I smiled winsomely back. “Snore, you mean? Only when he’s drunk. Nighty-night, Annie—I mean, Tony.”

Friedl had preserved one of the Hexenhut’s pleasant old-fashioned customs; the chambermaid had turned down my bed and spread my nightgown gracefully across it. For the chambermaid’s sake, I was glad I had brought my fancy new nightie instead of my old flannel pajamas. For my own sake, I was sorry I hadn’t brought the jammies. The stove had been banked for the night, and as I knew from past experience, the room would be as cold as a frozen side of beef by morning, though it warmed quickly after someone revived the fire. I had usually managed to con Tony into proving his manhood while I remained snuggled under the downy warmth of the Dauendecke. Tomorrow I’d have to do it myself or wait for the chambermaid. Such are the disadvantages of celibacy.

I needed to see John. In this case, celibacy had nothing to do with it. Things were getting out of hand—suspects emerging from the woodwork, Tony narrowing in on the gold and on John (his accusations had been unnervingly accurate); and Schmidt…The old dear’s rambling conversation had raised a host of new and ominous possibilities. One in particular, resulting from a casual comment I had been too preoccupied to notice at the time, came back to me now and made me all the more anxious to confront that sneaky, tricky, untrustworthy devil…. I forced my clenched hands to relax. Maybe I was reading too much into a single statement. Maybe I had better not raise the point. He’d never admit anything anyway. There were other, equally urgent matters to discuss. What had happened to John’s scheme for getting Schmidt out of our hair? Not that the little rascal hadn’t been useful. I would never had spotted Perlmutter without Schmidt. That made five of the six.

I turned out the light and went to the window. Most of the town had gone to bed. The night was clear and cold. In the distance the snow-covered peaks of the Stuben Mountains shone with a faint, eerie glow against the darkness. Far up on the dark heights of the Hexenhut, a single Christmas tree burned blue and scarlet and white, like a dollhouse miniature.

I realized that I had made a slight mistake in strategy—or is it tactics? I couldn’t leave the hotel by the normal route without being seen and recognized. There isn’t much to do in Bad Steinbach at midnight. Even a casual observer might wonder where I was going at that hour; and, as I had just learned, some of the observers might not be so casual. How was I going to get to Müller’s shop unseen?

The answer was only too obvious. With a sigh and a shiver, I opened the window and went out onto the balcony. Investigation showed a nice convenient snowbank directly below. A single bulb beside a side entrance gave more light than I would have liked, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. That didn’t mean there wasn’t someone watching, but I had to take the chance.