The Prince was gone. The bureau had been dragged across theroom to block the doorway, and the window was open.“He’s escaped! For a second time!” Flaüss whispered. He wheeled upon Svenson. “You helped him! You had the key!”“Don’t be an idiot,” muttered Major Blach. “Look at the room.The bureau is solid mahogany—it took the three of us to shiftit.It’s impossible that the Prince himself moved it alone and im-possible for the Doctor to have helped him—the Doctor wouldhave had to leave the room
before
the bureau was blocking thedoorway.”Flaüss was silent. Svenson met the gaze of Blach, who was glar-ing athim. The Major barked out to the men in the hall, “One of you to thegate—find out if the Prince has left the compound, andif he was alone!”Svenson stepped to the bureau and opened it up, glancing atthe contents. “The Prince is wearing his infantry uniform—I donot see it—dark green, a colonel of grenadiers. He fancies it be-cause the badge is of a flaming bomb. I believe it has a sexual sig-nificance for him.” They stared at him as if he were speakingFrench. Svenson stepped to the window and leaned out. Below the window, three stories down, was a raked bed of gravel. “MajorBlach, if you’ll send a trusted man to examine the gravel below this window—it will tell us whether a ladder was used—there will beheavy indentations. Of course, a three-story ladder should have at-tracted attention. Tell me, Herr Flaüss, does the compound possesssuch a ladder?”“How should I know?”“By asking the
staff,
I expect.”“And if there is no such ladder?” asked Major Blach.“Then either one was brought—which should have excited no-tice atthe gate—or some other means were used—a grapplinghook. Of course”—he stepped back and examined the plasteraround the window frame—“I see no identations, nor any rope re-maining by which they may have climbed down.”
168
Surgeon
“Then how
did
they get down?” asked Flaüss. Svenson steppedback to the window, leaning out. There was no balcony, no wall of ivy, no nearby tree—indeed, the room had been chosen for thisvery reason. He turned and looked upwards—it was but two sto-ries to the roof. As they climbed the stairwell word came to Blach from the gate—the Prince had not been seen, nor had anyone passed in either di-rection in the last three hours, since the arrival of the Major.Svenson barely took in the trooper’s report, so much was he dread-ing the inevitable trip to the building’s rooftop. He walked on theinside wall, clutching the rail as casually as possible, his guts posi-tively seething. Ahead of them another trooper was unfolding astaircase from the ceiling of the sixth-floor hallway. Above it was anarrow attic and within the attic a hatchway to the roof. MajorBlach strode forward—somewhere a pistol had appeared in hishand—and climbed rapidly, disappearing in the darkness above,followed quickly by Flaüss, more nimble than his stout frame would suggest. Svenson swallowed and climbed deliberately afterthem, one hand gripping each side of the ladder, choking a heaveof nausea as the hinges of the ladder bounced with the shifting weight of each footfall. Feeling like a child, he crawled on hishands and knees onto the rough timbers of the attic floor andlooked around him. Flaüss was just pulling himself through thenarrow hatchway, his body framed against the sickly glow of thecity lights within the fog. With a barely suppressed groan, DoctorSvenson forced himself after them. When he reached the roof, first on his knees and then, swaying,onto his feet, he saw Major Blach crouching near the edge thatmust be above the Prince’s bedroom. The Major turned back andcalled, “The moss on the stone is worn away in several places—therubbing of a rope or a rope ladder!” He stood and crossed to Flaüssand Svenson, looking around them as he did. He pointed to the
the glass books of the dream eaters
169
nearby rooftops. “What I don’t understand is that none of theseseem close enough. I don’t deny the Prince was pulled to therooftop—but this building rises at least a story above any neigh-bor. Beyond this, it is a full street’s width in distance in every di-rection. Unless they employed a circus, I do not see how anyonemight have traversed from this rooftop to escape.”“Perhaps they didn’t,” suggested the Envoy. “Perhaps they merely re-entered the building from above.”“Impossible. The stair to the attic is bolted from inside.”“Unless someone helped them,” offered the Envoy, slightly peevishly, “from inside.”“Indeed,” admitted Blach. “In which case, they have still notpassed through the gate. My men will search the entire compoundat once. Doctor?”“Mmn?”“Any
thoughts
?”Svenson swallowed, and inhaled the cool night air through hisnose, trying to relax. He forced his gaze away from the sky and theopen spaces around him, down to the black tarred surface of theroof. “Only...what is that?” he asked.Flaüss followed his pointing finger and stepped to a small white object. He picked it up and brought his find over to theothers.“That is the butt of a cigarette,” said Major Blach.Thirty minutes had passed. They had returned to the Prince’sroom, where the Major was systematically rooting through eachdrawer and closet. Flaüss sat in the armchair, brooding, whileSvenson stood near the open window, smoking. A complete searchof the compound had produced nothing, nor were there any foot-prints or indentations to be seen in the gravel below the window.Blach had gone back to the rooftop with lanterns, but had foundno footprints other than their own—though there were several
170
Surgeon
Add a Comment