Queen of the Hill
Letter from Lionel Pinnick to his wife, Adelaide “Addie” Pinnick — 21 April 1911
My dear, everything is arranged for you to join me here in St. Petersburg. After the crossing and a carriage to Paris, you shall travel by Orient Express, until Strasbourg. A few connecting rails until Königsberg. Finally, by steamer to your waiting husband. You need not chafe your hands with the usual anxiety. I have taken care of every detail, down to a show of the fontaines lumineuses on the evening of the 25th. Were it within my power, I’d have placed a three-day reservation of clear weather.
I am green with the envy of your miniature grand tour. Coming direct via ship, I missed The Matterhorn, The storied Rock Of Lorelei, the nose that is Feldberg Tower and its prospect of the bristling Black Forest beard.
Services are quite modern here in Petersburg. One mourns the lost company of the gentlemen at Boodles’, and the ministers here could play a better hand at Whist, but it’s a far cry from Africa. I am in the soundest of mind and spirit. I expect that we islanders are alone in that respect. If health is the harmonious workings of all organs, the Russian giant is sick indeed. The most alarming symptom is the gulf between the rural folk and- But I must not digress here into an essay on the shortcomings of state.
Has Penny settled since I left? You must allow the girl her passions. Give her that chiffon tea-gown she asked after, or attend the reception of Count So-and-So in Munich. Time enough will she have for Spartan living when she gets here; a little adventure can do no lasting harm.
I must close this letter. Buchanan will hardly forgive lateness in the first week of service. Wishing you a safe and lively journey.
Your husband,
Lionel
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 26 April 1911
What runs on an even number of wheels; on an odd number, stands perfectly still; and in a crisis, walks befuddled upon two legs?
I think it must be the Kaiser’s rail service.
Our train had put three hours between itself and Strasbourg when Penny and I felt a terrific shudder through our seats. It shook one of our cases down from overhead and burst it upon the floor. Thereafter the train screeched and trembled to a full stop. Stopped it has stayed, and while the quilled pines on the hills are a stupendous aspect, one would prefer that those hills were yet sliding gradually out of sight. As it is, the distant forest moves no more than if it were so much green paint on the window.
Penny is delighted. She has already introduced herself to Duc d’Aoste in the adjacent compartment, and every other body in our car. She has suggested we have our luggage ported to one of the villages nearby, and go on by carriage. I said no, which ignited a deep sulk. Those beautiful blue eyes sulk busily out of the window even as I write, under her rich brown tresses.
There- she has caught me staring, and it has only upset her the more. Thank god she received her father’s looks, though I wish she had not cut her hair. My friend Lady Urry was quite right when she described it as being, “Rather short.” God grant me patience. From where is she so inquisitive? I was never half-so-wily, and Lionel has the cunning of a yak.
I must admit, I am still unsure of this appointment. Certainly Lionel has the qualifications of one of his majesty’s foreign ministers. I hear that the Russian court is nothing but plots and poisons, however, and Lionel can hardly keep a straight face. Oh, how I wish that he were here. His German is better than mine. He has always been better with people; anyway, these rail workers would attend him as a military man, not to mention his position. They did not give it much thought when I offered to get behind and push. (And I suppose I cannot blame them).
Enough. What good can come of tears? Lionel is not here now, and I must be patient.
Postscript: It seems Penny’s wish shall be partially fulfilled. The conductor has just told us that it will be at least twenty-four hours before the train can acquire the necessary replacement components. It seems we must, for one night, rely on local hospitality.
Letter from State Rail Engineer Victor Grob, to the station at Karlsruhe — 26 April 1911
Dear brothers of the Kaiser’s prestigious steel roads, this humble servant begs that you send a car with a new coupling rod and boiler down the Baden Main Line. (See the order which accompanies this note). He begs your haste on behalf of his passengers.
One is an especially busy harpy. Not monstrous to look upon - an unusual beauty. Thin as the last wheat stalk standing in a November field. Too much white of her eyes showing, too large a forehead, flat blond-grey hair. One of those “high-collar, long black sleeve, British” types. Her whole effect is like something at once delicate and sharp; like a knife made of glass. And, brothers, the voice is matched to cutting. Anyway, I recommended her to The Green Man in Halbzwölf. I have been there myself, it is a good inn. They serve good tongue. (Which is a fine thing when it isn’t a woman’s, ha, ha, ha!)
-Sr. Engineer Grob
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 26 April 1911 (Afternoon)
Fate deals a fair hand it seems - though never does she issue the good and the bad all at once, and rarely do the cards come in the order which is easiest upon the heart.
Penny and I rode in the back of a lumberer’s wagon from our stopped train to the nearest village, which is called Halbzwölf, an odd name. The ride was no more than three miles, but though our driver seemed to know the tracts, the rooted, hilly terrain rattled my teeth within their sockets. Penny did not seem to mind. I am thankful at least that it was the middle of the day. The ways of the woods were obscure even at that high hour (no wonder thou art called Black, Forest!). I should not wish to make such a journey after dark.
The village of Halbzwölf is perhaps a few hundred people. At the dubious recommendation of one ‘Engineer Grob’, we stopped at the door of a public house, ‘The Green Man’. The sign out front showed the caricature of some goblin.
As we stepped inside, we found the common room packed with German men. They were celebrating some festival. The room was a babel of voices, with at least one trio or quartet lending their baritones to the words of a volkslied. Even amidst the crowd, we could still hear a distant boom, boom, boom sound which we had noticed on our ride into town. It must have been some mining apparatus.
I must have looked like some grim-faced Valkyrie, bracing for a trying evening, jaw clenched. I had Penny’s wrist in my hand; I let her go when she informed me that I was crushing her bones.
At that moment, however, I stumbled into the only other representative of our sex. A stout woman, about my own age, although her bonnet and wide lace sleeves would have better served an octogenarian. “Make not yourself uneasy,” she replied to my immediate request for forgiveness. She introduced herself as Frau Helena Kettel. Between a smatter of German, French, and English we could communicate.
Frau Kettel then told me a little about the town. “Everyone in Halbzwölf loves their neighbor. And also they love coal, and the great pines.” She said that she was a teacher, who boarded at the only schoolhouse in the town, but that the school was now closed.
Frau Kettel must have sensed that I was not comfortable in that crowd, for on the spot she offered to lodge Penny and me at her schoolhouse. I think the show of refusal I made was a poor one. I was in any event convinced.
So here I write, within a screened porch at the old schoolhouse. We have just set down our bags. It is a two-story affair, with a spacious dining hall serving as the schooling room. That boom, boom, boom of industry is audible still, but distant. One thing I dislike: how close the house sits to those black hills. I have heard that child-eating wolves haunt the storied German wood. Doubtless that is the stuff of fairy tales.
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 26 April 1911 (evening)
I have taken a page out of Penny’s book, and spent the remainder of the day alongside my daughter exploring the village. Frau Kettel performed the generous service of a tour guide. (That is always the way in the small settings of France and Germany, I think. Find any goodly, older Samaritan who is happy in their home, and they will be only happier to show you its every heathered field and trickling creek).
One wide dirt road curves in a downward arc from the northeastern corner of the village to its southeastern limit, and it is along this arc that most of the homes lie. A river skirts the southern and eastern sides of the town. The schoolhouse is at the southeast corner. The nearest building to it is an archaic river-powered sawmill, but it has not been in operation for over a year, the workers having switched to a steam mill on the north side of town. A few pasturages for goats and sheep fill out the spaces between the red brick homes. Curiously, there is a squat, polygonal, Napoleonic era fort, just a hundred paces beyond the east side of town. It is made of sun-bleached stone, with five ruined towers. I am told that the village once kept it as a museum of relics from the Napoleonic wars. The forest has reclaimed most of it now, and only the tumbling tops of the towers are visible now through the creeping woods.
There is also a post office. I must speak with the clerk tomorrow morning, and send word to Lionel.
After our tour we returned to the schoolhouse. Frau Kettel produced a stew for our dinner: potatoes, pork, and some seasonings in a huge black pot over the kitchen fireplace. I found it sufficient, though I daresay Penny was less than impressed. She is beginning to see that this is only a rural village, with not a lot to do.
I am less easy about our ‘fortunate’ accommodations as when Frau Kettel first approached us. For one thing, our hostess seems to be a storyteller. I asked her about the woods behind the house over supper, whereupon she told me, “The most dangerous thing in the forest is a great satin panther.”
“A panther?” I asked. “In the Black Forest?”
“He’s a stranger here, like yourselves.” Frau Kettel must have seen the silly concern in my frowning face. She laughed. She pointed to a rifle above the fireplace, which she said would do for any wicked thing should it trouble us during our stay. (I hope she does not intend for me to handle it. Lionel has shown me how to use one, but I am hardly a marksman under the coolest circumstances.)
Another thing which gives me pause is the… atmosphere of Frau Kettel’s schoolhouse. There is a crow on the sill of a wide bay window beside the foyer, tap, tap, tapping the glass. In the schoolroom, I see that there is a dustless space on an otherwise dusty wall, in the shape of a cross. Frau Kettel has told me that the cross fell and broke, and that she has commissioned the town carpenter for a new cross. More than this, however, there is a certain ‘feel’ to Frau Kettel’s home. I do not know how to put it into words. It is like that texture in the air one notices in a basement that has previously flooded and mildewed; like the place is clean and dry now, but was once covered in slime. Probably it is nerves and paranoia - the frau herself has been nothing but kind. Still, I shall be glad to leave Halbzwölf tomorrow morning.
Telegram from Lionel Pinnick — 26 April 1911
Addie, Heard of breakdown. Glad all safe. Jealous of your opportunity; Rural German Living. Bring sausage and morello cherries here with you. Avoid too much devilry.
Reply when able.
-Lionel
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 27 April 1911
Today has been most instructive. How instructive? It has given me the opportunity to practice that constant appeal of my dear Lionel: “Have Patience.”
Ill dreams of beyond-the-window disturbed my sleep. I awoke irritated, my skin hot. How quickly that heat cooled to goosepimples when I found that my Penny was gone. I called first to my daughter, then to Frau Kettel. Why Penny’s absence should have bothered me I can’t say; she always rises first. Nevertheless, receiving no answer, I began a frantic search. In the basement I found a varnish of dust covering old chairs, a wood stove, a broken loom, crockery, baubles and preserved jams and dried herbs - but no beloved offspring. Around the back I found a coop and a nearby chopping table. Two beheaded cocks had been tied about their feet, and hung from pegs in the roof to let them drain. The air was bitter for April in that German mountain town, and their blood had frozen over the grass. I turned to the forest.
I think my brains must have been quite scattered, for I felt a strong impulse to rush into the hills. Why should I find Penny in the woods? And attired in only my nightdress?
I had already taken the first steps toward those trunks when I heard a cry from the front: “Mother? Are you awake?”
I caught hold of some sense. I ran back to my room and dressed, choosing for the day my checkered green blouse. I found the pair in the kitchen, where Penny was sawing a black rye loaf with a long iron bread knife. Frau Kettel cracked an egg over an iron pan by the fire. They had been to town to fetch breakfast from The Green Man. Penny told me they had only left a little while ago. I did my best to “have patience”, and bit back a scolding.
I asked if there was news, but Penny said she and Frau Kettel could hardly understand one another (she has neglected her German I’m afraid). It is odd: I noticed a glance and a smile from Frau Kettel as my daughter said this. I think that the frau understands more of our English than she lets on. I am afraid to ask Penny not to talk so much with the woman, however - it will only encourage the girl.
After eggs and toast, I went with Penny back into the village. I asked for news at the post office myself, but the worker had nothing to share. I was able to convince one of the men outside to drive us in his wagon back to the train. After a ride just as unpleasant as the one into town, I found that Chief Engineer Grob. He pretended to misunderstand my questions for some while, but eventually admitted that the parts had not even arrived yet.
“Have patience. Have patience. Have patience…”
Excerpt from the Karlsruhe Sanntagpost — 27 April 1911
HALBZWÖLF. Police continue to investigate damage to livestock in and around the Buhl area. A report comes in today from Herr Mathias Wahrmann, a coal miner who keeps a small pasture and twenty head of goats in Halbzwölf. Herr Wahrmann reported that, as he went to feed his flock on the morning of the 11th, several did not come to his call. Walking out to where the pasture fence runs near the woods at the back of his property, he discovered that a section had been broken inward. Around the breach lay the bodies of three of Herr Wahrmann’s goats. Their stomachs had been torn open; their intestines, and the corn which they had been digesting, lay in a mess across the field. Police have inspected the scene. One officer of experience has suggested that the injuries look as if they were inflicted by the claws of a great cat. There are no great cats native to the area. This report matches three similar incidents in the nearby towns of Oos, Steinbach, and Baden. Authorities have issued a general warning. Herr Wahrmann reports that his favorite animal, an old buck named Wolfgang, is still missing.
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 27 April 1911 (Evening)
Today has rushed along, only one start and only one stop. I feel as if I have not rested since we left England.
Penny and I returned by the same wagon way to the village. The driver offered to take us out to the coal facilities north of town. This seemed to me a better attraction than that old fort - something about the pale stone of the ruin sticking up through the trees makes it look like an eyeball in the hills, watching.
The ride to the mine was only a mile, on a mercifully smooth road. As we drew closer the constant Boom, Boom, Boom of machinery rang louder and louder. It seemed to rattle the branches. We rounded a bend in the woods and came rather abruptly upon the scene. A tall and craggy hillside had been scraped clean of forest, with only a few old stumps making a stubble of the hill’s face. In that face, two surprisingly tiny holes descended into perfect darkness. I cannot believe that men would crawl into such a place for the purest, brightest gold, never mind ordinary coal.
A man stood near one of the entrances. A matte black powder covered every inch of both the man and the surroundings. “Don’t step down,” I warned Penny, for I saw that she wore her good shoes with the brass buckles. The source of the booming - so loud then that I feel it still vibrating in my knuckles - was a great silo, some kind of refinery. Steam belched from a huge rusted pipe which ran up the side of this silo. Some lever or piston must have been continuously hammering within the silo, for at each boom the whole steel case seemed to shudder.
The man who had been standing by the caves noticed us. I told him: “We came to have a look at your mine.”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Can you tell us what that building is doing? Why does it make such sound?”
“When the coal is drawn out of the ground, it must be crushed and washed.”
I believe they have the crushing part of coal refinery down to a science - it is the washing that could do with some innovation.
After, we went to The Green Man. The landlord, Herr Boeckmann, I found to be very pleasant company. There were fewer patrons, and Herr Boeckmann and Frau Boeckmann made for Penny and me an excellent lunch of some local dumpling, filled with minced lamb, onion, and spinach. I asked the Frau for the recipe - I am sure Lionel will like them. I also asked Herr Boeckmann about lodging at the inn, just in the event we have to stay another evening in Halbzwölf.
“I am very sorry madam,” he said. “There is only one room I have, which is above my son’s house down the road. All the upstairs is full.”
I asked, “Is your son uncomfortable around women, Herr?”
“Uncomfortable? Ha ha! But he is with the police in Heidelberg. The house has no host. You and your daughter will find it very dull.”
And so our new lodging has been arranged quite satisfactorily. As Penny and I were leaving The Green Man we met several of the train engineers entering the establishment. I took the opportunity to ask again about the state of repairs. I am afraid that my temper ran away.
“Then how long shall your passengers wait?” I finally shouted.
“The engine just will not go without working parts, woman,” Herr Grob shouted back, before stepping inside.
Now I write from the same screened schoolhouse porch. We have returned just to collect our luggage. Penny is packing now, a little sulkily. It seems we shall stay one more day in Halbzwölf.
Postscript: Will that malignant crow never cease tapping?!
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 29 April 1911
Stuck like a mouse in a pot. Penny and I are both stuck still in this little village. I can only imagine that this is costing the rail company a tidy sum. I am still too shamed by my earlier tantrum to bother the chief engineer again.
No, no more arguments with the German tradesmen for this English woman: she has decided that her daughter is a better opponent. Penny and I have had another one of our falling outs today. I know that she hasn’t much to do in this village. But she has been going about too often on her own.
Spending her time with Frau Helena Kettel.
What does that “schoolteacher” do, with no schoolable children? And what can a sixteen-year-old girl and a middle-aged woman, who hardly share a language, possibly have to say to one another? I asked Penny to stay in my sight from now on.
“Mother,” she answered, “please don’t be such a dry stick.”
She knows how I dislike to be called that. “My dear, we shall leave soon. You must simply-”
She interrupted me, “Why is it that whenever we travel, you stiffen against anything exciting?”
“I do not stiffen!” I said, and ceded any higher ground. Thus was battle joined. Finally I told her that she was to stay away from Frau Kettel. Penny wept, and fled from the room. I hate her tears, but she only cries if she means to do as I say.
I should have hired a wagon or carriage to Karlsruhe yesterday; I will do so this afternoon.
Telegram from Lionel Pinnick — 30 April 1911
Addie, no word since train delay. All well? Please wire.
-Lionel
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 30 April 1911 (Morning)
We shall be leaving this afternoon. Yesterday I made arrangements with Herr Waldow who so generously carted us to and from the train. (Incidentally, I think he could make himself into a proper gentleman - and far less intimidating on first acquaintance - if he would mend the loose threads at his collar and shave the wild hair from his upper lip.) He agreed to drive us all the way to Karlsruhe after lunch. We should arrive before nightfall. I feel simply awful for having not posted a word in reply to Lionel’s original telegram. I will send him word the moment we reach the station in Karlsruhe.
Penny returned almost after sundown the previous evening. (Something sinister is in the pink sun touching down behind a rugged land of black trees). I told her of the arrangements with Herr Waldow. She has been quiet since. She is a bright thinker, and I am sure she will come to understand. Still, this silence between us hurts my heart. I love her.
This morning I walked over to The Green Man again. There I found only Frau Boeckmann, the landlord’s wife. I asked her about Frau Kettel.
“She has been the schoolmistress here for seven years,” said Frau Boeckmann.
I said, “She must be an excellent teacher. She has taught all the students so well that there are none left.”
The landlady laughed. “Just so! They go to their farms and their fathers’ trades in April.”
“The Frau is very kind with lost strangers.”
“They all are.”
“Who is ‘all’?” I asked.
“All those schoolmistresses. The Frau Kettel is a part of a-”
I did not understand the word she used. “Coterie?” I asked.
“Yes. They are all schoolteachers. They eat here sometimes, or she goes to Buhl or Rastatt. Wherever they are from. Mostly they are older than Frau Kettel, but some are still young.”
I later asked her where I could find a carpenter. She pointed me to a single-story home on the opposite side of the road. He was a large and surly man, not one given to idle conversation. When I asked this carpenter, Herr Karloff, whether he had been commissioned to make a new cross for the schoolhouse, he gave a curt reply. Even if I knew not a word of German, still his cant would have made the answer clear.
“Nein.”
…
Penny just returned to our rooms. “Were you with that schoolteacher?” I asked her.
She looked at me, more surprised than angry. “No, mother,” she said. “I have done as you said.”
There was something surprising in her meek reply. “Has she tried to see you?”
“She- she invited me to a Sabbath.”
“A Sabbath? The morning is nearly gone.”
She shook her head. “It’s a certain kind of… black magic ritual.”
My daughter will remain in my sight until we reach St. Petersburg. I cannot wait to leave this village.
Diary of Addie Pinnick — 30 April 1911 (Afternoon)
My darling girl - what is happening to her?
Penny had been staring out of the back window. It faces that pale and ruined fort, screened by the hills and woods. I had been reading in a chair in the corner. Penny had said little since I told her not to leave my sight. She seemed dazed. All at once I heard a thump, and looked up to see my Happiness lying on the floor. She had fainted, but was already stirring. At once I sprang from the chair and helped her to the bed. She told me that it was nothing, a pressure, a kind of pounding in her head. She thought it might have been that boom, boom, boom of the coal machinery. I told her to lie down. She is sleeping now, and she breathes a little more easily. I don’t think this is a show; her cheeks are bright pink, and her fingers are too cold under the blankets.
There is a druggist in the village. I would not leave my daughter’s side, even for that, but I must also find Herr Waldow and ask him to bring his wagon to the house. No doubt he waits on us. Our bags are packed. I will run over to the druggist and purchase some fever powder or tonic for Penny. Then, I will ride straight back here with Herr Waldow. And then we shall leave this wicked village.
My daughter is sleeping soundly, and Gog and Magog together will not keep me from her for longer than five minutes.
Please God, let my Happiness be kept safe.
Letter from Leopold Boeckmann to his son in Heidelberg — 30 April 1911
My son, I trust that all is well with you. You are doing a good thing. The gendarmerie are very good. You are serving the duke well.
The chickens are all very healthy, except that three are dead this Spring. I think it is the damp. They lay more eggs than I need. I sell a dozen to the grocer from Rastatt, and still I have too many eggs. I feed the extras to the cats. The Old Mum had six kittens at the end of march, and they were very soft, but we have too many cats already, and so your own mother has put them in a sack and thrown them in the river, and the Old Mum is now quite sad. I myself am also quite sad, but your mother is of course very right to do this.
My son, I write to ask for your help with an Englishwoman. Her name is Addie, and she has been staying in the unused rooms of your house. I know you will not mind. In any case, she came to The Green Man today in tears and told me that her daughter is nowhere to be found. She was very upset. I myself went over to the house and could not find the daughter, who is about your age except ten years younger. She asked me where were the police in our duchy, and I knew she meant the gendarmerie, and so you see now why I am writing.
My son, I am sure you will know what is best. I hope you may help this Englishwoman. She is a bossy but nice lady.
Please forgive your father’s bad letters.
-Leopold Boeckmann
Note from Addie Pinnick — 30 April 1911
My name is Adelaide Pinnick. I write this at a desk in the classroom of the schoolhouse at Halbzwölf. The hour is past six - the sun is nearly gone.
My daughter, Penny Pinnick, and I arrived here four days ago, on the 26th of April. Our train had suffered a failure. After stopping in town, we were offered lodging by the mistress of this school, Frau Helena Kettel. Her manner seemed abnormal, and we stayed with her only one night before finding rooms from the landlord of The Green Man. Since then, she has closely watched my daughter.
Today, when I stepped away from our quarters for a moment, my daughter disappeared. I know that Frau Kettel has taken her.
I immediately tried to contact the nearest German authorities. I believe Herr Boeckmann, the landlord at The Green Man, means to do just that. But there are no officers here now, and my daughter is in danger. I know that the Frau took her. I feel it. There is an old Napoleonic fort near the town - I can see its ruined pale turrets through the trees, like a white hill among the black woods. Somehow, I am certain also that she has taken Penny there. I think she means to induct my Penny into some ungodly cult.
I have taken a rifle which was mounted over the kitchen fireplace. In the basement I found ammunition, as well as a set of hill boots and an acetylene lamp. I have stolen all three. I am going to go into the woods, over to that fort, and get my daughter back. That witch will not have her.
I leave this note behind in the event that I do not return, so that it may be found by any authorities who come in search of us. I accept all responsibility for the theft of Frau Kettel’s property and- and for anything else. Neither the British empire, nor my daughter, bear any responsibility.
Signed,
- Adelaide Pinnick
Excerpt from a Witch’s Sabbath - date unknown
…Having made assembly in some deserted place,
Anointed now in the living paints,
Naked, thy soul stripped of its cover,
Step Forth! Ye daughters. Ye slaves.
Come, thou who art to mock the soutane,
Come betwixt the twain flames,
Lead the bleating, horned offering,
That no shadow shall conceal it from HIM.
Ye slaves that are witness, give voice to thy lamentations.
Come, ye slave child that is the ewer;
Ye slave mother that is the life;
Wash thy skins in yellow,
Sit ye each by HIS flames.
And now ye slaves that are witness,
Make thy spring rounds.
Dance, Sing, Wail!
In thy throats make music - in thy flesh, art - for HIM.
HE cometh on Walpurgisnacht,
Under moon and star.
Heap high upon thy bonfires the fir cones,
Let the air crack and sparkle,
Crack and sparkle,
As thou deeply breathe the burning seed.
Slaves, hast thou demeaned thy woman’s flesh?
Behold! HE approacheth.
Master of Shapes is HE.
The Beast is HE.
Great is HE.
HE cometh unto thy ritual in the Shape of the Great Beast.
Step, ye false soutane, from thy bleating, horning offering,
Let HIM have thy offering before the flames.
Exult, all ye slaves, in this blood that has sated HIS lips,
As, running from the veins, it polluteth the loam.
The hour is nigh.
Slave mother that is the life,
Contorteth thy limbs into Melchizedek’s seal,
For thou art the twisted slave of HIM.
From thy lips in the center of the seal,
Let thy old spirit cometh forth.
Slave child that is the ewer,
Take this old spirit into thy new flesh.
…
Slaves, scream now as is written:
MANY: “Hail!… Hail!… Hail!… Hail!… Hail!… Hail!… Hail!… Hail!…”
ONE: “Hail!…”
MANY: “Hail!…”
ONE: “Hail!…”
ONE: “Hail!…”
WHISPERS: “Hail…”
ONE: “Hail…”
WHISPERS: “Hail… Hail… Hail… Hail… Hail…”
…
MANY-VOICES-MOVE-AS-ONE:
“LU-”
“CI-”
“FER.”
Report of Wachtmeister Lutz Schiller, Grand Ducal Baden Gendarmerie — 3 May 1911
Having received word from one Victor Grob, Engineer for the Baden State Rail, regarding the disappearance of two passengers from his train, I arrived with three of my gendarmes in the village of Halbzwölf, it being the place where they were last sighted. The missing passengers were two English women, a mother and daughter.
Upon arriving at the village we were directed to contact one Leopold Boeckmann, landlord of The Green Man, a local boarding house and inn. Following the information he rendered, we proceeded to the residence and schoolhouse of a Frau Helena Kettel. There, we found a letter from the missing mother, a copy of which is enclosed herewith. The letter makes apparent why our next destination was an old Napoleonic fort near town. Herr Boeckmann agreed to accompany me and my three gendarmes into the ruin.
We came through the woods to the faded wall of the fort. Circling the perimeter, we found one of the outer gates propped open. Tracks showed signs of passage, both animal and human. We followed the trail inside. The halls were overgrown with brush, and dark, but we carried lamps. We soon came across a most gruesome scene. A large, black panther lay on its side in the middle of the hall. We approached cautiously, but found it to be in a state of rigormortis. The area around it was spattered with blood - it must have thrashed for some minutes. We inspected the body, and agreed that it had died of a large gunshot wound, just between its neck and left shoulder. As the panther is not native to The Black Forest, possibly this was an animal imported and kept in some private zoo, which had escaped. Inquiries are being made.
The human tracks - booted and barefoot - went on in the dust past the animal. We followed them. Presently we entered a large circular room, near the center of the fort. The ceiling had collapsed long ago; brickwork lay across a floor of mud and short weeds, and one large pine tree had sprouted up through the opening. We found the ashes from two large fires on either side of the room. In the space between the ash piles were the pieces of what appears to have been a male goat. There were many footprints about the space, captured in the packed mud and pine needles.
Two deceased women lay beside one of the ash piles. One woman was approximately sixty years of age. She was naked, except for green and blue paint along her arms and face. She had suffered a gunshot to her stomach, which is the likely cause of death. Herr Boeckmann, our local man, could not identify the woman. The other body was younger, perhaps forty. She had been shot in the face, just between her left eye and nose. She was naked as well, painted the same. Herr Boeckmann was able to identify her as Frau Helena Kettel, the local school teacher. The shell casing found at the scene matches three we found near the panther, likely from a Mauser.
A trail of blood and footprints exited the chamber. We followed this trail through the fort, and out of another propped door at the back. The trail led into the hills. Beneath the boughs of the trees we found the body of a third woman. Also naked and painted, also about sixty. She appears to have died from blunt trauma, possibly beaten with the stock of a rifle. Footprints, at least one booted set, lead further into the woods. The trail goes cold in the trees, where the soil is more dry. Dogs have been sent for, and inquiries have been dispatched to the nearby communities to identify the deceased. At present, the missing English women are presumed to be alive. New information will be reported as it is brought to light.
Letter from Lionel Pinnick, British Minister in St. Petersburg, to his friend — 6 July 1911
I am grateful for the kind and hopeful wishes expressed in your last letter. How I wish I could return your sentiments. Unfortunately, I have no happy news. More than two months have passed since the disappearance of Addie and Penny, and no new word has come. I begin to lose hope- A few words have here been scribbled out here.
Ambassador Buchanan has shown me much generosity these past months. I feel as if I have hardly been a fit representative of our Empire in Russia. Even when I was still in St. Petersburg, my mind could not dwell upon the affairs of state. I have drawn up my resignation and sent it by post to the Ambassador, along with my own recommendation for replacements. I doubt the latter will have much sway, given my abrupt tenure.
The German gendarmerie have, on the whole, obliged me. I have been in this village of Halbzwölf for three weeks. I have searched and searched and searched - praying, beseeching God that some missed clue or hidden trail might lead me back to Addie and Penny. I have read and reread Addie’s letter, and the gendarmes have even allowed me to search through the old schoolhouse, and the fort in the hills. I have hectored Wachtmeister Lutz Schiller, their officer in charge of the investigation, with ten thousand questions and ravings. He has met each question with a placid and honest manner. He would not allow me to see the bodies of the women who were slain, they being already buried. For this, I cannot reproach him; I asked when I was yet full of hope.
I am sitting now in a single wooden chair, outside the exact same house where my Addie and my Penny last slept. I can hear the distant boom, boom, booming of the coalmine machinery. I am looking out upon the hills where they disappeared. The tops of the trees are green, but below - my friend, this truly is a Black Wood.
I shall return to England soon.
-Lionel
Postscript: Word has just come from Ludwigsburg, forty miles east. Addie is still missing. But - praise God! - Penny is alive. My daughter. She is with the town doctor now. I leave to see her at once. She is very weak. Malnourished, and the doctor says she is suffering from amnesia.
END