‘Whatever your wish, District Officer.’ There was an edge in Swann’s voice again, but Krall made no move to show he felt it.
V.2
Harriet was used to waking early, usually before any of the servants came to her room, so when she woke to the sound of movement beyond the draperies around her bed, it was with some confusion. It was still dark. At first she thought she was in her bed in Caveley, but the nap of material on the sheets around her felt unfamiliar. Then it came back over her in a familiar flood, the despatch, the journey, the splendour of Maulberg, that she had had Manzerotti in front of her and a gun primed in her hand, and yet she had not shot. She groaned.
‘Madam?’
She struggled up onto one elbow and twitched open her bed-curtain. ‘Dido? This is early even for you.’
Her maid was lighting the fire. Harriet’s nightshift slipped from her shoulder and she pulled it round her again. The air was still chill.
‘Sorry, madam, but one of those footmen is outside wanting you. Said the name Krall?’
‘He is the law officer in charge of the case.’
The maid got to her feet. ‘That’ll be it then. He’s brought you coffee and rolls and gone to wake Mr Crowther, poor man.’ Harriet smiled. The longer Dido spent in her service, the more she sounded like Mrs Heathcote. ‘There’s something wrong, madam. He was white as a sheet.’
The white-faced footman, Wimpf, looked as if he intended to retreat when he had shown them to the room in which Krall was waiting, but the District Officer beckoned him inside before closing the door and speaking. The room was soft with early light; gradually the colours and shapes were revealing themselves.
‘I apologise for the hour, Mr Crowther, Mrs Westerman. Countess Dieth has been killed. Her body was discovered here by one of the maids early this morning. Her left wrist was cut and her mouth filled with earth.’
‘Where is the body?’ Crowther said at once, looking about him as if Krall might have concealed her behind the draperies.
Krall yawned, and covered his mouth. ‘Countess Dieth has been taken to the Lady’s Chapel. We could not wait to move her, Mr Crowther. This must be kept quiet for now and she needed to be taken somewhere appropriate in darkness. I will lead you there in a while, but I wished you to see this room as I found it. I hope you will indulge me.’
They looked a little suspicious. Well, good for them if they did. They inspected the small space in silence, a candle each to help guide them through the softening shadows, Mrs Westerman lifting the skirts of her dress as she moved. They were like ghosts. Some marking on the arm of the straight-backed chair in the centre of the space caused a few murmured comments to pass between them. Krall sat on the high bed as they made their investigations. His feet did not quite touch the floor. At one point he felt in his pockets for tobacco and tinder box, but reconsidered and with a sigh replaced them. Wimpf again made a movement as if to leave the room; Krall again motioned him to stay.
‘Do you mean to mock us, Mr Krall?’ Crowther said at last.
Krall blinked. ‘Mock you, sir? That was certainly not my intention. Why would you suspect such a thing?’
It was Mrs Westerman who answered. He decided he liked her dress. ‘The lady was not killed in this room,’ she said calmly. ‘It seems the body was moved here some time after her death.’
‘The killer placed the body of poor Dieth here after her murder?’ Krall asked, his head on one side.
‘No, I don’t think so, Mr Krall. I think she was found somewhere else, then placed here before you were summoned. That decanter was brought in from wherever she was found. It has its twin on the table. I suspect that design on the door has been copied for your benefit. See how hesitantly some of the lines are drawn? This is a bold killing, and that is not boldly drawn.’
‘But how can you say the Countess was not killed here?’ Krall asked.
Crowther answered him. ‘The blood. The chair comes from this room indeed, one can see in the rug the marks where it has been moved to this position, and there is blood on it — but not such a stain as would result from a wound fresh-flowing. Only flecks that must have been dislodged when the body was brought here some time after death, when the blood had fully dried. The floor is clean. No blood whatsoever there. Where could the body have been found, that it needed to be shifted in this way? What could have been more humiliating to the court than finding one of its own slaughtered inside the palace itself? Mr Krall, I cannot believe this fooled you for an instant. Nor could you have hoped to fool us.’
Krall considered the ceiling with the contented look of a man hearing exactly what he wanted to hear, then he turned to the footman and began to speak in German. As he did, he could hear Mr Crowther whispering a translation to his companion.
‘The gentleman and lady wish to know, Wimpf my boy, where the body was first discovered. Where was it? Who ordered you to carry it here?’ The footman opened his mouth, but Krall continued, ‘I know your family, boy! I thought a couple of thalers and a few friendly words might make you my eyes and ears in the palace, but you’ve been bought already. You’ve been watching me, haven’t you, you little devil? Was she still warm when you lifted her?’
‘How-?’
‘You had red chalk on your sleeve when you woke me. Stuck out rather, that, boy — you being so clean as a rule. That picture on the wall is your work, is it not? Sure you copied it right?’
‘I, I …’ Wimpf stuttered, but Krall held up his hand.
‘Remember before you speak, lad, that I answer only to the Duke. Now tell the truth. Your parents are good people. I cannot believe they brought you up to lie.’
‘I f-found her …’ he stuttered out at last, ‘in the temple … I went to Major Auwerk and he came back with me, then he told me … He carried her. I thought he meant me to, but when I went to pick her up, he told me not to touch her. He carried her here. I brought the table. Then he went to Chancellor Swann.’
He looked very afraid. Mrs Westerman stepped forward and put her hand on his sleeve, saying in halting German, ‘Yours is not the fault. The District Officer will see you get no hurt.’
Krall doubted if he could guarantee such a thing entirely, but Mrs Westerman’s words calmed the boy a little, and he smiled up at her timidly. He seemed to have shrunk in his livery.
‘What temple, Wimpf? The Temple to Apollo in the gardens? Is that where you found her?’
He shook his head violently, blinking his lashless eyes. ‘I cannot say — it is a great secret.’
Krall had never had much use for secrets, and now his patience left him. Grabbing the servant by his gold and scarlet coat, he flung him onto the floor by the bed, then stood over him with his fists balled. He heard the silks of Mrs Westerman’s gown shift, but neither of the English moved to stop him.
‘Now! If you want to leave this room as you entered it — tell me now!’
The boy scrambled backwards and found himself cornered between the end of the bed and the wall.
‘It’s hidden! It’s hidden! You can only get to it by the back corridor. It’s just a room with a few chairs in it, that’s all. Like a cupboard almost. I call it the temple. It was my joke.’ Krall took half a step forward. ‘I clean it. When I am told to. Maybe two dozen times over the last two years. Major Auwerk asked me to, he asked if I was to be trusted. If he puts the key in my hand, that means I am to clean it. I clean there when everyone else is asleep, and return the key.’
‘What does he pay you?’