The Poellenberg Inheritance by Evelyn Anthony Page B

anything but lying in a coma of drink. He’s my son, but the day he dies, I shall not shed a tear. Also he hates you, Philip. You know he does.’
    â€˜That’s because you’ve always loved me,’ he said. ‘And you’ve shown it. I don’t blame him.’
    â€˜He’ll die,’ the Princess said. ‘His liver is rotted, his health is getting worse. One day he just won’t recover. The doctors have made this clear to me for some time. And when that comes, you will be the head of the family, and I can retire and become an old woman, doing gros point in my armchair.’ She squeezed his hand and smiled. The memory of his father was very clear. Whenever Philip laughed it was as if the man she loved had come back from the grave. It would all be his. Millions, power, prestige, a great future in a Germany already counting high in the councils of the world which it had almost conquered. And the Salt belonged to him.
    â€˜If Bronsart lives,’ she said suddenly, ‘we will have our treasure back. If he died in the retreat, then it is lost to us. So it rests with Fate, my son. Fate will decided what happens next.’
    â€˜It wasn’t Fate that killed Schwarz,’ her son said.
    â€˜No,’ she agreed. ‘It could have been a thief that he disturbed, the papers said so. It could have been a quarrel. Or it could have been the General, come back to close his mouth. That, my darling, is what I think, and what I believe Fisher thinks also. Now we have to wait to see what comes from the daughter. Just imagine being the child of such a man! Come, it’s time we went inside. I have to telephone Brükner about the extension to the Verbegan plant.’
    â€˜I have the most terrible hangover,’ Paula said into the telephone. ‘Otherwise I’m all right. How about you?’
    Fisher sounded cheerful. ‘I’m fine. You said you weren’t working today. How about lunch?’
    â€˜I’ve changed my mind.’ Paula spoke with her eyes closed. Her head was pounding. ‘I have some things to do and I’ve got to get some letters written and sent off. I could have dinner this evening, or better still, come here and I’ll cook something. We’ve got to talk.’
    â€˜You haven’t changed your mind about that, then,’ Fisher said. ‘I’m glad. We need each other in this. Anyway, at the moment I need you, and I can give you the information you wanted. Shall I come at about eight?’
    â€˜Make it seven-thirty. I’ll get my own back on you and give you a drink.’ She sounded as if she were smiling. He was sorry she refused an earlier meeting. He was anxious to get on and get the information; he had spoken to the Princess at eight o’clock that morning and extracted permission to reveal her identity and the purpose of his enquiry. He was impatient to get on with his investigation, to start on a serious hunt for Bronsart, but no action was possible without exhausting Paula as a source. Another reason, which in the morning light he wasn’t so eager to recognise, was a desire to see her again.
    Her father was a Nazi general, a member of the infamous murder squads which had spread Hitler’s terror throughout Europe. No wonder the mother had played it down. Fisher could see her point. But it had been a cruel and selfish attitude to take in regard to her daughter. Some hint should have been given, some warning that her father was not the hero figure that the girl had obviously tried to create out of nothing. Besides, the mother had been married to him. She knew what he was and what he was doing. The wives of all the top men were singing the same song after the war. We didn’t know; we weren’t told, our place was in the home. Fisher called that excuse a lot of balls. Their estates were staffed by foreign slave labour, their homes were filled with other people’s treasures, the furs and jewels