The Star of Kazan (26 page)

Zed looked up at the people gathered round the table. ‘I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I swear by Rocco’s head that I’m telling the truth. And I was frightened because I knew Frau Edeltraut hated me because she thought her father had spoiled me and she was only waiting for a chance to get rid of me. So I decided to go and find my mother’s people in Hungary; they’re gypsies and I knew they’d take me in. But I’m frightened for Annika too because she ought not to be with a woman who tells lies – and worse.’

‘Worse?’

‘Yes. I think Frau Edeltraut stole the trunk, with the help of her brother-in-law.’

‘No, no, that doesn’t make sense,’ said Professor Julius. ‘Why should a woman in her position steal an old trunk full of worthless things? The lawyers were absolutely certain there was nothing of value there.’

‘Yes,’ said Zed. ‘That’s what puzzled me. So on the way south I stopped at Bad Haxenfeld to see the Baron von Keppel, Frau Edeltraut’s uncle. He didn’t really want to talk to me, but in the end he did – and then I understood.’

Zed had paused and was staring into space, remembering. It had been a raw, cold night when he fled from Spittal, and he had been shivering as he rode Rocco into the stable yard of the Hotel Majestic . . .

B
aron von Keppel was in bed, but though it was well past midnight, he was not asleep. His joints always hurt more at night and he had got used to reading, sometimes into the small hours.

There were many patients in Bad Haxenfeld who only slept fitfully. Lights were left on in the corridors of the hotels; porters and pageboys were on duty to check the window locks and renew carafes of drinking water.

So when he heard a knock at the door the Baron said, ‘Come in,’ readily enough.

But it was not one of the usual attendants who stood there.

‘Good heavens, Zed! What is it? Has Edeltraut thrown you out?’

‘In a way.’

Zed wore the armband he put on to work in the hotel. He was known to the staff. No one had stopped him as he rode Rocco into the stable yard of the Majestic and made his way upstairs.

‘Well, I’ll give you a job. My usual man is bone idle – I’ve been wanting to get rid of him.’

‘Thank you, sir. Maybe one day, but I’m in a hurry. Only I want to ask you something. It’s important.’

Now that he had broken his flight from Spittal, Zed was angry with himself. He had to get away as quickly as possible, not waste time getting mixed up in Annika’s affairs.

The Baron had put down his book. ‘Well, what is it?’

‘It’s about when the jewellers were here – three months ago.’

The Baron looked at him suspiciously. ‘What about them?’

‘You began to tell me something one of them had said. About a man in Paris and a dancer. Then Lady Georgina came and interrupted us and when we went on you’d forgotten what you were going to say.’

‘Yes,’ said the Baron sadly. ‘I’m afraid that happens to me more and more often. It’s dreadful getting old. This morning I forgot my grandmother’s Christian name. I had to look in the family Bible. It turned out to be Serafina. Youwouldn’t think one would forget a name like that.’

‘No. But I’d like you to try and remember the story you were going to tell me about the jeweller in Paris. The one with a crooked back.’

The Baron turned his head away. He seemed to be thinking. ‘It’s gone right out of my head,’ he said apologetically. ‘Unless it was the one about the emperor’s sword stick and the doughnut?’

‘No,’ said Zed very quietly. ‘It was the one about the jeweller in Paris. The one with the crooked back.’ He paused and turned the lamp so that the light shone directly into the Baron’s eyes. ‘I would really like it very much if you would try to remember that.’

The Baron backed away from the light. He was remembering the other side of Zed: not the obedient bath attendant but the wild boy with Romany blood. There had been a band of gypsies in the neighbourhood a week or two ago. Perhaps they were camped outside, ready to rush upstairs and cut his throat.

‘I only overheard snatches of the conversation,’ he said. ‘There were two men in the cubicle next to me. One was Viennese, judging by his accent, and the other one was French. It was the Frenchman who was telling the story. He’d just come back from Paris and he’d been to Fabrice’s, the big jeweller in the Champs-Elysées, to do some business. It’s one of the most famous firms in France and it used to belong to a man who was a bit of a legend. He had a crooked back and never married and he put all his feelings into his work. He used to make pieces for the tsar of Russia and people like that.’

Zed was listening intently. ‘Go on, please, sir.’

‘This man – the one with the crooked back – was in love with an actress, a chorus girl really. She used to swing high up over the stage and strew flowers . . .’

‘La Rondine,’ said Zed.

The Baron looked at him, startled. ‘Yes. Something like that. The spotlight was on her face when she scattered the flowers and Crookback said she looked so joyous. Anyway, she went off with a painter and when she came back no one would employ her. But she still had her jewels and they were fabulous. She had the Star of Kazan and a chain of Burmese rubies and a butterfly brooch some duke had given her . . .

The Baron stopped speaking. He was frowning, staring at the curtained window. Then he sighed and went on.

‘You have to remember I was next door; I didn’t hear all of it. The Viennese chap he was telling the story to was a great splasher. Some people can’t get into a bath without flooding the place. But it seems this actress, this Rondine, used to bring her jewels to Crookback to sell when she needed money, and he would take them and give her the price the pieces had fetched in the open market. And it was a fortune. Millions and millions of francs . . .

‘But because he loved her he had the pieces he sold for her copied in paste or glass and gave them to her. Her eyesight wasn’t very good by then and she used to hold the copies in her hands just as she’d done with the originals. She knew they weren’t real, but she loved them just the same. She talked to them. You know what lonely people are like.’

‘Yes,’ said Zed. ‘But that wasn’t all, was it?’

‘No. Apparently after Crookback died they went through his books and accounts and they couldn’t find any record of the sales. And no one knew who had made the copies either, which really surprised them because everything has to be written down a hundred times for the tax people.’

The Baron stopped again, but Zed was still looking at him with those strange flecked eyes.

‘The jeweller who was telling the story went out to supper with one of the partners in the firm. He was a very old man – the partner – and he didn’t have much longer to live, but he’d been Crookback’s apprentice all those years ago. And he swore that Crookback had never sold the jewels at all; he just gave them back to her and paid her the money out of his own pocket. Of course, you can say he was a very rich man, but I’ve never heard that rich men are famous for their generosity. He must have loved her very much.’

‘And no one ever knew?’ asked Zed.

‘Only this apprentice – and he said nothing till he knew he was dying. I suppose he got tired of hearing jewellers described as greedy and money-grabbing.’

‘I see. Did he say anything else – about what happened to La Rondine?’

The Baron turned his face away. ‘She went back to Vienna. She came from there and one of her relatives took her in – her nephew was a councillor, a pompous and disagreeable man. She died in his house and everyone thought she died penniless; he was complaining about having to look after her. Apparently she left an old trunk with all her possessions to some orphan who had befriended her.’ There was a pause. ‘The jewellers were wondering how that had turned out.’

The Baron had finished.

‘And you told this story to your niece? To Frau Edeltraut?’

‘Yes, I did. But I swear I had no idea – even when I met Annika I didn’t guess – not till the Eggharts came. But Edeltraut was desperate. She’d have done anything to save Spittal.’

Zed nodded. ‘Yes. Thank you, sir.’

‘You believe me, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Not that it matters. I’m too old to worry about the future. I wouldn’t have told you now except for the galoshes. Annika’s a nice little thing. If Edeltraut took the child’s jewels she should have shared. You don’t steal from your own daughter.’

Zed had finished his story.

‘So you see,’ he said, looking round the professors’ kitchen, ‘if the story is true and the jewels in the trunk were priceless, then Annika has been most cruelly robbed.’

P
rofessor Julius now became a sleuth.

‘We must get proof before we accuse Frau Edeltraut,’ he said when they had finished listening to Zed. ‘I believe that Zed is telling the truth, but there could be other explanations for the disappearance of the trunk.’

‘What sort of explanations?’ asked Professor Gertrude.

‘I don’t know. But Zed will agree with me, I’m sure, that we must look into this further before we confront her.’

‘Yes, I do. That’s partly why I came here. I don’t even know whether a mother is entitled to the things that belong to her daughter. Maybe she hasn’t committed a crime in the eyes of the law.’

The professors shook their heads. ‘In Austrian law it is certainly a crime. The property of someone who is under age has to be kept in trust for them till they’re grown up. It’s twenty-one here – it may be different in Germany.’

So Professor Julius made a list of all the jewellers in Vienna and set to work, visiting them one by one to see if he could find the man who had heard the story of Fabrice and the Eggharts’ great-aunt while in the baths at Bad Haxenfeld. He had some help from Professor Gertrude, but not very much. She was so shy that going into a jeweller’s shop and asking peculiar questions upset her badly, and she always felt she ought to buy something to make up for wasting the jeweller’s time, so that she came home with silver ashtrays and cigar-cutters and thimbles, which she did not want at all and which, when added together, turned out to be surprisingly expensive.

She was also very busy with her new harp. Harps have to ripen slowly, like fruit, and though her wonderful concert-grand had come seasoned and strung, it was a slow job keeping it at the pitch she required. Liquid ‘plinks’ and ‘plonks’ came from Gertrude’s room whenever she had a spare moment, but there were times when she felt very sad because she knew that her harp would not come into its full glory till the last years of its life, by which time she herself might be dead.

As for Professor Emil, he did not help with the jewellers at all because he had been sent off to Switzerland to look for Herr von Grotius; and if possible to find his grave.

Zed had intended to remain in Vienna only as long as it took to tell Annika’s story, but Professor Julius had said firmly that he would have to stay until everything was sorted out.

‘We might need you to confirm anything we discover and check it with what happened at Spittal.’

Zed had tried to argue: ‘I feel I should go, sir. I have hardly any money left and I need to get to Hungary.’

‘The money is neither here nor there,’ said Professor Julius. ‘You can stay with us. It shouldn’t be for long.’

‘I suppose I could sleep in the hut if it’s only for a few days,’ Zed had suggested.

But nobody thought this a good idea. The hut was private property; and if he took Rocco it would only be a matter of time before he was discovered.

‘Could he have Annika’s attic?’ Ellie asked, and it showed how completely she trusted Zed that she suggested this.

But Zed shook his head. ‘It’s hers. I wouldn’t want to – it wouldn’t be right.’

In the end it was Pauline who decided where Zed should sleep.

‘He can come to the bookshop. There’s a storeroom at the back – we can put a camp bed in there – and he can come round by the back lane to see to Rocco. Grandfather won’t mind. He probably won’t even notice.’

Pauline had been convinced that Zed spoke the truth the moment she saw him. ‘I always knew no good would come of Annika turning into a “von”,’ she said, and she did her best to make Zed comfortable. Some hostesses do this by bringing their guests breakfast in bed or putting flowers in their room. Pauline did it by piling the books she thought would interest him on the upturned packing case that served as his bedside table.

She brought him a book called
The Heavenly Horses of the Emperor Wu-Ti
, who believed that his horses would carry people’s souls to heaven when they died. She brought him a book by the Duke of Newcastle on how to train horses for dressage.

And she brought him one of her grandfather’s most prized volumes,
On the Art of Horsemanship
, written by the famous Greek general Xenophon more than 2,000 years ago.

Zed had seen it in the Master’s hands at Spittal. Now he picked it up reverently. There was a picture on the cover of Xenophon astride a black stallion on the shores of the Black Sea. His hands were thrown up as he gave thanks to the gods after a 2,400-kilometre march with his soldiers – and he rode without stirrups!

Zed opened the book.

On horses such as these even gods and heroes will appear, and men who know how to work well with them will look magnificent!

He was still reading by the light of the paraffin lamp, long after Pauline and her grandfather slept.

But when it came to looking after Rocco and admiring him, Pauline made it clear that real horses made her nervous.

‘Rocco’s just a person who happens to be a horse,’ said Zed – but Pauline was not convinced.

To the little Bodek boys on the other hand, Rocco was a miracle of which they never tired. They burst out of their house as soon as they woke and went to the stable clutching carrots and pieces of apple which they begged from Ellie and which even Hansi only rarely ate himself. The baby, who had just learned to walk, threw up his hands and said, ‘Up, up!’ whenever he saw Rocco, and when Zed put him on his back he sat with his blue eyes wide with awe, and screamed horribly when he had to get down. Georg woke in the night, worrying in case Rocco, who liked to drink in the fountain, should swallow a goldfish.