That wasn’t fish blood, it was human blood.
Her mind racing, she looked at the partially coagulated liquid streaking down the side of the box.
“For heaven’s sake, what. .,” she said instinctively.
The box creaked on its hinges as she slowly opened it. She didn’t know what might be inside, but her heart was pounding wildly. She suspected that whatever it was would shake her already deeply wounded psyche.
The first thing she saw were a few wolf pelts, which appeared to have been tossed carelessly into the box. Then, underneath them, the hide of a stag with its antlers, a wild boar pelt, a badly worn bearskin. .
Carefully, Barbara pushed the stinking pelts aside. When she finally recognized what was underneath, her heart skipped a beat. She wanted to scream, but not a word escaped her lips.
She was staring, horrified, into the blood-covered face of a man. He was gagged, and someone had tied his body up into a net so tightly that it almost looked like a bundle of slimy fish. She thought she recognized the man, even though his face was almost completely mutilated and covered with blood.
“My God,” Barbara gasped in a fading voice, as her strength ebbed from her body.
At that moment she heard a whoosh of air, and something struck her with brutal force on the back of the head. With a groan, she fell forward, and even before she hit the bottom of the boat, a merciful unconsciousness came over her. Markus Salter was standing over her, holding the bloodstained oar in his hand like a hangman with his sword.
“The tool of a higher power,” he whispered, and a grin flickered across his face. He took off his hood as the rain streamed down his face, and he let out a loud howl-the howl of a wolf.
“I like that, Barbara. I’m a tool and nothing more.”
Then he seized the unconscious girl, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her away into the nearby swamp.
Hurried footsteps came up the stairway to Hauser’s study, and then the door opened with a crash. Simon, still standing at the lectern with the open book, jumped. In the doorway stood Magdalena and Bartholomäus.
“Magdalena!” Simon cried out with relief. “You’re back. I was so worried about you-”
“No time for long-winded greetings,” she interrupted as she struggled for breath. “I think we finally know who our werewolf is. Sir Malcolm just told us.”
“Sir Malcolm?” Jakob said, looking at her in astonishment. “But he’s in the city dungeon. What in God’s name were you doing there?”
“We’ll tell you all about it later,” Bartholomäus replied. “Now listen to what your daughter has to say. It’s just the suspicion of a poor gallows bird who’s trying to wriggle his head out of a noose, and perhaps he’s just telling us lies, but what he says actually sounds pretty reasonable.”
By now, the two new arrivals had entered the small room. Magdalena stood in the middle and peered urgently at Simon, Jeremias, and her father.
“Markus Salter is the one we’re looking for,” she declared. “The group’s playwright. Sir Malcolm has been watching him closely for some time, because of all the strange things he’s been doing.”
“And what would those be?” Simon inquired, trying to sound matter-of-fact. He was still so relieved to see Magdalena again that he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her. But at the moment his wife didn’t seem to want that.
“Some time ago,” she answered breathlessly, “Markus Salter wrote a piece that he very much wanted the actors to perform, but it was too bloody and weird for Malcolm’s taste. It was about a child from a powerful family, all of whom were slaughtered in a power struggle between patricians. Later, as a young man, the hero takes out his bloody revenge. Again and again, Salter urged Malcolm to stage this tragedy. He must have been really fanatic about it, though he didn’t want to show anyone the piece in advance, and only dropped veiled hints as to what was in it.”
“And you believe this play describes Salter’s own life?” Kuisl said. “Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?”
“I’m not finished.” Magdalena gave her father a stern look. “Recently, Malcolm had a chance to secretly read the play. It contains a number of torture scenes, and a werewolf appears in it as a sort of supernatural avenger. Malcolm described the play as even bloodier and madder than Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. I’m not familiar with that tragedy, but it must be one long bloodbath.”
“My God,” Simon gasped. “Do you think Markus Salter is putting on his own play here in Bamberg-and with regular people instead of actors?”
Magdalena nodded excitedly. “The troupe visited Bamberg six months ago, and since then, according to Malcolm, Salter has been almost unapproachable, always working like a madman on this piece. It was Salter who insisted on taking up winter quarters here in Bamberg, and he finally convinced Malcolm. He even took a side trip here earlier in order to prepare everything for the troupe.”
“If Salter really did visit Bamberg before,” Bartholomäus said, “it’s possible he was responsible for the earlier murders. Until now we always thought the actors couldn’t have been involved, since they only came to the city later.”
“And that’s not all,” Magdalena continued. “It seems that Salter originally came from Bamberg-at least that’s what he once told Malcolm. In talking to me, however, he once said that as a child he’d been involved in the witches’ trials in Nuremberg-”
“Well, if our assumptions are correct, the man was involved in a very special way with the witch trials here,” Simon interrupted. He showed Magdalena the document on the lectern. “It appears that Markus Salter is none other than Wolf Christoph Haan, the grandson of George Haan, the chancellor in Bamberg at the time. All the members of the family, except for Wolf Christoph, were executed during the trials. What we see here is devilish vengeance, planned down to the smallest detail.”
Magdalena nodded. “It must have taken quite a lot of energy,” she mused. “Malcolm said that in recent days Markus Salter has been tired and distracted, and he often missed rehearsals.”
“If he really abducted and tortured all these people, he was a pretty busy fellow,” Jeremias chimed in with a giggle. The old man had been drinking mulled wine all the while, and evidently he’d finished the entire pitcher. “Just torturing with tongs takes a lot of time,” he said with a heavy tongue. “They have to be heated just so much, then you start with the arms and then sloooowly go down-”
“Thank you, that’s enough,” Simon interrupted. He looked Jeremias up and down, disgusted, before continuing. “Salter could have planted the wolf pelts on Matheo. Also, his age appears about right. According to the documents, Wolf Christoph Haan was four years old at the time, and if I remember correctly, Salter is now a little past forty. It seems likely that Haan and Salter are one and the same person.” He frowned. “But there’s still the question how he infected the suffragan bishop with rabies.”
Magdalena looked at Simon in surprise. “What rabies?”
“While you were on your little jaunt through Bamberg with your uncle, my friend Samuel and I weren’t completely idle,” he replied. “His Excellency the elector and Würzburg Bishop Schönborn, with whom we enjoyed a long, very friendly conversation, was quite impressed with our observations.”
“Stop this high-and-mighty rubbish and get to the point,” Jakob growled.
“Ah, indeed.” Simon told his wife and Bartholomäus the horrifying news of the suffragan bishop’s illness and what he suspected.
“We are presently trying to figure out what animal could have infected Harsee,” he concluded. “It certainly wasn’t a dog, as the bite is too small, but perhaps it was a rat or a bat. We think it had to be a small wild animal-”