The Star of Kazan

In the interval of the concert, Annika would say she felt sick and hurry to the toilet in the downstairs cloakroom. Stefan, who was guarding the harp case, would help her into it and, when the concert resumed and everybody was out of the way, he would carry her out to a closed carriage in which Ellie was waiting with a change of clothes. Annika would be let out and driven away to the station, Stefan would take the harp case back to the cloakroom and, at the end of the concert, he and Professor Gertrude would go home with the harp in the usual way.

‘I’ll have to have a reason for taking the case out in the interval,’ said Stefan. He was not a boy who worried easily but he was worried now. ‘In case anyone sees me. Maybe I would need to fix a new wheel on the base.’

‘We’ll just have to improvise,’ said Professor Julius grandly. Since he was to wait for them at the station he could afford to be relaxed. ‘After all it will be dark.’

Both the professors had been determined to return to Vienna and leave Ellie where she was. However much Annika disliked her school, she had been put there by her mother, and they were not the sort of people who planned cloak-and-dagger rescues, and interfered with authority.

But what they had learned from the maid at the inn about pupil 126 would not go out of their minds.

‘Such pretty hair, she had,’ the maid had said . . . and Annika too had pretty hair. The professors began to be haunted by the image of Annika lying on the stone flags in pools of her own blood.

Once they had decided to stay, the professors became very forceful. There was an old encyclopedia in the smoking room of the inn, and when Emil turned to the page about Ragnar Hairybreeks he found that his memory had not been faulty. A beautiful maiden, the daughter of a king, escaping a cruel war, had been carried to safety hidden in a harp.

Professor Julius had already been to the school when he went to enquire about visiting Annika. It was Emil therefore who called late that afternoon and asked to see the principal, Fräulein von Donner.

He wore a black beret pulled down over his forehead and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and introduced himself as Henri de Malarme, a concert impresario who had been sent by the music master of the Duchess of Cerise.

‘The duchess, as you know, is a close friend of your patron the Princess Mettenburg.’

Fräulein von Donner was impressed. She did not usually see people who came to the door, but a messenger from a duchess, especially one who knew their own princess, had to be listened to.

‘Her Grace’s concert master has a harpist whom he values greatly – a Frenchwoman. She has transposed the patriotic songs of the Fatherland for the harp. There is one song, “Let Our Enemies Tremble”, which has already become famous in aristocratic circles. It is in the key of E flat minor,’ said Professor Emil.

‘And how does this concern us here at Grossenfluss?’ asked Fräulein von Donner, bending forward so that the three keys on her chest – the one for the front door, the one for the isolation room and the one for the cubbyhole, which housed the telephone – all clanked together.

‘Her Grace has suggested that this harpist visits a few specially chosen schools to give a concert. Free of charge, of course – the concert is free. It seems important for the pupils to know that an instrument that is often played by women can also be used to hearten men for heroic deeds. Even for war.’

‘Well, that is true. We are always concerned that the girls in our care are trained to serve the Fatherland in any way – and music of course has often been used as a battle call. Though not,’ she went on, ‘on the harp.’

‘No. And that is what interests the duchess. That is why she is sending Madame La Cruise to give recitals to young people. And it so happens that Madame is going to Schloss Bernstein to play there, and she could stop here on the way. I take it that you have a suitable hall?’

‘Yes, of course. Our round room on the first floor is traditionally used for concerts.’

‘And all your pupils attend?’

‘Of course. Unless they are being punished.’

‘Then may I take it that you will receive Madame La Cruise at six p.m. on Sunday?’

‘So soon?’

‘That is the only day she has available, I’m afraid. I will let you have all the arrangements in writing. Now, if I could just see the recital room? Madame La Cruise is particular about the acoustics – and about draughts. Draughts are very bad for harps, as you know.’

‘Our acoustics are excellent,’ said Fräulein von Donner. ‘And a draught would not be permitted here.’

But she beckoned to her eel-like assistant, Mademoiselle Vincent, who took Emil to the round room on the first floor, which was reached by the wide flight of stone steps leading up from the main hall.

He did not catch so much as a glimpse of a single pupil in the silent building.

‘I expect they keep them underground,’ said Ellie when he told her this.