“In Germany, but he did not tell me where. The whole subject was very painful to him. He spoke of it only once.”
“What did they quarrel about?”
Father Weichs hesitated at this question. Evidently he knew the answer to it. What he said was: “I cannot say.”
“You don’t know?” I persisted.
He hesitated again, then answered very carefully: “Friedrich Schirmer was not, perhaps, as simple a man as he appeared. That is all I can say”
“I see.”
“De mortuis … the old man was very sick.”
“YOU have absolutely no idea then, Father, of the whereabouts of Johann?”
“I regret, none. I looked among the old man’s things for the address of someone to tell of his death, but I did not find anything. He lived at the sanatorium for old people. The woman director there said that he received no letters, only his annuity every month. Will the son receive the legacy now?”
I had been prepared for the question. At one moment I had thought of trusting this priest, but the habit of caution was very strong. I answered evasively. “The money is in trust,” I said, and changed the subject by asking what had happened to his belongings.