by Blake Pierce
When the elevator door opened into the reception area, a sight met London’s eyes that instantly lifted her spirits. Bryce Yeaton stood waiting for her, and when he saw her his face lit up in a smile. She thought his casual gray Henley shirt and dark slacks looked perfect for the occasion.
This is a date, she reminded herself in a moment of giddiness. Maybe she could relax and have some fun after all.
Reggie’s mood also lifted, and he tugged on his leash as he scampered about in front of Bryce.
“What is it, boy?” Bryce asked mischievously. “What do you want?”
Sir Reggie yapped impatiently as if the answer was obvious—which of course, it actually was.
Bryce held out his empty right hand.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” Bryce asked.
Sir Reggie barked huffily.
Bryce held out his left hand, which was also empty.
“What about this?” Bryce asked.
This time Sir Reggie growled a little.
Bryce clapped his hands, and one of his specially made dog treats appeared between his fingertips.
“What about this?” he asked.
Sir Reggie sat up and waved his front legs and barked. Bryce tossed the treat to him, and Sir Reggie caught the treat in mid-air.
London laughed and said to Bryce, “I never knew you were an illusionist.”
“Hey, who said anything about illusion?” Bryce said with a chuckle. “We master chefs can make anything appear out of thin air, as long as it’s tasty.”
Bryce offered London his arm, and they continued down the gangway, with Sir Reggie trotting on his leash in front of them. Other passengers were also headed off the ship to enjoy the rest of the festival.
“So should I ask you about your day?” Bryce asked. “I mean, do you want to talk about it?”
For a moment, London wasn’t sure.
She remembered what she’d told him about it on the phone a while ago.
“It’s a long story.”
But did it really have to be such a long story?
There’s no need to go into details, London thought.
“Well, I talked to Detektiv Erlich right after you did,” she said. “I’m afraid it didn’t go very well. He just seemed to become more and more convinced that Audrey and I killed the critic together. Worse, he also wanted to talk to Audrey, but she’d gone AWOL, we had no idea where. So I went back to the Maximiliensplatz to find her—which I eventually did. I brought her back to talk to him.”
Of course, she was skipping over her scary confrontation with Willy Oberhauser and also Audrey’s chicken suit and lots of other details. But she felt as though she was telling him all that really mattered.
She continued, “Then Audrey and I tried to do a little investigating on our own, using the Internet.”
“Did you find anything important?” Bryce said.
“Not really,” London said.
Then with a laugh, she added, “Oh—I did run across a long-lost beer recipe you might be interested in. I’ll send it to you later.”
Laughing as well, Bryce said, “Well, your Internet search was hardly in vain.”
It was night now, and Bamberg looked even more festive than by day, with lots of bright, colored lights falling upon brightly colored costumes. London and Bryce paused to listen to an accordionist playing a polka, then continued on their way to the Maximiliensplatz.
“Did I happen to mention that I don’t like Detektiv Erlich?” Bryce said.
“Yes, I believe you did. What sorts of questions did he ask you?”
“I’m sorry to say, he kept trying to get me to tell him something that would incriminate you—and Audrey Bolton as well.”
“I’m not surprised,” London said. “I do hope you answered his questions truthfully.”
“Of course. And it wasn’t hard to do. I saw absolutely nothing that made me even consider the possibility that you might be a murderer.”
“I’m relieved to hear that!” London laughed.
As they entered the boisterous Maximiliensplatz, London, Bryce, and Sir Reggie followed the sound of an oompah band. They soon found themselves in a large circle of spectators watching a dozen folk dancers cheerfully dressed in dirndls and lederhosen. The crowd was clapping and singing and yodeling along to the music.
Looking among the spectators, London glimpsed several familiar faces, including Gus and Honey Jarrett, Walter and Agnes Shick, Kirby Oswinkle, Letitia, and even Audrey, all of them obviously having a great time.
On the far side of the dancers, London recognized two other people—Bob Turner and Stanley Tedrow.
London smiled as she remembered something Bob had said to Stanley this afternoon before they had headed back to the ship—that they would come back and “par-TAY like the kids we are at heart.”
Apparently, that was exactly what they were doing.
Or are they?
As London peered among the dancers more carefully, she could see that Mr. Tedrow had out his pencil and notebook. Then she craned forward and was alarmed to see who Bob was talking to.
It was the security guard, Willy Oberhauser.
Oh, no, she thought. This isn’t going to end well.
Sure enough, Oberhauser’s face turned red with rage.
Then he gave Bob a vicious shove that sent him staggering amid the dancers, who scattered in all directions.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
Without stopping to think, London dropped Sir Reggie’s leash and dashed toward the two belligerent men. The folk dancers had immediately given up on their performance and joined the watching crowd as Oberhauser approached Bob with clenched fists. The ship’s security man was lurching backward, guarding his face with his hands.
London threw herself right between the two would-be brawlers, spreading her arms to push them apart.
“Hör jetzt auf!” she yelled at Oberhauser.
Then she repeated her command to Bob in English.
“Stop it now!”
She thought that Bob was too drunk and looked too confused to make more trouble. But before London could turn back to Oberhauser, his heavy hand grabbed hold of her collar and spun her around.
“I told you to mind your own business!” he snarled at her through clenched teeth. “And I said there would be consequences if you didn’t!”
London froze with fear as he reached for his holster.
Is he going to shoot me? she wondered.
Right here in front of all these people?
But to her surprise, it wasn’t a gun he pulled out of his holster. It was a black cylinder of some kind. With a snap of his wrist and a loud crack, the cylinder suddenly extended to the size of a short club.
A nightstick, London realized.
Suddenly a new theory was trying to crowd its way into her dazed brain. She had seen a drawing … someone had described “a hard, cylindrical object” …
Before she could make sense of it, Oberhauser had raised the nightstick high, poised to smash it into London’s head.
She didn’t have time to avoid the blow.
Then a hand shot into view and grabbed Oberhauser’s wrist.
It was Bryce, who had dashed after London into the fray, stopping Oberhauser’s intended blow with his own muscular grip.
London gasped with relief, but before she could thank Bryce she was distracted by Sir Reggie’s furious barking and a man’s yelling voice.
“Let’s take him down, Sir Reggie!”
Like a human-sized bowling ball, Bob Turner lunged in a crouch headfirst into Oberhauser’s abdomen. The barking dog charged right behind him.
Bryce lost his grip on Oberhauser’s wrist, and the security guard hurtled backward to the ground. The nightstick flew out of his hand, twirling through the air.
London surprised herself by catching it as it descended.
By then, Sir Reggie had pounced upon the prone security guard and was snarling furiously right in his face.
London pi
cked up his leash and tugged her angry dog away.
“That’s enough, boy,” she said.
Looking rather pleased with himself, Sir Reggie obediently came to her side.
With both Bob Turner and Oberhauser still on the ground in front of them, Bryce stepped back from the confrontation.
Just then, two uniformed police officers appeared as if out of nowhere and roughly yanked Oberhauser to his feet. Before London knew it, Detektiv Erlich had joined the two policemen.
It’s almost as if they were waiting and ready, she thought.
Erlich scowled at Oberhauser.
“Would you care to explain yourself, Willy?” he demanded.
Oberhauser pointed at Bob and said, “That man attacked me!”
Erlich let out a snarl of laughter.
“So it was self-defense, was it?” he asked.
“Yes!”
“So why were you going to strike this woman with your nightstick? Did she attack you too?”
Before Oberhauser could stammer out an answer, a woman in the crowd called out, “He’s lying.”
A man agreed, “The American man didn’t attack him at all. And the woman certainly didn’t either.”
“He just went crazy all of a sudden,” said yet another spectator. “Just like he always does.”
Erlich nodded with a smirk.
“I thought as much,” he said to Oberhauser. “In fact, I more than half expected something like this to happen. I ordered my men to keep an eye on you, which they’ve been doing for a while now.”
London struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. Why, she wondered, had Detektiv Erlich given such an order to his men?
“Consider yourself under arrest,” Erlich said to Oberhauser.
“But Detektiv—” Oberhauser began.
“No arguments,” Erlich snapped. “You’ve been caught in an act of assault. And I think that you are also guilty of something considerably more dire than that.”
As the police put Oberhauser in restraints, something started making sense to London. For quite some time, Erlich had actually suspected Oberhauser of killing Sigmund Forstmann.
And now …
She took a look at the nightstick that she still held in her hand.
The theory her brain had been struggling to hatch suddenly came clear. She remembered the forensic drawing of the head wound that she had thought might have been delivered by some kind of metal pipe.
“I’m sure you’re right about his guilt,” she said to Erlich. “Show me that drawing you showed me earlier—the one of the victim’s head wound.”
Erlich squinted with surprise for a moment. Then he reached for his cell phone and brought up the picture.
“Look at that shape,” she said, pointing to the wound. “Now look at this,” she said, holding up the nightstick.
Erlich’s eyes widened with interest.
The wound and the nightstick looked like a perfect fit.
“That doesn’t prove anything!” Oberhauser yelped frantically. “There’s no trace of evidence on it!”
Erlich looked at the stick closely. Meanwhile, Sir Reggie seemed to be intensely interested in the object. He stood up on his back legs and sniffed it with palpable curiosity.
Erlich chuckled at the dog’s interest.
“As a matter of fact, you’re right,” Erlich said to Oberhauser. “I don’t happen to see any evidence. But this animal certainly has his suspicions.”
He took the nightstick out of London’s hand and sniffed it.
“Yes, I smell something myself. There’s much more than a trace of detergent here. And disinfectant—bleach, I believe.”
Looking closely at the object, Bryce pointed and said, “Look here. The black surface is actually faded a little from bleach.”
Erlich stared at Oberhauser for a moment.
“Tell me, Willy,” he said. “Is it your daily habit to scrub your nightstick spotless and sterile? That’s rather damning evidence in itself. It’s fairly obvious you were trying to erase any trace of how you used it to bash Forstmann across the head.”
Oberhauser’s eyes bulged desperately. He was beginning to look like a cornered animal.
He stammered in a guilty voice, “Detektiv Erlich, sir, you—you don’t understand …”
“Not yet, I don’t suppose,” Erlich said with a sardonic grin. “But I’m sure you’ll be glad to explain it to me at the Bundenspolizeirevier.”
London recognized the word for federal police station.
“You may take him away,” Erlich said to the two officers. “I’ll join you shortly to get the questioning underway.”
As the policemen led Oberhauser from the scene, London could hear Oberhauser muttering.
“You don’t understand … You don’t understand … You don’t understand …”
Then Erlich turned toward London.
“I’ve got good news, Fräulein Rose,” he said in English. “I’m very nearly ready to eliminate you and the tall woman as suspects.”
London’s mouth dropped open.
“Nearly ready?” she gasped.
“I am a meticulous man by nature,” Erlich said with a nod. “Don’t worry, I’m sure Willy’s confession will soon clear you of suspicion altogether. Meanwhile, I feel that I must always—how do you say it in English?—cross all the i’s and dot all the t’s.”
London smiled without bothering to correct his little idiomatic error. She glanced at the crowd and saw that the “tall woman”—Audrey Bolton—was watching the proceedings with wide-eyed amazement.
Bryce scratched his head and said to Detektiv Erlich, “So you’ve suspected Oberhauser for some time now?”
Erlich shook his head.
“Whenever there’s trouble, I’m inclined to suspect Willy,” he said. “He’s unpredictably moody. There’s no way to guess how he’s going to behave in a given situation. He can be charming one moment, quite vicious the next. He is—how again do you say in English?—a loose cannon, a ticking bomb.”
Erlich paused for a moment as he watched the flashing lights of the police vehicle that was taking Oberhauser away.
Then he added, “You see, Willy was a policeman here in Bamberg until just last year—and good a policeman at that. Over the years he was promoted to the rank of Polizeihaupmeister mit Amtszulage—a staff sergeant.”
Erlich sighed bitterly and added, “Sadly, his temper got worse and worse, and he had to be suspended over just the sort of behavior you’ve just experienced. Last year he finally got fired for good. I had hoped that this job as a lowly security guard who is not usually faced with serious situations might work out for him. But as you can clearly see, it has not. And unfortunately, he also had a particular hostility toward Sigmund Forstmann—more even than most of the people in Bamberg.”
London flashed back to yesterday, when Oberhauser had actually been quite pleasant toward her.
Unpredictably moody, she thought. Yes, that describes him perfectly.
She also remembered what he’d said about Sigmund Forstmann.
“I wish I could do something to teach him a lesson.”
Apparently he’d finally given in to that urge—with fatal results.
“For now,” Erlich said to London, “I still must insist that you stay in Bamberg until further notice.”
“But the Nachtmusik—” London began to protest.
Erlich interrupted her, “Your ship shouldn’t be detained for very long. Meanwhile, you are under strict orders to enjoy the rest of our Hoffmann Fest.”
With a wave, he headed away through the crowd. The oompah band began to tune again, and the costumed men and women gathered to resume their dancing.
Meanwhile, Bob had gotten to his feet and brushed himself off. He stooped down to pet Sir Reggie.
“We’ve done it again, haven’t we, boy?” he said. “We’ve taken down another bad guy. By the way, excellent work sniffing that stick, pal. It really tied the case into a nice little bow.”
Then he stood up and said to Mr. Tedrow, “What do you say we head back to the boat, get all this written down in a full report we can turn in to Mr. Lapham?”
Mr. Tedrow replied with a courteous nod.
“I’m honored to serve as your amanuensis,” he said.
“My what?” Bob asked.
Mr. Tedrow said, “Uh, that means somebody who writes about your, uh adventures.”
“Oh. Good.”
Bob pointed to Mr. Tedrow and said to London and Bryce, “I don’t know what I’d do without this guy.”
Bryce chuckled as the two men ambled away.
“Are you OK with letting him take all the credit?” he said to London.
“I’m getting used to it,” London said with a chuckle.
“Can we go to the festival now?” Bryce asked.
“I just have a phone call to make,” London told him.
She dialed Captain Hays’s number, and she could hear the relief in his voice as she told him over the phone about Willy Oberhauser’s arrest.
“Oh, thank goodness it’s over!” the captain said. “How soon did Detektiv Erlich say we could set sail?”
“It shouldn’t be long,” London said. “He expects Oberhauser to tell him the whole truth pretty quickly. Once that’s settled, we’ll be free to go.”
“Excellent! And a job well done, my dear! So you have some time to spare. Go celebrate to your heart’s content. You’ve earned it.”
“I’ll try to do that,” London said, ending the call.
It’s over, London kept thinking as she and Bryce and Sir Reggie continued on their way across the crowded square. There’s nothing else to worry about.
So why did she still feel … well, worried?
Some things that hadn’t made sense a little while ago made sense at last—for example, Willy Oberhauser’s hostility toward her, and even his not-so-veiled threats. Naturally, he didn’t want London to find out … what?
That he killed Forstmann, obviously, she told herself.
But something seemed wrong, and London couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Just put it out of your mind, she told herself.
Surely she deserved to enjoy her remaining hours here in Bamberg.
In fact, surely it was time to celebrate.
