The Mystery of the Monster Mountain - M. V. Carey [39]
“Now that we’ve got all the exits blocked, let’s get on with it,” said the deputy.
“Miss Schmid, your cousins tell me you wish to bring charges against Havemeyer.
Would you like to tell me exactly what he’s done?”
“Kidnapper!” said Konrad angrily.
“Robber!” added Hans.
‘Please let Miss Schmid talk,” said the deputy. “Would you begin at the beginning?”
Anna looked once at Havemeyer, then began to toy with the fringe on the afghan.
“At the beginning, that man seemed very nice. He came to my inn and he wanted the best room and he looked at my ski tow. He said he is the president of a new company which makes snowmobiles, and he wants me to invest money in his company. I do not want to give him money for his company, and after a while he does not talk about it anymore, but he stays on for two, three weeks.
“Then one day he sees me counting money to pay my bills. He says I should write checks and not use real money because it is safer to write checks. I told him that real money is most safe, especially my money because I keep it in my safe deposit box, and only Anna Schmid can open that box. He looked at me in a way — I don’t know how to say it exactly. It was strange, and all of a sudden I was nervous.”
“Is that when you hid the key?” asked Jupiter Jones.
Anna frowned. “Yes. I did not really expect trouble, but something about this man made me afraid.”
“Where is the key, by the way?” asked Jupiter.
“Oh, that is very funny,” said Hans. “Anna has told us what she did. She taped the key to her bedspring. Those two bad ones have been sleeping on it!”
Havemeyer made a choking sound and started to get up, but the deputy waved him back to his chair. “Go on, please. Miss Schmid,” he said.
“Two or three days after we talk about the money,” said Anna, “that man comes into my kitchen while I am cooking. He says he will shoot me if I do not give him the key to my safe deposit box! I think to myself, if I tell him where the key is, he will shoot me anyway, so I do not tell him.”
The deputy shifted in his chair. “And then?” he said.
“I am surprised because he is not angry. He only laughs, and he points the gun at me and he says he has time. Then he makes me go with him to the high meadow where there is that cabin the young man made. He has put a lock on the door of the cabin and he shuts me in there. For two days I do not see him at all, and I have nothing to eat but some bread and a canteen of water. Then he comes back every day and brings me food, and always he wants to know where the key is. But I do not tell him. I see that he wants very much to know and if he finds out he will shoot me.”
“I see. How long were you there, Miss Schmid?”
“Six days. Maybe seven days. It is hard to say. Then today I smelled the fire and I was much afraid. I screamed and screamed and my cousins came. My cousins and the boys — and that terrible animal. That strange little man talked to the animal and then my cousins… my cousins…” Anna Schmid put her hands over her face and began to cry.
“I will get you some water, Anna,” said Hans.
“No.” She wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “It is all right. But how did you know where to come?”
“Jupe knew,” said Hans. “Konrad and I, we thought that woman there is Anna.
She looks just like the pictures you send to us.”
“So she does,” said Jupiter Jones, “when she wears a wig. A mirror image. I certainly believed she was Anna. It was the wedding ring and the signatures that made me realize the truth, and I’m sorry that it took me so long.”
“Wedding ring?” said the deputy. “Signatures?”
“That woman practiced signing Anna Schmid’s name over and over again. If she had been Anna Schmid, she wouldn’t have done that. Also, her wedding ring is too big for her. She claimed she and Havemeyer were married in Lake Tahoe last week. A new bride would have a new ring which would fit. She reminded me of my Aunt Mathilda. When my aunt’s been on a diet and lost a little weight, her ring is too big; she takes it off when she washes dishes and puts it on the kitchen window