The Star of Kazan

‘What do you think?’ he said angrily. ‘There’s everything I’ve ever wanted here: books to read and a chance to learn things, and Ellie and Sigrid treating me as though I was their son . . . and friends. I’ve not had friends before – I was always on my own. You think life with the gypsies is romantic because you saw them one night round the campfire, but it isn’t. It’s hard and rough – and it can be cruel.’ He broke off. ‘Oh, never mind, you wouldn’t understand.’

‘Perhaps I would,’ she said very quietly. ‘Perhaps I do. I’ve had to leave here once and probably—’

‘No.’ He interrupted her, and then remembered that she knew nothing of the suspicions surrounding her mother, or of the plan the professors had made.

In the afternoon, when Pauline and Stefan returned from school, all four of them took Rocco to the deserted garden and let him graze.

Stefan was resigned now to following his father as a groundsman in the Prater.

‘What’s the point of making oneself miserable?’ said Stefan. ‘There’s no money to train as an engineer and that’s the end of it. And at least you’ll have someone to take you round the fair and get you in half-price.’ He turned to Zed. ‘You’ll see tomorrow when we go on the Giant Wheel. It really is something. There isn’t a higher one in Europe.’

Tomorrow was Zed’s last day but one, and they were going to spend it in the Prater. But when the morning came it turned out to be a very different sort of day, because, as soon as they had finished their breakfast, the professors sent for Annika.

‘We have something to tell you,’ they said.

It was not a nice ‘something’; Annika could see that at once. All three professors were looking grim – indeed they had only just stopped arguing about whether what they were about to do was right. Professor Gertrude was against it: ‘There’s no need to tell her, it’ll only make her miserable.’

But both Julius and Emil said she should know. ‘Truth is important,’ they said, ‘even for children. Particularly for children.’

All the same, they did not find it easy to begin.

‘It’s about your mother,’ said Professor Julius.

Annika’s heart began to beat wildly. ‘Is she coming?’

‘Yes, she is coming. She is staying at the Hotel Riverside and she will be here tomorrow afternoon to fetch you. We wrote to tell her that you were safe with us, and that we took you away from Grossenfluss because you were unhappy there, and that we think you should not return. Dr Flass has given you a medical certificate to say it would be bad for your health.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But there is something . . . Perhaps we should explain why Zed came to Vienna. He had found out that the jewels in the trunk which the Eggharts’ great-aunt showed you were real.’

Annika looked at him in amazement. ‘But they can’t have been. She told me all about them . . . how the jeweller in Paris had them copied.’

‘Nevertheless, they are real.’ He told her the story of Fabrice’s deception. ‘He was very fond of the old lady, so he played a trick on her.’

‘A kind trick,’ said Annika. ‘I wish she’d known. Or perhaps it was best as it was.’

‘And it seems,’ the professor went on, ‘that the jewels are worth a fortune – and that they were left to you. Fräulein Egghart left you the trunk and all it contained; the lawyers have confirmed this.’

Annika was bewildered.

‘But where is it then? My mother thought that Zed had taken it and at first . . . But I’m sure he didn’t. I’m absolutely sure.’

‘We are sure too.’

‘But then who did?’ Annika was completely at a loss.

‘When Fräulein Egghart showed you the jewels,’ the professor went on, ‘did you see a brooch shaped like a butterfly?’

‘Yes, I did. Blue sapphires for the wings and filigree gold for the antennae with rubies for the eyes. I suppose I should have known the stones were real, they were so beautiful.’

Professor Julius picked up a letter on his desk. ‘Yes. That is an exact description. We asked a friend in Switzerland to make some enquiries and his letter came this morning. Your butterfly brooch has just been sold by Zwingli and Hammerman for two million Swiss francs.’

‘I don’t understand. How did the brooch—’

Professor Julius put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We think your mother may have taken it. That your mother and your Uncle Oswald took the trunk. The description of the woman who brought the brooch to the jeweller fits your mother perfectly.’

‘NO!’ Annika pulled away from him. ‘It isn’t true. I don’t believe it. My mother wouldn’t steal from me – why should she? Anything that belongs to me I’d have given her. She knows that.’

‘It would have to be proved, and since it is you who have been robbed it is you would have to bring the case against her. If she was convicted and sent to prison we would ask the courts if you could come back to us, at any rate for the length of the sentence. This would mean that you could stay in Vienna and—’

But Annika couldn’t take in another word.

‘NO!’ she said again. ‘It isn’t true. You’re lying!’ And she turned and ran from the room.

C

HAPTER

T

HIRTY

-

SEVEN

T

HE

R

IVERSIDE

H

OTEL