The door of the cottage was shut, but it had a little garden and in this was a child's wheelbarrow. I passed it and went on up the path. I must have gone for about half a mile when I saw it. It was bigger than I had thought it would be. A hunting lodge suggests something rather small—a place where people stayed for a night or two when hunting in the forest. But of course this was a royal hunting lodge, so naturally it would be more grand.

My heart was beating fast. I pictured Francine coming here through the forest with her lover. How had it been with them? This would have been her home. She had stayed here because her lover was so important that he could not admit to marrying someone quite unsuitable. The idea of Francine's being considered unsuitable for anyone because of her unworthiness made me feel really angry. I told myself not to be foolish. If I were going to get foolishly emotional I should soon betray myself.

The hunting lodge was in grey stone and looked like a miniature schloss. It had two towers—one at either side— and an arched porch. There were several windows in the front. There could be no doubt that this was the place. I dismounted and tethered my horse to a post which I found and which was obviously meant for that purpose. There was an eerieness about the scene. Was it because I knew that a murder had taken place here or because the trees grew so close together, making it dark and fullof shadows, and because the faint breeze stirring the leaves sounded like whispering voices?

My heart was beating wildly as I went uneasily forward, picking my way through the long grass scattered with pine cones.

I approached the porch, tingling with excitement. I stood on the porch and listened. There was a bell on the side of it with a long chain. I pulled this and the sound which broke the silence was deafening.

I held my breath, listening. I noticed a shutter in the door which could be pulled back to allow someone on the inside to look out and see who was standing there. I stared at it. Nothing happened. And then I heard an almost imperceptible sound and it came from within. It was as though someone was creeping towards the door.

I stood very still and my heart seemed as though it would leap from my body. I was already forming in my mind what I would say if I was confronted by someone who demanded my business here. I was a stranger. I was lost in the forest. I wanted to know my way back to the Schmidts' cottage where I was staying during my visit to Bruxenstein.

I stood there waiting, and then I began to wonder whether the sounds I heard were merely the wild beating of my own heart. No, surely not. There was the sound of something being dragged along the floor. I waited in trepidation, but nothing happened. Of one thing I was certain. There was someone inside the hunting lodge.

I stood there for some minutes. There was complete silence, but I knew that someone was on the other side of the door.

I rang the bell again and the sound burst out loud and clanging. I listened, keeping my eye on the shutter. But nothing happened.

I walked away and as I did so I heard a faint noise behind me. The shutter had moved. Oh yes, I was right. Someone was in the house, someone who would not answer my ringing. Why? I wondered.

It was all rather uncanny.

I walked along to one of the windows and looked in. Dust sheets covered the furniture. I walked round to the back.

"Oh, Francine," I murmured, "what happened? Someone is in there. Is it some human? Or is it ghosts?"

I had come to the back of the lodge. I could hear a bird singing somewhere in the forest. A gentle breeze ruffled the pine trees and their scent seemed stronger than ever. There was a door at the back and I went to it and rapped loudly on it and while I stood there I heard a movement behind me. I turned sharply. My eyes went immediately to a clump of bushes, for I thought I detected movement there.

"Who is there?" I called out. "Come out and tell me the way. I'm lost."

I heard a soft laugh, more like a giggle. I went towards the bushes.

They stood before me with wide blue eyes and tousled hair. They were both dressed in dark blue jerkins and blue skirts. One was slightly taller than the other, but I guessed them to be of the same age, which could not have been more than four or five years old.

"Who are you?" I asked in German.

"The twins," they answered simultaneously.

"What are you doing in this place?"

"Playing."

"Have you been watching me?"

They started to laugh and nodded.

"Where have you come from?"

One of them pointed vaguely.

"Are you a long way from home?"

The same one nodded.

"What are your names?"

One pointed to the blue jerkin and said "Carl." The other did likewise and said "Gretchen."

"So you're a little girl and you're a little boy."

They nodded, laughing.

"Is anyone in there?" I asked, pointing to the lodge.

Again they giggled and nodded.

"Who?"

They hunched their shoulders and looked at each other.

"Won't you tell me?" I asked.

"No," said the one named Carl. "You've got a horse."

"Yes. Would you like to come and see it?"

They both nodded with enthusiasm. As we walked round to the front of the lodge I looked towards the porch and so did they. I guessed they knew who was in the house and I promised myself that I would get it out of them.

The children were delighted with my horse. "Don't go too near him," I warned and obediently they stood back.

I turned my head sharply. The shutter was open and we were being observed.

"Can you take me into the lodge?" I asked the twins.

They looked at each other without answering.

"Come on," I said. "Let's go and look. How do you get in?"

Still they did not speak, and as we stood there a boy appeared. He must have come round from the back of the lodge. He called out, "Carl! Gretchen! What are you doing?" He looked rather flushed and defiant.

"Hello," I said. "Where have you come from?"

He didn't answer and I went on. "I'm lost in the forest. I saw this place and thought you would tell me the way."

I fancied he looked relieved.

"Was it you in the house?" I asked. "Did you look at me through the shutter?"

He didn't answer. Instead he said, "Where did you want to go? The town is in that direction." He pointed to the way I had come.

"Thank you," I said. "What an interesting place this is."

"There was a murder here once," he told me.

"Was that really so?"

"Yes. It was the heir to the throne."

"How did you get in?"

"I have a key," he said rather importantly, and the twins looked at him with undisguised admiration.

"How did you get the key?"

He was silent, shutting his lips firmly.

"I wouldn't tell tales," I promised him. "I'm a stranger here ... just someone who's lost her way in the forest. I'd love to look inside that place. I've never seen where a murder was committed."

He looked at me pityingly. I guessed him to be about eleven years old.

I went on, "What's your name?"

He said, "What's yours?"

"I'm Anne Ayres."

"You're a foreigner."

"That's right. I'm here looking at the country. It's very beautiful but most of all I'd like to see a place where a murder was committed."

"It was in the big bedroom," he said. "It's all covered up. Nobody comes now. People wouldn't want to sleep in a place where there had been a murder, would they?"

"I should think not. Are there ghosts here?"

"I don't know," he said.

"Do you come often?"

"We have the key," he said importantly again.

"Why do you have the key?"

"So that my mother can go in and clean it."

Now I was sure who the children were.

"I see. Would you take me in?" He hesitated and I said, "Take me in and I'll give you a ride on my horse."

I saw the sparkle in his eyes and now it was my turn to receive the awed glances of the twins.

"All right," he said.

"Come on then."

We walked round to the porch, and I said to him, "You heard me ring, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"And you looked through the shutter at me. And you had to pull something up to see through it."

"Next year I'll be tall enough."

"I am sure you will be."

Proudly he opened the door. There was a creaking sound as he did so. We were in a hall with wooden floors and oak walls. There was a large table in the centre and on the walls were spears and lances. Everything was covered up with dust sheets. The door shut and the twins, hand in hand, walked behind us.

"By the way, what is your name?" I asked the boy. "I know the twins are Carl and Gretchen."

"Arnulf," he said.

"Well, Arnulf, it is good of you to show me round."

He seemed suddenly to lose his suspicion of me. He said, "I'm not supposed to come here."

"Oh, I see. That's why you didn't open the door."

He nodded.

"Gisela was coming with me."

"Who is Gisela?"

"My sister. She wouldn't come. She was afraid of ghosts. She said I wouldn't dare go alone."

"And you wanted to show her that you would."

He looked disparagingly at the twins. "They follow me everywhere."

The twins looked at each other and smiled as though they had done something clever.

"I wouldn't let them come in, though. I made them wait outside. I thought that if there were ghosts they might not like the twins in here, giggling. They're always giggling."

"You didn't think the ghosts would mind you?"

"Well, they're such babies. And they never go anywhere without each other."

"Twins are often like that," I said sympathetically.

He started up the stairs. "I'll show you the bedroom," he said. "It's where it happened, you know."

"The murder," I whispered.

He threw open the door with the gesture of a showman who is about to reveal his masterpiece.

Now I was actually there ... where Francine had been murdered.

The bed was partially covered in dust sheets, but the four posts with their elaborate red hangings were visible. I was overcome by my emotion. Face to face with the scene of the crime, I could picture it so clearly. My beautiful sister in that bed with her handsome, romantic but oh so dangerous lover. I wanted to throw myself on those dust sheets, to touch the soft velvet of the draperies and just release the bitter tears I had tried so hard to hold back ... to weep for the sadness of it all.

"Are you all right?" asked Arnulf.

"Yes ... yes. It's a big bed."

"It had to be. There were two of them."

My voice shook a little. I said, "What do you know of them? Why were they killed?"

"Because they didn't want him to be Grand Duke and because she was there and saw it." He dismissed the cause as though it were of little importance. "My father is the caretaker," he added proudly. "And my mother comes in to clean."

"I see. That explains everything. Do you come here often?"

He hunched his shoulders and did not answer. Then he said, "We've got to go now."

I was torn between my desire to stay in that room and a desperate need to get away if I were going to control my feelings. I said quickly, "May I take a look at the rest of it?"

"Quick then," he said.

"Then you show me."

He enjoyed showing me. He liked best the kitchens where, he told me, venison was cooked on the great spits and in the cauldrons, relics of a previous age and yet they had been used until recently. There were several bedrooms for servants and huntsmen, I guessed, and there was one room that was full of guns.

I looked out of a back-room window and saw the stables, which were empty now.

"Come on," said Arnulf. "It's getting late."

"Perhaps another time you'll show me some more," I said. "I want you to have this." I gave him a coin which he looked at in amazement. "Guides are always paid," I told him.

"Am I a guide, then?"

"You have been this morning."

He looked at the coin almost disbelievingly, and the twins came closer to inspect it. It was clear that they had a very high opinion of their brother.

"Arnulf is a guide," said Carl to Gretchen.

She nodded and they kept repeating the word: Guide.