A Castle in the Clouds

by Kerstin Gier

  I watched, stunned, as he walked to the door. In the doorway he turned back again. “I just hope they believe me upstairs,” he said. “Everyone loves the Ludwigs.”

  “Tell Ben. You can count on him.”

  Tristan grimaced slightly. “I’ll do what I can.” And then he was gone.

  I stood there beside Pavel’s sewing table with an unconscious child in front of me and Kali’s third eye in my hand and gasped for breath.

  25

  Okay. Just stay calm. Don’t panic.

  I stared at the bottle of Old Stucky’s brother-in-law’s pear brandy, which was still sitting there on the sewing table, and tried to breathe deeply and evenly. In and out and in and out …

  Everything was fine. Dasha was warm, her breathing was regular, her pulse was normal, help was on its way.

  But what if it wasn’t? What if the Ludwigs knew perfectly well that someone had helped me and Dasha escape from the Panorama Suite? What if they’d seen Tristan trudging through the snow with us? Or noticed that he was missing from the ballroom? I was pretty sure Ella Barnbrooke wouldn’t have kept quiet about her partner’s absence—could the Ludwigs have put two and two together?

  And what if nobody believed Tristan’s story? What if, while he was upstairs trying to convince everyone, the Ludwigs’ accomplices came down to search the basement and found me and Dasha? I could picture it now, the way the Ludwigs would play the innocent victims, holding hands and looking like rabbits in the headlights.

  Just staying here and waiting for it all to play out suddenly seemed like a stupid idea—and dangerous, too. I had to try and call for help myself. I had to get to one of the telephones and call Monsieur Rocher. He’d take care of everything, I knew he would.

  But first I had to hide Dasha so she’d be safe till I got back. And I knew the perfect place. There was enough room inside Tired Bertha for a whole nursery full of children. I made a little nest of towels for Dasha inside the drum and covered her up with more towels until only her nose and mouth were showing. Then I unplugged the machine, just in case anyone came in wanting to put a wash on.

  So. That was sorted. Now I just had to find somewhere to hide the necklace. Unless I did what Tristan had done and wore it next to my chest, hidden under my clothes. The diamond clasp fastened around my neck almost without me having to touch it—it was a truly beautiful piece of craftsmanship. And man, was it heavy. As I tucked Kali’s third eye inside my bra, I hoped I wasn’t about to become the next victim of her curse.

  I opened the door to the corridor a fraction to check the coast was clear. The kitchen and the spa were both about the same distance away, but I decided to make for the kitchen. I thought Mr. Heffelfinger might have closed the spa early, given that everyone was at the ball tonight.

  I rounded the first corner very slowly and hesitantly, afraid Mr. Ludwig might be lying in wait with his pistol, but then I decided to run. The quicker I could get to a phone, the sooner this nightmare would be over.

  As I turned the next corner, I ran slap-bang into Pierre, who was carrying a huge basket of bread rolls. A few of them fell onto the floor.

  “Sophie!” Pierre exclaimed in surprise.

  I was so relieved to see him that I almost burst into tears.

  “Oh, phew,” I cried. “Thank goodness it’s you. You haven’t seen any—er—suspicious characters lurking around here by any chance, have you?”

  “Oh yes, loads of them,” said Pierre. “The kitchen’s full of suspicious characters. And the head chef is the worst of them. I’m sick and tired of it, I tell you. But after this shift, I’ve got two days off. And guess what I’m going to do with them?” Only now did he seem to realize there was something wrong with me. He set down his basket. “Good Lord, Sophie, what’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  If only that was all it was! “Pierre, you have to help me,” I burst out. “Someone’s trying to kidnap the Russian oligarch’s daughter to get the Nadezhda Diamond, and I escaped from the Panorama Suite with her. But they’re still after us. They’re armed and very dangerous.”

  The expression on Pierre’s face changed from one of solicitude to one of pure disbelief mingled with concern as to my mental state. He tipped his head slowly to one side without taking his eyes off me, and I suddenly realized how Tristan must have felt earlier. Nobody believed a story like this the first time you told it. It was just too much for the brain to process.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “So you ran off with the Russian oligarch’s daughter because you were being chased by armed kidnappers who want to get their hands on the … Nad-something Diamond?”

  “I know how it sounds,” I broke in. “But I have to get to the kitchen and call Monsieur Rocher and tell him everything. Then he can call the police and fetch Yegorov. Will you help me?”

  “Of course I’ll help you.” Pierre still didn’t look entirely convinced, but the little smile of amusement had left his face. He was obviously starting to realize the seriousness of the situation. “Where’s the kid now?”

  “I left her in the laundry room.”

  “What? All alone?” Pierre took a deep breath. “Okay. Here’s what we’ll do: You go back to the kid and wait with her. I’ll tell Monsieur Rocher and call the police. And then I’ll get my sharpest knife and come and stand guard outside the laundry room. No one is getting kidnapped on my watch!” Without stopping to pick up his bread basket, he set off at a run. “You can count on me, Sophie!” he called back over his shoulder.

  Everything was going to be all right now. I ran back to the laundry room and lifted Dasha out of her nest inside Tired Bertha. Was I imagining it, or did her breathing sound more ragged than it had before? Perhaps there wasn’t enough oxygen in the washing machine? I sat down at the sewing table with her and rocked her like a baby. “Not long now—Daddy’s on his way,” I was saying as the door opened and Pierre came in. He had his knife with him, as promised. It wasn’t very big but it was murderously sharp, and if anyone knew how to use it, it was Pierre.

  “It’s all sorted,” he panted, completely out of breath. “Monsieur Rocher is calling the police and letting the Montforts know, and I’ve told my friend Lucas to hide behind the stairs with a fire extinguisher and give any suspicious characters a good wallop over the head. Oh my goodness, is that the little girl? She’s so sweet! Is she asleep? And why are you crying, Sophie?”

  I hadn’t realized there were tears running down my cheeks. “I’m just so relieved.” I sniffled. “Thank you. And you must thank Lucas for me, whoever he is. Everything’s going to be okay now. You can’t imagine what it’s been like.”

  “Oh, I can.” Pierre sat down on Pavel’s chair. “That jump out of the window alone must have been terrifying. It must be, what, fifteen, twenty feet?”

  “I … I didn’t tell you we jumped out of the window!” This time the horror rose in me very slowly, as if my stomach was turning inside out in slow motion.

  “That’s true. You didn’t.” Pierre shrugged and started carving notches into the tabletop with his knife.

  Oh no. Please no. Not again. Not Pierre!

  Pierre, who was so kind to the Forbidden Cat and fed it scraps of cold meat. Pierre with his friendly, long-nosed face, whose mischievous grin I looked forward to seeing every morning. Who saved me raspberry cheesecake and gave me milk rolls for the Hugos.

  “You didn’t call Monsieur Rocher, did you?” I asked flatly. I knew the answer already, but I wanted to hear him say it.

  “No,” he said brightly. “But I did call somebody else, and they were very pleased to hear that you and the little girl are safe and sound down here in the laundry room.” Pierre smiled his mischievous smile. “Dear oh dear, Sophie. What were you thinking? Climbing out of the window like that with a sleeping child. That could have backfired on you very badly. Mrs. Ludwig is fuming, I can tell you. And Mr. Ludwig was ready to give the whole thing up as a bad job.”

  I looked down at Dasha. I almost wished I was unconsci
ous, too, then at least I wouldn’t have been aware of what was going on. If only I’d stayed here in the laundry room …

  “I’d have found you anyway,” said Pierre, uncannily, as if he’d read my mind. “I knew you’d try and get in through the basement somehow—which entrance did you use, out of interest?—and the laundry room is the place you know best.” He leaned back and let the knife slide through his fingers with a practiced movement. “What do you think the bread basket’s for? I’m going to carry the kid outside in it. And no one will suspect a thing. The head chef conveniently asked me to get rid of all the stale rolls.”

  And what are you going to do with me? I was about to ask, but on second thought, I realized I didn’t want to know the answer. The sight of the knife was enough.

  Pierre smiled at me over the pear brandy bottle. “I like you, Sophie, honestly I do. You’re a nice girl. But just because I’ve slipped you a few treats now and then doesn’t mean we’re friends. You have no idea how the world works. Do you know how much a junior chef earns?” He didn’t wait for my reply. “And all the crap we have to put up with? Is it really fair? Some of us spend our whole lives grafting and we can barely make ends meet, while those rich bastards come here on vacation and complain because their soft-boiled egg isn’t the perfect shape. No, it’s not fair, is it? It’s every man for himself in this world, and I’m not about to pass up an offer that could be my ticket out of this hellhole once and for all. I’m sure you understand that, don’t you?”

  I’d heard what he said, but did I really understand it? Probably not. My mind was racing far too quickly for that. How long was it since he’d told the Ludwigs, and how long would it take them to get down here? And what were they going to do to me? Drug me like Dasha and take me with them so I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened? But I was hardly going to fit inside a bread basket, was I? It was more likely they’d shoot me on the spot. Or perhaps Pierre would be called upon to use his knife in return for his share of the money?

  I had to fight back. Or at least try to. For Dasha, and for myself. And for my parents. It would break their hearts if I died without going to college. Okay, perhaps that was a little unfair. And this was hardly the time for jokes.

  I stared down at Dasha’s sweet sleeping face and stood up.

  “Don’t try anything stupid, Sophie.” Pierre stood up, too, toying with the knife in his hand.

  “I just want to lay her down over there,” I said, pointing to the pile of laundry she’d been lying on before.

  Pierre nodded. “All right. And then you sit straight back down again, okay?”

  “Okay.” Like someone who’d abandoned all hope I shuffled over to the laundry pile and carefully laid Dasha down on it. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had to do something. And I had to do it now.

  As I turned around, the light started flickering. And not just one light, but every single bulb in that huge room, all flickering at the same time. Then one of the washing machines suddenly jolted into life. I could have sworn Tired Bertha was the only machine that made a noise like that, but I’d definitely unplugged her earlier.

  “What the hell…?” Pierre leapt past me toward the machines, his knife at the ready.

  This was my chance. I grabbed the bottle of pear brandy and brought it down as hard as I could on Pierre’s head. It didn’t break, as I’d expected, but my blow was so forceful that I lost my grip on the bottle and it rolled away across the floor as if it felt insulted. Pierre fell forward onto his knees. He wasn’t out cold, unfortunately, just slightly stunned.

  Damn it, the man must have a thick skull! And he was still clutching his knife.

  I looked hastily around and grabbed the nearest object at hand: the iron.

  Pierre staggered to his feet. I knew I mustn’t give him time to recover, so I grabbed the iron by the plug and swung it hard against Pierre’s shins. I’d read somewhere that the shinbone is the most frequently fractured bone in the body and one of the most excruciatingly painful places you can hit someone.

  And this seemed to be true, especially if you happened to hit them with a very heavy metal iron by swinging it through the air like a dog on a leash. Pierre cried out and fell to his knees again. This time he dropped his knife. There was even a rip in one of his trouser legs where the iron had caught it.

  Tired Bertha, or whichever machine had been imitating her noises, was silent now and the lights had stopped flickering.

  Slowly and painfully, snorting with rage, Pierre tried to haul himself to his feet by holding onto the rotary iron. Unusually, Pavel had switched the machine off with a piece of laundry still in it. In this case, it was a fifteen-foot-long damask table runner from one of the tables in the restaurant. Two thirds of the runner, which was a good two feet wide, was hanging out of the machine waiting to be ironed.

  I didn’t waste any time thinking or calculating: I picked up the end of the fabric, looped it around Pierre as quickly as I could and fed it into the mangle on the other side. Then I flicked the switch to ON and jumped backward. Pierre didn’t even have time to blink before he found himself being squeezed against the mangle by the fabric. And once the mangle had swallowed something, she wasn’t going to spit it out again in a hurry. Pierre’s wildly flailing arms couldn’t quite reach the switch.

  “You witch!” he yelled as he realized he was trapped, harnessed to the most powerful rotary iron on the market. (Or it had been when the hotel had first bought it, anyway.) “I’ll kill you!”

  “Not if the mangle kills you first,” I said.

  I gave the knife another kick, just to be on the safe side, and it slid underneath the nearest folding machine.

  “We’ll be off, then,” I said, lifting Dasha up off her pile of laundry. “I got in through the coal cellar; I can get out that way, too. Give my love to the Ludwigs!”

  Pierre roared something very rude that even Gracie would have drawn the line at.

  What I’d said about the coal cellar, of course, had been a red herring. I was actually planning to escape via the ski cellar—the steep coal chute might have been an excellent way in, but it would be much more difficult to climb out of. Especially with an unconscious child in my arms. The good thing was that Pierre couldn’t see which way I’d gone because he was stuck facing the wall and he couldn’t turn his head 180 degrees. Not that he even attempted it—he was too busy trying to stop the machine from flattening him.

  I almost let out a triumphant shout. But Dasha and I weren’t out of the woods yet.

  As I was about to slip through the archway that separated the laundry room from the ski cellar, something damp brushed past my head and I stood still, startled. Which was a good thing, too, because at that moment I looked through the glass window in the door to the outer staircase and saw the shadow of something moving. A moment later the door opened.

  I managed to dive around the corner just in time and squash myself and Dasha in behind the cupboard where the ski wax was kept. I stood stock-still, hoping nobody would spot us in the half darkness. In the laundry room, Pierre was still cursing loudly, and now there was a woman’s voice, too. Mrs. Ludwig must have arrived. And Mr. Ludwig had come in through the back door. Very clever. A couple of seconds later and I would have run straight into his arms.

  But as it was he hurried toward the sound of the yelling without so much as a glance in our direction.

  I heaved a sigh of relief. I had two options now. To try and escape with Dasha through the ski cellar or …

  I heard the mangle being switched off. “She got out through the coal cellar.” Pierre sounded incredibly angry. “You need to go that way.”

  I lowered Dasha to the floor and laid her down gently with her head on a feather duster. Then I tiptoed back into the laundry room, scuttling between the machines to keep out of sight. One day I’d have to thank Fräulein Müller for insisting that all the staff wear shoes with extra-quiet soles. From my hiding place behind a tower of tumble dryers, I saw Pierre heading for the coal ce
llar, the Ludwigs’ curly white heads close behind him.

  “If she’s still in the chute, she’s mine,” I heard Pierre say.

  “Clever little thing, isn’t she?” That was Mr. Ludwig. He was the last of the three to step inside the coal cellar. And he had a pistol in his hand, the sight of which made me hesitate for a moment.

  I knew it was reckless, but if it worked I’d have killed three birds with one stone. So I took a deep breath, darted out of my hiding place and ran toward them as silently as I could.

  Only six feet left. Three. One.

  Then I was at the coal cellar door. I pushed it gingerly and felt it move, very slowly, inch by inch, until … squeak! The hinge had made a noise.

  The Ludwigs spun round. Pierre already had his head inside the coal chute. Mr. Ludwig raised his revolver.

  No, no, no. I hadn’t gotten this far to give up now. I heard a plopping sound from somewhere, like a cork being pulled out of a champagne bottle, but I shoved the door closed with the last of my strength, leaned my whole weight against it, and shot the massive bolt home.

  I’d done it.

  Only now did I notice the stabbing pain in my shoulder. When I put my hand to it, I felt something wet. It took me a second to realize I’d been shot. My hand was red with my own blood.

  Mr. Ludwig had been right—the silencer really did work.

  26

  So there I stood, exhausted, in the snow, as the distant sound of violins drifted toward us from the ballroom. Around my neck was a thirty-five-carat diamond that didn’t belong to me, and in my arms was a sleeping child who didn’t belong to me, either.

  Somewhere along the way I’d lost a shoe.