It took me a long time to pluck up the courage to break the news of my decision to Ken. I hoped to be able to convince him that once he had more time on his hands it would be fun for him to join me in the hunt. I told myself it would give him something new to focus on, even though I knew in my heart that he had a deep reluctance about going back to anything that was to do with his past, including going to Germany itself. Like me he had been born in Germany and had had a difficult time escaping and getting his family to safety. I knew I was going to have to work hard to find a way of infecting him with my own enthusiasm for the project.
‘That diary that I told you about,’ I said, as casually as I could one day. ‘The one that belonged to my great, great grandmother and had that inscription from Prince August in the front.’
‘Yes,’ he said, blissfully unaware of what I was leading up to. ‘Of course I remember you talking about it. I have it in my cupboard.’
‘I’m going to do some research into it.’
‘Into what?’ Ken asked, more interested in reading his newspaper than in listening to whatever I was trying to tell him. ‘Your father said it was futile, didn’t he? That there was nothing else there to be found.’
‘I’ve made an appointment for us to meet with an expert from Burke’s Peerage,’ I confessed, hoping that if I said it fast enough he wouldn’t object. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘What will that achieve?’ he asked, finally giving up any hope of reading and lowering his paper in order to interrogate me more effectively.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘they might be able to confirm if it actually is the Prince’s handwriting in the inscription. And perhaps they could tell us a bit about his life and even something about Emilie. It seems worth a try.’
‘Very well,’ he said after a moment’s thought. ‘I just hope you won’t be disappointed, that’s all.’
I smiled to myself as he disappeared back behind the newspaper. I was sure if I could only find a way of catching his interest he would become as intrigued as I was. He just hadn’t had time to think about it yet. I had called Burke ’s Peerage in the first place because I knew they were the world’s greatest heraldic specialists and experts in the European aristocracy. They had been very helpful and given me the name of their heraldic expert, Jeffrey Finestone. Mustering all my courage, I had then called him.
‘I have a diary that once belonged to Prince August of Prussia,’ I said, expecting to have to work hard to convince such a distinguished expert to show an interest, ‘which he has inscribed in his own hand.’
‘Prince August?’ he said, the immediate excitement in his voice surprising me. ‘I would love to see that. Do please bring it to show me as soon as possible.’
We had made a date to meet in his flat, which was not far from us in Hampstead. When the day came we found he had also invited a colleague, David Williamson, to hear my story. Mr Williamson was a man who used to appear on television as an expert in heraldic matters and genealogy; his expertise and knowledge covered handwriting and Prussian history. He said he would be able to give a second opinion and verify whatever might be said or seen. Realising that I was not going to be easily put off from my quest, and probably hoping that the experts would dismiss my foolish fancies out of hand so that he would be able to resume the peaceful retirement he had been looking forward to, Ken agreed to accompany me to the meeting despite his misgivings.
As soon as we arrived at Mr Finestone’s elegant flat, he took the diary off me the moment we were through the door and sitting down. Turning it reverentially over in his hands he and his colleague squinted at it with barely disguised anticipation.
‘Forgive me for being cagey,’ he said, ‘but I have been disappointed so many times before. Would you excuse us for a moment? We just need to check on something.’
The two of them then disappeared into another room to study the book and confer in private, leaving Ken and me to wait in silence. When they came back in neither man could hide their glee.
‘This is quite sensational,’ Mr Finestone bubbled. ‘We have investigated the handwriting in the inscription. It is indeed his handwriting, and your book would have belonged to him, the Prince August of Prussia, a member of the ruling Hohenzollern family and a nephew of Frederick the Great, the famous King. We can be quite certain of that. He would have written the inscription, although the actual signature would have been done by someone else. That would have been added by another hand afterwards. Such measures were often taken in those days to disguise and hide the truth of matters. It is this obsession with secrecy and disguise that makes historians’ jobs all the harder, but in the end, of course, all the more fascinating. Do you know much about the Prince?’
‘I have tried to find out a bit,’ I said, but he wasn’t really listening, eager to show off his own knowledge of the subject.
‘He wasn’t just the youngest nephew of Frederick the Great, he is also the forgotten hero of the Napoleonic wars. He was an immense historical figure of his time, incredibly wealthy and a mighty warrior prince. It would be impossible to overstate how important and influential a man he was, and this is most definitely his handwriting. How on earth did you come to own such a rare gem?’
I explained the family connection and about how determined I had become to find out more about Emilie’s life despite my parents’ warnings that I would be wasting my time. They seemed to be amazed to find out about the liaison and an unofficial marriage. They didn’t seem to know anything about the Prince’s private life or about Emilie’s existence or the fact that they had a child together.
‘Well, Mrs Haas,’ he said when I had finished, ‘apart from Liechtenstein and the principality of Monaco, I can safely say that you are related to every royal family in Europe. Prince August, you see, was the great grandson of George I of England. You are also directly descended from Mary Queen of Scots and her son, James I.’
At that moment I froze. What a revelation this was, but I didn’t want to reveal any of my real feelings. Ken was standing right next to me, what was he thinking?
Then in his typical style Ken gave me a playful pinch. ‘I don’t remember it being in the marriage contract that I was marrying a princess,’ he piped up.
‘It’s Emilie I’m really interested in finding, Mr Finestone,’ I reminded him, ignoring Ken’s interruption. ‘And their daughter, Charlotte.’
‘Finding out anything about either of them will not be an easy task, Mrs Haas,’ he started gushing again, ‘not easy at all. At the end of August’s life, in the mid-nineteenth century, all evidence of his past completely disappeared in the most mysterious circumstances. And of course now we have the problem of so much of the archive being stored behind the Berlin Wall in the East. It seems incredible that a man who must have had every aspect of his life written about in so much detail should simply disappear from the records, but that is exactly what happened. The East Germans absolutely refuse to cooperate in opening up their files. Historians from all over the world have been trying to find out about him throughout the last hundred years, with no success whatsoever. It is as if there were nothing written about him at all, yet he was one of the greatest Prussians who ever lived. It’s quite possible the records have been destroyed but if there is anything still in existence no one has been able to find it.
‘You must go to West Berlin, Mrs Haas. I urge you to visit the archive in Dahlem and beg them for help. You really must try and find out what happened to your great, great grandfather and grandmother. You have an extremely rare piece of history in your possession here. For Prince August, a leading member of the royal Hohenzollern dynasty, to live for eleven years with the daughter of a Jewish tailor simply cannot be explained.’
‘It’s really just a family heirloom,’ Ken said when Mr Finestone eventually paused for breath. He was obviously not keen to see me being encouraged to go against my father’s wishes