He was tall and well-built for a man his age, which I estimated was around sixty-five. Possibly older. He had a full head of white, curly hair that looked as if it had been shorn from the back of a sheep. His teeth looked like they were made of wood. He wore thick, metal-framed glasses, and a dark suit and tie. His bearing was almost military and I guessed the Gruens preferred it that way.

“All right, come in.” I watched him limp into my room. It was a limp that made you think there was something wrong with his hip rather than his knee or his ankle. I closed the door. “Well? What is it? What do you want?”

Medgyessy glanced around the suite with obvious appreciation. “Very nice, sir,” he said. “Very nice, indeed. I don’t blame you for staying here rather than your mother’s house, sir. Especially not after what happened at the funeral this morning. Most regrettable that was. And quite uncalled for. I’ve reprimanded her already, sir. Fifteen years I was your mother’s butler, sir, and that was the first time I ever heard Klara speak out of turn.”

“Klara, was it, you say?”

“Yes, sir. My wife.”

I shrugged. “Look, forget about it,” I said. “Less said the better, eh? I appreciate you coming here like this, to apologize, but really it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, I didn’t come here to apologize, sir,” he said.

“You didn’t?” I shook my head. “Then why did you come here?” The butler smiled a curious little smile. It was like looking at a heavily weathered picket fence. “It’s like this, sir,” he said. “Your mother left us some money in her will. But she made it quite a while ago, and I daresay the sum she left for us would have done us very nicely if recently we hadn’t had that change in the value of the Austrian schilling. Of course, she meant to change it, but her dying so suddenly, well, she didn’t have time to do it. So we’re a bit stuck, now, the wife and I. What she left us isn’t enough to retire on, and at our time of life, we’re too old to look for another position. We were wondering if you’d care to help us, sir. You being a wealthy man, now. We’re not greedy people. We wouldn’t ask at all, if your mother hadn’t meant to change her will. You can ask Dr. Bekemeier, if you don’t believe me, sir.”

“I see,” I said. “If you don’t mind me saying so, Herr Medgyessy, your wife, Klara, didn’t sound like she wanted my help. Anything but.”

The butler shifted on his legs and came to the at-ease position.