Briefly she told him about the ransom note she’d received from the unknown person, and about the search through the underground passages.
“This man abducted my children because he’s afraid we were on his trail,” she concluded. “He’s probably still down there with them. Please, you must help us!”
Leopold von Wartenberg looked at her suspiciously, without a trace of sympathy. “So… a mysterious sorcerer is haunting these passageways,” he finally said smugly. “What in the world do you think this unknown devil is trying to accomplish with his murders?”
“We don’t yet know what his plan is,” she replied, “but his victims stood in his way, and they knew something he didn’t want to come to light.” She stepped up to the count and looked at him, pleading. “Please let your men come along with us, and let’s go back down again. My children’s lives are at stake. You have a child yourself.”
Leopold von Wartenberg paused and seemed to be considering what she’d said. He closed his eyes and rubbed his nostrils for a while before replying. “It’s not so simple. I need my soldiers to take these scoundrels away. Besides, there’s an enormous storm raging up there at present, and I need all hands to react promptly to any possible fires. It’s almost as if hell itself has opened its doors-”
“Good Lord in Heaven, a thunderstorm?”
Leopold von Wartenberg looked indignantly at the hangman who had so rudely interrupted him. But Kuisl remained undeterred. “You spoke of a thunderstorm,” the hangman continued brashly. “Is it an especially violent one? Tell me!”
“It’s the most violent one I’ve seen in years,” the count replied, looking Kuisl up and down like a strange, exotic animal. “The lightning bolts are striking like cannonballs all around the monastery, and we can only pray they don’t set fire to any of the roofs. Why do you ask?”
“The lightning bolts,” Kuisl exclaimed excitedly. “This all has something to do with lightning. This madman wanted to learn more about lightning from Nepomuk. He stole Nepomuk’s sketches, and down in the corridors below we read about lightning again.”
He fetched the sorcerer’s tattered notebook from his pack and began to leaf through it furiously. Finally he let out a raucous shout. “We were so foolish,” he cried. “So damned stupid! Why didn’t we see this before?”
“What are you talking about?” Magdalena asked, perplexed. Her father simply held the book open for her to see. There, she recognized a humanoid figure attached to wires that ended in jagged lines resembling lightning bolts. Beneath the sketch stood a Latin phrase.
Credo, ergo sum.
“I believe, therefore I am,” Magdalena murmured.
“Think back,” her father said softly, “to the first time you were up in the steeple. That strange apparatus. Didn’t it look something like what you see in the sketches?”
“You’re right.” Magdalena once again examined the lines in the drawing. “It looked like that. But why-”
“What does all this mean?” the count interrupted impatiently. “What kind of book is this and what are you talking about, hangman?”
“Virgilius!” Kuisl cried out. “The automaton builder. He’s trying to use lightning to bring his blasted puppet back to life.”
“What do you mean…? What puppet?” Wartenberg asked, confused.
“My God, is everyone here so dense? The automaton that disappeared with him, of course. Virgilius took it along and now probably believes he can bring it back to life. It must have something to do with those damned hosts. Evidently he needs them to complete his experiment.”
The hangman pointed excitedly at the pages of the open book. “Credo, ergo sum… I believe, therefore I am. Virgilius evidently thinks that belief in the hosts, together with the lightning, can breathe life back into his clattering, squeaking automaton. What a lot of goddamned madness.”
“But father, that… that can’t be true,” Magdalena interrupted, confused. “Virgilius is dead. Simon himself saw his body beside the well in the cemetery.”
“Your husband saw a burned body and, beside it, the walking stick of the poor victim. But was it really Virgilius? Think about that, child.” Kuisl shook his head grimly and burst out laughing. Magdalena felt how the sudden revelations made her head spin. “Do you mean he… he wanted us to believe he was dead?” she gasped. “Just as he wanted us to believe he’d been abducted?”
Kuisl nodded. “He abducted himself in order to get his hands on those accursed hosts. He knew his brother would only give him the hosts if he played some sort of trick on him. The severed finger probably came from a corpse, perhaps even from Vitalis, just to frighten Maurus a bit. Everything was planned from the very start. When Virgilius noticed we were closing in on him, he faked his own death to divert suspicion.” The hangman rubbed his huge nose, lost in thought. “The fresh grave that Simon and I discovered at the cemetery, the footprints in the ground-everything fits. Virgilius himself dug up the dead monk, burned him with phosphorus until he was almost unrecognizable, and threw him into the well. The footprints beside the grave were his own. And…” He hesitated a moment to give the count a chance to say something.
“Do I understand this all correctly? This watchmaker only pretended he’d been abducted?” Wartenberg asked, skeptically. “And now he’s prowling around somewhere down in those passageways?”
“That damned Virgilius,” screeched the librarian, lying fettered on the floor. “I always knew he would bring misfortune to the monastery. If we’d only taken over the monastery sooner, we would have long gotten rid of that fellow. The only one still standing up for him was the abbot.”
“Your opinion is of no importance here,” the count snapped, signaling to one of the guards. “Take these two to the same dungeon the apothecary was in. They’ll have until morning there to think about the agony that still awaits them. I’ll be along soon.”
The bailiffs seized the monks under the arms and dragged them up the stairway like sacks of flour.
“Please, Your Excellency,” Magdalena said, “give us at least two of your men to help look for my children down below. I know they’re down there somewhere.”
“Magdalena, remember what the count just said,” her father interrupted. “Up above the very storm is raging that Virgilius was trying to conjure up in his book. He has the hosts, he has the automaton, and believe me, he’s somewhere out there. And if I were him, I’d take the children along. There are no better hostages for his plan.”
“And… how about my husband?” Magdalena could feel tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh, God, I just don’t know what to do.”
By now two of the guards had disappeared in the corridor with the ranting librarian and the softly praying prior. A long silence settled over the group. Finally the hangman spoke.
“Your Excellency,” he began. It was immediately clear to Magdalena how difficult it was for him to say these words. “I beg you, not for my sake, but for the sake of my family: send your remaining men down there to check. With your permission, my daughter and I will go up above where the storm is raging.”
“Damn it!” Magdalena burst out. “How often do I have to tell you, you can’t tell me what to do. I’m going down below. I know that Simon and the children are down there.”
“And I tell you, you’re coming with me, and at once.”
The count raised his hand. “For heaven’s sake, just stop fighting. All right, I agree. You can have two of my men to go down there and look around, even if I put no faith in all these ghost stories.”
“Thank you, thank you, Your Excellency.” Magdalena bowed slightly and hurried back to the hole that led down below. “Let’s not lose any time.”
“Damn it, I said you’re coming with me,” the hangman growled. “I’m still your father, so stop contradicting me all the time.”