by Blake Pierce
When they ran across Kirby Oswinkle, London was relieved to find that a considerable intake of beer hadn’t exacerbated the man’s usually abrasive personality. To the contrary, he seemed to be in quite a jolly mood.
But his expression saddened as he saw London approach him.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “It’s getting toward time to head back to the ship.”
“I’m afraid so,” London said.
“Ah, well. All good things must come to an end.”
London was amazed as Kirby tottered on his way. This beer festival was the only thing she could remember Kirby wholeheartedly approving of.
London got a glimpse of Elsie some distance off. Fortunately, Elsie seemed to have figured out for herself that their shore leave was ending. London saw Elsie blow her beau-for-a-day a kiss and head on out of the square.
One person London was worried not to see was Audrey Bolton. However the festival might be affecting the troublesome woman’s mood, London hoped she’d get back to the ship on time. She also hoped she hadn’t had another encounter with her drunken nemesis.
Checking for more passengers had led London and Sir Reggie right up to the stage, where the crowd was dense in anticipation of the impending dunking of the tomcat. A small oompah-style band had gathered nearby and was tuning up and getting ready to perform. The stage itself was still dark and the red curtains were still closed.
London spotted something odd on the edge of the stage just in front of the curtain. She leaned over and picked it up, then shuddered a little as she looked at the object more closely.
It was a glass monocle.
London set Sir Reggie down on the edge of the stage and took a closer look at the monocle. She held it up to the light and saw that it was a prescription lens. She couldn’t tell for sure whether it was the same one she had seen earlier in the day—but then, how many of these things were likely to be in use?
As she was focused on the monocle, Sir Reggie suddenly jerked away, pulling the leash out of her hands. The little dog ducked under the curtain and disappeared.
“Sir Reggie,” London called.
But Sir Reggie didn’t reappear.
London climbed the steps onto the stage and pushed her way past the end of the curtain. It had gotten a lot darker around the massive beer barrel than it had been earlier, and it was harder to see.
But there was Sir Reggie, licking at a puddle of liquid on the stage.
What on earth … ? London wondered.
She stooped down and touched the wet floor and lifted her finger to her nose.
“It’s beer,” London said.
She pulled Reggie away and gently scolded him.
“Now, now, boy. That’s not for dogs.”
London could see that quite a bit of beer had been spilled or splashed out of the barrel.
But how?
Her warning tingle turned into a palpable sense of dread. Something felt very wrong here. She straightened up and, leaving Sir Reggie on the stage, she headed up the stairs that led up the side of the barrel.
When she reached the top of the barrel, London could see that the collapsing chair that should be awaiting the arrival of Katers Murr was dangling freely, as though it had already dumped someone.
She peered down into the barrel.
Something was floating there.
She couldn’t quite see what it was.
Suddenly there was a blast of trumpets, and London was engulfed in blazing light.
The stage curtain opened, the oompah band struck up a jaunty tune, and the audience went wild.
She shielded her eyes and looked out into the square.
Sure enough, a man wearing a big cat’s costume was being led to the stage, accompanied by blaring music and confetti.
“Who is that?” someone yelled in German.
“Get out of there, lady,” another voice complained.
London realized they were talking about her. She wanted to scramble down and get out of sight in a hurry, but she turned and looked again into the barrel.
In the blazing light, she could now see what was inside the huge vat.
Someone was floating face-down in the beer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The shock was stunning when London plunged into the vat. Suddenly she was over her head in chilly, smelly beer.
Paying no heed to the voices from the crowd, she had dropped Sir Reggie and her shoulder bag onto the platform and leaned out over the vat. She had tried to get hold of the floating figure, apparently a man, from the platform. But she couldn’t reach him. So she’d kicked off her shoes and gone in feet first after him.
With a strong kick, London bobbed back to the surface, gasping and coughing from swallowing some of the cheap lager. Her eyes and nostrils stung from the pungent carbonated liquid. Paddling furiously to stay afloat, she saw that now the man was within reach.
London took hold of his arm and struggled to turn him over without sinking again herself.
It wasn’t working.
Then she heard sounds from above. A familiar voice was calling her name, accompanied by the yapping of her little dog.
She glanced upward, and was flooded with relief to see Bryce’s face looking over the top edge of the beer vat. He must have been nearby and seen her plunge inside.
Sir Reggie was also peering into the vat, but Bryce pushed him back with a sharp command to “Stay.”
Then Bryce yelled, “I’m coming, London,” and scrambled down the ladder attached to the inside of the vat.
He held out a hand toward London.
She grabbed the floating man with one hand and Bryce’s hand with the other. Together they maneuvered the man closer to the ladder and got him turned face up.
London gasped when she saw that face.
How very strange, she thought.
It was the very same rude, mustachioed man who had thrown beer on Audrey and on her. He had somehow lost his monocle down on the stage and wound up here, floating in the very same kind of liquid he had been so rudely slinging about.
His eyes were squeezed shut, and his mouth gaped open.
Bryce got his shoulder under one of the man’s arms and began to drag him up the ladder. London grasped the ladder and pushed from below. As they struggled, two townspeople arrived to help, leaning down beside Bryce and helping to lift the limp man.
Working together, they all got him up onto the platform and then down the steps to the stage.
As London watched, Bryce checked for breath and pulse, then shook his head and immediately started on chest compressions.
People were now crowding around them on the stage. London pushed them back.
“Gib uns Platz!” she kept saying—“Give us room!”
The two local helpers pushed the stunned spectators back, and they all formed a circle around them.
“I’m afraid he’s gone,” Bryce said breathlessly as he continued the CPR.
In a matter of seconds, London heard the sound of a siren.
An ambulance, she realized with relief.
Someone in the crowd must have called the official emergency number the moment they realized what was happening.
The crowd parted, and three paramedics with a gurney came rushing onto the stage.
“Are you a doctor?” one asked Bryce.
“Just a ship’s medic,” Bryce replied. He got out of their way as the professional paramedic team tore the man’s clothing loose from his chest, efficiently dried his skin, and applied defibrillator pads.
But even their efforts didn’t revive him.
“It’s no use,” the head paramedic said. “He’s dead.”
*
Soon a group of police officers was pushing the crowd farther back and setting up a perimeter of red and white police tape printed with the word POLIZEIABSPERUNG—”police cordon.” Meanwhile, the paramedics put the body on the gurney, covered it up, lowered it off the stage, and wheeled it to the waiting ambulance.
Overwhelm
ed with the sensation that she was stuck in what seemed to be a recurring nightmare, London sat down right there on the edge of the stage.
How could this be happening—again?
She had discovered bodies at two earlier stops on the Nachtmusik’s European tour, and both of those had been the result of foul play.
At least, she thought, this one must have been an accident.
Obviously aware of her concern, Bryce sat down beside her and patted her hand.
“I’d just come within sight of the stage when the curtain opened up,” he said. “Imagine my shock when I saw you up there!”
“Thanks for coming to help me,” London said.
“What else was I to do?”
Sir Reggie came up on her other side, wriggling anxiously, but the little dog just sniffed them both and decided not to climb into her wet lap.
Then a uniformed policeman approached them.
“Are you the people who found the body?” he asked in German.
London nodded and said, “I found the … the man in the beer vat. Bryce came to help me get him out.”
“Kindly wait here for Detektiv Erlich,” the policeman said, then walked away.
A paramedic brought London and Bryce blankets to wrap around themselves, but London’s blanket didn’t make her feel any better. She was still soaked to the skin and shivering and reeking with beer.
She looked out into the crowd on the other side of the police tape. Among the many gawkers she saw several familiar faces, including Letitia, Cyrus, and Gus and Honey.
What must they be thinking? she wondered. And what will happen now?
“So much for getting everybody back to the ship on time,” she said to Bryce. “I’d better call the captain.”
She tapped Captain Hays’s contact number and quickly heard his jovial voice.
“Well, hello there, London Rose. Jolly good festival, wasn’t it? I certainly thought so. I do hope you’re calling to tell me you’ve got everybody herded up and ready to head back here. We don’t have much time to spare.”
London replied sadly, “Captain, I … I’m afraid we have a bit of a problem.”
Captain Hays let out a hearty chuckle.
“Not another dead body, I hope,” he joked.
London fell silent. She simply couldn’t make herself say yes.
“Oh, dear,” the captain said with a note of realization. “You wouldn’t jest about something like this, would you?”
“No, sir. I wouldn’t.”
“It’s not one of our own passengers, I hope.”
“No. And it was probably an accident. With some luck …”
London hesitated. She certainly hoped luck was on their side.
“It looks like Bryce and I have to stay and answer some questions,” she continued. “Hopefully we’ll still be able to set sail pretty soon.”
“I do hope so,” Captain Hays said.
London ended the call and pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders. Of course now even the blanket was soggy with beer. She was shivering from more than just being wet. Shock was creeping more deeply into her pores than even the beer. She couldn’t shake the image of the dead man out of her mind.
Soon a casually dressed balding man with a well-trimmed beard and mustache ducked under the tape and walked toward them, followed by Willy Oberhauser, the security guard she had met a little while ago.
The newcomer produced a badge and spoke to London and Bryce.
“I am Detektiv Kurt Erlich, with the Bamberg Kripo,” he said in German.
London knew that Kripo was short for Kriminalpolizei, which meant “criminal police.” She hoped that didn’t bode badly for the situation.
“I met the lady earlier,” Willy Oberhauser said to Erlich. “She is an American.”
London and Bryce introduced themselves, and explained that they worked on the tour boat that was currently docked nearby.
Erlich shook his head and said in accented English, “I’m sorry your enjoyment of our city has been spoiled by this unfortunate event. But I shouldn’t have to detain you very long. Accidents will happen.”
Then with a chuckle he added, “I suppose it’s rather cold-hearted of me to say this, but I doubt that Herr Forstmann will be deeply mourned here in Bamberg.”
London remembered Willy Oberhauser telling her that the victim was “a rather influential gentleman from Munich.”
“You knew the victim?” Bryce asked Erlich.
“Oh, yes,” Detektiv Erlich said. “Sigmund Forstmann was well-known throughout Bavaria—and even a bit feared, one might say. He was a food and drink critic for the Sternenkurier, a newspaper in Munich. Every year he would come to our little festival, drink too much and behave like a boor, and then go back to Munich and write a feature story about what fools and ignoramuses and savages we provincials are. Now would the two of you kindly tell me how you found the body?”
Before London or Bryce could say anything, the chief paramedic walked up to Erlich and whispered something in his ear.
Erlich’s expression darkened a little as he turned back to London and Bryce.
“I’m afraid things just got a bit more complicated,” he said. “The paramedics found a rather large bump on the back of his head. They think his skull might actually have been fractured by a rather severe blow. Not that this new development necessarily suggests that Herr Forstmann’s death wasn’t an accident. But as a matter of procedure, I’m now obliged to approach the situation rather differently.”
London’s heart sank at Erlich’s words.
Is it starting again? she wondered.
Erlich climbed the steps onto the platform. He pointed to the throne-like chair where Katers Murr was supposed to have sat.
“I see that the dunking seat is unfastened,” he said to Willy Oberhauser, who was standing on the stage. “Has it been like this all afternoon?”
“No, sir,” the security guard said. “It’s been rigged and ready for the ceremony all day long.”
Indeed, London remembered the seat being fastened when she and Bryce had stopped by to look at it earlier that day.
Erlich wiggled the seat with interest.
“So perhaps this is how Herr Forstmann fell into the vat,” he mused. Turning to one of the police officers, he asked, “Do you think it could have happened by accident, Polizist Wedekind?”
“Certainly not,” Wedekind said as he climbed the steps to join the detective. “I personally inspect the mechanism every year to make sure it’s safe.”
The policeman fingered a long handle sticking out of the floor several feet away from the chair.
“Someone must have pulled this lever,” Wedekind added. “I’m sure the chair couldn’t have been triggered by accident. And as you can see, the lever is too far away for someone to reach if they’re sitting in the chair.”
London tried to imagine how the incident had unfolded.
It all seems so crazy, she thought.
“Might Herr Forstmann have bumped his head on the way down?” Erlich asked the policeman.
“Not a chance,” the policeman said. “Look at how well-padded the chair is with foam. This whole thing is rigged up so the unlucky ‘tomcat’ can’t get hurt in any way. Like I said, I make sure of that every year myself.”
Erlich shook his head and scratched his chin.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” he said.
I don’t either, London thought with dread.
The situation seemed to be getting worse with every passing moment.
“If only we could know exactly how it happened,” Erlich mused.
He walked back and forth along the platform, peering at everything closely.
“First of all, why would Herr Forstmann have sat in the chair in the first place? I can only guess that he didn’t do so voluntarily. Perhaps someone knocked him unconscious, dragged him up onto the platform, put him in the chair, and pulled the lever, dunking him—as farfetched as all that may sound.”
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He added with a grim scoff, “Of course, there’s no mystery as to why someone would want to do that to Herr Forstmann. I suppose there are hundreds of people right here in Bamberg who have fantasized, at least, about doing him some sort of harm. He has no shortage of enemies here. I must admit that I am not entirely innocent in that regard.”
Erlich turned toward Willy Oberhauser.
“I assume that Herr Forstmann was drunk, as usual,” he said.
“Very much so,” Herr Oberhauser said.
“And belligerent.”
“Absolutely.”
“And as usual, I assume he antagonized a fair number of people,” Erlich said.
“Of course.”
“Did he make anybody especially angry?” Erlich asked Oberhauser.
“As a matter of fact, he did,” Oberhauser said.
Pointing to London, he said, “This woman here lost her temper at him. In fact, I had to forcibly separate her from him to keep her from doing him harm.”
London was stunned by Oberhauser’s accusatory tone.
She was also shaken by a dawning realization.
I’m already a murder suspect.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
London stared aghast at Willy Oberhauser. She was shocked at the harshness in security guard’s voice, so different from the consideration he’d shown to her earlier today.
Did he really think she was guilty of murder?
“Tell me more,” Detektiv Erlich said to the security guard. “Be precise.”
Pulling out a note pad and pencil, Erlich jotted down brief entries as Oberhauser continued.
“There was another American woman from the ship—a taller woman. It started when Herr Forstmann spilled beer all over her and was his usual obnoxious self about it. The woman was very upset. That is what first attracted my attention to the matter. Then this woman here—London, I believe she said her name is—demanded that he apologize to the other woman. He wound up spilling beer on her also—deliberately, I’m sure. And then she attacked him.”
London’s mouth dropped open.