A Child Lost (Henrietta and Inspector Howard #5) - Michelle Cox Page 0,1

before she forced herself to look up at him. He in turn was looking at her with such worried, sad eyes that she felt her stomach clench.

“Elsie, please. Do not look at me in such way. I can explain. I tried to explain to you in the greenhouse.” He paused. “Many times.”

Elsie wasn’t sure what to say to that. She looked back at the little girl, if only to avoid his eyes.

“This is Anna Klinkhammer,” he said, his eyes following Elsie’s, anticipating at least one of her silent questions.

The girl was thin—scrawny even—with very blue eyes and fine blonde hair that looked as though it hadn’t been brushed in quite some time, certainly not yet today, at any rate. She had on a plain, brown dress and held what looked like some sort of soft doll, though Elsie couldn’t see the face of it. Elsie guessed her to be no more than five. Her face was dirty, smeared at the corners of her mouth with what looked to be jam. At least she hoped it was jam. She glanced over at Gunther, who was still staring at Anna, almost as if he were trying to see her through Elsie’s eyes—for the first time, as it were.

“Ach. You have jam, Anna,” he said. He stood up and walked the few steps to a small sink.

As he did so, Elsie took the opportunity to quickly glance around. It was warm and dry in this little hut of a home, clearly intended for one person only. It consisted mainly of one large room, with a bed in one corner and a sink and a stove in the other. Above the sink, various dishes were carefully stacked on a shelf, under which hung a few mugs on hooks. Along the back wall was a chest of drawers, and in the middle of the room stood a table and chairs for two, where Elsie currently sat. Though terribly small, it was clean and cozy and just the sort of room that Elsie liked. In a way, it reminded her of the shabby apartment on Armitage, where they had lived before discovering they were actually part of the wealthy Exley family.

Gunther took up a rag from somewhere in the sink and brought it to where Anna sat. Awkwardly, he attempted to wipe her face despite her squirms. Elsie felt herself wanting to help, but she forced herself to remain seated and instead looked back into her coffee.

“She is not mine,” Gunther said quietly, as if reading Elsie’s thoughts. “I swear this.”

Elsie’s eyes darted back up at him.

He stood up tall, and Elsie felt her pulse quicken as he locked his gaze on her. She struggled to gauge the truth of his words, and pulled her eyes away to glance back at Anna, who seemed to have shrunk even smaller, if that were possible, at Gunther’s last words. Elsie bit her lip at the little girl’s distress.

Gunther followed Elsie’s gaze, and when he saw the tears welling in Anna’s eyes, his face contorted. “Ach!” he said and reached out and patted her head. His voice softened. “I did not mean that, Anna. Aber du bist mein Mädchen, genau so, nein? You are my girl. You will always be my girl, yes?”

The little girl merely gave a slow, methodical nod and put her ragged toy in front of her face. Suddenly, Elsie’s heart ached for her—how many times had she herself wanted to hide behind something in her grief and loneliness? She desperately wanted to go to the girl and scoop her into her lap, but she remained seated. Besides the impropriety of it, Elsie felt sure Anna would draw little comfort from a strange lady.

As if he were thinking the same thing, Gunther reached down and picked up the girl, who wrapped herself around him and rested her head on his shoulder, her eyes watery and a finger in her mouth. “Shhh,” he said in a low voice as he rubbed the girl’s back. He exhaled loudly, then, and steadied himself, as if wondering how to proceed.

“I do not know where to start,” he said with a heavy sigh, his voice low. “But I will try. My father was mathematics professor, as I told you, at University in Heidelberg. He was part of intelligenz of German society at this time. When the war broke out, he did not believe in this war, but he was anyway forced to fight in it. He was very patriotic, but he