A Sally Lockhart Mystery 4: The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman

Author:Philip Pullman [Pullman, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2014-12-31T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

STATECRAFT

Forty-five minutes later, he was climbing the dusty stairs to the attic where Karl von Gaisberg lived. He tapped on the door, opened it, and by the light of a match saw that Karl was fast asleep. A half-eaten meal still occupied part of the table, and a fat mouse slouched resentfully away to eye Jim from a hole in the wainscot. Beside the dirty plate a volume of Schopenhauer had its place marked with the blade of a fencing foil; a candle had guttered to extinguishment between the horns of a goat’s skull, whose eye-sockets wore a pair of broken spectacles; a champagne cork stopped the mouth of a crusted inkpot; a broken chair lay beside the iron stove, for fuel; a photograph of the actress Sarah Bernhardt was pinned to the wall above Karl’s bed, surrounded by hearts drawn on the crumbling plaster; and on the floor all around lay at least two dozen sheets of paper covered with blots, scrawls, crossings-out, diagrams and closely written Gothic script. It was headed “An examination of the Idealist implications of Schopenhauer’s Platonism”. Halfway down the last sheet was the triumphant word FINIS .

Jim stepped over the papers, flung open the shutters, and rattled the poker in the stove to wake the embers.

Karl stirred and groaned.

“What you doing? Who’s that?”

“It’s Jim. Where d’you keep the coffee?”

“Flowerpot. Windowsill. What’s the time? What are you doing up?”

Karl sat up shivering, and shrugged on the dressing-gown Jim threw him. The Cathedral clock a stone’s throw away stirred itself in a shiver of cogs and springs and weights, and the ancient mechanism marched through its whirring pantomime before striking five. Karl rubbed his hair and yawned while Jim put some water on the stove to boil.

“Listen, my boy,” Jim said, “we’ve got trouble…”

He thrust the last chair-leg into the stove, and then sat down to tell Karl about the night’s events. By the time he’d finished, the water in the little copper pot was boiling, and Karl padded across the cold floor to find two cups.

“Leopold?” he said. “Are you sure? It’s impossible.”

“I saw him, and I saw the Spanish actress, and I heard it from the mouth of the old woman. It’s true.”

“But… Why? Cui bono? Who gains by keeping him prisoner all this time? Not the Royal Family, surely?”

“No. I don’t think the old King even knew about it. This was a scheme of Gödel’s from beginning to end. He kept Leopold up his sleeve so that he could bring him back as ruler one day. You remember the fight in the beer-cellar on the night we met? That fellow Glatz was going on about Leopold. I think there’s a strong current of blood-loyalty in this place, especially in the old dark corners of it. Gödel’s been planning some trouble, and that’s why he brought Leopold to the grotto from the asylum at Neustadt, ready to bring him out…”

“Have you told Count Thalgau?”

“No, damn it. He’s up to something of his own.” Jim told Karl about Becky’s note, and went to the window to look out over the city.

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