‘What’s the matter?’ asked the Princess.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘You think we should really go to the house again?’ Karl asked doubtfully.

‘Of course we should,’ said the Princess. ‘The child needs help. We have to help her.’

I felt a surge of emotion, such a dull fury that I had to get up and take a deep breath – the other two watched me in astonishment. Suddenly I felt the same pleasure in destruction, in the suffering of others; to make that woman suffer . . . Oh the joy of the righteous Crusade, purge of immorality! I quenched it with a jet of cold air as I breathed out. I understood all too well the workings of that pleasure: it was doubly dangerous, because it had an ethical basis; torture, for a worthwhile end . . . a wide-spread ideal.

‘Shall we go?’

When we saw the house again, we fell silent as though in response to a command.

‘One of us go left, another round the back,’ said Karlchen.

‘But someone has to stay with the Princess,’ I said. ‘That woman would be perfectly capable of hitting her.’

‘Then you go that way,’ he said. ‘I’ll try the left.’ We crept nearer.

The house was quiet, very quiet. Was she watching us from a window? What if she had a dog? Whatever else, it was private property; we had no business here. The woman had the law on her side. What a Prussian way of thinking! A child was suffering. Go.

Everything was quiet. From here you could see a long way into the countryside beyond the house. There was Lake Maelar, there was Castle Gripsholm, red, with its thick domes, and the mixed wood of birch and fir.

‘Pst!’ hissed the Princess. Nothing. Karlchen was out of sight. I looked at her questioningly. We continued slowly, treading carefully as if on thin ice. Was that a face in a window–a circular window . . .? Wrong, it was a reflection. We passed very close to the house. The Princess looked all round her. Suddenly she moved forward. ‘Quick!’ she said. She ran up to a white patch in the grass not far from the house . . . it was a little piece of paper. At the back of the house, Karlchen was making his way slowly along the fence. The Princess bent down, looked at the paper, picked it up and walked on smartly.

We hurried to get out of danger.

‘Well?’ said Karlchen. The Princess stopped and read out from the paper, ‘Collin Zurich Hottingerstrase 104’.

The back of a leaf from a calendar, in a scrawly child’s hand. ‘Strase’ with a single ‘s’. ‘That’s that then!’ said the Princess.

Karlchen whistled a march. We started back to Gripsholm.

4

We ran around in confusion like Red Indians on the warpath. All three of us spoke at once.

‘Now slow down,’ said clever Karlchen. ‘A telegram . . . you must be mad. What we do now is write her a sensible letter. Saying . . .’