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references from a family in Graz where she had served before, and that she had dreams of one day setting up her own small business.
    ‘“It’s a changing world, Frau Anschitz”,’ she would say to me. The cook grew a bit misty eyed as she related this. ‘“There are new opportunities for a girl with some ambition.”’
    She cut the dough into strips and now wove them over a bed of apples and raisins in a baking dish. She sighed.
    ‘Silly girl. In the end it was the same old
opportunities
for her, for any girl not careful of her morals. I warned her …’ Frau Anschitz paused.
    ‘Yes?’ Gross said.
    ‘Warned her about too much ambition. Not good for the likes of us.’
    All this time Stoker had kept quiet, just as Gross had earlier counseled him, but this comment drew a response from the Irishman. ‘She sounds like a wonderful young woman. What a tragedy for mother and child.’
    A tear formed in her left eye. ‘That is the word, isn’t it? Tragedy.’
    They made their way back up the warren of stairs to the entry hall, but before reaching it Werthen said, ‘I’ve forgotten my notepad. Go on without me. I’ll catch you up.’
    ‘Good fishing,’ Gross said, seeing through the ruse.
    Werthen ignored this, hurrying back down the stairs.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said, re-entering the kitchen. ‘Forgot my notepad.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ she said.
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘I saw you set it down there like you had a plan in mind. Get the old girl alone and she’ll tell all.’
    He chuckled at her frankness. ‘Well, will you?’
    ‘You’ve got to ask a question first.’ She laid on the final strip of dough, then wiped her hands on her blue apron.
    ‘All right,’ Werthen said. ‘Why did you laugh so at Doktor Gross’s question about whether Ursula’s young man was employed here?’
    ‘I don’t know anything about a young man, do I? Like I already told you.’
    ‘But it was as if you knew something. That the very idea of a young man or his employment was absurd.’
    ‘You don’t miss much, do you?’
    ‘I try not to. And I certainly would not miss a meal you prepared, Frau Anschitz.’
    ‘No need to throw out compliments. I liked you better just clever.’
    ‘Then I’ll make a clever guess,’ Werthen said. ‘You laughed because Ursula’s lover was the opposite of that description. Not young, but old, and not employed here, but the employer.’
    ‘You said it, sir, not I.’
    He waited for more.
    ‘We do seem to go through quite a few young kitchen helpers,’ the cook added acidly.

Six
    Werthen re-joined the other two just as they were being led into von Hobarty’s cold and damp library cum study. Christian von Hobarty was seated at a desk by a mullioned window that allowed in dim green light, giving him the appearance of an undersea creature. He rose as they approached and there was nothing amphibian about the man. He was well over six feet in height and stood erect as a soldier. Though he was into his sixties, Hobarty still had thick black hair and a beard that bore very little gray in it. By the deep nutbrown color of his skin, von Hobarty also appeared to spend a good deal of time out of doors.
    In short, Herr von Hobarty was the sort of man, Werthen figured, who could still sire a child.
    They introduced themselves quickly and von Hobarty seemed less than impressed.
    ‘So you are the detective chaps Thielman mentioned,’ he said in a voice as vital as his posture. ‘Takes a litter of you to solve a paltry murder?’
    He continued standing and made no indication for them to sit, so the interview was conducted upright. Von Hobarty’s brash manner caused an instant antipathy in Werthen, which he attempted to hold in check.
    But Gross obviously felt no such restraint. ‘I am afraid there is nothing paltry about this brutal crime, especially for the victim.’
    ‘Just a manner of speaking. I meant no disrespect for the deceased.’ Von Hobarty said it as if implying it was their fault for