Presumed Dead (6 page)

Seestrasse was easy to find, because as the
name suggested, it was the street that ran along the side of the lake. Number
five was a green-shuttered, whitewashed house in the middle of a small terrace
of identical houses, which looked like they had been newly scrubbed. All the
windows were dressed with delicate lace curtains and adorned outside with
rustic wooden boxes, bulging with petunias and geraniums. The overall scene, as
everywhere else in the town, was one of clean, neat efficiency.

David had also read in his tourist guide
that the Swiss were sticklers for punctuality, so he paced himself and knocked
on the door at precisely ten a.m.. The old porter came to the door immediately,
shook his hand and invited him in. Now that he was out of uniform, he was like
a different man, animated, talkative and friendly. He took David through to a
small parlor, where an old lady was sitting at a pine table that was set out
with cups and saucers.

‘May I present my wife, Frau Schutz?’ he
asked David. Then turning to his wife he said, ‘My dear, this is Mr Wiseman
from America, the Baroness’s nephew.’

David shook the old lady’s hand and gave
her the flowers saying slowly, ‘Very glad to meet you, these are for you.’

‘Thank you Mr Wiseman, they are lovely. I
am pleased to meet you too. Would you like tea, or maybe some coffee?’ the old
lady asked.

David was amazed yet again at the way
everyone in town seemed to speak perfect English. ‘Coffee would be good, thank
you.’

She handed the flowers to her husband who
took them out into the kitchen then busied himself making a pot of coffee.
Turning back to David, she said, ‘I knew someone would come.’

He was taken aback by her intensity.
‘Excuse me?’

‘I knew someone would come here sooner or
later asking questions about the Baroness.’

‘Why do you say that?’ David asked.

‘Because there are questions about the
Baroness that remain unanswered, even after all this time, and it is the duty
of her family to find the truth.’

Ah, David thought. This is what I came for.
‘What truth?’ he asked innocently, ‘what do you mean?’

‘The truth about her death, of course.’

‘But I thought she died from a heart
attack,’ David said, leading her on. ‘That’s what we were told.’

The old woman snorted. ‘Heart attack?
Nonsense… she was as strong as a horse.’

‘What are you getting at?’ David asked.

Frau Schutz leaned forward and lowered her
voice. ‘I believe that English husband of hers killed her.’

‘Killed her?’ David asked, feigning
incredulity. ‘But why? What possible reason would he have to do that?’

‘For her money, of course,’ the old woman
said as if speaking to a dense child. ‘He thought the Baroness was a very
wealthy woman, but he didn’t get as much as he had bargained for.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Maybe I had better tell you the whole
story,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.

‘I wish you would,’ David said, reaching
into his jacket pocket for his notebook and pen.

Just then, her husband came back into the
parlor carrying a tray with a coffeepot, milk jug and sugar bowl. ‘What have
you been telling him, Mama?’ the old man asked. ‘You promised not to start all
that crazy talk again.’

‘It is not crazy talk,’ Frau Schutz
snapped. ‘I know what I know, and it is my responsibility to tell Mr Wiseman
the truth.’

The old man shook his head in resignation
and said, ‘I will be in the garden if you want me. I can not stand to listen to
this story again. Please excuse me Mr Wiseman.’

When he’d gone, the old woman poured the
coffee then started speaking. ‘When the Baron died, oh… thirty years ago now,
the Baroness was devastated. The Baron had been a highly respectable banker,
respectable and boring. They had never traveled very far, they had very few
friends and no social life at all. They had been good companions to each other
and were growing old and fat together, but when he went, the Baroness really
did not know what to do with herself. For the first few months we were all very
worried about her. She would just wander around the Schloss or sit doing
nothing. Then there was a change.

‘Suddenly, it was if she had decided to
make a new life for herself. She started to take regular exercise and she asked
me to prepare more salad and vegetable dishes and to cut down on potatoes and
pastries. Within six months she was riding the rack-railway from Vitznau to the
top of Mt Rigi and walking back down to Weggis at least twice a week, and had
lost twenty kilos in weight.

‘The doctor was very pleased with her, he
had been trying to get her to lose weight for some time. When she had her
regular check up, he told her that since she had lost all that weight, her
heart was now good for another thirty years. That must have given her a new
lease of life because suddenly she gave away all her clothes and had a complete
new, fashionable wardrobe made. She also had her hair remodeled into a modern
style.

‘After that, we didn’t see very much of her
for a time. She went travelling around the world, and by the time she got back,
she had made so many friends that she was always being invited away for
weekends and short holidays. She took to spending a lot of time on the French
Riviera and started gambling in the casinos. Although the Baron had left her
well provided for with a regular income, she was spending more than the
investments were earning and so to get extra money she started selling some of
the antique furniture in the Schloss.

‘She found a furniture dealer in Lucerne
who would buy the antiques and supply her with identical replacement
reproduction pieces. That way she found she could raise a lot of money but
still keep up appearances in front of her friends. When all the furniture had
been sold and replaced, she started selling the pictures, again to the same
dealer who would have them copied so that she always had a replacement to hang.
Within five years, she had gambled away nearly everything of value in the
Schloss, all she had left were her jewels. That was when she met Sir Ross
Webley, while she was away on one of her gambling trips to France.’ She spat
his name out with disgust.

‘I remember the first time I saw him,’ she
continued. ‘The Baroness had invited him and a few other friends for the
weekend. He was very young, less than half the Baroness’s age, and oily, you
know, like a gigolo. At the end of the weekend, the other guests left, but he
stayed. The Baroness took him walking in the hills and they went swimming and
sailing on the lake. He followed her around like a puppy and she acted like a
schoolgirl, making a complete fool of herself. One night she had a little too
much to drink and confided to her personal maid that Webley was very rich, and
that if she could marry him, it would mean an end to her financial worries.

‘To the rest of us staff, it looked the
other way around. If he was as wealthy as he claimed, tell me, what would he
want with a plain, middle-aged woman like the Baroness? She obviously thought
that he loved her, but that is not how it seemed to me. Every time he was
alone, I would see him walking around the rooms, looking at the furniture and
paintings, almost as if he was taking inventory.

‘Anyway, after a month, the Baroness
announced that she was going on a short holiday to England to stay on his
estate. That was the last time we ever saw her.’ The old woman paused to wipe
her eyes.

David waited patiently for a moment, then
asked, ‘What happened next?’

‘About a week later, we received a telegram
saying the Baroness was to be married in England and instructing us to pack up
all her clothes and jewels and have them sent to Webley’s estate by airfreight.
We did as we were told, then we heard nothing more until a few weeks after that
when Webley and the Baroness’s lawyer came to the Schloss. They called all the
staff together and told us that the Baroness had died shortly after the wedding
from a heart attack.’

‘Just like that?’ David asked.

‘Yes, just like that. Naturally, everyone
was very upset, especially when the lawyer told us that the Baroness had made a
new will leaving everything to her husband. You see, many of us had been at the
Schloss since the Baron and Baroness were first married, and it would have been
normal for the long serving staff to have received something.’

‘This new will,’ David asked, ‘when was it
made?’

‘I never saw it, but when I went to see her
lawyer later, he told me it had been made in England between the time of the
marriage and the time of the Baroness’s death. He said that Webley’s lawyers
had made it and that Webley had brought it with him, along with a copy of the
death certificate.’

‘So what happened after that?’ David asked.

‘After the lawyer had given us the news, he
told us that Webley was now our master and asked that we all co-operate with
him, then he left. Webley waited until he had gone, then stood up in front of
us all and told us that he was selling the Schloss and that we were all on one
week’s notice.’

‘One week! After over twenty five years of
service?’ David asked with disbelief.

‘One week. That is all he gave us, no
bonus, no thank you, nothing. Carl, that’s my husband, and me just walked out
and never went back. We heard later that Webley instructed an auction house in
Zurich to sell everything, including the Schloss, then he went home and we
never saw him again.

‘The only consolation for us was that from
what we heard, he made hardly any money out of the sale. All the antiques and
pictures were worthless reproductions and the Schloss itself was in need of
much serious repair work. The Baroness had not spent a centime on maintaining
the old building since the Baron had died, so when it was finally sold to
developers, it was for very little money.’

‘What about all the Baroness’s jewels?’
David asked. ‘They must have been worth a small fortune.’

‘We think he must have sold them too.’

‘You’re probably right.’ David thought for
a moment then asked, ‘You say you went to see the Baroness’s lawyer afterwards?
Why was that?’

‘To tell him that something was not right
about the Baroness’s death. It was all too convenient for her new husband.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He did not believe me. He showed me the
copy of the death certificate, and that clearly said she had died from a heart
attack. He said it was all just very unfortunate and even suggested that it was
the Baroness’s own fault for marrying a young man, which I thought was
disgusting. I asked him if he had checked with the lawyers in England to make
sure the new will was genuine. He told me not to teach him his business, and
besides, he had no reason to doubt the word of Sir Ross Webley, who, he said,
was a fine gentleman.’

‘A fine gentleman?’ David scoffed. ‘I’ve
got to say, the more I hear about it, the more suspicious her death gets. I
might have a word with this lawyer myself if he’ll see me. Is his office here
in town?’

‘It used to be, but he has been dead for
over ten years now. His son took over the business and moved it to Lucerne, but
he would not be able to help you, he was not even working with his father when
this all happened.’

David was disappointed. ‘I guess there’s
not much more I can do here, but I’m going over to England to visit her grave
later this week. I’ll see what I can find out over there.’

The old woman smiled. ‘You do that. Do it
for the Baroness. She became a foolish woman after the Baron died, but she did
not deserve to be murdered.’

David stood to leave then realized he
hadn’t touched his coffee, which was now cold. ‘Sorry, I guess I was so wrapped
up listening to you that I forgot to drink it.’

‘Never mind, it’s not important. The
important work for you lies in England.’ She got up, wrote her telephone number
on a small piece of paper, and as they said goodbye, pressed it into his hand.
’If you find anything, please call me and let me know before you leave for
America.’

He promised he would.

Frau Schutz called her husband in to say
goodbye, and as the old man was showing him to the door, he said quietly, ‘Do
not take too much notice of what my wife has just told you. She has been going
on about the Baroness like this for years.’

‘You never know,’ David said, ‘she could be
right.’

‘Maybe, but I doubt it. That kind of thing
only happens in stories.’

David laughed. ‘You’d be very surprised.
Living over here you’re insulated from the horrors of the world. Where I come
from this kind of thing happens every day.’

‘Then I am very glad I do not live in your
world, Mr Wiseman,’ the old man said, shaking his head.

They shook hands and parted. David crossed
the street and walked slowly back to the hotel along the lake shore thinking
about what the old woman had told him. Add all that, he thought, to the
impression I got of Webley the other night, and you could easily start to
believe there’s something to it. He decided to reserve judgement until he got
to England and could ask a few more questions.