by Blake Pierce
There it is, London thought.
And now I know the truth.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
With a guileless expression, Amy sat at the table holding the stolen snuffbox toward London.
London heard Borsos’s handcuffs rattle once again. And again, London turned to him with shake of her head.
“No, Amy’s not the killer,” she said. “She’s not a thief, either. In fact, Amy is perfectly innocent. She has no idea what this is all about.”
Borsos stammered as he handled the handcuffs awkwardly.
“But—but—she has—right in her hand—”
London was about to point out the real culprit when she heard a growling sound behind her. She turned and saw that Elsie had returned to the lounge with Sir Reginald in her arms. And sure enough, Sir Reginald was confirming her own conclusions, growling at the man who called himself Sandor Füst.
The man looked at the dog with mock disappointment. When he spoke, it was no longer in Hungarian but in English, with a suave, articulate, upper-class British accent.
“Et tu, my canine friend? It appears that I’ve been identified.”
London was amazed. He suddenly seemed like an entirely different person now. Merely by changing his posture, voice, and facial expression, he’d transformed himself unrecognizably, the same way she now knew he had into Professor Kallay and the sidewalk violinist. Also, his calmness and self-confidence seemed utterly uncanny to London—and utterly out of place.
But most of all, he had assumed a daunting and imposing presence. Even Borsos looked puzzled and intimidated and made no motion with his handcuffs.
“You figured it out, then?” the man said to London.
She nodded. Indeed she had. During her mental replay, she’d remembered Professor Kallay back in Budapest, with his push-broom mustache and thick wavy hair. Then she’d pictured the violinist in his peasant garb with his wide, handlebar mustache. Finally she’d remembered something that had been said just a few moments before …
“What gave me away?” the man asked. “Nothing about my face, I hope.”
“Only barely,” London said. “It wouldn’t have been enough. I noticed something more important.”
“Well, perhaps you’ll tell me someday,” he said with a rakish grin. “This is the end of the road, as they say. But before I’m arrested, I’d like to say for the record that I did not intend to kill the unfortunate lady. Homicide is not my style in the least. It was a regrettable accident. I would never harm a lady for a mere piece of jewelry. All I wanted was the snuffbox.”
London nodded in agreement.
“So,” she said, “when you removed the unconscious woman’s pendant and put it into her purse, you were making a sort of statement.”
The man tilted his head with appreciation.
“Quite right. I was showing my contempt for petty ostentation. I was hoping somebody would notice that touch. You are quite an exceptional person, London Rose. But I am no ordinary thief, if I may say so myself.”
No ordinary thief, indeed, London thought.
He was obviously a master of disguise—and a master of many other sorts of cunning, London felt sure.
Looking rather dazed, Borsos stepped toward him with his handcuffs. The man fairly glided out of his grasp and walked over to Amy. Borsos seemed too perplexed to know exactly what to do.
“Thank you for looking after this for me, Amy,” the man said, taking the box out of her hand. “I do apologize for my duplicity earlier today. But when I saw the policemen approaching you at the café, I was afraid I might get searched myself. So I offered it to you as a gift to get it off my hands. I came aboard just now with no intention other than to retrieve it—a bit too confidently, it seems.”
Borsos looked utterly aghast as the man slipped the box into his pocket.
“How dare you, sir!” Borsos said.
The man chuckled lightheartedly.
“Now, now, sir. I believe you’re overreacting. We both know I’m not going to get out of here with my intended quarry. You’re going to arrest me, of course. And I do intend to come along quietly.”
Putting his hands behind his back, he added, “You’ve been itching to use those handcuffs for the last few minutes. Now is your opportunity.”
Borsos glared at him uneasily, then stepped behind him. London heard the rattling of handcuffs as Borsos snapped them open. The man looked over his shoulder at Borsos and spoke in a helpful-sounding voice.
“You’d best make them tight.”
Then the master thief stepped away from the alezredes and added, “I’m told that I can be rather—well, slippery, shall we say.”
Borsos looked down at his own hands with a horrified expression. Sure enough, it was he who was suddenly wearing the handcuffs. London’s mind boggled at how the man called Sandor had achieved such a swift, deft sleight-of-hand.
Borsos roared like a trapped animal and lunged at the thief. The man eluded the alezredes’s manacled grip with incredible agility, leaping up onto the tables where the other astonished onlookers were still seated. He dashed across the tabletops and took a huge leap toward the entrance to the lounge.
The two other police officers ran toward him and tried to tackle him. But the man made another uncanny maneuver, slipping away from them. The two officers’ heads cracked together instead.
As the man disappeared from the lounge, Sir Reginald leaped out of Elsie’s arms and charged after him.
“Oh no,” London cried, running after the dog who was following the fleeing man.
They all raced through the reception area to the top of the gangway.
With Sir Reginald snapping at his heels, the thief charged straight toward the two officers now guarding the far end of the gangway. London had no doubt he would make his way past them too.
Just then, the little dog managed to get his teeth into the man’s pants leg, throwing him off balance. The thief kicked out sharply as he fell, sending poor Sir Reginald flying into the water.
Meanwhile, the two police officers took advantage of the man’s momentary awkwardness and piled onto him before he could get back on his feet. London heard Borsos’s voice booming at his men from the top of the gangway in Hungarian.
“Arrest that man!”
As the officers both sat on their captive, holding him down, London dashed past them and on down the gangway.
She looked into the water but could see no sign of the dog.
She reached the shore and called out over the water, “Sir Reginald, where are you?”
The little animal was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
London plunged into the water, slipping and sliding as she searched for Sir Reginald Taft.
Has he already drowned?
She struggled to contain her panic. She just couldn’t let the brave little dog die.
As she splashed farther from the shore, the steep bottom gave out from under her, and the water closed over her head. Managing to regain her footing, she straightened up and gasped for air.
London was up to her neck in the water, and the mud under her feet was oozy and sticky. She kicked off her shoes and began to swim frantically, first one way and then another. Finally she felt her fingers brush against a wet, hairy object. She glimpsed what looked like a floating wig half-submerged in the water.
It didn’t seem like it was moving.
She managed to catch hold of the long hair, but then she stumbled and was submerged all over again. This time she swallowed some water, then coughed and choked violently when she bobbed back up into the air.
She was clutching the furry bundle in both hands now, but she couldn’t regain her footing.
Suddenly London felt a strong arm reach around her shoulders from behind and lift her up, so that her head was well above water. Still holding onto the limp animal, she coughed all the water out of her throat and let her unseen rescuer drag her up onto the shore.
Grateful to be on solid dry gro
und, London collapsed and lay there catching her breath for a few moments.
Then she looked up and saw a familiar pair of sensitive blue eyes looking down at her.
She heard a familiar Australian-accented voice.
“Are you all right?” Bryce Yeaton asked.
“Yes, I think so,” London gasped. “But what about …?”
“I don’t know,” Bryce said. “Let’s check.”
London pulled herself up, and she and Bryce stooped over the motionless dog. London was horrified to see how lifeless he appeared to be, lying on his back with his little feet in the air.
Bryce pressed on the dog’s tiny chest, and the creature spewed up some water.
Sir Reginald turned over and scrambled to his feet, coughing and yapping.
“Oh, thank goodness!” London exclaimed with almost unimaginable relief. “I just couldn’t let him drown!”
“I couldn’t let either of you drown,” Bryce said, putting a strong, comforting arm around her shoulder.
Now Sir Reginald seemed quite irritated at his undignified state. He shook violently, throwing mud and water all over Bryce and London.
“Oh, well,” London said. “We weren’t looking our best, anyway.”
She and Bryce looked at each other and laughed. Suddenly it felt just fine to London to be all wet and muddy and sitting there on the ground with these two companions.
*
London took Sir Reginald to her room and rinsed him off in the bathroom sink, but he was still a tangled mass of wet hair. Too tired to deal with that problem now, she patted him partly dry, then took a shower herself and fell fast asleep on her bed for a little while.
When she woke up, she saw a text message on her phone. It was from Captain Hays, asking her to come at once to his stateroom. She put on a clean uniform and went straight there.
She knocked, and the relieved-looking captain opened the door for her.
“I am very glad to see you safe and sound,” Captain Hays said. “I’m told that you’ve had quite an adventure.”
As she came inside, she saw Alezredes Borsos rise from a chair.
“Quite an adventure indeed,” the alezredes said to her in an amiable tone than she’d never heard from him before. “My men and I owe you quite a debt of thanks.”
With uncharacteristic gallantry, Borsos offered her a seat.
“So what about that man you arrested?” London asked. “Did you find out who he was?”
“We certainly did,” Borsos replied. “I checked with INTERPOL and found out that he is none other than Swain Warrington.”
“That name isn’t familiar to me,” London said.
“No? Well, it is familiar to those of us in European law enforcement. He is a criminal genius—a nefarious master jewel thief who has been wanted all over the continent for years, but he has always managed to avoid capture until now. Thanks in no small part to yourself, he has at last been apprehended by the Gyor Rendőrség—our fine local police.”
London smiled at how Borsos’s chest swelled with pride. His present courtesy to her notwithstanding, London didn’t doubt that he was going to take a great deal of credit for the capture of Swain Warrington. And the truth was, she didn’t hold it against him one small bit.
It’s really as it should be.
After all, she wasn’t looking for fame and renown for her prowess as a detective.
“Has he confessed?” London asked.
“Oh, he’s been quite talkative—and even rather charming, I must say. It’s rather hard not to like the fellow. He’s a true gentleman thief, you see, and he’s quite apologetic that Mrs. Klimowski died on account of the mistake he made in drugging her. He says he doesn’t practice his ‘trade,’ as he puts it, out of malice or greed, but rather for the challenge and the sport of it.”
He chuckled and added, “He also told us the secret of the snuffbox. What an amazing story!”
Borsos leaned back in his chair and grinned at London.
“He also suggested that I find out more about him by asking—and these were his exact words—‘that delightful and brilliant lady detective.’”
It took London a moment to realize that Warrington had meant herself.
“I’m not sure I understand,” she said.
“Well, perhaps you can offer me your own account of his recent movements and methods.”
London realized that she’d actually figured out a great deal about Warrington.
“He’s a master of disguise, obviously,” she said. “And that means quick-change disguise, I’m sure. I’ll bet he can walk around a street corner dressed as one character, then appear on the other side looking like someone else altogether. Sometimes he might not even need makeup. Look at how he transformed himself right in front of our eyes from a shy pharmacist into a suave mastermind. He’s also got an encyclopedic intelligence, and he’s adept at many skills—including the violin.”
“That is his reputation, yes,” Borsos said.
London continued, “When my group dined at the Duna Étterem back in Budapest, our table was visited by a kindly economics professor named Vilmos Kallay—actually Warrington in disguise, of course.”
“Of course,” Borsos said.
“My guess is Warrington travels around Europe, covertly scouting groups of tourists and wealthy people, looking for especially rare and precious items to steal. Not many people would have known the true value of Mrs. Klimowski’s snuffbox. But due to his expertise, he knew exactly what it was the moment he first glimpsed it in her hand at the Duna Étterem.”
“Go on,” Borsos said with another nod.
“Then he started planning his long game. When he found out the Nachtmusik’s next stop was Gyor, he eagerly recommended that we eat at the Magyar Öröm. Then he traveled here himself, changing disguises as he closed in on his quarry. He charmed himself into Amy’s heart in the guise of a pharmacist, then showed up at the restaurant as a gypsy violinist.”
London paused to think.
“When he saw Mrs. Klimowski leave the restaurant, he hurried after her, changing disguises as he went. He followed a crowd of tourists into the basilica and sat down in the pew beside her, feigning sympathy for her obvious distress. She was grateful and trusting. And then … well, he must have drugged her.”
“And how did he do that?” Borsos asked.
“By offering her a drink, I suppose, to make her feel better,” London said. “Perhaps out of a flask.”
“Very good!” Borsos replied. “Our coroner found brandy in her stomach as well as the traces of prednisone and benzodiazepine in her bloodstream.”
London tried to picture what must have happened next.
“She dozed off right there,” London said. “He relieved her of her snuffbox, then stealthily removed her necklace and slipped it in her handbag—to show his contempt for ‘petty ostentation,’ as he put it. He also took the pills out of the snuffbox and put them into a cheap plastic pillbox, which he put in her handbag. That must have been when Mrs. Klimowski’s dog got free and came back to the restaurant looking for help.”
London scratched her chin, and continued, “Warrington had no idea that her life was in any danger. He didn’t find out about it until the next morning, when he was presumably getting ready to leave Gyor. He felt guilty and alarmed, and took advantage of Amy’s attraction to his ‘pharmacist’ persona to try to get a better idea of what had happened. Then, just as he said, he’d slipped the box to her out of fear of police who came too close, and …”
London shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s pretty much the whole story.”
“Except for one thing,” Borsos said. “How did you discover him?”
“Well, there was something about his face,” London said. “But that alone wouldn’t have been enough. He’s such a master of disguise, I’m sure he’s seldom ever recognized. That’s why he’s so daring and brazen.”
“So what was it, then?”
“When he introduced himself as Sandor
, he told me he liked to be thought of as a painter, but that he had to work as a pharmacist ‘during the day.’ That was strikingly similar to something Professor Kallay had told us—that he was a poet, but he worked as an economist in his ‘day job.’”
Borsos squinted as if he didn’t quite understand.
“Don’t you see?” London said. “The characters Warrington plays have something in common—a certain ‘theme,’ if you will. Or as gamblers might put it, a ‘tell.’ They have personal passions aside from their daily work. If we’d talked to him in violinist guise, he might have admitted that he too had some sort of a ‘day job.’ Those characters actually reflect an aspect of Warrington’s own personality—his passion for the sheer sport of thievery. Of course, the dog recognized him by smell, which sealed the case for me.”
Borsos actually applauded.
“Bravo, Miss Rose. Brilliantly deduced, with a keen sense of psychology. I doubt that Swain Warrington himself could give a more precise and detailed account of his own activities. And I must say, he speaks very highly of you as an adversary. ‘I look forward to the day when London Rose and I match wits again,’ he says.”
Borsos slapped his knee, laughing.
“A perfectly ridiculous notion, of course, now that we’ve caught him. He’s going to be in prison for many years, I’m sure. I doubt that he’ll ever practice his so-called ‘trade’ again.”
London couldn’t help but smile.
Somehow, she wondered whether Swain Warrington didn’t have his own plans for the near future.
If so, maybe they don’t involve staying in prison.
Borsos got to his feet and bowed to both London and the captain.
“And now, if you’ll kindly excuse me, I must take my leave. I wish all of you a fine voyage to Vienna and beyond.”
*
Night had fallen by the time the Nachtmusik began to navigate its way through the narrow waterways of Small Danube back to the main river. London and Bryce stood at the rail of the Rondo deck watching the lights of Gyor slip behind them. Soon Elsie came trotting up to join them.