The Silver Castle (18 page)

What else, I thought frantically ... there must be something more. I had been so certain, was
still
so certain, that a hundred indications pointed to Anton’s guilt. But what were they?

A motive? Who else but Anton Kreuder had a motive for killing his wife and her lover? So why hadn’t he come under police suspicion at the time? That suicide message ... Anton’s report of a telephone call from my father, who’d talked wildly of ending it all. Yet there was only Anton’s word that such a conversation had ever taken place. He’d received that call, so he claimed, when he was staying late at his office, alone. No one, not a secretary nor any other employee at the silk mill, not a member of his family nor a servant, could confirm or deny the fact. And Anton had added to his story’s credibility by making anxious enquiries about Benedict Sherbrooke in the village inns.

He had been very sure of himself, until his discovery that Willi knew the true facts. And now that Willi had been safely removed, was he once more entirely confident?

If he doubted me ... if he had cause to suspect that I was not deceived like all the others, would he hesitate to dispose of me as well? Was he watching and waiting now to see how I would react to the news of Willi’s death?

The other night I would have died too if Anton had succeeded in his first attempt on Willi’s life. Had that been his intention, or was I merely expendable in his eyes? And on the mountaintop last Sunday, was it purely an accident that I’d slipped and fallen on the narrow path? Or had I been pushed, only the sudden appearance of the two hikers thwarting Anton’s attempt to dispose of me. I couldn’t be sure, and the question twined a knot of pain around my heart.

Anton hated me, I did know that. His only sincere reaction to me had been in those moments in the silk mill’s yard when he’d first learned who I was. And later, that night, when Raimund and I had arrived home and he’d withered me with his scorn. But ever since then Anton had joined with his stepmother and half-brother in being charming to me, doing everything he could think of to persuade me to stay in Switzerland.

Why, I wondered, hadn’t he wanted me to return to England, where I’d be safely out of his way? Suppose I were to announce now that I was leaving? I could easily give a plausible excuse. Anton could surely do nothing to prevent my going?

But even as I posed the question, I knew that the time was past for running away. It was already too late yesterday, when I had been lanced through by the sudden discovery that I loved Anton. Now it was too late because, somehow, I had to find a way of proving his guilt. And I was the only person who could do that.

Or instead prove him
innocent,
a
stubborn fragment of my mind insisted. But I fought against the idea because it was treacherous. I mustn’t allow doubts to creep in, I warned myself, and I summoned up a fresh flood of damning memories to drive them away.

I recalled Anton’s thoughtful silence when I’d suggested that Willi, with the boat he had carved, was trying to convey to me his feelings about my father’s death. And crowding quickly upon this came a new remembrance of only yesterday. The whole day, I saw now, had been organised towards the calculated scheme for getting rid of Willi. I had been manoeuvred out of harm’s way so that I couldn’t make contact with the boy again ... it had clearly astonished Raimund, I recalled, when Anton first suggested the trip to Geneva. And when we were there, Anton had made a phone call to the silk mill, then announced that he must return at once, without us. Back in Zurich, alone, he had been free to arrange the “hit-and-run accident” that had ended poor Willi’s short life.

I realised that in staying at the Schloss Rietswil I would
probably be endangering my own life. But I
had
to stay, I had to see this thing through. My one hope lay in convincing Anton that I didn’t harbour any suspicions against him. I had to behave as everyone would expect me to behave over the news of Willi’s death ... upset, but not extravagantly so.

Already I had betrayed an abnormal degree of agitation to Sigrid, and doubtless she would mention it to Anton. I must put right the damage before Anton returned from the silk mill at lunch time.

I washed my face and changed my clothes, then went in search of Sigrid. Ursula, arranging a bowl of long-stemmed yellow tulips in the hall, told me that I would find her mistress in the salon. I paused outside the double doors while I tried to adopt a composed expression, then I turned the handle and entered the green and amber room.

Ursula had not warned me that Anton would be there, too. I shrank from him before I had the wit to control myself, and he could not have failed to notice. He rose from his chair and came over to me, his face expressing concern.

“Gail, you’ve had a bad shock. Sigrid has just been telling me.”

I steeled myself against weakness, steeled myself to meet his eyes without evasion as I spoke the lies I had prepared for Sigrid.

“No, I’m all right now. I suppose ... well, hearing about the death of a child is always rather horrible. And somehow it’s made worse by the thought that poor Willi was handicapped. That’s not very logical, I know.”

“But very natural.” His look was tender, his voice hushed with sympathy. “Come and sit down, Gail.”

As I did so, I forced myself to smile at Sigrid. “I’m sorry I made such an exhibition of myself just now, Frau Kreuder.”

“Not at all, my dear. I quite understand.”

But what would she think, I wondered, if she really understood. Her safe, secure world would be shattered forever. I glanced back at Anton and enquired steadily, “Were you able to sort things out yesterday?”

“At the mill, you mean?” He lifted his shoulders. “Fortunately the trouble wasn’t anything too serious.”

His stepmother smiled affectionately. “Fancy Anton hurrying back from Geneva like that. But then he’s a perfectionist about everything he touches.”

A perfectionist in murder, too.

“In normal circumstances I would have waited up for you last night,” Anton was saying apologetically, “but it seemed the best plan to ...”

“Yes, Frau Kreuder explained to me.”

“I had to be at the silk mill on time this morning, but I thought I’d just call back home for half an hour to see how you were.” He smiled at me. “According to Raimund, Germaine’s party was a great success.”

“Yes.”

Ursula came in at that moment to say that Sigrid was wanted on the phone, and she decided to take the call outside, wheeling herself deftly from the room. I felt terrified of being left alone with Anton.

He said, “I’m glad you’re able to get this unhappy business about Willi into perspective, Gail.”

I held my hands clasped together in my lap, trying to still their trembling. Despite my resolution not to make too much of Willi’s death, I couldn’t prevent myself from saying, “When is the funeral to be? Has it been arranged?”

“I shouldn’t think so, not yet. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’d like to go.”

His mouth tightened. ‘It’s likely to be a simple affair, and you’d probably feel rather out of place. I should forget the idea, if I were you.”

“No, I really want to go. It... it’s the one last thing I can do for Willi.”

“It won’t help him now,” said Anton, sounding brutal.

“Perhaps it’s for my own sake,” I conceded. “I shall feel better if I go.”

“You might not be welcome there, Gail.”

“Oh, why shouldn’t I be welcome?” My voice was defiant.

He didn’t answer, looking at me with a strange expression, and I couldn’t press him any further as Sigrid had come back into the room.

“That was Ernst on the telephone,” she explained.

Anton turned to her questioningly. “What did he want?”

I could see that she was hesitant about telling him in front of me, so I took the opportunity to excuse myself. There was something I was anxious to check up on, right away.

The thought had come to me suddenly that since Anton was at home, his car would be here too. The blue Mercedes was always kept immaculate, and I didn’t doubt that it would be now ... Anton was far too clever to leave any telltale marks. But if I looked carefully, knowing what I was searching for, might there not be some indication that his car had hit a human body at high speed?

As I’d expected, the car was parked outside in the courtyard. I walked over to it, trying to appear casual in case someone might be watching. At first I could detect nothing suspicious, then the slanting sunlight revealed a distortion in the nearside front wing. Running my fingertips over the polished surface I could feel a shallow indentation. With a sudden sense of horror I snatched my hand away, feeling shocked and sickened.

“Are you looking for something?”

It was Anton, leaving much sooner than I’d expected. As I spun around to face him I was aware of warm colour staining my cheeks.

“Oh, I ... I saw something glitter on the ground and I thought it must be a coin.”

He laughed and started searching the cobblestones around about. “Finders keepers, Gail—isn’t that what you say?”

Was he mocking me, only pretending to be deceived? I couldn’t be sure, and I had to play out the game of looking for a nonexistent coin.

“I must have been mistaken,” I said after a few moments.

“Yes, I think you were.” Anton’s smile was gone now, and he gave me a puzzled, thoughtful look. Then with a brief, “See you later,” he got into his car and slammed the door.

Did he suspect what I’d really been doing, I wondered apprehensively as I watched him drive away. I’d have to be far more careful from now on. Then I caught sight of a movement in the darkness of an open doorway across the courtyard, and I guessed that Josef was there, watching me stealthily. How much had he seen? Could I be sure that he wouldn’t go running to Anton with a report?

I went indoors, and there I had to face Sigrid again. She was waiting for me in the hall.

“Gail, you’re not seriously thinking of going to Willi’s funeral, are you?”

How quickly Anton had passed on this information ... as if it somehow mattered to the Kreuders whether I went or not.

“Yes, I intend to go,” I said steadily.

“But, my dear girl, what will you achieve, beyond upsetting yourself all over again?”

“I’d be more upset if I didn’t go.”

I noticed that her eyes had a strained look. “People will find it strange. They’ll wonder what you are doing there.”

“I don’t see why they should. I’m not ashamed of having been fond of Willi, as my father was. To me it seems only natural to go to his funeral.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be seen in quite that light by others.”

“Really. How will it be seen?”

She gestured helplessly, her delicate hands fluttering like the fragile wings of an injured bird.

“As interference, perhaps.”

“But that’s absurd.” I paused, not wanting to be rude, yet driven on by an inner conviction that I was in the right. “I am your guest here, of course, so if you forbid me to go ...”

“My dear, I could hardly do that,” she said quietly.

“Then I shall act as I think best. And please let’s say no more about it.”

The afternoon was heavily overcast and the few lamps made only feeble pools of light in the dimness of the little village church. I sat apart from the other mourners who had come to pay their last respects to Willi, because I had arrived early and the pews around me had remained empty while others filled up. The message was unmistakable ... Gail Sherbrooke was regarded as an interloper.

As the burial service proceeded, I was conscious of sidelong glances, of unvoiced questions.
Why have you come? What right do you think you have to be here? I
sat staring straight ahead of me, painfully aware, as I had been all through these past two days, of my lonely situation.

At the Schloss, though, my isolation was of my own making, because I was terrified I might let slip the dreadful things I believed about Anton. Sigrid would never believe my suspicions, and any attempt to confide in her would serve only to set her against me. It was essential to keep Sigrid’s friendship, and Raimund’s too, if I wanted to remain here. And that was the one course open to me if I hoped to find the evidence that would expose Anton Kreuder.

And so, feeling desperately alone, jumping at every shadow, at every sound and every unaccountable silence, even at casual glances in my direction, I had been walking a tightrope of fear.

A bell tolled mournfully as we emerged from the church into the leaden afternoon. I remained apart, with people ahead of me and behind me, and no one near. I felt like a witch, a leper, an untouchable.

When the simple committal ceremony was over and everyone was turning away from the grave, I accidentally caught the eye of Willi’s father. Josef glared at me, mouthed some silent obscenity, and slouched off. Anger flared through me and, against all common sense, I ran after him.

“What did you say?” I demanded. Then in German, “Was
haben Sie gesagt?”

Unthinking, I had laid a hand on his sleeve. He shook me off contemptuously. The other mourners moving to the gate had paused, keeping their distance while they watched us.

“Must you be so unpleasant, even at your son’s funeral?” I said, almost in tears now. To translate this was beyond me, but I knew that Josef had grasped something of my meaning.

Insolently, with studied slowness, he looked me up and down, then suddenly spat on the ground at my feet. Shocked, I stared down at the path only a couple of inches from my shoes. Lifting my eyes again, I was just in time to see his smirk of triumph as he turned to walk on.

I was aware of a startled silence behind me, before people began to shuffle towards the gate once more. I stood where I was, frozen into stillness by Josef’s sheer spite.

The only people remaining in the churchyard now were Willi’s aunt and the black-robed pastor. They still stood talking at the graveside, but as I watched the pastor gave her a consoling pat on the shoulder before returning to his church. Pulling myself together, I walked across to join her and she observed me with hostile eyes.