And Katta heard it again, that same uncertainty. It took her a moment to understand what it was, and then she realized.
Leiter was afraid.
‘Good,’ said the man.
He stood looking down at her with pale green eyes, and then she felt it too – cold clawing fear. It didn’t need words; it was wrapped about this man like a cloak.
‘I hope you are pleased with her, Toymaker,’ said Leiter.
‘She is the right height too,’ the Toymaker said.
Katta felt her mouth moving before she even knew what it was she was going to say. She could feel the inside of her palms damp with fear.
‘My friends know I’m here,’ she blurted out.
Menschenmacher might not have heard her. He reached down and began parting her hair with his fingertips, looking for the small broken place on her head. She tried to move her head away, but he wound her hair around his other hand and pulled it so tight that she couldn’t move. Then, with a touch full of menace, he ran his fingernail around the edges of the bone. Katta let out a whimper.
‘Did you look in the coffins?’ he said.
‘No!’ she gasped.
He dug his fingernail under the edge of the bone. It felt like hot wire. Her breath came in short, terrified gasps.
‘Did you?’
‘Yes!’
‘What did you see?’
‘The Duke!’ She couldn’t say the words quickly enough – she just wanted him to stop.
‘Who else saw him? Your friends?’
‘Yes!’
‘Does anyone else know?’
‘No!’
He looked up at Leiter. ‘She is the only one left?’
Leiter nodded.
He let go of her hair. She tried to scrabble away from him, but her hands were tied.
‘I don’t know nothin’,’ she whimpered. ‘Please?’
She looked imploringly at Leiter, as though, of all people, he might help her. But his face was impassive.
‘Bring her,’ the Toymaker said.
Leiter reached down and lifted Katta to her feet. She stood up, mute and terrified. He put one arm around her shoulders, like some kindly old uncle, and together they followed the other man.
They went between the tables. The tops were covered in things that she didn’t understand at all – tools, lathes, tiny wheels and cogs. On a slab of clean white porcelain lay a little marmoset monkey; its unseeing milk-glazed eyes were turned towards her. Its chest had been cut open and the fur hooked back with long silver pins. She looked quickly away.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ said Leiter, but she could feel his hand on her back, gently pushing her forward.
They went through another door and into a room, round like a clean, white drum. Daylight flooded through a domed ceiling of clear glass. Katta could see clouds and the blue, wintry sky beyond.
In front of her were two large tables. One was scrubbed clean and laid out with tools and sharp instruments. Motionless on the other was a young woman in a pale cotton gown. Leiter pushed Katta forward and closed the door. It shut with a click behind them.
The Toymaker turned and looked at her. ‘Give the girl a drink, Leiter,’ he said.
Unhurriedly Leiter filled a small glass from a jug on the table. It took him a moment and he had his back to Katta as he did it. When he turned round, he held the glass out to her. She stared at the glass, then at him.
‘It is only water,’ he said. ‘Drink it.’
She took the glass in both hands, then, like a small child told to take medicine, she put it to her lips and drank, watching Leiter the whole time. Her hands were shaking, but her mouth was so dry. He took the empty glass from her.
‘Now, come and see,’ said the Toymaker.
He was standing beside the young woman, lightly brushing her hair with his hand.
Katta moved closer, and then stopped. Sleeping people breathe; they move – you only have to look carefully enough and you see it. But the young woman on the table wasn’t breathing at all. She wasn’t dead either – dead people look dead, like Jacob, but she didn’t.
Katta looked up at him, not knowing what she was supposed to do.
‘Touch her,’ he said.
Hesitantly she reached out a hand and touched the tips of her fingers against the young woman’s cheek. As she did so, Katta’s face clouded with confusion and she pulled her hand back, because the skin was hard and cold. She wasn’t real at all.
She was a doll.
‘All she needs is a heart, child. When she has a heart, even you would believe that she was real. She will be able to dance and talk, though she will never need to say very many words. Her beauty will speak for her.’
Katta looked at the face of the young woman and it seemed to her that she was seeing something she’d seen before – the cold, empty face of the Duke as he had walked beneath her window. She was just like him.
‘You see,’ the Toymaker said, ‘the people expect their Duke to take a wife.’
As he spoke, he picked up from the table a small fine ivory handle. There was nothing else to it that Katta could see.
‘All she needs,’ he said, ‘is a heart.’
Katta could hear his voice. She could see him holding the thin ivory handle in his hand, but the room was wider than it had been a moment before. It felt as if she were watching what was happening, without being part of it at all. She turned round and looked at Leiter. He was still holding the empty glass, but he was watching her as though he had been waiting for this. He put the glass on the table and she knew that it couldn’t just have been water. He caught her as her legs gave way, holding her as she slowly folded to the floor.
The Toymaker’s voice came slowly, out of a fog a thousand miles away. ‘Even my little dolls with sparrows’ hearts sometimes remember they were sparrows, once. You will have to tell me, Duchess, if you ever remember being a girl.’
A line of bloody footprints marked the path that Koenig took as they came back across the ice. He walked slowly, his fist pressed deep into the wound made by Valter’s knife, but still it bled. None of them spoke. Mathias watched Koenig, expecting him to fall at any moment, but he didn’t. He just kept on walking, step by step, his eyes fixed on the distant shoreline as though that was all he could see.
Stefan walked on the other side of him. Every now and again he would cast a glance at Mathias. He didn’t know whether Mathias had guessed that he’d left Katta behind. All the time they’d spent looking for her on the island, Stefan had hidden what he’d done, not knowing what to do if he found her first. He didn’t know what to do now either – Koenig was bleeding to death, he could see it, and he didn’t know what to do.
Still Koenig walked on, step by step, fist pressed into the wound, his eyes never leaving the distant shore.
Mathias hadn’t understood exactly what they had found in the crypt, but he knew now that Gustav’s secret wasn’t gold or silver – it was murder. What Katta had said made no sense to him. He wasn’t sure if he’d even heard it right – how could those men have been dead and still alive? And where was she? He looked at Koenig, at the blood seeping into the ice, and such a wave of despair welled up in him that he buried his face in his hands and began to cry.
But still Koenig walked on.
When at last they reached the harbour, they made their way between the tangle of thick ropes, and up across the quay to the stables. If there were stable-boys about, none saw them. In the warm dark of the stall, Koenig stood with his eyes closed, resting his forehead against the side of the huge horse. Then he turned his head and looked at the square of daylight that fell through the door.
‘Get me that coat,’ he said.
A dirty stable coat hung on a nail. It must have belonged to one of the grooms. Stefan pulled it down and watched as, one-handed, Koenig slowly unbuttoned the blood-sodden remains of the coat he wore and dropped it onto the straw. Then he began to wash himself clean in the ice-cold water of the drinking trough. He unwound h
is fine lace scarf and stuffed it into the deep wound that Valter had made, binding it tight. But it did little good. It stained with blood even as he did it.
‘We have to get you to a doctor,’ said Mathias.
Koenig shook his head. ‘The little man was meant to kill us,’ he said. ‘Leiter doesn’t know that he didn’t.’
It was only then that Mathias understood what Koenig meant to do. He had an account to settle with Leiter. Katta was a small part of it, but if she were alive, Koenig would find her. That was all that mattered to Mathias. He didn’t care about the rest.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
Koenig pulled the remaining pistol from the bags beneath the straw. ‘Don’t thank me yet, boy,’ he said.
Koenig knew where they had to go, just as Anna-Maria and Lutsmann had done. No one spared them a look as they pushed their way through the streets. The narrow lanes and alleyways were full of carts and stalls. Mathias looked at the faces they passed, wanting to find one that was Katta’s. But they passed only one red-haired girl, and when she turned round, she looked straight through him.
Dr Leiter’s house stood in one of the courtyards of the palace. There were no guards or soldiers – not there. Leiter had no need of them.
The building had a fine front and a walled garden at the rear. There was a door in the wall that wasn’t locked. They pushed it open and stood under the bare trees, looking up at the back of the house. A low frost-covered hedge ran beside a path that led to windows opening onto the garden.
If Leiter had been careless about the door in the wall, he hadn’t been careless about the windows. Each one was bolted shut.
Koenig said something to Stefan that Mathias didn’t understand. Stefan took his knife from inside his coat and, with the tip of the blade, began to peel back the line of soft lead that set the little panes of glass in the frame. His hand was shaking as he worked.
Before he’d finished, they had to drop below the line of the window as a housemaid came into the room. She passed right above them, but she didn’t see the small missing pieces of glass that Stefan had already loosened. They waited, listening for sounds of alarm, but none came. Stefan loosened one more square, then, reaching his arm through the hole he had made, slipped the bolt and pushed the window open.
Koenig rested his back against the wall, his eyes momentarily closed, his teeth gritted. Mathias could see fresh wet blood on his hand where he had walked with it pressed beneath the coat.
He opened his eyes. ‘Come,’ he said, and pulled himself through the window.
The room was empty. They crossed to the door and opened it a crack. Outside was a galleried hall with a wide staircase, portraits on the wall and a glass chandelier on its gilded chain – it was the place where Lutsmann and Anna-Maria had waited. It was empty too.
‘Up,’ said Koenig.
Slipping quietly through the door, they began to climb the stairs. But as they reached the top, a man carrying a large sheaf of papers stepped backwards out of a room in front of them. He didn’t see them. The papers were slipping from his hands and he was preoccupied with them. Then he turned his head.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘Herr Doctor Leiter told me to come to him here,’ said Koenig.
‘I know nothing of this,’ said the man. ‘What does he want with you?’
‘That is Herr Doctor Leiter’s business,’ said Koenig.
The man drew himself up. ‘I am Doctor Leiter’s secretary,’ he said.
‘Then, Mister Secretary,’ said Koenig, ‘take me to his rooms.’
This time the man’s face darkened. ‘You have to wait for him downstairs,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Koenig, pulling the pistol from his coat. ‘We wait for him in his rooms.’
The man could see the blood on Koenig’s hand. He could see how unsteady the pistol was in it. But if he had thought to shout out, then Koenig had seen that too.
‘Even I could not miss you from here, Mister Secretary,’ he said.
The man’s mouth opened and closed. Still holding the papers, he turned round and, with Koenig a step behind him, began to walk back towards the door that he had just come through. When he reached it, he stopped.
‘Open it,’ said Koenig.
They were two steps into the room when Koenig hit him with the butt of the pistol. There was a sound like the crack of bone and the man dropped like a sack.
‘Get him out of sight,’ said Koenig.
Stefan dragged the man behind a chair, but Mathias stood dumbly in the doorway, staring at the sudden violence of it. Koenig pulled him inside and pushed the door shut.
‘Now we wait for Leiter,’ he said.
He walked across to Leiter’s desk. It was strewn with letters and papers. He looked at them for a moment, then came and stood behind the door with his back against the wall and closed his eyes.
Mathias listened to the silence of the room. It was almost unbearable. Above the fireplace the clock ticked. It struck the quarter, then the half-hour. Its little bells were still ringing, as from somewhere downstairs in the house came the sound of a heavy door closing. Koenig opened his eyes. They could hear footsteps coming unhurriedly up the hard marble stairs. There was Leiter’s voice too, sharp and ill-tempered.
‘Have him come up to me when you find him,’ he was saying.
Mathias guessed it was the secretary that Leiter wanted. He could just see the tips of the man’s feet behind a chair – Leiter would see them too – but before he could say anything, the handle of the door twitched, and it opened.
Leiter didn’t bother to close it. He was dressed in his dark tailcoat. He walked across to the desk, dropped the silver-topped cane across it and, picking up one of the letters, then another, began reading. Then something on the desk caught his eye. He stopped reading and slowly touched a fingertip to what he had seen. Rubbing it between finger and thumb, he held it up to the light.
It was blood.
He slowly straightened as he put down the letters while, behind him, Koenig pushed the door closed.
26
The Duchess
Leiter didn’t turn round at once. As though curious to see what would happen, he reached his hand towards the small silver bell on the table.
‘You would be dead before anyone came,’ said Koenig quietly.
Leiter still didn’t turn round, but he hesitated, his hand just above the bell. ‘But they would still come,’ he said.
‘And you would still be dead,’ said Koenig.
Leiter didn’t move. ‘Then we are at an impasse,’ he said.
He lifted his hand away from the bell and only then turned round.
Koenig stood next to the door with his back to the wall. His face was sunken and full of pain. He held the pistol cradled across his chest. The hand that held it was wet with blood. Mathias stood beside him.
‘But I am looking at a dead man,’ said Leiter calmly, as though he were being shown a curiosity that puzzled him. ‘Valter is usually much more thorough than this. I will need to speak to him when I have done with you.’ His eyes rested momentarily on the pistol that Koenig held. ‘I wonder if you even have enough strength to pull the trigger,’ he said.
Koenig didn’t answer, but with a click, loud in the silence of the room, he drew the pistol hammer back with his thumb.
Leiter smiled.
Mathias saw it all. It was like watching a cat and a mouse. But there was no telling which was which.
‘What is it that you want?’ said Leiter. ‘To rob me?’
He held his hands out to the room, and it was only in half turning round as he did so that he saw Stefan.
‘Another?’ He looked back at Koenig. ‘What you see is all there is,’ he said. ‘Take.’
But Koenig didn’t move.
‘Or perhaps you want something else?’ said Leiter.
‘The girl,’ said Mathias. ‘Where’s Katta?’
Leiter didn’t even bother to look at him. He was watching K
oenig.
‘How did the conjuror know?’ said Koenig slowly.
Even those few words were an effort, and Leiter could see it. He didn’t answer straight away. He watched Koenig’s face.
‘He was in the palace,’ he said at last. ‘It was a whim of the Duke, to see a conjuror – he was not well enough to travel. Only the conjuror went wandering where he should not have wandered, saw what he should not have seen.’
‘Two dukes,’ said Koenig.
‘Two dukes,’ agreed Leiter. ‘But, inconveniently, one of them had just had his throat cut.’
‘By you,’ said Koenig.
Leiter inclined his head, as though reluctantly accepting praise. ‘By me,’ he said. ‘It is a physician’s skill. But I only did what I was asked to do.’
‘And now you have a puppet duke,’ said Koenig.
Then Leiter laughed. He laughed as though what Koenig had said had been unintentionally but immeasurably funny. Mathias couldn’t understand why, but Leiter laughed.
‘Oh, much better than a puppet duke, Burner man,’ he said. ‘You might even say “good as a little toy”. A little toy duke and a little toy bishop. You can play games with them, you see – they do whatever you tell them. Can you even begin to know how much power that is to have, Burner man?’
‘Too much to let a conjuror spoil,’ said Koenig.
‘Too much to let a conjuror spoil,’ said Leiter. ‘It took us a long time to find him, but we found him in the end. And now,’ he said, the smile dying on his lips, ‘there is just you.’
‘And the girl,’ said Koenig.
‘But of course,’ said Leiter silkily. ‘How could I forget the girl?’
‘Give me the girl,’ said Koenig. ‘You can keep the rest.’
Leiter looked at him coldly. ‘That is a very handsome offer to make,’ he said. ‘But can I believe you?’
Koenig pointed the pistol at Leiter’s heart. ‘You don’t have any choice,’ he said.
Leiter smiled again.
Cat and mouse.
‘Very well,’ he said.
The door in the panelled wall of Leiter’s room, the one that Valter had come through, opened onto a flight of stone steps and a long passage. Leiter went first, a lantern in his hand. Koenig walked behind him with the pistol at Leiter’s back. There were darker openings to the right and the left, but Leiter walked past each one. The passage was damp and cold. Every now and then he would stop and, turning round, hold the lantern up so that he could see Koenig’s face – see how much more blood he had lost, how much strength he had left. Each time, as though more satisfied with what he saw, he would turn away and walk steadily on.
Toymaker, The Page 18