An Elegant Solution(76)

“Oh, you! You sent me after that trunk! That’s what started it!”

“I did,” I said. “Knipper sent me for you. He said it’d been brought from the coach by mistake.”

“I didn’t take it there. It was never on the coach.”

“Was Knipper there in the kitchen with the trunk?”

“I already said he wasn’t! I had to lift that myself.”

“Was it heavy?” Nicolaus asked. It was always startling when he spoke and Willi shrank back from the question. “About the weight of a man. Was Knipper in it, do you think?”

“Aye, yes, he was.” All the light in Willi’s face faded. It was as if the candle had been blown out, though it burned unchanged. “He rolled around in it, and I could feel it. I thought it was poor packed, and whatever it held would be bad broken by Strasbourg.”

“How did you know it was going all the way to Strasbourg?”

“The label on it said so.”

“How much can you read?” Nicolaus asked. It was a surprise that he could any.

“I know that word, Strasbourg.”

“What else did the label say?”

“That’s all I knew. It wasn’t till Freiburg that the innkeeper read it to me. The trunk was for Magistrate Caiaphas in Strasbourg.”

“For him?” I asked. “Then it was being sent to him! When was the label put on it?”

“I never saw it put on. When I got to the kitchen where I picked it up, the label was on.”

“How long did it take you to get to Master Johann’s house from the Inn?”

“I was pounding horseshoes that were bent; Gustavus had told me to do it. I wasn’t going to go help Knipper before I finished what my own Master had told me to do. I won’t cross Gustavus.”

“Then ten minutes or more.” I asked Nicolaus, “How long was the family together? Who would have left or gone to the kitchen?”

“We were together long enough.”

I didn’t ask more. Willi wasn’t understanding what I was asking Nicolaus, but he might start if I asked anything else. So I asked Willi, “Do you think anyone could have opened the trunk that night after you’d put it on the coach?”

“They’d have had to tie it up again just as I had, and I tied it fast.”

“Did you take the trunk to Caiaphas?” Nicolaus asked.

“No, that was for Dundrach to do. That evil—that evil, evil bat came to me. From Hades he came.”

“What did Caiaphas want?”

“He wanted to know how I came by the trunk, and what had happened to Knipper. He threatened me with torture if I didn’t answer him.”

“He didn’t tell you that Knipper was in the trunk?”

“Never! He never did.”

“Did they say you’d been arrested for bringing a corpse into the city?” I asked.

“They said that, and I called them evil liars for it. They didn’t say it was Knipper.”

“Did Caiaphas ever ask you anything else?”

“Only about the trunk. I told them I’d just been told to put it on the carriage, and I never knew who tagged it. And I told him where I’d got it, from the Master’s kitchen, and I told him it was you who came for me to get it.” And he pointed at me.

“You told him by name?” Nicolaus asked.

“I said, The student, young Master Leonhard, who’s servant to Master Johann’s house. And he screamed at that, that you’d be a Master or a servant, but you couldn’t be both.”

“I am both,” I said. “You were right. And Magistrate Caiaphas remembered my name. Willi, tell me about Strasbourg.”

“That city’s all evil. All the people, down to the dirt in the streets.”

“They’d have good people there, too,” I said.

“They’ve like been cast out. The city’s evil.”

“I don’t remember it that way,” Nicolaus said. “We stopped there for some time, a month, when we were coming to Basel.” Nicolaus would have been ten years old then. And his impression, even from twenty years ago, might have been more accurate than Willi’s. But Willi’s impression was as black and evil as a place could be. It made me think of the courtyard outside Caiaphas’s window at the inn. “And Gottlieb went on to Basel before we did.” He nodded to Willi. “Then that’s enough. You’ve been a help.”

“I’ll want to know who killed the old man,” Willi said. “I’ll throw him in the river myself, for the trouble he’s caused me.”



Nicolaus and I stood outside in the dark Square, at first saying nothing. But he had something to say and I waited.