryly. Hoffman wouldn’t mind. Life goes on. Better a warm living creature, rolling and playing, than silence and icy winds.
Clara had gone into a feline frenzy, rotating in a vain attempt to catch her tail, brushing the snow aside in a wide patch that bared the withered flowers and frozen earth. A white protrusion caught my eye and I bent to examine it.
It was a bulb—probably a daffodil, to judge from its size. Freezing, the ground had heaved and thrust the bulb out and upward. One less flower to brighten the springtime and testify to the hope of resurrection; it would never survive the winter’s cold, exposed and vulnerable as it was. I knelt, thinking I would replant it, but the ground was frozen hard as stone.
Bad Steinbach looked like a teeming metropolis after the loneliness of the cemetery. I was glad to be back in civilization unscathed. My shoulders ached; I realized I had been driving with my head pulled in like a turtle’s, in anticipation of attack. Thank you, Herr Professor Schmidt.
The town was livelier than usual, and as I watched people bustling around, setting up scaffolding and booths and arranging benches under the arcade, I remembered there was some sort of festival that night. Weihnacht, fröhliche Weihnacht…Mine wasn’t looking very fröhlich at the moment, what with a frozen body in my garden at home and a number of live bodies harassing me in Bad Steinbach.
I opened the car door. The cat jumped out and went swaggering off, without so much as a thank-you for the ride or a backward glance. I wondered whether she would find John at home.
When I asked for my key, the clerk gave me a handful of messages. The first was from Tony. “Dieter and Elise came by, have gone skiing, we’ll be at the Kreuzeck, why don’t you join us?” I crumpled it and went to the next, which read, “Astonishing news! Have made great discovery! Come instantly to my room!”
The other slips of paper were telephone messages, all of them from Schmidt, all of them demanding I present myself instantly. “What the devil—” I said involuntarily.
“The Herr returned an hour ago and left the message,” the clerk said wearily. “He has telephoned your room every ten minutes since. If you would be so kind, gnädiges Fräulein—”
I promised I would put a stop to Schmidt, and headed for the stairs. Schmidt and his astonishing discoveries; he had probably spotted all the members of the Politbüro lurking around Bad Steinbach.
Since he didn’t have a room in the hotel, I assumed he meant Tony’s, so I went there. A hearty “Herein, bitte,” answered my knock. I opened the door.
Schmidt was eating, of course. Brotzeit. The table was covered with beer bottles and plates, and across from Schmidt was Jan Perlmutter.
Schmidt greeted me with a shriek of pleasure. “It is you at last; I thought it was the room service. Look, Vicky—see—I have captured him!”
Jan rose to his feet and made me a stiff, formal little bow. “Guten Tag, Fräulein Doktor. I must protest the Herr Direktor’s statement. It is not accurate. To say that he captured me is a falsification of the facts.”
I studied him thoughtfully. “I liked you better as a blond, Jan.”
“That is easily remedied,” Jan said, straightfaced. “I am wearing a wig.” He pulled it off.
“And a rotten wig it is. Is that the best a socialist Soviet republic can do?”
Jan looked blank. Dieter was right; the man had absolutely no sense of humor. But the tight golden curls clung damply to his beautiful skull and he looked good enough to eat. I smiled at him. “Sit down, Jan.”
Jan sat. “He did not capture me. When I recognized the distinguished director of the National Museum…”
“I overpowered him,” Schmidt explained, brandishing his beer stein. “With a chop to the throat and a partial nelson to the leg. I then applied a hammer-bolt and forced him to return here with me.”
I said, “Shut up, Schmidt. All right, Jan, I gather you were about to make a statement. Proceed.”
“I will begin at the beginning,” Jan said.
Well, he tried. The man had a logical mind; it wasn’t his fault that Schmidt kept interrupting.
He began by taking a piece of cardboard from his breast pocket and handing it to me. “Yes,” I said. “It’s Frau Schliemann…. My God. It is Frau Schliemann!”
“Who?” Schmidt leaned forward and peered over my shoulder. “Herr Gott! This is not the same—”
“Schmidt, will you please refrain from unnecessary comments? Go on, Jan. Where did you get this?”