Free The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel Page B

I can’t understand. Gave him a guided tour. Strutting around proud as acockerel, chest swelling, backbone straight like he’d swallowed a poker.
    He’d take those vagabonds all around the house and the farmyard.
    Showed them all the machinery, so no wonder if one of them happens to vanish a couple of days later, together with some of the household goods.
    I always locked the door of my room when one of those gallows birds was around on the farm.
    There was one of them at the place once. Karl, that was his name, I think. Yes, I’m sure it was Karl. None of that lot liked giving a surname.
    Easy to see why.
    This Karl helped the old man get timber in from the woods.
    It was right after the big storm in June last year.
    They were getting in the trees that had keeled over in the storm. That’s not easy work. It’s been known for a man to be killed by a tree, or lose a leg. After a storm like that the trees are lying around all over the place. Sometimes stretched so taut, they spring right back when they’re felled.
    Well, after less than a week, off went Karl. Disappeared without trace, and a couple of chickens along with him, not to mention some clothes and shoes.
    And when someone tried breaking into the farm late last year I’d had enough. I looked around for a new job.
    What happened then? I wasn’t at the farm myself, it was Barbara, Danner’s daughter, told me next day. I was visiting my auntie in Endlfeld, she was sick.
    It was a Sunday, imagine that, a Sunday. While God-fearing folk are at church. I went to see my auntie straight after going to church. Barbara Spangler and her family, they went out into the graveyard after the service and then home.
    When they got close to the front door, they saw that someone had tried forcing it. You could see the marks on the wood of the door, scratches everywhere. Like they were made by a chisel. It’s a wonder the burglar didn’t break the door right down.
    Seems he’d been disturbed and ran for it. Just took to his heels and scarpered.
    A thing like that didn’t surprise me, I mean any of the deadbeats that worked at the farm knew very well there was plenty to be had at Danner’s place.
    Not just chickens neither. He always had plenty of cash stashed away in the house. That was an open secret. Anyone who ever worked at the farm knew it.
    So well, like I said before, after that I didn’t fancy staying on at the farm anymore.
    I was afraid the housebreaker might try it again, maybe at night next time. You hear about such things every day.
    I mean, the farm’s very isolated. Ever so lonely.
    So I didn’t want to be out there with them when winter came, not on your life. Twilight starts falling at three-thirty then, and by four o’clock it’s dark. You can’t see or hear a thing. So I packed up my belongings and went off. I found a new place right away.
    If I hadn’t left the farm then, who knows, I might well be dead now too. No thanks. I fancy living a little longer, I like life far too much.
    Otherwise I could have got on all right with old Danner and his family. I know the rumors. He was odd, so folk say. Him and his whole family.
    Maybe that’s true, but I got along well enough with them. I did my work, and on my days off I went dancing or I visited my family.
    Work’s work. You always have to work. No one’s going to pay you for idling around. A maid has to be able to work hard, and I like the work, too. Then on my free days I make sure I go out and have a good time.
    No, I was never pestered by old Danner. But I’d have known how to deal with that, believe you me. I don’t let anyone take liberties with me.
    What was the relationship like between Danner and his daughter Barbara Spangler?
    Ah, I see what you’re getting at.
    Well, I can’t really say, I didn’t let it bother me, and anyway I wasn’t at the farm all that long, just from spring to autumn.
    Did Barbara Spangler sleep in the same bedroom as her father, like some people say? I can’t