“And may I ask where the hell you’ve been?”
The baron appeared, furious and tired, the edges of his frock coat creased, his moustache disheveled and his monocle hanging loose. An hour had passed since Ilse and Paul had left, and the party had only just ended.
Only when the very last guest was gone did the baron go and look for his wife. He found her sitting on a chair she’d brought out into the fourth-floor corridor. The door to Eduard’s room was closed. Even with her immense will, Brunhilda couldn’t manage to bring herself to return to the party. When her husband appeared, she explained to him what lay inside the room, and Otto felt his own share of pain and remorse.
“You’re calling the judge in the morning,” said Brunhilda, her voice dispassionate. “We’ll say we found him like this when we came to give him his breakfast. That way we can keep the scandal to a minimum. It might not even get out.”
Otto nodded. He drew his hand back from the door handle. He didn’t dare to go in, nor would he ever. Not even after the traces of the tragedy had been scrubbed from the walls and the floor.
“The judge owes me a favor. I think he’ll be able to sort it out. But I wonder how Eduard got hold of the gun. He can’t have got it on his own.”
When Brunhilda told him Paul’s role and that she had thrown the Reiners out of the house, the baron was livid.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“They were a threat, Otto.”
“And have you by any chance forgotten what’s at stake here? Why we’ve had them in this house all these years?”
“To humiliate me and ease your conscience,” said Brunhilda, with a bitterness she’d been holding in for years.
Otto didn’t bother to reply, since he knew what she said was true.
“Eduard talked to your nephew.”
“Oh, God. Do you have any idea what he might have told him?”
“That doesn’t matter. After leaving tonight they’ve become suspects, even if we don’t turn them in tomorrow. They won’t dare speak out, and they have no proof of anything. Unless the boy finds something.”
“Do you think I’m worried about them finding out the truth? For that they’d have to find Clovis Nagel. And Nagel hasn’t been in Germany for a long time. But that doesn’t solve our problem. Your sister is the only one who knows where Hans Reiner’s letter is.”
“Keep an eye on them, then. From a distance.”
Otto reflected for a few moments.
“I’ve got just the man for the job.”
Someone else was present during that conversation, though he was hidden in a corner of the corridor. He had listened without understanding. Much later, when Baron von Schroeder retired to their bedroom, he went into Eduard’s room.
When he saw what was inside, he sank to his knees. By the time he rose, what was left of the innocence his mother had not been able to burn away-the parts of his soul that she hadn’t been able to sow with hatred and envy toward his cousin over many years-were dead, turned to ashes.
I’ll kill Paul Reiner for this.
Now I am the heir. But I will be the baron.
He couldn’t make out which of the two competing thoughts excited him more.