“Ferdinand. Do you want to come inside?” she asked. “You can walk round and I’ll meet you at the gate—or perhaps it’s better to go back to the house?”
“No, no,” I said. “Here will be fine, if you’re not too cold?” No possibility of being overheard here.
She shook her head with a sort of indifference.
I grasped the iron railings with both hands—I’d thought to wear gloves, fortunately—and told her, as briefly as I could, what I’d found out and what Hasse had told me.
She listened, head bent so I could see only her mouth and chin under the curve of the hat she wore. The lips pressed tight at some points, relaxed at others, but the chin stayed strong. When I stopped speaking, she didn’t move. I waited for what seemed a long time, my hands growing colder.
“Elly,” I said at last, quietly. “You don’t need to decide now. What to do, I mean—if...if you want to do anything,” I added quickly. “Just...know I will stand by you.”
She did look up at that and met my eyes directly. They were red-rimmed and tired, but not weeping, and the strong features of her face were carved deep with sorrow. But that chin was still strong.
“Ferdie,” she said softly and reached out to touch my gloved hand, very briefly. “Thank you. You are our friend, our good friend, and I’m grateful to you. Some people say it’s better not to know too much, but I’ve never thought so.”
She paused, but I could tell she wasn’t through, and I waited. On the far side of the park, I heard the throb of a twelve-cylinder motor; the big car that had stopped at her house was pulling away.
“You had a visitor,” I said, nodding toward the fading sound. “Someone brought you a fancy basket.”
That made her lips compress again and for the first time, a small light came into her eyes—not a pleasant light, though. She made a little snorting sound and tossed her head.
“Them,” she said. “He’s not been dead a month, and the courtship begins. There are half a dozen at least, and more to come, I’m sure.”
That shocked me for a moment. I hadn’t thought of it. But of course, a young widow, and a famous one, a person valuable for her fame...I was sufficiently taken aback by the situation that I missed what she said next.
“Bitte?” I said, and she looked at me sharp, like a governess.
“I said I won’t do anything,” she repeated. She saw my face, and her expression relaxed. “I’m grateful to know, Ferdinand—and so grateful for your friendship. But...” She stopped for a moment and looked at me with great penetration, as though she could see through me to the row of town houses behind me. She turned round to the pram and bent, fumbled among the blankets, came out with a handbag. This she opened and took out a piece of paper, which she handed to me through the bars.
It was an envelope, folded in half. I spread it out; it was addressed to Bernd Rosemeyer et Ux—et uxor; that meant “and wife”—and the address in the upper corner was of the Chase Morgan Bank, New York City. The envelope was empty, and I looked up at her, bewildered.
She took a deep breath and let it out in a white wisp.
“We went to America last year, Bernie and I.”
“Yes?”
“We opened a bank account in New York while we were there.” She nodded at the envelope and waited for me to grasp the implication, which took only a moment.
“Oh,” I said, realization hitting me like a blow in the stomach. They’d meant—maybe—to emigrate. To move to America. Leave Germany.
“Oh,” she echoed with a mild irony. “Yes.” She nodded again at the empty envelope. “The bank sends us a statement of the account each month. That one arrived a few days ago. I didn’t feel up to doing anything about it, so I left it on the little desk in my bedroom. Yesterday, I found some energy at last, and began to tidy things up a little. That was still on the desk—but it was open, and empty.”
I took hold of the iron railing with my free hand and felt the cold spread through my body.
“Your bedroom,” I said. “Your maid...”
“No. I don’t let her go in there. And—” She took the envelope from me and, with one brisk movement, tucked it back in her bag. “Why would she take such a thing?”
Who would? Someone who recognized that that paper was a statement of intent as well as money and had taken it as evidence.
“One of your—your suitors?” I managed.
“Perhaps. Maybe one of their minders; the suitors”—her mouth twisted at the word—“the ones who belong to the party always bring at least one, maybe two or three men with them. Like a knight in the old times, coming with squires to show how important he is.”