Prague, the last days of spring, 12.45 a.m
The question left me speechless.
“Y–yes, I know something about it. But what’s it got to do with this crime?”
Lisáček pointed at the symbol on the wall. “Prague is an esoteric city, Mr Aragona, and I’ve often found myself having to investigate crimes or criminal acts linked to sects and suchlike. This murder clearly comes into that category.”
“Freemasonry is not a sect, Inspector, and it has nothing to do with satanism, which is what I would investigate here if I were you.”
“All right, I understand,” Lisáček gave up. Perhaps he had a grudge against freemasonry for some reason and, sensing that I was a mason, had wanted to make things awkward for me. But he’d gone down a dead end because those symbols had absolutely nothing to do with masonry. “Do you want to have another look around?” he continued, in a conciliatory tone.
“Sure.”
The shop had been thoroughly ransacked. Hašek had evidently kept his mouth shut, and it had been that which had been his death sentence. I hadn’t been there long enough to tell if the murderers had taken anything, even though it would have been easy enough for them, but I’d understood perfectly well what it was they’d been looking for, and the very thought of that sent a shiver down my spine. They’d been looking for the contents of the bag.
I pretended to study the crime scene for a bit longer, then shrugged. “I really don’t know. They were obviously looking for something here, and if Hašek was killed maybe it means that they didn’t find it or that he wouldn’t give it to them.”
“Do you think this murder might be linked to the theft of the alchemical watch?”
I shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t look like there’s an obvious connection.”
As we were standing in front of the sign on the wall, the imposing form of Commissioner Bublan re-appeared. He spoke for the first time in faltering English but his tone was brusque and didn’t invite responses or refusals.
“Lisáček, le’s not waste any more time here. Let’s take Mr Aragona to Dům U Kamenného zvonu. Kominkova is waiting for us there with Folin and the American.”
I glanced at Lisáček who was staring at me impassively.
Intimidated, I nodded. “C—certainly. I’d be happy to help.”
*
In a few minutes we’d reached Staroměstské náměstí, the Old Town’s main square and the true beating heart of Prague. It was late but the square, pedestrians only on all but one of its sides, was still full of tourists wandering from one pub to another or simply enjoying the beautiful Bohemian night. One of the colourful buildings overlooking the square was the Dům U Kamenného zvonu, the House of the Stone Bell. An interesting Gothic construction in the form of a tower, it had been built in the fourteenth century, perhaps for Elizabeth of Bohemia. The alchemy exhibition was being held inside it.
Our car stopped next to two other police cars parked on the corner, from whence the strange stone bell which gave the building its name could be seen. We entered by the main door and walked through the dark, silent halls, escorted by security guards and the officer in charge of the investigating team, Inspector Andrea Kominkova from Czech Interpol.
“Pleased to meet you,” she began in good Italian, a language spoken, as I’d discovered over the course of my various trips to Prague, by many locals. “It seems the theft took place shortly after the exhibition closed,” continued the young policewoman, an athletic looking woman with an attractive face and short hair, speaking in English now. We came to the room where, until that afternoon, the alchemical watch had been on show. The display case was empty. Next to it I saw Pierluigi Folin and Vinnie Maglione – ‘the American’ as Bublan had called him, the head of Quantum Spagyria, the American foundation that had helped organise the exhibition by, among other things, underwriting the insurance of the alchemical watch.
“You already know Mr Folin and Mr Maglione, don’t you Mr Aragona?” said Lisáček.
Folin looked decidedly less relaxed than when I’d seen him that morning. His poise was as calm as ever, but his greying hair wasn’t as neat as it had been a few hours before, and his shirt seemed oddly crumpled.
“It’s a mess, Mr Aragona, a terrible mess,” he said, shaking my hand. Next to Folin, Vinnie Maglione trembled. Thin and completely bald, with small glasses he kept nervously pushing up his nose, he was a wreck.
“Mr Aragona, I really hope you can give us a hand here,” he said in English, with a strong New York accent.
“I’ll do my best, Mr Maglione.”
“The watch was stolen shortly after 8 p.m,” Kominkova said.
“More or less the same time you say you went to the Charles Bridge to wait for Hašek,” interjected Inspector Lisáček.
I glared at him. I had to keep my wits, though – doubting my version of events was part of his job, so I ignored the barb.
“Was it kept in the display case at night?”
Maglione joined the discussion. “Excellent question! No, Mr Aragona, Baron Scotto di Fasano insisted that it be put in the safe every night. And given the importance of the object, we agreed.”
“So it was stolen from the safe?”
Andrea Kominkova shook her head and a lock of auburn hair fell in front of her eyes. “It never got there. After the last visitors had left, the security guards began a tour of inspection before locking up and taking the watch to the building’s safe. The Baron’s assistant stayed close to the display case the whole time, and never let it out of his sight. When the security guards finished their rounds, they found him lying unconscious on the floor, his head injured, and the watch gone.”
“A real mess. Has the Baron been notified?”
“Naturally. Our colleagues are with him at the moment, trying to calm him down and make sense of it all,” the young woman said. “Do you want to meet him?”
I hesitated and glanced at Lisáček. “If possible, I’d like to avoid that for now.”
“Maybe we can talk about it more tomorrow,” Andrea said, looking at Lisáček for confirmation.
“Lorenzo, I’m desperate!” whined Maglione, calling me by my first name. “If the watch isn’t found, Quantum Spagyria insurance will have to pay out two million euros to the Baron and our reputation will be totally compromised!”
Around the display case where the watch had been exhibited that day, several policemen were busy looking for fingerprints. Kominkova told me that Stefano de Lucia, Scotto di Fasano’s assistant, had said that at a certain point he’d felt a sharp pain in his head followed by a sense of dizziness before everything had gone black. When, with the help of the guards, he’d come round, the watch had gone, but the display case showed no signs of forced entry.
“The medics are still trying to work out what happened to de Lucia. He’s in shock, but we’ll soon be able to question him,” the inspector said.
I walked around the display case, shaking my head. “I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I can’t help you lwith this. If you’re just fumbling around in the dark, imagine what it’s like for a simple antiquarian… If the watch was stolen merely for its monetary value, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can tell you.” I stood silently for a moment, then thought some more and added, “But we’re talking about an object with very particular characteristics – an object of undoubted esoteric significance. Maybe, if you had some better quality pictures than those currently available, I could study them and try to figure out if there’s a connection between Hašek’s murder and the theft. I don’t know, I might spot some hard-to-see detail.”
Vinnie Maglione brightened and glanced at Folin, then at the police. “Of course we do! Mr Folin, we’ve got photos that aren’t in the catalogue. We can let you have high definition copies.”
Folin agreed. “Of course, I’ll have them prepared right away. Have you got a computer with you? I can put them on a pen drive.”
“Yes, I’ve got a computer, but can you let me have prints as well?”
Bublan uttered all of six words. “If it will help, go ahead.”
“We’ll give you the photos and take you back to your hotel,” Lisáček concluded. “That way, should you want to stay up for a few more hours, you can study them more carefully.”
Maglione looked at me, hope bursting from his every pore.
I nodded.
“I very much doubt I’ll get to sleep now anyway.”