The Schirmer Inheritance

“Very well.”

He lingered over the writing-out of the receipt. He heard Miss Kolin put the question. There was a momentary pause; then Frau Gresser replied with a positive volley of words. Her voice rose steadily in pitch as she spoke. Then she stopped. He signed the receipt and looked up to find her staring at him in a flustered, accusing sort of way. He handed her the receipt and put the documents in his pocket.

“She says,” said Miss Kolin, “that the matter is not one which can be discussed in the presence of a man and that it can have no bearing on your inquiries. She adds, however, that if you do not believe that she is telling the truth, she will make the explanation confidentially to me. She will say no more on the subject while you are here.”

“O.K. I’ll wait for you downstairs.” He rose and bowed to Frau Gresser. “Thank you very much indeed, madam. What you have told me is of inestimable help. I will see that your papers are safely returned to you tomorrow. Good day.”

He smiled affably, bowed again, and went. He was outside the apartment almost before Miss Kolin had finished interpreting his farewell speech.

She joined him in the street below ten minutes later.

“Well,” he said, “what was it all about?”

“Friedrich made advances to Ilse Schirmer.”

“To his son’s wife, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, well. Did she go into details?”

“Yes. She enjoys herself, that one.”

“But the old man must have been around sixty then.”

“You remember the photographs that Father Weichs destroyed?”

“Yes.”

“He showed them to the wife.”

“Just that?”

“His meaning apparently was unmistakable. He also proposed in a veiled way that he should take similar photographs of her.”

“I see.” George tried to picture the scene.

He saw a shabby room in Essen and an elderly bookkeeper sitting there pushing dog-eared photographs one by one across the table to where his son’s wife could see them as she sat bent over her needlework.

How the man’s heart must have beat as he watched her face! His mind must have seethed with questions and doubts.

Would she smile or would she pretend to be shocked? She was sitting still, absolutely still, and she had stopped working. Soon she would smile, for certain. He could not see her eyes. After all, there was nothing wrong in a little private joke between a father and daughter-in-law, was there? She was a grown-up woman and knew a thing or two, didn’t she? She liked him, he knew. All he wanted to do was show her that he wasn’t too old for a bit of fun and that, even if Johann was no good, there was one man about the house for her to turn to. And now the last photograph, the sauciest of the lot. An eye-opener, eh? Good fun? She still hadn’t smiled, but she hadn’t frowned either. Women were funny creatures. You had to choose your moment; woo gently and then be bold. She was slowly raising her head now and looking at him. Her eyes were very round. He smiled and said what he had planned to say-that subtle remark about new pictures being better than old. But she did not smile back. She was getting to her feet and he could see that she was trembling. With what? Excitement? And then, suddenly, she had let out a sob of fear and run from the room out to the workshop where Johann was decarbonizing that Opel taxi. After that, everything had become a nightmare, with Johann shouting at and threatening him, and Ilse weeping, and the boy Franz standing there listening, white-faced, not understanding what it was all about; only knowing that in some way the world was coming to an end.

Yes, George thought, a pretty picture; though probably an inaccurate one. Still, it was the sort of scene about which nobody could ever be quite accurate; least of all, those who had taken part in it. He would never know what had really happened. Not that it mattered very much. Friedrich, Johann, and Ilse, the principal actors, were certainly dead. And Franz? He glanced at Miss Kolin marching along beside him.

“Do you think Franz is dead?” he asked.

“The evidence seemed conclusive. Did you not think so?”

“In a way, yes. If the man had been a friend of mine and had a wife and family he was fond of back home, I wouldn’t try to kid his wife that he might still be alive. And if she were crazy enough to go on believing that he wasn’t dead, I’d tell her as gently as I could to face the facts. But this is different. If we took the evidence we’ve got to court and asked for leave to presume Franz Schirmer dead, they’d laugh at us.”

“I do not see why.”