The Secret of Excalibur

‘Ay up,’ said Chase, noticing her thoughtful expression. ‘She’s got something.’

Nina pushed everybody’s cups aside to clear more space on the table, laying out the pages so they were all oriented the same way. ‘Look how symmetrical it is. But if there really is a hidden room, it won’t be on these plans, because they were made after the war. We need to look for anything that’s not mirrored.’

She carefully scanned the pages, the others shifting round the table to look for themselves. ‘This isn’t the same,’ said Chase after a short while, indicating a door that only appeared on one side of the castle’s second floor.

‘There’s a spiral staircase that isn’t mirrored here,’ Mitchell added, tapping a finger on another sheet.

‘But they’re not rooms, they’re just alterations,’ Nina said. ‘We need to see if there’s a difference in the actual physical layout of the building . . .’

‘Like this?’ Mitzi asked. ‘The lowest level of the cellars, there are two long rooms on each side of this passage.’

‘Probably wine cellars,’ said Nina, looking more closely.

‘Yes, but look!’ Mitzi used her phone as a makeshift ruler, lining it up across the end of one of the rooms. ‘The one on the right is shorter than the one on the left.’

She was right, Nina saw. The difference was not much, no more than a few feet on the scale of the plans . . . but it was definitely there. ‘My God, it is!’

Chase gave Mitzi an admiring look. ‘Bloody hell, love, I think you’ve got it! Nice work!’

She beamed proudly back. ‘Thank you!’

‘I guess your mum was wrong - it’s a good job we asked you to help. Come here.’ He leaned over to hug her. She returned the gesture enthusiastically. ‘So now what?’

‘Now?’ said Nina, scrutinising the slight asymmetry of the plans, ‘I think it’s time I talked to this Roland Staumberg.’

‘Dr Wilde,’ said Roland Staumberg, bowing to Nina before taking her hand. ‘An honour. It is a thrill to meet the discoverer of Atlantis!’

Leaving Mitzi - to her disappointment - waiting in the village, Nina, Chase and Mitchell had driven further up the valley to Staumberg Castle. As Nina hoped, her current celebrity status had piqued his interest. Though a little surprised that she was already in Rasbrucke, he nevertheless agreed to meet her.

The castle was an imposing, starkly beautiful structure perched atop a ridge protruding from the mountainside. It overlooked the resort’s ski slopes and forests from the end of a steep zig-zagging road that despite having been ploughed was still coated with snow. Mitchell’s four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Suburban SUV, another vehicle laid on by the US government, was much appreciated.

When the castle’s outer gates whirred open, they entered the courtyard and parked near a pair of snowmobiles, to be met by a tall, whip-thin man in dark clothes who introduced himself as Kurt, Staumberg’s butler. Staumberg himself, waiting at the castle’s door, was in his forties, sand-blond and barrel-chested, with an air of refined intellect. To Chase’s barely contained glee, he was indeed wearing a monocle.

‘It’s good to meet you too, Herr Staumberg,’ Nina replied. She introduced Chase and Mitchell, then took in the large hall they had entered. Just as the plans had suggested, it was symmetrical, stone stairways rising up on each side to a balcony that ran round the side and rear walls, stained glass windows lining it. Chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, and large and heavy tapestries reached almost to floor level, suits of armour standing stiffly between them. The whole room was panelled in dark wood, its varnish so thick and warm that it almost seemed like a coating of amber. ‘This is . . . wow, this is very impressive.’

‘Thank you,’ said Staumberg, ‘but it costs so much to heat!’ Everyone laughed politely at the ice-breaking joke. ‘Please, follow me. There is a warmer room upstairs.’

He led them up one of the flights of stairs and along the balcony, where more suits of polished armour were on display. At the end was a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading down, one of the asymmetrical elements they had seen on the plans. The butler opened a door beside it and ushered them into the room beyond.

It was a study, a log fire snapping in a stone fireplace. A tall window looked down the valley towards the village, although the arrangement of the leather armchairs made it clear that Staumberg spent more time looking at the rather incongruous plasma TV than the stunning view outside.

‘For the football,’ he explained as he gestured for the others to sit before taking his own seat. ‘Would you like something to drink? Coffee, tea, schnapps?’

Deciding it was a little early to start drinking, Nina politely accepted coffee, Mitchell and Chase doing the same. Kurt bowed and exited.

‘Thank you for seeing us, Herr Staumberg,’ Nina said.

‘Oh, it is my pleasure! I was reading about you just the other day.’ He riffled through a small stack of magazines, pulling out a diving title. ‘Here, you see?’ He opened the magazine; Nina’s IHA publicity portrait grinned from the page beside a larger photo of a minisub over one of the Atlantis excavation sites. ‘I enjoy wreck-diving - exploring sunken ships. But what you have done is much more exciting! So what can I do for you, Dr Wilde? Much as I would love to hear about your discovery of Atlantis, I do not think that is why you have come to see me, no?’

‘I’m afraid not. Although we are looking for something else, another ancient legend.’ She glanced at Mitchell. ‘I don’t know how much I can tell you about it . . .’

‘Let me guess,’ sighed Staumberg, skin folding around the rim of his monocle as he frowned. ‘You are looking for Excalibur.’

Nina blinked in surprise. ‘How did you know?’

‘I was pestered by a man about it some months ago. He had a mad theory that part of it was hidden here in a Nazi treasure-trove. But I have lived here all my life, and there is no such hidden treasure. I explored every centimetre of the castle as a child, so I would know! But this man, what was his name, Rust?’

‘Bernd Rust.’

‘You know him?’

‘I knew him,’ said Nina. ‘He was murdered.’

Staumberg was shocked. ‘Murdered? I am sorry. I did not like the man, he was annoying, but I did not wish him harm.’

‘The thing is,’ Nina continued, ‘he was murdered because of his search for Excalibur. I didn’t believe him at first either, but since then . . . well, we think he may have been right. That’s why the IHA is looking for the other pieces, so we can find them before his killers do.’

The Austrian was now decidedly uncomfortable. ‘And you think one of these pieces is here.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which means his killers may also think it is here.’

‘That’s a distinct possibility,’ said Mitchell. ‘Which is why we’d like your permission to search for it.’

‘But search where?’ Staumberg asked. ‘I cannot think of anywhere it could be hidden that would not already have been found.’

‘What about the cellars?’ Nina asked. She unfolded the plan of the castle’s lowest level. ‘Here, you see? The castle is perfectly symmetrical, except for this one room that’s slightly shorter than the other.’

Staumberg took the plan and examined it with interest - then blanched. ‘Oh. The wine cellar.’

Kurt entered at that moment bearing a tray of steaming coffee mugs. He caught Staumberg’s expression and asked him a question in German, getting a somewhat agitated response. Nina picked up enough to know they were discussing the cellar. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘I would . . . ah, prefer not to show you that room,’ Staumberg answered.

‘Thought you said there wasn’t anything hidden here,’ said Chase.

‘There is not, that I know of, but . . .’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It is just . . . I would rather not have visitors in that room. But Kurt and I, we can search it again and see if we find anything, ja?’

‘You could,’ said Mitchell, ‘but the thing is, the people who murdered Rust also stole his research. The same research that brought him here in the first place,’ he added pointedly. ‘If they’ve got it, they’ll probably pay you a visit, just like us. But they won’t ask to search the castle.’