For all the savage nature of the Lieutenant’s wounds, it was obvious the death had been quick. Svenson looked up at the Major. “I’m not sure what I can tell you that you cannot see yourself. Four punctures—the first, I would say, here: into the ribs from the victim’s left side, a stabbing across…it would have been painful, but not a mortal blow. The next three, within an inch of each other, driving under the ribs and into the lungs, perhaps even touching the heart—I cannot say without opening the chest. Heavy blows—you can see the force of impact around the wound, the indentation—a knife or dagger driven to the hilt, repeatedly, to kill.”
Blach nodded. Svenson waited for him to speak, but the Major remained silent. Svenson sighed and began to unroll and button his sleeves. “Do you wish to tell me how these injuries occurred?”
“I do not,” muttered the Major.
“Very well. Will you at least tell me if it had to do with the attack on the Prince?”
“What attack?”
“Prince Karl-Horst was burned about the face. It is entirely possible he was a willing participant, nevertheless, I consider it an attack.”
“This is when you escorted him home?”
“Exactly.”
“I assumed he was drunk.”
“He was drunk, though not, I believe, from alcohol. But what do you mean, you ‘assumed’?”
“You were observed, Doctor.”
“Indeed.”
“We observe many people.”
“But apparently not the Prince.”
“Was he not with reputable figures of his new acquaintance?”
“Yes, Major, he was. And—I’ll say this again if you did not understand it—in such company, indeed, at the behest of such company, he was scarred about the eyes.”
“So you have said, Doctor.”
“You may see for yourself.”
“I look forward to it.”
Svenson gathered his medical kit together. He looked up. Major Blach was still watching him. Svenson dropped his catling into the bag with an exasperated sigh. “How many men do you presently have under your command, Major?”
“Twenty men and two officers.”
“Now you have eighteen men and one officer. And I assure you that whoever did this—whatever man or gang of men—had nothing to do with observing me, for my business was entirely occupied with preventing an idiot from disgracing himself.”
Major Blach did not answer.
Doctor Svenson snapped his bag shut and scooped his coat from the chair. “I can only hope you observed the Envoy as well, Major—he was quite absent through all of this, and refuses to explain himself.” He turned on his heels and strode to the door where he turned and called back, “Will you be telling him about the bodies or shall I?”
“We are not finished, Doctor,” hissed Blach. He flipped the sheet back over his Lieutenant’s face and walked toward Svenson. “I believe we must visit the Prince.”
They walked up the stairs to the third floor, where they found Flaüss waiting with two guards. The Envoy and the Major exchanged meaningful looks, but Svenson had no idea what they meant—the men obviously hated each other, but could nevertheless be cooperating for any number of reasons. Flaüss sneered at Svenson and indicated the door.
“Doctor? I believe you have the key.”
“Have you tried knocking?” This was from Blach, and Svenson suppressed a smile.
“Of course I have tried,” answered Flaüss, unconvincingly, “but I am happy to try again.” He turned and banged savagely on the door with the heel of his fist, after a moment calling sweetly, “Your Highness? Prince Karl-Horst? It is Herr Flaüss, here with the Major and Doctor Svenson.”
They waited. Flaüss turned to Svenson and nearly spit, “Open it! I insist you open it at once!”
Svenson smiled affably and dug the key from his pocket. He handed it to Flaüss. “You may do it yourself, Herr Envoy.”
Flaüss snatched the key and shoved it into the lock. He turned the key and the handle, but the door would not open. He turned the handle again and shoved the door with his shoulder. He turned back to them. “It will not open—something is against it.”
Major Blach stepped forward and jostled Flaüss away, placing his hand over the handle and driving his weight against the door. It gave perhaps half an inch. Blach signaled to the two troopers and together all three pushed as one—the door lurched another inch or so, and then slowly ground open enough for them to see that the large bureau had been moved against the door. The three pushed again and the gap widened so a man could fit through. Blach immediately did so, followed by Flaüss, shoving his way past the troopers. With a resigned smile, Svenson followed them through, dragging his medical kit after him.
The Prince was gone. The bureau had been dragged across the room to block the doorway, and the window was open.
“He’s escaped! For a second time!” Flaüss whispered. He wheeled upon Svenson. “You helped him! You had the key!”
“Don’t be an idiot,” muttered Major Blach. “Look at the room. The bureau is solid mahogany—it took the three of us to shift it. It’s impossible that the Prince himself moved it alone and impossible for the Doctor to have helped him—the Doctor would have had to leave the room before the bureau was blocking the doorway.”
Flaüss was silent. Svenson met the gaze of Blach, who was glaring at him. The Major barked out to the men in the hall, “One of you to the gate—find out if the Prince has left the compound, and if he was alone!”
Svenson stepped to the bureau and opened it up, glancing at the contents. “The Prince is wearing his infantry uniform—I do not see it—dark green, a colonel of grenadiers. He fancies it because the badge is of a flaming bomb. I believe it has a sexual significance for him.” They stared at him as if he were speaking French. Svenson stepped to the window and leaned out. Below the window, three stories down, was a raked bed of gravel. “Major Blach, if you’ll send a trusted man to examine the gravel below this window—it will tell us whether a ladder was used—there will be heavy indentations. Of course, a three-story ladder should have attracted attention. Tell me, Herr Flaüss, does the compound possess such a ladder?”
“How should I know?”
“By asking the staff, I expect.”
“And if there is no such ladder?” asked Major Blach.
“Then either one was brought—which should have excited notice at the gate—or some other means were used—a grappling hook. Of course”—he stepped back and examined the plaster around the window frame—“I see no identations, nor any rope remaining by which they may have climbed down.”
“Then how did they get down?” asked Flaüss. Svenson stepped back to the window, leaning out. There was no balcony, no wall of ivy, no nearby tree—indeed, the room had been chosen for this very reason. He turned and looked upwards—it was but two stories to the roof.
As they climbed the stairwell word came to Blach from the gate—the Prince had not been seen, nor had anyone passed in either direction in the last three hours, since the arrival of the Major. Svenson barely took in the trooper’s report, so much was he dreading the inevitable trip to the building’s rooftop. He walked on the inside wall, clutching the rail as casually as possible, his guts positively seething. Ahead of them another trooper was unfolding a staircase from the ceiling of the sixth-floor hallway. Above it was a narrow attic and within the attic a hatchway to the roof. Major Blach strode forward—somewhere a pistol had appeared in his hand—and climbed rapidly, disappearing in the darkness above, followed quickly by Flaüss, more nimble than his stout frame would suggest. Svenson swallowed and climbed deliberately after them, one hand gripping each side of the ladder, choking a heave of nausea as the hinges of the ladder bounced with the shifting weight of each footfall. Feeling like a child, he crawled on his hands and knees onto the rough timbers of the attic floor and looked around him. Flaüss was just pulling himself through the narrow hatchway, his body framed against the sickly glow of the c
ity lights within the fog. With a barely suppressed groan, Doctor Svenson forced himself after them.
When he reached the roof, first on his knees and then, swaying, onto his feet, he saw Major Blach crouching near the edge that must be above the Prince’s bedroom. The Major turned back and called, “The moss on the stone is worn away in several places—the rubbing of a rope or a rope ladder!” He stood and crossed to Flaüss and Svenson, looking around them as he did. He pointed to the nearby rooftops. “What I don’t understand is that none of these seem close enough. I don’t deny the Prince was pulled to the rooftop—but this building rises at least a story above any neighbor. Beyond this, it is a full street’s width in distance in every direction. Unless they employed a circus, I do not see how anyone might have traversed from this rooftop to escape.”
“Perhaps they didn’t,” suggested the Envoy. “Perhaps they merely reentered the building from above.”
“Impossible. The stair to the attic is bolted from inside.”
“Unless someone helped them,” offered the Envoy, slightly peevishly, “from inside.”
“Indeed,” admitted Blach. “In which case, they have still not passed through the gate. My men will search the entire compound at once. Doctor?”
“Mmn?”
“Any thoughts?”
Svenson swallowed, and inhaled the cool night air through his nose, trying to relax. He forced his gaze away from the sky and the open spaces around him, down to the black tarred surface of the roof. “Only…what is that?” he asked.
Flaüss followed his pointing finger and stepped to a small white object. He picked it up and brought his find over to the others.
“That is the butt of a cigarette,” said Major Blach.
Thirty minutes had passed. They had returned to the Prince’s room, where the Major was systematically rooting through each drawer and closet. Flaüss sat in the armchair, brooding, while Svenson stood near the open window, smoking. A complete search of the compound had produced nothing, nor were there any footprints or indentations to be seen in the gravel below the window. Blach had gone back to the rooftop with lanterns, but had found no footprints other than their own—though there were several marks on the side of the building, near where the ropes had worn into the slippery grime along the gutters.
“Perhaps he has merely escaped for an evening of pleasure,” offered the Envoy. He looked darkly at Svenson. “Because of your hounding him earlier—he does not trust us—”
“Do not be a fool,” snapped Major Blach. “This was planned, with or without the Prince’s help—most likely without, if he was insensible as the Doctor describes. At least two men entered the room from above, possibly more—the guard did not hear the bureau being moved, which makes it more likely to be four men—and took the Prince with them. We must assume he has been taken, and must decide how to recover him.”
Major Blach slammed the last drawer closed and turned his gaze to Svenson.
“Yes?” the Doctor asked.
“You found him earlier.”
“I did.”
“So, you will tell me where and how.”
“I applaud your eventual concern,” replied Svenson, his voice tight with disdain. “Do you think it is the same collection of people? Because if so you know who they are—you both know. Will you challenge them? Will you go to Robert Vandaariff in force? To Deputy Minister Crabbé? To the Comte d’Orkancz? To the Xonck ironworks? Or does one of you already know where he is—so we may end this ridiculous charade?”
Svenson was gratified to see that at this both he and the Major were looking at Flaüss.
“I do not know anything!” the Envoy cried. “If we must ask for the help of these august people you name—if they are able to help us—” Doctor Svenson scoffed. Flaüss turned to Major Blach for aid. “The Doctor still has not told us how he located the Prince before. Perhaps he can find him again.”
“There is no mystery to it,” lied Svenson. “I sought out the brothel. Someone in the brothel was able to assist me. The Prince was right around the corner. Apparently Henry Xonck’s generous donations to the Institute provide a certain level of access for his younger brother’s friends.”
“How did you know the brothel?” asked Flaüss.
“Because I know the Prince at least that well—that is not the point! I have told you who he was with. If anyone knows what has happened, it will be they. I cannot confront these figures. It must be you—Herr Flaüss supported by the Major’s men—that is the only way.”
Svenson ground his cigarette into the china cup that had held his coffee so long ago. “This gets us nowhere,” he told them. He picked up his coat and strode from the room.
With no other thought than that he had not eaten in hours, Svenson walked down the stairs to the great kitchen, which was unoccupied. He dug through the cupboards to find a hard cheese, dry sausage, and a loaf of that morning’s bread. He poured himself a glass of pale yellow wine and sat alone at the large work table to think, methodically slicing off a hunk of cheese, a matching thickness of sausage, and piling them onto a piece of bread. After the first bite, realizing the bread was too dry, he got up and found a pot of mustard. He opened it and spooned more than he would normally favor onto the bread and re-stacked the sausage and cheese. He swallowed, and took a sip of wine. A routine established, he ate—the sounds of activity brewing about him in the compound—and tried to decide what to do. The Prince had been taken once, rescued, then taken again—it only followed it was by the same people, for the same reasons. Yet in the front of the Doctor’s mind was the cigarette butt.
Flaüss had given it to him and, after the barest glance, he had handed it back and turned to climb off of the roof with what dignity he could muster—but the glance confirmed the idea that had already formed in his mind. The tip of the butt was crimped in a specific way he’d seen the night before—by a woman’s lacquered cigarette holder—at the St. Royale Hotel. The woman—he took another sip of wine, slipped the monocle from his eye into his breast pocket and rubbed his face—was shockingly, derangingly lovely. She was also dangerous—obviously so—but in such a complete way as to almost be beside notice, as if one were discussing a particular cobra—a description that might include length or color or markings, but never the possession of deadly venom, which was an a priori feature that one could not, he found, take exception to…on the contrary. He sighed and pushed his tired mind to focus, to connect that woman at the hotel to her possible presence on the rooftop. He could not make sense of it, but knew that doing so would lead him to the Prince, and began to meticulously recomb his memory.
Much earlier in the day, when he had realized the Prince had not returned, and then that Flaüss and Blach were gone as well, Svenson had let himself into the Prince’s room and searched it for any possible clue to the Prince’s plans for the evening. In general Karl-Horst was about as cunning as a fairly clever cat or small child. If things were hidden, they were hidden under the mattress or in a shoe, but more likely to be simply tucked into the pocket of the coat he had been wearing and forgotten. Svenson had found embossed books of matches, theatre programs, calling cards, but nothing of any particular, striking nature. He sat on the bed and lit a cigarette, looking around the room, for the moment out of ideas. On the side table next to the bed was a blue glass vase with perhaps ten white lilies stuffed inside, drooping with various degrees of health over the rim. Svenson stared at it. He’d never seen flowers in the Prince’s room before, nor were any similar touches of feminine decoration present in the diplomatic compound. He was unaware of any woman’s presence in the compound at all, now that he thought of it, nor had Karl-Horst ever shown a preference for flowers or, for that matter, beauty. Perhaps they were a gift from Lydia Vandaariff. Perhaps some shred of affection had actually penetrated Karl-Horst’s pageant of appetite.
Svenson frowned and scooted closer to the side table, peering at the vase. He wiped his monocle and looked closer—the glass was somewhat artistic, with a
slightly irregular surface and occasional deliberate flaws, whorls, or bubbles. He frowned again—was there something in it? He snatched a towel from the Prince’s shaving table and laid it on the bed, and then gathered the lilies with both hands and placed them dripping on the towel. He picked up the vase and held it to the light. There was something in it, another piece of glass perhaps, deflecting the light passing through, though it itself seemed invisible. Svenson put the vase down and pushed up his sleeve. He reached in, groped for a moment—the thing was quite slippery—and extracted a small rectangle of blue glass, approximately the size of a calling card. He wiped it and his hand on the towel and studied it. Within seconds, as if he had been struck with a hammer, Svenson was on his knees—shaking his head, dizzy, having nearly dropped the glass card in surprise.
He looked again.
It was like entering someone else’s dream. After a moment the blue cast of the glass vanished as if he had pierced a veil…he was staring into a room—a dark, comfortable room with a great red sofa and hanging chandeliers and luxurious carpets—and then, which was why he had nearly dropped it the first time—the image moved, as if he was walking, or standing and turning his gaze about the salon—and he saw people, people who were looking right at him. He could hear nothing save the sound of his own breath, but his mind had otherwise fully entered the space of these images—moving images—like photographs but not like them also, at once more vivid and less sharp, more fully dimensional and incomprehensibly infused with sensation, with the feel of a silken dress, petticoats bunched up around a woman’s legs, her satin flesh beneath the petticoats and then of a man stepping between her legs, sensing her smile somehow as his body fumblingly found its position. Her head leaned back over the top of the sofa—for he saw the ceiling and felt her hair hanging around her face and throat—a face that was masked, he realized—and then the sensation in her loins—luscious, exquisite—as, quite clearly—from the liquid sensations shuddering through Svenson’s own body—the man was penetrating her. Then the image turned slightly, as the woman’s head turned, and just visible against the wall behind her was part of a large wall mirror. For a sharp second, Svenson saw the reflection of the man’s face and the back of the room beyond him. The man, perfectly plainly, was Karl-Horst von Maasmärck.