by Blake Pierce
That Mom’s alive, at least, she thought.
Or at least she was several months ago.
Also …
She went to Germany.
Of course, there was no possibility of finding Mom there without more information. She could be in another country by now. London simply didn’t know. And now London almost wondered whether she’d have been better off not knowing that Mom had even gone there.
She remembered something her father had said on the phone yesterday.
“Your mother’s disappearance isn’t another mystery for you to solve.”
But how could she help wanting to try?
London looked at her watch. More time had passed than she’d realized, and she still hadn’t learned anything about Olaf Moritz’s murder.
Maybe it’s time to get back to the Nachtmusik before …
Her cell phone suddenly buzzed with a text message from Bob.
“I know what’s going on. Get back to the boat.”
London groaned with despair. Bob obviously knew what she was up to, and he wasn’t happy about it.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, she thought, getting up from the bench and heading back toward the boat, carrying her canine companion in her arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
As London crossed the barge toward the Nachtmusik, she saw Bob Turner’s sunglasses peering out of the big glass door at the top of the gangway. When he caught sight of her and stood waiting with his hands on his hips, the security man looked like he meant business.
I’m really in for it now, she thought anxiously.
She wondered if she should just admit to her little shore adventure, then try to talk him out of telling Mr. Lapham that she’d gone playing Nancy Drew again.
London set Sir Reggie down, and the little dog dashed on up the gangway. Although Bob grinned and bent over as if to greet him, Sir Reggie darted right by as if he figured it was best to avoid him right now.
Bob didn’t look pleased that the dog had brushed him off. As London came up the gangway he scowled at her.
“Come on into the lounge,” he said brusquely. “We’ve got to talk.”
London followed him into the Amadeus Lounge, where they sat down at a small table apart from other customers.
She could only see her own reflection in his sunglasses as he leaned across the table toward her. She certainly looked as though she’d just been crying. She wondered whether Bob noticed that.
“Just so you know,” he said, “I’ve got a brain like a steel trap. Nobody gets the best of me. And nobody can pull the wool over my eyes—not for long, anyway. It’s best to keep that in mind.”
London stifled a groan of dismay.
“Bob, I can explain—” she began.
Bob grunted with disbelief.
“Explain! I doubt that, missy! No sir, I really do doubt that very much! Not unless you’ve got a brain like mine!”
Now London was starting to feel more puzzled than alarmed.
Bob tapped a finger on his forehead.
“It’s all in the synapses, you see. Mine are fast and quick, real live superconductors, and they’re solid-state wired up to my whole entire sensory apparatus into whatchacallit, some kind of topnotch ultra-fast feedback loop. My nose, my eyes, my fingers—they don’t miss a detail, they observe everything, bring in scads of data, and my brain puts all that data together like nobody’s business.”
Pointing to his chest, he added, “So be advised. Don’t ever try to fool this guy. Nosirree, that’s never a good idea.”
“Bob, I really wasn’t trying to fool—”
“Don’t interrupt when I’m on a roll here,” he went on with a note of triumph. “In case you’re slow on the uptake, I’ve solved the case.”
London felt a jolt of surprise. This certainly wasn’t what she’d expected to hear.
“What?” she asked, trying not to sound dubious.
“You heard me. I solved the case. What did you think I was going to say?”
London decided not to tell him. Apparently Bob wasn’t the least bit interested in her shore excursion.
She squinted at him uncertainly.
“Uh—which case?” she asked.
“What do you mean, which case?” Bob said with a shrug.
“Well, we’ve sort of got two mysteries,” London said. “There’s the theft of the musician dolls, and there’s the murder that happened at the House for Mozart.”
Bob chuckled heartily.
“Missy, you really don’t get it, do you? It’s all connected. Everything’s always connected. That’s a lesson I learned long ago. The trick is sorting through the whole tangle of connections. Don’t you understand?”
No, I guess I don’t, London thought.
He took out his cell phone and started showing her a series of photos.
“I’ve been busy since we last talked,” he said.
Indeed, London could definitely see that he had been. Apparently Bob hadn’t stayed sleeping on the Rondo deck for long after London had left the boat. He’d been up and busy since then. If nothing else, he’d been taking lots of pictures—although London couldn’t make rhyme or reason of them.
There was one photo of a water glass with some ice cubes in it, another of a set of keys, another of a paperback book lying open on a table, another of a travel brochure in somebody’s hand, and a bunch of others that seemed equally unrelated to each other—or to anything she could think of.
She briefly wondered if Bob really did have some kind of extraordinarily insightful mind. Was there something she’d been missing altogether?
Sounding more pleased with himself every moment, Bob kept talking.
“In just an hour or so, I’ve done what it would take a whole crack investigative team an entire week to do. I’ve been on the prowl after certain select passengers who went on your tour, catching them doing anything that might be the least little bit suspicious.”
He’s been taking pictures of the passengers, London realized with alarm.
Surely at least some of them wouldn’t be happy to know they were being photographed without their knowledge. Besides, she couldn’t see anything suspicious in any of the pictures she’d seen. They looked pretty much random and meaningless to her.
She was about to suggest that he really shouldn’t do that, but he was plowing ahead.
“And my work isn’t random. Not at all. It’s methodical. I’ve been keeping an eye on one specific passenger. And I’ll bet you can’t guess who it is.”
London flashed back to his behavior while questioning the group in the library, and how he’d focused on one of those people in particular.
“Is it Letitia Hartzer?” she asked.
Bob’s mouth opened with surprise.
“Very good! It is indeed! And let me tell you why …”
He leaned toward her with his elbows on the table.
“The day I came on board, I already had my eyes sharp for trouble—any kind of trouble at all. I happened to run into Mrs. Hartzer in the reception area. I saw how she was looking at a glass paperweight on the front desk. She picked it up gingerly-like and looked at it real close. She even opened up her purse and was about to drop it inside when she noticed me looking at her. Then she put it back down on the desk, trying to look nonchalant-ish about it.”
London tilted her head with surprise.
“You mean … she was thinking about stealing it?”
“You bet she was,” Bob said. “And just twenty minutes ago or so, I saw her having a snack in the Habsburg Restaurant. And quick and quiet and catlike, I sneaked up on her and snapped this picture.”
London looked closely at the picture and gasped slightly.
No doubt about it, Bob had caught her in the act of dropping a silver saltshaker into her purse.
“So now we know for sure who stole the music dolls,” Bob said.
London was reluctant to agree. She hoped there was some other explanation.
“I d
on’t know, Bob. Maybe you were wrong about her wanting to steal the paperweight. Maybe she just wanted some salt for her room and was borrowing it or—”
“Huh. You’re drawing erroneous conclusions from whatchamacallit, the available data. You’re not thinking like a crack detective, missy. That’s what I’m here for. Salt and pepper are always delivered to rooms with food orders. There’s no reason for anyone to snatch a shaker out of a restaurant.”
London sputtered, “Still, maybe she’s not really stealing it. Maybe she’s only …”
London’s voice faded as she noticed something else in the picture—a feathered fountain pen in a small decorative stand on the table in front of Letitia. There were also several postcards on the table. Letitia seemed to have been using the pen to write postcards.
“Oh, no,” London murmured.
“What is it?”
London pointed to the pen.
“I saw that pen earlier today. In fact, I used it myself to write down my name in the visitor book at the Mozart birthplace. So did everybody on the tour. That pen is museum property. Look, you can even see the little beaded chain that attached the pen to the desk. It looks like she cut it with a pair of scissors or something.”
“Well, well, well,” Bob murmured softly. “This is even bigger than I thought.”
London stifled a scoff.
“So it looks like Letitia’s a bit of a kleptomaniac,” London said. “From what I’ve seen so far, that’s hardly any big deal.”
“You don’t call murder a ‘big deal’?”
London stared at Bob for a baffled moment.
“What’s any of this got to do with the murder?” she asked.
Bob chuckled and pointed to his head again.
“It’s like I said, missy. It’s all connected. Everything’s always connected. You’ve just got to have the right kind of brain to see that.”
That’s ridiculous, London almost blurted aloud.
And she was getting really tired of being called “missy.”
But then a dim possibility began to play itself out in her mind.
What if Olaf Moritz had witnessed Letitia stealing the pen, or somehow found out about it, and maybe confronted her in the House for Mozart when nobody else was there, and things got out of hand and …
London’s mind stalled.
That sounded pretty silly. She couldn’t string the events together in a plausible way.
For one thing, no one in the group, including Letitia, had gone up onto the balcony during their visit there.
And yet …
Might she have gone back?
London only felt sure of one thing. She didn’t want to share this germ of a theory with Bob. She remembered what Elsie had said about him earlier.
“I’m not sure he’s thinking straight. I think maybe he’s some kind of a loose cannon.”
She didn’t want to give Bob any ideas. He already had enough of them.
“And now,” Bob added eagerly, “it’s time for me to really connect the dots once and for all, put the final touch on things, so to speak. It’s time for the coup de grâce.”
“What do you mean?” London asked apprehensively.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Bob chuckled. “You just sit right here and wait a few minutes. I’ll be back with the goods.”
“What ‘goods’?” London asked.
“Don’t you want to be surprised?” Bob said.
“No,” London said.
Bob frowned at her.
“You young people,” he grumbled. “So impatient, always wanting answers right off the bat. I guess you never heard of delayed gratification. Well, this time you’re just going to have to wait.”
He got up to leave.
“Wait a minute,” London said sharply.
As he stopped and turned toward her, London wasn’t sure what to say next. Mr. Lapham hadn’t told her whether she had any authority over Bob. She still wasn’t completely sure just what his job was supposed to be. But she figured she’d better exert some authority, whether she really had it or not.
She crossed her arms and spoke to him sternly.
“I think you’d better tell me what you’re up to.”
Bob drew back a little, obviously surprised.
“Well, if you’re going to be like that about it,” he said, glancing around furtively as if to be sure he wasn’t overheard, “I guess I can tell you. I’m going to sneak inside Letitia Hartzer’s stateroom.”
“You’re what?” London said with a gasp.
“You heard me. I’ll definitely find those stolen dolls. And about the murder, you can bet I’ll find some kind of a ‘smoking gun’ in there—metaphorically speaking, of course, since she didn’t kill the guy with a gun. But then, maybe she’s got a real gun tucked away there. If so, we’d better find it before she kills someone else.”
“You’re doing nothing of the kind,” London said.
“Why not?” Bob said.
“You don’t have a key, for one thing.”
“I sure do.”
London’s eyes widened as he produced a keycard just like hers.
“This will open every door on the boat,” he said.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the captain. By order of Jeremy Lapham, who told him I might be needing it. I’ve got free rein all through this ship. I can come and go as I like.”
London felt queasy at the thought of Bob doing exactly that.
It’s bad enough that he’s snapping pictures of everybody.
“You’re not going into anybody’s room,” she said.
Bob let out a hearty chuckle.
“What are you going to do to stop me? Call security?”
London suddenly felt stymied. After all, Mr. Lapham had said that Bob was here to assist on “security matters.”
But maybe I can still talk him out of it, she thought.
“How do you know Letitia’s not in her room right now?”
“Because I just now saw her up on the Rondo deck, playing bridge with three women including your concierge—Amy Blassingame’s her name, we introduced ourselves a little while ago.”
London stifled a sigh of annoyance.
So Amy’s playing bridge.
It sure didn’t sound like she was doing her job.
Bob gave London a mock salute.
“And now, with or without your permission—”
“I’m coming with you,” London blurted before he could turn to go.
“Huh?”
London could hardly believe her own words. But what choice did she have? If Bob was going to go poking into Letitia’s stateroom, London figured she’d better supervise. She didn’t want him probing around more than he had to, much less trashing the room while he conducted his search. Besides, she felt mounting suspicions about Letitia Hartzer. The woman clearly wasn’t what she appeared to be.
“I’m coming with you,” she said again.
Bob’s face seemed expressionless behind those glasses. Then he shrugged.
“OK, then,” he said. “Maybe you’ll learn something. Let’s get going.”
As she followed him out of the lounge, London wondered what she was getting herself into.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
As they walked down the spiral stairs, London saw that Bob was tapping on his cell phone.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Making sure the coast is clear,” Bob said. “I’m texting Amy Blassingame to make sure Mrs. Hartzer stays where she is, playing bridge up there on the top deck. I’m telling her to text you and me right away if she leaves, especially if she seems to be headed back to her room.”
With a grin, he pointed one finger to his head again.
London had to admit that keeping track of Letitia might not be a bad idea, although she wondered what Amy was going to make of Bob’s message. Had he actually enlisted the help of the concierge in his investigation?
Bob’s phone quickly buz
zed.
“Amy says OK,” he said, looking at the phone.
Apparently that meant Amy was in on the covert operation, but London didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not.
When they arrived at the door, Bob whipped out his card and opened it.
London glanced up and down the hall, feeling more than a little like some sort of burglar.
Then she followed him into the room and switched on the overhead light.
Like all the staterooms here on the Romanze deck, this one was classified as “deluxe”—not as large or elegant as those above on the Menuetto deck, but larger than London’s own “classic” below on the Allegro deck. All of these deluxe rooms had wide picture windows, and Letitia’s currently offered a nice view of Salzburg. The white furnishings and turquoise carpet gave it all a touch of opulence.
London’s eyes immediately fell on the stolen feathered pen in its stand on the dressing table.
“I’ve found something,” she called out to Bob.
“So have I,” Bob replied.
London walked across the room, where Bob had opened the drawer of the small table beside the bed. Sure enough, he took out the purloined saltshaker. London then noticed that a cushion on a nearby chair was slightly crooked. She picked it up and found a cloth napkin embroidered with the logo of a restaurant back in Budapest.
Bob lifted a cushion of another chair and found a little booklet of artworks clearly labeled, “PROPERTY OF THE NACHTMUSIK LIBRARY.” Then London noticed a peculiar little bulge in one of a pair of bedroom slippers beside the bed. She picked up the slipper and found a little porcelain cream pitcher with a café’s logo on it.
“Holy smokes,” Bob growled. “This room must be crawling with stolen stuff.”
So it would seem, London thought.
Bob headed over to a chest of drawers.
“We’d better search the room from top to bottom,” he said, opening a drawer.
London felt a jolt of alarm.
One of the reasons she’d come with Bob was to make sure he didn’t wreck the room.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” she said, struggling to think how best to handle this very awkward situation.
