The Lost Key (A Brit in the FBI 2)

There was a wounded man in the closet. Was it Josef? Pearce was a soldier. He knew what death looked like, in all its forms.

Still, Pearce was careful. He raised his Webley, stood to the side, and slowly opened the closet door. A shot came from the darkness. Thank all that was holy, he’d moved to the side.

Then he heard the cries of a child, soft, broken sobs.

He called quietly, “Who’s there? Don’t shoot. I mean you no harm.”

The crying abruptly stopped.

Pearce edged forward, speaking softly, gently, telling the child he would not hurt him.

He finally risked a look inside, and the scene broke his heart.

Josef Rothschild’s broken body was inside the closet, in the arms of a very young boy. Josef’s gun lay on the floor by the boy’s hand.

—

PEARCE DID THE ONLY THING he could. He buried the men in the field behind the cottage, and took the boy home with him.

He knew the child’s name was Leopold. Josef had told him that night on the hill at Verdun, while they smoked and plotted the downfall of the kaiser.

It was good Josef had told him the boy’s name, for the child was deep in shock, the only witness to the murder of his father and five others, did not speak. He didn’t identify the assailants. He only stared mutely for several weeks after the incident.

News of Victoria never came. The gold, Marie’s key, and her book, were lost.

The war ended. Pearce and his wife, Cornelia, took Leo in as one of their own. He legally adopted the boy before the year was out. In a house populated by women, it was a comfort for Pearce to have a boy at last.

Leo was a quiet, studious child. He did well with his tutors, and though he still didn’t speak, he learned to read and understand English quickly, so that Pearce thought perhaps his mother, the kaiser’s private interpreter, had already started him on the language.

Pearce caught the boy watching Cornelia at times, when she was reading to the girls. His heart ached because the boy watched her with sad longing, but he never complained. A boy needed a father, yes, but he needed a mother even more.

Every so often, Pearce would sit down with Leo to speak to him of the night his father died. To find out who had come to the small cottage in the Cotswolds, who had dealt the deadly blow to the Order.

Leo began to speak, but never about that night.

A small time of peace was upon them. The gold, the key, and the notebook were lost, yes, but the threat had been silenced, and the Order began to rebuild.

Leo Pearce went from a shy boy to a handsome lad to a smart, educated, but very quiet man. In 1936, he met a young woman named Grace, who didn’t mind his silence. Within months, they were engaged to be married. In 1938, their first child came along, a boy they named Robert.

And in 1939, war came to them again. A war that clearly would outstrip the last one.

Soon after, Leopold Rothschild Pearce took tea with his adopted father. He carried a newspaper with him into the Carlton Club, sat down with his adopted father, pointed at a picture of a small dark-haired man, and said, “This is the man who killed my father.”

Astounded, Pearce took the newspaper, and saw a photograph of a man standing on a dock, the forty-point headline screaming—U-Boat Sinks America Freighter Ship. The caption named the U-boat commander as Ludwig Reimand.

Leo’s voice was soft and deep, his accent crisply British. “He was there. He was one of the three men.”

Pearce was dumbstruck, and what he said was “I’m very glad you’ve told me, Leo.”

Leo nodded. “I have been silent on this for too long. And you have been very kind to me.”

“You are my son. I love you. And you are my heir.”

This was said simply, and Leo swallowed back the emotion rising in him. Pearce smiled, and placed a comforting hand on Leo’s arm. “Tell me about this man. Who was with him?”

Leo handed Pearce a sheaf of papers. “These men.”

There were two more names—Dietmar Lusion and Wilfried Gobb.