The Schirmer Inheritance

George had noticed on previous evenings that she liked brandy and that she rarely ordered anything else to drink. He had even noticed when they had been going through the customs in Basel that she carried a bottle of it in her suitcase. He had not, however, observed that it affected her in any way. Had he been questioned on the point he would have said that she was a model of sobriety.

Now, as she sipped the new arrival, he watched her, fascinated. He knew that had he been drinking level with her, he would by now have been unconscious. She was not even talkative. She was holding herself very upright in the chair and looking like an attractive but very prudish young school-mistress about to deal for the first time with a case of juvenile exhibitionism. There was a suspicion of drool at one corner of her mouth. She retrieved it neatly with her tongue. Her eyes were glassy. She focused them with care on George.

“We go, then, tomorrow to the sanatorium at Bad Schwennheim?” she said precisely.

“No, I don’t think so. We’ll go and see Father Weichs at Stuttgart first. If he knows something it may be unnecessary to go to Bad Schwennheim.”

She nodded. “I think you are right, Mr. Carey.”

She looked at her drink for a moment, finished it at a gulp, and rose steadily to her feet.

“Good night, Mr. Carey,” she said firmly.

“Good night, Miss Kolin.”

She picked up her bag, turned round, and positioned herself facing the door. Then she began to walk straight for it. She missed a table by a hairsbreadth. She did not sway. She did not teeter. It was a miraculous piece of self-control. George saw her go out of the restaurant, change direction towards the concierge’s desk, pick up her room key, and disappear up the stairs. To a casual observer she might have had nothing stronger to drink than a glass of Rhine wine.

The Hospital of the Sacred Heart proved to be a grim brick building some way out of Stuttgart off the road to Heilbronn.

George had taken the precaution of sending a long telegram to Father Weichs. In it he had recalled Mr. Moreton’s visit to Bad Schwennheim in 1939 and expressed his own wish to make the priest’s acquaintance. He and Miss Kolin were kept waiting for only a few minutes before a nun appeared to guide them through a wilderness of stone corridors to the priest’s room.

George remembered that Father Weichs spoke good English, but it seemed more tactful to begin in German. The priest’s sharp blue eyes flickered from one to the other of them as Miss Kolin translated George’s polite explanation of their presence there and his hope that the telegram (which he could plainly see on the priest’s table) had arrived to remind him of an occasion in 1939 when…

The muscles of Father Weichs’s jaws had been twitching impatiently as he listened. Now he broke in, speaking English.

“Yes, Mr. Carey. I remember the gentleman, and, as you see, I have had your telegram. Please sit down.” He waved them to chairs and walked back to his table.

“Yes,” he said, “I remember the gentleman very well. I had reason to.”

A twisted smile creased the lean cheeks. It was a fine, dramatic head, George thought. You were sure at first that he must hold some high office in the church; and then you noticed the cracked, clumsy shoes beneath the table, and the illusion went.

“He asked me to give you his good wishes,” George said.

“Thank you. Are you here on his behalf?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Moreton is now an invalid and retired.” It was difficult not to be stilted with Father Weichs.

“I am sorry to hear that, of course.” The priest inclined his head courteously. “However, it was not the gentleman himself who gave me special cause to remember him. Consider! A lonely old man dies. I am his confessor. Mr. Moreton comes to me asking questions about him. That is all. It is not as unusual as you think. An old person who has been neglected by relatives for many years often becomes interesting to them when he dies. It is not often, of course, that an American lawyer comes, but even that is not remarkable in itself. There are many German families who have ties with your country.” He paused. “But the incident becomes memorable,” he added dryly, “when it proves to be a matter of importance for the police.”

“The police?” George tried hard not to look as guilty as he suddenly felt.

“I surprise you, Mr. Carey?”

“Very much. Mr. Moreton was making inquiries on behalf of a perfectly respectable American client in the matter of a legacy-” George began.

“A legacy,” interposed the priest, “which he said was for a small amount of money.” He paused and gave George a wintry smile before he went on. “I understand, of course, that size is relative and that in America it is not measured with European scales, but even in America it seems an exaggeration to call three million dollars a small amount.”

Out of the corner of his eye George saw Miss Kolin looking startled for once; but it was a poor satisfaction at that moment.