Then, unfortunately, an armed night watchman joined the three of them, and Lancelot decided to put off attacking. Instead, he followed the woman and the bookseller into the museum, where he could eavesdrop on their conversation from the next room. Now he knew that the woman’s name was Sara, and he also knew the second keyword—an advantage that he could turn into hard cash from The Deranged Majesty. In addition, he had found the power distributor box for the museum in the ticket office. A couple of switches thrown, the smoke bombs he had brought with him from the dinghy set off, and the museum would turn into a haunted house.
With Lancelot as the chief attraction.
Hey there, Sara. Afraid of the Dark Man, are you?
Everything was going as planned until those three men arrived, at least one of them armed. When they were about to make off with the book, Lancelot finally lost his cool and fired a shot. Now one of the men was wallowing in a pool of blood, the other two were yelling blue murder, and the bookseller and his slut were about to disappear, taking the book with them.
In other words, it was time to act.
Lancelot fired his Glock 17 with its fitted silencer into the distributor box twice. At once the museum was plunged into total darkness. Then the giant threw the smoke bombs into the middle of the room, where they exploded with a faint hiss. Swirling mist spread like an overdose of incense.
Lancelot changed the magazine of his semiautomatic pistol, pulled down the gas mask he had brought with him, and plunged into the smoke.
COUGHING, SARA STAGGERED through the room, which was rapidly filling with dense smoke. Soon everything was invisible: the boat, the painting, the two surviving Cowled Men. Their uncertain footsteps were the only sign of their presence. But soon they moved off and finally died away entirely. Apparently the two men had succeeded in getting out of the museum.
Suddenly that faint pop came again, once, twice, three times. It sounded as if glass cases were smashing somewhere; then there was quiet, with only a slight hissing from where the mists were thickest.
“Steven!” Sara called into the smoke, trying to breathe in as little of it as possible. “Steven, where are you ? Where . . .”
She stopped midsentence when it struck her that it wasn’t particularly clever to shout in a room where a murderer might be hiding. Silently, she groped her way through the room, until she suddenly stumbled over something large. She fell to the floor and found herself looking straight into the rock-gray face of the steersman of the Cowled Men. His mouth gaped in surprise, as if he still couldn’t understand that he was really dead.
As Sara struggled up, her right hand met the little box containing the diary. She snatched it up and crawled on through the smoke-filled room on all fours. She heard suppressed coughing somewhere, and soon after that saw someone curled up in a corner, barely moving. Cautiously coming closer, she saw that it was Steven. He had drawn up his knees in the fetal position and was staring apathetically into the smoke. A slight tremor ran through his body.
“Steven, what is it?” Sara whispered. “What’s the matter?”
“The . . . the fire,” the bookseller answered. His eyes were vacant. “It’s like that time in the library. My parents . . . they’re somewhere in there.”
Sara shook him. “You’re dreaming! We’re in the museum at Herrenchiemsee. Your parents died years ago.”
“I . . . I heard screaming. They’re burning alive. It’s my fault; it’s all my fault!”
“You didn’t hear your parents—it was the Cowled Men,” Sara hissed desperately. “Someone shot their boss. And it’s not a fire in here—it’s some kind of smoke bomb. There’s someone in this room, and if we don’t hurry, he’s going to shoot us the way he shot that Herr Huber.”
“Must . . . must hide,” Steven whimpered. “I’ve ruined everything. The library’s on fire. Mom and Dad won’t find me in the teahouse . . .”
“Damn it, what teahouse? What are you talking about? Steven, you leave me no choice.” With all her might, she gave the trembling bookseller a slap in the face that brought him halfway back to consciousness. He shook himself and, dazed, felt his cheek.
“That hurt.”
“It was meant to. Now, we have to get out of here.”
Sara hauled the still-lethargic Steven up by his arms until he could stand on his own. Then, together, they stumbled and groped their way through the room, hoping to find a way out through the smoke.
“I think we ought to look for that boat,” Sara gasped, the smoke constricting her throat more and more. “There was a door into the next room with the marble statue there. Then if we go right and straight ahead, we ought to . . .”