It was, however, none of these features of physique that made the baron stand out among his peers, but rather the stature of inner life he exuded, chiefly notable in the eyes as he looked upon others of his kind. Not so dark a blue as his wife’s, the baron’s were pale, and shone out with a constant sparkle of enthusiasm for living, a peace and contentment with his lot, and a deep and abiding love for all living things. They were eyes that had taught themselves long ago to look inside, and never to satisfy themselves with the surface of what their gaze chanced to fall upon.

Heinrich von Dortmann was a man indeed cut from a different cloth than his contemporaries of the German Reich. His sole goal in life was the very antithesis of all that Reich and its promulgators stood for. In spite of his title and the very Germanness of his name and lineage and ancestry, his was a birthright extending into other soil altogether than the Teutonic and Celtic from which the name Dortmann derived its heritage. His roots went farther south and eastward, into regions on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. His true birthright was not one of parental blood, but had become his after the manner of the third chapter of the fourth Gospel. For he knew that he was one of God’s children, one of those privileged Gentiles spoken of by Peter and Paul who had been grafted into the royal lineage of David. He was, if not actually by familial stock, yet a Hebrew by faith and therefore no less a son and descendent of Abraham.

In this day and in this place, however, maintaining such sentiments was nowise healthy or prudent. Baron Heinrich von Dortmann was not a man ruled by fear. Yet he did fear for those he loved, especially for his wife and daughter. What kind of world would Sabina face? Would the tranquility of the childhood she had known throughout the 1920s continue, or would bitter tears mar that smile of innocence? Would he be able to—

He stopped himself. He could not ask such questions. They served no purpose. He could not predict the future, and his hopefulness that all might yet turn out well was not completely dead.

He sighed deeply, brushed away the momentary melancholy that had swept over him, and strode forward into the rose garden.

Though he would not have understood a word of it, the silent watcher brooded bitterly that he could not eavesdrop on the baron’s conversation with his daughter with his ears as well as with his eyes.

8 The Mystery of the Garden

8

The Mystery of the Garden

Sabina glanced up and smiled at her father.

“Hello, Papa,” she said simply.

“You look deep in thought, my daughter,” replied the baron. “What have you been reading?”

“The Asher translation you gave me of the Scotsman.”