Prague, the last days of spring, 1.45 a.m
We peered out of the room. On the surface, the situation appeared to have returned to normal – but only on the surface. In reality, the hotel was in turmoil, and we could hear all manner of noises reverberating through the building: doors opening and closing, hurried footsteps, voices crying out and guests responding, often with a “What's going on?” followed by an “Oh my God!”
I looked at Riccardo worriedly.
“We’ve got to go back and get the bag.”
“Hoping that they haven’t already found it,” the Sicilian said.
“We’ve got to check. That thing is the reason Hašek was killed – and the reason we almost were too. When things have calmed down you can tell me the whole story, because so far you’ve only told me a ‘half-truth’ – that’s what you call it in Sicily, right?”
Riccardo nodded. “All right. Let’s go.”
As we prepared to move down the hall we realised that Zuzia was following us.
“What are you doing? Now’s your chance to escape. Go, while you can,” I said, motioning for her to move away.
She shook her head resolutely, terror in her eyes.
“I afraid. I go with you. You good, you help me.”
I raised my eyes to the heavens. That was all we needed – a runaway to babysit. But what choice did we have?
“Okay, come with us. We’ll work out what to do with you later.”
“But Lorenzo—!” protested Riccardo, before he was silenced by noises from the ground floor.
“No time, Riccardo! Come on! The emergency stairs. We’re less exposed there.”
We reached the solid security door and went up two floors. We didn’t meet anyone on the stairs but could hear the commotion on the other side of the security doors in the corridors. On reaching the third floor, we cautiously opened the door. A couple of French guests in pyjamas were standing in front of their room, looking confused. From the stairs came the sound of hurried footsteps and voices. I recognised one of them.
“Shit, it’s Inspector Lisáček!”
“Who’s he?”
“One of the policemen who came to pick me up before. Quickly, into my room!”
We ran to room 309, quickly unlocked it with the key I still had with me, and jumped inside. After a couple of minutes we heard a knock on the door.
“Yes, who is it?” I asked in English.
“Police!”
I opened the door and found myself in front of Inspector Lisáček and a second police officer.
“Ah, Inspector, you’ve arrived at last.”
“Mr Aragona, it would seem that trouble follows you. We only left a few minutes ago and we’ve already had to come back. Are you alright? There were gunshots, but we don’t yet know what happened.”
I nodded, trying to look even more scared than I already was.
“I thought it best to stay in my room. I was frightened…”
“I can imagine.”
“The shots seemed to come from the lower floors, but then I heard noises and shouts from all over the hotel. What do you think was going on?”
“I’ve got absolutely no idea. We’re checking. It seems that the responsible parties have escaped. Are you sure you're okay?”
As he spoke he glanced over my shoulder and saw the table with the lamp on and the photos of the alchemical watch which I’d put there just before he knocked. But he also noted the bottle of absinthe.
I followed his gaze and, hiding my embarrassment, gestured towards the room. “As you can see I’d just started studying the photos. If I can calm down enough, I hope to start again. This night seems to be never ending.”
Lisáček’s face softened and he smiled for the second time that evening, and didn’t mention the bottle. “This is Prague, Dr Aragona, the city of the Golem. What did you expect?”
I smiled back and nodded.
“Anyway,” Lisáček continued, serious again, “you’d do well to try and get some rest as well as studying those photos. In the meantime, I’m going to try and figure out what happened here. We’ll catch up in the morning if that’s all right with you.”
He handed me a business card with the address of the police station.
“Of course. Goodbye.”
I closed the door, leaned against it as I breathed a sigh of relief, and slid to the floor in a sudden release of tension.
“He's gone, you can come out.”
Zuzia and Richard emerged from under the bed like a couple of newts, and she gave him a mischievous smile while the Sicilian helped her to her feet. For a split second Riccardo looked confused, then gathered his wits and turned to me, still holding the girl by the arm.
I stood up and raised an eyebrow.
“Do you want me to leave you two alone?”
Riccardo released his grip and the girl smiled again.
“Come on Lorenzo, stop messing about! Where’s the safe?”
His question instantly brought me back to reality. I looked around to see if the two thugs had time to rummage around but everything seemed to be in order and exactly as I’d left it.
“I’d say you arrived just in time, brother – they didn’t manage to get in.”
Riccardo nodded.
“I came back to look for you, but then I recognised those two and when I saw them go into your hotel I followed them.”
“That was very brave. Thank you.”
I walked over to the safe and entered the combination. The bag was still there. Riccardo and Zuzia moved closer.
“What’s that?” the girl asked cheekily.
I gave her a worried look.
“So far just a bag full of trouble, but if we can study its contents we’ll maybe understand what sort of trouble exactly…”
Riccardo saw the photos on the table.
“And those?”
“Photos of the alchemical watch belonging to the Prince of Sansevero.”
“Why do the police want you to study them? I heard you talking about it with the inspector.”
“You probably don’t know anything about the theft.”
Riccardo shook his head, an astonished expression on his face.
“At more or less the same time that Basile Cobalière passed on to a better world in his shop, someone stole the watch from its display case.”
“I’d heard that they kept it in an overnight safe.”
“They didn’t have time to put it in. The theft took place while the security guards were doing their tour of inspection. They found Scotto di Fasano’s assistant unconscious on the floor, next to the case, and the watch gone.”
“Hmm.”
“The police and exhibition curators have asked me to help, and I doubt they’d be very happy to find out I’d hidden an important piece of evidence.”
Riccardo held one of the photos up to the lamp. “Do you think the theft and Hašek’s murder are linked?”
“You mean do I think that there’s a connection between the theft of an object known as an alchemical watch and the murder of an alchemist in this city of alchemists par excellence? You bet your life I do.”
“And what do you think you’ll find in these photos?”
I joined him at the small table, set the bag down, and looked at him intensely. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you really know about all this stuff, dear brother Micali?”
We looked at each other for a moment, then both jumped – an unmistakable noise was coming from the bed. We turned around.
Zuzana was sleeping like a log and snoring loudly.
Riccardo smiled.
“What a woman, eh, Lorenzo? What character, and what a smile! I nearly punched her, but she deserves better than that.”
I shook my head. “She’s only a kid, Riccardo, and we’ve got to get her out from under our feet! Anyway, never mind her for now, we’ll deal with her later. More to the point, stop changing the subject and tell me what you know about the contents of the bag. For example, where do they come from? Because they’re why Hašek was killed.”
I pulled out the vial and the yellowing sheets of paper and put them on the bedside table next to the photos of the alchemical watch.
Riccardo sat down, loosened his tie, and pulled out a pack of mini Cuban cigars. “Do you mind if I smoke? Do you want one?”
“Go ahead,” I said, refusing cigar.
Riccardo lit up and then pointed at the bottle of absinthe.
“Ok if I have a drink?”
I nodded and brought over a glass. I poured the liqueur and added some water. “It’s better with a drop of water. It’s seventy per cent.” I filled a glass for myself and sat down at the table opposite him. “Now I’m all ears.”
Riccardo took a sip of absinthe and clasped his hands. “Even if you didn’t know Basile Cobalière’s real identity, you knew of his studies and his esoteric expertise,” he began.
“Of course, he was one of the twenty-first century’s great experts in alchemy and hermeticism. His death is a grave loss.”
“Yes, very grave… Basile wasn’t just a serious scholar, he was also a collector, which is why he contributed to the exhibition. What you saw in his shop was just stuff he sold to tourists to make a living.”
“I’d guessed as much.”
“He kept his most precious possessions at home: a collection of extremely interesting texts and alchemical instruments. A short while ago he came into possession of an exceptional document – something that concerns you very closely.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s a collection of eighteenth century letters which includes a kind of alchemical treatise, just a couple of pages long, but dating back to the same period. He told me that he’d been given it as a gift by an alchemist scholar who’d unearthed it at a flea market in Paris. At first, the letters appeared to be the correspondence between two aristocrats, a Frenchman and someone living in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. But when Hašek looked at them more closely, he realised who the two characters were and he was astounded. He’d found a veritable treasure.”
“And who were they?”
“The Prince of Sansevero and Count Saint-Germain.”
I opened my mouth but no words came out.
“I should tell you immediately that I haven’t had the chance to study the manuscripts, so all I know is what Hašek told me. It seems that de Sangro and Saint-Germain spoke in an odd language – in a sort of code – about some research that involved them both,” continued Riccardo, who was by now engulfed in billowing smoke. “They discussed the count’s trip, a sort of archaeological expedition that took place between the winter and summer of 1770. But apart from several references to well known places, it’s not clear what the actual destination was, only that it was symbolically referred to as the Cathedral of the Nine Mirrors.”
“I’ve never heard of that. What else did Hašek find?”
“References to ancient religions and places of worship in England, France and Italy, as well as to several of the prince’s inventions. But Hašek realised that the two were exchanging information about a specific place and that the Cathedral of the Nine Mirrors really does exist, or at least did. In some passages, Count Saint-Germain also calls it the Head of the Wouivre.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Wouivre?”
Riccardo nodded slowly. “I’d never heard the term either, so I did some research: it’s the name the ancient Celts used to refer to the telluric currents.”
“That's right, the so-called ley lines…”
The Sicilian spread his arms. “Right, but it’s proven impossible to figure out the location of this place, where, according to the count, the Wouivre’s power appears to be concentrated. At a certain point the prince refers to a map the count knew about that would lead to the cathedral if properly interpreted.”
A light came on in my mind as the two parts of the puzzle soared over our heads and came together before my very eyes, right where the pages from the bag were lying. I waved them in front of Riccardo’s face, together with the vial.
“What do you know about these? Are they from that document?”
“Yes – the pages were taken from Hašek’s letters, but he never wanted to talk about the vial.”
“Who could that man have been, the one who gave him the letters? No one just gives away such an important document…”
“All I know is that ten years ago Hašek met a strange person – very courtly, and with a powerful aura about him. Hašek described him as having a huge build and always dressing very peculiarly, like some old-time nobleman. This man gave Hašek the manuscript, telling him it contained something extremely valuable, something dangerous that he could no longer hold on to, and that Hašek should safeguard it until he figured out what to do with it. Hašek had almost forgotten about the whole thing when he started to receive strange threats.”
Riccardo paused and stared at me for a moment, then looked away. He put out his cigar in the ashtray and shook his head.
“What kind of threats? Go on.”
The Sicilian ran a hand over his face. “I feel guilty, Lorenzo, I should have insisted he go to the police. He kept everything to himself until a few weeks ago. When he told me about it all, I tried to re-assure him and convince him that maybe it was just a joke. ‘It’s no joke,’ he told me, ‘someone knows the secret of these documents and the vial, and knows they’re in my possession’. I asked him several times to let me study the letters and to tell me what was in the vial, which he always kept on him, as if it was something he had created himself, but he never answered me. Then, finally, two weeks ago he made a decision. The alchemy exhibition had helped him decide on the best course of action.”
I cocked my head to the side, not understanding.
From his jacket pocket, Riccardo pulled out an exhibition programme.
“You are listed as one of the exhibition contributors. When Hašek learned you’d be coming to Prague, he no longer had any doubts.”