“Is he injured?”
“In a manner of speaking,” I said. “He can’t walk on uneven, irregular cobblestones.”
“It’s chaos,” Monk said, hopping from stone to stone. “You can’t stand on chaos.”
The officer glanced at me. “I’ll take him. You hold open the car door for me.”
Before Monk could protest, the officer effortlessly lifted him off his feet, lugged him to the car, and dropped him on the passenger seat.
Monk sighed with relief. “Thank you, Officer.”
“We really appreciate your help,” I said. “And your understanding.”
The officer looked back at me and whispered, “This man needs psychiatric care.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “His psychiatrist is staying at the Franziskushohe.”
He nodded. “Would you like a police escort?”
“I think we can make it on our own,” I said. “But thank you for offering.”
I got into the car and started the engine. The officer knocked on my window and I rolled it down.
“Don’t stop until you get there,” he said.
CHAPTER TEN
Mr. Monk and the Appointment
I got a little lost finding my way out of the center of town but that wasn’t such a bad thing. It gave me a chance to do some sightseeing.
We went down a narrow cobblestone street lined with adorable half-timbered houses that seemed to lean against one another for support. Each house had planter boxes full of blooming flowers under every window. The front doors were so small that it was easy to imagine that hobbits or dwarfs lived inside. I couldn’t see how anyone of average height could get in and out of the doors without smacking his head.
I bet the locals could tell who lived in town by their bruised or calloused foreheads.
The road took us through a gateway in what remained of the wall that had encircled the settlement back in the Middle Ages. It was one of the historical facts about Lohr that I’d gleaned from browsing the Germany guidebooks.
Here’s another fact: In its heyday, five or six hundred years ago, Lohr was renowned for its glassworks, producing mirrors so clear that they saw the truth, no doubt inspiring the talking mirror in Snow White.
The foothills leading to the hotel were dotted with cottagesand duplexes. Many of them appeared to have been cheaply built in recent years and lacked the charm and character of the town below.
“This is a godforsaken place,” Monk said as we ventured into the hills.
“I think it’s utterly charming.”
“It’s a rest stop on the road to hell,” Monk said. “Have you seen the buildings? The streets? Nothing is straight.”
“It’s like stepping into a fairy tale,” I responded. “This is where the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs actually took place.”
“Of course it is,” he said.
“You mean because the fable matches the true story of Sophie Margaret von Erthal, the beautiful baroness who lived in the castle?”
Shortly after Sophie’s mother died, her father remarried. The evil stepmother owned one of the famous Lohr “speaking mirrors” and was so envious of Sophie’s beauty that she ordered the forest warden to kill the young woman. Sophie fled into the woods and took refuge with miners, who had to be very short to work in the cramped tunnels.
“No, that’s not it,” Monk said.
“Then why do you think the story came from here?”
“Look around, woman. Only a place as hellacious as this could produce a horrific tale like Snow White and the Eight Dwarfs.”
“It was a magical fable,” I said. “And there were seven dwarfs, not eight.”
“There’s nothing magical about infectious diseases. Sneezy infected everyone. That’s why Dopey was Dopey, Grumpy was Grumpy, and Sleepy was Sleepy. They were all desperately ill,” Monk said. “Happy was deluding himself about the threat. Doc should have had his license to practice medicine revoked for sheer incompetence. And if Bashful had had any backbone at all, he would have run screaming from that cabin.”
“What does any of that have to do with an eighth dwarf?”
“Follow the evidence. The eighth dwarf was obviously killed by whatever disease he contracted from Sneezy. That’s why he was written out of the story as time went on.”
“There is nothing in the story to suggest the existence of an eighth dwarf.”
“Read it again. The clues are all there. Besides, nobody would write a story, much less publish one, about seven dwarfs. They might tell a story about six dwarfs, or possibly eight, but never seven. In fact, they say there might have been as many as four other dwarfs in the story.”
“ ‘They’ say? Who are ‘they’? You keep talking about these people but I’ve never seen them.”
Monk ignored my question and just plowed on.
“The names of the dwarfs were reportedly Burpy, Puffy, Dizzy, and Cranky. They must have been awfully sick, since, like the others, they are only remembered today for the most noticeable symptoms of their infections.”
“Walt Disney gave the dwarfs those silly names for the cartoon, ” I said. “They didn’t have names in the original fable by the Brothers Grimm.”
“The brothers were grim because they were telling a story about a group of deformed men infected with a highly contagious, terrible disease,” Monk said. “Ironically, that poisoned apple probably saved Snow White’s life.”
“How do you figure that?”
“It got her out of that house before she was infected and into the safety of a hermetically sealed glass coffin,” Monk said. “Snow White should have thanked her wicked stepmother instead of killing her. Someone
