“Guten Abend,” I said politely; and saw four…eight…sixteen—good heavens, how many were there?—all those eyes focus in glazed stares. I’m sure they expected me to bend over and extract a knife from my stocking. Only I wasn’t wearing stockings.

“There has been an accident,” I said, in my best German. “We must have the police. And a doctor. And on the top of the keep, behind this place, you will find several people who need to be transported to the Schloss. And—could I have a drink?”

I fell flat on my face, but they wouldn’t let me pass out; dozens of enthusiastic arms bore me to a couch and another arm poured the dregs of a glass of beer down my throat. I lapped it up like a dog, and somebody brought a full glass, and somebody else held my head…I have some unpleasant memories about my sojourn at the Schloss, but the heavenly coldness of that beer trickling down my dusty gullet compensated for all of them.

I shouldn’t have had it, though; on an empty stomach it was almost disastrous. After a while I found myself lying flat on the couch with my head floating up somewhere near the ceiling and a handsome tanned boy bending over me with a glass of brandy.

“Oy,” I said, pushing it away. “That I don’t need. Will you please—”

“I am a student of medicine,” said the boy grandly. “Rest quietly, Fräulein, all has been done as you directed. But what in God’s name has happened?”

“Look at my face,” I said hysterically. “I know I’m drunk, but I can’t help looking like this, I didn’t do it on purpose; and I don’t know why all you men can’t stop looking at my—”

He had been patting me—absentmindedly, I’m sure. He got quite red and leaped to his feet.

“I apologize! No disrespect was intended—”

“I know,” I said sadly.

I had not forgotten the Gräfin, but I was no longer worried about her; with all those husky witnesses running around, it was unlikely that she could do any more damage. She must have heard all the activity and come down to see what was going on. When I saw her standing in the doorway, I struggled to a sitting position.

She dismissed the student with an autocratic wave of her hand. Her faint smile, as she studied my unkempt person, told me more clearly than any mirror how terrible I must look. It stung me into relative coherence.

“Grin all you want,” I said. “You still lose. All is known.”

Her smile didn’t change.

“Poor girl, you are delirious after all you have suffered. But if you will insist on prying into places where you have no right to be—”

“It won’t work,” I said. “George is dead.”

That did it. Her smile vanished.

“I’m going to let you go,” I said. “I hate to do it, but without George I’m not sure how much we can prove. In your position, though, I wouldn’t risk it.”