The Dream Killer of Paris (15 page)

‘My word! I have known more peaceful dreams!’

Sitting down on the bed again, he looked at me mockingly.

‘Tell me one thing, dear friend. If your stranger from the steamer really is one of those alluring spirits who haunt the hidden corners of nature, why has she chosen you to deliver her messages? If she was looking for a good-looking young detective, able to save the world from evil powers who want to destroy it, why not choose me?’

‘Oh! I don’t doubt for an instant that you were her first choice!’ I exclaimed, laughing. ‘But I think that one crucial thing influenced her decision.’

‘Oh yes? What might that be?’

‘Nerval.’

‘Nerval?’

‘Yes. I am convinced that my desire to solve the mystery of his death created a sympathetic link with the occult.’

‘Are you saying that this beauty knew your poet?’

‘Gérard’s spirit would often wander through the invisible world, putting his mental state at risk. No doubt he formed a number of relationships and was liked and appreciated by ethereal people.’

‘Hmm, I see! Nerval’s friends are their friends. So, don’t forget to remind them that I am your friend, Andrew! If I’m lucky, a succubus with a fantastic body will visit me too!’

He threw his towel into the middle of the room with a chuckle.

‘Well? What are we doing today?’ he asked when he had stopped laughing.

‘Let’s concentrate on the information provided by my stranger. In particular, I am convinced that the castle with the pointed roof, which appeared in my vision on the
Canterbury
, is an essential clue. That is where we should go.’

‘A castle with a pointed roof? It’s not much of a clue.’

‘Except that it was only one element of a larger picture, a magnificent steep valley cut by a river with blue water, probably the Danube.’

I put the two books on the occult on the bed and went over to the large cupboard which took up half the wall. I opened the drawers and pulled out a tourist leaflet which I held out to my friend, open at the relevant page.

‘I found this brochure when I was looking for something to write on last night. A guest must have left it behind, unless the hotel management puts a copy in every room.’

‘The Wachau valley! That is what your vision was? Are you sure?’

‘There’s no doubt about it. The Wachau starts in Melk and ends in Krems, east of Vienna. It is a very well-known local attraction. I’ve looked carefully at the photograph. It’s the same landscape of vines, conifers and oak trees that I saw in the vision. Its eighteen miles contain a considerable number of ruined monasteries, fortresses and eyries perched on the rocks. We just have to find the one we’re looking for.’

‘And how do we get to this haven of splendour?’

‘Look at the brochure. All the information we need is there, even the timetable. There’s a ferry service every day between Vienna and Passau on the German border. It stops at Dürnstein and Linz.’

James looked at his watch.

‘I say!’ he cried. ‘Couldn’t you have said so earlier? It leaves at eight o’clock! We’ll barely make it!’

‘Don’t panic. I called reception to order a taxi. It will be downstairs in a minute and will take us to the Reichsbrücke boarding point. We’ll be there in plenty of time.’

The
Habsburg
was one of those elegant paddle steamers which crisscross the Danube and delight the tourists, and indeed the Viennese as well.

The ferry was not very busy on a Monday morning and it was a pleasure to enjoy the view from its deserted decks. Unlike the day before, it was dry and the sun regularly broke through the low clouds.

We positioned ourselves on deckchairs at the front of the boat for observation purposes. The tall chimney exhaled a delicate wisp of black vapour. After we had left behind the village of Grinzing and Mount Leopoldsberg with its famous belvedere marking the northernmost point of Vienna, for several hours we saw only flat, sandy banks.

Shortly after eleven o'clock, the Danube, whilst still impressive, narrowed noticeably and the banks suddenly steepened to create a landscape of unparalleled magnificence, a succession of small valleys covered with orchards and forests reputed to be full of game. A member of the crew confirmed that we had just entered the Wachau valley and were, at that very moment, passing the ancient city of Krems, the first stage of our journey.

Now we had to pay attention and carefully examine each twist of the landscape.

I had taken the precaution of sketching a picture of the castle I had glimpsed in my vision on to a piece of paper for James. I had
portrayed it perched on its rocky summit with the tower with the pointed roof in the foreground and, behind, a second, taller tower without a roof and connected to the first one by a wing of the building. In front of the rock, I had remembered to include the shady islet.

The advertising brochure had not exaggerated There were a plethora of ancient ruins on either side of the gorge. Over the centuries the area's tortuous geography had inspired the toughest builders. Emperors, kings, princes, tyrants and wealthy bandits had vied with one another in their audacity to build impregnable fortresses. For hours we sailed past military and religious architectural treasures: Göttweig, Stein, Dürnstein (where we docked for half an hour), Spitz and Aggstein. All of them, were surrounded by woods and vines and had their fair share of romantic castles, nearly ruined eyries, churches and monasteries.

But of my castle there was no trace! When our steamer reached the grandiose Melk Abbey in the middle of the afternoon, and a gently undulating wide plain replaced the uneven terrain of Wachau, I could not hide my disappointment.

‘Are you sure you drew it right? Maybe your memory is playing tricks on you and you've forgotten an essential element?'

‘No!' I protested. ‘And even if that were the case, I would have done a double-take as we passed it. The truth is that it must be somewhere else.'

‘Arghh! So we'll have to retrace our steps then. There's no point continuing to Passau.'

‘The next stop is Linz,' I mused, consulting the brochure. ‘Over forty miles from here. We'll have to wait until we get there. Then we'll take the first boat back to Vienna.'

In good spirits despite this setback, and not having eaten all day, James encouraged me to go with him to the restaurant where we
sustained ourselves with a plate of beef prepared in the local style and enormous portions of
Kartoffeln
. Then we wandered up and down the deck to pass the time until we reached Linz.

It was nearly seven o'clock in the evening. The sun was about to set behind a wooded hill, blotting out the autumnal scene until the following day, when the Danube narrowed again and was squeezed between the overhanging ledges of the Bohemian Massif. The river twisted round two bends and then suddenly revealed the brooding outline of a castle with a pointed roof.

‘James! James!' I cried, pointing to the stone construction which was about to disappear from sight with the last rays of the sun. ‘That's it! That's the castle!'

Everything was there: the two towers, the colossal granite rock and the island that the boat was about to pass on the port side at that very moment.

‘You're right! It's exactly like your drawing!'

We immediately hurried to find the captain to negotiate an impromptu landing. He was not easily convinced. His obstinacy was finally overcome when James produced a crisp bank note from his wallet.

Eventually, he gave the order to switch off the engines and a sailor lowered a skiff into the water.

Five minutes later, we landed on a bank of grey sand and the sailor and his boat returned to the
Habsburg
. A few minutes later the lights from the paddle steamer faded from the other side of the island.

Behind us, night had completely enveloped the peak and its fortress, whose threatening presence we felt even more intensely.

Above, a full moon was rising over a forest of conifers.

After the daytime splendour of the banks of the Danube, there was a sinister atmosphere, rife with the legends of Bohemia and
Moravia. At that moment we would not have been at all surprised if a raging werewolf or a vampire with incisors dripping with blood had crossed our path.

A short walk along the shore brought us to a village. We decided to go to an inn nestling outside the village on the slope of a hill to plan our next move.

The first thing I did was to request a telephone to call the reception desk at the Regina hotel in Vienna so that someone could inform Superintendent Fourier (who I believed would soon be in Vienna) of our new destination: W— Castle, near the village of Strelka.

The innkeeper and the villagers we questioned about the fortress over a glass of
Weisswein
seemed reluctant to expand on the subject. They let it be understood that it was preferable not to say anything, especially to strangers.

We did not press the issue and the son of the house, who was as unwilling to talk as the others, accompanied us to our respective rooms.

The inn was right by the castle and it offered a very advantageous view. I stood and gazed for a long time at the austere silhouette illuminated by the moon. It was exactly as I had drawn it, with its ramparts and its tall square tower, from where people must have sounded the alarm against invaders in the past. The tower with the pointed roof was on the other side and so not visible but I guessed it was similar to the square one.

After several minutes a light appeared in a window halfway up, but I only had time to make out the shape of a person before the room was in darkness again. So there was definitely someone in the
Burg
. As no other rooms were lit up, I concluded that the occupied part was in the other tower, away from people's gaze.

‘Did you see the window?' exclaimed my friend, charging into the room.

‘Yes.'

‘It wasn't Kessling. Whoever it was looked frail, stunted …'

‘With luck, we'll get there before him. We should do – we haven't been idle since we reached Austria.'

‘If we've overtaken him, we mustn't waste a second, Andrew. We should go to the castle tonight!'

‘What?' I cried, alarmed at my friend's eagerness. ‘Why the hurry? I'm sure Superintendent Fourier is already on his way. He'll be with us at the latest the day after tomorrow.'

‘The day after tomorrow? But that's too late! We must use our advantage and find out what's going on in that damned castle. We must act tonight! We'll make a start when everyone in the inn is asleep!'

Grabbing me by the shoulders, James led me out of the room.

‘Where are you taking me?'

‘To eat. We must build up our strength.'

For my friend the decision had been made and it was a waste of time trying to change his mind. Anyway, maybe he was right. James was the archetypal action man; his brain was sharper and more agile when he was in danger. The opposite was true of me. Outside the silence and quiet of a reading room, where I was able to unravel the most convoluted plots, my mind felt confused and more often than not I got in a muddle when I felt threatened. All the same, we had not travelled halfway across Europe just to wait for the arrival of reinforcements. We should at least try to get some more information.

It was nearly ten o'clock. Downstairs in the dining hall the regulars were gathering. My friend ordered a plate of revolting dumpling made from bread, lard and flour, washed down with a
pint of light ale. As always whenever he got a whiff of adventure, James was in good spirits. As far as I was concerned, the prospect of entering the fortress had ruined my appetite and I kept my eyes on the cuckoo clock.

Shortly after midnight, when everyone had left, we went back upstairs and waited for more than an hour in James's room while the household nodded off.

When all was quiet, my friend implored me not to move and disappeared without explanation. Ten minutes later he came back with a big smile on his face.

‘The lights are out. The manager is fast asleep. We can go!'

‘How do we get out of the inn without being seen?'

‘This way,' he replied, opening the window. ‘My room is above a shed. If we use the gutter along the front, it couldn't be easier to get down on to the roof and then jump to the ground. The shed wall is fairly low so we can come back the same way.'

James didn't give me time to reply. Without further ado, he stepped over the windowsill, landed silently on the shed roof and jumped nimbly down. Then he waved his arms to indicate that I should follow him. This was not the time to hesitate. I managed to reach the shed without too much trouble but, instead of leaping to the ground (I was nearly seven feet up after all), I grabbed a beam to slide down, which left me with scratches and a tear in my jacket, while my friend chuckled under his breath.

At two o'clock in the morning we were on the tortuous path up to the
Burg
. Access by car was impossible. The only way to reach the castle was on foot.

After a short time we came to the bottom of the ramparts. The castle, such as it was, stood on the right-hand side of the hill, directly above the Danube. It was composed of three architectural elements: the two towers which I have already mentioned and a building with
a red-tiled roof which connected one to the other. Fortifications surrounded the buildings and formed a courtyard where lords of old would have gathered their troops. On both sides the walls were made of stone. There was no way of walking around the castle without risking falling down a steep drop.

Until that day I had imagined that castles of this kind were protected by a drawbridge and a thick portcullis with a deep moat preventing access. Instead of such a gothic set-up, the entrance to the
Burg
was through two wooden doors. One – admittedly high and wide but of derisory proportions compared to the fortress – opened on to the courtyard. The second, which appeared to be a simple wicket gate, provided access to the square tower.

James immediately climbed the stone steps. Having checked that the doors were locked, he came down and considered the walls carefully.

‘It's impossible to get into the tower. The first window is sixteen or seventeen feet up and it has bars. But I think I can reach the lantern by the door opening on to the courtyard. If I pull myself up to the window there, I can then jump down into the courtyard.'

He peered through the keyhole.

‘The courtyard is enormous. There must be a way to get into the castle through there. Anyway, the place seems deserted.'

‘What about me?' I asked, disconcerted, not imagining for a moment that I could join him in his acrobatics.

‘Once inside, I'll find a way to open the door for you. In the meantime, you can be my ladder!'

I hesitated before giving him a hand. There was no guarantee that James would be able to get me inside; he was taking a big risk.

‘Come on, hurry! There's no other option. And nothing's going to happen to me!'

He took a small pistol out of his pocket and removed the magazine at the bottom of the barrel to show me that it was full of bullets.

‘Where did you find that?'

‘At the inn. While everyone was asleep I went through their drawers. It's a Mauser 1910, a semi-automatic. German soldiers used it during the war.'

Decisively, my friend pushed me against the wall under the old unlit lantern. It took all my strength not to collapse under his weight as he climbed on to my shoulders. Just when I felt it was impossible for me to hold on for much longer, James managed to grab the lantern which, happily, was firmly attached. Then he heaved himself up. He was now hanging eight feet up and the window arch was only a few feet above him. He swung his leg up to reach the window ledge. Then, judging that he had enough support, he pulled himself up so that he was sitting on the window ledge, looking down at me mockingly.

‘If I'm tortured and you hear me screaming, I can count on you, can't I, Andrew? You'll call the police? With luck, you'll arrive in time to save me from certain death.'

‘It's madness for you to go off into the castle on your own. Let's wait until Fourier arrives!'

Just then I heard a muffled sound as he landed in the courtyard. Through the gaps round the doorway all I could see was moonlight.

‘Is everything all right?' I murmured.

‘Uh, yep! I've fractured half a dozen bones but I'll be all right.'

‘Can you open the damned door?'

‘Sorry! It's definitely locked and I can't see any way of getting it to budge. Never mind. I'll just have a quick look round. Twenty minutes. No more, I promise!'

I cursed myself for letting James go into the
Burg
alone. It was inhabited. And everything pointed to its being the place where the unknown person who had sent the telegram found at La Toison d'Or had expressly invited Öberlin to go.

All I could do was hope that my friend came back quickly.

I went down the steps and walked a short way towards the village. From there, I could see the window in the square tower where we had glimpsed the light earlier.