‘Ah, what a tragedy!’ The woman began to sob. ‘What a tragedy! You had better not ask me, my dear young man. Who could ever have imagined such a thing! It’s been two months now. At first we thought it was only a passing nervous crisis. She’s such a delicate little thing, poor baby! You saw her yourself, Herr Gurdweill — she was always the same, nothing to her at all! But from the day little Fritzi was born her nerves broke down completely.’

Gurdweill felt that his heart was being squeezed in a vice. He grasped the situation immediately. Even then, six months before, he had realised that the young woman was troubled in her mind, and foreseen some kind of catastrophe.

The old woman continued, speaking with profound pain: ‘We thought it would pass. We decided to send her to the country with the baby, even though things are very hard at present, as you know. My son-in-law doesn’t earn much. But we were prepared to make the effort. My son-in-law loves Franzi very much. He’s a good man, he doesn’t drink or gamble, he spends all his free time at home. We were going to borrow some money from friends and pawn a bit of jewellery — not that we’ve got too much, but still — and then the catastrophe happened!’

‘And where is she now?’ asked Gurdweill sympathetically.

‘Where is she? She’s over there!’ The old lady gestured vaguely behind her. ‘They took her away! Took her by force! I would never have given her to them of my own free will — as you can imagine. But they took her against my will! I couldn’t stop them. And now she’s been there for two months, the poor baby.’

Gurdweill guessed where ‘there’ was, but he wanted more details. ‘But how could they take her? Did she do anything violent?’