I decided that it was time to have all, or at least most of this out with my guests, Erica included, since it was by now obvious that she was not to be held in custody.
My guests gathered in the parlor immediately after diner that evening. When Margaret and I walked into the room bearing tea and cake, the group had already begun telling one another the story of Erica and Robert Miller. I didn't interrupt until we had all the tea things sorted and laid out. I overheard some very interesting things, some of which were true. I encouraged the discussion.
Robert had been searching Erica's room, for what they did not know, but often, and always while she was asleep. Yes, he had come in through the window, but he had not used a ladder, therefore no marks in the garden. He apparently dropped a rope ladder out of his window on the third floor directly above Erica's window, climbed down, opened Erica's window, entered her room and searched.
He did this repeatedlyi, almost from the beginning of the semester.
How had the others learned of the searches? I suppose the Sheriff had hinted at the searching when he questioned the other guests. He had apparently been more attentive to Erica's explanation than I realized. He had even asked language questions of the other guests. Did they all speak German? Was Erica German?
Robert must have grown more and more frustrated at the seemingly endless collection of handwritten and printed German. He knew no one who would translate for him, without word of it getting to Erica immediately. The number of German speakers in Brown's Crossing is very limited outside of the university, and they all know each other. Well, of course they would. Now why hadn't that occurred to me?
Erica was very calm, and uncommunicative as usual. She confirmed and denied but did not contribute much. It seemed as though the worst was over, and recovery was already beginning.
The gossip having wound down somewhat, I called the meeting to order and more formal questioning and answering began. I began it by asking about the vampire.
"We thought you were turning into a vampire," Constance Claire confessed very quietly, blushing furiously. "Didn't we, Louis?" She turned to face Louis, as though hoping for some support.
"Well, you certainly did." Louis replied. "I had some doubts, but there were some strange things going on. Sometimes I heard noises coming from the second floor very late at night. I never wanted to ask about it, but I was willing to go along with you in your investigations."
Constance Claire listed all of the events she had carefully noted in defense of her conclusion.
"You haven't been eating anything for breakfast. We knew you never ate much, but..." She trailed off, realizing that she had probably been rude at least and quite possibly impolite. However, she went on courageously with her facts.
"You haven't felt well and looked even more pale than usual every morning."
"You walked in your sleep the other night. We tried to follow you, but you turned into a bat in the fog. John Watson said he hadn't seen you even though he must have walked right by you seconds before."
"I'm afraid that isn't true," John confessed, "I saw her. I told you I hadn't so she could possibly avoid your following her."
Constance Claire ignored that. Instead, turning from Erica to John Watson, she said, "And what were you doing by yourself late at night out there in the dark?"
John added, "I was running experiments in the laboratory that had to be attended to and checked at timed intervals. I had to observe things and do a log entry every four hours for a week. I was watching bacteria grow."
"I must confess," Erica said to Constance Claire, "I allowed you to think that I was somehow connected with the vampire novel you had been reading. I looked at the copy in the Begley House library one time. I didn't read all of it. Once I guessed what you thought, about the vampire I mean, I played along. Sometimes, to give Robert more opportunity to search my room without my being in it, I took long walks after parlor until everyone had gone to bed, wandering on foggy nights through the University campus. I have no idea how I turned into a bat. The trip to the graveyard counted as one of those too."
"How did you know not to take sugar in your late-night tea? How did you figure out about the drug in the sugar?"
"John told me what was in the sugar. I suggested a picnic one day in his laboratory. That was to provide me the occasion to go there and take the contents of the sugar bowl. He analyzed it and told me it was Veronal and what effect it would have on one. After that I was only pretending to be groggy at breakfast, so Robert would believe that I had been truly unconscious and he could safely search my room. I was afraid if Robert found out his knock-out powder wasn't working, he would just kill me and give up on the search. I did wonder why he kept searching the place over and over. Now I realize it was because he couldn't read anything he found. How funny!"
"Do you keep all your notes, papers, everything in German?" This was Dora Lund, who wondered, I suppose, if she should be doing the same thing in Swedish, although for the life of me I couldn't think why she would want to.
"Yes," she responded, somewhat reluctantly I thought, "I do. It's easier for me that way." She added. "Almost all of my classes are supposed to be held in German, and they actually are at least partly in German, so it saves translating to just write my notes in German. I certainly wasn't doing it to frustrate Robert. My letters home were all in German, of course. I didn't want my family to think they were losing me to the outside world just because I was going to college.
"Very early in the semester I learned that Robert, or someone at any rate, was searching my room. I didn't find out why until later. I guessed that I was safe until he found what he had been sent to find. I hoped so, anyway. Since I knew that there was nothing to find, I let him search. I guess I hoped for a while that he wold just report to his masters that I didn't have any incriminating documents, and that I wasn't involved in politics. But I knew from Klaus's letter that in the end he had been told to kill me.
"I did wonder at his searching my room and my briefcase over and over again yet nothing was ever missing. I never guessed he was photographing it all and putting it all back the same night. I wonder if the authorities will be able to find out where he was sending the undeveloped film.
There was a pause. It seemed everyone was expecting more of the story.
"And then I went a step too far, with the vampire idea, I mean. One morning while I was marking papers for the German professor, I put two red marks from my fountain pen on my neck just before I came down to breakfast. It was the only pleasantry in this whole business. I became very tired of acting dopey after a while, especially when it led to a visit from the doctor and I had to confess my stupid joke."
"But how did Robert put the Veronal into your sugar bowl in the first place? Did he sneak into your room while you were out?"
"You probably don't remember, but right after Robert arrived at Begley House he asked me out on a Friday night. He said he wanted to take me to a speak-easy, which he called a speak.
"The laws about drinking drinking are very strange in this country, and to tell you the truth I didn't know what a speak was. This seemed to be a way to find out. It was all to be quite innocent. It was my first, and may I quickly add, my last date with Robert."
"We went to the speak. It's in downtown Brown's Crossing. Robert said the password at the door and we were invited in. We ordered our drinks, and immediately Robert started talking to me. He talked for quite a while, asking questions. I gathered from the questions and all the talk that he was interested in two things. One was exactly where my political loyalties were and the other thing was to get me drunk. Neither one worked very well, but I let him think the getting me drunk part was working, just to see if what he had in mind was what I thought he had in mind."
I wasn't nearly as drunk as I was supposed to be when he escorted me back to my room, and when I went limp on the bed the really strange behavior started. Instead of what I had expected, Robert very solicitously took off my shoes and stockings, unbuttoned a few buttons, and tucked me in, all safe and sound. I could just see him do something at my little table, but really didn't pay much attention. I was then quite surprised to watch him turn out the light and tiptoe out the door. Then I really did fall asleep, thoroughly confused.
"Robert had asked me out for the sole purpose of getting me drunk at a speak and then taking me home and drugging my sugar bowl. I suppose he thought that was the only way he could think of to get into my room. Begley House is so busy he never could get into my room while I was gone, although he did try. He got caught by the maid, as Mary Susan will remember."
Mary Susan did remember, but I did not comment. There wasn't any use in my lengthening the story. I simply nodded in agreement and turned the floor back to Erica.
"Once I received the warning letter from Klaus, I suspected him immediately of being the man I was looking for. Who else would get a girl drunk so he could spend hours extolling the virtues of Lenin, then escort her ever so politely back to her room and put her comfortably to bed? His only concern was that I shouldn't wake up. Truthfully, I expected very different behavior from the gallant Robert Miller of the fancy college back East."
I noticed that nobody wanted to follow up on that one. Her year in Germany had given her an understanding of a bit more than just philosophy, and her looks belied her experience. The expressions I saw around the room could best be described as shocked, pretending to be knowing, and afraid to be taken for approval.
"Where did you get the pistol?" Louis the Lawyer at last broke the silence.
"It will, in time, turn out to belong to Mary Susan. I complained of roaches in my room one time and she loaned it to me to deal with the problem."
I smiled a little bit from my corner seat, but did not speak. Finally, Erica was enjoying this. That was also the instant I realized that she really didn't care what happened to herself after using the pistol for its intended purpose. I envied her in a way.
Constance Claire, ever more vocal than I, said "I can't believe you could actually kill Robert. It must have been really horrifying for you. Did you really feel that desperate?" Constance Claire was back in her hoped-for interviewing mode.
Erica was about to answer when I cleared my throat slightly for attention and said quite firmly, "A strange man had entered her bedroom very late at night after she had retired and without invitation. She was afraid for her life, and she only did what it is sometimes required of a woman to protect herself in those circumstances. Women must be prepared to take strong measures, on occasion, where men are concerned, and fortunately, most women are prepared to do this."
This silenced Constance Claire and the others, But Erica wasn't having any of it. In the same cold, deadly voice she had used describing the scene with Robert, she said, "I loved Klaus, and he loved me. The Bolsheviks killed Klaus. Robert was one of them. He would have killed me just as surely as they killed Klaus."
No one seemed to want to pursue that line of conversation any further either, and there was another pause, after which Louis asked, "And what, exactly, unless it's a secret, was in the fateful letters from Klaus?"
Erica looked at him and relaxed her face. "The only letters from Klaus Robert ever saw contained nothing whatever. I mean, they were love letters, pure and simple. Klaus was a good and brave man. He wouldn't even think of bringing me into anything dangerous that he was involved in. His warning letter to me, which surely cost him his life, was based on what the Bolsheviks would think I knew, not what I really knew. It didn't come to Begley House. Mary Susan and I went to Hannibal to get that letter. Klaus and his friend Mickey tried to keep the letter a secret. As I found out later, they failed. They paid for that failure with their lives.
"And Robert would never have been allowed by his masters to let me live either. I know that kind of thinking. It's ruthless and absolutely inhuman. The fact is, had I not shot him first, he would most assuredly have killed me."
I interjected, "The sheriff found Robert's pistol on the floor next to his hand."
"You are very lucky in any case." John Watson added, laconically, "If he had not mixed the Veronal in with the sugar, and you had somehow gotten most of the Veronal in a single dose, it would very likely have killed you. In that event it would have been the pathologist who would have detected the Veronal rather than I. Why didn't you want me to help? I could have done more than simply detect the Veronal. Why didn't you call in the law?"
"I'm sorry to have left you out, John, but to be truthful, I didn't want help. The instant you told me there was Veronal in the sugar, I knew what I had to do and I wanted to do it alone. I don't think anyone in America really understands what kind of thinking and acting is going on nowadays in Europe, and especially in Germany. And they don't and probably never will understand the absolute dedication to an idea, no matter how insane, the Bolsheviks have."
Again I interrupted. I wasn't going to let this become a political event.
"You did exactly what you had to do. You defended both your honor and your very life. You couldn't accuse anyone in particular right then of poisoning your sugar bowl. You would have been laughed at, if not prosecuted for slander."
Louis had one more observation to confirm. "So, the telegrams and mysterious letter from home were all fake too?"
"I'm afraid so. I didn't like deceiving you, but I had to deceive all of you in order to deceive Mr. Miller. I hope you will forgive me. I will make the letter available to you. The telegrams as well. I sent them all to myself, sometimes with the help of my sister who was kind enough to mail the letter from Chicago so it would have a real postmark from a plausible location."
Explanations more or less complete, we all went to bed.