The Star of Kazan

‘Of course he existed,’ said Pauline.

But for once she was in no mood to argue with her friends, and they lifted up their mugs and drank her health.

Pauline’s discovery at Pettelsdorf had been the key that enabled the professors to untangle the story.

Frau Edeltraut had heard about the jewels in the trunk far earlier than anyone had realized, before she even knew who Annika was, and the story would not go out of her head. The idea of a fortune going begging when she was at her wit’s end was more than she could bear. So she had gone to the old lady’s lawyers in Vienna, veiled and grieving, and under a false name, pretending to be a friend of La Rondine’s, and begged for a keepsake out of the old lady’s trunk.

Only the lawyer’s young clerk was on duty. He was very sorry, but it was out of the question – the trunk had been left to a little foundling girl. It was under lock and key, in the lawyer’s basement; there were still legal matters to sort out.

‘If you were a relative of the girl it might be possible to arrange something,’ said the clerk, who was sorry for the grieving woman in her veil. ‘A close relative. Even so you would have to get permission. The child does not even know of her legacy yet.’

Frau Edeltraut got Annika’s name from him and went away to think. A relative? A close relative. Why not a very close relative? Why not her mother? She was desperate enough to try anything.

It was only then that she consulted Pumpelmann-Schlissenger, who was known to do ‘unusual’ jobs, and promised him a share of the fortune if he would help her to trace the details of Annika’s birth and adoption and provide her with the necessary papers.

When she arrived at the professors’ house, two weeks later, it was as a woman who, against all odds, had found her long-lost child.

It had been difficult to interest Annika in what was to happen to the money for the jewels which Frau von Tannenberg had not yet sold.

She had started by saying that she didn’t want the money. ‘I don’t need it for anything,’ she had said. ‘And I don’t want to punish her. She may not have been my mother but I thought she was.’

But Pauline said that that was nonsense. ‘You need it to pay for Stefan’s training as an engineer for a start.’

They were all in the kitchen, as they so often were these days.

‘I wouldn’t take money from Annika,’ said Stefan.

‘Yes, you would. If it was a loan. And you need it to pay back Ellie’s savings,’ Pauline went on.

‘And there’s Professor Gertrude’s harp,’ said Stefan.

‘Isn’t there anything you want for yourself?’ asked Zed.

Annika grinned and looked sideways at Ellie.

‘Maybe a mechanical egg-beater?’ she suggested.

And waited while Ellie’s eyebrows drew together in a frown and she said, ‘Over my dead body.’

All the same, it seemed as though Annika would get some money in the end whether she wanted it or not, because the Eggharts were now on the warpath. As the truth came out about Frau von Tannenberg’s activites, they were once again making it clear that the famous trunk had belonged to their great-aunt.

‘She was OUR great-aunt so it was OUR trunk,’ they pointed out in case anybody had not heard this yet.

They also threatened to dispute the will on the grounds that the old lady had not been right in her head before she died.

‘One of the maids said she spoke about a rose garden in the sky,’ said Frau Egghart, ‘which shows she was wandering.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Pauline. ‘There is a rose garden in the sky above Merano. It’s a glacier, very high, which turns a rose colour in the evenings and that’s what they call it. It’s in the guidebook.’

But the Eggharts were not easy to shake off.

‘If Annika won’t take the matter any further we will take steps ourselves. It is outrageous that the woman should get away with her crime,’ they told the professors.

The professors felt the same, so in the end it was agreed that while Frau von Tannenberg should keep what she already had – ‘because of Spittal,’ said Annika. ‘It would be awful if everything fell down again’ – the rest of the jewels should be sold and the money divided between Annika and the Eggharts.

Pauline of course thought this was monstrous, but it was the Eggharts who were going to consult the lawyers and brief them and take all the steps that would be necessary to keep the police out of the investigation, and everyone knew that if it was left to Annika she would do nothing. Annika was to get a small allowance each month and a lump sum for the loan to Stefan, and the rest would be put in a trust for her till she was twenty-one.

‘Actually,’ said Annika, ‘if there’s enough money in the end maybe we could buy the house in Merano with the weathervane shaped like a crowing cock and Ellie and Sigrid could live there when they’re old. All of us could. It would be nice to have a rose garden in the sky.’

Found Day had come round again, and with it the Found Day treat.