Free The Poellenberg Inheritance by Evelyn Anthony Page A

was one of Germany’s glamour soldiers.’ He had a mental picture of the faded photograph in the Bonn file. The hard, clean-cut face under the distinctive peaked cap, the pattern of gold braid and the unmistakable lightning flashes on the collar. He must have looked pretty good in his prime, a perfect specimen of the Wagnerian superman. He smiled at Paula.
    â€˜There’s nothing more intriguing than the dead coming back to life,’ he said kindly. ‘Naturally it aroused interest.’
    â€˜Do you believe it, Mr. Fisher?’ she asked him. ‘Do you think it’s possible?’
    â€˜You’d like it to be, wouldn’t you?’
    â€˜Wouldn’t you? If you had never known one of your parents?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Fisher said. ‘I didn’t know either of mine very well. They died when I was a kid. But I made out. I wouldn’t let it worry you. If I find anything out, I’ll let you know; just privately, between friends.’
    â€˜That’s very kind of you,’ Paula said. In spite of her first reaction she was beginning to like him. He looked different when he smiled; she felt that he was not normally as nice as he was being to her. ‘Will you promise?’
    â€˜If you’ll have dinner with me this week,’ Fisher said. ‘I’ll give you a full report. Just in case you want me before, here’s my address and you can get a message to me at this number. It’s a calling service. How about Thursday for dinner. I thought I might motor down and see your mother and stepfather on Wednesday. Can I come and pick you up at about eight?’
    â€˜I haven’t said I’d go,’ Paula said. ‘This isn’t more investigating, is it? I’ve nothing more to tell you.’
    â€˜No, this is strictly pleasure from my point of view.’ Fisher paid the bill. ‘And as I said, I’ll give you a progress report – free. I usually charge blood money for this sort of thing. You will have dinner, won’t you?’
    â€˜All right. I live at 28 Charlton Square. Flat 2. I warn you, you won’t get anything out of my mother and stepfather. I tried to bring it up myself and I got absolutely nowhere.’
    â€˜Perhaps I’m a little tougher to deal with,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Anyway, we’ll see. Come on, I’ll put you in a taxi. Are you going back to your office?’
    They stood outside on the warm pavement; the sky was clouding over with the advent of a summer shower.
    â€˜Yes, of course. I have to do some work.’ She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye; thank you for lunch.’
    â€˜I have to do some work too,’ Fisher replied. He liked the way she did her hair; it curled round her head, not too short, but soft and casual, taking its own shape. He had never liked brown hair before. But with those eyes, she couldn’t fail. ‘See you Thursday,’ he said. He helped her into a cab and turning, walked back down the street to find his car.
    He wondered what the mother would be like. He had seen her in one of the photographs too; a tall, a very good-looking woman with blonde hair plaited round her head, fox furs trailing from her shoulders, shaking hands with her husband’s boss.
    He wondered about the English husband. What kind of man had he been to pick her up and marry her, knowing what he must have known? Perhaps there was a beautiful love story being lived out in the serenity of the Essex countryside. Perhaps the attractive girl he had just left was the changeling, cursed with her heredity, even though she didn’t know it. Fisher doubted that. Blood wasn’t thicker than water; heredity without environment didn’t make sense to him. What did make sense was the appearance of a man who was obviously the General’s A.D.C., a man accounted dead for twenty odd years, and his contacting of Paula Stanley with hints that the General was still alive. He