Self's Murder Read Free

Samarin is one of the family. You see, he likes to drive, and he’s better at it than I am …” Welker saw my surprise. “No, he does like driving and is good at it, which is why he was at the wheel the other day when we met. But that’s not his job. His job is to see to all practical matters.” Welker looked over at Samarin as if to check whether he agreed.
    Samarin nodded slowly. He must have been in his early fifties. He had a large head, a receding hairline, and protruding light blue eyes. His colorless hair was cut short. He sat confidently, with his legs apart.
    Welker didn’t continue right away. At first I thought he might be weighing what he wanted to say, but then I wondered if there wasn’t a message in his silence. But what message? Or did he want to give me an opportunity to take everything in: the atmosphere, Gregor Samarin, himself? He had been particularly attentive and polite when he greeted me and walked me to his office. I could see him as a suave host, or at a diplomatic or academic affair. Was his silence a question of style, old-school good breeding? He struck me as a man of breeding: clear, sensitive, intelligent features; good posture; measured movements. At the same time he struck me as sad, and though a certain cheerfulness flitted over his face when he greeted me or smiled, a shadow would quickly darken it once more. It was not just a shadow of sadness. I noticed something sullen and sulking about his mouth, a disappointment, as if fate had cheated him out of some promised indulgence.
    “We’re about to celebrate our two-hundredth anniversary, a major event for which my father wants a history of our establishment. I’ve been working on it for some time, whenever I can get away from business, and as grandfather had done some research and left some notes, my task isn’t difficult, except in one matter.”
    He hesitated, brushed a few strands of hair from his forehead, leaned back, and glanced at Samarin, who was sitting motionless. “In 1873, the stock exchanges in both Vienna and Berlin collapsed. The depression lasted until 1880—long enough for the days of the private banker to become numbered. The era of the big stock banks and savings banks had begun, and some private bankers who survived the depression turned their enterprises into joint stock corporations. Others merged; others simply gave up. Our bank prevailed.”
    Again he hesitated. I no longer get irritated; in earlier days I would have. I hate it when people beat about the bush.
    “Our bank prevailed not only because my great grandfather and great-great-grandfather were good businessmen, and the old Wellers, were, too. Since the 1870s, we had had a silent partner, who by the time of the First World War had brought in around half a million. That might not sound like a lot to you, but let me tell you, it was a significant amount. The long and short of it is that I can’t write a history of our bank without also focusing on this silent partner. However”—this time he paused for dramatic effect—“I don’t know who this partner was. My father doesn’t know the partner’s name, my grandfather doesn’t mention him in his notes, and I haven’t found it in any of the documents.”
    “A very silent partner indeed.”
    He laughed, and for a moment had a youthful, rascally look about him. “I’d be grateful if you could make him speak.”
    “You want me to—”
    “I’d like you to find out who this silent partner was. His name, his birth and death dates, what he did for a living, who his family was. Did he have children? Is one of his great-grandsons going to come knocking at my door, asking for his share?”
    “Wasn’t this silent partnership terminated?”
    He shook his head. “After 1918, my grandfather’s notes don’t mention anything about it anymore. No mention of the partnership, nor of any more money being brought in, nor anything about settling accounts or buying anyone out. Somehow the partnership came