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THE PERIDALE CAFE SERIES
BOOKS 9-12
AGATHA FROST
 CONTENTS

Also by Agatha Frost

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Book 9. Birthday Cake and Bodies

About This Book
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16

Book 10. Gingerbread and Ghosts

About This Book
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Book 11. Cupcakes and Casualties
About This Book
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Book 12. Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

About This Book
 Newsletter Signup
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Book 13 PREVIEW. Ice Cream and Incidents - Chapter 1

Also by Agatha Frost

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 ALSO BY AGATHA FROST

Claire’s Candles
1. Vanilla Bean Vengeance
2. Black Cherry Betrayal
3. Coconut Milk Casualty

Peridale Cafe
Book 1-10 Boxset
1. Pancakes and Corpses
2. Lemonade and Lies
3. Doughnuts and Deception
4. Chocolate Cake and Chaos
5. Shortbread and Sorrow
6. Espresso and Evil
7. Macarons and Mayhem
8. Fruit Cake and Fear
9. Birthday Cake and Bodies
10. Gingerbread and Ghosts
11.Cupcakes and Casualties
12. Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune
13. Ice Cream and Incidents
14. Champagne and Catastrophes
15. Wedding Cake and Woes
16. Red Velvet and Revenge
17. Vegetables and Vengeance
18. Cheesecake and Confusion
19. Brownies and Bloodshed
20. Cocktails and Cowardice
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BOOK 9. BIRTHDAY CAKE AND BODIES
 Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2017

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain,
are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Pink Tree Publishing Limited.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For questions and comments about this book, please contact pinktreepublishing@gmail.com

www.pinktreepublishing.com
www.agathafrost.com

Cover designed by Ashley Mcloughlin.

Edited by Keri Lierman and Karen Sellers

 About This Book

Released: October 17th 2017

Words: 47,000
Series: Book 9 - Peridale Cozy Café Mystery Series
Standalone: Yes
Cliff-hanger: No

When Julia gathered Barker's family at Peridale Manor for his

surprise birthday party, she did not expect it to result in murder!
Minutes before the celebration is scheduled to begin, Barker's
nephew, Luke, is found strangled in his bed, putting an end to Julia's
dream of a quiet family get together. Only one of Barker's family
could have murdered the young man, but which one?

Thanks to a botched burglary in the village, the police station is

clogged up, forcing Barker to go rogue with Julia. He shuts down the
manor, vowing to solve the murder before sunrise, but will he be
able to pin the murder on one of his brothers or their wives? Julia
quickly discovers that each member of his family has a secret, but
which one led to Luke's death? In a race against the clock, Julia
must dig up the past, but can she uncover the truth without tearing
Barker's family apart forever?
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 CHAPTER ONE

J ulia hated lying. There had not been a day in the last
two weeks where she had not lied to Barker. Some of
them had been white lies that had easily rolled off her
tongue, and others had been big and complicated lies that had stuck
in her throat and made her feel sick. What she hated more than the
constant lying was how good she was at it.
Standing on the edge of the platform, Julia checked her watch
for the third time that minute. She looked up and down Peridale’s
tiny train station, the murky early November sky swirling above. She
was glad the station was completely deserted. The last thing she
wanted was for one of Peridale’s gossips to spot her. Even the least
juicy titbits of information had a way of spreading around the village
like a forest fire in the height of summer. It would start with ‘guess
who I saw waiting for a train? Julia South! I thought she drove?’
which would somehow find its way to Barker within the hour. She
would not usually mind being the subject of idle village gossip,
except Barker thought she was clothes shopping with Jessie in
Oxford. It was a simple lie that had been necessary, and one she
knew Barker would not question. There had been no way he would
have wanted to spend his Sunday afternoon shopping with two
women, and he would not notice that they were lacking shopping
bags when they returned later in the evening. Even if he did notice,
a simple ‘we didn’t find anything we liked’ would put an end to it,
and they would eat dinner none the wiser. Another day, another set
of lies.
“The train is running two minutes late,” Jessie called from the
small ticket office, her voice echoing off the cream and emerald
green tiles, which had not been changed since the station’s opening
in 1891. “When are they ever on time?”
Julia’s seventeen-year-old foster daughter joined her on the
platform edge, kicking a drink can onto the tracks with the tip of her
Doc Martens. She peered from under her low hood, her eyes tired
and red. Jessie would not admit it, but she had been crying again.
“It will get easier,” Julia assured her, squeezing Jessie’s shoulder
firmly. “The first heartbreak is always the hardest.”
“I’m not heartbroken,” Jessie mumbled, shrugging off Julia’s
hand. “I dumped him.”
Julia nodded her understanding as Jessie sat down on the green
wrought-iron bench under the hand-painted ‘Platform Two - This
Way’ sign. Even though Jessie had been the one to formally end
things with Billy Matthews, the boy she had been seeing for the last
couple of months, it had been Billy’s decision to suddenly enlist in
the army. Julia sympathised with Jessie, but she could not blame
Billy for wanting to leave the village. There were not many
opportunities for boys like him in Peridale, especially ones who had
been raised on the Fern Moore Estate.
It had been a couple of weeks since Jessie had agreed to let Julia
officially adopt her, and nine months since Julia had taken Jessie in
off the streets after catching her stealing cakes from her café. In
that time, Julia and Jessie’s bond was as close to mother and
daughter as it could be, but it did not mean Julia had all of the
answers when it came to dealing with teenage heartbreak. She was
trying to be there for Jessie as much as she could, but Jessie was
not the type of girl who willingly showed her emotions.
The shrill scream of metal on metal pierced through the cold air,
signalling the approaching train. Julia looked into the tunnel, the
yellowy headlights illuminating the darkness.
“They’re here,” she said, almost to herself. “It’s really happening.”
 Nerves bubbled over in her stomach, a culmination of the last
two weeks of meticulous planning. She almost could not believe she
had somehow pulled it together.
Jessie stuffed her mobile phone into her pocket to join Julia by
the edge of the platform as the train screeched to a halt in front of
them. A robotic female voice announced the arrival of the train, as
well as the rest of the stations it would stop at before it reached its
final destination of Bath. Julia looked at Jessie, an anxious smile
shaking her lips. Jessie did not even attempt to return it.
The electronic doors shuddered open, snapping into place
against the metal shell of the train. Burnt oil mixed with Julia’s
nerves, further turning her stomach. She stepped back, suddenly
realising she did not even know what they looked like.
An attractive woman with straight, strawberry blonde hair
stepped onto the platform, a designer weekend bag over her
shoulder. She was wearing a pale cream trench coat, figure-hugging
black jeans, and heels to match. Julia would have put her in her
early forties. A similarly aged bald man with dazzling blue eyes
followed the woman, his thin nose bent to the left of his slender
face. He was wearing a leather jacket over a blue polo shirt buttoned
up to the neck, paired with stylish, fitted pale blue jeans, and he too
was carrying a designer weekend bag. A younger man in a shirt and
tie, who appeared to be in his early-twenties jumped off next, with
his own weekend bag. He seemed to be a direct genetic result of the
man and the woman. He was tall and slender with a thin nose, and
he had coiffed strawberry blond hair, which was receding at the
temples. The man and woman looked around the station with mild
curiosity, but the young man did not bother looking up from his
phone. The three of them had naturally tanned skin, hinting at
several tropical holidays a year. Julia waited for someone else to get
off the train, almost certain the attractive family was not who she
had been anxiously waiting for. A whistle pierced the air, causing the
doors to shudder back into place. The train eased out of the station,
leaving the trio behind.
“Julia?” the man with the crooked nose asked, his voice
belonging to that of the man she had spoken to that morning on the
telephone. “Julia South?”
“Yes,” she said, suddenly smiling at the new arrivals. “Sorry! I
was expecting someone who looked like Barker. Ethan, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” the man dropped his bag to shake Julia’s hand.
“Don’t worry, none of us look alike. We all have different fathers.
Well, except Theo and me.”
“Oh,” Julia said, trying to hide how little Barker had told her
about his family. “And you must be Ethan’s wife?”
“It’s so lovely to meet you,” the woman said, her voice soft and
soothing, reminding Julia of a radio presenter her gran listened to in
the afternoons. “I’m Dawn. You’re so pretty! Is your dress vintage?”
“It is,” Julia said, blushing as she looked down at her 1940s
yellow and pink polka-dot dress. “I think I should have opted for
something a little warmer.”
“Don’t be silly!” Dawn cried, winking at Julia with a playful grin.
“Style doesn’t care about the weather.”
Julia did not admit her love for vintage fashion came from the
way her mother used to dress and less about making a fashion
statement.
“This must be your daughter?” Ethan asked, suddenly turning to
Jessie. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Foster daughter,” Jessie corrected him bluntly, accepting the
man’s handshake weakly.
“We’re in the process of adoption,” Julia added, apologising for
Jessie’s abruptness with a smile. “It takes a while. How was your
journey?”
“I can’t get a signal!” the young man cried, pointing his phone up
to the sky, ignoring Julia’s question. “I only have one bar!”
“This is our son, Luke,” Ethan said, slapping the boy on the
shoulder as Luke stared at his phone. “Forgive him. He thinks he’ll
die if his emails don’t refresh once a minute.”
“It’s for business, Dad,” the boy snapped, skipping the
introductions. “Is there Wi-Fi where we’re staying?”
“I think so,” Julia replied uncertainly. “You’ll be staying with my
dad and his wife at Peridale Manor. I did try to get you into the B&B,
but Evelyn closes up every winter. She’s travelling around New
Zealand with her grandson. She didn’t even know she had a
grandson until last month. Her daughter died and – it’s a long story.”
Ethan and Dawn stared blankly at her with polite smiles. Julia
had to remind herself the local village news would be of little interest
to these city folk.
“I should have called ahead about Luke joining us,” Ethan said
apologetically. “It was a last minute decision.”
“I didn’t even want to come,” Luke mumbled like a boy half his
age would. “I had to cancel important meetings for this.”
“Like I said, you haven’t seen your Uncle Barker since Bethany’s
funeral, and you can do the meetings on video-link,” Dawn said,
clearly exasperated by her son. “It’s been three years. Family is
important.”
“When it suits you,” Luke muttered, before cramming his phone
into his pocket and turning to his father. “Is my cousin coming?”
“Bella?” Ethan asked, turning to Julia. “I don’t know. Did Theo
even agree to come?”
Theo, another of Barker’s brothers, had been the most difficult to
pin down. When Julia had decided she was going to plan a surprise
birthday party and invite the siblings Barker rarely spoke about, she
had expected it to be as simple as quick phone calls and instant
confirmations. It had been easy to get their contact details from
Barker’s phone, but the rest of it had been anything but easy.
Casper, the eldest brother, had been the only one to confirm that he
would attend with his wife, Heather, during their first phone call.
Ethan had called back after three days and agreed to come, but
Theo had not picked up the phone at all, instead choosing to text
Julia over a week later with a long list of questions, mainly revolving
around the guest list. She had given up hopes of getting all of the
Brown brothers together for Barker’s thirty-ninth birthday, until Theo
had sent a text message three days ago confirming his acceptance
of her invitation.
“He’s driving down tomorrow,” Julia said. “He was the trickiest of
you brothers to convince to come to this party.”
Julia chuckled softly, hoping to make light of the difficult couple
of weeks she had endured while organising everything, but her
attempt at humour seemed to wash over their heads. Ethan rolled
his eyes, as though he was not surprised, and Dawn looked uneasily
at her husband.
“So, Bella is coming?” Luke asked, looking directly at Julia, his
tone that of a boss demanding something from an employee. “Is she
bringing Conrad?”
“I think so,” Julia said, trying to remember exactly what Theo had
said in his message. “He said there would be three of them. Him, his
daughter, and her boyfriend. I’m assuming Conrad is the boyfriend?”
“No Michelle?” Dawn asked, almost under her breath at Ethan. “I
guess the rumours are true.”
“Michelle?” Julia asked. “I don’t think I’ve heard that name.”
“Theo’s wife,” Dawn said, arching a brow as though Julia should
already know. “It’s been obvious they’ve been heading for divorce
ever since Bethany died. We hoped they’d patch it up, but people
have been talking.”
“Theo didn’t mention anything about a wife,” Julia confessed, not
wanting to admit she also had no idea who Bethany was either.
“Shall we set off? It might be a tight squeeze in my little car. I was
only expecting the two of you.”
“I’ll walk,” Jessie said, her fingers tapping rapidly on her phone
screen. “I said I’d meet Dolly and Dom anyway.”
Before Julia could ask any questions, Jessie headed for the ticket
office and out of the station without so much as a goodbye.
“She’s going through a breakup,” Julia explained quietly. “First
boyfriend.”
“Poor thing,” Dawn said, looking at the exit of the station even
though Jessie was already long gone. “Explains the clothes.”
Julia’s lips parted to let Dawn know that was how Jessie always
dressed, but she decided against it, having spotted at least three
visible designer logos on each of them.
With their bags in hand, they followed Julia out of the station to
her aqua blue Ford Anglia, which was the only car in the middle of
the empty car park.
“Jesus Christ,” Luke muttered, his left brow arching high up his
smooth forehead. “How old is that thing?”
 “She’s vintage,” Julia said firmly, deciding she disliked Barker’s
nephew. “I promise she’s fit for the road. She had a new engine
fitted last month. I had a little accident in the middle of a storm.”
“Same one that destroyed Barker’s cottage?” Ethan asked as Julia
unlocked the car boot. “I saw the pictures online. Where’s he living
now if his new cottage is wrecked?”
“With me,” Julia said, taking Ethan’s bag from him. “We’re living
together.”
“Big step,” Dawn said as she handed over her bag. “Must be
serious?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“I have no idea why Uncle Barker would want to live here,” Luke
said, his lip curling up as he looked around at the surrounding rolling
fields. “It’s the middle of nowhere.”
“I quite like it,” Dawn said, inhaling the crisp country air. “Makes
a nice change from London.”
“Thank God it’s just for two days,” Luke said as he thrust his bag
into Julia’s hand. “Be careful. My laptop is in there.”
The three of them piled into Julia’s car, Ethan taking the
passenger seat. Julia crammed Luke’s bag next to the other two,
making sure to give it a nice heavy shove on the way.
Julia had wanted to meet Barker’s family since the beginning of
their relationship. All he had told her was that he had three brothers
dotted around the country and that their mother had died five years
ago. He had not mentioned names or ages, and every time Julia
pushed the subject and asked when she would meet them, he would
dismiss her with a vague ‘soon’. As Julia drove in the stuffy silence
along the winding lane towards Peridale Manor, she wondered if
there was a reason she knew very little about her partner’s siblings.
“Your father lives here?” Dawn asked, clearly impressed when
Peridale Manor came into view. “It’s beautiful. Is that Cotswold
stone?”
“It is,” Julia said. “It’s technically his father-in-law’s house. It’s
been in the Wellington family for generations.”
“Dawn is an architect,” Ethan explained. “She does a lot of work
for various London councils. She loves these big old buildings.”
 “They don’t build them like this anymore,” Dawn said, pulling out
her phone to snap a picture through the window. “I’m glad I brought
my sketch pad with me. I needed a break from glass and steel.”
The gravel surrounding the house crunched under Julia’s tyres
when the lane ended. She pulled in between her father’s black BMW
and Katie’s bright pink Range Rover.
“Looks like Casper is already here,” Ethan said as he climbed out
of the car, nodding at an orange Volkswagen Camper Van parked on
the other side of the Range Rover. “I can’t believe they’re still in that
old thing. He’s been driving it for thirty years now.”
After unloading their bags from the boot, they walked towards
the double oak doors. Julia knocked hard on the wood, the door
opening almost immediately. Hilary, the grumpy and, elderly
housekeeper, peered through the gap, her eyeliner-circled eyes
bulging out of her sockets like they always did.
“I thought there’d only be two of you,” Hilary snapped, skipping
the niceties as she looked down her nose at Julia. “You said there’d
only be four guests arriving today. Four! I’ve only made up two
bedrooms.”
“That’s my fault,” Ethan said, holding his hands up. “I should
have called ahead. I’m sure Luke won’t mind sleeping on the couch.
I’m Ethan, and this is my wife, Dawn.”
Ethan held out his hand for Hilary, but she looked down at it as
though he was offering her a slab of road kill they had found on the
drive up. She huffed before swinging open the door and turning on
her tiny heels.
“I’ve just polished the marble, so wipe your feet,” she demanded
as she shuffled to the grand sweeping staircase in the middle of the
entrance hall. “I’ll make up another room. Leave your bags near the
door.”
Julia wiped her feet on the doormat, smiling her apologies on
behalf of Hilary. The housekeeper had been with the Wellington
family for decades and was well past the age of retirement. Her
loyalty to Vincent Wellington kept her there, even if the old man
could no longer speak a word since his last stroke.
 “This place is incredible,” Dawn exclaimed, taking a picture of the
glittering chandelier that hung from the ornate ceiling as she wiped
her feet on the doormat. “Early 1800s?”
“I’m not sure,” Julia replied. “Katie might know.”
A man’s deep laugh drifted out from the sitting room, echoing
around the grand entrance hall. Dawn and Ethan looked at each
other, both rolling their eyes.
“That’ll be Casper,” Ethan said with an exhausted sigh when he
finished wiping his feet. “Always the bloody loudest in the room.”
Julia was beginning to abandon all hope of a quiet family reunion
for Barker’s birthday.
Luke walked in and ignored the doormat, his eyes glued to his
phone. He pushed the door shut with his hip, slamming it in its
frame. Julia motioned for them to follow her towards the sitting
room.
“Julia!” Brian, her father exclaimed, jumping up to kiss her on the
cheek when she walked in. “You never told me Barker’s brother was
the Casper Brown!”
Julia smiled meekly at the couple sitting on the ornate red and
gold couch across from her father. The man, who she assumed was
Casper, looked to be the same age as Julia’s father. He was plump,
with a thick grey moustache balanced on his top lip. A cane sat
between his legs, his hands leaning all of his weight onto it. The
woman, Heather, was also plump, but was so short her feet did not
touch the ground. Her thick grey hair had been set into neat rows,
which Julia thought looked far too old-fashioned for her kind and
open face, which was absent of any wrinkles thanks to her red
chubby cheeks.
“Ethan,” Casper said, nodding to his younger brother. “Dawn.
Good to see you. How long’s it been?”
“Bethany’s funeral,” Dawn reminded him.
“Ah, yes,” Casper said, his eyes glazing over for a moment before
turning to Julia with a wide grin. “You must be Julia! It’s nice to put
a face to the name.”
“You never told us how pretty your daughter is, Brian,” Heather
said, looking around her husband to smile at Julia. “My brother-in-
law has got himself a catch there.”
“Do you all know each other?” Julia asked, glancing from her
father to Casper.
“Casper was an avid collector of army medals,” Brian explained.
“We go back some twenty years. I’d say he bought more medals
from me than any collector I’ve ever met.”
“Still wasting your money on those things, Brother?” Ethan asked
as he took in the large and lavishly decorated room. “I could think of
better things to spend an army pension on, like a new car, for
instance?”
“Your father is one of the best antique dealers there is,” Casper
said, looking at Julia and completely ignoring his brother’s passive
aggressive comment. “My hunt for medals became much harder
when he got out of the business.”
“I recently reacquired the antique barn,” Brian said, clapping his
hands together. “Anthony Kennedy croaked it, so I’m officially back
in business. Murdered, in fact, and by his own mother, no less. I’d
say I felt sorry for the fella, but he screwed over too many people on
the way out. Got into some dodgy business with a fake Murphy
Jones painting. Can’t believe he was the best man at both of my
weddings.”
“Never did like him much,” Casper muttered darkly. “He didn’t
know a medal from a chocolate coin. Still can’t believe you’re having
another baby at your age, old boy. Our seven are all grown up now.
Three boys, four girls. Our youngest, Daisy, has just gone off to
university!”
“You’re never too old,” Brian said, rubbing his hands together and
leaning forward. “And when you’ve got a wife as beautiful as mine,
it’s hard to resist.”
“I’m thinking of trading this one in for a younger model,” Casper
joked, tapping Heather on the knee. “But I’m not sure if anyone will
put up with an old codger like me with a fake leg.”
He knocked on his left shin and an unnatural rattle of plastic
shuddered under his trousers.
“The leg is the easiest part, Mr. Brown,” Heather said, flicking her
husband’s ear. “I dare you to find someone else to put up with the
rest of you.”
Julia chuckled before looking at Dawn and Ethan, who could not
have looked more disinterested with their relatives’ banter. Julia had
a feeling she was going to be getting along with Casper and Heather
a lot more than anyone else during Barker’s birthday party.
“I’ve got a nice collection of medals down at the barn,” Brian said
suddenly, clicking his fingers together. “I dare say even you don’t
have some of these. You’ll have to come down and have a look
tomorrow.”
“Maybe,” Casper said shakily, glancing unsurely at his wife. “My
collection has – is that Luke?”
Casper squinted through Ethan and Dawn to his nephew, who
was still glued to his phone. Luke looked up at his uncle Casper, a
dry smile on his lips.
“Hello, Uncle,” he said in such a cold way it made Julia shiver.
“Auntie Heather. Nice to see you. How’s things?”
Casper’s eyes bulged out of his face, his jaw gritting, and his
cheeks turning bright red in the process. For a split second, it
seemed as though he was about to explode, but Heather softly
rested her hand on his knee, rapidly sedating him. Julia scanned the
faces of the others in the room, but no one else seemed to notice
the obvious tension.
“Lemonade!” a squeaky voice announced as metal wheels rattled
along the polished floorboards. “Oh, more guests! I’ll have to grab
some more glasses.”
Julia turned to see her father’s wife, Katie Wellington-South,
pushing in a trolley with a large jug of Wellington family lemonade
and four glasses. Her peroxide blonde hair was curled to perfection,
her face painted like a model, and her ample chest and giant
stomach looked fit to bursting out of her tight shirt.
“None for me,” Casper said, pushing himself up on his cane with
a groan. “I-I-It’s been a long day, and I think I need to lie down. My
good leg is cramping up.”
“Are we okay to go up?” Heather asked, standing up and resting
her hand on her husband’s lower back. “It’s better that he rests up
now before it gets any worse. He’s not used to wearing the
prosthetic for this long. I told him to take it off while I was driving,
but he never listens. Was more worried about having it on in case
we crashed, but at the speed I was driving, I think a plastic leg
would have been the least of his worries.”
“You’re in the room at the end of the hall near the bust of my
great-grandfather,” Katie announced after pushing the trolley around
to the other side of the couch. “You can’t miss it.”
Katie rested her hands on the bottom of her lower back and
pushed out her stomach. Julia looked down at her high heels, almost
not believing that she still insisted on wearing them so close to the
end of her pregnancy.
Casper and Heather hobbled past them, their smiles warm and
kind until they landed on Luke. For a split second, the pressure
boiled up again, turning the room cold until they left. Julia itched to
know what was causing the tension, but was too polite to ask either
of them.
“I think I could use a nap too,” Dawn said, pinching between her
eyes. “I can feel one of my migraines brewing.”
“I’ll come up with you,” Ethan said, opening his mouth and letting
out what seemed to be a fake yawn. “That train journey has
exhausted me.”
“You’re in the room next door to your brother,” Katie announced,
pouring homemade lemonade into two glasses. “Are you staying for
a glass, Julia?”
“I should get back,” Julia said, hooking her thumb over her
shoulder, not wanting to admit that the lemonade was too sickly for
her tastes. “Barker will be wondering where I am.”
“What’s the Wi-Fi password?” Luke asked bluntly, the last of
Barker’s family still in the room. “I need to check my emails.”
As Katie shuffled over to the internet router on a small table in
the corner of the room, Julia nodded for her father to follow her out
into the hall.
“Is everything sorted?” Julia asked, pulling a small notepad out of
her coat pocket to run down her list again. “Did the balloons arrive?”
“Everything is in hand,” he assured her with a confident smile
that she knew was supposed to soothe her, but did not. “I’ve told
you not to worry. Just bake one of your delicious cakes, and
everything will go smoothly.”
“I never expected it to be so difficult,” she said, slotting the
notepad back into her pocket. “I never expected them to be so
difficult. I’m beginning to wonder if this was all a giant mistake.
What was that look Casper gave Luke?”
“What look? You have nothing to worry about with Casper and
Heather,” he assured her as they walked to the front door, their heels
clicking on the shiny marble. “They’re the loveliest people I know.
This world just keeps getting smaller, doesn’t it? I’ve known Barker
all this time, and I never put the two Browns together.”
“The last brother, Theo, is arriving tomorrow at noon. Do you
want me to be here to greet them?”
“It’s all taken care of,” he repeated, yanking on the door. “There’s
nothing to panic about. The Wellington family are famous for their
hospitality. We’ll have a nice dinner tonight. They’ll be refreshed for
tomorrow night’s party, you’ll see.”
“Okay,” she said, allowing herself to smile for a second, glad she
only had the cake to worry about now. “Just don’t let them
anywhere near the village. The last thing I want is for Barker to see
one of them so close to the party.”
“I’ll keep them under lock and key,” he promised with a wink. “Go
home, put your feet up, and have one of those peppermint teas you
like. What could go wrong?”
Leaving her father on the doorstep, Julia climbed back into her
car at the exact moment it began to rain. Reversing out of the tight
space, she waved to her father before turning and heading back
down the winding lane. As her window wipers squeaked against the
glass, she inhaled deeply, wondering why she felt even more
nervous than she had standing on the platform waiting to meet one
of Barker’s brothers for the first time.
“What could go wrong?” she whispered to herself, repeating her
father’s words. “What could possibly go wrong?”
 CHAPTER TWO

J ulia awoke the exact moment her phone began to

vibrate the next morning. She immediately stopped the
alarm, holding her breath as she looked down at Barker
in the dark. He snorted, rolled over, and resumed snoring into his
pillow. He would be fast asleep until his alarm woke him.
Julia tossed back the covers and climbed carefully out of bed, the
cold floorboards creaking underfoot. She could not remember the
last time she had woken up before the radiators came on. Glad she
had left her sheepskin slippers next to her bed the previous night,
she slipped her feet into them as she stood up. Avoiding the
notoriously squeaky floorboards, she tiptoed across the room,
grabbing her pink dressing gown from the hook on the side of her
wardrobe.
“Morning, boy,” she whispered to Mowgli, her grey Maine Coon,
as he crawled out from his warm spot underneath the bed. “Bit early
for you, isn’t it?”
Mowgli shook out his flattened fur, his sleepy eyes still half-
closed. He nudged her leg with the side of his soft face, letting her
know it was never too early for breakfast.
With Mowgli dancing around her ankles, Julia crept out of the
bedroom, glancing at Barker one last time.
“Happy Birthday,” she whispered.
Once in the kitchen, Julia flicked on the spotlights under the
cupboards, not wanting to turn on the ceiling lights in case the
bright light disturbed the rest of the household. Letting out a long
yawn, she filled the kettle from the tap. She looked out into her
slightly overgrown back garden, the sky still inky, the grass still
frosty.
While the kettle boiled, Julia plopped a peppermint and liquorice
teabag into her favourite giant mug, fed Mowgli, and began
gathering the basic ingredients for Barker’s birthday cake. He likely
knew that she was going to bake him a cake, but she thought the
sheer size of the one she intended to bake might give away her
plans for more people than the quiet dinner he expected.
She stepped back and looked at the self-raising flour, butter,
eggs, caster sugar, and baking powder. She decided against pulling
out the various flavourings and colourings until she needed them.
The fewer ingredients pointing to a birthday cake, the easier it would
be to pretend she was baking something for the café if Barker
suddenly woke up. The soft snoring coming from the slightly ajar
bedroom door let her know that was not likely to happen anytime
soon.
With the oven preheating, Julia began measuring out enough
sponge cake ingredients to fill eight sandwich tins. She planned to
colour each layer differently, but her practice runs had taught her it
would be easier to change the colours when she had separated the
mixture into each tin.
Barker probably expected Julia to make him one of her famous
double fudge chocolate cakes. It was his favourite, after all, but she
had been making that same cake on an almost weekly basis since
the beginning of their relationship. Since it was his birthday, she had
been planning something a little more special, but no less delicious.
One of the few things Julia knew about Barker’s mother, aside
from that she also loved baking and apparently cursed like a sailor,
was that her favourite cake was coconut cakes. Julia loved coconut
too, so when she had come up with the idea to gather Barker’s
brothers, she had decided a variation of a coconut cake would be an
easy crowd pleaser. After seeing how strained Casper and Ethan’s
relationship seemed to have been yesterday, and how dismissively
Ethan had spoken about Theo, Julia hoped their late mother’s
favourite cake would somehow bring them together. She knew it was
a long shot, but her baking had performed seemingly impossible
miracles before.
When she was happy with the consistency of the batter, she
sprinkled in a healthy dose of desiccated coconut along with two
caps of pure coconut extract before dividing it between the eight
tins. When she was satisfied she had poured them evenly by eye,
something her mother had taught her to do as a child rather than
relying on scales for every step, Julia gathered the colourings from
the cupboard and started mixing. She watched as the beige batter
turned purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, turquoise, and red,
the bright colours bringing a little sunshine to the dark and chilly
morning. After adding extra racks to the oven, she carefully placed
the raw mixtures into the heat, set her timer to twenty-five minutes,
and finally grabbed her peppermint and liquorice tea. Despite it
being free of caffeine, nothing woke her up more than the minty
sweetness of her favourite hot drink.
Remembering the pizza boxes in the sitting room from the
takeaway the night before, Julia hugged her tea as she wandered
through. She was surprised to see Jessie wrapped up in a blanket on
the couch, and even more surprised that she was wide awake,
staring at the television while Julia’s Pretty Woman DVD played
almost silently in the dark.
“Jessie?” Julia whispered, not wanting to startle her. “Are you
alright? What are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered back, wiping her cold red nose
with the edge of the blanket. “You always watch Pretty Woman to
cheer you up, so I thought it was worth a shot.”
“Is it working?”
“I still want to punch Julia Roberts every time she cackles at that
jewellery box,” Jessie said, sitting up, the blanket wrapped around
her head and shoulders. “I’d say it was half successful.”
Julia handed over her tea, which Jessie accepted gratefully. She
sipped the warm drink, her eyes blank as they stared at the burnt
logs in the whistling fireplace.
 “Is there something wrong with me?” Jessie asked, frowning into
her tea. “Every time something is going well, it seems to go wrong.”
“Oh, Jessie,” Julia said, wrapping her arm tightly around her
shoulders. “It’s not your fault. Things like this – they just happen.
You’ll meet other boys, and you’ll fall in love again.”
“I don’t want to,” she said after another sip of the tea. “They’re a
waste of space. Billy sent me a text last night asking me not to end
things.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I wasn’t being an army wife who waits for their
boyfriend to get back or not get back from wars,” Jessie said. “It’s
stupid. He’s only joining up because he thinks he’ll never get a job in
Peridale. I bet it’s his dad who put the idea in his head. He never
once spoke about it, and then all of a sudden it’s a dream he’s
always had but just forgot to tell me. How does that make any
sense?”
“Men are complicated,” Julia said, squeezing her shoulder
reassuringly. “Simple, and yet incredibly complicated creatures.”
“They’re idiots,” Jessie said, her brows drawing together in a
frown. “What’s the point?”
Julia was not sure she could answer. She had a failed twelve-year
marriage under her belt and was only into her first year with Barker.
She loved him with all of her heart and was glad she had met him
when she did because she was old enough to appreciate their
relationship. How could she explain that to a seventeen-year-old
girl?
“One day you’ll meet someone who’ll make you understand why
it’s worth it,” Julia assured her, watching as Mowgli padded into the
room licking his lips. “Until then, live your life for you.”
Jessie exhaled heavily and finished the last of the tea, which was
uncharacteristic for her. She rested the empty cup in her lap and
stared at the leafy dregs in the bottom as though reading her own
fortune. When she did not see what she wanted, she cast the cup
onto the stack of pizza boxes on the floor and melted into Julia’s
side.
 “Get some sleep,” Julia whispered as she stroked the back of her
hair through the fluffy blanket. “Mondays are always quiet. Come
into the café when you’re ready, or not at all. I’ll manage on my own
for one day.”
Jessie rubbed her tired eyes and nodded. With the blanket still
wrapped around her shoulders, she walked back to her bedroom.
There were times when Jessie caught Julia off guard by how
grown-up she seemed, and other times she looked like a lost little
girl; this morning was an example of the latter.
Something vibrated and lit up where Jessie had been sitting. It
was her mobile phone, and a text message had just come through
from Billy. Julia did not realise she was reading a preview of the
message until it was too late. ‘I love you. Please text me, we need
to-’. Leaving the phone where Jessie had left it, Julia turned off the
television and walked back into the kitchen to start work on the
coconut buttercream to spread in between the rainbow slices.
“It’s all part of growing up,” Julia assured Mowgli as he begged
for attention on the corner of the counter. “She’ll be okay.”

B arker ’ s alarm went off a little after sunrise , but J ulia was already
waiting by the bed with a full English breakfast, a rack of toast, and
a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” she smiled before kissing him gently on the
forehead. “Happy Birthday, Barker.”
“Breakfast in bed?” he asked, his voice faint and croaky. “I wish it
was my birthday every day.”
Barker sat up in bed, letting the covers fall into his lap. Julia
placed one of her pillows on his knees and balanced the tray
carefully on top, the bacon and sausages still piping hot.
“How long have you been up?” Barker asked, rubbing his eyes as
he stared down at the food. “It’s early.”
“Not long,” she lied. “About half an hour.”
 Julia failed to mention she had finished constructing his birthday
cake, successfully hidden it at the back of the fridge, baked a decoy
chocolate cake along with two-dozen cupcakes for the café, wrapped
his birthday present, showered, and eaten her own breakfast.
She perched on the edge of their bed, and watched him wolf
down his breakfast. Before officially moving in, Barker had been
splitting his time between his cottage down the lane and hers, but
since having him there full time, she had come to appreciate how
much of a good mood it put her in waking up next to him every
single morning. In the short time they had been living together, they
had painted over the magnolia walls in the bedroom with a soft
shade of dusky blue, bought a brand new king size wooden bed
complete with new bedding, matching bedside tables, and a new
wardrobe for Barker’s work shirts. Julia could barely remember the
time it had just been her bedroom.
“Is Jessie up yet?” Barker asked through a mouthful of toast,
crumbs and melted butter on his stubbly chin.
“I told her to sleep in,” Julia said, not wanting to mention their
early morning chat. “I think she’s struggling with this whole Billy
situation.”
Barker sighed as he moved the beans around his plate with his
fork. He looked up at Julia, a hesitant smile on his face.
“I care about Jessie, but –”
“You can’t help but think it’s for the best?”
“I’m not alone then,” Barker said, a little more confidently. “The
amount of trouble that boy got into when I first moved to this
village. There wasn’t a week that went by when I didn’t arrest him
for something. I know he was starting to change, and underneath it
all, he’s actually a sweet kid, but the army might be just what he
needs. Structure and discipline are underrated these days. It’ll make
him grow up.”
“He told her he loves her,” Julia whispered, not wanting to risk
Jessie overhearing despite knowing she was probably in a deep
sleep by now. “I think she loves him too.”
“Do you remember being seventeen and thinking that you were
in love for real?” Barker asked, dropping his fork onto the plate.
“Mine was Stacey Crenshaw. I think they go by Simon Crenshaw
these days, but that’s not the point. She’ll meet other guys.”
“Sue and Neil met when they were seventeen,” Julia said,
thinking about her sister’s happy relationship. “They’re both thirty-
two, married, and she’s pregnant with his twins.”
“Do you really see that for Jessie?”
“I don’t know,” Julia admitted, unsure of what she saw for the
teen. “I take things one day at a time. She’s more fragile than she
comes across.”
“And tougher than you give her credit for.” Barker placed the tray
on the edge of his bedside table and jumped out of bed in his black
boxer briefs. He picked up his dressing gown, which he always left
on the floor next to the bed, and pulled it on. “That girl has been
through a lot this year. Good and bad. It wasn’t that long ago that
she was stabbed in that attic after being kidnapped by that mad
woman. Most fully-grown adults would crumble to bits after
something like that, and she’s still going.”
“I know she’s strong,” Julia said. “I know that better than
anyone. I just want her to be happy, but that’s not realistic, is it? Life
is messy and complex.”
“And she needs to go through it,” Barker said as he kissed Julia
on the top of the head. “You’ve given that girl a life she was never
going to have, but you can’t protect her from everything.”
Julia sighed, but she reluctantly nodded. She knew Barker was
completely right. She could try her best to be there for Jessie
through everything, but she would never become the woman she
was destined to be if she did not face all the real world had to offer.
She had seen more than most going through the social care system
and living on the streets, but there was still so much for her to figure
out.
“Thanks for breakfast. It was delicious.”
“Breakfast in bed isn’t the end of it,” Julia said, eager to push her
mind back onto Barker’s birthday. “Your present is in the dining
room.”
Julia nodded her permission for him to go and look. She followed
him into the dining room, where the giant rectangular box waited for
him.
“I used two whole rolls,” Julia said, standing in the doorway with
her arms crossed. “It was harder to wrap than it looks.”
Barker tore off the corner and pulled off a large strip of the
paper, the colourful picture of the television jumping out on the front
of the box.
“A new TV?” Barker cried, the grin continuing to grow. “Sixty-two
inches?”
“And it’s 4K and 3D and all those other nonsense words you said
you wanted,” Julia said, pulling off the rest of the paper. “I don’t
understand what’s wrong with the one I have, but you seemed to
really want a new one, so I thought I’d sacrifice half of the sitting
room for the sake of this mammoth screen.”
“You have no idea how much I love you right now,” Barker said,
wrapping his arms around her neck. “We can put the old one in the
bedroom so we can watch movies in bed.”
“That decision will need some more discussion,” Julia said. “I was
thinking of offering it to Jessie so she could watch what she wanted
in private. I might order her one of those stick things so she can
watch things off the internet.”
“’One of those stick things’?” Barker asked playfully. “You sound
like your gran right now. Next, you’re going to tell me you miss the
days of VHS and mobile phones with buttons.”
“The buttons were easier to use,” she said with a shrug. “You
should get ready for work. You can play with your new toy when you
get home.”
Barker kissed her softly before slipping into the bathroom. When
steam drifted from under the door, Julia carefully opened Jessie’s
door, popping her head around the edge. Jessie was curled up on
top of her bed, a pillow clutched to her chest as she snored softly.
“Sleep tight,” Julia whispered before closing the door again.
Julia quickly dressed for work, opting for blue jeans and a navy
blouse; it was far too cold to have exposed legs today. She waited
by the front door in her pink pea coat while Barker ironed his suit in
the hallway in nothing more than his underwear. When he was finally
dressed, he grabbed his briefcase, and they drove into the village
together in Julia’s car.
“I’ll see you at lunch,” Barker said, kissing her on the cheek as he
opened the door. “I expect a huge slice of chocolate cake today of all
days.”
“Consider it done.”
They parted ways, leaving Julia to open the café. She was
thankful that Mondays were always quiet because it allowed her to
perform her weekly stock check and to deep clean the place. The
bell above the door did not ring out until nearly noon.
“Excuse me,” a young and fashionably dressed woman said, one
hand still on the door. “We’re looking for directions to Peridale
Manor. Do you have any idea where that is?”
Julia stepped around the counter, a crease in her brow. She
dusted her flour-covered hands down her apron, glancing out of the
window at the car the girl had exited. Julia could almost not believe
who was behind the wheel.
“Ethan?” Julia mumbled, squinting through the window. “Why is
Ethan in the village?”
“Huh?” the girl asked, whipping her brown and blonde ombré
curls over her shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“The man driving that car,” Julia said, extending a finger to the
slender, bald man behind the wheel. “I told my dad to keep him at
Peridale Manor.”
The girl looked at the man Julia was pointing at. She seemed just
as confused as Julia felt for a moment, before tossing her head back
to let out a high-pitched laugh.
“Is your name Julia?” the girl asked, clicking her fingers together.
“That would make total sense.”
“I am,” Julia said with a nod. “Who are you?”
“Bella,” she said. “Bella Brown. That’s not Ethan, that’s my father,
Theo. They’re twins.”
“Oh,” Julia said, feeling her cheeks turning bright red. “I should
have really known that, shouldn’t I?”
“It’s okay,” Bella said with a shrug, pulling her phone out of her
pocket. “It used to happen all the time before – well, when they
were closer. Haven’t seen Uncle Ethan since the funeral. So, you’re
Uncle Barker’s girlfriend?”
Julia nodded and watched as Bella pouted into the camera of her
phone, taking a selfie against Julia’s pink and blue wallpaper. She
changed facial expressions half a dozen times, snapping away like
she was in the middle of a photo-shoot.
“The lighting in here is too perfect,” Bella exclaimed, looking
around the small café. “Maybe I should get Conrad in here for a
couple’s selfie?”
Julia looked into the car, where a tanned, handsome young man
with bright blond hair was sitting in the passenger seat. Theo, who
looked eerily like his brother, but without the crooked nose, bobbed
his head to see what was taking his daughter so long.
“I’ve never really been one for selfies,” Julia confessed, almost
apologetically. “We had film cameras when I was your age, and it
wasn’t as fun when you had to wait for them to develop.”
“It’s for my followers,” Bella said as she adjusted the lighting and
colours on the picture she had just taken, transforming it into
something that looked almost professional. “I have eleven thousand.
Conrad’s almost at one hundred. It’s easier to get followers when
you have abs these days, don’t you think?”
“One hundred?” Julia laughed awkwardly. “I think I have thirty-
four Facebook friends. I don’t think I know one hundred people.”
“Oh, I meant one hundred thousand,” Bella said with a shrug as
though the number meant nothing. “I don’t know how he deals with
the pressure, but I guess it’s his job now.”
“He makes money from selfies?”
“Companies pay him to advertise their stuff,” Bella said, glancing
back at her boyfriend in the car, who was engrossed with whatever
was happening on his phone. “Teeth whitening products, food
supplements, detox teas, clothes, you name it. Hey! I could probably
get him to give you a discount to shout-out your café! I suppose
we’re family now, aren’t we?”
“I suppose we are,” Julia said with an anxious smile,
understanding virtually none of what the girl was talking about. “I’ll
have to think about that.”
 “Directions?” the girl asked after Theo honked on the horn three
times in quick succession. “It’s been a long drive.”
“Right,” Julia said, turning and grabbing her notepad from the
counter to scribble down a crude map. “If you go up past The
Plough, take a right at the B&B, and continue onto Mulberry Lane,
you’ll pass an antique barn. Take a right, and then a left, and you’ll
see a sign at the bottom of a winding lane that will point you in the
right direction. That’s the quickest way from here. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” Bella said, looking down at the map with a tilted
head. “I suppose I’ll see you later at the party.”
“I suppose you will,” Julia said, pushing forward a polite smile. “It
was lovely to meet you, Bella.”
“You too, Julie.”
“It’s Juli-a.”
“Right,” she said, pointing at Julia as she walked backwards out
of the café, the map clenched against her phone. “I’ll remember
that. See-ya!”
The young woman spun around, her stylish hair bouncing over
her shoulder. She jumped into the car and passed the map to her
father. She said something that made Theo bob down and stare
through the window at Julia. Julia waved and smiled, but the man
did not bother to return it. He sped off, the tyres screeching as he
went.
“Oh, Julia,” she whispered to herself as she spotted Jessie
wandering down the lane from their cottage. “What have you got
yourself into?”
 CHAPTER THREE

“D ot,” Barker said through a strained smile. “You shouldn’t

have.”
“Oh, it was no bother!” Dot waved her hand
dismissively as she leaned back in her chair with a pleased smile. “I
saw it and immediately thought of you.”
“’How To Survive Your Midlife Crisis’,” Sue, Julia’s sister, read the
title aloud over his shoulder. “Can I borrow that for my Neil when
you’re finished?”
“I’m only thirty-nine,” Barker said, his cheeks flushing as he
placed the book on the table next to his half-finished slice of
chocolate cake. “It’s the thought that counts I suppose.”
“You’re displaying all the classic symptoms,” Dot announced with
another wave of her hand. “Anyone can see it.”
“The symptoms?” Julia asked, sending a playful wink across the
dining table to Barker as she sucked the chocolate off her fork.
“Please, do enlighten us, Gran.”
“Well, that ridiculous television speaks for itself,” Dot cried,
craning her neck to look at the new set in the sitting room. “It’s like
a cinema! What’s wrong with a nice little eleven-inch screen?”
“It was a gift!” Barker cried defensively, looking at Julia for
support. “Julia bought it. If anyone is having the crisis, it’s her.”
“You did ask for it,” she replied with a shrug. “Classic symptom,
like Gran says.”
 “They used to make TVs that small?” Jessie mumbled, looking up
from her plate as she traced her fork around the outline of her
untouched chocolate cake. “Sounds pointless.”
“What are the other symptoms, Gran?” Sue asked, smirking at
Julia as she rubbed her firm bump. “Keep going.”
“Weight gain!” Dot cried, poking Barker’s soft stomach. “I’ve said
it before, and I’ll say it again, all of those cakes aren’t doing you any
good, Barker Brown!”
“It’s my birthday!” he mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate
icing. “I’m exactly the same weight I was this time last year.”
“And this idea that you’re going to write a crime book?” Dot
exclaimed, casting a finger over to the vintage typewriter in the
corner. “Classic symptom. Stick to what you know, and that’s being
an average detective inspector!”
Sue choked on her glass of water as she stared ahead at Julia
with the usual look of ‘did Gran really just say that?’ plastered across
her face.
“Classic,” Julia echoed.
“It would do you some good to have a read. I flicked through,
and I found it very informative.”
Dot stamped her finger down on the book, but Barker could not
have looked any less interested if he had tried. He stabbed his fork
into the cake, stuffing even more into his mouth. Julia and Sue could
barely contain their laughter.
“Mine next,” Sue said, reaching across the table, her large bump
getting in the way. “It’s not as helpful as Gran’s, but I think you’ll like
it.”
Sue slid the glittery pink-wrapped box down the table. Barker
ripped back the paper, seeming a little more relieved than he had
looked when opening Dot’s.
“My favourite aftershave,” Barker said with a genuine smile.
“Thank you, Sue. I can actually use this. I was running low.”
“I know,” Sue replied with a confident nod. “I was poking around
your bathroom last week. I didn’t know what to get you, and then it
came to me like an epiphany when I was sitting on the toilet. All
men like aftershave!”
 “Men smelt like men back in my day,” Dot exclaimed, grabbing
the box from Barker to read over the label. “’A spicy, aromatic scent
with hints of vanilla’. Sounds like a curry, and you know my stomach
doesn’t do well with foreign food.”
Jessie giggled from under her hood at the end of the table. It
caught everyone off guard, including Jessie, who seemed to have
briefly forgotten about her break-up.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, nature calls,” Barker said, pushing his
chair away from the table with a defeated look. “Don’t tell me, Dot.
Is that another symptom?”
“Actually, I think it is,” Dot said, picking up the book to flick
through the mass of pages. “I’m sure I read something about it in
here.”
Barker laughed with a shake of his head, brushing his hand
across Julia’s back as he walked out of the room. None of them
moved until they heard the lock on the bathroom door click into
place.
“Do you think he knows?” Sue whispered excitedly, bolting up in
her chair. “Does he think this is his real party?”
“Of course he doesn’t know,” Dot cried, tossing the book onto the
table. “He’s a man! He hasn’t figured out a thing. He probably thinks
this is his real present.”
“It isn’t?” Julia asked, turning the book over in her hand. “I
thought you were being serious.”
“Picked it up for twenty pence in the charity shop,” Dot said with
a thin grin, adjusting the brooch holding her stiff white collar in
place. “I have a card in my bag with a gift voucher for his favourite
clothes shop.”
“He has a favourite clothes shop?” Jessie asked, scrunching up
her nose. “All his shirts look the same.”
“That’s because he buys them all from the same shop,” Dot
exclaimed, tapping the side of her nose. “I let myself in when you
were all at work. Had a nice look through his wardrobe.”
“I need to change the locks,” Julia said, her eyes wide as she
gathered up the plates. “Did you put the real birthday cake in the
boot of my car, Sue?”
 “Done,” Sue said, pushing herself up from the seat. “What time is
Katie calling?”
“In about ten minutes,” Julia said after checking the grandfather
clock in the corner of the room. “Hopefully they’ve got everything
sorted up there. You should all start leaving when he gets out of the
bathroom.”
“I need to pee before I go,” Sue said as she shuffled to the door,
her giant stomach poking out through her fluttering shirt. “The twins
have been kicking my bladder all day. I’m sure one of them is trying
out for the Premier League.”
Julia dumped the dishes in the kitchen sink while Sue waited by
the bathroom door clutching her lower back. When the toilet flushed
and Barker unlocked the door, Sue barged in, quickly locking it
behind her.
“Must dash!” Dot exclaimed, hurrying out of the dining room with
her handbag slung over her shoulder. “Enjoy your book, Barker.
Some of the girls and I have joined a film club, and we’re starting
our Saw marathon tonight. According to Amy Clark, the films are
about jigsaws or something. I wasn’t really paying much attention,
but I like a jigsaw as much as the next person.”
Dot kissed Julia on the cheek and slapped Barker heartily on the
shoulder before heading out of the front door, the cold wind blowing
down the hallway behind her.
“That woman is something else,” Barker said with a disbelieving
shake of his head as he stared at the door. “Midlife crisis?”
“I’m going to Dolly and Dom’s,” Jessie said, her hood low over
her eyes as she hurried for the door. “Bye.”
The door slammed behind her, letting more cold air into the
hallway. Sue hobbled out of the bathroom, wiping her damp hands
on the back of her stretchy maternity trousers.
“Neil will be expecting me back,” Sue said, rubbing her belly
rhythmically. “He’s insisting on reading the bump bedtime stories.
Can you believe they’re as big as pineapples now? I’m sure they’re
just as prickly too. Pregnancy is more uncomfortable than anyone
ever tells you.”
 Sue kissed them both on the cheek, grabbed her handbag from
the dining room, and waddled out of the cottage.
“And then there were two,” Barker said, looking around the
empty cottage. “Not how I was expecting to spend my birthday.”
“You said you wanted a quiet one,” Julia reminded him as she
filled the sink with hot water. “Places to be, and all that.”
“Dot and Sue were only here for twenty minutes,” Barker said,
scratching the side of his head as he consulted his watch. “Oh, well.
At least there’s more cake left.”
“Actually, I was hoping to sell the rest of it in the café tomorrow,”
Julia said as she squirted washing up liquid into the sink. “Sorry!”
“Right,” he said, sighing as he slapped his hands against his
sides. “Well, I suppose I’ll go and watch the six o’clock news in 3D
then.”
Barker planted himself on the couch with another long sigh. Julia
smirked to herself as she quickly washed the plates. She felt bad for
still lying to him, but these were the last lies she would have to tell.
She could not wait for the party to be over so she could go back to
being honest Julia.
“It’ll be worth it,” she whispered to herself as she rinsed the last
plate before placing it on the metal draining board. “I hope.”
Right on cue, the phone on the kitchen wall rattled in its frame.
Julia let it ring for a moment, not answering until she was satisfied
Barker had heard.
“Hello?” she said, already knowing who was on the other end.
“Julia?” Katie’s shaky voice crackled down the phone. “Julia,
something terrible has happened.”
“What’s happened?” Julia called loud enough so that Barker could
hear. “You want us to come to Peridale Manor immediately?”
“No, Julia, I’m being serious,” Katie said, the sudden depth of her
usually squeaky voice knotting fear inside of Julia. “It’s Luke,
Barker’s nephew. He’s – He’s dead.”
 CHAPTER FOUR

“I – I don’t understand,” Barker muttered as they sped up

the winding lane towards Peridale Manor in the dark,
the headlights illuminating the bushes fencing them in.
“Why is my nephew at your dad’s house? It doesn’t make any
sense.”
“It’s all my fault,” Julia said, pushing her curls from her eyes as
she sped around the tight corner. “I’ve been planning a surprise
birthday party for you. I invited everyone. Katie was supposed to call
to let me know they were ready, and I was going to get us up to the
manor.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Your three brothers,” Julia said. “Heather and Dawn too, and
Bella and her boyfriend, and – and Luke.”
“I don’t understand,” he repeated.
“I borrowed your phone,” she confessed as she rigidly held back
her tears, her foot pushing down on the accelerator. “I called them
all. My dad said he would host them for the party.”
“No, I meant I don’t understand how you got them all to agree to
come here,” Barker said, his fingers rubbing the temples on the sides
of his head. “After Bethany’s funeral, I didn’t think they would ever
agree to being in the same room again.”
“I’m sorry,” Julia apologised, tears streaming down her face,
aware of how fast she was driving, but unable to lift her foot. “Oh,
Barker. I shouldn’t have meddled.”
 “Julia, slow down.”
“Your nephew is dead, and it’s all my fault.”
“Julia!”
Barker’s hands slapped down on the dashboard, forcing Julia to
slam her foot on the brakes. The tyres screeched along the gravel,
halting right behind three shadowy figures in front of the manor.
They turned around, their confused faces illuminated by the flashing
lights of the three police cars parked in front of them.
“Julia?” Dot cried, squinting through the front window of the car,
Jessie and Sue next to her. “What on Earth -”
Julia rubbed the tears from her lashes, inhaling deeply, the guilt
too much to bear. Barker squeezed her knee firmly, but it did not
reassure her.
“You almost hit us!” Dot cried. “What are you playing at?”
“Well, she didn’t hit you,” Barker said, jumping out of the car and
walking straight past them towards the officers guarding the front
door. “I need to find out what’s going on.”
Julia peeled her fingers off the steering wheel and got out of the
car, her legs like jelly. She took a deep breath as her trembling
fingers tucked her curls behind her ears.
“How did this happen?” Julia asked, gulping down her added guilt
for almost hitting her family. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, you almost bloody turned us into pancakes!” Dot cried.
“That’s what happened.”
“She means the murder,” Jessie mumbled from under her hood,
less bothered about almost being hit by Julia’s car.
“Murder?” Julia echoed. “How?”
“Strangled, according to one of the officers,” Sue said, wrapping
her arms around her body as the bitter wind picked up around them.
“We’ve only just arrived ourselves. They won’t let us in.”
“Strangled?” Julia whispered, looking past her family to the
yellowy light flooding out of the manor’s front doors. “Where’s Dad?”
“You’ve got no chance of getting inside,” Dot said, wafting her
hands as she stared at the officers talking to Barker by the front
door. “I told them I was family, but they won’t let me in, and they
won’t let anyone out!”
 “We could always try the back door,” Jessie suggested with a
shrug, hooking her thumb to the dark side of the house. “That’s
always an option.”
“Hey, we could try the back door!” Dot echoed as though it had
been her idea. “That’s a great idea.”
“My great idea.”
“The details don’t matter,” Dot said as she linked her arm through
Sue’s. “Are you okay to walk?”
“I’m pregnant, not an invalid,” Sue said, following it up by
immediately by wincing. “Although I am carrying twins, aren’t I?
Maybe I’ll wait in the car.”
“I think you should all stay here,” Julia said, her nerves dying
down long enough for her brain to engage. “If the police aren’t
letting people inside, it’s because the house is a crime scene, and
three new people walking around are going to be easier to spot than
one.”
“You’re not invisible, Julia,” Dot exclaimed through pursed lips,
clearly upset that Julia was putting a stop to her snooping. “You’re
wearing a bright pink coat, for Christ’s sake!”
Julia shrugged off the heavy coat, the November chill consuming
her in seconds. She tossed it to her gran, who reluctantly joined Sue
in the car.
“Be careful,” Jessie said, smiling softly at Julia. “Don’t do
anything I wouldn’t.”
“I’m just going to find out what’s happened,” she said, running
her thumb along Jessie’s soft, cold cheek. “I feel responsible for
this.”
Julia crept to the edge of the gravel driveway, avoiding the blue
flashing lights. Her dark jeans and navy blouse faded in nicely with
the forest that enclosed the vast grounds around the manor.
Julia stuck to the side of the house, ducking down past the tall
windows. She reached a door, which she knew opened into one of
Hilary’s cleaning supply cupboards. She rattled the handle, but it was
locked. Julia pressed on, creeping to the back of the grand house. As
she transferred from the damp grass onto the stone patio, light
flooded out from the kitchen through the double French doors.
Holding her breath, Julia crept up to the kitchen window and peered
inside to make sure the coast was clear; it was not.
The girl she had met earlier in her café, Bella, was sitting at the
kitchen island, sobbing into her hands, with her handsome blond
boyfriend, Conrad, comforting her with a blank stare. Julia slid
across the wall and rattled the doors, but they were also locked.
“Hello?” she called softly with a gentle knock on the glass. “Can
you let me in?”
The young couple practically jumped out of their skins before
whipping around to face Julia. They squinted into the dark garden, a
glimmer of recognition on the young woman’s mascara-streaked
face.
“Conrad, that’s Barker’s girlfriend,” she stammered, sliding off the
stool, her mobile phone clutched in her hand. “Julie.”
“It’s Juli-a,” she reminded the girl with a frustrated smile. “Can
you let me in? It’s cold out here.”
Bella and Conrad looked at each other as though considering
whether they should ignore Julia like a stray cat.
“They told us not to leave,” Bella called, taking a small step
forward. “The murderer might be out there.”
“I’m not the murderer,” Julia said with a disbelieving laugh. “I’ve
only just arrived with Barker.”
Bella chewed the inside of her lip, looking at Conrad for
permission. The attractive young man could only offer a meek shrug.
Julia rubbed her hands together in front of her face and blew her
hot breath into her cupped palms. It had the desired effect. Bella
rushed to unlock the door, opening it just enough for Julia to slip
inside before locking it again.
“Thank you,” she said through chattering teeth. “It’s not much
warmer in here, is it?”
Bella shook her head as she retreated to Conrad’s side. He
wrapped his arm around her again, his eyes trained on the tiled
floor. He looked like he had been crying too, pale streaks running
down his bronze face, letting her know his tan likely came from a
bottle rather than the sun.
Another random document with
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 We arrived at Ulm in time for supper. Long before we reached the
city, we could see the soaring single spire of the cathedral
silhouetted against the sky. There was literally nothing left of the old
city. All the medieval houses which, with the cathedral, had made it
one of the most picturesque cities in Germany, lay in ruins. But the
cathedral was undamaged.
We stopped for gas just outside Ulm. To our surprise, the Army
attendant filled our tanks. This was Seventh Army territory. In Third
Army area the maximum was five gallons. I mentioned this to the
attendant. He said, “There’s no gas shortage here. General Patton
must be building up one hell of a big stockpile.”
We spent the night in Stuttgart. As the main transient hotel was
full, we were assigned rooms at a small inn on the outskirts of the
battered city. It took us an hour to find the place, so it was past
midnight when we turned in.
The next morning we detoured a few kilometers in order to visit the
castle at Ludwigsburg. The little town was laid out in the French
manner, and its atmosphere was that of a miniature Versailles. The
caretaker told us that the kings of Württemberg had lived at the
castle until 1918. Our visit to it was the one pleasant experience of
the day, which happened to be my birthday. We had our first flat tire
in the castle courtyard, a second one an hour later, and a third
between Mannheim and Darmstadt. It was Sunday and we had a
devilish time finding places where we could get the inner tubes
repaired. It was ten p.m. when we pulled into Frankfurt. The trip from
Stuttgart had taken eleven hours instead of the usual four. We had
spent seven hours on tire repairs.
My old room with the pink brocaded furniture was vacant, so I
moved in for the night. In my absence it had been successively
occupied by three lieutenant colonels. All of my belongings had been
boxed and stored away in the closet. Lamont and Steve put up at the
house next door.
We called on Bancel La Farge and Charlie Kuhn at USFET
Headquarters the next morning. We were lucky to find them together.
Their office at that time was a kind of house divided against itself.
Thanks to the organizational whim of a colonel, Bancel and Charlie
had to spend part of the day in the office at the big Farben building—
where we found them—and part at their office in Höchst. Höchst was
about six miles away. The remnant of the U. S. Group Control
Council, which had not yet moved up to Berlin, was located there—in
another vast complex of I. G. Farben buildings. It was an exhausting
arrangement.
Bancel and Charlie looked tired—and worried too. They seemed
glad to see us, but they were preoccupied and upset about
something. Presently Charlie showed us a document which had just
reached his desk a few days earlier. It was unsigned and undated.
It bore the letterhead “Headquarters U. S. Group Control Council.”
The subject was “Art Objects in the U. S. Zone.”[2] In the first
paragraph reference was made to the great number and value of the
art objects stored in emergency repositories throughout the U. S.
Zone. Farther on, the art objects were divided into three classes,
according to ownership.
Those in “Class C” were defined as “works of art, placed in the U.
S. Zone by Germany for safekeeping, which are the bona fide
property of the German nation.”
Concerning the disposition of the works of art thus described, the
letter had this to say: “It is not believed that the U. S. would desire
the works of art in Class C to be made available for reparations and
to be divided among a number of nations. Even if this is to be done,
these works of art might well be returned to the U. S. to be
inventoried, and cared for by our leading museums.”
The next, and last, sentence contained this extraordinary proposal:
“They could be held in trusteeship for return, many years from now,
to the German people if and when the German nation had earned
the right to their return.”
Clipped to the document was a notation, dated July 29, 1945,
bearing the signature of the Chief of Staff of General Lucius D. Clay,
Deputy Military Governor. It read, in part, “General Clay states that
this paper has been approved by the President for implementation
after the close of the current Big 3 Conference.”
We were dumfounded. No wonder Bancel and Charlie were
worried. It had never occurred to any of us that German national art
treasures would be removed to the United States. After speculating
on the possible consequences attendant on an implementation of the
document, we dropped the subject. Momentarily there was nothing
to do but wait—and hope that the whole matter would be dropped.
By comparison, our personal problems seemed insignificant. But
Charlie and Bancel heard us out. They approved our idea of
remaining together as a team working out of USFET. I was already
permanently assigned to USFET and there were two vacancies on
their T.O. (Table of Organization) to which Lamont and Steve could
be appointed. The necessary “paper work” took up most of the day
and involved a trip to ECAD headquarters at Bad Homburg. At five
o’clock we had our new orders.
Steve suggested that we drive up to Marburg to see Captain
Hancock, the Monuments officer in charge of the two great art
repositories which had been established there. They were the
prototype of the Central Collecting Point at Munich. However, they
differed in an important respect from the one at Munich: they
contained practically no loot. Virtually everything in them belonged to
German museums and had been recovered by our Monuments
officers from the mines in which the Germans had placed them for
safekeeping during the war.
Marburg, some fifty miles north of Frankfurt, lay in the
Regierungsbezirk, or government district, of Kassel, which was in
turn a subdivision of the Province of Hesse. It was a two-hour drive,
but we stopped en route for supper with a Quartermaster outfit at
Giessen, so it was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived.
We found Walker Hancock in his office in the Staatsarchiv
building. He was a man in the middle forties, and of medium height.
His face broke into a smile and his fine dark eyes lighted up with an
expression of genuine pleasure at the sight of Lamont and Steve.
This was the first time they had seen one another since the close of
the war when they had been working together in Weimar. I had never
met Walker Hancock, but I had heard more about him than about
any other American Monuments officer. I knew that he had had a
distinguished career as a sculptor before the war and that he had
been the first of our Monuments officers to reach France. He had
been attached to the First Army until the end of hostilities. Lamont
was devoted to Walker, and Steve’s regard for him bordered on
worship. While the three of them reminisced, I found myself
responding to his warmth and sincerity.
He wouldn’t hear of our returning to Frankfurt that night. He
wanted to show us the things in his two depots and we wouldn’t be
able to see more than a fraction of them before morning. The few
that we did see whetted our appetite for more. In the galleries on the
second floor we saw some of the finest pictures from the museums
of the Rhineland: there were three wonderful Van Goghs. One was
the portrait of Armand Rollin, the young man with a mustache and
slouch hat. It belonged to the Volkwang Museum at Essen. Color
reproductions of this portrait had, in recent years, rivaled those of
Whistler’s Mother in popularity. Walker said that it had been covered
with mold when he found it in the Siegen mine with the rest of the
Essen pictures. His assistant, Sheldon Keck, formerly the restorer of
the Brooklyn Museum, had successfully removed the mold before it
had done any serious damage.
The second Van Gogh was the famous large still life entitled White
Roses. The third was a brilliant late landscape. There were other
magnificent nineteenth century canvases: the bewitching portrait of
M. and Mme. Sisley by Renoir, a full-length Manet, and a great
Daumier. Walker climaxed the display with the celebrated Rembrandt
Self-Portrait from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum of Cologne. This was
the last and most famous of the portraits the artist painted of himself.
We spent the night at the Gasthaus Sonne, a seventeenth century
inn facing the old market place. The proprietor reluctantly assigned
us two rooms on the second floor. They were normally reserved for
the top brass. Judging from the austerity of the furnishings and the
simplicity of the plumbing, I thought it unlikely that we would be
routed from our beds by any late-arriving generals.
 Walker met us for breakfast the next morning with word that the
war with Japan had ended. Announcements in German had already
been posted in several of the shop windows. Though thrilling to us,
the news seemed to make very little impression on the citizens of the
sleepy university town. The people in the streets were as unsmiling
as ever. If anything, some of them looked a little grimmer than usual.
We drove to the Staatsarchiv building with Walker. He took us to a
room containing a fabulous collection of medieval art objects. There
were crosses and croziers, coffers and chalices, wrought in precious
metals and studded with jewels—masterpieces of the tenth, eleventh
and twelfth centuries. The most arresting individual piece was the
golden Madonna, an archaic seated figure two feet high, dating from
the tenth century. These marvelous relics of the Middle Ages
belonged to the Cathedral of Metz. It was one of the greatest
collections of its kind in the entire world. Its intrinsic value was
enormous; its historic value incalculable. Walker said that
arrangements were being made for its early return to the cathedral.
The French were planning an elaborate ceremony in honor of the
event.
It was a five-minute drive to the other depot under Captain
Hancock’s direction. This was the Jubiläumsbau, or Jubilee Building,
a handsome structure of pre-Nazi, modern design. It was the
headquarters of the archaeological institute headed by Professor
Richard Hamann, the internationally famous medieval scholar. It also
housed the archives of “Photo Marburg,” the stupendous library of
art photographs founded and directed by the professor. Walker was
putting the resources of Photo Marburg to good use, compiling a
complete photographic record of the objects in his care.
Among the treasures stored in the Jubiläumsbau were some of the
choicest masterpieces from the Berlin state museums. Perhaps the
most famous were the twin canvases by Watteau entitled Gersaint’s
Signboard. Regarded by many as the supreme work of the greatest
painter of the French Rococo period, the two pictures had been the
prized possessions of Frederick the Great. Painted to hang side by
side forming a continuous composition, they represented the shop of
M. Gersaint, dealer in works of art. It is said that the paintings were
finished in eight days. They were painted in the year 1732 when the
artist was at the height of his career. I was told that, during the early
years of the war, Göring made overtures to the Louvre for one of its
finest Watteaus. According to the story, the negotiations ended
abruptly when the museum signified its willingness to part with the
painting in exchange for Gersaint’s Signboard.
The brilliant French school of the eighteenth century was further
represented at the Jubiläumsbau by a superb Boucher—the subject,
Mercury and Venus—and two exquisite Chardins: The Cook, one of
his most enchanting scenes of everyday life, and the Portrait of a
Lady Sealing a Letter, an unusually large composition for this
unpretentious painter whose canvases are today worth a king’s
ransom.
There were masterpieces of the German school; the great series
of Cranachs which had belonged to the Hohenzollerns filled one
entire room. Excellent examples of Rubens and Van Dyck
represented the Flemish school; Ruysdael and Van Goyen, the
Dutch. The high quality of every picture attested to the taste and
connoisseurship of German collectors.
Walker said that he hoped to arrange a public exhibition of the
pictures. Marburg had been neglected by our bombers. Only one or
two bombs had fallen in the city and the resulting damage had been
slight. Concussion had blasted the windows of the Staatsarchiv, but
the Jubiläumsbau was untouched. Perhaps he would put on a series
of small exhibitions, say fifty pictures at a time. The members of his
local German committee were enthusiastic about the project. It
would be an important first step in the rehabilitation of German
cultural institutions which was an avowed part of the American Fine
Arts program. Thanks to the hesitancy of an officer at higher
headquarters who was exasperatingly “security-conscious,” Walker
did not realize his ambition until three months later, on the eve of his
departure for the United States.
We celebrated VJ-Day on our return to Frankfurt that evening. The
big Casino, behind USFET headquarters, was the scene of the
principal festivities. Drinks were on the house until the bar closed at
ten. It was a warm summer night and the broad terrace over the
main entrance was crowded. An Army band blared noisily inside.
Civilian attendants skulked in the background, avidly collecting
cigarette butts from the ash trays and the terrace floor. They reaped
a rich harvest that night.
The Mercedes-Benz presented a problem. Its status was a
dubious one. Since it was still registered with an MG Detachment in
Austria, I felt uncomfortable about driving it around Germany. At
Charlie Kuhn’s suggestion we filed a request with the Naval
headquarters in Frankfurt for assignment of the vehicle to our
Special Evacuation Team. The request was couched in impressive
legal language which Charlie thought would do the trick. Armed with
a copy of this request, I felt confident that we would not be molested
by inquisitive MPs on our trip back to Munich.
We didn’t get started until late afternoon, having wasted two hours
dickering with the Transportation Officer at the Frankfurt MG
Detachment for a spare tire. We returned by way of Würzburg and
Nürnberg. It was dark when we reached Nürnberg, but the light of
the full moon was sufficient to reveal the ruined walls and towers of
the old, inner city. As we struck south of the city to the Autobahn, we
could see the outlines of the vast unfinished stadium, designed to
seat one hundred and forty thousand people. We had to proceed
cautiously since many of the bridges had been destroyed and
detours were frequent. As a result it was midnight when we reached
Munich. The transient hotel was full, so we had to be content with
makeshift quarters at the Central Collecting Point.
In our absence the transportation situation had eased up a little.
Captain Posey told us the next morning that six trucks would be
available in the early afternoon. We decided to keep the command
car for the trip to Neuschwanstein and leave the Mercedes-Benz in
Munich to be painted. In anticipation of registration papers from the
Navy, we thought it would be appropriate to have the car painted
battleship gray and stenciled with white letters reading “U. S. Navy.”
One of the mechanics in the garage at the Central Collecting Point
agreed to do this for us in exchange for a bottle of rum and half a
bottle of Scotch. Officers at Third Army Headquarters had bar
privileges plus a liquor ration, but the enlisted men didn’t fare so well.
Our base of operations for the evacuation of the Castle of
Neuschwanstein was the picturesque little town of Füssen, some
eighty miles south of Munich, in the heart of the “Swan country.” This
region of southern Bavaria, celebrated for its association with the
name of Richard Wagner, is one of the most beautiful in all Germany.
The mountains rise sharply from the floor of the level green valley.
The turreted castle, perched on top of one of the lower peaks, at an
elevation of a thousand feet, is visible for miles. Built in the eighteen-
seventies by Ludwig II, the “Mad King” of Bavaria, it was the most
fantastic creation of that exotic monarch whose passion for building
nearly bankrupted his kingdom. When we saw the castle rising
majestically from its pine-covered mountaintop, we were struck by
the incongruity of our six-truck convoy lumbering through the
romantic countryside.
We presented our credentials to a swarthy major who was the
commanding officer of the small MG Detachment at Füssen. He
arranged for our billets at the Alte Post, the hotel where officers of
the Detachment were quartered, and, after we had deposited our
gear in a room on the fourth floor, conducted us to the Schloss.
The steep road to the lower courtyard of the castle wound for more
than a mile up the side of the mountain. At the castle entrance, the
major identified us to the guard and our six trucks filed into the
courtyard. In the upper courtyard, reached by a broad flight of stone
steps, we found the caretaker who had the keys to the main section
of the castle. He did not, however, have access to the wing in which
the records of the Einsatzstab Rosenberg were stored. The only
door to that part of the building had been locked and sealed by
Lieutenant James Rorimer, the Monuments officer of the Seventh
Army, when the castle had first fallen into American hands. We had
brought the key with us from Third Army Headquarters.
Before examining those rooms, we made a tour of the four main
floors of the castle. The hallways and vaulted kitchens on the first
floor were filled to overflowing with enormous packing cases and
uncrated furniture, all taken from French collections. Three smaller
storage rooms resembling the stock rooms of Tiffany’s and a
porcelain factory combined, were jammed with gold and silver and
rare china. Most of the loot had been concentrated on the first floor,
but the unfinished rooms of the second had been fitted with racks for
the storage of paintings. In addition to the looted pictures, there were
several galleries of stacked paintings from the museums of Munich.
The living apartments on the third floor, divested of their furnishings,
were filled with stolen furniture, Louis Quinze chairs, table and sofas
and ornate Italian cabinets lined the walls of rooms and corridors.
They contrasted strangely with scenes from the Wagner operas
which King Ludwig had chosen as the theme for the mural
decorations. Only the gold-walled Throne Room and, on the floor
above, the lofty Fest-Saal, were devoid of loot.
We proceeded to the wing of the castle which contained the
records. Having broken the seals and unlocked the door, we entered
a hallway about thirty feet long. The doors opening onto this hallway
were also locked and sealed. Behind them lay the offices of the
Einsatzstab Rosenberg. They were crowded with bookshelves and
filing cabinets. In one room stood a huge show-case filled with fragile
Roman glass. The rooms of the second floor were full of French
furniture and dozens of small packing cases. These cases were
made of carefully finished quarter-sawed oak. We had seen similar
ones in the Göring collection. They had been the traveling cases for
precious objects belonging to the Rothschilds. These too contained
Rothschild treasures—exquisite bibelots of jade, agate, onyx and
jasper, and innumerable pieces of Oriental and European porcelain.
At one end of the hallway were two rooms which had been used
as a photographic laboratory. We had brought Kress with us. Steve
went off to make arrangements to install his equipment, while
Lamont and I calculated the number of men we would need for the
evacuation work the next morning. We asked the major for twenty—
two shifts of ten.
The Neuschwanstein operation lasted eight days. We worked
nights as well, because there were thousands of small objects—
many of them fragile and extremely valuable—which we could not
trust to the inexpert hands of our work party. There was no electricity
in the small storage rooms, so we had to work by candlelight. It took
us one evening to pack the Roman glass and the four succeeding
evenings, working till midnight, to pack the two thousand pieces of
gold and silver in the David-Weill collection. The Nazi looters had
thoughtfully saved the well-made cases in which they had carted off
this magnificent collection from M. David-Weill’s house in Paris.
There were candelabra, dishes, knives, forks, spoons, snuffboxes—
the rarest examples of the art of the French goldsmiths of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This unique collection had
created a sensation when it was exhibited in Paris a few years
before the war. The fact that the incomparable assemblage would
probably one day be left to the Louvre by the eminent connoisseur,
who had spent a lifetime collecting it, had not deterred the Nazi
robbers. He was a Jew. That justified its confiscation. Aside from the
pleasure it gave me to handle the beautiful objects, I relished the
idea of helping to recover the property of a fellow Californian: M.
David-Weill had been born in San Francisco. The Nazis had been
methodical as usual. Every piece was to have been systematically
recatalogued while the collection was at Neuschwanstein. On some
of the shelves we found slips of paper stating that this or that object
had not yet been photographed—“noch nicht fotografiert.”
The tedious manual labor involved in packing small objects and
the great distance which the packed cases had to be carried when
ready for loading were the chief difficulties at Neuschwanstein. Not
only did the cases have to be carried several hundred feet from the
storage rooms to the door of the castle; but from the door to the
trucks was a long trek, down two flights of steps and across a wide
courtyard. In this respect the operation resembled the evacuation of
the monastery at Hohenfurth.
Three months after our partial evacuation of the castle, a team
composed of Captain Edward Adams, Lieutenant (jg) Charles
Parkhurst, USNR, and Captain Hubert de Brye, a French officer,
completed the removal of the loot. This gigantic undertaking required
eight weeks. If I remember the figures correctly, more than twelve
thousand objects were boxed and carted away. The cases were built
in a carpenter shop set up in the castle kitchens. One hundred and
fifty truckloads were delivered to the railroad siding at Füssen and
thence transported to Paris. It was an extraordinary achievement,
carried out despite heavy snowfall. The only operation which rivaled
it was the evacuation of the salt mine at Alt Aussee.
The last morning of our stay at Füssen, Lamont and I had a
special mission to perform. A German art dealer named Gustav
Rochlitz was living at Gipsmühle, a five-minute drive from
Hohenschwangau, the small village below the castle. For a number
of years Rochlitz had had a gallery in Paris. His dealings with the
Nazis, in particular his trafficking in confiscated pictures, had been
the subject of special investigation by Lieutenants Plaut and
Rousseau, our OSS friends. They were the two American naval
officers who were preparing an exhaustive report on the activities of
the infamous Einsatzstab Rosenberg. They had interrogated Rochlitz
and placed him under house arrest. In his possession were twenty-
two modern French paintings, including works by Dérain, Matisse
and Picasso, formerly belonging to well known Jewish collections.
He had obtained them from Göring and other leading Nazis in
exchange for old master paintings. We were to relieve Herr Rochlitz
of these canvases.
At the farmhouse in which Rochlitz and his wife were living, the
maid of all work who answered our knock said that no one was at
home. Herr Rochlitz would not be back before noon. Lamont and I
returned to our jeep and started back across the fields to the
highway. We had driven about a hundred yards when we saw a
heavy-set sullen-faced man of about fifty walking toward us.
“I’ll bet that’s Rochlitz,” I said to Lamont. Stopping the car, I called
out to him, “Herr Rochlitz?”
After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.
“Hop in, we want to have a talk with you,” I said.
We returned to the farmhouse and followed our truculent host up
the stairs to a sitting room on the second floor. There we were joined
by his wife, a timid young woman who, like her husband, spoke
fluent English.
I said that we had come for the pictures. Rochlitz made no protest.
He brusquely directed his wife to bring them in. As she left the room,
I thought it odd that he hadn’t gone along to help her. But she
returned almost immediately with the paintings in her arms. All
twenty-two were rolled around a long mailing tube. Together they
spread the canvases about the room, on the table, on the chairs and
on the floor. They were, without exception, works of excellent quality.
One large early Picasso, the portrait of a woman and child, was
alone worth a small fortune.
I was wondering what Rochlitz had given in exchange for the lot,
when he began to explain how the pictures had come into his
possession. He must have taken us for credulous fools, because the
story he told made him out a victim of tragic circumstance. He said
that Göring had made an offer on several of his pictures. Rochlitz
had accepted but insisted on being paid in cash. Göring had agreed
to the terms and the pictures were delivered. Then, instead of paying
in cash, Göring had forced him to accept these modern paintings. He
had protested, but to no avail. Of course these pictures were all right
in their way, he said deprecatingly, but he was not a dealer in
modern art. Naturally he did not know that they had been
confiscated. It was all a dreadful mistake, but what could he do? I
said that I realized how badly he must have felt and that I knew he
would be relieved to learn that the pictures were now going back to
their rightful owners.
The pictures were carefully rerolled and we got up to leave. At the
door, Rochlitz told us that he had lost his entire stock. He had stored
all of his paintings at Baden-Baden, in the French Zone. Did we think
he would be able to recover them? We assured him that justice
would be done and, leaving him to interpret that remark as he saw
fit, drove off with the twenty-two pictures.
 (9)
HIDDEN TREASURES AT NÜRNBERG

On our return to Munich that evening, Craig told us that preparations were being made
for the immediate restitution of several important masterpieces recovered in the American
Zone. General Eisenhower had approved a proposal to return at once to each of the
countries overrun by the Germans at least one outstanding work of art. This was to be
done in his name, as a gesture of “token restitution” symbolizing American policy with
regard to ultimate restitution of all stolen art treasures to the rightful owner nations. It was
felt that the gracious gesture on the part of the Commanding General of United States
Forces in Europe would serve to reaffirm our intentions to right the wrongs of Nazi
oppression. In view of the vast amount of art which had thus far been recovered, it would
be months before it could all be restored to the plundered countries. Meanwhile these
“token restitutions” would be an earnest of American good will. They would be sent back
from Germany at the expense of the United States Government. Thereafter,
representatives of the various countries would be invited to come to our Collecting Points
to select, assemble and, in transportation of their own providing, remove those objects
which the Germans had stolen.
Belgium was to receive the first token restitution. The great van Eyck altarpiece—The
Adoration of the Mystic Lamb—was the obvious choice among the stolen Belgian
treasures.
The famous panels had been reposing in the Central Collecting Point at Munich since
we had removed them from the salt mine at Alt Aussee. A special plane had been
chartered to fly them to Brussels. The Belgian Government had signified approval of air
transportation. Direct rail communication between Munich and Brussels had not been
resumed, and the highways were not in the best of condition. By truck, it would be a
rough two-day trip; by air, a matter of three hours.
Bancel La Farge had already flown from Frankfurt to Brussels, where plans had been
made for an appropriate ceremony on the arrival of the altarpiece. The American
Ambassador was to present the panels to the Prince Regent on behalf of General
Eisenhower. It was to be an historic occasion.
I went out to the airport to confirm the arrangements for the C-54. It was only a fifteen-
minute drive from the Königsplatz to the field. I was also to check on the condition of the
streets: they were in good shape all the way.
The plane was to take off at noon. Lamont, Steve and I supervised the loading of the
ten precious cases. We led off in a jeep. The truck followed with the panels. Four of the
civilian packers went along to load the cases onto the plane. Captain Posey was to escort
the altarpiece to Brussels.
When we got to the airport we learned that the plane had not arrived. There would be a
two-hour delay. At the end of two hours, we were informed that there was bad weather
south of Brussels. All flights had been canceled for the day. We drove back to the
Collecting Point at the Königsplatz and had just finished unloading the panels when a
message came from the field. The weather had cleared. The plane would be taking off in
half an hour. I caught Captain Posey as he was leaving the building for his office at Third
Army Headquarters. The cases were reloaded and we were on our way to the field in
fifteen minutes.
The truck was driven onto the field where the big C-54 stood waiting. In another quarter
of an hour the panels were aboard and lashed securely to metal supports in the forepart
of the passenger compartment. Captain Posey, the only passenger, waved jauntily as the
doors swung shut. Enviously we watched the giant plane roll down the field, lift
waveringly from the airstrip and swing off to the northwest. The altarpiece was on the last
lap of an extraordinary journey. We wished George Stout could have been in on this.
The plane reached Brussels without mishap. The return of the great national treasure
was celebrated throughout the country. Encouraged by the success of this first “token
restitution,” Major La Farge directed that a similar gesture be made to France. At the
Collecting Point Craig selected seventy-one masterpieces looted from French private
collections. The group included Fragonard, Chardin, Lancret, Rubens, Van Dyck, Hals,
and a large number of seventeenth century Dutch masters. Only examples of the highest
quality were chosen.
Ham Coulter, the naval officer who worked with Craig at the “Bau,” was the emissary
appointed to accompany the paintings to Paris. It was decided to return them by truck,
inasmuch as it would have been impracticable to attempt shipping uncrated pictures by
air. The convoy consisted of two trucks—one for the pictures, the other for extra gasoline.
It was a hard two-day trip from Munich to Paris. Ham got through safely, but reported on
his return that the roads had been extremely rough a good part of the way. He had
delivered the pictures in Paris to the Musée du Jeu de Paume, the little museum which
the Germans had used during the Occupation as the clearinghouse for their methodical
plundering of the Jewish collections. His expedition had been marred by only one minor
incident. When the paintings were being unloaded at the museum, one of the women
attendants watching the operation noticed that some of the canvases were unframed.
She had asked, “And where are the frames?” This was too much for Coulter. In perfect
French, the courteous lieutenant told her precisely what she could do about the frames.
Shortly after the return of the Ghent altarpiece, Captain Posey was demobilized. His
duties as MFA&A Officer at Third Army Headquarters in Munich were assumed by
Captain Edwin Rae. I had not seen Rae since the early summer when he and Lieutenant
Edith Standen had been assigned to assist me in inventorying the collections of the Berlin
museums in the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt. Edwin was a meticulous fellow,
gentle but determined. Although by no means lacking in a sense of humor, he resented
joking references to a fancied resemblance to Houdon’s well known portrait of Voltaire,
and I didn’t blame him.
He took on his new responsibilities with quiet assurance and in a short time won the
complete confidence of his superiors at Third Army Headquarters. Throughout his long
tenure of office, he maintained an unruffled calm in the face of obstacles which would
have exhausted a less patient man. He was responsible for all matters pertaining to the
Fine Arts in the Eastern Military District of the American Zone—that is, Bavaria—an area
more than twice the size of the two provinces Greater Hesse and Württemberg-Baden
comprising the Western Military District of our Zone.
 During the early days of Captain Rae’s regime, Charlie Kuhn paid a brief visit to
Munich. He had just completed the transfer of the Berlin Museum collections from
Frankfurt to the Landesmuseum at Wiesbaden. The university buildings in Frankfurt—
which I had requisitioned for a Collecting Point—had proved unsuitable. The repairs, he
said, would have taken months. On the other hand, the Wiesbaden Museum, though
damaged, was ideal for the purpose. Of course there hadn’t been a glass left in any of the
windows, and the roof had had to be repaired. But thanks to the energy and ingenuity of
Walter Farmer, the building had been rehabilitated in two months. Captain Farmer was
the director of the new Collecting Point. When I asked where Farmer had got the glass,
Charlie was evasive. All he would say was that Captain Farmer was “wise in the ways of
the Army.”
Charlie was headed for Vienna to confer with Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Dewald, Chief
of the MFA&A Section at USFA Headquarters (United States Forces, Austria). Colonel
Dewald wanted to complete the evacuation of the mine at Alt Aussee, which was now
under his jurisdiction. For this project he hoped to obtain the services of the officers who
had worked there when the mine had been Third Army’s responsibility. Captain Rae was
reluctant to lend the Special Evacuation Team, because there was still so much work to
be done in Bavaria. But he agreed, provided that Charlie could sell the idea to the Chief
of Staff at Third Army. This Charlie succeeded in doing, and departed for Vienna a day
later. Steve was crazy to see Vienna—I think his parents had been born there—so
Charlie took him along.
After they had left, Captain Rae requested Lamont and me to make an inspection trip
to northern Bavaria. Our first stop was Bamberg. There we examined the Neue Residenz,
which Rae contemplated establishing as an auxiliary Collecting Point to house the
contents of various repositories in Upper Franconia. Reports reaching his office indicated
that storage conditions in that area were unsatisfactory. Either the repositories were not
weatherproof, or they were not being adequately guarded.
It was also rumored that UNRRA was planning to fill the Neue Residenz with DPs—
Displaced Persons. Captain Rae was determined to put a stop to that, because the
building, a fine example of late seventeenth century architecture, was on the SHAEF List
of Protected Monuments. This fact should have guaranteed its immunity from such a
hazard. Even during combat, the SHAEF list had been a great protection to monuments
of historic and artistic importance. Now that no “doctrine of military necessity” could be
invoked to justify improper use of the building, Rae did not propose to countenance its
occupancy by DPs.
The Neue Residenz contained dozens of empty, brocaded rooms—but no plumbing.
We decided that it would do for a Collecting Point and agreed with Rae that the DPs
should be housed elsewhere if possible. The officer from the local MG Detachment, who
was showing us around, confirmed the report that UNRRA intended to move in. He didn’t
think they would relinquish the building without a protest. The influx of refugees from the
Russian Zone had doubled the town’s normal population of sixty thousand.
It was a disappointment to find that the superb sculpture in the cathedral across the
square was still bricked up. The shelters had proved a needless precaution, for Bamberg
had not been bombed. Only the bridge over the Regnitz had been blown up, and the
Germans had done that themselves.
 From Bamberg we drove north to Coburg, where we had a twofold mission. First we
were to obtain specific information about ten cases which contained a collection of art
objects belonging to a prince of Hesse. The cases were said to be stored in Feste
Coburg, the walled castle above the town. If they were the property of Philip of Hesse,
then they would probably be taken into custody by the American authorities. We had
been told that he was in prison. His art dealings during the past few years were being
reviewed by the OSS officers charged with the special investigation of Nazi art-looting
activities. Philip was the son of the Landgräfin of Hesse. It was in the flower-filled
Waffenraum of her castle near Frankfurt that I had seen the family tombs months before.
If, on the other hand, the cases belonged to a different prince of Hesse—one whose
political record was clean—and storage conditions were satisfactory, we would simply
leave them where they were for the time being.
Our second objective was Schloss Tambach, a few kilometers from Coburg. Paintings
stolen by Frank, the Nazi Governor of Poland, from the palace at Warsaw were stored
there. Schloss Tambach also contained pictures from the Stettin Museum. Stettin was
now in the Russian Zone of Occupied Germany.
On our arrival in Coburg, Lamont and I drove to the headquarters of the local MG
Detachment, which were located in the Palais Edinburgh. This unpretentious building was
once the residence of Queen Victoria’s son, the Duke of Edinburgh. There we arranged
with Lieutenant Milton A. Pelz, the Monuments officer of the Coburg Detachment, to
inspect the storage rooms at the castle.
Pelz was a big fellow who spoke German fluently. He welcomed us hospitably and took
us up to the castle where we met Dr. Grundmann, who had the keys to the storage
rooms. This silent, sour-faced German was curator of the Prince’s collections. He said
that his employer was Prince Ludwig of Hesse, a cousin of Philip. The cases contained
paintings and objets d’art which had been in the possession of the family for years.
Grundmann had personally removed them from Ludwig’s estate in Silesia the day before
the Russians occupied the area.
Ludwig’s most important treasure was the world-famous painting by Holbein known as
the Madonna of Bürgermeister Meyer. Painted in 1526, it had hung for years in the
palace at Darmstadt. The Dresden Gallery owned a seventeenth century replica. Early in
the war, Prince Ludwig had sent the original to his Silesian castle for safekeeping.
Grundmann had brought it back to Bavaria along with the ten cases now at Coburg. From
Coburg he had taken the Holbein to Schloss Banz, a castle not far from Bamberg.
He said that the Prince was living at Wolfsgarten, a small country place near
Darmstadt. Ludwig was eager to regain possession of the painting. Did we think that
could be arranged? We told him he would have to obtain an authorization from Captain
Rae at Munich.
Schloss Tambach was a ten-minute drive from Coburg. This great country house, built
around three sides of a courtyard, belonged to the Countess of Ortenburg. She occupied
the center section. A detachment of troops was billeted in one wing. The other was filled
with the Stettin and Warsaw pictures. There were over two hundred from the Stettin
Museum. Nineteenth century German paintings predominated, but I noticed two fine Hals
portraits and a Van Gogh landscape among them.
 The civilian custodian, answerable to the MG authorities at Coburg, was Dr. Wilhelm
Eggebrecht. He had been curator of the Stettin Museum until thrown out by the Nazis
because his wife was one-quarter Jewish. He was a mousy little fellow with a bald head
and gold-rimmed spectacles. He asked apprehensively if we intended to send the
paintings back to Russian-held Stettin. We said that we had come only to check on the
physical security of the present storage place. So far as we knew, the paintings would
remain where they were for the present. This inconclusive piece of information seemed to
reassure him.
The paintings looted from Warsaw were the pièces de résistance of the treasures at
Schloss Tambach—especially the nine great canvases by Bellotto, the eighteenth century
Venetian master. Governor Frank had ruthlessly removed the pictures from their
stretchers and rolled them up for shipment. As a result of this rough handling, the paint
had flaked off in places, but the damage was not serious. When we examined the
pictures, they were spread out on the floor. They filled two rooms, forty feet square. Later
they were taken to the Munich Collecting Point and mounted on new stretchers, in
preparation for their return to Warsaw.
When we got back to Munich, Steve had returned from Vienna. He had news for us.
Charlie Kuhn had already left for Frankfurt. Colonel Dewald was coming to Munich in a
few days to talk to Colonel Roy Dalferes, Rae’s Chief of Staff at Third Army, about
reopening the Alt Aussee mine. Either Charlie or Bancel would come down from USFET
Headquarters when Dewald arrived. A new man had joined the MFA&A Section at USFA
—Andrew Ritchie, director of the Buffalo Museum. He had come over as a civilian. Steve
thought that Ritchie would be the USFA representative at Munich. There was a lot of stuff
at the Collecting Point which would eventually go back to Austria. It would have to be
checked with the records there. That would be Ritchie’s job. Steve told us also that
Lincoln Kirstein had gone home. His mother was seriously ill and Lincoln had left on
emergency orders.
The three of us went to Captain Rae’s office. Lamont and I had to make a report on our
trip to Coburg. Rae had a new assignment for us. He had just received orders from
USFET Headquarters to prepare the Cracow altarpiece for shipment. It was to be sent
back to Poland as a token restitution. This was the colossal carved altarpiece by Veit
Stoss which the Nazis had stolen from the Church of St. Mary at Cracow. Veit Stoss had
been commissioned by the King of Poland in 1477 to carve the great work. It had taken
him ten years. After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Nazis had carted it off, lock, stock
and barrel, to Nürnberg. They contended that, since Veit Stoss had been a native of
Nürnberg, it belonged in the city of his birth.
The missing altarpiece was the first of her looted treasures for which Poland had
registered a claim with the American authorities at the close of the war. After months of
diligent investigation, it was found by American officers in an underground bunker across
the street from the Albrecht Dürer house in Nürnberg. In addition to the dismantled
figures of the central panel—painted and gilded figures of hollow wood ten feet high—the
twelve ornate side panels, together with the statues and pinnacles surmounting the
framework, had been crowded into the bunker.
The same bunker contained another priceless looted treasure—the coronation regalia
of the Holy Roman Empire. Among these venerable objects were the jeweled crown of
the Emperor Conrad—commonly called the “Crown of Charlemagne”—dating from the
eleventh century, a shield, two swords and the orb. Since 1804 they had been preserved
in the Schatzkammer, the Imperial Treasure Room, at Vienna. In 1938, the Nazis
removed them to Nürnberg, basing their claim to possession on a fifteenth century decree
of the Emperor Sigismund that they were to be kept in that city.
On the eve of the German collapse, two high officials of the city had spirited away
these five pieces. The credit for recovering the treasures goes to an American officer of
German birth, Lieutenant Walter Horn, professor of art at the University of California. The
two officials at first disclaimed any knowledge of their whereabouts. After hours of
relentless grilling by Lieutenant Horn, the men finally admitted their guilt. They were
promptly tried, heavily fined and sent to prison. Three months later, at the request of the
Austrian Government, the imperial treasures were flown back to Vienna. This historic
shipment contained other relics which the Nazis had taken from the Schatzkammer—
relics of the greatest religious significance. They included an alleged fragment of the True
Cross, a section of the tablecloth said to have been used at the Last Supper, a lance
venerated as the one which had touched the wounds of Christ, and links from the chains
traditionally believed to have bound St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John.
On Captain Rae’s instructions, Steve and I went to Nürnberg to pack the Stoss
altarpiece. (At that time the coronation regalia was still in the bunker, where, on the
afternoon of our arrival, we had an opportunity to examine it.) We found that the heavy
framework which supported the altar panels was not stored in the bunker. Because of its
size—the upright pieces were thirty feet high—it had been taken to Schloss Wiesenthau,
an old castle outside Forchheim, thirty miles away.
Leaving Steve to start packing the smaller figures and pinnacles, I got hold of a
semitrailer, the only vehicle long enough to accommodate a load of such length. It was an
hour’s drive to the castle. With a crew of twenty PWs, I finished loading the framework in
two hours and returned to Nürnberg in time for supper.
That evening Steve and I figured out the number of trucks we would need for the
altarpiece. Lamont had remained in Munich to make tentative arrangements, pending
word from us. He was going to ask for ten trucks and we came to the conclusion that this
would be about the right number—in addition, of course, to the semitrailer for the
supporting framework. We got out our maps and studied our probable route to Cracow.
One road would take us through Dresden and Breslau; another by way of Pilsen and
Prague. Perhaps we could go one way and return the other. In either case we would have
to pass through Russian-occupied territory. It would probably take some time to obtain the
necessary clearances. We figured on taking enough gas for the round trip, since we
doubted if there would be any to spare in Poland. Altogether it promised to be a
complicated expedition, but already we had visions of a triumphal entry into Cracow.
Our ambitious plans collapsed the following morning. While Steve and I were at
breakfast, I was called to the telephone. The corporal in Captain Rae’s office was on the
wire. I was to return to Munich at once. Major La Farge was arriving from Frankfurt and
wanted to see me that night. Plans for the trip to Cracow were indefinitely postponed.
Internal conditions in Poland were too unsettled to risk returning the altarpiece.
Our plans had miscarried before, but this was our first major disappointment. We had
begun to look on the Polish venture as the fitting climax of our work as a Special
Evacuation Team. On the way back to Munich, Steve said he had a feeling that the team
was going to be split up.
Steve’s misgivings were prophetic. At Craig’s apartment after dinner, Bancel La Farge
outlined the plans he had for us. Colonel Dalferes had acceded to Colonel Dewald’s
request. Lamont, Steve and a third officer—new to MFA&A work—were to resume the
evacuation of the salt mine at Alt Aussee. If the snows held off, it would be possible to
carry on operations there for another month or six weeks.
I was to return to USFET Headquarters at Frankfurt as Deputy Chief of the MFA&A
Section, replacing Charlie Kuhn who had just received his orders to go home. I knew that
Charlie would soon be eligible for release from active duty, but had no idea that his
departure was so imminent.
We didn’t have much to say to one another on the way to our quarters that night. Steve
had already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to like the new man. Lamont said that
he thought it was going to be an awful anticlimax to reopen the mine. And for me, the
prospect of routine administrative work at USFET was uninviting. After three months of
strenuous and exciting field work, it wouldn’t be easy to settle down in an office. All three
of us felt that the great days were over.
During our last week together in Munich we had little time to feel sorry for ourselves.
Everyone was preoccupied with the restitution program. We had our full share of the
work. Another important shipment was to be made to Belgium. It was to include the
Michelangelo Madonna, the eleven paintings stolen from the church in Bruges when the
statue was taken, and the four panels by Dirk Bouts from the famous altarpiece in the
church of St. Pierre at Louvain. These panels, which formed the wings of the altarpiece,
had been removed by the Germans in August 1942. Before the first World War one wing
had been in the Berlin Gallery, the other in the Alte Pinakothek at Munich. As in the case
of the Ghent altarpiece, they had been restored—unjustly, according to the Germans—to
Belgium by the Versailles Treaty.
This shipment to Belgium represented the first practical application of the “come and
get it” theory of restitution, evolved by Major La Farge. Belgium had already received the
Ghent altarpiece as token restitution. Now it was up to the Belgians to carry on at their
own expense. The special representatives who came down from Brussels to supervise
this initial shipment were Dr. Paul Coremans, a great technical expert, and Lieutenant
Pierre Longuy of the Ministry of Fine Arts. They had their own truck but had been unable
to bring suitable packing materials. We had an ample supply of pads and blankets which
we had stored at the Collecting Point after our evacuation of the Göring collection. We
placed them at the disposal of the Belgians. But it was Saturday and no civilian packers
were available. Dr. Coremans gratefully accepted the offer of our services. Steve, Lamont
and I loaded the truck. It was the last operation of the Special Evacuation Team.
The Belgians had no sooner departed than the French and Dutch representatives
arrived. Captain Hubert de Brye for France looked more like a sportsman than a scholar;
but he was a man of wide cultivation and had a sense of humor which endeared him to
his associates in Munich. He and Ham Coulter were kindred spirits and became great
friends.
Ham, who had been responsible for the rehabilitation of both the Collecting Point and
the Führerbau, now had two assistants—Captain George Lacy and Dietrich Sattler, the
latter a German architect. Through this division of the work, Ham found time for new
duties: he took the foreign representatives in tow, arranged for their billets, their mess
cards, their PX rations and so on. It was an irritating but not a thankless job, for the
recipients of his attentions were devoted to their “wet nurse.”

The Albrecht Dürer house at Nürnberg—before and after the German collapse. In an underground bunker
across the street were stored the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire and the famous Veit Stoss
altarpiece.