Toymaker, The (25 page)

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.

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 Koenig.

‘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.

‘I hope I am not going too fast for you, Burner man,’ he said.

The palms of Mathias’s hands were wet with fear. He walked beside Koenig in the shadow of the lantern, watching the black-coated back of Leiter. Stefan walked half a step away from him. Sometimes the two boys glanced at each other, but they didn’t speak. They didn’t need any words. They each knew that Leiter wouldn’t let them live, and they knew, just as surely, that Koenig was going to kill him.

And Leiter knew it too.

At the end of the passage a few steps led up towards another door. It was bolted shut. At the top of the steps Leiter put the lantern down, slid the bolt and, pushing the door open, led them through into the bright, cold daylight of the drum-shaped room. For a moment Mathias was dazzled by the light.
Then he saw her, lying on the scrubbed table, half covered with a stained sheet. Her mouth was open as though she were about to speak, but her eyes were glazed and unseeing, staring up at the glass roof and the cold winter sky.

He shouted her name. In his confusion he pulled at Koenig’s arm. Koenig stumbled, and that was enough for Leiter. In an instant he had snatched a short blade from the cuff of his coat. But it wasn’t Koenig that he took. There was someone else much nearer. Leiter had stepped aside as they came into the room, and Stefan had been last through the
door. Maybe he’d held back. Maybe he had been too scared to go on. But in one quick movement Leiter had pressed the sharp steel to Stefan’s throat, and with an arm round his neck, dragged Stefan backwards through the door. Before Koenig could do a thing, Leiter had slammed it shut and slid the bolt fast.

Koenig hammered at the closed door, but it wouldn’t open. Through the thick wood of it they heard Stefan cry out, but the cry was cut short by a horrible choking, like a sheep coughing in a field at night. Then there was nothing. As Mathias watched, a single thread of blood wound slowly through the gap beneath the door, pushing the dust and grit of the floor in front of it as it went. Then Koenig saw it too. He shouted out Stefan’s name, beating on the door as hard as he could, but no answer came. In the silence that followed they heard the sound of Leiter’s fading footsteps, unhurried along the dark passage.

Koenig, his strength all but spent, leaned his head against the door and shut his eyes. Then Mathias saw that there were tears on his face. He was saying Stefan’s name and silently crying.

Mathias stared dumbly, and then suddenly it all
made sense – Koenig and Stefan. Why had he never seen it before?

He made himself turn round and look at Katta again, but there was no mistaking that she was dead. It felt like the end of everything.

As he stood looking at her, Koenig stepped away from the door and moved him aside. Leaning over Katta, he felt for the pulse in her neck, but there wasn’t one. He brushed away the strands of hair that had fallen across her face, then closed her mouth and her eyes.

Mathias felt sick. He couldn’t look any more. He turned away. There was a noise clamoring inside his head. It sounded like a bell. It was only slowly that he realized it
was
a bell. A real bell. Somewhere, someone had begun to ring a bell. He looked up at Koenig with alarm.

‘They’re coming,’ he said.

But Koenig couldn’t answer. He was leaning against the table, his hand pressed to the wound that Valter had made. His breath was thin and shallow. When he lifted his face to Mathias, the eyes that looked out were leaden. He shook his head.

‘Let them come,’ he said.

‘No!’ said Mathias.

Something lit inside him. He wasn’t going to die like Katta or Stefan. Not here. Not like this.

He put his arm around Koenig and, gritting his teeth against the grating of bone in his chest, he pulled him towards the only other door. It was the one that Katta had come through. It wasn’t locked. The room beyond it was just as she’d seen it when she woke – half-made, half-finished things, awaiting hearts. It was an awful place. Mathias tried to make Koenig move faster, but Koenig could only manage creeping steps. As Mathias tried to pull him on, Koenig pushed his hand away. In a voice little more than a whisper, he said something that Mathias didn’t hear. With a huge effort, he said the words again.

‘Burn it. Burn it all.’