Crime (and Lager) (A European Voyage Cozy Mystery—Book 3)

by Blake Pierce

  Finally, Reggie’s barking led London to the river, not far from where the Nachtmusik was docked. London could see Helmut running along the riverfront walk as Reggie kept barking and snipping at his heels.

  Obviously winded, Helmut was moving more slowly now, which came as a relief to London. Her lungs were burning painfully from the chase.

  Gasping for breath, she managed to call out to the man, “Helmut, why are you running? Do you really think you can get away?”

  Helmut staggered to a halt at the river’s edge and turned toward London. Sir Reggie took up a post in front of the man, as if daring him to move.

  Helmut called back to her in a hoarse, panting voice that expressed a feeling of utter defeat.

  “You’re right. It’s no use. The time has come for me to …”

  But before he could finish his sentence, a gangly figure flew like a blur out of a side street. The tall, gangly newcomer smashed right into him, sending him hurtling off the sidewalk all the way into the river, where he fell with a mighty splash.

  “Oh, dear!” Audrey Bolton exclaimed, looking down into the water. “I hope I didn’t hurt him!”

  “So do I,” London said, as she trotted up to Audrey and Sir Reggie, then looked down at Helmut. Fortunately, a couple of police officers had already arrived and were dragging him out of the water. He appeared to be limp but fully conscious.

  Audrey plopped down on a nearby bench, and London sat beside her. A bit winded himself, Sir Reggie jumped up between them.

  “Where did you come from, anyway?” London asked Audrey.

  Audrey looked at her with an irritated expression.

  “Well, that’s a fine greeting,” she huffed. “I was only trying to help.”

  London felt slightly amused to hear a bit of Audrey’s former crankiness creep back into her voice.

  “You did help … I guess,” London said.

  Although the truth was, Helmut seemed to have given up his escape at the very moment before the collision.

  “I just want to know how you got here,” London asked again.

  For a moment, Audrey got a faraway look in her eye, as if she didn’t quite know the answer to that question.

  Finally she said, “Oh, I remember. I was back there in the audience watching the awards ceremony when … well, the thing happened. You know what I mean. That whole weirdness about the beer recipe.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I understood right away. Obviously, Herr Preiss was the real murderer. And as soon as you gave chase, so did I. I stayed pretty close behind you for a block or two. Then I saw a side street that I thought might make a good short cut and I ran that way and …”

  Audrey shrugged.

  “I guess I headed him off,” she said.

  “I guess you did,” London said with a chuckle. “And thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Meanwhile, a police van arrived, and Detektiv Erlich himself got out. The officers who had pulled Helmut out of the river had also put him into restraints, and they now escorted him toward the vehicle.

  “Well, London Rose,” Erlich said, crossing his arms. “You seem to still be up to your old tricks.” He glanced at Audrey and asked, “How many culprits are you ladies planning to bring to justice today?”

  Sir Reggie let out a soft woof as if he didn’t want to be ignored, but Audrey was being uncharacteristically silent.

  “Uh, I don’t know,” London began.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I mean … I still don’t understand. We thought Willy Oberhauser was guilty, and you even arrested him, and …”

  Her voice faded away into uncertainty.

  “Oh, Willy was guilty, all right,” Erlich said with a scoff. “At least of part of the crime. He told me his story when I questioned him at the Bundenspolizeirevier. He found Forstmann prowling around the beer vat on the stage. Forstmann was drunk, of course, and when Willy asked him what he was doing there, he got belligerent—no surprise.”

  Erlich put his hands in his pockets.

  “They got into an altercation, and Willy lost his temper and whacked Forstmann on the head with his nightstick—unfortunately, hitting him much harder than he’d intended, although he had no idea how serious an injury he’d caused. Willy said he left the scene quickly. He was alarmed by his actions and still very angry, and he was afraid of what he might do next.”

  Erlich tilted his head and added, “Willy swore to me that he’d done Forstmann no further harm. He’d just left him there on the stage, looking dazed but still very much alive.”

  Erlich shrugged and said, “Well, I had no idea whether to believe him—at least not until my men called to tell me what took place between you and Helmut Preiss. I came out right away, and here I am.”

  Erlich sat down on the bench next to London.

  “I must admit, though,” he said, scratching his chin, “I still don’t understand exactly what happened—at least not all of it.”

  At that moment, one of Erlich’s officers came back from the van.

  “Detektiv Erlich,” he said. “Herr Preiss says he’d like to talk.”

  “Excellent,” Erlich said, getting up from the bench. “The sooner he makes a full confession, the sooner I’ll be able to put my mind at ease.”

  Turning again to London, he added, “You ladies stay right here. I’ll come back and fill you in.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” the officer interrupted, “but Herr Preiss especially wants to talk to Fräulein Rose.”

  Erlich drew back with surprise.

  “Well, come on, then,” he said to London.

  London handed Sir Reggie’s leash to Audrey and left the two of them on the bench as she followed Erlich over to the back of the van.

  A very wet Herr Preiss sat waiting, looking very miserable indeed.

  “London Rose, I think perhaps I ought to thank you,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because … you made possible my undoing. You made it happen. I can’t help thinking you did me a great favor.”

  Astonished, London waited for him to explain.

  “Of course,” he said, “I ran across the recipe while reading through archives at the Bayerische Biermuseum here in Bamberg. It looked marvelous, and it seemed a shame that it hadn’t ever gone into production and was lost for so many years, and …”

  Preiss shrugged wearily.

  “I saw no harm at all as claiming it as my own. Who would I hurt by it, after all? In a way, I suppose I thought I was doing the Leitner family a posthumous favor by bringing their creation back to life. A lie is a lie, of course … but I managed to persuade myself otherwise.”

  Preiss paused for a moment.

  “Yesterday afternoon, Sigmund was already quite drunk by the time he came to my booth. I gave him a sample of my beer and told him … well, what I started to tell the audience just now. That the name of the beer was Illicium, which was the Latin word for ‘enticement,’ and that the recipe involved an innovative use of star anise blended with Chinese ‘five spice,’ and …”

  Preiss heaved a long, bitter sigh.

  “I had no idea that he’d discovered the same recipe quite on his own. And when I told him about it, he flew into a rage. He considered my theft an insult to the revered memory of the Leitner dynasty and an insult to the art of beer making itself.”

  He choked with emotion.

  “I apologized to him. I tried to take it all back. I told him I wouldn’t go through with it. I’d give the Leitner family all the credit they deserved. But he was drunk, and he was furious, and to him what I had done was nothing less than some sort of a personal betrayal. We could no longer be friends, he said, and he would tell the whole story in his upcoming column, whether I changed my mind or not. He stormed away and just left me standing there.”

  Preiss shifted uncomfortably.

  “About an hour later I was walking through the Maximiliensplatz considering my situation. I knew Sigmund had
meant what he’d said. Even after he sobered up, he wouldn’t change his mind. That was just the kind of man he was. And I figured there was nothing I could do about it. He would write his column, and I would suffer the full brunt of his wrath. The best I could do would be to spend the rest of my life and career atoning for my dishonesty. I would survive it, I thought.”

  He squinted thoughtfully.

  “But as I walked past the curtain in front of the stage, I heard a voice from behind it. ‘I am the true king of the Hoffmann Fest! I am the true king of the Hoffmann Fest! This year’s Katers Murr is nobody. The true king of the festival is I!’”

  Preiss looked back and forth at London and Erlich.

  “I crept up onto the stage behind the curtain, and I found Sigmund sitting in the chair on the platform above the beer vat. He was beyond drunk, not even wearing his monocle. He seemed to be quite out of his mind.”

  “He’d been hit on the head,” Erlich explained. “He was delirious as well as drunk.”

  “Was he? Well. I was seized by an impulse of pure spite and vengefulness. If there was nothing I could do to stop him from telling his story, at least I could humiliate him first. As he kept ranting away, ‘I am the true king!’ I climbed up the stairs and pulled the lever.”

  Preiss shuddered deeply.

  “I hadn’t meant to kill him. But he thrashed around for only a few moments before he fell completely still.”

  London asked, “Why didn’t you try to save him?”

  “Because … I was angry, I suppose. And at the same time, I was afraid. I’d made my own situation much, much worse than it had already been.”

  He shook his head again.

  “Anger and fear. It was—what is the English phrase?—a ‘perfect storm’ of desperate, self-destructive emotion. I wasn’t like myself. I acted in a way that I myself could never have imagined. I simply walked away.”

  He shrugged again and said to London, “I guess that’s all there is to tell. But I do want to thank you for unraveling the truth. I must have always wanted to get caught deep down. Otherwise I wouldn’t have continued my charade even after Sigmund’s death.

  “I want you to know something else,” he added. “I truly meant it when I said I would miss him. My mourning was perfectly sincere. I meant it very much. I still do.”

  London stood watching as Detektiv Erlich and his men loaded Preiss into the van and drove away with him.

  London was startled by how genuinely sorrowful Helmut had sounded just now.

  They really were friends, she thought.

  She felt sad that their friendship had come to such a terrible end.

  When London returned to the bench, she was delighted to see Bryce sitting there with Sir Reggie and Audrey.

  “I got a bit lost in back in the streets,” he explained. “But Audrey has told me everything she could.”

  “Is everything all right now?” Audrey asked London.

  “I … I guess,” London stammered.

  “Nobody’s going to arrest us or anything?”

  “No,” London said.

  Then London took out her cell phone.

  “I’d better call the captain again,” she said. “He won’t believe what I have to tell him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  The Nachtmusik was about to leave Bamberg. When London walked up the gangway with Bryce, Audrey, and Sir Reggie, she saw that the crew was already preparing the boat for departure.

  “I’ll certainly have some vivid memories of this place,” Audrey mused as they stepped on board.

  “It’s turning out to be an interesting voyage,” Bryce said.

  Too interesting, London thought.

  Captain Hays met the group in the reception area.

  Shaking his head with wonder, he said, “I’m glad to see all of you back in one piece. We’re ready to set sail as soon as all passengers and crew are accounted for. Could you check on that for me, London?”

  London took out her cell phone and opened an app showing who was checked in.

  “Everybody is still with us,” she told Captain Hays.

  “Excellent.” He raised his own phone and notified the crew to remove the gangway. Then he said, “Oh, by the way, London, that was quite some story you told me over the phone. Are you sure that you’ve finally caught all the culprits?”

  London let out a tired laugh and replied, “If not, I’ll leave it to Detektiv Erlich and his team to take things from here.”

  Captain Hays stroked his walrus-style mustache.

  “You know, London—Bob Turner and his, eh, chronicler, Stanley Tedrow, came by my stateroom and gave me their own briefing of the case. I must say, there are a few discrepancies between his account and yours.”

  “I’m sure there are,” London said with a grin.

  “For example,” the captain continued, “Bob said nothing at all about a dishonest brewer, only a short-tempered security guard wielding a deadly cudgel. The way Bob tells it, he single-handedly nabbed the fellow through an astonishing feat of derring-do. I believe he and Mr. Tedrow have forwarded a written account of their investigatory prowess to Mr. Lapham. Would you like me to get in touch with our CEO and try to set him right as to facts?”

  London laughed heartily.

  “No, please don’t,” she said. “Just leave well enough alone.”

  “Very well, then,” Captain Hays said. “I expect you’ll sleep well tonight.”

  The captain headed away to the elevator, leaving London with Bryce, Audrey, and Sir Reggie. For an awkward moment, the three humans didn’t seem to know what to say to each other.

  Bryce and London exchanged yearning glances.

  He wishes we could be alone, London realized.

  And so do I.

  But Audrey didn’t seem to notice any such signals.

  Bryce shuffled his feet and cleared his throat.

  “Well,” he said finally, “I guess I’d better go check how things are in the kitchen. You will let me know if you need anything, won’t you, London?”

  “I promise,” London said.

  Bryce sauntered away and disappeared down the stairs.

  Audrey demanded, “Are you really going to let that Bob Turner fellow take all the credit for solving the case?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” London said.

  “Whatever for?”

  London laughed again.

  “I’m just as happy that Mr. Lapham doesn’t know much about my detective work. I don’t want him to develop expectations. I’m quite happy with my job as Social Director, thank you very much.”

  “Then your detective work is a secret?” Audrey asked thoughtfully.

  “It’s definitely better that way. If we ever have to go through another one of these ordeals, I’m sure you’ll understand how I feel.”

  Audrey let out a squeal of enthusiasm.

  “Oh, I can hardly wait!” she said.

  Then she raised her hand to her lips as if shocked by her own words.

  “Not that I hope anyone else will get killed, understand,” she said to London.

  “Of course not.”

  “It’s just that this has been … well, an adventure. It’s made me feel so very alive, more so than I can ever remember. Meanwhile, I’m utterly exhausted. I’m going to turn in for the night. Thank you for an exciting day, London Rose. And thank you for … well, everything else.”

  London smiled as she remembered what Audrey had said about gratitude earlier today.

  “You helped me feel something really important.”

  “Any time,” she said.

  Audrey leaned over and scratched Sir Reggie under the chin, then headed away.

  London sighed wistfully.

  “If only Bryce had hung around for a few moments longer,” she said to Sir Reggie.

  The little dog let out a sympathetic murmur.

  “Well, I guess I’d better make my final rounds for the night,” she told him. “We’ve got to make sure that everybody is occupie
d and happy.”

  Sir Reggie followed her on into the Amadeus Lounge, which was quite busy now that all the passengers had come back aboard. The first person she encountered there was Letitia Hartzer, who called out to her from a table where she was having drinks with some friends.

  “Oh, London! Exactly who I wanted to see! I’m so excited about our upcoming visit to Amsterdam, and I wanted to study a map of the city before we get there. The tiny little dinky map I get on my cell phone is simply not up to snuff. So microscopic, it hurts my eyes. I wonder whether …”

  “I could get you a physical map?”

  Letitia chuckled. “Yes, the old-fashioned analog kind, all printed out in wonderful colors on a big, folded sheet of pressed-and-dried wood pulp—paper, I think it’s called.”

  “Yes, I believe that is the word for it,” London said with a smile. “I’ll see if I can fetch you a real honest-to-goodness paper map.”

  London and Sir Reggie walked over to the library, where she once again found the door closed—and locked.

  “I can’t believe this,” she growled under her breath.

  She knocked sharply on the door.

  “Emil, are you there?”

  Once again, she thought she heard a muffled whispering sound inside.

  And once again, Sir Reggie let out a suspicious-sounding growl.

  London stepped back and crossed her arms.

  “Emil, I’m going to use my master keycard to let myself in there.”

  There was a scuffling sound, then Emil’s voice replied.

  “London, just—wait a minute.”

  London stood waiting until the door opened. Standing inside and looking thoroughly embarrassed were Emil and Amy. Their faces were red. Their hair and clothes mussed. Emil was actually tucking in his shirttail.

  “Well,” Amy said stiffly, straightening out her own blouse, “thanks so much for your help with my … uh, research, Herr Waldmüller.”

  “Ahem,” Emil said, “I’m always glad to be of assistance, Fräulein Blassingame.”