As far as my own discovery was concerned, I ventured to guess that on the surface, where the backyards and gardens were now laid out, there had been either a church or a monastery at some earlier time, very likely in the Middle Ages. For reasons unknown, the buildings aboveground were razed, leaving the lower building complex untouched. Hence the shaft that led down there must have been built to supply this underground realm with fresh air.
The stone corridor had walls decorated with early Christian miniatures and paintings of saints, now covered with a patina of dirt and almost unrecognizable. It led me to further passages, and after a while I had the impression of having stumbled into a labyrinth. Many burial niches had been set into the walls, containing the crumbled remains of human skeletons. Some burial niches, however, had weighty stone slabs inscribed with biblical verses that obstructed a view of their contents. Now and then, walls that had crumbled and single, large stone fragments blocked the path, and I had to climb over them. Often entire sections of the ceiling had fallen in, and I had to hunt for a gap through them before I could even think of going on. Presumably earthquakes or bombing during World War II had caused this devastation. All in all I thought that my find, with its rather unexceptional treasures, would scarcely have raised a murmur in the world of professional archaeologists. I was probably correct in assuming that this mysterious construction had once been the seat of a small and insignificant religious order.
Nevertheless, the catacombs did not fail to have a certain effect. I wandered raptly through the stone labyrinth, counting on being attacked at any moment by the sinister Persian. Rainwater seeped through cracks in the wall; the sound of the drops hitting the floor and echoing throughout the corridors could have competed with the most eccentric music imaginable. Paralyzed by fear, yet gripped by fascination, I roamed through the dead subterranean kingdom for some time until I thought I knew its plan by heart.
Suddenly I arrived at a round chamber with a groined ceiling and, looking around, nearly lost my mind. Embedded in the continuous wall of the vault that formed the domed interior were countless small niches that at one time might have held candles or sacred paraphernalia, but were now being perversely misused. The skeletons of brothers and sisters rested in each niche, many still in full possession of their skins, which had dried out or were even tanned, and which despite or because of the air conditions stubbornly refused to decompose into dust. In their niches the dead sat upright on their rears like human beings, staring at me from empty eye sockets. Each was decorated with dried flowers that were now in the final stage of desiccation. What, however, was most degenerate and horrifying was the altar. It stood in the middle of the room, a mighty stone block with an artlessly chiseled cross on its front; heaped upon it, next to some candelabras whose last candles had gone out centuries ago, was a towering hill of bones. A skull capped this gruesome work of art that also had flowers strewn decoratively all around it. Even the stone floor was plastered with the pieces of a nonhuman, skeletal puzzle, pieces the psychotic responsible for all of this had probably found no use for. Some distance away from the idolatrous altar, scattered in wild disarray, lay a pile of leather-bound volumes, open, largely decomposed. Numerous mammals had gnawed at them, ruining them beyond all recognition. I supposed that once they had belonged to the monastery library but had been moved to this room. An extensive network of spider webs covered the entire nightmare, and quite possibly mice led an idyllic life here.
Gaping, I was magically drawn into the vault. I tried to estimate how many brothers and sisters had found their final resting place, or rather gruesome end, here. I caught an odor of decay. Not all these wretched creatures had entered the merciful stage of skeletal existence. Some, if only a few, were still suffering the last discomforts of putrefaction, which meant that right now legions of worms and other delightful living things were at work on them. Although many smells pervaded the vault, mainly of fecal matter, this murderous aroma assailed my nose with particular pungency.
I thought of Kong and how quickly he had recognized the true murderer with his barbaric instincts. I, on the other hand, had wanted to be clever and had approached the matter with my roundabout, analytical, but ultimately totally ineffective methods. I had wanted to imitate human beings—a childish enterprise—and had entertained the most ingenious theories, not realizing that the real solution to the murders was illogical. The murderer was a mentally unbalanced Persian who ambushed his victims, killed them, and then threw them down into this cult site. Motive: because it was a part of either a ritual or an insane obsession.
But one mystery remained unsolved. Why hadn't he brought the six brothers and sisters who had died just before Solitaire to the catacombs? Luckily, I didn't need to rack my brains anymore about details as subtle as these, because my encounter with "The Waddler," probably soon to take place, would spare me any further intellectual effort. The most prudent course of action to take now was to enjoy the beautiful view.
I walked along the wall, looking up at the mummylike brothers and sisters, who gave me
