“I never got down that way.”
“It’s one of those scattered little resort towns-pensions, family hotels, and small villas on the edge of the fir forest. I’d found that the best person to make for on those inquiries was the priest, so I set out to find him. I could see the church-like a cuckoo clock it was, on the side of the hill-and I had just about enough German to find out from a passer-by that the priest’s house was beyond it. Well, I sweated up there and saw the priest. Luckily, he spoke good English. I told him the usual lies, of course-”
“Lies?”
“About its being a trifling matter, a small legacy, all that stuff. You have to play it down. If you go telling the truth on a job like that you’re a dead duck. Greed! You’d be surprised what happens to perfectly sane people when they start thinking in millions. So I told the usual lies and asked the usual questions.”
“And the priest said Friedrich Schirmer was dead?”
“Yes.” Mr. Moreton smiled slyly. “But he also said what a pity it was that I’d come too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“For the funeral.”
“You mean he’d survived Amelia?”
“By over ten months.”