The Carlswick Conspiracy (The Carlswick Mysteries Book 3) by SL Beaumont

Author:SL Beaumont [Beaumont, SL]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Publisher: Paperback Writers Publishing
Published: 2016-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Hannah Goldstein’s first floor apartment on Henry Street was open and spacious with patterned wallpaper and polished floorboards covered with large colourful rugs. Matching two-seater sofas in light brown leather faced each other across the living area, with two fabric covered armchairs in similar tones at one end, facing an ornate fireplace.

“I have been waiting for someone to come,” Hannah explained. “Ever since I read in the winter that a trove of paintings was discovered in France, which they have been calling Hoffman’s Cache, I have known that it would only be a matter of time before someone tracked me down.”

“Is that why you changed your name?” Alex asked.

Hannah looked taken aback. “Oh no. I changed it many years ago when I married. I was Sarah when I was with Karl, it didn’t seem right that I was Sarah with another man.”

Stephanie caught Alex’s eye and gave him a smug look.

“Can you tell us your story, Mrs Goldstein?” she asked.

“Where to begin? Berlin, I suppose. Our father was a doctor, a specialist, very well known in his field. We lived in a large house in a nice part of the city. My mother was a patron of the arts—music, opera, painting. That was how Rebecca had met Samuel. Mother had purchased a painting from his family’s gallery and Samuel came to hang it. It was through Samuel that we met Karl Hoffman. Mother often held drinks parties in honour of various visiting musicians and artists and one evening Samuel bought Karl along.”

Hannah sighed, her eyes distant.

“It was 1936 and despite any relationship between us being illegal in the eyes of the Nazi Government, we fell in love. Karl was a good deal older than me. He was widowed. His wife had died in childbirth several years earlier. He was such a gentle, kind soul. It didn’t even occur to him that he should be concerned that I was Jewish, his only concern was the age gap. He feared that I would tire of him.

“By 1937, life was becoming more and more difficult in Germany for Jews. We’d all heard the stories, but we felt that we would be fine because of Father’s position at one of Berlin’s pre-eminent hospitals. However, non-Jewish patients were beginning to refuse to be treated by him and then a law was passed which forbade him from treating non-Jews. It was the beginning of the end, but we still thought it would pass and that the Government would see sense.

“Unbeknown to Rebecca and me, Samuel had begun making plans for us and their children to leave Germany. Since 1935 he had turned his gallery into one which specialised in only the Nazi-approved old Masters and had hidden away anything that the regime might consider unacceptable or ‘degenerate’, as Hitler called them.

“It was several of these pieces that bought us safe passage from Germany to the United States. Samuel knew a dealer called Hildebrand Gurlitt, who was quietly buying pieces from cash-strapped Jews at rock bottom prices and it was to him that he went cap in hand.

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