Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

“Have you tried knocking?” This was from Blach, and Svenson suppressed a smile.

“Of course I have tried,” answered Flauss, 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 Flauss, here with the Major and Doctor Svenson.”

They waited. Flauss 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 Flauss. “You may do it yourself, Herr Envoy.”

Flauss 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 Flauss 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 Flauss, 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!” Flauss 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.”

Flauss 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 Flauss, 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 Flauss. 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 Flauss, 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. Flauss was just pulling himself through the narrow hatchway, his body framed against the sickly glow of the city 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 Flauss 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.

Flauss 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. Flauss 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 Crabbe? 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 Flauss.

“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. Flauss 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.”